Healthy Habits to Start Before the New Year

Snow is on the forecast for the next couple of days and as the white skies descend often so does the insatiable urge to bake and nibble and taste your way through the holiday season. Frothed eggnog in your coffee, warm pumpkin streusel muffins for breakfast, leftover pie from the Thanksgiving feast at school, not to mention limited edition peppermint everything…and really, why do white chocolate pretzels taste so much better when they are shaped like snowflakes? Pretty much anything that is packaged up in red and white with little trees printed on it has me under its spell until January rolls around and I love every last bit of it!

3 Healthy Habits to Start Before Christmas

Now, I am ALL about enjoying the special flavors and baking your holiday favorites, but I’m also for having a strategy of sorts, because I think that if we aren’t careful, it can be so easy to feel a lot of regret come the New Year, so balance is key to soak up the season without overindulging because there can definitely be too much of a good thing when it comes to the holidays!

Here are 5 strategies I use to enjoy the season without regret!

Start Your Day with a Healthy Breakfast

Just like your morning routine can set you up to start your day off on the right foot, breakfast sets the tone for the whole day when it comes to balancing blood sugar. I find that if I start my day off with a slice of pie or a cookie, it amps up my cravings and has me scavenging for snacks all day long. Word of advice–do not eat the pie for breakfast or if you’re going to, choose one day to really savor it with your coffee like the day after Thanksgiving or Christmas. Just don’t make it a week-long, all-day feast or your brain will have a much harder time switching gears when it’s time to reset.

Pack your breakfast with protein and a little health fat. Planning 25-35 grams of protein into each meal paired with 2 Tbs of fat is a great starting point. Kelly Leveque, a wholistic nutritionist who has centered her career around the study of blood sugar balance and nutrition. recommends this combination to create satiety and stabilize your mood, helping you make healthy choices for the rest of the day.

Don’t Wait for the New Year

I threw out the idea of a fresh start on Mondays and New Years a long time ago and I will never go back. While I love a clean slate and a new beginning as much as the next person, I don’t believe in waiting to start living the life you want to live. I believe in a fresh start right now.

What can you do today, tomorrow morning, or this week to set yourself up to both savor the holidays AND feel good in your skin? Maybe it’s to clean up your snacking. Pick one healthy afternoon snack and stick with it all week. I love a really sweet, crunchy apple with string cheese as an afternoon snack. It takes a while to eat and is a great option when you feel munchy but don’t want to dive into a bag of chips…which leads into the next habit!

Set Your Home up for Success

One of the greatest keys to success when it comes to eating well during the week is designing a space that supports your goals. If you want to eat healthy during the week, but love chocolate, then it would probably be helpful to leave chocolate at the grocery store. The items in your pantry and fridge will either support or be a detriment to your goals.

As a mom, I don’t for a second doubt that this is harder than it sounds. I have three boys in the house that love crunchy things–namely chips. They also love muffins and pancakes, bagels and waffles, French toast and taquitos. Oh and they are highly active and hungry all day long. Even though they would love to feast on pumpkin muffins and nachos every time a snack rolls around, I always try to remember that the habits that are good for me are also really important for them. If I should be eating an apple with string cheese or a satsuma with nuts for a snack…they should be too. If I’m trying to get chia and hemp seeds into my day or zucchini and spinach, than those are equally important for them as growing kids!

Emma and I both love chocolate, but I find when I’m grabbing handfuls of chocolate chips and baking treats too often (and I love to bake!!), I don’t feel great. My joints are more sore, my neck tightens up, and I just feel more dependent on that fix. So, in general, I don’t keep chocolate (not even in the form of baking chips!) in the house. I don’t stock up on them when they go on sale, and I pass on the giant 15 lb bag for $7.99. It’s not a bargain if you have to wrestle with resisting it all month long.

Increase Your Water Intake

As busy moms, water is a free, easy way to boost your energy, assist your weight goals, and help your kidneys flush toxins out of your body. It cushions your joints, protects your tissues and organs, improves your digestion, and transports nutrients and oxygen to your cells. If you only start one habit, this is a great starting place.

Every morning when I fill up my kids’ waterbottles for school, I also fill up two large waterbottles for myself, one goes with me everywhere and the other stays in the kitchen where I spend a lot of the day when I’m with my kids or prepping meals. A good rule of thumb is to aim for at least 64 oz, or half your body weight in ounces, per day.

Start a Workout Habit

Ugh. believe me, I know. Sometimes exercise can feel like one more thing to add to your already long to-do list, but the reality is working out is too beneficial to skip. We are living in a time when mental health is a national crisis. Anxiety and depression are soaring and obesity is at an all-time high.

Here are just a few reasons why you and I need to prioritize physical activity.

Exercise:

Regular exercise can actually increase the creation of new neurons in your brain and protect you from neurodegenerative diseases like dementia. (Here is a great article that outlines the benefits of exercise for your brain!)

The best exercise is anything that you enjoy! Playing soccer or basketball with your kids, long walks with a friend, tennis at the park, Zumba, hot yoga, cycling, dancing…it all counts. You don’t need a gym membership or a fancy machine to move your body.

There are so many free and affordable options for toning and strengthening your muscles. I’ll share my favorites in a future post.

Today, my challenge for you is to think about what kind of exercise you actually enjoy and schedule it in a few times this week. Pencil those workouts in like you would an appointment and then honor that commitment to your health and longevity!

If you are looking for a few ways to make these habits easier, check out 5 Tips to Simplify Healthy Eating.

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