Episode 336: Healthy Fall Prep: Self-Care

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 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 beautiful people happy September if you’re listening to this the very first day it’s September 1. I love August. I love September I am pumped for this month. I like to kind of you know we’re in this series if you’ve been with me last couple podcast episode resetting and kind of getting things going for what is probably a new season. I know some of us start kind of went back to school earlier or later. And even if you don’t have kids going back to school or going back to school yourself or whatever, I think it’s just a really nice time to revisit your rhythms, your routines, your systems, and reevaluate. I’ve always loved that time even before I had kids or anything like that I was a teacher before that. But still like as far back as I can remember, this is just felt kind of like a different January 1, five, almost even more of a reset though I think September brings in and this is a real I know relative for everybody. But we’ve always started school where I am after Labor Day. So that’s just around the corner for us. I know some of you are already rockin and rollin here. So hopefully these new menial maybe some new routines and these revisiting and setting up of your meal plan of your workouts are helping you out. So today we’re talking about incorporating self care. And I have a previous episode about self care. And what I consider self care to be. And it’s a widely used term I don’t even love the term but you know, at its very basics of is just taking care of yourself. So I’m gonna outline what that looks like, how we can do that. And first and foremost, if you are struggling with getting your nutrition together, getting your workouts together, and we have not worked together before, one of the best things truly that I believe that you can do for your self care is to join our eight week beginner challenge. It kicks off very soon to September 18. And I’m so passionate about this, the reason why and so hundreds of women have gone through it and have loved it and I have hundreds of testimonials. And all that good is behind it, you can go to the website if you just want to already claim your spot and sign up because I offer a limited number of spots, I only take on 20. Ladies when I run this a couple times a year. And the reason I only take on 20 Ladies is because I hold your hand and I walk you through this. So essentially, I give you the foundation of what you need to do to set your body up to run really well at the time of recording this. We just wrapped up the June challenge started in June and just ended a little bit ago and one of the ladies I hope you’re listening. This happens all the time. It’s several ladies in this challenge. But one email was most striking throughout the eight weeks was like I’m not sure don’t know if this is working. I don’t know about this approach. I’ve always done you know more a low calorie, lots of cardio approach. And my approach you can again read more about it in the program and you can message me if you have questions. But as I help you balance out your carbs, fat and protein foods you’re already eating you don’t have to go ahead and overhaul everything or change everything or be on a special diet plan. I just help you eat the right balance of food for your body. Make sure you’re doing effective workouts that are strength training. Bass. And we go through Week by week setting these systems up. So you can just run this on autopilot. I’ve had ladies, and this is why I’m so passionate about starting here. If you have not done this with me, my family, these just try to piecemeal things from the podcast. And that’s worked pretty well. But then they eventually take the eight week and they’re like, Okay, this brought it all together, this made sense, like this clicked for me. Or I’ve had like these two coaching calls, and then kind of tried to do it on their own. And it’s just something about the taking, taking time for yourself for eight weeks, to really dive deep into health and fitness. And you’re just making a really big investment on your health, it’s just going to keep returning way beyond the eight weeks. So moral of a story with the woman that I mentioned, just got her final testimonial and email the other day and was like, Oh, my goodness, I actually can’t believe it. Like, I lost 15 pounds. I feel really good. Her before and after pictures were amazing. Her back view particularly was just like incredible. And I told her to I was like, I’ve been doing this for years. And I know it works. And it’s still, I still am excited to see it pay off for everybody. So all I have to say, ladies, it’s like the gift that keeps on giving because I set it up for you. And then you just can work that plan forever in between babies before babies after babies in different stages of life with different hormone things going on. So September 18, that all kicks off. And that will be the last one for this year for 2023. So, again, only 20 spots. So go grab one now if you know that’s you, and we’re gonna dive into today’s episode, so self care taking care of yourself. Okay. My basic staples for this are number one, praying, slash celebrating and utilizing the sacraments. And its very core. We know we’re whole people. We’re spiritual, emotional, physical, mental, all the different areas of health and wellness. First and foremost, what’s going to be eternal is our soul. Right? So truly before I’m worried about getting my steps and getting my workout in, I’m worried about if I died today, where am I going? Okay, that’s what I think all of us should have in front of our minds. So that is the very core of self care and the essence of self care is, am I taking time to pray like if we are too busy to pray, we’re too busy. So start there. Okay, when you’re looking at your schedule, when you’re looking at, it’s not adding anything extra in like this needs to make the priority first. Okay, the number two is moving your body. And these are my basic staples of self care moving your body so it looks like workouts, walks etc. And lastly, eating healthfully. I do think as an aside here, that eating healthfully is one of those easier transitions we can make it’s harder and easier. I know most ladies who I’ve worked with who struggle with one or the other eating nutritiously or are working out usually eating nutritiously is the bigger challenge. But it’s the simpler switch. Because if you are looking to start a workout program that does take more time, like if you’re not working out at all right now, you need to find 20 or 30 minutes somewhere make time for it, you’re not going to find it, you need to make 20 or 30 minutes somewhere to start working out. The good news with nutrition is you’re already eating several times a day, you just have to swap in while you’re eating to make sure it’s nutritious and you’ve got this area covered. Right so it can go a long way for something you’re already doing. You’re just switching it up. So those are my three basic staples, praying slash celebrating utilizing the sacraments number two, moving your body number three eating healthfully. Now, in crazy seasons, that’s all the self care you really need to worry about. I am going to be having a baby in early December and or late November whenever the baby decides come. And mid December usually in my case, usually late. That’s all I’m really going to focus on is getting those three staples in right. And in crazy seasons, you’re moving your postpartum, your whatever. That’s all I want you to worry about because that feels like enough and you’re making an adjustment. It’s this transition period of life. But beyond that, I want to talk to you a little bit about hobbies because hobbies allow you time for recreation in its truest sense to recreate. Right it’s like the best kind of leisure activity it’s not zoning out in front of your phone, or zoning out in front of Netflix. It’s gonna help you to be restful and restorative and feel truly like recreated like you’re a better version of yourself after it.
I know and I’m there’s no judgments here. Sometimes I’m like too tired. mentally physically to come up with anything else that I’ll sit down and put on my gaze lately is when YouTube videos of people’s gardens like I’m literally walking you To the gardens, or making sourdough bread or something, it’s very funny. I was like, I now understand, you know, I used to criticize and laugh at people who like watch other people play games, or like kids that like to watch other kids like play with Legos. I think this is the equivalent of it. I’m watching this lady, like do her laundry. But always like for, you know, inspiration and better ideas. Anyways, there are times when I do that, but I don’t usually Yes, and maybe I’ll get some good tips from that, I guess, if I’m watching something kind of productive. But otherwise, I don’t come away from that feeling rested and restored. Especially if I just veg out in front of you know, some show or something good, these things aren’t terrible, but they’re not usually restorative. So, hobbies are a great place here. I had my friend Megan Mooney on the podcast, too, who is an artist and we talked about trying to make time for creativity in your life as a stay at home mom. So we talked about a lot of this stuff there. I just have a couple of tips that I think might be helpful today beyond that, number one is to think about what you can do in the schedule that you already have. This has been a huge shift for me, as a mom, because before kids, I always had bucket lists and goals and things I want to be doing learning but they looked very different. So for example, like before married kids, or maybe just this pretty much the same thing for me, because we had our first I was pregnant within a month. So like before marriage and kids, I my list of things that I wanted to do or achieve in that year looked like doing some kind of Spartan Race or some like bucket list thing, run a marathon, traveled to wherever they were different ideals or goals or whatever, that would take time and money and time, especially away from the home and things like that. Now what I’ve tried to do, and I found a lot of joy in is come up with things that I want to do want to achieve want to grow and want to learn about that actually benefit my family. And that I can do within the framework that I’m already working with. So for example, things on my list, you know, in past years have been learned to roast a whole chicken because I didn’t know how to do that. And like cool that will, that might not sound like creativity or hobbies or anything to you. But you know, that was where I was at a couple years ago, maybe two years ago that was on my list, because I’m already making dinner for people every single day, most days and making other meals as well. So working with within the parameters that are already set for me something I’ve already quote unquote have to do or if I reframe it get to do, and seeing how I can be creative in that. I know cooking is not everybody’s jam, but if it is, there’s ways you can delve deeper into it. So say I started there with the whole chicken now I’ve been trying to get more into fermented foods, making them more you know, for us at home beyond sourdough looking at making sauerkraut, things like that. Something else is trying to get good at different kinds of cuisines. Like maybe you get an Italian cookbook from the library or you pick one up, and you just try to really get good at making sauce, you know, one month or one year or whatever, like that’s your thing, you already are making food if you’re the person in the house that makes the meals Okay, so that’s a great place to be creative to make it kind of a fun hobby, where it does take like a little bit more time because maybe instead of just shooting from the hip and making a recipe you’ve already made a million times you’re expanding but it will bless your family and it’s going to help you in the meantime to you know keep those skills sharp too. I think learning new skills always teaches us something cooking in a way preparing food in a way that we are not familiar with, like this is there’s so much to learn. And we’re never going to learn it all before we die and that’s really fun. So I think we just leave a lot on the table when we just slip through the you know routine old things that we do all the time don’t have to put a lot of thought into it. No wonder it becomes drudgery and monotonous you know we can find joy and add joy in the things that we’re already doing. So that is super fun to me. Tip number two is to hone on. Nope hone in on one thing. Beyond those three basics I talked about so like I said the basics I consider self care would be that praying and utilizing the sacraments moving your body eating healthily. Now. If you are like me and you have a few you just could come up with a million things that you want to try. You’re like well I want to learn an instrument and I want to learn a language and I want to get good at pottery and I want to do this and I want to build a shed in the back no no whatever you want to do. You go to Power Tools and then it’s like well I’m never gonna be able to do all this because I’m you know I have such a busy schedule. No matter stage of life. You probably have a busy schedule, you know, little kid time is really busy. older kid time is very busy with driving kids around and whatever. And I’m sure grandparent life could be just as busy. So all the stages, you know, come with their own schedules that which makes it difficult to fit things into. So I would hone in on just one thing at a time. So I’m really guilty of trying to do a million things at once, and I feel frustrated in them like, well, I want to knit a blanket. And I also want to make sourdough bagels for the first time. And I also want to get better at hand lettering. Well, I don’t, you know, there is also like taking this too far, and just being very self centered and wanting eight hours a day for yourself to work on Hobbies, I believe that is called retirement, like you’re allowed to do that certain stages of life. And this stage, for most of us listening is not the stage of that. Nor am I saying that that’s a good thing ever, actually, to spend eight hours on yourself, but you get the idea. So pick one thing. Now, I also think like our brains need to adapt to new things. So if you’re especially talking about incorporate something new, like learning a language or learning a new method of some kind of craft or hobby, I would just focus on that for a while and get the basics down. And then like, switch to something else once it gets comfortable. Now, if you already have a lot of hobbies, say, you came into marriage and kids and whatever with all these hobbies, but you never get to do any of them. And it’s not working right under schedule, then my tip for you is just to rotate them right to go. What works really well for me is to be more seasonal with things. Like I do focus more on knitting in baking in the fall in winter months. And then I focus more on gardening and hiking those kinds of things in the summer months, because just makes sense to me, obviously, we’re not in the winter, I might I do pick up some gardening books and try to learn some more things. But I’m actually out there physically planting seeds and harvesting things when it’s that time. And I don’t I barely knit at all in the summer. So at time of recording this, we just found out the gender of our baby a couple of weeks ago, and I always need a baby blanket. So I’m starting that but I’m like, Oh man, I It’s a slow start, because I’ve sat down like twice at night to knit for 20 minutes. And that’s obviously not going to constitute a blanket. But I’m trying not to panic about it. Because like, you know what, you know, as we get into September, October, November, I’m going to be doing that a lot more. It’s also my little thing to do while watching football. So it’ll happen but rotate your hobbies in. And if it helps to keep it see. Hmm, excuse me to keep it seasonal. or hobbies if you’re like, Okay, Brittany, I get it. I will rotate it. I will do it seasonally. But what the heck am I doing this? I can’t get up any earlier, I should probably shouldn’t stay up any later. All that stuff. So for me, the most practical way that I can fit any of these things is on Sundays. So that was a big switch for our family. I talked about this on the podcast a couple times. But I think one of my podcast episodes last year was like the biggest change in our lives for 2022 or something like that was delving into keeping Sundays more a day of rest up to then I had us Sundays before to grocery shop, or to get some work done. And I could like kind of be like, well, you know, healthy Catholic moms is a hobby as well, and I’m something I’m passionate about. So it’s fine if I record some podcasts because it’s it is hard. It’s a sacrifice to give up that as a work day when it’s a day that I have my husband available. Because it’s like, well, he could you know, we’ll have the kids and I could do that. And everybody’s different. And I know, you know, I’m very thankful for people that have to work Sundays like health care workers, and emergency responders and all that. So I’m aware that that can’t always be the case. However, for most of us, if we can
organize our lives, it took us a while. But to be able to organize your lives where Sunday can be more restful, like I don’t do laundry on Sundays, unless, again, there’s always caveats. Someone wants the bed or something. I’m going to be doing laundry on Sundays. But we’ve tried to front load the work and really open up our Sundays to be for mass for family time for hobbies and leisure. So it’s now I look forward to it so much like on Tuesday or Thursday. I’m like, Yes, like, Sunday’s come in. And I can sit down with this new thing that I’ve been wanting to try or do or I can get out the guitar and try to learn this song that I’ve been wanting to learn. And my husband and I do that we try to model it for our kids. And it’s, you know, sounds easier said than done. Sometimes when we have a newborn and it’s like, well, you don’t actually just have a couple hours to yourself or to tell all of your kids like go do go do a hobby because mom and dad are doing their hobbies. But we’ve still through the stages found ways to work it in and trade it on and off with a baby that needed attention to make sure each one Got some time on Sundays to rest, recharge, do some recreation. And it’s made a really big difference. These kind of life giving hobbies, whatever you’re into, is what you partaking in them is what helps fill your cup. And it gives your kid something to imitate to, you know, I don’t want them to think and I don’t think any of us would want our kids to think like you become parents, and then you’re just done, you stop growing, you stop learning, I think it’s really good, really healthy for them to see us reading, to see us partaking in things that delight us like our hobbies, to be able to bring them into it, I mean, how much more that opens up their worlds as well. If you have the skills to share with them, you know, if you are able to teach your kids how to build a tree house, or whatever, because you’ve honed that skill, or you’re learning alongside them, and that is part of the recreation and leisure activities you do. So these are not things that I think should be shoved to the back as extras like oh, if we get to it, because there’s such a rat race, we have control of more than we think we do. I for a while was not reading at all because I was stuck in this, like, I have no time to read, I’m too tired. I looked at my schedule, honestly, there were tons of times that I could have read instead of picking up my phone. That’s a really practical one, too, if that’s you right now, and you’re thinking like, uh, yeah, I don’t know what I’d read. There’s, I typically don’t eat lunch with my kids, because it’s, and this changes all the time. But usually by the time I get their lunch on the table and ready, it takes them all five minutes to eat it. So I usually don’t have mine set yet or even out of the fridge if it’s just leftovers. So then once they’re done with lunch, I give them free play time. And that’s when Mom I call it my union break. And I sit there and I read for 20 minutes, ideally, and I eat my lunch. And what I used to do before was scroll my phone. And that, again is not life giving, not restorative. So, you know, find ways to work that in. But I encourage you to take a peek at that schedule. And if nothing else, maybe carve out like a half hour or an hour on Sundays, to try to do some of these things that you’ve been wanting to do, or an old hobby that you’ve, you know, laid down to the side that you’d love to get back to. And last note I want to say on that is you do have to work for it. Because one thing I love to do is go for walks. And that’s very hard to fit in our schedule. A lot of the time all summer long, it was Tebow all Saturday, or different times on Saturdays. And sometimes we just had a really beautiful full summer. But I’d look at our Saturday and be like if I don’t go from six to 7am or six to 630 or 630 to seven or whatever. I’m not gonna be able to get in a walk today. So what that meant was, I had to get up, if I wanted to do a walk, I needed to do that at six or 630 or whatever. So it definitely takes sacrificing sometimes to be able to do it. But the payoff, I think is way beyond you know, just the other day. I did that this weekend and I my husband’s laughing at me on the way to church. I was just like super energetic. And he’s like, man, your Jawad Aviv is real today. And I had gotten up and I had gotten my walk in all this stuff. And I was thinking about it that morning thinking, you know, I either could have gotten up to my alarm going off at six, and bent a little bit tired, but then gotten this awesome walk in and been really revved up to start the day outside in nature in the sunshine, or my alarm would have went off at 630, just half hour later, I still would have been tired, but I would have stayed that way and then went through my day. So it’s a little perspective shift. It’s choosing which hard you want. And I hope that inspires you to make room for the good, the good, the true, the beautiful because there’s more to life than just cranking out dishes and you know, the mundane things, and even those mundane things, we can make more fun and maybe you get really good at folding a fitted sheet. You know, like The options are endless people. Believe me, so are the YouTube videos so you can look there for inspiration too. All right. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Come join us in the challenge if that is up your alley at this current time and I will talk to all of you next time where we’re talking about healthy fall prep. It’s the very last one stacking your freezer and pantry. All right. I’ll talk to you then.

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