Hi friends! Hope you’re having a wonderful week and hope you have the happiest Thanksgiving surrounded by those you love. Please know how thankful I am for all of you. Your support with the blog and podcast means the world to me and I love the opportunity to hang out with my virtual besties every day.

For today’s podcast episode, I’m sharing a recording that Julie did with me about my strategies for staying healthy over the holidays and sticking to your goals during such a busy season. I did a similar episode when the podcast was a baby, but some of my strategies have changed and figured it was worth posting for those who may have missed the last one. This podcast was recorded for Julie and Kari’s show, Take the Upgrade, so it’s a reverse podcast interview situation 🙂 I hope you love it!

Here’s what we talk about:

– How to set yourself up for success with nutrition, even when there are more cocktails and treats around than normal

– Navigating two months of holiday events

– Stress management techniques and why HIIT may not be the best choice during this time

– My pre-party strategy

and so much more.

Take a listen here:

The weather is cooling down, and I’m still obsessed with my sauna blanket. It feels even BETTER when it’s chilly outside and you can use the code FITNESSISTA15 for 15% off! This is one of my favorite ways to relax and sweat it out. I find that it energizes me, helps with aches and pains, I sleep better on the days I use this, and it makes my skin glow. Link to check it out here. You can also use my discount for the PEMF Go Mat, which I use every day!

I love love love the meals from Sakara Life! Use this link and the code XOGINAH for 20% off their meal delivery and clean boutique items. This is something I do once a month as a lil treat to myself and the meals are always showstoppers. I’m enjoying a delivery this we

Kate Baily, co-founder of Love Sober joins Happiful's podcast to discuss the journey to alcohol-free living and the benefits it brings

“For me, drinking was very much tied in with the cultural narrative of my twenties and my own narrative about feminism and being empowered,” Kate Baily shares on Happiful’s podcast. “Then I had my children and a massive identity shift. I had lots of hormones and my mental health wasn’t great. So wine became more and more part of my life. When I first heard the phrase ‘wine o’clock’, I laughed my head off. I thought, thank god it’s not just me!”

Kate soon realised that she was not alone in feeling this way about alcohol and there were many other women for whom alcohol played a major role in their daily lives. However, Kate notes, she was in the ‘grey area’ of drinking, not alcohol dependent but not experiencing a healthy relationship with it either, and she wanted that to change.

Fast forward to today and Kate is now the co-founder of Love Sober, co-host of the Love Sober podcast and has written two books with LS partner Mandy Manners, most recently the beautiful Love Your Sober Year: A Seasonal Guide to Alcohol-Free Living.

Kate’s also a sobriety & life coach specialising in holistic well-being for women in midlife, perimenopause transition, sobriety, and stress management. Her first-hand experience makes her extremely relatable, her honesty is refreshing and she’s ultimately very realistic about the role alcohol plays for so many of us, in what we perceive to be ‘stress relief’.

“I managed my stress with lots of different things,” she says, reflecting back. “I had my hobbies, I had this kind of toolkit. Drinking was part of it but there was this disconnect between how I was feeling, what my new role is (as a parent) and how it was all fitting, that became impossible to ignore. This created quite a lot of shame, which can lead to a downward spiral.”

Kate came across Soberistas while searching for questionnaires about alcoholism in the early hours of one morning. She began to get curious about living an alcohol free life, after finding support on the site’s forum. Although not easy, and she chose to drink again after a year before stopping for good, this experience inspired Kate to learn more about positive psychology, the role of the vagus nerve and the unmet needs we can often ‘treat’ by drinking.

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Hi friends! Happy Wednesday! How’s the week going? I hope you’re having a great one so far. I’ve got a new solo podcast episode up this morning and I’m sharing my five favorite everyday supplements. I take a handful each day for various reasons, but these are my top choices for everyday.

Take a listen here!

115: My 5 go-to supplements

Friendly reminder that I’m not a doctor and I’m not telling you to take these; I’m simply sharing which ones I like and what work for me. If you have any questions about supplements, check with your doctor, as some supplements can be contraindicated with certain medical conditions and medications.

Studies referenced in this episode:

Benefits of collagen and how it can potentially improve skin texture.

How aloe vera can encourage collagen synthesis. 

Safety of creatine.

How magnesium binds to GABA receptors.

My favorite sources:

*I have discount and affiliate codes below because I’ve used these products for years and have worked with many of the companies in some capacity. Happy to share the love if you’re looking for some recs 🙂

Collagen is from Thrive Market

Protein powders: I like DNS (FITNESSISTA10), Truvani, and NOW Foods (FITNESSISTA) the most right now

Magnesium spray

Creatine: I like NOW Foods and Legion

Use FITNESSISTA for 20% off Organifi (you can stack this with other promos!)

Use FITNESSISTA for 20% off NOW Foods

Thank you so much for listening and for all of your support with the podcast! Please be sure to subscribe, and leave a rating or review if you enjoyed this episode. If you leave a rating, head to this page and you’ll get a little “thank you” gift from me to you. 

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Hi friends! How are you doing? I hope you’re having a great morning so far. I’m meeting up with a friend for a workout, getting a much-needed haircut, and looking forward to bible study later today 🙂

For today’s podcast, I’m sharing an easy daily nutrition hack to help you get more nutrients in your day. This is something you can do for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and as long as you check this box, you’re setting yourself up for success. It’s a very simple tip, but sometimes the simple things are the ones we can stick to and remember for the long haul. 

Here’s what I talk about in this episode:

– My favorite easy daily nutrition hack

– How to customize each option to fit your life, plus ways to amp it up with nutrients

– Prepping in advance

– Seasonal adjustments

and more 🙂

Take a listen here!

Resources from this episode:

I love love love the meals from Sakara Life! Use this link and the code XOGINAH for 20% off their meal delivery and clean boutique items. This is something I do once a month as a lil treat to myself and the meals are always showstoppers. I’m enjoying a delivery this week and it’s been an easy way to check the boxes above.

Get 15% off Organifi with the code FITNESSISTA. I drink the green juice, red juice, gold, and Harmony! (Each day I might have something different, or have two different things. Everything I’ve tried is amazing.)

The weather is cooling down, and I’m still obsessed with my sauna blanket. It feels even BETTER when it’s chilly outside and you can use the code FITNESSISTA15 for 15% off! This is one of my favorite ways to relax and sweat it out. I find that it energizes me, helps with aches and pains, I sleep better on the days I use this, and it makes my skin glow. Link to check it out here. You can also use my discount for the PEMF Go Mat, which I use every day!

If any of my fellow health professional friends are looking for another way to help their clients, I highly recommend IHP. You can also use this information to heal yourself and then go one to heal others, which I think is a beautiful mission.

You can use my referral link here and the code FITNESSISTA for up to $250 off the Integrative Health Practitioner program. I finished Level 1and am working my way through L

Integrative Therapist Billie Dunlevy discusses low self-esteem and shares how you can start to improve yours, today

‘Self-esteem’ is a phrase we hear and use often but what is the definition of self-esteem, and more importantly perhaps, low self esteem? Billie Dunlevy, a Counselling Directory Member and Integrative Therapist has the answer and shares some realistic ways we can start to improve our own self-esteem.

“Self-esteem is a measure of how we value and perceive ourselves,” Billie explains on Happiful's podcast. “It’s fundamentally about our attitude and how much we like ourselves. It’s different from self-confidence which is based more on an external measure of success, such as our ability to solve problems, land a promotion or give a dazzling presentation. Some people can actually have high self-confidence but low self-esteem.”

Low self-esteem

When we engage with our sense of low self-esteem, Billie continues, it can leave us with a sense of heaviness or hopelessness. “We can tend to have an overall negative view of ourselves, which can make us judge and speak to ourselves harshly. We can sometimes feel unloveable, incompetent and fearful of making mistakes or letting other people down.”

How low self-esteem presents to the outside world, she notes, is very individual.It could manifest in the avoidance of other people and relationships, overworking, being constantly busy and productive and having issues around boundary setting and people pleasing.

Working on yourself

The good news is that it is possible to work on low self-esteem and improve this over time. Billie outlines some of the practices we can start to include in our daily routines to address our low-self esteem straight away.

• Check your self-talk. Don’t allow it to run, try to counter it with another voice that is more compassionate or kind. That also goes for jokingly putting yourself down in a self-deprecating way. It’s really not helpful.
  
• Be more mindful and come off autopilot. Find a quiet place and ask yourself these questions regularly. ‘How am I feeling?’ ‘What do I need?’ ‘What’s going on?’ No