Weight loss for moms of toddlers

I'm beginning to think that such a thing does not exist. Unless you just don't mind wasting food. I do. I mind throwing away an entire bowl of raisin bran with freshly poured milk because someone noticed there were miniwheats or cheerios. I mind the 1.5 inch margin of crust with nutella or pbj that had to be abandoned because it wasn't the middle of the sandwich and there was a ball somewhere. I also am vulnerable to half eaten bits of chocolate laying on the table, the first several gulps of root beer because the more I drink, the less they spill, and the cake left behind after the frosting got licked off.

In addition to these temptations, there is also the issue of what they do when I try to do something healthy like walk on the treadmill. I'm on the treadmill, they need to go potty, but they don't "how". Or I'm on the treadmill, and they are pretending the back of the treadmill is a jungle gym. Or I'm on the treadmill and she's sitting on his head and he can't breathe.

These are all hypothetical situations, of course.

Then there are birthdays and holidays. From mid February to Mother's Day, we have either a birthday or holiday nearly every two weeks, just long enough to not set up a pattern of healthy eating long enough to be able to stick to it through a Challenging Event Involving Delicious Food, like Easter, Valentine's Day, a birthday or Mother's Day.

Tonight I went out with a friend for dinner and made a pretty healthy choice, drank water, was on track. I came home and loaded the dishwasher. There were 3.5 toasted raviolis on a plate. I'm not going to let those things just die. My husband worked long hours earning the money to pay for those suckers. My daughter labored for minutes to cook them. There are children starving in Africa for crying out loud. And, yeah, I could have put them in a baggy in the fridge. In fact I did put them in a baggy. Then I got them back out. And I ate them all!

I'm not really trying to excuse my weakness for my kids' food. I know better. Some days I have the will power to be the mom I want to be, to set a good example, to suck down the spinach smoothie at breakfast and go through the effort to make the completely comfortless salad for lunch. Other days, most days, I don't. Some days I reach all the way in and find a trace of the faithfulness of my Maker that He put in me, and I get on the stupid piece of crap treadmill and walk nowhere for 20 or 30 minutes. Some days I don't. Usually because I'm doing something fun like reading really entertaining literature called my kids papers on communism or taking a child to the amusement park we know as the pediatrician's office. Or maybe even because I got to go get the heck drilled out of another molar and have several (ugh) impressions made so they can give me a new expensive tooth to replace the other one I used to have before they drilled the heck out of it.

It just isn't the easiest thing to change. That's all. I'm not good at it sometimes. And right now is one of those times. Not giving up. Fessing up. That's all.