This soup is delicious for a cool fall evening, and is amazing for beating nighttime sugar cravings. It tastes like apple pie in a bowl!
Eating for a Perfect Period
Welcome to the first post in our Perfect Period Series: Eating for a Perfect Period. First, a few facts: what you do and do not eat/drink has a direct impact on how you experience your period. Mood swings, cravings, cramps, irritability and fatigue are all affected by your diet in the days leading up to and during your period. {Tweet it!} You cannot go on a pizza and beer binge the week before your period and expect smooth sailing come P-time. Our culturally engrained habit of ignoring our menstrual cycles in terms of dietary and lifestyle modifications is what makes America the land of PMS. You don’t get an award for pretending that you are just like the boys, don’t have a natural cycle. And you certainly don’t get any awards for needless suffering. You DO however get an amazing Organic Beauty Goddess award for being mindful of heeding the natural changes of your body’s needs! Select specific foods for your luteal phase (the weeks between ovulation and your period), your bleeding phase, and your follicular phase (from period to ovulation) to maximize your energy and health all month long, and lead you to a perfect period. Read on to find out how…
Perfect Period Series!
In many traditional cultures, a woman is considered powerful, sacred, even a force to be feared during her menses (and not just due to her mood swings). Menstruation is traditionally a time of calm and reflection, and some cultures absolve women of many of their duties for those days. In our Western culture, fighting through one’s period and behaving as though nothing is different is seen as a badge of honor. We gulp down Pamprin, go drinking and hit boot camp like nothing is going on in our bodies, and then wonder why we feel like we’re going to die for a few days a month. In our culture, we seldom make adjustments to our diet and lifestyle with respect to this important time in our cycle, and consequently, symptoms of PMS are much more common than in cultures that have traditions of honoring the menstrual cycle. Guess what? Severe cramps, mood swings, fatigue, and other symptoms are not “normal” byproducts of our cycle, and covering them up with drugs is not the answer. If we can learn to listen to our bodies and honor what we need at various times in our cycle, we can learn to live in harmony with our periods, decrease or even eliminate symptoms, and live more mindfully all month long!
Daily Inspiration: Happiness
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Are You a Victim of Pseudo-Health Foods?
Now that being healthy and fit is finally having its lasting moment, grocery store shelves and healthy diet articles alike are suddenly overrun with products touted as healthier alternatives to what you’re currently eating. Unfortunately, as with all trends, you can’t believe everything you read (except, of course, what you read on The Organic Beauty!! Wink wink ; ) Along with some awesome new health foods, we have also been exposed to a whole new crop of “pseudo-health foods” masquerading as the real thing, and pretty convincingly at that! So in our ever-present quest to debunk all the food bunk out there, we bring you these 5 top pseudo-healthy foods, and their legitimately healthy counterparts.
Daily Inspiration
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Spotlight on Marina Volod of Avitalin Skincare
We loved testing Avitalin Skincare’s line of awesome, natural products earlier this year (check out our review), and wanted to know more about the woman behind this line of super nutritious and potent products. Founder, Marina Volod, shares her philosophy, unique approach to skincare science, as well as some killer tips to fight the signs of aging skin!
Daily Inspiration
The Organic Beauty is going camping! Filling life with little adventures keeps you happier, healthier, and more inspired. And guess what? That keeps you away from chips, cookies, and other stuff we use to substitute for adventure.
What adventure will you go on this weekend?
Get Your Green On: Juices and Smoothies
You know by now that you’ve gotta eat those greens. Dark leafies are the single healthiest group of foods out there. Loaded with nutrients, they are major health powerhouses, and the best part is, you can eat them as much as you want! If you’re not doing so already, make greens a big priority in your eating — shooting for a full serving at least twice a day. Salads, cooked greens, greens in your eggs, greens tossed into soup, and as a side for pretty much anything you’re eating — they are super easy to make into a daily habit.
How to Shift Obstacles into Gifts
What do you think– Is showing emotion a sign of weakness? Or strength?
How about when s/he doesn’t call? It means things are done. Over. Or s/he is simply busy?
You get constructive feedback at work. Your job is in jeopardy and your manager hates you? They want you to succeed and grow in your position?
You see where I am going. And I could go on. Our reactions to things like missing the bus, or a long line at Starbucks can easily ruin our day if we let it….That’s just it. If we let it. And let’s be honest, sometimes we do.
We let things mean things as though we have no control over our thoughts. Well, we do have control because it is a choice. Meaning is not found merely in people, places or things; meaning is what we choose to make things mean.
Therefore, everything is meaningless.
Yes, that is what I said. Nothing means anything, essentially. Sit with that. And don’t freak out. Because any and everything can mean what we choose to make it mean. Feel empowered.
Our ego is an interpreter. One that first judges to make things right or wrong, good or bad. Evaluating, assessing, determining– creating little space for possibility and opportunity. This is especially true in a time of crisis. Fear, worry, anxiety, judgement and panic can prevent our minds so much that it is virtually impossible to think of what might serve us the most!
This became clear to me the other day. I was talking to my best friend on the phone and I was going over a date that I had the week before, and what I thought it meant for me and my future. Even as I type that, it is clear that I chose to make conclusions about one event to mean something about another, when I could simply just chose to make it mean something else. This is why she is my best friend.
She reminded me that what is important is that I continue to be excited about the things in my life that are so amazing and exciting (and there are SO many!). And that this one thing, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t mean what I told myself it meant. I need these reminders sometimes. Especially today, because I had an incredibly hard time shifting my perspective. ‘An incredibly hard time’ until I just made the choice to do so.
So how can we shift 180 degrees? On demand? There are 3 things that we can be in practice of to have this happen more readily. First is to ask ourselves this: What if wrong is right and bad is good and this obstacle is actually a gift?
If that question doesn’t open things up for you, then make these declarations:
- This could me anything I want it to mean.
- I can chose to suspend my judgement and not attach any meaning to this.
- How I feel about this is not rooted in fact or can determine my future in any way.
Then identify one thing that you are truly grateful for!
