Dear Moms- Here is How to Realistically Start Exercising, Eating Well and Making Time for Being Well Despite Everything
Amidst normal chaos that kids and life require, let's talk about setting & keeping goals for you.
On January 5, 2024, an Alaska Airlines plane left Portland, and then a door blew off, causing the passengers no small amount of panic. I'm just guessing since I think having a door blow off a plane while I am on it would cause other people to panic—not me, of course. I would be calm and collected as I pulled the exit door off after landing and guided others to ride on the world's most exclusive slide (the inflatable yellow ones to get out of a plane😁).
Everyone on the Alaska flight survived the event, and I bet as these past weeks have gone by, those passengers are now telling everyone they know the following: “That experience really made me want to watch more television—especially daytime television and eat at the pizza buffet more often.”
No. Of course not. No one has an epiphany of how their lives could have ended if more than the door had blown off that plane. They are viewing life through different eyes. The eyes of someone who knows they just survived something and now life is more precious and the minutes shouldn’t be wasted. They have all just undergone some degree of behavior change.
The book Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg notes that three things cause lasting behavior change in his research at Stanford University: having an epiphany (like surviving a potential plane crash), changing your environment, and changing habits in tiny ways.
As much as an epiphany motivates behavior change, I think I would prefer the planes I am flying on to keep their doors on and shut while in the air. What is left is changing the environment and changing my habits in tiny ways.
Environment change can be huge, but as a mom, we do not undertake environment change often. Many considerations go into environment changes, like the school districts and drive times to jobs, which is why it is hard to adjust your environment to a point when you have kids. However, the one thing that we can do despite our kid-filled lives is make small incremental changes.
Why Knowing What We Should Do Isn’t Actually Helpful
We’re all familiar with the statement, “Knowledge is power.” But this kernel of wisdom is a bit misleading. Just because you know something doesn’t mean you will use that knowledge. My daughter knows not to wipe her mouth on the clean dishtowels, but she still does it. The power of knowledge comes from what a person does with knowledge. This is not meant as a guilt trip. The problem with knowledge is understanding how to apply it. How I apply knowledge and how a book author applies knowledge will not be the same. You and I are not alone in the difficulty of moving from knowledge to application.
Roughly 16 percent of Europe, 21 percent of the UK, 40 percent of the US and Kuwait (where I currently live) are obese. Around 46,000 diet books are available in the major languages, and the diet and fitness industry is worth $60 billion a year. We KNOW what we need to do, but the application is hard. So we buy books and programs and get people to tell us their magical application formula and hope it works for us.
Our attempts often end with resentment, disappointment, and a box of Oreos or maybe a bubble bath with wine and Bridgerton.
For the rest of this article, I am going to focus on the primary obstacles frequently mentioned by fellow moms when it comes to the struggle of establishing and sticking to personal goals. I can empathize with each one, as I've personally wrestled with them and still do occasionally. Life often throws unexpected challenges, making at least one week a month interesting with the logistics of getting everyone where they need to go. While moms are talented at accomplishing tasks for others, getting to our ambitions can be a different story. But fear not! Here's the scoop on tackling these issues without the guilt trip.
Problem 1: How much, how little, where to start?
We have what seems to be an obvious solution: eat less, move more, go to bed earlier, and make time for ourselves. We all know it. If you are anything like most moms the last time you probably made time for yourself was the mini facial steam you got from dumping the macaroni out of the pot.
Information on “getting healthy” is helpful to no one because there is no information about the application of your life right now. First off, we need to start with the understanding that change is sustainable when it is incremental, meaning it only works when you do it in small chunks—like less than 5 minutes to accomplish chunks.
The problem with most of the crash diets and exercise plans is that they are only sustainable for a short time because life with kids gets in the way. The diets and exercise programs requiring 30-60 minutes of your day go away because they are too mentally taxing and time intensive to work in with everything else.
Those plans also don’t let you plan around normal life. You can’t have a burger from a fast food place or some pizza delivery when time is tight. You always have to get 10,000 steps in each and every day. Don’t get me wrong, I do think that it is best if we avoid fast food most of the time and moving your body is something we need to be doing. But what we forget is that we need to have grace for ourselves. By grace, I mean that we need to stop expecting perfection when we are looking to transform small parts of our lives. However, most of the time, we don’t give that grace to ourselves, just others.
This is probably because we bought into the idea all your changes had to be all or none. You can’t eat any fast food, and if you do, you have failed. You have to go to the gym at least every other day for 30 minutes; if you don’t, you have failed. I personally have paid for two gym memberships that were used maybe once a month on average, and I felt like complete crap about it at the time.
Let’s look at how the Alaska Airlines passengers are taking some of this epiphany time. I am sure that some of them have started exercising or attempting to transform some aspect of their wellness. Let’s take a look at this completely made-up person I will named Rosalina (the name my daughter says she wishes I would have named her).
Rosalina has decided that after surviving an almost-plane crash, she is going to hike to Machu Picchu like she has wanted to do for years and run a small 5k in Montana called The Icebreaker. She has always wanted to see Montana before she dies, and running a race there will mean she has a reason to go and it will help her prepare for Machu Picchu. She is going to start a walking program and work her way up to jogging. She sleeps through her alarm two days in a row after having a great first week of walking. On another day, the second week, she can’t go for a walk because she has to take her oldest son to early morning practice. She missed three days during the second week of her new walking program but didn’t feel guilty like she would have typically. She doesn’t give up. She understands that she wants this enough to figure out how she can plan ahead for busy weeks in the future. No weeks will be perfect, but she can make them good enough.
If a 5-mile walk doesn't go smoothly or Rosalina feels a bit awkward during her first jog in 10 years, she'll be more likely to keep going. She understands that looking weird and figuring it out is all part of the learning process. She's not expecting perfection. She knows she'll stumble and mess up more than once. She has a learner's perspective, and that means being open to trying different approaches. You keep at it, seek guidance when needed, and keep tweaking your plans until you find what works best for you. It's not about copying what works for some celebrity. It's about finding your own path and changing it as needed when life requires a short detour here and there.
Problem 2: No perfect plan
As General George Patton once said, “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” People believe they will start when they have the perfect plan in place or when their kids are a particular age. The perfect plan never happens, and the truth is that life with kids never really slows down. Writing down a good plan can happen today. Even Rosalina from above realized that she needed more planning to succeed better during busy weeks.
If you have no plan at all, your daily actions will be driven by input triggers. An email arrives, and you answer it. The doorbell rings, and you get up. You are out of chicken, so you order some for pickup. It’s hard to focus on high-impact activities – such as when you go for a walk, make a meal plan, meet with a friend, or do some dinner prep – because you’re not making proactive choices about your time. You’re simply responding to what’s right in front of you.
Athletic megastars like the Olympic champion swimmer Michael Phelps and Olympic track star Usain Bolt had days when they didn’t feel like eating well and exercising. And yet they did. Why? Because they have clear daily plans….and dedicated trainers to make adjustments based off of their daily routine.
Of course, we can’t afford the support network available to Phelps and Bolt, but we can embrace two simple support techniques they used: a weekly written plan or a daily written plan and a power posse* support network that can hold you accountable from week to week.
*power posse will be discussed below, so you have that to look forward to.
Problem 3: I make plans but they never work
In the blunt words of boxer Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” In mom life, we all take a few hits from time to time, and plans have to be adjusted or even completely rewritten. A kid doesn’t sleep through the night for a week. You have a huge project that requires you to work late. So how do you stay on course for yourself?
The truth is that lots of people who have to change-or-die soon because of medical issues don’t change. In a study involving 1300+ people with heart disease, 90% did not make lifestyle changes when they were educated by their doctor. You read the 90% didn’t but that leaves 10% who did change. Do you want to know what made the difference for the 10% of people who steadily transformed their lifestyle?
YES. OBVIOUSLY.
They had support. They went to a weekly group meeting for people who were trying to change. They joined a power posse group.
There is no such thing as a self-made (wo)man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others. George Shin
A "Power Posse" is a small group of individuals who inspire growth and support. A stellar Power Posse is made up of women you want to be like who are normal and not someone with a cook, a maid, or people who do their makeup. They can listen to where you are without judgment and then give you a great way to adjust your plan so you can keep working on your goals. There is such a transformative power of meeting with others, pursuing goals, and working towards being better year after year. I have been meeting with a power posse for over three years, and it has enormously impacted my tenacity in pursuing goals.
Nowhere in this am I trying to say that deciding on small changes for transformation and finding a power posse is easy. I have been working on small changes since my youngest was nine months old. She is currently seven years old. Every three months, I reevaluate what I am working on and doing with my power posse. I love what small and deliberate transformation has done for
my mom-life. I look forward to living out small transformations throughout my kid's lives to show them that if they choose to be parents, they don’t have to give up who they want to become. It will be harder, but it will be worth it. It is not perfect, but it is steadily better and good enough.
D.I.G. Deep Application Time: Get Deliberate, Get Inspired, Get Going
Get Deliberate: Set up a Weekly Accountability Meeting in person, via Zoom, or whatever video call software works for you with one or two individuals you think could be a part of your power posse. Use the meeting to discuss how successfully you’ve been with your plan last week, what worked well last week, and what didn’t. Write down how to change the plan for next week.
Get Inspired: Don’t have a power posse? Try this exercise. Write down at least 5 people you know that you admire and why you admire them. They can be people you only kind of know and people you are very well.
Here are a few of my examples: I admire Stephanie Freeman because she is the most patient and present mom I have ever met. She comes up with great ways to chat with her kids when they have done something wrong and does it in a way that models to the kids how they should act as adults. I admire Angelie Melzer because she raised three boys while working and maintained an exercise routine while dealing with her husband’s two years of military deployments. Her boys are loving and caring individuals who have passions they pursue. I admire Sonja Kelly because she is an amazing listener, wife, and mom who pursues her personal and professional goals. She celebrates others for their accomplishments. She works hard to give women all over the world a chance to make something of themselves through her job at Women’s World Bank.
Make your list and text them!
Get Going: It can be easy to think, “I know what I need to do – I don’t need to waste time writing out a silly plan.” But a written plan makes it 42% more likely you will continue working on your goal. Write your plan down and start small with something that takes less than 1 minute to accomplish, like eating five bites of veggies each day or walking for 1 minute around your kitchen. Text your possible power posse ladies and get going.