Episode #321: What Healthy and BALANCED Looks Like

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 there ladies, and welcome to today’s episode, thank you so much for being here with me and for showing up all the time sharing the episodes you love. I’ve seen that going around tagging me on Instagram things, I appreciate that I appreciate your support. And I’m so happy to have this time here with you. You guys know if you’ve been here while I enjoy listening to podcasts myself, that is usually myself, myself. That’s usually what I prefer, you know, it’s just fits with my life a lot more easily to throw on a podcast. Sometimes if I’m taking a shower. Rather than I’m not watching a YouTube video, there’s some things I like to consume on YouTube. But more often than not, I can listen to a couple podcasts a week, way before I could read something, or watch something. So I appreciate taking information this way. So I appreciate all of you showing up to support that here. And like I said, sharing it rating and review all that means so much. So thank you very much to all of you. Today we are going to talk about what being balanced and healthy looks like.
This is going along the same thought wave as an episode I did a couple of maybe months ago now that was about that your body shouldn’t look the same as it did when you were a teenager. I think a lot of times, when we get into health and fitness, especially kind of more than beginning, it’s very easy to go all in on something and to really swing the pendulum hard in the opposite direction from where we just were. Now this isn’t me totally speaking from experience, because when I first really got into health and fitness, like it had always been a part of my life. And I’ve shared a lot of this if you’ve been around a while, in some capacity, I was doing sports as a kid. And then I even started working out like 14 but working out to me was just going to the gym and I went on the elliptical and I looked at magazines. And that’s what I did. Because that’s what I saw other people doing. I knew nothing about lifting weights. And then my relationship with nutrition was definitely not healthy at all, but would have considered it as me trying to be healthy.
I was not brought up with a very like healthy saying this. The other day, I made cinnamon rolls for a Sunday treat. And I was like I remember when we used to have cinnamon rolls as a side at dinner. And that’s not a knock at all to my family of origin. Obviously we all you know it’s the more you know kind of a thing. And I remember my mom slowly getting rid of certain things in the house. Like there was a phase where she told us all we’re switching from white bread to wheat bread. And then there was the phase where she said she was not buying pop anymore. We only could drink like water for dinner proper special occasions. So I remember these events happening when I was like 1214 that kind of stuff. But still again, there wasn’t I didn’t have this huge upbringing with nutrition. And so then when I tried to get into it myself, it was very
all or nothing. It was very diet culture. I tried the Special K Diet. I tried slim fish shakes. I tried Kim Kardashian diet pills, like seriously, whatever it was, I tried it also Weight Watchers I did for a minute like all of this was in the span of being like 1618 I think or 6019. And then it was really after that
Not that I actually found strength training I found
eating in a macro balanced way. And although like prior to that, obviously, the pendulum was already swinging in bad directions. But then once I got like I had had what I’d consider an unhealthy background in health and fitness. And then once I got into what actually I do consider healthy eating in a balanced way, and
incorporating strength training, we can take that to an extreme or make it very scrupulous, or make that actually unhealthy. And this is a conversation I have with a lot of my clients who and I just feel like that’s typically the entrance into it, it’s not usually a person who goes from always being pretty healthy, then all of a sudden gets extreme.
Some of you listening are, you know, all we’re all different religions listening to this is not only Catholics who listen to this, and I made it very clear, when I switch the name to healthy Catholic moms, it previously was fitting on life to the fullest that I was not, you know, targeting this to only Catholic people, it’s just, it’s the lens that I’m sharing from so I found it appropriate to you know, fit, because it’s like when I talk about homeschooling or something to like, it’s just that’s the lens I’m sharing this with you from and our being a working mom or whatever. And I talked about I’m a Catholic homeschooling stay at home mom currently, like that’s, that’s my current setup might not always be stay at home might not always be
homeschooling, you know, like all these things, we’re open to it, and it’s in flux, okay, so I never want to put myself in a box of this is what I do. But when I’m currently sharing something, it’s just from that, hey, this is what works for me. And I’m trying to in this community, we’ve been trying to bring in other people and other ideas, ideas from all of you your real life, morning routines, your real life schedules, so that we can get a feel for other people. Because everybody in this group and listening to this podcast and healthy Catholic moms community is not a Catholic, stay at home homeschooling mom, that we have a diverse culture here, which is cool. My whole point
was to draw the analogy that sometimes like if somebody is a convert whatever religion it’s from whatever religion it’s to, you might have known someone or you might be a convert yourself, where like, then they are so on fire, that that’s all they want to talk about. It is all they’re sharing. And it’s really kind of beautiful. It’s like falling in love, right? When somebody finds you know, they’re
converts to, you know, their true religion or their new religion or whatever. I’m trying to be delicate here. Because again, we’re a diverse background, I’m not saying anything’s right or wrong. I’m just saying that, you know, this is a common thing, or when somebody falls in love or something, it’s like it’s consuming. And a lot of us can be like that when it’s a new hobby or a new interest. I’m totally like that you guys have gone through seasons with me. If you’ve been here for a while where I’m like, iron corn. Have you guys heard about iron corn and all I talk about sign corn. And then, oh, sourdough. I’m really into sourdough. Let’s talk about sourdough. Those are both two grains examples. But not just food wise, like this is a common theme in the human condition is we want to share something that we are on fire about and lit up about. That is awesome. What is not awesome is taking things too far, we just don’t usually notice when we do and this is where I come in. And I’ve had this conversation so many times with individual clients, that I wanted to open up the conversation habit more together. And hopefully, maybe just allow a little gut check for yourself. If you’re like, Oh, this is hitting a chord, I actually got some messages from some of you after that episode about your body’s not supposed to look like it did when you were 18. And a lot of you said like, Thank you for actually saying that. Because I’ve been thinking a lot of these things. You’re wrestling with a lot of these things. And you know, culture is tough. But we have Martha Stewart in whatever she was in Sports Illustrated or something I don’t know. It’s not being shared. Who’s like what 81 or something and just showing us what we should look like at 81. And know it might not say we should look like that. But that’s the message one, that’s what we’re seeing. And personally, I would rather be a golden girl than, like, I’m like, Can you sign me up for the one where we don’t care about what we look like. And we get to knit all day, because that’s the one that I want to do. But you guys get what I’m saying like there’s
expectations we sometimes put on ourselves or feel put on put upon by the culture. And this is another one of those things like there’s a line where health is healthy and there’s a line where even obsession with health becomes unhealthy. Right it’s those those we want to keep it middle of the road there is sin and vice to be had on both sides are sin advice to be had and being gluttonous and slothful and not treating our bodies well at all not stewarding our bodies well at all. But then I don’t think it’s being good stewards of our body to be obsessing over everything we put in our bodies to be spending hours a day, exercising, working totally just on ourselves and on our physical appearance, which you could argue that there’s mental tions right. But if that’s the norm, I think that’s a different kind of sin of excess
where it’s not slothful, but it’s it’s the opposite of temperance, right? We’re going way too far in one direction, in my opinion. So
a lot of this has to do with mentally too, because how much time are we giving to our thoughts into our mood and all of these things about, essentially how we look, a lot of times I’m saying health generously, but a lot of times, if we’re in the obsessive boat, and we are obsessing over every calorie, every workout, everything, then it’s consuming a lot of our mental time. And it’s usually about how we look, we’re not usually thinking, Oh, I’m gonna feel so terrible if I eat this donut sometimes, and maybe that’s a thought. But more often than not, it’s usually like I’m gonna be, it’s gonna make me fat, I was gonna go from the eyes to the thighs, or all these things we’ve heard. And that’s not healthy, either. My ultimate goal for you is to be able to
enjoy your life without having to think so much about every single calorie or every single workout or overanalyze or be guilty or feel shamed about something, I want you to be able to just live.
And things are running on autopilot for you so that you feel good, like majority of the time, and then you’re making informed decisions, when you know, you’re not going to feel so good. Like, for example, if I’m choosing to have that donor that I have, at least once a year, when we go pick out our Christmas tree, and I get this donor that I know is gonna make me want to take a nap that day, I know I’m going to do that I’m not going to feel guilt or shame about it. I know it’s once a year, I know I’m not going to feel good either, because I know it’s going to make me fall asleep because it’s so much sugar to come now from the Sugar Rush. I’ve known and I’ve accepted all those things, I don’t have to wrestle with it, I don’t feel bad about it is what it is, then I move on and go back to my normal way of eating. Okay, but some of us live and I get it because I really have been there. I remember the times of wrestling with like, Oh, should I eat that, or I’m gonna have to run this many miles next day. And that’s not a healthy way to be either. So I think another part of the conversation is like, Well, how do we get to that? How do we get to the other side that is healthy? I just think that it doesn’t happen overnight. This is not a one size fits all answer. I think prayer definitely is helpful in that, especially if you’re a person who struggles with emotional eating, because that’s very closely related to this topic, I think a lot of us become a little imbalanced in health, because it’s like, we can go on these really great straight days of being balanced. And then we have a big emotional eating binge or something. And then we try to compensate with restriction or with extra workouts that can kind of make us do like a little yo yo of more being more extreme and not being as healthy and balanced because we tipped too far one way. So we try to, you know, redirect it. So I think, you know, prayer and working on it in the way of reading books, and listening to podcasts has helped me so much in ways that I don’t think I would have realized, because the more that I learned about nutrition, and I’ve always liked working out so we’re hanging out was not as much a thing for me. But even you know, there’s different books about working out or treating your body well that I think this view of it and reading like genius foods by Max lluvia or body love by Kelly Lovak they helped me focus more on the overall health, I wasn’t chasing aesthetics anymore. How I was you know how things made me look, I was chasing the feeling of health and actually making my body healthy eating for my brain health eating for longevity. And that helps me to find a more balanced approach. And then I think having other sources in like if all you’re listening to or doing or watching or whatever is all like health food stuff, you might still that might sway you into becoming a little more obsessive and unhealthy where I like to keep other stuff in the rotation. I like maybe Thor’s cookbook, where I can look at all the beautiful pictures of Italy and read all those recipes that have more fattening foods in there. And I will cook them for my family on occasion. So we can have those like richer, more decadent foods and for special times. So everybody’s balance is different. But I think we can pretty quickly identify what is not balanced. So I did come up like with this little list when I was thinking about this episode. And I just put we want balanced what does that look like? I’m just gonna kind of cruise through it. It looks like to me this is in my opinion, what balance looks like and what being truly healthy.
Looks like Now some people will argue and absolutely can. Because some people might say nobody. Being healthy is never having refined sugar. Great if that’s your version of health and you can do that 100% of time. That’s awesome. That is healthiest kinda like
alcohol has no nutritional benefits for us. It really doesn’t. You can just try to really dig to find a couple of redeeming qualities like well read well
Orion has some antioxidants. Yes, you could get into accidents from blueberries. You don’t need to have alcohol. Alcohol really doesn’t have redemptive qualities. And do I drink alcohol? Yes, I do in moderation. And that’s something I’ve actually gone back and forth on. I obviously don’t want I’m pregnant. While there’s a caveat there because I do drink wine in second and third trimesters occasionally. But you know, open and honest with all of you, if my OB is listening, another OB told me it was okay, so no, but I really have in this pregnancy anyways, like very few and far between, I’ll take a couple sips of my husband’s beer or something. But I’ve put a dash of wine in like Sprite zeros to make a spritzer and it’s all good. But no, I other than that, obviously, I don’t drink hard liquor or, you know, drink often while pregnant. But other times, I will enjoy it in moderation. And I’ve even thought about that, like, well, it really doesn’t have redemptive qualities, like maybe it’s something I just should kind of cut out of my life. But then I go back to the like, I a lot of things are social, this is a very personal thing. Many people can drink, like, not drink, and it’s fine, you can still be social. And I’m not trying to convey that I know people struggle with alcohol, it’s different than just I’m not equating alcohol and brownies. I’m just saying that they don’t, it doesn’t have any nutritional value to you. So it is something that very easily all of us could cut out to say we want to do it for the sake of health. Why I personally don’t is because of the like, same reason that I keep full fat, full sugar, desserts in there every now and then is because it’s something I want to be able to have in moderation, even though it’s not really doing anything positive for me. So that is, for me healthy is including some of those kinds of things. That is what balance looks like for me. But again, everybody’s balance can be different. I’m just going to cruise through this list is says, balance to me looks like planning your workouts and getting them in when you say you’re going to get them in, it looks like fueling your body with quality foods 80% of the time and enjoying indulgences 20% of the time, it looks like not having a heart attack, if you have an emergency or something comes up and you have to skip a workout. That might sound silly, but that’s really big. And that’s something I used to do. And that’s something I’ve had clients do who obsessively freak out and are actually concerned they’re going to gain 10 pounds, or they’re going to you know gain fat just from missing a two mile run, or one lift or something like that. I think it’s healthy and it’s balanced. And it’s self discipline to plan your workouts, get them in when you say you’re going to force yourself to do it have that zero option mentality. But to be a person and be a human, when something comes up, that’s a bigger deal than your workout. To not panic about it’s not beat yourself up about it. Okay, it’s different if you’re skipping workouts because you just don’t feel like doing it. Or if you’re skipping workouts because you need to take your kid to get stitches like these are more important things. And I think somebody again, with a balanced mentality around fitness nutrition can see that it’s also not going to that is not going to derail everything in the long run.
Sure, it looks like focusing more on how you feel than how you look. That’s kind of what I was talking about reading those books or listen to those podcasts getting more into the holistic view of health rather than just I want to fit in my genes, right? It looks like focusing on all of health, spiritual, emotional, mental, physical, and not not sacrificing one over the other. So I put for example, skipping prayer time to work out twice a day. This is again, all shared from experience. This is opinion and this is hitting close to home for me because it is my experience. There was a time when I was not prioritizing prayer as much as I would a little bit but my workouts were way longer. Like I there was a time when I was working out twice a day, I would do cardio in the morning and lift at night, taking about a half hour to 45 minutes for each sets almost two hours of working out and I was not even giving an hour to prayer. So as moms too, we can’t you know, mince these like
make a big deal out of what I’m trying to say how much time we’re giving to something like we have the ability to pray during our vocation to offer you know prayers up while we’re doing people’s laundry and while we’re scrubbing dishes and things like that in our life should be a prayer so I’m not saying there’s you know amount of time you need to dedicate different amount of time needed to dedicate your workout or anything like that. I’m just suggesting that things should look a little more balanced. And we need to keep that in mind to what are we prioritizing? You know if you do get in your half hour every day but you don’t get in any minutes of her time maybe that needs to be evaluated. That’s something this is so personal, this is gray area. This is prudence this is your own conscience here this is one of the reasons why I stopped going to the gym in after I had Judah in July of 2021. I said I was gonna go back to the gym and I bought a membership and I got rid of it in like three weeks. And the one of the reasons was I was telling myself I
had no time to go to adoration at all, because I was a busy mom of three kids. And realistically, then I was leaving the house two or three times a week making that time, even if it was super early morning to go to the gym, which was only it’s only 10 minutes further for me to go to a Perpetual Adoration Chapel. And I was like, we know what but like, if you’re leaving the house, you can go spend some time with the Lord and you can do your workout at home. And that’s not always it’s not always like an even trade, it’s not always that all of us are confronted with that decision that it’s working out or adoration. But for me, it was in that time. And you know, there might be a time where that’s not, I don’t have to kind of choose between the two. But that’s just personal. And then to something that I think we need to find the balance of where we can live, being healthy in all areas and feeling good and all areas. And then I do think there’s a big element here where even if you’re doing all of these things we talked about, you’re just planning your workouts, you’re getting them in, you’re not obsessing over a missed workout, you’re able to enjoy some treats and indulgences 20% of the time. And you still feel like you don’t like what you see in the mirror. That’s another step further into body dysmorphia, that we’re not going to get into today. But that is a condition of looking in the mirror and always disliking what you see, or having a contorted view of what’s in the mirror. And that too, I think is something to just take to prayer and try to. Obviously counseling is an option, things like that. I do think there’s absolutely time and place for counseling and don’t think everything is just like, oh, just pray about it. You’re good. But for me, something that made me I don’t even know. It’s funny. Not really funny, I guess. But I thought about that the one day I looked at we have not had a full length mirror in our house for months. My almost two year old at the time is recording his broken all of them, he just pulls them off the wall. So I had replaced one once and I was like, You know what I I’ve paid for, you know how many replacement mirrors for him to just rip them off the wall like we don’t need like the mirror. So we have not had a full length mirror in our house for like over six months. And it’s so funny because if I go somewhere and I see it, I’m like, oh, that’s what I look like. I’m like I really just not in my daily thing right now. And I’m not saying everyone needs to be that level where we don’t need to care about what we look like at all or have any idea what’s going on. But I’m also saying it’s not a bad way to live to just be focused on overall health and how you feel and all of that. And not psychoanalyzing everything every moment is a little bit free for me at least since we can’t keep it fully from here in the house. But
all right, ladies, I hope this was helpful and got you thinking, thank you so much for being here. I guess it’s time to end because my voice is going out with it. Next episode we’re going to talk about pregnancy workout and nutrition tips. So while that might not apply to all of our audience, maybe there’s something you can share it with. Or maybe it’s one that you hope that you will need one day or something like that. So that’s on the docket. And then of course more things to apply to everybody to come talk about health and friendships and finding healthy friends being healthy friends. that’ll all be coming up on deck too. All right, I hope you have a great rest of your day.

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