3 Reasons your family desperately needs you to take control of your health
When I talk to women on my Healthy Mama Blueprint calls, 99% of the time they desperately want to change their health, but they’re worried about how it will impact their families.
Will they be taking money for themselves when their kids might need it?
Will they spend too much time worrying about themselves when they could have devoted more time to their relationships?
Will they get support from their family or will it be a constant fight?
Will they have to cook two meals, one for them and one the family will actually eat every night?
But in the back of their mind, there’s still that desire to want to feel good in their skin. And it’s constantly nagging at them.
Mama, I know how you feel. I have felt all of those things: the longing, the fear, the overwhelm, the frustration. It’s a lot to carry on one woman’s shoulders!
But what if I told you that your family desperately needs you to take control of your health? What if taking care of your health was to the benefit of your family? Because, it absolutely is!
Families need someone to teach them what healthy looks like
I really wish that in high school (or honestly, earlier!) there was a class that taught us how our bodies worked, why they worked the way they did, how to fuel them and how our metabolism worked.
Instead, nutritional knowledge is passed down from generation to generation. And most of the time it’s passed down by mothers.
That being said, a lot of our mothers and grandmothers weren’t properly educated on nutrition either! And the knowledge they passed down to us isn’t that helpful. That’s why we’re stuck in the diet hamster wheel and we never feel good.
What if you could stop that cycle? What if you could learn how to eat a truly balanced diet? What if you could step out of the binge, restrict cycle you’ve been in all your life and prevent your kids from ever having to go through that?
Would that be worth the time and money to you?
That’s what I’ve been able to do with my kids. I was a two-sport college athlete and the second I stopped playing sports I had no idea how to eat without gaining a ton of weight. It got even worse when I had kids because I stopped trying altogether! I just wanted to survive!
But, after a few years, I realized that I couldn’t show up like I wanted to for my kids and I knew I had to change. So I spent a few years trying to find a diet that would give me the best results.
I tried a lot of really unsustainable things, until I landed on macro tracking. I learned the importance of protein, fat and carbs. I learned how to eat enough to fuel my life and feel good. I learned how to control my weight.
And now I’m passing all of that down to my kids. All three of my kids are athletes and they know how to fuel their bodies. They know to eat carbs so they have the energy to play in their games. They know to eat protein after practice to repair and build muscle. They know to eat fat when they’re starving and nothing seems to satisfy them.
My kids understand nutrition because I taught it to them.
When they graduate from college they won’t have to go through the same things I did. They won’t gain a ton of weight and fall for every diet scam out there. They will know exactly how to be healthy at any stage because I took the time to understand nutrition and pass it down to them.
Knowing that my kids don’t have to deal with yo-yo dieting makes all the time and energy I put into nutrition so worth it.
Families need a leader in healthy eating
Most mamas are in charge of grocery shopping and preparing meals, and while it may sound antiquated, it’s a fantastic opportunity.
If you are the one buying the food and preparing it for your family, then you have the ability and opportunity to uplevel the food your family eats.
When I first started tracking my macros, I started preparing food a little differently. I used a little less oil, I upped the amount of fruits and veggies we were eating. It was just small changes for my family but it had big results.
My husband wasn’t trying to lose weight, but by eating the meals I prepared (like he had always done) he ended up losing 15 pounds!
It’s infuriating that it didn’t take him any extra work to drop 15 pounds, but it’s also a testament to the power mamas hold in their families.
As I changed my habits, my family caught on. Now our family spends time together preparing healthy food. My family is involved in the process every step of the way.
My kids help me plan healthy dinners.
We all work together to prep our meals for the week. The kids help wash and cut fruits and veggies. My husband and I work together to prep meats for the week.
My kids understand portion sizes and can put together their own lunches for the week that will keep them full throughout the school day and they can get snacks that fuel them for after-school sports.
When it comes time to cook dinner each night, I can put it all together without feeling like I’ve had to do it all on my own.
Leading my family in healthy eating started out with me educating myself on what healthy even looked like! Once I understood what it looked like for me I was able to help my family understand what it looked like for them too!
Yes, it took time in the beginning to get everyone on board, but once they realized this was going to be how we lived - and they understood why it was so important to eat healthy, they got on board and it’s just been how our family works.
Families need to understand how to look at healthy living with a positive mindset
Out of all the things that I’ve done to prepare my family for healthy lives, nothing has been more important than mindset work.
Physical health is important. No doubt about it. Nutrition and movement and crucial to a happy, healthy life.
But that’s only 20% of it. The other 80% of healthy living comes from our minds. How we think about ourselves, our food, our bodies.
Mindset work, learning how to view myself as a work in progress, giving myself grace to make mistakes, learning how to encourage myself rather than beat myself up, changed now just my weight loss journey but the entire trajectory of my life.
And it’s been one of the most amazing things to pass down to my kids.
Until recently, I didn’t know how to deal with my emotions. Anytime I felt guilt, disappointment, betrayal, frustration, or anything “bad” I would try to run away from. I wanted to avoid the bad feelings, to get them to go away.
I would emotionally eat to get rid of the feelings.
I’d go shopping to try and get a hit of happiness.
I’d drink to forget about my problems for a few hours.
I would turn the TV on to distrace me from the “bad” feelings.
But my problems weren’t solved that way. Once the distraction passed, I’d still feel guilty for eating something I “shouldn’t have.” I’d still look in the mirror and point out what was wrong with my body.
I could see this pattern continuing in my kids. If they missed a goal in a soccer game, they’d beat themselves up or completely shut down. If they had a bad day at school, they wanted to self soothe with food.
I knew how these habits were going to play out in their lives and I knew I needed to be the one to forge a new path for them.
I read books, took courses, went to therapy - I even became a certified life coach! And while it’s helped me tremendously, I did it for them.
Now, I am giving my kids the tools they need to process through their emotions and come out feeling like they want to. They can sit in sadness or frustration or even pity for a little bit. But then they work their way out of it and learn and grow. And that’s by far the best thing I could have done for them.
Mama, if you want to lead your kids in their physicall and mental health, then it will take some of your family’s resources. You have to be willing to invest in the education to get you to where you want to be.
But, I promise that it will be worth the investment. I have never regretted one dollar I’ve spent to get to this point. Being able to lead my family like this has been everything I’ve dreamed of as a mama.
If you’re ready to lead your family toward a healthier life, then let’s chat. Schedule a free Healthy Mama Blueprint Call to see how the Macros Made Easy program can get you to your goals.
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