How Catholic Moms can tune in to the things that refuel them for their mission

Janna Kerr shares how Catholic moms can reclaim their energy holistically by paying attention to the things that deplete and refuel them and making small adjustments that pack a punch.

Want to learn more about Janna?  Check out Atthewellcoaching.com

Understanding Integrative Nutrition: Exploring a Holistic Approach

Kelsey

Now when you say you do Integrative Nutrition, can you tell me a little bit more about what that is compared to other kinds of nutrition?

Janna Kerr

Sure, yeah. So I'm not a nutritionist or a dietitian, I am a health coach. So when I talk about nutrition there, I talked about primary food, which are all the things that don't nourish us off our plates. So that is our spirituality, but also our career, our finances, our physical activity, our home environment, our relationships, our social life, creativity, and joy have a big impact on our health on our energy. So I look at all of those things as primary foods, they actually can nourish us, or deplete us more than food. And then secondary food is the food on our plates. And so that's also very important. We need those nutrients, the macronutrients and micronutrients. You know, we need all of that to function. So I kind of did to kind of arms of what we're always talking about in my programs.

Kelsey

I think that's a really interesting way to look at it. You're so right, like the things around us in our environment in our life, they really do affect our energy levels. And when we're thinking about nourishing ourselves, when we're thinking about all of those really inputs in our lives, versus the things that we are putting back out and the things that are draining us. What kind of things have you seen in your clients lives that have helped them to find balance with this to help keep their energy up?

Janna Kerr

habits and routines, I think are one and awareness. I think that's probably the biggest takeaway my clients have is, we kind of know what we're doing. But sometimes we don't, you know, we're just nose to the grindstone like from sunup to sundown, and we'll pass them down. And we don't really have, we don't have that awareness. And so helping my clients realize, oh, like, My bedroom is stinks. Like, I hate the setup of my bedroom, it's not relaxing, maybe I just need some new sheets. You know, sometimes it's as simple as that. Or oh my gosh, like, I don't drink a single sip of water until two in the afternoon. And we just don't notice those things until we're talking through it with someone until we've kind of been told, like, take a look at this, like, bring some awareness. And that is huge. Because if you're not aware that you're doing something or not doing something, then you can't change it. So that's hands down. The biggest thing that that helps my clients, because then they're like, oh, oh, I can totally have a glass of water in the morning.

Kelsey

It's sometimes it's all these small things. I mean, if you think about it, just the way you're talking, it sounds like so much of the load that really starts to deplete us is all of these little things adding up. And you're right, like we can combat that with just little changes to little

Janna Kerr

things. Yeah, I, my clients probably get sick of me saying it when like small doable steps, baby steps are always talking about, we are not, you know, completely emptying your kitchen and throwing out all the junk food on day one, you know, like, we are not starting a 90 day program like we are doing baby steps because we are exhausted. And we are moms.

Kelsey

And we're trying to fit these things into the five minutes between like, I don't know, children asking for snacks and babies naptime.

Janna Kerr

It has to be doable. And that's where the habits come in. So one of the things that I really encourage my clients to do is to take a look at, you know, how can they put themselves to bed, we put our kids to bed. But do we have a bedtime routine? For ourselves? How do you put yourself to bed because obviously sleep impacts energy a lot. But, you know, how do you feed yourself is another one? Do you even eat breakfast? Maybe you're tired, because you just haven't even eaten today. Or you've eaten scraps of food, you know, as you're going about your day. So helping them again, become aware of where they might need those habits and then helping form those habits and routines. Again, making them fit into the craziness of their day.

Finding Balance: Nourishing Your Body and Soul

Kelsey

Yeah, do you do you like to walk people through like from start to finish of their day?

Janna Kerr

If they want to, if they want to everyone's day is so different. So we do talk about bedtime routine a lot. Again, because sleep is so important. And morning if they want like some people really love that idea of like, I'm gonna get up before the kids and I'm gonna get these things done. And for other people that's like, no way like that stresses me out. I need every second asleep I can get you know, we're not even going to touch the morning routine. So really, one of the things that I focus on a lot is this concept of bio individuality, which I love relating back to God so he made us all unique. You know, our relationship with God is completely unique to us and Him. Our bodies are completely unique. So there's no one size fits all. You know whether we're talking food, sleep, exercise, prayer life, any of it. So

Kelsey

right. I think one of the things that we we fight so much as moms is this idea that there's like a formula or a screen following. And if we just do that, then our lives will be perfect. Yeah. Nobody wants to do like something that's working for you. But it's not working for me.

Bio-Individuality: Embracing Your Unique Nutrition Journey

Janna Kerr

Yeah, yeah. And that can be so frustrating. Like, we just want to be told, like, do this, and it'll fix this. And so I worked my clients through that, that frustration, like no, I'm going to help you figure out what you need, like what foods are going to give you energy that may not give someone else energy. But that's what your body needs. Yeah, tell

Kelsey

me a little bit more about that. I'm really curious.

Janna Kerr

It's a lot of experimentation. So obviously, I I know what works for me, but that's not necessarily going to work for you, or any of my clients. So there's some education to it. Obviously, we, we kind of know like, we're not supposed to eat french fries every day, or Oreos, that's probably going to drain us, we're gonna feel crummy later. And when we eat a giant salad, or, you know, a sweet potato, I don't I'm trying to think of like other delicious things. I love eggplant parmesan. When we eat more fruits and vegetables, we feel better. So that's kind of a fundamental, like, we all need more plants, the end of the day. But then from there, from there, though, there's no set thing, you know that you know that we know, we're supposed to have seven to 13 servings of fruits and vegetables every day, if we're healthy. If we're an athlete, or a nursing mom, or have a chronic condition, we need more than that. And that is really hard to get really is so you know, I give my clients some some tools and ideas to help them add more plants. But as far as you know, do they need to be gluten free or dairy free or try keto or try paleo. They may realize like, oh, they really need more protein, they feel a lot better when they have some tuna at lunch or a hard boiled egg. They may feel totally crummy when they have meat. You know, they may realize, oh, like I feel a lot better if I just stick to veggies. little interesting.

Kelsey

I remember reading this article once that like certain blood types actually need more meat than other types. I can totally see how learning to track that and pay attention to that would be so beneficial.

Janna Kerr

Yeah, again, it comes back to that awareness of like, oh, okay, so I ate oatmeal for breakfast this morning. But I crashed later. Okay, maybe I'll try scrambled eggs. Right? More of a protein based. I feel better. See, I have this little thing called the breakfast experiment, you know, that I can walk people through again, if that's something that they want to try. What a good idea.

Kelsey

Yeah, breakfast is one of those things where sometimes people just like they they can, I don't know, live on air for the first half of the morning or something, then they're not hungry. But even you know, they don't feel hungry, but they still need to eat or sometimes they don't. It's so interesting how we can be so different.

Janna Kerr

Yeah, yeah, I know. I don't get hungry till about 10 o'clock in the morning. And that's something I have learned on this journey. I you know, it's drilled into you have to eat breakfast, have to eat breakfast. Well, I've learned my body doesn't really want to eat first thing in the morning. I feel much better. I actually have a lot of energy in the morning. I feel much better if I eat a tiny bit later. But, you know, I've got clients who are like, no, if I do not eat my oatmeal, within an hour of getting up, I can feel my blood sugar tank. So again, it's creating that bodily awareness. And I always bring it back to like, we can get so frustrated with our bodies. It's like it's not working the way I want to do. It's not losing the weight. It's not doing whatever, my skin's not clear. But God has made us so beautiful. You know, he loves your body. He made it that way. He knows exactly what it needs. And so praying about it, saying like just the Holy Spirit like I need some help here.

Holy Curiosity: Uncovering Healthy Eating Habits

Kelsey

Please show me some give me some clarity. Yeah, helped me to understand because my body is something that I'm trying to use to serve my family and I need to, you know, do my best with that.

Janna Kerr

Yep. Yes, we always bring it back.

Kelsey

Now, I want to ask you just because I feel like there's just so much pressure on moms like there's this. I really I have a personal hatred of diet culture, just because I think it is. It's, for one thing, we tend to need so many more calories as moms especially when we're like nursing or growing babies. And all of the messages that come at us all the time are less, less less and it can be so Oh, harmful. I'd love if you could just talk a little bit about that. And like how we can have a more wholesome relationship with food?

Janna Kerr

Absolutely. That's where I come back to the whole concept of eating for energy and nourishing our body not getting hung up on calories, or macros, or supplements or anything like that. Just focusing learning how to tune into your body. And what does my body need is what I'm choosing to eat right now nourishing, or not. And I was just telling someone the other day is like, you know, sometimes, sometimes the ice cream nourishes my soul. Or times when I really, really need that ice cream that is nourishing to me in that moment. Am I doing that every day? No, but am I beating myself up for eating the ice cream? No. It's interesting.

Kelsey

You talk about ice cream, because you know if you think about it, ice cream is if you get like a good quality, full fat ice cream or something really be decently nutritious, especially for kids. Like I read somewhere that it was the closest equivalent to like, you know, human breast milk. So for little kids, you could think about it. It's so much of what they actually need. And you compare that to something like a sugary cereal or something. And it's actually might even be better than some of those foods.

Janna Kerr

Yeah, I just I was listening to a training the other week and this pediatrician had been feeding her kids lucky charms and the way she started switching them where she made strawberry milkshakes legit with ice cream. Because she knew her kids weren't getting go from like Lucky Charms to a regular strawberry smoothie. So for a couple of weeks, like she was feeding her children ice cream, like strawberry milkshake. In the morning. Yeah, baby steps. Love it. Right. And yeah, it all comes back to those simple steps. And yeah, not demonizing foods. And I, I point out often and I have to remind myself, often God gave us this huge bounty of foods in nature. I mean, it's just mind blowing everything we can eat. And one of my kind of side interests is foraging, like, I really want to get into more, just learning more about like, what's even in my own backyard, because there's actually a lot out there we can eat

Kelsey

foraging personally, because it's one of those things that just reminds me of God's provision. Like everywhere we have in our backyard, we have wild asparagus and black raspberries. And it's just so fun.

Janna Kerr

Yeah, so I love that, like he's given us so many things we can eat. There's a lot out there that's not nutritious. There's so many foods out there that really have little to zero nutritional value, they're not going to nourish your body, feed your cells fuel your body, they taste really good, and they're designed to taste really good. But when you you're able to change your mindset, is this really going to nourish me right now? And then you kind of have that power to be like, Yeah, okay, the Cheetos. I need the Cheetos right now. They're gonna nourish me. But you know what, I'm not eating them every day. And I know that, you know, when I wake up in the morning, I'm gonna have my smoothie or, you know, whatever it is. What would you say

Kelsey

about how a mom could handle like the guilt that we so often feel around certain food groups?

Janna Kerr

Hmm, that's such a good question. I think the first thing I would tell her is just remember everything she's doing in a day. You know, whether you're at home chasing littles, nursing pregnant, or if you're working outside the home, look at everything that you're doing. And look at how much time you actually dedicate to feeding yourself. You feed everybody else. But how much time do you spend preparing food for you? That is going to be nourishing and it's probably not as much as you would like, and so there's nothing to feel guilty about. It's that awareness. Like okay, I realize I'm not spending any time on food for myself. That's why I'm snacking that's why I'm feeling rundown. That's why I'm don't have tons of energy. And then I feel guilty because then at the end of the night, I stuffed my face because I'm so hungry, because I haven't fed myself all day.

Kelsey

Well, yeah, that is a really, that's a big

Janna Kerr

one. You know, we don't eat well during the day and then at night, we are ravenous.

Kelsey

Right, because here we are. We haven't had a square meal. I want two things. I remember reading I think it was like St. Benedict's rule. He actually talks about how the kitchen staff like whoever's on duty in the kitchen should feed themselves before they feed the the other brothers and then they won't be grumpy while they're serving food. And I was like, okay, he he understands human nature here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love that idea for moms too. I actually one of the things that I like to do is I eat my lunch before I feed my kids for that very reason.

Janna Kerr

Yep, yep. And again, trying to remind yourself of everything you're doing. And you are doing the best with what you have. So there's no guilt, no shame I all the time, I'll say like, just holy curiosity. Look at your day, holy curiosity. And if something is not where you want it to be, let's pray about it. Let's ask for some guidance. And then let's, let's work to make those small, little steps take those small little steps to getting it closer to where you want it to be.

Kelsey

I love that, because it just kind of turns it into what it is, which is something that's sort of morally neutral. It's we're just learning and experimenting and figuring it out. But you haven't been like, you know, there's so many shoulds bouncing around in my head, right? All of these things, we should be doing this, we should be doing that. And it can be so overwhelming. And you're right, holy curiosity is such a nice concept.

Janna Kerr

Yeah, I love that idea. Because again, it takes that pressure and that guilt off. Like you're not judging what you're eating, you're just saying, Oh, that's very interesting. I can see why I chose to eat that yesterday. I can see why I'm craving this right now. And now I know that and I can choose to still eat that thing. Or I can choose to eat something different. And like you said, morally neutral.

Kelsey

If there were just like one small step that you think moms could start with on this journey of learning to like eat for energy and and change the way they're thinking about this. What would that be? What would be a good takeaway from this?

Janna Kerr

I would say to pay attention to how you feed yourself again, that whole that holy curiosity, no judgment. Just tomorrow, pay attention. Did you eat breakfast? Did you have any water? Are you living off coffee? Do you feel like you need your glass of wine every night? Do you even eat lunch? You know, when you snack? What is it? Is it your kids leftovers? Is your cleaning up from lunch? Is it whatever you make your kids for snack when they get home from school? Are you grabbing something from a vending machine at work? You know, just that awareness is I would say the first step in non judgement, non judgmental awareness.

Kelsey

I think you're right. That is so important. Because when we are judging ourselves, we can't even think clearly we can't even look forward to what what we need to be doing.

Janna Kerr

Yeah, sorry about it. Yeah, for sure.

Kelsey

I'm bringing everything to God. He wants to hear our problems. He does. So much for joining us today. Jana, is there anything that you would like to share about your programs?

Janna Kerr

Sure. I'm actually very excited I am. So I offer a six month one on one program, but I'm the summer launching the beta test of my new 12 week program called the exhausted mom solution. So I'm really excited for that. So focusing, go to my website and to get more information there there's a beta test waitlist, which is not an obligation to be in the beta test but specific emails kind of crafted after each of the different modules that if you're on the waitlist, I want you to be getting a lot of value and transformation just from being on the waitlist, you know whether or not decide to do the program. So all of that is on my my website.

Kelsey

Awesome. That sounds like a really great program. And when does that one launch?

Janna Kerr

July 10? July 10. Yep, and then the full launch will be in the fall. Perfect.