Simplify Your Self Care in the New Year

Welcome to the podcast makeover!

For coming up on 3 years and the past 136 episodes, this has been the Strong Mommas Podcast. But as you’ve been listening along, hopefully this show has been so much more to you than about just becoming a strong mom. Yes, it’s that, of course, because our physical strength as women is vital to who we need to be. But it’s so much more than that, right?

My passion is helping you take every aspect of your self care (your fitness, your nutrition, and even your mindset) and simplifying it for you, so that you’re not overwhelmed, so that you feel like you’re actually making some headway with your habits, and so you can finally feel at peace in your body.

So, Welcome to Self Care Simplified!

You have some big dreams right now, and you have some big fears. As you look out over the landscape of 2022...what do you see? / What are you hoping for? / What do you dream of?

Do you hope and dream that:

• Taking care of your body every day becomes effortless and automatic?
• This is the year that you finally reach the goals that you have for your body and you can confidently say that you’re stewarding your body well.
• You finally know what it feels like to be healthy...not just trying to get there, but actually arrive at it?
• Some of your pain and weaknesses disappear so that you can actually experience being comfortable in your body?
• The tone in your home changes...that everyone is on the same page and taking care of their bodies?

I know you want all these things. I know that you dream for these things to happen. But you also have fears. Dreams almost always come with fears.

I have big dreams, too…

• big dreams for my business.
• But I’m afraid that
• Big dreams for my boys
• But I’m afraid that

You’re probably afraid right now that your big dreams probably won’t happen.

• Fear of discomfort, disrupted routine, failure, getting derailed, getting injured, and (this is a big one) getting your hopes up and then being let down.

And I’ll be straight up with you:

If you overcomplicate this, if you make the process harder than it needs to be, all of your fears will probably become a reality.

If you want to experience the hopes and dreams that you have for your body, you HAVE to simplify.

I’m going to teach you how to simplify your eating choices and simplify your exercise and fitness, so that this will be the year that you finally feel accomplished. So that you get to experience what peace and joy in your body actually feels like.

Your Nutrition Simplified

• When I took nutrition and sports nutrition classes in college, I had to do case studies.
• Design a nutrition plan for one of the basketball athletes.
• I went by the numbers...I was proud of it, but it was the craziest thing. There was nothing practical about it. It wasn’t practical for a college student and it definitely wasn’t practical for a mom.
• This was part of the reason that at the time, nutrition just didn’t interest me. It wasn’t natural, it was tedious, involved too many numbers. Just super clinical.
• After college, this experience didn’t really improve. My own eating wasn’t that great.
• Years ago, I downloaded a meal plan from a fellow coach because I was both curious, and to be honest, I didn’t want to think about my own eating.
• Let me explain: this was a meal plan NOT intended for coaches… this was created just for moms that wanted to improve their eating habits.
• It was the most complicated thing I ever saw. I never did a single day of the meal plan.
• Not only was the meal plan complicated, but the framework for healthy eating was complicated, too!
• There has to be a better way!
• (How I discovered that at the core of good eating is PRO's)
• Here’s what I discovered: when I tried to put together a healthy plate of food, either by the numbers or by following a complicated meal plan, they always looked similar
• They had a lot of protein and a lot of produce on the plate. Those two things were always the big highlight of the dish. The protein might be different, the produce might be different. But that was the framework.
• I tested this out, and taught this to my clients and everyone I trained, and this was even confirmed when I went on and got certified as a nutrition coach.
• When you break it down and simplify healthy eating to its most basic elements, it’s all about eating PRO’s.
• If all you did this year was wipe the table clean, get rid of every number, scale, and measurement, and just simply focus on eating PRO’s at every meal, you will be a better, healthier eater. Period.

How do we simplify exercise? Ok, this is where I can geek out.

Your Exercise Simplified

• And admittedly, I used to over-complicate fitness…
• one year for Christmas I created an interval training program for my dad. I think he did one workout ever.
• Years ago, my brother-in-law John, asked for help to get in better shape for golfing. I gave him a full blow program with complicated movements that he didn’t know.
• I struggled for years with giving my clients too much - tricky movements that I was passionate about but took a leap of faith from my clients
• Fortunately, I’ve discovered that it's the simple things that matter the most. And once you get these, the ball starts rolling and you eventually get to the fancier stuff without feeling overwhelmed.
• Try to go for a walk every day
• Show up and do simple functional strength training moves that translate to everyday life
• Sometimes 5-10 minutes is all you need to make a big difference
• The most basic framework still works: push, pull, squat, hinge, plank.
• Push-up, row, squat, bridge, plank
• If you can do more, great!

Simplifying things for you as a mom is so important to me, and I’ll tell you why:

• As a mom, I feel like I drop the ball all the time. Like I’m not good enough at my job.
• I remember chatting with a friend from church when my oldest was 3 years old, and the subject of preschool came up. She asked me which preschools I had applied to. I hadn’t applied for any!
• Story about being a working mom and not being a natural at crafts, activities, and educational experiences. I sometimes feel like a failure...as if that's the right way to be a mom.
• We all feel these pressures and there's no greater area than with our own self care.
• We know we should do it, but we look around at all the other moms that are making it happen...the ones that it comes naturally to them...and feel that heavy pressure that we need to be doing it that way too.
• So we do what they do and flounder. When none of that is necessary to really take care of yourself well.
• Thinking about this coming year and thinking about you, there was a verse that landed on my heart...and I feel like this should be ringing in your ears as you step forward each day and show up for your body:  
• “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28‭-‬30 MSG
• At the heart of simplifying things is the gospel of grace. It doesn’t mean you don’t need to do anything, it just means that your expectations are in an entirely different category. The pressures are gone, all tedium and overwhelm and the things that create burnout are gone.

I know you have big dreams for this year, especially for your body. You really do want to experience something new, something exciting. As long as you keep it simple, just do the little simple things each day, then you’ll have no reason to doubt or be afraid that these dreams won’t become a reality.

And I’m committed to be with you through it all every step of the way. The name of the show has changed, but you can count on me to keep showing up with you each week, bringing you the simple strategies and tactics you need to do this well.

Your action steps now are to go eat your PRO’s at your very next meal and at least go take a walk today. And then go share this show with at least one other mom that you know would love it, too.

More Resources:

• Total Nutrition Reset! Completely reset your eating habits from the ground up and finally get real results that last!

• Take the FREE Body Type Quiz

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