What is a habit? - We are what we repeatedly do

"We are what we repeatedly do"

-Aristotle

Habits play a crucial role in our daily lives, often operating beneath our conscious awareness. While many habits contribute positively to our well-being, there are those that can lead to long-term negative consequences. The challenge lies in recognizing unhealthy habits and understanding that simply stopping one does not equate to progress; it requires replacing it with a healthier alternative.

Identifying triggers is an essential step in this process. These triggers can vary widely—some may stem from physical dependence, while others could relate to stress relief or social situations. For instance, individuals attempting to quit smoking may find themselves drawn to cigarettes in times of stress or social gatherings. Similarly, someone aiming to cut back on sugar might crave sweets during moments of fatigue or emotional distress.

To successfully navigate the transition away from unhealthy habits, it is vital to incorporate new, healthier choices. This could involve strategies like:

• Mindfulness Practices: Engaging in mindfulness can help increase awareness of cravings and the situations that invoke them. This awareness can provide an opportunity to introduce healthier alternatives.

• Finding Substitutes: For those trying to reduce sugar intake, exploring naturally sweet fruits or healthy snacks can satisfy cravings without the downsides of refined sugar.

• Building a Support System: Surrounding oneself with supportive individuals can also facilitate change. Sharing goals with friends or family can create a network for accountability and encouragement.

• Setting Goals: Clear, achievable goals for incorporating new habits—such as drinking more water or committing to regular exercise—can provide a road map for change.

Ultimately, transitioning away from unhealthy habits is not merely about ceasing a behavior but about fostering a lifestyle that supports health and well-being. By understanding the nuances of triggers and implementing lasting, positive changes, individuals can embark on a successful journey toward better habits.

How do you know what to buy?

Produce Choices: Fresh, Frozen, or Canned?

When it comes to buying fruits and vegetables, consumers often face the choice between fresh, frozen, or canned options. Each has its advantages and potential drawbacks.

Fresh Produce: Fresh fruits and vegetables are often regarded as the healthiest option due to their nutrient density and lack of preservatives. They can be vibrant in flavor and texture, providing a satisfying eating experience. However, fresh produce has a limited shelf life and can spoil quickly.

Frozen Produce: Freezing can preserve the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, making frozen options a viable alternative. They are harvested at peak ripeness and immediately frozen, which can help retain flavor and minimize nutrient loss. Frozen produce is convenient and often more economical, especially for out-of-season items.

Canned Produce: Canned fruits and vegetables are similarly convenient and typically have a long shelf life due to their preservation methods. However, they may contain added sugars, salts, or preservatives. It's essential to read labels and choose products with fewer additives for a healthier option.

Reading Labels: What is Really in This Package?

Understanding food labels is crucial for making informed choices. Look for:

• Ingredients List: This tells you what is in the package. Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight. The fewer the ingredients, the better, especially if they are whole foods.

• Nutrition Facts: Pay attention to serving sizes and nutrients like calories, fats, sugars, and fiber. A high content of sugars or unhealthy fats can indicate a less healthy option.

• Percent Daily Values: This helps you understand how much a serving contributes to your daily diet. Aim for low percentages of saturated fats, added sugars, and sodium.

What Does It Mean? Organic, Non-GMO, Cage-Free, Range-Free, Grass-Fed

• Organic: This label means that the food was produced without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Organic farming practices are designed to promote ecological balance and biodiversity.

• Non-GMO: Foods labeled as non-GMO do not incorporate genetically modified organisms. This is particularly important for consumers who prefer natural food sources.

• Cage-Free: This term refers to egg-laying hens that are not kept in cages. They have more space to move around in barns but may not have outdoor access.

• Range-Free: Similar to cage-free, range-free indicates that the hens are not in cages. However, this term does not guarantee that they have outdoor access or adequate space.

• Grass-Fed: This label is applied to livestock that have been raised on a diet primarily consisting of grass. Grass-fed animals may produce meat and dairy products that contain higher levels of certain nutrients, including omega-3 fatty acids.

Shopping for Healthy Choices on a Budget

Eating healthy doesn’t have to break the bank. Here are some tips for shopping smartly:

1. Plan Your Meals: Creating a meal plan can help you avoid impulse purchases and ensure you stick to your budget.

2. Buy in Bulk: Purchasing staple items like grains, beans, and nuts in bulk can reduce costs.

3. Shop Seasonal Produce: Seasonal fruits and vegetables are often more affordable and flavorful.

4. Use Coupons and Sales: Look for discounts and sales, particularly for frozen or canned goods, which can be more economical options.

5. Farmers Markets: Shopping at local farmers markets can provide direct access to fresh produce at competitive prices.

6. Store Brands: Consider purchasing store-brand items, which can often be cheaper without sacrificing quality.

By making informed choices and planning carefully, eating nutritious foods can be within your financial reach.

Preparation & Convenience Are Key!

Preparing helps make healthy eating a habit. It's important to have easy options. Set up a simple routine for the work week. Cut fresh vegetables weekly so you can enjoy them daily, saving time and making it easier to eat well. You can chop, steam, or roast various vegetables for quick additions to meals. This builds consistency and improves your diet. Having healthy snacks ready increases your chances of making good choices and sticking to a healthier lifestyle.

Glass mason jars with re-useable lids are great for storing chopped veggies all week. Choose what works best for you. If you're short on time, buy a veggie tray and divide it for daily snacks. Don’t forget to add a protein source to balance the fiber and healthy carbs, like hummus, cheese, yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, nuts or nut-butters. The options are endless! Keep it simple- one choice at a time! You got this!

Do I need to be flexible to enjoy yoga?

No, you don’t need to be flexible to enjoy yoga. Many think flexibility is essential for yoga, but that's not true. Yoga is for everyone, no matter how flexible you are ..or are not. With regular practice, you’ll likely notice less restriction in your movement over time.

Yoga can also help with aches and pains from daily activities, especially from sitting too long. Common issues like tight hips, lower back pain, and rounded shoulders can improve with yoga practice.

Additionally, yoga helps improve posture and body alignment. By focusing on breathing, balance, and movement, you’ll become more aware of your body and can make adjustments for better alignment.

In short, yoga benefits physical and mental well-being, and anyone can enjoy it, regardless of flexibility.

Attaining Sustainable Change

Staying healthy and maintaining your weight is remarkably similar to the changing seasons, as both require careful and regular adjustments to adapt to new conditions.

An effective way to create lasting and meaningful change is to focus on the good habits you already possess and gradually build upon them. Changes driven by emotions such as fear, guilt, or a strong desire to fix perceived flaws can often lead to a persistent cycle of negativity. In this cycle, frequent attempts can ultimately result in failure and constant reminders of what isn't working, diminishing motivation and confidence over time.

Focus and build on the positives, leave the negatives behind.

Fountain of Youthfulness - Your Choices

How we age is a choice; with gratitude or misery.

• Have Gratitude! Express empathy, embrace humility and laugh frequently -they’re all contagious and fountains of youth!

• Chose to Move! A body in motion, stays in motion -take a walk, try yoga, simply move - a gym is not needed!

• Nourish Yourself! You are what you eat -eat your veggies, drink your water!

• Stay Connected! Get out there… you’ve got good stuff to share!

Are You Open to Another Perspective - Beyond Your Own?

After years of trying various approaches. Observing all the social influencers swear that theirs is the only approach for you. Where are you? Any further along on your journey to wellness and healthy sustained weight-loss? Or are you exactly where you started… or maybe a little heavier or a bit unhealthier?

There is a reason - quick fixes are simply that a quick fix. Behavioral change is where your behaviors change, and different choices are made.

Health Coaching is becoming increasingly valuable as people begin to realize they haven’t been able to achieve something on their own, and recognize that the perspective of someone who can see beyond the situation they continue to find themselves in.

Poor quick fix lifestyle choices are responsible for continued weight gain, fatigue, anxiety, depression, and overall illness.   Health Coaching is a collaborative partnership; with YOU the client being able to tap into YOUR inner strength and external resources to achieve health and wellness you deserve.   

Have you been able to achieve the results you want on your own?

Can't find a "DIEt" that works for you?

HEALth -

• Food as Fuel

• Nourishment & Satisfaction

• Mindful Self-care

• Sustainable

• Wellness from Within

• Being the Best Version of Yourself

Your Choices - Your Habits - Your Wellness

DIEt -

• Food as Enemy

• Deprivation

• Quick Fix

• Short-term

• Numbers and a Scale

• One Size Fits All

Ready to focus on Your Health and HEAL?

Choose to thrive in 2025- You are worth the investment!!

You are correct; being healthy is not free.  Dealing with daily stiffness and pain is not free. Being overweight, sedentary with a weakened immune system is not free either.

There is an investment in being healthy or cost for illness - either way it will involve time and money.

Your CHOICE where you spend it.

Ask yourself-

How many of the social media diet supplements, meal replacements or programs have you bought that did not work long-term or work at all?

How much are the co-pays for the doctor visits, lab work, physical therapy sessions and medication’s to manage a chronic illness, fatigue, pain, etc.?  Did you include the costs of the all the over the counter products for sinus congestion, runny noses, sleep problems, digestive issues, etc.?

 What is the potential future cost of all these reactive approaches?

 What is the emotional and the psychological toll on yourself and your love ones when you cannot join them in an activity due to just not feeling well or illness? 

How much are you missing out on?

Use this link to RESERVE YOUR SPOT and START YOUR JOURNETY TO THRIVE!

What have you chosen to believe about yourself?

Beliefs are stronger than willpower. Take a moment and consider what you believe about yourself.

Do you believe in a growth or fixed mindset? The implications may explain a lot- especially when looking to change a habit. Learning is necessary to change a habit.

Growth Mindset = Possibility!

-Believes in Development Over Time

-Readily Embraces Challenges

-Has a High Regard for Practice

-Views Obstacles as Only Temporary

-Is Inspired by Others

-Willingly Accepts Feedback

Fixed Mindset = Stuck!

-Believes in Innate Intelligence / Talent

-Resists Challenges

-Disregards the Need For Practice

-Views Obstacles as Permanent

-Views Others Success as a Threat

-Struggles to Accept Feedback

Approach to Sustainable Change

Being healthy and managing your weight can be like the seasons we experience each year, requiring us to regularly make changes to adapt.

A productive approach to sustainable change…consider the positive habits you already have concerning a healthy lifestyle and amplify those behaviors.

Change that is motivated by fear, guilt, regret or a desire to fix a perceived weakness often leads to negative a self-defeating cycle in which we try and fail and keep being reminded of what is not working.

Focus and build on the positives, leave the negatives behind.

Healthy Self - Heal Thy Self

When you start taking care of yourself, you feel better, you see yourself better, you become healthier.

Choose to LIVE better, Not to simply EXIST.

As we age, the more personal responsibility we are able to take; the greater the results. Truly making the retirement years GOLDEN.

Do you know why you make the choices you do? How READY are you to change? Could the key to sustainable change start with you spending time observing and learning about yourself and your preferences? Taking time to really gain an understanding of how you got to where you are today, then moving toward a clearer picture of where you’d like to be.

What are you drawn to?

Nothing is Static, the Only Constant is Change

Shifting our balance is necessary constantly. Nothing is static. Not our health. Not our posture. Not our daily routines. Not our relationships. Not us. As we age our bodies require different care. This could be a need to change our food, our activity, our relationships, our beliefs, our views and our expectations. Turning inward and listening maybe the first step... Shifting Balance is normal and healthy.

Everyone needs support at some point

Why have I evolved my practice beyond massage therapy?

JUST LIKE YOU-

I am getting older.

I have been a Massage Therapist supporting my clients in managing healthy aging and chronic stiff achiness and pain for 20 years. In that time, I too have been getting older.

On my journey I have discovered a few changes in my daily choices that currently have me feeling more mobile, energetic, less stressed and over all happier and healthier today -Without Feeling Deprived.

As a Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach I want you to feel your best - Now and at any age. I want to share these approaches with you.

The foundation of this is available through -

Tailored to You 1:1 Health Coaching or Healthy Habits 6week Weight-loss (Last offering before September starts this Monday 4/15)

Both include the opportunity to experience Healthy Choices Educational Grocery Tour and Mindful Movement.

What is Mindfulness to You?

Understanding 3 Aspects of Mindfulness

• Intention – what you want to get from practicing mindfulness.

• Attention – focus on your internal and external world.

• Attitude – curious, reflective and accepting.

Quiet gentle approach to coaching the mind to reset and focus…

It’s natural for the mind to be constantly working; organizing, solving and restructuring information about people, places and things.

Without some “self-parenting” the mind and its thoughts can spin and spin until it hits a wall… and is forced to stop.

Being mindful - is a quiet gentle approach to coach the mind to settle into the here and now moment.  

Why do we continue to OVEREAT?

If you consider the body needs essential nutrients; and you are consuming lots of empty calories… your body is still starving for those nutrients.

There is also the opportunity for leptin resistance. If your finger touches a hot stove, you want your fingertip and brain to recognize that it is hot, immediately causing you to pull your finger away.  With Leptin Resistance, it is like your fingertip is stuck on that stove and burning the skin off; you just keep overeating because your body is resistant to Leptin, the hormone that tells you to stop eating because you are full.

Gherlin is the hormone released to tell our bodies we are hungry and need fuel/nutrients.  When you start to eat, your fat cells release Leptin, which then tells your brain our nutrient levels have been met; and we should stop eating.  

What is leptin resistance?

One Choice at a Time

Do I really need to take vitamins?

You may be healthy, active and regularly making all the right food choices yet still fall short. Vitamins can bridge the gap.

The reason one vitamin can promote so much benefit in the body, is because the deficiency of one vitamin can negatively effect so many bodily functions.

Vitamins and minerals are considered essential nutrients—because acting in concert, they perform hundreds of roles in the body. They help strengthen and rebuild our bones, support the bodies recovery from injury, and are a critical component of our immune system. They also play a strategic role in converting our food into energy.

Understanding the Benefits of taking vitamins is based on 3 factors

• Quality of Product

• Consistency of Use

• Your Body's Ability to Absorb

Change is a Choice; Which You Must be Ready for

When it comes to change; It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t.

It’s some people are ready for change and some are not.

Some are able to make changes alone. Some need a little support and guidance.

A productive approach to sustainable change…consider the positive habits you already have concerning a healthy lifestyle and amplify those behaviors.

Change that is motivated by fear, guilt, regret or a desire to fix a perceived weakness often leads to a negative self-defeating cycle in which we try and fail and keep being reminded of what is not working.

Focus and Build on the Positives, leave the negatives behind.

Pace yourself. Small steps. You’ll get there.

Make Healthy a Habit, One Choice at a Time.

Why does aging seem to be so painful?

Ever wonder why somedays you feel very stiff and achy yet can’t recall having done anything physically to cause it?  Then experience those days that all seems to feel pretty good. You may have more control over managing this than you think.

Let’s talk about inflammation.

When something enters the body, and it is not recognized as something it needs like an essential nutrient- your immune system kicks in and attacks.  Your body will work to protect itself from foreign matter and will push it out or encompass, destroy and or try to eliminate. For example; when you get a sliver in your finger your body will respond and create inflammation (redness and swelling) around the spot.  Inflammation is a healthy immune response, however when repeated over and over it becomes Chronic Inflammation... which then is no longer a healthy response but a full attack on one's body. 

An unfortunate common systemic form of inflammation can arise from what you eat and drink.  Today many items we consume are loaded with ingredients (additives and preservatives) that are not recognized by the body as a nutrient.  Chances are if you look at a label and can’t pronounce or recognize an ingredient – your body won’t either! As a result, the body will attack it as foreign matter.  This may causes a systemic (full body) inflammatory response which can be experienced through stiff achy joints and overall swelling and bloat.

Each of our bodies are like chemistry beakers. Everything we consume has an impact on our unique chemistry balance. The effect of what we consume can be positive or negative.  When negative, your body is smarter than you and will attack the unrecognized matter (like a silver in your finger), causing an inflammatory response.  Everyone’s body is unique in how this takes place.  Most common areas it can be observed in rashes and irritations on skin, bloating and digestion discomfort, acid reflux, stiff achy joints, and respiratory/sinus issues like runny nose and congestion.

Working with Rebecca you’ll discuss your current pain; together you can determine how to approach managing a portion of that through your lifestyle choices.  Rebecca is here to create a supportive environment while together you explore what really works for you.

Aging doesn’t have to be painful -

You may be experiencing inflammation as a response to something you consumed.