Episode 306: 5 Steps to Your Healthiest Summer Ever!

Intro:

Welcome to The Healthy Catholic Moms Podcast where we make moving and nourishing our bodies the priority, so that we not only fulfill our vocations, but excel in our callings. I’m Brittany Pearson, a Catholic wife, mom, personal trainer, and I’m here to help you build healthy habits that actually fit your life. I am here to teach you how to get the results that you want and maintain the results that you want without spending hours at the gym, or meal prepping all weekend long. I understand I am right here with you getting my workouts done in the nooks and crannies of time, looking up recipes, while nursing babies and trying to prioritize my own health amidst everything else going on. But I have really good news for you, you can get the results you want. In less time without doing hours of cardio and restrictive dieting. I’m going to teach you how to use strength training and eating in a macro balanced way to get you feeling so good and your skin full of energy, and strong to carry out your life. Okay, on this podcast, we’ll delve into how to lose fat in a simple, sustainable way. What your workouts and nutrition should look like during different seasons of life, like during pregnancy and postpartum times. We’ll also discuss healthy quick meals, and how to get them on the table make foods that kids will actually want to eat. Mom hacks for making your day run more smoothly, and so much more. All the while with continuous encouragement to stay the course and live with discipline. This is a place where we’re striving to steward our bodies. Well, in order to joyfully serve. I am so happy you’re here. Let’s dive in.

Main Episode:
Hello, beautiful people. I am so excited that we are at the point where I can have an episode that is about summer. That’s awesome. That just shows we are out of the depths of winter. I know we have been in spring for a while but it was just happy to me today to sit down and see Oh, what am I recording? Oh, something about summer. So it’s like getting those first we got a lot of really nice early spring days and then swung back around to like 40s and whatever. And we’re in that weird limbo where you want to switch over the kids clothes, but you really can’t and you can’t fit shorts and pants at least I cannot and my kids dressers at the same time it was a whole thing. So I have finally just switched everything over to summer, I left like two pairs of pants and two long shirts in there. Because you know, even in summer, I know we all have different, you know seasons going on around where we’re at some of us are all around the world. And that’s awesome. But for us in the summer, we still you know we’ll throw in long pants, on shirts for bonfires, things like that. But I feel at peace that now I can put the bins away. And we have just we’re just kind of assuming it’s summer like not turning back. We are past the final rounds of winter. So all that to say I want to let you guys know that the next round of my eight week fat loss programs called simple sustainable fat loss is kicking off June 5. So I’m letting you know about this nice and early because the sooner that I fill it up the better so that I can not for myself and trying to you know, have all the spots filled or anything like that i cap it at 20. And I will accept ladies right up until June 5. But here’s the big asterik it’s better for everybody. If we fill those spots earlier on, I can close the doors and get you all prepped for what is to come. There’s nothing crazy if you’ve never heard about this, I have a ton of information about it on my website. Again, this is the simple sustainable fat loss program they only run it a couple times a year. So definitely consider it and you know, see if it’s something that would be a good fit for you. And you can feel free to message me at healthy Catholic moms that calm if you want to know what it entails what it looks like. But when I say prep it, I don’t want you to think okay, I would have to overhaul my whole life to this intense fitness and nutrition thing. If you’ve been around here for a while. You should know I am not like that nothing is you know, follow only this for eight weeks we start right where you are with whatever you’re eating whatever you’re doing, we pick it up from where you are, but I just like you to have the information beforehand to feel really comfortable beginning it and not feel stressed. It never fails. Like I get a couple ladies many times it fills up like a lot of times we have to close the doors and I can’t accept a new ladies but then right at the end I’ve had think last challenge two ladies found out they were pregnant so they obviously did not want to be doing a Fat Loss Challenge. And then I was able to fill those spots but the people who hopped in like the day we were starting I just felt bad because it’s a lot of information to get right away. So if you’re thinking about if you’ve been thinking about it and you weren’t sure when the next one was gonna open up, again, consider if it’s a good fit for you because it might not be you know, for everybody. But what it is is a very thorough foundation On the nutrition side, a lot of you have recently been emailing me and asking, like, what’s the difference between the chasing greenness group, or the eight week challenge? Could I just go right into the chasing greatness group. And the huge difference is it’s just foundational. I go over all the pillars like eating the three to five servings of vegetables day making that a habit for you getting that into your daily intake, okay, getting enough hydration, and very much so we go over the right balance for you. And if macros freak you out, and you’re like, I don’t even know what that is, I don’t want to count calories, whatever, we don’t have to I do use my fitness pail. But then if that’s not working for you, the logging is not working for you, I just teach you how to balance on your macros just by looking at your plate, okay, so it’s just absolutely foundational so that you can do the work to then go forward. After the eight weeks and not having to really worry about it. It’s just another thing on autopilot for you. So that’s on the nutrition side. And on the workout side, we focus on strength training, there’s full length videos for you, all that great stuff. It is fun, we do weekly giveaways. So say the week’s focus is getting in your 80 to 100 ounces of water each day. If you’ve done that, most days, that week, you get entered in a drawing for a prize every single week for eight weeks. And then there’s an optional before and after photo submissions. If you want to do that. The winner, the person who has the most drastic transformation, gets their entry fee back. So really nothing to lose there. So anyways, if you would like to join us, that’s over to healthycatholicmoms.com. Or, again, you can email me for more information. But that is the simple sustainable fat loss program.

Okay, now on to five steps to your healthiest summer number one, hit the farmers markets slash grow your own food. So I absolutely love this aspect of summer because we have an awesome farmers market really close to us. I also like to grow food, but I don’t grow that much. So being able to go to the market and know, connect with farmers and know where it came from, sometimes get a lot more high quality food for the same price as I’m getting at the grocery store or for a better price. I just also like I was just chatting with my kids about this the other day, that connection with your food, knowing this person or these, like this family grew this food, brought it here in their truck, and we’re getting it right from them. I just think there’s something really wonderful about that. And like, as a small business, I like to be able to support other small businesses. And you know, if you’re buying like I am, I’m not shaming anybody, you’re guilting me from a store and not knowing like, what pesticides are being sprayed on things what you know, chemicals are being added. To be able to like, again, ask people and interact with people who actually grew your food. And then you often often are buying a lot healthier, of an option that is chemical free or grown organically or whatever that looks like. So I love hitting farmers markets, obviously to a lot of you I know listening, do you enjoy growing your own food grow much more than I do. And, again, you’re having ultimate control over using the kind of soil you want to and going chemical free and all that great stuff. So it was such a beautiful season to do that. It’s also not too late. If you’re like, Oh man, I know. Again, you might live in a different region than I do. But growing seasons are a long time. So I have heard this on some gardening podcast, like I think there’s always pressure to get things in by a certain window. But a lot of times you can still grow it, you’re just not going to maybe grow as much of it. And that’s going to be okay, maybe you’re not going to harvest as many tomatoes, but you’ll still get a good little crop for salsa or whatever that looks like. So super fun. And I encourage you if you’ve never grown your own food, and maybe you think you don’t have the space or you’re in an apartment or whatever, there’s still usually something you can do something in pots, or on your balcony. Or you can have lemon trees indoors, like there’s lots of different options to get you dabbling in this and then to start, I’m like, so a novice in this area, so I’m not pontificating on this. But to start with just one thing at a time because that’s what I’ve tried to do was like okay, I’m gonna just start with you know, these two things that we have a lot of tomatoes and peppers and then I was trying to expand the what I was doing. But now I’ve been trying to focus more on this is just me personally, like there’s so many ways you can go with this on doing more of the stuff that we really like to eat not more, as in all different kinds of foods, more variety, but more quantity of what we go through a lot of what I know my family will eat. And then this year, I’m going to try to get more into like succession planting. So knowing all right, and I have so many friends who are really great gardeners so I feel silly talking about this now but I’m learning from all of you. So just sharing that tiny little bit I do know, like lettuce is a good example of this. We love salads, but it doesn’t really help me out to harvest all this lettuce at the same time. And we only have so many people eating it. Whereas like leaving some beds open and then two weeks later planting some more seeds and two weeks later planting some more seeds so that we can have salads All harvest season long instead of a ton at one time. So I think that’s just a really fun way to get into the season as well as getting closer to your food hitting farmers markets growing your own food etc.

Number two, how can I record a podcast without saying this but get your movement in. Now note I did not say exercise I already assume. If you are a listener of mine, you are probably getting your workouts in or you are aspiring to okay, maybe you need that beginner challenge to kind of get your butt going in this area. But summer is a beautiful time I think I talked about this on like something about a spring episode as well. Increasing your NEET your non exercise Activity Thermogenesis just moving more, being outside more. I don’t think I put that while I did actually analyst but just like physically putting your hands to things more, maybe you’re doing a little more physical labor, or you’re maybe going on more walks with your kids, that kind of stuff. I mean, we walk to get ice cream. But
that works too. You’re walking there, you’re not driving there. So trying to get your movement and can make it a very healthy summer. And seriously keep that in the back your mind when you’re planning out your days. Like do we want to go to the zoo today, or do we want to do this today, I will try to keep in consideration because if we’re going somewhere like a splashpad super fun, great, we’re not moving around that much like they might be I’m really standing supervising. So I do try to mix that up. You know, you’re a part of this family too. You can mix in a hike in that week, and then a splash pad or going to the pool, but then going on a walk the next day so that you get your movement into because I know I’m at the stage where I’m feeling that like oh man, I one and two kids used to be able to just pop them both in the stroller zip around, we went on tons of walks, I got all the movement and it was an awesome time. But now it’s three kids and with my oldest being six, like it’s a lot more managing and standing and not as much movement for me. So mix it up, get it in where you can, maybe you’re mowing the lawn and you’re using the push mower instead of a tractor or whatever, like whatever options you’re working with.

Number three, limit screen time and get outside slash connected with the community and people around you. I love to talk about just our overall health on this podcast. It’s not all about being a size, whatever that you want to be. Or it’s not all about disease prevention. It’s about our quality of life overall, in all the areas of health and our spiritual health, our mental health, our emotional health, all of these things physical is a part of it, and they all play into each other. But your whole person can’t segment these areas. So there’s something really nice about this season where I don’t know your neighborhood but my neighborhood everybody’s out. You know, it’s been a long winter of not being not seeing people as much. We definitely have those bonding snowstorms like over the holidays like over Christmas and we were all snowed in. And that was bonding as we show with each other out and drink beers in each other’s driveways. But in this way more people are out walking and whatever it’s a great time to connect and connection helps us to not feel so alone feel isolated especially if you’re a stay at home mom. It’s that’s an easy trap to fall into a feeling isolated. So meeting friends at parks or going for walks or just being out and around just even saying hi to people I’m the person where it’s usually more stressful to me to try to make like meetups at a park or meetups at a splash pad because then I have to kind of consider other people in the plan of what if we you know, our morning went a different way we didn’t make it on time. Like are there somebody’s having a behavior issue and I have to address it and then I feel like we need to leave but I can’t leave because people are there you guys get it a lot of you have been in the situation if you’re a seasoned mom with grown kids you’re like I remember that time. So it doesn’t always have to be meeting people or pre planned things. But just going out and connecting with other people can still boost our mood and boost our overall health I feel that we just go to the grocery store sometimes like just having a couple interactions with humans with human adults in the day goes a long way so get out get moving Put your phone down I know there’s important things you have to do on there me too sometimes but we waste a lot of time on it. Put it down see life let your eyes see nature get with nature Connect. You’re just going to be so much healthier and happier overall.

All right number four, lean into seasonal foods Okay last year I believe it was I went on this whole thing where every season I did a seasonal food episodes so these foods are seasonal and spring these foods are seasonal in summer so you can go back and listen to guys I’m talking so fast today. You’re gonna might have to listen to this on halftime. I just looked up at my little screen I’m seeing the red line just go didn’t it. I did want to say about this and I’m excited about summer but eating seasonal foods is really healthy for us not just it can be cheaper first of all, and it can be I think a great way to have variety in your kitchen and For me, it helps inspire my cooking because I do get stale. I’m like, Oh, I always make this. We’re always eating this. So seasonal switch UPS really help with that, where I’m like, oh, asparagus is in season we’re gonna I’m gonna make like an asparagus risotto or, you know, lettuce is super abundant right now. So I will make a bunch of salads for dinner. Like, we’ll lean into that. And that’s beautiful, especially in summer. We’re usually drawn to those lighter foods like salads, where we’re backing away from the comfort foods of homemade pastas and pizzas and risotto is and lightening up usually in favor of more things like salads and shish kebabs and just lighter in general, we don’t usually want the heavier foods. So lean into that. But then the other great thing is a lot of research shows that having a variety of foods is really good for our bodies overall, because we’re getting all these different micronutrients from different kinds of foods. If we eat the same kind of foods all the time, we’re only getting the micronutrients that are available in those foods. So switch it up, get seasonal, you can look up your own seasonal list, that’s to your region to really get really specific on this. I like to just do that before, like while I’m in that season and screenshot it so that when I’m meal planning for the week, I can go through and just kind of have a top of mind like, oh, yeah, eggs are more in season. So maybe I’m just going to do like a breakfast dinner that week, and we’ll do some quiches or we’ll do some for tomatoes or something like that. And those are really great on meatless days, too. If you do meatless Fridays.

All right, number five, is to hydrate in a fun way. Okay, Summer, you’re typically sweating more, you are losing water, you need to replace that water. So in a fun way means mix it up. Maybe you’re like this could be as fun as you get throwing some lemon in your water, okay, or maybe it’s throwing some frozen fruit in your water. I love to do that with sparkling water. Like if I’m making dinner or at night, sometimes we put the kids to bed and I want to have a cocktail just do frozen fruit in a wineglass with a sparkling water. So fun, feels fancy. And it’s not it’s hydrating. It’s not you know, being a toxin to our body, it’s actually a good thing. So that’s all awesome. You could also you know, watermelon foods with high water content is a great way to stay hydrated, fun way for your kids to this is a time to where I like to bust out the like homemade popsicle molds. And, you know, use healthy ingredients to make popsicles. I don’t know if that’s really hydrating. But you know,
I brought that up in there. But it’s fun, it’s a fun thing to do. And your kids are like you you’ll be fun mom for the day. So if you don’t have those order some popsicle molds, it brings us a lot of joy. I also have ones that look like little ice cream cones. And we’ll do like kind of more smoothie style with that I’ll do like frozen banana, and a little bit of milk just enough to mix it. And then like cocoa powder. And a couple other things. Sometimes I’ll throw chocolate chips in there and just blend it all up with that and the pour it in. This little mold is like the top of the ice cream cone, you stick the comb part in the bottom and they go in the freezer upside down. So fun because it feels like you’re eating an ice cream cone and I will all even put protein powder in it for my kids and then they’re getting more protein. Just a fun little thing. Again, not super hydration, but I threw that in there. Okay, so that was number one hit the farmers markets or grow your own food number two, get your movement in. Number three, limit screentime get outside, connected, etc. Number four, lean into seasonal foods number five hydrate and a fun way. And lastly, bonus tip for you today, surprise, develop some new rhythms and routine routines as applicable. So some of you listening maybe your kids are in school, usually in their home with you. Or maybe you work more in the winter. But now your schedule is lined up to accommodate maybe that or whatever. Maybe you guys have more time off whatever this looks like for you in your household. I know that things can go when there’s like a change of season, a change some kind of change in schedule. If we don’t accommodate that it can feel like chaos pretty quickly. Or or for me I’ll have these high aspirations of how I want a season to look. We’re gonna go hiking and we’re gonna go to the river and we’re gonna go to the creek and we’re gonna do all this fun stuff we’re gonna go to the beach and then if I don’t like develop our schedule accordingly, things can just eat maybe I’m being fun mom and then everything else goes to see like I we’re not doing the laundry we’re not catching up my house is a mess. I’m behind on work. I’m recording podcasts the night before you know that can very easily happen or if I don’t pre plan ahead. This happens more often than not, we won’t get those fun things in because I just assumed they were going to happen and I didn’t actually look at the calendar, plan my weeks make it happen so especially for those of you in a new little season here. But you know even if you’re not even if it’s the same thing, it’s still you and your kids it was you and your kids before. Maybe just look at how that things are going to be different for summer. Maybe you were doing homeschool and the school year and We’re not going to be doing that for summer. So looking at how you want that to be, if you’re going to keep some, you know, subjects in the mix, or if you’re just going to take off or whatever, you know, I just encourage you always tune to season to look at what needs to be tweaked. One other example of this is without really much changing, it’s still myself and my kids home. We still do some schooling through the summer. But with meals, I try to think through, okay, I want to be outside after naptime. And which means I don’t want to have to like it’s that weird window, oftentimes, where usually we’re doing something or outside or doing you know, if we’re coming home from some activity, it’s like lunch show nap. And yes, I give my kids I’ve talked about this before in my schedule, but I give them typically a 20 minute show, I actually am trying to do away with this for summer, so we’ll see where this goes. But that 20 minutes is just nice for me, especially for coming in from the splash pad or a hike or something to kind of regroup to switch laundry to do the lunch dishes, or unload what we just came home from just gives me 20 minutes to get my stuff together. Because then at naptime I usually am working that you know, that’s fine to me to stay in there. So anyways, say lunch show nap. And then after nap, there’s like that very small window between them being awakened me having to start dinner. So I try to think through. Okay, can I have something that I can prep at lunchtime and just pop in the oven right at dinner some nights, or can I do everything on the grill because something I’ve tried in the past was like crazy, we’re just gonna play outside, like they can be in the pool. And like baby pool, it’s not we don’t have a big pool, be on the slip and slide be doing sprinkler, whatever, right up till dad comes home. And then we can all just have dinner together when he’s home. And that’ll be great. And then I haven’t really thought through that. And actually, I’m grilling outside, but I have to go inside to to like flip the potatoes that are in the oven. And I have to be stirring something on the stove. So then I eventually have to call them in, or I’m running back and forth worrying about the one year old being out by the hot grill, bringing him with me. And it’s a whole thing. So things are things like that of Okay, can I just this night I’m gonna grill so everything’s on the grill, I’m gonna grill veggies, I’m gonna grill chicken, I’m going to throw corn on the grill. So we have all our staples, you know, out there so that everything can be done, we can come in, or I’m gonna throw it all in the oven on a sheet pan, so I can just throw it in the oven. Or we could go outside that kind of thing to just, you know, I talked several episodes about several episodes ago about like the ideal day or life we want. And then like, what’s the gap between where we are and what we want? These are the kinds of things to think through in a new season, like visualize your day, how do you want it to go? And that’s kind of what I ran into last time was, okay, I want us to be outside right into the last second have dinner or eat dinner outside? A lot of times we do that as well. But what’s my barrier here? What are the obstacles I keep running into we’ve got to remove them. So giving a little pre thought, you know, we’re not making this a bigger deal than it needs to be. But just a little bit of forethought can help things be a lot more peaceful. And all else fails. You can pop a cauliflower pizza in the oven and go outside and play that to grab some if you agree on lettuce like we talked about to a couple episodes ago, you can pick some of that throw together salad and you’re good can do a lot more on the fly if you have some food in the backyard. All right, ladies, I’m looking forward to having a healthy summer with all of you whether we’re gonna work together in the eight week challenge, whether you’re rocking and rolling with me and the chasing greatness group and having a good time there. I love that. I love our live workouts. It’s so much fun. You guys motivate me just as much as hopefully I motivate you. And if you are a silent listener over there who’s listening and I haven’t heard from you yet. I’m so happy you’re here too. I hope you have the best, most healthy summer ever and let me know if you need anything have any questions anything like that Brittany and healthy Catholic moms.com Or just shoot me a message on Instagram. Alright ladies, I hope you have a great rest of your day. I will talk to you next episode and next episode, we’re kind of continuing in the same vein talking about navigating summer barbecues and social events while sticking to your goals. Yes, it is possible. All right, I’ll see you then. Have a great rest of your day.

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