Fitness Friday: Healthy Eating Tips for a Busy Mom

Moms nowadays are busier than they ever have been in history. In many North American cities mothers who are divorced are left to raise children on their own. Many mothers who are married live far away from parental help and therefore don’t have the support network to look after their children that mothers did 100 years ago. Add that to the fact that many mothers work part-time or full time, take their kids to/from school and activities and basically run a household all day. With all of this going on, eating healthy can be an immense challenge for a mother as well as her children.

Here are four tips to help make this process much easier and help to live a healthier life.

The first key to healthy eating is to know your ingredients.

We always encourage our members to avoid the 3 major “white” ingredients in food as much as possible: sugar, salt and white flour. Sugar is a major source of empty calories and can cause havoc with your body’s insulin levels. It is a major cause of inflammation which makes you feel swollen and puffy. Inflammation is also a major contributor to disease. Salt is pretty much added to almost all processed food and excess salt intake can lead to hypertension and ultimately heart disease. Finally, white flour is a poor source of nutrition, is in most processed foods and is very close to sugar in terms of its ability to spike your blood sugar levels. Picking foods that minimize these 3 ingredients is key to your health.

In terms of snacks, a protein shake is a great idea for a post workout snack or to fill you up between meals. Use a good quality whey protein powder that is roughly 100 calories per scoop and blend with some frozen berries and some water/milk. As protein shakes are liquid they get absorbed into the body/digested very easily and that is why they are a great post workout snack. Using a mini blender, such as a Magic Bullet ™, makes this type of drink very easy to make and to clean up after.

Other great snack ideas include eating a large variety of fruits and vegetables along with small quantities of nuts and seeds. Now these may seem boring but there are many healthy ideas for dips that you can use with these. Some dips can consist of plain yogurt with a variety of spices added to them, mustard, hummus or almond butter. These are just a few of the great dips you can add to fruits and vegetables that are easy and quick to make. They add a lot of flavor to these foods and are much healthier than store bought dips.

Here is one of our favorite dip recipes from the Cardio Blast Ultimate Athletic Meal Plan.

Lentils and beans are a great way to fill you up and a snack most of us don’t think about. They are a great source of protein, fibre and vitamins/minerals. Most people don’t get enough fibre and try to get their protein from animal products. However, beans are a great source of protein and contain more nutrients than animal protein. Plus they are usually very cheap. Soak dried beans in water over night and they are then ready to cook. Add them to a tomato/chili sauce or a vinaigrette type dressing and they make a healthy snack chalk full of nutrients.

These 4 tips for healthy snacking are just a few of the ways that you can eat healthy between your meals and add a lot of vitamins/minerals to your diet.

This Post was written by Alex K from Cardio Blast.