This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of INIT bars. All opinions are 100% mine.
Are you giving yourself the fuel you need to get through your active days? You get the kids ready for school, you hit the gym, run errands, pick the kids up, and start the rounds in the afternoon of activities. On the weekends your family likes to take on adventures like hiking, swimming, biking, and more. No sitting around in front of the TV for you! Despite your best efforts to stay healthy and keep up with everything, you often feel low in energy and aren’t sure why. You may just need to adjust your lifestyle a little bit to power your active lifestyle naturally. You can fuel your body to take on anything. Here are 10 tips to help you take on anything you desire.
1. Snack Frequently
To keep your energy up and to avoid crashing during the day, you need to eat small meals and snacks frequently. Don’t skip breakfast and eat a huge lunch. You will have no energy all morning and after gorging at lunch, you will crash. Eating more frequently will result in an even amount of energy throughout the day. Your blood sugar won’t crash from lack of fuel. Frequent eating (every couple hours) will keep you going through any amount of activity.
2. Snack Smart
If you are going to focus on eating more throughout the day, what do you eat when you need a snack to hold you over between your next meal? You absolutely do not want to grab a pop tart in the morning or a cookie in the afternoon. The ideal snack is delicious so you will actually want to eat it. You need a good balance of protein and fiber. You want healthy ingredients and you don’t want a lot of sugar. INIT bars meet all our requirements for a smart snack to keep us going for all our adventures.
- A good source of fiber 9g – 13g per serving
- Made from organic ingredients
- Tastes delicious
- 4 flavors – Dark Chocolate Almond & Summer Berries, Roasted Nuts & Honey Chipotle, Dark Chocolate Cherry & Cashews, Mixed Nuts & Sweet Berries
- 12 grams of sugar or less!
- 3-5 grams of protein in each bar
These bars are easy to get your hands on too. A quick trip to your local Walmart and you can pick them up in boxes of four bars each. They’re more affordable than a lot of bars. You don’t sacrifice quality of ingredients for affordability either. Grab one in each flavor and you can have one everyday. Stick one in your gym bag. Put one in your kid’s lunchbox at school. Trade out one junk snack everyday with an INIT bar and you will feel more energetic thanks to the fuel that INIT bars provide.
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3. Stay Hydrated
You cannot stay fueled during the day if you do not stay hydrated. Being dehydrated has all types of nasty results like headaches, fatigue, water retention (and belly bloat), inability to focus, and you feel hungrier and cranky! You can’t get through your next workout, go on a nature hike with your son, get through a photo shoot in the evening, or just make it to bedtime without yelling at your kids if you are experiencing those symptoms of dehydration. Your ideal water intake will vary by your size, activities, and exposure to heat. Shoot for drinking around 8 glasses a day.
4. Choose Healthy Drinks
What you drink is just as important as how much you drink. A lot of popular beverages will actually dehydrate you, like soft drinks. Drinking diet drinks with artificial sweeteners will cause you to crave more sugar, leading you off track from your plan to eat healthy snacks. Choose drinks that will keep you hydrated so you will have plenty of fuel for the active life you love. Water is always a good choice. However, there are other healthy drink choices like coconut water. Coconut water has a lot of wonderful benefits. It is extremely high in potassium which is great for recovery post workout. It hydrates you well and is easy to digest, full of natural electrolytes. Pick up some coconut water when you are grabbing some INIT bars at Walmart.
5. Meal Plan
When you live an active lifestyle, you can’t leave your meals and snacks to chance. If you take your kids to the pool for a swim and don’t have a snack planned, you will end up hitting a drive-thru when you leave the pool. You know that food isn’t healthy and you know it won’t give you and your family energy. It will do the exact opposite. Avoid junk food bloat, fatigue, and indigestion by meal planning. Prep for healthy meals ahead of time. Try salads prepared for the week in jars. Cook a batch of your favorite protein and mix in containers with fresh veggies and quinoa. You can grab one and go. No drive through necessary. Make a meal plan each week, shop for it, prep everything you can, and stick to the plan to fuel your body in the best way possible.
6. Avoid Eliminating Required Fuel
Eat a balanced diet. You don’t need to cut out all carbs. Avoiding fat is a bad idea. That isn’t healthy. Your body needs healthy carbohydrates and fats to function properly. It is probably a good idea to cut out cupcakes and french fries but some carbohydrates have a place in your diet. An active body needs protein, healthy fats, and carbohydrates. You will be stronger eating whole foods. Balance is the key, so don’t feel like you need to cut out an entire food group because doing so might be trendy right now.
7. Kick The Sugar Habit
You have got to stop the constant intake of sugar in your life if you haven’t done so already. Sugar is highly addictive and harmful in large quantities. Choose snacks and drinks that are low in sugar. A diet high in sugar will leave you feeling fatigued, and it will cause all types of health problems from frequent yeast infections to Type 2 diabetes.
8. Cut Back on Caffeine
You may think that guzzling caffeine is a good way to fuel your body, but the opposite is true. Like sugar, caffeine is highly addictive and you need more and more to feel energized. The energy burst is temporary and you crash afterwards. If you can’t quit caffeine completely, we totally understand. Moms need coffee! Just try to cut back. Rely on natural energy boosters like eating a healthy, balanced diet that includes nourishing snacks like INIT bars. Regular exercise will also increase your energy every day and unlike caffeine, you won’t have those hard crashes.
9. Exercise Frequently
Exercise may seem exhausting. A good workout will wear your body out. However, the more you exercise, the more energy you will actually have throughout the day. Your body will increase in strength and you will have more stamina in the day to take on anything. Whether you need to keep up with your kid’s crazy school schedule and sports practices or you want to go rock climbing Sunday afternoon, you will have more energy to do those things if you make exercise a priority. Get moving. That movement is fuel for your body.
10. Sleep Matters
This one is simple, but we all ignore it. You need sleep to have energy. You can’t live an active lifestyle if you are staying awake all night. Obviously if you just brought a newborn home, you won’t be getting much sleep with all the late night feedings and diaper changes. But if you are in a more settled place in your life where you don’t need to feed anyone at 2 am, please get as much sleep as possible. As work from home mamas at Daily Mom, we understand the temptation to stay up all night long and soak up those quiet hours to complete our to-do lists. You don’t need to go to bed when you tuck the kids in at 7:30 but don’t stay up until midnight either. Be as efficient with your time in the day as possible, plan for hours where you will work distraction free, and give yourself a time that you will absolutely shut the laptop or turn off Netflix and close your eyes.
As you can see, the fuel your body needs isn’t a single magical thing. It is the combination of healthy choices that will nourish and nurture you, leaving you with all the energy you need and then some. Moms don’t have to be exhausted, struggling to get through everyday. With an active, healthy lifestyle, you can keep up with your kids. Not only will you have more energy for an active lifestyle, your kids will see you modeling this behavior and will want to live in this way as well. Be adventurous together as a family. You will have the energy to get it all done. What new activity do you want to try together? As an active family, fueled by good choices, you can do anything!
You can get in your exercise anytime. Here are 10+ Playground Exercises for Mom.
Resources: What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Water
Photo Credits: everyavenuegirl, Kristen D.
