A few years ago, I made a pretty major life change. I lost more than 100 pounds.
I learned, over time, to be healthier, to cook and eat better, and in general to embrace life. It led not only to a life change but a career change – I’m now a health coach and cooking instructor and help others do the same thing! Little did I know while all this was going on that the lessons I was learning would make me a much better mom than I would have been before! Here are just a few things I learned.
It taught me how to find the fun.
Lets face it, losing 100 pounds (or even 20) can take a while. There are really fun times like when you finally get into some awesome jeans, or when your friends from college catch a picture of you on Facebook and can’t believe that’s really you; but most of the time it’s a lot of little choices every day that sometimes aren’t that fun. The choice to work out, the choice to turn down chocolate… stuff like that. Guess what? That’s a lot like family life. Sure there are moments of discovery, family trips, amazing firsts but there are a lot of long days with too many errands to run, endless lines at the grocery store and not enough sleep.
Well, there’s no way I could have made it through the whole 100 pounds if I hadn’t found a way to make the monotony fun, to find something creative and positive. For me, that was cooking, finding healthy ways to eat and having a food adventure every day. It’s why I became a health coach and cooking instructor. Finding my creative bliss has helped me learn to culture that creativity and enthusiasm in my son. Instead of a boring trip to the store, we’ll turn it into a cart race, or he’ll get to be involved in the choices of whatever task we’re doing at home. These coping skills have been invaluable as a mother!
I don’t expect perfection.
Losing so much weight made me realize that no matter what, I’m not ever going to be perfect. I won’t ever be a 6-foot supermodel, (darn you hobbit genetics!) but you know what, I’m still pretty awesome. That was good preparation for motherhood. It’s hard not to compare yourself to everyone else. Other mothers seem to have everything so together, so Pinterest perfect, and how do they possibly get done three times what you do? The answer is, they probably don’t, and even if they do who cares? I’m a more focused, present, and happier mother because I try to focus on what our family needs and less on what everyone else is doing! It’s really quite freeing.
It made me more patient.
Patience has never been my strong suit. I’d rather have instant gratification, quick fixes, one and done. Well, that’s not the way health changes work. They take cultivation and slow change over time. Going through that process set me up to be a much more patient mom than I would have been. Kids aren’t always ready when you are, they stall, they wander off the inspect tree bark, they don’t want to wear pants that day. I won’t pretend that it’s not sometimes maddening, but my expectations were certainly more realistic after going through such a large slow change myself. Growing up is a long, slow change too, after all!