Faster Fitness, Food, & Health
Our little Isla Jane is now ONE! I’m not entirely sure how this happened! Wasn’t she just born last week?
I thought it was probably time I wrote about her home birth–something I’ve been meaning to do for, well, a year now.
Here’s what I learned during my second home birth…
Moments after she was born! Snuggling in our bed and already nursing like a champ!
I’m starting to notice that The FASTer Way to Fat Loss is gaining some ground in popularity in the fitness world these days. Have you heard of this program? It combines workouts with intermittent fasting and carb cycling to help people gain muscle and lose fat. I went to college with the woman who created this program, but it wasn’t until I started to see facebook friends who didn’t know Amanda trying the program that I realized it was really catching on. This was back in May. And Isla Jane was coming up on three months old, and I still had a few extra baby weight pounds hanging on that I was wanting to shed. So, I decided to try the six-week program for myself. Read my honest review below for the things that I loved and why I chose not to continue for a second round after completing it. [Read more…]
From time to time, people seem interested in knowing what sort of weird things I do for my health. Sure, I swish coconut oil around in my mouth first thing in the morning a few times a week (Crest White Strips are a thing of the past!). Why, yes, I do actually rub a dry brush all over my body before getting into the shower. Immune system boosted and dry skin be gone! Drink apple cider vinegar? Yep. Go ahead and cough all over me. But then people ask about my son’s birth, and I mention that he was born at home, and I get all.sorts.of.responses. Mostly, people just tell me how brave I am. They don’t really mean brave. They mean nuts. It’s okay.
Since we are now expecting Baby #2 (a girl!) in a few months, I thought it might be the appropriate time to answer this question: why on earth would you have your baby at home? [Read more…]
There are those among us who like to pretend they never, ahem, go #2. This is just not a thing in their life. Then there are those of us who are rather candid about the whole thing, because, can we just say it? Everybody poops. (And if you like winning, like I do. Have I mentioned this? Some of us are bound and determined to be awesome at it. Yes, you can be so competitive that you even make pooping a contest. I should get a hobby…)
But here’s the deal, folks. Pooping is SUPER IMPORTANT and a very good indicator of your general health and wellness. If you are not pooping well, you want to get this fixed asap because odds are good there are other problems festering under the surface that, left unchecked, are going to disrupt your life far more than gas or constipation or other pooping problems!
So, what is “good pooping?” Let me give you all the delightful little details… [Read more…]
I don’t know what it is about my current social circles, but, gee willikers, everybody is pregnant or just had a baby. Talk about something in the water! But really, it’s awesome, and I’m enjoying all the baby snuggles! Perhaps I’m also feeling a bit sentimental since we just celebrated our son’s second birthday! They told me this would happen, but still I can hardly believe it was just two years ago that he was a little tiny six pound baby burrito, and now he’s running around talking in sentences! Sheesh.
I knew when I got pregnant that I wanted to do things differently because I just thought a lot of pregnancy symptoms and labor/delivery complications seemed to be avoidable. At some point, I’ll share my son’s birth story for all of you, but suffice it to say, it was what some would consider atypical (think five hour labor/home birth with a couple awesome midwives). It’s one of the proudest moments of my life! And while I certainly was not prepared for life with a newborn, I do think I was quite prepared for an uneventful pregnancy and a fast and, relatively, uncomplicated birth.
If you’re the kind of person who enjoys bucking the system when the system just seems flawed (more on that later, too!), and you know that pregnancy does not have to be just the luck of the draw when it comes to how you’ll feel and manage it, plus you’re looking for a birth that isn’t as panicked and scary as it’s portrayed on TV, I recommend a few of my favorite books! [Read more…]
Last week I spent my “blog hours” watching The Thyroid Secret, a docuseries produced and hosted by Dr. Izabella Wentz. It has confirmed my suspicions about a lot of the problems with conventional medicine’s approach to treating the thyroid (and autoimmune conditions in general), given me some additional tools to help me get my disease successfully regulated and into remission, and fired me up about dialing in my diet for a little while (a particular part of treating my thyroid that can be hard and certainly inconvenient at times).
I thought I’d use this opportunity to share a little more about my journey with Hashimoto’s and how I suspect I got the disease. Dr. Wentz attributes three things to how one develops an autoimmune condition (and what may trigger it to “turn on” in our bodies and start attacking us). I’ll be detailing those factors below and what that looked like for me. [Read more…]
I briefly mentioned in my “Day in My Life” post that my morning routine involves oil pulling. I’ve had a lot of questions about this somewhat weird routine of mine, so I decided it deserved a post all its own! What the heck is oil pulling? How do I do it, and why on earth would I?
Oil pulling is really just a fancy way of saying you swish oil around in your mouth. That’s it. To be a bit more specific, I put about one tablespoon of coconut oil in my mouth when I get up in the morning (before food, drink, or brushing my teeth), “pull” it back and forth through my teeth for twenty minutes, and then spit it into a sandwich baggie that I throw in the trash.
Oil pulling is actually an ancient Ayurvedic practice which originated in India thousands of years ago. In the past twenty years or so, it has gained a bit of traction amongst the crunchy crowd in the Western world.
Oil pulling has loads of purported health benefits including: [Read more…]
I really debated whether or not I should even write this post. In fact, this post might even be slightly more narcissistic than my “Secrets of a Pregnancy Unicorn” series. But here’s the thing: lots and lots of people are self-conscious about their midsections. They’ve tried all the conventional tips and tricks to no avail. They still don’t have the abs that they want (or arms or butt or thighs or whatever they’re trying to “fix”). I just want people to know that they really can have the abs (and the body!) that they want, and, in some ways, it may be easier than they think!
You see, my approach doesn’t involve a single crunch (please just stop doing those things…they’re really ineffective at core strengthening, and they’re not too great for your neck or your back…not to mention how extremely boring they are)! I also don’t recommend any crazy “diets.” In fact, I hate the term “diet” they way Americans use that word. Guess what? You’re already on a diet. Your diet is simply what you eat. A “diet” is not a list of rules that force calorie restriction for a short period of time until a magic number appears on a scale. That’s (most of the time) just self-sabotage. What do you do when your “diet” ends? Generally, gain the weight back slowly over time (and maybe a little more…you’ve now tanked your metabolism with all your calorie restriction). So if my plan doesn’t involve crunches or “diets,” what should you do?
Here’s how I got the abs I wanted, and how you can too… [Read more…]
I don’t believe in kid food. I don’t believe in picky eaters. I don’t believe in bland.
These were a few of the opinions that formed my beliefs about what I would feed my family. Ain’t no way I was going to let Landon eat Cheerios, Go-gurt, and Goldfish crackers. My “eat real food” philosophy remains, and that eliminates a lot of “foods” that are commonly given to kids these days. Now, I’ll admit. When you’ve got a busy day, it is so stinkin’ easy to grab a box or a pack of something for hungry kids, but, with a little bit of forethought (and a few products that really do contain real food ingredients), we have successfully avoided “kid food!” (You can see what I fed my son from six to twelve months here.) [Read more…]
Photo: BigStockPhoto/Evgeny Atamanenko
(This post is part two in a series of posts, “Secrets of a Pregnancy Unicorn.” You can read about my pre-pregnancy prep work here.)
Not too long ago, my husband informed me of my pregnancy with Landon. Wanna hear how it went? Apparently, I told him I was pregnant, several months later he noticed that I had a “bump,” and then Landon was being born. I sniggered. Another time he told me that he forgot I was pregnant most of the time. I’m pretty sure I never forgot. While I’ll be the first one to happily admit that my pregnancy was pretty uneventful, I dare say I noticed a few more things along the way than my darling Hubsters. However, I did have a few tips and tricks up my sleeve to keep my body working well for both Landon and me and got me in great shape for labor. Here are my 8 pregnancy unicorn secrets for an uneventful, low key pregnancy! [Read more…]