Dr. Sarah Stombaugh:
This is Dr. Sarah Stombaugh and you are listening to the Conquer Your Weight podcast.

Announcer:
Welcome to the Conquer Your Weight podcast, where you will learn to understand your mind and body so you can achieve long-term weight loss. Here’s your host, obesity medicine physician and life coach, Dr. Sarah Stombaugh.

Dr. Sarah Stombaugh:
Hello everyone and welcome to today’s episode. We are talking about a really important topic to me, which is weight loss for mothers of young children. And as you may know, I am the mother of young children myself. Right now my kids are six and four. My daughter’s getting ready to turn two, and it is so common that I talk with friends, that I talk with patients, that I hear from people that this stage of life is just really challenging to lose weight. So today I want to spend some time talking about that, talking about ways that you can support your body in order to achieve your health goals at this new and different stage of life. Before we do that, I want to invite you to join my practice. I am licensed to see patients in the state of Illinois and Virginia. I see patients in person in Charlottesville, Virginia, and then throughout the states of Illinois and Virginia by telemedicine.

If you have been looking for support with your weight loss journeys, whether you’re interested in using medications or not, I can help you to find the exercise plan that diet, the sleep, all of the factors that will play a role in your weight loss goals. I would love to support you in finding what will work best for you for that. So maybe you’re the mother of a young child or maybe you are anyone else who is like, I’m so frustrated in this weight loss journey. I feel like I’ve tried a million different things. I would love to support you in finding a long-term solution that is going to be the best for you and your needs. So if you are interested in having a visit with me and working with our practice for medical weight loss, please visit me at www.sarahstombaughmd.com. There you can fill out information, learn a little bit about our practice, and we would love to see you over there.

Alright, let’s go ahead and dive into today’s episode, thinking about weight loss for mothers of young children. I think one of the things I do want to point out is that this episode is not going to be addressing breastfeeding needs at all and some of the things we need to be really cognizant about during breastfeeding. I do actually have two podcast episodes, one dedicated to weight loss during breastfeeding, another for that early postpartum weight loss. So if you’re interested in those, check out my podcast page. Those are a couple of months back, but this is talking specifically about mothers with young children. And for the purposes of nutrition goals, we’ll be thinking about not breastfeeding. So if you are breastfeeding, there’s a lot of tools and tips here that will be really valuable, but just making sure that there’s other considerations. Thinking about making sure you’re getting plenty of fluid.

There might be certain dietary recommendations that we recommend for breastfeeding mothers, for example. So check out those episodes if that applies for you. And for someone who’s listening who’s like, oh my gosh, Dr. Stombaugh, I’m 60 years old, or I’m a man, I’m not sure that this topic applies to me. Actually, I still want you to listen because I think you’ll be surprised the number of things that we can pull over when it comes to planning, when it comes to paying attention to the stage of life that we’re in and then making a plan to address that. And if you’re listening and you’re like, Hey, I’m 60 years old, maybe you want to send this to your daughter or your daughter-in-law, maybe a family friend, someone who would find great benefit in this podcast episode. So I really appreciate you sharing that. So thinking about weight loss for mothers of young children, this is often a stage where women sometimes who haven’t struggled with their weight before or have felt like they’ve had it under good control, fe
lt like they knew what their body needed to do, go through a pregnancy, maybe go through breastfeeding, and they find themselves at this stage, they’ve got toddlers at home, they’ve got young children, and life just feels a lot different than it ever did previously.

Whether you’ve had one child or a couple of children, your body goes through a lot going through pregnancy, going through breastfeeding, and now you find yourself often in a stage where life just looks really different, your schedule’s very different, you have a lot more responsibilities, use different responsibilities. And so sometimes our old habits, the way in which we would have addressed weight loss in the past is not really quite the same. So a lot of people, especially when they think about weight loss in their twenties, for example, maybe dedicating just hours and hours in the gym following a very regimented diet, for example. And now they’re in a stage where they’ve got other mouths to feed, they don’t have hours to spend in the gym, and so they find that their weight loss just does not come as easily or is a lot more challenging to try to make those things happen because it just doesn’t fit into their lifestyle right now. So let’s talk about, we’re going to spend a lot of time thinking about nutrition and eating habits, but then talking about things too, like sleep and movement and stress management and how we incorporate those into a really busy lifestyle.

So the first thing I want to think about is nutrition. And a lot of times when we think about weight loss, we think about following very regimented or specific diets. But I want to take a step back and think about nutrition goals in general, thinking about foods that fuel our body, foods that make us feel energized, foods that are going to support our overall health and, in consequence, also will then support our weight loss goals. So with this, my top recommendation is thinking about eating real food, eating food as much as you can in its whole real form, food that has been less processed. The reason why I have this recommendation is we want to be thinking about foods that have lots of fiber, have lots of protein, have some natural fats in them in order to create satiety and satiety that sticks with us.

A lot of times when we’re eating foods that are more processed, and this is common, certainly many stages of life, but when we’re busy, I feel like for moms of young children, it’s often this like, gosh, life is so busy. Let me just grab this bar. Let me just eat this quick yogurt. Let me just eat this quick thing. A lot of times, even eating kid foods for example, and those often do not create maybe even initial fullness and certainly not lasting fullness. So thinking about how do we incorporate real foods into our diet that are going to support that? Now, this doesn’t mean it has to be complicated following intense recipes or having bowls with 20 different ingredients. This can look as simple as having an apple with nut butter on it. For example, something that is lots of fiber. You’re going to have some fat, you’re going to have some protein, and that is going to stick with you very differently compared to eating a granola bar or even a protein bar sometimes depending on the protein bar.

So thinking about how can I incorporate real foods into my diet? The fun thing is with young children helping to support them in these goals as well. Learning to appreciate real foods or learning to enjoy apples and carrots or peppers or berries or things that can be really easily consumed is an excellent way to help support your children in developing healthy habits around food as well. I think one of the things I struggle with the most as a parent in this current age is that there’s so many convenience foods that are offered. There’s animal crackers and goldfish and graham crackers and pirate booty and applesauces and just all these things. I just listed things in our own pantry. So if you’re like, Dr. Stombaugh definitely doesn’t feed those things to our children or to her children, I do. Those things are in my pantry and I struggle because those are things that are easy to throw into a diaper bag or when we’re on the go or even just they’re tasty.

My kids really enjoy eating those. And so a lot of times as mothers of young children, we find ourselves sometimes also eating those foods. We find ourselves eating a bag of goldfish crackers when we’re hungry. And it’s not that you can’t do that, but just recognizing that it’s probably not most in line with your health goals. It probably is not creating fullness for you, and certainly it’s not going to help stay full for long. So thinking about how can we bring in real foods, whole foods into our diet, and even teaching our children again, how we utilize those. Also thinking about are we adequately meeting our own nutrition needs? What are nutrition needs? Do we have food spaced throughout the day? Are we prepping food for ourselves or just sort of leaving ourselves to fend for ourselves in the moment? Because a lot of times women are, whether they’re going to work or they’re not going to work, there’s often prioritizing their children or their spouse or just their family in general, but not thinking about, have I packed myself breakfast or do I have a good breakfast option available for myself?

Have I packed myself lunch or do I have a good option available? And so we find ourselves in this constant state where you’re like, oh, what am I going to have for the next meal? And that can be really emotionally draining to just be constantly thinking, okay, what could I have? What would be healthy? What would be easy? What do I have time for? And so instead, taking a step back to ask, okay, what are my needs? What are the things that are easy for me? Again, this doesn’t have to look like something complicated. It can look like having a protein shake, having a ready make egg dish, for example, having pre-made dishes at the grocery store, or I specifically love Trader Joe’s always their refrigerated food section. Some of their pre-made foods like their soups and their salads and even some of their wraps, for example, are really great ways to get just delicious food that is also easy and convenient and not super expensive.

And so what are the things that I can do to plan whether it’s over the weekend or on my day off, to make sure that when it comes for my lunchtime, for example, am I actually sitting down? Do I have time to eat lunch? Whether that’s during the workday, whether that’s with the children, is there food that I like that’s in line with my health goals and that is easily available for me? Or do I find that I’m just kind of eating what the kids eat or eating food that’s convenient but hasn’t necessarily been planned for me? So taking a step back to ask, okay, how could I make this really easy for me? Even taking a field trip to the grocery store, for example, where you’re looking around making plans, seeing what things look good, what things look easy, and how you could incorporate that into your day-to-day routine.

And the thing I want to say in general here is don’t make it too complicated whether we’re talking about our daily routine or whether we’re talking about dinner. Sometimes we have this idea that we should be eating all this big variety of food and all of these different things and recipes that are really complicated. And the reality is, is that choosing things that are really simple and enjoyable will often be just so much easier and create so much more mental space. So thinking too about dinner, what is it that your family’s doing for dinner? Are you thinking about just the adults in the household? Is the entire family sitting down to eat together? Are you responsible for cooking? Does somebody else do the cooking in your household? And what are the things? A lot of times people will say, okay, my kids are really picky.

And so that makes it challenging because I’m just eating macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets all the time, and that’s not in line with my health goals, but I don’t want to be a short order chef. I don’t want to be cooking two or three different meals. So what I would encourage is starting to pay attention to, okay, what are the things that your kids like? And is there a way that I could craft a meal that would be maybe partially in line with their goals, partially in line with my goals? So let me give you some examples of what I mean. So if you have, honestly, I would say five, maybe up to 10 recipes that are just go-to recipes on your household that every week, week after week, you eat some of the same things because they are foods that you enjoy that your kids enjoy that are aligned with your health goals.

So for example, Taco Tuesday is something that we do in our household. Sometimes that looks like shredded chicken, sometimes that looks like ground beef. And we have everybody create their own dish. And so the adults in the household may put beans and chicken or meat and lots of vegetables and peppers onto a bed of rice or onto a bed of lettuce where the children may put that onto tacos or tortillas, for example. And so you can have sort of the same base meal where everybody’s eating the same meat or the same beans or some of the same toppings, but if the kids are like, Ew, I don’t want to try that cilantro lime sauce that you have, which we always have on ours, then that’s great adults put that on theirs, but it’s not part of the entire meal. Or can you have a spaghetti night or a pasta night where there are meatballs or there are a chicken breast or something that’s cut up on top of it?

And could the adults, if they’re trying to decrease carbohydrates in their diet, have marinara sauce and meatballs on top of a bed of broccoli or in a top of zucchini noodles or something else that they really enjoy and is also in line with their health goals. So playing around with that a little bit, are there ways that I can have sort of the same base meal, but not everybody has to eat the exact same thing? And that would be for the picky eater. They could pick out maybe the meat. And we always have fruit at every single meal just because my kids love fruit and it’s easy way to make sure they’re getting a healthy option. And so even if at the end of the meal, my kids have just eaten the meat and the fruit, I know that they’ve gotten a really well balanced meal that’s in line with their health goals, and I can have something that’s also in line with my health goals. And so brainstorming, what are your go-to recipes? What are the things that your family can do to together that make it feel like you’re not a short order chef? Because that is super, super stressful.

I want to take a minute and switch gears, thinking about sleep, thinking about movement, thinking about how we incorporate these things during this really busy phase of life. And so sleep can be particularly challenging when you have young children. Oftentimes they’re waking up in the middle of the night, and that can be so disruptive to our schedules, making us feel tired throughout the next day. And that can create a situation where we’re more hungry, not even just psychologically. There are physiological factors that drive increased hunger when we’ve had a poor night’s sleep. And you can imagine when that’s consistently happening, it can make it really challenging to hit your weight loss goals if you’re not sleeping properly at nighttime.

So taking a step back and look at what are the things I can do to support my overall sleep goals, whether you’re working, whether you’re not, are there things in my morning routine that can be pretty regimented so I know what my morning routine looks like? What time am I getting to bed at night? A lot of times I talk to people who are going to bed at 10 or 11 o’clock at night, and if you have teenage children or no children in the household, you’re getting to wake up at six or seven o’clock in the morning and you’re getting seven or eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. That’s phenomenal. But for the mother of young children who might be waking up one, two or even more times throughout the night, getting to bed at 10 o’clock is probably not enough sleep because you might be up for 30 minutes, 60 minutes in the middle of the night.

And so what can you do to edge your bedtime up a little bit earlier, even if that means going to bed at nine, even if that means going to bed at eight, really paying attention to am I feeling well rested when I get up in the morning throughout the day? Do I feel like I need naps constantly? If so, what are the things that I can do to build sleep into my schedule? It can be sometimes appropriate to nap during the daytime if that’s something that’s available to you based on your schedule. But being careful that napping doesn’t create a delayed sleep schedule. If there’s too much sleep that’s happening during the daytime, a lot of times then we don’t have that same sleep inertia at bedtime. And so if we’ve napped too long or too late in the day, it might be hard for us to go to sleep at nighttime.

And so if you do find that you’re in a routine where you’re wanting to nap sort of nearly every day, what can you do in order to drop that nap and then just move bedtime up earlier? Similarly to how you might think about it for your children, but thinking about, okay, am I getting adequate sleep here? Do I have good sleep hygiene? A lot of times people are not getting good sleep and they kind of poo pooh this idea of sleep hygiene that we should have this good bedtime regimen. But I want you to think about your children and think about their sleep routines. And my kids go to bed at the same time every single night. And it’s really interesting on sort of a standard night, we have a routine where we go upstairs, they take a bath, they brush teeth, then we get pajamas on, we read a couple of books, we put my daughter to bed, and then the boys have quiet reading for about 15 minutes in their room before we go turn off the light and say goodnight.

And when that is the routine, their brains are being sort of prepped for, okay, it’s time to sleep. This is my bedtime routine. There’s a subconscious prepping that is happening that is happening behind the scenes that allows our brains to start settling down, winding down, getting ready for sleep. And on nights where let’s say we’ve been out and about, we went out to dinner with friends or had some sort of event, and we end up coming home late, we’re rushing through the bedtime routine and let’s do a turbo bath and throwing their pajamas on and reading one book instead of two. And we try to rush through the bedtime routine. And though even though it’s the same time that the kids go to bed every single night, my kids will be wired and like, okay, I’m ready to jump around and run around the house Crazy, because we haven’t given their bodies and their brains adequate time to settle down.

And we know this for children, and it’s also true for adults. We sometimes expect that we can just go, go, go, go, go, go, go, and then just lay down and expect to sleep soundly and sleep well throughout the entire night. And if you’re exhausted, that’s probably true where you can just, your head hits the pill and you fall asleep right away. But when we think about what is our day-to-day routine, are we stepping away from bright light, stepping away from screens, doing activities that help wind our brain down, whether that’s prayer, whether that’s meditation, whether that’s reading a book, something that’s not going to get our mind all riled up and excited before bedtime, but start to wind our brain down, putting her in our pajamas, washing our face, brushing our teeth, doing all these things and moving in the direction of sleep is such an important thing for setting that stage.

And when we’re able to do that consistently, that is such a good way to make sure that we’re getting good sleep at night. A lot of times, especially for mothers of young children, this is a time of night where you’ve gotten your kids to bed and you’re like, I finally have a moment to myself. I want to caution you pay attention to what are you doing in those moments to yourself. Because a lot of times we’re actually sort of creating, we call it revenge, procrastination, revenge, staying up too late. We create the situation where maybe we’re eating late at night because we’re decompressing, we’re scrolling through social media late at night. Sometimes we feel like this is the only time that’s available to me. And so we choose an activity in order to feel like we’re relaxing, feel like we’re decompressing. And if that’s you, I just want you to question, is this activity actually helping me to decompress in the way that I need it to?

Is it in line with my health goals? Because a lot of times when we’re having late night eating, when we’re doing social media or Netflix late at night, those up being directly in conflict with our health goals. And so what instead are the ways that we can support our overall health, our overall mental health, make sure that we have ways that we do wind down and support ourselves without feeling like we have to rob ourselves from sleep in order to do that. The other thing I want to think about is movement. Thinking about how we can incorporate movement and what that looks like at this stage of life for women of young children. One of the things I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, if you have any concerns about your pelvic floor, if you leak urine when you’re doing activities, if you feel like you don’t have the stamina, if you’re feeling any sort of bulge, feeling like you’re going to the bathroom, often feeling like your core is weak, maybe you’re having low back pain, having trouble with bowel movements or leaking urine, it is so important that you see a physician, see a physical therapist in order to get that diagnosed, evaluated, and treated, because that will make such a big difference in supporting your overall health, your overall strength.

It’s hard to be active. Do you feel like you want to do different movements? If you feel like you’re going to leak urine for example, that can be a really embarrassing situation to be in. And so I just want you to know if you are struggling through that, there are solutions to that. You can work to rehab your pelvic floor. If that doesn’t work, there are even surgical procedures or devices that can be used in order to support you. And so if you feel like things just have not been the same since having children, there are solutions in order to support you with that. But thinking about how do you create time? What does your movement regimen look like? I want you to think about, it doesn’t have to necessarily be hours in the gym. And if that’s what you’ve done in the past and that is really challenging for you to create right now, just starting to question what are the things that I could do that would also be online with my goals and my lifestyle right now?

So you may be able to go to the gym. There are a lot of gyms that do have childcare services, for example. And you can drop your children off for a couple of hours while you go to the gym. If that’s something that you can do, excellent, you might decide to incorporate that into your routine. I’ll ask you too, what are the ways that you can incorporate your kids into your routine, whether that’s going for a walk, going for a bike ride, being active with your children is such a good way to teach them how to experience the outdoors, how to move their bodies, how to enjoy movement. And so that might look like going for a walk with a stroller, playing soccer or going swimming. Being active with your children is a great way to move your body, which is really inherently exercise and be able to enjoy that time with your children.

For example, are your children small enough that you can lift them up and toss them over your head? For example, I used to joke that my oldest son now, when he was one and two years old, he was the most regimented physical or personal trainer rather, that there could have ever been. We would do, he would call them mommy exercises and he’d be like, I help mommy exercise. And he’d be like, lift me up. And he would start counting and he would count and we would get to 10. He’d be like, “Again!” And he would just over and over. He loved it. And so he wanted immediate to toss them in the air and we’d do airplane where I’d land my back and lift him up with my legs. And all of these things were a fun way for the two of us to connect and for me to also be moving my body in a way that was really in line with my motherhood goals.

And so thinking about how does that look for you? You might be listening and thinking, I don’t want to be lifting and throwing my children around. That doesn’t sound fun to me. No big deal. But stopping to think what could fit into my life right now? What would help my body move in a way that feels really nourishing that I would really enjoy? And then working to address that. The other thing we talked a little bit about just that late night, what are you doing to help decompress? And so thinking about what are the things that I do to manage my stress, to help decompress? Because a lot of times, all of a sudden with children, life just looks a lot different. There’s simply less hours that are available just for you because there are other responsibilities that need to happen during that time, and that doesn’t have to be a problem.

It can be this really beautiful thing. And it is important for you to make sure that there’s time carved out for you to fill your cup back up for you to reset. And so what does that look like? Is that something that’s happening every day? Are there bigger things where you step away for evenings or weekends even without the children? What are the ways that you can create that space, that mental relaxation that every human really, really needs? And that answer is going to be really individualized, but I want to encourage you to spend some time thinking about it. So we’re thinking about the nutrition piece, thinking about sleep, thinking about movement, thinking about stress management. All of these things are so important. If you’re like Dr. Stombaugh, that sounds great. I wish I could do that, but I just really don’t know how or where to get started. Please reach out. I would love to connect with you and learn how I can best support you in your weight loss goals. Thank you all so much for joining me this week.
I look forward to seeing you next week. Bye-Bye.