Latest / A Heart That Beats for Home / 12. Streamline Your Life Series/ Week 4: Health and Beauty - 3 Tips to Simplify

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12. Streamline Your Life Series/ Week 4: Health and Beauty - 3 Tips to Simplify · A Heart That Beats for Home

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey friends, I'm Nikki Smith, your host here at A Heart that Beats for Home, the podcast where we're ditching filters and diving headfirst into the raw beauty of all things home.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Now, I am no expert when it comes to this whole parenting and marriage dance.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm simply a gal who's been riding the mom roller coaster for 22 years and a wife still untangling the mystery of it all 25 years after saying I do.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: My goal is to bring you unapologetically messy and boldly genuine conversations about cultivating strong families.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We're gonna laugh, possibly cry, and straight talk about the joy and chaos that comes within the four walls that we call home.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: No judgment and certainly no perfection, just real talk from my heart, a heart that beats for home.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Let's dive in.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Hello friends, welcome back to our final week in the Streamline your Life series.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So grateful to have you here with us as we wrap this month up, just talking about all the different things where we can streamline in our lives.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: We've already covered streamlining our calendar, just really cleaning that up to make our families run smoothly.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: We've talked about how to streamline our memorabilia our photos, our videos, our DVDs, all those precious memories.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Last week we talked about streamlining your home and just ways to make your home work for you, and this week we're going to be tackling streamlining your health and beauty, and this is one that's important to me as a mom of three and two daughters.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: It is super important to me that this message and the way that we handle this is done well.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to share a little bit of a personal story at the end and how I haven't always done that, but this is one that is just going to be a super straightforward.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I've got three things that we're going to look at that are just practical tips that we can use to streamline our health and beauty.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I am not coming to you as a nutritionist.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I am not coming to you as a fitness expert.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I am just coming to you as a mama who is always looking to improve health and to streamline beauty.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And let's be honest, we live in a day and age where all day, every day, we are inundated with messages about health and beauty, about magic products, magic little gadgets and gizmos that we can use to improve all kinds of things, whether anti-aging or to help our skincare work more effectively, or nutrition things, food things it is constantly in our faces all of the things that we could be consuming to try to get a different result in our health and beauty than we're currently getting, and I just feel really convicted that I'm kind of old school when it comes to this.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Although I'm all about technology and products, I am trying to be very careful not to bring in every new shiny thing that is out there and just really trying to streamline how we tackle health and beauty in our home.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: So the very first tip that we're going to talk about is choosing a brand that you can align with.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: This has been huge for me in just deciding on what products we have in our home.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: It is very easy.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Like I said, there is stuff everywhere coming at us, whether you're scrolling Instagram and they start spamming you with ads for anti-aging, if it's Facebook and it's all these different diets or this app or this intermittent fasting app.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: There's so much stuff coming at us all the time and it doesn't mean that any of that stuff is particularly bad.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: It's just that it is always coming at us and I can find myself clicking on links and going to research and getting even as far as putting things in my shopping cart and thinking what are you doing?
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: This is totally a gimmicky sales ad to try to get you to click this button and purchase this product, only for it to go into your cabinet and never be used.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: And so, about almost two decades ago, I was able to find a brand that I really, really loved, as I was getting more knowledgeable in ingredient policies.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: This was even before the internet was so readily available for us to do so much research and just kind of the level of expectation for companies to be transparent about what they're putting in their products.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: How that's evolved over those last two decades.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for that.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I'm grateful that we really do have the power to choose the products that come into our home, but I think one just awesome way that we can streamline specifically the beauty side of this is that when you find a company that you can really align with, you know that you can just shop from that company.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: You don't have to research every product.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: You already know what the ingredient policy is, you already know the things that they do and don't use and you can really just shop with ease from that company.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: So I was able to find a company that does both a lot of our nutrition and our beauty products.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: They do products that my children use for acne products.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: They do all of my skincare for anti-aging, they do my husband's skincare for his needs, and then also the nutrition stuff, and what I love about it is when I'm shopping on this website.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I know the things that I've already researched and I feel comfortable with.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I know that it's a B Corp.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I know that it's third party verified.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I know that they have a super strict ingredient policy.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I know that there's absolutely no artificial dyes.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: There's absolutely no fragrance, as I get more and more sensitive to fragrances.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: That is so important to me.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about when I'm trying a new product or when I'm adding something to my cart is this going to fit the things that are important to us?
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I don't want it to have artificial sugars.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I don't want it to have a ton of extra stuff.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I don't want the energy drinks and the sports nutrition that my kids are having to have all these other added ingredients that we just don't want.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: And so a super, super easy way to streamline your beauty and your nutrition is find a company or two or three that you just feel really confident with, whether it's cleaning supplies for your home, or it's your cosmetics and your skincare, your proteins, your energy drinks, whatever it is just find companies that you align with, and so that burden of is this a good product?
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Is it a bad product?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Are there harmful things in here?
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Is not even something that you have to worry about.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: You do your research once or twice for those companies that you really love and you just align yourself with those brands.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: The other thing, I think, when bringing a lot of products into our home, specifically in this beauty realm and again a lot in health too, there's a lot of different things for us to grab on different supplements, all the shiny things that are coming at us.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: But ask yourself first of all, is this product even realistic for me?
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I know that I have so many times been like this is the product that's going to help with the specific thing that I want changes on.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And then I get it and I'm like this is so not realistic.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: They want me to do this twice a day.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: It takes 30 minutes all these different things and I'm like I will never even use this.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: So, as you're bringing things in, ask yourself is this even realistic for me?
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: And my schedule?
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Number two, will I use a multi-step process, like know yourself?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Obviously, there's always times where we say, okay, this isn't traditionally what I've done.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I used to just wash my face in the shower with shampoo Embarrassing to say that that was my face wash when I was a super young mom, when I had these kiddos.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: And then when I found a brand that I really loved and that I saw results with, then I was like, oh, I actually am willing to have a couple more steps than the shampoo on my face in the shower.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: And so asking yourself, what will I commit to do?
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: What products will I actually use?
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Will I do a one, two, three, four, five step system?
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I have found for me three to four steps is kind of like the golden egg for me.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: A lot more than that.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I'll kind of skip and choose.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: I just need simplicity.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: And so asking yourself questions when you're buying these beauty products is will I use this?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Will I commit to it?
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: The other thing is am I getting obsessed with specialty products?
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Is my cabinet just full of masks and treatments and rollers and all of these crazy things that I have talked myself into buying?
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Am I going to use them?
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Or, in all honesty, sometimes I'll look at a product that's a specialty product and, although it seems like a great idea.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I have to ask myself will I really use this?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Or am I better to just schedule a professional service to have something like that done once a quarter?
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It's not gonna end up costing you a whole lot more money, you're not gonna end up throwing a ton of product away.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: And so really just asking yourself some of these questions about what is realistic, what am I willing to do, and am I buying things just because the marketing is really good and it's appealing to me, or am I really going to use these the way that they need to be used in order to get results?
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I think we all today could go into our bathrooms, under our bathroom sinks, all these places where we end up with these cosmetic and skincare graveyards.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: We have so many products and it's products that over the years, we've purchased.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a wrong color, maybe we didn't love the way it felt on our skin.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: It felt too heavy, it was too light, it was too oily, it made my skin too dry and I don't know why we never just walk it to the garbage can and throw it away.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sure some of it is a mental process of we just spent this money on this product, which is another thing that I think it's important when choosing the brand that you're aligning yourself with.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: What is the return policy on that thing right For me with cosmetics and skincare?
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I want to know that, even if I've opened it, the seal is broken.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I've used it for a couple of days, or even a couple of weeks or a month, and I am not getting good results.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: It is not matching.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I want to know that I can return that.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: That's part of the company that I have been able to align myself with for products offers.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I never have to worry, if my kids order a makeup thing and it's not the right color, that it just goes into the cosmetic graveyard.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: We're going to be able to exchange that until we know that we have the right thing.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: But we all have these cosmetic graveyards of just stuff sitting under our cabinets, and so I want to challenge you today, tomorrow, whenever, go there, pull everything out.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Number one if it's expired, it has to go.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I have before been doing this and been like oh my goodness, these products expired four or five years ago.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: There is no way that you should be putting expired products specifically on your face Like get rid of them as hard as it is, even if they're full, throw out expired.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: That is the first easy thing that you can do to clear out space.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: The next thing that you can do is just clean things out that you don't use gradually but with intention.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: When you're in your cosmetic bag, if you literally rifle through everything to find the four or five products that you use every day and the other five, six, seven products literally you never use, Is there an eyeshadow in there that you've had in there for four years that you have never once opened but you just keep it there because it still has a lot in it?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: You guys start cleaning out the things that you don't use gradually, but do it with intention and don't replace it with something else.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: General rule of thumb for me is if I haven't used it in a month, maybe two months, it's time for it to go.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I need to get rid of it.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I need to give it to a niece.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I need to give it to a daughter.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I need to throw it away.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: If it's a newer product, I need to donate it to a women's shelter or some kind of place that can use it and benefit from it.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I don't need to keep it in my cabinet and I'm at this stage I know we've talked about this in other areas of streamlining your life, but I am buying less, but much higher quality.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I am willing to spend money on a handful of products that offer great results, that I know are safe, that I just I really enjoy, and get rid of all the other stuff.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: That's the cheap stuff that we tend to accumulate.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Those are the impulse buys.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Where it's a good deal, it's on sale, it was half off if I buy it within 20 minutes on the app.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: We accumulate those things and I am just done with that.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I am buying less, but in much higher quality, because less truly is more when we open our bathroom cabinets and we know what's in there.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So tip number one align yourself with a brand that you trust and then just be realistic in the products that you're using and get rid of all of the excess.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: The second thing that I think really helps in streamlining your health and beauty, specifically with your nutrition and your health goals, is I feel like I have spent the majority of my life talking about all the things that I need to get rid of.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I need to drop this habit.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I need to eliminate this food group.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I need to restrict this.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: It's just constantly all of the things that you need to take out and eliminate and that can start to feel daunting.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: And, although those are all very true things that we need to look at, we absolutely need to be constantly aware of things that are not serving our body, things that are indeed bad habits that we really need to work towards moving out.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: But I think mentally sometimes it's just harder to get there, and what we can do right now, today is focus on, instead of fixating on, what are all of the things that I need to take out and there tends to be some guilt and overwhelm with that, which is not necessary.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: It's just the reality of how it is.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Instead of focusing on that, how can I focus on?
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: What small things can I add in to my health journey right now that will actually bring value immediately?
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So here's just four things that I think today.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: If you decided I wanna add in some good habits in my nutrition, here's four things that, instead of talking about what do good habits in my nutrition, here's four things that, instead of talking about what do I need to take out, here's four things that you can add in Number one, you can add in more protein.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: We've all seen the research.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: We know that it works.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: We know that it's important specifically for all different stages of life, but for me, getting older and just feeling full and my body being able to do what it needs to do.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Older and just feeling full and my body being able to do what it needs to do adding more protein into my diet.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: So when I start focusing on adding in high protein items to my diet, automatically what I notice when I'm shooting for that hundred grams of protein a day, I automatically notice that I'm snacking way less.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I automatically notice that I have more energy, I'm more alert, I feel more satisfied.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: So by adding something in, I'm, kind of by default, getting rid of some of the old habits, like the snacking and maybe the non-healthy food choice in the middle of the afternoon when I feel like I'm having a crash because my body's not in a good place, because I haven't given it what it needed.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: So, adding in more protein, adding in more water super, super simple.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I know I need to drink less coffee, I know I need to drink less alcohol, I know that sodas and those things shouldn't even be anywhere in my diet and I can focus all my energy on that, or I can just say I am drinking a hundred ounces of water a day and watch what happens to the choices on other beverages.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: You just don't reach for them.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Your body is not dehydrated, it's not craving some of these things, and so adding in drinking more water will automatically help you reduce some of those bad habits without even really having to address the bad habit.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Another one is movement, by setting a movement goal on how you're going to add steps in.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's your Apple Watch and you're just going to do your 10,000 steps a day, or maybe it's accountability.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: With a friend I know a lot of us are doing miles challenges.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I have a girlfriend that's doing one mile a day, no matter what outside, so she's just getting outside, she's moving her body for one mile.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Any one of us can add in one mile a day.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: It's a 15 to 20 minute activity.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: It gets you fresh air, it's so good, it moves your body and again, over time, something that seems like a very small add-in is going to give you compound interest on the dividends that it's paying out.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And then the last thing that I have just added in that has been such a game changer for me is my greens drink, and I will be honest and say I am not a huge raw vegetable person.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I really enjoy cooked vegetables.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: For me to just grab raw broccoli or cauliflower, it's just, it's not my thing.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not even a huge carrot fan.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I will eat all of those things cooked and get a lot of them in at my lunch and my dinner.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: It is very hard for me to snack on raw vegetables.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: What I have found is that this greens drink, which happens to be from the company that I was talking about with all of our found, is that this greens drink, which happens to be from the company that I was talking about, with all of our beauty products that I align with and I'll link all of that in the show notes for you.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: But this greens drink that I drink every day number one it tastes delicious.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I know it's giving me tons and tons of fruits and vegetables from the entire rainbow that I would never get in my diet if I wasn't doing something like this.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I instantly feel better.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: It has a probiotic, a prebiotic and a digestive enzyme in it, so it's helping with my gut health another thing that I'm just adding in.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: It also has collagen for healthy skin and nails.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: So in one little thing that I'm adding in that I actually enjoy, I'm not plugging my nose.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I know some of the greens you have to plug your nose and like chug it down.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I really look forward to, and my body craves, this green drink, and so by just adding in these four things every day the greens, the protein, the water and the movement I am naturally kind of addressing some of the bad habits without having to focus on the bad habits.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Again, these are not excuses not to address the things like I'm eating way too much sugar or any of that kind of stuff.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: We always need to be looking at that and being honest with ourself and taking care of our bodies.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: But by adding in some of these things, it's a super simple way to make change in a positive way and help kind of streamline what you're doing with your health.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: And then the last and final one is meal planning.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I think this is one that's so important for us to talk about when we talk about streamlining, because this one thing the cooking dinner every single night there's so many great memes about this, like why do they expect a full meal every single night?
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: We can definitely get into nighttime, bad decision fatigue when it comes to meals.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: If we are not being intentional about streamlining this part of our life, very often we get to five o'clock at night and we're standing in front of the refrigerator and we're like I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Number one a lot of times that turns into bad decisions like ordering out or throwing together things that might not be the healthiest options, not having fresh fruits and vegetables, all of those things when we haven't really sat down and planned.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: What I have found over the years is that we have tried a lot of different things.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: There was a stage where I would literally write out an exact menu and it would be like this is what we're having Monday night, this is what we're having Tuesday.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: All the way through the week, maybe one or two nights where we would have some leeway with leftovers and I would go grocery shop for that entire thing.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: That worked for a season.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Then we got really busy with sports and kids activities.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I felt like that didn't work as well.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: So I did a lot of meal planning where I'd maybe pick three or four meals.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I do all of the cooking.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: We'd have all of the containers in the cabinet or in the fridge, and that worked for a time.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And then we got to the place that even that because we were out and about so much that we were throwing some of it away and we weren't going through it all or I got really sick of eating the same things over and over so that worked for a season.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: We've done seasons where we have done mail order, where we have, you know again, like with our beauty products, where we have found a company that we can align with, that we feel good with that.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: We can kind of make some specific adjustments to the kind of meals that they're sending us, if there's things that are eating or aren't eating, and those have worked good for a period of time.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: But there's one thing specifically that I feel is working really well for me.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to share it here in a second.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I know for me that when I know by 9am what my family is having for dinner and I've started that process of thawing the meat or putting something in the crock pot or chopping up the vegetables or prepping the ground beef that I need to have, and I have some of those things done I just come into the dinner hours feeling so much better, so much more relaxed.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: There's no anxiety over what am I feeding my family, there's good choices, and there is one thing specifically that I have found that's working, and we're in a weird stage now, too, where we went from always having a family of five eating dinner to now, most nights, it's three it's my husband, myself and my son, and so it always is just kind of evolving.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: But I was able to find something on Instagram.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Her name is Krista Poole.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: You can find her at stayfitmom, underscore Krista, and she has a method of meal prepping.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: That is where I have landed for this stage in my life.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: That is awesome and it is a super easy, very little mess, super fast way to meal prep, and I have found that most of the recipes are relatively healthy and align with what we're eating or the plans that we're on, or are very easy to adapt and kind of make how you want them to be.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: But it is not making up these huge meals and then plating them into containers.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: It is literally a system where, on a baking sheet, you have five different glass bowls and you are assembling everything into the five glass bowls, you're baking them in their individual servings and then you're putting the lids on them and putting them in the fridge.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Right now I'm finding that if I do two to three of these recipes for the week, that puts 10 to 15 good, healthy, balanced, high protein meals in the refrigerator.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: That is working great for us.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: It's allowing my husband and I, who both are home during lunchtime, to grab things.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: My son, who is 14 and growing, sometimes wants a much heartier snack in the middle of the day.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: It's a great thing for him to grab and so just by having these things in there, it's great for the night that we're running out to a sports banquet or a sporting activity and there's a full, balanced protein meal in the fridge.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: So this is a great one.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Again, I'll link it in the notes and again remember that this is about progress over perfection.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be gourmet, it doesn't have to be super fancy.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: It's okay to spend time at one time.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're going to take an afternoon and you're going to just scour the internet to find 10 or 15 recipes that fit within your family's dietary restrictions, that give you the things that you need when you're looking at protein and carbs that you want for your family, and just file and get good at those 15 recipes, even if you rotate them.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: If you rotated those recipes twice in a month, which you're probably never going to eat 30 full meals at home at night, just with schedules and stuff Maybe some of you are.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: But even if you had to rotate those twice a month, how much easier would it be if you just had a binder with 15 to 20 recipes that you just kept going to over and over and over.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: You didn't have to go through all the you know the sites and every nightstand trying to figure out what the heck am I going to do.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: And then also I have found that in my meal planning that there are just some things that I know.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: If I always have these ingredients in excess in my house, if I have an extra bag of chicken breasts in my freezer so I never am without chicken breasts If I always have a couple pounds of ground beef, I like to cook it up, I like to dice the onions, put it in there and freeze it in one to two pound Ziploc baggies so that literally in a moment I can make chili, I can make spaghetti, I can make tacos and all I have to do is thaw that meat.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: It's already got the, the onions and everything in it.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: It's ready to go.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: There are just some things that I have learned are really good for me to have on hand.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Do you have one or two meals that you're like?
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I know I always have the ingredients for these two things that my family really enjoys on a moment's notice that I can pull together.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: It's good just to think ahead and kind of have those ingredients in your home so that at any point you can pull together a meal when you find yourself in a bind.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: But just kind of thinking through it, starting to process, having some kind of a system, looking at all the different options that you have available to your family and then finding something that works for this season.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a season of three or four months when you're in a sporting activity time where your family is just super busy and you say I have to adjust what I'm doing in this season so that we eat a little healthier and there's not that decision fatigue for me every night, or maybe it's.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: We just are really bad at this altogether and we don't really have good, balanced meals and I'm going to commit to finding those 15 or 20 recipes I don't know what it is for you.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Go check out Krista Poole.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I think for a lot of busy people this is a great way to cook.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: It was easy for me to go find those dishes.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I got them all on Amazon.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: The cookie sheet that she puts the bowls on as well as the bowls I'll link those in the show notes as well has just been a really fun way to kind of make some different recipes in those individual servings and they have all been really really delicious recipes in those individual servings and they have all been really really delicious.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, those are the three tips.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: So super simple things to streamline our life choosing a brand that you can align with to get rid of that decision making on every single one of your products, focusing on small things that you can add into your life to bring value, instead of always focusing on the things that we need to be getting rid of.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: And then meal planning to streamline our nutrition and end of day fatigue.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: So very final thoughts before we leave here today.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I want to just chat about the importance of the way that we talk about ourselves.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: So so much when we talk about health and nutrition and beauty.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about very basic things like which products you choose and how to cook good meals for your family and adding in things that are good for you.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: But recently I was working on some show notes for a podcast that is going to be down the road in the future.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: On three things I would do differently as a mom if I had a chance to kind of hit the reset button.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And although there's a lot of things that I've done wrong, there's not many that I say like I really really regret how I did that.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Most things are oh, I would have maybe handled that a little bit differently.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: But one of the things that I can say I really, really regret how I have done this specific part of my life is the way that I talk about myself in front of my children.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I wish that this was not a bad habit that I had.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I wish that this is something that I had a better grasp on when they were younger, even now, when they're older, because it is so important.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And I found a study by I think it's called Lowe's and Tigman and it says a study found that children's perception of their mother's body dissatisfaction was correlated with the child's body dissatisfaction in both girls and boys.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Thus, if a parent engages in personal body image criticism.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Then the child begins as well, because it has become normalized.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And I just want to kind of call attention to this, because this is a parenting podcast and I always feel like anything that I have learned that I wish I could have done differently.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: If I can shorten the cycle or help people be more aware about this when their kids are younger and maybe learn from some of my mistakes, I think it's worth sharing and it's worth talking about.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: And so we are creating in our homes a culture, whether or not we intend to around body image.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: We might never think about the fact that, oh, I'm creating a culture for my kids, about normalizing body image or whatever, but everything you are saying and doing, your kids are watching and listening.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: And so what are you saying about your body?
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Things that I know I have said on the regular is do I look fat?
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Does this make my butt look big?
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't eat that, or I should eat this, or I have to give that up so I fit in the dress, or I don't want to be in a bathing suit, or I'm so stressed out about having to get up in front of that group because I don't feel good about myself or don't take a picture of me I don't have makeup on, or that's a horrible picture of me I look like a whale, like all of these different things that I think we just really can say all of the time without even thinking about it.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: And if I wouldn't number one say it to my children, I shouldn't be saying it to myself.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Say it to my children, I shouldn't be saying it to myself.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: And if I wouldn't be okay with somebody else saying it to my child, I absolutely should not be saying it to myself.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: We are living in a culture where we have put so much obsession on physical appearance that it really is alarming.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: It's alarming the amount of attention that goes to physical appearance, and so I just want to be a mom that, instead of saying things like you know, I can't stand being in bathing suits in the summer I want my kids to hear me say more things like.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I know my body has really changed over the years and it continues to change as I get older, but I am so grateful that I have this body that serves me so well and it's allowing me opportunities to swim and play and be in the pool or in the lake with you guys.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I don't want my kids to always see me trying to cover up or being embarrassed.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Some basic things that I wanna do in my home and be more diligent in is developing a household where there's no negative self-talk allowed, like we just don't do.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: It Doesn't mean that we don't address things, but we don't just have negative self-talk about ourselves.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: We need to learn to rephrase things, to acknowledge where we need to work, but not to be negative about our bodies.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: We need to also be good about not talking about other people's bodies.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: It is so easy for our brains to start analyzing or start making decisions or thoughts around even other people's bodies based on our own insecurities.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Talking about others' bodies should never come out of our mouths.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: That should never be a conversation that's being had.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I want to model a relationship with food and movement that's flexible.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I don't want my kids because, guys, this goes both ways.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: This goes to people who have unhealthy body image because of feeling overweight or too big or I don't fit in my clothes.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Well, the same happens to our kids when we have somebody who is obsessed with nutrition, who literally has such restrictions to their diet that they won't be flexible at all.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: They won't ever just live in the moment, they absolutely are obsessed with the gym and they're there no matter what, no matter the sacrifice, and there's stages of that.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: That's good and that's healthy, but there also are extremes when it comes to health, and I want to be someone who models for my kids flexibility with eating and movement and knowing that one meal doesn't determine my worth, and being perfect in how I eat doesn't make me more valuable than when I'm not being as good.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: And I want to be a super critical consumer of the media and the messages that are coming at my children.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Because number one, it's important for my girls.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I want my girls to know where their value comes from.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I want them to know that they are fearfully and wonderfully made.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I want them to know that they are beautiful, that they are created in Christ's image, that they are enough, all of these things.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: But I also have to be careful, because I have a son and I am also teaching him ideas about what the female body should and shouldn't look like, by the way that I talk about myself, and I'm so grateful that I have a husband that has loved me through thick and thin, that it has never wavered, that he has always been kind and compassionate and loving towards me in front of our children, when I was at my thinnest, when I was at my heaviest, when I was making really good choices, when I was in slumps, where even some stages of depression, where I just didn't take care of myself like I should.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: But we are sending messages to our boys and our girls that will follow them into their own adulthood as beliefs that they have about the human body, and I just want that perception to be one that is healthy, and I know that I've messed it up a lot, but I know that I also have an opportunity to continue to shift that and change it to a healthier voice.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: That is one that I'm okay with my children hearing and one that I then get to model maybe and do a lot better when I have a second go round with grandchildren, because that's the beautiful thing about life is, sometimes we have to model maybe and do a lot better when I have a second go round with grandchildren, because that's the beautiful thing about life is, sometimes we have to learn it and not do it well to be able to do it better for the next generation, and that's really my hope.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: And so, just as we're talking about health and beauty.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I just want to leave us with that challenge to really just ask ourselves is the way that I talk about my body, is the way that I talk about other people's body?
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Is it building up and edifying my children to know that they are fearfully and wonderfully made, that God made them in his image and that when we talk about health and nutrition because I am not at all saying those are not things that we talk about Absolutely but instead of talking about vegetables as because I ate cake last night, I need to only eat vegetables today no, it's saying I'm excited to add more vegetables and fruits into my diet because I always feel so much better.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I can tell my body craves those vitamins.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I can tell my body loves those greens and the fiber and I just feel so much better when I eat healthy foods.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: It was so fun to celebrate the birthday last night, but, man, I'm so ready to add in some really good nutrition for my body as opposed to I should have never had the sugar.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Now I have to fast, or now I have to do this and just really having a healthy idea around beauty and nutrition.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: That's always.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: It's an added layer to a beautiful character, because we all know that the most beautiful person with the ugliest heart is not beautiful at all, and I just really want to focus in my house on the character qualities that are coming from the inside and how that radiates beauty on the outside.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: So just a little something to think on about how we talk about ourselves as we go throughout the day, the week, and the little ones hear us.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: We're coming into summer, we're getting out of the sweatshirts, out of the leggings, putting on shorts and t-shirts, and it's a time where a lot of us mamas can be really, really hard on ourselves.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Make the commitment to love the time you get to spend with your children, regardless of how you feel about yourself, and then start adding things into your life like the water, like the protein, like the greens and the movement, so that you naturally just start to feel better about yourself as you're making good choices.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: All right, friends.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Well, we are going to wrap it up there.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: It has been a blast to work through this Streamline your Life series.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: So many fun tips and tricks to take into all the different areas that we have talked about.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: I know that I have been spring cleaning and it just feels so good to be getting systems and organization into my life, so I hope that some of this has been helpful for you.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I hope that there's been a couple of takeaways this month that you've been able to implement that has helped your family streamline some of your systems.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Excited to be heading into April, we're going to be doing a marriage series.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: There has been a lot of requests for more talk around marriages and building healthy relationships, so excited to be diving into that as we come into April.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Be sure to check the show notes for a lot of the things that we talked about today.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I'll make sure to put lots of links in there for you so you have access to all of those things that we chatted about.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: And, as always, if you're loving this podcast, we so appreciate you sharing it with others.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: We are seeing great growth and it's so fun to watch this community grow.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: So, whether you text or share this on your social media platforms, it means the world to us and we're excited to have so many new people joining us every single week.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: With that, friends, until next week, take care.