Healthy Fruit Snacks – Strawberry Lemonade Hearts

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Healthy fruit snacks are easy to make at home. When we make our own healthy fruit snacks we know exactly what we are eating. We can avoid ingredients like HFCS that are in so many store bought fruit snacks. The best part is that we can make any flavor we want. Want healthy fruit snacks that are blueberry flavor? Substitute blueberry puree for the strawberry in the recipe or use a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice for orange flavored healthy fruit snacks. Feel good about sharing these healthy fruit snacks, these hearts are full of love.

Healthy Fruit Snacks  Healthy Fruit Snacks

What You’ll Need:
1 cup pureed organic strawberries
1/3 cup organic lemon juice
2 tablespoons raw honey
3 envelopes grass feed gelatin or Knox gelatin, unflavored

What You’ll Do:
To puree the strawberries, place them in a blender on high. No need to add water, the juice in the strawberries is enough. Over low heat mix the strawberry puree, lemon juice and honey together. Slowly add the gelatin powder into the mixture whisking constantly until dissolved. Avoid adding all the gelatin at once as the mixture will become clumpy. Place the molds on a baking sheet so it is easier to move from the counter to the freezer. Pour the mixture into a spouted measuring cup for easy distribution into your silicone molds. Put the fruit snacks in the freezer for 10 minutes. Remove and pop the fruit snacks out of the mold. Place in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

 

Healthy Fruit Snacks*We suggest using organic products. Strawberries are on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list. Sixty-five different pesticides, fungicides and herbicides are registered for use on strawberries in the US. Strawberries have been found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program to have up to 45 pesticide residues in the fruit on average. Pesticides can have harmful effects on the body and can accumulate in the body over time. For more information on the Dirty Dozen visit ewg.org

Home Remedies For Acne

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The foods we consume have an impact on our internal health as well as our external appearance. When we eat healthy whole foods, we are providing the body with the building blocks it needs to stay vibrant and youthful at any age. The occasional blemish is the bodies way of pushing out built up toxins. The business of treating acne is a huge revenue stream for cosmetic companies. Home remedies for acne can be made for pennies. Try these whole food remedies.

Home Remedies For Acne

Garlic is anti-bacterical and when we rub it on a blemish it reduces redness. It probably is not something you want to rub on your face before going out on a date, however it does work.

Honey is great for all sorts of skin aliments including acne, cuts, scraps, and minor irritation as it is anti-bacterial and it calms the skin promoting recovery of the skin.

Lemon is a great cleanser. When we drink lemon water, not only are we hydrating our skin, we detox the body from the inside out. Lemon is also great at exfoliating the skin; it acts as an anti-inflammatory and it’s an anti-oxidant. Lemon juice can reduce the appearance of sun spots when applied to the skin over time.

Egg whites are also great for the skin. Separate the yolk from the egg whites. Dab the egg whites on problem areas and let dry; you’ll want to allow 30 minutes for egg whites to work the magic of minimizing the pores. Rinse and go about your day.

Tea tree oil is disinfecting and soothing as it will not strip your skin of its natural oils. Use a Q-Tip dipped in tea tree oil and dab it directly on acne. Leave the oil on for a couple of hours, or over night to reduce redness and swelling.

Home Remedies For Acne : Face Masks

Hydrating masks are suggested twice a week. A mixture of papaya and pineapple will create vibrant skin. The enzymes in these fruits eat away the dead skin creating naturally glowing skin.

Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to 1 tablespoon of yogurt and mix well. Apply the mixture to your face and let it dry. Keep the mask on for a total of 20 minutes and then rinse it off.

Many of the products on the market have toxic chemicals in them that the average consumer cannot even pronounce. I have made it a rule not to place anything on my body that I cannot pronounce or could not eat. These whole food ingredients are chemical free and revitalizing to our skin. We can heal our blemishes naturally with these home remedies for acne.

 

 

How To Burn Fat Quickly

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There is no mystery on how to burn fat quickly, the equation is simple. We must burn more calories than we consume. When we hit our ideal weight we want to maintain it and avoid the yo-yo dieting. Let’s be clear that weight is a poor indicator of health. What our focus is, is living well. So to be healthy we have to make living well a lifestyle. If we are keeping track avoid the scale, it can taunt us with lies of health. Instead, we want to use body measurements to track our weight loss success. A good measure of success is how we feel.

Here are 7 tips on How To Burn Fat Quickly:

  • Water– Drink half your body weight in clean purified water daily. (Example: A person weighting 140 pounds needs to drink 70 ounces of water daily). Dehydration can be masked by hunger pangs. When we feel hungry it is possibly our body is crying out for hydration. Have a big glass of water and wait 20 minutes before eating. Increasing our water intake is also a great way to keep things moving in the body, this includes moving toxins out of the body.
  • Be a mindful eater– Always sit down to eat at a table, set a place for yourself and free the area of clutter. Chew food well to aid in the digestion process, inhaling foods is not good for us on many fronts.
  • Do not drink your calories– We can add hundreds of calories daily by drinking soda, juices and other sugary drinks. Let’s not fool ourselves in thinking that if we drink “diet” drinks we are okay, “diet” drinks are actually worse for our health and they can make us gain weight. Make water the beverage of choice.
  • Make it look bigger– Use a smaller plate. This one tip can trick our mind into thinking we are eating more food than we actually are. When we finish the plate of food allow 20 minutes of rest before going to get seconds, typically we won’t want another serving. If we have a big piece of meat that can be split between two meals, cut the portion lengthwise so the portion appears to be bigger than it looks. Remember to always fill half the plate with veggies. Practice eating healthy serving sizes.
  • Spice it up– Spicy foods increase the metabolism and trick the taste buds into being more satisfied with smaller amounts.
  • Practice kind-sight– We must be kind to ourself as we change our habits. The habits we have spent our whole life creating will not change over night. If you have an off day, don’t beat yourself up simply acknowledge the error and commit to doing better next time the temptation arises.
  • Exercise– If we want to burn more calories than we consume each day we have to get up and move. Exercise is vital to a healthy body. If we have not exercised in awhile start by taking a 20 minute walk after dinner with a friend or loved one. Going for a walk can clear the mind while getting the blood flowing to the muscles and organs in the body.

What are your favorite tips on How To Burn Fat Quickly? We want to celebrate your success, share them with us in the comments.

Click here to learn more on How To Burn Fat Quickly with our 30 day wellness challenge. 

 

How To Burn Fat Quickly

 

 

How To Detox Your Body

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When we bring up cleansing the body the first question typically centers around how to detox our body. However, we should first know why it is important to detox the body through cleansing. Let’s break down the who, what, why and how to detox your body. Detoxing not only changes your body. It changes your mind, mood and attitude.

How To Detox Your Body

What are toxins?
Toxins are poisonous substances that build up in the body overtime. Toxins are produced by the body, they come from the food we eat, the water we drink, environmental factors, chemicals used in everyday products or even through the air we breathe. Toxins bombard us daily. Toxins are processed by the body through organs like the kidneys and liver. They are eliminated through sweating, urination or defecation. When these factors overload our body toxic waste builds up.

What Is A Detox?
Detoxing is the process of removing unhealthy substances from the body for a specified amount of time. Our bodies are an amazing vehicle of healing. Every second of everyday the body is cleansing each cell, organ and system so that it can function optimally. During the detoxification process the body neutralizes harmful toxins and excretes them from the body. Detoxing occurs naturally in the body. We can aid the bodies efficiency in removing stagnant toxins through yearly cleansing.

Why Is It Important To Detox?
A build up of toxins in the body can lower our energy levels as the body works extra hard to rid the toxins that weight it down. If we are looking to shed some pounds it is vital to learn how to detox your body. The body stores toxins in adipose tissue (fat cells). When excess toxins build up in the body we often gain weight . The body encapsulates the toxin to remove the toxin from circulation and protect our vital organs. As we detox and the the weight begins to fall off we must be sure to effectively clear the toxins out of the body. For our body to effectively release the weight it is holding on to we must detox the body. This is why is it important to know how to detox your body.

Who Should Do A Detox:
Anyone who desires more energy, increased health and vitality.

How Do I Detox:
There are many detoxifying cleanses out there we could do such as a whole body food cleanse, colon cleanse, a liver & gall bladder cleanse, there’s the Master cleanse, candida cleanses, the list could go on and on. There are a lot of cleanses out there. The question is what sort of cleanse do you need to do? Most people start with a full body cleanse. Joining our Wellness Challenge is a great first step to detoxing the body. Set yourself up for success with future targeted detoxes by doing this simple challenge.

7 Tips On How To Detox Your Body

  • KIS-Keep It Simple. We can begin cleansing by changing our diet. This means eliminating and adding foods that aid the body in the detoxification process which we outline in our Wellness Challenge.  Click here to join our Wellness Challenge.
  • Drink lots of water-We want to be sure to drink plenty of water daily. Water is a great detoxifier of the body and aides the body in eliminating stored toxins. We need to be drinking half our body weight in ounces of fresh, purified water daily. (Example: A person weighting 140 pounds needs to drink 70 ounces of water daily).
  • Refrain from eating processed foods and eat more fresh foods.
  • Increase our fiber intake. We should be pooping 1-3 times a day to ensure we’re properly removing toxins.
  • Get moving-Exercise helps eliminate toxins through sweating and stimulates the lymphatic system. (Our lymphatic system is like the garbage men who takes away the built up toxic trash). Exercise can also get us going by stimulating the bowel.
  • Frequent a dry sauna-The intense sweating you can enjoy in the sauna pushes the kidneys into detoxification mode and can clear out one-third of the toxic material from your blood stream.
  • Dry brushing– Dry brushing increases blood flow, circulation and enhances detoxification through the skin. Click here to learn more about dry brushing.

Are there side effects to detoxing?
As the body flushes toxins out initially people may feel nauseas, body aches, congestion, head aches, diarrhea, rashes or flu-like symptoms. Don’t let this freak you out, push through, you are getting healthier everyday and your body is getting stronger as we proactively release our toxic overload.

How often should I detox:
It really depends on the individual and what underlying issues we may be dealing with. As a healthy adult I personally cleanse twice a year. Before beginning a cleanse be sure to consult a professional.

For more information on How To Detox Your Body or specific cleanses contact us. 

Contact

I would love to hear from you!

 

Add these foods to your diet to aid in detoxing the body daily.

How To Detox Your Body

Our New Years Wellness Challenge

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CLICK here to join our

New Years Wellness Challenge 

It’s New Years Resolution time!  If you’re like most Americans you want to get healthy and shed some pounds.  This New Years Wellness Challenge is for you.

It’s FREE so there are no excuses, join the New Years Wellness Challenge now.

Starting January 1st you will receive 1 email a week with a ton of great info which will boost your motivation to live a healthier life for the next 30 days.

Check out our 10 tips to boosting your metabolism

CLICK here to join our

New Years Wellness Challenge

 

GOALS of our New Years Wellness Challenge:

  • Our New Years Wellness Challenge creates abundance and a positive attitude through affirmations.
  • This New Years Wellness Challenge promotes healthy eating habits through simple lifestyle changes that have a huge impact on our health.
  • As part of our New Years Wellness Challenge we will be sending you healthy delicious recipes and meal plans to try at home.
  • Learn stress management strategies during our New Years Wellness Challenge.
  • Outlined in our New Years Wellness Challenge is: How to read food labels and recognize artificial ingredients/preservatives in our food.
  • Review why supplementing with real food technology is important for our wellness.

The first 100 people to sign up and complete our 30 day New Years Wellness Challenge will receive our cookbook Skinny Girls Don’t Diet for FREE just pay the shipping and handling.*

Why should you do a 30 day New Years Wellness Challenge?

Because it’s designed to help you improve your health and keep you motivated to keep those New Years Resolutions.

We are here to support you, answer any questions you may have and be your biggest cheerleader on this journey.

Invite your friends and family to join our New Years Wellness Challenge.                         

I am excited to be on this journey with you!

 

 CLICK here to join our New Years Wellness Challenge starting January 1st 

 

  You may also enjoy our blog on Healthy Holiday Eating

 

*Shipping & Handling is $5.00 USD and we will only ship this offer within the U.S.
Your participation in the program is voluntary and on the honor system.

DIY Toilet Bowl Cleaner

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Germs seem to lurk everywhere. In order to stay healthy and keep momma happy it is important to keep our living and work spaces clean. Many of the cleaning products that we use on a daily basis are harmful to our health and our environment. We love you to much not to touch on DIY Easy Homemade Cleaners In a previous blog post we have covered the easy homemade cleaners:

With these recipes you can feel good knowing you are not exposing your friends and family to toxic chemicals and they are way less expensive. Today we want to give you a recipe for DIY Toilet Bowl Cleaner

DIY Toilet Bowl Cleaner

What you will need:

  • 1/2 cup baking soda
  • 1/2 cup white vinegar

What you do:

Combine the baking soda and white vinegar in the toilet. Close the lid. Clean the rest of the bathroom with our simple all purpose cleaner. Use the toilet brush to scrub the toilet bowl. Flush the toilet after scrubbing. Viola, you have a sparkling, clean toilet bowl.

What Is Reflexology

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Reflexology is a healing modality which is used around the world. Today it is classified as alternative medicine. Many cultures consider this ancient practice a natural healing art. The premise of reflexology is the application of appropriate pressure to specific points along the meridian of the feet, hands or ears. These points correlate with the organs and systems of the body. By applying pressure to these points, there is a benefit to the specific organ being targeted as well as promoting general health. Reflexology stimulates the immune system, promotes circulation, reduces stress and increases energy. No medical claims can be made in regard to reflexology, to do so would be illegal; it is not intended to treat cure or mitigate any medical condition. However, many people report positive results with this treatment. Try reflexology for yourself; it feels amazing and you may just reap some health benefits.

Types of Reflexology:

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Honey Popsicles

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Honey is good for so many reasons. Our fruity honey popsicles are one of many reason we love honey. Honey is known for its anti-inflammatory properties. It gives the body sustainable energy so it is great to eat before a workout or for after workout recovery. Honey can boost the immune system and helps alleviate sore throats and coughs. Honey is great for moisturizing the skin and can help heal skin abrasions. It also aides digestive disorders and regulates blood sugar.

Feel good about eating honey, especially these honey popsicles because they are delicious!

Honey Popsicles

What You’ll Need:

2 1/4 cups water
3/4 cups honey
3 cups assorted fruit, cut into small pieces
12 paper cups (3-oz.) or popsicle molds
12 popsicle sticks

What You’ll Do:

Whisk together water and honey in a pitcher until well blended. Place 1/4 cup fruit in each mold. Divide honey-water mixture between cups. Freeze about 1 hour or until partially frozen. Insert popsicle sticks; freeze until firm and ready to serve.

 

Cultured Foods Promote A Healthy Gut

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“Yogurt, sauerkraut, kim chi and other fermented foods, we use these foods to help us with good digestion as they replenish the good bacteria that colonize our intestinal tract” – Daniel Vitalis

Fermented foods introduce helpful probiotics to our guts. There are tons of possible benefits to adding probiotics (whether by supplement or by fermented foods) to your body, including protection from colon cancer, relief from lactose intolerance, diarrhea, reduction in cavities and helps prevent inflammatory bowel disease. So many illnesses begin in the gut so it is important to introduce healthy bacteria into your diet daily.

Cultured foods help to repopulate the digestive tract, help the body to be more alkaline, and greatly decrease cravings for sweets or deserts. Cultured foods are “super foods” because they are partially digested, so the nutrients are readily available with little work for your body. Cultured foods actually add to the enzyme stores of your body. In addition, they help restore balance if your body is in a toxic, acidic condition. Besides providing an abundance of friendly bacteria, these enzyme- rich foods are a high-quality, alkaline, expansive food, which balances out the foods that make us crave acid- forming sugars.

Implementation: Add probiotic producing foods to your diet, your gut will thank you.

Affirmation: I am in charge of my own perspective and I have the power to change it, even though I may not have the power to change external events.

Dominate Social Media

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We live in the information age and things move quickly. With the evolution of social media, we have the ability to reach people like never before. The key to dominate social media is to be consistent because people do business with those they know, like and trust. We have but a split second to capture a potential customer’s attention. Here are some tips I have learned along the way to make navigating Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest a little easier. dominate social media

Each platform gives you the opportunity to share your ‘why’ in the form of a brief bio. This is your chance to connect with your audience. Be sure to include who you are, what you do and how it brings value for the other person. Keep your bio short and to the point. Your bio should include a link back to your personal website for more info. Make sure your website lists all of your social media handles so people can easily find you. dominate social media

Social media outlets are the most influential platforms of the century. Having a profile is not enough. Building rapport with other organizations and honing strategic partnerships can explode your business. dominate social media

Dominate Social Media

Target your market. It is important to know your ideal customer and trust me its not everyone. Are you looking to capture organizations, a particular age demographic or a niche market? Targeting your market does not mean excluding people that do not fit your criteria from buying from you. It is a guide to allow you to focus on the people that are mostly likely to buy your product and share it with others, building your customer base. dominate social media

Social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest have changed the game for search engines. They have introduced additional social search signals that can be used for ranking content to your target audience. Social search refers to search engines using signals such as the number of social media shares of a link to determine how that link ranks for a given keyword.

There demographic of Facebook‘s 1.28 billion monthly users is vast. If you want to reach 15-34 year olds they are most active on Facebook from 9-10pm so post during those times. Keep posts short, 27% more sharing happens when a post is three lines or less. We want people to repost our info to friends so keep on point. One liners typically get the best response rates. People want to be engaged so ask questions that create conversation. If you post outside normal business hours which are considered from 9-4 there is a 20% increase in engagement. Fridays are the highest traffic days on Facebook, so it’s a great day to post. Comment on other pages where your target audience is already having conversations, lay the ground work and build rapport. If you host live events, post lots of photos and encourage your friends/followers to tag themselves. When they tag themselves, they will voluntarily be sharing your content with their friends causing a ripple affect. A great way to increase traffic to your page is by offering a special or exclusive offer; the sky is the limit on this. Ads are becoming more widely used on this platform. Slowly, Facebook will increase advertising including: full-motion video ads and image ads on its Instagram photo-sharing service. dominate social media

Twitter is great as you get up to the minute info; it could be called the ‘real time social networking’ site. A key to Twitter is to tweet in intervals. All tweets have to to be 140 charters or less. Engaging others through replying to their tweets builds your community. While it is great to follow lots of people and hone valuable information on Twitter, you must also grow your own base of followers. This is known as your Twitter reach. To make your tweets as visible as possible, avoid putting @USERNAME in the very beginning of your tweets. Adding the @USERNAME to the very beginning will make your tweet viewable only in the Twitter streams of people who follow you and the user to whom you’re tweeting. Hashtags are widely used on Twitter as well. A ‘#tag’ makes searching key words easy. You can dominate a hashtag so that when people search a key word your brand is the first to be featured. Selecting a hashtag for your own event will be beneficial in a couple of ways: During the event, people often use the hashtag while live-tweeting, i.e. tweeting what they see/hear in real-time. The hashtag will tag and aggregate the event’s tweets, building an online conversation around the event. Make your tweets useful resources so people need you. You are what you tweet. People will want to follow you if they think they will get value from your tweets. Avoid making your Twitter account a purely promotional tool. The goal is to get people to your personal page and viewing your products. Make a decision on how much time you want to devote to this platform as it can be a time-sucking activity.

Twitter is redesigning its profile and soon it will look like a merger of Facebook and Pinterest. Twitter has announced it will be gradually making changes to the timeline, mobile updates and they will have bigger photos. There are also rumors of the imminent death of @-replies and hashtags. Users will be able to pin or highlight key pieces of information to the profile of your newsfeed. We will now be able to add multiple photos to the platform and tag up to 10 people in these photos.

I didn’t know this until recently: Pinterest is the 4th largest traffic driver worldwide. People spend more money on Pinterst then any of the other social media sites. On average people will spend $68 on Twitter, $80 on Facebook and $179 on Pinterest. People use Pinterest to shop and buy online. The difference is that 70% of people on this platform are looking for brands and products. Many think it’s about moms (the average Pinterest user is 35-50) at home finding projects to do, but having a presence on Pinterest can effectively spread the word about your business. In fact, 80% of the content on Pinterest is repinned, which means your message could go viral quickly. The key with Pinterest is to create content unique to the Pinterest platform which will increase brand visibility and get more sales. Info-graphics, checklists, tutorials, teaser text-which drives traffic back to your site and videos are the most shared on Pinterest. Early morning or late at night is the best time to post to your page. The most people are on Pinterest Saturday mornings. dominate social media

I understand this can be a lot to digest and you may be thinking, who has time for all this? If you are doing all of these, an easy way to manage all of your sites in one place is through HooteSuite. They offer a free program to maximize your presence on social media and cut the time you spend daily on each site. It is better to do one thing really well then to do three things in a mediocre fashion. If taking on multiple social media sites feels daunting, start with one and master it; you can always expand your reach. You can see now how important it is to know your customer, what they need and where you can find them to connect. Now let’s share something we learned here with a friend on one of these social media platforms! dominate social media

Resources: dominate social media
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest

dominate social media