The holidays can be a hard time of year for many of us! From all the celebrations, parties and get togethers with yummy food and drinks, it can wreak havoc on our bodies. This year, I’m sharing a few tips to help you enjoy the season and feel good!
There have been so many years where I’ve been like, whatever let me just enjoy, but I’ve paid the price. Now I work to enjoy my holidays without going off the rails with food and drinks. It’s made a big difference in my overall health and no reason to start the year off feeling like garbage. We want to be able to start the year off feeling good and ready for a new year!
One of the things you might not be doing is breathing. Now clearly you’re breathing, but are you taking time to deep breathe? To really pause and breathe in and breathe out? Probably not, and boy does this make a difference. It reduces your cortisol levels, and although cortisol is needed at different times for different things, living in a constant state of stress does not help your body at all and can cause you to retain weight that you might otherwise not.
Another thing you might not be doing is making the healthiest of food options. I know there are so many good foods to enjoy, but it’s important to get a few good things in your diet too! I know there are typically a bunch of foods around that aren’t so healthy for you, cue every holiday cookie and boozy drink that’s served at all the different events you might be attending.
You can bring your own food, you can choose the healthier option out of everything (think the salad that is served or those veggies that likely not as many people will be grabbing for). There’s also the trusted, take a few spoonfuls of everything and eat slowly and mindfully enjoying each bite-but this is often hard for people so I don’t always suggest it.
Lastly, you likely aren’t making a plan. Yup this can be annoying for sure but it truly can be really helpful when it comes to getting through the holidays without feeling like total garbage come January 1.
So what are you going to do next holiday to make it easier for your body?
Having a baby is a journey. There are so many emotions that bubble up during this time - feelings of excitement and joy, but also feelings of anxiety and worry! The #1 thing I reminded myself daily was that it’s a normal part of pregnancy and it’s okay to feel all the things. So many women experience different emotions and each pregnancy is different.
The anticipation of birth can have a lot of different feelings show up too. These ebbs and flows in emotions continues through that postpartum time too. Especially if it is your first pregnancy, you have a lot of feelings of unknown because you don’t know what to expect. In terms of postpartum though, when does it really end?
I looked it up one day because I was curious, and there are a lot of different opinions out there to say the least! Some say it lasts always because the definition of the word postpartum is "following childbirth or the birth of young".
Others say when your kids are young, like not yet in their teen years and still others look at it more being that first year of your little one's life being the postpartum time.
No matter what time you definite postpartum as, it's definitely still a different time period in your life than has ever happened before. I truly refer to postpartum as forever because you become a different person when you become a mom.
It is important to remember to give yourself grace, ask for help when you need it and remember to slow down long enough to take each moment of the journey in - the good, the bad, and the ugly! While you are in the thick of it, the days may seem long, but they say the years fly by! And most of all mama, you aren’t alone!
The changes your body goes through from pre-pregnancy to pregnancy to birth then postpartum can be vast and vary from person to person. No matter which phase you are currently in, it is important to recognize that your body is a literal superhero - taking all of these rapid changes in stride and syncing into a new rhythm.
When you’re pregnant your body is seriously is a superhero. (I had to say this many times during my pregnancy and during labor!)
I recently got a massage by a lovely gentleman who I hadn’t had a massage by since right before I found out I was pregnant and it made me think of how much my body has changed since then.
Every woman’s body recovers differently from pregnancy and birth, which sometimes can be hard to deal with. They say if you breastfeed you’ll burn extra calories and that will help you lose the weight but really it’s not as cut and dry as that.
There’s an idea of way back (think more of that live off the land times) that when you're breastfeeding your body holds onto extra weight to make sure that you have enough umph to continue to nourish your little one if things like famine or war come and you are not able to eat as often.
From the science perspective, the hormone prolactin released during breastfeeding tends to reduce the ability to lose weight in some women. This hormone is released every time you nurse and may contribute to weight gain, especially if you are prone to gaining weight anyway.
Knowing these aspects doesn't always make it easier to deal with the fact that I have not lost the 'baby weight' (which duh, this takes time) but I like to go searching for the why behind things to understand a little bit more of what might be going on in my body.
The one area I am most confident in is FOOD. It is not that I know everything (nobody does) but food has been one of my primary tools for healing and having a magical pregnancy (truly I enjoyed being pregnant like 99% of the time), and as I recently mentioned, a BIG deal when it comes to navigating the holidays.
If you find yourself overindulging during the holiday season and you’re looking for a better way to enjoy foods and feel good stick around, I recently put together a holiday food challenge and I will be doing these throughout the upcoming year so keep an eye out for the next one!
This week’s recipe is a simple one, but oh so important! Does anyone feel like during these months we’re just swatting germs away left and right? This thieves tea is amazing to drink to boost your immune system whether you’re sick or not. It’s a perfect tea to sip on a chilly night.
Grab your favorite warm beverage cup, some hot water, organic honey and your Young Living essential oils (the only ones I recommend for consumption!).
Add honey to the bottom of your cup, add two drops of thieves vitality, one drop of lemon vitality and top with hot water. Stir and enjoy!
This tea is packed with immune boosting support to keep you well this season of germs!
Do you ever take a moment to think about what’s in the products you use? Most often times we don’t, but they can have detrimental impacts on your overall health!
So many skincare products on the market today are just chemical filled garbage. Unfortunately, companies can throw so many different ingredients into a product and we don't even know what it is, some of them are pretty alarming.
They don't even have to disclose it all and can mark it under "fragrance" and claim it's a "trade secret." The worst part is that this is perfectly legal and is a loophole for companies to not have to disclose what is in their product.
So what you put on your skin really matters?! Yes! I harp on this and for good reason!
The average woman applies hundreds of different chemical compounds on her body, just before 9AM (think that morning shower, face ‘care’ routine, make up routine) and then it keeps on going - lotion, hand sanitizer, washing your hands every time you go to the bathroom (you do that right?) and the list goes on!
So why the big problem?
Well unfortunately many products out there have some pretty alarming ingredients.
Things like:
- Formaldehyde, a known carcinogen
- Mercury, which can damage the kidneys and nervous system
- Dibutyl and diethylhexyl phthalates, which disrupt hormones and damage the reproductive system
These are just a few harmful ingredients and these aren’t even the full spectrum. With an autoimmune disease it is even more important to pay attention to these as our bodies tend to be more sensitive to it all.
The #1 thing I look for when I’m purchasing a new product is to look for the word “fragrance” in the ingredients list. If it’s listed at all, I’ll move onto the next! Believe it or not, there are companies out there that don’t use it. You just have to be mindful of which ones.
Do you know what’s in your products?
