As a working woman, I often struggle balancing working 40 plus hours a week and finding some sort of routine to follow to ensure I am staying healthy and not forgetting to take care of myself. It is so easy to fall back into bad habits. Whether it be bad eating habits, binging tv shows, social media, procrastinating, or any number of things that are preventing you from living your best life.
The key is consistency. It takes 21 days to form a habit. However, I know the habit might not stay and you find it easier to fall back into bad habits rather than pushing yourself forward and keeping yourself on track with the good ones you’re in the midst of forming.
Jobs take up a lot of our time, 8-12 hours a day, 40-60 hours a week, and a lot of jobs just leave us mentally or physically exhausted afterwards, no matter how much we like or dislike what we are doing. Then you have to factor in everything else you want to get accomplished outside of work. Hobbies, cleaning, errands, attempting to have a social life. It’s hard. I know. It gets really hard to balance everything and still squeeze in time to work on you and squeeze in time to get a work out in.
The most important step is to not put yourself down or make yourself feel bad if you can’t do it every day. Realistically, no one works out every single day, at least not to the extent of anything extremely intense. People have cheat days and they enjoy snacks and don’t always follow an extremely strict diet, because why limit yourself and force yourself to not eat the things you enjoy. People need a do nothing day, it helps us be more productive during the week, we get tired and need a nap and that’s okay. It is important to remember that some days will be harder than others and some days it is more important to listen to our body when it is telling us to slow down rather than making sure we get a workout in to fulfill our “healthy lifestyle”.
EATING HEALTHY
One of the things I struggle with the most is finding ways to eat healthier. Eating healthy is so important because you need to be fueling your body with the right nutrients to keep yourself awake and strong enough to conquer whatever life may be throwing at you. I find it hard to make time to prepare meals and make sure I’m not taking the easy way out and opting for takeout or a bag of cookies instead of a nice healthy home cooked meal or a plate of fruits or vegetables.
Meal planning and meal prepping will become your holy grail when it comes to ensuring you are eating healthy and fueling your body to conquer your full work week ahead. Start by writing out all of the meals and snacks you want for the week, planning it out to follow whatever diet you are following.
Once you know what you want to eat, pick a day at the beginning of the week and meal prep. Whether you are mass cooking a bunch of chicken and/or vegetables to eat a very similar meal every day, or you are just cutting up and cooking everything you will be eating that week and assembling it to create your meals. Pick a day at the beginning of the week to get your cooking done so you don’t have to worry about making your lunch every single day, this will save a lot of time. I also find it very beneficial to prepare your lunch the night before and put your meal and prepared snacks in your lunch bag so you just have to grab it and go in the morning. You can always add more time at the end of the day at night to prepare what you need for the morning then add more time in the morning to prepare things.
Planning what you will eat will put you on a better track for eating right.
- Meal plan
- Meal prep
- Pack your lunch and snacks the night before
Those are the three easiest steps you can follow to ensure you are getting your nutrients and putting the right food in your body to help you power through your day.
EXERCISE
Getting exercise can be tough. You start to get way too tired after a long stressful day. All your mind is telling you is to go home and relax or you try to do way too much after work, squeezing in any sort of workout seems near impossible. However, I find it can be rather easy to sneak in a small workout here and there throughout your day, even if you can’t hit the gym afterwards.
If you are a morning person, it might be beneficial to get in a small workout before work, whether you hit the gym, go for a walk outside, or you can squeeze in an at home workout before heading to work. I know this can be somewhat hard as we are not all morning people. I know I cherish my sleep and I have to be at work for 7 am. So the thought of having to wake up even earlier, just to get a workout in, is unimaginable most days.
You can always start by parking a little bit further away from the entrance and taking the stairs up to your floor, if possible. This can jump start your day by adding even 5 minutes of cardio or one to two flights of stairs.. You will get your blood pumping and be able to feel better that even if you are unable to do anything else, you at least were able to bring in some cardio.
On the same note, you can easily squeeze in cardio and walking throughout your day. You can take the longer way to go to the bathroom or the break room throughout the day. You can also spend part of your lunch getting in a nice walk, either inside or taking a step outside. There are infinite possibilities to get cairo in, and try to reach that step goal you set for yourself.
I also recommend setting specific days of the week you will make it to the gym. If you make a point to go to the gym (or squeeze in a workout) on the same day every week, it will slowly become habit and you will create a routine for yourself. So, pick 1 day a week you know for certain ar generally less busy, and make it a point to go to the gym every week on that day. Then you can continually raise it up and add another day until you are attending the gym for however many days your goal is. By ensuring you are hitting the gym x amount of times a week, you are ensuring you are getting your physical exercise.
So, in summary,
- Wake up earlier to do a workout
- Park further away and take the stairs
- Take the long way to get to the breakroom or rest room
- Squeeze in a walk during lunch
- Set aside specific days of the week you will get in a workout
It won’t be easy, but every little bit helps. It takes 21 days to form a habit and your dreaded workouts will soon become easier and easier to fit into your busy schedule. Start small and slowly add more and more physical activity into your day. It’s okay if it takes you a bit to add more than just cardio throughout your work day. Working those legs is still getting that blood pumping, that heart racing, and those calories a burning.
SELF CARE
Self care is so important. We need to let ourselves know we love us and we are doing what we can to care for the only body we will ever have. There are so many things you can do to engage in self care, and many of them you can incorporate into your work day.
You can start by treating yourself to a healthy snack from the cafe, or a smoothie. This might be the best pick me up you could have gotten all day. As long as you don’t load up on sugar, a small treat during a busy day can be all of the self care you need to treat yourself and continue powering through the day.
You can go to the spa or get a massage after work or on your day off. There are a lot of gyms that offer saunas and massage chairs. So, if you are already attending a gym, try cutting your workout short one day and hopping in that massage chair that has been calling your name since you joined.
You can always try a face mask. You can be wearing that face mask while you are preparing dinner or working on answering some emails from home. Face masks can completely relax your face and open up your pores and leave you feeling much more refreshed then you’ve felt all month.
You can also try taking a bath one night. I know you might prefer showers since you can make them a lot quicker. Just turn off your laptop early one night, hop in the bath you’ve just filled with your favorite bubble or salts or bath bombs and open a book you’ve been dying to red and just take 20-30 minutes and relax. We all always have 30 minutes to take from out day. I know I do, with all the procrastination or time I get side tracked by social media or a friend.
You can engage in self care in so many more ways than what I have listed above.
- Treating yourself to a snack – or a smoothie
- Going to the spa or getting a massage
- Trying out a facemask
- Take a bath and open up a new book
We all have different ways we engage in self care. Whatever your way may be, take 30 minutes and just do it. We need to be looking out for ourselves and taking care of ourselves or we will get burned out from work a lot faster.
SOCIAL INTERACTIONS
We as humans crave social interactions. We are not a species that is meant to live in isolation. I know you might be thinking to yourself, “well I see people at work every day and I definitely have at least one conversation with coworker a day”. Yes, that does count as social interactions, but unless you are best friends with your coworkers and you hang out outside of work, pick up your phone and call a friend. It is so important to our physical well being and our sanity to stay in contact with our friends and family.
I know you might be thinking you don’t have time to pick up the phone to talk to anyone. However, you can try giving them a call on your break or on your drive home from work, or wherever you may be going. I know some days that is the only time of the day I can foresee myself being able to talk to anyone, so I take advantage of it.
If you don’t enjoy talking on the phone or feel like you just don’t have the time for longer than a five minute conversation, you can always send a friend a text message letting them know you were thinking of them. You also never know how their day may be going. That one text message can make their entire day.
It is also so important to designate one day a month you will go out with friends and not think about work at all. This might be harder trying to find a time that fits in with other peoples schedule. It doesn’t have to be a crazy event. Meet up with a friend for coffee, for lunch, for a hike, having them join you for your gym session, or just going on a drive with them.
Keeping your friends close, especially while you are living a busy life is essential to your sanity.
- Try to call a friend on your drive home or on your break. Can’t get in a phone call? It’s okay, send them a text.
- Try to hang out or meet up with someone at least once a month, even if it is just for coffee.
I know it can get stressful trying to find time in your busy schedule to hang out with someone you don’t live with. However, we are all meant to live a social life. We need social interactions with our friends for our mental and our physical well being.
RELAXING AND DOWN TIME
The most important thing is to ensure you are making enough time for you to relax and set aside some down time. It is not healthy to just always be go go go and then eventually fall asleep when we are too tired to finish our work.
We need time after our work in completed to decompose. Turn off your phone and your laptop and just take some time to relax before settling into bed for the evening. The quality of your sleep will not be the same if you do not give your body enough time to relax before bed. You need quality sleep in order to avoid feeling tired and drained throughout the day.
Find an activity that relaxes you, whether it be, going outside and taking in the fresh air, going on a walk, reading, writing, watching tv, hanging out with your pet or someone you live with, and take some time to do it. Take time for you. Take time to relax. Take time to unwind and give your mind a break from going all day.
It’ll take some time, but taking care of yourself and staying healthy is so important to our wellbeing. We have to put in the effort to live a healthier lifestyle. Making time for yourself and making time to work on yourself will improve a lot more than how you look. You will begin to feel better, you will have a stronger and clearer mind and will be able to be so much more productive and get more done during your day. We should be out number one priority, so we have to work on ourselves and take care of ourselves. I know it can get hard with working full time, or more than full time, but once you form a couple small habits, it’ll become easier and easier to start taking care of yourself. So, keep on crushing it, and make yourself look good and feel good along the way.