Thank you to everyone for entering the draw. Marcia won with comment #1 tonight!

Introducing A Conscious Box

Totally new to me too. So here’s the deal. Its a box. Yep. Just like that. This one comes to your door once a month, based on a subscription plan. It is full of an assortment of products and you get them without having to do anything. Seriously. (Dude! As my daughter would say.)

Why?

A. Lets you explore companies worthy of your patronage without having to do ANY research! Or shopping. Or leaving your pj’s. These companies and products are all ethical and purpose driven (as opposed to financially driven), environmentally friendly, pure and natural.

B. Saves time – set it and forget it! Until the little box arrives, at which time you eagerly explore each item and hide the chocolate before the kids get home to claim it!

For example – MARCH – from the website: “In the upcoming box for March, you’ll discover super-powered Spring boosts, delicious snacks and goodies, and useful tools and tips to help with spring cleaning projects.”

Free Sample?

You’d think this would be a pretty expensive endeavor – but I was surprised to see that it is only $20/month! PLUS – for one of my readers – you can win a 3 month subscription! This is open to residents of the US only – sorry! (Next one’s for CA too!)

To win:

• Head to ConsciousBox.com and create a profile! When selecting a box, just select the Gluten Free selection (or Vegan)
• Head to Facebook.com/ConsciousBox and tell them I sent you!! If ALL of you go there – I’ll get a shout-out too!
• Like and/or share their FB page as your conscience dictates.

Good luck!

Disclosure: I may receive payment or goods for my review. But all opinions are my own. 

It’s that time of year again when we sweep out the old and sweep in the new. For many people that includes a renewed commitment to health. This week we are having a discussion about Sugar.

Over the last thirty years, we were led to believe that fat consumption was the reason we gained weight and developed heart disease. Do you remember the “fat-free craze?” It seemed that suddenly every product on the shelf was “fat-free” and we all bought them, including myself, “Well of course I would like the fat-free version, that would be healthier right?” During those three decades, fat got a bad reputation and we welcomed anything onto our plates that was low fat or fat-free.

Unfortunately, we are now experiencing the backlash of going “fat-free”. The American population is struggling with obesity more now than ever before. Heart disease is still the number one killer in the United States and more of us are developing diabetes each year. We really didn’t understand the difference between good and bad fats, and the role that sugar plays on our health.

All food is broken down into fat, protein, or sugar in the body. Knowing this it then makes sense that if we remove the fat from a product we would increase either the sugar or protein content. A good example is frozen yogurt. Most frozen yogurt available is either low fat or fat-free. This is because the public thinks it is a healthier choice than ice cream and consumption is up. By reducing the fat content in yogurt, the sugar content is increased.

Weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, fatty liver, high triglycerides are all the result of excess sugar in our systems.

Excess sugar in the body is handled in one of three ways:

• Converted into immediate energy
• Stored in the liver
• Converted to fat

There are three main types of sugar in our diet.

*Fructose – natural sugar found in fruit, corn, and refined into high fructose corn syrup.

*Glucose – sugar found in grains, and some fruit

*Sucrose – white table sugar (which is a combination of glucose and fructose)

All sugar has adverse effects when consumed in excessive amounts, and some people are more sensitive to its effects than others which can result in one person eating a few servings of fruit a day on a healthy diet and losing weight and another not losing a pound.

When we eat sugar it sends our insulin levels soaring. Insulin, produced from the pancreas is called the fat-storing hormone because it decides if food will be burned as fuel or stored as fat. High insulin levels have been linked over the last 25 years to heart disease and type II diabetes.

For many women, the key to losing weight is controlling your insulin. By reducing or eliminating the foods that spike your insulin, you train your body to burn off your stored fat for energy.

Some people think only those with diabetes need to keep tabs on their insulin levels, but high insulin levels can have negative effects on everyone’s health.

Here are some food changes you can make to help keep your levels in check:

Reduce sugar and refined carbohydrates. High insulin levels= body insulation. Insulin is the fat-storing hormone. Eliminate foods high in sugar to prevent insulin spikes.  This includes, white sugar, high fructose corn syrup, honey, molasses, refined carbohydrates. Refined carbohydrates turn to sugar upon digestion, such as white bread, pasta, and rice. Choose whole grain carbohydrates, beans and lentils that are lower on the glycemic index. This is especially important if you have a family history of diabetes.

Fruit and vegetables can be filling due to their high water and fiber content. It also takes longer to chew these items leading to a feeling of fullness. Remember, fruit is broken down into fructose so I recommend eating more vegetables, and sticking with the low glycemic fruits for weight loss. (Apples, pears, berries, cherries)

Eat foods that contain good fats and healthy protein. Both fat and protein help to balance sugar spikes in the body. Fat does not make us fat!

Healthy fats are found in nuts, seeds, avocado, flax, chia, olive oil, grape-seed oil, fish oils, and raw coconut oil.

While it is more popular with women than men, both sexes do Pilates exercises, and they can be extremely beneficial. Pilates can’t completely take the place of other types of exercises, but it can be part of a full workout regimen.

What is Pilates?

Pilates is a type of exercise that works to build flexibility and muscle strength throughout the body.

Like many cardiovascular exercises, Pilates is a full-body workout that exercises a variety of muscles, including the legs, hips, back and abdominal muscles.

The major focus of Pilates movements is on breathing and body alignment.

By learning Pilates movements and repeating them, many people find that they have an increased range of motion and an overall higher level of physical fitness.

The History of Pilates

Pilates was developed in 1883, and it is actually based on the principles of corrective exercise, a term coined by Pehr Ling earlier in the 19th century.

Pilates garnered quite a bit of attention in the 1930s and 1940s, but then fell out of favor with the general public until its resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s.

While Pilates fell out of favor with the general public for decades, many people continued to do the exercises. Pilates has always been popular with ballet dances that need proper body alignment and control to perform at a high level.

What Are Pilates Exercises Like?

Pilates exercises vary in type. Typically, people that first start out doing Pilates begin with bodyweight exercises on an exercise mat that focus on spinal alignment.

Beginners Pilates movements are not generally too strenuous, and most people can perform with relative ease, though it does take some time to get the movements down for some.

Intermediate and advanced Pilates adds resistance – usually with the aid of resistance bands instead of machines.

As students of Pilates progress, they often increase the amount of resistance they use during their workout by swapping low-resistance bands with ones that aren’t as easy to stretch, making their muscles and body work harder to complete the exercise. In some forms of Pilates, other devices like foam rollers, exercise balls and weighted balls are used to make the movements more difficult, making the exercise more effective.

Typically, Pilates classes are described as either authentic, classic or modern. Authentic or classic Pilates classes stick to resistance bands and body weight exercises. Modern Pilates often employs the aforementioned additional equipment.

Benefits of Pilates

Pilates can help to tighten your body, giving you a leaner look by helping you build muscle – but not the type of muscle you’d build by lifting heavy weights. Pilates helps to form lean muscle, which is part of the reason it’s popular with women, who don’t usually want to build very big muscles.

Pilates can also increase your overall conditioning, and many athletes do Pilates in addition to their regular training routine. Pilates can simply make you healthier, and day-to-day tasks like walking with your dog, playing with your child or running up the stairs can become easier. Pilates can also help you strengthen your body for endurance sports like marathon running.

Along with building muscle and conditioning, Pilates can help you lose weight. Low-intensity Pilates won’t burn a ton of calories, but high-intensity Pilates can easily burn 300 to 400 calories per hour.

Hybrid Forms

Hybrid forms of Pilates are becoming more and more common. Gyms are teaching classes with unique names like “yogilates” – a form of exercise that combines the movements of Pilates and Yoga. Some gyms even combine high-intensity cardiovascular exercises with Pilates movements.

Pilates & Eat to Live

Many people that are looking to change their overall health find that Pilates is a helpful activity when paired with a well-balanced diet like the Eat to Live diet, which is designed to help you live a healthy lifestyle by cutting out addictive high-fat and high-calorie foods.

Pilates was designed in part to help with mental discipline, and some people find that making practical lifestyle choices about what they eat through the Eat to Live diet becomes much easier when combined with an exercise routine.

Pilates is designed to teach you to how to build the greatest amount of strength and bring about a high level of health by just using your own body. As with any exercise plan, any form of pilates is a great compliment to the Eat to Live diet.

Author Bio

Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer in Los Angeles, specializing in articles on beauty, health, and well being with a focus on exercise, and healthy hair and skin

[Cathy: Stress and anxiety are parts of living.  And with the fast pace of our lives, it is more-so than ever before.  

Add to that unhealthy lifestyles full of office jobs, chauffeuring kids around (on our rumps), cheerings kids on (on our rumps again), cooking something that fits into everyone’s schedule (half-prepared at best, fast-food drive through on ‘those’ days) and we have a recipe for disaster… a slow physical/mental/spiritual health head-on collision.

Although I haven’t written much about my own collision of 2012 it was a biggie. And Ryan of CalmClinic.com contacted me awhile ago about letting you know about a resource he’s put together.

He’s not a doctor so as with most information from the web – it is for your information only. But I think it provides a quick, easy-to-navigate and truthful resource on options when the stress/anxiety of life is actually impacting your quality of life and ability to function. ]

——————————————————-

Going through life and having to deal with stress and anxiety along the way can make everything so much harder. Most of the time, we choose to just live with it instead of acting on it. Sooner or later, we will feel its negative effects on our health. Constantly being stressed and anxious will do no good for your mind and body. That said, consider getting anxiety treatment, but go for one that you can do on your own. It’s quite simple: live a healthy life and see how it can help you deal with your problems.

Eat healthy

People tend to forget that there is an easy and natural way to combat stress and anxiety – that is to eat healthy. Most of the time, people choose for quick fixes like binge-eating or drinking, just to make themselves feel good when they’re down in the dumps. Why waste your money on these activities when you can choose to spend it on things that will benefit both your mental and physical health? Start eating right and see how it can help you feel better about yourself. The fulfillment of doing something good for yourself will ease those feelings of worry and frustration, so it’s high time to get around to doing it.

There’s nothing wrong with indulging yourself when you feel blue, and you can always do it occasionally just to lighten your mood. Still, I personally found that the best solution to your anxiety problems is following a pattern of eating healthy by getting the right kind of food, nutrients, and servings on a regular basis. It did wonders for my mood and my energy, and I started feeling better. Invest your efforts in making it a habit and see how it can change your life.

Exercise

When we’re stressed or anxious, we have all these pent-up emotions and energy (often negative) that we just have to release. One of the best ways to release this energy and turn it into something positive is through exercise. I found that exercise not only allows you to clear your mind when you are fighting off all those ill thoughts, it also lets you relax and let go of all your emotions for a while as you concentrate on getting fit and healthy.

Go for a jog, take your bike out for a ride, or go to the gym. If you’re feeling feisty, take up boxing or a mixed martial art. Try out anything that you think will do you good both physically and mentally. I was able to get rid of those negative feelings by channeling my energy into something that will get my body moving, so that I didn’t have much time to wallow in it. Exercise regularly and give yourself a schedule. Follow it and track your progress. Not only will you feel better and lighter mentally more often, you will also notice the positive effects on your body physically.

You owe it to Yourself

People sometimes forget that their best option in combating stress and anxiety are actually habits that they should actually be doing in the first place. Start eating healthy and living healthy and see what it can do to help ease your worries and frustrations. You owe it to yourself to eliminate the negative energy to be able to function better, so make it a point to eat right and exercise. You will slowly be able to shun those ill thoughts and start seeing things in a new light.