Breaking Barriers in Self-Care for a Balanced Life with PCOS

Struggling with self-care isn't just a personal challenge; it's a universal conundrum that can leave us feeling like we're neglecting our own needs. As I peel back the layers of mental barriers that keep us from indulging in self-care, you'll find new perspectives that may just be the breakthrough you've been looking for. 

Nutrition isn't just about what we eat; it's about the entire ecosystem of our well-being, especially in turbulent economic times. 

Routine might sound mundane, but it's the cornerstone of a sustainable, healthy lifestyle, and I'm here to show how it doesn't have to be a chore. From my morning matcha ritual to gym time vigor post-work, I map out the balance we all seek amidst daily chaos and how caring for ourselves can actually CREATE time and energy for us. 

Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:38

Hey guys, welcome back to an Amber a Day. We've got an interesting topic today. I'm kind of excited to get into it. So it's kind of going to be about prioritizing yourself, self-care, how we do that, how we actually make it work. But a lot of what I want to talk about is the concept behind prioritizing ourselves and why so many of us sort of struggle with following through on that, even though we consciously know that we should. That's so difficult for us, and then some different ways maybe of thinking about things so that hopefully it helps you maybe get past some of those blocks. So that's kind of the idea, and I have some notes here that I want to go over.

Speaker 1: 1:16

And this topic is based loosely on the newsletter that I sent out last week, which I was just kind of inspired to write that morning. I've been doing this thing where every Friday I've been trying to send out a newsletter to my email list, which I guess I'll put the link to subscribe to my newsletter, if you're not subscribed, in the description box. But I've been doing that because I want to get back into writing. I love to write and so I haven't done a whole lot of writing in the last few years, as I've been doing a lot of video type stuff. So I wanted to kind of get back into that and back into my flow and my inspiration by just seeing what comes to me related to PCOS and healthy living and all that every Friday. So that's what I was inspired to write about this past Friday and I think it turned out actually really insightful. So sometimes I'm just writing and stuff comes out and I'm like, oh yeah, that's actually really cool, that makes a lot of sense. It's almost like I'm channeling somebody else. But anyway, I was inspired by what I came up with and I wanted to share it with you guys and talk a little bit more about some of the nuances here. So that's what we're going to talk about today.

Speaker 1: 2:30

For those of you who are watching the video, I'm trying out a bright spring palette. So do you guys know about color analysis? Okay, so I've been down the rabbit hole of color analysis for two years and I'm desperately trying to figure out what my coloring is without actually paying for an analysis. By the way, if any of you are color analysts in the Antonio area, let me know, because I'm at the point where I'm really ready to pay somebody to tell me what my colors are. I just want to know so much. But let me know if you are into that stuff.

Speaker 1: 3:04

Do you think that I lean warm or cool? I'm very, very neutral. So makeup I always have to buy like neutral shade and, depending on what I, I definitely know I'm a bright season, I'm pretty sure. So I thought for a long time I was a bright winter, but the more I'm looking at myself and maybe I'm overthinking it, but I actually think that I lean a little bit more warm than cool. So I'm kind of trying out some of the bright spring palette which I stayed away from because I had heard over the internet that you can't have like dark hair as a bright spring. But actually I found out that that's not true and that a lot of people who are bright spring actually have dark hair and lighter eyes and they just lean warmer. So anyway, these are bright spring colors, bright spring lips, bright spring shirt. Let me know what you think. Does it work? Does it not work? Do you think I should veer more into coolness? I mean, let me know, because at this point I've seen so many hours of footage of myself that I couldn't tell you. I'm just, you know I'm very used to seeing my own face, as you can imagine. I'm trying to think if there's anything else I need to update you guys on, but I don't think so. Oh yeah, one more thing, so you guys know. Well, two more things actually.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Okay, so you guys know Hannah conscious nutritionist, right, her and I run a lot of group programs together. Well, she just had a baby earlier this year and so we kind of were tentative on like going to run any more group programs together, like at all, or this year or what have you. I was sort of waiting to figure out, like how she was going to feel, because you know you have a baby and sometimes things change, your priorities change or you just don't have the same time that you thought you would, and anyway, I know how it goes. So I was kind of waiting on her to get her feet under her in motherhood and all that, and you know that takes time. But we were talking, we've been talking and we are going to.

Speaker 1: 4:56

We're planning to run another. It's PCOS Essentials Academy. We're planning to run another one and likely it will begin mid-May of this year. So if you are interested in that, definitely sign up at that link to be on my newsletter list and I will be sending out more details. It's a very for a group program where you actually you will be interacting with us weekly. You will be there teaching the lessons. There will be question and answer time afterwards. It's a pretty small group, I want to say. On average we usually have 10 people or less on the calls and so you get a lot of opportunity to ask your own questions. There's always a group chat that we keep up with and anyway, for a group program, it's a pretty affordable option. I know times are a little tight right now, so I think it would be a good option for anybody who's wanting that deeper advice and guidance but maybe can't swing you know the fall liking one-on-one with somebody situation. So if you're interested in that, we are doing another one which I'm so excited about.

Speaker 1: 6:03

I love, love, love running groups. I just like I like working one on one too, and I've done that for a long time. But there's something about running a group that's just really. There's a lot of energy that I get from from the group and it's just a lot of fun like different people and hearing their stories and experiences, and for the people who participate. They always come away from it saying that they really value and appreciate the connections that they make in the group, because it's so nice just to feel like you're not alone. You know, you hear all these other women and they've gone through what you've gone through and it's like, oh you know, I thought that was just me. Pcos can be so isolating, as we discussed in the mental health podcast from a few weeks ago, anyway. So that's that.

Speaker 1: 6:43

The second update is just to piggyback on something that I said last week, which is that I was trying to see if there's this PCOS fitness kind of influencer person on the internet who I really like her content. She has agreed to come on the podcast, so we are going to have her and I believe her and I are recording later this month. I have a lot of really great guests this year Already. Some I've met with and recorded and just haven't edited and posted yet, and some are still scheduled out, but it's going to be a good year for interesting guests. On a guest or type of guest that you'd like to see on the podcast, let me know. Yeah, okay, so let's get into today's topic.

Speaker 1: 7:31

So the reason I was inspired to talk about this is. I was talking with a fellow nutritionist friend who specializes in fertility nutrition and I was kind of telling her you know, any of my friends? I have a lot of friends who are also nutrition content creators. Right, they have their private practice businesses and then they also do content creation and so we kind of give each other moral support because it can be a little draining and a little difficult sometimes to kind of know what to do and where you're going wrong or what you're doing right or any of that stuff. So her and I were talking about just running our nutrition practices and I was being honest with her that for the last little while I'd probably say like year, six months, probably about six months or so things have really slowed down a lot.

Speaker 1: 8:16

For me. There was a period of time from probably 2020 to 2023 where I was busy and I had a lot, I had a waiting list, I had like a lot of people who really were interested in working with me and the trickle of those like one clients has slowed down a lot in the last year and I just noticed that like it seems like you know, it's a little bit more of a grind than it used to be to try to get people to work with. And I was telling her that I think what's going on is that because the economy is just in such a state right now that a lot of people don't have the money to think about working with a nutritionist, because it's like the concept of if groceries are so expensive, why would I pay somebody to tell me what groceries I should buy when I already know I can't afford them, like number one. I can't afford the person to tell me, number two, I couldn't afford what they would want me to buy. You know can't afford organic, can't afford people, you know, to even buy fresh fruits and vegetables, all that kind of stuff. Right, and I get that because I'm living that too.

Speaker 1: 9:24

I also exist in this economy and things have been tighter and I've had to make cuts with my personal spending and groceries and kind of try to figure out ways to feed my family in a less, a more budget conscious way, let's say so. I was kind of complaining to her about this, like getting me down right, and she was saying that her business is actually doing fairly well, like pretty normal, and I got to thinking about it and I realized that likely what's going on there. Is that her business, because it focuses primarily on fertility. It's less of what's seen as like luxury service, and my reasoning behind that is I remember when I was going through my fertility journey, and even though there were times when there wasn't a lot of money to go around or things were tight or whatever, I was willing to make sacrifices and try to figure out workarounds to make getting the things that I needed for fertility possible.

Speaker 1: 10:28

So, whether it was like the treatment money or whether it was like is there something that we're going to help with egg quality? Or even, you know, do my diet and really really prioritizing the food that I ate, it made a lot of financial sense to me to do that, because I was taking care of not just my own health, but really I was taking care of my health for a purpose, and the purpose was to be able to have a child, and that was something that having a child is not something that we tend to kind of be able to put on hold for very long. Right, if we know we want to have a kid, then there's a window of time where that's possible, and so we may be able to delay things or move things around a bit, but there does come a point in time where it's like I really want this and I've wanted this for a long time and I'm ready to do it. You know whether conditions are perfect or not and they're almost never perfect anyway but it's like a goal and it's to fulfill this dream or this thing that has been really important to you, or this mutual dream that you have with a partner, and so there's so much to it, right. There's so much connection to like our greater destiny as people and our purpose in life and all of that kind of stuff, and that's very attractive and worth in our eyes.

Speaker 1: 11:55

Spending a lot of time, a lot of money. On particular, it's cheaper in the long run to get pregnant naturally than even if you have to. You know you get some support like a nutritionist and supplements and eating, you know, a certain quality of food. It's cheaper to do that than it is to pay for IVF. Trust me, I know my baby's an IVF baby and that was expansive. You know what I mean. It's like financial sense, I guess.

Speaker 1: 12:24

So where I run into trouble in my business is that over the last few years I've heavily sort of niched down into PCOS specific content, and I have made it a point to not over-focus on fertility in my work because I know how frustrating that can be for people to feel like the only reason that PCOS matters is because of the ability to reproduce or not. I just don't like the concept to begin with. Health has so much more to do with so many more things than just our ability to become mothers. I just think it's very I don't know, it's the patriarchy talking right Like have more purpose in life than just reproducing. And so I try even though I do a lot of fertility work, obviously I try to stay away from talking too too much about it, because it alienates a lot of people who maybe never want to have kids or who are already done having kids or are not interested in that topic. It's not their area of focus. And so I've more chosen in my practice to focus on the health of a woman with PCOS as a singular person, like here's why PCOS matters for you right now, here's how it matters for the rest of your life, for the aging process, for this, and that it's about you first and foremost, right, not about someone else or your ability to create someone else or anything like that. So, because of that, I think that this work is seen by a lot of people to be maybe not as important.

Speaker 1: 14:08

And the thing I want to, I guess, get across in this podcast is that there's two different things going on. There's a conscious thoughts and what we'll say, and then there's our behavior and what that says. And so our conscious thoughts are what we're saying is I care about myself, I want to take care of myself. I know that in order to have to be healthy as I age or have a good quality of life, I need to take care of myself now, et cetera, et cetera. We say these things, right, but our lived experience, our actual actions, do they line up with that?

Speaker 1: 14:42

For a lot of us, what happens is we can do that for a little while, but the littlest things will kind of throw us off track. It's like the conditions have to be just right in order for us to prioritize ourselves and to take care of ourselves. And if work gets too crazy, or we've got a parent, we've got to take care of ourselves. And if work gets too crazy, or we've got a parent we've got to take care of, or we have a child we have to take care of or this or that is going on. What we do for us, for our health, and ours alone, gets put on the back burner, and that's just. I think you know I have a lot of empathy for that. So I don't want you guys to take from this podcast oh, amber's saying we self-sabotage and it's our fault because we need to take care of ourselves. No, I recognize, because I live this myself, that it's very difficult. It's one thing to say, oh yeah, you know, put your oxygen mask on first before you help other people. You guys know how everybody's always saying that people. You guys know how everybody's always saying that, yeah, it makes sense.

Speaker 1: 15:47

But the reality of life day to day is your kid's got to eat right, he eats breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks and I've got to be the one that makes them. The house has to get cleaned by somebody. The aging parent needs to be driven to their doctor's appointments. Work has its requirements and I don't know. I'm an accountant and it's tax season. What am I supposed to do? I have to do these people's taxes. So there's this sort of like vision that we have of this perfect life that we might create if we had the time, if we had the energy, if we had the space, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 16:24

And the reality of actual life is that the conditions are not necessarily set up around us to facilitate that. There's a lot of roadblocks in our way, and so what ends up happening is we can follow things and take care of ourself, and all of that for a while, when we are excited about it or when we are noticing real quick results or when we have space in our calendar. A good example is that a lot I work with a lot of teachers, but I typically work with teachers over the summer or Christmas break, because they put off doing things for themselves or starting a nutrition journey or anything until they know they're going to have the summer off, because then they can focus on it. And I think that is where the problems start is when we start looking at time and taking care of ourselves as if it's something that we have, that we need to have space to focus on. So let's get into that a little bit. What do I mean and how do we work around that and what's the actual solution here? Because there aren't any perfect solutions, but I'm going to talk to you about how I think we can reframe that. So it helps make it easier for us to stick with these kinds of things. So maybe we are kind of asking the wrong questions in the first place.

Speaker 1: 17:53

When we think about taking care of ourselves, we tend to think of it in terms of the energy exchange that has to happen. Like I have to give energy to cooking, for example, and that's energy that then I no longer have. It goes away because I used it. Same as when you make breakfast for your four-year-old. You make him breakfast, you use some energy to do that and you don't get that energy back because it's gone. Right, what if? Hear me out, what if we can create energy?

Speaker 1: 18:31

So and okay, I know you're like this is getting woo-woo, amber, but I don't mean that in a woo-woo-y way, although I mean nothing wrong with a little woo-woo in your life but what if we can't create time? But we can create energy? I'm going to talk about what I mean by that. Let me give you two examples. Okay, so I'm actually going to read these from the newsletter because I was proud of them and I think they're good, but let me give you an example of what's typically going on, how life typically goes, and this you may do better than this. You may have a worse experience than this. I certainly have been all over the place since I became a mom and I've had good times and bad times, and so I get it. But okay, let's say you're exhausted, right? You basically just make it through the day.

Speaker 1: 19:18

You doom scroll for half an hour while you get ready for work and you pack your child's lunch. You forget to eat. But you stop for Starbucks and you get a caramel macchiato and maybe a muffin. At work, you answer emails and you have a draining meeting with your team and more is placed on your shoulders, even though you were already overwhelmed with what you have Real right. By 11 am you're starting to get shaky. You're starting to get hangry. 11am you're starting to get shaky, you're starting to get hangry. So you grab a snack from the office common room or your desk drawer and you start thinking about what are you going to go eat for lunch? You forgot to pack one, of course, because you were in a hurry. So you head out to grab some fast food and you eat in blissful peace while scrolling TikTok in your car. Again, relatable who doesn't love a moment of blissful peace in the car, eating some French fries and watching TikToks.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Back at work, you're very sleepy. Around 2 pm your eyes start to struggle to focus and so you grab another coffee to push through. On your way home, you're feeling drained again. You plan to cook a meal, but when you get home your living room's a mess. Your kids all need something from you and your husband is asking about dinner. You're starving and exhausted and you're longing for your bed. So you let yourself. So you tell yourself you're going to cook tomorrow, you send your husband out to pick up takeout and you go lay in front of the TV. Forget about exercising. That wasn't even on the docket for today. After your kids go to bed, you end up staying up till 1am on your phone because it's your only real me time. Very relatable.

Speaker 1: 20:59

So that is a typical day for a lot of us, right? Right? Is it just me? I think a lot of us have been stuck in that pattern before, and it's the kind of tiredness that makes you more tired. You know what I mean, and part of that comes just purely from staying up super late to have your me time. And I want to be clear that doing all of those things are appropriate reactions to the constraints placed upon you, because the reality is that the world that we live in right now is not set up to accommodate all of us getting to do everything that we need to do in 24 hours. It's just not Like there's too much required of us from work. There's too much commuting If you live in the United States it cuts hours out of your day. There's too many responsibilities and requirements with maintaining a home, while also many of us have both people work and even if the other doesn't, they're usually taking care of kids. So there's just too much to do for any one person, even any two people, even if you have support. So it's a lot and it makes total sense that you would. What do they call it? There's a phrase for it.

Speaker 1: 22:20

When you end up, it's like revenge. Is it like revenge? Sleep deprivation If you guys know what I'm talking about, let me know. But it's like revenge time that you end up feeling really entitled to that time. After all, the tasks that needed to get done are done and you want to make the most of it. You end up staying up too late because you feel you deserve that time and you end up kind of stealing energy and time from yourself the next day. So that's a typical day, right?

Speaker 1: 22:50

Well, let's talk about an alternative example, and this is where we get into creating energy and ways that that can happen. So here's an alternative example. Let's say you're exhausted. You stayed up until 1 am on your phone last night, oops, and because it was your only me time. So we're starting out imagining that that other day was yesterday and now this is today. So we're feeding. It's not like we've been doing things so perfect, perfect, and here we're having an energetic day. No, we're coming, we're piggybacking off of a day, like we just talked about. So you stayed up until 1am. It was your only me time. But today you decided to get right out of bed. Force it Force yourself to get out of bed. You open your curtains and you let in some natural light and you head to the kitchen and make a matcha latte with collagen. It's a little relaxing.

Speaker 1: 24:14

While your water's boiling, you start packing lunches, which you forgot to do last night. Right, there's nothing left over for you, so you're going to have to grab something. But you jot down a few things you need from the store to prep and you throw a protein shake and an RX bar in your bag, and I'm talking about those little pre-made protein shakes like Evolve or I think Organe has some. You know the ones that are already made. If you keep a supply of those in your fridge then you'll always have an emergency source of nutrition. Same thing with different bars. Rx bars are some of my favorite. But you know, whatever you've got Kind bars, it's a better option than a lot of things right. You've got kind bars. It's a better option than a lot of things right.

Speaker 1: 25:02

After you get to work you're tired from lack of sleep, but you're still fairly energized from the matcha, because matcha has a slow caffeine release so it lasts you longer. So you get your most important work done first. To capitalize on that energy, you set a timer on your phone and you get up to stretch, walk around and drink a little water. Once per hour. I'm talking two minutes walking around, stretching, grabbing some water. At lunchtime you head to the grocery store, you pick up one of their pre-made salads for lunch and while you're there, you also grab a few of their pre-made meals.

Speaker 1: 25:33

So if you live in South Texas, heb has some really good pre-made meals. A lot of grocery stores will do that. They have like these little meals where either the ones that I like from H-E-B are they're not cooked yet, but you put them in the oven for a little bit and then they cook and they're really good. And they're already. You know they already did all the hard work for you. But there are also some that work in the microwave. There are some that are already like pre-cooked and you could eat cold. You know they usually have a lot of options if you go to the deli counter area of your local grocery store. Those are really, really nice to have on hand for emergencies and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 26:10

Okay, so you get a pre-made salad. You could also theoretically, let's say, go to Chick-fil-A and get one of their salads or get some grilled nuggets and a fruit cup side and like a small fry or something. You know there are other options besides having to eat a salad. It doesn't always have to be a salad, but anyway you get the point. Okay, so you stock up on some of your favorite snacks, like some chomps sticks those are good to have. Evolve protein shakes, rx bars, kind bars. You grab some ingredients for a quick dinner. You eat your salad in the car while you listen to an interesting podcast. Maybe it's resolved mysteries celebrity memoir book club. What's one of myilty Pleasure podcast is fluently forward. It's not for everyone. Maybe it's an Amber a Day? Huh, Maybe that's what you're doing At work again.

Speaker 1: 27:07

You stock a little section of the fridge and freezer with a few protein shakes and some of those pre-made meals and you throw your dinner ingredients in and those pre-made meals. I usually, back in the day when I used to work in an office, I'd stick them in the freezer because even though they're not already frozen, most stuff can freeze and you can then cook it from frozen or microwave it or whatever. Okay, so you stick that in the freezer with a few protein shakes and some of those pre-made meals and you throw your dinner ingredients in the fridge because obviously you've got meat. You can't leave it in the car, so you throw it in the work fridge, right? You stock your desk drawer with some of the extra snacks you bought so that you'll have options for another time. At 4 pm you eat the bar you packed earlier.

Speaker 1: 27:51

After work, you head straight to the gym or the park and you work out or walk for 45 minutes. This is key. Stop being on the way home rather than going home changing and going out again. It ain't going to happen. On a day like this, when you're this tired, because I can tell you I've lived a day like this and when you get to this point in the day you are sleepy. Even though you were eating good and you had your matcha and all that, you're still tired from all that sleep deprivation from yesterday, from weeks before, whatever. You're still sleepy. So you're not going to feel like doing this.

Speaker 1: 28:28

But if you force yourself to stop before you go home, then you can get a little bit of activity in, get it over with, go home and relax. So you head straight to the gym or the park. You work out for 45 minutes even less is fine. I just 45 minutes is a good amount of time. Maybe you walk and lift weights, maybe you just walk. Either way, you leave the gym feeling energized and refreshed, and this is true Whenever you work out. You release endorphins. Those first 15 minutes are pretty miserable, but after that you start to get more energized and then, when you're done, suddenly you have more energy again because it upregulates adrenaline, it upregulates cortisol, it kind of gives you a lot of these like bursts of energy hormones. Then you drink your protein shake because recovery is important. And you head home, everyone was hungry and texting you asking about dinner.

Speaker 1: 29:28

Of course, because the annoyances will not stop when you start taking care of yourself. They will continue. In fact, they might get a little bit worse. People are going to be annoying. Why don't we have you for dinner? Okay, so you told them to eat a snack while you were gone, because you know they're not going to be hungry for dinner. But you can't win every battle, and ain't that the truth? You know, if you stock decent snacks at your house, you know, and they are a little bit too full for dinner every once in a while, well, okay, it's not the end of the world, but for you, it very well could be the end of the world if you don't take care of yourself enough. So let's say they're being annoying about it, but you just told them to eat a snack. So they did that, and at least when you get home, they're not like bugging you about dinner too much. So the living room is still a mess, of course, but you're still feeling good from your workouts. You ignore it for now.

Speaker 1: 30:25

You put some barbecue sauce on some chicken thighs that you bought and you put them in the oven. You roast some broccoli with them and cook some brown rice. That's a favorite meal of mine. Get some of those boneless, skinless chicken thighs and throw them on a sheet pan. Put some sauce on top Again with HEB, okay, but they carry this brand called Fisher and Weiser.

Speaker 1: 30:52

I think they have all these gourmet, different types of sauces. I've had a blackberry chipotle and a, you know, teriyaki, whatever, and really fancy barbecue sauces, bourbon sauces, whatever. Get one of those, get regular barbecue sauce. I don't care, barbecue sauce is great. Who doesn't love barbecue sauce? Sweet baby rays, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 31:13

But put some barbecue sauce on it. Put some barbecue sauce on it. Throw those in the oven at like 375 for 20, 25 minutes. Just Google how long to cook chicken thighs at 375 and it'll tell you. I do that all the time. I'm just like, okay, I have chicken breasts or I have chicken thighs. How long does it take to cook those? And if you have yourself a little meat thermometer, especially a digital one, those are really helpful. So then about 20 minutes in, if you're scared of chicken, you can just like poke it into the chicken, make sure it's the right temperature. But boneless, skinless stuff cooks really fast and it cooks pretty evenly because there's no bone in there.

Speaker 1: 31:58

Anyway, that's off topic. But throw some barbecue sauce on there and then in another sheet pan I'll throw some frozen broccoli, fresh broccoli, whatever you have, and I'll drizzle some olive oil on the top. I use like a nature seasoning, like a seasoning blend all over everything. Throw that in the oven with the chicken thighs and by the time the chicken thighs are done they're relatively roasted. You know, you could like if you, if they're not quite as crispy as you like, you can take the chicken out and then turn the broiler on and throw those under the broiler and give it like another five minutes and they'll get crispier. But anyway, I usually just eat them as they are and that's a decent meal, like that's good, anyway. Oh yeah, and brown rice, you can get some. Cook that on the stovetop.

Speaker 1: 32:43

Anyway, you make sure to make enough for lunch and for dinner tomorrow as well. So back when you were at the store you bought the big pack of chicken thighs. You didn't get a four pack, you got the, you know the one that's like this big, uh, like two feet long, it's like 16 chicken thighs or whatever. You make extra Always, always, always, make extra anytime you cook, because it doesn't take you any longer to cook, double or triple the amount. It does save you time later if you cook extra, okay, so you make sure to have enough for lunch and dinner tomorrow as well. You drink a protein shake after your workout, so you're not super hungry right now, but you make sure that you eat your veggies and your protein and some of your rice. You know, send it back and everybody eats.

Speaker 1: 33:30

You pack up your lunch for tomorrow because you are giving tomorrow you a break. So you pack up your lunch for tomorrow. Since you have to put the dinner away anyway, you might as well throw some of it in a Tupperware container for tomorrow and you leave the rest for dinner tomorrow night. That way you have meals to last you until you can make a bigger grocery trip this weekend. So this is also assuming that you don't have a lot of groceries, because you've been eating out a lot, right? So you'll do that. You'll get to that. It doesn't have to be perfect. You've got one meal done and you've got some leftovers, so this weekend you can go grab the stuff that you need for another one.

Speaker 1: 34:06

Because you woke up to natural light. You ate a balanced blood sugar diet and you had movement. Today. You are a lot sleepier at 9 pm than normal. You know you could push through, you could get a second wind and stay up and have a little more me time, but instead you put your phone away and you pick up a book, an art project. Maybe you've started to crochet. By the way, do any of you guys crochet or knit? Because I'm a big knitter and crocheter. I mostly knit, but I originally learned how to crochet and I have been doing that for like 15 years and I love it. So if anybody does share your projects with me, send me DMs on Instagram because I love to see your crochet and knit projects. You enjoy an hour of that and then you do your skincare routine before falling asleep.

Speaker 1: 34:52

Don't forget your skin guys. That one you can probably skip, okay, but I'm just putting it in there because you know. You know you already set the precedent right the day you made the hard choices. Most of the choices were just built in, but a lot of them were hard, like choosing when you went to the grocery store. You know that was kind of annoying that you had to go to the grocery store and buy the stuff to prep for dinner and you had to get lunch there too, because you were already going to be there. But the temptation would probably be to grab I don't know one of their other things that they have pre-made there. That maybe isn't the best, but you made the hard choice to eat the better thing and you made the hard choice to stop after work and workout. You made the hard choice to pack your lunch for tomorrow and all that kind of stuff. So one more hard choice to take care of your skin, but it will make you feel really good the next day. So what?

Speaker 1: 35:47

I kind of finished up the newsletter by saying that's a realistic depiction of a person putting themselves first. I think we have this tendency to think about putting ourselves first as like looking like some of these hack your life podcasters you know who I'm talking about whether they wake up at sunrise and they go outside and they soak in 15 minutes of direct sunlight on their whole body naked, and then they ground down with their feet in the earth and they take a cold plunge. And then you know what I'm saying. It's like okay, I've heard somebody say to that a lot of that stuff is really well.

Speaker 1: 36:30

It's typically written by a man and that you know we're not going to be like we're not going to get too much into feminism on this podcast, but it's written for a man because sometimes, especially single men, they don't think about the fact that there is a certain amount of labor that has to be done by someone, and men have always kind of historically, for the most part, gotten a pass on the labor, like if they help out, it's like they're doing us a favor, right, and if they don't, then that was just the labor. Like if they help out, it's like they're doing us a favor, right, and if they don't, then that was just the default. And so they can imagine these morning routines and these daily routines that are so unrealistic. Because I saw a video of a woman going through one of those routines that was recommended in some book I forget what book, I haven't read it, but you know it was one of those bro-y books and she's like so who's waking up the kid and getting them dressed and who's packing the lunch for the child and who's dropping them off at daycare or whatever, and she's naming all these different things that this guy is doing, while likely his wife is taking care of all the other stuff so that he can do his cold plunge for 20 minutes in the morning. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 37:43

So I am intending with this to kind of give you a realistic picture of what it looks like to take care of yourself in the world we live in today. Is it perfect? No, there are a lot of things about it that could be improved, but it will help you feel more energetic. And the whole purpose of this is, if you do these things, even for just a few days in a row, you are suddenly going to have so much more energy to get through your day that it actually will feel like you have more time. And I know that probably doesn't feel like that at the beginning, but as you're going through it and you're living it, you realize that when you feel more energetic, you can accomplish tasks faster, work tasks, you can get through them quicker, have a less chaotic sort of experience of life, and that then feeds into you, as I've been saying, kind of creating time.

Speaker 1: 38:43

So much of our time is taken up by doomscrolling or so much of our time is taken up by daydreaming because we're half asleep, because we're so exhausted, and if we get enough sleep and we enough exercise and we do all these things. We may not actually have more hours in the day, but it'll feel like we do because we will have the energy to get through each one of them. So what I can tell you is that a routine like that, it gets easier. Over time, it starts to become second nature and there's less thinking involved with it and you start to set up systems to help make it even simpler than that. So what I'm kind of showing you with that example is the next day when you kind of make that decision okay, starting tomorrow, I'm going to really start to take care of myself. I'm going to do all these things right. That's a habit stacked day where we've got things leading into other things, which is always key. Like, don't you know? When they say like sit down between tasks, the concept of that is because the energy to sit down, like your energy is like oh, I'm tired, like I'm going to sit down here and it's hard to get up. I tell people with ADHD this a lot Like sit down between your tasks done. Anyway, that's an example of what that first day looks like. The second day would have already prepped your lunch, so you don't have to worry about that.

Speaker 1: 40:08

In the morning there's a little extra time you have the next morning. You can choose to use it how you want. You can get extra time and if you have a flexible job, you can go leave for work a little bit earlier and leave for the day a little bit earlier, so that you can get your exercise in early and you can have more space in your evening, right? Or if that's not the case, if you can't do that, you can take that extra 20 minutes, and you can I don't know. You can like scroll on TikTok if you want to, or have some me time in the morning, or you can start working out in the morning instead Doing half of your workout in the morning. Maybe you do your weights at home in the morning and then you do your cardio after, or vice versa. So there's these little things that can build on other things as you free up spaces of time and become more efficient. Maybe that's what I should call this podcast like to use time more efficiently for your routines.

Speaker 1: 41:06

But yeah, so you would have already prepped lunch. You could also spend that time prepping yourself a more nutritious breakfast if you're the type of person that really likes breakfast and you want to have a more interesting breakfast than just a protein shake in an RX bar. I mean, personally I'm not a big breakfast really. During the week I just have a matcha for my breakfast and if I'm still hungry I'll have some fruit or I'll have a bar or whatever, and then I make up for that nutrition later in the day, because I'm a big lunch and dinner fan. But people love breakfast, right, and they would love to be able to have something like little egg cups or things like that. And so if you end up having that extra time where you can make something like that, you can make extras there and then you have that for breakfast tomorrow and then you still have that 20 minutes back for you to, you know, do something else. And so, yeah, this stuff kind of builds on itself and your life starts to become a lot more efficient and to make a lot more sense and to you feel a lot less like a chicken with your head cut off, you know.

Speaker 1: 42:15

And then, of course, things come up right Like not always going to get the chance to go out by the gym right after work because, you know, I don't know, maybe your kid has like a soccer game you have to go to, or you need to go pick up your mom from Dr Point, I don't know. Whatever there might be things going on. And that's fine too, because if you've built the routine, or at least you know that that is what, you have that routine memorized, you can either fall right back into it the next day or you can start adjusting your life to where you exercise at a different time. Speaking of exercise, probably the best times to do that would be right before work, not at the crack of dawn, if you can help it like sleep, sleep guys. Sleep is so important, but before work is a good time and then right after work is probably the best time for people who work full time. If you don't, or if you work from home and you have the chance to working out at your lunch break is probably like been more ideal. If you don't work at all or you have a completely flexible schedule, about 10 AM is probably the ideal time. In case you were wondering, now, personally I don't work out at 10 AM cause I dance and that's my workout right now. Well, I guess I do see my trainer at like 10 on Thursdays, but their workouts all happen in the evenings, and so I've had to adjust my routine and my schedule to accommodate the consequences of that, because there are consequences to it.

Speaker 1: 43:44

If you guys are curious, I can talk about another time, but make sure that we close up on the right note here, okay, so this is really key. Why are we doing all this? Why is it even important in the first place? Been important in the first place? We have to think about taking care of ourselves from the perspective of the investment that it makes in not just ourselves, but in the entire rest of our life and all of our relationships. So people might hear talking about this and say, like well, you know, that's a nice idea, it sounds great, but in actuality, like still probably not going to be able to do it because this, this and that, and you know, I'm just probably not going to do it because too hard, it's too much and takes away. I think a lot of us are nervous about doing something like stopping after work and working out and bumping dinner back an hour, because it takes away from time, precious time with our family and our loved ones and all of that, and so it's easy to kind of be like no, I don't want to do that today because you know, or my kids need, they need dinner at six and I have to be home in order to feed them at six and that. So I want to remind you of aside from the old cliche about putting your mask on and all of that is remember that when you invest in yourself, you are investing in other people.

Speaker 1: 45:16

Think about the difference in energy level between the first example and the second example. The first woman is just dragging, trying to get to her bed at night, right, and a lot of her feelings and emotions are very interior. She's in her head, she's like thinking she's either daydreaming or she's zoned out on her phone, or she's tired and she's like, or you know, she's just not fully present because she's so exhausted she doesn't feel good. Her blood sugar is probably all over the place too. So is that woman really giving more of herself to her family? She might be giving them more time. There's quantity time and quality time, right, and at the end of the day, people are going to remember the quality time spent together, not so much the quantity of time. So let's say that woman does start taking care of herself and do, like this day. Think about how much more energetic she's going to be and what a better mood she's going to be.

Speaker 1: 46:26

People who are not taking care of themselves tend to be more negative. They tend to be more bogged down. They tend to be more. You know that tiredness makes it hard for you to see the positives and have gratitude and all of those things the positives and have gratitude and all of those things. But a person who is taking care of themselves can see the bigger picture easier, less irritable and angry, is overall just more positive and happy. And that's going to bleed into the relationships. That's going to bleed into relationships with your partner husband, wife, whatever girlfriend, whoever it is. That's your partner. It's going to bleed into your relationship there. It's going to bleed into your relationships with your kids, if you have kids. So they are going to get a different type of mom or they're going to get a different type of partner, and I can guarantee you that most partners are going to prefer happier version of their partner, even if they get slightly less time with them, because then you can really enjoy that you have together Can lead into another conversation about partners who sabotage you.

Speaker 1: 47:30

If you've experienced that, let me know I've been thinking about doing a podcast about that, but for that, taking care of yourself is really not just about you at the end of the day. Self is really not just about you at the end of the day Should have you at the forefront. Positive side effect of it is that it ends up being care for everyone around you at the same time. So today we talked about prioritizing our self-care. We discussed the difference between a day where we're not taking care of ourselves and a day where we get into those hard choices that end up realistically serving us, and we discussed the importance of that and how that bleeds into the rest of our life and improves our mood and our relationships and all of those things and our relationships and all of those things. Hopefully it was enlightening to you or it at least inspired you to wake up tomorrow and do something hard, and it's a worthwhile cause. Really, you are a worthwhile cause.

Speaker 1: 48:33

I'm thinking about the way that a lot of us up and are conditioned to where we really just don't think that it's right or while, to put ourselves in first place, there can be like there's usually a lot of conditioning around. That and, trust me, I know for me actually ends up being the best thing for everybody, not just you, when you take care of you. So if you guys have ideas that I didn't cover or things you'd love to add, I'd love to hear from you. Let me know and get to go to the description box below. Sign up for those newsletters so that you can hear, first of all so you can get my Friday newsletter, but also so you can hear about the group programs, if you're interested in that, and just stay up to date with things that I've got going on, and I will see you next week for another episode. Have a good day.