Healthy Chicks

Let’s have some real talk for a minute: How do you spend your final two hours before bed? 

Do you watch Netflix?

Are you up late working on your computer?

Texting your friends?

Social media stalking?

Are you stressed out? Rejuvenated? Tired? Energized?

Do you fall asleep easily or does it take some time?

Do you feel your best self?

If you asked me this question a couple months ago, my answer would have been completely different, and I would have sheepishly said “yes” to the first four questions. In realty, my evenings were spent zoning out with my husband binge-watching Netflix episodes, while simultaneously finishing up work, checking my instagram and texting my friends the latest and greatest.

To be completely honest, it didn’t feel good. My “evening routine” was actually pretty darn draining, and that’s so not what we want right before bed.  

With a little bit of trial and error and listening to my body, I have developed a new routine that works for me. Below I outline my evening ritual, which you can feel free to pull from to get started on your own!

7 Evening Ritual Tips for Mindful Sleep

1. Play With Essential Oils

… Read More!

The first time I felt self-conscious about my body was when I started developing acne around 14 years old. This was followed by years of dieting, obsession with the scale and hating my thighs all throughout high school and well into my 20s.

While I’ve certainly come a long way and have learned to fall back in love with my body and discover joy around food, the journey wasn’t always easy. In fact, even I still have my off days from time to time where I don’t feel 100% confident with my body.

Because I’ve been there, I now make it my mission to empower women to break free from dieting and discover joy around food. A lot of this has to do with a woman’s overall confidence — inside and out.

While most of the woman I work with are in their 20s and 30s, it pains me to see that many young girls start feeling insecure about their bodies in some way as early as ten years old — or earlier! At my cousin’s 11th birthday last year, one of the girls was afraid to take off her shorts when she went swimming in the water … Read More!

Hey, friends! It’s been a while since I updated you on the latest and greatest with my thyroid journey, so I figured I’d check in to share what’s going on right now. (You can read Part 1 and Part 2 here to learn more about my journey with Hashimoto’s Disease and what’s been working well for me.)

Anyway, a lot has changed since I last checked in and I’ve hit some tricky setbacks along the way. For one, when I found out I was pregnant in July — which unfortunately ended in an early miscarriage — my thyroid hormones kind of went a little crazy. While they had been stable for months and actually improved drastically (my TSH dropped to a 2.66 in June!), my TSH shot back up to a 4 the week I found out I was pregnant. I’m not 100% sure it’s related, but in my gut I’m thinking it was.

Given my situation and the fact that your TSH should ideally be below a 2.5 during the first trimester, my Functional Medicine Doctor through Parsley Health prescribed me on a low dose Nature Desicated Thyroid hormone. I’ve also been working to maintain my stress levels and … Read More!

All the magazines and trainers are talking about losing 10 pounds for the summer and getting that “Bikini Body,” and quite frankly I find it super annoying. Meanwhile, I’m over here like, “How can I FUEL my mind, body and soul this summer?”

Don’t get me wrong, I get it and didn’t always have such a carefree attitude about summer. I used to live a life of deprivation, where I counted calories, avoided bathing suits like the plague and restricted myself from having “too much fun” by skipping margarita night and going out with friends.

Blah. Is there even such a thing as too much fun?

There comes a time when dinner parties with friends, adventures to the beach and seeing how many minutes you can hoola hoop without it falling to the ground becomes so much more gratifying than obsessing over cellulite, the calories in your Caesar salad and how many minutes you can squeeze in on the elliptical.

This past weekend, I went camping, hoola-hooped my butt off (and was actually really good, and seriously now want one for my 30th birthday), ate salmon straight off the grill and sipped on a vodka seltzer in a pink … Read More!