-By Mindy Irish
I ran into a few friends at a coffee shop recently. One is a fitness instructor with her own amazing weight loss story and the other is a hardworking mother of four. All of us are fitness enthusiasts and realize the value of taking care of this ONE body we’ve each been given.
Our conversation was all about the “Easy Button” that so many people seek out. Everyone realizes the changes that a woman’s body goes through during and after a pregnancy. When baby’s here, our body’s will change, but it takes time, patience and diligence to get back into shape!
Whether your baby is one month, two years, or 25 years old, getting you back inside and out is a process. I recall in the early stages of my journey how often I would wish to just snap it away. Why couldn’t I just wake up one morning and see the new me at my desired size and weight standing in the mirror? It’s not about the snap. It’s about the process of getting to a new you. It’s about ditching the excuses, doing the hard work, surrounding yourself with a network of encouraging, like-minded people, doing away with the old lifestyle, and creating new, healthy habits. The change you go through mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually when you grasp all of that does not involve an easy button. And really, you don’t want it to because you’re going to learn so much and grow greatly along the way!
No one walks into an ice cream shop on one visit and gains 50 pounds. Just as no one goes to a single workout class and loses four dress sizes. Nothing happens in an instant. It’s all about the process, the change, and the new lifestyle that gets developed day after day, year after year of all the hard work and effort you put in.
When you can grasp that and realize that every choice, plan, goal, and day is a step and investment towards the new you, you then begin to realize you don’t want easy anyways. Easy is only temporary. The change you’re desiring and working so hard for is going to be long term. That’s what we want to stick around anyways and to that we say…..”So long, Easy Button!”