Episode #314: Q&A: Adding Cardio into a Strength Routine, Working Out While Sleep Deprived, & More!

Intro:

Welcome to The Healthy Catholic moms podcast where we make moving and nourishing our bodies the priority, so that we not only fulfill our vocations, but excel in our callings. I’m Brittany Pearson, a Catholic wife, mom, personal trainer, and I’m here to help you build healthy habits that actually fit your life. I am here to teach you how to get the results that you want and maintain the results that you want. Without spending hours at the gym, or meal prepping all weekend long. I understand I am right here with you getting my workouts done in the nooks and crannies of time, looking up recipes, while nursing babies and trying to prioritize my own health amidst everything else going on. But I have really good news for you, you can get the results you want. In less time without doing hours of cardio and restrictive dieting. I’m going to teach you how to use strength training and eating in a macro balanced way to get you feeling so good and your skin full of energy, and strong to carry out your life. Okay, on this podcast, we’ll delve into how to lose fat in a simple, sustainable way. What your workouts and nutrition should look like during different seasons of life, like during pregnancy and postpartum times. We’ll also discuss healthy quick meals, and how to get them on the table make foods that kids will actually want to eat. Mom hacks for making your day run more smoothly, and so much more. All the while with continuous encouragement to stay the course and live with discipline. This is a place where we’re striving to steward our bodies. Well, in order to joyfully serve. I am so happy you’re here. Let’s dive in.

Main Episode:
Hi, there, friends, how are you? I hope you’re having a wonderful day. Thank you so much for being here and tuning in today. If you are here all the time, thank you so much for always coming back. And if you’re brand new, thank you for trying it out. I hope you stick around. And there’s lots of information over healthy Catholic moms.com about what programs they offer, how we can work together, free resources, healthy Catholic moms merchandise and resources and all that great stuff. So I don’t chat about that too much here try to just get right to it. Because most of us are busy moms. And I am usually watching the monitor during nap time or like really early in the morning when I’m recording. So like to get right to it. And that’s what we’re gonna do today for a fun little q&a episode. Thank you so much. To all of you who submitted questions. You can do this anytime just email me Brittany, unhealthy Catholic moms.com. Or you can shoot me a message on Instagram, just healthy Catholic moms. And I really appreciate it because if you have a question probably it is more than just you. And then I get ideas for maybe a q&a, but also maybe a long form episode just on your topic. So keep them coming. And thank you to all those who sent these. So number one, it’s kind of fun, not health and fitness related. But what is your favorite prayer? And how to think about this, my first answer would truly be the rosary. And I have had a long, like winding not battle but journey with Ramy rosary and I talked about that a little bit when I was talking about my goals for this year. Because praying the rosary daily was just something that was so easy to me back when I was in college I remember just being in a really great groove of every single day praying the rosary and praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet most days, like without fail, and that was just something that slipped through the years of kids and life getting busier fuller schedule changing. And not always praying a daily rosary. And that was part of my one of my goals for this year to get into praying the rosary daily again, and I’m still out there. I’m not 100% on saying the entire thing every day most days I’m at least starting it and you know, working on it throughout the day, sometimes it increments and whatnot, but it’s still I’ve really developed a love for the Rosary as I’ve tried to prioritize coming back to it because for me in those in between years, I would sometimes just see it as a checklist item and was like, you know, I’m having a really hard time with this. Because, you know, I’m just trying to get it done. But it changed from that in the past like two years it’s been more like no, I crave it I crave that meditation time. I just really love getting to meditate on the mysteries during it I want quiet like I do, I do truly crave it. It didn’t become like I have to do this today. It was like I want the peace and quiet in space to be able to do this. So that’s been a really cool transition. I will say I still really enjoy the Divine Mercy Chaplet and for quick go twos. I know these are probably pretty cliche but a quick go to when I’m panicking about something
driving in a snowstorm or, you know, if somebody asks me for prayers, I tend to you know, say oh yes, I’ll pray for that intention. And then if I don’t do it right then I’m gonna forget and sometimes they will
Just pray you know generically for Lord any intentions that you know people who have asked me to pray for them. But what I tried to do is when someone asked me for prayer to just stop what I’m doing, and prayer memory right there, sometimes a Hail Mary or something, but that is usually my go to kind of right now. Like I said, driving a snowstorm, or like this person needs, you know, this person’s in surgery right now, that kind of thing. I do really like the memory again, she Marian prayers are really the big ones. And then Hail Mary and our father, like I said, kind of cliche kind of basic, but they are what come to mind during the day. You guys might laugh at this one. I had to tell my husband this. I haven’t. I don’t you know, this is stuff I don’t divulge in daily conversation, but it doesn’t feel like I’m really telling anybody except that I’m telling, you know, several 100 of my closest friends here, but it’s alright guys were together. So what I’ve started doing is praying a Hail Mary in my head. After I’ve thought a negative thought about like in reaction to something with my kids, like if they can’t find something that I’ve clearly laid out. And now I have to go get it or something’s inconvenient like that. Or they asked me the same question for the 99th time. And the reason I started praying Hail Mary, there is because my knee jerk reaction is in my head to go. Are you serious? Or like, Are you kidding me? You’re so annoying. And I’m trying to change that reaction, because it is just totally a reaction right now. And I can tell like, I don’t know, when that became the reaction to get so easily annoyed about things like that, like this is part of the motherhood journey. Okay, I know that this is going to be a lot of years of that. So I just need to stop getting so annoyed by it. So this is where I’m trying to say a mental Hail Mary, so I can kind of retrain myself. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on that.

Okay, on to the next question, best days, and times to add cardio, if you’re doing five strength days and two rest days, I just actually talked about this a couple of weeks ago, in the chasing greatness group, our monthly workout group, because I pretty much every single month, do five strength training days, it varies a little bit, one day might be more, I sometimes will do a full cardio day, but usually it’s cardio would be roped into a strength training. So it’s almost always five strength training days. And, you know, two rest days. So this is tough, it partially depends on how fit you are and how far or how much cardio you’re trying to do. In general, a blanket statement here would be I would prioritize what you’re trying to grow in. So if you were
training for a 5k, you know, maybe you’re going to do one of your runs. If you have to run a mile, or you have to run a mile and a half, maybe you would do that first, and then do whatever your strength is for that day, most of us don’t, I’m going to assume that you don’t have the luxury of splitting up your workouts
in that way, then I’d say you know, that’s a different conversation. If you could do it at split times, I guess I’ll speak to that too. So in general, prioritize what you are trying to grow. And for most of us, that’s going to be the strength first. And then the cardio after, if you are trying to, you know purposely add it in for something because you enjoy it. Or because you’re training for something, typically, I would do strength first. Now, the other day, I just did the opposite of this, I ran a mile that I did my strength workout after. It’s not Oh, I’m so fit, but I knew that a mile would be a good warm up, it wouldn’t deplete me, I wouldn’t be dead, it would just you know, be exactly what I needed it to be get my heart rate up and get ready for the work ahead. Whereas me mentally, not usually all about the cardio, I knew I wouldn’t do strength and then probably go for a mile run after I would just be like nope, I’m done now with the strength. And that’s you know, so there are totally little caveats and Asterix in here. Now, if you can split it up if you have that luxury, and you’re saying okay, I have five strength workouts, I have two rest days, where am I putting cardio, I would do your cardio workout earlier in the day just because most of us do better with cardio on a more empty stomach and most of us do better with strength with more food in the tank. So I would do and I did this back in the day when I actually would do two workouts a day I would do a spin class in the morning or get on the Stairmaster or something in the morning and then I would do my lifts at night when I had more food in my in the tank and that’s totally fine. Now in general, I just wanna make the statement to you don’t need cardio in there cardio can be great. This is what we were just talking about the Jason greenness group, you know, it’s a tool for fat loss for sure if that’s what you want. It is also great for you know, mood boosting endorphins and to get a good sweat on it can be really mentally satisfying to kind of feel like you just, you know, left it all out there after a run or after a bike ride or anything like that. So that is great. But please don’t feel like you need to do cardio for fat loss, or that you need to do it. You know so frequently our body does adapt to things very quickly. And if you start doing daily cardio to try to get more fit or get more lean your body
He’s gonna figure that out really quickly. And you’re gonna have to be doing that for a while, like, I’ve talked about that a little bit before, of if you run six miles every day, you’re gonna pretty much have to keep doing that or your body is going to gain fat because now that’s what your body’s used to.

Okay, next question, who are gonna get through an extensive list today? We’ll see if I get through them all, to some people do better with a higher fat slash lower carb, macro balance. Are there any downsides? This is 100%? A very personal question. Now, I just made recently a free download that you can get over on my website, healthy Catholic moms DICOM, about how to set your macro targets. And I walk you through setting your protein first, but then tweaking your carbs and fat around that, I do typically still recommend keeping a higher
carb, gram a lot, a lot more than fat because most of our bodies do better running off carbs. This is really general really blanket statements here. But you know, that still gives a range you could be looking at, I don’t know, just making up numbers here. 200 grams of carbs and 50 grams of fat. And that would still be a high. That’d be a high carb low, you know, lower fat. But that’s a big discrepancy. I think it’s a 250. Okay, 200 grams of carbs, 50 grams of fat. So then you could instead say, Okay, I’m going to take that down to like 130 or 140 grams of carbs. And like 70 grams of fat. I’m not clearing all the math on this, but you get what I’m saying it’s a closer gap. But carbs is still higher. A lot of people do really well here. But I still very seldom would put I don’t think I’ve ever put anyone’s fat higher than carbs, you know, maybe equal or right around the same again, there’s little differentiations, but you get to pick and in looking at that download, you know what you’re going to give yourself more of that’s a little bit of personal preference.

Okay. Next question. Any insight on the necessity of?
Oh, wait a second. Sorry, I lost it. Oh, I’m combining two questions. Okay. I’m gonna come back to this question. This question is interesting. It’s about the necessity or benefit of including complete proteins of vegetarian meals. I really liked this question. Thank you so much. Please don’t think I’m skipping you. I’m gonna come back and do that as a full episode. So I need to flag that one. Okay.

Next is healing DR actually possible/important before exercising normally again? Okay. Love this question coming at me right after the DR episode, which is great. So this might have answered some of those questions. But it is a complicated question with concrete answers.

Essentially, you don’t want to do anything that’s going to worsen the gap. Okay, so, no, you do not have to wait until your abs are totally back together or totally firm before doing anything besides like basic ABA engagements and basic glute bridges and practicing your breathing, I get that I don’t want you to stay there for a year. I mentioned in the Dr. Episode, that with my third kid, I had that gap, that at least two finger gap. It was like just over two for almost an entire year. And that would obviously have made me want to pluck my eyeballs out. Sorry, I know, if I was gonna say eyelashes and eyeballs came out a little grosser than I intended. But that would make me crazy if all I could do for one year was basic engagements and glute bridges and breathing and posture exercise. So no, you absolutely can do quote unquote normal exercise, but with a lot of caveats. And a lot of Asterix here, nothing that’s going to worsen the gap. So you still want to do exercises that are going to encourage the gap to close and I did walk through some of those on or make it firmer, did walk through some of what those exercises look like in the last episode, you just need to be really aware of not pushing anything to the maximum and of trying to encourage your abs to go back toward each other or strengthen those TAS if that is applicable.

Okay, I would love to hear about sleep deprivation and working out I haven’t slept well in 10 years. Oh man. I think so many people can relate to this. Just delete that last line of I haven’t slept well in 10 years. So sleep deprivation and working out. We know in general and I’ve been talking about this a lot more recently, that sleep is just very important for our overall health or overall longevity.
Very interesting the studies that are going on right now and that have been done about cell turnover. You know being such a necessary part of what happens when we sleep and if we don’t sleep long enough. Our body can be not ridding itself of the toxins we need to get rid of and not having that cell turnover. And you know, it’s beyond just our metabolism and our hormones, which is all important. Like that’s all very dependent on sleep as well.
But when we’re actually talking about to like the gray matter of our brain and our brain health and, you know, safeguarding ourselves against those kinds of diseases that can attack that, like dimension, whatnot. Very interesting, very scary and very has us all going. But what about us over here who have kids, you know, have a lot of kids have kids that don’t sleep? Well, this is tough. Now.
There are things that we could do to try to get better sleep, more sleep, I will say first and foremost, to try to control the controllables if you’re not getting great sleep, because you still just really like alone time and you want two hours of alone time at nights who stay up too late. That’s tough, you got to skim that down, you got to shave that down, something’s got to give there, you gotta make a plan with your husband or something, because you can’t always be borrowing from sleep to get that time. Okay, and I know I get it, we I think again, we can all really relate to this. But, and then nutrition, lifestyle workouts, like a lot of factors affect your quality of sleep. Now, if this is how I feel. But overall, if these are things, then we’ve covered those bases, you’re eating really well, you are working out so that you’re actually tired, when you go to bed, you’re trying to get in bed, to give yourself enough time seven to nine hours of sleep, you know, again, within reason, and I would challenge to say like, we are in control a lot more than we think we are if it’s because you have to be out really late for kid events, like look at your schedule, and think about what’s most important because your health is very important. Okay. Now, in general, so you’re doing all those things, and your quality of sleep still just not great. Maybe you’ve tried some supplements as well, I’m not really gonna get into that on here. But I’ve shared before that I take magnesium to help fall asleep, you know, talk to your doctor about that, or whatever, if it’s a question of the actual, not being able to fall asleep to get to sleep, but I’m thinking this is maybe beyond that of, you know, just you can’t get a lot of sleep because Satan life. So
my personal approach to this is, if it’s a matter of sacrificing like an hour of sleep, when you’re getting less than six hours, because less than six hours is considered sleep deprived. Take the sleep, it’s better for your hormones, your metabolism, your brain, all of that to get as much sleep as you possibly can. If it’s like you’re gonna get up an hour earlier to go to the gym and all this stuff. And you have to get five hours of sleep instead of six. No way, take the six take every last second. This is my approach and like newborn season. And you know, my kids really don’t sleep well up to a year. But at least usually those first six months, I’m grabbing all the sleep I can and figuring out what else to do my workout later, I just getting up like 10 minutes before my kids in the morning to do my prayer, like brush my teeth. And that’s it because sleep is so important. However, now here’s the other side if you are getting, like sevenish or say even six, but it’s a matter of just getting up 20 minutes early, I just mentioned how I’ll get up 10 minutes earlier just to do prayer and like brush my teeth. If you could just get up 20 minutes earlier so that you can get a workout in, then I am okay with that I would I don’t even know I think a sleep expert expert would still say take all the sleep you can. But if this is I mean, you said you haven’t slept well in 10 years. If it was a question of going 10 years without working out, I think that would also have detrimental effects on your body. So in that way, I tend to kind of meet in the middle and just get up that slight bit earlier to work out. But in to kind of go back to the question about sleep deprivation and working out Yeah, sleep deprivation is going to take a big toll on your workouts and and your overall health. There’s a huge difference in performance. They study this with athletes to about, you know, obviously nutrition, but even sleep, there are studies about just athletes who get, you know, less than seven with those who get more than seven hours of sleep, and the impact it has on performance and reaction time and all of that. So, yeah, it’s not a great answer. But exactly when we want to hear we want a magic pill or, you know, okay, I can just do this, the answer is try to get as much sleep as you can when you can in life when you don’t have a newborn. You know, again, there’s seasons where you’re just like, Yep, I’m not going to get a lot of sleep, then I’ll be really happy once I get five hours again. But it’s really unhealthy to live there forever. Now, there’s another little asterix I’d throw in here where I read the power of silence by Cardinal serraj, which many of you might have read, great book and he talks about getting up in the middle of the night to pray and how important he thinks that is and how, if you want to be really holy, you are going to need to seek out silence more and whatnot. And I’ve this is just kind of something I kicked around. I ponder I think you know there are saints who were gifted with the ability to serve well and to be healthy and whatnot, when they weren’t getting a lot of sleep. And you know, what does that look like and how do we kind of marry that idea of sleep to really important for our bodies, and our health and longevity but then also, people got away
of last kind of thing.

I think this is a little bit personalized. I think that you know, I don’t know, I don’t have the exact answer for that. It’s kind of like with fasting where, yes, some fasting rituals could, you know, tap into can kind of mess up your metabolism. But when it’s, you know, for religious reasons, I really just do usually take the approach where I’m like, it’ll probably all shake out in the wash. Like, I don’t think God is going to make me gain, you know, 20% more body fat because I got up to pray in the middle of the night. But maybe if I’m staying up late routinely watching Netflix or on my phone screen or just doing silly things, then you know, maybe that will affect my health negatively. I don’t know there’s not a lot of science there. But this is gonna always have it up. Alright ladies, I’m gonna wrap it up there. Thank you so much for these questions. Like I said, the person that submitted the questions about the plant more plant based diet. I will tackle that in its own episode. So that stay tuned for and thank you so much, ladies for being here today.

Next episode, we’re going to talk about what to focus on in fat loss and health and what not to focus on. And spoiler alert, a lot of us are really prioritizing the things that are not big deals and really under prioritizing the things that really make all the difference. So tune in for that. And I can’t wait till then I hope you have a great rest of your day. I’ll talk to you next time.

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