Clarity Wellness

Habits make our lives easier. They make things automatic and free us from the decision fatigue that hits us near the end of the day. However, you probably already know how hard it is to create a new habit. The old ones are so deeply ingrained. It should be simple—there really are only 3 steps involved. Trigger, behavior, reward. With some things it really is that easy. Walk into the bathroom, brush your teeth, enjoy the reward of fresh minty breath. Unfortunately, other habits are not so easy to implement. Habits around food can be the hardest! That’s where we bring in the big guns: habit stacking. Throw every trick you’ve got at it. There are lots of things you can do, but here are some of the most powerful tools I have found for creating better habits around food: 1. Put it in front of your face. If you want to drink more water, fill your water bottle and take it with you everywhere. If you want to eat according to a plan, print it out and post it on your fridge....

If we want to build new habits around our health, it is often helpful to figure out what our anchor habits are first, and build from there.  B.J. Fogg likes to refer to anchor habits as those things that we already do every day without thinking about them--brushing our teeth, making our coffee, eating our breakfast.  If you want to build a new habit, tie it around one of those things.  For example, "While I brush my teeth I will do 20 squats," or "While my coffee is brewing I will do  some stretches in the kitchen."  That's a great ways to implement something new, but I look at anchor habits in a way that's a little closer to The One Thing philosophy touted by Gary Keller. He asks the question, "What's the One Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?"  I've always had a hard time wrapping my head around this concept and narrowing it down to just one thing. I tend to have "One Things"...

I love to plan! Planning trips, planning my day, planning meals--it doesn't always mean I follow through with what I planned, but it does make things go more smoothly when I have at least a general idea of what the day will look like. When it comes to eating, our lives are so busy that it makes things much easier when there is a plan in mind, ingredients ready, and an overall flow to the week. The first thing you need to do is plan a time each week to plan! My time is usually Sunday morning before the rest of the family is up. I look at the calendar to see which events we may have in the evenings that affect how much time I have to cook, who will be home, and what time we will eat.  I usually plan on 1-2 restaurant nights, one leftover night, and maybe a “breakfast for dinner night," so that leaves me with 3-4 meals to plan. Here's a list of things to prep, but of course, adjust it to meet you and your family's meal preferences. Move any meat you might need from the...

Brain health is one of those things you take for granted-- until you get older, that is, and you realize it's not a given anymore. You start forgetting peoples' names, you forget why you walked into a room, or you can't think of the right word to say. Sometimes you just feel like your brain's a little fuzzy, you're living in a fog, and you just can't quite focus. All of that is normal, to a certain degree, but there are some nutritional and lifestyle changes you can make that will help clear the fog.  Inflammatory foods, like sugar and processed foods, cause oxidative stress, which kills neurons, weakens your memory, and impacts your ability to learn and process thoughts properly. Scary stuff, right?  Instead, focus on whole foods, full of vitamins, and healthy fats that help build neural connections--not break them down. Here is a list of some of the top foods for brain health: Nuts—almonds, macadamias, walnuts, Brazil nuts, pecans Seeds—flax, pumpkin, sesame,...

It’s that simple. When buying vegetables, fresher is better , although frozen is a close second and pretty convenient.  Choose organic, unless it has a thick skin already to protect it,  and if you can buy produce directly from the farmer, even better.  Look for humanely raised meat, wild-caught fish, eggs that come from pasture-raised chickens (remember--they like to eat bugs, not grain!), and if you're going to buy processed meats, go for the highest quality with the least about of additives. Choose dairy products that come from organically fed cows . If you prefer to drink almond or coconut milk, that's fine, but choose the unsweetened kind, or you might as well be drinking chocolate milk. And don't be afraid of whole milk and full-fat cream.  The fat in dairy products balances out the naturally occurring sugar, lactose. If it comes out of a box or a pretty little wrapper, it's probably not real food .  Ok, there are exceptions, like the nut butter...