Tag Archives: habits

Transitioning to a Healthy Diet (and sticking with it)

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Melissa’s Rap: A co-worker recently asked me how I stay on track with healthy eating. My response was that due to food allergies and sensitivities, I just feel better when I eat healthier, so that is my driving force. But, after our conversation, his question stuck with me. I realized that there are some things that I do consistently to stay on track. I struggled with improving my dietary choices for decades, and while my reaction to some foods definitely forced me to eat healthier, there are certain things I’ve implemented that have kept me going. If you are on a mission to eat healthier, this post is for you.  Continue reading →

Health Crisis Part 3: Lifestyle

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Stressed for timeSarah’s Rap: This is the third part in my series on what I feel are contributing causes behind the high numbers of disease and illness which so many Americans, and others around the world, are suffering from. If you missed them, check out my first two posts on the Standard American Diet and the “disabling” U.S. healthcare system.  It likely will not come as a surprise that unhealthy lifestyle choices are also key factors to the prevalence of disease, but sometimes what constitutes “unhealthy” may be less obvious.

I’m no saint myself when it comes to some of my own habits. In fact, I know that several are contributing factors to my own health issues in recent years. But if I don’t acknowledge the destructive behaviors and their negative impacts, I won’t continue to make (and keep) the changes necessary to get to a healthier me. I’m hoping this post can help you to do the same and take the right step towards better health. Continue reading →

Yogic Principles Help Create Healthy Habits

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Melissa’s Rap: A few months ago, we went on a Healthy Habits adventure, learning exactly what steps to take to create healthy, long-lasting habits. Now that you have had a few months to practice, how has the journey been? Have you found the process of creating and maintaining these new habits easy or challenging? What habits did you create that you are still doing now? If you have lapsed on some, how long were you able to stick with it? What do you feel your barriers to success have been? It is important to analyze what worked and what didn’t, so you can learn and grow from the process and gradually get better and better at the process of creating new habits. Today, let’s talk about some yoga (yes, yoga!) concepts that can help you with your healthy habit mission. Continue reading →

Book Review: “Better Than Before”

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better-than-before-2Sarah’s Rap: When Melissa and I embarked on our month of posts related to forming and keeping good habits, Melissa recommended this book to me: “Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits–to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life” by Gretchen Rubin. At first I wondered how someone could make a whole book about forming habits. Don’t I just commit to making them and try my hardest to stick with it? Well, I trust Melissa’s book reviews as she’s never steered me wrong and I found another of Gretchen’s books  (“The Happiness Project”) packed full of helpful advice, so I gave it a try.

This book is chock full of great research on a variety of topics which impact our abilities to form habits and keep them, including personalities, motivators, scheduling strategies, accountability, monitoring, challenges and more. I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in forming new healthy habits. By understanding more about the habit-forming beast, we can more easily tame it! Continue reading →

Guest Rap: “Envisioning Your Future” by Kellie Brunner

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With the advent of a new year, I’m making a lot of new changes in my life. I’m quitting my job without having another one waiting (scary!), forming a chapter of a national non-profit organization (exciting!), and starting a book club with friends (fun!). This is in addition to juggling my current commitments, activities, and responsibilities. I’m also taking on a challenge to run/walk 1000 miles in the year 2017. For those who don’t math, that’s a tad over 19 miles a week.  This is mostly to make sure I get my butt off the couch and exercise. Challenges are good for me.

With all of this going on, I felt the need to do a vision board. A vision board is a collection of images and inspiring words that represent what you want in your life. How you en”vision” your life, as it were. A vision board can represent your year, month, season, or any other time period you like. For me, once a year is good – I can always add to it, if necessary.  Continue reading →

Steps to Creating a Healthy Habit

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Melissa’s Rap: Are you ready to start creating healthy habits? Now that you have had a chance to brainstorm what is important to you and work through some important questions, it is time to start formulating a plan. Today we will review some thorough steps on how to create a healthy habit. Read through the steps and then print out the accompanying documents to start planning your own healthy habits. Let’s get started! Continue reading →

You are worthy! Make self-care a priority.

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Sarah’s Rap: As I decide what positive habits I’d like to foster in the New Year, one thing I really want to focus on is self-care and ensuring that I make it a priority in my life. This is very important to my healing, sanity and happiness at home and work. Although the habits we each want to cultivate differ based on who we are as individuals and what our needs are, I believe that everyone needs to make time for self-care to be healthy. Self-care, as the name implies, is “care provided for you, by you. It’s about identifying your own needs and taking steps to meet them. It is taking the time to do some of the activities that nurture you. Self-care is about taking proper care of yourself and treating yourself as kindly as you treat others.” *

Does this sound like a foreign concept or an impossible task? As a working mom, I totally understand that setting aside time for relaxation, fun, exercise, meditation, massage or whatever activity one considers as downtime can be impossible to fit in. Well read-on, my friends, and learn more about why self-care is so important and how we can use habits to incorporate more self-care into our day. Continue reading →

Healthy Habits, Here We Come!

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Happy New Year everyone! If you are like us, you have started past years with a list of things you want to start (or stop) doing in order to be a better person or shape a better life for yourself. And, if you are like us, that list was all but forgotten by February 1st. It’s about time we tried another approach, don’t you think?

Instead of making a list of actions or behaviors you wish to implement or change, consider creating healthy habits that can help you achieve your goals. According to the Encarta English Dictionary, a habit is a “regularly repeated behavior pattern: an action or pattern of behavior that is repeated so often that it becomes typical of somebody, although he or she may be unaware of it.” A healthy habit is one that benefits our health, physically and emotionally.

Over the next few weeks, we will help you learn steps for creating healthy habits and provide tips on self-care, self-talk, sustenance (physical and mental nourishment), fitness and more. Stay tuned for posts on how to create a plan, track your progress, rewire your habits, create intention, raise self-awareness and respect your resistance, prioritize self-care, and so much more. If you are tired of reliving the same resolution cycle each January where you end up right where you started, then we hope you will join us this month for a series that can revolutionize your habits, help you achieve your goals and jump start your year.

Continue reading →