How to Make Healthy Eating Personal -#HEBC 1

Posted on Balanced Body, Balanced Nutrition | January 27, 2012 | 2 Comments

By Anastasiya Goers

What is healthy eating? Even though this question seems simple the answers will vary greatly depending on who you ask. No wonder that eating healthy becomes very confusing for a normal person like you or me.

There are plenty of theories about healthy eating nowadays but most of them won’t work for you. A diet/nutrition plan created without consideration of your preferences, goals, budget and simple likes/dislikes is just a waste of time.

I personally don’t like turnips and celery and there is no way that I can tolerate anything slimy in nature (like boiled okra or runny eggs…yuck!) If somebody told me that I had to eat those items every day to stay healthy I would say “Forget it!”

If you want to create a healthy diet that you can stick to then you need to answer the following questions:

1. What is your budget?

Do you know how much you spend on food monthly? How much would you like to spend ideally?

In August I decided for the first time to track my monthly expenses. The number shocked me (to say the least!) Writing down every little thing that we were paying for made me realize how many useless purchases we were making (especially for food.) Obviously, eating out was the biggest problem but even grocery shopping was way too high for our family. In January we managed to cut our grocery expenses by 56% and I am very satisfied with the result. Balance it more »

A Concise Guide to Plugging Time and Energy Leaks

Posted on Balanced Lifestyle, Balanced Mind and Soul | January 24, 2012 | 11 Comments

By contributor Kristoph Matthews

Do you ever feel sapped of energy while trying to catch up with life as it moves at 90 miles an hour? Do you feel like no matter what you do, you’re always burdened with tasks and feeling sleep deprived? Time and energy “leaks” in your life may be the culprit.

Energy (a.k.a. your “will power”) and time are intimately related. When you deplete your energy, you reduce your ability to focus and thus accomplish the tasks in your life effectively. On the other hand, when you run out of time, you expend energy inefficiently as you try to rush through the things you need to do.

The energy and time “leaks” in your life consume your ability to get things done and feel fulfilled. These leaks exist in mental, physical, and emotional forms and they must be identified and “plugged” in order to become more productive. I, for example, suffered the following leaks: Feeling sluggish from sitting at my desk all day, reading and responding to mundane emails as they constantly stream in numbed my mind, and feeling bad about an argument I had with a coworker has been consuming my mind.

Leaks can be plugged by replacing thoughts and habits that suck energy and time with ones that make you more productive. Expanding upon the examples above, I plugged the leaks as follows: Balance it more »

Start Eating Healthy on a Budget in 1 Month

Posted on Balanced Body, Balanced Nutrition | January 20, 2012 | 25 Comments

By Anastasiya Goers

Health one bite at a time

Every year, every month or every time that we overeat and feel bad after it we make a resolution to eat healthier. But how often do we keep that promise?

Sometimes we stick to a healthy plan until the next big family event. Or maybe until a party with delicious and diabolically tempting food. Or maybe until the next stressful day (and we have plenty of those.)

An easy and obviously important goal like healthy eating sometimes seems unrealistic to achieve.

At the beginning of the year I ran an annual BalanceInMe survey to see how balanced all of us are and the results are in.

The majority of the BalanceInMe community has trouble staying healthy and the results haven’t changed much from last year (if anything, in 2011 the number of those who couldn’t keep their health in balance increased by 3%.) Balance it more »

How to Empower Yourself to Live the Best Life Possible

Posted on Balanced Lifestyle | January 16, 2012 | 4 Comments

By Anastasiya Goers

Find the power within

We all have goals/dreams that we say “I really want to do this. This is THE THING for me.” However, whenever we think about these goals we always find a reason why it is not the right time to start working towards them. This goal can be as big as writing a bestseller , as trivial as starting a healthy lifestyle or as painful as getting over a nagging family conflict.

When I first opened BalanceInMe I really didn’t have a plan on how to run it or what to write about. The design was horrible. My writing was not much better and frankly speaking as I look back to those days I didn’t have many chances of surviving as a blogger and realizing my dream of touching the lives of thousands of people.
However, I was lucky because I chose a topic for the blog that helped me improve as well. My passion for balanced living empowered me to become a better writer, to get over my fears and to be grateful for the most bitter critique (one of the top bloggers reviewed my site back in those days and his reaction was “It’s horrible all over.”)

How do you fuel your goal or your motivation towards joyous and fulfilling living?

Balance it more »

How to Stop Fear from Controlling Your Life

Posted on Balanced Lifestyle, Book Reviews/Interviews | January 10, 2012 | 6 Comments

By Anastasiya Goers

Tess Marshall

Three years ago I moved to the US not quite comprehending that living here will depend on my ability to drive. I drove a few times in Ukraine (my native country) but I was never an independent driver. When the plane landed and my in-laws picked all of us up we drove down a huge 5-lane interstate with a 70mph speed limit in rush hour. I was terrified.

Thankfully my husband was very patient with me while teaching me how to drive. In Ukraine I drove a tiny VW Rabbit and in the US I had to get used to a ginormous Toyota 4Runner (at least that’s how it seemed to me back then.) I was terrified of getting out on the road in this huge tank that I felt I had no control of. And most importantly I was afraid of other cars on the road (every time a jacked up Ford F-350 flew by I felt my heart sink into my heels.) I couldn’t even imagine taking my girls (the most precious cargo) anywhere in the car by myself.

It took me two years to start driving independently. Some might call me a slow learner but it was the time I needed to overcome my fear and become comfortable behind the wheel of a car.

Do you have fears that you have to overcome?

Some of our fears are obvious (like mine) but others can disguise themselves as excuses, traditions, habits and many other things. If I hadn’t learned to drive a car then I obviously couldn’t have survived normally in the US (unless my husband and I struck oil and we could hire a private chauffeur to take me anywhere.) I had no choice but overcome this fear.

Overcoming some fears is not imperative to our survival though (like a fear of public speaking – the number 1 fear or a fear of starting your own business.) However living with those fears robs us of the possibilities that we are capable of, it robs of realizing our potential and living a bold and fulfilling life. Balance it more »