Physical Health and Body Archives - Page 19 of 24

McDonald’s Breakfast Ideas You Can Make Healthy at Home

McDonald’s breakfast menu items is something many of us grew up with as it was fast and filling on-the-go. And decades later, it’s still a part of my Happy Meal youth memories.

With whatever opinion you have of McDonald’s, the golden arches is popular because it’s fast, inexpensive, and fills you up quick! The McDonald’s breakfast menu hasn’t changed much over the years and the 760-calorie Big Breakfast hasn’t changed much over the decades.

Everyone in America grew up seeing the golden arches. It’s also an American icon around the world and a convenient and consistent option if you’re on the road.

I haven’t had a need to drive-thru one in ages…

But, the fast-food franchise provides food value to millions each year. You wonder how they would cover the cost of ingredients with a McDonald’s breakfast dollar menu if they didn’t serve millions each year.

At home, you’re smart to make your healthy breakfast every morning, and they do have some great ones modeled after McDonald’s popular breakfast menu… yes, healthy options!

If you want to have a low-sugar breakfast, you pretty much have to come up with your own prepared menu meals where convenience is your fridge and pantry cupboards.

…And here’s how you can create your healthy-inspired McDonald’s breakfast without much effort. You can choose from the following high-fiber options…

Egg McMuffin – Sautee potatoes and scramble eggs and serve on sprouted Ezekiel bread (optional: add cheese). I think this version is so much more delish as it’s homemade and sprouted bread is wholeness… more nutrish than an English Muffin. And if you want to give a ‘Lil French gourmet taste, add a sprinkle of tarragon — that’s the secret ingredient that upscale restaurants use.

Hot Cake and Sausage – Make whole wheat or buckwheat-based pancakes and then add a drizzle of honey. Add bananas, blueberries, or dark chocolate chips with 70% or more cocoa. Skip the heavy sausage patty and make a high fiber black bean cake that can be so tasty and make you feel lighter (and keeping your morning routine bathroom life regular).

Sausage Burrito – Black beans and rice burrito is the same concept, and instead of a high-calorie corn tortilla filler, use a piece of whole wheat pita bread you can easily bake at home when you’re tired (or sprouted wheat) sprouted wheat toast to gain energy and fiber.

Strawberry Banana Smoothie – This is a newer item on the McDonald’s breakfast menu as smoothies didn’t become popular until after the 21st century began. It was all about the high calorie milk shake.

To a smoothie, add a frozen or fresh strawberries depending if they’re in season Add a banana that has fiber, and almond milk or oat milk. Or substitute the vanilla, strawberry, chocolate shakes with your favorite protein powder. In any of these options, the experience is like night and day to your body and the taste is not that different from a sugary smoothie.

Orange juice – OJ skip, O-K! The added concentrated sugar you and I grew up with doesn’t help your day. Combined sugar and acidity are hard on the stomach. Opt for a gentler to your gut option. Make your own fruit juices using a whole orange with water that only takes a few minutes. You can also make your own lemonade or limeade with whole fruit.

The best part is you probably won’t even like sugary fruit juices after you make the switch. You re-train your tastes and that helps your health and your daily moods as you don’t have additional sugar sitting in your system.

If you’re debating whether to eat something for breakfast, and planning to have a beverage other than water or milk, it’s a good idea to cushion your stomach lining with food first.

A typical American drink breakfast with coffee and OJ together with a meal is bad news for your stomach.

Regular coffee has high acidity and espresso is a no-no for sensitive stomachs. Cold brew coffee is better because of the process leaving less acidic grinds. Your stomach also hasn’t had a meal in 8 or so hours, so a snack is usually in order.

If you’re in the habit to feeding sugar cravings for your breakfast morning, make yourself a quick smoothie or prepare no-added refined sugar granola to munch on so you get your sugary fix without all the sugars loaded in pastries.

And if you’re a Vata 🙋🏻‍♀️, then you’re likely to want to switch up your foods from time to time and daily. If you’re not sure if that’s you, you can better know by this preference alone as Kapha and Pittas don’t need to constantly change up preferences. It’s not an ADD disorder in case that’s a worry.

The Vata breed simply prefers to have variety. So you can have a few options available to feed your Vata preferences and don’t get in a rut.

To Dairy or Not?

You can find shelf-stable almond, oat, and coconut milk is a good staple to have in your pantry. I found that having non-shelf stable milk around (besides being an evolving dairy no-no) was stressful with an expiration date where he milk can go to waste.

Making a parfait with a Greek yogurt with probiotics (good bacteria) is also a good start.

Toasting the morning with yogurt parfaits.

It’s all a balance. And that’s with sugar too…

Low Sugar Breakfast Foods:

Create a yogurt parfait with lower sugar and granola– Chobani Complete or Fage are around 7 grams of sugar per cup compared to double that amount or more. Then add dry oatmeal. Or if you take a few extra minutes, you can toast Quaker Oats Old Fashioned in your oven with honey as the binder.

To make granola cereal clusters, simply bake one layer on a baking sheet in your low-heated oven and mix with your favorite dried fruits like raisins a few spoonfuls of honey, and a drizzle of vegetable or canola oil (less is more). This becomes healthy-ish compared to high sugar cereals.

Believe me, for a sweet tooth like me (…is that you too?), I could eat a baked good and feel sweet happiness, but then as the effect wore off I’d be feeling bad because of all the leftover empty calories and indulgent skin-crawling sensation. This awareness seems to happen more as you age.

Many of us experience this as part of sugar’s dire consequences, and we don’t always immediately associate it with the sugar in our lives. Eating sugar unaware, if we’re not careful, can become an unhealthy habit. The more we indulge, the more we want.

A small sugary taste can be all you need to satiate your sweet tooth, but skipping sugar is the better option.

Or you could bake orange scones with no-added sugar.

You can also remember to do a weekly healthy drink, like a green tea smoothie so you can add more plant-based and yes, veggies to breakfast. That’s one you won’t find on a McDonald’s breakfast menu.

Green tea has caffeine and polyphenols that are good for heart health. You can add a dash of lime juice and a handful of wild blueberries for a spritzer. Or enjoy a simple green smoothie with banana or yogurt to thicken in a few minutes. And that can prep you for your veggie start like this Easy Veggie Breakfast Frittata.

…where both your mind and body start the day happy (with your new breakfast happy meal)! 😊

Easy Veggie Breakfast Frittata

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

eggs
toppings (favorite vegetables like mushrooms, olives, peppers)

Instructions

Cook eggs on a stovetop in a sautee pan until the edges have firmed.
Add toppings you like if they need to cook. If they simply need to be warmed up, add at the end before the next baking step.
Bake in oven at 325°F for at least 20 minutes, until firmly set, or edges start to brown.
Cut with a pizza roller or knife and enjoy!

10 Breathing Exercises, Better Sleep, and Healthy Habit Tips

Without needing breathing exercises, we forget how automatic and important breathing is. Sometimes our breathing pattern or air changes wake us up to get back to our healthy breath awareness in this moment. Our breathing can easily remind us of our precious moments and the finite time we have on earth.

And in healthy reminders, I wanted to breathe some good tips your way!

…Breathing is everything life. It’s how the earth began:

“God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)

With climate change, wildfires, and spring green pollen allergy dust in the air at high levels (over 10), many of us are affected from the lungs and neck up.

I suspected allergies was affecting my sleep as I was clocking in about the same amount of hours from night to morning and not feeling as rested.

I had been documenting a healthy 8 hours of sleep time on my Apple Watch and tracker.

I noticed my body runs best when I have 5 hours of restful sleep that’s also tracked.) And choosing a life with less stress and more balance, 7 hours is a good enough rhythm.

And something for you to clock in because stress and sleep is related.

Observe Your Sleep

While tracking a few nights for awareness, I observed I was getting less restful sleep and more light sleep. Hmmm… I thought, I wonder why that is?

All things being equal, I wanted to test the hypothesis that I had shallow breathing at night.

It dawned on me that my deep rest (restful sleep) may have been lessened by the shallower breathing or less air going into my lungs, as I breathed through my slightly congested nose.

Btw, breathing in air through your nose is a much better way than through your mouth as it is known to help increase memory. You have a filter in your nose that you don’t in your mouth. You can Google that if you want scientific-backed evidence.

These are 10 breathing exercises and habit tips for healthy living: Continue reading “10 Breathing Exercises, Better Sleep, and Healthy Habit Tips”

Shower Thoughts For Self-Care and Creative Day

Shower thoughts often give us new and creative ideas because in the shower we’re relaxed and that’s good daily self-care.

Sometimes that brings a smile and a laugh to our day.

Bring on the feel-good water sprinkle! 🚿

self-care and shower thoughts

We can wash away our anxious thoughts temporarily.

And, you can get the dual benefit of self-care and shower thoughts from your shower experiences. This article is how to embrace and bring more shower thoughts alive!

A shower can be both a sauna and steamy therapeutic experience more powerful than taking a walk outside.

You can turn showers into a productive ritual in your mindfulness where you’re focused in the moment.

Mindfulness is full of physical and mental health benefits in the mind-body connection you may not have known about.

When you feel good, that shows up as good happy feelings, but also as healthy in and on your body. In other words, your skin radiates too when you’re feeling good.

Plus, when you get shower clean, you’re washing away bacteria on your skin accumulated from sweat and dirt and maybe why you got in the shower as a daily ritual in the first place.

Another benefit to a shower is you can check in with your internal body thermostat temperature.

If your body feels warm when it’s cold outside, that could indicate an irritated Pitta emotional state for your season (or until your situation changes).

If you’re cold when it’s warm outside, then you could be feeling worried or anxious in Vata or depressed or tired in Kapha, as examples.

Your body leaves clues and you want your shower temperature to be a reminder and one solution to what you’re positively feeling and hoping to achieve this season.

With the right water temperature hitting your skin, you feel good, so that relaxes you all-around to allow good thoughts and creative ideas to come into your mind more easily.

Your brain feels safe and free from defense fight-or-flight mode. So then you can safely let your guard down in room seclusion.

Your spirit alignment can also come alive as you get deeper into your heart’s desires. These ideas also help you manifest your want to a life of purpose.

When relaxed, here are 3 things you can do productively:

1.You can get your best ideas in the shower when you least expect them. You can come up with new ideas while performing self-care practices.

When allowing in shower thoughts, you can get creative and adventuresome ideas for your projects, next trip, food and daily plans, and even solutions to problems you haven’t solved.

A-ha solutions can appear when you’ve forgotten you had a dilemma but were reminded at the moment. With time and space, your brain is seeking a different angle, perception, or perspective that allows these memories to pop up.

2.You can reset your daily intentions in the shower. You can change you style approach in a situation using self-care and shower thoughts.

If you’re trying to stop knee-jerk reactions or blurting out often, you could exert self-control by thinking the word “jerk” is not what you want to be, and maybe that helps you change your patterns for the better.

Sometimes we lean into being hard on ourselves for our good, so we can get over the hump of missing the mark.

3.You can pray in the shower and get loving thoughts in return, similar to ideas but they can be more focused on growing yourself and handling relationships in your life.

You can get mental self-care and shower thoughts.

You can exchange critical-judgmental thoughts for open suggestions from your mind and what others have given. That’s a good way to cool off the Pitta mind.

5 Yoga Tree Pose Life Metaphors

yoga-tree-pose-metaphor with rainbow eucalytus tree

We can use a yoga Tree Pose today and these days as a reminder and metaphor for our lives, and the trees that have impacted our lives.

Firstly, what is so special about trees that have meaning in our lives?

The obvious being that trees are growing, living creatures just like us humans with unique features. We know trees are alive because they bloom, shed leaves, and pollen (not their greatest spring dominant feature).

Trees can grow from a mere seed that fits in your hand to a super strong tree you can climb (similar to a growing person from an egg to an adult).

The appearance and rings on a tree can show age, as our human bodies and features do the same thing.

When I was growing up, we purposefully remembered trees on National Arbor Day. Usually, the celebration included the installment of a new baby plant at school. The remembrance of the special day has been crowded out by other hashtag events but you can do your appreciation just by looking out the window at the trees near you, or by getting in a yoga Tree Pose.

These days, we celebrate yoga days more than we do trees it seems, but luckily there is a standing pose that represents trees in yoga. We can appreciate trees from a personal growth perspective.

Trees are a metaphor for our lives.

In Tree, remind yourself of these 5 areas:

1.Growth and direction. You can change your yoga Tree Pose at any point. You can lift your right bended-knee leg to rest on your left shin, or you can lift your right leg higher to form a number “4” formation with your right foot rested on your left thigh (looking like a flamingo).

You can take your wide arms and open them to the sky, have them go straight up parallel to your ears, or bring them to heart center with prayer hands.

Your tree can go in any direction of your choosing. As you balance one leg, you can build up strength and notice one leg is usually stronger than the other.

2.Grounded. You can feel grounded with your feet planted on the floor, like a tree with a stump firmly rooted in the earth. When you’re not sent from busy task to task, you can gain clarity about your life and deliberate actions you take. You’re not wishy-washy, tossed to and from. You’re steadfast and purposeful like a tree.

3.Learning. A tree is also a symbol of knowledge. From trees, we make paper that we can bind together to make books that expand our minds.

The more branches we develop, the more we can become useful to the world. Animals can use our tree and we can impact the community around us like moss growing on trees.

As you grow older, you can become wiser and stronger as you’ve experienced situations to increase your know-how.

4.Being alive! If you feel a sensation in any of your parts, you can take that as a positive sign you’re alive. Your automatic breath is no longer a gift you take for granted, if you become consciously aware of your inhale and exhale.

In yoga, we do a lot of breathwork. The inhale is often when we’re facing up or lifting up, and exhale when we’re grounding down. The breath is a little different than when lifting weights in a gym. So don’t get confused. And you can pause at anytime and do 4-7-8 breathing.

Trees and plants don’t get confused. They play a sustainable role for us by giving off carbon dioxide. Without them, we would not have a life in our ecosystem.

5.Uniqueness. The more you practice your various yoga Tree Pose styles, the better your tree can enliven yourself as you let your roots develop into hybrid trees. You can have properties like a flexible and resilient palm, a durable evergreen, or a hardy cactus. You could have overlapping properties in your versatility and personality. Continue reading “5 Yoga Tree Pose Life Metaphors”

Ideas for Healthier Lunches, Picnics, and School

Ideas for healthier lunches is always on the agenda year-round.

Ideas for healthier school lunches make kids and adults happy with a balanced plate of veggies, fruit, protein, dairy, and carbs.

The time we take for lunch is often hurried and goes by in a blink of an eye. There are ideas for healthier lunches that you may have forgotten to try in your busyness.

We learn to speed through lunch when we’re old enough to learn. Lunches can be an afterthought when we’re hungry, running in between activities.

I would encourage the idea that lunch is the most important meal of the day (one I don’t recommend skipping or skimping on) when you need the extra energy to carry out your day!

If you like and can eat carbs or pasta, this is a meal where you can get the most efficiency out of your carbs.

You need and burn the energy in a working or working out afternoon. If you focus on carbs for your dinner meal, as you age, this can slow you down.

That’s why I like the idea of the plant-based dinner. But that doesn’t always fill you up during the day when you need the energy boost to keep you going like carbs can.

Growing up you have a memory about your overall childhood lunches.

My public-school lunches were both memorable… and not.

They were a special time that I could sit and spend time with my friends, and that probably helped me appreciate just sitting around with others socializing and chatting.

The cafeteria food I ate though was a different story… I wish we had ideas for healthier lunches. Continue reading “Ideas for Healthier Lunches, Picnics, and School”