Clarity Wellness

According to Gretchen Rubin in her book Better than Before , there are two types of people: abstainers and moderators.  Abstainers do better with an all or nothing approach to life, while moderators function better with the freedom to have a little of everything.  Knowing your tendency helps you build successful habits into your everyday life. I personally am an abstainer when it comes to sugar.  I have never understood the people who can have a jar of candy on their desks.  If there is candy in my house it calls out to me from wherever it is hidden until I succumb to its siren song.  If I start eating the sweet stuff--even just a little bit--I start craving it constantly and have to remove it from my environment (usually by eating the rest of it!)  It's much easier for me if I just never have it.  Now I'm not saying there are no sweets in my house, they just belong to other people, and as long as I understand that, it's not a problem.  The proble...

  Are you struggling with sugar?  You know it's bad for you, but you just can't give it up? You stop eating it for a few days, and then your daughter decides to make brownies, or your friends bring over cookies, or you go to a birthday party where, of course, there is plenty of cake.  And boom! You're back on the sugar train. Sound familiar? Sugar is like a bad boyfriend.   You know the one.  He's bad news, but is oh, so charming!  You break up with him and swear that this time it's forever, until he shows up at a party and you have a great time together, rehashing old memories. Of course, the next morning you feel terrible and regret letting him back into your life.  Then he shows up again when you are feeling a little down, he smiles at you with those adorable crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and yes!  You're gone again. Prey to the knowledge that he will make you feel better--if only for a little while. Sugar gives us a dopamine rush , sim...

  Fair warning--this post may contain a little TMI.  If you'd prefer not to read anything more about my breasts, then stop reading right now.  However, I have a feeling you might be just a little bit curious, because you might be dealing with some of the very same things that I've gone through over the past few years.  If that's the case, by all means, keep reading, and I hope you get some value out of the story I'm about to tell you. I have dense, fibrocystic breasts, as I know many of you also do.  It's great if you want a perky post-pregnancy pair, but not so great when you start the mammogram dance of suspicious lumps and bumps that tend to come and go on a monthly basis. When I went off of hormonal birth control in my 40's my body did what female bodies naturally do--it cycled, and with those cycles came periods of intense swelling and pain for two weeks out of every month. After my own doctor didn't offer much help besides the offer of putting me back ...

To fuel or not to fuel--that is the question I get the question all the time: " What do you eat and drink when you run? " and I know they're looking for the magic gel, sports drink, or protein bar to fuel their workouts.  The media, including popular running magazines and websites, may have you believing that in order to get the most out of your workout you need a certain amount of carbs per hour to keep it going.   I certainly listened to that advice when I first started running longer distances.  The popular prescription was that you needed to take in one sports gel every 20-30 minutes.  If you've ever tried to do that you know it's a recipe for stomach distress, unscheduled pit stops, and more post-race inflammation than is really needed. Yes, your body loves to run on carbs.  It's like lighting a bunch of dry kindling: it burns fast and hot, but only for a short while, and you have to replenish the supply on a regular basis.  Your body also loves t...

Calm your inner environment by decluttering your outer The Lifechanging Magic of Tidying Up changed my life. It really did,--just ask my husband and my kids. For years they taunted me with chides of "Does it spark joy for you, Mom?" and railed against my Saturday flurries of purging the clutter. If you haven't read Marie Kondo's book or watched her NetFlix show, I'd highly recommend it. I don't subscribe to all her methods, (I have a hard time spending so much time folding clothes, and I've never been able to effectively thank my purse for the outstanding job it does each day) but the lessons she teaches about why and how to let go of the clutter in our lives are indeed lifechanging. Gretchen Rubin's Outer Order, Inner Calm is another book that resonated with me. It's true what she says: when we organize and declutter our outer environment, it creates calm in our inner environment. That's why cleaning my kitchen or clearing out the pant...

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,...

I probably don’t have to tell you about all the ways sugar affects your body—the information is everywhere!  Inflammation is the number one problem, and it leads to almost every other health problem out there: diabetes, cancer, heart disease, mood disorders, skin problems, allergies, arthritis, Alzheimer's--they are all caused by excess inflammation in one way or another.  Unfortunately, you may not realize how much sugar you are eating each day because it is skillfully hidden by the people who make your food. People today eat an average of three pounds of sugar a week, and much of it is found in processed food that may not even taste sweet! Food manufacturers know that there is a 'bliss point' at which the ratio of salt, sugar, and fat is so enticing that you want to keep eating. Sugar enhances the taste of salt, and vice-versa. They also know that consumers are smart people who look for sugar on the label. That's why there are new names for sugar coming out every day....