Blog Archives

You already know fruits, vegetables, seeds and spices provide you with great health benefits, yes? But, did you know that eating them paired up with certain other foods boosts the potency of the vitamins and nutrition!

I love this Good Food Combination – cheat sheet! For sure I will be coming back to this information often!

My favourite food combination is of course the Tomato + Avocado = Great guacamole that’s loaded with Lycopene!

No one needed to give me more reasons to eat more tomato and avocado – but it sure is good to know these important health benefits!

What’s your favourite food pairing?

Today, I’m very excited to bring you a great guest post from a wonderful and inspiring blogger and meditation teacher Nicole Alexandra of Food Beauty Love. Nicole shares with us a simple but wonderful guide of how to easily incorporate mediation into our daily life to attract more abundance and happiness to our days… Yes, there are so many benefits to meditation also and Nicole mentions these as well. Sounds perfectly blissful and doable and promises to be life changing ~ I can’t wait to start my days with a little meditation!

Find out how you can easily invite more abundance and happiness into your life and learn about the benefits of meditation and learn how to meditate with this
Easy 10 step Guide to Beginner’s Meditation:

HAPPY PEOPLE MEDITATE

An easy 10 step guide to attract abundance and happiness to your everyday life.

If you ask anyone the big question of “what do you want from life?” the most common response is “happiness“. Who doesn’t want to be happy, right? But let’s face it. You can’t just say you want happiness. You actually have to be happy. So while most of us feel happy at times, that feeling is more like a mini-vacation than it is a permanent residence.

In order to live full-time in a happy state, you have to work to get there. Just like we commit ourselves to eat healthy and exercise to achieve certain results, we need to commit ourselves to achieve happiness. For me, regular meditation is the key to happiness because it helps me become aware of my thoughts.

“Neuroscientists have found that meditators shift their brain activity to different areas of the cortex – brain waves in the stress-prone right frontal cortex move to the calmer left frontal cortex. This mental shift decreases the negative effects of stress, mild depression and anxiety.” (source)

Not only is meditation credited with helping reduce stress and elevate moods, it also creates a personal awareness of accountability. Are you aware of your thoughts? What are you thinking right now? The first few minutes of meditation are insightful (also called mindfulness meditation) as you play witness to your thoughts. Being aware of your thoughts presents you with a powerful opportunity to replace & label negative thinking. For instance, you might not even be aware of certain emotions you carry throughout the day.  Meditation is part of noticing and detaching from those emotions vs. letting them hijack your bliss.

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“Let
meditation
become the
pathway to
attracting
abundance
into your life.”

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SO WHERE DO I START?

From my experience, I recommend meditating first thing in the morning.
Here are 10 easy steps to get started:

• Set your alarm 10 minutes earlier.
• Before you begin, drink a glass of water with lemon to hydrate & alkaline the body.
• Find a quiet, comfortable place to sit. You can sit on the floor cross legged or in a chair with your feet on the floor and hands on your lap.
• Take 3 deep breaths.
• Close your eyes.
• Don’t worry “Am I doing this right?”  There is no right or wrong way to meditate.
• Your mind may be active with many thoughts. If this is the case, visualize yourself sitting on a park bench and watching your mind’s activity pass you by.
• Once you feel a sense of calm & relaxed say these words to yourself, “I connect to my higher self” Then take a deep cleansing breath. Sit for a few more minutes.
• If your mind feels distracted listen to your breath.
• Before you open your eyes, quietly repeat, “I am the source of my abundance” and “I am full of love, light and joy.” Then slowly open your eyes.

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Start with 3-5 minutes in the morning to get started. Then once you get into it, you can extend the time. I recommend having a journal handy to capture your thoughts & feelings.

You can also take mini-meditation breaks throughout the day. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Check in with yourself. See how you feel & where your mind is at. I personally like to meditate before a meeting or presentation as it calms my nerves and provides me a feeling of strength. I also meditate before bed to calm my body and ease the subconscious into a more restful sleep.

Much love, happiness & unlimited abundance. xo

Nicole Alexandra

Nicole Alexandra’s passion is to help people look, feel and be fabulous on the inside and out. She believes the most important ingredient in the recipe for a healthy life is knowledge. Nicole is a wellness blogger  at FoodBeautyLove, writer, meditation teacher, entrepreneur and mom. You can also find Nicole on YouTube: FoodBeautyLove Twitter @FoodBeautyLove and Facebook

What’s your favourite drink? And what do you really drink throughout the day? Do you ever wonder how many calories are in your favourite beverage?

This chart is a great visual to show you just how much calories you’ll find in orange Juice, coffee, cola, fruit drink, iced tea, and beer. Look down below ~ how about introducing more lemon water to your diet and dropping those fruit juices for good – eat real fruit instead!

I like tea and lemon water most of the time ;) And sometimes we have an all-natural fruit syrup around that I add to my daughter’s drinks or even tea to sweeten up life.  Wish they showed tea here, but most herbal teas also have 0 calories. I’ll drink to that! And reserve my calories intake, which is about 1600 calories a day/ per my body weight and height, for the real good nutritious food!

Are you puzzled by how many calories you need daily?
You can apply this simple rule to calculate your Caloric daily needs:

Try eating 15 calories for every 1 pound of body weight.

Here are a few calorie intake calculations for different body weights.

• 100 x 15 = 1500
• 115 x 15 = 1725
• 150 x 15 = 2250
• 175 x 15 = 2625
• 200 x 15 = 3000
• 225 x 15 = 3375
• 250 x 15 = 3750

To put this chart into a better perspective, on average an adult should consume about 2000 calories ~ they add up fast as you can see, leaving little room for nutritious food. If you consume all the drinks on the top of this chart – you consume 1370 calories in drinks alone! No matter what you eat now -you’re maxing on your daily calorie intake!