How to Stay Healthy as a Busy Working Mom

 

To say we are busy moms these days is an understatement. Between the demand to make the Pinterest perfect lunches for our kids, make sure our house is decorated like Joanna Gaines, squeezing in time for those squats and eating healthy, and oh ya that pesky thing called a job, it’s amazing we manage to sleep.

While most of us don’t sleep much and run on coffee and sticky kisses, there are ways to help find balance. Because if we are honest with ourselves, we know that balance and finding time for ourselves is not only a much needed essential but makes us better mommies and business women.

I too have my plate full. Well, overflowing is more like it. I work full time as a project manager for a commercial construction company by day and run the books/marketing/business development for our family custom home building company by night. Oh, and make as much time as possible for the two tiny humans that call me mom and rule my world. Blogging is a new passion that is thrown in the mix as well in order to express myself, share my knowledge (or whatever mom stuff I manage to actually get right) and a way to better my family’s life.

If you’re looking for a healthy mom blog article sharing great tips for staying healthy for busy moms, this is it! You’ll love these tips for how to be healthier busy mom in this post.

Here are the tips and tricks I use to make our world go round and attempt to keep the chaos at bay while staying healthy.

#1. Get a day planner.

I don’t care what planner you get, or how detailed it is. Just get one. I use a Living Well Planner and love it for many of its features. It helps you focus in on your goals for the year, month, and week. With areas to reflect on your progress and life, it makes it easy to realize just how far you have come. Or just how much you actually got done!! I know for me I often think, oh my where did this week go? Then I look at my planner and realize all that I actually accomplished.

This planner and my desire to design a life that sets my soul on fire led me to create this post about goal setting to design your life. 

This is a great spot to write down and commit to the healthy goals you have. Write down a SMART Goal for our health and keep track of it in your planner. Create action plans that you can keep yourself accountable too. Record progress and success along with the appointments and to-dos. Then you can look back and see the milestones you hit easily.

A lot of people use apps to organize their day and if that’s what you need, then do it. Being able to have one spot with your appointments, your kids’ appointments, to-do tasks, lists, meetings, and everything that keeps your life running in one spot will make everything easier.  Failing to plan is planning to fail, that’s a popular saying for a reason.

It also has a budget section and expense tracker for those who are looking to be more mindful about their budget and money. Other planners have workout trackers and specific fitness goal sections. Be sure to pick a planner that works best for you and your needs.

One of my favorite parts of this planner is it comes with a meal planning section for every day of the week. Right at the bottom, you can write in the meals for the week ahead of time. Which leads me to my next tip.

 

 

#2. Meal Planning/Prepping

Personally, I feel this is the number one thing you can do to help your week go smooth and to ensure you are eating healthy meals. Every Friday I sit down and plan the meals for the next week, take stock in what we need from the store and make my lists. This allows for a quick and easy grocery shopping on Saturday morning. Taking the time to sit with your day planner and think through the activities for the week and where everyone in the family will be it makes it easier to have certain meals based around your life.

For instance, maybe your kids have soccer practice on Tuesday, then Tuesday would be a great crockpot day. Maybe you or your spouse will be out late one day, that’s a great day for leftovers. If you have three work lunches this week then it means less prep. YAY!  Meal planning is my cornerstone for eating healthy and I have created an easy to follow 3 step process with free printables to stay organized.

There are different levels of meal prep based on your needs and time for cooking. When my husband was deployed and it was me vs two kids (one being a brand new baby) with a full-time job, my meal prepping was intense. I would prep absolutely everything on the weekends.  I would cook and portion out the kids’ lunches for the week, prep and cook my lunches to grab and go, and cook chicken or meals for dinner on the weekends.

That way when I got home from a long day I could just heat up a healthy meal and we wouldn’t starve or eat junk food! PS: part of my reasoning for this was because I was dairy-free when nursing both kids due to their allergies, so eating out wasn’t really an option because dairy finds a way to sneak into everything!

Now my meal prepping is slightly different. We meal prep for the kids’ lunches at daycare and meals for lunch for hubby and myself. We look at the healthy meals planned for the week and cook any chicken or ground beef that we need. If we have a crock pot recipe (let’s be honest we do every week at least once) we will cut up and prep everything that can be prepped ahead of time for the meal. Extra tip for crock pot meals: take the time the night before to set out anything you can next to the crockpot for an easy dump and run situation in the morning.

Meal planning is a wonderful ultimate healthy habit for busy moms!

 

 

#3. Schedule YOU Time

If you followed through on step one and got a day planner now is the time to schedule you time in it! To some, this can seem like a unicorn. This mythical time that other working moms talk about but you don’t see how it can ever fit into your overly busy schedule. But the truth is they are just scheduling this time and making it a priority. Just like you make time to feed your family and ensure their every need is met, you need to make time to recharge yourself and your health a priority. It’s so important to learn how to make time for yourself as a working mom!

Too often as moms, we take on the weight of the world, or our household, and bury ourselves in everyone else’s needs that we forget we are human and have needs too. The reality for most is that we will need to take the bull by the horns and force that time into our own schedules as it won’t magically appear or be granted to us. Waiting for the family’s needs to lessen to allow for this time will leave you waiting 18 years till those sweet little babies are grown and gone.

But you being drained doesn’t help your family or career. You have heard the saying, you can’t pour from an empty cup. Well, mamas, you are the empty cup. Take the time to refill you by scheduling time for yourself just like you schedule those kids activities and meetings. If you can squeeze in you time daily then do it! If its once a week, or twice a month, then do it! Figure out what works for your schedule and your family and plan the time in your planner.

Organize a skincare day for you by using the products of Probiotic Skincare. You will see how they boost your immune system and make your skin much healthier.

 

Currently, I have two toddlers and two jobs plus blogging. My day planner is a slew of scribbles and arrows and stickers to make things stick out. But at the top of the schedule for the day 5 days a week it says GYM. I workout early before everyone is awake because that works for me and I see that as my me time. If grabbing a coffee and a book is what makes you happy then write it down! Make yourself a coffee date and KEEP it. Don’t brush it off, make it a priority, because you are a PRIORITY. These are lifestyle tips that working moms can follow!

 

Author Bio
Reilly at Aprons & Antlers: I am a working momma of two little under the age of four, my world revolves around them. I am a project manager for a commercial construction company by day and the accountant/marketer/business developer and owner of our families Custom home company by night. I squeeze time in for blogging as much as I can as I have a passion for sharing information and am looking for an avenue to further my families future. My passion for fitness has me up at 3 am 4-5 days a week to get a workout in before the madness of the day begins. It also has me currently spending any spare second I can find researching my diagnosis of hypothyroidism and how that effects my fitness goals. I am a country girl at heart who was raised with a passion for hunting and being in the outdoors and I can not wait until we are able to move away from it all.