Picking Your Battles

Right off the bat. A few things I know for sure (Sorry Oprah)

1. YOU MUST BRING YOUR LUNCH TO WORK
This is the most important working mom dieting rule. You will NEVER lose any weight if you eat out every day. I don't care if its a salad bar or subway. You still need to bring lunch. In fact you need to bring more than lunch, you also need to bring at least two snacks with you.

Buy yourself a lunch box like your kids have. I take one of those insulated ones from LL Bean that is flat so I can fit a Lean Cuisine in it. I pack my lunch and a snack for the morning and one for the afternoon. You need to set yourself up so that all the food and the drinks you need are in your lunch box and you have NO reason to be in the break room or anywhere near a vending machine. You are removing the big areas of temptation in your office.

This was a HUGE deal for me as I already get up at 4:45 for work and could not imagine spending the time in the morning making up a lunch. Once I started doing it, I realized it doesn't take that much time, but I also rely heavily on frozen foods. I read Jillian Michaels' last book about preservatives in processed foods and tried to actually "make" my lunch and I just couldn't do it and had to go back to my lean cuisines and smart ones. As the title says, its all about picking your battles.

2. YOU MUST DRINK WATER

Buy one of those cute environmentally friendly water bottles and fill it up each day with water and ice and bring it with your lunch box. A lot of the weight you lose at first is water weight and the best way to get that off is to flush it out of your system with more water. I don't buy into the whole "water keeps me full" thing. I just know it will speed up the weight loss process and I am all about that.

3. Exercise

Any nutritional expert is not going to like what I have to say about exercise, but I am going to tell you what I have experienced with it. First of all, I DO exercise on a regular basis. Even when I am cooking dinner in the deep fryer, I am still exercising. I use it for a lot of stress management, it helps me sleep, and it keeps me from getting sick. If I could manage my stress and sleep well without it, I would give it up in a heartbeat. I do not enjoy it. Well, I have found one thing I enjoy, but more about that later.

Anyway, I had always had a theory that weight loss was really mostly tied to what your were putting in your mouth and not how much you were working out. I have found that when I have INSANE weeks at work and just can't get to the gym, I still lose weight if I have managed my food well. This summer I read an article in Time magazine that backed up this theory.

That said- you should shoot for working out three times a week.. Pick one night a week that you can exercise and then do it once on Saturday and once on Sunday. Exercise is an appetite suppressant. If I go on a run on a Saturday morning, I will not eat as much the rest of the day as if I didn't run. If I KNOW I am going to the gym in the afternoon, I am not going to belly up to a big cheese burger right before it.

I have never been able to do dvds at home because if I am in my house, it is too hard to do this uninterrupted. Plus, the layout of my house is not really conducive to it. I run because it is the most bang for my buck in time and I take zumba classes at the gym. Zumba is really fun and a great workout. When I can afford it, I do weights with a personal trainer because I am not very motivated to do that. In order to not be at the gym every day, I will double up my workouts (class then trainer)because I would rather be there one day for two hours than two days for an hour each. My gym is not close to my house, it is close to where I work.

4. Splurge once a week-

This is why I like Weight Watchers. Pick one meal a week that you want to splurge on and have whatever you want. I usually choose a Friday or Saturday night and I go for chicken wings and light beer. This is what will keep you going. Most diets out there-WW, Body For Life, 90/10 allow for splurging. Keep it to one meal a week and you will be fine.

more later...