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Live Healthier Vlog
Y’all are blessing my socks off with your responses to the Healthier Wife Challenge. We’ve been taking baby steps to live healthier by cleaning up the eating choices. Also, I’m consolidating VLOG days so that you lovely, fabulous subscribers aren’t bombarded by too many update emails. Today I’m combining days #6, 7, and 8 of the 10-day challenge. If you’ve missed where we’ve been so far, no worries Sistah, here ya go …..
- Healthier WifeLife
- How to Be Healthier: Prep & Purpose
- Eating Healthier Day #1
- Foods to Eat To Lose Weight Day #2
- Eat Healthier & Grocery Shop Quickly Day #3
- Eat Healthy at Restaurants w/Friends Day #4 & 5
Live Healthier Hacks
Before you listen to my VLOG, let’s chat a sec about how we can be more intentional about focusing on us. After taking care of family, working, scooting all over town, and trying not to drown in the laundry and dirty dishes, focusing on how to live healthier is last on our minds. I get it and I’m right there with ya. Here’s the thing, though …..
Yes, we have to put feet to that and do something, but having an intentional mindset changes everything! It’s when we allow our “live healthier” thoughts to get brushed under the rug of “I’m too busy to worry about myself” that our health takes the back burner to everything else in our lives. This ought not be! How can we keep our health on the front burner when life gets crazy?
Prepare right after dinner
As you are cleaning up after dinner, start thinking about what you can do now to lessen the load in the morning. For example, before leaving the kitchen, pack lunches for everyone and thaw out food that will be needed for tomorrow night’s dinner. (You get bonus points for chopping tomorrow’s dinner veggies or making anything ahead of time!).
Get everyone’s clothes together for the next morning. Lay keys and necessities close to the door for whoever needs them. Prepare whatever you can for everyone’s breakfast and snacks for tomorrow. This gives you such a peace of mind before heading to bed that you’re ahead of the game. This allows you to focus on more important topics: you!
Get yo’ rest
Speaking of heading to bed, don’t forget to make your rest a priority. Even you night owls! As a self-proclaimed owl myself, it’s taken me a long time to realize what a tremendous difference it makes in my pursuit to live healthier. So much so that I’ve already shared the hacks of how to be a morning person and how to get some amazing sleep time tonight.
Work in small increments of time
Accomplishing tasks in smaller chunks of time reduces my stress level AND that overwhelmed feeling we all deal with. If I know that I’m going to give it everything I’ve got for fifteen minutes (like a living room disaster or mountain of dirty dishes) it becomes almost a game or competition with myself to see what I can do. Although longer chunks of time, this works for me with meal planning and grocery shopping too (as you’ll hear about in the video below).
Meal planning with a healthier mindset can be SO daunting but I’ve found that only planning for just a few days out makes all the difference in the world. How many days until you plan to do your once-a-week grocery shopping? How many dinners do you need to make between now and then? Only meal plan for those dinners and cook plenty (for everyone’s lunch the next day if possible or another night’s leftovers). Now all you have to do is plan snacks and breakfast for those days as well.
As it becomes a habit, you’ll notice your stress level reduce down to practically nothing and you may even start enjoying it like I do!
Bringing the joy back to homemaking, baby. Woohoo!
—>Shameless plug: If you haven’t read my short book, Guru Hacks to a Happy, Healthy Home, you’re missing out on more hacks like this to reign in the chaos—>
(If you already subscribed but aren’t sure where your ebook email is, shoot me a message!)
Here’s the Grocery Store VLOG that I mentioned in this video if you missed it.
Before Breakfast
Two probiotics and one spark, B Vitamin energy drink.
Breakfast
A was in a hurry and grabbed a Pure Protein bar. I love the Advocare bars but didn’t have any. I’ve found these to have the least sugar.
Mid-morning snack
A little applesauce (no sugar added) and a hard-boiled egg are two of my favorite snacks and what I had for these days
Lunch
Leftovers from dinners past. 😉
Mid-afternoon snack
Raw carrots and a new brand of hummus to try was my snack for these days
Dinner
Sunday when I wasn’t feeling well, I just ate a leftover meal. The next night was the chicken, green beans, and quinoa. Tonight was my red beans, rice, and sausage recipe. Mmm!
Before Bed
It’s time for my herbal cleanse vitamin!
Water
I am really stinking at keeping up with how much water I am drinking but I sure am drinking a lot. I love water now! I will fill up my jug tomorrow and do a better job of gauging my water intake for the last two days of the challenge.
I hope this has been inspiring to help you live healthier – not as a huge effort – but one that becomes a habit and a way of life. We can do this together. Don’t give up!
What is your biggest live healthier struggle right now?
—>Make sure that you are subscribed so that you won’t miss the challenge and all of the WifeLife encouragement (you’ll also automatically receive a short, helpful read about less chaos & more calm). Follow along daily with The How-to Guru Facebook page , Twitter, and/or Instagram. <—
More you might enjoy:
How to start eating healthier Day #1 (Healthy WifeLife Vlog)
DIY Fall Decorations you can do alone or with kids!
Jekyll Island Love Story – what happened next?
Published on HuffPost, Okefenokee Living Magazine, and more, Shan is a Family Travel Journalist with a passion for helping women lose the overwhelm of planning family-friendly trips in the south. She shares travel reviews & insider secrets that Women REALLY want to know about Georgia, Florida, & the Carolinas vacations.
☕️ It’s THE REAL DEAL around here ☕️
I agree water is a big one. When I go out I eat before I leave then eat when I get back. If I know I’m going to be on the go all day its time to back myself some hard boiled eggs, bars and water!
Yes, doing what we can the night before to prepare for the next day is a great thing to do. Glad your challenge is going so well!
This is an amazing post. these days I’m trying to incorporate lots of veggies into my diet and I feel better.
Love these and couldn’t agree more. Especially on the sleep part! Ok and maybe the food part too! 🙂
This is a fantastic post! The previous days’ tips are great, as well. I like the idea of thinking ahead to the next morning as you clean up after dinner, so you can ease the stress of early morning meal prep. That’s a great tip for fellow night owls.
xoxo, erin | sandsunandmessybuns.com
I’m trying so hard to drink more water! I carry a water bottle around everywhere I go in hopes it helps me sip at all times 🙂 Love this post! Great reminders!
Sleep is probably the biggest for me. I try to eat healthy and get a bit of exercise in daily, but I have bouts of insomnia mainly related to stress. If I go a few days without good sleep I tend slack off on eating good and no exercise. Meditation is extremely helpful for me and I find if I meditate at least an hour before bed, I tend to fall asleep much faster.
I love your tips about consolidating tasks. One of my favorites is to cook two dinners at one time, since I’m already cooking in the kitchen. 🙂
Sleep is my biggest problem. I’m a night owl and get my best work completed at night. After my husband leaves for work in the mornings, I have my Bible time and then sleep for about 2 hours, but that is still not enough. I’ve already planned to start going to bed earlier on Sunday night, so hopefully I’ll start it and stick with it. Thanks for sharing with Thankful Thursdays.