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10 Healthy Habits to Smash Your 2019 Health Goals

29/3/2019

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I recently checked in with my 2019 goals and did some reevaluating after a few aspects of my life didn't quite go to plan... Life hey. This got me thinking about other peoples goals and how health seems to be a pretty consistent goal people incorporate each year into their goals and that I'm more than likely not the only person to have lost sight of, or needed to alter some of my initial goals as we head into April. So I thought this was the perfect time to hand out some helpful tips to keep you on, or get you back on track with your health goals. 

Being ‘healthy’ means different things for different people. We all have different bodies. We all have different goals. We all have different genetics; things we’re predisposed to and things we love and hate. With this beautiful diversity and individuality, I wanted to give unique health tips that every person can use at least some of. None of these stock standard ‘drink 8 glasses of water and exercise 30 minutes a day’ type tips. So here are ten* (actually 11 because I give a little bonus tip at the end) healthy habits that you can incorporate into your daily/weekly/monthly routines to help smash your 2019 health goals.
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  1. Don’t walk down every aisle of the super market

    I’ve been living religiously off this tip for the past few years and it’s honestly made transitioning to a healthy lifestyle so much easier! The super scientific* theory behind it (*the thing I made up) is that if you don’t see/have the chance to buy highly processed and unhealthy foods, then you are *insert a really high percentage* more likely to not buy those products. Makes perfect sense really!

    I usually buy my fruit and vegetables from the markets, but when I don’t I do all my shopping at the grocery store. I stick the the perimeter (fruit, veg, deli, cold stuff) and only go down the aisles I need to go down for things like tinned tomatoes, the asian food section (aka my life) and then toiletries and household products.

    It’s pretty much an out of sight, out of mind thing which is just what you need if you’re trying to get over a sugar addiction or breaking habits of buying more packaged food than whole foods, or whatever your health goal is.

  2. Learn how to read the backs of packets - but not super over the top and only what is important to you

    Yes, I am that person that looks at the backs of all the packets of things before I buy them but I’m not dissecting every. single. word. on the back; I’m only looking at a few things that are important to me.

    If you want to focus on sugar content alone, work out what exactly you should be looking for on packets that relate directly to sugar and read that. Don’t worry about the sodium, emulsifiers and calories if they’re not a focus of yours because that’s when its a bit OTT and very overwhelming.

    Ps. There is a bonus tip relating to this tip so keep reading to find out what it is.

  3. Know your personal health goals and educate yourself accordingly

    This ties into point 2 perfectly - almost like I planned it that way…

    Working out your health values and goals will help you work out what you need to focus on. Everyone is different and we all have different health goals, genetics, intolerances and things we like. Therefor, your health goals and education about how to best achieve those goals should be tailored exactly to you, by you. If we use myself and processed foods for an example, here’s what I mean:

    When I buy anything from a packet, I pretty much look at four things - the ingredients list (to see what ingredients are in it and what order they are listed in), how much sugar per 100g is in it (while still factoring in if it is natural or refined sugar), what oil is used and finally just generally how processed it is (by looking at the number of ingredients that I have no idea what they are or are listed with numbers like ‘flavour 143, 310 and 670’).

    I don’t ever really look at anything else because those four things align with my current health goals so they’re all I focus on. They are what’s important to me.

    Work out for you what you really want to focus on (for all health goals, not just packet reading) and educate yourself about those things so you’re a mini expert on what you are and aren’t putting in your body/doing to your body. The same goes for exercise; if your goal is to work on flexibility but all you’re doing is weights because that’s what other people are doing, you’re probably not going to reach your health goals. Learn about flexibility exercises. Do some research. Become a mini expert. Smash your health goals. Done.

  4. Don’t be so hard on yourself

    It’s sadly so easy for us to beat ourselves up about a million things, even though we’ve been trying really hard and actually succeeding way more than we think. So if you have a day, week, month or year where you aren’t super on your game about kicking your health goals, that’s okay. Honestly, who cares. As I once said to Lenny (my 2.5 year old niece); it’s not about falling off your bike, its about getting back on. Have your goals, make them as big as you can imagine and work at them every day, but don’t be too hard on yourself through this whole process. Life is way too short to be mad at yourself for not being perfect 100% of the time.

  5. Have/prepare easy whole food/non-processed snacks

    Convenience is probably the thing that kills peoples healthy eating goals the fastest and trust me, I know what it’s like to be super busy, overworked, running late, tired and not wanting to think about what you’re going to eat. The thing you want is to just be able to grab something from the fridge/cupboard, not have to think about it, eat it and move on. I feel ya sister, don’t worry.

    My best tip for keeping to your healthy eating goals as much as possible in these busy/tiring/overworked times is to have/prepare a few healthy meals/snacks that are just in the fridge ready to be grabbed as you rush out the door.

    I’m talking carrot sticks with hummus, fruit (pre-cut up if you’ve got something like a big tasty watermelon), a few rice paper rolls, homemade sushi,  yogurts with berries, a stash of nuts. Pretty much anything that is convenient. Yes, you will have to spend some time prepping this stuff so that it’s then in its convenient form, but it’s worth it once you have a stash of healthy goodies just waiting to be eaten at any time, anywhere. 

  6. Start your day with a big glass of water

    I’m confident you already know that we humans need water to survive and thrive, but this tip is more about using water in an easy way to help your body that little bit extra for free. Simply start your day with a glass of water (lets say roughly 300-400mls).

    You can still have your morning coffee, green tea or whatever you like in the morning; but make the very first thing you have water (so you’re drinking it on an empty stomach) and your body will love you.

    It helps digestion, aids in absorption of nutrients in your gut, hydrates you (duh), helps with getting rid of toxins, kickstarts your metabolism and works to balance your lymphatic system to boost your immune system. Admittedly, drinking water at any time will help with all these things and more, but having a glass first thing in the morning will give you the most benefits. Plus, its free and a really easy habit to build, so why not incorporate it into living a healthy, happy lifestyle?

  7. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day

    I much prefer this to ‘go to bed early’ or ‘wake up at 4:30am’ or ‘always get your eight hours’ because your body doesn’t know what time it is… What your body does know is day time, night time, routine and consistency so give that baby what it wants!

    I try and go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time everyday, within about 30-45 minutes of difference.

  8. Encourage the shit out of yourself

    This is probably my favourite tip! However you want to, whether its in your head, out loud, singing, in the shower, on the train, whatever, whenever and however; encourage the absolute sh*t out of yourself!

    Practicing positive thinking and self-love, and being the person you can rely on for that is such an empowering, motivating and super healthy way to live! Why wait for someone else to tell you that they’re really f’ing proud that you’ve not had any refined sugar for four days or ran an extra kilometer today…? You tell you that you’re proud! After all, you’re doing all this health-stuff for you, so get used to encouraging yourself every damn day and you’ll be unstoppable before you know it!

  9. Swap unhealthy drinks for kombucha

    I think we’ve established now that I am obsessed with kombucha, but let’s put that tiny little bias aside for a second and look at this from a health and practical point of view - if you swapped all the non-healthy drinks (I’m talking soft drink, fruit juice and alcohol mainly, but anything else unhealthy fits here) for kombucha, you will notice an incredible change in how you feel in a few short days! Trust me!

    You’re essentially swapping something unhealthy for something that is without a doubt healthy, all while still hitting all the right spots we’re trying to hit when we have a cold, sweet beverage (fizzy, refreshing, sweet, cooling, tasty, all those things).

    A little tip with buying kombucha - look on the packets/labels and make sure the ingredients are predominantly tea, sugar, water, SCOBY - although SCOBY may not be listed - natural flavours (if any) and maybe a secondary natural sweetener like Stevia (although, it bothers me personally when companies do this because kombucha is naturally sweet without ‘sweeteners’ but that’s a story *rant* for another time).

  10. Move your body in different ways on most days

    If your goal is to holistically live as healthy as possible, this is a super important tip… Our bodies love regular exercise, but what they love more is variety of movements, intensity and time. I truly believe that aiming for 3-5 days of different kinds of physical activity is much better for our bodies and much easier to attain than to try and do the exact same exercise/s day in, day out.

    For me, I walk a lot as a nurse. All day, everyday, power walking for a full 8-hour shift. So when it comes to ‘actually exercising’ I try and do other kinds of things like yoga, HIIT, weights and so on. Not because I don’t like walking, but because my body already gets its fair share of that and not of the other things.

  11. Bonus tip - Do not pay attention to buzz words, health star ratings or advertising

    Everything on the front of packets of foods is purely there to make you buy the product. Buzzwords, ‘health star ratings’, colours, pictures, everything is there solely to lure you in so you buy the product. My number one advice with these fancy looking, pseudo ‘health labels’ is to ignore them completely.

    Do not buy something because it says ‘organic’.
    Do not buy something because it says ‘natural’.
    Do not buy something because it has a ‘5-star health rating’.
    They’re all marketing techniques and quite often are total and utter BS. Read the backs of the packets and work out for yourself how healthy/organic/natural/whatever that product is for you and your health goals.

    I have full faith that these tips will help set you up for living your healthiest life that you will sustain for life - none of those fad diets or anything here! Let me know what your favourite health tip/hack is, especially if it’s not on this list because I loooove finding new ways to better look after my health and I’m sure others would love to hear some more tips too!

    Until next time,

    Keep finding your happy.

    Georgia x
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Life Is Pointless...

1/3/2019

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These last few weeks have been a little rocky for me. Well, when I say a little, I mean a really, f***ing huge amount of rocky. Like, rockier than all the rocks on the planet put together. The positive thing about these not so fun, borderline traumatic and full fledged shitty weeks for little old George, is that they reminded me of an important message…
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Green Tea vs Matcha; Who Will Win?

18/1/2019

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Hi, my name is Georgia and I am addicted to green tea. There, I said it. It’s so freeing getting that off my chest, but I have no intention of changing this addiction because this addiction, unlike a lot of others, has incredible health benefits!
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The Easy Way to Get Out of Debt

3/7/2018

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​I want to start this blog post by pointing out that I am in no way a financial advisor of any kind, I am simply sharing how I have got myself out of debt (twice…) in the hope that I can help you get out of the unbelievably sh*t rut of being in debt. I also want to point out that you shouldn’t beat yourself up about getting into debt; majority of people have been there and even more are still there, so it’s okay. As long as you can remain optimistic and change those naughty spending habits, there’s no reason to give debt a second thought.
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Five Affordable, Easy and Healthy Weekly Lunches

30/5/2018

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We’ve all been there. The days when you have nothing to take for lunch, you’re already running late and therefore your options for food today are a) whatever you can get in or around your workplace (usually unhealthy or expensive or both) or b) tuna and microwave rice cups or whatever else is in the back of the pantry. For some of us, this happens more often than not (don’t worry, we have all been there) and it is for those humans that this blog post was born.
 
I love taking left overs for lunch, but sometimes, for whatever reason, that just doesn’t always happen. You might remember 10 minutes before bed that you don’t have lunch tomorrow, or even 10 minutes before leaving for work. It might be Sunday and you want to have at least a few lunches for the week organized but there’s not a single thing you can think of to actually make. I think for almost every human who doesn’t work from home, not having something for lunch happens more often than we’d like… So, I present to you, five affordable, easy and healthy lunches that you can make in no time at all and tweak to your likings.
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How I Met the Love of My Life

15/4/2018

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Everyone loves a good romance story. Even guys can be suckers for a bit of romance, even if they don’t want to admit it. If you’ve come looking for romance; for red roses, candlelit ceremonies and ‘I love you’s’ written in flower petals, I’m sorry my sweet but you’ve come to the wrong place. The story of how I found the love of my life is much more reality than fairytale fiction and I wouldn’t have it any other way. First, let’s go back in time to the fun age range of 16-20.
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Love Yo' Self

24/2/2018

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Have you ever met one of those people who, with every word they speak, glow and are full of happiness, love and light? The kind of person who just seems to have everything in the world and more and all you can think is ‘damn, I wish I was like that/had that/could be that!’? Well I’m here to tell you that you can be that person. You can be the person who has positivity, happiness and gratitude pouring out of every little cell you have. All you need to do is master some self-loving practices… and if you’re wondering how on Earth to do that, don’t worry, this whole post is about helping you do exactly that.
Self-love is something that is becoming more and more popular these days and I am absolutely loving it! I love that there is more of a focus on learning to love yourself, be proud of who you are and not be embarrassed to admit it.

Self-love is definitely something that takes some getting used to because sadly, somewhere along the path of evolution, we humans have been brought up to put others first, be embarrassed/ashamed of our flaws and to think it is selfish or conceited to love yourself or do anything for yourself. Well, that’s all a bunch of BS and I want you to stop thinking that way right now. Here are my tips and tricks to being a self-loving angel!



1.     Know your values, like, really, really know your values 
Being someone who loves themselves (in the soul nourishing way not the stuck-up way) involves really knowing who you are, what you believe in and what you value. Knowing your values will help you work out what it is that will fill your cup instead of empty it. For example, some of my highest values are independence, knowledge, health and being in nature. So, for me, some of my favourite self-love rituals/practices/whatever’s involve those things: solo brunch dates, yoga outdoors, having an intelligent conversation with someone and learning new things. If you can do more things that make you feel full instead of doing things for others or because you think it’s the right thing to do when maybe it isn’t in-line with your values, how you feel about yourself will exponentially improve on the daily.
Getting to know yourself does take time and knowing your true values will as well. Don’t rush to think of things you value because you feel you have to have values, or compare your values with others, you are you, not anyone else and that is the most amazing thing.


2.     Get rid of anything toxic
Have you ever had one of those ‘friends’ or boyfriends/girlfriends who (you may not even realise yet) drains your soul, makes you feel sh*t about yourself and/or isn’t in line with your values? Give them the flick ASAP! The same goes for toxic habits, behaviours etc. Anything that makes you question that you are an amazing, talented, gorgeous human who has everything to give this world, then it’s time to unapologetically say ‘see-ya later’.
By doing point number one, you’ll work out what is really important to you and what isn’t. Sometimes this means culling some toxic things/people/behaviours from your life and putting yourself first. Once you’ve worked out what you like/value and what you don’t like/value you can get into point three which I think is lots of fun!


3.     Compliment yourself on the daily
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: pep talking yourself works wonders! I do it all the time… ‘Georgia, even though sometimes your hair doesn’t cooperate and is a little on the crazy side, it looks amazing today!’… ‘Alright Georgia, your shift is going to be hectic but you already know that you can do it so don’t you dare even think for a second that you can’t’… ‘You did such a good job today and you should proud soul sista!!!’ You get the idea.
Start getting in the habit of recognizing and really focusing on the positives of you. You might start by telling yourself in the mornings one thing you like about your appearance, one thing you like about your personality and something that you’re excited about doing today. Or, you could spend a few minutes at the end of the day thinking about the things that you did well that day. This can be a hard one to master because it’s so easy to focus on the negatives but once you start focusing on the good things about you, you’ll be loving yourself sick before you know it.


4.     Treat yourself like you treat your best friend
We all have someone in our life – a best friend, sister, partner, mother – who we think the absolute world of. If they ever put themselves down, think they’re not good enough or are focusing on the tiniest, insignificant negative thing about themselves, we are so quick to tell them to shut up because they’re wrong. They are (in our eyes) so beautiful, caring, intelligent and soul filling that we can’t even begin to understand how they could think of themselves so negatively…
You should look at yourself like that. You should catch yourself when you’re thinking negatively, stop your mean mind in its tracks, tell it to shut up and remind yourself something positive about you. After all, you are indescribably amazing!


5.     Make time for self-love practice
One of my goals for this year is making time for weekly self-love practice because it’s so easy to put yourself last when things get busy. Like I said earlier, I love doing things like taking myself out to brunch, spending some time in the garden or running a candle-lit bath with some nice music on. These are my weekly self-love practices, but I also do little self-love things throughout the day (hello point three). Writing in your diary/planner/schedule self-love time will keep you more accountable and hopefully help you give yourself some regular, well-deserved self-lovin’ time.
 

6.     Be unapologetically you
This is probably one of the most important points, if not the most important.
We all have our little quirks; our things that we think people shouldn’t know about because we think they’re weird or embarrassing. These things, the things that make you different to the next person, these are life’s greatest gifts and you should embrace them with everything you’ve got.
I used to be embarrassed telling people that I like gardening more than I like going out for expensive cocktails. Even to this day sometimes, for a split second, I get embarrassed telling people that I created a blog and Instagram because I get scared they will judge me. But all it takes is a few extra seconds of talking to my brain for me to be like ‘oh helllllll no you are not embarrassed of your hard work and passion, let it shine baby!’ and then I’m all good. Embrace who you are and learn to love your individuality because my darlings, life is way too short not to absolutely love yourself, flaws and all.

If, after reading the above six points you’re thinking ‘self-love is not my thing’, please don’t think that, just take the key message from this post and tailor your self-love practice to you. Don’t think that self-love is just about talking to yourself and trying to be happy 24/7, self-love is about doing things that put you first, that make you feel good about yourself. Buying yourself flowers, going to the gym, eating a home cooked meal, spending time with your family, getting your nails done, meditating, having a glass of the expensive wine at dinner, stretching, painting, watching your fave movie, these are all things that can be considered self-love practices if they’re on your terms and you are thinking of yourself when you do them, not of someone else.

Self-love is putting you first, becoming your own best friend and celebrating every inch of your existence for the phenomenon that it is. Now go and fall in love with yourself my darlings, it is the greatest thing you’ll ever do.

Georgia x
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Savvy Food Shopping 101

28/1/2018

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For those of you who have followed me for a while, you will know that I love a bargain. I don’t see the point in over spending when it’s unnecessary, BUT I also don’t understand compromising your health for the sake of a few dollars.
 
Because of this outlook that I have, I have somewhat perfected the art of shopping to a budget whilst still eating healthy, nourishing food. I will share this wisdom with you in the form of my top eight tips to shopping savvy without compromising on health.
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A typical $25-$30 produce shop from the markets.

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How To Nourish Bowl

5/12/2017

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If you follow me on Instagram you will know I am nourish bowl obsessed. I normally have them for breakfast, sometimes lunch and, you guessed it, sometimes even for dinner. I love them because you can put basically anything in them so you don’t have to be super organized to make them. They’re so easy to put together and they’re obvs delicious. I have put together a list of my go to ingredients, how I prepare these ingredients and some other ideas that you could try.
 
If you make a nourish bowl and want to show me, use the hashtag #hlhnourishbowl on Instagram and I’ll be able to check out your masterpiece!
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Your Guide to a Healthy (ish) Christmas

4/12/2017

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It’s that time of year again! The time when people everywhere start saying ‘December? Already?!’ and have flashbacks of last years Christmas that literally feels like it was two months ago. The time of year when you get to see your family and usually have to deal with that one relative who always gets too festive and embarrasses themselves. Or worse, embarrasses you.
 
The time of year when you have to buy presents for people that you don’t really know so you don’t know what to get them and they end up with something super random like a towel from you. The time of year when there is more naughty food and alcohol than you could poke a stick at… the naughty food and alcohol that you’ve been so good at staying away from. This post is about said naughty food and alcohol.  
 
I give you: How to enjoy the silly season without getting too silly.
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I am so grateful to be able to share the little things in life that make me happy with people like you.
You are truly valued here and the thought of helping you find your happy makes me glow.
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