Lots of busy moms are looking for ways to stay healthier. If you’re not, you might consider the benefits of doing so! It’s easy to get wrapped up in keeping up with household demands and kids’ activities. If you’re also working outside the home, it might seem simply overwhelming to also get yourself on track with your health!
Think about the benefits of adopting some healthier habits:
- More Energy (that alone should be enough for many of us!)
- Feel Better
- Sleep Better
- Get Sick Less Frequently
- Get Well Faster When You Do Get Sick
- Maintain Your Optimum Weight
- Get That “Healthy Glow”
And there are so many more! Do we have your attention?
With that in mind, we decided to give you some well-researched tips on how to lead a healthier lifestyle even though we know; you’re busy!
1. Have a Healthy and Well-Balanced Diet
The first and most important thing for a healthier lifestyle is your diet. You can exercise all you want and stay active, but unless you’re eating healthy as well, all of that effort will be ineffective. Additionally, a healthy and balanced diet will give you more mental clarity, which will make you better in your professional and personal life and improve your quality of life.
What exactly is a healthy and well-balanced diet? There are lots of different opinions out there but almost everyone agrees with the inclusion of LOTS of fruits and vegies (HALF of everything you eat!) and a move away from processed/packaged food to eating foods in their natural state.
Eating more fruits and vegetables will give you a wide array of all the nutrients your body needs to face the challenges of life: vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemical and fiber!
Jake and I also include concentrated plant powders in our daily routine, just to make sure we’re getting enough of a wide variety of fruits, berries and vegetables.
Staying away from processed foods will allow you to eat more fruits and vegies and save you from all the stuff in processed foods that can make you feel lethargic, bloated and may impact your health in many negative ways.
Avoiding packaged foods and getting more produce into you day MAY mean more meals that you prepare, meaning more time…we have some solutions!
2. Eat Healthy Without Having to Spend Too Much Time on Food Preparation
One solution for eating healthier more of the time is to have a prearranged meal plan for the week or even the month. This will allow you to have many things prepped in advance and you can be more efficient with your time. One good tip is to choose one day out of the week that you prep things for a whole week. This could be a fun activity for the whole family!
When you’re planning, think about how a pot of rice, beans or quinoa could be used in multiple meals for the week. One of my favorite things to do is to make a soup full of vegetables that could be used as the base of 2-3 meals out of the week. Just add a salad and maybe a baked yam and you’ve got a great dinner!
Pre-chopping the vegies you want to add to your salad or buying them pre-cut, can be a big time-saver all week long. Just grab some greens out of your fridge or off of your vertical garden and you’ve got an instant, delicious, beautiful and nutrient dense salad. Top it with some beans and maybe pumpkin seeds and it’s a stand-alone meal, itself!
And those cut-up vegies? Well, they will be an awesome afternoon snack for you and the whole family, paired with some store bought hummus! Easy-peasy!
3. Start a Mini Workout Routine
You probably want to exercise, and feel like you should but you can never seem to find the time to do a 30-minute or longer workout. We feel you! You can split your workouts into chunks throughout the day and maybe even get the rest of the family involved. There are some great workouts offered on YouTube, You can even type in the length and type of workout you want to do and, oui la! YouTube will provide: try 15 minute power yoga and see what shows up.
Pair that with a 15 minute brisk walk at lunch or right before dinner and you’ve now completed 30 minutes of exercise. A lot of times, moms will find ourselves waiting and watching while our kids are at a sporting practice. What a great time for you to get some exercise in too! Run, walk or help out with the practice, if the coach is cool with that! You could start a whole trend with ALL the parents!
4. Get Enough Sleep!
You’re probably laughing as you read this, right? We know you’re so busy, and that sleep seems like it’s the easiest activity to sacrifice, but this sacrifice actually causes more harm than good AND if you’re trying to maintain your ideal weight, being sleep deprived is the worst thing you can be! Your body’s hormone levels won’t be able to provide the support needed for weight maintenance. What’s more, a lack of sleep will ultimately cause you to be less productive and more sluggish during the day…not to mention making you a potential menace behind the wheel of your car!
How much sleep do you need? Most of us need 7-9 hours but if that seems impossible now, experiment with going to bed 30 minutes earlier every night and gradually add 30 minutes more until you are in that range. Going to bed at the same time each night is pretty important. Look at things you might cut out to give you that extra sleep you so desperately need. (Way more than an extra episode of whatever Netflix show you’re currently hooked on! Just saying…)
5. Deal with Stress in a Positive Way
When you’re a busy mom, stress is probably part of your existence: deadlines, schedules, sick kids, you name it! So your challenge is less about reducing stress and more about finding positive ways to deal with it.
There are lots of ways to deal with stress. You could do some simple breathing exercises, do a couple of yoga postures, take a short walk, meditate for a few minutes, or you can even do one of those short 10-15-minute exercise sessions we talked about earlier. Additionally, if you start practicing some of the first 4 tips, you’re going to find that you are handling stress WAY better than you did before.
There you have it, five simple tips that every busy mom could follow to lead a healthier, happier life. Let’s do it!
