Sometimes doing less, not more is the key to nailing your health amidst a busy life. That’s why I’m eager to share these 5 easy health hacks for busy moms.
But first, don’t you hate it when people without kids tell you that you JUST need to do this or that to get healthy? And for some reason it always starts with JUST. Like if you could JUST go to the gym every day, eat less leftover mac n cheese, and meal prep weekly then you’d have it all figured out.
Well duh. Unfortunately, each of those things takes TIME and even more so when you have kids running around underfoot.
Only another parent could understand how hard it truly is to add one more thing to your plate when you’re already busy, overwhelmed and keeping tiny humans alive. That’s why I want to share these health hacks with you today.
Why Busy Parents can Benefit from Health Hacks
When I feel good, I can better show up as a mom and business-woman. That’s why over the past year I’ve become a ninja when it comes to fine tuning my health hacks. My goal is always to feel really freaking good in my body while doing ALL the other things, so it’s imperative that I not make my routines, habits, or expectations too complicated.
In our podcast interview, Samantha Siffring and I talked all about building realistic habits that stack to make real change in our podcast interview this week.
I especially loved this perspective:
My 5 Favorite Health Hacks for Busy Moms
But enough about that! You’re here for the hacks. So here are the 5 health hacks I’ve adopted to nourish my health and still leave time for all the other important stuff. I encourage you to take these and test them for yourself, use what works, leave what doesn’t, and come up with your own hacks over time.
1. Fast for at least 12 hours
Honestly, I was skeptical of this one at first. I HATE all these health trends that tell you doing just this one thing is going to make a huge difference in your life. Have you ever noticed that all of those things often bring with them a ton of work and spending and complication?
Not so with fasting. My favorite part about it is that it is all about doing less.
Most practically, I don’t have to worry about feeding myself breakfast until after my kids are at school and napping. Also, eating less meals throughout the day means less thinking about what I’m going to eat less.
Here’s an important distinction; the benefits of fasting don’t actually come from eating less. Rather, they come from eating within a smaller window. Said another way, the benefits come from giving your digestive system more down time, not less nutrients.
The Benefits of Fasting
What are the benefits you ask? Over the past 3+ months of testing this, here are some that I’ve seen:
- More stable blood sugar and sustained energy
- Increased mental clarity
- Improved ability to be comfortable with being hungry
- Less digestive upset
- Better sleep (when I give myself a longer fasting window before bed)
Here are some of the other benefits that research has shown:
- Body recomposition
- Anti-aging
- Increased energy
- More cognitive ability
- “May improve immunity, lower diabetes risk, and improve heart health “ Dr. Axe
Also, this interesting article explores the insulin impact of intermittent fasting (IF) along with the importance of fasting and circadian rhythm. Of note:
Between meals, as long as we don’t snack, our insulin levels will go down and our fat cells can then release their stored sugar, to be used as energy. We lose weight if we let our insulin levels go down. The entire idea of IF is to allow the insulin levels to go down far enough and for long enough that we burn off our fat.
And this:
We have evolved to be in sync with the day/night cycle, i.e., a circadian rhythm. Our metabolism has adapted to daytime food, nighttime sleep. Nighttime eating is well associated with a higher risk of obesity, as well as diabetes….Just changing the timing of meals, by eating earlier in the day and extending the overnight fast, significantly benefited metabolism even in people who didn’t lose a single pound.
How I Practice Intermittent Fasting as a Busy Mom
So how do you do it? Here’s the best part, it takes no extra work. Here’s what I do:
- Aim to stop eating by about 7 pm (sometimes it’s earlier sometimes later)
- Wait 12 hours before I eat my next meal
I do have coffee (black) when I wake up. Calorie free items do not break your fast.
Why don’t I do more than 12 hours? You may have noticed in the article above and in much of the other fasting literature that a shorter feeding window (closer to about 16 hours fasting and 8 hours eating) is ideal.
Ultimately, the best fasting / feeding balance is what feels good for your body. I’ve been pretty compelled by some of the research that women don’t respond as well to fasting as men due to they’re higher sensitivity to starvation signals. You can read more about that (and what to do about it) here and here.
I also found that longer fasting periods resulted in me eating less. I know that to most of us that sounds like a good thing, but truly food is fuel and if you aren’t able to eat large caloric quantities during your feeding periods then you could end up with opposite results: your body holding on to fat, lower energy, crankiness.
My favorite line from Stefani’s article: “The practical solution, then, I believe, is to look at options, to be honest about priorities, and to listen to one’s body with awareness and love.”
Example day of Intermittent Fasting
Here’s what a day of fasting looks like for me:
- Wake up at 6:30
- 7 am: have a cup of coffee
- 10:30: eat a piece of sourdough with avocado and runny egg (with more coffee because #momlife)
- 12:30: eat a beet and goat cheese salad with some quinoa added in
- 3:30: snack on fruit and cheese
- 5:45: have egg roll in a bowl for dinner
- 7:00: enjoy a couple chocolate caramels with sea salt and a glass of wine
- 8:00 pm: start fast (don’t eat again until at least 8:00 am)
One thing to note. I often feel like logic appeals to me more than lots of data. Meaning lots of studies are interesting, but I’m always trying to consider “does this make sense from a human perspective?”.
In this vein, this is what was most compelling to me: never before in human history has it been so easy to eat nonstop. Our ancestors would’ve had to overcome getting the food they were going to eat, starting a fire in the dark, and then cooking just the right amount of food in order to eat in the post-dinner/pre-breakfast time frame. Given this, no wonder we are so evolutionarily setup to benefit from an overnight (or perhaps even longer) fast.
2. Take a cold shower
I know. This sounds terrible, right? I agree and this isn’t something I do every day, but I have been trying to take a cold shower at least 3 times per week.
Why you might ask? Good question.
Fitness pro, Ben Greenfield, is all about cold thermogenisis which he says can help with:
- fat loss
- strengthening of your immune system
- Reducing inflammation,
- Increasing stress resilience (hi moms!)
- improvement in sexual performance and fertility
- lowering blood sugar
- Reducing food cravings
- improving deep sleep quality
Amongst others.
But no need to drop 100s of dollars and hire a baby sitter so that you can go to the nearest cryogenic chamber. A cold shower is an easy accessible and FAST way to get the benefits of cold thermogenesis.
Side note: it also makes your shower WAY faster so you have time for other things.
Here’s what you need to do to get the benefits at home:
- Get into the coldest shower you can stand (ideally with your water on it’s coldest setting)
- Let it spray all over your body (including your cracks and crevices)
- Then get out
Here’s a tutorial on how to do it from the aforementioned Ben. I know that the “how” seems obvious but I really did think that this explanation was helpful.
Note that he recommends at least a 2 minute cold shower or a 5 min hot-cold shower.
3. Shampoo with baking soda and vinegar (and wash your hair less often)
If you are still washing your hair everyday then I’d consider starting with just trying to wash it less. I know, this doesn’t necessarily seem like a health hack, but for me it’s been related to health for two reasons:
- The less time I spend washing and styling my hair the more time I have for other health supportive habits
- The less I wash my hair the less I expose my skin to chemicals
Since I think that 1 is pretty self-explanatory, let’s hone in on reason #2. Did you know that the FDA only restricts 11 chemicals in personal care products vs. 1300 that are banned in Europe? Go here for some more information on some of the chemicals lurking in your shampoo.
We did a really interesting podcast interview on cleaner beauty care with Stephanie Cahill, a mom and oncology nurse. You can listen to it here.
Inspired by that, I set off in search of better shampoos which brought me to the concept of co-wash or conditioner washing. I found a natural option (Alaffia) and liked that for a while, but I still found that my hair stayed pretty greasy, especially in one particular spot on the back of my head.
Down the rabbit hole I went again and found out about the No Poo method. I’d heard of it before and was kind of grossed out by the idea of not washing your hair, but the reality is that it’s less about not washing and more about what you do (or don’t in this case) use.
What I’ve settled on now is baking soda + vinegar wash 2-3 times per week plus a touch of conditioner combed through the bottom.
Interested in hearing more? I’m preparing a whole post on it next week.
My hair has never been smoother or softer and I love that I can DO LESS, get better results, and expose myself to less chemicals at the same time (hence the health part of the equation)
4. Prep lunch once for the whole week
Meal prep is a hot topic these days and I am here for it, but the reality is that the picture-perfect Insta worthy meal preps you’re seeing take anywhere from 2-6 hours in the hands of EXPERIENCED cooks.
I must admit that before I had my second kid I thought that a 2+ hour meal prep was feasible and worth it. Then little guy came along and I realized that it’s a lot to ask for one parent to take two young kids. And frankly, if my husband was taking them to do something, spending time cooking and cleaning isn’t what I was going to do.
That’s why I’ve reduced my weekly prep to less than 1 hour. This allows me to get the essentials done, often with the kids running circles around me, so that we have basics ready to make weeknight dinners faster and easier.
But in this case you can have a smaller prep and experience the benefits including:
- Less decision making about food
- More healthy options readily available
- Spending less time and money on food than you would eating out or scrambling last minute
- It’s harder to opt out of cooking dinner if you already have ingredients and components prepped that are going to go bad if you skip it
Here’s the key: pick ONE thing you’re going to make for lunch that week and pack it up. In my meal plans and for myself, I usually pick a soup or salad and then individually package it into 4 containers.
Why 4? Most prepped food only lasts 3-4 days in the fridge, plus I know that one day is bound to not go as planned and I’d rather food not go to waste.
Here’s what it looks like:
Here are some great lunch meal prep recipes:
5. Move more exercise less
Say what? This isn’t one that I’ve nailed YET. After all, for me exercise is a part of my sanity-saving routine, thanks in large part to belonging to a gym with childcare.
But for those of us parents who are having trouble fitting in one more thing and exercise is one of those things, I think that this can be a breath of fresh air.
The good news is that there’s plenty of data that shows that moving more naturally as part of your day is more in line with naturally long lived peoples. And that the benefits are actually even greater.
From Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones:
The world’s longest-lived people don’t pump iron, run marathons or join gyms. Instead, they live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving without thinking about it. They grow gardens and don’t have mechanical conveniences for house and yard work.
And I love this post on healthy movement and listening to your body.
What could this look like? Here are some things that I’ve been trying:
- Air squats while making the kids breakfast
- Lunges on my way to the bathroom (only while I’m at home)
- Taking a break every hour to do a couple pushups or situps
- Intentionally deciding to do some jumping with my kids when we all need a break
- Lifting my kids up in the air for 30 reps (fun for me and for them)
And here are some more ideas from Nutritious Life.
Conclusion: Health Hacks for Busy Moms
In conclusion, getting healthy isn’t always about doing more. I hope sharing these health hacks has shown you that some simple changes to your routine can result in big benefits to your overall health.
Want to see what a ‘real life” minimal meal prep looks like? I have a free copy of one of my weekly meal plans here that you can grab today.
Want even more ideas for health hacks? There are a few cool ones here:
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