Today I’m on (in)courage rather bravely sharing part of my new routine in life: running. Or, as I sometimes say, slunning. Because it’s most definitely a slow run.

From the post:

“If I sound like I’ve got this down pat, think again. I daily battle my will, and many times, I cave. Just ask Kat, my accountability partner. Every Friday, I DM her on Twitter with how much I exercised that week, and there are times when it’s not pretty.

But I get up and give it another go, because I’m blessed with two legs that can run, arms that can lift, and a heart that can pound. As Thomas also says in his book, ‘What if exercise and discipline in eating isn’t as much about physical health as about honoring the God who made us?’”

Head here to read the rest of the post and to leave your thoughts. What’s your motivation to move your body?

How’s your summer going so far? Mine’s been that delicate balance between savoring the sweetness and checking things off the to-do list. Isn’t that how life usually is, as grownups?

I look at my kids, young as they are, and I marvel at their ability to just be. They wake up and ask, “What are we going to do today?” The night before, they didn’t need to brain dump or check their to-do list; they simply hit their pillows with summer-tangled hair and limp limbs, exhausted from all the running and tree climbing.

Ah…. to be there again. Or, do I really want to? Because after all, being a grownup has its perks. We have a keener ability to savor the summer days, fully aware of how fleeting they are. We know that ice cream really is a treat—money doesn’t grow on trees, after all.

Here are a few ways I think I’ve got a leg up on my kids right now, summer-wise.

[Read more...]

Written by contributor Lisa Byrne of WellGrounded Life.

Most of us don’t give our body much thought until something goes wrong and it causes us pain or discomfort.

But when you begin to tune in, you’ll find that your body actually has exquisite ways to communicate all sorts of important information with you. And one of the ways it does this is through cravings.

When our body begins to generate strong cravings for certain kinds of foods, we can be sure it is trying to communicate something to us.

At first it can feel confusing to figure out because sometimes our cravings often don’t make sense.  I can remember a woman I was working with asking me, “I have such intense cravings for foods that I know aren’t good for me…it makes me wonder why I would want to trust my body at all?”

I can understand that perspective from the first glance.  But when we look a little deeper and trust in the process, we can identify what is out of whack by using our cravings as signals.
[Read more...]

Written by contributor Lisa Byrne of WellGrounded Life.

I think the most common issue moms share is sleep deprivation. Personally, before having children, I assumed severe lack of sleep was limited to the early infant months. Little did I know just how long the broken sleep goes for while raising kids.

Between middle-of-the-night spooks, bed wetting, bathroom trips and sick days—most mamas are not clocking in anywhere close to the 8-10 recommended sleep hours.

So I began to feel that familiar struggle between what I call “my ideal and my real.” My ideal was to both be well rested and have an intentional morning routine—and if possible, one that begins on my own terms, preferably before the kids wake up.

My real was chronic nights of sub-par and broken sleep and a complete abandonment of attempting any morning routine at all.

This is where I needed a strong dose of my own medicine. I believe that as mothers, we need to kick ideal out the window and come to terms with the life we are living in order to create strategies that actual move us forward… instead of waiting for the perfect conditions to exist.

The old familiar all-or-nothing trap is one I fell into for a long time. Since I was already sleep-deprived, I put off creating a morning routine that would set a cadence for my day in a way that I wanted.

And as it often happens—while I was teaching one of my courses, a light bulb went off in my own life.  While it may not be the most perfect scenario, I could still create a robust and effective morning routine with my kids awake and around me. 
[Read more...]

This is a guest post written by Camille Macres of Recipe Rx.

Have you given much thought to what it takes to create and sustain the delicate ecosystem of a healthy diet and lifestyle?

Chances are you think about your family’s health quite a lot and have some sort of system down, but there are still areas that don’t really work.

Maybe you eat pretty healthy, but you’re spending way more than you’d like at the store.

Or maybe you’re trying to do “all the right things,” but find yourself totally overwhelmed and consumed with the myriad of conflicting information on television, newsstands, and the internet.

Or maybe just the mere thought of what it would take to improve your family’s eating habits has you running for the hills!

I’ve become really interested in looking at all of the moving pieces of what it takes to get healthy and keep this lifestyle alive year after year. I coined the term “sustainable health” to define a way of eating that supports you, that you enjoy, that you can live with.

Sustainable health: A set of tools and practices adapted to a modern lifestyle that supports freedom from disease and illness.
[Read more...]