#364: Four Tips on Where to Start When the Idea of Diet & Exercise Overwhelms You

Hey there beautiful people. Welcome to The Healthy Catholic moms podcast. Welcome to today’s episode, I’m so happy you are here with me. Thank you for being here. So I hope you’re having a great December so far a wonderful Advent. Today we are going to talk about where to start couple tips on where to start, when you have no idea where to start, where the idea of diet and exercise overwhelms you. So a lot of you might be listening to this later than when it comes out. I know January tends to be a hot time that we started looking at our health and fitness habits. And maybe you found this podcast and are hitting it, maybe you’ve been with me a long time. And even though this might seem like a more fundamental idea, you know, it’s never a problem to go back to basics. So hopefully you still glean something from this, even if you are one of my more seasoned ladies or working with me or have worked with me before. This episode is really what I would tell you and what I do tell people, if I’m talking with someone, one on one, who just has, you know, really no idea where to start with what is healthy. What is that healthy, we get into a lot of nuanced topics here about like, what kind of protein is best. And you know, what an exercise split should look like push pull legs, etc. Now, for the person who’s like, I’m not really doing much right now. And maybe you’ve even been listening the pike as well, but you haven’t really applied anything yet. You’re like Brittany talks a lot about macros. Bernie talks a lot about string training this that, like, what do I do? And maybe sometimes when we hear so much, we are too paralyzed to actually start enacting anything. And I know I’m guilty of this. Sometimes when I listen to different business podcasts. I just listen, listen, listen, I take in and I don’t take action on sometimes because I can’t Yeah, like I can listen when I’m doing dishes, or doing laundry. But I don’t have time to sit down and like fix my website homepage. So I hear all these tips, and I can’t employ them. And then I’m just taking in more and more information. And I’m not employing and then it just goes nowhere. So if that’s been you, and maybe you’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast, but haven’t really pulled the trigger on anything yet, and you are like well, I get I will like figure out because eventually, or I will do this or I will do that. I just want to give you four places you can start today. And I want you to focus in this order, like there they are in a particular order today for the first two steps are exactly where I want you to start. And you can get so much healthier, just with the first two steps, the next two are a little bit will increase your health even a little bit more. That’s before anything else. So I’m not talking about about macros.

Today, I’m not even talking about protein and water today, you know, all these things are important. And to help you go back through our big plethora, that was redundant to me. But whatever our abundance of resources on these topics both on my website, in this podcast on my Instagram, I’m sharing this stuff all the time on my email list. If you’re on my email list, if you want to be on my email list, you can go sign up on the homepage just by clicking on the opt in or you can email me Brittany at healthy Catholic moms.com. And I’ll add you we have tons and tons of resources and information. But like I said sometimes too much information can paralyze us. So if you are newer to working out or fitness or anything like you’re you’re just interested, you haven’t dipped your toes in yet. Or if you’re a veteran who needs to kind of get back to basics.

Number one is to just focus on cutting out highly processed foods. So you are not worrying about carbs fat protein, you are not worrying about calories, you’re just looking at the foods that you’re eating, and trying to eat as many whole clean foods as possible and cutting out highly processed foods. Processed foods are a whole big scale and I’ve done episodes on this you can go back and listen to but don’t get super caught up in that just think highly processed soy like almond butter is processed because the almonds had been made into a butter, there’s probably a couple of things added even the cleanest one is like almonds and salt or you can make your own even still technically processed because you’re changing the state of the almonds, right? That’s fine that isn’t minimally processed food, highly processed foods or things like chicken nuggets and beyond burgers. And those kinds of foods that are even a lot of like protein bars are highly processed, focused on just by cutting out more highly processed foods, you’re gonna turn to more whole foods because you have to. If you’re used to having like two protein bars today, maybe you need to start hard boiling some eggs as a snack so that you’re getting protein and fat. I know we’re not really talking about that yet. I can’t help myself. Just like what they consist of, but like you have to turn to something else. Maybe we’ll make oatmeal we make eggs, or something like that. So focus just first and foremost on cutting out. Eliminating, avoiding, you know avoiding is a better word sometimes eliminating it’s hard to totally eliminate them. Hi The processed foods, you’re gonna feel better, feel less bloated, you’re gonna stay fuller longer on those whole clean foods. So that’s step one.

Step two is to move every day. That’s it. Those are the two things I want you to do if you’re not sure where to start, nope. But pretty, like, is quinoa better? Should I do macros? Should I do this? Should I do that? How many times should workout? Did it start cutting out highly processed foods and avoiding them? And aim to move every single day? Why actually say every single day? And like some of you hearing that might be that But Bernie, we don’t work out that much. And she’s the greatest group or like, what about rest days did
that just aiming to move is a broad
category. So that might mean that one day you’re doing weights, one day, you’re going for a walk, one day, you’re stretching, and stretching and mobility are fine for a rest day walks or even fine for a rest day. So I’m not telling you to go hard in the paint seven days a week, and I would not do that. But the benefit to moving every day in some capacity is that then it’s in your routine. It’s oftentimes and research supports this, it’s actually easier to do something every day than to do it like three times a week, because when we’re doing it just sometimes we have to think about it like to be fitted in today. My doing it Monday, Monday and Thursday. Like if it’s just part of your everyday routine, it’s like brushing your teeth, like you just somehow do it every day. So it’s still ambiguous, maybe you’re moving for five minutes every day. If you’re not moving at all right now. Maybe we’re moving for 20 minutes every day, okay, you get to pick the how you move, but moving everyday is definitely good for all of us. So that is the second step. Now, if you’ve gotten those down, and you want a tiny bit more, I’m gonna give you two more tips. And you could employ all these at once. They obviously work together.

Tip number three is to start incorporating leafy greens. So this might be easy to do simultaneously with cutting out processed foods, because you’re going to be looking for more healthy foods to do to eat to consume you. So like kale, spinach, romaine, the darker leafy lettuces, Swiss chard, they all are really good for us, they have a lot of nutrients, yes, I could have just made this into like a broad vegetable category. But specifically, leafy greens give you a lot of return on investment. So you might as well just shoot for the best right out of the gate. So if you’re swapping out some chicken sandwiches, you know, that are highly processed, or beyond burgers, maybe we are looking at having a big, beautiful grilled chicken salad on a huge battle lettuce that, you know, knocks out a bunch of servings of that in one shipping. That’s what we do a lot around here, I try to incorporate vegetables with both lunch and dinner. But dinner, I always make sure it’s a hearty, at least double sir, at least double servings of vegetables to make sure we get it in for the day. Because also I know like my husband has the lunch on the go. And breakfast and lunch on the go. So he’s doing a lot of handheld things like wraps. I do make him that. So it’s not like you know, it’s not super highly processed. It’s you know, I use just a tortilla. Sometimes I make the tortillas or the bread or whatever. And then you know high quality meats and the whole thing. But usually it’s only vegetable, I know by the time we get to dinner has been red peppers. Because he has red peppers every single day there’s lunch. So I’m always shooting to have like a big salad or a big vegetable soup or soup that incorporates vegetables at dinner so that I know he’s getting a bunch into so I just kind of do that for all of us. So that would be Tip three, and Tip four.

So if you’re doing these are not in addition, like number three and four are like right in conjunction with one and two. Because number one, if you’re cutting out highly processed foods, you can just start directly swapping and leafy greens. And then Step two was move every day. Now Tip four here goes along with Tip two, which is make at least three of those daily movements, strength training. So I didn’t get that. And I did have to get that in there. Even though we didn’t talk macros or anything I did have to plug strength training. It’s so important. So if you started out and you’re just moving every day, and you’re maybe walking for five minutes a day, or stretching for five minutes a day was your choice before now I want you to make three of those strength training. You can start really basic with this too. You could search like a five minute strength YouTube video, you could just do some basic forms of movement in your living room if you have no equipment like squats, and elevated push ups where your hands are on a bench step or chair and you’re not going all the way down like say to the floor if you’re not ready for that right away. Planks, these kinds of bodyweight movements you could start with but strength training is so beneficial for us and you will start seeing returns on that right away if you’re not strength training. So getting that going in there is an excellent place to start without again we have not gotten nuanced at all today. We have not talked macros we have not talked specific string tuning things. It’s just getting the movement going Going as part of your habit because that’s what when you’re overwhelmed with where to start, sometimes we can dive too much into the research of things like, Okay, well keto says this or while this says this, I know he can make the Keto, because it’s still what I hear a lot from people, but then we just get like stuck in the research phase two, where if we just start with the habits themselves, I think that’s really helpful. Because even once you decide what the quote unquote, the best nutrition plan for you is, or the best workout plan is, you still have to figure out how to start doing it. I think action is the best step. So take and apply these broad areas, put them into action, put this in your planner, put this in your phone, your first two things, hear me in you know, pop up on your shoulder here, before you eat something like that highly processed, like do you have a better option? When you go to plan your meals for the week? And then moving every day? And then you worry about Yes. Okay, well, what movement is best? How do I finesse this, that’s, you know, progressing down the journey, but start with the action, start with the movement, start applying the habit, and we’ll take it from there. And I’m here to help you so this podcast is a great resource like I said, and lots of other places to come follow me on Instagram, I share a lot there. And obviously we have a lot of programs and things like that that might be a good fit for you as you continue on. But this is a great place to start. Alright, I hope that was helpful for you.

Next episode we’re gonna chat about it’s gonna be a quick little down and dirty episode I call them or just give you some things and next episode that’s gonna look like giving you a snack list a grab and go snack list for this busy holiday season. So these will be things like you can stash in your bag, in your purse, in your car in your home that are minimal prep that you could just get right to business with okay, because it’s a busy time and snacks are great to keep our blood sugar high when we are not high, but even not high. Even when we’re out Christmas shopping or running errands or whatever going to Christmas concerts and things it’s nice to just have things around. I know I like to try to make lots of homemade things like muffins and energy balls and whatever but sometimes that just gotta we’ve got to rely a little bit more on store bought things in the busier season. So that is next episode. I will talk to you then hope you have a great rest of your day. Bye

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