Clarity Wellness

I am a fan of the sun.   I love its ability to warm me when I'm cold, to trigger vitamin D production in my skin, and to boost my mood.  As a kid growing up in Iowa, I spent long afternoons mowing lawns, hiking around the nearby woods, and lying in the backyard trying to get the perfect tan.  Most of this did not involve sunscreen. Ok, maybe some baby oil or Coppertone SPF4, but nothing really protective.   As an adult, I have always enjoyed a little bit of a tan, but I've been more careful.  I limit my time in the direct sun and wear a hat every time I go out for a long hike or run.  Sunscreen is part of my daily routine. Unfortunately, it all caught up to me this year.  I go to the dermatologist every year, and every year she burns off a spot or two that she refers to as my "barnacles," otherwise known as actinic keratoses. This year, however, she decided to take a couple of biopsies.  They were basal cell carcinomas, requiring Mohs sk...

We’ve already talked about the three questions to ask yourself when you’re eating .   Those were all about the mindfulness  side of eating.  Here are three ways to make sure you’re regulating your blood sugar and nourishing your body--in other words, the physiological side of what goes in your mouth.   Both are incredibly important, and often overlap.   Do these things and your inflammation levels will go down, your cravings will subside, your hormone levels will regulate, and you might even lose weight! Number one: Control your carbs. Carbohydrates are the one macronutrient that we really don’t need.   If we don’t ingest glucose, our bodies will make it.   If we don’t have enough glucose in our bloodstreams, our bodies will learn to run on ketones made from fatty acids.   That said, there are a lot of good things about vegetables and fruits that we can’t deny—they provide fiber and vitamins, and help our bodies detox.   Just try to ...

Are you ready?  Here are the questions to ask yourself every time you head to the kitchen or sit down to a meal: Am I really hungry? Have I had enough? What's my plan? That's all there is to it.  Those three questions will change your relationship with food, your health, and maybe even your weight. Am I really hungry? It all comes down to listening to your body and recognizing when you're eating out of some other need that has nothing to do with physical hunger.  The problem is that many of us have lost touch with our hunger and substitute it for something else.  That's where awareness comes in: taking the moment to notice, breathe, and create some space between the urge to eat and the action of eating.   You may be hungry for human connection.  You may be hungry for self-actualization (yes—I know that’s a big one.  I’ll let you and your journal or therapist work on that!)  You may be tired, thirsty, or honestly, just bored....

You may have heard a a lot about intermittent fasting lately. It sounds a little scary and it goes against a lot of the nutrition advice we've been told all our lives: breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you need to eat 5-6 small meals a day to stoke your metabolism, if you don't eat you will slow down your metabolism, and on and on. I'm here to dispel the myths, and help you get started on a habit that might help you get your blood sugar under control, regenerate your worn out cells, improve your relationship with food, and maybe even lose a little weight in the process. First myth: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Ok, so yes, eating is important. Our bodies need nutrients and energy, but those nutrients don't necessarily need to be ingested first thing in the morning. If you're not hungry when you first wake up, then don't eat. Whenever you "break your fast" can be considered breakfast. Push your first meal of the ...

Changing your eating habits doesn't have to be hard.   There are books and books full of amazing low-carb recipes, as well as a gazillion websites dedicated to keto, paleo, and everything in-between.  I've linked to a few of my favorites at the bottom of this page. However, I've found that the easier you make things, the more likely you are to succeed.  Complicated leads to overwhelm, which leads to reverting back to even easier--which usually comes in a shiny silver package full of unpronounceable ingredients. I've had people tell me they can't figure out what to eat if they can't eat sandwiches.  Unless you've found a really good recipe for keto bread, it's easier to simply find other options.  I honestly can't tell you the last time I ate a sandwich, (except that one time last week when I put a slice of turkey and some avocado mash between two chaffles--omg!) Here are some of my favorite, easy, low-carb lunches that don't require an oven, can ...

needs? My husband and I are constantly harping on our kids about the difference between needs and wants.  Do you really need the newest iPhone, or do you just want it?  Do you need the coffee flavored Oreos (maybe?) or do you just want them?  Do you need another Squishmallow crowding your bed or do you want another one because they're on sale at Fry's and they're "just soooooo cute!"? Yes, there are things that we need to have and do in order to stay healthy.  We need to eat real, whole, food.  We need to move our bodies on a regular basis.  We need to sleep well and manage our stressors.  But I would argue that we only need to do these things if we want to be healthy. Sometimes the "need to's" camp out with the "shoulds" and the "have to's," waiting in the wings to bring us down and make us feel bad about what we're doing, or more likely, not doing.  Those little words in our head fill us with shame, and shame is not...

  I've been cleaning out my closets again.  My oldest is leaving the nest and going off to college on Saturday, (I'm sure that will inspire several other posts down the road, but for now we're not going to talk about it) so her clutter clearing is inspiring my clutter clearing and leading to the eruptions of small piles of random things around the house. Some of it's easy--things we know we don't need and will never use again, but with two kids moving out in the next few years, there are a lot of "just in case" things we've been holding onto.  We have extra dishes and silverware, "just in case" the girls want them for their first apartment.  We have multiples of several  tools, bedding, school supplies, etc. "just in case" we need them someday.  Charging cords to unidentified objects, "just in case" we ever figure out what they belong to.  Travel books "just in case" we visit those places again.  Wall décor we mi...