How I came up with “Balanced Life”

Healthy Balanced Living

Hello there! Thank you for taking the time to read my 1st ever newsletter. I know how busy you are and you probably already get an overloaded inbox everyday, so this this means a lot to me. I had the idea of a newsletter because I thought it would be a quick thing for my friends to read.I recently started my certification course to be a certified health coach (super excited about!). The reason is that I’ve been teaching nutrition to college students for a few years now and saw how much I have helped them and I realized that I would love to be able to help more people outside of the classroom!

 
 


Food and feeling balanced

I decided on the tile of “Balanced Life” because the more I learn about healthy living and nutrition, the more I realize that there is not a “one size fits all” approach. The most important thing to just connect food to how it makes you feel. It sounds corny, but your body is very smart (and anyone who has studied biochem, knows this).
Most people don’t acknowledge this, and try to force themselves on a particular way of eating, even if their body is saying something completely different.
Nutrition is tied to literally every aspect of our life, to how we handle stress, acne, bloating, anxiety and also quality of sleep. Its just not about losing weight and disease prevention (which are of course, important too).
A big problem I see is that a lot people, just don’t know where to start or need need some guidance.
 


What I am doing

This past month I have embarked on Arbonne’s 30 days to healthy living program. This program is wonderful for those who don’t know where to start, want to lose some weight, feel tired all the time, or just because they feel crappy and stressed and can’t point their finger as to why….and need a starting point.Its a whole foods based approach (no counting anything) and while also eliminating possible allergen and inflammation-causing foods (like soy, gluten, dairy). Technically, you can do the whole plan without buying anything from Arbonne. But not everyone has time to prep every single meal from scratch, so it nice to have some things to help make the process easier.

I have been documenting the whole thing via Instagram, if you would like to see what I have been eating 🙂

 

My experience

Surprising easiest: coffee and gluten 
Hardest things to give up: cheese and alcohol. 
 

I originally thought that with no coffee, I would feel really tired all day, but the reverse has actually happened. From not having my nightly cocktail and 1-2 cups a coffee/day, I have been sleeping better, so I am actually more awake during the day (and therefore don’t need the coffee). Which is why, I believe I haven’t missed it. 
 

Also, my mood and my general sense of calm has been much better. I usually feel very anxious most days. However, this month, I felt like I am just less stressed in general and feel just …calm. For example, one Friday night, (thanks to the rain), it took me 2 hours to get home. Normally, I would have ran in the house, extremely stressed from all the traffic and poured myself a martini. But I was fine. Annoyed yes…but not really upset about it. I actually acknowledged to myself how well I felt during this usually stressful situation. My anxiety as a whole as been fairly nonexistent, which is amazing to me.This plan was designed to decrease inflammation, eliminate possible allergenic foods, reset cravings, and just focus on eating real food again. What I am learning in my class is that all these things create a balance in your body again. It resets your mind as well. Food has a tremendous impact on your brain.


 
When you eat well, your body feels it and your brain works better. This should be common sense, but a lot people do not make the connection. It was just something I really took notice of this month. When I really thought about it, it made a lot of sense to me.

If you are interested in just hearing more about it, I would love to talk to you more. Just shoot me a message and we can just chat!

A new group starts Feb 5. I am going to keep going (with some modifications, but I feel too good to just go back to the way I was eating before.

(PS, and if you do decide to buy some Arbonne products, I can help you get 40-50% off!

If there are specific topics you would like to see in future additions, let me know too!

Thanks for reading!

oxoxox
Lia