By Laurie Marshall
You know how you run into someone you haven’t seen in a while who has obviously lost weight, and you tell them they look great and ask how they did it (purely to be polite, not because you really want to know), and they get all excited and proceed to tell you that all they’re doing is cutting carbs and working out every morning. And they say it as if doing those two things is as easy and automatic as it is for a post-childbirth woman to pee her pants while sneezing. Like, you could practically just cut out carbs and work out every morning ACCIDENTALLY, it’s so easy. At least, that’s how it comes across, right?
Well, I’m here to tell you those women are LYING! I’m not even pretending to cut carbs out of my diet, because I would literally starve to death. And while starvation is usually preceded by some seriously model-esque thinness, that’s just not what I’m going for here.
Since my son started Kindergarten this year, I have to get up an hour earlier than I did in the halcyon days of plain old daycare. While I would much rather sleep for an extra hour (or at least lie in bed and stretch and yawn a lot) the shift has allowed me to reschedule my mornings to include visits to the gym a few times a week. The Boy-Child has to be at school at 7:45, and my gym is five minutes away. Then, after my workout my office is only five minutes from the gym. Since I work 9-4, it’s perfect!
So, the agony of watching my son get older has at least had the benefit of making my fitness goals easier for me to reach. But altering my carb intake and limiting my portion sizes is a whole other challenge. I have zero willpower against the women in my office, apparently. I think if any of them started a religion, I’d be the first to sign up. I’d even buy the study-guide and sing in the choir.
We have an internal instant message system at my office, and if a query pops up from any of my co-workers asking “what are you doing for lunch?” I know immediately that I’m doomed. If someone’s going out, it doesn’t matter how determined I was that morning (or 37 seconds before they asked), I may as well attempt to saw my desk in half with my nail file as try to refuse the invitation to go with.
But I still want to be one of Those Women. One of the women other women think are lying. I want to say “I just bring lunch from home every day and run by the gym on my way to work” and make it sound as effortless as “I just put it D instead of R and drove right through the garage door!” I’m making headway on the working out, so I’m good there. But I’m girding my loins against today’s barrage of lunch invitations…
Special thanks to artwork source: Mydoorsign.com 
Look for Laurie’s fitness tips and updates on her personal health-focused journey every other Friday on nwaMotherlode in Mom Blogs. Send questions or input to her at mamas@nwaMotherlode.com. Or click on the comment button below and share your thoughts right now! To see previous installments of Getting Healthy for Good, click HERE.
