Body & Soul
This is a guest post.
Life is a wonderful journey that is meant to be enjoyed. Food plays a big part in the enjoyment of life: from eating for pleasure, to fueling your body with energy to partake in fun activities.
Food is one of Life’s Pleasures
Many of us, myself included, enjoy eating things that taste good. Flavor, texture, and even memories impact how much we enjoy eating certain foods.
Remember eating watermelon with your family on that hot summer day, sweetness dripping from your chin?
That’s pleasure.
Every time you bite into a slice of watermelon you’ll be reminded of life’s great joys.
Sometimes though, we can get a little too attached to certain foods that aren’t serving us. Eating too many processed foods can lead us to develop degenerative diseases, and drain our energy.
In the end, we cannot let our taste buds rule us entirely, or we’d be eating nothing but chips, steak, and ice cream. Those that profess choosing early death (via heart attack) over eating bland food are often startled to learn that they could end up suffering for many years with a degenerative disease instead.
How to Love Food (Even the Healthy Stuff)
Fear not, there is a way to enjoy food that is healthy! It all comes back to basics, and eating the way nature intended us to. Lots of fresh raw fruits and vegetables pack a ton of flavor!
Making dietary changes to improve your health and energy levels isn’t as daunting as it seems. It’s all about taking baby steps, and choosing recipes and foods that you will enjoy.
Take for example the idea of green smoothies. Everyone knows that we should be eating more fruits and vegetables, but it’s hard enough to get out the door on time every morning without worrying about our daily intake.
With green smoothies you can throw some fruit and leafy greens into your blender, hit the button, and have a delicious drink that is insanely nutritious and healing. A basic recipe is made up of 60% fruit, and 40% green leafy vegetables.
You won’t even taste the greens, and you will be getting tons of fiber and minerals all in one easy to consume drink.
Make Eating Healthy Fun
If eating healthy isn’t fun for you, then you’re doing something wrong. Eating healthy has a learning curve, but it doesn’t need to be boring (like carrot and celery sticks!).
Although you can certainly lose weight with raw food, it is important to focus on the journey and not just the end result. That’s also why I’m not an advocate of a 100% raw food diet, since it can lead to too much pressure and become unhealthy emotionally.
Remember that you need to enjoy your whole life, not just the next few years. So choosing to invest in your health will actually pay back in spades over time.
Written by Nathalie Lussier
Nathalie Lussier is known as The Raw Foods Witch, because she takes the spookiness out of Raw Food so you experience the Magick. Learn the 5 Witchy Ways to Eat More Veggies by signing up to The Cue and you’ll also get the Feel Light – Take Flight ecourse that makes eating healthy FUN!
This is a guest article.
Our daily habits in any area of our life determine our results.
Habitually overeat, and you’ll gain weight. Habitually skip your workout and your weight will plateau or even rise. But on the other hand, habitually make healthy choices about food and the quantities you chose, and your weight will get to and stay at where you want it. Our habits really do determine our lives! But how do you know when a new habit you’ve been working on has truly become a habit?
Experts all agree that if you are working on breaking a bad habit, whether it be nail-biting, smoking and of course overeating, that you need to replace the bad habit with a good one. Nature hates a vacuum, and if you just stop doing the bad habit, without replacing it with something else, the bad habit will soon be back, occupying its old place.
Habits that can replace the overeating habit may include:
- waiting 20 minutes before eating
- drinking a glass of water instead
- going for a walk
- calling a friend
- journalling
- anything at all you find pleasant to do that is non-food related
For the first 21-30 days of quitting a bad habit, you are going to have to continually think about what you are working on not doing and what you will do instead. You will have to remind yourself of your commitment to breaking the habit, and that you have a new habit you are incorporating.
It is normal during this first month or so to even temporarily forget about your new habit and end up doing what you said you weren’t going to do. So use Post-it notes placed in strategic places to remind you to stay on track. These little notes can be invaluable in these first few weeks, use tons of them!
But here’s the kicker. Every time you stick with your plan, and do what you have promised yourself you will do, you actually set it up in your brain for it to be much easier to stay on track the next time you are tempted to stray. You literally reinforce the new thought connections in your mind, making it stronger and more prominent. Conversely, every time you let yourself fall back into old habits, you reinforce the bad habit and make it harder to stay on the right track, and even harder to get back on track.
Remember this every time you are tempted to fall off the healthy-eating bandwagon. Remind yourself that if you just stay on track this time, you are making it easier and easier to stay on track the next time, and the next time and every time after that. Each time strengthens this new thought pathway. (To learn more about how this happens, I suggest a great book called “The Brain That Changes Itself” by Dr Norman Doidge. It’s fascinating!)
And once this thought pathway has been created and strengthened, it will become your automatic response, replacing the old response of turning to food and overeating. You’ll know when this new habit has truly been cemented into your mind when you find yourself just doing the better choice, without having to have any internal dialogue about it first. It just happens. No bribing yourself, no see-sawing about which way to go, no anything really. It just happens. It takes time to get to this stage, and too many people quit before it happens.
The journey to your ideal weight is composed of a series of steps. Each bad habit you break and replace with a healthier one will lead you one step closer to your goal and your ideal weight. Stick with your new habits, and they will become part of, and take credit for creating the new you. I promise!
Written by Stacey Grieve
This article was originally published by Stacey on her website Why Are You Weighting?
Before you can properly shed the pounds, you need to shed the emotional baggage you’ve been carrying around. Lose that baggage, and you’ll lose the weight. Getting rid of the habits, attitudes and histories that keep us heavy isn’t easy, but it can be done with a little help. With Why Are You Weighting, you can get to the roots of your weight and yourself. If you make changes on the inside, the results will show on the outside.
Life change may seem to take years to achieve but there are steps you can walk today and in the next week that perhaps can change your life forever.
Most are little steps, but when combined together they can create big and lasting change.
Here are 7 ways to change your life in the next 7 days.
1. Change your words and phrases
One of the most effective ways to change your life is to change your attitude and mindset. And the best way to change your attitude and mindset is to remove certain words and phrases from your vocabulary and to replace them with others that are more positive.
It might take some time to remove negative phrases and words because you’ve gotten so used to them. But once you start using new words and phrases that are more positive, you’ll be surprised at how almost instantly people around you react differently and how you look at the world around you in a fresh way.
Your entire life changes without you having to change everything.
Here are some words and phrases to stop using:
- “It’s just one of those days.”
- “Same s**t, different day.”
- “Same old, same old.”
- “Pretty good.”
- “What’s the world coming to?”
- “Kids these days.”
- “I can’t.”
- “I don’t know.”
- “The good old days.” (thanks Tyler!)
- Hate – It’s such a powerful word that has become too common in our vocabulary.
- Retarded – I don’t know why people insist on using this word to describe something they don’t like or understand.
- Gay (requested by Max based on the same negative use as “retarded”)
For some ideas on what you can start saying to improve your life and make lasting, positive change, please read our article: 50 things to say before you die.
2. Count your blessings
We all get caught up and forget to reflect on how fortunate we are. So in the next 7 days take an hour and think about:
- What you’re glad to have experienced – sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s a bad experience, but it’s shaped who you are. For me, one thing I’m glad I experienced was poverty.
- What you’re fortunate to have – family, food, shelter.
- What you’re fortunate to not have – it could be sickness or debt.
3. Dust off your bucket list
Take out your list of things to do before you die and find something you can do in the next week. Or write something new down and do it.
4. Wake up claiming the Best. Day. Ever.
One day can positively change your entire life. And that one day needs to start with one good morning.
During the next 7 days wake up claiming that it will be the best day ever and try your hardest to maintain that attitude all day.
5. Try something you think you’re bad at
Perhaps you think you’re horrible at singing, writing, basketball, or some other talent. But perhaps you’ve just never really given yourself the time to attempt and if you do, you might find a new talent for yourself.
6. Declare your life’s purpose
It can certainly be done in a week with focus and a bit of work.
To help you, here are two articles you might be interested in reading:
- 5 easy pieces to piecing together your purpose in life
- What do you want on your headstone?
7. Recognize change happens constantly
Every single day your life changes no matter what. Even if you go through the same routine over and over again, no two days are ever the same. Recognize this and even the days of adversity and pain will become bearable because you know that “good new days” lie ahead.
(Number 5 was rephrased. It first read “Try something you’re bad at.” Number 7 was also rephrased. Both were changed to get the points across more clearly.)
Criticism, lack of money, lack of “know-how,” and the onset of “reality” after high school and college are all often the most common excuses people give for leaving their dreams to be unfulfilled.
Some let naysayers and nondoers tell them to “get real” or call their dreams and desire to pursue them “crazy” and “stupid.”
Others make up a boundary between them and their dreams because they think they don’t have enough money or knowledge.
And then most fall victim to the predetermined destiny that society establishes for all of us. That we need to get a degree, get a job, find a husband or wife, “settle down” and to basically give up, and be happy doing something we may despise.
Letting go of dreams may be a little difficult at first but also relieving. You don’t have to put yourself out there anymore, you don’t have to listen to the naysayers, no risking it, and no more hard work. It might seem like Easy Street.
Settling down may be nice for a few years or even a few decades for some. But after awhile something happens…
No matter how far you bury your unfulfilled dreams in the ground, no matter how much dirt you throw on top of them, they rise from the dead and claw their way above ground like zombies.
By the time they reach the surface, they’re full of vengeance and thirsty, thirsty for blood.
They’re after you. They want you and they need you.
They’re going to haunt you to the end.
Every year the ball drops on New Year’s Eve your unfulfilled dreams come flooding back to your memory.
When you lose a loved one, you think of how short life is and your dreams come back hoping for you to achieve them.
The days when you don’t feel like getting out of bed to go to work, your dreams come crawling back, carrying the “what if’s?” and the “shouldas, wouldas, and couldas.”
The longer you wait, the louder and more vicious your unfulfilled dreams will become. They eat away at your mind, your soul, and your heart. They stalk you and are there at every turn in life asking you “what if?” and force you to ponder about what could have been, what you should have done, and what you could do if you could go back in time.
Your unfulfilled dreams won’t be unforgiving, not even when you’re on your death bed. They’re not giving up on you for giving up on them. They’re getting their revenge.
To prevent yourself from becoming haunted by your unfulfilled dreams, you already know what to do. Turn dreams into goals. Don’t wait. Don’t contrive excuses for yourself. Use the words of naysayers against them to prove them wrong. Work hard. And don’t setting for anything less than your best.
It may seem a little morbid to think about right now, but what do you want your headstone to say about you?
If you were to write one sentence that would be your headstone inscription and summed up who you were and what you did with your life; how would it read?
Would it talk about your personality, ambition, generosity, humor, love, creativity, or your goals?
Would it describe who you are? Or would it describe who you want to become?
Take some time to think long and hard about this. You may be surprised to find out that this simple sentence may sum up your ultimate purpose and goals in life.
