Photo credit: Di Lewis
Being a mom is freaking hard! I love my daughter SO MUCH, but sometimes I miss my old life.
If I could send a message to the pre-mom version of myself, I would tell myself to enjoy the quiet moments.
Being a mom means we wear many hats! We run our family, our home, work (whether that’s in the home or not) and more. The stress is real and we often put our own health (and sanity) last.
In the long run, not taking care of yourself will have a huge negative impact on your health, your happiness and your family.
Creating healthy habits doesn’t have to be difficult, expensive or overwhelming. It’s important to make one change/improvement at a time.
To help you make some quick improvements, I’m sharing some of my favorite healthy living hacks.
Stop counting calories
Please! I’m seriously begging you. Counting calories is one of the worst things you can do for your health. This usually leads to eating chemical filled synthetic ‘franken-foods’ that are void of any nutrients just because they’re low calorie.
Always go for quality over quantity. Make it easy and just eat real food.
Eating real food will help you lose weight, have more energy, balance your hormones, sleep better, reduce inflammation….there is no end to the benefits of eating real food.
Create a meal plan
I know this can sound like something else that you need to add to your never ending ‘to-do list’.
The good news is it doesn’t have to take too much time to create a meal plan that will then last you for months.
‘How?’ you say. I created a blank six week calendar that I fill in with pre-planned meals. I then rotate through those six weeks a couple of times.
I have two of these plans, one for cold months (with soups and chilis) and the other for warm months (salads and grilling). You can get a copy of my blank six week meal plan here.
Remember to allow days for socializing, going out to dinner and leftovers.
If creating a meal plan still sounds overwhelming, this is the amazing meal planning service that I recommend to my clients.
Exercise
I heard that sigh. I know exercising may not be the funnest thing in the world, but it is a MUST if you want to be healthy.
There are seriously so many options out there now…gyms, YouTube videos, at home paid programs (DVDs, websites, etc), mom groups…the list goes on.
These programs include all types of exercise, from 10 minutes to an hour, any price range for any skill level.
Which means there is literally no excuse!
Healthy apps
Use your smart phone to your advantage with healthy apps. Some awesome healthy living apps are:
Healthy Living by EWG.org. This app rates food, skin care products, cleaning products and more based on their level of toxicity, breaks down each ingredient, lets you know if it’s a possible allergen or carcinogen (and everything in between), and recommends clean products.
Fooducate is an amazing app that helps you track your food intake, exercise, macros, sleep, hunger and more. You can scan packaged foods and Fooducate gives it a letter grade based on sugar content, artificial ingredients, GMO’s, etc. Fooducate will also make recommendations for a better product. You can personalize it with your info like age, health conditions, goals, etc.
Calm has been my favorite guided meditation website/app for years. If you want to meditate but have a hard time quieting your mind, Calm is for you. They have free programs as well as paid.
Thankful for – Gratitude Diary. This is a new app for me and I totally love it! I love practicing gratitude but need reminders because I’m a busy mom/entrepreneur. This app has hundreds of small gratitude statements like “I am thankful for friendships”, “I am thankful for oxygen”, and many more. You can also create reminders that the app will you on your phone. It’s so awesome to get a couple “I am thankful for…” reminders every day. Practicing gratitude is so much easier now!
Please don’t attempt to begin using all of these at the same time. That can lead to overwhelm really fast! Baby steps are best when making transformations. Start to use one of these suggestions, make it a set habit and then move on to another one.
Which of these 4 tips will you commit to implementing?
As we know better, we do better ~
Bri
Brianne Pruitt is a wife, mom, Registered Nurse and Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. After winning the battle with her own brain fog, Bri became passionate about guiding mom’s through the journey of busting their brain fog so that they can be the energetic, happy mama they crave to be. www.hippiedippiemom.com
You can also find Bri on the following social media platforms:
