Homeschool Mom Self Care | Tips For Staying Healthy as a Busy Homeschool Mom

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Wild Hawk Way. I'm Jessica. And today's video is going to be all about staying healthy as a busy homeschool mom. You guys, we're going to be here a while. I have notes. I have something to drink. So go make yourself a mug of tea and let's sit down and chat. Okay. First, let's just go ahead and get the biggest one out of the way and talk about my top tips for staying healthy as a busy homeschool mom. So the top tips that I have are number one, baby steps. You guys, like every single time I have ever tried to take better care of myself, I would like do all the things, fail miserably at all of them, and then just revert back to what I was doing before. Baby steps are seriously your best friend. Like if you want to go down a healthy journey, you want to take better care of you, you need to do it in baby steps. And those baby steps are literally like, if you're drinking no water right now, shoot for eight ounces a day. If you're taking a thousand steps a day, shoot for 1500. Like don't make these ridiculous, crazy, unrealistic goals that you can't meet because then you're just setting yourself up for failure, set yourself up for success and take little tiny steps that you can hit on a regular basis. And then go a little higher next time. Like those little baby steps are going to make huge changes. If you just keep at it, like I promise huge changes, baby steps, your best friend. Okay. My second like top tip is you need some kind of accountability and you need to make goals. So I'm going to go ahead and this is realistic. It is four 50 in the afternoon. So you're about to see like how bad this really is. This is my home screen on my phone. This is a habit tracker app that allows me to have a widget. I have done two of my six goals so far at five o'clock, but one of them is drink 80 ounces of water and I'm at like 74. So I'm going to get that, but you need some sort of accountability for everybody. It's not an app. Um, actually I have a lot of different accountability because I keep an app. I have a coach who checks in with me weekly. And also I have a group of friends that we are in a group chat together. Um, and we send each other like weekly monthly updates. We talk about things we're struggling with. We keep each other on track. If somebody hasn't checked in in a few weeks, like, Hey, what's going on? You're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. So you need some sort of accountability because it is going to make you accountable if you have somebody to answer to, but you need to know what you're going to be accountable for. So you have to set goals. And I'm going to refer you back to number one because your goals need to be realistic. I typically drink a gallon of water a day. We're going to talk about that in nutrition in a minute, but my goal is not 128 ounces of water. It's 80 ounces of water because that is my bare minimum. So that is my goal every day. So find your bare minimum. Like I said, you're walking a thousand steps, shoot for 1500. You're drinking no water shoot for eight ounces, and then you just can slowly keep moving it up. But you need baby steps and you need to make goals and you need somebody to hold you accountable to those goals. Okay. Tip number three is going to be kind of in reference to meals. I guess also your water and your workouts. You have to schedule it. Like I am not even kidding. Schedule it. Like it is a meeting schedule it. Like it's the dentist appointment. I don't care who you are. I mean, I don't know. Maybe you do. Maybe some people do like going to the dentist. I don't, I do not like going to the dentist, but if you like going to the dentist, that's great, but you're not going to miss the appointment, even though you don't want to go, right? Like even if you wake up and you're like, man, I really wish I didn't have to go to the dentist. You're still going to go because it's an appointment that you scheduled. So the same thing needs to happen with your meals and your workouts. You need to just schedule them. And then even if you don't want to go, you still have to go like you just need to do it. Even if you don't want to eat whatever it was, you said you were going to eat that maybe fit into your day or was the healthy version or was the best choice for you. You just need to eat it. Like I have timers on my phone. Our dot announces it. Like I eat three meals and two snacks a day. And sometimes most of the time actually dessert. Um, and then I eat it every day. Like, even if I'm not necessarily hungry, I still eat it because if I don't, I'm going to get hangry later and regret having missed that meal. Um, so just do it, like schedule it, put it on a calendar, put it in your planner, write it in between math and language arts, go eat lunch, whatever you need to do, but schedule it and then follow through with it. Like you would a meeting or an appointment. Okay. Now that we have the tips out of the way, let's actually talk about the nitty gritty stuff. We are going to start with sleep because I think that is probably the one thing that I've struggled with the most on this journey of all of the things. Um, I really do try to get anywhere between six and eight hours of sleep at night. I would prefer over seven. That's what you saw on my checklist is seven plus hours of sleep. And that is typically the one thing that is not checked off. I struggle with sleep because I am a night owl, but I'm trying to get up earlier, but I'm still having a hard time going to sleep at a certain hour because I'm used to being able to stay up. And it's just this whole big thing, but I know how important it is. I know how much better I feel when I get the sleep that I need. So I really do try to make an effort. I mean, obviously I know we're all in different seasons of life and if you have a newborn, that's like impossible, but prioritizing your sleep is probably one of the biggest ways that you can take care of yourself as a busy homeschool mom. Um, because if you're tired, you're cranky and you're, um, at your wit's end and like nothing is going right. So sleep, like even if that means you have to take a nap in the middle of the day when the little ones are taking a nap, do it, but prioritize your sleep at least six hours. But mine, my goal is seven to nine at night. All right. Nutrition. So my current nutrition goal is around 1800 calories a day. Um, and I prioritize protein mainly because I personally find eating carbs and fats natural. It's what I gravitate towards. Um, it's the things that I will easily put enough of on my plate at all times. I struggle the most with protein. So that is like the one thing that I pay the closest attention to. So if you looked at my goals closely, you would have seen eat around 1800 calories a day because I'm still currently eating in a deficit. Um, and I try to get at least 140 grams of protein. Now, technically I track in my fitness pal. And so it does track my carbs and fats as well. And I do have a full macro split that I do try to hit, but on a daily basis, I'm really only paying attention to my calories and my protein because I know the others are pretty much going to get where they need to be. Um, one day I might be higher in carbs and the next day I might be higher in fats. It evens out in the long run. Protein is the thing I struggle with the most, but I have also found it is by far the most important, at least for me and my body. It keeps me fuller for longer. Um, it keeps me from getting hangry. It keeps me from being as, I don't know, rabid, feral, mean. Um, it just, the, the more I eat a protein, like if I eat a protein rich meal versus something that doesn't have protein, it completely changes how I feel in general, how my body functions. Um, and like even how I can focus. So it really does make a huge difference, at least for me nutritionally. Um, I already said this, but I'll say it again. I also tried to get 80 ounces of water a day minimum. I shoot for a gallon, but 80 ounces minimum on a daily basis. Um, and then I have tried to incorporate as much fruits and veggies as possible. I don't always get fruit and veggies at every meal, but I try to have at least one fruit or veggie with every meal or snack. So, um, breakfast is typically fruit lunches, either, or dinner is almost always vegetable. And because we were talking about nutrition, um, I will go ahead and just like randomly run you through what a day of eating looks like for me. I'm going to just pick a random day here and my fitness pal. Um, okay. So breakfast is pretty much always, always yogurt with fruit because I don't eat eggs at all. And almost everything that's high protein is egg based. Um, I also don't, I like smoothies, but I don't love only having a smoothie for breakfast because I really like to eat my food, not drink it. Um, and I don't feel like it gets me as full. Like if I drink a smoothie, if I'm on the go and I have to do it, I'll do it. But if I drink one, I still find I'm hungry an hour later because something mentally about physically eating it versus drinking it makes a huge difference for me. So breakfast was yogurt with a Dave's bagel and strawberries. So it was a plain yogurt with strawberries in it. Um, sometimes instead of a bagel, I'll do an English muffin. Sometimes I'll do granola. It depends on my mood, but that is about breakfast like every day. Um, my first snack of the day was grapes and a low fat string cheese for lunch. I had what I call an adult lunchable, um, which is literally just Boar's head chicken meat. Yes, it has to be Boar's head. I'm bougie about my lunch meat. Um, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, and some Boar's head tzatziki dip. I happened to shop that day, obviously, cause I went to Publix. Um, snack number two was a bag of pretzels and an apple granny Smith. It has to be a granny Smith, at least for me. Um, dinner was taco salad. This is a Tuesday. We have taco salad every single Tuesday. I would probably eat it three times a week. If Kevin and Emily would let me, it is hands down my favorite protein rich meal. I would eat it for lunch and dinner every day. Probably. Um, I use the quest chips so that the base of my salad is quest chips that is higher protein already. And then I do lettuce and beef, um, corn Pico de gallo, which is homemade Pico de gallo. Um, so that it's not spicy. Cause I don't like it spicy. And then I use yogurt instead of sour cream. So that makes it even more high protein. Uh, and then for dessert, I had a bar bell cookie and cream protein bar. If you have not tried them, you should try them. They're amazing. It literally tastes like a candy bar. It's 200 calories and 20 grams of protein. Um, I buy them by cases from GNC. They're my favorite protein bar. I love them, but they are covered in chocolate. So if you live in a warm climate like me, you need to get them from the store. Cause I had them shipped and they melt like totally melt. So that is an example of what one day it looks like. So you saw fruit, fruit, let's see fruit with breakfast, fruit for lunch, veggie for lunch. I'm sorry. Fruit for snack, veggie for lunch, fruit for snack, veggie with dinner. So I try to have at least a fruit or veggie with every snack and meal. And I do the same thing with protein. I make sure I try to make sure there's protein in the majority of what I'm eating. Um, I think that pretty much covers nutrition. So let's go ahead and talk about what I like to call moving your body or working out. I aim for three to four strength training workouts a week. Personally. Um, when I first started this journey, I was just moving my body period. So walking counted anything counted. Um, now that I've been doing this for a year and a half, I aim for three to four strength training workouts a week. I love a push pull split. So it is typically a push pull legs, like push upper body, pull upper body leg day. Um, if I do three times a week, if I do four times a week, it's a push upper body, a quad and glute lower body, a pull upper body, and then a hamstring and glute lower body. Um, I don't design my workouts because that makes my brain hurt trying to figure out which muscles are pull on what you're pushing, what's your hamstring and glutes, because I think everything legs is legs. So I have Kristen who is a fitness coach. She's been my fitness coach since April of 2022. Um, I just tell her what I want for that eight weeks. Cause she designs workouts and eight weeks splits. So I will say, Hey, we're coming up on a busier eight weeks. Can you just give me a three day workout? Or I'll say, Hey, I think, you know, things are slowing down a little. Can you give me a four? Um, or sometimes she'll give me a four and I will still do a three because I'll take the two leg days and combine them and pick my favorite exercises of the two days to do, which she gives me permission to do. Um, and then I do one to two cardio sessions a week. And when I say cardio, I just mean like, I'm not trying to hit a certain zone or heart rate, or I'm just doing something that is heart health, something somewhat intense. I don't do super high intense. I have a bad knee. I have plantar fasciitis. Some of those like high intensity interval training things I can't do. It makes me want to die. So, um, I do one to two sessions of what I consider cardio, which is just me working to the point of having a difficult time breathing. Um, and I typically will walk rebound. I will swim like we, our pool is a 20 foot round pool. And if it's super hot, like the summer and the idea of being outside made me want to melt. I will swim like circular laps around it. It works. I mean, it's, it gets my heart rate up. It, it feels like a workout. It works and you do whatever you have to do. Um, my new favorite thing is wrecking. I tried running and my knee just did not like it. It didn't want to do it at all. It had a really, really hard time. I didn't recover well. And so I was like, well, you can walk, you can rebound. Maybe you'll just jog or something. You'll find something else. And then I heard about wrecking and I love it because it's literally walking, like just plain walking, except you put weight on your back. So all of you moms who are toting babies and toddlers on your back, you are wrecking. And that is a workout like straight up because you just put weight plates on your back in a backpack. Um, I started out with like, I think 15 pounds and I just did it here at the house, like inside the house. Cause it was summer. I would literally walk circles around the dining room table, wearing the backpack, like the table I'm sitting at right now, um, for 15 and 20 minutes at a time to try to build up the strength, like in my shoulders to be able to hold it in my back and my legs. And recently my like longest PR was a two mile walk with 25 pounds in the pack. Um, well that includes the pack itself. So a 25 pound pack on my back and it felt amazing and I loved it. Um, it is definitely my new favorite. I will tell you right now though, I am a firm believer and there are so many different options for cardio. You shouldn't do something you don't love. And that's why I don't run anymore because it was causing me pain and I didn't love it. Now we still do our five Ks, um, monthly as a family and I will do run, walk intervals for those. Um, and I don't mind it. I have got my time down, which has been amazing, but what I love doing is going for walks, rebounding and wrecking at least right now. And so that's what I do one to two times a week for cardio because it's what I love. And there are so many options out there. Like just keep trying. You will eventually find something that you love to do. Like maybe it's just jumping jacks in your living room. Like there is something. Um, I do still occasionally do grow with Joe videos, especially over the summer when it was hot. Like I said, I was swimming laps or doing grow with Joe dance videos. Um, she has a ton of free videos here on YouTube. So I will link a playlist right here so that you can watch those. Um, but that is kind of it for moving my body. I do have a step goal for the day. Um, it's right now at 7,500. That should be more than that. Like really it should be. But over the summer, I think it was like May and June between vacations and summer and the heat, my steps like started averaging about 5,000. Um, and so I am slowly building myself back up my goal. I would like my bare minimum goal to be closer to 8,500. So 8,500 a day. But when my steps went down to 5,000, on average, I just started adding a 500 a month. So basically I did 5,500 for a month. And then I did 6,000 for a month. And basically now I'm at 7,500 again, back to that top number one tip, baby steps. Like I knew better than to try to say, you're only doing 5,000 steps. You need to be doing 10,000. Um, some days I get 10,000 in, but that's not realistic for me to do on a daily basis right now. So 7,500 is my goal. Some of those steps come from the cardio, from string training, from everything. Um, I also get really, really creative. And when I'm working, actually, I think it's right here behind me. I have a cube timer and I will set the cube timer to 30 minutes. And when it goes off after 30 minutes, I set it to five minutes and I walk circles around the table for five minutes. Um, also when I read aloud to Emily, if the print is large enough, I can pace while I read aloud now, um, and get some steps and it doesn't like make me sick or anything. If it's a really, really small font, like tiny font, that makes me a little woozy. So I can't read that in pace. Um, so I pick and choose which books I'm going to pace to for that. But that is pretty much it for moving my body. Um, and then let's talk about mental health. So the first thing I did for my mental health that like really keeps me probably the most sane and healthy is setting boundaries. And I don't even just mean like actual boundaries, but like blocks of time being able to say, okay, this is our homeschool time. And like, I'm not going to bring my phone to it, or I'm not going to answer work emails and messages and comments because I will like get sucked down a rabbit trail or Emily loses my attention. And that's not fair to her. Um, it's also not fair to work because it's not getting my full attention. So like, I'm going to set a boundary of this is how long I can have on social media for enjoyment. This is when we're going to homeschool and only homeschool. This is the hours I'm going to work and only work setting boundaries with people, like just boundaries in general, which I'm going to tell you my top book suggestion for that, because then my next mental health thing is reading nonfiction. So we're just going to go ahead and combine these two. One of my favorite nonfiction books has been the book of boundaries by Melissa urban. That's amazing. There's a chapter in here on like boundaries with everything, like literally everything, dating, work and life balance. Um, when drama is your mama relationships, love, marriage, sex and dishes. There's like a college section, um, gifts to future you clearing the table. Like there's, um, abuse as far as like alcohol and drug abuse, there's boundaries for that. Like there's a chapter in here for everybody as well as one of my favorite nonfiction reads so far. And then that brings me to my next thing, because I talked about boundaries and then reading for mental health. Um, my goal this year was to read three books a month. And then about halfway through the year, I decided I wanted to make a goal to read one nonfiction, not homeschool related book a month, because I will easily read every nonfiction book about homeschooling there is. Um, because I love it, right? Like it's my job, it's what I do, but it is not my entire identity, which is something I also have to remind myself on a frequent basis. So I started trying to read one nonfiction kind of self-help, not homeschool related book a month. And I have three because three have been like, they have really, really spoken to me. And so I want to share my top three picks with you. The first one being the book of boundaries that I just showed you guys. The second one being take back your time by Christie, right? My word for 2023 was balance. Um, and I literally needed an audio book and for a dentist appointment. And so I went on Hoopla and I just was like, what's available now for an audio book. And this was one of the ones that was available and it's the guilt-free guide to balance. And I thought, okay, I get it. This is, I get it. God, this is what you want me to read. So I listened to it on audio. I loved it so much. I bought it and hardback and read it again because I wanted to be able to like highlight and Mark and do all of the things to remind me all the things I loved about this book so much. Um, and then the third one, which might actually even be, I don't know my favorite, they all three have been amazing was atomic habits by James clear. Same thing. I actually listened to this one on audio. Um, not knowing how I was going to feel about it because I had read this book two or three years ago and didn't like it. I think because I wasn't ready for the, uh, message that it had for me. Um, and I didn't like it. I got it from the library, read it, didn't like it. I thought I would just try it on audible. I'll get it for free. See if I like it because the library didn't have it at the time, loved it, bought it in hardback, read it again, and then marked all through it, all of the things that stood out to me. Um, and so those three have been my favorite. I am actually also currently reading, um, on my Kindle, the miracle morning by how Eldrod. And I really, really liked that one too. So far I'm about three quarters of the way through. I have a feeling it's probably going to end up in my top five for the year. Um, so I will keep you guys updated. And then the last thing that I do or the last two things that I do kind of for my mental health is, um, mindfulness and journaling and gratitude. But that all goes together and I'll explain why. So in the evenings, um, I actually had already worked through the breathe mama, breathe one, and then went back and got, don't forget to breathe. And at this point I have worked through both of these. And so I'm back working through this one again. They're just five minutes mindfulness moments for busy moms or busy women. In this case, there are no more than three pages, but what I love about them as they're just like simple, sweet kind of like stories from a woman or a mom who gets it, who understands what your day has been like. And it's just trying to remind you to like, slow down, be mindful, take some breaths, you know, do all of these things. And so these two, I really, really enjoy. I do them pretty much every evening, um, almost every evening. Sometimes I'm too tired and I fall asleep. And then the other thing is I really love journaling with Emily. We do it in our homeschool, but I liked the idea of a journal for myself because I kept hearing and all these books I was reading that like journaling is like free therapy. And I totally believe that, but the idea of staring at an entire blank page, which is crazy, but it was, it was just daunting to me. Like looking at this entire page that I needed to fill up, like my life's not that interesting. What am I going to write about? It was super daunting. And I also really wanted to practice, um, gratitude. So what I did is I got a five-year journal and this just has space for maybe two or three sentences and there's it's blank, but it's for five years. So 2022, 2023, 2024, 25, or if you started next year, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, so on. And so I use this as my journal. Um, and I write at least one thing I'm grateful for every day because it's simple. It was something I could commit to. Like I can be grateful for one thing every day. Um, and I wanted to practice gratefulness and gratitude anyway. And so it seemed like kind of the perfect meet in the middle. Now, sometimes I might be grateful for more than one thing. Sometimes I fill the whole area. Sometimes I'm like, I'm grateful for this. And that's one sentence and it's one line. But that was my goal was to just write one thing I was grateful for, because when you are practicing gratitude, um, you can't be depressed or stressed or like any of those things that we tend to be in our society. And I will say that all of those things, especially the meditation and the mindfulness and the journaling and gratitude have really, really helped, um, my homeschool mom burnout. Like I have not burnt out hardly at all. Like I used to do. And then obviously taking time when I need it. So I will still do learning lunches with Emily. I still take that 20 to 30 minutes to myself when I need it. Um, I will go to bed early. I will wake up late if I need the extra sleep or the extra quiet time or whatever, like we are busy homeschool moms. We are surrounded by kids and people 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So I have no problem being like, here's the tablet, here's the TV remote, watch something because I need 20 minutes of peace and quiet, um, or to do a little laundry or put on the dishes. And so I would still say that learning lunches are probably one of the top things, um, that saved my sanity and make me a healthier, um, happier homeschool mom, because I can do those things. I said, I can run a load of dishes. I can do a little laundry. I can eat chocolate alone in my bedroom without being bothered, which I still totally do some days. Um, I can call a friend. I can write something I'm grateful for in my journal so that when I come back to homeschool, my mood is better. Um, I can read a chapter of my book, whatever I need to do, I can do it in that 15 to 20 minutes that she's eating lunch and doing something that doesn't require input from me. I will link a blog post in the description that kind of goes along with this video, um, linking all of the things that I talked about. I will link some of my favorite workout equipment, some of my favorite books, um, some of my favorite high protein snacks, some of the meal ideas I discussed. So if you want to hear, read or know any more about some of the things that I have done to stay healthy as a busy homeschool mom and prioritize myself in the last couple of years, I will leave that link for you, um, to check out. But before I go, I would absolutely love it. If you would take a minute to leave a comment for me, what are your top tips and tricks for staying healthy as a busy homeschool mom? And how do you find time to prioritize yourself?