Everyone should have a self-care routine. Creating a self-care plan and sticking to it helps reduce (or eliminate) anxiety and depression, minimizes frustration and anger, helps us concentrate, and makes it easier to love our entire self. It also allows us to recharge and be more present. In short, it makes us happier and sets us up for success. But self-care is not only good for your mental and spiritual health, but it also promotes better physical health. Research shows that it fosters resilience, allows us to live longer lives, increases energy, and allows us the ability to manage daily stressors in healthier ways. An essential part of self-care is focusing on the things we can control and not putting as much value on the things that are outside of our control. When we focus on what we can control, we gain confidence, become empowered, and have a  sense of...Read more

Sleep can be an uphill battle for some of us. If it’s difficult for you to fall asleep, I’m sure you’ve already heard that it’s essential to create a bedtime routine, limit screen time, and stop drinking caffeine hours before bedtime. There is another tool you can add to your sleep kit: exercise! Here’s why regular exercise allows you to fall asleep faster and get more restful sleep! Exercise relieves stress. Not only does exercise release those “happy endorphins,” but it also decreases the amount of cortisol (the stress hormone) that your brain produces. Studies suggest that the higher intensity your workout is, the more impact it has on your cortisol levels. HIIT exercises are a great way to get in a short and intense workout that will lower your stress levels and mean better sleep! Exercise also helps you fall asleep faster. This is because increased activity increases your...Read more

Do you feel the urge to skip your next rest day? Sometimes it’s hard to take intentional rest days, we get it. Once you get in the groove, it’s easy to fool yourself into thinking that you need to go, go, go all of the time. However, not taking time to let your body and your mind rest is not only a bad way to go about building muscle, it can be detrimental to your fitness routine. Like all things in life, you need balance. Think of it like this: rest is the yin to training’s yang.  Rest days are important for a multitude of reasons, and no training plan is complete without a strategy for rest. In fact, rest days PROMOTE muscle growth. Allowing your muscles to recover between training sessions gives them the time they need to grow and heal.  Muscle growth happens when you train with enough...Read more

Have you ever woken up the day after consuming way more sugar and simple carbs than normal feeling like you’re hungover? You’re not alone- sugar hangovers are a thing, and they aren’t pleasant. Upset stomach, foggy-ness, fatigue, headache, dehydration, elevated anxiety, and even muscle cramps (likely due to inflammation) are all side effects of consuming too much sugar. A “sugar crash” might make you feel just kind of gross and tired, but this just feels a little more extreme. That’s because that is basically what a “sugar hangover” is- your body dealing with an extreme sugar crash. So why does it feel so much worse? Eating a little more sugar than normal creates a spike in blood sugar due to the quick influx of easily processed carbs from simple sugars. Your pancreas responds by releasing insulin. You will still have a relatively large flux in your glucose levels, which give...Read more

You’ve decided to begin a wellness journey. Part of that journey is probably cutting down on the amount of sugar you are consuming. If you don’t want to give up the sugary drinks or sweets, you turn to no-calorie sweeteners. After all, they have been around since the 60’s, companies tell you they are safe, and you take care of your sugar cravings without the actual sugar. Sounds like a win-win situation, right? Unfortunately, artificial sweeteners are not a magic fix, and might actually be sabotaging you! Artificial sweeteners are not tied to weight loss or long term weight management. In a report published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal, researchers analyzed 37 studies on artificial sugars to see if they were proven successful as a tool for weight management. These studies followed over 400,000 people for 10 years. What they found was that those that consumed artificial sweeteners (in...Read more