Food Balance Your Body Type Archives - Page 30 of 33

Fear and Phobia Is Not Permanent

fear and phobia

When I was younger I wore contact lenses. For the first few weeks, I had a subconscious fear and phobia, and I struggled to get the soft contact on my eyeball.

When I would try, my eye would blink and my eyelashes would keep the contact out of my eye.

No-contact was what I should have called the daily event that seemed like taking half an hour every day.

Years later, I realized that the reason I couldn’t get the contacts in my eyes was that I had a subconscious fear of the contact (lens) making contact with my eye.

So the blinking was not controlled by me but a body reaction to what my mind was telling my eye (mind-body connection in full swing).

From this puzzling event, I recalled that years before as a child, my eyes would sting when I tried to open them in the pool water.

Some kids could open their eyes completely underwater (I noticed with my underwater goggled protected eyes wide open).

A-ha!… with that, I made the connection to my fear… the goggles acted as eye protection and a contact lens was an intruder like the chlorinated pool water, at least in my subconscious mind (that does most of the thinking).

Knowing that insight, allowed problem-solving consciousness to emerge.

With daily practice, I consistently calmed my mind disabling my protective shell in my brain and re-writing the new story narrative to my fear and phobia that had the bold headline: “contacts are safe.”

Then that mind message was reinforced daily as I went to a 20/20 daily vision world from a framed eyeglass world.

Those subconscious positive reinforcing thoughts cut down the time to insert a contact within seconds.

Wouldn’t that be great if we could reprogram our negative thinking minds in nanoseconds?

Making visible, hidden fears through your actions

Inserting contact lenses can be a frustrating experience for many in the beginning (like it was for me).

Similarly, for so many other starting out defeats, a hidden fear or phobia can be preventing the outcome from happening.

There’s a deeper root cause for your fears.

When you can find the reasons and ways to reprogram your subconscious mind, then you can get over your fear and phobia.

Insecurity is one of those subconscious fears that can show up regularly with a knee-jerk reaction from a fear-based thought.

Another is jealousy or criticism especially if you’ve been wounded or have reason to doubt.

And these get worse if you’re Vata imbalanced. If you’re naturally Vata dominant, anxiety is your natural way that can trigger fear.

Any non-loving thought is fear-based because it comes from the brain’s ego, and if left unattended, can spin wildly out of control.

We can rewrite those subconscious fear thoughts and shadow work can be the way.

Also, others can notice from the words, actions, and reactions that happen, but the person with the ego is often blind…

It’s natural and invisible to the person unless they witness and catch the self-defeating and manipulating thoughts.

So that’s why we all have to be careful and stay aware of our own egos.

At any weak moment, a humble spirit can turn into a prideful act.

The simple act of someone cutting you off on the road can change your calm state to a riled-up one. And that can show up in a myriad of undesirable outward expressions that are unhelpful to everyone involved.

Getting off your chest is healthy and productive after you have a chance to cool down in self-control and you have calmly thought about potential solutions.

Then when you are tested, or you’re cut off the road, you get to decide which road to take.

Choosing the higher road means letting go and that can seem weak to the ego-mind, but self-control is empowered strength.

If you’re conflicted or when you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything yet. Review so you can learn and have discernment next time.

Remember that tidbit of wisdom next time when you hesitate.

Because you can be certain you will be reminded again until the lesson is learned. Life is patient with us.

How To Change Your Deep Rooted Fear and Phobia

Fear and phobia is rooted in the small places we can operate from in limitation and sometimes ugliness.

We all can act saintly-kind if we choose, and the act allows good sides to birth. Love serves all.

With practice over time, ideally, we can even learn to let undesired “meant to protect you” entering thoughts just pass through without putting energy into them.

We don’t have to accept our thoughts as current truth such as an isolated traumatic experience.

We can just reject those non-helpful thoughts that don’t apply to our current situation and send them back to where they came from.

And we can connect the dots to our self-awareness for the next time. We can recognize our self-destructive patterns and question them.

Because when you realize and accept every thought isn’t yours, that’s when you can learn how to optimize and transform your life if you decide.

Maybe you do realize, but you haven’t accepted yet. Because to accept means you give up a part of your control.

Say Goodbye to Your Past Fear and Phobia!

Before my younger contact lens years, I had fear and phobia about the dark, lightning, thunder, and the deep waters just to name a few things.

They came from news stories I heard, scary movies I watched, and almost physically drowning in my backyard lake at 9 years old.

But first I had to get calm and lose the worry.

I conquered the drowning fear eventually by learning how to swim.

When you lose your deep fear, any surface panicking fear and phobia, you can learn to float as you become light and buoyant. And if you can float either on your back or your front, you can learn to swim and save yourself.

That summer I was able to enroll in swim lessons but didn’t successfully learn how to float.

Then one day I was in the shallow end of a neighborhood pool, and I was calm and tried to float. Something clicked and I learned how to float on my belly and my back in the pool water.

It wasn’t pretty as I just laid there like a piece of driftwood letting my feet slowly float from the bottom of the pool.

But that day gave me confidence as I repeated floating again and again until I unintentionally could convince and remind myself (and my mind) that I knew how to float.

Fast forward to my young adulthood… most of my childhood phobias had disappeared or I had learned to swim out of them.

I still had fear and worry about so many real-life situations.

One was I had learned to grow scared of sharing.

I didn’t grow in share vulnerability times so that re-enforced my being a private person.

Writing blog posts like this and sharing on the internet was not something I would have ever done back then.

But instead of letting the fear get to me and grow in me, I slowly one-small step at a time turned those moves into action and transformation.

Since I faced my fear, I got over the hump to the other side and then I could replace my old fears.

But I learned to lean on faith to gradually change my Vata ways and worried thinking.

When I had the realization opportunity to cross the bridge into knowing there’s a divine source inside you decades later, there was an exchange into believing in more than my ability only.

There was new weightlessness like the thick clouds had lifted. I wasn’t the sole source for my success and I stopped believing in luck as coincidence without meaning.

I became a Believer that applied deeper insight to life, which did the heavy lifting to transform fear. In faith you know there’s another better life coming.

…What if this life were just a test?

And if you’re still wondering what this life is about, testing the waters in your quiet, thoughtful life is a good way to discover. What if there was more, and you were missing out?

This is an individual question, but when you seek, you will find.

“You become what you think about all day long.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

How Faith Can Play a Solution Role

To take one step further, gaining faith can transform your beliefs and mental health, and especially if you have an anxiety disorder or a traumatic stress disorder.

When you believe that all things are possible in a larger context, then you can believe that fear is beyond you and your power.

Fear can feel like an uncontrollable problem. If you can problem-solve with from within then you have a powerful way.

Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking was a classic book published in the 1950s.

He was a motivational thinker so ahead of his time because he was already suggesting meditation and mind-body correlation in his works.

There’s a 10-step practical process in the book’s chapter “Power to Solve Personal Problems.”

It includes: believe for every problem there is an answer, pray about your problems, trust in your insight and intuition, and do creative spiritual thinking for amazing power answers.

If Mr. Peale were still alive today, he would be a great forward-thinking influencer with much to say.

Healthy Mindful Snacking Tips From a Party Planner

Healthy mindful snacking can be a game changer especially if you combine with mindful eating and healthy eating habits. Learn from my snacking display ideas and tips deployed in a decade of party planning including weddings and other special occasion events that ended up as thousands of clients (…oh my, where does the time go?)

If you didn’t grow up with a healthy mindful snacking habit, this idea may seem initially odd to you, your mind, and body (mind-body). And why I don’t question others who don’t snack between meals!

You’re better off paying attention to your hunger cues, fullness cues, and changes in your body than focusing on emotional cues especially if weight gain is a struggle.

I know how food can be comforting and carrots aren’t stress calming foods.

But if you do regularly snack or are open to the idea, you may find that snacking time is a nice mindfully healthy break to reset, start a new project and give your body some needed energy.

healthy mindful snacking ideas are often green... and orange.

That’s why I take a 5-minute mindful snack break at least 2-3 times a day. Maybe this is a new approach for you.

And if so, it could be what you need to add to your day to reset your emotions, thoughts, and moods (while keeping your body in your comfortable tip-top happy shape).

It’s more effective than saying no that rarely works when the kitchen is open (and you’re not fasting if that’s something you do).

I also find that snacking helps me to maintain a consistent dress size that I’m comfortable in. This is what most of us want.

There are many added factors as to why this will work better for some people and not as well for others, including the beliefs you have behind this truth.

You’re the eating expert for your body. And you’re the only one who knows your body better than anyone when it comes to how it looks and your preferences.

Busting The Myth That Eating More Healthy Mindful Snacking Will Automatically Make You Gain Weight

I like to use the analogy of your brain. One of your brain’s primal concerns is to keep you alive. Your thoughts alert you and your body of potential dangers through fear and anxiety.

Your body has similar concerns and is sending signals like hunger pains to protect you from starvation.

If you feed your body often, then you’re teaching your body that there’s no need to go into food conservation red alert mode. If instead you feed your body say one meal a day, then that’s a trigger to your body to store fat more easily, as fat energy would keep you alive longer.

Your body pays attention to what is happening first. While your mind is on its frequency and tied together with the body through the gut. The mind-body communication is delayed like an audio lag so that’s why it’s better to slow down and chew.

How else does healthy mindful snacking regularly benefit you?

Besides body efficiency, time efficiency is another reason snacking can help…

If you get hungry or are in low-energy unproductive moods, opening the fridge door can help you get over your temporary lull faster than if you mull around without changing your situation.

As a mindful action, you can snap out of a funk when you look in the fridge as a visual cue for your mind-body to kick into gear.

The trick is to have healthy snacks and food choices so you can be snacking mindfully and healthy.

You can pull these snacks out earlier in the day so you’re prepared and not triggered during the day to find something not as healthy.

When you look at snacking from the mindful planning perspective, the 5 minutes of snack-prep time is nothing. Compare that to getting in and out of the grocery store which can take at least 4 times the amount of loss efficiency time, plus the travel time it takes.

If you’re one of the people who check out of the “under 15 items” grocery line with just 2-3 items, think how much time you’d save if you changed your regular shopping habits to include pantry and fresh item perimeter shopping.

Still on the fence?

Besides efficiency and uplifting-mood changing reasons, there are physical health benefits today to add as we have healthier snacks and food trends available to us and on our side.

When you prepare and eat small, bite size healthy snacks regularly (like a bird does pecking at crumbs) and in between meals throughout the day, your body can re-fuel energy to keep going.

You can replace the need to afternoon power nap or have an espresso with a 5-minute mind-body benefitting snack.

If you snack on hard boiled eggs or popcorn with nutritional yeast for a cheesy flavor, you can feel some energy boost from the B-vitamins.

Healthy Mindful Snacking Ideas:

Healthy mindful snacking is at the core of intuitive eating where you only eat when you’re hungry. Or you have a bite versus a whole big restaurant portion.

Like this cheese and fruit bigger-than-eyes display that was at one of my Mediterranean cuisine restaurant parties.

The white cubes that look like tofu are Shanklish, that’s a popular Lebanese, high quality sheep’s milk cheese that pairs well with falafel (chickpea and gluten-free) for a “charcuterie” board with a twist.

But toning it down a notch as many of us can’t easily re-create a board like those at professional catered parties, you can make a simple at-home charcuterie board or snack board inspired by bright wedding food colors that are full of polyphenols.

One theme you can use is orange veggies loaded with beta-carotene.

Growing up for me, snacking with bright orange salty snacks wasn’t the healthy kind. And the sweets weren’t either.

These days, processed and high sugar snacks are still easily available and causes toward child obesity on the rise. And if I had to do over, learning healthy snacking habits earlier would have been better and easier.

The healthy switch especially isn’t easy for a Vata with a sweet tooth and salty fix as an adult.

And once a Vata always a Vata.

But if I can do it, you can too if you can get into the mindful space one step at a time.

How about this mid-day bright orange sweet potato board with balsamic buffalo mozzarella cheese and healthy Za’atar crackers?

party snack board — Za’atar or savory crackers, balsamic buffalo mozzarella, and sweet potato dip are a great way to express healthy snack creativity in minutes. 🍠

Listening to food trends with one ear is also a better idea than going all in as the trend can change.

Low-fat eating dominated trends when I was a young adult and that has changed.

Back then, a no-fat cookie could questionably appear to be healthier than a handful of higher fat almonds for healthy mindful snacking. We know that’s not today’s truth.

And an apple is still an apple, but now we have many varieties including organic types to choose from.

In a metro-city area, finding healthy snack options is easier and at our fingertips.

This was a hummus bar setup at The Wedding Wire HQ.

Here are eight 5-minute healthy mindful snacking break ideas that never grow old…

1.Homemade hummus.

You can make this in 5 minutes with a blender. I use a Magic Bullet that doesn’t need to brought out each time. That’s why it’s magic.🪄

For homemade hummus, you can take a can of garbanzo beans or chickpeas, then add sea salt, and olive oil. Reserve some of the juice for the recipe which is why I opt for organic cans (also lower in sodium).

If you want, add healthy flavors such as garlic, roasted red peppers, or spicy cayenne pepper.

Voila! You have successfully made homemade hummus, and probably less expensively than a store-bought version.

You could dip carrots, celery, or pita chips in your hummus. You can bake your own corn tortilla.

If you want more creaminess like in store bought hummus or want authentic hummus flavors, you could add tahini or sesame oil and peanut butter as a substitution.

2. Guacamole dip or spread.

You can make a simple guacamole dip with smashed ripe avocados and a few drizzles of olive oil and/or a dash of lemon juice. This can also made as a hummus with garbanzo beans.

There are specific breads that taste better with certain spreads. Sprouted bread pairs well with guacamole where others may fail to give you the same taste and healthy experience level.

3. Kale chips.

You can bake dry, pre-washed kale on low heat for crispy kale chips. Simply add sea salt. This is a great nutritional snack alternative to potato chips.

These days the kale bags come pre-washed so you can skip the the washing and drying that saves time.

4. Popcorn with a drizzle of truffle oil.

If you want more fiber in your diet, popcorn is a whole grain with the bran fiber layer intact.

Try to resist the urge to get the movie butter and butter flavors, and instead add a few drops of truffle oil or extra virgin olive oil to give a little healthy fat and flavor.

You can also add a dash of umami mushroom seasoning.

If you want a savory, umami taste without iodized or table salt, you can try plain popcorn and add white pepper. I like to use a white pepper grinder mill that adds an amazing umami taste. For health, don’t add too much white pepper. You can balance the blend with non-iodized sea salt.

Another popcorn favorite is EVOO (olive oil) with a dusting of turmeric for a smoky good health flavor! And another healthy orange snack to add to the board I mentioned! 🧡

5. Granny Smith apple with all-natural peanut or almond butter.

If you have a sweet tooth, you could take a Granny Smith apple, cut up and dip in all-natural peanut butter that you stir up. I prefer organic and keep the skin on for additional nutrients.

Apples keep the doctor away and help to keep your teeth clean. You can also make “candy” apples.

healthy mindful snacking candy granny smith apples recipe.

6. Bowl of edamame.

You may have discovered these green looking beans as a sushi restaurant appetizer. They are served in the pod for an experience.

You can also buy them shelled and unshelled edamame in the frozen veggie aisle in some grocery stores like international stores. They are made of soy protein so are more than just veggie snacks. They are also high in calcium and fiber.

Cook or heat up and sprinkle with a pinch of coarse sea salt. You can also find snacks with a wasabi kick that can also help to clear up nasal sinus allergies.

7. Bowl of granola, almonds, or healthy trail mix.

If you have a few additional minutes to wait, you can make granola so easily and whip up a batch for the oven in 5 minutes with oatmeal, honey, light olive oil, and your favorite dried fruits. Spread out to a thin layer on a baking sheet and pop in the oven on low heat.

8. Roasted squash seeds. You can bake in advance your butternut squash and spaghetti squash seeds with EVOO until toasty brown to your liking.

Squash seeds are loaded with Vitamins A, C, some B vitamins, and minerals.

You can learn tips on how to prepare spaghetti squash and what’s going on these days on food allergies from a party menu planner perspective.

Some Final Tips to Consider:

1.Energy and physical health. For Vata bodies especially, when you snack regularly, your metabolism increases. It’s counter-intuitive, but you’ve taught your body that you will be feeding your body more often, so it learns not to live in survival mode.

Fat energy is burned more efficiently because your body no longer needs to store this energy, just in case you get stuck on a snow mountain or cave (and need the fat).

Most people don’t know this, and can believe losing weight is all about eating fewer calories.

That’s important but teaching your body to be efficient is also helpful, along with knowing when to eat the biggest meal like earlier in the day.

There are many theories out there. And giving a new way a try to test is worth the healthy effort.

2.Productivity. Taking a snack break clears your head. You can rest from your project or work, and let your mind rest for a few minutes, and recharge. When you focus on an activity like snacking, this can take you away from multi-tasking.

You remind yourself to take time for yourself. Then when you come back to your work, you get more done. You have more energy.

Many studies show that 10-minute breaks are better for you than one large break.

Do this 6 times a day and that can raise your productivity, preferred over an hour lunch break that could slow you down if you eat a heavy meal.

I find that not setting arbitrary times or alerts for breaks is beneficial because when you snack when you want to, you are fulfilling a desire and not a to-do on your list. Having optimum enjoyment is the goal, and not adding another to-do to your busy day.

3.Creativity. You can come up with additional ideas and breakthroughs with your breaks. You may even find a solution to a problem you’ve had with a healthy mindful snacking break.

Getting up and out of your work gives you normalcy and time to recharge and reset.

Do less, produce more. Enjoy your snacks. Mixing up instead of taking an hour break, a few minutes is all you need to refresh.

You can efficiently use these breaks to also take quick restroom breaks.

We sometimes get too busy. I get some of my best ideas doing the simplest tasks like walking to the kitchen or cleaning a bowl.

4.Mindfulness. After you pick up your snack with your hands or fork, you can focus on chewing small bites and can draw your attention back to your sense of tasting, smelling, and touching.

These little body movements and sensation cues are so undervalued in our busy worlds. They turn us to our Ayurvedic ways that are natural to us in balance when our systems are running in balance.

Drawing yourself back to your present moment also brings an appreciation for what you have — more evidence of happy moments and joy in your life that you can become aware of in the mind-body connection.

5.Emotional health. A simple habit of healthy snacking can help you in moments if you feel anxiety coming on, especially during a stressful season.

Stress serves a purpose. When you look at solidly built trees they have endured stress.

Trees form tight rings when they’re under stress that gives them the foundation to help them keep growing and build strength. Getting through stressful times is helpful for your progress and growth.

Snacks can help you stay happy. These small things (and habits) make a big difference to impact your mind-body.

You can take this a step further and add to healthy mindful snacking, another life-enhancing way to handle or process any feelings you have that are not helping you in your day.

You can listen to inspiring music, or reset with a yoga pose and intention like Mountain Pose (standing with your arms wide in the air or heart center) for mindfulness, zen, or meditation.

Your intention can be creativity, getting a project done, or believing what you want to happen is on the way.

These are examples of complementary activities. These small moments will keep your focus on your day’s purpose and what you want to accomplish.

Why are the simple things the ones we often ignore? They can have the most impact on our mind-body health.

Getting a reminder to do simple activities, such as drinking more water, can be what we need. When we start one simple task, that sets our mind to think there may be other simple habits that we can incorporate or bring back to our awareness and daily lives like to snack mindfully.

Pay attention to what you’re feeling if you’re more of a thinker. Women especially have a way to power through and discredit our feelings.

If you feel overall overwhelmed, a complicated life creates anxiety. This can be a sign to step away and get back on track to the simple or main things in your life (to calm your mind-body).

If you run a business, or if you have two jobs as a parent and going to work, find ways to simplify your life. Build systems and do the things you really want to do.

I often use, you only get to do this life once, and this moment once as a mantra. This keeps me from veering off the path or doing things I could regret as much as I can prevent.

And maybe that helps you. Taking in your mind-body moments will be beneficial for your physical and mental health today and in the future that you’re taking a step in creating today.

That’s something to get excited about. 🎉

Print Recipe

Easy Za'atar Crackers

Course Snack

Cuisine lebanese, Mediterranean

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

za'atar spice (thyme, sumac, and sesame seeds)
additional sesame seeds
water

Instructions

Mix ingredients together.
Add wet paste to a baking sheet and Silpat recommended to make it easy to pull off the tray (or use a little non-stick baking spray).
Bake on 300°F for 30 minutes or until crunchy (but not overbaked).

Inflammatory Eczema Allergy Foods

Inflammatory eczema allergy foods is something I became deeply aware of when I experienced adult eczema in a nightmarish way during the world pandemic.

Backing up some, I was familiar with the common allergy foods as I planned parties and food menus working with thousands of groups with food allergies and gluten sensitivities.

But heightening my own sensitivities to food allergies showing up as adult eczema for the first time took the cake. It was a 3 month saga I’d love to forget.

Gluten didn’t help as a common offender in food and white flours so I’ll mention more on that below.

White flour is a common inflammatory eczema allergy food source. — White flour is a common source of gluten food allergies and inflammation.

…Another food category was sweets!

That’s probably no surprise as too much sugar can make your skin crawl and no research has sanely suggested that sugar is good for you (other than your taste buds 😋).

But that’s hard news to swallow when you’re a sweet tooth (and a Vata body like me).

…And if sugar-tipped over the edge, then eczema can be the outcome where rashes mysteriously appear around the body.

They stay until the body is calm. It’s not like a mosquito bite where the poison and bite effects fade after a few days.

But I’m happy to say that even though I love baking (and do it weekly), I’ve learned how to bake healthy and keep eczema at bay. And yes the bakes are delicious (otherwise why bother?).

Firstly, I’m a foodie…

And when I started in catering management for upscale hotel chains, there were only vegetarian food categories other than the menu everyone else ate from.

Then common requests grew like “hold the onions” and “hold the garlic.”

At some point, I saw peanut and nut allergies crop up.

When I dug deeper into creating menus for food allergy group requests, we found that guests who had some peanut allergies could sometimes eat tree nuts like pine nuts.

With awareness, we never had a problem with food allergy association groups.

Shellfish can be another tricky area, but gratefully I didn’t work much with those foods.

An affected person who has even a trace of the shellfish can experience a life threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis shock.

We always had Benadryl in the First Aid kit nearby for general allergy reactions.

And by the time I was planning party events for busy American restaurants serving authentic Mediterranean cuisine, food awareness had grown even further.

Celiac Disease grew. It’s an allergy disease that can cause severe allergic reactions because gluten triggers the immune system.

And I can attest that gluten in moderation is better even for eczema skin allergy symptoms.

Your body gives different health conditions signs as warning. But a warning is a warning.

It can’t give a sour face. ☹️ Only you and I can do that. But it can give a health condition as a sign.

And the source can be the same ingredient culprits.

And so as we evolved in the world, allergies and preferences became the general norm.

Restaurant servers greeted you at your table asking, “does anyone have any allergies?”

A century ago that would’ve never been asked as you ate what you could and anti-inflammatory eczema allergy foods didn’t exist.

Anti-Inflammatory Eczema Allergy Foods

In my trial-and-error food tasting experiences, I learned eczema was dramatically reduced with low daily refined sugar intake and cutting out most processed flours.

Those foods created inflammation that showed up as skin inflammation.

So learning healthy food substitution to sugar and flour was the healthier way.

And there is plenty of healthy alternatives in our abundant earth and sourcing grocery stores.

Anti-inflammatory eczema allergy foods include vegetables, whole fruits, lean healthy proteins, healthy fats and whole grains.

All grains are not created equal. How they are prepared and the details of their ingredient profiles change the effect.

A frequently asked question is: what foods are high in gluten?

The answer: whole grains are healthy. They’re also guilty.

Wheat, barley, and rye are the sources.

Being smart about healthier low-glycemic index starchy carbs and nutrient-dense foods pays off.

Also corn, oats, and quinoa (pseudo-grain) meals are good ideas since they are gluten-free so they bypass some decision fatigue.

Corn is the largest agricultural crop produced in the United States.

So there are still many options for gluten allergies.

Oh, and we also should consider…

Our different bodies where we react differently.

…What spikes the blood sugar of one person is different for another.

Getting to know your body with individual foods and enjoying in moderation is a good idea for all, and each of us living in our bodies.

Plus, lowering processed gluten foods for everyone is a good idea in general, considering all the environmental factors and chemicals (plastics, pesticides, and phthalates) we have no control over in the current state of food manufacturing processes.

For foods, adding more organic plant-based 🌱 in nature when possible, and not plant-based in factories 🏭 helps your entire body system run better.

Every little bit of our effort counts…

Adding more healthy variety, and nutrient-dense plant-forward foods is a double win scoring points for our bodies and our earth. 🎉

It can be as easy as exchanging pasta made from flour once in a while for spaghetti squash. See easy spaghetti squash recipe below. 🍴🍝

A spaghetti squash dish is a good gluten-allergy substitute. — Spaghetti squash looks like spaghetti but doesn’t have gluten.

Focusing on anti-inflammatory foods and including Mediterranean Diet foods that overlap in your meals, helps.

According to the American Heart Association, The Mediterranean Diet is known to be the healthiest diet overall for preventative cardiovascular health and brain health today.

https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/nutrition-basics/mediterranean-diet

Overlapping with anti-inflammatory eczema allergy foods, focusing on healthy foods is as important as minimizing the bad food buckets, such as:

Processed, white sugar foods

Fried foods and unhealthy fats (such as high processed meats)

Eliminating these excesses from your diet can help reduce and potentially prevent life-shortening diseases and precursor chronic body inflammations from occurring.

These are lifestyle choices we get to make.

Replacing emptier calorie and excessively sweet snacks to healthier whole fruit and nut snacks, high quality dairy, and lean proteins help curb hunger in between meals.

Some foods may be classified as healthy, but are still just as bad. I used to fill up on nutritional bars as filler snacks… but the problem is often they’re loaded with sugar.

I realized I would have been better off with a Snickers.

So I quit the bars habit along with sodas for breakfast.

…Maybe you can relate with your food habits?

I replaced sodas for black coffee and unsweetened teas that are more enjoyable as a caffeine morning practice.

I now do and recommend a cold brew coffee method if you have a sensitive stomach or acid causes issues. ☕️

Changing your habits like a regular sweet one for a plant-based breakfast is doable. I’m living proof. 😊

And I take a page from my catering days where Crudite was a platter offered at almost every event.

That’s basically raw veggies like cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, and asparagus.

Those are good sources of fiber that your body needs to better absorb foods.

We often forget about the fiber as we’ve been primed to think of the macros (protein, carbs, and fat).

So fiber is my prime start of the day… and maybe yours (now)?

The Inflammation Free Diet for Food Allergies

The book I had been using as a guidebook for preparing meals, The Inflammation-Free Diet, re-entered my memory after my pandemic eczema inflammation episode.

I realized that there was a connection bridged between spiking sugar inflammation and foods and that made me even more on purpose for consuming anti-inflammatory eczema allergy foods.

In making healthy food choices, moderation and choosing to balance good back-to-earth foods seems to be the better ageless answer to healthily feed our bodies.

Getting anti-inflammatory food ideas for meals waved in front of us doesn’t hurt either! 😉

Using your natural Ayurvedic healthy body to sway to your advantage helps too.

You could discover your body likes more astringent or bitter foods.

This is common in Kapha body types so lean in on this healthy advantage.

And you can find food like garlic or onions aren’t favorable to your body. But that doesn’t mean you have an allergy.

It could just mean eat less.

Managing Eczema Food Allergy Inflammation

If you experience chronic body or skin inflammations in your life, find out what food allergens could be a trigger for your body. Food triggers change as you age.

Try adding more anti-inflammatory eczema allergy foods like vegetables, fruits, and low-glycemic index grains, and see if those make a difference.

Many people are allergic to nightshade foods because of alkaloids in plants.

As a kid, I would get an allergic reaction when I ate eggplants. A rash would move up my back quickly.

But as life moved, this was no longer an allergy trigger.

So don’t assume what was a food allergy trigger before is still your predicament.

Test in small quantities.

Because we want to keep a variety of healthy foods and food categories in our diet as diversity helps the gut and body.

Plus, foods are enjoyable so we don’t want to rob ourselves.

To better manage food allergies, you can read food label ingredients and gain knowledge and awareness.

Another thing you can do is order a medical food allergy-specific prick test at an allergist’s office.

Also do a self-diagnose check-in on your stress in life.

Stress can come from past, present, or future-related thoughts and situations. Past trauma that you may know about, and future uncertainty can confusingly show up in an inflammation body life.

The symptoms on and in your body tell a story in the mind-body connection.

To help restore balance no matter what the source cause, you can take the 2-minute body balance quiz.

And, enjoy this gluten-free spaghetti squash recipe. One medium-size quash will yield about as much as a pasta box you would buy at the store.

It’s a smart and healthy plant-based way to stretch a grocery dollar.

Spaghetti Squash (Gluten-Free)

I discovered spaghetti squash as a meal when vegetarians were the main special food needs categories for groups I planned catered meals for. Food allergies didn't exist in the zeitgeist back then.

Course dinner, lunch

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

Bread knife or safer sawing knife.
Spoon

Ingredients

spaghetti squash gourd
extra virgin olive oil

Instructions

Score the gourd lengthwise. do not try to cut the hard gourd raw
Bake your spaghetti squash for about 20 minutes at 350°F or so. Then softened, you can cut where you scored. Tip: for the ends (like on pumpkins, take the firmly planted inside squash knife and twist to the right at the top and then at the bottom of the squash and that should do the trick break it open fully into two halves)
Face the two halves down on a baking sheet. You can add a ‘lil EVOO if you like.
Bake for 50 minutes or until you can scoop out strands easily with a spoon. You can test with a fork if you like. About half way through, when you see browning, flip the halves so they're facing up, and add a 'lil more EVOO drizzle.
Optional: keep the healthy seeds and enjoy them as snacks! Roast them along when you're baking the squash.

Heart and Soul Centering To Live Your Best Life Now!

Heart and soul is a part of our bodies that we can’t see, but we can feel daily. Pizza is heart and soul food (recipe below for making a heart shaped pizza 🧡).

This sky painting over the water is heart and soul spirit in one. A daily heart and soul-centering check-in can change your life! You could be an old soul or have an old soul like some of us who remember young life before the internet.

…I remember when I first started out working and ambitiously I thought I wanted to climb the corporate ladder. It didn’t take many years before I shifted my priority to wanting better work-life balance.

And with those intentions, I career pivoted that gave me that outcome. But had I not picked my head up to see what my heart and soul was telling me (and now I know my spirit was helping me), I would’ve missed the message about finding time to work on me. Personal growth was something I had to go outside of work to find in volunteering and discovering myself.

It’s never too early to start checking in. Maybe now is a good time to set this priority in your life as you had to rethink parts of your life in 2020, along with everyone else (so you’re in good company!).

There were many external changes made affecting your life, that you had no control over, and may help you later on in ways you may not see how yet at this moment.

So for now, you can just keep going, growing, and focusing on creating the best that your life offers in abundant possibilities that you put intention to until the next step. There’s always a next step when the timing is right.

It’s better to think this optimistic way and joyfully pivot into your forming newer overall life, including work, relationships, passion, and purpose, so you can enjoy the process with greater ease (and not create unnecessary dis-ease or woes-me feelings).

That doesn’t mean you don’t have varying feelings with so many gray areas and small decisions you need to make, but that you’re finding your happier way now in the process (and possibly then seeing through a different lens than the one you may have been previously looking from).

I provide a lasting impactful way to do a heart and soul check-in, further below. ⬇️

Encouragement: Our Society, You, and Your Gained Ideas

In America, convenience is at our fingertips, and many of us started last year to positively lean into our interests, curiosities, and skills development.

You may have learned how to grocery shop differently, cook meals, bake your own bread, and learn new digital skills as a way to communicate with the rest of our virtual world and the local community.

You picked up other life skills that everyone needs so you could stay relevant.

You may have even discovered or rediscovered a few passions and hobbies, and read more books than you sought out originally to do. Those were some of the common gains for many of us.

All was not lost in our home life, and more has been gained (and is being gained) in our overall lives if we choose to focus on the higher lens way of living.

It’s helpful for you to reflect and personally remind yourself of the progress over perfection you’ve made, so you can stay feeling uplifted in your spirit. It’s too easy to get sourly influenced in our culture.

You can be less on guard, open up to your authentic self and reap the benefits in a new era where we’re all finding our way in many ways.

Over the past year especially, you may have changed some lifestyle habits or behaviors that you like, that work better, and that you decide to keep forever.

And you may have gained clarity about what you want in the next chapter of your life. Even though you wouldn’t have done this if you weren’t challenged to do so. But you can use your situation to your good advantage!

You may even have found the better way, and experienced that good changes in your life can show up as a combination of thinking, doing, and feeling what is right for you. You get internal clues and they can help you find your second or next act.

If you took or take your connect-the-dot lessons one step further, you can reflect on how you felt about what you first thought about specific ideas. You can then take another brave leap of action so you can try and replicate best practices and discover even more new ways, as our world is evolving. This creates innovation and gives you a better way of doing things.

For example, you’re inspired to try a new recipe and that seemed to work out and made you happy, so the next time you tweak the recipe and create something new and different that you enjoy. This works the same with a new workout, new route, or a new passion project you’re developing. Variety and innovation keep you making progress!

And that’s how personal growth attitudes and creative progress are fed and can seep into every fiber of your life if you’re open to new ways and ideas.

New ideas can take time to form in the process and as you start dabbling with curiosity, you can become less intimidated to make mistakes. That’s how you grow and learn.

In this forming introspective way of life, you can also dig deeper into yourself to find what gives you more meaning and joy than what you previously found made you happy, as you become more of who you are and will become.

You can also reach higher levels of contentment and then feel fewer emotional ups and downs.

Many positive changes can be happening all at once in this complex life, with yourself and your life.

You may have even re-thought your life’s retirement plans and this year’s optimistic and realistic plans. And you’ve probably learned to be more grounded in reality and to get back to simple basics, focusing on what actually is happening to you and around you.

As a global society, we’re still not able to freely travel and create safe, live events. From these changes, new ways have been born and are birthing, such as the newer apps where you’re entering live global event conversations safely and without travel hassles.

You could use the saved travel time and energy to work on your life, to double down on a new purposeful trajectory, or seek a new mission in your life.

Just one idea can change your life and if you have an extra few minutes, that could be the difference-maker in your life.

So where would you spend those extra minutes? Here’s what I do and what I suggest.

Prioritize a Daily Heart and Soul Check-in

Especially as we’re all distracted, prioritizing a heart and soul check-in can be the best way to (re)focus on your life.

Below you can be reminded or learn to take a specific step for long-term impact and to find your daily heart and soul-filled joy, peace, and balance. Continue reading “Heart and Soul Centering To Live Your Best Life Now!”

Creamy Orange Smoothie Plus 5 Healthy Creative Drinks

Creamy orange smoothie is the description of one popsicle I grew up with (and probably you did too with the ice cream man you could hear inching toward the neighborhood. Those were fun times).

And for beverages, the orangy flavors are one calming drink idea because of the orange factor…

Oranges calm our parasympathetic nerves that directly impact if we feel anxious or not. It’s also one healthy way to celebrate that we have decadent beverage variety choices when we get a ‘lil creative.

This can give you a new reason to be happy today. 😊

A creamy orange smoothie like this will help your calming morning.

Your body, balance, and sensitivity to tastes and smells change all the time. What’s good for you in this season may change in the next or even tomorrow.

You can come up with your own creative smoothie ideas like I did below, and stumbled on the creamy orange smoothie. That keeps life interesting!

As a natural Ayurvedic Vata, I was born with a sweet tooth, so if I think a dessert is too sweet, then believe me… it has waaay too much sugar, so that’s why I came up with less sweet, healthier options!

Especially in America, where foods are loaded with sugars, our healthy taste buds and sense can be off track. The average American consumes over 70 grams of sugar a day, when 25 grams of maximum recommended added or processed sugar is agreed on by both the FDA and American Heart Association.

While fruit sugar (fructose) is a better kind of sugar, it’s still sugar at the end of the day.

Going From Morning Frappucino and Coca Cola to Black Coffee, Tea, and A Creative Smoothie

In our American diets, we can go over the recommendation in just our breakfast beverage choices alone! If you like Frappuccinos like many of us do, whether your drink has added whipped cream or not, you’re looking at 50 grams of sugar or more for a 16-ounce drink.

That’s okay once in a celebratory while, but if you order a Starbucks Short size beverage (regular 8-ounce glass size drink), you’ve used up all the recommended sugar for the day… and it may not even be 10 am yet!

And actually, you can see most Americans carrying around the Tall or Grande size beverages (or larger). Our small is often a super size large in other countries.

The healthier order option with no sugar is black coffee or tea. So then, getting back to basics, the only safe beverage out there is water, as pure and healthy… but are they all?…

You can clearly taste the difference between purified waters and artesian waters like Fiji brand water.

The water variety is all sold in plastic bottles and available on grocery shelves, but the cost difference gives you an indicator of the quality difference. And you can clearly taste the difference between Evian and purified water.

In America, you can commonly buy a water bottle case (24-16 ounce bottles) of purified water for under $4.

They’re usually advertised “on-sale” and you can find them in the front of the store when you first walk in.

Higher-end, luxury water brands you can find in the water aisle selections also, but you can expect to pay closer to a dollar or more a bottle.

The good news is most tap water in America is drinkable and many households use a Brita pitcher with a filter or similar.

So as we question drinks such as basic water, we have to wonder about other consumable beverages.

Coca-Cola is known for its evolving trends as society changes and as a popular beverage consumed around the world.

There’s even a Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta, GA where you can taste different versions of Coke served all around the world.

As you can imagine the American Coke version is loaded with sugar (too scary to even mention how many sugar grams per can, but you can look it up!).

In my late 20’s I used to drink sodas for breakfast when it was trendy and corporate offices stocked their refrigerators full of soda cans for employees and invited visitors to grab.

I quit the unhealthy soda habit after a few years in healthy awareness although Coke will always be beloved.

I traded caffeinated sodas for healthier morning teas, coffee, and slowly moved drifted over to water and then added back a creamsicle smoothie and other breakfast smoothies as better choices with redeeming health benefits… and hopefully this inspires you if you haven’t done the switch already!

If you want more energy and vitality, getting off sodas and high-sugar drinks is a good move. Often they have 40-70 grams of soda per can!

Water can seem boring to taste, but that’s what our bodies want and will reward you for.

You can always mix it up with carbonated water and naturally flavored waters that are enjoyable.

Despite some of our generally unhealthy cultural habits, Americans have made drinking water, chic and cool, as we carry around water bottles to our work and of course to our workouts and yoga.

It’s a comparison observation I made when I was in Rome in 2019 and saw that even though all the public water sources and fountains are deemed clean and drinkable, you won’t easily find reasonably priced water bottles around. …how funny is that?

So, we’ve gotten better at drinking water regularly and not just taking a vitamin supplement or while we work out.

We know that drinking proper water amounts prevents kidney stones, keeps our bodies functioning and our skin looking young.

So on that healthier level, we can make healthier breakfast drinks like a smoothie easily with the Magic Bullet gadget or a blender.

You can add protein powders or if you like bananas, they’re a good smoothie staple.

Bananas have a higher glycemic index that can spike inflammation, but they are rich in fiber, potassium, and B vitamins, so they’re still a good natural super food good for filling an empty or upset stomach.

These are 7 creative daily beverage ideas including the Orange Creamy one…

1.Citrus-y Banana Creative Smoothie Base

If your tastes favor a banana, you can just blend with vanilla almond milk, and that can be a lovely breakfast starter. You don’t need any other ingredient if you want to keep it vanilla (sorry, I couldn’t resist 😊).

Or… at that point, you can sip your beverage. And if you want a little more sweetness, then you could add a ‘lil pineapple juice (high in Vitamin C and bromelain). And for tartness, a ‘lil lemon or orange to your taste’s desire. You could stop here, or…

Add Dimensional Flavors to Your Breakfast Banana Creative Smoothie

If you want a ‘lil kick, add a dash of spice like cinnamon or cardamom in lieu of espresso (where a little goes a long way!). And if you still want more taste, you could add peanut butter that will change the taste of your beverage and make it creamier.

Staying with the first smoothie idea of a tropical pineapple-citrus theme, you could also do a Key Lime Smoothie:

2.Key Lime Creative Smoothie

Lime juice

Banana

Vanilla almond milk

Use unsweet almond milk and substitute a banana for banana flavor protein powder if you want a smoothie recipe with no to low sugar.

And, if you don’t like bananas (maybe thinking they’re blah) or don’t have any on hand (btw, frozen ones are good for smoothies). But if you run out, no worries, I’ve got you in mind… below are healthy dessert smoothies and tea ideas that don’t need a banana.

3. Pumpkin (Pie) Smoothie

If you love pumpkin pie, you’ll love this creative smoothie. You don’t have to wait until Thanksgiving to get your pumpkin-pie on! And this smoothie is a healthy way to consume pumpkin.

Pumpkin is loaded with Vitamin K and C, protein and fiber if you need more healthy motivation. Canned pumpkin is rich in Vitamin A and iron.

You can use a can of pumpkin and a can of evaporated milk (for dense consistency used in pumpkin pie if you decide not to use a banana) or you can use a milk substitute. You get to be creative.

It’s easiest to mix dry ingredients first. I like to add cinnamon but if you prefer a little more kick then use more cloves or allspice. Here’s my healthier recipe:

1 banana (optional)

½ tsp salt

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

¼ tsp cloves, allspice, or pumpkin spice

1 can pumpkin puree (15 oz)

1 can evaporated milk (12 oz) – you can substitute for nut milk for a pumpkin-inspired smoothie (but it won’t taste like pumpkin pie)

¾ cup sugar (or substitute applesauce for less sugar – 1/2 cup applesauce or one-4 oz. applesauce plastic cup you commonly see on the grocery store shelves sold in various brands)

For an additional taste dimension, add a spoonful of your favorite peanut butter. Most smoothies taste better with peanut or almond butter.

Variety is the spice of life. You can really live it up in the morning with a decadent but healthy beverage like this before you’ve even started the day or your yoga stretch practice.

A creative smoothie idea is easy to come up with (you can’t mess up!) and can brighten up your morning and afternoon. When I first made this creamsicle creative smoothie, I love the textured beige-cream color beverage (and maybe you do too!):

4. Creamy Orange Smoothie

A creamy orange smoothie like this will help your calming morning.

This is much healthier than concentrated orange juice if you want to do a small step replacement for healthy habits. And a much healthier version than the childhood popsicles that this special Creamy Orange Smoothie comes from.

1 orange (a navel, blood, or California orange will give you a balanced sweetness). If you can, opt for organic or heirloom oranges.

Heirloom navel orange peel for ayurveda elixir drinks and creamsicle smoothie drinks is a healthy start and finish if you prefer. — Look for heirloom, organic, or local farmers market produce as in season (free of pesticides, good for us and the environment). This would be good for your drinks, bakes, and even Creamy Orange Smoothie.

1 tsp marmalade (add bold sweetness but you don’t need much)

Vanilla milk

Vanilla Yogurt (to thicken)

Make orange zest from one medium orange, blend with a teaspoon of marmalade, yogurt, and vanilla milk. Marmalade has sugar so that’s why keeping in moderation is a tasty-good idea for this Creamy Orange Smoothie.

This one tastes like the orange creamsicle popsicle but without so much sugar. If you want to add some protein, blend in fine almonds or add powders. And if you want to eliminate sugar, then eliminate the marmalade and cut down on the orange zest.

Enjoy your cream orange morning!

A creamsicle smoothie like this will help your calming morning.

Creamy Orange Creative Smoothie Breakfast Morning

Course beverage, Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 5

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 orange (a navel or California orange will give you a balanced sweetness)
1 tsp marmalade (add bold sweetness but you don’t need much)
Vanilla milk to thickness liking
Vanilla Yogurt (to thicken)

Instructions

Blend. Zhugh glass rim with orange zest. Enjoy!

Notes

Creamsicle Creative Smoothie

1 orange (a navel or California orange will give you a balanced sweetness)

1 tsp marmalade (add bold sweetness but you don’t need much)

Vanilla milk

Vanilla Yogurt (to thicken)

Make orange zest from one medium orange, blend with a teaspoon of marmalade, yogurt, and vanilla milk.

This one tastes like an orange creamsicle popsicle if you know what those are. If you want to add some protein, blend in fine almonds or add powders. And if you want to eliminate sugar, then eliminate the marmalade and cut down on the orange zest.

Moving on to dessert tea ideas…

Dessert Teas: Earl Grey with a ‘Lil Twist

In a quest to find a good sugar cookie or biscotti-tasting tea and not finding one with any real taste (to substitute for cookies of course), I invented my own.

I find it’s easy to birth creative ideas when you can’t find what you want easily even in a society that is full of conveniences.

That’s actually how business ideas and innovation come to life. So with that in mind, I invented my Earl Grey biscotti. For this drinking tea, I use a Bigelow brand Earl Grey.

Those tea bags are in individual packaging so you can take them along with you in your daily travels.

I added an orange tea (or orange extract) and almond extract to bring some flavor and life to an otherwise bland-mild-tasting tea.

Chocolate Chai Latte

And finally, one of my all-time favorites I like to think I invented at least at my Sunday cafe is the Chocolate Chai Latte (that needs no recipe as the chocolate, chai, and milk ingredients are in the 3-word title 😉).

Notice I didn’t write “chai tea” that Americans commonly say, as that means “tea tea”in India where chai originated, so that would be repetitive and silly-sounding after you’re made aware.

And, apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks the chocolate chai latte is a tasty idea as the Starbucks (Plaid Cafe) church kiosk

I went to, added to their order board after I placed the order and they gave me a blessed smile. Chocolate chai may be the new writer’s warm drink all day as less caffeinated than coffee.

Plus chai has cloves that’s one of the most anti inflammatory food ideas out there.

And btw, is anti-bug because it shews away flies and bugs as they repel the scent.

So, a chai is tasty in and of itself and a healthier black tea. For an American Vata, adding a sweet drizzle of Hershey’s chocolate sauce will drown out the exotic spice tastes if they’re too strong.

You can please your tongue’s sweet spot. Sometimes you just have to balance your daily joy, and give into a teaspoon of sugar love!

We may be behind the 8-ball in American living when it comes to tea consumption, low sugar diets, and having a work-life balance, but we make up for our unhealthier ways with our daily variety, conveniences, and innovation.

And if you’re daring, have a chai and creamsicle smoothie to have a super special day! ✨