Too Busy to Keep it Healthy?

This is a busy time of year for many of us.  I know that my life has been busy.  This past week was especially crazy.  Two of my sons are in Little League so we typically have at least 4 baseball games per week to attend.  My daughter and one of my other sons take dance classes.  Bryan and I volunteer in numerous ways for our church.  Bryan works a minimum of 65 hours per week plus travel time between his two jobs.  Life is just plain busy.

When people come to my house and see my calendar hanging on the wall I get teased regularly.  First of all, I have a calendar that was given to us by our church so it lists Holy Days and such.  People regularly tell me that I should get a calendar without all of that stuff on it so I have more room for our family activities - they may be right.  Then people just question me about the possibility that we can actually do all that is written on our calendar.  Somehow it all gets done.  Thank God for my family.  Last Monday, my brother took Ethan to his baseball game while I took Josiah to dance class.  Bryan had a meeting at church. Last Friday we had so many activities going on that I had to ask my mom to help get Josiah and Gabriella to their dance recital.  Then on Saturday, she was on duty again to get Jason to his baseball game and then to meet us at the next dance recital.  There is no way I could have handled the week without my family.  We had a flower deliver day to handle at church for youth work camp.  We had to get Josiah and Gabriella to their dance recital. We had to go to mass so I could sing and Bryan could read.  We had to teach GOF (Christian Formation classes) after mass.  That was just our schedule for Saturday.  I wont bore you with the details from Friday and Sunday.  Sunday evening, when we finally got home, we were exhausted.  Bryan had collapsed on the couch sleeping before I had even gotten all the way into the house.

On a week or weekend like that, the first thing that usually goes out the door is our healthy lifestyle.  I knew I had a busy week.  I had to plan how to get everyone to and from their activities.  If I could plan those details, I could certainly plan my healthy living details too, right?  Actually, I amazed myself by doing quite well.  These weekends are usually tricky for me.  Why?  Not only are we so busy that I don't want to take the extra few moments to track but I am physically tired and when I am physically tired, I like to eat.  It's comforting to me.  I have been doing so well with my healthy living that I really didn't want to mess things up due to our busy lifestyle.  After all, I have 5 children. Our youngest is almost 2.  I am going to have many more years of a busy lifestyle.  If I can learn how to work my busy lifestyle into my healthy lifestyle, then I will find life much easier in the years to come.

Here are a few things I did right this past weekend:

*I tracked it all.  No matter what I ate, I tracked it.  Sometimes I didn't track it until later, but I tracked it.
*I stayed away from the most of the processed carbohydrates. For example, on Saturday morning we had muffins, donuts, juice and fruit for the work camp youth and adults to eat while working with the flowers.  I only at the fruit.  I brought some yogurt with me.  I never found time to eat the yogurt.
*I drank my water. I carried my water bottle with me to every event and drank it as soon as I found myself hungry.  It helped quench my thirst and my hunger.
*I still let myself have some fun stuff, but in moderation.  Saturday evening was our GOF at church.  This was started with a meal.  Sub sandwiches were being served.  I've been eating little to no bread these days.  I had barely eaten a thing all day so a turkey sub sandwich with no mayo and piled with veggies was not going to hurt me.  It hit the spot.  It was delicious.  With the subs was chips, fruit and yogurt.  I passed on the chips. I ate the fruit and yogurt.  An hour after dinner was a sundae bar.  I had a small bowl of ice cream.  Topped only with a little chocolate syrup and some fruit.  I passed on the jimmies, nuts and whipped cream. If  was going to have ice cream I wanted to enjoy it.  Chocolate syrup was a must to enjoy it properly;)
*I didn't let tired get in the way of a healthy day.  Often when we have these busy weekends. I find myself eating too much on Sunday morning.  On Sunday morning we ate at church again.  I didn't have any french toast sticks although they looked good.  I like carbs when I am tired but knew that if I started, I would find it hard to stop.  So I just didn't start.  I ate a hard boiled egg, some fruit and a yogurt.
*Ham and rolls are so yummy on Sunday afternoons but I kept it to only one.  When we stopped for our ham and rolls like we do many Sundays, I also picked up a bag of baby carrots.  When I was tempted to have a second sandwich, I ate carrots instead.
*I paid attention to my hunger signals.  I asked myself over and over when I was tempted to eat if I was really hungry.  Most of the time the answer was no.  If that was the case, I didn't eat.

On Friday, I will weigh-in.  I don't know if I will lose anything at all this week.  Last week, I lost .2 pounds.  If I lose .2 again, I will be happy. I stuck to my daily points and my weekly points so I should probably lose a pound or more but the number doesn't matter at all to me this week.  I'm proud of myself for navigating so well this week.  If it doesn't pay off on the scale, it's already paid off in my mind and in my body.  I feel great!!

Have a great day,
Corinna