There are many reasons why people get pneumonia. A compromised immune system, inadequate nutrition, poor hygiene, and indoor air pollution. I would like to talk about indoor pollution. On my trip, we were able to visit a rural village outside of Blantyre. Most people in Africa cook and prepare their food in an indoor cooking structure. It is common for the walls of the cook rooms to be black with soot. Women cook with coal and wood. You can only imagine how much smoke these woman inhale every day while they prepare meals for their families. Not only are the women affected by this pollution, but the children also are more vulnerable to pneumonia and other respiratory diseases.

In the village we visited, the Mulanje Renewable Energy Agency, supported by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves led by the UN Foundation, is helping educate and teach women how to make, use, and sell clean cookstoves. By using these stoves, they are hoping it will help the environment and be a solution to save lives and empower women.

How to Make a Cookstove

First the women collect mud. They spend a lot of time working the mud with their feet to make sure it is free of rocks, sticks and debris. This can take several hours. Once the mud has been worked over, it is put in a sealed bag to cure for a week.

The clay is then put into a cookstove mold. The women use special tools to make sure that every part of the stove is perfectly measured. Once the stove has been created, it is ready to be cured in a kiln.

Each woman puts the date and her initials on the bottom of her stove. The kiln is able to bake several stoves at once. If the stove has any defect or problem, it will break during the curing phase.

The woman that showed us how to make the stoves is in charge of training other women how to do it too. The women can sell enough stoves in one year to build their own home. The picture above is a home that was built from selling 100 clean cookstoves.

Not only were the stoves reducing pollution, but they are also a way to improve trade and develop a robust clean cookstove industry.

We asked the other women in the village what their dreams and goals were. They wanted to sell enough stoves to have their own homes.

I loved how the clean cookstove program is set up. One woman is trained on how to make a quality stove, then she is responsible for giving back by teaching other woman how to make them. By selling these cookstoves, the women in Africa are not only providing for their families, but improving health and safety for everyone in their community.

What is being done in your community to help strengthen and build your neighbors?

Photo Credit: Matthew Feldman, Research Associate for IVAC

Jill Greenlaw has a banking background. She gave that up 17 years ago when she got married and started having kids. She loved being a stay-at-home mom while raising her four beautiful children. A few years ago, Jill went back to work in sales. She is now working for the Mom It Forward team as their Community Manager. She loves her job. Her interests include camping, motorcycling, boating, photography, reading, cooking, and traveling. Put her in flip flops anywhere warm and she is happy.

We will be learning about several basic oils in this week’s article. Keep in mind a little goes a long way. Essential oils are 50-75 times more concentrated than the plant, bark, or flower it from which they originate.

Health Promoting Essential Oils

Lemon:

Lemon oil has several properties. Lemon oil is best known for its antiviral, antiseptic, uplifting, and anti-depressant properties. Lemon seeds came to America from Christopher Columbus.

Lemon oil is also historically used for muscle aches and pains, lowering blood pressure, and as an air purifier. I love to use lemon oil in non toxic unscented cleaners to disinfect and clean around the house. This oil is really great to smell when I want a pick-me-up. You can use Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade Oil (CPTG) and put a drop or two stirred up in water for a refreshing drink.

Peppermint:

This oil is one of my favorites! I also love to add a drop to my water for a completely refreshing drink! One drop is equal to 28 cups peppermint tea! Whew! Peppermint is great for pain and inflammation. It’s very uplifting and great as an anti-bacterial agent.

This can be used directly on the bottoms of the feet to help with fever. This oil also helps a stomach upset when a drop is added to water. Don’t use in children under six internally, and use in caution with high blood pressure, pregnancy, or breastfeeding women. This oil can be diffused to help with fatigue, and it will help open up the mind during study, especially when learning new things! I love to rub this oil on the back of my neck, and temples for headaches.

Lavender:

I have heard for years that this is the “Swiss army knife “of essential oils. It is good for so many things. This is a must have especially if you have children in the home. This oil is good for pain. There are so many properties of this oil including but not limited to antibacterial, antifungal, regenerative, sedative, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and anti-infectious. This is good to use on cuts, burns, emotional balance, insomnia, boils, allergies, insect bites, bee stings, headaches, stress, wounds, and so much more.

This is the one oil I suggest highly if you are deciding what oils to start with. I used this oil one time to help me really relax with a difficult dental procedure. I didn’t realize things weren’t going well. Five hours after the procedure started, I was sent to an oral surgeon. I really didn’t know I had been there so long.

Melaleuca:

This oil is great for pain, antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral, tissue healing, and antiseptic purposes as well as so many more. This is great oil during flu and cold season, and can be used on the bottoms of the feet as well as diffusing. This oil can be used in other ways.

I am just giving very basic information here. I teach very in-depth essential oils classes. I can only begin to skim the surface when talking about oils in this forum. There are many other uses for each and every oil I have mentioned here, and I have only mentioned four oils. I have over 20 books on the uses of essential oils and ways to use them.

I hope this will give you an overview of just a few of the thousands of uses for oils and that I have given you enough information to want to explore further!

 What are some of your favorite essential oils?

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Joyce Harrell, RN, OCN is a holistic nurse who provides natural solutions for health and home. Joyce utilizes the art of nursing by implementing essential oils, enzyme therapy, vision boards, wellness coaching, and nutritional therapy to help you create an environment for your body to best heal.

Joyce is a wife, mother, nana, author, holistic healer, and above all committed to her relationship with God. You can find Joyce at www.NurseCoachOnline  or email her at joyce@nursecoachonline.com.

What do you think about when someone says aromatherapy? Many people think of candles, bubble bath, bath salts, and the very popular store,Bath & Body Works. There is so much to learn and you will be gaining a broad overview with this article on the basics of essential oils.

History of Essential Oils

The use of essential oils has been documented all the way back to 7000 B.C. when olive and sesame oil were combined with aromatic plants to produce ointments. The Egyptians learned how to distill oils and made cinnamon oil, cedar wood, frankincense, myrrh, and a few other oils. The Greeks and Romans used oils, and there are over 188 references to oils in the Bible.

My favorite comes from the 17th Century during the Black Plague. When the Black Plague went through communities, the stench of dead flesh was overwhelming. Physicians were dressed from head-to-toe and wore beak-like masks filled with oils/herbs. This is where the name quack originates.

In France,  there was a French scientist by the name of Rene Gattefosse. He was researching oils and their properties when he was burned very badly. It is said that he put his burned arm in a vat of lavender oil and it immediately took care of this pain and he did not have any scarring as a result.

Essential oils because of their antibacterial properties were used in World War II in France to treat wounds of the soldiers when their medication had run out. France and Europe have used essential oils for years for medicinal benefits, while in America oils have been used in the cosmetics industry (not pure oils) for perfumes. Synthetic oils and fragrance oils have been made for lotions, candles, and bath products.

Healing Benefits of Essential Oils

Therapeutic oils have many healing properties. To name a few, they can be the following: antibiotic, antibacterial, antispasmodic, antipyretic, antiviral, relaxing, stimulating, energizing, grounding, antiparasitic, and many more uses. For the individual oils to have pure therapeutic properties, the oils need to be grown in certain places, at certain elevation, with certain temperature, and even be harvested at certain times of the day or season.

For example, lavender grown in the United States does not have the full therapeutic potential like lavender grown in certain parts of France. Likewise, peppermint is most therapeutically grown in the state of Washington. To be deemed pure, an oil only needs to be 52% pure. Look for an oil that is certified pure therapeutic. You are ensuring 100% purity this way. Look for oils that originate where they are most therapeutic.

Properties of Essential Oils

Essential oils are made up of very small molecules. This property allows oils to pass through the phospholipid bilayer of the cell wall. This protective mechanism of the cell prevents many things from penetrating. This is one reason some oils with antiviral properties may benefit common viruses like colds and flu’s and explains why antibiotics don’t work on viruses.

This is just a small history and explanation of essential oils. Over the next few weeks you will learn about many oils including lavender, peppermint, lemon, chamomile, patchouli and many other oils. You will learn how you can use the oils for flu and cold symptoms, fever, anxiety, stress, and even cleaning products! Be sure to follow each week as I share ways to use these wonderful natural solutions for your health and home!

What are some of your favorite types of essential oils? How have they helped you and your family?

Joyce Harrell, RN, OCN is a holistic nurse who provides natural solutions for health and home. Joyce utilizes the art of nursing by implementing essential oils, enzyme therapy, vision boards, wellness coaching, and nutritional therapy to help you create an environment for your body to best heal.

Joyce is a wife, mother, nana, author, holistic healer, and above all committed to her relationship with God. You can find Joyce at www.NurseCoachOnline  or email her at joyce@nursecoachonline.com.

Tips for Living a Heart Healthy Lifestyle

Today, I would like to provide some easy steps to take to live a more heart-healthy lifestyle. Prevention is always best in my book! The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that in 2010, coronary heart disease alone was projected to cost the United States$108.9 billion (Source: www.cdc.gov.) The American Heart Association has designed a program called Life’s Simple 7 with the goal of improved health by educating the public on best to live a more healthy life. The seven points they developed include: Get Active, Eat Better, Lose Weight, Stop Smoking, Control Cholesterol, Manage Blood Pressure, and Reduce Blood Sugar. There is even a test you can take to see how well you are doing at protecting your heart! (Source: http://mylifecheck.heart.org/) You can read more about their recommendations on their site here.

Get Tested

According to studies cited by the authors of Alternative Medicine – The Definitive Guide, 85 percent of all heart disease is caused by vulnerable plaque, which unfortunately cannot usually be detected by conventional cardiovascular diagnostic tests. They recommend that to effectively screen for vulnerable plaque, ultra-high-speed magnetic resonance imagining (MRI) may be required. Don’t feel you need to run out and get an MRI, but if you are at a risk for heart disease, keep this tool in mind.  The authors also recommend that people at risk should also be screened for infectious agents, as well as oxidized cholesterol, fibrinogen and homocysteine levels, and free-radical damage. These are all tests you can discuss with your doctor (Source: Alternative Medicine).

Eat Organic Foods

As far as diet changes or additions, try to make sure you eat organically as much as possible as organic foods are free of pesticides, herbicides, steroids, and antibiotics. Also increase your fiber intake with leafy green vegetables, fresh raw fruits, and psyllium. I could write pages upon pages about the benefits of monounsaturated oils such as olive oil, omega-3 oils such as fish oil and flaxseed oil, and omega-6 oils such as borage oil and evening primrose oil.

Eat Less Processed Foods

Try to avoid processed foods as much as possible.  I absolutely promise you will start to feel better the cleaner your food is. One trick I taught my five year-old is to look at the number of ingredients listed. If there is a long list of ingredients, especially ones you can’t even pronounce, then it is probably heavily processed.

Take Nutritional Supplements

Some nutritional supplements known to improve cardiovascular conditions include: beta carotene; vitamins B3 (niacin), B6, B12, C, and E; folic acid; the minerals calcium, chromium, magnesium, potassium, and selenium; the amino acids L-arginine, L-taurine, and L-carnitine; coenzyme Q10; and pycnogenol. (Source: Alternative Medicine.)  A good multivitamin can provide many of these nutrients listed above. It would be best to work with a health provider to determine the best amounts to take for your body!

Make Healthy Lifestyle Changes

Though heart disease causes half of all deaths in the United States, many health professionals feel that it is one of the most preventable chronic degenerative diseases. Heart healthy steps include making healthy dietary changes, exercise, stress reduction, and nutritional supplementation. Little changes can be made daily and always talk with your health provider if you have questions or concerns.

 What are you doing to prevent heart disease?

References:

1. Goldberg, Burton., Trivieri, Larry, and Anderson, John., Alternative Medicine- The Definitive Guide. Second Edition. Celestial Arts.
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  CDC – DHDSP – Fact Sheets – Women and Heart Disease Fact Sheet.  www.cdc.gov
3. The American Heart Association. Life’s Simple 7 Sheet. http://mylifecheck.heart.org/

Photo courtesy of flickr.

Melissa Northway, M.S. Human Nutrition, is a mom, writer and her storybook app Penelope the Purple Pirate has been chosen as a Top 10 Must-Have eBook by lilsugar of Popsugar.com and a Top 10 Educational iPad App by Digital Storytime.  She does consulting work for companies interested in marketing their apps or eBooks. She can be reached at: mcube@sbcglobal.net and http://www.melissanorthway.com or @melissanorthway. See my review of The Hunger Games coming next week.

Mental illness is still surrounded by great stigma. It causes a huge burden on the patient, family, and friends to have to deal with negative reactions from others. The biggest burden is in feeling like you need to hide what is going on in your life. There is little understanding or sympathy readily available to you when you get the initial diagnosis in spite of the fact that four out of  ten individuals will experience some form of mental illness during their lifetime. I used to say, “Give me cancer any day – I’ll trade.  At least then neighbors and extended family would pay attention and be supportive.”

Here again, it is imperative that you gain as much education and information as possible so that you can be a reliable and effective advocate for your ill family member. I remember going to the high school my son was attending to meet with all of his teachers. He was receiving near failing grades from each of his teachers and they were frustrated with their inability to understand what was going on in his life.

I had done my research and knew what our rights were and I had facts about his illness. I patiently communicated with his teachers and helped them understand what he was struggling with in his life. He was eventually able to graduate from high school thanks to their support, understanding, and accommodation of his illness.

I was fortunate to serve as the state coordinator of the NAMI Anti-stigma Campaign. NAMI National had devised a campaign to educate the public about the true medical nature of mental illness. Their main goal was to increase awareness of these illnesses and to help insurance companies realize that they should be treated equally with any other illness. Minds and hearts were changed all over the country because of this campaign. Mental illness is now openly discussed and this helps alleviate some of the burden on patients and their loved ones.

5 Ways You Can Help Someone With Mental Illness

Here are five ways you can help someone with mental illness:

1. Educate yourself about mental illness.
2. Be willing to get involved.
3. Contact your local NAMI or Mental Health Association to see how you can help.
4. Join a support group to find others with your same concerns.
5. Remember – if you don’t speak up, who will?

How can you overcome the stigma of mental illness? What resources have you found helpful for you and your family to better deal with the effects of mental illness?

Being a vegetarian is not all about eating tofu and raw vegetables all the time; it’s a choice that my family has made to be healthier and kinder to the world around us! Everyone has their own reasons to be or not to be vegetarian and it is a personal choice. I am not here to judge — I am here to give you some tips and tricks if you would like to cut some meat from your diet in the new year!

How To Become a Healthy Vegetarian

Educate Yourself

You first need to educate yourself and know that often times vegetarians may become deficient in vitamin D, protein, Vitamin B12, Zinc, Iron, and Calicum when they remove meat, fish, dairy products, and eggs from their diet. This statement shouldn’t discourage you, but empower you to learn more about what’s in the food that you are eating. Those deficiencies can easily be resolved by eating more green and leafy vegetables,  drinking calcium fortified orange juice, and eating more beans/seeds/nuts/grains/etc. Simply put: It’s eating more of “whole” foods. Foods that don’t have preservatives in them or foods that haven’t been cooked, recooked, and cooked again before packaging.

Set Goals

You need to set some goals for yourself, but at the same time be realistic. Becoming a vegetarian is a huge lifestyle style change and it will take time. I found that it was easier for my family to take baby steps during the process.

A simple goal might be to have one family dinner a week that is meatless. I know, I know, that is not very much but if you are coming from a strict meat and potatoes type of family, one night a week is a huge change.

Another small step you can take is to eliminate meat products from breakfasts and lunches before moving to an all meatless dinner plan. I have many friends who have first eliminated red meat from their diets and then moved to removing poultry products.

Find Recipes

You need to find some fun and exciting recipes. Take your favorite recipe and make it without meat. We did that with our favorite stir fry and loved it! My advice would be to not try meat replacement products at first when you are trying to make the switch to a non meat diet. When we first switched over to being vegetarian, we tried many meatless products and they did not taste good. After being vegetarian now for several years, most of those products taste good.

A lot of people ask if we miss meat. Honestly, I don’t miss it. I did think that I would miss hamburgers and steak. Nope, no way, I don’t. It was a pretty big adjustment for our extended family though. It took several years before my husband’s father quit asking us if we wanted turkey at Thanksgiving, after all it was white meat. Again, it’s about education and patience.

Own It

So my advice to you is to explore and educate yourself. There are no rules to this game. I am a vegetarian who eats very little dairy, my husband is a vegetarian who eats fish and dairy, my older son is a vegetarian who eats dairy, and my younger son is a vegetarian who is dairy free but eats eggs. So you can see how diverse it can be. You make your own plan, follow it, and own it! You can do it!

What is your favorite healthy meal? How do make sure you are eating fruits and veggies in your diet?

Pictures courtesy of flickr.

Cindy Gordon, founder of the blog, Vegetarian Mamma, is a wife and mamma of two energetic boys! Cindy loves to dish about recipes, vegetarianism, saving money, home schooling and her new life as a mamma to a child with life threatening allergies. Be sure to  follow “Vegetarian Mamma” on Facebook and Twitter @Vegetarianmamma

I didn’t have any friends who were dealing with similar parenting issues and I, personally, knew almost nothing about Schizophrenia or any other mental illness kids face. When I tried to surface discussions about it, friends and even family members met my inquiries and information with silence or judgement—as if my son or I, as his parent, had done something wrong to bring on such a diagnosis.

To make matters worse, I had seen the movie Sybil, and like many people, I confused Schizophrenia and one of its side effects of hearing voices with Sybil’s multiple personalities. My lack of knowledge, confusion, and feeling completely alone in my struggle and unable to talk about it left me scared and frustrated. How would I parent a child suffering from an illness that no one talked about? Where would I go for help? What type of support and resources would I be able to turn to?

One day, I was at the peak of trying to get to the bottom of what to do to help my son. Medication wasn’t the whole solution. Different doctors suggested different routes of treatment. The stigma surrounding mental illness was suffocating. I felt completely hopeless and at the same time, responsible for helping my son and being his advocate. In that moment of feeling like I wanted to give up, I turned on the news and a public service announcement came on for a class hosted by the Utah Alliance for the Mentally Ill called Journey of Hope—a Family-to-Family class for family members of those with mental illness. My husband and I immediately signed up.

That was over nearly 20 years ago. Since then I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about this dreaded disease. I have not only advocated for my son’s rights, but I also lobbied on behalf of others’ rights. I got involved in a way that was both empowering and healing. And my husband and I ultimately ended up getting trained in and later facilitated the Family-to-Family class for years to help other people not feel alone in their struggles.

9 Tips to Parenting a Child With Mental Illness

If you or someone you know is parenting a child with mental illness like Schizophrenia, Schizo-Affective Disorder, Bipolar Disorder or serious Depression, here are nine tips I have found have helped in my own journey:

1. Know that there is hope! Whether you gain that through your faith, gaining knowledge, building a support system, or through other means, build a reservoir of hope and rely on that to help you push through the difficult times.
2. Don’t be afraid to grieve. Grieving is a natural process that helps us mourn loss, but all too often as parents, we feel like we have to grab the bull by the horns, so to speak, and create a plan, be in control, and more than anything, keep it together. After all, you have other kids to tend to, a suffering child to protect, and a life outside mental illness, even though at times you may not feel like you do. But, making time to grieve, gives you emotional space to heal and grow, which ultimately helps you have hope.
3. Treatment is available and it works. Keep in mind that treatment comes in many different forms: traditional medicine, therapy, psychiatry/psychology, meditation, non-traditional medicine (vitamin supplements, etc.). Do your research and learn everything you can about the options available to you. With my son, we have changed his medication and treatment plan many, many times in the past 20 years. The key is to keep up to date on what works and to try a plan until you find something that sticks.
4. Find a good source of information.  The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is the best source of information and support for anyone affected by mental illness. You can find NAMI at nami.org, which has links to state organizations. I remember spending hours in the library researching information. Today, the internet makes knowledge available immediately. The key is to search!
5. Get support! At a certain point, I wanted to know more and to talk to others who were going through similar parenting struggles. I wanted to feel that me and my husband weren’t the only ones facing the challenges we were facing. Take NAMI’s Family to Family Education Class was a saving grace for us as parents and for our marriage. It brought us together and helped us support each other as well as others.  This 12 week course will provide you with information and a support group of others who are experiencing similar situations with mental illness.  Nami.org helps you find a class in your area as well as has online communities with discussion groups you can join.
6. Speak up! Those with mental illnesses often cannot speak out and fight for their rights. Defend those who are suffering. Speak up for them and fight for their rights. And support laws that will help them and help our society put aside this stigma and protect them.
7. Learn how to advocate for your loved one. Gaining information is the first step. Once you have information, identify what is possible for your child and take steps to support him or her in those areas. For my son, he wanted to graduate from high school. It was a tough road with lots of tutoring and uphill battles, but he did it!
8. Remember that knowledge is power. As you learn more about these diseases, you will not only feel empowered and hopeful, but your ability to provide loving care for your loved one will increase and the quality of your lives will be much better.
9. Don’t forget yourself or your family! Being the care giver of a child with mental illness is time consuming. Sometimes, it feels that your entire world as a parent revolves around this one child. But, remember to take a step back on a regular basis. Pay attention to your needs. Pay attention to the needs of your other family members.

What resources have you and your family used to deal with Mental Illness? How can we stand up and be a support to those with mental illness or loved ones who have family members who are mentally ill?

Photo courtesy of flickr

I wanted to give a little background about our immune system and how it works in protecting our health. Our immune system is an intricate network of specialized organs, cells, and substances that is our body’s key defense against disease as well as an array of bacterial, viral, and fungal infections that we come in contact with every day just by breathing, eating and living our lives. Our immune system is busy removing cells that have been killed due to trauma, toxins, microbial attacks, and other processes that occur in the body every day.

Three Vital Defensive Strategies

There are three vital defensive strategies that our immune system utilizes:

1. Our first line of defense is our skin and gastrointestinal tract that acts as a physical barrier and the millions of immune cells that help prevent an infection.
2. The second line of defense is our bloodstream and our body’s inflammatory response.  That is why it is recommended not to treat a minor fever as it is the body’s way of fighting off the infection. With an inflammatory reaction we see our body become warm and/or swell and tissue redden. All of these responses happen to help contain the infectious agents and prevent them from spreading further. You don’t want an inflammatory response to go on too long as it can damage tissues and cells.
3. The final line of defense is within our various organs in the body, particularly the spleen. liver, and lymph nodes (Source:  Alternative Medicine).

When our immune system is impaired we become vulnerable to illnesses. This can be due to environmental insults, chronic stress, a poor diet, toxins and food allergies among other assaults. The result is an immune system that becomes unbalanced and becomes either underactive or overactive.

According to the authors of the must-read book about health – Alternative Medicine: “A dysfunctional immune system can leave us vulnerable to illnesses such as allergies, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Cancer results when the immune system malfunctions and no longer recognizes and destroys cancer cells.” (Source: Alternative Medicine).

You can see it should be a priority to keep our immune system as strong as possible. This means we should pay attention to what types of foods we eat, try to manage our stress levels with exercise, and engage in activities that bring us peace of mind. This could mean going to lunch with some girlfriends, spending quality time with the family, and/or spending time at your place of worship. Whatever helps to calm the mind will in turn help to keep the body balanced as well. In my next post, I will talk more about ways to strengthen you body’s immune system.

Reference:

• BurtonGoldberg, Alternative Medicine – The Definitive Guide.  2^nd Edition by Celestial Arts.

How do you help make your immune system strong? How do you stay healthy during the colder months?

Melissa Northway, M.S. in Human Nutrition, is a mom, writer, and her company, Polka Dots Publishing, produces children’s picture book apps.  Her first storybook app, Penelope the Purple Pirate, has been chosen as a Top 10 Educational iPad App.  To help celebrate the holiday season, Penelope is having a Christmas/Holiday Giveaway. Follow Penelope the Purple Pirate on Facebook to learn about more about how to enter to win a $50 iTunes Gift Card and other goodies! You can reach her at: @melissanorthway and mcube@sbcglobal.net.

The Prize

This week’s giveaway is all about achieving health and wellness through yoga. Ten lucky winners will each receive a signed copy of Slim Calm Sexy Yoga and a one-year subscription to Women’s Health magazine!

Entry Requirements

For a chance to enter and win, please complete the following requirements and leave a separate comment for each on this post, including links to your original tweets.

1. Follow @TaraStiles on Twitter.
2. Follow @SpruceTV on Twitter.
3. On this post, tell us how you plan to focus on being healthier in 2011 and the steps you will take to achieve these goals.
4. Tweet the following:

• RT @MomItForward Have any health goals for 2011? Let @TaraStiles help you reach those goals through #Yoga http://bit.ly/efmnUZ PLS RT

• RT @MomItForward GIVEAWAY! Enter 2 win signed copy of Slim Calm Sexy Yoga + sub 2 Women’s Health mag! http://bit.ly/hJdFhQ #gno #Yoga PLS RT

Optional Entries

The following are two extra entries that are completely optional and will earn you one extra entry for each entry completed. Leave a separate comment on this post for each completed entry.

• Like the Tara Stiles page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/TaraStilesLiving)
• Like the Spruce TV page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/SpruceTV?ref=ts)

Terms and Conditions

Winners will be selected randomly through http://random.org. No purchase necessary to enter. Giveaway ends at midnight ET Thursday, January 6. See all terms and conditions here. This giveaway is available to U.S. residents only.

If you eat too much, you gain weight.

If you drink too much, you kill your liver and brain cells.

If you spend too much time on the computer, you get twitter butt, blurry vision, and your husband starts to fantasize obsessively about Kate Beckinsale. (And no, I don’t know anything about this first hand.)

So basically, it comes down to moderation.

How to Live a Balanced Lifestyle

How do we do this? Well, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Our society is set up for extravagances. We have bigger meals, bigger cars, bigger butts, etc.  So what may be moderation to you might actually not be moderation at all. But over the years, I’ve been following some rules of thumb I’d like to share with you.

1. Always pay attention to the serving size on the back of packages and eat the serving size. Sometimes one bag of something is actually 2-4 servings. If you eat the serving size of something, you can enjoy it without having to feel too guilty about it.
2. Always make informed decisions. If you are going to eat something, take a good look at the nutritional contents. Look at fat, fiber, sodium and calories. Then take a look at the ingredients.  Now that you know what it is, make your decision.
3. There IS such a thing as too much of a good thing, but if you are filling your body with nutritious foods about 90% of the time, you can indulge a bit.
4. Make sure to give yourself one cheat meal per week. This will be fine if you are sensible the rest of the time.
5. Drinking will slow down your metabolism and leave you dehydrated. Don’t do it every day, but if you are going to drink, have some red wine. It’s full of health benefits in moderation.
6. Try to combine complex carbohydrates and a lean protein at every meal or snack to promote a full feeling and keep you from overeating.
7. If you are going to indulge in something you know is REALLY sinful, take a small piece.

Moderation is a mindset. It means allowing yourself to indulge without going overboard. It takes self-control and common sense. Self-control is learned over time and common sense means being honest with yourself. Just make sure that when you do indulge, you enjoy yourself and don’t beat yourself up about it. Otherwise, it’s not worth it at all.