In my humble opinion

Thoughts are produced in mere micro seconds.  Try to not have a thought and you can't.  Ninety-nine percent of our thoughts would be categorized as opinion.  Just because candy is generally accepted as yummy doesn't make it a fact.  This is good news because when facts are not involved we have opinion and our opinions can be changed.  Changing to a healthy lifestyle is only the result of a bunch of smaller changed opinions.

  By far the biggest opinion that changed for me was that I believed I could actually be skinny.  I thought my weight and size was a  fact as a result of having babies and heritage.  I now know those thoughts were just my opinion.   It was when I truly believed I could look and feel better (thanks Jennie) that things really changed.  My opinion of myself and my possibilities changed.  Without this mind switch you can go through the motions and in the short term lose a few pounds but for long term success you need to know it.  This is the "hardest part" I am always talking about.  Women especially are not trained to have this kind of confidence in themselves and their abilities.           

Another opinion that changed was that I thought I would have to give up my favorite foods to be "skinny".  I would say "I can eat anything I want and I am not obese. I should be happy".  (Luckily "anything I wanted" had not evolved into 6 cheeseburger midnight snacks...yet) Once I had the knowledge about food, other opinions changed all by themselves.   A lot of my favorite foods changed as well as my relationship with food.

My opinion about exercise did a total about face.  Instead of it being work and a dread and punishment for eating, it became my time to sort my feelings and emotions.  A time to plan my what-ifs that were bound to come up because of my lifestyle change - to strategize. 

Opinions are always evolving and we can take advantage.  You may think that a brownie is the total bomb but maybe you can change that opinion to make a box of Jr mints to die for. Start with small changes and they will all add up to big changes.  Other peoples' opinions don't matter.  This blog is just opinion.  Doctors relate opinion most of the time.  Morning television is all just opinion.  You have got to have, and believe in, your own opinions about your health.  It is the only opinion that counts. 
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"Working" Out

I have been thinking a lot about this lately and more and more evidence supports my claim.  I have always hated exercise and sweating.  I lost 40+ pounds without a whole lot of sweat and I think you can too.

I think of the body working a whole lot like Osmosis Jones.  Remember that movie?  Each part of the body has a job to do and uses the materials available to get the job done.  If a few extra pounds are available our body gets a little lazy and is less efficient with it's energy - it figures there is always more available.  When we cut back calories our body starts to use the energy a little more carefully (remember when gas prices were high and you drove a little less often and conserved as much as possible?) However, when we add high intense exercise the body starts to panic a little.  In the gas scenario it is like we speed up and stop and start fast - we are going the same places but we are not getting the same efficiency because we are burning too much too fast.  Our bodies have a job to do and all of the sudden there is a possibility of shortage.  Our bodies are so amazing that they will not allow us to burn through our energy too fast.  It will use what it's got more efficiently.  This is called slowing down our metabolism.  It will also send messages to send more energy - hunger.  We want to boost our metabolism to burn through our incoming energy as well as the stored energy sitting on our hips and we want it to do it without a lot of anguish.

If you are just starting out then start slow and work up to a workout of mostly using your muscles.  For those that are already exercisers and you are at a good place then keep it up.  But, if you are hitting a plateau then try this.  If you like the sweat then let your sweat come from the resistance instead of the fast movements.  Weights are not the only way to gain muscle either.  Get on the treadmill and go the same distance but at an incline.  Don't push it.  If you are sore the next day you are overdoing it.  You will feel like you have not worked out but your body will reward you.  Give it three weeks and you will see a change.

There are a few articles that I have ran across lately that say it much better than I can.  One is in Woman's World Magazine.  They don't have a website but it talks about how muscle can boost your metabolism and if you take time to add the muscle you will burn energy 50% more efficiently.  The other article my friend Jana referred me to. It is from TIME and it is way bold about it's message on exercise.       

What "all in your head" really means

Many of you are thinking "but I didn't get kidnapped at age 4 and held captive for years without seeing the light of day" or "my parents were good people that fed me and read me bedtime stories" or "I don't hide in layers of fat to hide my guilt and frustrations".  All in your mind is not always about eating away the bad nor is it that your problem is just all in your mind and you are crazy insane.  My hubby has never once found me passed out in the closet with chocolate donuts smash to my face.  I would have loved for the problem to be so easy to recognize.   However, I did emotional eat that is for dang sure.  Through life's challenges and baby making weight was added and added and added.   Our bodies are built with an amazing way of keeping our bodies regular but little by little our "regular" really isn't what it should be.  Our froggies are boiled and we didn't even break a sweat.  Whether easily seen emotional eating got us there or not, it will take an emotional change to get us back.   We are smart creatures and can manually change our behavior and our thinking but to have real long term change we need those things to become automatic.  That is the real hill to climb.
The last few months I have really struggled with life.  I was down a lot and my definitions of things seem to always be in question, mostly by me.  All of the sudden I have been so unsure of myself.  Then on a particular hard day it hit me - the old me would have made chocolate chip cookies today.  Again, it wasn't like I would binge in a sort of shooting up kind of way but making and eating delicious warm chocolate chip cookies would have taken my mind away from the problem just long enough to see that life was not ending.  It was a huge moment for me to realize both that I have changed from manual to automatic and that I haven't found the right thing to replace that need for a distraction in my life yet.  I still eat chocolate chip cookies (what, you think I am crazy?) but the difference in my mindset makes all the difference on the scale.

For Brindy

Hey Brindy,
I did some research and this article was the one I liked the best.  I liked the part where you weigh in and see if you are on the right path.  Losing a lot of weight fast would be great but it is not a long term solution.  Your body is trying it's hardest to stay even-steven.  You need to get it used to any changes slowly.  Otherwise, you risk your body turning on you with things like unquenchable cravings or slowing your metabolism to the point of just plateauing.  Every once in a while you need to shake things up but your body likes consistency most of the time. 
I believe it takes a good 8-9 months for the body to begin to have it's shape back after a baby.  Your mommy instincts are taking over and that is just right.  In Myfitnesspal add an exercise of about 500 calories (you lucky puppy), you can call it breastfeeding or providing life sustainability of a human or heroic motherly duty or whatever.  Add it everyday as an exercise then reduce it as you nurse less and less.
Also, if you haven't been exercising start with 5 simple exercises in 3 sets of 15 with emphasis on building muscle as opposed to anything that makes you huff and puff.  Do some arm exercises or try some simple pilates moves.  You are in a great place.  Use this time to make some good habits and gear up for when you are done nursing and can go full speed.  Think about what you eat and how you eat.  Is it always just out of hunger or is there more?  Explore your thoughts and emotions about food like you never have before.  Pay attention to your different types of hunger (another post idea).  Give yourself a hunger scale from 1-5, 5 being full and 1 starved and pay attention to where you are when you eat.  I am so excited for you Brindy.  You can do this!  

Meds?

People have asked me what I think of using pills for weight loss. Here is my answer. The only thing I have against pills is that there might exist a feeling that one can not do it and therefore needs a pill. I am always saying to my kids "if you think you can or you think you can't you will be right". Even that hint of skepticism in yourself is the difference between long-term success and failure. There is no pill that is going to make you know that you can do it and that, I promise you, is the real key.

You are not doomed to a life of obesity just because you don't want to do what it takes to lose weight. Who likes to get sweaty and say no to yummy foods? (these are not true by the way).  You can change your thinking. You can! How many things have you grown to like that when you were a kid you would not touch. You changed your mind.  Let your mind think thoughts like "what if I liked exercising" or "what if I liked carrots" (yes these were some of mine) or whatever is hard for you.   Just consider these things for a while. Let them bounce around your head. Imagine what life would be like. Surely, you can do this...much.