Lyndsay Taylor

March 7, 2014March 6, 2014

Getting Started (On a Budget)

Once you have a bit of knowledge and believe it’s true, it’s time to get started. Some people make all their changes at once, usually because a health scare convinces them to! Others do it because that is their personality. But most of us need to realize it is okay to make changes gradually. It is silly to think “I cannot afford organic meat, fruit, and vegetables therefore I will continue to eat at McDonald’s and buy Little Debbies.” There is a middle ground. Also, there are rungs of the ladder. I have never been a McD’s and Little Debbies eater, thanks to my Mom, however I certainly wasn’t a quinoa and coconut oil eater either. Wherever we are on the ladder, at certain intervals in life we will learn more, believe more, and move up a rung. There’s no shame in being where you are. There are definitely some things I eat still that people ahead of me on this health path would cringe at…I am still learning.

I’d like to talk about basic foods and meals you can start with that are whole, real, inexpensive foods. A couple things first:

*The hope is that eventually all the things in boxes and wrappers and fast food drive throughs would simply be crowded out, because like I wrote yesterday, these things eaten on a regular basis are making the systems of our body stressed to the point of pain and disease. As they are crowded out, you are feeling full and satisfied, your digestive system will be working better, and you just won’t have room for the other stuff. I am so thankful to report that a healthy fat at every meal/snack will make you feel better and more full that junk ever did…otherwise, I could not have done it. No reason to be hungry, folks! I just have to say it…”Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

*The foods I am going to mention are not completely unprocessed, because like I said I am coming from a place of middle ground. If I said you had to grind your own peanut butter and make your own almond milk, you would be done with it and I would, too. But it’s a step in the right direction, and each of us have to see which of these minimally processed items works for us and which do not.

At ALDI, my favorite grocery store and a genuine gift from God:

-Eggs (I eat two for breakfast. It is the only breakfast that makes me feel awesome until lunch! Eating eggs dropped my cholesterol like crazy, and the healthy fat/protein ratio is fantastic. Eat eggs!) You can have breakfast for one person for 6 days on $1.29!!!

-Oatmeal (Cheap and easy in the microwave! I add cinnamon, 1 tsp of honey, and frozen blueberries to the kids and they love it. I personally don’t like oatmeal, but its very good for you and I eat it when I have to.) There’s another breakfast you can have for one for about $2.00 a week.

-All natural PB- Eventually I will go to an even less processed type of PB but right now, this is what we do. It’s a good protein/fat combo and I eat a tablespoon of this for a midday snack with a piece of fruit a couple times a week. I think it’s a great, inexpensive thing to give to kids–smear 1 tbsp on apple slices–and their snack cost $.50 at the most.

-Raisins

-Spinach/lettuce/cucumbers/mushrooms/tomatoes/4 kinds of peppers/onions/potatoes/sweet potatoes/etc– The way I get my veggies in is I have a cup full of raw veggies at lunch and then a huge salad with at least 3 handfuls of spinach and other veggies/leaves at supper. I also put spinach or kale in my protein shake. Personally, I have no problem feeding my family white potatoes a couple times a week, if you were wondering. It is a starch so I would also have a green veggie with it, but sometimes they just need something like that to help them fill up.

-Fruit (organic or other)- I usually get 4-5 different types of fruit per week. I eat at least one piece a day at lunch or snack and the kids have at least 2. Produce can certainly add up, but if you aren’t buying snack cups of applesauce, fruit roll ups, etc anymore, you may find more room than you thought in the budget. I rarely leave Aldi’s having spent more than $65. When you eat fruit, have a protein and if possible a little fat with it, to keep your blood sugar stable.

-Chicken- I get a frozen bag with 8 breasts in it for about $6. It would be ideal to get organic but I’m not able to do that right now.

-Tilapia- Frozen bag, great price and so easy to cook.

-Soy or almond milk- These are minimally processed as well. Most people are not doing soy these days. I’ll talk more about that another day. These milks have the calcium and vitamin D of cow’s milk. In all my studies, I have simply found that cows and their milk have been so messed with (hormones, stimulants to make them produce more milk, pasteurization process killing the natural enzymes) that I choose to steer clear. HA, I just re-read that, no pun intended! Our family isn’t completely dairy free, we just do not consume major quantities of it. This has helped sinus and digestive problems.

-Brown rice

-Bag of dry pinto beans

-Frozen berries

SAM’s (but this is not cheap, I don’t think):

-Bags of raw nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts) I think these are a perfect protein and I have at least one serving a day at one of my mini-meals. It’s a great protein/healthy fat combo which we need to stay full!

-If you’re going to have dairy, try Fage Greek Yogurt

-They have frozen berries also (I love eating a bowl of these actually still frozen, it’s like ice cream!)

KROGER:

-Hormel -lunchmeat that is nitrate free. This is definitely processed and you can decide for yourself if you want to eat it. It’s a compromise that is sometimes necessary for my family.

-Almond butter

-Coconut oil

-Rice pasta, corn pasta, or quinoa (or you can get these at Bulk Food stores at a much better price!)-These along with brown rice are the only grain carbohydrates we eat. Some people do not eat corn in any way, shape, or form, you can study that for yourself if you care that much! 🙂

-Laura’s Lean Beef- This is where I get my high quality beef. It is NOT cheap, but we don’t eat beef that often.

***Yes, I go to three grocery stores plus I get a few things at the D&D but I usually only go to Sams, Kroger, and D&D once a month, while I go to Aldi every week. Also, there are definitely a few other items I pick up, too, like spaghetti sauce, canned beans, sausage every now and then, etc. We are not 100% purists. Where we are on the ladder right now is finding a place of balance. We have to learn and balance hunger, health, special food needs, and fun. I remember about four years ago throwing away anything in our house that had high fructose corn syrup or partially hydrogenated soybean oil. A couple years ago, I looked for hidden sugars in everything and got rid of most of that, for example exchanging jam for fruit spread. Then one year ago, we threw away anything in our house that contained wheat (that’s another blog for another day). It’s going to keep progressing little by little.***

So…here are some meals with those foods!

Breakfast: Eggs or oatmeal

Lunch: Leftover meat or Hormel lunchmeat, fruit, raw veggies OR cheese, fruit, veggies OR beans and rice in the crockpot and eat as leftovers with raw veggies

Snack: Peanut butter on an apple or banana OR a handful of nuts and carrots OR greek yogurt with frozen berries

Supper: A big salad; one carb besides the salad if you choose to, such as rice pasta, brown rice, sweet potato fries, white potato, quinoa; chicken, fish, or beef. You all can be a lot more creative than me, but we have a lot of taco salad, chicken in the crockpot, fish or beans with rice, hamburgers on lettuce leaves, soups and chilis, spaghetti, and a few casseroles.

Snack: frozen berries and nuts OR something small from the other meal ideas

There are certain dietary issues people have, and little picky eaters, but I think it’s just important to dig in and start doing what you CAN do. These are the foods available to my people, and they eat it! I realize it isn’t quite that simple for some, but the Lord will give you wisdom about your path for yourself and your family. I will say that if you can switch to 90% whole, real food you will see changes now and less disaster physically later…We have found that eating like this most of the time has taken care of our health issues and when we do have a splurge like birthday cake or pizza from a restaurant, we feel the difference. You don’t see what it’s doing until you get away from it. Then as you add it back in, you realize just how cruddy those foods made you feel.

Also, about the budget side of things–Having a large family (which we hope to have as time goes on) is a choice, and when we make that choice, the fact is the grocery bill is going to go up. It just is, no way around it! But I don’t think that means you can’t eat well. You may not get to eat out. You may not get to buy snack foods except for a movie night every now and then. But I really do believe that families can survive and thrive on whole, real foods. I think for an adult or older child (like 6+), each can eat on about $2-$3 a day. That is $60-$90 per older child/adult per month. I think that is a reasonable amount of money for our #1 physical need to be met!! Also, I promise that health problems, addiction to sugar, etc. are way more expensive in the long run. But again, change things at the pace you want to. Maybe get rid of cereal and do eggs or oatmeal. Maybe get rid of chips and cookies and offer fruit and nuts for snacks instead.

I have went ON AND ON AND ON but those of you who were asking for these details, I hope this blog post helped! Journey Well, Friends!

March 6, 2014July 25, 2022

FOOD and Why It Matters

It really is a wonder to me how I could go through life genuinely not realizing that the food I was eating was either healing me or killing me. I feel kind of dumb about it, but then again it wasn’t until the 80’s that the Surgeon General stated that food does indeed have an effect on disease! Before that, there were very few people believing in the correlation. Now, there are worlds of information out there…and so while I am not an expert, and simply studying holistic nutrition for greater health for myself, friends, and family, I would like to use this blog to share what I’m learning. I can at least share how far I’ve come even though there is so much road to travel up ahead, and I’ll be honest about those things I’m still figuring out.

But today I’d like to just write about food and why it matters to our health. Very simple concept, yet if we believed it what we put into our mouths most meals would drastically change. The first step in this change is knowledge and the next step is believing. The first step actually isn’t the grocery store or self control or accountability, those come later. The first step is wisdom and understanding and information…and believing it is true.

First, let’s define food. Food is comprised of protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamins, minerals, fiber, or enzymes or a combination of several of these things. That’s food. God made it for our enjoyment, our energy, and for every system in our body to work correctly. When we do not feed ourselves well, and we think “a calorie of this is equal to a calorie of that”, we are eventually stressing every system of our body until it can no longer cope. That is when we see disease, disorders, and pain. Not every disease, disorder, and pain comes as a result of food…but many, many do. Doesn’t it make sense that every other system in our body is dependent on our digestive system working properly, that we are actually getting the nutrients absorbed that our systems rely on?

Second, let’s define processed foods. These are foods that have been messed with–when potatoes are fried and turned to chips, when sugar is added to yogurt, or when enzymes have been stripped from foods to make them last longer (whether that is done in farming or later). Almost anything on shelves, my friends, is processed. Even our dairy is processed unless you’re getting it from a local farm. We can’t all live on a farm and kill our own chickens, so there is obviously going to be some processing and handling of some of our foods, but I’m talking about foods where the back of the bag or box lists more ingredients than the food you actually think you’re eating. When we eat these things, we need to know we are not really eating much food at all and definitely not a lot of nutrients that our body requires. Call it a treat, call it a splurge, but honestly, we can’t call it food.

Processed foods as our main diet is causing: behavioral disorders, hyperactivity, learning disorders, headaches, fatigue, cancer, type II diabetes, fibromyalgia, adrenal fatigue, and the list truly does go on. These foods aren’t just “neutral”, as if “I can eat these as long as I also eat nutritious foods.” No, it doesn’t work that way. They are acid forming, keeping your body in a state of constant stress and work to become alkaline again (just trust me, that’s important!) They make your blood sugar imbalanced, making your pancreas constantly push out insulin and then your adrenals constantly push out cortisol to balance the insulin. Cortisol keeps us up at night and makes us have a spare tire, friends!! No, thank you!! And no, thank you to insulin resistance either, because the next step after that is diabetes. Also, processed foods have been stripped of the enzymes that God put in them to help us digest those foods. A food without its partner enzyme is a very non-useful food inside our body! That’s sad when I think about all the money spent on health bars and processed so called ‘health food’. And one more thing about processed food is that they use nasty oils that get stuck in our arteries, refined sugar that makes us addicted, chemicals and dyes that should not even be smelled let alone consumed, and more sodium than could float a boat.

Third, let’s define real food or whole food. Real food is simple food, as close to the way God made it as possible. Eggs, meat, nuts, seeds, beans, veggies & whole pieces of fruit (organic if you can), whole grains, and raw dairy. There’s more obviously, but those are the basics. Along with this real food definition I will say the more you can eat raw the better; in fact, I try for 1/2 my plate to be raw. Real food has the potential to heal our bodies, get our systems in good working order, and give us opportunity for energy, clarity, and the ability to serve those we love.

Today I focused on what processed foods are and what they do versus what real food is and what it can do for you. I’m out of time but later on I will go into detail about specific foods, where to buy them, how to be making the change. One thought I will leave you with is this: You do not have to change every meal, your whole diet, all at once. You may change what you have in the house for breakfast meals first…or you may focus on the evening meal being “clean”. You don’t have to shop at Whole Foods Market and break the bank; you don’t have to go crazy on this. Some of the changes will be huge, some things you will realize you were already doing right!

Learn and believe…and you’re halfway there.

February 14, 2014January 14, 2014

My Sweeties

It is so neat to think about what this new year holds! Here are some sweet pics of my family in 2013!

This is us at The Louisville Science Center…

Doing some Christmas shopping, sans Yemi!

Sweet, silly, sticky Yemisrach.

Lots of singing and playing this year from the newest musician in the house!

February 1, 2014January 14, 2014

Better Late Than Never

Here are some pictures of our wonderful field trip to Frazier History Museum! They had exhibits teaching us all about how different countries and cultures celebrate the holidays.

China! Selah’s Favorite! She says she wants to be a missionary there.

Ghana! This was my favorite tree.

It was hard to get Yemi to turn around and smile for me. She was really enamored with all the decorations!

I can’t remember what country this one came from! I think Ecuador…

Scotland! There were Scottie dogs, golf balls, and bag pipes on this tree.

Mexico! We love Mexico and our dear Eloisa. Frazier also was exhibiting a beautiful dancing gown made by a woman in Mexico for her daughters. The husband was there showing it off and telling stories.

January 21, 2014January 14, 2014

A New Year!

I love the new year!! Even though winter isn’t my favorite time, I really love starting a new year of possibilities and ideas. My daughters will turn 9 and 6 this year; that I cannot believe!! My husband and I are going on an awesome trip, a gift from a loved one…a very loved one, haha! My best friend is having a baby. There are some other exciting things happening, too, that I’ll blog about in the months to come.

Along with the new year comes…drum roll…resolutions! I can’t say that I really have any resolutions this year, just some direction on what I want to make sure I focus on. And one of the things on my list of course is wellness. I lost 20 lbs in 2013 by going essentially wheat and sugar free, and I am so thankful! I want to keep that going, and possibly lose a few more.

I’ve been talking with people lately who would like to get started on a real-life plan such as what, by God’s grace, I did last year, and I have a few suggestions–nothing I haven’t blogged before, but here we go:

1-BASIC: Exercise 15 min a day. If I can’t get up and do it in the morning, I try to squeeze it in before dinner or even do yoga before bed. My favorite exercise is lifting weights, walking, and yoga. I think exercising almost every day is better than long hard workouts 3 x a week.

2-GETTING STARTED: Compile a list of why you’d want to go off of sugar and wheat. Do some research and see what it is doing to your body. Eventually, you’ll look at bread and think, “Hmm…white, puffy, I don’t want to look like that…or feel that heaviness in my tummy either.” There are dozens of reasons to go off this stuff but you have to find the ones that resonate with YOU. I don’t eat wheat because I know I can keep my weight steady by not eating, because when I got off of it I stopped having any acid reflux (within 6-8 weeks), and because my digestive system is so much happier, just believe me. I don’t eat sugar except on special preplanned occasions with friends and family because it steals my vitamins, overloads the work of my pancreas and adrenals, gives me infections, makes me want more and struggle with self control issues, makes me gain weight, puts a tire around my middle, and keeps me from living in the victory of health and clarity God has for me. Other people go off meat or dairy for these same reasons. How do these foods physically make you feel? You get to choose to stop eating them if you don’t like the way your body reacts! If you believe in your reasons, even if you mess up, you’ll keep going back to what is best for you. You have to take care of yourself!

3-HOW TO: Get an accountability partner or group, and tell them your intentions. Make a commitment to let them know when you went off track. Get junk out of your house. Have lots of good food you do like in the house, always have an alternative to fill the void of foods you are eliminating. Also, learn your triggers and try to work ways around them. Decide a date you can have what you want, for example a summer vacation. Chances are, after eating poorly for a day you will be craving how you were feeling before. One more thing, know those scripts you tell yourself, like, “Well, I may as well eat that, because I didn’t have time to exercise today anyway so it’s just a bad day overall” OR “I can have that because I worked out so hard” OR “I deserve this! I’m a free woman!” The fact is: Freedom is being in control of yourself and reaping the benefits.

January 16, 2014January 14, 2014

Evergreen

I am empty as a canyon deep, You’re a canyon full

I am waking from a winter sleep, You are evergreen

I am always seeking my way back, You are true north

Always begging for the things I lack, You are royalty

I am faltering, You are mountain mighty

I am lost and lame, You’re a roaring lion

I am questions, You are love songs

I am embers, You are a wildfire

There will never be another like You

In this song, “Never Be Another”, I am so encouraged to know that as I am clueless and continuously getting it wrong- or lacking vision or wisdom or fire- He is never lacking, He is never weak, He is never even tired.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lyndsaytaylorandjoannabl

January 14, 2014

Quitting & Learning

I have been a nutcase lately. Seriously! I’ve been sick for a few days and in bed a lot and while having some alone time is fun, I’ve hardly been able to enjoy it because I’m such a nut.

Here’s what I mean.

Being sick, even though it is for such short periods of time these days, praise the Lord, brings to the surface all kinds of junk that I wasn’t thinking about before. I knew my schedule, or actually how I was feeling about and handling my roles, was about to be a train wreck. I knew something had to give. Staying in bed actually sounded wonderful by Thursday morning of last week. I was constantly wracking my brain trying to figure it out, figure it out, figure it out! It seemed all up to me, I had to fix things, I had to make a plan that could run smoothly and keep every facet of the lives of my people going nicely. Finances, food, wellness, devotions, homeschooling, sleep, friends, extended family events, paperwork, jobs, not to mention the items on a “yeah, right” mental to-do list that just made me feel guilty for never getting around to them. Are you exhausted just by reading that? I am, and I was!

Several of these days in bed I was stewing over things I couldn’t control, and God gave me lots of time to figure out that wasn’t productive. The discontent and anger floating to the surface had roots. I began to journal and pray and ask God for help! He is so good to meet us in our confusion and need. Once again, it was time to quit.

Quit trying to be known or acknowledged or amazing at something.

Quit trying to get more than God wants to give me.

Quit thinking that my family’s life, success, and happiness all depends on me.

You see, it’s not that I needed to quit all, or even some necessarily, of that list above. That would have been the easy answer it seemed. But instead God wanted me to acknowledge and let go of what was making those callings, those gifts and opportunities to serve, a burden. It wasn’t the daily life that was wearing me out. It was the way I was living, feeling that everything had to reach a stellar standard, something others would want to emulate, something I could find accomplishment in. Ugh! Such pride! Oh good grief, I just want to remember the peaceful, joyful way of life in the Spirit. A focus on these things:

Learning to live in the Sabbath rest and my identity as the Beloved; my life is a success because I have an under-the-blood-of-Jesus personal and living relationship with God! The desire for being special, being great, needs to be satisfied first in the adoration of the Father…then we can go on with our lives, letting the chips fall where they may, it won’t matter much anymore. I think people who have become well known authors or speakers or whatever it is we look up to are either in turmoil for more OR they barely notice their status because they are fully satisfied in what HE says about them. I don’t think you can have it both ways.

Learn to dwell in gratefulness for what is; God gave me what He wants me to have, whether that is a lot or a little, whether it is an easy thing or a challenging thing. He gave it. It passed through His hand to me for a reason. He’ll change it when He chooses. He really does care about the details and He really hasn’t overlooked a thing. Worry should have no place in my life as a child of God, overcomer, and co-heir with Jesus!

Learn to make LOVE my number one priority. Receiving His love–truly making time to embrace it–and slowing down and loving every person God sends my way is such a beautiful thing when I don’t let my ideas of success get in the way. Praying for people that God puts on my mind, listening to whoever needs to talk, making time for relationship repair. This rings in my ears: “Did you learn to love?” from the Misty Edwards song, “The Measure of a Man”. Oh my goodness, those three things I am “quitting” have so very little to do with love, at least not love for God and others.

Jesus, Thank You for showing us the way to live life. No, Your story doesn’t say a lot about houses and jobs and money and kids, and the right way to prioritize or go about all of those things. But Your story tells us all those things will fall into a beautiful order as we let go of demands and live to know You. You deposit in us all we need for life, abundant life, a life that would actually draw others to You. Amen.

December 17, 2013

Raised to Walk in Newness of Life

Every now and then, Jack sends me a text showing me a picture of something that happened this time last year or even five years ago…Today, I received this picture of him baptizing our firstborn, Selah Jordan. This picture evokes something in me I really am too overwhelmed to explain…it’s just pure joy and beauty. Baptism is one of the most joyful and beautiful things I have ever witnessed.

It seemed crazy to me that one of my first thoughts upon seeing this picture today was, “Wow, I never noticed how much this baptismal looks like a coffin.” Before I could think, “You are such a weirdo, Lyndsay”, the Holy Spirit affirmed it, saying, “YES! It should look like a coffin…As disturbing as it is to see your daughter in a coffin, she was once dead and has now been resurrected! Look at that face! She’s got a second life to start living now!”

This is what Jesus is all about. This is what He does, what He IS! He is the only One who can wash away and even make beauty out of our past and breathe new daily breath into our future.

And there was more…I thought about children who have passed away, or loved ones who knew Jesus who have left us. The moment their bodies were ready for the coffin, this look on Selah’s face as her Daddy raises her up out of that water, THAT was the look on their faces when their Abba pulls them from the grave into His arms! The resurrection is REAL, friends!!!!! One day, that will be us going down, only to be raised up again, and it’ll be sheer, unlimited joy and beauty.

Until He comes, we’ve been raised… to walk… in newness… of life.

Thank You, Jesus!

December 11, 2013December 10, 2013

How to Stay Healthy Over the Holidays, Part Two

Continued from yesterday…

6) If you have holiday events that will change up your normal eating schedule or normal healthy foods, I have two thoughts to help. One, have your meal on a dessert plate-get whatever you want, but other than vegetables and fruit, make it fit on a dessert plate. Two, wear a watch and do not eat any sooner than 3 hours later! Your waistband, blood sugar, digestion, and eventually the scale will thank you!

7) Desserts: What other time of year does one have peanut butter balls and derby pie? So, I myself will have some even though for the rest of the year I am pretty much dessert-free. Two thoughts about this that help me not go overboard anymore: One, have a dessert plate with a small sample of your favorite things. Two, do not take it home with you, and if you have no choice about that, plan to only eat the leftovers when others are sitting down to enjoy them as well. (Read: Do not scurry up to the fridge alone when everyone else has gone to bed…I say this as if I have experience on this matter…which I will humbly confirm!!)

8) I really recommend 15 minutes of exercise a day, even and especially through the holidays! It helps the immune system, and just think, if you are eating an extra few hundred calories every few days because of the rich holiday foods AND skipping your normal exercise, it’s compounding to a serious calorie overload your body is not used to. Keep up the exercise, and possibly add in a 10 min walk outside around dinnertime each evening, and that will really help with the extra servings your body isn’t used to.

9) Pace yourself and don’t “eat your feelings”. We need to let this season be the gift that it is, NOT the busy dizzy mess it can become of setting unrealistic expectations on our calendar and ourselves, and trying to live up to the unrealistic expectations others tend to put on us. I will say this truth to you and me both: We don’t HAVE to do anything at all to show and receive love this Christmas. We are enough and so are the people around us. WE get to choose what Christmas is all about TO US. If you find yourself stressed, keep to the eating and resting guidelines, and take a moment to really think about WHY you’re cooking, dressing up, driving, preparing your home, etc. It’s about relationships and having a chance to show love and gratitude, not about perfection and pride and things that can be bought. When we get to the bottom of why we feel overwhelmed or unhappy, it’s amazing how quickly the desire to stuff our faces disappears.

10) Don’t allow this month to overshadow or rearrange the most important part of the day: Your time alone with Jesus! He wants to steady you, bless you, sing over you! He wants to nourish you and hold you close so you can hear His heartbeat now more than ever. There are hurting people around us-He wants to give us a word to sustain the weary! We need Him, whether we notice it or not amidst the constant noise and bustle, and our awareness of His Presence will be our peace and joy. He IS the peace and joy people speak of at Christmas, to ignore coming close to Him during this time only sets us up for disappointment at the end of the day.

So, God bless you–each and every one–and may you enjoy this holiday to the fullest!

December 10, 2013December 27, 2022

How to Stay Healthy Over the Holidays! Part One…

So I raise my glass and propose a toast to staying well and also not gaining weight over the Christmas Season! The actions we take to stay well AND the actions we take to not gain weight are one and the same, go figure! They simply go hand in hand.

There is no reason in the world why we have to bring in the New Year feeling sick, miserable, and ready to take on insane exercise routines and diets. Let’s just SKIP ALL THAT this year! Here are some things I am going to stay conscious of…No rocket science here, but as I was thinking through my strategy I thought I would share it with you!

1) Drink more water than ever! I am trying to do a full 32 oz water bottle by lunch and another by supper.

2) Get some detox tea or echinacea tea and drink it hot several times a week. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to swap out your lunch most days this month with a homemade protein shake with flax seed, chia seeds, spinach, berries, and all the good stuff that helps keep you squeaky clean and well-nourished.

3) Take a daily 10-15 minute “nap”, eyes closed, no TV. Yoga wouldn’t be a bad idea either, I love it!

4) Have some Oscillicilium (Sorry, I have no idea how to spell this!), Cold Eeze zinc tablets (yes, I know they have disgusting artificial sweetener in them which I usually avoid like the plague), and Vitamin C powder packets on hand ON TOP of your regular whole food vitamins. It is truly amazing how these three things, or even just one of these, can shorten a cold. Also, I have learned with having bad allergies that it doesn’t matter whether your symptoms are from a cold or just allergies, you need relief! So, stock up on antihistamines so that when the icky drippy stuff starts happening, you can dry it up and keep from getting an infection. My favorite one is Chlor-Trimeton, it works wonders for me.

5) Get in bed before 11, with just a few exceptions you crazy party animals!