self care
These cookies make me so flipping happy. Because, let’s face it, when you are putting all your effort into eating clean it’s really annoying when your husband breaks out a box of Joe Joe’s right in front of you. Ahem.
The word that comes to mind is Deprived.
We can feel deprived when we force ourselves to resist, or when we’re told we can’t eat something we want. We feel restricted. And that is a shittastic way to feel! No one wants that. Bad mojo, all around.
I never want any of my clients, or you, to feel deprived because you’re eating real, clean food.
How do we avoid it?
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April 17th, 2013 | detoxify, gluten free, happiness, paleo, quick and easy, recipe, self care, vegan, vegetarian | 7 Comments »
A detox has one main goal. You can guess what it is, right? To rid your body of toxins. You may very well lose weight, you may see your high blood pressure regulate itself. But you will very definitely decrease your toxic load, which in turn leads to a healthier body, mind and spirit.
And yes, it involves a change in diet. But to be most effective it should also involve a shift in lifestyle – after all, toxins enter our body through much more than food – they come from our air, water, stress, chemicals on our clothes…even our personal care products.
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April 1st, 2013 | detoxify, self care, skincare, try new things | 14 Comments »
We’ll read the internet front to back, debate on Facebook, bicker in blog comments and fill our Kindles to find answers to our many questions about food and nutrition. We want to know if we should be eating meat or not, whether saturated fat is healthy or scary, and to figure out a solution to GMOs. And should I juice or blend?
Yet the most basic question often goes unanswered:
“What’s for dinner?”
At the end of the day, practical matters matter most.
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March 27th, 2013 | balance, frugal living, groceries, self care | 2 Comments »
You are too busy. I know you are. Because so am I, most days. And I’m not sure why, with all the timesaving devices we have on hand. Gosh, I can’t remember the last time I had to handwash all the laundry…oh, wait, that’s right. Never. I’ve never had to do that. All I have to do is push a button.
So busy. I guess we have too many buttons to push. It sucks away our precious 24 hours. And that’s all we get, you know. A finite number of hours in the day, days on this earth. But time is flexible, and there have been times when I think, holy moly, I swear I just added 2 or 3 more hours to the equation.
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March 20th, 2013 | balance, detoxify, happiness, motherhood, self care, try new things | 8 Comments »
Your computer has been acting all funky or your phone goes haywire and the tech guy behind the counter says, “Turn it off and turn it back on.” You know this advice? It usually works. Oh, the Apple TV is being weird? Unplug it and plug it back in.
This, my friends, is known as starting fresh.
Kids understand this. Every day, Danny pulls my pots and pans off the shelves. He stands in them, both sneakers wedged into even my tiniest pot. (I have to wash them all, but I wait until he goes to bed so the effort isn’t wasted.)
The next day? He’ll happily do it all over again. Kids understand the value of starting fresh.
I also need a fresh start – sometimes 6 or 7 times a day, no joke. I find myself succumbing to frustration, to anger, to anxiety.
Inhale, exhale. Reset. It’s brilliant.
Relationships? Same deal. The closer you are with someone, the more likely you’ll need to unplug and plug in again, at some point. Things get tangled up. Our job is to recognize it before the tangle becomes a true mess and causes irreparable damage.
Step back. Restart.
But it’s not always easy. You know what I’m talking about.
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March 13th, 2013 | detoxify, happiness, self care, spring, stress relief | 3 Comments »
You know that thing that has been churning in the back of your mind for some time now?
The one you’ve given a sidelong glance to, then halfheartedly pat on the head and murmured “there, there, maybe later.” The thing you maybe don’t want to have to deal with, don’t want to believe that you actually believe.
You know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t, stop. Think.
What do you know you need to do, eventually someday perhaps maybe sorta definitely scary ok no ok no forget it shit shit shit it’s still there?
Conjure it up out of the depths of your mind and heart. We’re so good at stuffing it down there. Write it down if you have to – just to give it a form you can hold on to.
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March 6th, 2013 | balance, happiness, New York, nutrition school, self care, stress relief, travel, Washington D.C. | 12 Comments »
“He survives on air. I can’t get him to eat anything!” These are the cries you hear from a lot of parents of toddlers.
Or, “All she’ll eat are hot dogs.”
Or, “All he’ll eat is ketchup.”
So for starters, breathe. This is normal.
Developmentally speaking, toddlers are at the age when they are learning about preferences and making their own decisions. Ahem. You may have noticed?
This is good! And normal. Your kid is exercising free will and that’s pretty cool…even though it can make mealtimes a real pain in the butt.
Another thing to consider is that toddlers thankfully aren’t outgrowing their clothes every month anymore. My kid has been wearing 2T for a long time. That means he probably doesn’t need as much food as he did when he was outgrowing Old Navy onesies faster than I could snap ‘em!
Basically, what I’m trying to say is that your kid is normal and you don’t need to apologize or make excuses or feel embarrassed. Certainly not around me or any other parent who has been there!
But that doesn’t mean you should helplessly stand by as your child eats Oreos for dinner. You with me?
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January 29th, 2013 | kid friendly, motherhood, self care | 3 Comments »
Let me tell you something about Virginia. They love bathrooms here. When we first moved from Boston we looked at a bunch of houses that had more bathrooms than bedrooms. Right. 3BR/4bath. Craziness coming from our old 3BR place that had only one – and that one bathroom didn’t even have a tub.
So here we are, more toilets than people in our family, and I’m enjoying some of the perks. No lines. Plenty of space to blowdry (as if a mom of a toddler ever does that). And lots of space for my collection of bathroom goodies!
Here are some things you won’t find in my bathroom:
Bacteria-obliterating mouthwash, artificially colored/flavored toothpaste, antacids or decongestants.
Here’s what you will find.
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December 3rd, 2012 | Ayurveda, detoxify, frugal living, natural remedy, self care, skincare, try new things | 7 Comments »
I can’t remember the details, and it’s probably better that way. All I know is that my life fundamentally changed one day on the train.
Before switching careers I worked downtown in a big office building, window overlooking the most beautiful part of the city. Each day I’d commute in – usually late because I didn’t like to get to work too early. It was pretty empty on the train. I read a lot as the suburbs whizzed by.
It was during my yoga teacher training and we had a list of recommended books. Or maybe it was while I was a student at IIN. Can’t remember. Doesn’t matter. I was reading, with difficulty, a book about meditation and energy and Buddhism and whatnot. It felt like a pile of baloney to me. A bunch of words. Theories. Nothing I could make use of. I was skimming, regretting that morning’s book choice.
This whole evolution of self had started with an episode of what I thought was mono. I felt numb. Exhausted. Miserable. Turned out I was all of those things, but I didn’t have mono. The yoga, the diet changes, the breathwork…it was all in an effort to reclaim my happiness. Myself. Who was I anyway? Was I a well-paid professional marching to the tune of the corporate ladder, Starbucks in hand? Or was I just a girl, trembling and anxious on her new yoga mat? Maybe something else entirely.
The book asked me to look inside, to see a white light. I’m paraphrasing here because for the life of me I can’t actually remember the details. But, yeah, something like looking for a white light inside. My inner energy or something.
Have you ever heard of such horseshit?
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July 31st, 2012 | happiness, self care | 11 Comments »
Welcome to 21 Days of Detoxing with clean, whole, real food – boy do I have some good stuff in store for you! From now until May 13th you can find a new recipe here each day. You can wait until the next time I run this program live, or get yourself the DIY version available here.
Ooh I’m excited for this recipe! It’s just perfect with strawberries in season – they’ve always been my favorite. What I really love is watching my son eat them because he pays no mind to the juice dripping down his face, he just loves ‘em. (Somehow he always seems to be wearing a white shirt too, but that’s ok.)
Today’s post comes from Lisa at wholehealthdesigns.com. Like so many of our detoxers this time around, Lisa is a mom and she shared this story to go with her recipe:
I always wanted to be one of those women; you know the ones that seem to love every aspect of raising kids. While I soaked in every ounce of their “baby” smell, tandem breastfed until they weaned naturally, and just purely enjoyed being mommy, I didn’t do too well with the lack of sleep, crazy hormones, and the constant touching and wanting. I felt like my body wasn’t really mine. My poor neglected husband…if he tried to give me a hug, I would say “Not now. I need some alone time.”
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May 3rd, 2012 | raw foods, recipe, self care, Spring 2012 detox recipes, vegan, vegetarian | 1 Comment »
