016 - My Favorite Tips to Stay Healthy While Traveling

Hi friends!! So, I don’t know about you but I feel like the end of the year is flying by! I can’t believe we are already well into fall and almost into the holiday season! I can already feel our schedule busier, and at least for us, that is just how it is throughout the end of the year! 

One thing that the holiday season typically brings with it is some travel, whether to visit family or just for fun. We just got back from a week in California visiting family and seeing a lot of fun things in San Francisco. It was a blast!

On the flight home, I got to thinking though about how while traveling is a lot of fun, it can be really hard on our bodies. We’re exposed to a lot of things outside of our norm, whether it be long times sitting in a car or being cooped up with hundreds of other people in an airplane. 

However, there are some easy things we can do to help support our bodies and our health while traveling, and that’s what I want to share with you today! 

Bring your own snacks!

- Bring snacks to eat on the trip and while waiting at the airport. 

- Most airports do not have healthy food options and if they do, their usually very expensive. Save yourself some money by bringing along balanced snacks (balanced meaning they contain good amounts of carbs, protein, and fat). This will help you stay full and keep your blood sugar levels stable. 

Bring your own water bottle!

- In my opinion, airplane water is pretty gross (and not filtered well). Plus, those little cups are bound to spill, especially with littles around.

- Fill your cups with water after security so you will be set on the plane (I ran out of time to do this on our depart flight last week and I was miserable while we waited for beverage service).

- Also, be sure to drink enough. Planes are super dry and it’s easy to not want to drink a lot in order to avoid the airplane bathrooms / rest-stop bathrooms, so when and where you can, try to get the water in. 

Plan ahead!

- Start packing several days ahead and make a list for all the last minute things. Traveling can be stressful with so many moving parts and so much to keep up with, so do yourself a favor and don’t wait until the last minute. 

- Go to bed early the night before your flight. While you may be lucky enough to catch a little snooze on the plane/ride, the quality of sleep won’t be nearly as good as a night’s sleep. Lack of sleep raises inflammation levels in the body, as well as lowers immune function. That’s like a double-whammy on your body. 

- Start taking immune support supplements at least a week before the flight. We chose these immune gummies by Mary Ruth Organics that have great amounts of vitamins C and D, zinc and elderberry extract in them - and they are sourced from whole foods and yummy too! You can also make your own elderberry syrup to start taking before your trip (it’s just a little more difficult to travel with, in my opinion). 

- I also think it’s a smart idea to take a regular whole-foods based multivitamin and a probiotic leading up to the trip, as well as for the duration of the trip. It really sucks to get sick while on vacation or visiting family for the holidays, so this is just one simple way to help prevent that. 

Manage the germs as much as you can, but don’t freak out about it.

Germs are everywhere and are unavoidable, however, you can use a clean, non-toxic hand sanitizer like the Honest brand, Dr. Bronner’s, or Branch Basics to clean hands before eating, as well as when you get off the plane. It’s also a great idea to spray down trays etc. if you can, but don’t make this something to stress about, that’s why all of the prevention measures are helpful. 

Eat a good meal before and after your flight.

Even your healthy snacks are usually decently high in sugar and just aren’t as rich in nutrients as whole foods, so try to eat a balanced meal both before and after. Obviously, if you’re on vacation or seeing relatives, you probably aren’t going to eat perfectly balanced or super nutrient-dense foods the whole time, and that’s totally okay, but being more intentional on the day you actually travel can help your body deal with all the changes / stressors and less nutritious foods better.

If you need to detox a bit when you get home, do it! 

Your body will tell you if you’ve pushed it too far. A few easy ways to detox are by doing a 5-7 day standard elimination diet (eating only whole foods and eliminating the main inflammatory ones like sugar, maybe gluten/dairy, any processed foods), drinking extra water, drinking Dandelion-Root tea and bone broth daily, and taking detox baths*. Also getting lots of good sleep and movement (walks are great for this)!

Most of all, relax and enjoy your trip!

Just like everything else, perfection is a myth. So do your best and make the conscious choice to not stress about the things that are out of your control. 

I hope these tips will be helpful as you plan your travels for the upcoming holiday season! As always, feel free to reach out on Instagram or Facebook if you have any questions. 

If you feel like you need more personalized support as we enter this holiday season, I would be happy to help you stay on track with your health goals or maybe set some for the first time! You can schedule a free 30-min consult with me by going to www.yourhealthforward.com/free-consultation!

*My fav easy detox bath recipe - Add to a hot bath and soak for at least 20 minutes:

• 1-½ C Epsom salts (unscented or only scented with essential oils, nothing synthetic)

• ½ C baking soda

• 1 tsp ascorbic acid (Vit C powder - this helps neutralize chlorine in the water)

• 5-10 drops lavender essential oil

** Some links in this post are affiliate links. I will earn a small commission if you choose to purchase items using these links. 

015 - Boost Your Health by Moving Your Body

Hi friends! Today we are continuing to talk about ways to support our health, specifically our emotional and mental health by moving our bodies. 

Our bodies were designed to move! Our bodies will not function well if we aren’t engaging in regular physical activity. You’ve probably heard the tagline “Sitting is the new smoking” and that is because research is starting to show just how detrimental inactivity is to our health. 

Benefits 

Just as a reminder, some of the health benefits to exercise are:

• Happiness - endorphins / serotonin

• Mental clarity / increased memory

• Better sleep / supports natural circadian rhythms

• Energy boost

• Reduces stress in the body

• Reduce overall disease risk

• Pushes toxins out of the body

• Increases strength and endurance

• Supports healthy weight

• Facilitates Longevity

Guidelines 

Everyone seems to have an opinion on which type of exercise is the best or exactly how you should go about it, but there’s not a specific kind of physical activity that is best for everyone. Just like most things, the method or type of exercise that is best for you depends on your specific situation, needs, and preferences. 

There are a few general guidelines, however, that apply to everyone:

• AMA recommendations - 150 min of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week, plus 2 days of strength training / 30 min / 5 days a week is ideal (You can start by doing 10 min x 3 per day).

• Bodyweight / weighted strength exercises are good! 

  Women have been known to be scared of doing weightlifting or strength-training exercises because they don’t want to get bulky or look like a body-builder. But this is actually not possible without externally altering your hormones or working out so much that you increase natural testosterone production, so this isn’t something we need to fear! 

  Bodyweight strength-training exercises, as well as weighted exercises,  have significant benefits to our health. 

  • Builds bone mass

  • Increases the body’s sensitivity to insulin

  • Helps to prevent and/or manage autoimmune diseases

  • Increases strength and ability to function

• More is not always better

  • Two-a-day workouts or high-intensity workouts that last more than 1.5-2 hours can do more harm than good. Not only can it increase the risk of injury and fatigue, but it also can lead to sustained high rates of inflammation in the body. This can cause the body to be under too much stress, for too long and will lead to inflammatory issues, like hormone imbalance. 

Most important - choose something that you enjoy!

If you hate exercising, you’re not going to do it, so choose an activity that you enjoy. You can choose to workout in a gym, at home, with a friend, or alone - just whatever you feel works best for you and that you will stick to! 

Evaluate yourself and pinpoint what you need: 

• Is it to find something you enjoy? Choose a new option to try this week! Accountability? Ask a friend to join you or give them permission to ask you about it.

• Sit all day at work? Set reminders to get up every hour and walk around for a few minutes - fill up your water bottle or do a few stretches! Even better - be the change and start leading office-wide stretches or a walking group in your department! You never know what kind of impact you can have with just a little suggestion and it will benefit everyone! 

• Can’t afford a gym membership or don’t want one? Search for quality workouts on youtube (Nourish, Move, Love, is a great resource!) Also, now that the weather is cooler, just get out and go for a walk! 

• Prefer to have more support? Sign up for a personal trainer to show you exactly how to workout in a way that will help you grow stronger and prevent injury! OR join a fitness class at your local gym! You will be surrounded by others doing that exact same exercises, with the instruction of an instructor! You get both a social connection and a great workout! 

There really are so many options and with a little effort, you can find something that will work for you! 

Well, friends, I hope this episode gave you a little reminder and boost to get up and get moving! It did for me! 

014 - 10 Tips for a Healthy Relationship

Friends! We are continuing the theme of focusing on ways to support our mental and emotional health - and today, I have my very first guest ever joining me on the podcast - my husband, Scott!

Today, well - the day this episode will be released - is our 10th wedding anniversary (So crazy)! So we thought it would be fun to do an episode that focuses on relationships and just some general tips for healthy relationships that we’ve learned over the past 10 years of marriage - and a lot of these can really be applied to any relationship - not just in marriage.

Scott and I met in college - although neither of us actually remembers meeting (romantic, right?). We were part of a mutual circle of friends and were around each other a lot (and did quite a bit of flirting 😉), but we were both dating other people at the time. However, the next spring I asked him out on a date and the rest is history! We dated for about 9 months before he popped the question, and we got married the next October. It’s hard to believe that it was 10 years ago! 

We want to share a few tips that we have found really helpful in our relationship and that has helped us to be a more unified team - not that we have mastered any of them!

Make God the center of your relationship/home

This one sounds a bit cliche but the truth is that it’s difficult to have a solid relationship if it isn’t built on a solid foundation. As Christians, our marriage vows weren’t just a promise to each other, but more importantly to God. So when things feel difficult or we aren’t exactly in sync with each other, reminding ourselves of how Christ loves us - and the grace and forgiveness He has given us - help us to extend the same type of love and grace to each other. 

Communicate expectations

Communication is everything, you guys! It took me way too long to accept the fact that Scott can’t read my mind and it’s kind of unfair for me to expect him to. Sure, as you grow together over time you will start to know and understand your spouse better, but you still won’t be able to predict every single thought or desire that they have. So just help them out and tell them! (Reminding myself here too!)

Embrace respectful confrontation 

Most people don’t enjoy confrontation, but we’ve learned that healthy confrontation, when needed can keep things from building up to the point of a big argument. Obviously, we don’t need to bring up or knit-pick every single little thing that we don’t like or agree with, but if it is something that becomes repetitive, and will eventually be a bigger issue, then it’s better to address it now. Just remember to be gracious and respectful of the other person. Their opinions and beliefs feel just as true to them as yours do to you. 

Learn the other person’s personality type/love language

I love learning about personality types and what makes people the way they are, but I understand that not everyone is like that (Scott being one of them). However, whether you are an enneagram nerd or not, there is still a lot of benefit from learning more about your spouse so that they can feel loved and known by you. I highly recommend taking a personality test like the enneagram together and well as learning each other’s love language! 

Get on the same page with money

Money is one of the top causes of disagreement in a relationship. We experienced this first-hand as both of us came from very different backgrounds and had different opinions and beliefs about debt, savings, etc. One of the best things you can do early in your relationship is to get on the same page with your money. Once you are married, the two of you become one - and that includes your money, your debts, etc. We highly recommend a program like Financial Peace University! It helped us to remember that we were on the same team and helped us work together toward a common goal rather than feel like we were working against each other. 

Assume the best of each other

Sometimes our imaginations get the best of us. We assume that the off-handed comment that someone made was said to hurt our feelings...or the fact that our spouse is staring at their phones while we are trying to talk to them means that they don’t care about us or what we are saying, but what if instead of assuming those things, we tried to assume the best about them instead? Most of the time the things that offend or bother us aren’t done intentionally - and honestly, it usually has more to do with the other person than it does with us. We can save ourselves a lot of heartaches and arguing if we choose to assume the best about those that we know love us and care about us, instead of being easily offended by them. 

Make regular date nights a priority

This is an obvious one, but it deserves repeating! We are the first to admit that we aren’t always great at this. It becomes so easy, especially when you have kids, to put spending intentional time with your spouse on hold, but that’s not what is best for your relationship, or even what is best for your kids. Date nights also don’t have to be a big, extravagant thing every single time. If you’re on a budget, have a regular at-home date night after the kids go to bed.. Or do something simple like a morning coffee date instead of an expensive dinner. It doesn’t so much matter what it is that you do, as it does that you are choosing to spend quality time together. 

Be lavish with your compliments and stingy with your criticism 

It is so easy for us to take advantage of the things that I spouses do for us. We just get so used to them being there for us, or always taking out the trash, or whatever it is, that we forget to even acknowledge them for it. Yet, we are still super quick to criticize when they do something that we don’t like or disagree with. We need to turn this one around! Take the time to notice the things that your spouse does for you around the house and thank them for it.. Or complement the way they look. Just a small word of encouragement or thankfulness will go a long way! 

Present a united front

This advice is often given in parenting - and for good reason. Our kiddos should never think that they can play us against each other, but this idea can be applied in other situations as well! We need to be careful about running to anyone - our parents, friends, whoever and complaining about or being critical of our spouse. No one should think that they can come to you and be negative about your husband/wife and that you will agree or go along with it. You should always have each other’s backs. Any complaints or discussion about your spouse needs to be taken directly to them. There may be times that you need to seek some counsel or advice from a friend about your relationship, but just be sure that your motives are where they should be and not just for you to vent or feel validated in your own opinion.

Do the little things 

This one goes back to making your spouse feel loved and seen. Scott is so good about this! Little things like letting me have the last bite of dessert or getting up and making the coffee in the mornings go a long way to help me feel loved and seen by him. Whatever that is for your spouse, just go out of your way to do the things that make them feel loved!

Thank you guys so much for taking the time to listen to this episode and to help us celebrate our anniversary! We hope these tips will be good reminders for you, just as they have been for us

If you haven’t subscribed or left a review yet, I would love if you would take just a minute to do so! Reviews help others find the podcast more easily and it means a lot to me! Hope you have a wonderful week and I’ll see ya back here next time!

013 - Feeling Stuck? This Could Help You Move Forward!

Hello friends! Welcome back and Happy October! October is one of my favorite months of the year for a lot of different reasons! The weather gets cooler (or at least it’s supposed to), and we celebrate some fun things in our family - like our anniversary, our daughter’s birthday, and some other fun celebrations for other family and friend’s birthdays! 

October is also the beginning of the holiday season. There are lots of fall activities and get-togethers with family and friends for football games and Halloween. It can be such a fun time of year, but from experience, I know that it can also turn into a super busy, rushed, and kind of stressful time of year. So, I want to use the next few episodes to focus on things we can do to support our mental and emotional health before all of the fun, holiday craziness really sets in!

Our physical, mental, and emotional health are all so connected and all affect each other. How we fuel our bodies and move our bodies, how much sleep we get, what our relationships are like, how busy we are - all these things affect our mental and emotional well-being. 

Today I want to focus on a concept that a little different. It’s something that my husband shared with me a few months ago - it’s an IT term called “Release and Renew” (that’s not the actual technical term but it’s the general idea). 

It’s something that techies, like my husband, use when dealing with a particular issue that prevents a computer from accessing the Internet.  The solution is to “release” and then “renew” the computer’s connection. He explained that sometimes, simply using “renew” would solve the problem; but often it doesn’t because the computer will simply “renew” itself in its current state with the root problem still there. However, if he uses “release” and then “renew,” that will force the computer to let go of what’s causing it to fail, making room for the computer to “renew” in a new state - one free from the thing causing it to fail. 

He shared that he feels like there is a parallel that can be taken from this concept and applied to how we handle things in our lives (so yes, this is his original idea - I can’t take all of the credit), but I couldn’t agree more! Although this is a pretty nerdy analogy, when we apply this concept to our thoughts and emotions, I feel like it gives a great perspective! 

Often things happen in our lives, some small and some monumental, that leave us feeling stuck or paralyzed. We try to pick up and move on - to renew, or start over, but we keep getting tripped up by this thing! Maybe it’s a past experience, maybe it’s something that someone said about you, maybe it’s a really bad habit or maybe even an addiction to something, maybe its a grudge or bitterness about someone or some situation - whatever the thing is, it feels like you just can’t get past it. You commit to doing better, you are motivated and have great intentions, but then you just find yourself in the exact same place struggling with the exact same thing. 

Does that sound familiar to you? Most of us have experienced at least some level of this, but for some, it starts to define their lives. 

The lesson that we can learn from this analogy is that it doesn’t always work to just “renew”. We can’t always just pick up and move forward. Sometimes, a lot of times, we need to first “release” or let go. 

This sounds like an easy thing to do, but in reality, it can be so difficult! Releasing control of a situation that you’re fearful about; releasing a relationship that you know is unhealthy but you’re clinging to; releasing the comfort of a habit or addiction; releasing the pain or injustice that was done to you; releasing the negative, self-limiting thought that you believe about yourself - none of these things are easy to let go of, but these kinds of things will keep you in a cycle of frustration, and just like in our analogy, missed connections.  

So how do we apply this practically to our lives? How can we “release and renew” these things that we are struggling with? I’d like to encourage you with a couple of things that have helped me personally. 

Release - Surrender!

The first is to surrender. Whatever your struggle is -  the thing, the thought, feeling, person, or situation - to God. Scripture tells us that His love for us is so deep and unending that He wants us to cast our cares, our burdens, our fears, and anxieties on Him - and to leave them there - to truly release them to Him. 

In a message series that our Pastor recently taught at our church, He talked a lot about how the things we hold on to, the things that we find ourselves worrying about, reveal a lot about the condition of our hearts and of our beliefs about who God is - whether He is really good or not, whether He really loves us or not, whether He really is powerful or not. 

So maybe you need to start there - evaluate your heart and the thoughts and feelings that seem to be tripping you up, and ask yourself 1.) if you truly believe that God is good, loving, and powerful enough to be trusted with your situation, and 2.) if so, why haven’t you released this thing to Him. 

If this is something you know that you don’t believe or struggle to believe, but want to know more, please reach out to me - I would love to talk more with you about this. 

Renew -  Speak truth over yourself!

The second thing we can do is to renew our minds - our thoughts and our feelings - by speaking truth over ourselves. Once we’ve released these things, there’s a void, right? When we take captive thoughts or feelings that are harmful to us or are untrue and then release them, we can then renew and replace it with something that is true. There is so much freedom to be found in this! We can do this by reminding ourselves of who God says that we are - who He has made us to be. 

Practically, for me, this looks like spending time reading God’s word, listening to worship music, surrounding myself with people who will help encourage me, uplift me and remind me of truth when I start to struggle. Also being careful of who and what I allow to speak into my life! I’ve even started to apply this to who I follow on social media. If I find that an account I follow is posting things that cause me to start to struggle with comparison or to start having negative, untrue thoughts about myself, my body, or my life, I just unfollow or hide them. It’s just not worth it!

I encourage you to think about ways you can implement this concept for yourself! Our brains are so amazing! They can forge new neural pathways, replacing the old with the new, but it takes work and repetition. A practice as simple as shutting down a negative, untrue, or unhealthy thought as soon as it enters your mind, and replacing it with one that is true, positive and healthy can actually change your brain and your thought patterns! 

Thirdly, I want to add one more thought on this topic and that is that sometimes you also need to seek the help of a professional. A counselor or someone who is specifically trained to know how to navigate things like trauma, grief or addiction - even if it’s something that seems less serious, damage can be done to our minds and our bodies by things that have happened to us or hurts that we’ve been through. There is absolutely no shame in talking with a professional, and as a matter of fact, if you know me personally, you’ve probably heard me suggest counseling to you or someone else because I think it is so important and can be so helpful to your health! 

Today’s topic may feel a little out there when thinking about your health, but I feel like it’s so important to look at our health as a whole. Everything is connected and one part of our lives affects all the others. As we move into this new season and are preparing for all the holiday gatherings with friends and family, it’s a great time to do some evaluation of the things that cause you to feel stuck or may cause you to dread or struggle with the upcoming season. 

Please know that this is something that we all deal with and find those people who will uplift and encourage you when you are struggling. As always, if you feel you need additional support, you can always send me an email or set up a free consultation to see if there is something I can help you with. I’m happy to help or if I can’t, to connect you with someone who can! 

012 - 3 Tips for Making a Healthy Choice at Any Restaurant

Hi friends! In today’s episode, we are keeping with the healthy eating theme we’ve had going for the last few episodes and talking about how to make healthy choices when you’re dining out! 

Obviously, the healthiest choice is usually to cook your meals at home where you have more control over what ingredients are included, but it’s not possible to ALWAYS eat at home. Sometimes your schedule demands that you dine out and sometimes you just want to, which is great! I don’t know about you but I absolutely love the thought of someone else preparing my food, bringing it to me, and then cleaning up the mess, (Yes, please!) but sometimes when you’re trying to make changes to your health and be intentional about the food you’re eating, going to a restaurant can be a bit of a challenge. It’s difficult to know what ingredients are in each entree and it can be easy to feel like there aren’t healthy options, but usually, that isn’t the case!  

Today, I want to give you three easy tips for choosing a healthy option so you can enjoy your restaurant experience and not spend an hour staring at the menu! 

Now, before I get into the tips, let me just say this - you won’t always do these things. I won’t always do these things! Not every single meal has to be the healthiest choice. Sometimes, you want the splurge! Sometimes it’s cheeseburger night - go. for. it! Don’t take these tips as me saying that if you’re going to be healthy, you have to eat perfectly 100% of the time! It’s also important to note that obsessing and stressing over our food decisions is just as unhealthy as eating processed, junk foods - so we don’t want to find ourselves doing that!

When we fuel our bodies well the majority of the time and take the time to learn how what we eat affects us, we then have the freedom to go a little wild now and then! No, it wouldn’t be good to do that all the time or even every day, but every once and a while, it is totally fine! Our bodies have the ability to turn less than perfect food into energy and nutrients that we need when we are taking care of them and nourishing them the majority of the time.  

Okay, now that we cleared that up and you guys don’t think I’m some kind of kill-joy, :) let’s get into these tips! 

• Look at the menu before you go!

This can be really helpful if you know where you are going to be eating beforehand. It can feel overwhelming to get to a restaurant, especially with a group of friends or even on a date, and feel like you can’t talk to anyone for the first 15 minutes because you are intensely reading the menu. Most restaurants have their menus posted online, so it's so much easier to take time before you go to read over the menu and choose a couple of options that will be good for you and sound delicious! 

• Think about balance!

Eating a balance of carbs, protein, and fat with each meal is so important for properly fueling the body as well as maintaining stable blood sugar levels. This will keep you from having an energy crash as soon as you finish eating and will keep you full longer. When looking at the menu, choose entrees that include all three macronutrients. If the entree you want doesn’t have all three, you can always customize or add something to your order. Also, remember that things like salad dressings or other toppings (usually fats) will count towards having a balanced meal. 

Let me give you a couple of quick examples to make this a little more practical:

Instead of getting the normal cheeseburger and fries, to make it a healthier, more balanced choice, you could do a burger bowl or salad. Skip the bun and ask for your burger to be on a bed of greens, and then add all the toppings you want like onions, mushrooms, tomato, pickles, avocado, and sauces. Then have your fries on the side. By doing this you have a good mixture of fiber-rich veggies and other more starchy carbs, protein and some fat from the burger patty, and fat from the avocado and maybe from the sauces.

Another common entree option you can find almost anywhere is grilled chicken. You could do grilled chicken with rice and either a salad or other green veggie, but you will need to add in some fat. So again, avocado is a great choice or ask for some real butter or olive oil to drizzle on your veggies.  

• Get some greens in there, if nothing else!

We’ve talked about this before but the majority of us come nowhere near eating the amount of fiber we need in a day. An easy way to fix this is to add some leafy greens or other high-fiber veggies to every meal. Even if the entree you choose isn’t the healthiest, you can not only get a nutrient boost from adding on some spinach or broccoli, but also the fiber will help your body digest and process your meal more easily. 

• Bonus tip - get water! 

Unless you are specifically going to a restaurant for a specific drink that they serve, just go with the water! It’s free and will again help your body process and digest your meal more easily than if you were to drink something sugary. Instead of giving your gut and liver something else to “work on”, so to speak, it actually supports their natural processes.  

So there you have just a few easy tips to hopefully simplify making healthier choices when you’re dining out. It doesn’t have to be hard, and as long as you aren’t eating at restaurants most days of the week, you don’t have to stress over your choices. If you are following a more restrictive or elimination-style diet for a time, restaurant food probably isn’t going to be your friend or the easiest option, but by following these tips - especially the first one about looking up the menu beforehand, it is still possible to do. 

If you find yourself dining out more than you feel like you should or you want to, go back and listen to the past few episodes about meal planning and prepping ahead. This is going to be key to eating more at home, especially when your schedule is really busy - and whose isn’t? Right?! 

Alright friends, that does it for today’s episode! As a reminder, you can find my healthy eating resources, like my Meal Planning Guide, Meal Prep info, or my Healthy Kitchen Swaps Makeover Guide by clicking here. 

011 - Meal Prepping Could Be the Key to Your Success

Friends! In today’s episode, we are talking about the benefits and methods of meal prepping!

Once again this is one of those topics where the “right way” to do something is the way that works best for you and that you will actually do! Last week we talked about how to plan our meals (if you haven’t already listened to that episode, I encourage you to check out Episode 10  first), but as much as the planning part can overwhelm people, the prepping part for sure stops a lot of people in their tracks. 

There are so many ways to do this and it can be challenging to figure out which is best for your situation. I hear a lot of questions like “how do I know how much food to make ahead?”, “Which foods will still taste good prepped in advance and which are better to prepare right before you eat them?”, “How much time does it take?” and so many more - and, don’t hate me, but a lot of the answers to these questions are “it depends…”. The answers change based on how many people are in your household, how you personally tolerate left-overs, and how much time you have to do the prep.

Today I want to just do an overview of how beneficial meal prepping can be as well as give you a few tips to help make it simple and helpful for you! 

Benefits of Meal Prepping 

So, why would someone benefit from prepping some or all of their meals in advance?

Well, one of my favorite things about it is how much time it can save throughout the week. This is especially helpful for people who work long hours or crazy shifts and know that they won’t have the energy to cook when they get home from work. It’s also great if you and your spouse work differing shifts and maybe can’t eat your meals together every night. It’s been really helpful for me because as I mentioned in the last episode, the dinner-time hours also seem to be the neediest hours for my toddler, and it keeps me from having to spend as much time in the kitchen when she is needing more of my attention. 

Another great benefit, and the one that I think is key for most people, is that prepping your meals ahead helps you stick to your healthy eating goals. This is so important, especially when you are trying to make changes to your health. Let’s be real, the temptation to grab take-out or swing through the drive-thru on your way home is high - especially after a long or stressful day; however, that temptation will be so much lower if you know that there is a delicious home-cooked meal that you love waiting for you at home and one that you’ve already put work and effort into. You’re not going to want to waste that effort! 

This is one of the keys to success for my clients. Not only does it help them to fuel their bodies well, but it helps to also change their habits and gives them the confidence they need to cook more at home. So now they are both making healthier decisions and saving money by not eating out as much! Win-win!

Methods for Meal Prepping 

As I mentioned before there are different methods for prepping your meals ahead. I personally have used two different methods that I go back and forth with depending on how much prep time I have. 

The first method is what I call the “big prep”. I use this method when I have a little more time, maybe on Saturdays or during one of my daughter’s nap-times throughout the week. I got the idea from the book “Cook Once Eat All Week” by Cassy Joy Garcia and it usually takes around 1.5 hours, maybe 2 if I have more interruptions. But essentially, I will prep most all ingredients for 3-4 dinners, plus a few breakfast or lunch items if I have time. In the book, Cassy teaches you exactly how to do “prep day” - which items to prep first, in what order things should go into the oven, etc. in order to make the most of your time and your space. I highly suggest this book if you are new to the process of meal prepping or if you would like to learn a new method. She includes recipes for 26 weeks worth of healthy meals, and even if you don’t use her recipes, and use your meal plan instead, you can still apply her principles of meal prepping to save yourself time. 

The second method is my “mini-prep”, which is what I default to a lot, especially if I haven’t had a chance to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen. Using this method, I just try to prep 1-2 extra things when I am cooking dinner on Sunday or Monday evening. Simple things like browning ground beef or pre-chopping veggies for other meals can save you so much time later in the week. I’m already in the kitchen and in cooking mode, so while I wait for the oven to preheat or for water to boil or something, I just prep an ingredient for another meal. Also, a lot of times you put what you’re having for dinner in the oven to cook for 20-30 min and instead of going and doing something else with that time, on those nights, I just prep for other meals. Another reason I like this method is I don’t know about you, but I start most weeks with pretty high motivations and good intentions, but by  Wednesday or Thursday night, I’m tired and that motivation has usually decreased significantly. 

Even just prepping your lunches for the week while you are cooking dinner one night will keep you from being tempted to eat out for lunch every day! 

Simple Meal Prepping Tips 

Here are a few tips that can help you with your meal prep, no matter which method you choose:

• In order to have a game-plan for what to prep, you will need to have your meals planned out. It’s hard to prep meals ahead when you don’t even know what those meals are. You can grab my free meal planning guide here, or over on Instagram if you need some help with planning your meals. 

• I highly recommend that you do your grocery shopping and you’re meal prepping on different days. Now, I will say that this is dependent on your personality and the amount of time you have, so you can experiment with it and see how it goes. Personally, it stresses me out too much to try to do both on the same day. I do like to wash my produce and maybe do a little pre-chopping or something when I’m putting groceries away, but actually cooking a bunch of meals right after I come home from the store and having to put all the groceries away is just more time than I want to spend in the kitchen at one time

• Along those same lines, I recommend that start your prep with a clean kitchen. It doesn’t have to be spotless, but at least have mostly cleared off counters and an empty sink. Believe me, it is not an enjoyable experience to try to chop, mix, and cook when you’re working with about 6 inches of clean counter space or if a pile of dirty dishes is staring at you from the sink (ask me how I know :)). You want the process of meal prepping to be as enjoyable and stress-free as possible, so do yourself a favor and clean your kitchen up a bit before you start your meal prep and turn on some fun music (or maybe your favorite podcast {wink, wink}) while you’re at it. 

• As far as storing the food you prep, you can store it in a few different ways. One way is to store in the fridge in the pot that you used to cook it in. This is really helpful for when you’ve made soup or something large that you will need to reheat before you have it as a meal. It couldn’t be more simple than that, just take it out of the fridge an hour or so before you’re going to need to heat it, and then just put it on the stove or in the oven to reheat! Then for smaller dishes or if I’m going to divide a certain ingredient up to use in multiple meals, I will use my glass food storage. When it comes to storing food or anything that is going to be going into your body, it’s better to use glass or stainless steel than plastic. Even BPA free plastic still has many other kinds of estrogen-like chemicals in them that can easily leach into the food, especially when the plastic is heated. So, if you don’t have glass containers, use what you’ve got but please don’t heat your food in the microwave in plastic containers - move over to a ceramic or glass bowl or plate before you eat it.  These chemicals do a number of things in our bodies, including increasing the overall toxic load on our livers, but increased usage of them can lead to hormone imbalance, in both men and women.

• The last tip is also going to be one of preference, but personally, I wouldn’t prep more than 3-4 days of food at a time unless it’s something that you’ve prepped before and you know will stay good for the entire week. Chopped raw veggies or hard-boiled eggs are great examples of things that should last the whole week, but some cooked veggies will become mushy and some meats will become dried out when left in the fridge over a few days. This may take a little trial and error to figure out, but as a general rule, I stick to about 4 days for cooked meals. 

Friends, I hope you found a few tips helpful and were able to see that meal prepping can be done in many different ways and how it can be key to helping you stick to your healthy eating goals! 

As always, if you have any questions about the episode, feel free to reach out! Have a wonderful rest of your week and I’ll see you back here next week!

010 - How I Meal Plan for My Family

Hi friends! Today we are going to be talking all about meal planning and specifically how I meal plan. There is no one way or “right” way to do meal planning or grocery shopping, but this is a topic that I am asked about a lot and I think it can seem overwhelming if you’ve never done it before. So, I’m going to share with you my process and what I have found best to work for me at this stage in our lives. Just remember that if this isn’t the best method for your life, that’s okay! We can still all learn from each other’s tips and methods.

So let’s just get real for a minute before we jump into the details...

Sometimes the idea of having to sit down and meal plan feels like a pain - there are days I just straight up don’t want to do it -  but do you know what is more of a pain than taking the time to meal plan? The stress of trying to decide what is for dinner every evening right around 4-5 pm, which also happens to be when my toddler seems to have the most meltdowns; or going way over budget at the grocery store, and then getting to come home and tell my husband that I spent the entire month’s grocery budget in this one trip because I didn’t go in with a plan. The truth is that this is something that I have learned from experience! I have found my life to be so much easier if I just make the decision and commit myself to make a meal plan for our family.  

Now like I said, there is no ONE way to meal plan, but I think there are a couple of universal tips that I think can be helpful for anyone no matter what method you use:

• Get organized! 

Set a specific time every week or two to devote to planning your meals. Make it a fun thing if you need to - a coffee date by yourself! Yes, please!

• Have a flexible plan!

  One of the most frustrating parts of meal planning can be when you set this really beautifully laid out plan and then something happens and throws the whole thing out the door! Most likely your week will not go exactly as you planned it but you are still going to benefit from working off of a plan rather than completely winging it.

My Meal Planning Process

When I’m making our meal plan, the first thing I do is sit down with a pen, paper, and my calendar (yes, I like to physically write it out - but that’s just me). I plan our meals two weeks at a time - so I list out the dates for the next two weeks and make a note of any nights that we won’t be home or we know that we will be eating out. I also make a note if there is a night that maybe only one of us will be home for dinner or a date night for us, which would mean that I will only need to make dinner for our daughter. This lets me know exactly how many dinners I will need to plan. 

Next, I usually go to my Pinterest boards or scan through a few of my favorite cookbooks as well as any recipes I’ve saved on my phone that I wanted to try out (I love to just take a screenshot of recipes or meal ideas I come across online). While there are usually a few staple meals that we have every two weeks, I like to change things up and not eat the same things all the time. 

I have a few criteria that I look for when I’m looking for new meal ideas for our family:

• Is it something that will be nourishing for us?

• Are the main ingredients something that both my husband and I like? 

• Is it too complicated or does it have too many ingredients?

• Can I get it on the table in less than 30 minutes? If not, can parts of the meal be prepped ahead?

So I encourage you to think through what your criteria may be - especially if you’re not familiar with trying new recipes or cooking at home a lot. You don’t want to choose a bunch of recipes that will overwhelm or frustrate you! As you cook more, you will get more adventurous!

Once I’ve chosen my meals for those two weeks, I will go through and note any ingredients I will need to buy and get started on my grocery list. 

My Grocery List 

I like to organize my grocery list by the way the store is laid out. It just helps my brain not to feel too overwhelmed and helps me to not be as likely to forget things. I add all the ingredients I need for my chosen meals, plus any staples items we may need for breakfasts or snacks. 

There are several different methods of buying groceries. Some people prefer to go into the store and shop themselves and some choose to order their groceries online and either pick them up or have them delivered. 

Last week I asked in my Insta Stories for some of your tips for buying healthy meals and staying in budget, and you guys had great ideas! A few of the ideas were things like shopping at multiple grocery stores - which is something I also personally do; stocking up on whatever organic meat is on sale that week and cutting and freezing it for future meals - which is such a smart idea; sticking to your meal plan and only going to the store one per week or two (if you shop bi-weekly) - this is a great tip because I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but every time you need to stop at the store for one little thing, you always walk about with 5-6 little things because they were on sale or because it was a new product; someone else mentioned going in with some other people on a CSA or maybe a cow-share, which can be a little expensive on the front-end but really save you some money over time, plus it gives you a chance to get to know the farm where you are getting your food from, which is pretty cool!

So you just need to decide which method is best for you, whether you want the convenience of buying everything from one store or if you are trying to be more budget-conscious, shopping in multiple stores!  You are the expert on your family! 

Personally, having a plan and walking into the store with a list not only helps me to feel more organized but it also helps me stay on budget (well.. mostly 😏), minimize food waste and just gives me the assurance of knowing that I’m feeding my family healthy, nourishing meals. That’s an invaluable benefit to me! 

I have designed a freebie Meal Planning Guide for you that covers everything I’ve talked about today but also includes a downloadable blank template for you to use to make your own meal plan and grocery list! The guide also includes a link to my exact meal plan and grocery list from two weeks ago! I know sometimes it’s just fun to see what meals other people make and what they buy at the store, so I’ve included that as a little bonus!

I hope this guide will give you a little inspiration and encourage you to make the process of meal planning work for your family! 

Don’t forget that you can always follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for more helpful tips for healthy meals and meal planning! If you feel like you need more personalized support I also offer a specific Meal Planning and Prepping Coaching Call! It’s a 75-min virtual session where we work on your specific obstacles with meal planning and prepping your meals ahead of time. 

I hope you enjoy the rest of your week and I’ll see you next time!

009 - How To Tame Your Sugar Dragon!

Hey hey, friends! After spending the last few weeks talking about topics that applied mostly to women, I thought I would switch it up today and talk about something that applies to pretty much everyone everywhere - how to tame your sugar dragon! 

You know the one I’m talking about… the one that fills your mind with thoughts of chocolate chip cookies or ice cream as soon as you sit down after a long day or the one that makes it impossible to walk by the donuts sitting on the break room table. We all have one and the majority of us, at least at some point, has felt like the dragon has gotten out of control!

One of the questions I’ve gotten a lot is “how do I stop eating so many sweets?” This is an especially common struggle because sweets are everywhere! You’ll find them at work, at church, and at every single get-together! So, what do you do if you are trying to reduce your sugar intake? 

You have to tame the dragon… you have to regain control! As we talked about in Episode 4 - Deconstructing Cravings, food (including sugary foods) isn’t just something that keeps us from being hungry, it’s information - it causes a biological reaction. Consuming sugary foods results in a dopamine release in our brains and so now every time we see the cupcakes or donuts, our brain sees an opportunity for more dopamine.  The problem is that dopamine doesn’t actually make us happy or satisfied, it just motivates us toward the reward of feeling happy. So basically every time you or I consume sugar, we’re just training our brains to continue to pursue consuming more sugar. 

Since most of us aren’t interested in absolutely never consuming sugar again (um..no thanks!), how can we stay in control of these cravings rather than letting them control and motivate us? 

Try an Elimination Diet

The first tip I have for taming your sugar dragon is the most extreme, but it is also the most effective - and that is to starve it. Which means to not feed it any sugar at all for a period of time. Most people refer to this as an elimination diet where you basically do just that - you eliminate certain foods, usually inflammatory or addictive foods, for a certain period of time, usually 2-4 weeks. As I mentioned, this option will definitely give the best results, but it is also the most difficult and you will most likely experience withdrawal symptoms like headaches, irritability, lack of energy, etc. for a few days.  There are several programs out there that can lead you through an elimination diet, something like the Whole30 or the 21-day sugar detox.

I have done this method myself and while the first 3-5 days were really tough, I do feel like it made a drastic difference in the number of cravings I was having as well as my ability to stay in control. I also felt so good after finishing the elimination diet! So, I highly recommend this method if you’re serious about it and up for the challenge.

Make Intentional Decisions 

The second tip I have for taming your sugar dragon is something that you need to do whether you do the elimination diet or not, and that is to start being deliberate with your food choices. You will never feel in control of your health or of any type of cravings if you allow what you eat to be determined by your feelings. Now, I know that this is hard and not something that I have mastered 100% of the time either, but it is something that I’ve become very aware of. Take the time to slow down and be aware of how you’re feeling and give your brain a second to think through the decision before you just automatically say “yes” and indulge. It’s not that indulging is a bad thing or that you always need to say no to sweets,  but not thinking through your decisions and eating impulsively will always leave you feeling out of control and regretful. You will 100% feel better about eating dessert if it was a conscious choice and something you really want than you will if you only eat because it is there or because everyone else is. 

We also need to talk about the mentality of using food as a reward or a treat - and that goes for any food. It’s this mentality that we’ve slipped into as a society and it starts when we are little kids - that I don’t even know if we are aware of. We give them sweets as rewards for good behavior or for eating all their dinner, and while the intention is obviously harmless, the result is not. Food is fuel and we’ve got to change the way that we look at it or else every time we have a bad day we’re going to tell ourselves that we deserve a “treat” on the way home to help us cope and friends, food is not a healthy coping mechanism! This is a difficult mindset to shift (for me as well) but it starts with being aware and becoming more intentional in our decisions! 

Create Some Distance

The third tip to help tame your sugar dragon is to create some distance! There are a number of ways that you can do this, but my favorite way is to just not keep tempting sugary foods in the house! It becomes so much more difficult to resist the candy if it's in your pantry or your desk drawer at work. If you are going to eat it, you will have to make the conscious decision to leave where you are to go get it and most often, that extra effort alone will be enough of a deterrent. And if not, it at least provided you with time to really consider your decision. 

You can also implement a rule of time, maybe 15 minutes, maybe an hour - whatever works best for you. When you get a craving for something sweet, you wait that amount of time, and if you still want it after that amount of time passes (and maybe a glass of water) then you go eat it. This sounds so simple but it really is effective! It again helps to reduce the number of impulsive decisions and automatic eating while allowing you to become more intentional with your food decisions

Choose a Healthier Alternative

The last tip I have to help tame your sugar dragon for today is to go with a healthier version of what you’re craving. This one isn’t nearly as effective at actually taming the cravings, but it at least isn’t as bad for your body as the processed sugary option would be. Choosing an option like a small handful of clean-ingredient chocolate chips and a spoon full of almond butter or an energy ball with chocolate chips or honey in it will help satisfy your craving without spiking your blood sugar or stirring up inflammation in your gut. 

I also want to remind you that we crave what we eat! So if you’re eating processed, sugary foods often, that is what you will crave! As you start to make some of these changes, either through the elimination diet or by choosing healthier alternatives, your craving will also start to change. I don’t crave the same kinds of things that I used to - I still have cravings but much less frequently and typically for healthier options because that is what I eat most often. I just don’t want you to think that this is a never-ending uphill battle! It does get easier, but you will have to do some work on the front end to get there!

Ultimately, when you do make the conscious decision to celebrate with the dessert or have the donut on Sunday morning, enjoy it. Do so without guilt or regret because you know that your body can handle this indulgence because you choose to take care of it and fuel it well with nutritious and nourishing foods most of the time! 

Guys, it’s all about balance and making the best decisions you can - it’s not about perfection! No one is perfect and no one expects you to be! You just want to do your best to take care of your body well so that it can continue to serve you well and allow you to live the life you want to live!

I hope that you will apply a few of these tips and as always if you have questions, feel free to reach out! Enjoy the rest of your day and I’ll see you back here next week!

008 - Part 4: The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle to Lose Weight - An Unhealthy Mindset

Hi friends! This week we are finishing up the month-long series on The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle to Lose Weight with Part 4, which is an Unhealthy Mindset. 

While an unhealthy mindset may be the last part of this series, it absolutely should not be the last thing you think about when considering why you may be struggling to lose weight (or to reach any goal, really) - it should be the first! The truth is that you can eat all the kale, never miss a workout, and drink tons of water, but if you don’t deal with the heart work - the part that addresses how you feel about yourself and the value you place on your health - you’re not going to make any true, lasting progress. 

This principle is along the same lines of what we talked about in the first part of this series with having The Wrong Goal, but it goes much deeper than that. Your mindset about your health, your body, and really your worth is at the core of who you are and whether consciously or not, almost every decision you make about food, exercise, self-care, boundaries with others, etc. is related to it. 

We all have struggled with this at some point - let me give you an example of what I mean. Let’s imagine that I have a client that is frustrated because she can’t seem to make any real progress with her health goals. She has tried multiple diet plans and has lost weight on most of them, but after a few weeks or months, she gains the weight back and is right back to feeling sluggish and depressed, she starts going through the drive-thru every night instead of cooking at home like she was before, she hardly ever works out anymore, and is back to drinking more soda than ever. This has happened to her time and time again and she can’t figure out why nothing ever seems to stick. She knows the things to do - but something is missing. She just can’t stay motivated! When I get to know her a little better, I learn that she has been dealing with these feelings and frustrations for several years. When I asked her when she remembers first feeling this way, she shared that it all started in college when she and her long-term boyfriend broke off their relationship. She told me about how he had made a few jokes about her gaining some weight and how it had hurt her feelings but she just brushed it off. Then she found out he was cheating on her with another girl who was much thinner and in her opinion, much more attractive than her. She told me that she blamed herself for their breakup and immediately started trying different diets and workout programs, and it worked - she lost all the weight she had gained in college. But nothing else in her life really seemed to change and after a while, she just went back to the same kind of lifestyle she was living before because it didn’t make the difference she was hoping for. She became very insecure about the way she looked and started spending more time alone. Even if other guys became interested in her, she would end things before they ever got started because she was afraid that if she couldn't control her weight, the same thing would happen again and this cycle just continued throughout her early twenties. 

Can you relate to this client? Do you feel like you’ve tried every diet program under the sun but nothing really sticks long-term? Have you had a similar experience where you started to doubt that your body was good enough or that your identity was somehow wrapped up in the number that showed up on the scale? 

There are a few questions that I would ask my client - and that I’m also going to ask you: 

• How do you define what “health” is? 

What does it mean to you? Not a number on the scale or a certain size. I want you to dig deeper than that and think about what health means to you. 

• What would it look like for you to be healthy? 

What would your life look like? How would it be different than it is now? What would your energy be like? Your relationships? Your career? 

• Do you think that you can actually be healthy? 

When you picture that healthy version of yourself, do you actually believe that it’s possible for you? 

• Do you feel that you deserve to be healthy? 

Like the client in my example, have you allowed something that someone said to you to become your own belief? Do you think that you are somehow undeserving of being healthy because of something you did, or maybe something you continue to do? Are you subconsciously punishing yourself because you feel like that is what you deserve?

Those may seem like weird questions but you would be surprised at how many people have never thought about these questions and honestly have a hard time answering them. It is so common for people to believe that truly being healthy isn’t actually possible for them or is something that they don’t deserve. So, I want you to take the time to reflect on your answers to these questions. 

Now that you’ve thought about your answers, I want to spend the rest of today’s episode focusing on ways you can move into a healthier mindset. 

Self-Worth

The first is to remind yourself of your worth! You were intricately and specifically made to be you! It sounds cliche to say but it’s true - no one else can be you!  We spend so much time getting caught up in what others might think about us or maybe even in something that has been said about us by another person, that we forget what our Creator said about us - that we were fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139)! We are who He says we are - not what the internet says we are, not what our friends or family say that we are, not even what our own thoughts and feelings say that we are. We have to do the heart work of letting that stuff go, of laying down our insecurities and the lies we’ve allowed ourselves to believe. We have to remind ourselves that we were made by God and God doesn’t make junk, and He doesn’t make things without a purpose. We were given life and a body to live it in, and it’s our responsibility to honor that gift by stewarding it well. 

Overwhelm

The second is to work through the overwhelm! Listen, I get it - trying to improve your health or make any health decision is overwhelming. There are so many options and so many people with opinions about the best way you to do it, but you can’t let that paralyze you. I’m all for making informed decisions and researching which option might be best for you, but it’s so easy to get caught up in all the noise that you end up not doing anything at all. So, my advice is to pick something - pick one action step that you know will improve your health, something simple. Things, like drinking more water or moving your body for 20-30 minutes every day, are great places to start. Action begets action. Once you start to make one change and stick to it, the more motivated and confident you will feel to move on to the next thing. 

Maybe your situation is more overwhelming than most. Maybe like me, you are dealing with a health condition that needs specific considerations and recommendations. If so, your first step needs to be contacting a professional that can help you, then commit yourself to learn as much as you can from them. 

Whenever I get really overwhelmed, usually with a list of things that I need to do, my husband always tells me the same thing. He says, “Line them up vertically - stop looking at them horizontally, as if they all need to be done at the same time, and just do the first thing.” As much as it may annoy me sometimes, he’s right! You can’t think about changing all the things at once - you will psych yourself out - but if you choose one thing to do first, you will begin to make progress and it will get easier from there!

Support

The third thing is you need to have a good support system. It’s critical for success! Research has shown that your health is greatly affected by the people you spend the most time with. Now, I’m not saying that if you have unhealthy friends that you need to stop hanging out with them, but I am saying that you need to find at least one person, preferably more, that will have your back and support you! Who will celebrate your wins and encourage you when you’re having a hard time. It’s going to be really difficult for you to make lasting lifestyle changes when the people you surround yourself with are making fun of you for going to work out or for not eating pizza for the third night that week. Again, the point isn’t to lose your friends, but to choose carefully who you have in your corner for this journey! Most of the time, if they truly care about you, they will be supportive and if not, it’s usually due to their own insecurities, so just keep that in mind. 

If you need a group of people to be in your corner, who are experiencing similar struggles and have the same kind of goals, join my group coaching program! This is the last week to sign up for it (registration closes on 9/1) and there are a couple of spots left! Maybe this is the first step you need to take. I really can’t think of a more fun way to get started on your health journey, or maybe to restart on your health journey, than with the guidance and support from a coach, as well as with the support from other women all experiencing and learning the same things. 

The group will meet twice a month from September - November and the meetings will be held virtually, so you’ll be able to join from the comfort of your own home! I’m really excited for this group and I would absolutely love for you to join us! 

Friends that wraps up today’s post and our August series! I hope that you heard something that encourages you! Enjoy the rest of your day!

007 - Part 3: The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle to Lose Weight - Underlying Health Conditions

Hey friends! Welcome back to part 3 of the month-long series on The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle to Lose Weight. In today’s episode, we are focusing on underlying health conditions that could be sabotaging your weight loss efforts.

There are several conditions that can do this but in order to keep this episode from being super long, I’m just going to focus on two conditions that many people deal with and often aren’t even aware that they are having an issue.

Poor Gut Health

A healthy gut is the foundation of overall health. Hippocrates, who is known as the Father of Medicine, said that “all disease begins in the gut”. This topic is becoming more and more discussed and studied in the medical field, but a lot of people still just think of the gut as the stomach, the place where their food goes when they eat, or the place they would like to lose a few inches, but it is so much more! So many of the functions of our bodies are dependent on what happens in our gut. So, what exactly do I mean when I’m talking about the gut or gut health? Let’s do a quick recap of the anatomy of our digestive tract and why it’s relevant to our overall health. 

When someone refers to the “gut”, they are referring to the digestive tract as a whole. This starts in the mouth, where you chew your food, and then includes the esophagus, the stomach, and both the small and large intestines. When we talk about “gut health”, usually that is in reference to the microbiome, which is the ecosystem of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that lives inside of our bodies. It is estimated that the average adult has trillions of these microbes living on our skin and in our digestive tract. As a matter of fact, there are more bacteria cells in us than human cells! Crazy, right? What’s more, is that there are estimated to be up to 1,000 different species of bacteria in our gut microbiome and each plays a different role in our bodies. 

Some of these gut bugs are good guys and are vital to our health. They help us do things like absorb nutrients, make and regulate hormones, and produce neurotransmitters (for example, serotonin, which we know as an antidepressant neurotransmitter). They also are vital to immune function, regulating blood sugar balance, increasing healthy cholesterol levels and keeping our skin clear and healthy.

The microbiome is amazing, but when this ecosystem gets out of balance and there are more bad guys than good guys (Dysbiosis), it can cause a lot of health issues, including making it very difficult to lose weight. 

Another common issue with gut health is increased intestinal permeability (aka Leaky Gut). Our intestines are naturally semi-permeable to let tiny micro-nutrients pass through and into our bloodstream - it’s how we absorb the nutrients from our food. However, certain external factors, like unhealthy foods, infections, toxins, and stress can break apart the tight junctions in the intestinal wall, which causes a leaky gut. This allows things that were never meant to get through the intestinal wall like toxins, microbes, and undigested food particles to escape into our bloodstream. Our immune system then marks those as foreign invaders and attacks them creating an inflammatory state in our bodies. The combination of imbalanced gut flora and a leaky gut causes an array of symptoms, most of which also make weight loss more difficult. 

So, what can we do to keep our microbiome balanced and healthy? As I mentioned before, this is a complex issue and if you are having severe symptoms, I highly suggest you work with a professional one on one, but here are just a few tips to improve gut health overall:

• Remove irritating or inflammatory foods from your diet

We’ve talked about these quite a bit in the last few episodes, so I won’t list them all here but this for sure includes processed junk foods, foods with added sugar or artificial ingredients, trans fats, and for some gluten and dairy. 

• Add fiber to your diet

Most of us aren’t getting even close to the recommended amount of fiber per day (at least 25-30 grams). An easy way to do this is to fill half your plate with high-fiber veggies like dark leafy greens, broccoli and cauliflower, brussel sprouts and asparagus. Also, apples and berries are great fruits to add in for some extra fiber without raising your blood sugar levels too much. 

• Chew your food

It is recommended that we chew around 25-30 times per bite! That is A LOT but properly chewing helps to kick-start the digestion process before our food ever gets to our stomachs. This will help the entire process and support nutrient absorption. 

• Repair your intestinal wall

If you feel pretty sure that you have Leaky Gut (by the way, most of us do), you need to help your intestinal wall become strong again. A great way to do this is by drinking Bone Broth - either chicken or beef, from a quality source. I usually recommend that my clients start out drinking 1-2 cups per day. One of the great things about bone broth is that it contains many different amino acids from the bones including gelatin, glycine, and glutamine. Each of these helps to strengthen and rebuild the mucosal layer of the intestines, which will help reduce permeability. Bone broth has also been shown to reduce inflammation in the body, which will help the gut to heal more quickly. 

You can make your own bone broth at home or there are a few great companies out there that make really high-quality bone broth. I suggest not using the regular stuff you get at Kroger or Trader Joe’s for therapeutic use. It’s great to use for cooking but the gelatin content is lower, which is not what you want for repair. Here is a recipe for my favorite  homemade bone broth and a link to my favorite store-bought brand as well.

• Rebuild your microbiome

Taking quality probiotics will help to replenish the good bacteria in your gut, which will keep the bad guys in check. Here are a few things to look for when choosing a brand of probiotics - it should have multiple strains of bacteria - not just one - and contain at least 20 billion CFUs for a regular adult dosage (this dose will need to be higher if you are treating something like leaky gut or IBS). Ideally, it’s best to take probiotics at the beginning of a meal, which will help them survive the stomach acid and make their way to the intestines. There are specific types of probiotics, like spore or soil-based, as well as live and raw probiotics, that will have a lower amount of CFUs which is totally fine. They are sourced differently and don’t have as difficult of a time getting to the intestines as a normal probiotic will, so you don’t need to worry about the higher CFU count or taking them with a meal.  Be sure to rotate the types of probiotics you take (the combination of strains) every 3-4 months to ensure a good balance. Here are a few of my favorite brands: 

• Klaire Labs Ther-Biotic Complete Probiotic

• Organic Liquid Probiotic by Mary Ruth’s Organics

• Klaire Labs Biospora Probiotic 

Hormone Imbalance

The other health condition that can be making it feel impossible for you to lose weight is hormonal imbalance. Hormonal imbalance can wreak havoc on our physical and mental health, but often it has been going on for a long time before the symptoms get bad enough for us to even notice. We explain away things like chronic fatigue, recurring headaches, anxiety or depression, and that stubborn weight around the waist as just a normal part of life - but what if it’s not? Everyone has hormonal fluctuations and most will experience an imbalance at some point in their lives, but when it becomes chronic or the new normal,  and especially when we aren’t even aware of it, it can become detrimental to our health. 

There are three hormones, that I want to talk about in this episode, that are the major players when it comes to our health - thyroid hormones, insulin, and cortisol. Most of the time when people talk about hormones or hormone imbalance, they are referring to reproductive hormones like estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone, but those are what some call “downstream” hormones. While those are important, they aren’t ever going to be balanced if we don’t get these other three balanced first. 

The thyroid produces hormones (T3 and T4) that affect the metabolism of every single cell in the body. A well functioning thyroid is critical to a well functioning body. It regulates so many things including overall metabolism - which means, if your thyroid is out of whack, it is extremely difficult to control your weight. When the thyroid hormones are imbalanced, this can lead to either hypothyroidism (which is when your thyroid is producing too little thyroid hormones) or hyperthyroidism (when the thyroid is producing too much). Hypothyroidism, or a sluggish thyroid, is more common in the US than hyperthyroidism. Symptoms include fatigue, weight gain or inability to lose weight, puffiness around the face, sensitivity to cold, dry skin and hair thinning, irregular periods, and depression.  If you can relate to these symptoms, it is so important to work with your physician to begin to restore balance to your thyroid. It’s important to ask for a full thyroid panel - including a check of your thyroid antibodies, as well as T3 and T4 levels, not just TSH - to ensure the correct diagnosis is made. Also, for the mamas and mamas-to-be out there, it’s a great idea to have your thyroid checked before trying to conceive, as thyroid health can affect your fertility and the health of your pregnancy. You should also have it rechecked in the postpartum phase, as pregnancy can alter those hormones and it can be common to have an imbalance during that time. This can really make things like postpartum anxiety or depression much worse, so it’s not something to ignore. 

The next hormone that has a huge impact on just about everything in the body is Insulin. Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas to help your cells use the glucose in your blood and to stabilize blood sugar levels. When blood glucose levels are elevated on a regular basis, often due to inflammation from any number of things including diet and stress, the pancreas has to secrete an increased amount of insulin and repeatedly. If this becomes a chronic or recurring thing, the insulin receptors on our cells become desensitized to insulin, meaning they can no longer trigger the cells to metabolize the glucose. This is what as known as Insulin Resistance. This creates both elevated levels of glucose and insulin in the blood and when left untreated, will lead to Type 2 diabetes. It can also lead to metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and hormonal diseases like PCOS. 

The last hormone that I want to cover today is Cortisol. If you remember, in Episode 2, I talked about how Cortisol is the main stress hormone, produced by the adrenal glands and affects almost every cell in our bodies. These effects include controlling the body’s blood sugar levels (which means, it affects the insulin that we just talked about), acting as an anti-inflammatory, influencing memory formation and blood pressure - just to name a few.  Just like insulin, while an essential hormone, too much for too long leads to dysfunction in our bodies. Also, just like insulin, our cells have receptors on them for cortisol, and if our cells become desensitized to it, due to too much exposure, inflammation levels in our bodies actually increase. This leads to things like adrenal fatigue, a sluggish metabolism, reduced immune function and a cascade of other hormonal imbalances. If you are living in chronic stress, your body is continually producing cortisol, which means it isn’t metabolizing properly, it isn’t resting properly, and you can bet that more hormone imbalance is just around the corner. Common symptoms are being “tired and wired”, weight gain - especially around the midsection, acne, amenorrhea or irregular cycles, insulin resistance, brain fog, anxiety, and depression. 

So, what should you do if you relate to any of these hormonal imbalances that I’ve mentioned? First thing is to work with a physician you trust and you feel has the desire and the time to really help you explore what may be going on in your body. Labs are a good place to start, especially for checking thyroid hormone and insulin levels. Finding and treating the root cause is the most important step to restoring balance to your hormones! 

In addition, here are a few other things you can do to nourish your body and support your hormones:

• Take care of your gut health 

Your gut helps you make hormones as well as get rid of any excess hormones that you no longer need.

• Give your liver some love 

Your liver not only helps filter out toxins from the body but excess hormones too and it can’t do that if it’s sluggish and bogged down. Doing things like drinking lots of water, reducing toxin intake and eating more fiber can help give your liver a little boost. 

• Follow an anti-inflammatory diet 

The same principles apply here that I mentioned before when talking about gut health. If it’s good for your gut, it’s good for your hormones too! 

• Work hard at reducing stress 

A few ideas are to set boundaries, create margin in your time, create self-care rituals, move your body for 30 minutes a day (by doing an activity that you enjoy), practice deep breathing (4 seconds breathing in, 4 seconds holding, and 4 seconds breathing out). 

• Get more sleep 

The recommended amount is 7-9 hours every night - make this a priority! Refer back to Episode 2 for more sleep tips.

I know that today’s episode has been full of a lot of information, but my goal is to help you have the knowledge and understanding of how your body is designed to function and what might be interfering in that process! Your health is one of your greatest gifts and assets in this life, so please give it the time and attention that it deserves! 

As always, if you have questions, feel free to reach out to me - you can find me here on Insta or Facebook. If you want to take the next step in getting more support on your health journey, there are still a few spots left in my Fall Group Coaching Program. Click here to find out more or to sign up! 

Enjoy the rest of your day!

006 - Part 2: The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle To Lose Weight - Misleading Health Myths

Hi friends! Today we will be continuing with part two of our month-long series on The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle to Lose Weight. 

Today’s topic is misleading health myths and oh my - there are so many of them! Today I’m just going to cover a few of the ones that I encounter often when working with a client and how these myths could be getting in the way of your weight loss progress.

If you haven’t already listened to part one of this series, please go back and start there! The info in that episode helps to build a solid foundation and also ensures that you understand where my heart and intention is with this series.

Let’s get into talking about misleading health myths! 

These are so common and understandably so... The nutrition and health world is constantly changing and just like anything else is subject to all the advertising fads and trends. This can make it so difficult to tell what is actually true and supported by the most up-to-date research. Unless you have had nutritional training (heck, sometimes even when you have) there’s not much of a constant point of reference or a trusted source of truth to base your decisions off of. For my family, I like to use a simple rule that helps me decide whether a health theory or new trend is good for us or maybe something I need to research more. I like to think of it this way: If the main ingredients of that item or product are made by God or come from the earth (for the purpose of eating) then it likely has a purpose in our diet and is good for us. If it’s something that has been manufactured or processed in a factory or industry, then I think twice. That doesn’t mean that I don’t eat it or use it, but I don’t just blindly accept it either.

Myth # 1 - Eating Fat Is Bad For You

One of the health myths that I encounter the most is a perfect example of following this rule. And that is the myth that eating fat is bad for you and should avoid it. Ugh… if only we could go back in time and tell the nutrition experts of the 60s that this simply isn’t true! In their defense, this was the best research they had at the time, but now there is so much research that proves that eating the right kinds of fats are not only good for us but are also absolutely vital for our health!

In studies comparing a high-fat diet, identical in calorie count, to a high-sugar diet, they found totally different effects on metabolism. The higher-fat diet caused people to burn an extra 300 calories a day (that’s like going for a 45 min run, without actually running)! These studies show that dietary fat actually speeds up your metabolism, while sugar slows it down. Not only does consuming healthy forms of fat speed up your metabolism, but it also helps to keep you full longer and helps to reduce cravings! 

In addition, eating healthy fats (like polyunsaturated, monounsaturated and even most quality-sourced saturated fats) has a long list of health benefits like reducing bad cholesterol (LDL) and increasing the good cholesterol (HDL), reducing inflammation in the body, fueling your brain (which is made up of 60% fat, by the way) and building stronger hair, nails and clearer skin. One of the most important things that consuming healthy fats does is to help balance our hormones. Fat is absolutely essential for hormone production in the body and also allows for the absorption of essential fat-soluble vitamins (like A, D, E, and K), which are all needed for hormone balance. 

I could go on and on, but as you can see thinking that including fat in your diet will make you gain weight or make you unhealthy couldn’t be further from the truth! Do make sure you are thinking about the quality of the source of the fats you are eating and avoiding inflammatory ones like trans fats and other inflammatory oils like canola. 

A few examples of healthy fats to include in your meals are things like avocados and avocado oil, coconut oil and butter, olive oil, flax seeds, chia seeds, salmon, pasture-raised eggs, nuts, and nut-butters.  As far as how much, a good general rule is about 2 Tbsp per meal (1 Tbsp is about the size of your thumb).

One more thing to add to the myth about fat is that if it’s true that healthy fats are good for your health, then it’s also true that all the “low-fat” and “diet” foods and drinks out there are not good for you. When in doubt, refer back to the basic rule that I mentioned in the beginning. Look at the label - are there a bunch of words you can’t pronounce or understand? Is it super low in fat but high in sugar? If so, it’s not a good choice! 

Myth # 2 - All Calories Are Created Equal

No… just no! I think if most of us really took a minute to think this myth through, we would see it for exactly that! All calories are not created equally and therefore will have different effects on the body. You will never get the same amount of nutrients, feeling of satiety, or energy from a can of coke as you will from eating an apple with almond butter, even though they are almost the exact same amount of calories.

Our intake of food is about so much more than calories, which is why I feel that a hyper-focus on calories alone can often do more harm than good! When your main goal is just to stay under a certain calorie count for the day, it becomes easy to lose sight of focusing on quality. The calorie-focused mentality can also cause us to mistakenly think that the key to losing weight is to just always burn more calories than you consume. As a matter of fact, I used to think that! I wouldn’t have any problem at all eating those donuts or that bag of chips, as long as I knew that I was going to go “work it off” later. But, the truth is that our bodies are way more complex than a math equation and our food is more than just calories and flavors! Food is information telling our cells what to do! It is actual fuel for our bodies! Whether we like it or not, everything we eat affects our hormones, our brains, and our metabolism. We have to be more concerned about the quality of the calories we consume, instead of the quantity.

Myth # 3 - The More You Exercise, The Thinner You Will Be

Without question, exercise is a foundational component of good health. There are numerous benefits to our health from regularly moving our bodies - things like lowering chronic inflammation, improving mood and memory, strengthening muscles and bones, increasing energy levels, improving sleep quality, increasing metabolism and many more. But just like in so many other areas, balance is key in exercise too! As we are now learning, more may not always be better when it comes to exercise - especially for women and especially if you struggle with hormone imbalance.

It may seem like common sense to try to work out as much as possible when you are trying to lose weight, especially when you’re working toward a goal like balancing your hormones or improving your fertility. But doing things like two-a-day workouts or multiple hour-long cardio sessions can tip the scale of benefit versus risk. As I just mentioned, regular, moderate exercise actually helps to lower inflammation and overall reduces levels of stress hormones, like cortisol,  in the body. But when you crossover into “over-training”, the opposite starts to take place and you start to have elevated cortisol levels in the body for a prolonged amount of time. If cortisol levels are chronically high, it can increase hormones like testosterone and subsequently estrogen, while also decreasing hormones like progesterone. This can quickly have a domino effect and start to cause things like irregular cycles, acne, increased appetite, extreme fatigue, and blood sugar dysregulation. These are things you certainly don’t want to deal with. 

So, I say all of this, just to say just be mindful of your workouts - both the frequency and the intensity! You want a good balance! 

I often recommend to my clients, especially when they are just starting to get back into exercising regularly, or they are already dealing with some hormone issue or inflammatory disease, to shoot for a goal of just moving their bodies for 30 minutes a day! This can be walking, jogging, weight-training, HIIT style workouts, barre, yoga - really whatever you enjoy! Picking something that you enjoy and won’t dread, will increase the likelihood that you will actually do it. Ask a friend to join you, if that will help you stay accountable and feel more motivated, but just don’t go to any extremes. Remind yourself that the point of exercising is to move your body, to increase oxygen and nutrients to your tissues, to help calm stress and inflammation, and ultimately to help your body to be strong and to function well. 

I hope that this episode has helped to clear up any of these myths that you might have been taught and will help remove potential roadblocks on your way to moving your health forward in the area of weight loss!

Please remember that sign-ups are open for my Fall Group Coaching Sessions that will start in September! If you feel like you need some extra support and accountability to reach your health goals, this is a great opportunity for you to not only work with me but also to be a part of a community of women all working on similar goals! Sign-ups will be open until September 1st, but spots are limited, so make sure you get your spot! 

005 - Part 1: The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle To Lose Weight - The Wrong Goal

Hey friends! I am so excited today because we are kicking off something new here - a month-long series about weight loss. Each week in the month of August, we are talking about the top four reasons that women struggle to lose weight. I think this is something that most of us have experienced, at least at some point in our lives. Whether it’s something you’ve battled for most of your life or it’s something that you are newly facing after having a baby, most of us can relate. And while it always takes effort and intention, for some, it seems downright impossible.

Can you relate to that? Do you feel like you are doing all the right things but nothing is changing? Have you tried every fad diet out there only to find yourself frustrated and pretty much in the same place you were when you started? Well, if so - the episodes this month are specifically for you and I hope that you will hear at least one thing that encourages you and can help point you in the right direction! 

Another reason that I am SO excited today is that I’m announcing the launch of my next group coaching program! So real quick, before we get into today’s topic, I want to give you a few details about the program and how you can sign up! 

So my Group Coaching Program is personalized coaching and support, just like you would get in a one-on-one coaching program with me, but in a group setting. This will be a small group of women, all with similar goals that will meet virtually - so in the comfort of your own home, twice a month. One of my favorite parts about participating in a group coaching program is that it provides you with not only education and coaching from me, but also with both accountability and community with other women just like you. It’s also a super affordable program and is great for those that feel that they need support, but maybe not to the point of needing a one-on-one session. Sign-ups for the session are open now and will remain open until September 1st! As I mentioned before this is a small group, so spots are limited!  Click here to sign up! 

As I transition into the topic of this month’s series, which is weight loss, I want to take a minute and just get clear on something that is really important to me and something I want to be sure that you understand. You, my sweet friend, are so much more than whatever number shows up on your scale in the morning. As a matter of fact, your weight, your pant size, your waist circumference has absolutely zero impact on your worth and what you bring to this world. If you never lost one pound, you would be just as valuable and loved by your creator as you are right now. So, while the topic of this month’s episodes may talk a lot about weight loss, it 100% does not need to be the focus of your entire life or the thing that defines you. 

As a matter of fact, when I’m working with a client, one of the very first things I tell them is that losing weight isn’t going to be the focus of our work together. Losing weight is a side effect, a symptom of becoming more healthy physically and emotionally, just like a lot of times gaining weight is a side effect or a symptom of becoming less healthy. Good health, increased energy, an optimally functioning body, a joyful and clear mind are all examples of a great goal, but losing weight cannot be the core goal! This leads me to today’s topic (finally, right!?)

One of the most common reasons that women struggle to lose weight, and to keep it off, is that they have the wrong goal! 

When a client comes to me and says “I want to lose weight” my very first question to them is going to be, “why”? Why do you want to lose weight? Is it so that you feel better? Feel better how? More energy to play with your kids? Fewer headaches and joint pain so that you can go out and be active with your friends and family? Is it because you hope to have a baby soon and you want to increase your chances of a healthy pregnancy?  Maybe it’s so you can feel more confident as you enter the dating world or as you prepare for an upcoming job change. Maybe you know that you have a genetic predisposition to a disease like diabetes, hypertension or an autoimmune disease, and you want to reduce the chances of that becoming your reality. Whatever the reason is, it has to go beyond losing weight for the sake of losing weight. It has to be something meaningful to you... Something that will keep you motivated when you are exhausted or when you aren’t seeing results as fast as you think you should. It has to go beyond the surface of just wanting to be thinner before vacation because guess what… that vacation is going to come and go, and then what? You go right back to where you were and then do it all over again next year. That just doesn’t work! 

Also, not only does it need to be meaningful, it needs to be both specific and realistic. Friends - this can be so frustrating for you! Having either a vague goal or thinking that you are going to be able to drop 25 lbs, safely, in 30 days will have you feeling defeated before you even start! As I mentioned in the beginning, this is one of the reasons that I believe that losing x # of lbs in x # of days just isn’t a healthy goal. There is so much that goes into your body functioning well and releasing weight, especially if it’s something you’ve been battling for a while, you can’t think that you’re just going to somehow will it into being. It’s a much better idea to set a meaningful overall, big-picture goal, and then to set small, specific, action steps that you can take as well as small, specific, results you would like to see.

So, let me give you a quick example - Let’s say that you come to me and say that you want to lose 30 lbs. After diving a little deeper, we realize that the reason you want to do this is that you are getting married next year and want to not only feel amazing and confident on your wedding day, but you also want to start this new chapter of your life as healthy as possible. So now we’ve identified your main, big-picture goal! Next, we set a few action steps that involve eating more meals at home - made up of whole, nutrient-dense foods, increasing your water intake daily, and moving your body 30 minutes every day. In our conversation, you also mention that you are struggling with acne and are so stressed out about taking pictures because of that. So, knowing that the food you eat has a major effect on the condition and quality of your skin, we set clearer skin and reduced acne as your small-goal/result # 1. 

Can you see how you would leave that session feeling much more hopeful and motivated, than if I said, okay - get to work and I want you to have lost 5 lbs before we meet again? That isn’t helpful! So why do we set those kinds of goals and expectations for ourselves? 

Your homework for this week is to make time to really sit down and think about your goal. Does it go beyond just seeing a certain number on the scale or fitting into that pair of jeans that you have tucked away in your closet? Is it meaningful? Is it reflective of your true desire and is it something that will keep you motivated? Also, is it specific? Do you know what action steps you need to take to get there? What results will you look for on the way, to help you know that you are making progress and on the right track? 

If you can already say, “no - I have no idea where to even start” or, “my goal feels too overwhelming”, let me help you! Sign up for the group coaching program or if you feel like you need more personalized, one-on-one support, send me an email or schedule a free consultation. I would absolutely love to help you! 

Next week we are going to be talking about health myths that could be making it more difficult to move forward in your health journey! Until then, enjoy your week and I’ll see you next time! 

004 - What Are Your Food Cravings Trying To Tell You?

Hey friends! Today we are talking about cravings!

Do you feel like your brain is sabotaging your efforts to be healthy? Do you often find yourself craving something that you know isn’t good for you... maybe even something that you know will make you feel sick or tired, but you just can’t stop thinking about it? Have you ever felt like you were doing so well - you were eating all good, whole foods and your workouts had been on point, and then all of the sudden you pass a billboard for pizza or donuts and something in your brain changes?! It’s like a switch was flipped and now you NEED that food! (I think that happened to me just last week!)  

Are cravings just a result of a lack of willpower or is there something deeper going on?

Today I want to talk about two main reasons we get cravings and how we can use them to work for our health instead of against it.

The first reason that we crave unhealthy foods is that we have a literal, physical addiction to them. 

Scientists have long been doing research on cravings and why they seem to hold so much power over our thoughts and behaviors. One such study, from the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, sheds some light on food cravings and why some people seem to struggle with them more than others. In the study, 39 overweight people and 42 people of “normal weight” were given MRI scans and shown photographs of buffet-style food. People who were overweight had far greater stimulation in the “reward center” of the brain than people of normal weight. In essence, the study found that food cravings are “hard-wired” into our brains in a way that is similar to alcohol or substance addictions. This seems to be especially true for those who are overweight. 

Things like sugar and processed foods cause an opiate release in our brains. Opiates increase dopamine in the brain, which is why they are known as “feel good” chemicals and are highly addictive. So, it’s not just that we like sugary foods or junk foods, we’re literally craving those chemical highs that we get from those foods. 

Also, keep in mind that these companies who sell and market these addictive foods know exactly what they are doing. They all have their own scientists and researchers who have read all these same studies, know the perfect wording to use, and the exact way to display their product that makes it almost impossible for us to ignore. 

So, remember when you are having these cravings, it isn’t that you are weak and have no will power... it’s just that the last time you ate that particular food, your brain got a rush of dopamine and now associates pleasure with that food. Just like any other time you set out to change habits and behaviors, the brain has to be retrained! 

Another reason we EXPERIENCE cravings is that our body uses them as a way to communicate with us about what it needs.

 Remember, that our bodies were created intelligently with the ability to communicate and send signals from our brains to other parts of our body in order to maintain harmony and optimal function. I mean, think about it - you can eat junk food, and your body will still turn it into energy to keep you alive;  you can deprive it of sleep, but it will still get you up and running the next morning; you can expose it to toxins and chemicals, and it will still process it through your system, so that you don’t poison yourself. The body is amazing! So, it only makes sense that when your body is in need of something that it figures out a way to communicate that to you. Here are a few signals your body might be trying to send you through food cravings:

• It needs more water! Dehydration can often disguise itself a mild hunger

• There’s an emotional imbalance or feelings that need to be dealt with

Are you unhappy with a situation in your life and looking to numb your feelings instead of dealing with them? Is there a nostalgic connection or favorite memory from your childhood associated with that food?

• There could be a possible nutrient deficiency

It is actually very common to have a vitamin or mineral deficiency, especially if you tend to eat the same kinds of foods all of the time and if those foods aren’t the healthiest. Some of the most common nutrient deficiencies include calcium, which could cause you to crave carbonated drinks or dairy; magnesium, which can cause intense cravings for sugar and leave you feeling anxious and exhausted; omega-3s which often causes cravings for sweet and salty or greasy type foods and give you a low mood and major brain fog; another is B-12, which can cause cravings for meat and will usually cause you to have low energy, and sometimes anemia.

Some easy ways to combat a nutrient deficiency is to eat mostly whole foods that include dark or rich colored vegetables (check the EWG to see which should be organic but the basic rule is, if you eat the skin or outside of the produce, organic is the safest bet), other complex carbs (like root vegetables, brown rice and quinoa), organic meats (including beef, chicken and seafood - as long as your body tolerates them well), and healthy fats (like healthy oils - coconut, avocado, and olive, ghee or grass-fed butter; nuts and seeds; and avocados and coconut milk). 

Taking a whole-food-based multivitamin can also go a long way to help fill in the gaps in our diets! 

Another tip is to make sure that you have good gut health so that your body can actually absorb the nutrients from the food you are eating. I have a whole episode about that coming up soon! 

So, as you can see there is both a physiological component and an emotional component to why we get cravings. So, the next time you find yourself dealing with a craving, treat it as a signal from your body and try these tips before rushing in to indulge:

• Drink a glass of water and wait ten minutes.

• Consider if something is out of balance in your life? Is this craving an emotional response, and if so, is there a healthier way to satisfy it?

• Eat a healthier version of what you crave. For example, if you’re craving something sweet, try eating more fruit or a “treat” that is made of cleaner, healthier ingredients. 

• If you think you have a nutrient deficiency, get your levels checked and start to implement a few of the things I mentioned above.

• Ultimately, when you do eat the food you are craving, really enjoy it, taste it, savor it. Make a note to yourself if it felt worth it or not so that you can be more aware and free to decide if you really want it next time.

I hope that these tips have helped encourage you to know that this is something that everyone struggles with for different reasons and has given you a few ideas for ways that you can listen to your body instead of feeling like it’s trying to sabotage you! 

If you have any questions about this topic or feel like you need some extra support, please feel free to send me an email or schedule a free consultation. I’d love to see if we can work together to help you overcome whatever is holding you back from being the healthiest version of yourself!

003 - Which Diet Is Best For You?

Hey friends! Welcome to episode 3 of the HF podcast! Today we are going to be talking all about food! So, grab yourself a healthy snack, and let’s get into it!

Have you ever thought to yourself… “What am I supposed to eat?”, “ Which diet is best? Low carb, Paleo, Keto, Zone, Mediterranean, Vegan?”, “Why are there so many choices?” 

I think most of us have had those questions - I know I have! When I was first starting out in my health journey, I was constantly searching for the “best” this and that. This especially seems to be an issue for those of us who are a little more “type A” and need to know the exact list of dos and don’ts to achieve the perfect results!  I also think it’s natural to look at what other people are doing and assume that if it works for them, then surely it will work for me too! 

Well, today I want to talk to you about why I think that there isn’t a “perfect, one-size-fits-all” diet out there and why I actually believe that trying to have everyone eat the exact same way could do more harm than good. 

Now, having said that, let me be clear - there are general guidelines that are helpful for most people (find my free Kitchen Makeover Guide here). Things like eating leafy greens, drinking water, reducing inflammatory foods like sugar and processed junk foods - most everyone benefits from those types of things. What I’m really talking about today is the more specific kind of guidelines, like “everyone should eat this many grams of carbs, but only after 10 am” or “all women would feel better if they eat very low carbs and high protein”. 

Bio-individuality

We are all INDIVIDUALS! We have different blood types, different activity levels, different stress levels, different ethnic backgrounds, different levels of emotional health. We are all different and these differences have an effect on how our bodies function optimally! This is called Bio-individuality. 

There can’t be a healthy “perfect, one-size-fits-all” diet for everyone, because each individual person has a genetic makeup, specific to them and therefore will respond to a “diet” or way of eating differently than someone else. We are all far to individualistic to all thrive by eating the exact same foods! 

Let me give you an example: two women, about the same age and size, decide to try a raw food, vegan diet. They meet up after a few weeks to check in with each other and realize that they are responding to the exact same way of eating and the exact same kinds of foods completely differently! One of them is feeling great, with a clear mind and high energy, and losing weight, but the other is feeling awful, with a major case of brain fog, low energy, she has a continual dull headache, and hasn’t lost any weight at all! How could this be? Isn’t eating vegan healthy? Shouldn’t they both feel great? 

If we look a little closer at each of these women, we then see that while they may have a lot of similarities, they also have major differences! They have different blood types - one is A+ and the other O-. They also have different ethnic backgrounds - one has Indian ancestors and the other European.  These factors (plus many more) play a huge role in how their bodies are digesting and metabolizing food and as a result, how they feel after eating certain foods or going without certain foods, like meat and other animal products.

I’m sure a lot of you have had this same experience! You go on a new diet with a friend of yours and one of you does amazing, loses weight, feels awesome and the other… not so much! 

This concept of bio-individuality can actually provide us with a lot of freedom! I believe that our bodies were created with a God-given intelligence to know how to function optimally. Think about it - you don’t need to remind your heart to pump or your lungs to breathe, and you don’t have to guide your body through the process of digesting your lunch - it just does it! It was created to know how! I think the same can be true when it comes to knowing how we should be eating for our unique bodies. Unfortunately, I think this innate understanding often gets silenced and crowded out by things like marketing and let’s be honest… by the comparison game! How many times have you scrolled through Instagram or Facebook, seen that someone has lost weight or gotten really fit by using the latest trendy diet or weight loss product and thought, “that’s what I need!”? (By the way, those things aren’t all bad! Sometimes they provide the tools and motivation that a person needs to start to make changes in their health!). The issue is that without taking the time to educate yourself on what is actually healthy versus just trendy, and even more than that, what is healthy FOR YOU, you may be unknowingly sabotaging yourself!

TIPS 

So, now that I’ve burst your bubble and said that there is no “one-size-fits-all, perfect” way to eat, I want to leave you with a few simple tips for discovering what is best for your body!

• Start with the basics 

  Those general guidelines that I referred to earlier. Things like not eating artificial and processed junk foods, eating more whole fruits and vegetables, clean protein sources and drinking more water. As I mentioned, I have a fun little freebie download for you guys that outlines what kinds of foods we should have in our kitchen and the ones we need to just go ahead and get out of there! 

• Consider your unique circumstances

  • Blood Type and Ancestry

    Your blood type and ancestry can give you an idea of how your body can handle certain types of foods like meat. For example, Blood Type O has shorter intestines better designed to digest meat faster – they do better with red meat. Those with Blood Type B don't process chicken well and should choose other types of protein when possible. And then Blood Type A folks extract protein much better out of vegetarian sources than the other blood types. (If you want to know more about eating for your blood type, here is a cool 5-min video by Food As Medicine TV (What Our Blood Types Can Tell Us.)

  • Stress Levels

    The more stress we have, the less digestive work our bodies can do. So for example, eating well-cooked, balanced meals we need with clean animal protein and complex carbohydrates like root vegetables can be used stabilizing anchor. During times of extreme stress, raw food diets and juice cleanses can further exacerbate health issues and delay healing. Stress has a huge effect on our health and we need to do everything we can to reduce it but to also support our bodies during times that it’s unavoidable. 

  • Medical Issues 

    If you are struggling with a specific medical diagnosis or a complex health issue, for example diabetes, hormonal imbalance diseases, thyroid diseases,  you need to work with a professional that is experienced and trained in how different foods affect the body and are knowledgeable about how to safely do an elimination diet or change your way of eating (this is in addition to your PCP). You will save yourself a lot of time and effort by reaching out for support and not trying to just take a shot in the dark. 

• Keep a food journal for 30 days 

  Please hear me say this! I am not talking about a calorie tracking journal or tracking macros. Those things have their place, but that’s not where I want to focus for now. What I would like for you to do is to keep a journal/log of what you eat and how you feel - both while you were eating and how you feel in the hour after you ate. This practice will not only shed a lot of light on how specific foods make you feel but will also help you to get in the practice of listening to your body! Remember that everyone will respond differently, even to healthy foods!. You are the only one who can listen to your body and know how it makes you feel. 

Friends, there is no easy button or hack when it comes to our health. It is a process and it takes time and intentionality, but it is so worth it and you will feel so much better for it! 

Thank you so much for being here with me today and taking the time to listen. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or feel like you need some extra support in this area! I’d love to help!

002 - Fast Forward! 3 Ways You Can Move Your Health Forward Today!

Hey hey, friends! Welcome back to the HF Podcast, today we are going to be talking about 3 things that you can do to move you forward toward a healthier body and mind! I love starting with these 3 things because they don’t require you to buy anything or go anywhere - you can literally apply these tips today! So let’s get into it...

Hydrate! Water, water, water!

The first thing you can do is to HYDRATE! Okay, I know you probably hear this a lot, and if you are one of my family members, you are probably rolling your eyes right now because I say this all the time, but it’s for a good reason! The majority of us are dehydrated right now...and yes, I said us because sometimes I slack on this too. Dehydration can cause so many symptoms. Most of us think, well if I’m peeing and I’m not thirsty, I’m fine. That’s just simply not true! Not drinking enough water is one of the top causes for headaches, muscle and joint pain, indigestion, bloating, constipation, skin issues like dry skin or breakouts, and fatigue - just to name a few! Our bodies NEED water and just cannot function optimally without it. 

So, how much water should we be drinking every day? There has been a lot of confusion about this in the past, but I think most health professionals pretty much agree now, you should aim to drink half your body weight in oz every day. So, that means if you weigh 150 lbs, you should aim for 75 oz every day; if you weigh 200 lbs, you should aim for 100 oz. So whatever your current weight is, just divide it in half, and that’s your goal.  Now, if you’re not used to drinking a lot of water, that probably seems like a lot, so just start small and build your way up to that amount - it’s the goal, so that means you probably won’t start out hitting it every day and that’s okay. 

One of the best tips that I have found for increasing your water intake, is to use a water bottle that you like, and that is easy to carry around with you -  24-32 oz and either glass or stainless steel are the best options. (I prefer stainless steel because it keeps my water cold and I don’t have to worry about my baby shattering it!) Aim to drink one whole bottle full of water before breakfast, before lunch, and before dinner. You can also set an alarm on your phone to go off every hour or two to remind you to go fill up your water bottle. It may take a few days to a few weeks to get into the habit, but eventually, you will start to feel so much better and your body will start to crave more water, so it won’t really be a chore anymore. Also, real-life... you will likely also notice that you have to pee a lot more once you start upping your water intake, but that is a GOOD thing. Your body is working hard to flush out toxins and get rid of things it doesn’t need. It’s good for your liver, kidneys, digestion, and skin to get rid of all those toxins. So, just be happy about all the good it’s doing for your body and know that it won’t last forever. Your body will adjust and you won’t always be running to the bathroom that often. 

I’ve had several people tell me that they struggle to drink water because they just don’t like the taste, and I actually had the same problem several years ago when I started trying to drink more water, so let’s talk about a few ways you can work through that. 

• One of the simplest ways to add a little flavor is to add some fresh fruit! A wedge of lemon, lime or both is a great way to enhance the taste and get a boost of vitamin C. You can also add a sprig of fresh mint with a few slices of cucumber for more of a spa-like experience. 

• Play around with the temperature of the water. Some people prefer super cold water and some like it better more at room-temp. Just try a few options and see which way you prefer and which way you are able to drink the most. 

• Another option to help with the transition to drinking more water, especially for those of you who are big soda drinkers, is to switch to a naturally flavored carbonated water option like La Croix or Perrier. Just be sure to read the label and make sure that there aren’t any added sugars, or artificial sugars and flavors. Ideally, you would still work to transition mostly to just regular water, since carbonated water can leave you feeling a bit bloated, but this is still a great way to ease yourself into it. 

So, go get yourself some water to drink as you finish reading this post! :) 

Reduce your stress! 

I can already hear you laughing, but hear me out. We all know that chronic stress is bad for us. It’s bad for our physical health, our mental health, our relationships - just bad in general. We don’t really need to be told that, right? But I think a lot of us don’t fully understand just how much it can affect our health. Did you know that chronic stress can not only cause things like anxiety and depression, insomnia, and headaches but also cause you to have decreased immune function, imbalanced hormones, and weight gain? 

When we encounter stress, our bodies produce a hormone called Cortisol. It is our primary stress hormone and is responsible for activating our “fight or flight” response. The effects of this release of hormones alter our immune function, suppress our digestive and reproductive systems, and slow growth function. This is actually a survival mechanism and how our bodies were created to respond to stress. If we were being chased by a wild animal, we would need to focus all of our body’s energy on surviving. We wouldn’t need to digest or burn more calories, and it certainly wouldn’t be a safe time to have a baby, so we wouldn’t need any of those functions either. The problem isn’t with the release of Cortisol… the problem is that our brains can’t tell the difference in a lion chasing us and our bank account over-drafting. We live in a constant state of stress these days, and therefore our bodies are continually releasing cortisol. And as we just learned, we can’t function well in that state for a sustained amount of time.

So, you’re anything like me, you’re probably thinking “well, that sucks… but stress is just a part of life. There is nothing I can do about it!”. And while it’s true that we can’t eliminate stress altogether, we can reduce it and we can help our bodies deal with the effects of it.

Here are a few ideas:

• Set some boundaries! Seriously! A lot of our stress, especially as women, comes from saying “yes” to too many things and trying to be all things to all people. We so often overextend ourselves to that point that we have no time, and we are always rushing or running late, which only stresses us out more. We want to take care of our families and our friends, have the perfect house, excel at work,  and get all the kids to all the places! Here’s a question that I have had to work through and I want to ask you to consider: Are we doing all these things just to prove to ourselves that we can and that we’re enough? 

• Let’s just be honest and admit that we aren’t enough and that is perfectly okay! We will never be perfect and will never be able to do it all perfectly! (Here is a link to another podcast called Work and Play by Nancy Ray - she has such encouraging things to say on this subject!) We need to set ourselves free from the expectation that we can meet everyone’s needs, and set some clear boundaries in our lives. If we don’t take the time to care for ourselves, we won’t be able to care for the ones we love, right?

• On that note, self-care! Pick one or two things that fill you up and allow you to regroup and feel refreshed. They don’t have to be elaborate or expensive. Maybe it’s just a hot bath before bed every night or 10 minutes of time to pause and pray in the morning before you start your day. You get to decide what that thing is for you, so sit down and plan to start making time to care for yourself starting today! 

Get better sleep! 

Sleep is so vital to good health and ensuring a good night’s rest is probably one of the most important things we can do to help our bodies and minds function well! Good sleep is essential for our bodies to be able to do things like recover from the stress of the day, repair our muscles and tissue from workouts and injuries, regulate our hormone levels (including the ones that affect our appetite, metabolism, and reproductive systems), retain knowledge and memories that we obtained throughout the day, slow the aging process, and reduce the risk of disease and illness.  

So, as you can tell from this list (that is by no means all-inclusive), there can be serious negative outcomes associated with not getting enough sleep. So, that prompts the question of “what is enough sleep?” According to the National Sleep Foundation, the number of hours of sleep required for optimal health can vary per individual, but the general recommendation is that adults sleep anywhere from 7-9 hours each night. It was also noted that we should pay attention to how we feel with differing amounts of sleep. For example, do you feel better and more rested with 7 hours vs 9 hours? 

Also, the quality of our sleep is just as important as the quantity of sleep we are getting! Here are a few suggestions for improving your sleep quality from the NSF:

• Stick to a consistent sleep schedule, even on weekends (waking at the same time each day)

• Practice a relaxing bedtime ritual (this can also help with the stress and self-care that we mentioned before)

• Exercise daily

• Evaluate your bedroom to ensure ideal temperature, sound and light (cool, and completely dark helps your body produce melatonin appropriately)

• Beware of hidden sleep stealers, like alcohol and caffeine

• Turn off electronics before bed (the blue light, as well as the EMFs admitted from the devices, have been linked with poor sleep quality and insomnia)

• Address any issues like Sleep Apnea with a trained health professional

• Most importantly, make sleep a priority! You must schedule sleep like any other daily activity, but don’t make it the thing you do only after everything else is done! 

Friends, I cannot stress enough the significance that working on these three things can have on your health! As I mentioned in the beginning, these are changes that you can make today, no matter what day of the week or what time of day you are listening to this, you can start now! We often get tricked into thinking that in order to move our health forward in a positive direction that we need to make these huge time commitments or spend a lot of money, but in reality it’s the small, daily decisions that we make that have the greatest impact on our health. 

Click here for a downloadable PDF of these tips!

Thank you so much for being here with me today and taking the time to listen in.

001 - What Is A Health Coach, Really?

Hey friends! Welcome to the very first episode of the Health forward podcast! I'm so thankful and excited to have you guys here with me! I thought I would get started today by explaining a little about who I am, what I do and how I'm hoping this podcast will impact your life!

I’m Alaina! I’m a wife to my husband, Scott (for almost 10 years, which is completely crazy to think about), and a mama to our adorable 1½-year-old little girl, Remi. She is all the things my mama dreams are made of - sweet, sassy and hilarious - at least we think she is!

As you also heard in the intro, I am an Integrative Health Coach. I work with clients, either one on one or in a group setting,  to help them move forward in their health journey. This can look different based on the client's circumstances and individual needs, but the simplest way to explain it is that I literally coming alongside them, to help them to set appropriate goals for their body and their health and then provide guidance and support as they work to achieve those goals. I practice a holistic approach to health, which means that I look at how all areas of life are connected and how they are affecting a client's health (not just what they eat and how much they exercise). So, for example, is stress at their job or in their relationship causing them to binge on a bag of chips when they get home from work or feel like they need a pint of ice cream every night before they go to bed? Maybe they are struggling to sleep or have really low energy all the time, and that is making it hard for them to exercise consistently.  As I work with a client, we don't just focus on behaviors or certain habits; but instead, we look at how all parts of their life affect their health as a whole and work to target the root cause of whatever they may be struggling with. Once we've done that, then we decipher their body's unique needs, set their personal goals, and work towards sustainable change.

Why a Health Coach? 

So you may be thinking, "okay - sounds cool but why would someone need a health coach? Can't you just find all the answers about losing weight or being healthier on google?" Well, I'm so glad you asked. :) This is my favorite part to talk about!

Let's be honest, most of us don't have a problem finding information about how to be healthy. It is absolutely true that all the info you could ever possibly read about any diet, workout program, detox, protein shake, disease, etc. can be found in a simple google search in a matter of seconds and for free. So, the problem isn't getting information! The problem that most of us face is knowing what to do with that information, right? So, we don't really have an information gap, we have a transformation gap!  

A Transformation is the thing we are actually after, the thing that most of us really want. Part of a transformation is the result, the thing that motivates us to make a change in the first place. We've all tried the 3-day juice cleanse that promises to get rid of your cellulite forever or bought the latest "fit in 30 days" online exercise program - and that's all fine - but as you already know those things RARELY deliver that promised result. And if they do, what are the odds that those results last, in 3 months, 6 months, or a year? 

I believe the reason that we often find ourselves disappointed in our results, or lacking any results at all, is because we've skipped over the most important part of a true transformation!  Transformation doesn't only include the result, but more importantly, the growth that we experience through the process of change itself! The change in our mindset, the things we learn about ourselves and how our bodies work - what makes us feel good, what makes us feel bad, our feelings of self-worth. This growth is the thing that keeps us from going right back to where we started! It helps up get off of the dieting merry-go-round, for good. It helps us stop comparing our bodies to every person we see on social media or thinking that we'll suddenly be happy with our bodies once we see that magic number on the scale. It helps us appreciate our bodies and learn to steward them well. It helps us be more at peace with who God created us to be.

Helping someone to walk through a transformation and fully embrace this growth - this journey of contentment and peace with themselves - is the value of a health coach, and the reason I decided to become one.  

My story:

I started pursuing this field after realizing how overwhelming and stressful it was to try to navigate changing my own health.  I started on my own health journey about 7 years ago after noticing some things seemed off with my body. I had unexplained weight gain, major brain fog and fatigue and a handful of other symptoms which made me think my hormones may be out of whack. Being that I was only 23 at the time, and what I considered to be healthy, I was so confused and concerned. After an appointment with my doctor and some lab tests, I was told that I had PCOS. Not too long after that, with the development of different, and more concerning symptoms,  I was diagnosed by another doctor with Endometriosis. (if you don't know what those diagnoses mean, they are basically reproductive system syndromes/diseases, that not only affect a woman's quality of life, but also her fertility). Already being somewhat familiar with the alternative medicine world, I decided that I wanted to treat these issues with lifestyle change, as the first line of treatment. So, unsure of where to start, I did what most of us do and turned to my friend google. Oh wow! I found hundreds and hundreds of articles! I remember being so overwhelmed! A lot of the articles contradicted each other and some of the ones that made the most sense contained really scary worst-case scenarios. I decided to just start somewhere, and that was with my diet. I tried a lot of things and made a lot of changes and often felt like I had NO clue what I was doing. Thankfully,  I was blessed to work with several practitioners and some were super helpful and took the time to really explain what was happening in my body. Even then, I just remember feeling SO overwhelmed. Like many common diseases now, hormonal or reproductive system diseases often don't have many visible symptoms, so it can seem like everything is fine, when in reality the person feels like anyone but themselves.  

This was a LONG journey, with a lot of learning, heartache, discouragement, and frustration at times. The questions of "should I be doing this differently?" and "maybe I should try that diet instead?" were a constant scrolling marquee in my mind. Eventually, I was able to work with a practitioner who could help me determine what was best for my body, and what my unique needs were. Did it magically fix everything? No! As a matter of fact, it would be several months of negative pregnancy tests and uncomfortable symptoms before I would notice any change, but the change did come! Not only was I able to miraculously carry the baby I wanted so very much, but I changed in the process. My heart changed, my appreciation for and understanding of my body changed, my relationships changed, and my faith was tested and strengthened. There's a lot to that story, and maybe I'll get into more of it in a different episode,  but I'm telling you all of this because I just want you to know that I get it. 

Life can throw us really hard, difficult, and even painful situations - but things are always harder when we try to go it alone. Friends, I don't want you to walk your journey alone. I don't want you to be frustrated and overwhelmed, constantly questioning yourself, or wondering what you are doing wrong! Find someone who can help you, whether it's me or another health professional,  just find someone who will listen to you, care about your body's unique needs and give you the support you need. We really were never meant to live our lives alone!

So there you have it! That wraps up today's episode and I hope it helped to shed a little light on what a health coach really is and why I'm so excited to be doing this work! 

If you have any questions about what I've talked about here today or maybe something about health coaching that I didn't mention, please feel free to send me an email or DM. You can be expecting a new podcast episode to be released each week, so go ahead and hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out! 

You can also find more tips and education, along with some fun freebies by following me over on Instagram and Facebook or you can find more info on my website.