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  • How to Get Relief with Magical Lavender

    Lavender flowers are quite magical, though we associate them with southern France in the Summer, I think they're a great flower to use during Spring, when we get affected by the seasonal changes. They are great to use in almost any form, but respect their potency, don't use them everyday and don't ever take the essential oil internally.
    Lavender is wonderful for easing anxiety and insomnia. You can use it to help dispel headaches and energetically it helps shield your entire energy field... like when you don't want people prying into your business or messing with your emotions. Think of it as your automatic chill button.
    The tea is full of antioxidants and incredibly uplifting, though it isn't a tea you should drink too frequently. The essential oil when dabbed at the third eye and throat chakras will keep out unwanted influences. To create harmony in your home, burn lavender flowers as incense or in your fire and burn lavender scented purple candles.
    Lavender is also well-known to attract love, so be careful who you wear it around. I like spraying it on my bedsheets, actually I love the smell anytime, on anything!
    Lavender is a gentle pain reliever, you can use the tea when you've been working or studying to hard and need to wind down for the night. Add the flowers to peppermint tea to warm your body or spearmint to cool your body. If you suffer from migraines like me, lavender essential oil in a bath can help soothe your aching brain.
    Our Corona del Mar paleo lean tea has lavender along with spearmint and calendula, perfect for  after a workout when you're really hot or after a family visit when they've pushed your buttons! This tea in particular can help stop emotional eating, it is also not caffeinated so you can use it when evening munchies hit.
    Trying to increase your meditation or yoga practice? Lavender in any form will help you connect with your spiritual side and focus, perfect as we welcome the Sun to Pisces, the mystical sign ruled by Neptune!
    Much Love & Magic this Spring
    Jennifer XOXO
    PS: Get an additional 25% off with code SPRINGSALE

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  • H&LBC Day 18 Negative Training to build fat burning muscle

    Negative-accentuated training 

    Not the laziest tip ever, but if you want to get out of the diet, gain, diet cycle forever you're going to have to change some of your body's composition to become a more efficient calorie burner. Newport Skinny Tea supports this on several levels, as do the tips we've given in this series, but here's a tip from Prevention Magazine about negative-accentuated training which was written about in The Four Hour Body as well as by many other life hackers. If you want to build fat-burning muscle in the least amount of time possible, here's a great way:

    Almost everyone who's lost weight has eventually put the weight back on. Why this cruel reality? It's simple, really: During the first months of any diet, your body loses both fat and muscle. Then, when you gain back the weight, you add back only fat because it's much easier to gain fat than it is to gain muscle.

    "That's the dirty little secret of most popular diet plans," says exercise researcher Ellington Darden. "They don't combine muscle-maintaining exercises with the calorie reduction. More muscle is your ticket to a better body."

    It's no secret that muscle is more metabolically active than fat, so by having more lean muscle on your skeleton, you'll burn more calories even at rest. Fortunately, Darden says he discovered a super-efficient way to build muscle while losing weight: It's called "negative training," and Darden tested it on more than 100 people at Gainesville Health & Fitness in Florida a few years ago. The technique involves doing the lowering part, or "eccentric phase," of a resistance exercise very slowly. But Darden gave this old-school bodybuilding trick a tweak: He found that by using heavier weights and doing just one and a half reps very, very slowly, you can achieve remarkable results from just one or two short workouts per week.

    To get a taste of what Darden calls "negative-accentuated training," grab two dumbbells, and stand upright with your arms straight and the weights resting against your thighs. Do a quick bicep curl to get the weights to your shoulders; that's the starting position. Now very slowly lower the dumbbells—that's the negative phase—taking 10 to 20 seconds to let them lower to your thighs. Then immediately curl the weight very slowly to your shoulders (again, it should take 10 to 20 seconds)—that's the positive phase of the lift. Finally, without pausing, do another negative movement, taking a final 10 to 20 seconds to lower the weights to your thighs. So the idea is that you'll do the negative movement for twice as long total as you do the positive movement. (Eventually, you'll want to increase to 30 seconds for each phase of this exercise.)

    By doing one and a half reps of a lift, you can complete a workout in just 20 to 30 minutes—and feel like you've exercised for more than an hour. The moves are simply that tough, which is why you'll need several days for your muscles to recover.

    The negative-accentuated style of weight training results in 40 to 50 percent greater stress being put on your muscles, compared to more conventional training methods, says Darden. This stimulates key hormones that boost muscular growth and oxidize fat-cell content at a faster rate. "It may be that the higher level of stress put on your muscles, combined with just the right amount of carbohydrates, decreases insulin responsiveness in fat cells to make them shrink," says Darden.

     

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  • H&L BC Day 17 Lazy version of the Cold Water Thermogenesis Protocol

    Lazy version of the Cold Water Thermogenesis Protocol

    Do you know what those big words mean to your lazy desire to get healthier? Ultimately, they mean that if you expose yourself to cold water, like swimmers do, you burn fat at a highly accelerated rate. I first learned about it from Jack Kruse, MD and you will have to trust me that his blog is intensely thorough and you will have to feel very motivated to read it all! It has also become a popular topic with biohackers like Tim Feriss and in the paleo world.

    If you want the lazy version it requires that you stick your face in a bowl of ice water for approximately 10 minutes every day. You need to start slowly (maybe with 1 minute) and work your way up to 10 minutes. Never keep your face in water when it hurts or feels uncomfortable, you adapt to the cold over time and that's what causes you to burn more fat. If you want to further this practice- and it does get way more intense,  make sure you do a lot of reading and talk with your doctor before doing a full body cold bath.

    Drinking ice water does help also, you do have to raise the temperature of the liquid to your body temp and that burns calories, approximately 70 per day.

     

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  • H&LBC Day 10 Cranberry Lemonade detox gallon challenge

    Cranberry lemonade detox water challenge

    I just LOVE this fat burning drink, its amazing at cleaning out the toxins and keeping you hydrated, you can really feel all your systems working better and it keeps you full. Sometimes I mix it with Newport Skinny Tea!

    Cranberry lemonade recipe:

    • Glass gallon jar
    • Safe, clean, spring water
    • 1 cup of organic 100% cranberry juice, not from concentrate
    • 3 organic fresh lemons
    • A citrus juicer
    • Liquid stevia
    • Liquid cayenne

    Fill the jar to about 85% capacity with spring water. Squeeze the lemons and pour the juice into the water. Add cranberry juice. Add stevia to taste and then add cayenne to taste. The amount of cayenne used is up to you, but the more the better.

    If you don't have access to a good spring water source, use other clean drinking water that does not have fluoride. If you don't have access to organic lemons, use conventional. If there are no fresh lemons, use bottle lemon juice. If you can't get cranberry juice that is not from concentrate, get the reconstituted kind (just don't get any kind of cranberry juice that has any other ingredients like sweeteners or other juices). If you can't stand cayenne, don't use it. No glass jar? Use plastic. No excuses.

    If you have powdered cayenne and/or powdered stevia, I recommend using a blender to mix some of the liquid with the powders so they don't settle later.

     Here's a new challenge: the one gallon challenge. Drink a gallon of cranberry lemonade a day, sweetened with stevia, and spiced with cayenne. This is one of the best ways to detoxify, lose weight, and clean out your system. It's also a much better choice for most people than The Master Cleanse

    Drinking a gallon of water a day makes an amazing difference to your health and your appearance (google gallon a day water before and after). Drinking this much fluid flushes the organs and the lymph nodes, hydrates the skin, and helps the body to rebuild cells and regenerate in ways that most people do not get to experience. The cranberry and the lemon help flush the liver and the kidneys even more, and in my experience it's a lot easier to drink a gallon of cranberry lemonade than it is to drink a gallon of plain water. And cayenne has a ton of amazing health benefits.


    Please use common sense with this. If you do not follow a healthy diet with lots of produce, the amount of liquid consumed on this regimen can deplete the body of much needed minerals. Do not attempt to drink a gallon of anything in one sitting, EVER. This has been known to kill people, even with just water. If you have kidney problems, this may be the best thing for you. On the other hand, depending on your health issues, it may overload the kidneys. I find that smaller people who weigh less than 120 pounds can see the benefits at 1/2 to 1/3 of a gallon. Your health is in your hands. Again, please use good judgment and ALWAYS check with your doctor before making changes to your medication or doctor prescribed routine.


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  • How to Design a Weight Loss Detox Bath

    Custom Detox Bathing

     

    Before You Bathe:

    • Drink plenty of water! Your body is supposed to sweat out all the toxins, so you will need to keep your body as hydrated as possible.
    • Make sure someone else is home. Some people feel dizzy/light headed afterwards. Just in case you don’t feel well, it’s good to have someone there to help.
    • Allow your body to digest your food before taking a bath (i.e. don’t eat immediately beforehand).

    The Bath:

    • Make sure the water temperature is hot, but comfortable.
    • Start mixing in the ingredients when the tub is about halfway full. Every now and then, swirl the water around to make sure everything is mixing/dissolving.
    • Stay in the tub for 20-40 minutes.
    • You can take these baths anywhere from once a day to once in a while, depending on how your body reacts to them.

    After You Bathe:

    • Get out of the bath slowly and carefully. If you feel dizzy/lightheaded, this feeling should go away after a few minutes. 
    • Drink plenty of water! Your body sweated a lot, so you need to re-hydrate.
    • It is suggested to moisturize your skin with olive oil or coconut oil.
    • If you take a shower to rinse off, make sure the water is cool.

    Types of Detox Baths

    I’ve seen a variety of different detox baths, all with different ingredients and different proportions of each ingredient. Really, you can be your own “chemist,”  do some trial and error, and find what works best for you. A range of suggested ingredient amounts are provided in parentheses (again, pick what is best for YOU). For Epsom salt, start small and work your body’s tolerance up.

    Main Detox Bath Ingredients:

    • Epsom salt (1-2 cups)
    • 100% magnesium sulfate – replenishes body’s magnesium levels
    • Increases body’s ability to detoxify, strenghtens immune system, helps soothe aching muscles, reduces swelling, helps heal bruises
    • You can read more about Epsom salts here
    • Baking soda (1-2 cups)
    • Neutralizes any chemicals in tap water (chlorine and flouride especially), smoothes skin, helps alkalize body & aids detoxifcation

    Optional Ingredients:

    • Green tea bags (2-5 bags)
      • Antioxidant, relaxes body, soothes sore muscles and rashes
    • Apple Cider Vinegar (1/2-2 cups)
      • Anti-inflammatory, softens skin
    • Essential Oils (5-20 drops)
      • Great aromas and unique therapeutic benefits of each
    • Ground Ginger (1 tbsp – a handful)
      • Increases circulation, promotes sweating, helps open pores, helps in pain relief
    • Lemon halves/lemon juice (1 tbsp – 1/3 cup)
      • Antioxidant, brightens skin
    • Olive Oil (1 tbsp – 1/3 cup)
      • Moisturizes skin

    This is a wonderful way to relax and get healthier, these can be done regularly but make sure to keep them under 30 minutes as you will begin to reabsorb the toxins. Make sure you don't get too hot and add cooler water if you start to sweat profusely. You can also use your leftover loose leaf tea in your bath, just contain it in a small bag or infuser so it does not clog your drain.

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  • H&LBC Day 1: Legs up wall

    Day 1 of Hot & Lazy boot camp

    Legs up wall yoga pose is so easy! Its a restorative, restful pose you can do it while you’re doing something else and the list of benefits is HUGE (see below). Here's a great example of being rewarded for being more lazy! With daily practice you will see better digestion, better circulation and better skin tone, plus less anxiety! Try this today and feel better immediately!

     

    How to do Legs up wall

    1. Sidle one hip as close as you can to a wall.
    2. Swing both legs up the wall and move your rear end as close to the wall as possible. If this hurts your hamstrings, slide a few inches away from the wall. Rest your arms on your belly, or stretch them away from you in a T, W, or V position.
    3. When you are done, bend your knees, roll to one side, and rest there, taking a few breaths before getting up.

     

    what’s going on in this pose?

    • Your femur bones are dropping into your hip sockets, relaxing your psoas, the muscles that help you walk and support your lower back.
    • Blood is draining out of your tired feet and legs.
    • Your nervous system is getting a signal to slow down, It’s all stress release and recovery   

    Want more of this in your life?

    • Do this pose while doing something you love, it will form a positive link in your brain, such as watching guilty pleasure TV shows, playing games on your phone or reading Divergent for the 3rd time. Set an alarm on your phone for the first week, because we often forget to integrate new habits- make technology work for you!
    •  Check out Yoga Journal’s A lazy girl's guide to yoga
    •  Ask a fun friend to check out yoga classes with you, most centers have a special rate for first time visitors. Or find an at-home yoga based workout program, our favorite is Piyo by Chalene Johnson 

    benefits

    • Eases anxiety and stress
    • Therapeutic for arthritis, headaches, high blood pressure, low blood pressure and insomnia
    • Eases symptoms of premenstrual syndrome, menstrual cramps and menopause
    • Relieves tired or cramped feet and legs
    • Gently stretches the hamstrings, legs and lower back
    • Relieves lower back pain
    • Calms the mind
    • Regulates blood flow
    • Relieves swollen ankles and varicose veins
    • Helps testicular, semen, and ovarian problems in men and women respectively
    • Improves digestion and circulation
    • Restores tired feet or legs
    • Stretches the back of the neck, front torso, and back of the legs
    • Improves problems of the eyes and ears
    • Relieves mild backache
    • Helps keep you young and vital
    • Calms anxiety
    • Relieves symptoms of mild depression and insomnia

    Contraindicated for glaucoma, please check with your doctor first before trying this pose if you have any concerns about your health and/or medications.

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