Single mom who works full time. In need of a serious life change.

[Ms. Nyx]

For anonymity sake, let's just call me Nyx. Until I'm more comfortable at least. I'm a single mother of an adorable and quite rambunctious 22 month old. I know, sounds odd but there's really no other way to say it lol. I have been overweight and unhappy for most of my life. I did actually start becoming healthier about two years ago. Even dropped around 20 pounds. Which apparently made me fertile. And we all know where that leads. Anyways, suffice to say I gained all the weight back. I am at 187.4 lbs now according to my lovely bathroom scale (which I spent a fortune on a few months back thinking it would help me. Instead, I avoided it like the plague.) and I'm around 5'2". I am in desperate need of an exercise plan as well as any pointers on eating healthier on a budget. A very tight budget. I also work in a deli 40+ hours a week so most of my spare time is either very early or very late in the day. Feel free to ask any questions. All opinions welcome.

[DapperHusband]

I'm new here so the exercise plan I'll leave to more experienced posters. as for the eating healthy on a budget, I've found that wild rice and beans make up most of our meals. We hit Winco the other day and made of with 48 cans of black beans for $22 My wife makes a bean and rice bowl, fresh tacos, and so on. These two items together are full of nutrients and protein and can be easily mixed into other meals. I've found the expensive items in our budget were dairy products and red meats. Chicken can be had pretty cheap, and fresh is cheaper than frozen.

 

The biggest lesson I learned in healthy eating as that for every dollar saved, you will spend extra time preparing your meals. for me this is worth it, but was definitely something to get used to. Making small incremental changes is also key to avoiding burn-out and giving up. 

 

Good luck and welcome to the club!

[BaconHunter]

Some quick tips:

 

1. Make meal prep and grocery shopping your priority. 

2. Make protein a priority. Have a generous serving of protein at breakfast.

3. Drink water. Lots of it. Nothing else (occasionally unsweetend tee or coffee and some red wine).

4. Walk every day.

 

Don't do all of this at once. Pick the one point that looks the easiest to you (maybe that's drinking water?). Then get that one thing dialed in and get to the next point when it's second nature.

[TMedina]

First off, welcome!

 

Second: you have a lot going on, so I suggest committing to making small life changes, one at a time.  Between working full time and chasing a perpetual motion machine, you don't have a lot of time or energy to try making massive, sweeping changes in one go.

 

Small changes to your diet are usually the easiest place to start - what do you normally eat?

 

If you can spare five or ten minutes out of your day when you first wake up, you can start an extremely simple beginner's body-weight program.  And by simple, I mean one or two exercises that you start working on to develop a comfort level with - but without leaving you exhausted for the rest of your day.

[TMedina]

Edited: duplicate post, sorry.

[Raincloak]

If you work in a deli, you must be surrounded by delicious salads and meat.  Some of that meat and salad could go into you, maybe?  If the management permits, of course.  (I worked in food prep and we weren't allowed to eat on the job, but could have leftovers when we were not behind the counter.)  Just keep a lid on the starchy stuff.

 

Bodyweight stuff might be for you, like TMedina said, cause you're on your feet all day.  You could certainly sneak in some lunges and squats between making sandwiches for people.  And pushups (just wash your hands again after putting them on the floor).