I get asked all the time about how I’ve created healthy habits for my family, especially my children. To be honest, it’s a constant work in progress. One we strive to perfect daily. I’d like to say they do exactly as I tell them without ever pitching a fit, but the truth is they don’t. They still complain, gripe and make faces at most of my healthy meals, all three of them gag at the sight of vitamins, and they definitely don’t ask for green smoothies over doughnuts. But I have stayed consistent with our morning routine and it finally feels like it’s clicking. I hope by sharing a peek into our day it can help yours go a bit smoother too.
Consistency is key to making healthy habits stick
No matter how many times your kids may say they don’t like their vitamins or turn their nose up at breakfast, don’t give up and definitely don’t give in. I’ve found having a consistent routine for vitamins each morning has made a huge difference for our family, myself especially. We no longer have to battle and bribe and I no longer have the guilt of forgetting. Wake up, take our vitamins and eat breakfast. Easy as that.
Monkey see monkey do
To create healthy habits you have to lead with healthy habits. You can’t lead your family to better health if you aren’t healthy yourself. It’s so much easier for our kids to want to eat and be healthier when they see us doing the same. I love to include my kids in the kitchen. When they help plan and prepare a meal, they are far more likely to eat it, and even get excited! Smoothies are their favorite to create, and mine too! They are healthy, delicious, safe to prepare and easy to clean up.
Early to bed early to rise
I wish I could say I was a morning person, but I’m not. Mornings are a struggle for all of us, and we are late to school 3 days out of 5. However our morning routine stays solid when we all get a good nights sleep. We aim for 8-10 hours a night. This means unplugging and leaving our electronic devices charging in the kitchen and not in the bedroom. I’m not always the best at this… but I’m working on it.
I try to get up an hour before my kids to have breakfast started, vitamins set out and our lunches made. By 7:00 am sleepy hungry kids slowling shuffle their way into the kitchen. If I’m not up and ready when they are, you can count on chaos until the school bell rings.
I line up each kiddos daily vitamins individually in a row on the counter before I do anything else. While the kids start on those, I start on our morning green smoothie. We all love green smoothies and they are beyond easy to whip up in the rush of a busy morning. Most days we don’t follow a recipe, we just throw whatever we have in the fridge or freezer and blend it up. I like to add VEGA protein & greens to ours for added protein, vitamins and greens. I’m always sneaking a handful of spinach or kale in there too. I divide it up evenly between all of us and follow with a hearty breakfast. Usually an egg scramble loaded with veggies or oatmeal topped with nuts and berries.
Our morning vitamin line up
Smarty Pants all in one multi vitamins- each with added omega-3, vitamin D3 and vitamin B12. I love these for all of us. They are packed to the brim with vitamins and minerals. Bonus they taste like candy.
Elderberry– for immune support. I swear by it. We all take this daily during flu season and it works!
Zinc– also for added immune support. We all like the melt away lozenges.
Tumeric– for myself to tackle inflammation. Mornings are the most painful for my arthritis and tumeric acts fast.
Probiotics for all of our gut health. Probiotics also help your vitamins to be separated and used in the body more efficiently through the digestive processes.
I picked all of these up at my local Smiths. They have an impressive variety of vitamins and supplements to choose from and lucky for me they are just around the corner from our house. Talk about a one stop shop!
We love Smarty Pants multi vitamins! Each family member has their very own bottle specific for their own needs. Bonus my kids think they taste like fruit snacks!
Take it outside
If the sun is shining you can bet we are walking too school…. or running! I’ve found the best way to keep myself active and accountable is by engaging with my kids in outdoor activities. We all love to be outdoors and I can easily get in an extra couple hundred steps just by playing with my kids. Whether it’s a trip to the park, bike ride around the neighborhood, game of basketball or even hopscotch getting outside and moving can help you and your kids stay active every day.
Remember, the example you set now will remain with your kids for a lifetime.
We all love this raspberry biscotti smoothie in the morning! It’s tart, delicious and packed full of fiber and greens! Enjoy!
Raspberry Biscotti Smoothie
- 1 scoop Vega Protein & Greens Coconut Almond powder
- 1/2 cup Simple Truth frozen raspberries
- 1 cup Simple Truth vanilla almond milk
- handful of spinach
- 1-2 tbsp pure maple syrup (optional)
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 1/2 cup ice
Ingredients
- Add all ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth.
Recipe Notes
Recipe inspired by Vega
Great seeing you choose Nature’s Way…..that and Dr. Christophers formulas are my go to trusted companies.
Been using them for almost 50 years and it has helped me to avoid pharma medicines/most trips to doctor. I’m in my sixties now and take no meds whatsoever; go to doctor only as needed if I can’t solve something with natural helps.
My children had bronchitis when young, for literally months, when the meds didn’t work, I asked a health nut friend for advice. She recommended Dr. Christophers lung/bronchial (different name back then but same formula). It is very mild, so I opened up capsules and put it in applesauce, I researched how much to use for each age, so it was more like 1/2 capsule or less for each my young children. After doing this for a few months on average of every other day….no more bronchitis the rest of their childhood years. And if it threatened, I knew just what to do to head it off.
P. S……Here’s how I tackled clean eating over the years, starting many moons ago when it was NOT popular at all [and if you used herbs you were considered even more strange]. I learned that eating healthy was NOT expensive:
My secrets are nutritionally-dense foods and a lot of fiber…..
wheat and whole grains (many to choose from but I mostly use wheat, brown rice, oatmeal, rye, millet) / lentils and dry beans / vegetables (a garden if possible so it’s organic food) / fruits / meat and dairy sparingly / nuts and nut milks, but also grain milks made with rice or oatmeal; also what I call ‘wheat water’ (rinse dry wheat kernels so they are clean, cover with good water, let sit overnight, drain off wheat water to drink or use in a smoothie, then use soaked wheat to sprout……my fave wheat sprout salad is: grated carrots, wheat sprouts, crushed pineapple. undrained, a bit of cream cheese)
My family loves lentil tacos, even my meat-loving men. They went along with my ventures as long as I fed them a roast or similar every so often (I’d make certain on those meals to make extra side dishes with vegetable so they would eat less meat).
Yes, I had the same challenges with my children that you mentioned, ‘why do we have to eat this?’….but all of my kids are now healthy adults!!! My husband’s family had 4 kids with diabetes and I was determined that it would not pass down to my children….yay….none have it….
Wow Janet! Thank your sharing your story. It sounds like you are doing amazing things! I can’t wait to try your wheat sprout salad! It sounds fantastic!!