Heart Healthy Goals

2018 is off to an amazing start. I’m one month in already and realized I need to share some of my healthy goals with all of you! This post is in partnership with Henry Ford Health System, all opinions are my own.

2017 was an amazing year for my family. We welcomed Annabelle in March and she was the most perfect gift we could ever receive. But 2017 was very, very, hard. We grew, changed, were challenged, and stretched to the max as we learned how to be a family of five. 2017 was tough. It was not a year of “me”. It was a year of “everyone else”. Because being a mom to three little ones is no laughing matter. Being pulled in a million different directions all day long (and sometimes all night long too) is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It is the best, don’t get me wrong, but it is hard.

After having Annabelle I suffered silently with post-partum depression. I didn’t talk about it much, but it was there. I knew enough about how you should feel after having a baby to know that what I was feeling was more than the typical baby blues. To make matters worse, when I finally started to feel a little bit more like myself I learned that my job was eliminated while I was out on maternity leave. I felt like I had been kicked while I was already down. And on top of that, my body didn’t bounce back after baby #3 like it had with the first two. After months of stressing and feeling not like myself, I finally just embraced it. 2017 was not the year for me to do ALL THE THINGS. It was a year for me to take care of my family, survive, and enjoy my kids.

But now that it’s 2018 and I’m feeling like I have a little bit more control over my life (I mean, as much as you can have with three little kids running round!) I think that this is the year of me. So often I’ve put myself on the back burner, but that is over! I’ve realized that taking care of myself needs to be a priority. I want to live a long and happy life, and be able to be there for my kids. A happy and healthy mom is what they need!

So I’ve created a few healthy goals for this year…all of which are realistic and attainable. Just what I need!

1. Enjoy more. I know just how fast this time with my babies will go. And I want to enjoy it all. Soak it up. Cuddle more. Tickle more. Play cars on the ground more. Say “yes” to my kids more. Just do more.

2. Say no. If I want to do more and say “yes” to my kids, that means I need to learn to say “no” to all of the extra things that take up my time that don’t bring me joy.

3. Do something for me, every day. That means waking up early to enjoy some peace and quiet time by myself. Or taking a hot bubble bath alone. Going for a walk alone. Hitting the gym. Taking a yoga class. Just something. It doesn’t have to be big, but it has to be just for me.

4. Get out and be active! My kids keep me busy, but doing something physical with them every day is totally a key to their happiness as well as mine!

5. Make healthy choices with food. I need to focus this year on taking care of my body, and that starts with the foods I put in to it. I want to model healthy eating and making healthy choices to my kids.

6. Get my kids cooking! I want to involve Hudson in the kitchen more this year. He loves to help me cook and it’s a great way to motivate him to try new foods.

7. Read more. I love to read but haven’t had time to actually do it in the past few years. I’d love to read one book a month, and go to the library twice a month with the kids to pick out new books. They LOVE going and I love seeing them excited over books.

8. Clean the kitchen every night before bed. This may seem silly, but having a clean kitchen and zero dishes in the sink when I wake up in the morning makes a world of difference and helps our hectic mornings run more smoothly.

9. Get a heart screening. I know that heart disease is the leading cause of death for women, so keeping my heart healthy and making healthy choices is something that is very important to me. Henry Ford Health System Heart Screening is available for women like me in Michigan and is a great resource for learning more about your own health.

Overall this year I just want to be healthy. I want to be able to run and play with my kids without being winded. I want to be able to say yes to them more. And I just want to enjoy them more. When I’m with them I want to focus on them…and not the million other tasks I need to be working on. My children are the most important things to me in this world…..so taking care of myself will help me be a better mom to them, and that’s all that matters.

Part of taking care of yourself means setting up an annual physical exam. I know it can be difficult to make the time to do this, but it really is important to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. My doctor sends me a reminder card in the mail every year, which makes setting up that appointment so much easier! Henry Ford offers an easy, interactive online tool to assess your heart health called the Heart Health Risk Assessment. I recently took it (it only took a few minutes!) and found out that I am at a low risk for heart disease. My uncle died from heart disease so it is something I always have in the back of my mind. I love that such a simple tool can help you learn so much about your health! Take a few minutes to take the assessment…I promise you’ll get a lot of helpful insight into your health! The sooner you know your risk of heart disease, the better chance you have to keep your heart healthy and strong. If you have heart disease in your family, or simply want to learn more about your heart health, Henry Ford offers a $99 heart screening with an expert so that you can know your heart risk in less than an hour!

Taking care of your heart is so important to being happy and healthy. As a world leader in heart health, Henry Ford Heart & Vascular Institute offers minimally invasive surgeries and treatments for people with heart disease every day. They offer a wide variety of resources for keeping your heart healthy. People from all over the world visit Henry Ford Heart & Vascular Institute because they believe that heart and vascular care is not one size fits all because you and your heart are one of a kind. Be sure to check out their Women’s Heart Center for some great resources.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Henry Ford Health System.