Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Healthy Grocery Food Shopping and Save Money Tips

Healthy grocery food shopping 🛒is a weekly top of mind chore for many of us. It’s one I actually enjoy coming from a foodie work background planning parties and catered events.

…And you can find your happy and healthy reasons or get inspired in other ways. 🎉

On that mission, doing your own shopping, meal prep, and cooking/baking can be just what you need for your busy lifestyle and can save you $$ in your wallet and waistline.

…And btw, if you want a weight loss healthy tip and make healthy lifestyle moves that also saves you money, you should check out this easy way in this free guide.

You can use “make your life easy” mantra, and that’s why we we love our easy cooking tools and food prep hacks. Amen?

Like this one: I’m using my ice trays for scrambled egg cubes…

(Along with a little homemade ice cream sandwich love to cool things off the hot seasons we’ve been experiencing! ❤️)

Little things like these help to make up for this past week in food, where I couldn’t find common healthy grocery food list staples like bananas and milk. I shopped online on different days, but I can only imagine how empty the produce section must’ve looked.

…In other weeks, it was eggs, oranges, or meat shortages. And I’m sure you’ve seen similar, so it’s good to stay flexible these days!

It’s practical to stock up on some goods when possible, and especially if you want to save money and time from food shopping. Also be open to what’s abundant and on sale.

And if you want to make it quick out of a store, shop around the store perimeter where you also find the fresh healthy grocery food items. The aisles is where you can get lost a little.

Growing up, for healthy grocery food we had “gourmet foods.” I remember a test Gourmet Giant store near us. They had these great big barrel bulk bins lined up with every gourmet food you could think of. I was in food heaven as a young, picky food eater that’s pretty normal today for us in our modern 🌈 variety.

Back then, the idea of “organic” wasn’t popular yet, but gourmet variety foods like strawberry brie could be found (and probably worked on me as I went into catering planning years later when I had tasted the food possibilities early on 😋).

Food changes are a ‘lil fun (even though it’s a wee bit frustrating looking for specific items that you fell in love with that are discontinued).

But in the positives, you focus on other foods. Last year, I saw an abundance of Cara Cara oranges. And where you’re at, there could be other types or a new breed of organic strawberries as an example. That’s something to get excited about. 🤸‍♀️

Healthy Grocery Food Storage

But one thing that hasn’t changed is the freezer. A refrigerator is irreplaceable as there’s nothing else like it. When you’re young, it’s where you store happy ice cream and popsicles that sit in front of the frozen uncooked foods.

And freezers not only keep your food from spoiling but also preserve food so you can actually plan meals further out than one week. You can buy in bulk and not waste money.

And frozen veggies are a great way to always have low-calorie, nutrient-dense green foods around. You can always find occasions to use a frozen bag of kale or peas.

The fridge top shelf is your next coolest ally. That’s where the cool strawberries belong in peak season.

Morning strawberry quinoa cereal and light angel food cake are two ways I’ve been optimizing strawberry dishes…

That’s one fruit you don’t want to freeze if you want to keep them fresh and plump. 🍓

But for just about everything else 😉, optimizing your freezer for preserved food hacks is still one of the best grocery money-saving tips. Freeze bread, meats, smoothie fruits, and so many other healthy grocery food items.

You can freeze those extra tubs of yogurt and have frozen yogurt. Now that’s smart…and takes no prep work!

If you have ripe bananas, you can freeze them, so you don’t have to grocery backtrack (and that’s what I did in the banana shortage).

They’ll look frozen and scary brown or black in appearance, but they are good and taste as good in a smoothie, and even better in a baked banana bread recipe.

Just remember to prep the food before you freeze it. Like cut the bread loaf into slices, scramble the eggs, and remove the fruit peels.

7 Healthy Grocery Food Money Savings

✅Stay flexible with fresh and frozen produce. Sometimes the same items are abundant or about to expire and cost less than frozen items. And sometimes frozen items are less.

✅Stock up on some cans. Sometimes canned items are less expensive than other times. But I don’t sub fresh/frozen vs canned as they don’t usually translate the same. Such as, frozen or fresh peas are great, but canned, not so much. And canned beans are great, but frozen beans, well… we can move on…

It’s also hard to predict what will run out on the shelves, so you can keep some cans available that stack nicely, and free up your freezer space that’s in high demand.

You can also always find some happy mediums. Like applesauce works for many baking recipes instead of storing refrigerated apples.

And to save money, you can do an apples-to-apples comparison online where grocery is usually priced per ounce, lb, or count.

Shopping online makes this easy to do as you’re not distracted. And also so you don’t have to drive all over creation to compare costs between stores…

These days, that’s super smart as sizes have gotten smaller, so using basic quick math tools help.

Sometimes healthy grocery food store chains have found a way to be the lowest cost store for a specific food item you’re looking for.

One like Whole Foods you would think is more pricey is often less costly than other chain grocery stores on certain items. When there’s abundance, the goal of the store is to sell the abundance of produce as fast as possible to maintain top freshness, and competitive pricing is the best strategy.

✅Wherever you shop: one smart item to keep on hand is a shelf-stable milk substitute. Such as milk powder packages, nut milk cartons, and/or evaporated milk cupboard cans. They can come in handy for a recipe or shortage, and they last a long time.

✅Look for your holiday baking items after the holidays. If you look for pumpkin puree or chocolate chips online around the holidays, good luck. You may find them at an astronomical price.

You’ve probably already experienced that before (and today is a good time to start looking 👀).

✅Another option for fresh alternatives and self-sufficiency is growing your own garden greens, herbs, fruits, and veggies.

That’s what many of the American Blue Zoners do (in Loma Linda, CA) that we can learn from. These are the Adventist Health community-goers. They’re the largest group of oldest Americans that have celebrated 100 with flying colors.

But if you don’t plan to have a garden in the city or have a brown thumb, then you can still support those who do. You can get fresh “in season” from a local farmer’s market stand where you shop.

✅Save at ethnic food stores that have cropped up everywhere metropolitan. And when you get curious about exotic foods, then you open your palate and become to variety that’s good for your gut. Ethnic grocery stores often carry more healthy ingredients. In America and other western world grocery stores, we tend to have an abundance processed foods staring us in the face and in the check out lines.

✅And finally, when you find one good item from a brand, search the brand itself as they rarely just stop at producing one item that you love.

They learn to leverage economies of scale, so they add more products to their portfolio. And then you can be a customer for life (or as long as their shelf life).

One that comes to mind, is a money-saving club like King Arthur flours for those who do a lot of baking. Then there are the local cost-saving clubs we all know that are packed any given weekend. I avoid those bulk places for many reasons. They’re warehouse-size for a reason.

And instead of jumbo stocking up on and eating the same items, you can switch it up. That pleases this Vata (…and maybe you too?)

You can find balancing healthy recipes here.

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Glycemic Index, Vitamins, and Minerals (Vs. Diets)

Glycemic index is an anti-inflammatory measurement good to find a variety of healthy foods.

low glycemic index chocolate cake — You can make these low-glycemic index gooey center chocolate cakes. Recipe below ⬇️

The first time I learned of the concept of a food’s glycemic index, I was intrigued by the idea of lowering blood sugar spikes as a healthy good food consumer, and a sugar lover at the time.

…And learning that dark chocolate (like that used in my baked dessert photo above) has a lower GI score than milk chocolate, puts a smile on my face. 😊

The opposite of… feeling hangry and light-headed energy with low blood sugar, that I’ve felt before too. And make GI talk relevant for so many.

Glycemic Index (GI) measures how food carbs affect blood sugar as a nutrition score indicator. It has been around for decades, but still isn’t a common household food tool used today.

But I DO think it will be a well-known future nutrition trend for 3 big reasons:

-Diabetes rates around the world are on the rise, and most cases we know are preventable through lifestyle changes (where food can have the biggest impact).

-Glycemic Index brings awareness to the order of foods you eat based on blood glucose spikes and glycemic response. And also how foods can impact inflammation.

-The growing mention of gut health in our modern news, and as we approach newfound scientific discoveries on gut-brain health. Progress being fueled by more data and scores.

There’s no shortage of healthy research progress that keeps us on our toes.

And yet, today the Glycemic Index is not even on the daily radar for most of us that consider ourselves health-conscious.

We’ll read the Nutrition Facts label and how many carbs are on a food package. Many of us pay attention to macros and calories. But we don’t consider the Glycemic Index score mostly because it’s not on the label, but is now on your map if it wasn’t before.📍

The tricky part is, GI scoring with accuracy is complicated.

Here are a few examples why…

If you eat unripened green bananas compared to the ripe, mushy ones that are preferred in a smoothie or banana bread recipe, the GI score improves.

Ah… and a banana has no Nutrition Facts label. A banana is a banana, and best to keep it simple.

Or if you eat a salad before the higher Glycemic Index ranked food item like a potato, then you can create a nice fibrous buffer cushion that your body likes. Then, if you eat the potato skin (cushion cover), even more so.

…But like with a bed pillow, people have different responses, so the scoring is different per individual. Each body keeps different scores.

But Glycemic Index info. (that let’s be clear is not available on a food package item today) would help us, consumers, to put relevance to the order in which we eat foods and what we choose to eat.

And bring awareness to us about what’s overall churning good in our gut from our internal healthy body’s perspective.

We’d make some better healthy food choices besides what our minds tell our taste buds we want.

And well… we would be better informed.

And that’s how progress works, as we’ve come a long way…

For me and those in my U.S. generation, the 4 basic food groups literally changed overnight to the Food Pyramid of 23 servings per day by the time we were young adults.

Without the internet, I learned this in school with many others. There was always some undesignated student who casually made big news announcements around the lockers during class breaks.

That was our modern social media news medium (post styrofoam cups with a string era). 😁

And that specific news was a massive dietary recommendation disruptor. The shock was the stark contrast, from basic eating to grazing on food all day like a cow chewing grass.

Adding convenience foods could be a solution just to fit in a serving about every 1.4 hours you were awake. You could eat 23 almonds as one serving… then you would have 22 servings left to go in other food categories. But then the other snag was, back then, nuts and all fats were put in the “eat sparingly” category. That was a ‘lil nuts. 🤪

So with all that stacked up against meeting new dietary goals, the health-conscious supplemented with vitamins. Organic foods weren’t popular yet, so food quality wasn’t as important as type of calories that are still important.

And diets existed back then, and they meant eating less and less fat to lose weight, that’s more or less like today.

And there were new (but different) diet fads coming out similar as today. Here today, gone tomorrow.

The Atkin’s Diet comes to mind as every year there’s a ridiculous hot dog eating contest, that’s anything but healthy.

Many diets in general for losing weight out there are health dangerous long term. They cut off calories and starve the body from essential vitamins needed to function.

And while they’ve changed, they haven’t solved the problem.

And makes you wonder…

Why haven’t diet plans gotten smarter?

The Diet Problem: Modern Diets Are Missed Opportunities

The word “diet” has two meanings regarding meal references in the English language. Going on most diets (eating less to lose weight) is often a missed opportunity for nutrients and healthy food calories. Elimination diets are ways to scale back that are meant for a season or a few weeks.

While eating a healthy diet is a positive way of looking at (enjoying) meals and energizing the body for life. So in one “diet” meaning, it subtracts (e.g. most food is bad); and in the other, it satisfies and sustains life.

The Solution: You can find a happy medium in eating less with a healthy diet and making healthy eating habits.

Because from our decade’s past diet lessons, we know yo-yo diets backfire as we eventually want the foods we tell ourselves we can’t have.

So, choosing one that isn’t long-term restrictive that works for your body and tastes is going to do you best. Like no-rules vitamin-rich antioxidant foods and meals that can be dressed up with anti-inflammatory flavors and spices.

Because even healthy restrictive diets don’t always translate or work well.

Like a Paleo diet today doesn’t suit many of us like it did our ancestor’s generations. We can love a grandmother’s recipe, but their ingredients were processed differently than the same written ones today.

And earlier cavemen’s processes of cooking fresh quality meat over a fire from free-range sources is not the common feedlot mass production we have today.

Despite these lesser quality food process changes, food today is helping our generation’s lifespans because overall the nutrient-dense food options available to us help offset what our ancestors couldn’t get into their bodies.

They lacked sufficient vitamins that come from foods. And one good way to get daily needed vitamins is in complex carbs available comparatively abundantly to us these days.

So, cutting out minimally processed whole grains that come in a bag or box and that carry the most natural vitamins of grain options, is a healthy miss.

The point is, that many of the lose-weight diets today are trying to cut out most carbs.

Kinda like how nuts I mentioned above were once deemed as bad because they’re fat (and there was no healthy fat category), and now starchy carbs are marked as the bad calories.

When actually complex carbs give us energy and essential B vitamins we need for daily life and I think essentially undermentioned in today’s healthy conversations, along with the Glycemic Index ones that I started with.

Keeping foods like sprouted bread, quinoa, barley, tri-color pasta, and rice in the diet are good ideas. And some fit nicely in a pantry.

Plus, they’re good sources of fiber that’s helpful for any diet.

And provide often forgotten about minerals that work with vitamins to make you and I tick.

Vitamins and Minerals Smart Knowledge

If we only read the vitamin and minerals food label section on packages, we miss the opportunity to apply and reap food vitamin-mineral synergies that optimally keep the cylinder wheels turning in the body when they’re purposefully taken together.

If you’re curious about vitamins, minerals, and Glycemic Index and getting quick knowledge in those areas, they’re part of the Anti-Inflammatory Food Guide Lists (that I know you’ll love… and your body will too 🧡)… The researched lists (that you can get your hands on today) come in handy and save you hours when figuring out what to eat or grocery shop buy without having to use too much brain power.

Who doesn’t or wouldn’t love that!?

And speaking of love, a sustainable, life-giving diet is a healthy approach to life (and to keep a consistent, year-round healthy weight if that’s another goal).

The best part is you get to choose from so many diverse and delicious healthy foods… AND they have anti-inflammatory protection benefits.

…So your relationship with food can’t be much better! I’m gonna pop some polyphenol-popcorn over that🍿

Plus, some common healthy foods are anti-inflammatory “super” foods that go beyond antioxidants and polyphenols.

They also have high protein, fiber, vitamins, and/or minerals that help the body function better in more than ways than just one.

To me and you (…maybe?) who is passionate about healthy eating, it’s a no-brainer choice to make anti-inflammatory meals.

And over the past couple of years, as I’ve been contributing to writing food articles for health and wellness publications, I can dig into new research and appreciate healthy food innovations on the horizon, which gives us more to look forward to in our future new world.

Look out for more super at 100 (Centenarian) secrets and evidence in our daily news.

Super Centenarians are living proof and our hope that it’s possible to live optimally in old age and not miss a beat with tasty-nutritional meals, so we can enjoy the moment.

They teach us how to spruce up their anti-inflammatory meals so they’re deliciously prepared and flavored with spices. They do more from their natural lands, with less.

All that’s inspiring food talk for me.

So… for next time, I’ll share some good tips on how to save grocery money with healthy eating, especially with all the grocery food prices and availability changes (yikes!) impacting us all.

I leave you this gooey-center chocolate cake recipe that are inspired by the ones we served at special occasion events in my decadent decade of event planning. You can make this easy version at home in minutes and enjoy for much longer! 😋

Healthy Fall Chocolate Cake - Gluten-Free

This cake is all about timing. You don't want to bake too long so that you preserve the gooey goodness!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

muffin tin

Ingredients

2 oz dark chocolate (70% cocoa for antioxidant-rich), melted
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1/8 cup monk fruit sugar (low glycemic index optional) or sugar
pinch of salt
1 tbsp almond flour
2 tbsp butter

Instructions

Combine all ingredients together except gently fold in flour last. No leavening agents needed.
Bake at 350°F for about 12 minutes. Don't overbake for a gooey chocolate center!

This site is all about happy and healthy living and eating ways and inspiration. If this is your first time here, I encourage you to find out more about me and this healthy lifestyle blog.

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Your Mindfulness Is A Better Way to Handle Anxious Situations

Good morning breathing mindfulness reminders ☀️

These days, we’re open to expressing our burnout feelings. And that’s a healthy restoring move. But the cure to anxious situations and moods is in your mindfulness.

We all know what mindfulness means… being present in this moment.

But do we practice often?…

Usually not, unless we’re in an engaging activity we’re all into.

Mindfulness isn’t the natural path. Our minds tend to naturally wander to dreaming about the future and drift back to worries from the past even if that was earlier the same day.

Mindfulness is an open-door opportunity in every moment. It’s less exciting and also less dramatic.

It’s where your peace is at, in any moment.

If you’re solving a problem, you’re finding a way to have peace of mind, and that’s what satisfies your mind, your loudest critic.

In mindful peaceful moments, you can be the heroine in your life, and the solution to rising above your situations…

So below, I share some tips and lessons learned on how to connect the dots to this valuable life skill of getting mind freedom.

If you already know how to stay in constant mindfulness, kudos to you because you’re far and ahead of the pack. It takes work in a noisy world, but it gets easier when you know what to do and look for…

And if you can break through the noise and find your mindfulness, that can help unleash bottled-up inside thoughts and emotions that cause unhealthy stress.

That describes me in my early 20’s when I suffered a panic attack at work.

…That was the symptom. But, the deeper message was I had a lot to learn and process with emotional trauma buildup from those earlier adult years and childhood.

All that kept me playing small, stuck in life, and stunted my growth in fulfilling my identity potential, even though everything looked fine on paper.

And that kept thoughts and feelings pushed down so they couldn’t ripen (and I couldn’t bloom) sooner. When those thought-feelings re-surfaced, they disappeared when ignored in life’s busyness.

But then would rear its ugly head again later on down the road in the unconscious mind that caused inner strife, and was the lens I looked out from to make small decisions.

The better way all along would have been to process and purge the emotional thoughts at the moment in time it happened (or asap), so that healthy information was recorded as plain as black-and-white, and not left in the dangerous gray zone.

That sounds obvious when pointed out, but we don’t usually process difficult and subtle situations right away. Delaying is a missed opportunity.

Instead, we process and make choices that are easy and light for us, like what to eat and what to do later in the day.

But in life’s design, we don’t get to choose everything, good or bad, that happens to us in our day.

We do get to choose how we react. And if we healed the damage done by some situations better and quicker, our lives would be better off and we wouldn’t carry around invisible baggage that shows up later.

…Like, if we brush off feeling anxious energy as a natural body reaction, that can interrupt the entire day. That’s a message we shouldn’t ignore.

With anxiety, the body is alerting you that the mind has detected a threat based on a harmful situation or one that is deemed as “dangerous” based on context and past experiences you’ve had.

Your mind sends panic signals to your body that are very similar whether you’re being chased by a bear or in a non-life threatening verbal attack made by a person. Attack is attack.

And another person’s attack can be even worse to a mind if it’s personal. Because then the receiver has to deal with all the emotional thought drama that the ego loves to spin. At least with a bear you know it’s innocent. 🧸

And either way, if anxiety is something you feel often, then this might help get your body calm and relaxed quicker…

When the body alarm bells have gone off, a list of restoring drills can be performed, like drinking a lot of water.

…And 4-7-8 breathing to reset a calm mind and heart. And while calming the body, changing negative and fearful thoughts (where the anxiety started) helps restore the mind-body fastest.

And this is where most people stop… once they’ve gotten out of the woods and the bear out of the picture, they forget to practice changing their thought process as part of the drills so that next time they can shorten the anxiety episodes and restore in minutes (vs. not easily recovering).

You can do yourself a favor with a reminder prompt like: “I don’t have time for that!”

And that gets you to do better the next time. Quoting the late Maya Angelou, “when you know better, you do better.” But if I take a page from my young history book, I didn’t know better…

I stayed inside my mind drama for so long, like most do until they learn a better way. Then I woke up one day from years of unaware less-than thinking that I didn’t recognize as misery being a prisoner in the mind at the time. …Not knowing there’s a much better way than misery existence! 😉

…And that’s the higher way of living and thriving. It’s not choosing fruit from fallen apples on the ground. It’s growing orchards that you and others enjoy for years to come.

Until you know and experience a higher way, you can stay in a fuzzy caterpillar existence. And then when you’re ready, you can be a uniquely patterned butterfly fluttering around in the air tasting honey… and being useful to the world by visiting all the colorful flowers.

With new higher perspectives comes a new mind-body and a new identity.

So with a new thought life, you can have a much better life.

But how you will stay that way is in maintenance, practice, and creating habits that help you to refer back to mindfulness.

Why Mindfulness Works As a Better Way:

Mindfulness bypasses fears.

Because in mindfulness, you let go of fears that are rooted in the future (aka worry), and you stop losing time thinking of sad memories from the past.

Hanging on is ego’s trick. And in design, will keep playing with you until you disengage or can snap out quicker in mindfulness.

In lessons learned, dodging daily ego-mind tricks is like passing a grade and earning a butterfly wing.

And, using daily mindfulness skills is like graduating with both wings intact because then you have the practical mindful way to dodge the ego.

I think it’s sad we learn all these useless things in our school years that 99% of our life will never use, and the daily life-giving skills we need, are never taught! …Or work we don’t enjoy and will never do again as part of our life’s process of moving us along.

Thankfully with mindfulness, you don’t have to revisit any of those places again, or even feel pain.

Because in this moment, you’re fine… you’re breathing… and well, you’re more than fine. You’re growing, and feeling neutral at worst and joyful at best.

That’s something to be happy and satisfied about.

And when you focus on what this moment has to offer, and not the future that hasn’t happened or the past where ego lives, life is pretty darn good.

Numbing pain is the opposite and only delays pain. Time doesn’t heal, but changes can heal over time.

In delaying hurts, the thoughts resurface like described in my example above. And you want them to, so you can change and re-write them, and practice the new script that helps you evolve.

…And maybe can even laugh now at how far you’ve come. That’s a joy worth recording.

…Or maybe you help others who have the same struggles you once did. In mindfulness, your attention changes as you can be present and focused on what others are going through and what they’re saying to you.

That’s what getting on the other side can do.

And finally, your mindfulness breeds productivity since you have freed up headspace from noisy thoughts.

So if that’s something of interest, here’s how to build up your mindfulness skills…

Building Up Your Mindfulness Skill

Imagine stepping out of your body and observing the entering thoughts from an outsider’s perspective. The person you see in the mirror is someone different than what’s coming out of the mind.

And while that can sound complicated (an outer body experience?), awareness produces great results… and dare I add role models too!

Mindfulness is hyper-focus and can be the cure to any A.D.D. labels.

Like most skills, it can be learned with regular practice and habit.

If it’s one you want to build, you can proactively think of a weaker area you want to improve today that you can apply mindfulness to.

By choosing a weaker area, you’ll see a larger difference in your progress vs. marginally improving a skill you already know.

This can be for work or personal areas where unpredictable situations arise weekly. You could write down right now a few practical areas where you can apply this so you don’t forget. Then start practicing mindfulness in that area.

And in making progress, you get to pat yourself on the back and you never know, you could turn your weakness into a new interest.

…and that could be a byproduct game-changer for you this season (in addition to mindfulness mind freedom)!

That’s the high note I wanted to leave you at… and hopefully, this helps you or someone you know (and wasn’t too much like heavy pillow talk 😊). Brain health talk gets my wheels turning.

Next time I’ll bring my energy to a lighter body health diet topic, as it’s hot on many minds.

Talk to you again soon! 🧡

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Planning Your Unforgettable Next Vacation Using Ayurveda

Are you deciding on where you should go next for vacation or for summer vacation? …Or maybe thinking about taking time off and what you could do with it?

Vacation should be fun & enjoyable, but it’s also an investment in cost, time, and energy.

…So below I help spell out some Ayurvedic perspectives to consider for planning your next vacation.

Keep in mind there are many vacation time-off options, but not all of them will leave you the happiest. And before you start packing your bags, you may want to pause for a minute and consider your Ayurveda mind-body needs (that could be a bit different than your wants).

…And possibly telltale in what’s going on with you in your life today, so that you have the opportunity to discover more about yourself.

But first and foremost, of course, you want to plan an unforgettable vacation (and not just any ‘ol vacation with your precious time)!

So, the below tips are meant to help you figure out what will be your most enjoyable and memorable vacation wearing an Ayurveda hat… (and using me as a ‘lil guide). 👒

…Which btw, I’m someone who loves adventure and travel exploration, so I’m not one to deter anyone from exploring the world and what it has to offer.

But I also know when it’s better to just chill near home…. so I’ll give you the different takes below.

But before I do that, I wanted to show you my fruity celebration of the summer solstice week that just passed in the U.S. I made a healthy grit-based morning pie with high Vit-C papaya, pineapple, and kiwi fruits. The final rainbow version is above.

Okay, so back to your vacation planning…

You want to be sure to stay cool, especially with the changing extreme climates everywhere. You find places and countries that are hotter, feeling droughts, and/or more humid these days that can drive our bodies haywire.

If you’re a natural Vata, you’re sensitive to changes. Think of yourself like the wind with gusts changing around you.

(There’s a chart in my last blog post in case you missed it, and want to know if you’re mostly Vata, Pitta, or Kapha?).

…And keep in mind, thermometer temperature doesn’t always account for humidity, so it can easily feel 10-degrees hotter outside. And your thermostat can automatically turn on when the temperature reading on your phone or internet check-in appears lower. That can keep you wonderin’ about the real temps around you.💭

Traveling Vata vs. Kapha Body

On two extreme poles, Vata and Kapha bodies have different tolerances for weather, travel activities, food/beverage changes; and traveling can exacerbate or calm.

And certain foods, such as tropical juicy fruits like the ones above (kiwi, papaya, and pineapple) will help Vata stay hydrated.

For Vata, take liquid pouches and an at-hand water bottle; and for Kapha bodies, you may want to go for more dry fruit options like berries, papaya, or apricots that make for good trail mixes to take on your vacation.

As for activities, sometimes you want to explore, and other times, you wanna chill and relax by a pool, beach, or be by nature. This can be influenced by your body type and what will best restore you.

You can leave an old mood behind that gets enhanced by your vacation (or can add some havoc to your mind-body while away).

..And what you wanna avoid on vacation, is arriving at your destination and then feeling really off and not enjoying your time that can happen if you in a season that needs mood reset.

And if you run into vacation hassles on top of that, that can compound your unenjoyable vacation experience, leave remorse, and thinking there’s nothing much to write home about.

So here are some tips on how to pick the best and right vacation for you (and not just the one others envy!)…

First, if you’re holding onto salty moods (irritated by people, news, situations, etc.) that have been with you almost every day every hour for an entire season, then you’re better off to stay-put with a staycation.

Going to check-in counters could add to stress levels plus the unpredictability of travel delays and hassles. Your mind can be on overdrive and it’s better to inner calm first before you enter situations that can create more stress.

If you’re in a busy go-go-go season where your body has been working on overdrive or lacking sleep, visiting an easy to get to beach or mountain lake, can be just what the doctor ordered. It’s the next best thing to rest your body while enjoying relaxation.

Even though flying to tropical locales may sound nice, after you factor in time zone, layover, and connectivity changes, you could enjoy your closer-to-home spots over a tropical place on island time that you can’t fully get into.

If your busy times are filled with high stress and burnout that work and life situations can bring… stay away from crowds like Florida spring break beaches, or even the busy beaches I grew up on along the east coast in the Delmarva area. You’re better off going south or further north to quieter Carolina or Maine beaches.

If you’re tired or depressed, an adventure filled with activities could be a better choice for you. Like an eco-tour or hiking in tropical terrains.

If you’re feeling stuck… and here I mean trying to decide not only what type of vacation to take, but what to do with your life (or if you’ve hit a main roadblock), then there are two route options that are better for the different situations.

The first is, if your mind is free from dealing with problems at home, then a travel adventure could be the way to go. If your vacation getaway is motivated by the idea to escape reality or problems, that could backfire for you (as you’re stuck with your mind wherever you go).

Delaying addressing situations on vacation, can lead you to feel like you need another vacation when you get back.

Travel can exacerbate what hasn’t been put at ease in your mind.

…So how to tell beforehand? You can use the book test. Can you focus mindfully on reading a book or a chapter in a book and know what you just read?

If you sit with mind unrest, then journaling and taking yoga classes outside of the home could be better activities. If that doesn’t create the space, then maybe additional longer time off or even a sabbatical (with months or a year off) could be what you need.

Doing what you could at home in your free-time doesn’t sound exciting for vacation, but that could be what your mind-body could be telling you that you need.

To Vacation Travel or Not? ✈️

When you’re traveling, you have less consistency in your day. Routines are off and that sends your body and mind off. So too much travel excitement can actually exhaust you more than give you happy energy.

With exhaustion and stress feelings, you’re better off staying in your own country and exploring your town or nearby town excursions within 2 hours that let your mind relax and wander for a few hours at a time.

Like going to a museum and learning something new or discovering a farmer’s market. This is also a good idea if you’re looking for new ideas and want to feel more alive!

The second one is learning more about yourself and not just about your town and what it has to offer. Like in a mini-sabbatical, you’re discovering what you really want to do with your life.

If you’re exploring the town, you’re not really exploring yourself.

And if you’re watching live sporting events, that can be relaxing… but you’re focused on the game and not introspection. It just depends on what you’re looking to get out of your time off.

Activity vs. Introspection

Focusing on an activity is competing for time and introspection in many ways. If you journal, you can often tell by how much journaling activity is about yourself vs. not journaling or taking notes about activity ideas in a new skill or topic.

And the last point on this is:

Prioritizing meditative introspection helps for a better future life. You see what you want and don’t want to do next; while doing activities focuses on today for a better day.

Both have their time and place. If you’re in a social environment or with others, then you won’t be journaling or meditative. And you’re not likely to want to do both at the same time.

Vata, Pitta, and Kapha Vacation Suggestions

So, to sum up, if you have imbalances in Vata, Pitta, or Kapha, here are the suggestions:

Vata – take a staycation and day trips within 2 hours driving or flying distance.

Explore your town and/or go to yoga classes.

Pitta – take a vacation by the beach, lake, or nature.

Find time each day to do your favorite physical activity.

Kapha – take an adventuresome vacation (away or close to home depending on above moods). Add some challenging physical activity.

You could get up early for a nature challenge before the sunrises, tour another country and culture, or hike in a micro-wilderness adventure.

…While Life is one BIG adventure that keeps moving.

Hopefully, this has helped you with additional wise vacation planning considerations, to better recharge this season and into the next. 🏖

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Anti-Inflammatory Eating Diet Plan For Any Age or Body Type

Anti inflammatory eating is a lifestyle. One that I’m passionate about. And I’m not the only one.

The longest living groups of people on the planet live this way. They’re in the Blue Zones founded by Dan Buettner.

It takes a world effort.

After many moons and decades, anti-inflammatory eating has caught on like wildfire for the health-conscious.

I remember when gyms cropped up like micro greens, and healthy living in the U.S. was focused on getting fit through cardio exercise.

…And was less focused on healthy eating to prevent inflammation and disease.

…While all along heart and cardiovascular diseases, and certain cancers are still the leading causes of mortality in the U.S. (according to the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm)

So, then we shifted to a healthy diet as the core strategy for preventing diseases, providing energy and nutritional medicine, and the #1 answer to losing weight.

I watched daily the evolution of this through my management lens working in catering and as an event meal planner… kinda like subscribing to and watching a YouTube channel, except social media didn’t exist back then.

Today, the health-conscious are tuned into anti-inflammatory eating, with plant-based whole foods, quality protein, healthy dairy, and good heart oils. Just in time as cognitive decline and diabetes rates are on the fast rise.

A food’s nutritional composition, low glycemic index, and synergistic food impact on the mind-gut connection have never been so celebrated.

And, that makes me happy because I’m a foodie who loves good-tasting healthy food… and maybe you do too!? 🎂

Whole, plant-based foods are greatest when they’re at their seasonal best and the star in a flavorful-exciting meal.

Today we know our energy in old age (longevity) is heavily influenced by our lifestyle and healthy eating pattern choices. (Harvard Study: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/following-a-variety-of-healthy-eating-patterns-associated-with-lower-heart-disease-risk/)

Through lifestyle choices, we get to play a big role in our physical and mental health destiny, and in the mind-body connection. It’s realistic to aim for a goal of being active at 💯. 🎯

Anti-Inflammatory Eating Goals No Matter What Age or Body Type

Anti-inflammatory eating works for all ages and body types. It’s a healthy eating lifestyle that embraces food variety (biodiversity) and includes sustainable everyday foods where you’re rewarded with feeling good and a body you’re comfortable with… and that helps so you don’t have to switch into different clothing sizes in-between seasons.

You can have food sensitivities and substitute those food items or brands with another highly nutritional equivalent.

Anti-inflammatory isn’t a diet, but it can be a lifelong food plan and THE DIET you stick to, to maintain a consistent healthy body.

…And It’s probably the only anti-anything I live for these days as I believe in peace when at all possible. 😊

In anti-inflammatory eating, there’s generally not a need for elimination diets when the body is running smoothly; and if it’s not, specific anti-inflammatory foods can help restore you back.

Meal planning with daily anti-inflammatory foods (as top of mind), you support your efforts to prevent preventable health issues down the road and chronic inflammations that can mysteriously show up one day.

When you’re younger you may not think about these maturing signs, but older and wiser, we feel our internal body changes by the quality of our daily life activities.

No matter what AGE you are, anti-aging and anti-inflammatory can be your healthy targets, as you look and feel your best today and in your bright, promising future.

We know it’s never too early to start naturally reversing any damage.

There is no downfall to anti-inflammatory eating…

I suppose you can eat too many carrots, but you’d probably grow bunny ears too. 🐰

…Anything is possible, but not likely.

And if you’re on the Vata body side of the spectrum, you appreciate all the variety 🌈, and not eating the same thing every day.

And if you’re on the Kapha end, your healthy, lighter food moves can usually get heavily rewarded, spilling over into other complex body systems winning you bonus points.

Below are the different body types according to Ayurveda in case you’re not sure what your type is.

You can see which one (and sometimes a cross between two) of the Ayurvedic body types you most resemble. By going through each of the 10 statements, you choose the one that most accurately describes you and your body.

Then total up the count for each column seeing which one you have the most check marks in. That’s your dominant body type.

It’s your natural way and the body you’ve gotten used to. Usually, one type is more dominant, but you can have a close second or a tie.

Plus, the types fit more like in a circular pie (or percentage pie if you like math descriptions), where the 3 fit as 3 slices.

Everyone has traces of all 3 types even if one type is just a small sliver or a few crumbs (…can you tell I like food descriptions?).

And this is good to know …especially if you don’t like your body type diagnosis here. I’m sure you also fall into some of the descriptions in the other types or in different times of your life 😉

These come from the learnings I had back in 2008.

No matter which BODY TYPE you have, each one of us can benefit from daily anti-inflammatory eating.

Eating anti-inflammatory is like cardio exercise. …in that, we reap healthy benefits as we have a heart that runs better with our healthy moves.

So, then armed with this information, you can better plan your daily anti-inflammatory “eat from the rainbow” meals that can become your established eating-being way.

Enter The Healthiest Combination: Ayurveda Habits and Anti-Inflammatory Eating

In my relationship with food, I choose anti-inflammatory foods when grocery shopping, and then make easy home meals based on what balances my dominant Vata sweet tooth-to-salty craving body.

And I use food as natural “medicine” to help restore my Ayurvedic imbalances—Kapha, Vata, Pitta, or a combination of them that get out of whack for any of us at any time.

Gradually getting off-balance is part of natural order in our organized, but seemingly chaotic world at times.

Think of the 3 body types in us like colliding earth, wind, and fire (…and like the timeless rock band who still plays in harmony… and just this past weekend).

…Do you remember (the 21st night of September)?… 🎸🎺🎤🎶

…So anyway, with all the chaos brought into our bodies, layering anti-inflammatory foods and balancing them with Ayurvedic food choices is a good way (and I think the best way!) to smooth out undesired moods like anxiety, depression, anger, and any shades in between.

These mood types that linger as undercurrents or that are obvious to us (and others), can cause chronic stress leading to inflammation and debilitating diseases already mentioned.

But the good news is… subtle food changes can change our subtle moods (…nice tongue twister there 😊).

This is true for all ages, types, and sizes as we all can carry off-balance moods seasonally or from time-to-time.

Even though my size is usually consistent year-round, I have a big Vata sweet tooth and too much sugar irritates my skin. That’s a sign of a Pitta body imbalance.

With The 2 A’s (Anti-Inflammatory and Ayurvedic) approach I know I’m doing everything I can to support my prized health and honor the body that was given to me… and that can be your intention too.

So, I put together a list of 200 anti-inflammatory foods so you know easily what to grocery shop for (and shortcut to the checkout line).

The healthy and anti-inflammatory shopping lists help you decide what to grocery buy and fill your kitchen with when you’re lazy or feeling a ‘lil Kapha… and you want to make easy choices… and not have to search high and low in your fridge and cabinets trying to figure out your next meal when it can be made deliciously in minutes or in one bowl with ideas on-hand.

Plus you can overlay the Ayurveda food lists provided, so you have all the researched nutritional food knowledge and references, food lists, and meal ideas all in one place and at your fingertips…. and have the food knowledge I acquired from my decade of event meal planning working with chefs. You can use the list of ingredients and take the flavor ideas to make similar simple, tasty meals that impress you and those you’re feeding.

Another benefit to anti-inflammatory eating that I’ve learned is that your at-home healthy practice can change your sugar.

What do I mean by this?…

At home, you can control the ingredients you eat.

Since 2020, I took up baking regularly. I built a deeper relationship with ingredients and food. I learned to modify bakes without refined sugar (or any white sugar-type substitute) that irritates the skin. And in other body types, sugar can add to insulin resistance and wreak other body havoc.

I do make a few exceptions, but pretty much I’ve learned to enjoyably swap what I once loved (sugar!) with sweet anti-inflammatory ingredients that I now prefer the taste of… because taste is super important to me, as it is to you! 😋

These days, I’m choosier with flavors and I think that makes for better-tasting and healthier bakes.

I’m sure if I got a taste of something super boozy sweet now like in a restaurant dessert with an oozing middle, I would probably only be able to take a small bite without thinking it was too sweet.

So, what you eat regularly changes your body desires and tastes to match your diet.

You are what you eat (and you can become what you eat).

…So that’s another benefit of making the healthy switch!

Your healthy desires catch up to your habits and routines.

That’s good hope for sugar cravings or any other unhealthy weak-in-the-knees food cravings (like the FF word 🍟).

…And if you were to offer a diabetic person, a sugar-free yummy cookie, they probably wouldn’t want it, but if they did, they wouldn’t enjoy it the same way they would if they had the taste of sugar regularly.

So, our tastes also change to help us out.

That’s some good inspo if you want to cook or bake more today or into this year.

And, I’d add... if you have pantry ingredients close on hand, you’re more likely to pick up this handy life skill sooner if you want. You can decide to keep a good shelf-life food pantry, in addition to shopping regularly for fresh ingredients or meals.

You could also keep a secondary “food as medicine” kitchen cabinet that includes spices like I do.

If that’s far from what you do today and you’re not there yet, but wanna be… be encouraged that your desires change. Like in my home cooking journey…

I rarely turned on the oven or stove at home when I planned menus all day at work as a catering sales manager. I came home tired and had a couple boxes of pasta and tomato sauce in my cupboard… nothing for me to get excited about even after I re-charged my energy.

Grocery store shopping was my personal foodie food event.

Cooking was the last thing I wanted to do being around food conversations all day.

And in your case, you may be dead dog tired by the end of the work week, overwhelmingly busy season, or just had a Pitta day, that all cause you to want to stay away from the stovetop oven… yes/right?

But you could change your mind and ways when you get used to sniffing and reading ingredients that you have on hand at home a few steps away from the couch that you can check out on your way back from the bathroom or reaching for a snack 😉… and that way you can see that you can actually make your own this-and-that just as easily as going out or to the store.

A factory doesn’t need to supply all the combined ingredients in a package for you to enjoy.

Food was available before we had modern machinery and even available sugar for baking.

So you can put ingredients together yourself in seconds or minutes (and without all kinds of convenient gadgets and kitchenware).

You can use what you have available.

And in those mindful minutes, you can tap into your creative and therapeutic part of your day.

That can lead you to want to learn more about the variety of interesting anti-inflammatory ingredients available out there as regular substitutions to sugar and high processed foods.

…And you can start with the most important meal of the day. 🎉 Visit low-sugar breakfast recipes for enjoyable, anti-inflammatory food inspiration.

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