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There is no ‘fast’ way to diet

As a 30-year-old mom to two young boys, I don’t have the time to diet, but I do have the time to make time for things that are important to me like being mostly healthy.
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As a 30-year-old mom to two young boys, I don’t have the time to diet, but I do have the time to make time for things that are important to me like being mostly healthy.

I’m someone that has always focused on my weight. I’ve been hard on myself for years, especially after gaining the freshman 15 in university. I was lucky to have my parents pay for my education, along with residency, but with residency came a lot of bad food. Good tasting, but bad food. And then throw in drinking at parties and whatnot and you’ve got yourself some extra weight to carry around.

It was a hard thing to notice my weight increasing. I did everything in the book, including many fad diets, and with exercise and focusing on just watching what I ate, I was able to lose it.

I’ve always been active, having done horseback riding most of my life and dance when I was young. Unfortunately my metabolism wasn’t always the greatest.

Over the years I’ve learned to appreciate my body and all it can do, especially after having kids. This is the best I’ve felt and looked in years. I think it’s because I’m not so focused on it these days.

What I’ve learned over the years is there is no fast way to lose weight. It’s very gradual, but over time if you stick to it, you will start to notice a difference. Even if nobody notices in the first month or so, you will notice as you know yourself best.

After having my first son, I lost all of my baby weight plus some and looked pretty unhealthy. I’m not sure why that happened, but it was shocking to a lot of people as I looked quite different. I also suffered from post-partum depression for months.

After my second boy, who was a big baby, I was able to lose most of the weight, but still have a few pounds I’d like to lose.

Over the past almost three weeks, I decided to kick it up a notch and try intermittent fasting. When people used to talk about that, I’d laugh and say, ‘no way am I restricting calories and skipping a meal, especially breakfast,’ but after doing my own research, it has a lot of benefits, and is said to burn fat fast. Something that drew me to this was that I don’t have to restrict what I eat but when I eat. I’m doing the 16:8, which is 16 hours of no eating with an eight hour window of eating, and I have to say I feel great. I don’t feel like it’s a diet and it’s attainable for my lifestyle.

I will say that the first week is pretty hard, as I caught myself staring at the clock waiting to break that fasting period! The majority of my fast is when I’m sleeping. My first meal will be at 11 a.m. and my last at 7 p.m. I’ve already seen progress and have more energy to boot, and as a mom, that’s very much a benefit! Like many things in life, consistency is key in whatever you do. You won’t notice a whole lot right away, but give it time, something I’m still learning.