Staying Healthy For Kids: Habits for a Busy Lifestyle

Given how jam-packed our family schedule is, along with how active and young my children are, it’s no wonder I often find myself overwhelmed with finding the time to eat right and exercise. Still, it’s not an excuse. Often, it just takes looking at your schedule and lifestyle a little closer. Like me, you might have to think differently about your health and fitness routine. For years now, I seem to have been stuck thinking that I needed to exercise the way I used to, which meant 3-4 days at the gym, alone. Alone doesn’t happen very often anymore with my 3 year old twins and my 5 year old son. For me to be successful, I had to adjust what my idea of exercise was. Same for healthy eating. It takes a bit more work, but here are some things you can do to help stay healthy with a busy family and lifestyle.

Exercise as a Family

Find activities that you can do with your children or as a family to fit exercise in. Whether that means investing in a jogging stroller, or riding bikes together – consider your family and what would work best.

Plan Outdoor Activities

Another avenue for exercise is outdoor activities. Playing ball in the backyard, a hike or walking can all be ways to sneak in some activity while keeping your family engaged and having fun.

Meal Plan Makeover

Look at your meal rotation. What works and what doesn’t? I developed a base of 14 meals that we can rotate every 2 weeks. Make sure you take all family members into consideration and plan a meal that will work for everyone (with minor tweaks here and there). This will help keep meals interesting and over time you can add in new meals or make changes. This also streamlines grocery shopping.

Resist Convenience

While on the subject of eating, try to resist convenience. It can be really easy to fall for the marketing of convenience foods. It’s okay to have things in moderation, but don’t let these foods replace whole foods, fruits and vegetables. Instead of a packaged snacks, encourage your family (and yourself) to have some fresh fruit or vegetables and a homemade dip. Not having all those snack foods around will help keep you in line, as well.

Drink Water – A lot of water!

Water is the best way to keep healthy and it’s fairly easy to do! Keep water with you at all times and drink up! We stay away from juice boxes and sweetened drinks and my kids take their water bottles to school and have one for home. Add lemon for a little flavor – but this is also a great way to start the day, too.

Get Plenty of Sleep

I realize this one is not as easy, depending on your stage of parenting, but try to make sure you are getting 6-8 hours of sleep a night. Your body will work best when well hydrated and well-rested. And while I’m still working on this one myself, try to be consistent with your sleeping. It will help your body get into a natural rhythm.

Maintain Digestive Health with a Probiotic

A product like Align Probiotics will help with digestive care. Align helps maintain your digestive system’s natural balance. (This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease).

I was able to try Align Probiotics and really felt a difference especially when traveling. Summer can be a disruptive time for your digestive health. You may experience changes in the types of foods you eat, times you have meals or sleep/exercise patterns. All of it can leave you feeling a little off. Taking Align this summer has really made me feel like I have some balance.

Overall, take a look at how you can keep your health & fitness goals while maintaining your active family life. Stay true to the things you absolutely must have each day – like enough water, eating regular meals, and taking a probiotic – and incorporate fitness into family fun!

If you want to try it out and see the difference, head to Target to save 15% on Align Probiotic products using Target’s Cartwheel app. Offer ends 7/19.