“A key to healthy eating is having nourishing recipes that are easy and satisfying—these 3 are perfect to keep in rotation”

Three delicious recipes you can make in less than 10 minutes

Hello Beautiful,

Today I want to share 3 new recipes for Spring! They are nourishing, beautiful, delicious, and quick to make. I hope you enjoy them as much as I and my family have.

Sweet and Spicy Avocado Toast
This is beautiful and satisfying. It’s great for breakfast with berries or eggs and works for lunch with a soup or side salad. Our household is addicted! It is a good source of healthy fats and trace minerals and is a colorful feast for the eyes as well as a complex and balanced mixed of flavors.

• Toast your favorite bread (my current favorite is by Out of the Bread Box/Teff bread)

Top the toast in this order:

• a generous swish of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• fresh avocado sliced or mashed
• a pinch of sea salt
• a sprinkle of cayenne
• a drizzle of local honey
• chopped sprouts

Almond Butter Balls
These can substitute for snack bars (or a cookie dough craving). Delicious and filling, they are great for growing kids and post workout hunger. They are a good source of protein, fiber, and healthy Omega fats.

• Blend 1 cups of organic rolled oats in a blender until ground into a course flour.

In a medium size bowl completely combine:

• 1/2 cup smooth organic almond butter
• 1/2 cup honey
• 3 T. vanilla protein powder
• 3 T. Hemp seeds

Add the oat flour to the wet mixture and stir.

• Option: add 1/3 cup chocolate chips or raisins

Use a spoon to pick up 1 generous Tablespoon of the mixture and roll it between your palms to form a ball. Place on a plate or tray. If these last more than an hour (highly unlikely), you can store them in a sealed container in the fridge.

Alkalizing Lemonade
This incredibly refreshing drink is a great way to start your day. It’s also fantastic after a nice sweat or to feel thoroughly refreshed. As a good source of minerals and vitamin C it can help balance your system’s pH towards an optimal alkaline state.

Mix in a blender and then transfer to a carafe for the the fridge:

• 8 cups of purified water
• juice of 2 organic lemons
• 1 packet of Orange Salt flavored electrolytes from LMNT (or your favorite electrolyte blend)
• 2 T. WelleCo Super Elixir green powder (or your favorite green supplement)

I hope you try these recipes and enjoy them as much as my family does. Wising you a healthy and energized start in the new season.

Cheering you on,
Rachel

“Who we become is much more than how we look. But how we look is highly influenced by who we have become. Our habits shape us-in every way.”

My thoughts on Beauty, Injectables, and Aging Well

Hello Beautiful,

What is beauty and how, exactly, do we age well?

As we live longer and have more options to alter our faces and bodies with surgeries and injections, many women feel a mix of excitement and apprehension about the menu of procedures available to help them look their best.

But, how we look and how we feel can be quite disparate. If we are injecting and implanting things into our bodies to look “better” but it’s actually increasing our toxic load and aging us biologically, what have we really gained?

Let’s unpack this together.

As a former model for Elite Models in NYC I’ve learned that beauty is both subjective (cultural preferences and personal opinion) and objective (facial symmetry and visual indications of health seen in the hair, skin, and body’s proportion are held in high esteem throughout history). With a bevy of modern procedures, an artificial type of beauty is fast becoming an impossible goal.

Choices we make to improve our health will be seen in improved hair, skin, and body proportion. These changes can be seen in a matter of days and they build momentum over time. Our bodies are constantly building new cells so we can literally re-create ourselves day by day with our upgraded habits. The longer we have good habits, the deeper our results go. In this way, time is your friend as it relates to good habits and aging!

Cultural and personal preferences are what they are. I think they are better observed with neutrality and replaced with celebrating the markers of health that aren’t just for the viewers delight but for the well-being of the person being observed.

Sadly, women are under pressure to look “perfect” and are injecting things into their faces that were used intermittently in warfare as nerve agents since World War II. Small doses of poison/toxins (repeatedly injected into our heads) aren’t our brightest idea as a species.

Many women are competitive. They have created a social hierarchy around beauty for millennia. But now, the competition has new options…with enough money and access to providers, women can make massive changes to their appearances….or they can “slow the hands of time” with little injections here and there.

This is not a moral question. The results can look nice and natural or “overdone”. It’s all subjective. We get to choose how to care for our own bodies. But informed choice is key.

The problem is that the manufactures and providers of these injections/implants/surgeries aren’t providing adequate information for women to make informed decisions. And women are all too eager to fall for a quick fix to make them feel better about their appearance. This is especially true when the majority of the women in their circles see these procedures as “maintenance” for aging.

I prefer working with improving the root issues to optimize beauty and accepting the natural aging process will have some change to my appearance. I also see that as I work on my Spiritual growth, new levels of sparkle and radiance and a release of emotional patterns that never served me, will continue to alter my appearance…for the better! After 6 healthy pregnancies I understand the work needed for beautiful form and function. I have a flat tummy with definition not because of vanity but because of strength, vitality, and the function I want in my life.

There are many little known but highly effective ancient practices to smooth and tone the face, to firm and lift the breast, to improve the body’s skin tone, and sculpt the physique. With daily habits you can not only improve your appearance in these ways, but actually improve your well-being (by improving blood flow, lymphatic drainage, and reducing inflammation) at the same time.

Examples of DIY ways of taking years off your appearance abound:

• Posture that is more open and relaxed can be developed in tandem with creating a more nurturing balance in your schedule. The weight of the world isn’t attractive on anyone’s shoulders! Responsibility balanced with enjoyment is an *attractive* look on us all.
• Excess weight is shed as we let go of eating to avoid uncomfortable emotions. Developing new tools for communication, time management, and living with purpose have physical manifestations of beauty and balance.
• A smoother forehead results from forgiving grievances. According to Chinese Medicine, forgiveness balances the colon helping us assimilate what was beneficial and releasing what isn’t of use to us. If you examine a Chinese medicine facial map, you will see that the area of the forehead and the colon are related. Forgiving and releasing looks good on us all!
• Releasing anger and worry and gaining greater body awareness helps you release your “11’s’ lines between the brows (corresponding with Liver function in Traditional Chinese Medicine) without injections. A daily Gua Sha massage here helps smooth out the lines as well.

I celebrate the lifestyle that optimizes your God given beauty. We all have aspects of our appearance that we like and things we are less fond of. Learning to expand our ideas around beauty is much healthier for us in the long run than having our faces and bodies altered in ways that aren’t good for our health. You cannot underestimate the beauty of a woman who is taking care of her issues body, soul, and spirit. It’s an endless upgrade if you commit to a growth mindset!

The beauty upgrades available with lifestyle changes are gradual -not instant. They require consistency and discipline. Using a Gua Sha to massage your face daily will increase collagen production, reduce the signs of aging by smoothing lines and reducing puffiness. But it might be done for weeks before you see a difference and has to be maintained as a habit over time to retain the improvements.

Doing face yoga can remove the “11’s” between the brows but it’s the habit of furrowing the brow (and an unconscious default state of worry or anger) that has to be retrained for the muscles not to mirror the mind’s state. Isn’t it just easier to go in every 6 months and get a little injectable?

It’s easier but it has a cost. A financial one and possibly one to your long term well being. In 2009 the FDA told providers that the body diffuses the injectables past the site of injection. How might a neurotoxin, in repeated and ever increasing amounts needed to retain the look, effect the brain and body? There is reason for caution here.

In addition to unknown chemical effects of repeated injections, there are physical consequences that have been identified. The immobilization of these muscles for long stretches of time, causes the muscle to atrophy/shrink. When you decide to stop your visits, there will be a time period needed to re-activate the blood flow and re-build the volume in the area. This can be done with facial yoga and massage. It will be a gradual rehabilitation. It’s worth the transition and the effort.

I suggest that beauty is a state of harmony we live in and we earn moment by moment, year by year. Our emotional, dietary, lifestyle, and spiritual habits all contribute to how we age. Who we become is much more than how we look. But how we look is highly influenced by who we have become. Our habits shape us. In every way.

I am passionate about helping women age well from the inside out. We are multi level beings. Our beauty is more than skin deep. Our wisdom, wit, capabilities, style, and health are ageless aspects of our vivacious beauty and they are accessible to us all. They are investments that keep growing over time, if we keep making deposits.

You are beautiful by nature. You can become more and more beautiful as you age if you invest in this inner wealth. Create beautiful habits and you will grow in beauty.

Cheering you on,
Rachel

“When we are deeply present, we have better relationships. We listen better. We speak with more skill. Actions are done with more skill. Mistakes are avoided. The quality of work is higher. At the end of the day, there are fewer regrets and more things to be proud of.”

Three habits I’m loving for the New Year

Hello Beautiful,

Happy New Year! I hope that you are feeling clarity and motivation to up level your life. Goals are only useful if they are tied to new habits. When we tie actions to our wishes/goals, we create the desired change. After reading a slew of books on change/habit creation there is no doubt that understanding our hidden decision drivers and skillfully stacking our habits is key to making permanent change.

Here are three changes I am making and the practical strategies I am using to make them stick:

1. Making fresh green juice in the morning.

Fresh celery juice (and sometimes cucumber, ginger, and lemon are added) replenishes and optimizes my system to an alkaline ph. It leaves me feeling bright and ultra nourished. By providing an abundance of minerals and enzymes, it helps my body remove cellular wastes and optimizes digestion and assimilation. It is pro-aging well (a better term than anti-aging!)—keeping grey hair at bay, reversing/preventing inflammation, and getting a fantastic start on the day’s nutrient density.

Practical step: Setting up my juicer at night and washing, chopping, prepping all my veggies in a large spinner (stored in the fridge) the night before. Then in the morning, it’s easy to just run the veggies through the juicer! At the moment, I do my Spiritual practices, my workout, and then my green juice as my morning trifecta for wellness. It feels great to start my day this way.

2. Eating 2 meals per day: brunch and a late lunch.

The average American eats 16 hrs each day! This wrecks blood sugar regulation, increases systemic inflammation, depresses immunity, and contributes to weight imbalances. As we enter midlife, the need for calories shifts and it is to our advantage to adjust our intake (increasing longevity by decades + improving our health and beauty along the way). Eating in a shorter window of time ( 4-8 hr feeding window) is better for our health on every level.

While Intermittent Fasting/Time Restricted Eating is quite popular, I find 2 aspects of its popular application problematic: drinking coffee all morning (depleting for the kidneys/adrenals which has cumulative +  long term negative effect) and shifting the eating window to the middle and end of the day (when the metabolism slows).

The evidence suggests that eating between 10-3 is the most congruent time for assimilating value from our food. The benefits are many: healing the digestive tract, attaining/maintaining a flat tummy (the result of balance blood sugar and optimized digestion/elimination), effortlessly attaining your healthiest weight, increased immunity, balanced hormones, balanced blood sugar, freedom from compulsive eating, clearer skin, stimulating the body’s production of Human Growth Hormone and collagen during the fasting window, increased autophogy (cellular recycling), better sleep, and preventing Alzheimers (the brain can clean plaque out at night if the digestive system isn’t diverting the blood flow needed).

It makes more sense to eat when you need/use the calories…in the active hours! Our digestive juices are most abundant and therefore effective in the midday. It’s important to know that our metabolism slows by up to 30% in the evening.

Taking all of this into consideration, I prefer to start the day with green juice around 9am, then eat a moderate brunch around 10/10:30am. Chia seed pudding and berries is a current favorite. I also have a low glycemic protein smoothie or some avocado toast. On Sunday it’s gluten free homemade waffles-my favorite! I love breakfast foods and missed them when I started my eating window midday. I don’t count calories. Instead, I eat a balance of protein, fat, fiber, and greens in a meal–chewing well and eating until satisfied (not stuffed).

My second meal happens around 2:30pm. Currently, I am loving roasted garnet yams, sautéed chard, a little black rice, fresh sprouts, and lots of EVOO and pink salt to top it off. I aim for 3-5 colors and a mix of protein, fat, and a variety of greens at this meal. Afterwards, I enjoy a cup of earl grey tea mixed with almond milk and froth it in the blender with Laird Hamilton’s Superfood Creamer—a wonderful creamy sweet dessert tea! I love feeling nourished by this meal and it has plenty of time to digest before bed.

I eat a (light) dinner 2 or 3 times a week when it’s a favorite menu or date night. I prepare dinner for my family around 5:30/6 and sit with them. I might have tea or a small portion of salad or soup. Being together for family meals is important to me and our family culture prioritizes nightly time to converse about the day and interesting ideas.

Practical planning: Monday and Thursday I make chia seed pudding so it’s ready for the mornings. Twice a week I pre-bake yams, grill salmon, and prepare black rice for the midday meal. An extra bonus: re-heated yams are healthier since they provide resistant starch/fuel for the “good” gut bugs. Having a lunch menu rotation of 3 variations I enjoy creates a balance between variety and simplicity. I decide ahead of time which dinners I will eat in the week, so its not a daily question. I am flexible with this…if my body needs more or less I respond accordingly.

3. Single Tasking

“To do two things at once is to do neither” -Publilius Syrus

Doing one thing at a time allows the highest quality experience and results. It may feel like we are being more productive to switch and juggle. And I will admit that it can feel exhilarating: “I feel so fast, capable, and efficient!”. But the quality of experience is reduced—time speeds up, our attention is divided, rapid switching in the brain produces mental fatigue and lower quality results. When we are deeply present, we have better relationships. We listen better. We speak with more skill. Actions are done with more skill. Mistakes are avoided. The quality of work is higher. At the end of the day, there are fewer regrets and more things to be proud of. People need to be honest that much work has to be redone simply because it was done with half of their focus. “Do it well and do it once” is a better habit to develop.

Practical planning: Making a list of the days tasks and editing it down by 20%. You can always add a task or two if things go faster, but having the time allotted (with a little grace period added in for the inevitable demands or delights that present themselves for attention) is key.

I invite you to try one or more of these in your life and experience the tremendous benefits.

Cheering You On,
Rachel

“Your self respect, your integrity, your regrets at the end of your life as you reflect on all you did and didn’t do, are all at stake.”

Creating a Morning routine that is transformative

Hello Beautiful,

I want to share about something that has made a huge difference in my life: my morning routine. I have had many, many iterations of this routine. Each stage of life has different needs and different abilities, but the key is to start the day intentionally rather than reluctantly!

When we start our day investing in things that help us thrive and grow it makes the whole day more intentional and less reactive. It’s also a great feeling to start the day with some wins that you control, knowing that the rest of the day may or may not look anything like what is on the calendar. Life can throw plenty of curve balls but when we reenforce our balance first thing, we give ourselves a better shot at going through the day with grace and of regaining our footing with more ease. Here are some of my favorite keys to creating a great morning routine.

For me the morning starts late afternoon the day BEFORE! If I am preparing an early dinner and having myself and my husband on the same page about after dinner plans, it makes a big difference. When are we eating? What needs to happen to finish our day? When are the kids in bed and it’s couple time? Having a clear plan for all of this helps the day finish intentionally and sets me up for a good wind down and restorative sleep.

For me, to wake up early, means I need to go to sleep between 9-9:30pm. A late dinner and lots of screen time after would put me out of the running for waking up clear and motivated. So, I serve dinner before 6 most days. Having good family time and an hour or two to reconnect as a couple is key. All this takes planning and follow through but is so worth it in creating a nurturing rhythm in our life. Our culture is often chaotic and reactive. If we want to live a beautiful life, we must be very proactive in creating it. It won’t just happen!

I find that 9hrs of sleep is magic in the darker months and let myself sleep until I feel refreshed most days. I am up between 6 and 6:30am. I normally have 90 minutes before I need to jump into responsibilities. I use this time for investing in my health—spiritually and physically. I might meditate and do fascia massage in the sauna, shower, and do a light yoga session. I might pray, read, and do a 45 min workout.

I might have a plan and then feel led to focus on just one thing really deeply during the time. Usually, I aim to do at least 3 things during the time: for my Spirit (pray, meditate, reading), a workout of some kind, and something for my circulation/lymphatic system (dry brush, infrared sauna, rebounding, fascia massage). I have a menu of a dozen wellness practices I value and am delighted to do as many as I can….. without feeling like I am shifting gears from being nurturing to being task oriented. Listening to my (the) Spirit is key in finding what is most useful for each days preparation.

It’s important not to get sucked into all or nothing thinking here. If 90 minutes sounds impossible, don’t give up altogether. There were long stretches where finding 10 min before a baby was up to do 5 min for my spirit and 5 min of stretching was a big deal. Our life circumstances can vary a lot and circumstances do change. But, it’s essential that we don’t give up on being proactive about our life.

When we are woken up by demands and deadlines, we start the day off reacting to necessities. When we, instead, wake up early and invest in our “stance” for the day, we give ourselves a big advantage, greater leverage to grow and choose and BE different all day. Do something. Start small and add more time as you can. Experiment and assess how different things feel differently to you. Your morning routine is not for your resumé. It’s for your LIFE. Just take a minute to ask what serves you best in this season of living?

Doing all this takes the ability to set boundaries. If you have made yourself so available for your family’s hobbies, preferences, and activities, that reading this make you wonder what planet I live on….then I challenge you to make how resourced you are for YOUR life a priority. Remember the message on airline flights… “put your oxygen mask on first, then help others.”

If you cannot say no to others to say yes to being the woman you want to become, then you will never get there. Your self respect, your integrity, your regrets at the end of your life as you reflect on all you did and didn’t do, are all at stake. Being of service to your loved ones is essential. Abandoning yourself and your dreams and potential is not.

There is a way to serve/be responsible and to flourish/center your life in strategic investments that allow you to grow in wisdom and ability. Following cultural norms will not allow both. You have to tune into a deeper calling and find where to draw those lines for this season of your life.

As we approach a new year, I pray you will have clarity, wisdom, and resolve to invest in consciously crafting your days in a way that allows for flow, for depth, and for intentional investment in your long term thriving.

Cheering You On,
Rachel