By now you know I want help people improve the quality of their food choices. What you may not know is that I make lifestyle recommendations as well. Some of these include tips for increasing exercise or improving sleep but I also educate clients about many harmful ingredients in everyday items we use. My goal when I work with clients is to meet my clients where there are by addressing what changes they are comfortable making to their lifestyle that will improve their overall wellness. These lifestyle recommends aren’t about spending a ton of money to overhaul your house. This is too expensive and leads to a lot of waste…two things I am against! This is about making a slow transition so when you run out of a product or something breaks, you know what a better options are available for purchase. Below are a few of my favorite household upgrades. STOP with the plastic food containers! Whenever you have the opportunity, store food in glass containers. Drink out of glass at home or use a glass water bottle when you are on the go. WHY? Plastic is chemicals. Chemicals can leech into our food and water ESPECIALLY if they are heated. You heat your leftovers in a plastic container in the microwave, you have also infused your food with chemicals. YUM! You drink out of a plastic water bottle…that sits in the sun in your car, you now have chemical infused water…TASTY! You get my point. How can you fox this? Transfer your food to a dish for reheating. Look to products you buy that come in glass. For example, I love Artisana nut butters. After I finish a jar, I can easily peel off the label, clean it and now I have a new food storage container. If you do need a new water bottle, you can obviously purchase a glass one or if you are at the store and need water, only purchase a brand in a glass bottle, when done, wash and reuse…now you have a new glass water bottle. Clean up your laundry! Detergent reinvented Did you know laundry detergent is mostly water?! Maybe you like lugging the larger plastic jugs home and you count it as part of your workout. NO? Me neither! Now I use Earth Breeze laundry sheets. They removed all that water and condensed the actually cleaning agents into a small sheet. They come in unscented or scented. They ship for free in regular mail with minimal packaging. The packaging they do use is recyclable. They work well. If you want to check earth breeze out for yourself, check out this link . Dryer sheets reinvented Say goodbye to dryer sheets and hello to wool dryer balls. Anything that is reusable is worth checking out. It means less impact on our planet but dryers balls are a double whammy because it also means fewer chemicals and synthetics in your life…and laundry. Wool is a natural fiber and will absorb moisture from the clothing. The movement of the dryer balls throughout the cycle help to soften clothing. So what is the take away? Wool dryer balls are reusable and shorten drying time (i.e. energy) because they absorb moisture from clothing, a positive for the planet. Wool dryer balls are a natural fiber that will soften clothes with no chemicals or synthetics, a positive for us! What you use on the outside is just as important as what you put inside your body. Your skin is your LARGEST organ. Yes, it is an organ and many times an overlooked one. I do recommend people look to clean skin care when they run out of their current toiletries. My primary recommendations when it is time to purchase new skin care include face cream and deodorant. These items are on your skin everyday and should be of the best quality. Replacing your beloved items will be a process. I have purchased MANY products that are ‘gentle’ or for ‘sensitive’ skin that are made with high quality ingredients but they just haven’t been a good fit for me so patience is a must! When you find a brand that works though it is a game changer! About Face! For face cream, I truly enjoy Ursa Major products out of Vermont. I specifically like their Forest Alchemy Eye Cream and their Golden Hour Recovery Cream. They are committed to product quality which for them means, powerful active ingredients, natural aromas, no suspect chemicals. They never use petrochemicals, SLS, SLES, parabens, synthetic fragrance or color, silicones or PEGs. I also like that they are constantly evaluating their packaging to improve it so it is sustainable. They are one of the first plastic negative skincare companies. Ursa Major is also a B Corp certified, B Corp certified companies meet rigorous standards of corporate and social responsibility. Everything from a company’s workers, suppliers, community and environmental impact is assessed for a company to be certified. Stay fresh as a daisy! Deodorant is where it’s at these days. Stop with the antiperspirants and start with a quality deodorant. I will say this is a process…and maybe one that should be done in the winter when sweating isn’t at its peak due to cooler temperatures. Ursa Major does have a deodorant that I recently received a sample of called Hoppin’ Fresh Deodorant which is sure to get you going in the morning due to the mix of peppermint, eucalyptus and rosemary. So far, I have enjoyed using it. Why switch? 1) Antiperspirants are loaded with chemicals so the more we can limit our chemicals exposure, the better. 2) Did you realize sweating is an excellent form of detox? It is one of the ways we release toxins from our body so letting yourself sweat is actually a positive if you want to improve your overall wellness! So to recap we want to perspire, even sweat, but no one wants to stink! If you want to see all the products Ursa Major has to offer and give them a try, click here to check out their website. We all deserve to feel well. This doesn’t mean just eating nutrient dense foods, it also means doing the best we can with our lifestyle choices to set ourselves up for success. I think it is important to remember that this doesn’t mean spending an excessive amount of money or trying every fad. It means making little changes where you can and letting them add up so you can feel good on the inside and outside! When we make these slow and steady changes, we help ourselves and the environment! #educatedwellness

I do think acceptance is a positive step in moving forward but please do not think it means you are giving up or giving in! This can relate to many different scenarios in our lives but I will focus on how it relates to our health and wellness. We all have nagging issues. Maybe your sleep quality has deteriorated. Maybe you have put on a few pounds. Maybe you are experiencing more acne or joint pain in the past year than you can remember. I think many people just ignore signs and signals their body is trying to give them and push it off as ‘getting older’ and accept that this is the way life will be from now on. BUT WHY?! If joint pain is a new phenomenon for you why would you dismiss it as getting older? If you have acne unlike anything you had as a teenager isn’t the logical choice that something in your lifestyle has changed to spark this issue? Yet so many of us think, this is just the way things are now. We accept it and feel miserable but don’t do anything to change our situation. I want people to ACCEPT changes that are happening and THEN decide if they approve of them. Are you ok with that joint pain? No? Ok, take some time, to evaluate the situation knowing that you are NOT on a straight path. This will take time and patience. When did this joint pain start? What time of day is it the worst? What did I do before that time of day? What did I eat before it was the worst? These are all starter questions. As you are able to answer these, it can open up a whole new level of questions. This is all a positive. The more honest and open you can be able answering these questions for yourself, the more power you have to make changes. You may be able to see a pattern develop and can now work to disrupt that pattern. You can pass this information along to a doctor or a functional nutritionist like me and we can further drilling down into the heart of your issue. How do you put this into practice though. Below I offer an example. You eat a turkey and cheese sandwich everyday and every afternoon your joint pain flares up. So you stop eating turkey and cheese sandwiches and it goes away. Excellent, but what really caused the joint pain because that sandwich has multiple ingredients? So you experiment and eat a salad with turkey and cheese on it and no joint pain. Then after a few days, you go back to your regular sandwich and joint pain comes back. Well, I would say that is a pretty clear sign that the bread you eat is an issue for your joints. Now that you have this information you can really start to experiment. What happens if you have pasta for dinner? If you still have joint pain, you now have insight that processed carbohydrates are an issue for you, specifically, gluten. If you DON’T have joint pain after eating pasta, then maybe it is an ingredient in the bread you normally eat that is causing an issue. Look to the bread’s ingredients list for more clues. What oils do they use? Many inexpensive oils that are used in baked items are so overly processed with chemicals and heat that they are rancid before they are bottled (yes, it is true). What about other sugars and additives listed? Processed and fake ingredients can wreak havoc on our bodies. Make sure you can read all the ingredients listed, if it is too difficult because it is a word with a number of syllables, just put it down! That product can no longer be considered food. Going through this process does take time and patience but it does give us control. Control over our health and wellness and that is absolutely priceless! So remember ACCEPTANCE is the beginning step towards regaining control so you can feel like yourself again! Do you feel like you need guidance on how to make improvements to your lifestyle and diet so you can feel better and be better? Feel free to reach out to me and we can talk. You health and happiness ALWAYS matters.