Get Active, Nourish & Be Grateful

Get Active, Nourish & Be Grateful came about when two friends were sharing a love and passion for all things health, yoga, wellness and mindfulness.  We both had a burning desire to share all the learnings and information that we have gathered over our time on this planet and so our partnership was formed.

The Active Nourish Grateful ebook is packed full of simple tips and guides covering everything from fat burning circuits, yoga sequences, meditation and breathing mini guide and simple easy to make recipes.  

Get ready to live your best Active Nourish Grateful lifestyle today. 

PS. We both love instagram and seeing people live their ANG lifestyle so don't forget to hashtag any photos you post on Instagram with #activenourishgrateful

The ebook will be available on the 1 November 2014.  Click here to get your pretty little hands on the book right away.

Drunk In Love Transformation Project - Week 2

I firmly believe that we are what we eat and that when given the opportunity, your body will heal all ailments.  Food and nourishing your soul truly is medicine.  Learning to harness that power is difficult.

What I’m going over this week in the video:

+ Bio-Individuality;

+ Intuitive Eating; and

+ Getting to know your flow

Here is a little recap:

Bio Individuality

Long story short, no to people are the same, what heals me may be poison to you.  What works for you at the moment may not work for you in 10 years time.  Our bodies are progressive and ever changing, accept and honour that.

Intuitive Eating

Learning how to listen to what your body needs is number one.  Learn to read your body’s messages, are you truly hungry or is it really thirst.  Ditch the food labelling, stop defining the food you eat as “good” or “bad” trust in your instincts and be ok with change, have an absolute trust that your body knows what it needs. Ask yourself these questions before you eat:

+ How will I feel after I eat this food?
+ Which foods am I instinctively drawn to?
+ What foods am I craving?

Get to know your flow

I’ve made the decision to get off the contraceptive pill after 16 years of use.  I am a woman and very honestly I don’t know how everything down there works for me.  I don’t want to get pregnant, so I’m learning when I’m most fertile, when I’m ovulating and repairing any hormonal damage that may have be done from extended use of The Pill.  Knowledge is power sista and as a woman, I want to know my body and own the power of fertility.  Because one day I do want to make a baby and I want it to be a beautiful experience.

xx

PS. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below...  What are your main food complaints?  Is there anything ailing you that you need a hand to heal?

Getting Grounded and Grateful

I am just loving connecting with so many self inspired women, who are real, authentic and living and breathing their passions.  Today's guest to the blog is the incredibly talented spiritual coach Pip Herbert from Grounded Guidance.  

Pip is going to share some insights on how to get practice mindfulness through being grounded and showing gratitude.  Pip take it away...

Each morning, I get up, go outside and ground myself, I usually exercise at this time too, and I get present.

But what does this mean and what difference does it make?

By stopping to listen to the sounds around me, tune into my body, my breath, notice my emotions, I am fully present in the moment.  It is very challenging to maintain this level of mindfulness, of presence throughout the entire day, as of course we lead busy lives filled with distractions… doing several things at once, day dreaming, or thinking about what to cook for dinner.

If I’m ungrounded, I am clumsy, my head is in a haze, I feel scattered and may try to put the milk away in the cupboard, I am certainly not feeling empowered by what I want to create in my life.

 Like anything, mindfulness takes practice and getting grounded takes intention. Remembering to stop for a moment and BREATHE. Plant your feet on the ground and send all that buzzing energy into the earth, let go of the exhaustion. Be in that moment.

Allow yourself to be fully present with the person you’re listening to.  To feel what your body needs, and be connected to your soul-essence, your intuition.

 In this space of grounding and mindfulness, I find what naturally arises is gratitude.

I am present enough to notice the beauty around me and appreciate how lucky I am. You do not have to be feeling particularly optimistic to allow the blissful feeling of gratitude to envelope you. If you are struggling to think of something, simply remember how privileged you are, that there is always someone worse off than you.

When we are focusing on the many wonderful things in our life, we create more of this thanks to the universal law of attraction. Often we are thinking about what’s yet for us to achieve, to buy, or what we don’t have yet. When we shift our attention to what we DO have, the universe conspires to give you more of that. In the space of gratitude I experience joy, happiness, thankfulness, peace, love, excitement. Hell yeah to more of that!


So – try it. Each day, think of or write down 3 things you’re grateful for. Really connect to the emotion of it when you do this. You may be surprised how great it feels.

+ To follow Pip on Instragram click here.

++ Check out Pip's website here.

+++ To follow Pip on Facebook click here.

Guest Blogger - Berry Coconut Chia Pudding by Claire Power

Claire Power is one wellness babe to watch, she is putting her passions of health and cooking to good use to inspire others to get in their kitchens and to start cooking their way to better health.

I absolutely love any babe who is out there inspiring and empowering other women to look after themselves and live up to their truest potential.

Claire has been kind enough to share a "tote-able" recipe for us for day 15 of the Get Active, Nourish and Be Grateful challenge that Kat and I are running for the month of July.

Claire thanks so much for sharing your recipe with us today!!  How did the inspiration for this recipe come about??

Chia puddings are popping up everywhere on social media and on television due to the new ads for the Chia Co company with brand ambassador Kelly Slater.  I think it's great that these little seeds of goodness gets some more publicity.  They are so nutritious and delicious!

However, it is very easy and cheap to make it so you should try to make your own at home.  There are different ways o do them using different milks or using mashed banana.  The flavour combinations are endless, mango, apple, berries, cacao, matcha and so on.

Berry Coconut Chia Puddings recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp chia seeds;
• 1/2 cup coconut milk (you could use almond milk, cashew milk or cow's milk too);
• 1 vanilla bean;
• dash of cinnamon;
• optional: honey or rice male syrup; and
• toppings: fresh or frozen berries, nuts, bananas use whatever you feel like!

Instructions:

1. Mix chia seeds and milk;
2. Add vanilla & cinnamon;
3. Leave overnight until the chia seeds absorb the milk and become a jelly like texture;
4. Top with fresh fruit, berries, nuts... and
5. Serve cold.

+ To follow Claire on Instagram, click here.

++ Check out Claire's blog here.

+++ For more information on the Get Active, Nourish and Be Grateful, click here.

Nourish Yourself from the Inside Out

After getting active for 10 days straight, it's now time to concentrate on Nourishing yourself from the inside out for the next 10 consecutive days.  The question that I am going to put to you, is what does Nourishing Yourself mean to you?  The reason I ask this is because what works for me may not work for you.

We live in a world of modern nutrition.  Almost everyone is on one diet or another.  So many people dwell on calories, carbs, fats, proteins, restrictions and lists of good and bad foods.  It would seem that each day we are hit with a new discovery, proclaiming the health benefits of a certain food or the best way to lose 5 kilos in a week.  Diet books are best sellers, cooking shows are more popular than ever, while more and more families are eating out.

The world of nutrition has become incredibly complex.  How is it possible that one expert can prove dairy is a necessary component of a healthy diet, while another expert can prove dairy is extremely detrimental to health; one expert can claim meat is essential to a healthy human body while another expert says meat is an unnecessary and unhealthy part of the the human diet?

So to avoid and navigate myself confidently through a media-driven an perplexed diet industry, I now take a new approach to nutrition and that is one of bio-individualtiy.  

No perfect way of eating works for everybody.

The food that is perfect for your unique body, age and lifestyle may make another person gain weight and feel lethargic.  Similarly, no perfect way of eating will work for you all the time, what may have worked for you a number of years ago, may not be right for you now and what you eat during the week may be totally different to what you eat on a weekend when you are relaxing.

One thing that you need to remember is that being healthy is really not that complicated.  Trust that your body knows what it needs and what it wants to eat.  It's the brain that makes mistakes.  It's very easy to convince yourself to follow some diet plan and after a week it may leave you feeling lethargic and bloated.  You don't need to read nutrition books to know what to eat, instead you have to foster a deep relationship with your body in which it naturally tells you what it needs to function at its highest potential.

So for the next 10 days I don't want you to think about restricting anything from your diet, I want to you concentrate on ADDING IN the right clean foods.  

Here is a list of things that I would encourage you to ADD IN to your diet each day:

• Upon rising have a warm glass of water with 1/2 a lemon. 
• Pump up your green vegetables, have at least 4 servings of vegetables per day - you might do this by having a green juice or a green smoothy in the morning, then one serving of greens with lunch and one serving of greens with dinner.
• Don't be afraid of fruits, have 2 servings per day - this could be an apple with a spoonful of nut butter, strawberries, blue berries, add a banana to your smoothie for breakfast.
• Eat good quality and properly prepared whole grains - have at least 2 servings per day - think quinoa or oats for breakfast, sprouted bread, sourdough bread for lunch
• Lean meat and protein sources - have at least 2 servings per day - think chicken, pork, wild salmon, sardines, and white fish
• Good fats - have 2 serving per day - think coconut oil, olive oil, fish oils (essential fatty acids), seen and nut oils and organic butter - use coconut oils for cooking, pour olive oil over your salad, add seeds to your salad, spread organic butter over your toast.

Real food is medicine.

Great food and a healthy diet means enjoying full flavours and invigorating meals while relishing the fresh, simple and unadulterated.  Remember that processed food is loaded with sugars, artificial sweeteners, damaging hydrogenated fats and oils, white flour, chemicals, fillers, synthetic vitamins and minerals, food additives, preservatives, heavy metals and pesticides, all of which contribute to the toxicity with our bodies and are damaging the health of our planet.

Over the coming days I will go over some of my favourite super foods, we'll have a guest post from the fabulous Clair Power from Power of Wellness and plenty of fun recipes and healthy tips and tricks that you can incorporate into your diet.

Nic

xx

Guest Blog for Day 9 - Get Active, Nourish and Be Grateful

I am so stoked to have this amazing trainer on board with the Get Active, Nourish and Be Grateful challenge for the month of July.  Even more stoked because this absolute babe knows how to train hard and her clients are seeing incredible results because of it!

Meet Candy!

So Candy tell us what's your favourite way to train?

HIIT training is my favourite type of training. I use the HIIT training method with my running, rowing, body weight and even my strength training workouts! 

Tell us a little more, what is HIIT style training all about?

HIIT is a workout method that alternates maximum effort "work" intervals with low intensity "rest" intervals. 

The benefits of HIIT include:

• weight loss. HIIT is more effective then steady state cardio for weight loss! 
• HIIT increases agility as it trains the body for explosive power. (Helping you jump higher & sprint faster) 
• HIIT training increases your metabolism & has an "after burn" effect (keeps the body burning calories hours AFTER your workout) 
• Increases stamina. It's easier to continue short bursts of intense training when you know you have a rest interval coming up! 
• HIIT is less time consuming! HIIT sessions usually go for 45 mins and has the same (if not better) benefits then a long low intensity workout. 
• Increases mind power. HIIT training makes you stronger mentally allowing you to push yourself through short spurts of pain & high intensity workouts as there are small "rest" intervals to break it up. 

There are many forms of HIIT training. My favourite is the Tabata workout. 
(Each set is 30 secs long- 20 secs work interval & 10 secs rest interval.) 

So can you give us a session to follow for Day 9 of the challenge :)

Here is a Tabata workout anyone can do at home!

So here are the rules: There will be 8 x 30sec Rounds.  You will work your butt off for 20sec and then rest for 10sec and repeat that for each exercise 8 times.

So for example, you do as many Burpees as you can for 20sec, rest for 10sec, then do Burpees for 20sec then rest for 10sec then repeat another 6 times (8 rounds in total).

Remember to push each round as it's only 20 secs! 

• Burpees 
• Jump squats 
• Push-ups 
• Mountain climbers (each leg)
• Power jump lunges (each leg)
• Plank

Good luck and let me know how you go in the comments section below!!

Be sure to check out Candy here : Facebook or on Instagram 

xx

Get Active, Nourish and Be Grateful

A moment waited is a moment wasted. 

Four weeks ago I made a decision that will ultimately change my life forever.  I plucked up the courage to call my Boss into a meeting room and put in my resignation from my comfortable full time corporate roll.  I was literally shaking in my boots and every cell of my body was in complete chaos, but I knew in my heart that I was making the right decision.

I felt every emotion possible over the last four weeks, first I was extremely excited and felt like a huge weight had lifted, then the fear set in knowing that I wouldn't have a steady income anymore but then I was re-assured as I listened to my boss tell me that the best decision he had ever made was the one to leave his full time job to start his own business, because if he hadn't he wouldn't be where he was today.

I finished up my job on Friday and was set free to work on what I love doing, and that is motivating others to live their lives to the fullest, to help people get their nutrition on track and encourage you to get out and get active.

So with that I got together with my friend Kat (check her out here) and we came up with a way to encourage people to get active and too look after themselves from the inside out throughout all of July.  Because we all know that summer bodies are made in winter (plus I have my upcoming wedding as the best motivation to keep in shape through winter).  Sometimes when two great minds get together amazing things can happen, that's the beauty of collaborating and so a new challenge was born, because together we can all accomplish so much!

Get Active, Nourish and Be Grateful

The main focus is to keep active and look after yourself during the coldest month of winter in Australia.  The first 10 days are all about moving, it doesn't matter how or for how long, the main thing is that you get up, get out and get your body moving.

The second 10 days is all about eating clean, unprocessed foods.  Try to steer clear of sugar (in particular fructose) and any foods that are highly processed or that come in packages.  You should work on crowding out all the bad food by adding in heaps more of the good stuff.  Concentrate on filling up on greens and then if you've still got room after that you can have what ever it is your after.

The last 10 days of the month is all about being grateful, mindful and being present.  Have a go at meditating or journalling, at the very least each day for the 10 days try to list out three things that you are grateful for.

Below is a calendar to help guide you over the next 30 days.  We'd love if you could follow along and there are some great prizes up for grabs for the most active person who gets involved on Instagram and Facebook.  All you have to do is make sure that you follow me and Kat on Instagram to keep up to date with what we are up to  day-to-day and then use the #activenourishgrateful on your photos so that we can see your progress and then pick a winner at the end of the 30 days.

Tell me how you plan to get active this July in the comments below.

xx