Healthy Living Is Possible Even with a Busy Life

Over the past few months my best friend and I have been trying our best to get back in the swing of a healthier lifestyle. We meet up at least three times a week and work out, the meals we cook are lower in fat and higher in veggie content and I only have a few days left until I quit smoking forever. We are both very busy gals -- she has twin eight month old boys and their crazy schedules, I write all day -- so we struggled over how to fit a better lifestyle into our lives, but in the end we both decided the only way to do it was to simply do it!

Our workouts are not long but they are intense. During her boy’s morning nap we spend about a half hour on the rowing machine, recumbent bike, ball or Bowflex. This allows us to get a good heart rate going as well as burn off a few calories and tone at the same time without sacrificing any time with the kids or keyboard.

As far as food goes this has surprisingly been the simplest area of health for both of us. Since we are both the Reluctant Domestic Divas it was imperative that the addition of healthful meals was super simple; and it was! Each night she puts together a nice side salad full of yummies like baby spinach, carrots, tomatos and avocado as the main issue in their household was skipping veggies. For us dinner was not the problem but my food consumption over the course of the day had become lax. When I am inspired to write I tend to not leave the keyboard for hours at a time so I would grab things like entire boxes of Cheez-its for lunch. Now I have started getting back into the swing of making fruit smoothies for breakfast and accompany it with a piece of 12 grain toast and a multi-vitamin. My skin and hair has never looked so good! The extra few minutes it takes each of us to infuse our bodies with something better for us has made all the difference in ours and our husband’s attitudes towards food.

Although neither of us would ever claim to be health nuts or better living gurus it is obvious we both have a highly increased level of energy and are feeling so much better about ourselves; and it only takes about an hour a day total to bring about the change. The positive outlook keeps us motivated and it becomes a vicious circle of awesomeness! As the summer months arrive she will be walking more with the babies and I intend to up my workouts to include two days a week (at least) of yoga (great article here on how yoga helps with depression as well). Little steps everyday really add up quickly and I barely remember what I did with the time before pursuing this healthier lifestyle.

How long do you spend in a healthy way each day? What do you do for exercise?

Thinking Nothing but Healthy Thoughts

The tissues I received as the BBGG door prize were timely indeed, I have caught my first cold like something in well over two years and it has definitely knocked me out. It is difficult for a go-go gal like me to do nothing more than watch cheesy movies all day, to lie on my sofa and simply take care of myself. Sometimes the body has its own way of telling us to slow down however so today I am taking the hint.

I have been thinking all day about the ways I could tie my illness into an environmentally significant post -- touch on one of the comments I received regarding cloth hankies, the benefits of orange juice on the immune system or how I reduced my carbon footprint by not surfing the internet all day -- but in the end I want to do exactly what I have been advising friends and family that have caught various illnesses recently -- think healthy thoughts.

The power of our minds is just that, powerful. We have the ability to heal ourselves, acquire the things we want and do the things we want to do by focusing on them and allowing them to come to fruition. I am a firm believer in mind over matter and I imagine this is one of the main reasons why I have been exposed to many sick people this winter but have not yet caught anything myself; I live each day with the knowledge that I am simply a healthy person. This time I must laugh at the irony; my cold comes after literally a week of working from home, being exposed to virtually no one let alone a crop of sick people. As I lay here and type now I am visualizing myself up and around, starting yoga for the first time in a long time and enjoying swim class this upcoming Friday morning.

To see myself as healthy, breathing well and feeling no aches in my muscles makes me happy, it makes me feel like myself. With that feeling comes the knowledge that my body will do its best to cycle through this sickness and expel it quickly. I will do what I can to assist it by staying hydrated with juice, tea and water, eating bowlfuls of soup and taking it slow and steady so as not to aggravate any residual germs into a relapse. Then I will be again the person I know I am, healthy and happy.