Clarity Wellness

  I noticed this morning during my walk that I was ravenously hungry about an hour into it. This doesn't usually happen to me. I can typically go all morning without a twinge of hunger. However, I've had a couple of weeks of not-so-low-carb eating and I can definitely tell a difference! Give me a teacher appreciation donut, some graduation cake, or a couple of pizza slices with the kids, and boom! I'm right back on the blood sugar rollercoaster.  You know how I can tell? I wake up in the middle of the night a hot mess, I run hot periodically throughout the day, my brain is foggy, my running injuries are aching, my nose is stuffy, and I'm hungry more often than usual. I'd like to think that I can have a little bit of sugar and feel ok, but every experiment fails and I find myself scrambling to get off the rollercoaster and back onto solid ground. Here are some key ways I've found to get back on track and feel better soon. Get it out of your house (and work...

If you ask most people why they want to try a low-carb diet, they will probably tell you they want to lose weight.  Great.  Most of us want to.  But what is your true why behind losing weight? Why number one:  I want to fit into my jeans.  Is this because you want to save money and be able to fit into all the clothes in your closet so you don't have to go out and buy new ones?  Or does the thought of trying on jeans in a fitting room fill you with dread?  Are you tired of looking at your closet and realizing that half the clothes in there don't fit you anymore? But why? Is it merely financial, or is it because you feel frumpy and unattractive? Are you afraid your husband doesn't see you as beautiful anymore?  Are you holding back from intimacy because of the extra weight? But why?  Go deeper... Are you afraid that your health is deteriorating because you're carrying extra weight?  You can't do the physical things you once did?  You ...

  The holidays bring up all sorts of emotions for us—the good, bad, and the ugly.   Along with those emotions, there’s a lot of eating going on.   We eat to celebrate, to soothe ourselves, and sometimes even when we’re hungry. 😊 Do stress and eating go hand in hand for you?   Find yourself reaching for the chips or chocolate when things get rough?   I know that for me, just the thought of a difficult conversation can make me reach for the nuts (giggle, giggle!)   It also happens when something suddenly doesn’t go according to plan.   And again it happens when I’m just waiting for something or someone and I’m mindlessly scrolling through my phone.   Sometimes it even happens when I’m working on a difficult project that requires a lot of brain power.   The crunchiness seems to help my mind work better. I’m sure there’s some science behind it somewhere. I know I've written about this in several other posts, but I also know that we often ha...

There have been many times in the last week that I have had to say to myself, "Keep it simple." My kids are finishing up the first semester at school and everyone's just the tiniest bit grumpy. Complicated is not an option right now. It's officially the holiday season, which means you're planning for big dinners, parties, gift-giving, housecleaning, decorating, and essentially creating a whole lotta magic in your house, especially for the little ones. Some of you even have elves creating mayhem in your house on a nightly basis!  I love to see your pictures of them on Facebook, but I'm a tiny bit glad I never had one show up in my house. ;) With all this background noise in your head, it's hard to concentrate on the here and now, and sometimes you just need to take a break and remember that you don't have to do it all.  Nor should you.  I love to cook and try new recipes.  However, I've found lately that it's very frustrating when I spend an hou...

Well, it happened.   Just like that we returned to our pre-pandemic behavior and let life get really crazy again.  When people ask me how I am, I find myself answering, “Just crazy busy.”  I wasn’t going to let that happen. Then marching band season happened, and since I have a senior and a freshman this year, we let things get away from us.  Early morning practice and nighttime events, along with tough course loads and the homework that goes with them have transformed my girls into walking zombies.  My husband and I find ourselves volunteering for more than we had planned and going to every night rehearsal, concert, fundraiser, etc. that we can.  We’re all stressed and tired, but I honestly wouldn’t change it for the world.  We get one year where they are both in the same school,  playing on the same marimba, no less,  and I’m not going to miss a minute of it. Every time I watch them play, I get goose bumps.   Every. Time....

There's a lot of anxiety going on in my house these days.   I have two very driven, overachieving high school daughters born of two driven, perfectionist parents, and we're all pretty hard on ourselves sometimes.  Add to that a pandemic, followed by a variant, a divisive political climate, underfunded schools and overworked teachers, global warming, AP tests, honors classes, and 4:30 am wake up calls for marching band...Yep, there's a lot going on. I was reminded last week of a technique that I had heard of in the past but hadn't done a very good job of implementing.  It's called the 5-4-3-2-1 technique for dealing with anxiety , and it goes something like this: 5: focus on 5 different things that you can see in your immediate surroundings. 4: look for 4 things you can touch around you. 3: notice 3 things you can hear right now. 2: find 2 things you can smell. 1: acknowledge 1 taste, usually whatever you ate or drank last. The problem with this technique, like many ...