Hi lilymarlene!
Welcome!
I know that your days are REALLY BUSY with all the kids. My neighbor cares for children in her home, too, and recently lost about fifty pounds. Here's what she said helped her!
1) Get up early to exercise before everyone else is up and before the kids come. This really gets you energized!
2) Have a high-protein breakfast with plenty of fiber, too. Ditto for lunch!
3) Prepare good snack foods for yourself like celery, carrots, apples, etc. and encourage the children to follow suit.
4) Get involved with the children's play. Toss them balls, play tag together,put on kid exercise tapes and do it right along with the kids! Play OUTSIDE whenever possible.
5) Never let yourself get hungry! Eat smart every three hours so you don't end up eating bad stuff just because you are starved.
6) Wear jeans with no elastic waist. Wearing NON-stretchy clothing forces you to keep your weight loss promise to yourself!
7) At naptime do yoga to de-stress yourself. Stretch throughout the day to de-stress.
8) DO NOT eat kid leftovers!!!! A bite here and a bite there ADDS UP!!
9) Move at every possible time throughout the day. The more you move, the more energy you will have! Sounds weird, but my neighbor has found it to definitely be TRUE!
10) Put on cool music. Dance with the kids! Music gets everyone in a good mood! Music also can calm kids at naptime. Babies really like it, too.
11) Restrict videos/ video games/ sedentary activities to a half-hour or hour. Keep activities just that...ACTIVE!
12) Encourage the children to be a team. Everybody helps everyone else so that it's a happy, supportive place. This relieves stress and helps the day move along in a calm yet loving manner.
Hope these help! My neighbor looks great, and she said implementing these things just meant thinking ACTIVE and observant instead of just being observant.
Good Luck! You can DO this!
Cheryl
trying this again
