The Swaps I Made To Live A Healthier Life
You may have heard that it takes 30 days to break a habit. This idea is built solely around the idea of breaking a habit and making that the main focus of your journey. However, to actually get to that 30 day mark (if that statement is even true) it would take a lot of stress and work to break that habit. In my opinion as a health coach, I believe that is not where your focus should be. I believe it should be on integrating new healthy habits.
One of the most efficient ways to cut out old habits is by replacing them with healthier options. To make it even easier, it’s best to choose habits that are closely related as this helps to fill the void. I’ve used this many times throughout my wellness journey and it is something that I use frequently in my health and wellness coaching program. I am constantly making swaps in my own health and wellness journey because 1. I am not perfect and neither is my journey and 2. unhealthy habits have a funny way of sneaking into your life.
When I became a mom I had less time than ever to sleep and take care of myself. To be the best mom and to be the best to me and to be able give my best to everyone else around me, I had to start leaning into my health and wellness habits. I needed to focus on foods and habits that energized me and in turn releasing the ones that weren’t. Here are a few swaps I made:
Replacing Sugar With Real Fruit
Sugar is sneaky. Even the “healthier” alternatives at the grocery store can often contain a lot of sugar. Even if it is organic sugar, sugar is sugar. It gives you a quick boost of energy and then you experience a crash in energy later only to crave that spike in energy with sugar again- creating the same cycle over and over again. Sugar is as addictive as any drug and the spikes in blood sugar levels are not worth it. For me personally, I needed long lasting energy. Instead of reaching for a bar of chocolate or cookies, I began turning to real whole fruit. I began snacking on things like berries, oranges, dates and bananas. Fruit contains so many incredible vitamins and minerals which are essential to your overall health- things you can’t get from a chocolate bar. By turning towards fruit, I naturally cut out the majority of added sugars in my diet. This swap helped to give me lasting energy, plus the amazing benefits from the vitamins and nutrients.
Replacing Late Night Snacking With Decaf Tea
After putting Gavin down to bed at night, all I wanted to do was put on my cozy jammies, make a huge bowl of stove top popcorn and watch a show. But what I found was that my after dinner snacking habit was interfering with my sleep, my metabolism and my energy the next day. While I was mostly sticking to my healthy eating plan and healthy routines, I wasn’t reaching my postpartum results that I wanted. I knew that the only way to truly reach my goals and get a better sleep and increase my energy levels was by giving my digestion a break after dinner until breakfast time. I began sipping on decaffeinated tea after dinner to replace my snacking habit. This helped to fill in the void of having a treat while watching a show and it also helped to produce calming effects which is great before bed time.
Replaced Wasted Time For Productive Time
I have learned that, especially as a parent, it is so important to be efficient with your time. Instead of using my free time to sit on my phone and scroll social media or watch a show (aka wasted time), I learned that I had to be productive. By being more productive with my time, it enabled me to actually create free time later on. For me this means instead of scrolling social media, I would spend that time listening to a podcast while meal prepping or cleaning, creating the weekly schedule or getting in a workout. By doing this, it allowed me to become a more present parent, become more organized, become healthier, free up time for me time later and more.