Tag Archive | journey to complete wellness

Listening to the Wake-Up Calls in Life: Fire Safety Tips

I believe we are constantly receiving signs in life. When something goes wrong, I view it as a gift and a wake-up call that is not to be ignored.

Yesterday morning at 1:00am, my family got a wake-up call when my 7-year-old’s pillow fell between her bed and the wall. The wall contained an outlet which had a 3-way extension plugged into the bottom receptacle. She had a fan and another nightlight plugged into the extension. In the top receptacle, she had a nightlight plugged in. She had removed the covering of the nightlight, so the hot bulb was exposed.

Her pillow landed on the bulb of the nightlight and caught fire. She didn’t even realize it because she was asleep. Thankfully, my husband was downstairs and smelled the horrible smell of burning foam. He immediately began searching for the source of the smell. He woke me up and I began searching as well. When he finally got to my daughters room, he realized her pillow was on fire (although not yet in flames…thankfully!) We woke up all three girls and got them safely outside.

I dialed 911 on the phone, but there was complete silence on the other end.

I tried again.

Same result. I could not get through to 911!

Thankfully, my husband was able to get the burning pillow outside in the snow and we did not need 911. This is what remains of her pillow.

Her mattress was also damaged.

Luckily we all escaped this incident unharmed and lost nothing but a pillow, a mattress, and a few hours of sleep. I know we were being watched over by God and our angels, and I am SO grateful for that! Who knows how much longer before the pillow would have burst into flames right next to my daughter’s head. I’m not one to spend time worrying about what ‘could’ have happened, but I know things could have turned out much worse than they did, and I am feeling so grateful!

What I’ve Learned: Fire Safety and Prevention Tips

I’ve learned a lot through this experience, and I feel it is my responsibility to share what I have learned so you do not have to go through the experience yourself.

Check your smoke detectors. Make sure they are all working with batteries that have been recently replaced, and please make sure they are attached! Although the smoke detector in my 7-year-old’s room was working, I will admit that some of our other smoke detectors in other bedrooms were NOT hooked up. Sometimes they go off in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. My husband then removes them to stop the piercing sound throughout the house so we can all get back to sleep. And then, he doesn’t replace them. I view this incident as a sign and a warning to me, and if you’re reading this, please take it as a sign and take a few moments to check yours as well.
Make sure you have a carbon monoxide detector on each level of your home. Again, I had removed the carbon monoxide detector because it was old and it randomly went off one day. I threw it away and never replaced it.
Check your outlets and heaters. Make sure nothing is up against them. Electrical plugs MUST be pushed all the way into receptacles in wall sockets as well as extension cords. There is a great article about this from Fire 9 Prevention. I heard lots of stories yesterday about fires starting because a plug was not in all the way. Initially, we thought that was the cause of our fire until my husband found the nightlight melted under her bed.
Make sure all light bulbs and nightlights have coverings.
Make sure you have 911 set up to the correct address! We don’t have a traditional landline phone…we have Magic Jack which goes through our internet connection. I had assumed my husband set up 911 service through Magic Jack, but apparently they now charge for 911 and 411 services, so he had not set it up. If you have MagicJack, here are the instructions to set up their 911 service. I also heard lots of stories yesterday from friends who said their 911 was linked to a prior address. It is worth taking a few minutes to make sure 911 is set up to your current address. It could save your life or the life of a family member.
Talk to your kids about fire safety and prevention. Make sure you have a designated meeting area outside. Make sure they know to tell you if they see or smell anything out of the ordinary. What concerns me the most about this whole incident is that my 7-year-old didn’t think anything was wrong when she smelled the smoke from her burning foam pillow.

If you’re reading this, I hope you will take a few minutes to check your home for fire safety and talk to your family about it. For more fire prevention tips, there are a lot of great articles on Fire 9 Prevention.

Visual Quote: Love Yourself First

Mar20

THE Technique to Help You Overcome Your Fears, Phobias, and Limiting Beliefs

Mar12

Would you like to overcome your fears, phobias, and limiting beliefs? Of course you would! We would all love to release our fears, but sometimes we hang onto them because it feels safe to stay right where we are in life. But if you are ready to take your life to the next level, you need to make the decision to let go of these fears, phobias, and limiting beliefs that are keeping you stuck in the same rut, sabotaging your success, and preventing you from growing into the person you were meant to be.

There is a technique that can help you find relief from stress, anxiety, pain, fears, limiting beliefs, and more. This technique can be beneficial in all areas of your life, including your health, wealth, relationships, level of happiness, and much more.

But here is the BEST thing about this technique:

You can use it anytime, anywhere, it doesn’t require the assistance of anyone else, it is absolutely free, and it is very simple to learn! It sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it really does exist, and I know from experience that it really does work! 🙂

What is it?

The technique is called EFT(Emotional Freedom Techniques) Tapping.

It is a tool that has proven to be highly effective in helping people to overcome their fears, phobias, limiting beliefs, weight struggles, financial worries, and other issues they may struggle with in life. Tapping is a combination of ancient Chinese acupressure and modern psychology. You use your fingertips to tap on specific points on your body while voicing your fears or other issues that you would like to improve in your life.

My Story

I know from experience that Tapping really works! One of my daughters developed some physical health issues last year. After many doctor visits and tests and many school days missed, the doctors and specialists could find nothing physically wrong with her, but she insisted that the symptoms still existed. These health issues caused her a great deal of anxiety, which resulted in the development of some fears that really starting taking over her life. She became afraid of going to school. She was even afraid to go to sleep at night! We began tapping on these issues and discovered some underlying fears that were contributing to these bigger fears. We discovered the reason she was afraid to go to school was because she had witnessed a student vomiting in the classroom. She was afraid the same thing would happen to her. We tapped on these issues every night. She looked forward to our tapping sessions because they really put her mind at ease and helped her to relax so she could fall asleep and stay asleep through the night. If we skipped a night, she would wake up several times in the middle of the night in a panic, feeling like her throat was blocked. Within a few weeks after we started tapping, all of her fears were gone and all of her health issues were completely resolved! It’s been almost a year now, and thankfully none of her health issues (or fears) have returned! Thanks to tapping! It definitely seemed crazy at first, but I am a believer in it now! 🙂

Learn How to Tap from the Experts for Free

Would you like to give it a try for yourself? The picture below from Thriving Now shows the tapping points on the body.

To learn exactly where the tapping points are and for help on what to say, Jessica Ortner offers the perfect beginners guide to tapping in this video.

If you would like to learn more about Tapping, visit The Tapping Solution to watch more instructional videos for free, learn the science and research behind it, and download some very useful tapping sessions to help reduce stress (these are the sessions I used with my daughter.) There is even a film on tapping called The Tapping Solution Documentary, and a book by Nick Ortner called The Tapping Solution.

Please understand that some of the more traumatic issues you may be trying to overcome may require professional help. If you begin tapping and an issue comes up that feels like it is too much for you to handle yourself, please seek the guidance of a professional counselor.

Good luck, and if you have (or have had) great success with tapping, I would love to hear your story.

10 Tips to Begin Eating Healthier

Mar5

If eating healthier is one of your goals but you don’t know where to begin, I will share some tips that have helped me along in my journey to eating more REAL foods and minimizing the amount of processed foods in my diet.

What IS a REAL Food?

Any food that comes from nature and can be purchased without a label is a REAL food (fruits, vegetables, raw nuts, seeds, etc.) REAL foods will help to fuel your body with the nutrients it needs. Ideally, you want to strive to eat foods as close to their natural state as possible. Foods that have been packaged usually have been processed in some way, so you want to choose REAL foods without packaging whenever possible. Many REAL foods are also labeled as SUPERFOODS. I have discovered this excellent resource that lists 50 Superfoods and their benefits. It also suggests healthy recipes to help you integrate these SUPERFOODS into your everyday diet. I always find it helpful to focus on the foods I should be eating rather than those I should not be eating, so I highly recommend checking out that list from skinnyms.com and printing it for future reference. Once you know which foods are ideal to eat, here are some tips to help you incorporate those foods and to minimize the amount of highly processed foods in your diet.

1. Learn to Read Ingredient Labels. If you’re striving to eat healthier, this is the first step I would recommend. If you prefer more variety in your diet than just foods without a label, it is very important to learn to read the ingredient labels on your foods. The nutritional information label can sometimes be helpful, but I think it is much more important to look at the ingredients. If there is anything on a label that you cannot pronounce or you don’t know what it is or where it comes from, you most likely do not want this food to be a part of your regular diet. The same thing goes for foods with a long list of ingredients. When comparing processed foods, you generally want to choose the product with the fewest number of ingredients. A few ingredients you particularly want to avoid include corn syrups, artificial colors and flavors, and hydrogenated oils. Also, be weary of any foods that make health claims on their packaging. For example, I always choose the full fat versions of foods rather than those with the “Fat Free” label. “Fat Free” foods are often a poor choice because additional ingredients generally need to be added to the product to make the food taste good once the fat is removed. Here is an excellent video from 100 Days of Real Food to help you learn to read ingredient labels.

2. Clean out your kitchen/pantry. If your goal is to eat healthier, it would be a good idea to remove all the unhealthy foods from your home. Otherwise, you will be tempted each time you open the pantry. Take everything off your shelves. Discard anything that is expired. Donate anything that you don’t plan to use before the expiration date, and donate all highly processed foods (those with a long list of ingredients or a lot of unpronounceable ingredients.) Oftentimes, we eat food just because it is there. If a food is not in your house, it will be that much more difficult for you to eat it. If you get a strong craving for something, you will have to go out of your way to get it.

3. Don’t buy processed foods. It all starts in the supermarket. Don’t buy the junk foods. Again, if you don’t bring it into your house, you can’t eat it. You may have heard these food shopping tips before, but they are worth repeating: don’t shop when you are hungry, go prepared with a shopping list and DO NOT stray from the list, and stay on the outer perimeter of the supermarket. The inside aisles mostly contain the processed foods. If at all possible, go shopping without the kids. Mine certainly have a way of getting me to buy unnecessary (and often unhealthy) items that are not on my list. Also, keep in mind that when you buy a food item, you are voting with your dollar. Vote to support REAL, healthy foods!

4. Find Healthy Replacements. Find healthier replacements for foods you commonly eat. For example, use REAL butter instead of margarine, use coconut oil instead of canola oil, make your own popcorn instead of buying bagged microwave popcorn, make your own salad dressing instead of the store-bought dressings loaded with high fructose corn syrups, or even start by making your own cookies instead of buying store-bought cookies loaded with trans-fats.

5. Become accountable. Find a buddy who is also interested in eating healthier, or join a support group on social media for people who share a common goal with you. Share recipes and support each other, For example, the 100 Days of Real Food Mini Pledge Program group on Facebook will help you cut out processed foods in 14 weeks. Members share recipes and tips, and they encourage and support each other with their struggles throughout the challenge. I am also a member of the October Unprocessed community, which is also wonderful and supportive. October Unprocessed is a challenge I participated in for the past two years, and the goal is to go through the entire month of October without eating any processed foods. The challenge was a very inspiring, eye-opening, and educational experience for me. In fact, that is what inspired me to begin this blog! 🙂 I would encourage everyone to participate in October Unprocessed 2015, but don’t wait until then to begin eating healthy. You can start taking small steps today!

6. Track your progress with a blog or journal, or track your nutrition through an app such as MyFitnessPal. For more ideas on how to track your progress, check out my previous post 5 Tools to Track your health and Fitness Goals.

7. Get into the habit of making a smoothie for breakfast every day. A smoothie (or green smoothie if you’re a little more adventurous) is a nutritious way to start the day and to help you get more fruits and vegetables into your diet, and it will keep you full until lunch. Not sure how? Here’s one of my favorite recipes. Adapt it to your liking with your favorite fruits and vegetables. There are so many different combinations you can try! Visit Simple Green Smoothies for more smoothie recipes and tips.

My daily smoothie is something I look forward to, and I am so happy I have implemented it into my daily routine and made it a habit. Give it a try, and you may even find that it is an easy way to get more fruits and vegetables into your kid’s diets!

8. Don’t completely deprive yourself of the foods you love. Start slow. Try to find healthier replacements to satisfy your cravings. If you love chocolate, maybe you could opt for a handful of Ghirardelli chocolate chips instead of a full candy bar. Just be careful. It is still sugar, and sugar is HIGHLY addictive. Once you start eating it, you will want more.

9. Become educated. Learn WHAT you are eating and WHERE it is coming from. There are some excellent books and food documentaries on this topic. Click the links for my reviews on the food documentaries Food, Inc, What’s on Your Plate?, Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, and Fed Up. If you’re interested in learning about the source of your food, some excellent books I have found on this topic include The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Animal Vegetable Miracle also contains some wonderful recipes, and it will teach you how to eat seasonally and how to preserve your food so you can eat from your garden or local farm stand year-round. I have found all of these books and movies to be inspirational, and some of them were even life-changing for me!

10. Find REAL food recipes. Visit my Recipe page for my favorite REAL food recipes, or check out the extensive list of REAL food recipes on 100 Days of Real Food.

Please keep in mind that this journey to a lifestyle of eating REAL foods is a process. Everyone does it at their own pace. I feel like I’ve learned so much and I’ve come a long way from the way I used to eat, but I have still have SO far to go. I still eat plenty of junk food (as you might see from some of my favorite recipes on my blog Stacy Loves), but when I do, I try my best to choose the healthiest options and make it myself when I can. As with everything in life, I believe balance in all areas is the key to optimal health. Good luck! 🙂

EVERYTHING is a gift!

Mar4

Everything that has happened to you so far in life has happened FOR you. It is the combination of every single event and every single person you have met so far in life that has made you into the person you are today. You may not realize it in the moment, and it may take a very long time to find the “good” in some situations, but trust that everything that happens is for a reason — to help you grow and become the person you were meant to be. Learn to embrace each experience and situation that happens to you and view it as a gift to you and the world.

This is THE mantra that gets me through the tougher days in life. When something unfortunate happens in my life that is out of my control, I remind myself that it is a gift. And I truly DO believe it. Some of my most difficult situations have turned out to be my greatest blessings.

Eventually, when we look back on our lives, we will be able to understand the gift in each situation, no matter how unfortunate it may have seemed in the moment.

Try it now. Identify one event in your life that seemed unfortunate when it happened, but it turned out to be a blessing.

The next time something unfortunate happens that is out of your control, gently remind yourself that it is happening for a good reason and is in fact a gift. 🙂

**This post was also published on my blog Stacy Loves.

5 Tools to Track Your Health and Fitness Goals

Feb25

Whenever you set a health or fitness goal for yourself, tracking your progress is an essential step to help you stay focused and motivated and keep you moving in the right direction. Technology has made it easier than ever to help you keep track of your progress, and it can help to give you that extra push you may need to reach your goal.

There are many options available to help track your health and fitness goals, and more are being created each day. Here are some tools I use to help me track my goals and keep me on target:

1. Calendars (Paper and Online)

Calendars and to-do-lists help me set my priorities and make sure I am focusing my time and energy on what is important to me. When I set a challenge for myself, I break it down into smaller tasks, schedule them on my calendar, and set aside time for them on my daily to-do list.

Paper calendars work great for me most of the time, but I have run into several situations lately where I have scheduled an appointment only to check my calendar when I got home and find out I had another appointment at the same time. To avoid having this happen again, I have decided it might be time to start using the technology that is available. That is where on-line calendars can be a great help.

There are many different options to choose from when it comes to on-line calendars. Google Calendars, Yahoo Calendars, and Cozi.Com are only a few. There are several advantages to using online calendars instead of paper. Using an on-line calendar is convenient. You are able to access it from anywhere through your phone. If I had used an on-line calendar at my last dentist appointment, I wouldn’t have double-booked myself and had to reschedule when I got home. On-line calendars also allow you to set reminders, which can be very helpful for remembering those important appointments. The ability to color-code events is another great feature of on-line calendars. Finally, they allow you to share your calendar or event with others. This can be especially helpful to keep the whole family on the same page. Since most of the devices our family owns are Google-based, Google Calendar is a tool I plan to implement in the very near future. No more double-booked appointments for me! 🙂

2. Paper Journals (or Online Blogs)

Depending on the challenge, I usually find it helpful to journal my experience either through a paper journal or an on-line blog. Regardless of which method I choose, I always find it helpful to journal my challenges. This provides a place to reference if I decide to take on the challenge again in the future. Reviewing my journals allows me to learn through my past experiences.

When I completed the October Unprocessed Challenge in 2013 and 2014, I started a blog to track all of the foods I was eating. This helped me to stay on track and it helped to keep me accountable since the blog was public and others had access to it and were able to follow me on my journey.

If you are considering starting up a blog, there are a few well-established content publishing platforms to choose from. WordPress is what I use, and I would recommend it for its ease of use. Blogging may not be for everyone, but I have found it to be a great tool to help me track my wellness journey. As I share my journey through my blogs, I love that there is the potential to help others along the way.

3. Checklists and Logs

Whenever I begin a wellness challenge, I like to have a log or checklist available to track my progress. Since I find satisfaction in crossing things off my to-do list, oftentimes I will print out a daily checklist related to the challenge, place it somewhere visible, and cross off the tasks as I complete them. For example, this month I am participating in the February Acts of Kindness Challenge with my family. We placed our Logs on the refrigerator to remind us of the challenge, to give us a place to log the acts of kindness we perform each day, and to help keep each other on track.

4. Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are a great way to measure your progress, especially when it comes to tracking fitness and nutrition goals. I recently started using an app called My Fitness Pal to track my nutrition. It keeps track of nutrition information, calories, exercise, water consumption, recipes, and so much more. I love that everything is in one place and all the calculations are done for me. And best of all, the app is free! It is fun and exciting to see the results at the end of the day.

I was hesitant to start using it at first because it sounded like it would be a lot of work to enter in every little thing I ate each day. Surprisingly, I found it to be very simple to do and it takes very little time. It allows the user to import recipes from the web or even to scan in bar code labels, and it saves the items you’ve recently eaten so you can just check it off next time. I also love that I am able to enter everything in through the computer instead of using my phone if I wish.

To keep track of my fitness goals, I recently began using the Runtastic app. When I go for a walk, it tracks my calories, distance, time, and more. I love that it is compatible with My Fitness Pal, so it saves me time by automatically importing the data from my walks into my daily exercise log on My Fitness Pal. Runtastic also allows you to play your music from your device while in the app. The camera is also easily accessible within the app in case you come upon a scene you would like to capture (a feature I use often!)

The variety of mobile apps available to help with your fitness goals may seem overwhelming. If you’re not sure where to start, first try to get a recommendation from someone who uses one regularly whose goal is similar to yours. Secondly, you could do a Google search for the type of app you are looking for and find reviews on them. If all else fails, just give one a try and see if it works for you. If it doesn’t work out, there are many others to choose from.

5. Wearables

Technology is constantly changing and improving. Wearables have become popular recently to help track fitness, calories, sleep, and more. There are many different brands and types to choose from depending on the activity you are planning to track. I have not given wearables a try yet so I do not have a recommendation, but if you are considering purchasing a wearable, you could go to Wearables.Com to help you find the right product for you.

Additional Tools to Help you Achieve your Health and Fitness Goals

Tracking your progress is just one step along the way to successfully achieving your health and fitness goals. In my previous blog post, 11 Steps to Help You Achieve Your Wellness Goals, I go through the 11 steps I personally use to help me successfully achieve my wellness goals. Clearly defining your goal, setting a reward, getting support, and getting accountable are just a few of the other essential steps in achieving any goal. It is important to find others who are willing to support you and encourage you every step of the way and to help you stay accountable.

Oscar Health

I have discovered a provider of health insurance in New Jersey and New York, Oscar. If you’re in the area, you should check them out! They use technology to help their members stay healthy, and they support and encourage their members with their goals every step of the way. They are a tech-based health insurance company working to give their members a more personalized and intuitive healthcare experience. They provide their members with online tools they can use to track and monitor their own health between doctor’s visits. They recently began providing their members with a free Misfit Flash fitness tracker to help them stay in shape. The fitness tracker syncs with the Oscar app to count steps, and members earn cash rewards when they hit their daily goal. Oscar helps personalize goals for their members to keep them moving.

If you are in the New York or New Jersey area and are looking for health insurance options, I encourage you to look into Oscar and see if they are the right fit for your health insurance needs.

With technology changing and improving every day, it is becoming easier to keep track of our health and fitness goals. Are there any tools you find helpful in tracking your goals that I may have missed? If so, please let me know in the comments below.

11 Steps to Help You Achieve Your Wellness Goals

Feb23

Setting wellness goals are an important part of achieving personal growth. Having a goal in mind can help push you to that next level of health in body, mind, or spirit.

I personally like to set a new wellness challenge for myself every month. It is said that it takes 21 days to develop a habit, so a monthly challenge is sufficient time to instill new healthy practices into my lifestyle and make them habit, but it is not so long that I get bored with the challenge. Monthly challenges work for me, but everyone is different and each challenge is different, so set a challenge and time-frame that works for you.

Whether my monthly goal is mental, physical, or spiritual in nature, I essentially use the same steps and tools to successfully achieve my goals.

Set the goal. Make it very specific and measurable. For example, instead of setting a goal to “drink more water this month,” I would set a goal to “drink 8 (8oz) glasses of water each day.” That is a very specific and measurable goal.
Write it down. Put it somewhere visible so you are reminded of it often. For example, this month I am participating in the February Acts of Kindness challenge with my family. We have hung up our Daily Logs on the refrigerator to track our progress. Every time we go to or open the refrigerator, we are reminded of the challenge.
Break it down into smaller, very specific and manageable steps. If the goal you have set is a larger goal that may seem overwhelming or unreachable at the beginning, break it down into smaller, very specific, manageable steps. For example, my goal for March is going to be to de-clutter my house. That is an enormous task! Therefore, I will break it down day by day and come up with a manageable step for each day of the month. When I look at my to-do list and see “organize the utensil drawer”, I am more apt to go do it than if I see “clean the house.” Clean the house is a big task and it is not very specific, so I may not be as motivated to get up and start cleaning if I don’t know what it is I should be cleaning.
Schedule it. Once you have broken your goal down into specific tasks, add them to your monthly calendar (in ink), put the task(s) of the day on your daily to-do list, and set aside a specific time each day to work on them. I am a list-maker, so I find it very satisfying when I am able to cross items off my to-do list. If you have allotted a specific time to work on your goal, you are much more likely to reach it than if you have to find “spare” time in a day.
Allow yourself a day off each week. Whatever your challenge, allow yourself a day off each week. If you don’t allow yourself a little time off, you may get burned out and discouraged with the challenge. If you took my January “Love Yourself More” Wellness Challenge, you may have noticed that I gave the participants Saturdays off and encouraged them to reserve Saturdays as a day of rest, quality time with family, and practicing presence. If I could offer everyone just one piece of advice about life, it would be to slow down and observe this day of rest every week (it doesn’t have to be Saturday – pick the day that works best for you.) That one simple practice has changed my life and helped to improve my relationships with myself, with God, and with others. I know it could do the same for others.
Set a reward for yourself. This step is often overlooked, but I feel this is a crucial step in any challenge you set for yourself. Oftentimes, completing the challenge is a reward in itself, but you also need to come up with a simple pleasure to reward yourself with upon completing the challenge. For example, if losing a specific amount of weight is your goal, you might reward yourself with a new outfit upon completing the goal. This will give you something to look forward to, and it will help you to stay motivated to successfully complete your challenge.
Get Accountable. Accountability plays a big role in the success of any challenge. If you are not being held accountable, then it makes it that much more difficult to stay motivated and continue with the challenge. The best way I have found to stay accountable is to find a buddy to do the challenge with me. In that way, we can support each other along the way. Personally, I feel I am more successful when I am accountable to someone else rather than just being accountable to myself. For example, I walk with a friend every weekday morning. If I don’t feel like walking one day, it is very easy to skip the walk if I’m going alone, but it’s not so easy if my friend is counting on me to walk with her. If you can’t find a buddy to take the challenge with you, find someone to hold you accountable and ask you about your progress frequently. Other ways to help with accountability might be to join support groups related to the challenge, to blog about your experience (as I did with the October Unprocessed challenge), or even to keep a journal for yourself.
Get Support. The best way I have found to stay motivated and to get support is to find someone to take the challenge with me. Social media has made that very easy to do. With some of my previous challenges, I have found that Facebook support groups have been an essential part of my success in completing the challenge. Connecting with like-minded people who have the same goal in mind is a very good way to help you stay on track, stay motivated, and get through obstacles together. When I participated in the October Unprocessed challenge (eating only REAL foods for an entire month), the Facebook support group set up for the challenge played an integral role in my success. I found it very inspirational when members of the group shared their REAL food recipes, and I learned a lot by reading about the successes and challenges others encountered.
Track your progress in some way. Whether you keep track of your progress in a daily journal, through a daily log on the refrigerator, through blogging, or through technology such as wearables and apps, it is important to keep track of your progress to help you stay motivated and focused. There are so many options nowadays to help you with this, and I will discuss them in my next blog post. Look for it this week! 🙂
Don’t get discouraged. You will most likely encounter some obstacles throughout the challenge, and some days it may feel like you are taking 2 steps back for every one step forward. Don’t give up, and don’t get discouraged if you slip up. Nobody is perfect, and perfection is not the goal anyway. You are allowed (and expected to) make mistakes and have a bad day once in a while. Learn what works best for you through trial and error, and if you slip up, begin each day anew.
Reward Yourself. Please do not overlook this step. Once you have reached your goal, treat yourself to the reward you set in step #6. If you do not reward yourself at the end, it will likely affect the outcome of future goals as well. Stay true to yourself and make it a priority to stick to the rewards you promise yourself.

If you strive to become healthy in body, mind, and spirit, setting wellness goals are an essential step. Striving for a life of balance in all areas is the key to achieving optimum health.

Whatever goal you have in mind, know that you can do it if you set your mind to it, make the time for it, and make it a priority. Follow the 11 steps above, and you are likely to succeed. Good luck!

February Acts of Kindness Month: Ways to Stay Motivated and Keep the Kindness Going

Feb18

If you are joining me in participating in the February Acts of Kindness Challenge but have run out of ideas, I have some easy tips to help keep you motivated and some easy ways to keep the kindness going.

Get the whole family involved. In my opinion, the best part of doing this challenge is doing it with my entire family. We enjoy sharing our acts of kindness with each other, and we help to keep each other accountable.
Put the February Acts of Kindness Log somewhere so it is very visible. We put ours on the refrigerator. Every time we go to the refrigerator, it is a reminder to do our act of kindness or to write down what we did. All 5 of our logs are up there together, so it is fun to read what everyone does each day. My daughters are also great at reminding each other if someone misses a day. They don’t want to miss out on that reward in the end! 🙂
Set a reward for yourself. For every challenge you set for yourself, you should build in a reward at the end. This is a crucial step in helping you to stay motivated. Honestly, the reward is what is keeping my kids interested in participating in this challenge.
Remember, no act of kindness is too small. Sometimes we feel like our acts are insignificant, but each action you take (and each word you speak) has the potential to make or break someone’s day. Keep that in mind and choose kindness always! 🙂

If you’re stuck for ideas, a simple way to make someone’s day is to download a Care Card from You Matter. I wrote one out for each member of my family last night, and it felt great! #YouMatter is a grassroots movement that aims to promote positive mental health through acts of caring. Telling someone they matter can have a greater impact than we may know!

There are four easy steps to participate in #YouMatter:

1) Download a Care Card from the MSW@USC blog.

2) Write a message of caring, friendship or appreciation.

3) Snap a picture of your card and share on social media using the hashtag #youmatter and tag us @youmatterbc to inspire others.

4) Give the Care Card to someone and make that person’s day!

There’s never a better time than now to show others that that they matter in this world, so let’s keep promoting acts of kindness together!

If you have not been taking the February Acts of Kindness Challenge, it is not too late to begin! Simply print out the February Acts of Kindness Log, hang it somewhere visible, set a reward for yourself, and begin performing at least one act of kindness each day. Then enjoy the wonderful feelings that come with helping others and knowing you are helping to brighten up your community and the world. 🙂

Movie Review: Food, Inc.

Feb12

Food, Inc.

My Rating **** 4 out of 5 stars

Why Did I Watch?

I find food documentaries fascinating. Since I started becoming more health conscious, I have taken an interest in knowing exactly WHAT it is I am eating and WHERE my food is coming from. This is a perfect movie to watch if you want to discover the truth about food in America. I recently saw it available streaming on Netflix, so I decided to watch it again.

Summary

Have you ever wondered where supermarket food really comes from? If so, Food, Inc. is a must see! The movie takes a close look inside America’s supermarkets, slaughterhouses, chicken houses, and more to reveal the truth about our nation’s food industry. Here are a few highlights I took away from the movie:

The industry doesn’t want you to know the truth about what you’re eating…because if you knew, you might not want to eat it.
Our food is coming from enormous assembly lines where the animals and the workers are being abused. And the food has become much more dangerous in ways that are being deliberately hidden from us.
The modern American supermarket has on average 47,000 products. It may seem like a large variety of choices, but in reality, there are only a few companies involved and only a few crops involved. Michael Pollan followed that food back to its source, and he always ended up in the same place…a cornfield in Iowa. Most of the processed items in the supermarket can be traced back to corn or soy in one form or another.
There are only a handful of companies controlling our food system. The top 4 beef packers control 80% of the beef market.
Processed foods are cheaper than produce, leading consumers to purchase the unhealthy foods.
Foods are being engineered to lengthen shelf life.
There is an overabundance of corn in the US. Animals, and even fish, are being fed corn even though it is not their natural diet.
Research indicates that feeding cattle a high corn diet results in E.coli that are acid resistant. These are the more harmful E.coli.
Regulatory agencies are being controlled by the very companies they are supposed to be scrutinizing.
In the 1970’s, there were thousands of slaughterhouses in the US. Today, there are only 13 that process the majority of beef that is sold in the US.
Meat packing is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. Many of the workers are illegal immigrants. The government is arresting the workers, but nothing is happening to the company for hiring them.
Processed foods contribute to obesity and health issues.
It is against the law to criticize the food industry’s foods.
Monsanto created and patented a Genetically Modified soybean seed. By 2008, over 90% of soybeans in the US contained this patented gene.
There are virtually no public seeds anymore. Monsanto sues farmers for saving seeds.

What Did I Think? / My Recommendation

I found this documentary to be extremely eye-opening. In my opinion, anyone who eats food in America should watch this. While it did not turn me into a vegetarian, it did steer me away from buying the products of the big name companies mentioned in the movie. I first watched this movie about 2 years ago, and I have not knowingly purchased one product by those companies since. Every time we buy an item of food, we are voting. I have chosen to vote with my dollar, and I encourage others to do the same.

I was surprised to learn that our government is more concerned about protecting the food industry than it is about protecting our health. That is very concerning to me, and just reinforces to me that we need to be the ones to take the initiative to educate ourselves and pay attention to WHAT we are eating by closely reading ingredient labels. The best way to know where your food is coming from is to buy local and seasonal whenever possible. Or better yet, grow your own garden!

Overall, I applaud everyone who had a hand in the making of this movie because the truth about America’s food industry needs to be known. I am going to do my part by continuing to spread the word and vote with my dollar. If everyone does the same, we can make a difference!

As an additional note, if you want to go more in depth on any of the topics mentioned in the movie, I would highly recommend reading the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. The book is not an easy read as it is EXTREMELY thorough, but if you are looking for more details on any of these topics, I feel the book is a perfect companion to the movie.

For more information about the movie, additional reviews, and information about where to find the movie, check it out on IMDb here.

2015 February Acts of Kindness Challenge

Jan28

The February Acts of Kindness Challenge is a challenge I began on this blog last year to help spread kindness during the entire month of February. It was such a rewarding experience for me and my family, we have decided to do it again this year! I invite you to join us and many others in spreading love and kindness all month! The guidelines are below.

When I think of the month of February, the first thing that comes into my mind is Valentine’s Day. And when I think of Valentine’s Day, I am reminded of love. So I thought it might be fun to challenge myself and my family to spread our love this month by performing at least one act of kindness each day. When I suggested the idea to my family, they were all really excited. I’m sure their excitement probably had something to do with me mentioning a reward at the end if we were able to complete it, but I know the real reward will be in the experience itself.

Act of Kindness Challenge Guidelines:

1. I have made this February Acts of Kindness Log for each member of my family to record our acts of kindness throughout the month. I printed it out for each family member and put it on the refrigerator. Feel free to download and print it out as well if you would like to keep a record of your progress. 🙂

2. Each day in February, perform at least one act of kindness and write it down on the log. My definition of an Act of Kindness is: any action you take to brighten someone’s day without expecting anything in return.

3. Share your acts of kindness with your loved ones who are also participating in the challenge, or share your ideas and inspiration on February Acts of Kindness Challenge so we can continue to support and encourage each other.

4. When the month is over, share what you learned with each other.

5. REWARD YOURSELF!! This is the most important step off all! If you are taking the challenge with others, take a vote to see how you want to reward yourselves!

I invite you to join us in this challenge and spread your love. It only takes a small act to make a big impact. Let’s make a difference together! “Like” the Facebook page February Acts of Kindness Challenge or join the Facebook support group at February Acts of Kindness Challenge to share your ideas and inspiration. 🙂

Feel free to do more than one Act of Kindness a day. Don’t be afraid to write them all down. You may already do several acts of kindness each day without even realizing it. The point here is to become aware of all the good things you already do and realize the impact it has on others. You may also want to try to take it a step further and do some things you normally wouldn’t do. When we make a small effort to brighten someone’s day out of love (not obligation), we are rewarded with happiness. Anything done out of obligation is not an act of love and will only cause you to feel resentment. It doesn’t matter whether your acts of kindness are random or intentional, but to honor your own self-care, please make sure they are performed out of love.

As you perform more acts of kindness, you may also notice yourself becoming the recipient of more acts of kindness. Learn to accept these gifts with gratitude. Many times it is more challenging for us to receive than it is to give. We may resist acts of kindness toward us because we may feel like we will owe the other person, but when you let people do nice things for you, you are actually giving them a gift.

RESOURCES

Check out this link for some great Random Acts of Kindness ideas!

Check out this inspiring 5 minute video to see how one small act of kindness can make a big impact.

“Like” the Facebook Page The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation.

Check out the inspiring movie, The Letter Writer. It is a great reminder of the impact our actions have on others, and the difference one act of kindness can make.

Don’t forget Random Acts of Kindness week is February 9-15, 2015.

If you’re stuck for ideas, a simple way to make someone’s day is to download a Care Card from You Matter. #YouMatter is a grassroots movement that aims to promote positive mental health through acts of caring. Telling someone they matter can have a greater impact than we may know!