Category Archives: Lifestyle

Water, Water Everywhere

Water is one of those life essentials with SO many health benefits across the spectrum of wellness that it’s high time I write about it! At no time is it more critical to stay conscious of water intake than in the peak of summer’s heat…so here are a few thoughts for you about water and hydration.

1 – Drink a full glass of water upon waking.
Drinking a full glass of water upon waking is an age-old beauty secret. Whether or not it’s true, I can still recommend this practice! You’ve just gone 7 or 8 hours without water – break the fast!

2 – Drink water throughout the day.
I’m not going to give you a formula for determining exactly how much water to drink. What I will say is that MOST of us are chronically dehydrated and one way to be less so is to drink water throughout the day. Try it. You’ll be amazed by how much better you feel from this one simple change!

3 – Recognize that dehydration masquerades as hunger.
Sometimes you will THINK you are hungry when in reality you are thirsty! Try this. The next time it’s a hot day and you are jonesing for ice cream… drink a big glass of cold water first. See if it quells your craving. 9 times out of 10 it will – the other time you can go find yourself a cone of the best ice cream in the vicinity with my blessing!

4 – Learn that water can taste great and still be healthy.
Many people claim they don’t like the taste of water – or that they find it boring. This group has fueled an entire industry of flavored waters, many of which are filled with sugar and added calories. Here’s an alternative. Try infusing your water with herbs, or fruit, or even vegetables! Buy a beautiful pitcher…fill it with water…add fresh mint…or watermelon chunks…or cucumber and lime slices…or lemons….and allow it to sit in the refrigerator for a few hours. Voila – spa water!

5 – Practice good hydration for mental clarity.
When we’re starting to feel a little foggy, many of us reach for coffee or a caffeinated soda. Switch that to a big glass of water and you’ll clear your head just as well without buzzing and then crashing. Just nice, steady energy. Aaaah.

6 – For heaven’s sake, bottle your own water!
There’s really no reason to buy bottled water at this point – there are so many beautiful and practical reusable bottles on the market that you can just filter your own and take it with you, refilling on the go. Have you seen these gorgeous bottles from KOR? Or these from SIGG? Or these from Camelback which my kids love? Need a filter? PUR makes a great faucet-mount or refrigerator pitcher. Or you can use the built-in filter in your fridge if it has a water dispenser – that’s what I do! Just remember to periodically change your filter.

A closing thought – please don’t take clean water for granted!
In my former life, I worked for Procter & Gamble, and in my last role with the company, I had the privilege of working pretty closely with a P&G-run organization devoted to providing safe drinking water in the developing world. Called Children’s Safe Drinking Water, the organization really opened my eyes to the World Water Crisis and its impact on the health of individuals without access to clean water. You can learn about the crisis and the organization at the Children’s Safe Drinking Water website but here are a few facts pulled from the site to get you started. I hope you’ll start to view the clean drinking water you have access to as a privilege and that you will take FULL advantage of it!

More than one billion people do not have access to safe water.
Diarrhea caused by drinking contaminated water remains a leading cause of illness and death among infants and children in the developing world.
About 1.8 million children die every year due to diarrheal diseases.
More children die from diarrheal illnesses like cholera and dysentery than from HIV/AIDS or malaria combined.
P&G has collaborated with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) since 1995 to develop safe drinking water systems that people can easily use in their homes.
There is conclusive evidence that simple, low-cost interventions at the community level can dramatically improve the quality of household stored water and greatly reduce the risk of diarrheal disease and death.
It is well documented that simply providing safe, clean, drinkable water can reduce deadly diarrhea and other devastating diseases by about 50%.

This entry was posted in All blog posts, Food, Lifestyle and tagged water on July 6, 2010 by Cherylanne Skolnicki.

Are you on a roll?

There’s nothing quite like momentum, is there? You can just feel it in action as the path you’re on gets easier and easier and you’re picking up speed. You’re soaring along with less and less effort and less and less intention…people and things show up in your life to propel you along your chosen path…you are flying! This whole concept would be unequivocally fabulous, except for one thing. Momentum works the same whether you are headed in a positive direction or a destructive one.

I’ve heard story after story from clients who can’t quite figure out when things started heading in the wrong direction. They realize that at some point they must have established habits that have become so comfortable and so ingrained that they are incredibly challenging to break. Life got busy. They stopped cooking. They forgot to exercise. They came to rely on processed foods or restaurant takeout. They neglected key relationships or stopped participating in activities that fed their souls. Their downward spiral built momentum and it seemed unstoppable.

And then one day, thanks to whatever “sign” got their attention, they hit the brakes. They STOPPED the momentum. And they looked up to figure out where they were and how in the world they got there.

I see this stopping point, this resting place, as magical. This moment of stillness and reflection represents the opportunity to consciously choose a new direction. It holds within it the golden opportunity to course-correct.

Yet for all the magic and potential of that moment, it also holds a new challenge. You have to begin from a standing start. There is no momentum yet. Your old lifestyle felt easy and comfortable and effortless as you were rolling along with the wind at your back…coasting. Your newly chosen path feels hard…impossible even. It takes extraordinary effort to begin. It takes even more effort to persevere through the ups and downs and fits and starts of the first days or weeks or months. Memories of the old, easy, way haunt you. You take two steps forward and one step back. Yet slowly, carefully, with great intention, you begin to build momentum for this new direction. The new rituals become more routine and take less mental energy to complete. You begin to feel a yearning for your chosen new behaviors. You start to forget the old direction. Slowly, you gather momentum and new people and new experiences show up in your life to support you on your journey in the new direction. And one day you find that this life has become every bit as easy as the old one and you can’t imagine living any other way.

So….are you on a roll? In which direction are you headed? Is it time to bring yourself to that potential-filled resting place and choose a new course?

This entry was posted in All blog posts, Lifestyle and tagged best life, momentum on June 9, 2010 by Cherylanne Skolnicki.

Do You Have the Energy for Life’s Possibilities?

Note: I’ve been encouraged to do more blogging about the wellness and life topics I often delve into with my clients at Nourish instead of focusing more narrowly on food. I’m up for it! It’s all part of the Decadently Healthful life I try to live and that we at Nourish work with clients to achieve. So in this blog, while I’ll continue to write frequently about food and healthful eating, I’ll also dip into the broader subjects of health and wellness and living a vibrant, abundant LIFE! I’d love to hear from you through comments as I continue to evolve this blog so that it most thoroughly stimulates your thinking and inspires your personal journey to your own decadently healthful life. So here goes….

I’ve been biting off a lot lately – maybe more than I can chew – maybe not. With the arrival of warm weather, a growing business, an incremental consulting opportunity, two preschoolers at home all day, and a new baby arriving in six weeks, there is simply a lot going on that excites me these days! I’m one of those people who is prone to overdoing it. I always believe I have it all under control and that I can manage my life through rigorous scheduling and self-discipline and careful planning…but the truth, in the wise words of Deepak Chopra, is that “Even when you think you have your life all mapped out, things happen that shape your destiny in ways you might never have imagined.” Or as my father-in-law often quips, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

Sometimes the “things that happen” are small. Last night my 2 year old woke up at midnight with a stomach bug and he and I spent most of the night huddled on the bathroom floor with him whimpering or vomiting or napping and me stroking his head and whispering soothing motherly words while wondering how on earth I’d have the energy to get through the jam-packed upcoming day. And yet here I am. Getting through it with some reserve of energy that presented itself just when I needed it.

And sometimes the things are big. An unexpected turn of events that radically reshapes the plans we had for the rest of our tomorrows. The reserves we require to navigate these changes are far more significant and require more careful cultivation to have available when they are needed. It doesn’t matter if the unexpected event is catastrophic or overwhelmingly joyous – it calls upon us to deliver energy we never knew we had. I’ve had a few of these show up lately too – fortunately all of the joyful variety – but they require energy in order to say “YES” to them!

I often talk to my clients about the idea of creating energy for life’s possibilities. When we dream together about what their very best life would look like and they immediately articulate a clear vision and their path to get there (trust me – sometimes it happens!), I try to get them to leave room in that vision for the unexpected. For the husband’s new job in another city. For the birth of another child. For the blossoming of a hobby into a passion. For an accelerated promotion. For illness or injury or winning the lottery!

When we hold tightly to control over our original plans (and yes, I’m absolutely prone to do this, too) we can miss the even bigger things the world has planned for us. Staying open to the wonder of possibilities – living the questions so to speak – allows for a much richer life.

Yet, to take advantage of those opportunities, we need to have energy in reserve. If life shows up with a big, beautiful, wrapped present and we’re too tired to open it, we simply miss out. There’s rarely a second chance to say YES when life offers us an opportunity.

It’s why I feel so strongly about living a vibrant, energized life and about NOT walking around in a chronic state of depletion. Moments of depletion? Normal. (Just ask the woman who was up all night on the bathroom floor!) But a life of depletion? Daunting! Finding ways to replenish ourselves in small everyday ways (a walk outside at lunchtime, a killer iPod mix for the morning run, a jar of sun tea on the patio) and through bigger, more intentional actions (a spa day, sending the kids to Grandma’s for a weekend, a family summer vacation, a sabbatical or leave of absence) funnels energy into our reserve so it’s there when we most need it. These activities also clear our minds enough to SEE the possibilities set before us. In our daily head-down, fast-paced, don’t-get-in-my-way lives we rarely pick our heads up long enough to see the big gift that may be sitting in front of us. It shows up as a distraction or an obstacle rather than as a possibility.

If you’re living in a state of depletion, you can feel it. Ask yourself why you’re allowing this to happen. What would have to be true to find moments of replenishment? What would it take to carve out a real chunk of time for more intense renewal? What’s stopping you? Your best life is waiting for you to be ready to take it on….

This entry was posted in All blog posts, Lifestyle and tagged balanced energy, best life, possibilities, wellness on May 25, 2010 by Cherylanne Skolnicki.