How to Stay Healthy

Hello!  How have you been?  I hope marvelous!!  I have nothing to complain about.  Life is good and Jesus is awesome!  :-)

With the way sickness has been rampant this winter, I thought I would write an article on how to stay healthy.  Most of these points are pretty obvious, but still need to be stated.

Rest
How many of you do not get enough rest?  This is the foundation to a healthy body.  The way God made these bodies, is that they need rest in order to stay healthy.  How many hours of sleep are you getting?  If that number is below 7 or 8, you need to make some life changes.  Turn off that T.V., stop scrolling through Facebook, or put down that book.  You cannot function, your brain cannot function without sleep.  Think about this.  Please.

Food
Eat your fruits and vegetables.  Remember half of your meal needs to be fruits and vegetables in order for your body to properly digest the food you are eating.  Can we do this 3 meals a day?  Maybe not.  But strive.  Add more fruits and vegetables to your day.  If we ate more fruits and vegetables we wouldn't have room for all of that junk food.

Sugar
Sugar is POISON!!  No kidding.  I really believe Satan either created sugar or gave a human the idea to create sugar.  I hate sugar.  HATE.  If we could all eat it in moderation, that would be GREAT!  But most of us cannot.  If you haven't watched the documentary "FED Up", I highly recommend you buy it or rent it.  It outs the sugar industry and is one of the best documentaries I have watched.  Sugar compromises our immune system.  We really DO NOT need our immune systems compromised this winter with all of the sickness going around.  Stay away from sugar!

Hand washing
I know this sounds like your mom talking to you now.  But honestly, it's the simplest things that work.  When you leave the house and go to the grocery or go where ever, use the little cart cleaning station stores have to wipe down your cart before pushing it and don't touch your eyes, nose or mouth until after you wash your hands.  We keep wet wipes in the car and the kids know to get the wet wipes out or the essential oil hand spray as soon as we get back in the car.  Then when we get home, it's straight to the sink to wash our hands with soap and water.  And not anti-bacterial soap.

Probiotics
I saved my favorite for last.

Probiotics.  Oh, how I LOVE probiotics.  You can get them anywhere nowadays but that doesn't mean they are worth you spending money on them.  I have bought several different brands and my favorite brand comes from doTERRA.  I am a Wellness advocate for doTERRA.  Ain't gonna hide that.  I LOVE their products.  They sell a probiotic that is amazing.  It is double encapsulated.  Which means it doesn't dissolve in your stomach, it dissolves in your colon and intestines.  Which is where you want the probiotics to go.  Most probiotics are destroyed in the stomach by our stomach acid.  But not doTERRA's.  It's the only probiotic I use and highly recommend.

If you want to go another route, start buying or making Kombucha.  This effervescent drink is full of probiotics and tastes delicious too!  Here's a link on how to make it.  And here is a link to why I drink it.

Here's a link to PB Assist, if you are interested.  If you already know someone that is a Wellness Advocate for doTERRA, please contact them to get your bottle.  1 a day is recommended. 

And here is a link to my doTERRA webpage, if you want to check out other products.  Or go to my.doterra.com/itstimetogreen 

Here is a link to make your own homemade hand sanitizer.

Did I forgot anything?  If I did, leave me a message!!  Gosh, I am full of links aren't I?  :-)

Stay healthy and keep living GREEN!!

Blessings,

Honey Lemon Ginger Sore Throat Mix

Beautiful!

Well, as we all know, it's that time of year again...sore throat, cough, fever, runny nose...and of course the sharing of all of these things at school and at home.

We had "Run 1" a couple of weeks ago.  Everyone got it except for me.  (Thanks to my Kombucha, lack of sugar and new way of eating that is.  :-)  )

This is a simple, beautiful and oh so delish remedy for sore throat.  Thank you to my friend Tammy for sharing this recipe.  :-)

Honey Lemon Ginger Sore Throat Mix
Organic lemon slices (wash and dry well. slice as thin as you can) I used almost 2 whole lemons.
Organic ginger (I used 2 1 inch pieces for a pint glass jar)
Organic unheated, raw honey
Glass jar

Slice your lemons leaving the rind on the slices.  Place into a glass jar.  Use the back of a spoon to scrape the peel off of your ginger, slice your ginger with the grain (going against the grain is more difficult, but it is prettier that way).  Place ginger in glass jar with lemon slices.


Pour honey over the top of the lemons and ginger.  Use a butter knife to move lemons and ginger around so that honey covers everything.

Let sit in refrigerator for at least 2-3 days before eating/drinking.

When you feel a sore throat coming on, remove glass jar from refrigerator and place a healthy tablespoon full in a coffee cup and pour warm (NOT hot or boiling water) over the mix and stir.  Sip. 

You can store this in the refrigerator for 2-3 months (honey is a natural preservative).

Let me know what you think.  :-)

Notes:
-You will will notice the honey actually dissolves the lemons and ginger and sort of makes a  marmalade looking mix.  Pretty cool.       

-You do not want to use hot or boiling water as this will kill all the good stuff in honey.

-This would make a great gift too!

Enjoy!

*I saw this recipe here.  And my mom says this recipe has been around for years.  :-)

Easy Breakfast to get Coconut Oil in your Kids

Morning Smoothie in a Cars cup.  :-)

This was sooooo easy, the boys are devouring it so I had to share.

Morning Smoothie
Frozen organic mango
Frozen organic strawberries
Heaping tablespoon of virgin, unrefined, expeller pressed organic coconut oil
Raw milk (or organic milk if you haven't taken the RAW milk challenge :-) )
Chia seeds (and if anyone local wants some I have a ton I am willing to share)

Place in your regular size bullet cup, blender or food processor and blend away.  Serve.

So YUM!!!!

And a MUST make when your kiddos or you are sick.  MANGO is a cold fighter.  And coconut oil is an infection fighter.  Chia offers antioxidants.  Sooo cool.

Enjoy!

Does Having a Cold Mean Sinus Problems to You?

Well, then do I have some wonderful news for you!  

Picture of an actual Netti Pot.

For many years I have heard people talk about the Neti Pot.  What's a neti pot?  Wikipedia describes a neti pot as a device that is used for irrigating the nasal passages.  They are used to flush out the nasal cavities by using gravity to draw the flow of saline.


I have always been intrigued about the neti pot and when I get a cold it usually goes into my sinuses.


So, months ago my father-in-law gave me a sinus rinse bottle.  It looks like this...

And since I have taught the kids to share so well (ha ha) my youngest has shared his wonderful little cold with me.  When I woke up the first morning with that head congested, sore throat, I am getting a cold feeling, for some reason the first thought that came into my head was the neti pot in the cubbard.  So, that is where I headed.


It came with little packets of sinus rinse.  The sinus rinse packets have 2 ingredients...
1.  Sodium chloride-common table salt
2.  Sodium bicarbonate-baking soda


You pour the package into the squeeze bottle and fill with bottled or filtered water to the fill line.  Shake well.  Stand over a sink with mouth open and gently squeeze the bottle into one nostril.  It is a weird feeling, that I can best describe as you think you are drowning, but once you learn to calm down and breath through your mouth you are fine.  You squeeze the bottle continuously until you use between 1/4-1/2 of the filled bottle.  The liquid comes out the opposite nostril you are squeezing the liquid into.  Then you blow your nose.  And repeat with the other nostril. 


I am NOT going to post pictures of this. Lol.  But I will tell you that it was amazing what came out when I did blow my nose (no more details than that lol).  And I felt amazing!!  The directions say to do this 2 times per day.  I did it 2 times per day when I felt really bad and now I am just doing it first thing when I wake in the morning.


I still have a tiny bit of a scratchy throat.  But hey I can handle that!!  At least I am not getting worse and I do not have the head congested sinus pressure that I usually get with a cold. 


So, in summary....I AM SOLD on this!!  I suggest buying the squeeze bottle type, is so easy to use.  Keep it in your bathroom so you are prepared when a cold/sinus problem hits.  


Plus keep pushing foods high in vitamin C in this weather!


Let me know what you think!




Note:  After using this for a few consecutive days, I did notice my nose was dried out and would bleed a little when I would blow my nose.  So, if you seem to have a sensitivity, every day use is not recommended.  Try every other day or every 2 days.


New note!!!!!  ONLY use filtered or RO water!!!!!!!  NEVER use tap water!!!  Please read this article.  People have died from using tap water in their neti pot!