It’s no secret to most that Moms have one of the hardest, most challenging jobs there is. Children are all-consuming, so even if you just have one, your whole mind and heart are both tied up with their wellbeing and not your own, often leaving your resources exhausted and wearing thin. On top of that, certain segments of society often respond to the overwhelmed Mom with the answer, “this is the way it’s supposed to be—you’re a Mom.”

Before and after I became a mother, I found this answer to be problematic. It is, unfortunately, often this way, whether it should be or not.

This is why I write about health, fitness, dreams, and more. You are worth investing in, Mom, because we need you. Please take care of you.

When I asked my network of Moms what kept them from daily fitness, one Mom said, “I would say [it is] overwhelm for me. Between writing work, and my part-time job, parenting, keeping up with Olivia’s school events and requirements, and trying to spend time with her, I get so mentally exhausted that I don’t prioritize exercise.” (Deidre Bennett).

This post isn’t about the benefits of exercise.  You probably already know you should exercise. Instead, here are five ways busy Moms can fit healthy, therapeutic movement into their already busy day.

Dance Party with Your Kids

One of my Facebook followers sent me this idea.

“When I did daycare the kids and I would grab some scarves, put some kids music on, and dance. They always felt better, and so did I.”

I love it, Lisa Waldner! I’m all for anything that gets kids and Moms to work, play, and read together.

Live Fit App

This is my favorite go-to right now. At the beginning of this year, I was working out about four hours a week doing challenging Barre and Yoga Shred classes. I know I built some muscle, but in eight months, I lost about eight pounds. In the past eight weeks, I’ve been faithfully doing my little five-minute workouts (everything from HIIT to yoga) in this lovely little free app and I’ve lost eight more pounds in eight weeks.

Baby steps are often better than big ones.

Yoga—search “yoga in 10 minutes” on Youtube.

Sara Beth Yoga. Yoga with Adriene. These are two of my favorite youtube channels that offer premium content that is absolutely free. I also appreciate the fun-loving, genuine spirits of these two ladies. I think it’s easier for me to find power yoga routines and other intense workouts with Sara Beth Yoga, while Yoga with Adrienne is a beautiful, light-hearted tapestry of surprisingly therapeutic freedom flows and routines focused on specific problem areas. My husband loves the “yoga for back pain” that is under fifteen minutes on the Adriene channel. I try to do one of these videos once or twice a week.

Find A Class With Childcare

This fitness idea can work for those Moms who live in cities or towns that have such a thing as yoga with childcare. When I lived in Denver, my favorite was a place where a wonderful teacher took Anneka to one class while I went to another. It was fantastic for both of us.

Just Do It.

The final idea I have to share is just to do it. Just do five jumping jacks. One plank. Ten situps. Do one thing a day just before you get out of or into bed, or just after you get dressed or when you’ve had that first sip of heavenly coffee. After a week, layer it with one more. It’s easy to get started. The difficulty comes when we overthink it, overdo it, or overachieve it. My “five-minutes-a-day” routine is the best and longest workout streak I’ve had since my Bikram yoga days. Both have incredible value and I’ve learned to appreciate the seasons and styles in their own right.

What have I missed? What are you favorite ways to work a bit of exercise into your day? Do you have a favorite style? Has becoming a Mom made you want to be more or less healthy? Whatever the case, I dare you to dream about your own well-being again.

Screen time was getting to be too familiar of a friend. It had been a long time, too long, since we went to the Edmond Library.

So off we went, with much joy and anticipation from Anneka. And her Mom—I love picture books almost more than my four-year-old does. I love the colors. I love the way Anneka snuggles close to me when I read them. I love the way she plays afterward for a good hour about the things she’s read, lost in a world of make-believe magic.

I love the way they are held to a higher standard than books for grownups.

We got lucky this time. We always enjoy our books, but this particular book haul from Edmond was rich in imagination, values, poetry, and artwork.

Voted up by Anneka was How To be A Dog, a silly manual for dogs.

Another huge favorite of Anneka’s was A Dog Named Doug, a picturesque journey through Doug’s impressive digging skills and a tongue-twister to boot.

This was my favorite page.

The Children Who Loved Books won me over with its simple message that books are the most valuable material possessions you can have. In a very short picture-book, Peter Carnavas leaves you aching for more books and illustrating how books bring families together.

I’m a poet at heart. Dreams of Freedom stirs the imagination with what could and should be and reminds us that to do great things, we must dream great things.

Any Laura Ingalls Wilder picture book ends up being a favorite. With their quiet courage, the Ingalls family make us all feel a little bit braver in the coldest winter and wildest frontier.

A Chair For Mother is a heart-warming, poignant tale of a daughter who helps her family save pennies to buy Mother a cozy chair after the destruction of their home by a fire. It’s a tale too precious and rich to break into a list of values. Hard work and selflessness, love and enduring through hardship, empathy, the value of saving, gratitude for the things you have, the list could go on and on.

Anneka loved Harry and the Dinosaurs Make A Christmas List. It may have been that Harry’s love of his family of dinosaurs echoes her own relationship with her overabundant “sleepy stuffies” as she calls them.

There were many more books. But these are our November favorites. What about you? What are your favorite children’s books or library finds? I’d love to hear from you!

Beets are rich in antioxidants, anti-inflammatory properties, and fiber.

Inflammation is at the root of many diseases—a common factor, Harvard calls it.

Multiple rounds of strong antibiotics left me at a lower health point than I’ve ever been in my life. My immune system seemed almost nonexistent, and chronic yeast infections, UTIs, and kidney infections left me exhausted, depressed, and fearful.

There is no one thing that is going to restore broken health. In my blog, I talk about the things that have helped me the most consistently, the things that become lifelines between me and getting my health back. The year 2019 was a year of healing for me. I’ve lost sixteen pounds, beat yeast, banished recurrent UTIs (for the time being), and started waking up with a brightness to my outlook I haven’t had in years.

Just recently, in addition to the wonders of keto coffee and yoga, I’ve discovered the humble beet.

Beets are nutrient-dense. They’re a rich source of folate. They also contain iron, B6, magnesium, and manganese. If you’re trying to lower your blood pressure, eat beets. If you’re fighting inflammation in your body, eat beets. One cup of beets contains a generous 3.4 grams of fiber, so if you’re trying to balance blood sugar and cleanse your colon, you guessed it—eat beets. Even those who suffer from inflammatory bowel disease can benefit from beets.

I buy beets cooked in ready-to-eat packages at Costco.com. I love that I don’t even have to cook them. Prepping and cooking beets is a messy process. Most of the time, I don’t even heat these nutritional wonders. I like them cold with salt. If my chef husband is around, I get them with rosemary—divine!

I have experienced relief from inflammatory symptoms on the days that I eat beets more than on other days. All that fiber and those anti-inflammatory betalains really benefit gut health!

Here’s a tip. If you’ve read a lot about the benefits of probiotics but don’t seem to be experiencing much of their benefits when you take them, make sure you’re adding prebiotic fibers to your diet. Probiotics can’t live without prebiotics (what will we discover next?), and I can’t imagine a better source of prebiotic fiber than the simple, humble beet.

If you want even more beet goodness in your diet, or you can’t imagining slicing up a this cold, red vegetable every day like I do, try a really easy and yummy source of beetroot powder I just added to my diet, Simple Reds. Because I’m fighting a fairly relentless battle against inflammation, I double up on beet’s benefits by drinking Super Reds daily. This supplementary powder dissolves easily in water and is really yummy! Even Anneka (my four-year-old) agrees.

This handy and easy-to-drink supplement also contains the following antioxidants: Acai berry, goji berry, pomegranate, black currant, and hawthorn berry (hawthorn berry is really good for inflammation and circulation as well)!

For more solutions for tired and exhausted immune systems, and to find energy to reboot your dreams, check out Super Green Girl.

Super Reds label.

Beetroot, hawthorn berry, goji berry, Aronia berry, amla fruit, grape skin extract, green tea leaf extract, quercetin dihydrate, maqui berry, raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, cranberry, cherry fruit, acai berry, black currant fruit, bilberry, acerola cherry, blackberry, elderberry, pomegranate fruit, pineapple fruit, pear fruit, peach fruit, mango fruit, carrot, tomato fruit, papaya fruit, apple fruit, inulin, beet fiber, apple fruit pectin, grapefruit skin pectin, citrus skin pectin.