Are you a busy working mom constantly juggling responsibilities and feeling overwhelmed? Do you find yourself searching for solutions to lose weight, combat fatigue, and regain control of your health? Are you tired of feeling like a "hot mess mom"? It's time to ditch the "hot mess mom" culture and prioritize your well-being. This article provides actionable steps to help you on your health and weight loss journey, empowering you to take control and feel more confident.
Understanding the "Hot Mess Mom" Culture
The term "hot mess mom" is often used to describe mothers who feel overwhelmed and out of control. While it can be a source of humor and camaraderie, it can also mask a deeper issue: the tendency to put everyone else's needs before your own. This can lead to neglecting your health, feeling stressed, and struggling with weight loss.
It's essential to distinguish between sacrificial love and "hot mess mom" culture. Putting your family's needs first is admirable, but it shouldn't come at the expense of your well-being. Remember, you can't pour from an empty cup. Taking care of yourself is not selfish; it's necessary to be the best version of yourself for your family.
The Vicious Cycle of Stress and Weight Gain
The constant stress and overwhelm associated with "hot mess mom" culture can have a detrimental impact on your physical health. Stress can lead to bloating, fatigue, and difficulty losing weight. The vagus nerve, which connects the gut and brain, can transmit stress signals from the brain to the gut, affecting gut motility.
Four Steps to Transform from "Hot Mess" to Healthy
Here are four actionable tips to help you shift away from the "hot mess mom" culture and prioritize your health and well-being:
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Tip 1: Ask "Why Now?"
The first step is to understand the root causes of your overwhelm. Ask yourself, "Why are these things happening?" Why are you carrying this load? Is it a default behavior? Did you gradually take on more and more responsibilities without realizing it?
Consider whether pride or ego is keeping you in the "hot mess mom" category. Are you subconsciously believing that you're the only one who can do it all? Do you identify as a super mom? These thought patterns can prevent you from delegating and seeking help.
It could be that you’ve just taken it on as a default without really thinking about it. Maybe you lived by yourself, your spouse lived by himself, you moved in together, and you both fell into a routine. Maybe tasks were divided evenly or maybe it was imbalanced from the get-go. Maybe you got yourself into this situation. As a default, women tend to be action takers. We’re the ones who are pretty quick to jump in a lot of the time and fix problems. So you noticed something needed to be done and you did it and you continue doing it. In this way, all these tasks just became something you took on yourself. If that’s the case, you really need to think about everything that you’re carrying and have a conversation with whoever you share your house with. Maybe it’s a roommate. Maybe it’s your spouse. Maybe it’s only your kids, if you’re a single parent. Maybe you were in a season where you were staying at home, but now you’ve returned to work. Therefore, you can’t continue to manage all that you were managing before.
It's important to recognize that everything has a cost. Your need to control, lack of planning, or inability to delegate can negatively impact your relationships, health, and career.
Tip 2: Set Up Systems
Identify the "make or break" tasks that lead to chaos in your household if they go undone. Create systems or build new habits around these responsibilities. For example, if dishes piling up leads to a cluttered kitchen and mealtime stress, make it a habit to run and unload the dishwasher daily.
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Start by thinking through your days in a week… Where do you typically fall off the rails? What tasks seem to lead to a spiral of chaos in your house if they go undone? For us, it’s the dishes. There’s five of us in this house; my husband and I are home all the time. If the dishes get behind, everything else falls apart too. If I didn’t run the dishwasher the night before or I don’t unload the dishwasher in the morning, it causes a breakdown in our systems. It causes us to accumulate dirty dishes on the counter throughout the day. Then when we go to cook dinner in the evening, we have a dishwasher full of clean dishes, a sink full of dirty dishes, a cluttered kitchen counter, etc.
Tip 3: Delegate
Delegate tasks to your children and teach them how to perform them. While it may take longer initially, it will eventually free up your time and empower your children to become responsible and independent.
Do you have kids? If you have kids, you might need to give them some responsibility and teach them how to do these tasks. It’s not going to be perfect at first. It’s actually going to take 5 times as long, and it would have been easier in that moment for you to have just done it yourself. I promise you that. But eventually, it will be faster than just you within a couple of weeks. Your little ones are going to be so proud to be contributing to the home maintenance. They’re going to start doing it a lot better.
Delegating not only helps you but also prepares your children for adulthood. They'll learn valuable life skills and develop a sense of responsibility.
Tip 4: Set Family and Self Priorities
Call a family meeting to set priorities together. This will help you say no to activities that don't align with your goals and reduce feelings of overwhelm and resentment.
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Chances are that your family doesn’t realize how you’ve been feeling or they don’t realize that they can do things differently. To adjust this, set some family priorities and some self priorities here. I suggest you call a family meeting. I think this is really fun to do! You can do it any time of the year, but it’s easiest to do it at the beginning of the year, around new year’s where everyone’s already setting goals. Remember, we can’t do everything. We live in a world where there are more and more opportunities than we’ve ever had before. If you don’t have your priorities to guide you, then you’re going to say yes to way too many things and naturally be overwhelmed and overextended. So once you have your priorities set, saying no to things that aren’t in line with those priorities becomes a lot easier. Knowing your priorities and sticking with them, will reduce resentment. If you only focus on priorities, you will improve where you want to and also have joy when you show up! It will create a ripple effect, helping other moms realize they can also have priorities! They can also say “no” to things!
Prioritizing self-care is crucial for your physical and mental health. With a reduced mental burden and more free time, you can incorporate healthy habits into your routine.
Practical Weight Loss Tips
In addition to addressing the underlying causes of overwhelm, here are some practical weight loss tips:
Embrace a Sustainable Approach
Focus on making small, sustainable changes rather than drastic, unsustainable diets. Remember, getting healthy is a journey, not a destination.
Find What Works for You
Experiment with different approaches to find what resonates with you. Weight Watchers, for example, can be a helpful tool for prioritizing healthy foods and understanding portion control. The Weight Watchers algorithm worked well for me in the sense that it helped me to understand not to waste points on things I don’t care about. If I have a limited number of points to spend every day.
Prioritize Whole Foods
Base your meals around whole, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, and lean protein.
Discover "Craveables"
Identify healthy food combinations that you genuinely enjoy and crave. This will make it easier to stick to your healthy eating plan. Finding those food combinations that I loved and that didn’t feel like a sacrifice was a lot of work. You know the old saying “You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince”, well same concept here.
Plan Your Meals
Plan out what you'll eat the next day to avoid impulsive, unhealthy choices.
Stay Hydrated
Make water a foundational habit.
Incorporate Movement
Aim for at least 22 minutes of movement per day. Find activities that you enjoy to make exercise more sustainable. I found workouts and movement that I actually crave and enjoy. I get my 22 minutes of movement in almost every day.
Seek Professional Guidance
Consult with a doctor, nutritionist, or physical therapist for personalized advice and support.
Additional Tips for Success
- Ditch fast food: Eliminating fast food can help reduce cravings for unhealthy foods.
- Create a supportive environment: Keep unhealthy foods out of the house.
- Romanticize healthy habits: Make healthy activities more enjoyable by incorporating elements like aprons, candles, and flowers.
- Find an accountability partner: Share your progress and challenges with someone who will support and encourage you.
- Prioritize sleep: Lack of sleep can lead to poor food choices.
- Eat protein: Make sure to increase protein in your diet. I found out that I was eating 40-60 grams of protein per day as a vegan, which was way too low, I now eat 90-120 grams of protein (your person can help you calculate that better).
- Eat every two hours: The dietician taught me that this is the easiest way to combat emotional eating (which I did a lot of!). You’re basically “pre-eating” on a schedule so you’re never really hungry and choosing high protein options to keep your full.