The 5 Stages Of A Mom Attempting To Lose Weight

Here’s how it begins: You finally have some time to yourself away from the kids and you decide to spend the day clothes shopping. That’s right: You’re treating yourself to a fun shopping day. Of course, it’s only a fun shopping day until you find yourself locked in a dressing room stall under extremely harsh, fluorescent lights attempting to zip up a pair of jeans in a size that you swear you could fit into just last week so what the hell is wrong with the zipper? Why is this store selling jeans with defective zippers? So you try on a different pair in the same size and….those refuse to zip as well. So it’s not the zipper. Your ass has just gotten bigger. When did that happen? You couldn’t have eaten that much chocolate, right? RIGHT?! Now you’re panicking. You peel off the jeans, throw them back at the nearest size zero sales associate and resist the urge to feed her a hot dog (and eat one yourself) as you run out of the store. As you’re driving away, you’ve already made the decision: You vow to start exercising and dieting tomorrow. However, you may not have realized that dieting is a process, especially if you’re a mom with kids and many other responsibilities. Losing weight is a full time job and it’s NOT going to be easy. Here are the five stages of a mom attempting to lose weight:
1. Optimism. You spend every waking minute of your life thinking of other people: your kids, your husband, your boss, your friends, etc. It’s about damn time you did something for yourself. So you’ll start with improving your physical appearance and health. A little exercise, a little healthy eating…you’ve got this. How hard can it be?
2. Reality. Wow. Dieting is hard. Like really fucking hard. So is exercise. You can no longer eat the remaining Goldfish crackers your kid can’t finish so they don’t “go to waste.” You start taking the stairs instead of using escalators. Friday family pizza night comes around and you’re the only one sitting in the living room trying not to gag over a bowl filled with kale. You start lifting weights instead of lifting plates. Welcome to the reality of trying to be healthy. It sucks a little bit, right?
3. Hanger. You’re hungry. You’re angry. You are hangry. Your kids refuse to finish their dinner of fried chicken. You look up from your cauliflower (yes, that’s all you’re eating…cauliflower) and lose your shit, grounding them for life. Your husband forgets to buy milk on his way home from work and you’re Googling divorce attorneys. Your boss tells you your work has been less than stellar lately and you tell him to go screw himself…then say you’re only kidding because you really really need this job, ha ha, so sorry. When you get to this point (and trust me, you will) do the world a favor and eat a carb. You’ll feel a bit better.
4. Depression. You’re sad. So sad, thanks to kale. Food is delicious, but kale is not food. It’s a punishment you have forced upon yourself. You’re wallowing in your diet misery. You can’t lift another weight. The sight of a treadmill makes you cry. You would do anything for a cookie. Really. Anything. As soon as you’re ready, finish your tofu (yeah, you’re eating that shit too), dry your tears and move on to:
5. Acceptance. This is what you wanted. You wanted those jeans in your size, and now you have to suffer a bit. You can mourn the loss of your cookies, but you will avoid them because you want those jeans more. Why do cookies have to taste so damn good anyway?
After you’ve gone through all these stages you will come to a realization. You can eat cauliflower, but you can still have a cookie. Just one, put those dozen cookies down. Those jeans you wanted so badly will be out of style in a month. You’ll enjoy exercising for the way it makes you feel, not so you can wear a particular item of clothing. You will no longer want to be society’s version of “skinny”, you will want to be your own version of healthy. You’ll still hate kale, though. Trust me.