At the end of the summer, fed up with feeling bloated, gross and not my best, I decided to embark on a midlife Whole30. I didn’t do it specifically to lose weight, although I did lose several pounds, which was a bonus and helpful for fitting back into my fall non-stretchy pants. I wanted to figure out how I could reduce the number of migraine headaches I was having, lessen the achiness in my finger joints – and control my eternal addiction to sugar (aka, the devil). I generally cook…
Much that’s written about life after fifty focuses on our physical well-being but not as much attention is given to midlife mental health. At any age, mental health is crucial to our well-being. From childhood straight into midlife and beyond – how we think is interconnected with how we feel. Most of us have experienced how anxiety can lead to a stomachache and headache. We don’t need to be doctors or psychologists to understand how stress and worry can make us physical ill. “Stress can increase hormones like adrenaline and…
I’ve been explaining to my fifteen year old that the choices he makes now are important to his future. And I don’t mean the do you want pizza or mac and cheese for dinner tonight choices. It’s only natural for us to want to make everything go right during their high school years. So my verbal encouragement (aka nagging) has been on auto-repeat: How he needs to focus on his grades. How he needs to eat healthier and get more sleep, how he needs to steer clear from all of…
I started writing an inspirational go-for-your-dreams post because much of the time I do feel inspired… but you know what? I’m not feeling it today. Today, I feel like I need a good cry. I haven’t yet (and I’m NOT a crier) but, hey, the day is still young. And so what? Maybe a good cry is exactly what we need some days. By fifty, the secret is out. Life isn’t always rainbows and unicorns. Things don’t always go our way. Life doesn’t always play out the way we’d like…
Ok, so I’ll admit there are some bummers about being over fifty, but let’s not focus on those today. Instead, let’s celebrate five big reasons it’s flipping fantastic to be over fifty! 1. Clarity. We are now at the top of the hill where we can see more clearly the stuff that matters in life and the crap that doesn’t. We’re old enough to have lost loved ones and to have watched friends suffer through diseases, divorces and tragedies. We clearly understand that with a few decades of life left…
I’m sure we can all agree that there are so many times in life when we want to scream I NEED HELP. Not a single one of us had made it to midlife without someone’s help here or there along the way. So why do so many of us feel that saying I need help is a failure of some kind? We are raised from childhood for the end game of becoming self-sufficient. We were told to think for ourselves. Choose for ourselves. Do for ourselves. A big part of…