3 healthy & sustainable eating habits (busy mom approved!)

Mom, there’s this BIG misconception about living a healthy lifestyle, that I myself used to have, and I know a lot of other people have fallen prey to…

that you just have to learn to control yourself - Eat less. Want less. Give in less. Control yourself.

Healthy lifestyles SUCK right? But you gotta do what you gotta do… so control yourself!

*face slap*

Listen, I get why we all think this...you feel like you need to be part nutritionist, part doctor, part scientist with those labels. All with the rock-solid discipline of a well-paid supermodel who of COURSE can eat healthy cuz she’s got her own chef at home and that hefty paycheck to motivate her to say no to the cookies!

I get it - but it doesn’t have to feel this way.

When it comes to eating healthy and living your life in a way that’s going to bring you the wight, the energy, the physical/mental health that you’re looking for:

• it IS possible for us to eat well longer than a week or two

• it IS possible for us to eat healthy without strict dieting or counting your calories all of the time

• it IS possible for us to actually enjoy eating healthy (in my opinion, in large part due to the amazing things that happen when we do!)

With that being said, there IS a bit of upfront learning and habit creation involved to get here.

So today, I want to share 3 major habits that I, as a Health Coach for Moms, have focused my time and energy around, that have given me a lot of bang for my buck. The highest return on my investment, not just to improve my health but also habits that I can actually keep up with.

These things not only contributed to lowering my weight, supporting my inflamed gut and immune system, improving my energy, improving my mental health, and more… but they made the whole experience more manageable for me. More sustainable. Less stressful.

And that is really the key to a healthy lifestyle!

So let’s talk about the healthy eating habits that I personally have focused my time and energy around, that helped me feel more disciplined and in control of my choices, and led to a lot of my symptoms clearing up, my waistline decreasing, and just feeling so much better and healthier overall.

1) I didn’t try to reinvent the wheel

Psychologist and behavior change expert, Dr. James Prochaska, says:

"When we are required to make too many decisions, we can feel overwhelmed and overly stressed and distressed. And we know what can happen when stress takes over."

As a busy mom, I already have a million micro decisions to make each week, as I’m sure you do too. And honestly, I’m not a huge fan of being in the kitchen or cooking, either! So for me, it’s about getting in and out, but making sure the time i do spend in there is worth it.

So I put in some upfront work to choose a handful of easy-to-make meals that taste good to me and that I know are healthy and nutrient-dense... and I repeat.

A healthy lifestyle can often look pretty boring from the outside! Your meal roster doesn’t have to impress anyone, be featured in a cook-book, or shared on the ‘gram. Mine certainly is not. Super basic, like does my plate have protein and fruit or veggies. Huge recipes with massive ingredients don’t personally work for me, it overwhelms me.

So choosing a handful of meals that I know are healthy, that I and my family like, and are fairly simple and quick, and repeating frequently, saves me precious time and brain power. My breakfast and lunch, I pretty much repeat daily - for breakfast it’s eggs or greek yogurt, for lunch it’s salad with chicken or eggs.

Then when I do happen to have some downtime or the mental space, I do peruse Pinterest or go back to those ideas I saved on instagram. I find a new idea that meets the healthy/easy/tasty criteria, and throw it in there the following week. And with more and more time, my sort of master list - and my confidence - grows.

2) I really honed in on feeling satiated and well after eating.

What do I mean by that? Well, I know how much food plays a role in not just our long-term health, but how we feel each day. Dr. Mark Hyman said,

“Decades of research have proven that our dietary choices have an immense impact on our health. There is no more powerful lever you can pull to change your biology in real-time. And I’m not talking about something that takes decades or even weeks. Literally days or minutes, you are changing your biology with every single bite of food.”

In early motherhood, my physical & mental health took a nose dive. I experienced things I really never struggled with before - constant fatigue, depression, difficulty losing weight (and also unexplained weight gain), brain fog, chronic sinus infections, acne (which I didn’t even have as a teenager!), bloating, and more. It was confusing and frustrating.

The more I learned about how our food affects our health, the more I made it it a priority of mine to pay attention to how I was feeling after I ate. I wanted to see if I could connect those dots.

So what was I looking for? Well, after a meal, did I feel:

• full and disgusting

• a bloating stomach

• my heart beating fast

• a mid-morning or mid-day slump where I needed a nap

• a headache

• foggy

• anxious

• like that meal didn’t satisfy me? It was kind of holding me over, but I still needed something.

• hungry soon after

• hangry a few hours later

• nonstop urges to reach for snacks, or something sugary

These are all signs that something’s not right. Because when our bodies are being properly nourished and fueled, we feel well!

And so I started to aim for that goldilocks “just right” - eating my meal and feeling comfortable, and satisfied, and fueled, and well, now and in the hours after.

One huge part of how I accomplish this is by prioritizing quality protein - especially at my breakfast. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient that helps us feel satisfied. And the more satisfied we feel, the less we’re craving. And the less we crave, the less we have to deploy all this willpower to stop ourselves from giving into our cravings!

We start to naturally crowd out those foods that are ultimately causing our symptoms, causing our loss of control, and causing our weight gain. And that’s all those starchy, sugary, and highly processed foods and drinks.

Ultimately, Mom, this one takes a bit of experimentation. You don’t just like automatically figure out what food does what to you when, all on day one, and just change all your ways (by the way, this is a great time to seek some extra support from a health coach!)

It does take some time. But in my opinion, it’s incredibly worth your time to do it! It’s really great to start a food journal to keep track, or just jot notes down in your phone throughout the day. Or you can even invest in a continuous glucose monitor, which I’ve done myself and will likely discuss in the future as it really taught me so much about how my body reacts to certain foods.

At the end of the day, all of our bodies are different, so what works for me may not be exact for you. It’s about making the effort to really pay attention - thinking less about how to restrict and force ourselves, and more about how can we feel better and better, each time we eat.

3) I optimized my environment

How many of us buy treats at the store “just to have around” or for the kids or for our spouse… and then struggle to control ourselves when we come across it in the pantry or on the counter… and then beat ourselves up for not being able to control ourselves??

I did this all of the time with chips, Thin Mints (I could eat a whole sleeve in one sitting!), these little mini Kit Kats that I kept in the fridge as an “after dinner snack” but I’d eat like 10 of them.

Here’s the reality - your environment is constantly shaping your behavior. And James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, has an entire chapter dedicated to this. He says,

“Environment design is powerful...it allows you to take back control and become the architect of your life. So be the designer of your world, and not merely a consumer of it.”

I stopped buying all of these things that I was eating purely for pleasure, or when I was bored. I stopped buying those things that I was pretending were “for the kids” but really I was the one reaching for them!

And here’s the thing - when they weren’t in the house, I didn’t necessarily even miss them!

At the end of the day, this isn’t a competition to see who can be the most disciplined in the face of pressure or temptation - let’s just set ourselves up for success.

As Clear also said, “If you want behaviors that are stable and predictable, you need an environment that is stable and predictable.”

Don’t want to eat it? Don’t make a place for it in your home.

Here for you, Mom.

If you’re in a place where you could really use more personalized support, I encourage you to check out my Healthy Mom Kickstarter 3-month coaching program. I offer free consultation calls to see if it’s the right fit!