"Be careful to watch your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul needs through these eyes alone, and if they are weak, the whole world is clouded." -J. Wolfgang van Goethe
Everyone at some point or another has had a snack attack. Opinions on various snacks. Some feel snacking is bad and that eating between meals leads to weight gain. Others believe that eating many small meals and healthy snacks throughout the day to maintain energy and optimum weight distribution. If there was a possibilityof snacks, which was the right thing for everyone, we all do!
Snack Attack for the relief of guilt, trying to understand why it is best meals and snacks for your body. If you are snacking because it lacks your daily nutritional diet, or because you eat too little at meals and be hungry again? Or are you snacking on the nerves calm down or to entertain yourself when you're bored?
Although snacks are no substitute for loving life, can be a lot of energyBooster and a healthy way to fully nourished body - as long as you use a little 'common sense. Many convenient snacks are very elaborate and full of chemicals, additives, damaging fats and refined sugars. Try foods that are filling and satisfying, but also nutritious. Snack on things that do not come in a plastic bag or a box, like fresh fruit, vegetables or leftover rice cakes with almond butter and jam. Create your signature or munch on trail mix corn chipswith hummus.
You can also try to "upgrade". If you want something crunchy, upgrade from potato chips to raw carrots, apples, cabbage, baked potato or yam, and if you want a candy bar, a handful of nuts and dried fruits upgrade, but a cup of tea of coffee update Green instead of ice, an upgrade to apples with cinnamon. Updated snacks are high in nutrition and give you a greater sense of satiety and satisfaction, feel deprived not physically or psychologically,and you have lots of energy to maintain their activity for several hours straight.
Food Focus: Fruit
Meet by the use of fruit for our taste for sweets, we can leave behind the use of chemicals and refined sweeteners. The fruits are easily digestible, cleaning and cooling and are ideal for those who are overstressed and overheated. The fruits are fiber and liver stimulants, which act as a full natural, mild laxative. When possible, buy fresh, locally grown fruit, this keeps you eatSeason. According to this theory, the bodily functions best when in close contact with the seasons and climates, wherever we are aligned. A good way to see what is "local" and the season is to go to a farmer's market. (Www.localharvest.org is a site that will help you in your area.)
Eating raw fruit in summer months is very cool, neutralized with baking in the winter months, this cooling effect. Fruit in the form of juice is a good choice for cleaning the body, but areaware that juice rapidly increases the levels of sugar in the blood, which soon became a power-on crash. Frozen fruit or juice can treat summer cool-down. Try frozen grapes, banana-coconut smoothie popsicles or lime juice and fresh mint ice cubes in iced tea!
Here are a couple of summer fruits and their health benefits:
Apricots: Great for helping lung disease and asthma, used to treat anemia due to their high copper and cobalt.
Bananas: Help to lubricate the intestines,treat ulcers, detoxify the body, and manage sugar cravings; rich in potassium, which helps hypertension.
Cherries: Slightly warming in nature; increase overall body energy, remedy arthritis and rheumatism, and are rich in iron, which improves the blood.
Grapefruits: Treat poor digestion, increase appetite during pregnancy, alleviate intestinal gas and reduce mucus conditions of the lungs.
Papayas: Tone the stomach, act as digestive aid, moisten the lungs and alleviate coughing; contain carpaine, an anti-tumor compound.
Raspberries: Benefit the liver and kidneys, cleanse blood of toxins, regulate menstrual cycles, treat anemia and can promote labor at childbirth.
Recipe of the Month
Fruit Nut Smoothie
Prep time: 5 minutes
Serves: 2
Ingredients:
1 banana
1 cup soy or rice milk
1 cup berries
1 cup diced melon
1/2 cup almonds
2-4 ice cubes
Directions:
1. Mix in blender for 1-2 minutes and serve.
Optional: You can add other ingredients for added nutrition such as a spoon full of bee pollen, coconut oil, flax seed oil, spirulina powder or a scoop of protein powder.
More on Going out on a Limb
Stop for just a minute. If I were to ask you: What is the meaning of life? What would you say?
Interesting question to ponder, huh. One of my mentors asked me that not too long ago and quite honestly, I was amazed at my response. A few years ago this would not have been my answer. I said, the meaning of life is to LIVE IT! Sounds trite, doesn't it. Well, it had more meaning to me than that. I had an epiphany. It occurred to me I was indeed living my life, and in the present moment, for once. It was all-inclusive of every emotion from happy to sad, and a series of minutes and hours of being, doing, learning, and failing as best I knew how or until it passed. That was really living, and suddenly I felt free.
The meaning of life was no longer defined by my past and all my stories, rights and wrongs, haves and have-nots. It was right here and right now and so was I. Wow, what a concept. I also realized it wasn't something I tried hard to do, it was just the opposite. I fully allowed myself to experience each space I was in and it came be, and in that moment it revealed it self to me. I'll never forget it - it's now one of the top ten defining moments in my life. Maybe you can relate - has this ever happened to you ? What has been the defining moments in your life that have since shifted you into a new way of being?
Most of us walk around and live our lives with this knapsack on our back called our past. It comes in all shapes and sizes and some have more or less, but the fact of the matter is we ALL have some. And it shapes us, no doubt. But if we don't stop to put it down, look inside and investigate, it can take on a life of its own. Kind of like "the boogieman" when you were younger. Do you remember him? How could you forget, you might be saying! We all knew and were scared of the "boogieman". Most of us couldn't even relax or go to sleep until we felt reassured by our parents that we were safe and nothing was going to happen to us. We made them investigate it. We wanted proof. And once that happened we felt calmer, more safe and ready to move on. Right?
It's the same with our "stuff". If we don't investigate it and look inside, it becomes larger than it really is and stops us from moving forward, living our life, and becoming our true self. Yeah, it's scary to look inside, but what's more scary is what happens if we don't.
It's time to stop cheating the world and yourself out of the real, loving, and gifted YOU. There is no substitute for you. The world, your spouse, family and friends need you and all of you. If there is something you have wanted to do, be, or say, go ahead and get started today. It might not be easy but have you noticed that nothing worthwhile is - it involves risk which is scary. There are no guarantees, it conjures up doubt, fear of failure and puts us way out of our comfort zone, a place we'd rather not be. It happens to us ALL and is essentially the child in each of us who is afraid of the "boogieman". So give yourself some reassurance and find the people in your lives who make you feel good, support, encourage and cheer you on to become your best self!
The irony is, it is only through change that we really grow and start living. So, go ahead. Go out on that limb because that's where the fruit is! And how swwweeet it is!