For 15 days, we’re exploring the topic of making our health and well-being a priority as part of the 15 Days to a Healthier You series. You can read Day 1 here, Day 2 here, Day 3 here, Day 4 here, Day 5 here, Day 6 here, Day 7 here, Day 8 here, Day 9 here, Day 10 here, Day 11 here, and Day 12 here.
{Heads up: I’m taking a break from posting about South Africa for the next few days in order to finish up this long-overdue series! I’ll be back with more South Africa posts next week!}
I’ve always eaten fairly healthfully, having grown up with a mom who valued healthy living and taught us to love whole grains, real butter, and big salads.
(Truth: we basically never bought white bread unless we were making croutons or feeding the ducks and I don’t recall a time we ever bought margarine. Yes, she was pretty hard core when it came to health!)
My husband wasn’t so keen on health food when we got married. In fact, he was more keen on McDonald’s and Vanilla Coke. ��
During our lean law school years, I just did the best I could do with the small budget we had while also making sure the food I cooked was stuff Jesse would actually eat. We didn’t eat terribly unhealthy, but I knew it could be improved upon.
As our financial situation bettered and my husband started becoming more interested in fitness, we’ve slowly made small changes in our diet.
First, we eliminated artificial dyes. Next, it was corn syrup. Then, we stopped cooking with anything but olive oil, coconut oil, and butter. And then we stopped buying bleached flour and refined sugar.
This journey has been years in the making, but as we’ve made slow and steady changes, we’ve seen such positive improvement in so many areas in our lives.
And that’s not really surprising because food is your body’s fuel. If you’re mostly fueling yourself with donuts, candy bars, and carbonated beverages, there’s a good chance that’s contributing to you feeling tired, worn out, and lethargic.
We only get one body. There are no replacements. So it’s in our best interest — and in the best interest of everyone we love — for us to fuel that body well.
However, let me be quick to say that the last thing I am trying to do with this post is to make anyone feel stressed about how they are feeding their family or heap on mom-guilt. Trust me, we don’t eat anywhere near “perfectly” and that I find that it can be overwhelming to even figure out what is best for your family with all of the noise and chatter out there from so many different sources telling you that you should eat this and shouldn’t eat that.
With this in mind, if you’re I just want to encourage you to focus on three priorities when it comes to healthy eating:
1. Keep it simple.
Don’t stress over making your own kombucha, soaking your grains, growing all your vegetables, or driving miles away to get the “best” dairy for your family. If trying to eat healthfully feels overwhelming and stressful, it’s likely because you’re making it more complicated than it needs to be.
Keep it simple. Make one small change every month or two. Eliminate one item from your diet or switch out a healthier alternative (maybe eliminate food dyes or switch out white rice for brown rice or start using whole wheat pasta instead of pasta made with refined white flour, etc.)
Once you feel like that one small change has become part of your lifestyle, add another small change. And then another. And then another.
Over time, these babysteps will add up to a lot of progress and traction made!
2. Focus on YOUR family’s priorities.
What matters most to your family? Is it eating more whole grains or having more fruits and veggies in your diet or eating consistent meals or cooking from scratch?
Don’t worry about other families and what they are making a priority. Tune out a lot of the conflicting reports out there telling you that you MUST eat this or you MUST eliminate this from your diet.
Really think about what is best for you and your family. And then make a plan of action based upon that.
3. Prep ahead.
My biggest secret for actually eating healthfully 95% of the time is because I choose to make it a priority by planning and prepping ahead.
Here’s the thing: Life is likely always going to be full of responsibilities and to-do’s. Every day, we can come up with excuses for what we just can’t eat heathy today.
If you’re not willing to make something a priority, it will always fall to the bottom of the list and then probably not happen at all. Healthy eating happens when we choose to make it a priority and then we choose to plan ahead to have nourishing food options available.
I’ve found it helpful to make raw fruits and veggies really accessible. If I have a big bag of carrot sticks pre-washed and chopped in the fridge, fresh fruit already cut up, and eggs already hard-boiled, I have a lot fewer excuses for not grabbing a healthful snack or for not filling up on good foods at lunchtime instead of reaching for empty carbs and desserts.
My Personal Guidelines for Healthy Eating
A lot of people have been asking me what I’m eating now that I’m working out in earnest multiple times per week. Here are some of my own personal guidelines right now (please remember that these are my guidelines, not guidelines I think everyone should follow or adopt!):
1. Eat breakfast every day, early in the day. (I have a tendency to get busy and then it’s 10 a.m. and I’m starving… not good if you’ve been up since 5 a.m. and put in a strenuous 1+ hour workout.)
2. Eat smaller meals/snacks at least 5-6 times per day.
3. Eat when you are hungry. (i.e. If your body is telling you you need to eat, listen to it.)
4. Eat healthful foods at least 95% of the time. (I give myself a little wiggle room for splurges and cheat foods a few times per week.)
6. Eat a big salad every day.
7. Drink water. And more water.Most importantly: I’m learning to re-define what “healthy weight” is for me. I used to let the number on the scale define me and how I felt about myself.
Weight-lifting has helped me realize that I feel happier and stronger and healthier when the number on the scale is higher than it once was. And it’s helped me feel liberated to realize that the number on the scale does not dictate or determine my worth.
You are more than a number.
Day 13 Project
1. Decide what your family’s priorities are for healthy eating and what areas you want to change or improve.
2. Pick one area that you’re going to focus on for the next 3-6 weeks. Remember to keep it simple and doable.
3. Leave a comment letting us know what area you’re committed to focus on for the next 3-6 weeks. You can do it! I’m cheering for you!
Looking for some more practical help?
- Want some hand-holding and inspiration? For the next few days only, you can get a HUGE Healthy Living Bundle (83 different incredible resources) for just $29.97!! Check out this incredible resource here! (And read about the ebook & courses I’m most interested in here.)
- Download this free printable veggie-eating tracker to help you be inspired to eat more veggies!
- Looking for a specific eating plan to follow? Check out Trim Healthy Mama or The Adrenal Reset Diet.
- If you’re wondering if it’s possible to eat healthfully on a budget, check out these two posts: Feeding Your Family Whole Foods on a Budget and How to Afford Real Food on a Budget.
(Note: The links in this post are affiliate links, and we will be compensated when you make a purchase by clicking through our links. Read our disclosure policy here.)
For 15 days, we’re exploring the topic of making our health and well-being a priority as part of the 15 Days to a Healthier You series. You can read Day 1 here.
Before we go any further in this series, I think it’s important that we define self-care. It’s a term that gets bandied around a lot and I think it is often misused and abused.
The reality is this: I don’t want to just survive life. Thus, I’m not looking for survival tactics.
I want to thrive. I want to live life as my best, boldest, and bravest self. I want to live up to my fullest potential.
Yesterday I talked about the importance of making our health and well-being a priority, but I want to be clear: I’m not making self-care a priority so I can cope with life. I don’t want to limp along through life just trying to make it.
I want to prioritize self-care so I can succeed in life. So I can grow stronger, embrace life more fully, love more enthusiastically, live more generously, and serve others more wholeheartedly.
The Difference Between Self-Care & Self-Comfort
I heard Megan and Kelly on the Sorta Awesome show recently discussing the differences between self-care and self-comfort and I thought it was really profound. I think it’s important that we define what this looks like in our own life. It can be easy to confuse the two.
What Self-Care Is: Making our health and well-being a priority. Listening to and attending to what our body and soul needs so that we are able to live our lives with energy and purpose.
What Self-Care Isn’t: Numbing ourselves from reality, using coping mechanisms, or turning to addictive behavior to try to survive life.
To help you understand where I’m coming from with this, let me give you a really practical example. Let’s say your child fell down and skinned their knee and it was bleeding pretty seriously. Yes, you should comfort your child, but you also need to care for your child by getting the bleeding to stop, getting medical attention (if necessary), and bandaging up the wound.
Comfort can be very important, but it’s not enough if our souls are bleeding. We can’t just slap a warm hug or chocolate ice cream and a chick flick on as a bandage labeled “self-care” and think that all will be well.
No, we need to stop the bleeding. And often, that means we first need to determine where the bleeding is actually coming from in the first place.
To me, this is what self-care is. It’s not a temporary fix that might make you feel better in the moment but does nothing for you long-term. Self-care is dealing with root causes, healing from deep wounds, and working on permanent solutions to struggles.
Pay Attention to the Pain; Listen to Your Tears
Until you are willing to admit there is pain, you can’t figure out where it’s coming from or how to fix it. So today, I want you to get really honest with yourself and ask: What’s bleeding? Where does it hurt? Am I trying to cope with life because I’d rather avoid a painful situation? Am I self-medicating in some way in order to mask what I’m really feeling deep down?
That’s how you get to the heart of what’s hurting and discover where the pain points are. These answers might not be obvious at first. They might require some intense soul-searching. They might dredge up things you’d rather stuff down and pretend don’t exist. They might invoke tears or a knot at the pit of your stomach.
Pay attention to the tears. Pay attention to the anxiety rising inside of you. Don’t dismiss it. Don’t run from it.
Instead, when you feel the tears or the anxiety, stop and let yourself stay in it. Ask yourself, “Where is this coming from? What triggered this? Why am I feeling this?”
What Does Your Soul Need?
Remember how yesterday we talked about how taking care of ourselves will look different for different people and I encouraged you to make a list of what energizes you? Today, I want to drill down further and I want you to really ask yourself, “What does my soul need?”
This is a question I’ve really been asking myself the past 6 months as part of my Year of Rest.
I’ve talked about the Year of Rest multiple times on the blog and on social media. So many people have commented with things like, “I’m sure that’s been amazing!” Or, “Are you feeling all rested and refreshed?” Or, “It must be so incredible.”
The truth is: It has been wonderful — but not at all in the way I was expecting. I was expecting a year of rest to be filled with more sleep, more time with my family, more fun, more reading, more time for things I love. And it has been that… and that’s been wonderful.
But what has completely caught me off guard is that it’s also been a year of ugly crying. I’m not a crier, usually. I can be the only one in a group to experience something deeply touching without ever shedding a tear. I’m known to be stoic and non-emotional.
That’s all changed this year, however. I’ve probably cried more tears than I have in all the past 20 years put together.
As I’ve been weaning myself off my addiction to “hustle” and intentionally sought quietness and stillness in my life, I’ve struggled to figure out who I am without all of the noise, the accolades, and the accomplishing.
I’ve realized that the busyness was a bandage I tried to slap on. Instead of addressing deep wounds and aches and longings in my soul; I tried to medicate with productivity.
It felt good in the moment. It numbed the pain. It filled the empty spaces. And as long as I kept up the out-of-breath living, I didn’t have to confront the reality or deal with the broken parts of me I’d rather hide.
I realized that instead of dealing with the pain and hurt and hard situations of life over the past number of years, I’d stuffed them down deep, pretended they didn’t exist, and heaped on more busyness to distract myself.
What Self-Care Looks Like in This Season for Me
As I’ve asked myself, “What does my soul need?” I’ve realized that self-care in this season has been me allowing myself to cry. Allowing myself space to really feel. To acknowledge the pain. To open up with safe friends in safe spaces about how much my heart feels broken by situations in my past.
Self-care has meant letting other people see the under-belly of who I really am. It’s meant welcoming people into the authentic messiness and rawness and not apologizing.
It’s been ugly and real… and oh so healing for me! Allowing myself the space and permission to feel, the permission to acknowledge the pain, and welcoming people in to see that I’m a broken, hot mess some days, has made me so much stronger, happier, and healthier than I’ve been in, well, probably ever.
Self-care has also looked like making weight-lifting a priority, giving myself permission to gain a little weight, becoming more spontaneous, working a whole lot less, experimenting with new things, saying “yes” to what once would have seemed way too crazy for me, sleeping more, and making space for a whole lot more fun in my life. {Read more about all of this here.}
Note: Want to talk more about this with me live? I’d love to have you join me on Periscope (around 8 to 8:15 a.m. CT) and Facebook live (around 8:30 a.m. CT) every morning where we’ll be discussing each day’s topics more in-depth and you can bring your questions, chat with others, and we can share together what we’re learning! (You can watch today’s Facebook Live video here.)
Day 2 Project
- Is there deep pain or past wounds you’ve been trying to stuff down, hide, or run from for a long time? Give yourself permission to acknowledge these, cry about them, grieve your losses, and process the hurt with a safe person. {If you feel comfortable sharing in the comments section here, I welcome that. You are also more than welcome to email me privately if you’d like a safe place to share. I would be honored to listen and pray for you.}
- Ask yourself, “What does my soul need?” Give yourself time and space to really contemplate and ponder that question. If you feel comfortable, tell us in the comments section what self-care looks like for you in this season of life.
Resources to Check Out:
- Listen to this episode of the Sorta Awesome Show that inspired this post.
- Want to stop sleep-walking through life? Be sure to grab a copy of my online course, Make Over Your Evenings.
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Original article and pictures take moneysavingmom.com site
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