10 Sensational Books For Your Summer Reading List
You may not pack your pajamas until the last minute. You may not even worry about more than one pair of shoes. You’ll buy some toothpaste when you get there.
You are an experienced and low-maintenance traveler. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing a weekend road trip or taking off to the other side of the world, you only leave home with the essentials.
Of course, everyone’s essentials are different. A few protein bars and a bag of dry roasted edamame are definitely essentials. So is a selection of thoughtfully chosen books.
Whether you’ve got hours on a plane, miles on the highway or lazy days on the beach, reading is the best part of summer vacation. I’ve got a summer reading list to help you leave the day-to-day world behind and come home recharged.
A Simple Guide To Japanese Green Tea
Sushi would not be your first choice for happy hour but your best friend insists the new place around the corner from the office is the BEST! You’re about to say no when she mentions they also serve ramen. Noodles…now she has your inner foodie’s attention.
She orders a cocktail but you decide a nice cup of green tea would make you happier. In a very non-traditional pot, the server brings you a tea that smells delicious but unfamiliar. She says it’s genmaicha…and you’re stumped. You’re about to get your introduction to Japanese green tea.
How I Learned To Overcome My Fear of Hunger
Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs from psychology class? You may have forgotten most of what you learned in that class but you still remember the visual of the pyramid with food listed at the base. Along with water and sleep, food is a necessary part of the foundation upon which to build a full and productive life. Without a solid foundation, you learned you couldn’t move on to higher levels of security, belonging and HAPPINESS.
Just because you have access to plenty of food and water doesn’t mean you give your body what it actually needs. Sometimes you skip meals, not always on purpose. Sometimes you eat as though there will be no food tomorrow. Some days you may not drink any water, surviving on your morning coffee and an evening glass of wine (or two).
To be your best self, you don’t need another diet. You need to learn to listen to your body and give it what it needs.
Here’s how I learned to overcome my fear of hunger.
Do You Really Need 10,000 Steps A Day?
Steps, steps, steps.
Got to collect those steps.
All day, you hummed your mantra to yourself as you parked a little farther from door into Target or found your way to the bathroom furthest from your office. You watched the morning news on the treadmill. You walked the dog after dinner. You’ve been moving all day long trying to reach the golden number: 10,000 steps.
It’s really hard not to throw your FitBit when while brushing your teeth you realize you’re still about 1,000 steps short.
Before you start marching up and down the hall, it’s time to talk about the myth of 10K steps a day.
3 Unusual But Effective Exercises For Better Balance
You’ve resigned yourself to the fact that your schedule is never going to be in balance. You aren’t admitting defeat; you’ve just accepted that when you have a job you love, a big family, a passion for supporting the local arts scene and a stack of books it may take a lifetime to finish someone or something in your life is always going to get slighted.
No, work/life balance is no longer a goal. You are content to be working towards harmony.
Your body balance, however, is another story. You nearly fell off the dock trying to get the boat ready for summer. You stumbled way too many times on your last hike on a rocky path near your cabin that never used to give you trouble. Kids running at you with open arms and pouncing dogs have both knocked you off your feet lately.
Where did your balance go?
Try a simple test. See how long you can stand on one leg. One minute is ideal but anything less than 30 seconds means you need to focus on improving your balance now.
Here are three targeted exercises to improve balance from a recent Fit Life segment on Ozarks Today.
Pu-Erh Tea For Beginners
Your Instagram feed is blowing up with matcha latte art. Hmm … seems like a lot of work.
You see those funny little whisks everywhere along side small short cups. Hmm…you kind of like your Hello Kitty mug.
Matcha seems to be the tea of the moment but it may not be your cup of tea. You don’t want quite that much caffeine. You want something to sip a little slower while you cuddle up with a good book. You want to get as much from your tea buck as you can for both body and spirit.
How about jumping on the pu-erh bandwagon instead?
How To Tell If A BCAA Supplement Is Right For You
The scale is finally moving the right direction. Instead of rigid rules you’ve been listening to your body and paying attention to what it needs. Now it’s paying you back by fitting nicely into that wrap dress you love but haven’t worn in several years.
Your really starting to think about your second goal: adding s little muscle mass. Not getting massive but maybe adding a little to fill out your triceps and backside. (After all, that wrap dress is sleeveless.) You most certainly don’t want to sacrifice the muscle you currently have in the name of losing weight.
You like the balance you’ve found. You love your energy, how your skin glows and not having to being tied to a food journal. When someone at the gym mentions carb cycling as the solution to building muscle and burning fat you cringe. That feels too much like dieting again. Add some extra exercise sessions, someone else suggests, to kick up your burn and really fatigue each muscle group. You love lifting so it does seem possible to add a couple more sets to your weight routine but two-a-day workouts just aren’t possible right now. When the woman with the amazing shoulders in your yoga class suggests you try a branch chain amino acid supplement while you workout you start to get interested.
You know that there aren’t any magic pills or quick fixes; you’re not afraid to do the work. You’re also not afraid of supplements but you want a data set bigger than a sample of one before you put something else in your body. What you need to know is can branch chain amino acids really give you an edge when it comes to muscle mass?
Your Super Simple Guide To Making A Self-Care Kit
You’re anxious, overwhelmed and just a little angry. All around you see the evidence of a week gone wild.
Your neglected gym bag sits in the corner. Your mom’s taxes and the sign up form for the sprint triathlon your best friend wants to do sit together on the corner of your desk. There are at least five more quarterly reviews to finish by the end of week but your calendar is filled with budget and committee meetings. YOU are nowhere on your never ending to-do list.
STOP. You are experiencing a self-care emergency.
At my latest Refill Your Cup Retreat, I wanted the ladies to take home the tools they needed to create an at home (or at work) self-care ritual. While retreating to a cabin in the woods is a highly recommended way to practice self-care, we all agreed this was not something we could do on a weekly or monthly basis. Instead, we spent sometime going over simple self-care practices and learning how to create a self-care kit.
If you need to create a self-care kit, here are the steps we used to build our self-care box.
Do You Suffer From Gluteal Amnesia?
Where did the morning go?
If it wasn’t for the grumble in your belly signaling lunchtime you would still be knee deep in project emails and expense reports. Thankful for your body’s reminder to refuel, you stand up slowly.
Slowly … because one hip has fallen asleep.
You take a moment to shake it awake. As you bend over to get your purse from your desk drawer you feel an ache in your low back, something that has been plaguing you more and more these days. You notice it picking up the dog and carrying the groceries into the house.
Is midlife finally catching up with you? Or is it something more?
Could it be gluteal amnesia?
The Ultimate Retro Running Playlist
You love finding new music.
Your excitement over the Austin 100 from NPR each year is completely lost on your top 40 listening co-workers. You always check out the New Music section on iTunes and the Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify while prepping meals or working on your schedule for the week. Your new picks never fail to impress your niece and her friends when you meet up for a girl’s night out.
Good thing they don’t see what kind of music you listen to when you work out. It might tarnish your hip image.
When you’re sweating it out you don’t have time to skip over songs with dragging beats. You’re not interested in deep lyrics. All you want is something you know will keep you pumped up and slightly distracted during that last mile. You want music from your own youth, your own glory days.
Yeah…me too. I need some retro fun for a good run.
