Episode #333: Healthy Fall Prep: Organizing Your Schedule

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 food 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, my friends, how are you? Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today and all the time if you hear all the time. And if you’re brand new, I hope you come back. I hope that we have a lot of fun here. And ladies, I’m about to nerd out more than ever, because we’re going to talk schedules. And nothing gets me more excited when I saw the lineup of what I was recording next. So yes, we are finally diving into this.

So what I decided to do for the next couple episodes is I’m kind of calling it a healthy fall series, like we’re just going to prep for the change of season, which I know is not the same for everybody in every place. And I typically tend to think of these things kind of after the fact that they’ve happened for some of you like, for us, we go back to school, Kid wise, you know, around Labor Day. And that’s when I think like go back to school or whatever. And then it occurred to me that people go back way earlier than that. So you know, follow either for us is not going to happen for a couple of weeks. But usually kind of with a back to school vibe comes changes in schedules and changes of seasons, not necessarily fall. But either way, we’re getting ready. It’s this is something I kind of low key do for myself, with every change of season. Like it just I might not be this thorough, but it kind of happens naturally. And I’m sure some of you do this on paper, or all of you do this just kind of on your own too. But sometimes it takes a couple of weeks to even realize there’s been a change, and there’s been a transition. And it can be kind of a sloppy transition. And I’ve been there a million times, where I’m like, Oh, I didn’t even see this coming. So now we have to figure out a new system for this or we’re in this new routine or we need a routine because what we were doing wasn’t working. All of that stuff we just kind of did at the time of recording this. It’s still July, but we just did a mini one of this a couple of days ago in our own family because things changed my son’s he moved up a belt in taekwondo, so his schedule change. So that changed like our during the week and all that like couple things like that our other son started soccer like in the same week. So just change some dinner routines and some structure to our week. So we kind of just reelected it revamped it. So I’m pumped to do this alongside with you for fall because for us it is going to not I know it’s not necessarily fall yet. But after Labor Day, our schedule is going to change as well. Again, with those kinds of things, maybe ending ramping up, we won’t have soccer on there anymore. We don’t have T ball anymore. We will still have taekwondo. We’ll have coop in there. We’ll have a couple of different things that are only school year and we’re gonna we do homeschool. So we’ll start getting into more of like homeschool schedule and all that great stuff. So we’re gonna do this together today.

Two things I want to tell you about before we do that as number one, the podcast review giveaway for this whole month of August you have a chance to win a $25 amazon gift card. The only thing you have to do is so kindly leave me a podcast review. So anywhere you listen to podcasts, just write a review if you could do a written one or give a star rating if you can’t, both would be awesome. If you have the availability to both, screenshot it and send your screenshot to Brittany at healthy Catholic moms.com You are entered I will announce the winner on a September have a podcast episode, probably that second episode into September. So I have time to choose the winner and let y’all know. And then I will also email the winner so that you know and to send your gift card to you. So that is awesome. And if you’ve already entered, thank you so much. And then next up, I haven’t talked about this yet, the doors are open for the next round of the eight week Fat Loss Challenge. So when does it kick off about a month from now September 18. And this is the program that I really kind of call my intro program and like my very foundational program, the bones of it, our strength training, and teaching you how to eat in a macro balanced way. So we I limit the spots because every other week, I’m reviewing your food logs, I teach you how to track your food and my fitness pal very simply, very easily, just so we can get some data and I can teach you how to use what you’re already eating in many cases, to just make your body a fat burning machine, essentially, and be able to do this forever. There’s no on and off meal plan. Like you have to eat only this for eight weeks. Absolutely not. But I’m just going to teach you how to balance things out, move things around what your specific body needs in the nutrition department. And we’ll go through things week by week, there’s a weekly focus. So one week it might be make sure we’re hitting three to five servings of vegetables, but we’re all doing it together. And there’s a prize every single week. So if you like giveaways, like the podcast review one, you’ll love this because it’s like okay, eat your vegetables every day. And you have a chance to win an exercise ball or an AB wheel or protein powder or something. So every single week of the eight weeks, there’s giveaways. And then if you choose to take before pictures, and then after just the program pictures and consider it like you know, an after like you’re done forever. But if you choose to submit progress pictures, I select the person with the most overall progress as the overall winner and they get their entrance fee back. And then on the workout side, we’re doing strength training, there are workout videos for that. So I’m coaching you through all of it. And it’s just a good time, a lot of support a lot of hand holding, so that you can step away and just do this stuff on your own. So that kicks off September 18. And like I said, I limit it to just 20 ladies. So I sent it out to my email list first, this is the first time I am announcing another podcast. So hop on over and sign up if you want to do that over at healthy Catholic moms.com on the work with me page.

Okay, you guys know of any or while that I’m pregnant recording this. And I always get short of breath when I’m pregnant. But when I’m talking really fast trying to get through all those details. feel like that was like whoa. So I went out of my sails for a second. So deep breath. As we are going to happen to this, you can literally do this along with the podcast, unless you’re driving or on the treadmill or something like that out for a walk. If you are happen to be around the house, grab a piece of paper, if not just kind of mentally take in the steps that you can do it when you have a second. And I truly mean a second, a lot of times, we think stuff is going to take so much longer than it does. And I’m over here raising my hand because that’s me. We’re even simple things like cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. I’m like this is gonna take forever, and then sometimes they will just literally set a timer. I’m like, Okay, well, I’ll give it my best shot for 15 minutes. And then I get the whole thing done in 15 minutes. I’m like, Well, that was actually fine. Like I was good. I did that today with my son. When I told him he could watch this five minute, like kids football YouTube video of literally kids playing football. And I put on from thinking I’m not gonna get anything done in this five minutes because I needed to do something with him after. But I took out the kitchen garbage I did like all this stuff. I’m like, Ah, see, five minutes really does go a long way. So don’t overestimate this, it’s gonna take a couple minutes of your time. Do it in the morning, maybe when it’s you have a quiet moment for everyone’s awake. Step one, get out of blank calendar, or just grab a piece of blank paper and write out the days of the week. I actually like to do that I don’t print off any blank template. I don’t use my planner for this because I’m just kind of brainstorming, I just grab a good old piece of printer paper off the printer and I write down Monday through Sunday, just along the top and write some long lines and have room to work. This is a very working draft. So don’t do it in anything you want to be finalized like a pretty planner. Okay, step two. Now you have your days up start with putting in your set in stone obligations. This is any work times if you work outside the home, this is school pickup and drop off if your kids go to school obligations like extracurricular activities, all of those things. Now, I will say I would want you to prayerfully consider what should be set in stone and what that looks like for your family. And that’s obviously very personal to every family. And you know, I think that’s a great thing to discern kind of before you get into each season. It’s the worst feeling in the world when you’re super overbooked and you’re like we have done it again. We are done. stretched to the max. And this isn’t good for any of us. So set in stone is a loose term, but the things you have planned and committed to put them down, maybe this will be eye opening to when you look at your actual schedule, and you’re like, how are we going to possibly do this, but put that in there for so for me that will look like putting in Co Op, the day of the week that we go to court that the time that we leave in the time that we come home, that would look like my son’s taekwondo. Like I said, that will look like my husband’s work night, my work night, whatever, there’s a couple of nights. So each of us work separately. So that kind of thing is going in next. Okay. Now step three, we’re going to head right into workouts. So you got seven zones, and that should be pretty high up on the priority list. So put in when you’re going to work out I have a lot of resources on how to decide how to design your workouts. And we’re gonna talk specifically about your workout schedule. In an upcoming episodes. You don’t have to really hover over this one too long. As long as you’re just organizing your overall schedule, you can hold off till we delve more into that. But if you kind of have the gist of at least what you’re doing now put in the specifics, not just workout Monday, Wednesday, Friday, put Monday 6am Wednesday 6am If it’s the same or whatever. Okay, next, decide what makes sense for an errand day slash grocery shopping day slash will you Instacart slash what does the food and Aaron situation look like? This can save you so much. If you kind of walk through these things beforehand, before it gets crazy. I know it might vary week to week. These are kind of things that I think about on Sundays as the week’s coming up. Like if, for example, this week we have we’re hosting a party on Saturday, not when this airs, but at the time of recording, it’s my son’s birthday. And usually I grocery shop a little bit more midweek but I’m purposely not grocery shopping till Friday. So I have things that are fresh for Saturday. And I won’t have you know, that much fridge space and all that jazz. So sometimes you need to tweak this a little bit. But in general, try to think about what that’s going to look like of okay, I maybe you do work full time during the week. And you’re always going to go grocery shop Saturday morning that lets you know that you need to kind of do an inventory of the fridge and figure out your meals going on for the next week. Like on Friday just helps you back everything up a little bit. So decide what that looks like. I know this helps me a lot to just even as a primarily stay at home mom. Like if I just think oh we have all week I could run errands whenever I can grocery shop whenever it becomes way harder to fit in, then we grocery shop Thursday mornings or we, you know, I’d run errands Saturday morning when my husband’s home. So it’s you know, obviously that’s an ideal, quicker and easier, that kind of thing. But put put that in there have a rough plan. And if you utilize things I am all for utilizing services to like pickups, or in skirts, I’ll read your home, that can help too. If you know you always have a grocery pickup, Monday afternoon, so you can kind of like get through the weekend. Have your Monday and then maybe Monday on your lunch break. Or Monday when you’re home, having a minute, somewhere in the afternoon where you can place your order and know that they’re getting delivered or whatever that looks like I think it’s really helpful to kind of have a structure to when you’re doing it. And when makes most sense. I do typically, I was gonna say I do earlier in the week, but I think I’ve switched it more and more to being later in the week. Because of that party thing. We have a lot of family parties and a lot of like obligations going on where if I need to bring a salad, I want it to be fresh. So or whatever I’m tasked with bringing, it just makes more sense to have something before the weekend. And yeah, that’s a whole thing. But just figure out which day you’re going to try to do that. And now lastly, this is just the overall organizes scheduled prep. In other upcoming episodes, when you get more specific about the actual meals about the actual workouts, that kind of thing. But the last step here is talk with your spouse about all of this about the ebb and flow of your week. What you’re looking at what that looks like for both of you drop offs and pickups, who’s doing what, and also a step beyond that how you can help each other out during this time and ideally have some personal time, some time to breathe. This is something my husband I looked at where I really never got a minute, like most moms away from the kids where if I did it was any spare moment for this work, which I love to do and I’m super passionate that lights me up but I didn’t have any other time outside that to just do something that what like if I was if I had one, you know three hour block it was gonna go to work then so we’re looking at how we could play with that a little bit how we can make sure he has some time to himself and that kind of thing. And everybody’s needs are different. Now obviously you have to be reasonable and compromise because you cannot At just, you know, say, well, I need two hours every day, that’s probably not gonna happen. But this we’ll talk more about two in the workout episode. And we’ve talked about and Ben has been on the podcast me before talking about how we specifically navigate, giving each other time to work out and prioritizing that because I have seen that before where I’ve trained a client and she has had to stop because her husband started going to a gym and he went in the mornings, or, like somebody wants to work out, but their husband does whatever thing at night or something. And it’s like you guys got to obviously talk. Find a middle ground here where, all right, if you’re going to the gym as well, like you could go Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I will go Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, or you will hit a morning class and I will go in the evening like, there’s got to be a give and take here. And it’s got to work for everybody. And something that I will mention here too, because I just finished rereading the book teaching from rest from Sarah by Sarah Mackenzie. And a lot of you who are homeschooling moms have probably read that if you have not, I highly suggest it. I have read it before. And I wanted to reread it as kind of like a little breather before starting the school year, get my mind right, get my perspective going. And she briefly touched on it was very brief, but the whole book is amazing. I could have screenshot every single. I was reading it on paper, actually. But I could have taken a picture of every quote in every excerpt but she was quoting somebody else when she was talking about margin and actually led to a different book that I want to read. And I have not yet but just the concept of margin and how that is the gap between like our responsibilities and our free time and how we need to create margin like she was even talking about in the homeschool schedule, you can’t plan 120 minutes for 120 minutes of instructional time. You need to plan something that should take like 100 minutes for 120 minute block. You know, that’s how we create margin. And then we we get to like, Well, how do we do that? Well, it usually involves paring down, stripping away. So think about that when you guys sit down to organize your schedule together as a team.
It’s so important guys, like why am I talking about this unhealthy Catholic moms podcast because your health is essential. Like you can have all the money in the world and you can have whatever possessions and you can have kids who are black belts and speak 17 languages and this and that. But if you are like decrepid, and just absolutely in the worst shape, ever, and have fueled yourself terribly not moved correctly, like all of that and really sedentary. Like just whatever sacrifices you think you’re making in that department. It gets not worth it. You know, you got to look at the everyone has different priorities. Everyone’s working toward different goals, like maybe your kid is going to make it to the Olympics. And that is why you guys are at travel sports every single day, every single weekend, every single whatever. I’m not knocking travel sports or like travel sports, like don’t get too specific on any of my examples. I’m just spouting some off here. But it’s like an you are 50 pounds overweight, you are just like left in this terrible position. Because you never you just put everything else last like things need to shift around. There’s nothing more important than first and foremost, your spiritual health and making time for sacraments and prayer and all that. And then your physical health is essential as well. Like there are so many quotes in lines for people who, you know, when you ask them, like later in life, like what they wish they had, if somebody is physically unwell, they want health, if somebody sacrificed a lot of time with their family and their loved ones in order to work more or for monetary gains or whatever, they always wish that they had more time with their family or with their loved ones. So we’ve got to think about what’s important and get our schedule to reflect that. I know it’s easier said than done. I know this gets really tricky. The more kids you add in the mix, and it’s like, man, you can give everybody want extracurricular and all of a sudden your schedule is packed to the brim. But whatever it looks like I’ve heard families before who were experiencing that so they just kind of did step away from a lot and then tried to find something that everybody could do. Like, actually we’re all going to start skiing together. We’re all going to go for family hikes like it’s the two birds with one stone of like, you’re getting your activity and it’s a family thing they’re getting activity and you just gotta gotta make the right two choices, which I know right is vague and it’s different for everybody, but choices that will help everybody to feel at peace. You know, the last thing any of us want is to purposely be in chaos. We don’t want to do that no one does that on purpose. We usually stumble into it and have to claw our way back to peace in order Are and, you know, paring down and taking that to prayer. That’s the only way this is really going to be clarified for you of like, what should be on our family schedule this fall. I should have started with that before number one when I said get out the paper I should have said number one, pray about it. But that is definitely the first step. And something to keep front of mind as we delve into all of these areas. All right, so step one here was today, step two, next episode, we are going to continue to sell the fall idea in into the meal planning. All right, so we’re gonna get organized bit by bit here. Go sign up for the eight week challenge if you are interested in that it is the last one for 2023. So you heard it here. It’s It’s your last chance for the year. And as well if you have not submitted a podcast review, I would appreciate that so much. All right, ladies, next time we will talk about our meal calendar. Until then, have a great rest your day

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