Thrive Like a Mother Podcast
I'm Ebony and I'm a mama to 3 beautiful souls. I'm learning how navigate my trauma healing while building the life I never dreamed was possible. I'm a survivor of childhood abuse and for the longest time, I believed that if anyone knew my story, I wouldn't be worthy of love. Many years later and now I know that it far from the truth.
On the Thrive Like a Mother podcast, I'll share the resources and tools I use on the daily to cultivate a healthy mindset break the wheel of survival. Here we're about honesty and transparency. Because at the root of it all, my purpose in creating this podcast is so that you know you are never alone in your journey.
There may be laughter, there may be tears and we'll do it all by linking arms and learning to thrive together.
Thrive Like a Mother Podcast
Cooking with confidence
Ever find yourself staring into the fridge, wondering what's for dinner… again? I’ve been there too. In today’s episode, I’m sharing how meal planning and prepping changed my life—helping me ditch the last-minute drive thru food runs and feel more confident in feeding my family.
I’ll walk you through why meal prep is more than just a time-saver, how it can lighten your mental load, and why a little front-end effort can transform how you show up in the kitchen. Plus, I’ll share simple, realistic ways to start, even if you feel like you're failing at feeding your family (spoiler alert: you’re NOT!).
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- How my long commutes led me to meal planning—and why I stuck with it
- Why prepping ahead can actually give you more time during the week
- The surprising benefits of meal planning beyond just saving time
- How to balance variety and simplicity while keeping mealtime stress-free
- One simple step you can take today to start making a difference
Resources & Links:
👉 Want more support? Get exclusive early bird pricing for Cook Like a Mother, my signature 6-week program to help you gain confidence in the kitchen, confidence in life!
Loved this episode? Take a screenshot, share it on Instagram, and tag me @thrive.empowered! Let’s chat about your biggest meal plan struggles.
Thank you so much for listening in! If anything in this episode resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you left a review or shared it with a friend or on social media.
And don't forget to tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me get the word out.
Follow and chat with me on Instagram:
Podcast account - @thrivelikeamother.podcast
Personal account - @thrive.empowered
Sending you light and love always!
Hey, love, I'm Ebony and welcome to Thrive Like a Mother On this podcast. We're scared for our truth, but that fear is what fuels us to truly live in it. You're in the right place if you feel like you're stuck in survivor mode and you're ready to step into who you were truly meant to be. I'll share resources and tools I use daily to help you in your journey towards a healthier mindset and to break the wheel of survival. The journey may not be easy, but you won't have to face it alone. I'm a mama of three, healing day by day from past trauma, and I'm on a mission to build a life I've always dreamed of but never thought was possible. So, love, if you're ready to believe in what's possible, let's link arms and thrive together. Hey, loves, and welcome to another episode of Thrive Like a Mother. And I'm really excited about today's episode because I feel like this topic that we're going to talk about today is one that needs to come up again, because it's one of my favorite ways that I ensure that I am thriving in life and that I am showing up as my best self, and that has to do with food. Food for me, y'all is big in the way that I feel my body, the way that I feel my brain. If you're a mama, you're listening into this. You know how important energy is to keep up with our little ones, and food and what you're eating, what you're putting into your body so key to making sure you have the optimal, optimal energy to keep up with them, because they, they are fast, they are fast. So I'm going to jump right in and really just share a little bit about my personal journey how I got into meal planning and prepping, why I'm so passionate about it and honestly y'all believe it or not I used to be the same way as maybe a lot of you are feeling right now, where a lot of the times, you're going to your fridge and you're staring into it whether it's full, you know whether there's things missing, but you're looking in there and you're thinking, okay, what is for dinner, what is for breakfast, what is for what Insert? You know whatever meal you're focused on at that point there.
Speaker 1:And the thing is I now work from home right, but I didn't always used to work from home. I used to have a commute and it was a really long one. It was about like 45 minutes an hour, which is typical if you live like close to Atlanta, just like around the city circle, and so I would be going on this commute going to work. I don't know that I consistently ate breakfast, but for sure, when it came down to dinner time, after I picked up my oldest Olivia, we would be about to get home and in my brain I just started to think about what would be for dinner. Like, right, as we're about to pull into our home and a lot of the times the easier option would be to just go through a drive-thru and, honestly, that started to happen a lot more often than I liked it.
Speaker 1:I started to think about, like, okay, we may not be getting the proper nutrition that we need, especially as Olivia, my oldest, I'm starting to more think about what kind of vitamins and nutrition that she needs to fuel her body and growing mind. I started to think about how can I change things, because this is not, this is not working, this is not the way that I want us to be always going through the drive-thru, always, you know, not knowing what really is in our foods, things like that I. So I started to really think about, like, what ways can I prepare better before getting home, before getting through the door and asking the question what's for dinner, before looking in the fridge and just scrambling how can I prepare a little bit better? So that's really where my passion for meal prepping came from. It was a need to want to make sure that I was properly feeding my family the nutrition that they needed to truly thrive, not just, you know, go through the day. Yes, we were eating, but were we eating like what we needed to truly feel good, like in our bodies?
Speaker 1:I want to talk a little bit about how that instance started to create like this ripple effect for me and my confidence as a mom, because it is a hit, right, it is a hit when you are constantly thinking about what's for dinner and not able to kind of show up in that way, just because, honestly, like you know, the mental load of moms is so, it's so much. You know, I know I always talk about the many tabs that we have open, and so if you are constantly, you know, asking yourself, you know no one else is going to come up with this what's for dinner, what's for breakfast, no one else is going to do this that starts to become a hit on your confidence of am I feeding my family like what they need, right. And so, as I started to I won't say it was easy, right, but as I started to learn what worked for our family as far as planning and prepping, my confidence started to increase. Because the biggest thing I want mamas that are listening and the biggest thing I want to help you realize is that front loading a lot of that meal prep work. For me it was so impactful for the way that I showed up in the kitchen, the way that I showed up in mealtime, the way that I showed up, just in general, throughout the week as a mom, as a friend, as a wife all the things started to become, you know, more trying to give the word. I was able to prioritize those things a little bit more because I wasn't having that mental load dragging me down. What's going to be for dinner oh my gosh, I'm still not ready those feelings right. And doing that during the week, I started to realize how much time I started to get back to do the things that I wanted to focus on more, instead of staring at my fridge for 20, 30 minutes and eventually going, you know, to the door dash. And so really, some of the, or one of the biggest, I want to say benefits for me for meal prepping, beyond just saving time, because, yes, that was a factor, but I talked about front-loading a lot of that meal prep work. Right, because of that, I was starting to have to do less reactive brain work when it came to it was time for us to eat, and so I talk about that mental load.
Speaker 1:Meal prepping is a way that helps me lighten that mental load throughout the week. It lightens the amount of times that we have to eat out. Yes, we still like to eat out, we love to try new places and things, and eating out is something that can also help you lighten that mental load. If you have a certain day throughout the week that's our eat-out day, or that's our leftover day, or that's our leftover day or whatever. But it started to become less of a. We have to eat out because I don't know what to cook, I didn't prepare, I don't know what to put together with what's in our fridge. It started to become less of that and more of no. We get to do this this day because we prepped for the week and we've eaten all of our food and all the things, and maybe I just want a day off. It started to become that and that y'all that felt good. That felt good to be able to say no, we don't have to, because I've planned and I've prepped and there's food in the fridge, there's food at home. We got McDonald's at home.
Speaker 1:Y'all, let's get into I want to take a segue here and let's get into really some practical tips and strategies that y'all can take with you from this episode. And I really want you to start thinking of your why. I think one of these this that I'm about to share could be one of them. Like for me, my why was? I wanted to make sure that my family was eating nutritious foods so that we could properly support, like our bodies, fuel our bodies, and with these babies, like they're growing minds, they're learning so much they need proper nutrition to support. Another thing I want to talk about is mindful eating nutrition to support.
Speaker 1:Another thing I want to talk about is mindful eating Because a big thing that happens as your kids get older, maybe as they're babies, you know they're not paying as much attention to what they're grabbing, you know what you're putting in front of them. But as they get older, they start to want to have those conversations about what's on their plate, what they're eating, they start to have opinions about what they're eating, and so, if we are starting to introduce them to mindful eating and starting to have those conversations with them, meal planning and prepping gives you the option to start offering your kids a variety of foods more often without having to, you know, eat out somewhere, and it gives you the opportunity to do that kind of in a safe environment at home at the kitchen table, where you are able to sit with them and really, like, truly explain the benefits of what they're eating. I want to talk about a story recently. This past year, I made beets for the first time for our family, and I had never made beets at all, and so, of course, kids had questions. They were like, wow, it's purple. I did make it with something that they liked. I made it with carrots, um, roasted beets. But the questions that they had was like, okay, these are really cool looking Like you know, they're um good for my body as far as like, what vitamins are in them, how those vitamins support their body and their brain.
Speaker 1:Start having those conversations because you're, believe it or not, like your kids are ready to talk about those things and if you're starting very early, as they get older they will start to have those things in the back of their mind too Okay, what's on my plate? Or, as they're building their own plates, what's on my plate? What good is this doing for my body? How is this going to make me feel good, safe in my body? So mindful eating is something I want you guys to take away from. Today is really the opportunity that you have, if you step into the realm more of meal planning and prepping, the opportunity that you have to start having those conversations with your kids. And then another just tangible, just prep tip for you that you can start implementing today, tomorrow, whenever you pick up your groceries.
Speaker 1:If you've already picked them up and you've got fruits and veggies sitting in your vegetable crisper whatever that thing is called in the fridge, go ahead and prep those. Y'all Prep those. Now. There are some vegetables, obviously. I think tomato is probably one of them. Maybe apples is another one that maybe you can't necessarily prep um days in advance because they start to like brown and do all sorts of things. Right, but there are vegetables and things like onions um, apples you can do if you cook them. I know, with little ones. I still am cooking our apples so that they're soft enough for him to eat. Still am cooking our apples so that they're soft enough for him to eat, but there are.
Speaker 1:Look in your fridge and see what fruits and veggies you have in there already that you can go ahead and prep. So that way, whether it's for a snack, whether it's going in a meal, no matter what, it's ready for you to just grab and go and start to see the difference in the prepping time you would have taken before, like, actually using that item. Think about okay, what's a easy example I'm going to, you know, make chili or spaghetti or something and it has onions in it. Think about the time you would have taken to cut that onion. You know, either while or before making your spaghetti that's 10, 15 minutes that you just chopped off of your prepping time. Or going to have fruit for a snack. Let's say it's the middle of the day, you know you're busy, you're running around, you're working from home, like me, and you already have fruit ready in your fridge. Imagine how good that will feel, just knowing that you can grab and make sure you are fueling your body properly throughout the day without the extra load of, first of all, what am I going to eat? But then also having to prep that thing to eat it, because that takes time, y'all it does.
Speaker 1:And so I want to end today's episode with two things. First of all, a little bit of a mindset shift and some encouragement from my mamas, because I've been in your shoes. I've been in the moment going through the drive for the fourth, fifth time of the week and thinking, wow, am I feeling as a mom? And you're not. You're not, mama, you're not failing. A lot of these things that I have learned over the years, I'm realizing, are things that we may not have just been taught when we were younger. It's things that we are now needing to learn either. By the way, we grew up in a very different generation, right, and the needs that we have now as moms of this generation are different, and so the things that we're doing, they're going to look different. So you're not failing, mama, we just need to learn and we need to allow ourselves to try and like. That's okay, because, as we're continuing to try, we're going to be learning along the way, and so I want to offer you some support, as always.
Speaker 1:As always, I have a new six-week program coming out, called Cook Like a Mother, where we are going to delve into those strategies. We're going to delve into building your confidence in the kitchen, and you're not going to do this alone. We're doing this as a group of mamas who are wanting to really show up differently in the way that they are providing nutrition for their family and for themselves, and so if that's something that you might be interested in, I'll go ahead and I will drop that link. It will be available in the show notes for you, also available on my page. But know that there is support out there for you.
Speaker 1:Just because you don't know and you are maybe nervous of learning and trying, that's I think that's okay. You have support that you can get, like literally reach out a hand and grab, like I am here for you to literally link arms and thrive together. It's in it's in my intro, gal, and so I want to end with that and I just, yeah, just know that you're not failing. You just now have the opportunity to learn and try things differently. Thank you so much for listening, love. If anything in today's episode resonated with you, share it with your bestie or share it on social media and tag me so we can chat about it, as always, sending you light and love, and remember you are worthy, you are enough and you deserve to thrive.
