Container Gardens for Healthy Living

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Tips from a Pro to Help Get You Started

Growing your own food is about as intentional as it gets when it comes to connecting your mind, body and nutrition. There’s just something about planting a seed or a starter plant, caring for it, watching the vegetables, fruit or herbs emerge from what you planted, harvesting and then eating it that’s about as fulfilling as anything you can imagine. I grew up with a Dad who only knew how to garden the Texas way, which meant that we always had a HUGE garden that could feed us plus our neighbors if needed. While I can’t say I appreciated picking beans out in the hot summer sun as much as I probably should have, as an adult, I’ve certainly gotten back to my roots and truly understand the value of what he was doing for us and teaching us to do for ourselves – even in my little slice of suburbia as compared to the farm I grew up on.

While my entire property isn’t as large as my dad’s garden was, I have learned that it is possible to grow food in whatever space you have – whether it’s a backyard, a patio, a deck or a screened-in porch. That’s where container gardens come in. They make it so that growing our own food – at least to some extent – is something we can all do no matter our income or space limitations. Because Bountiful Backyards specializes in edible landscaping, I went to Operations Manager Keith Shaljian to find out how we can fuel our health with container gardens and to get some tips on how to get started.

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Courtesy: Bountiful Backyards

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Spring Cleaning for Your Health

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8 Tips and Tricks to Make Spring Cleaning Easier

It’s Spring! And that means it’s time to breathe some freshness into our homes and our lives by getting the winter out and letting the spring in. This is important for the cleanliness of our homes as well as for our physical health and mental wellbeing. But for many of us, spring cleaning is one of our least favorite tasks to do. That’s why professional organizer Jenna Fischer with The Arranged Abode is offering some tips and tricks to make spring cleaning easier and more enjoyable. Yes, you read that right – enjoyable.

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Photo by raw pixel.com from Pexels

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Understanding the Dangers of Belly Fat

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4 Keys to Taking Control of Your Waistline and Your Health

As women, we often tell ourselves and have often been told that belly fat is just part of what happens to us as we start to get older. Another thing we hear is that it’s a superficial issue, and we should learn to accept ourselves the way we are – that only teenagers don’t have a little flab around the middle. While fitness instructor, nutritional expert, mind-body serenity coach and author Adita Lang says that she’s all for women loving and accepting themselves, it’s false to think that belly fat has to be an inevitable and relatively harmless fact of aging. In fact, Adita is 52, and she doesn’t have extra weight around her middle.

Yes, she is a fitness and nutrition expert, but it just goes to show, it’s not something that has to happen or even should happen. It also goes to show why we want to take our advice from someone like Adita, who not only knows and teaches about health and wellness, but who also truly lives it as well. That’s why I went to her to better understand the dangers of belly fat and to find out how we can all take control of our waistlines and our health.

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Benefits of Cooking for Yourself While on Vacation

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7 Tips for Making Cooking a Fun and Relaxing Part of Your Vacation Routine

Summer vacation means keeping things simple and easy. Which for many, means very little to no cooking. But when it comes to what we eat, giving someone else or packaged convenience foods the power over what fuels us during this sacred time off can backfire if we’re not careful. With a little extra planning and a willingness to think outside the box, cooking for yourself can become an important and meaningful part of your next vacation. That’s why I’m taking a look at what those benefits are as well as 7 tips for making it a fun and relaxing part of your vacation routine.

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Breaking Your Caffeine Addiction

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8 Steps to Recovery From a Former Addict

A pot of coffee a day and two sodas. That was my daily caffeine fix for most of my early adult life. Sometimes I could even be found with a cup of joe in one hand and a diet coke in the other. That’s 1,040 milligrams (mg) of caffeine a day or much more than twice what’s considered to be a safe amount. When I was in my late 30s, I cut back to two cups of coffee in the morning and a soda to get me through the rest of the day. But after more than three decades of drinking more caffeine than should ever be consumed (yes, I started with a regular soda habit when I was very young), the damage had already been done. I was wired!!! I couldn’t function without the stuff, there was no doubt that I was addicted, I was definitely feeling the health effects of it, and it was time to get caffeine out of my life.

I made my decision one day and stopped cold turkey with coffee and soda the next. It was surprisingly much easier than I thought it would be, and while I can’t say I went into it with a plan, the way I did it definitely worked and apparently included several recommendations from medical experts – although I didn’t know it at the time. That’s why I want to share what I’ve learned about caffeine addiction as well as the steps I took to free myself in hopes that it might help make the journey for others as relatively painless as mine was.

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Organizing for Your Health and Wellbeing, Part II

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6 Tips for Tackling the Organizing Process

There’s no doubt that organizing is all the rage right now, but did you know that it’s more than just the latest “it” thing to do? As we found out in Organizing for Your Health and Wellbeing, Part I, it’s not only good for your state of mind, it’s important for your overall health too. As we know, what affects one, affects the other.

Jenna Fischer with The Arranged Abode has already shared why getting and staying organized is good for our health as well as some budget-friendly tips to help get us started. If you missed that part, be sure and check out her valuable advice. Next though, is figuring out how to tackle the organizing process. Fortunately, Jenna’s here to guide us again and to help us make our organizing dream a reality while potentially helping to tame those stress hormones in the process.

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Organizing for Your Health and Wellbeing, Part I

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Budget-Friendly Tips to Get Started from a Professional Organizer

The popularity of Marie Kondo’s Netflix show Tidying up With Marie Kondo and the KonMarie method shows that many of us either secretly or very openly want our lives to be well… more tidy. While Marie Kondo’s system may or may not work for you, there is an organizational system out there for each of us and finding it sooner rather than later could actually do wonders for our overall health and wellbeing. That’s why I went to professional organizer Jenna Fischer with The Arranged Abode. In this first of a two-part series, she explains why getting and staying organized is good for our health and shares some budget-friendly tips to help get us started.

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Photos Courtesy of The Arranged Abode

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Natural Ways to Care for Your Lips So They’ll Care for You

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Tips on which ingredients to use and which to avoid

Our lips – one of the most important areas of our skin but among the most neglected or taken for granted – until something goes wrong. Then, they become everything. I should know. In recent months, my lips have consumed much of my attention. They became dry, crusty and seemingly insensitive. I was miserable and was afraid that I had somehow ruined my lips forever. If you had told me there was a crazy expensive magic pill that could give me my lips back, I would have paid it in a heartbeat. No questions asked.

I thought I was trying everything, but as it turns out, I was trying all the wrong things and most of them dried my lips even more. I was desperate! I finally found a natural solution that helped get me through the worst of it, but I also knew that I needed to change my approach to my lips. I think most of us do. Fortunately, Naturopathic Doctor Jennifer Ito is helping to answer our questions by offering natural ways to care for our lips so they’ll care for us. She also shares tips on which ingredients to use and which to avoid.

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Craving Connection: The Importance of Intimate Relationships

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4 Tips for Nurturing Your Relationship

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, our relationships – especially those with our spouse or partner – are top of mind. While we know there are many benefits to being in a healthy intimate relationship, there are studies that show it’s actually good for our wellbeing – especially as we age. These relationships are something we all need because we crave connection with others, but that doesn’t mean they come easy. That’s why I went to the experts to find out why intimate relationships are so important, why we need to focus on them for Valentines and throughout the year and how we can nurture them even when kids, work and day-to-day life are calling for our attention.

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Photo by Jasmine Wallace Carter from Pexels

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Eating for Wellness

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Tips for Healthy Eating

Are you tired of being bombarded with all the newest information about what you should and shouldn’t eat? Are you confused about what healthy eating even means? Or are you simply saying, “I have three kids who all have different activities, drive-thru it is.” If you answered “yes” to any or all of these, you’re not alone, and please, let me say from the beginning, there is no judgment here. We’ve all been there, done that. But if you’re reading this, you must be at least a little interested in finding out what eating healthier could look like for you. That’s why I want to help cut through some of the noise and get you on your way to eating for wellness as quickly as possible. Your health and quality of life depend on it.

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