3 Tips to Help you Create Your Best and Healthiest Year!

10 Jan 3 Tips to Help you Create Your Best and Healthiest Year!

I caught some kind of a bug over the holidays and thank goodness it wasn’t your traditional “cold and flu” bug, BUT it was your “I’m super motivated to create something new” bug! I think it was brought on by an unexpected 6 hour delay in the airport on our way to Seattle. Sometimes unfortunate circumstances can bring great reward and I certainly think that was the case on this particular day.

As I was sitting in the airport I began to think about my journey since starting Real Healing Nutrition and about the hundreds of companies and thousands of clients I’ve had the honor and privilege of working with over the past few years. I also began to think about the promise and potential of 2016 and as I sat there I could feel this momentum of excitement building in me. There is something so special that I love about this time of year! It inspires so many of us to strive to be the best versions of ourselves and because of that mindset, I decided in that moment that I wanted to create something that truly focused on the most effective tips I’ve discovered in my years of practice for helping you to become your healthiest, strongest, fittest, most conscious version of yourself  – No matter what!

After a lot of thought, research and review over the past few weeks I’ve finally been able to narrow it down to 10 tips that I have outlined in my, “10 Tips for Creating Your Best and Healthiest Year!” workshop and I want to share 3 of those tips with you here, today!

#1 Set aside 3 minutes in the morning just for you. Think about it, what’s usually the first thing you do in the morning? Check your phone, turn on the news, get in the shower? Whatever it is, it usually boils down to the same thing – we literally throw ourselves into our day without taking any time to really check in with ourselves and to set our intentions for the day. When you start a project at work, do you just dive in without thinking about what kind of an outcome you want to achieve? Sometimes the answer may be “yes” but I’m willing to bet that in most cases you would say “no”. So why should our day be any different? When we wander aimlessly into our days we wait for the outcome to present itself to us, but by taking 3 minutes to ask yourself, “What are my goals for today and what do I need in order to accomplish them?” you go in with a totally different intention and plan. You’ve all heard me say, “Preparation is the key to success!”? This goes for everything in life; work, family, health, you name it. So do yourself a favor and light a candle, take some deep breaths, relax and get focused!

#2 Take your vitamins. Your body goes through B-vitamins at a faster clip when you’re stressed, and B-vitamins give you energy and they help to balance your mood – two VERY important things… especially when your stressed! Being short of essential nutrients can radically diminish your mental and physical capacity. Not to mention that so many of our foods these days are depleted in nutrients due to our modern farming methods. So even if you’re eating a healthy diet, it’s still wise to supplement with some basics. A good combo for most people would be,

• a Multivitamin
• a Methylated B-Complex
• an Essential-fatty-Acid Supplement
• a high quality, wide-ranging Probiotic

Remember to always check with your doctor before beginning a supplement regimen and ALWAYS consider quality! Poor quality supplements made with sugar, gluten, soy, and cheap oils have the potential to do more harm than good.

#3 Reduce the amount of sugar in your diet ASAP! Over the holiday’s while I was home with my family I was talking with my dad about these Sugar Elimination Challenges I’ve been so fortunate to get to do with several San Diego companies now. At one point though my dad said to me, “I’m so lucky that I was never born with a sweet tooth.” Well, little did he know he had just laid down a challenge for me to prove to him just how much sugar he was really consuming unknowingly. We decided to dissect just what he was making for dinner, which was grilled salmon with a salad and some store bought, already prepared brown rice…. a pretty healthy meal, right? Well, he was blown away when I was able to show him that between the butter and the seasoning packet he used on the salmon, the salad dressing and the brown rice, he was consuming 6 tsp of refined sugar in just his dinner alone! Incidentally, 6 tsp is what the American Heart Association says is a safe amount of sugar for THE WHOLE DAY! Don’t be fooled, sugar is EVERYWHERE and it IS destroying our health. The average person consumes over 150lbs of sugar in one year! But if you can remove it or even cut your consumption in half, amazing things can happen! In just my last Sugar Elimination Challenge group, which consisted of 50+ people, the average weight loss for the group was 11lbs in ONLY 3 weeks! The majority of the group report having better sleep, improved mood, more energy, a clearer mind, and clearer skin. Some even experienced eradication of hot flashes after years of suffering. When it comes to understanding sugar, read your labels! Don’t focus on the nutrition grid, focus on the list of ingredients. If you see ANY added sugars (that goes for natural, naturally derived and of course your artificial sugars) avoid that item or limit it!  And better yet, eat more foods that don’t come with labels 🙂

As you go forward into the new year remember that subtle changes can make a dramatic impact on your overall health and wellbeing, but in order for that to happen you gotta stay consistent with those changes! So choose wisely and make sure that you commit to a shift you can stick to – no matter what!