#208: Beyond the Book: Living Good Energy as a Mom of Four

In this week’s episode, I’m sharing how I actually live a “good energy” life with four kids under seven—without biohacking or perfection. From sleep hacks, gentle daily movement, and mindful alcohol habits to whole-food meals, slow cooking, and simple personal care swaps, I walk through the small changes that make a real difference in day-to-day energy and long-term health.

No judgment, no impossible routines—just honest, relatable ways to feel more awake, grounded, and energized as a busy parent. If you’ve ever wondered how self-care and wellness fit into a full household with little kids, this episode is for you.

www.daraboxer.com

Transcript

Welcome And Good Energy Context

Dara Boxer 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Raw on the Cooked, a weekly podcast that provides simple routines around the home plus raw and honest book reviews. My name is Dara. I'm a Midwestern stay-at-home mom to four young kids, and I thrive on simplicity. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is sort of a follow-up to my recent conversation about the Casey Means book, Good Energy. A few weeks back, I posted all about that. And after that episode aired, I really started thinking about how I show up and live a healthy, meaningful life and what that looks like if you're a mom, if you're tired, if you have little kids, if you really just like find yourself struggling to sit down and eat like a real meal, let alone like cook yourself something healthy for breakfast. And so today I really wanted to talk about what living a good energy life looks like in my actual imperfect full household with four kids between the ages of one and seven. This is not a blueprint or like a 17-step process or or biohacking anything. It's just about doing everything that you can in your control and just me sharing what I'm doing, again, imperfectly, um, but a few things that has made a really big difference on how I feel day-to-day and how I'm thinking about my long-term health, just some goals that I have, and yeah, so let's just get right into it. Um, so with Casey Means, if you didn't listen to the episode, I do recommend going back. Um, it was episode uh 206, Good Energy by Dr. Casey Means, and that was just all about metabolic health, and so she breaks down what we

Sleep As A Non‑Negotiable Foundation

Dara Boxer 1:44

can do to kind of like help ourselves. And so one of the biggest things is sleep, and so for me that's sort of like a non-negotiable foundation, and that has always made the biggest difference in energy, right? Like energy, mood, patience, it's all sleep. And I say this as someone who has spent years that believing sleep was sort of like, oh, like I'll sleep when like later, right? Like it's hard when you have a newborn young children who aren't sleeping through the night, babies to be nursed, waking up because somebody vomited or wet the bed, or you know, there are just so many things that can affect your sleep. And so for me, I really never know what the day or that I should say the night will bring. And for the most part, all four of my kids sleep through the night almost every night. So I feel very, very lucky, especially since our youngest is only 17 months. But one of the biggest things that I've really done for myself in the last handful of months is shutting down screens and blue light at 8 30 p.m. Not every night, but and we'll talk about that in a few minutes, but every single night my computer goes on do not disturb. It like literally locks me out of almost all apps, websites. Like, I can I override it? Yes, I can. And sometimes I do, um, because sometimes I'm coordinating cardpools or setting up play dates or you know, answering something time sensitive, I will override it. And again, the point isn't perfection here, but the point is that that is the default for me. And so most nights after that 8:30 lockout with my phone and my computer, I go upstairs and I am in bed with a book by nine o'clock at the latest. And something that I've done for the last handful of years is every single night our kids have the same set of chores, put their dirty clothes in the hamper, make sure that their clean clothes are put away, get themselves in pajamas and get their teeth brushed, and sometimes they have tea or whatever, but there's like the same cadence to their routine, and so I've been doing the same for me. Like, I make sure that all my dirty clothes are in the hamper, my clean clothes are hung or folded or put away. Um, I get them pajamas myself. I have a handful of different like a matching adult pajama sets, and I feel like it just like sets the mood. Like, okay, like you know, lights are turned off or dim or low in the house. I brush my teeth, and like I'm

Night Routines And Screen Lockouts

Dara Boxer 4:05

in bed by nine o'clock with a book, like at the latest. And on a good night, I'm sleeping by nine o'clock. Um, but sometimes I'm not because I catch myself, you know, reading a book that's hard to part with or finishing up something with my husband. Um, but lights are off at 10 o'clock, and so most school mornings I wake up between 6 and 6 50, which yields me, if no one woke up in the middle of the night, a seven to eight hours of sleep. And that has been life-changing. And I'm even considering getting blue light glasses, like those glasses that block blue light for those rare nights that I do need to be on a screen later, not because, like, you know, I want to go extreme with this, but because I've seen enough of a difference to actually care and implement it. But then another part of me is like, well, if I do that, then I feel like I'm gonna give myself an excuse to continue to override those do not disturb settings. So maybe I won't, but either way, okay. So that's the sleep section. And again, I want to say that if your kids are not sleeping through the night or you know, you're still in those like really early little kid years, like give yourself some grace, but know that when the time comes, like sleep is the priority. So, and I think that as women, especially if you're nursing, we're very, very lucky to have like a built-in hormonal system that kind of like helps us out along those like really early weeks and months of little kid newborn nursing days. So, I mean, I do remember feeling like just bone-tired those early days because again, like your sleep is like so disrupted, but know that it comes to an end. So, okay, just putting that there. Okay, the next thing is using technology gently, not obsessively. And so I wear a Fitbit Inspire 3, and I want to be clear about why. Um, it's not about like tracking calories or like every single metric and optimizing X, Y, and Z. I mainly use it to track sleep, sleep quality, heart rate, steps, and exercise, just like daily movement. And what I really love the most about it are those gentle movement prompts, the reminder to get up about uh and get in 250 steps every hour between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. And there's really good

Gentle Tech: Tracking Without Obsessing

Dara Boxer 6:18

science about moving beh a little bit each waking hour, and I found that even on days where I hit 10,000 steps by late morning, I still benefit from those reminders. Like at 3 p.m. when I'm tempted to just push through the exhaustion, I will like get up and walk around for five minutes, like a little bit of rest and then like a little bit of physical activity, and it's just about like self-awareness. I really like tracking my steps, and I find that okay, so there's a lot of good science behind people that get a bare minimum of 7,000 steps per day, and people that get 10,000. But it I mean, in America, it's really sad to know how few steps and how little movement people get throughout the day. And I mean, I get it, like I mean, I do and I don't, right? Like there are things you can do about it, like even if you are stuck in a job or a situation where you're like behind a desk or behind a computer, or you know, you really don't have the ability to like walk around a little bit here or there, like I get it. Like a lot of us just like wake up, get in our cars, drive to work, sit there for nine hours, and then drive home and then are too tired to do anything else and just like eat dinner, watch TV and go to bed. Like, I get it, like I understand how easy it could be. However, I very much value the lifestyle that I have set up, that being, I well, I mean, I almost feel like I don't have a choice, right? Like I have four kids and a three-story house and a basement laundry situation, so I am up and down, up and down those stairs. I mean, I can clock in 1,500 steps before 8 a.m., just like puttering around the house and getting the kids ready to go to school. I love my morning walks to preschool where I drop off my son three mornings a week. And by the time I walk him to preschool and then walk around the neighborhood for even just like 10 more minutes and come back. I mean, I already have like close to 5,000 steps and it's barely 9:30, right? So, like I do have the luxury of that, but I'm just saying, like, I don't know what I'm saying, but yes, so I I really do enjoy tracking my steps and my movement. And even in really harsh weather, I will bundle myself and the kids in the stroller and we will just go for a walk. It's not always pleasant, especially in the winter, especially in the Midwest, or in the summer when it is just like scorching hot, but we do it, and it's just it feels important, right? So, another big change that I've made is alcohol and an honest look at a cause and effect

Rethinking Alcohol And Readiness

Dara Boxer 8:55

of what alcohol does. So I used to have just like one or two glasses of wine almost every night while cooking dinner, like it just felt like relaxing, it felt like earned and deserved, especially on a hard day where you know babies were fussy and toddlers were out of control, or like a lot of potty accidents. But then I really started to pay attention, and even just like one glass can like really affect the sleep quality, like not dramatically, but it feels like it's like enough to make me question whether or not a glass of wine wit while cooking dinner on a Monday night was a good decision or not. And so it was just simply about like noticing, especially after wearing a Fitbit, it gives you a readiness score after paying attention to your sleep quality and your heart rate for like the past week or so. And so the way uh it was kind of explained to me was that your readiness score on a Fitbit Inspire is sort of like your battery and how recharged it is after a night's sleep. And I noticed that on the mornings after I had that one or two glasses of wine the night prior while cooking dinner, my readiness score wasn't really up to par. And that kind of impacted it. My exercise or just like my mood or or just like how tired or sluggish I felt the next day. And there could be like a bajillion other factors there, like I'm not totally blaming it on alcohol, but it's also not that surprising, right? Like I still enjoy a good cocktail or a good glass of wine, but I am committing to not doing it on like a random Wednesday night. So for the most part, I am limiting myself to just having wine on Friday nights with Shabbat and maybe Saturdays and occasionally like if something else comes up. But for the most part, I'm like really trying to cut out alcohol. Also, I'm still working on losing like a couple of pounds of baby weight, and I just I don't know, like why put a barrier up there? So yeah, it's that's sort of like another step I've made into realizing that like there are other ways to relax while cooking dinner. I've enjoyed sparkling water with fresh squeezed lime and making like mocktails with cucumbers and mint or strawberries or blueberry lemons. I mean, there's

Whole Foods Without Losing Joy

Dara Boxer 11:21

so many different fun ways you could mix it up with like no sugar and zero alcohol. So, okay, that is the alcohol section. Another thing is to eat whole foods without losing joy. Um, so food obviously is a huge part of a healthy lifestyle, and I really try to keep this as grounded as I can. I try I aim to eat whole foods as much as possible and avoid processed food. I make all of our own bread products, I cook most of our meals at home with better ingredients, and I try to really focus on getting enough protein throughout the day. That said, I still will go out for burgers and fries with my kids. We still go out and have ice cream dates. Like life is meant to be lived, um, but I also do try to avoid seed oils when I can, and I try to avoid a lot of certain ingredients, right? Like anything that says bio-engineered food ingredient. I try to not have anything with GMOs, like I don't know, like I'll be the first to say it. It's hard because it is shocking what they allow to be put in our food system, especially in 2026. So again, like my main priority is to make sure that I what I eat and what my children eat and what my husband eats, like is as clean as possible. It's really hard. It's really hard, but I don't know. Like, I do I want them eating red dye 40? No. Do I want them eating, you know, canola oil products made with canola oil and like you know, God knows what else? Like it's just so frustrating to me. Um, I am very lucky that my kids will willingly sit down and have a snack plate made with like homemade hummus and cut-up cucumbers and bell peppers and apples and almonds and you know, like all these really good for you foods. Um, and they're not asking for. I mean, yes, we we I my kids eat Cheerios too, like so we're not perfect over here, but for the most part, I try really hard to ensure that their diet consists of like good, healthy, whole foods, avocados, uh scrambled eggs in the morning, toast with you know, sugar-free peanut butter that bread that I had made myself, like in my own kitchen with seven ingredients as opposed to 15. You know, like I just I just try. So, okay, there's that. And I could talk about food forever and how satisfying and enjoyable it is to make things from scratch and to try and try and try to perfect a recipe, and finally it becomes like second nature to you. I mean, there's so much joy in slow living such as that, like cooking your own food from scratch. Like I used to be afraid of bread products and pie dough and making like pastry crusts, like these things are kind of intimidating. But if you just take one small aspect of a meal and just try your hardest, I like it's really rewarding and really satisfying. So that's all I'll say about the food topic. Um, another aspect that I do to follow a good energy lifestyle is light daily movement every single day.

Daily Movement And Natural Light

Dara Boxer 14:35

And again, in inclement weather, like we are in the dead of January right now, it is so cold. We are in a cold snap, it's been hard. I try to get outside every single day, even when the weather is awful, even if it's just 10 minutes around the block with a stroller, because the exposure to natural light is better for my mood, my sleep, my circadian rhythm. And, you know, if I can rest during the day as well, I do that too, just because the season of life is really physically demanding. And I believe in like honoring your body and rest and lying down when you need to is part of just being a human being. It's just like maintenance, you know. And like I think about I think about a a battery and how you can't, okay, for example, an electric car, right? You can't expect it to drive 500 miles if the battery isn't properly charged, right? And then you're like surprised that it only goes like 30 miles before the battery dies, right? And but you're not doing anything to like recharge the battery. So for me, like getting outside, getting sunlight, I mean, we're just like complicated plants. My cousin said that a couple of months ago, and I was like, oh yeah, that's a really good, that's a really cute explanation. Like, we are complicated plants, like we need we need adequate rest, we need adequate light, water, and a little bit of food, and like you know, we're kind of good to go. So I don't know. I thought that was adorable. And then long-term health. Um, one of my one of my guiding motivations for all of this is really to optimize how I like as a human being, like this is a body that God gave me, right? Like I'm a steward to this body, like my soul is occupying. I want to be in the best possible shape I can, not only to like honor my body, but to honor God. And like if you know, we're obese and have aches and pains and are constantly fatigued and can hardly walk up a flight of stairs, and you know, being a parent and a grandparent is like incredibly physical, it's very physically demanding, like lifting children, bending down, diaper changes, picking up toys, helping with tying little shoes, like there's so much. And I

Long‑Term Health And Clean Swaps

Dara Boxer 16:50

want that strength and mobility, and you know, God willing, the independence when I'm like much, much older. If, you know, God willing I live that long. And so, really, for the past few years, I've been focusing very heavily on what we ingest, right? Like filtered water, cooking from scratch, making food at home. And this year, my goal is to slowly start swapping out what I'm putting on my body. Uh, skincare, hair care, toiletries, beauty products, just like one thing at a time. Like, I don't want to rush, I don't want to force anything, I don't want to panic, I just want to make very thoughtful choices when something runs out. Um, I'm, you know, only a couple of more showers away from being out of shampoo. And so now I want to take my time and research and read through shampoo ingredients and like what are some big no-nos that are endocrine disruptors, hormone disruptors, you know, like what am I what am I putting on my hair that is uh you know not serving me well? So just slow, thoughtful choices. Um, lately I've been pretty lazy. I've been buying packs of Molly's suds from Target. Um, it's very clean and um, you know, like phthalate-free dish. Um sorry, uh laundry detergent, right? It only has five ingredients, which is great. Um, but it also wouldn't be that hard to make that myself, right? I've I've done that before. But also I know that I'm in a really crazy season. I have four young kids, and you know, making my own homemade laundry detergent hasn't been on my priority list. But maybe, maybe as things ease up a little bit, it could be. Um, so just small things like that. And there's just so much more I could do, and maybe one day I will, but right now, like this is sort of where I'm at. Um, and again, if you're on a health journey as well, just know that it's not doing about it's not it's not about doing everything all at once, it's just about doing a few small things well, like consistently over a long period of time. And so if you're listening and you're feeling overwhelmed, I just want to invite you to pick one thing. Maybe it's earlier nights, less alcohol, a daily walk, um, before or after meals. And again, like five minutes here, five

Start Small And Keep Going

Dara Boxer 19:02

minutes there, it does make a difference, I promise. Um, maybe it's more protein, um, just all these small little changes do compound. And we're mothers, like we deserve energy too. So that is my closing argument um for trying something new and moving the needle towards living a better, healthier life. Uh, so yeah, thank you guys for tuning in, and I will catch you back here next week.