YOUR SOLUTIONS

[00:00:00] I want people to see my shirt, but you can't. It's the inhale exhale. We need to do this or that.
[00:00:06] That's a good way to start. Let's exhale. Wow. We made it to episode 50, right? Wow. Wow. Is right. 50 episodes. I'm excited. Yeah. So this is kind of like our celebration episode. So we welcome you all to today. Uh, this has been a wonderful journey for me and I hope you too, Patryce? It has, it's been enlightening.
[00:00:39] And even through the challenges, this has been something I've looked forward to every week and actually a lot of good feedback from my own family. So, they've been able to tune in even my young adults so that I think it's good for our family too. So that's good. Great. I mean, I think I've learned a lot.
[00:00:57] I mean, there are things we're learning right along the way. Yeah. So, uh, you never know at all, you just continue to learn and continue to try and improve and, and just build up on your knowledge and, you know, try to implement new things and one step at a time, right? One step at a time. So that's another reason this has been encouraging because it encourages me to keep going.
[00:01:24] And sharing, . Okay. So what are we doing today? What are we talking about? Wow. Well, I think we decided to talk about how do we just summarize or hone in on some takeaways. And so I think we, we settled on three takeaways. I-S-L. So intentionality isthe "I", and simplifyis the "S", and "L" is for love.
[00:01:54] So we can start by talking about what do we mean about being intentional? What should we be intentional about? And, um, well, let's start with how we think, how we eat. And how we move, which really means exercise . So let's be more intentional about these three things in particular. And regarding how we think, uh, listeners can tune in to our last podcast podcast, 49 to get more detailed about just how important our thought life is. And to be intentional, to be disciplined about our thought life, especially when we have toxic thoughts. So they can tune into that to get more detailed about our thought life and, and how , doing things like, um practicing affirmations, positive affirmations, prayer, and journaling. These are just a couple of things that we talk about more and episode number 49. And then also we talked about eating in many of our episodes because we are all about encouraging more of a plant-based diet.
[00:03:07] And so one thing I'm always bringing up. You're right there with me I think the importance of reading our labels. Be intentional when we're purchasing food or just whatever we're putting into our bodies. Let us read the labels. Label reading it's a good start, a good start. And I think to that end, we can read labels, but when you're making food yourself or preparing your own food, you don't have to read as much, you know, more about what you're putting into your body in some ways. And maybe you can talk to that more.
[00:03:44] I think the most important thing to do is to eat the colorful fruits and vegetables. So the most important thing to do is just to eat them. You know, go shopping for them, pick something that looks fresh and pretty, um, fresh is the goal.
[00:04:07] That's key. That's something that I think that a lot of people miss out on their diet is fruits and vegetables and especially vegetables and probably especially like leafy greens and maybe like, um, like, uh, Bell peppers, you know, the bright pops of color. We just need a rainbow of colors on our plate or throughout the day, you know, that's the big thing.
[00:04:36] If you're not preparing any now just start with preparing some meals right now. That's a really good way to begin. Um, I know that for me, most of the label reading involves like maybe pasta. You want whole grain, pasta, that's the goal. Also whole grain rices . When I'm thinking about reading labels, I'm thinking about is this a whole grain product?
[00:05:03] I guess, nuts seeds, things like that. We want them to just be nuts, seeds, and basic ingredients. No added oils, no added sugar, things like that. So those are the kinds of things that I buy that may have labels on them. But other than that, I'm really. Focusing on the produce section where I'm just buying fresh food.
[00:05:27] You know, sometimes it's organic. Sometimes it's not. Our recent episodes, we have links there about the clean 15 and the dirty dozen, you know, maybe those that you may want to avoid. Uh, if they're not organic, but remember organic is not always possible. There's lots of foods still available that you can buy that don't have to be organic, but can really boost up your, um, your nutrient levels.
[00:05:56] So, yeah. The goal is to prepare more foods at home. Okay. Start with basic ingredients and you will just be amazed at the flavors that you can get out of basic ingredients. Sometimes we take little shortcuts using a sauce or whatever. On the website, there's also many dressing recipes that are oil-free and just tasty recipes that you can do by adding, you know, your own spices, such as ginger and garlic and, you know, salt, pepper, fresh garlic, you know, or powdered or whatever.
[00:06:37] We're going to switch over to once a month podcasts so that we can bring more, um, recipes to you. Okay, that's fun. That's going to be a lot of fun.
[00:06:49] I love that you talked about just preparing at home, how we can be intentional about that. And we understand people are very busy and there are times when you do buy packaged foods. And that's why we did start with a reminder to read the labels and as long as you can pronounce all the words, that's a good start too, on these labels.
[00:07:08] But to ultimately just start with whole foods, whole foods. Start in the produce section and stay there and do the outer edges maybe not as much. And because you're in the produce section, like you've said, Shonda, we're preparing at home foods that should reflect the rainbow. Because the more colors, the more nutrient dense our meals will be. And I'm just, as you were speaking, I was just thinking about the fact that we have orange potatoes and yellow, white potatoes. We have dark green leafy vegetables, spinach and kale. But then we also have the carrots which are orange, and then we have the bell peppers, green, yellow, orange, and the list goes on with how many colors of the rainbow that we can find in our produce section of the grocery store.
[00:08:01] Were also, you know, reminded that, uh, moving, just moving. We need to be intentional about that. And I can just be, I'm just gonna put it out there.
[00:08:11] I'm not one of those people. Who's like, oh, I'm looking forward to working out today. And I'm an hour at the gym. No, I'm just not. And there are people like that where they are looking forward to their run or jog. More power to you. That's awesome. But if you're not that way, that's okay. That's okay. Just start from where you are.
[00:08:31] Maybe it's just walking on a regular basis or stretching. You've talked about that so often. How simply stretching is a plus that's very important and, um, just so many things we can do to move. And I think we've talked about also, uh, just being more active in your day. Making sure that whether you work outside the home or, or don't, you can be intentional and take breaks.
[00:09:00] I know people who work at a desk, there is nothing wrong with once an hour, you get up, you stretch your legs, you go walk around or you meet some of the people that you might just make a phone call to in your office. Just go say, Hey, can I meet you at your desk? Or. What have you, uh, and if you're at home, there's certainly opportunities in and outside of our homes doing some work around there. Cooking, preparing these wonderful meals we're just talking about and then being in our gardens or just being outside.
[00:09:29] Yeah. Yeah. Those are all really good reminders. And I thought about, you know, the purpose of stretching is kind of like to relieve muscle tension. It really relieves muscle tension, especially if you're sitting at a desk , it's really important to stretch those shoulders and things like that.
[00:09:49] So, you know, just Google it and see what the best exercises are and just do a few. And another thing you talked about yard work. Yeah. I like to do exercises that produce something. So I do like walking, walking is relaxing, so that produces relaxation. Right. But also I like to cut the grass, you know?
[00:10:12] Um, I have a push mower. And if it doesn't get too high, it's pretty easy to use. And I'm not calling it, you know, my exercise thing, but it is exercise. Yeah. Do you know? So that's just something don't, don't discount your yard work and things like that.
[00:10:31] That is your exercise. So keep doing it. So true. I've been pulling weeds lately with all the rain. We have plenty of weeds. I felt some muscle aches because I think you use different muscles when you're doing the weed pulling than I do, maybe when I'm walking. So that's a great, great reminder, Shonda that we shouldn't discount the exercise we received by doing yard work.
[00:10:55] Yeah. Awesome. so I get the big message is to be intentional about how we're living out our daily lives. And those are just some of the things we wanted to hone in on. And then we also wanted to talk about simplifying life.
[00:11:13] That's important too, right? That can release stress. It means, for example, just let's keep it simple as much as we can and, and start doing it today. Don't delay at looking at opportunities on how to simplify our daily lives.
[00:11:30] There was a TV show. I think it is called unplugged nation. It may not be going on anymore, but anyway, it was a reality TV show where families felt that their lives were too busy actually. And often they had children, um, different ages, but they wanted to unplug.
[00:11:48] So whether they were living in a city or not, they had the computers going on. They had the cell phones going on. They had working all the time and they, they said they wanted to unplug from technology. So the reality show would have these families check out a couple of properties and pick one.
[00:12:06] And sometimes it was a whole farm that they would have to run and other things. And although they may not have ended up living that way every day after that, they always said they learned so much about how their quality of life could be better if they slow down some. Simplify.
[00:12:27] I remember it was a while back. We didn't have power due to a hurricane and, uh, it was like 12 days. I so enjoyed that. But just being able to be with your own thoughts, I think is important in a person's day, you know, we do so many things and we have a quick thought here, but we don't really take time to process our thoughts. So I think taking time in the day, and I think it's good in the middle of the day. You know, you can do this in the beginning. You can do this at the end of the day, but there's like part of your time out in the middle of the day just like taking a stretch or a walk, you know, to process your thoughts.
[00:13:12] Hmm, to not just wait to do it at the end of the day or just when we begin our day, that way, but throughout the day, to be intentional, to process our thoughts to be present. To be present in the moment. That I think lends itself to simplifying our lives. That's great. And yeah, I think you also had some other tips here about maybe incorporating routines.
[00:13:38] Uh, that's another way to simplify our lives. Right? And going back to how you shared about planning or making our own food at home or meals. Well, let's simplify that process by planning. If we plan it, it won't seem so overwhelming, you know, to, to do that. Right um, so yeah, if you have something that must be a part of your routine, ask yourself, how can I simplify this? You know, what steps can I make to make this an easier task on myself? And so what can I do in my kitchen to make cooking easier? You know, it may be, uh, you have to declutter the kitchen, you know, maybe there's just, maybe you have too many pots and pans.
[00:14:27] You know, just sitting out and you just, you need, you need a focus space. I think, you know, being more intentional about being focused, you know, for what you're doing. So you're not distracted, you know, maybe put the phone down or turn it on some music, you know, while you're cooking or something, you know, what can you do to put yourself in a more relaxed state when you're cooking?
[00:14:52] You know, um, give love to your food, you know, and it'll taste better than a rushed meal, you know? Um, Um, I like that tip about de-cluttering and just organizing your kitchen in a way that works well for you. If you're the main person preparing these meals, how does that look for you? And if that means organizing the refrigerator and the pantry once a month, or just have a system to lend itself to you, not being stressed about preparing these meals.
[00:15:24] And again, um, I'm not as good as you use Shonda. I do buy more things, but even, yeah. Like I'll buy vegetables for example. And especially during holidays, instead of going to the beauty shop or whatever, I will spend that money on getting chopped vegetables already. Especially when I'm going to have a large group of people and I have so much going on already. There's just three or so vegetables that take a little more time .So I can decide, well, those are the things I'm going to have already chopped up for me. Uh, just whatever it takes to simplify your life and help to minimize stress.
[00:16:03] Yeah. Sometimes you have a lot of time to cut vegetables. Sometimes you don't. It can be relaxing, it can be stressful. It depends on where we are in our life or each day changes. Each day changes and allow it to change and just go with the flow and work with what you have.
[00:16:24] Right. So, yeah. And so decluttering still is in my mind, you know, about the kitchen, maybe the stacks of paper, you know, maybe in the kitchen, you know, cover them up, move them to the side where you can't see them while you cooking. So you can focus on what you're doing. Um, we talked about the mind being decluttered, you know, uh, thinking about that and, and, um, I did have to put in the finance part.
[00:16:53] I know we don't talk about that much here. But that's just part of simplifying our life. So we're wanting to talk about the real food and drinks lifestyle, you know, we want to encompass every part of living. That may be something that's that's causing issues.
[00:17:10] , if finances get in the way of eating a healthy diet, we need to create a video on how to eat on a budget. How's that? I think that's a great idea. Seriously. Yeah. We have to put that on the to-do list. You because I hear so many people say, oh, it's too expensive to eat healthy.
[00:17:31] And my husband who is into finance he even suggested that we do that. Because that would be yet another thing he can incorporate when he's talking to people about their financial planning. So, yeah, we just don't want you to not think about your finances when you're simplifying your life.
[00:17:47] That's you know. Major impact on who we are, how we live our life. I think you mentioned was taking inventory of how we spend our time. So that can mean a lot of things, but let's just be honest. We have a lot of distractions in 2021, and I don't think that those distractions are just going to go away with each coming year.
[00:18:12] We have phones, we have the TV, we have the radio. We have our own thoughts. And I liked what you said earlier about not just doing something in the beginning and the end of the day, those are fine time to do things, but to take inventory of even how we're spending our time throughout the day, that's a healthy, healthy exercise too.
[00:18:31] Yeah. To ask ourselves, is there something more important than I should be doing right now? . Yeah. Focus, prioritize. Make a list. A simple list, but just make a list. Yeah, I like it. I like it.
[00:18:45] And then what was the, oh, the third thing we were going to focus on is love. Right?
[00:18:52] And, uh, let's start with let's love more. Okay. Starting with ourselves. I think we take that for granted that it's understood that we should love ourselves. But honestly, I don't think everyone's there. So that's okay. If that's something you need to work on then work on it. And the reason why it's so important is if we learn to love ourselves, well, we'll be able to love others better. Yeah. So what does that really look like? Learning to love ourselves. What are some ideas? So, yeah. Um, some things that I thought about when you were talking about it is there's two different things. There's like, maybe we're not loving ourselves in our mind.
[00:19:45] Like we talked about the negative thoughts back in episode 49, you know. We're talking down to ourselves, you know? So that is something that we can think about. So go back to episode 49, if you need a reminder there. We can love ourselves better through our thoughts. I thought of that too.
[00:20:04] When you just asked that good question. It starting with our own positive thought life, hopefully versus having negative self-talking thought. Right. That's good. And then I thought about like, Taking time for relaxation, like give yourself a foot rub, you know, if you need it, or, hands or shoulders or whatever.
[00:20:29] I mean, those are just some areas that tend to hold tension and we can, you know, love ourselves by giving ourselves some massages. Take time out to to help your body. To take care of, of ourselves. And that just quickly reminds me of on the airplane when they say in case of emergency, even if you have a child next to you, make sure you put the mask over your own face before you try to help your child. And it's the same thing we need to take time. I love the idea though, of massaging ourselves or even I'm like rubbing my own back or the pat my back, these little things. Or just tell yourself," I love you." There's nothing wrong with that. Standing in front of the mirror and saying, "I love you."
[00:21:20] And just reciting positive affirmations can be very uplifting. And like you said, I think you mentioned music earlier, different things that, you know, might bring you joy or do bring you joy. Practice them. So, yeah, so that allows us to pour love out to others when we're recharged. Right?
[00:21:41] And we're feeling great and relaxed. So then we're not all frazzled and worried about this, worried about that. We're in a better state and we can love on others. Yes, we're more accessible and we're in a better mood. I honestly, and I, I hate to say it. One thing I can work on is loving myself by getting proper sleep because if we get enough sleep, then we'll be more patient. Hopefully we'll be more patient so that we can love other people.
[00:22:12] Which leads me into something you brought up... how can we show other people love? And one way is through volunteering. Yeah, that's a great way.
[00:22:21] I've even known, um, friends or family where maybe it's been a really hard time in their lives. They've lost a job or, or there's just different situations that can happen. But then even in the midst of those challenging times, that's when they were intentional about volunteering. And they said they were so blessed by that.
[00:22:40] I mean, I, I love that you brought up volunteering and, and there's no shortage of where to volunteer. You just have to be intentional to seek out opportunities. Yeah, there's always an opportunity to volunteer. Right. And it's so good like we said, take care of yourself, but you know, to sometimes take the focus off yourself, especially, you know, when something is not going your way or whatever to switch over into serving someone else is a good way to get over
[00:23:11] whatever you think may not be going well for you that day. So you're serving yourself and serving others at the same time. Win, Win! Yes. Excellent. Thank you. That's good.
[00:23:25] Is there anything else? Um, the last one was to, uh, encourage others to love themselves. You know, like we're hoping to encourage everyone to, love yourself
[00:23:37] you know, by doing all these things and implementing these ideas. And then in turn you get filled up and then it pours out. Yes, it's so good. And well, I can't help but bring up, but we're loving ourselves also by looking at what we're putting in our bodies...Being intentional.
[00:23:58] And that's why we're all about our plant based suggested to empower our bodies. To fuel them up in the best way we can. Yeah. No, that's all good stuff. What else did we have for today?
[00:24:14] Well, today was just like a summary. You know, we just wanted to celebrate, this is our celebration episode for episode 50. And now we just want to remind you of some changes that are coming. You know, I think we've mentioned it a couple of times, but, that we're going to start re releasing it once a month only, which will be the first Wednesday of each month.
[00:24:41] Right. And the other weeks, and Patryce I'm hoping you're doing me in some of these, we want to bring, helpful recipes to you and food prep ideas on the YouTube channel. So it's not going to be like you don't hear from us for another month. They're going to be other ways that you'll be hearing from us.
[00:25:06] So stay tuned. The best way to be in touch is to become a subscriber on the YouTube channel. Yeah. In the show notes, there's a link. If you're not already watching through YouTube, there's a link to become a subscriber. Please subscribe to the YouTube channel.
[00:25:27] When we reach 1000 subscribers, we'll get a community tab and that's going to allow us to communicate more easily with you and we can chat back and forth on that community tab. So we need you to tell everyone, you know, to become a subscriber to The Real Food and Drinks YouTube channel. And that will just put more things in motion for us.
[00:25:55] Yeah. Yes. We thought it would be fun to put out there a challenge for everyone listening to us. And, and of course we hope that you will tell other people about us. But the challenge is that you share any comment or feedback about any of the subjects that we've touched on, or even a comment that, Hey, I've enjoyed some of your podcasts, but I really wish he had talked about this too. Or just somewhere you felt like this helped, or this is something I'd like to hear more about, or just any communication we get from you we want to put into a drawing. And then we're going to draw, three names and we will be sending a surprise gift to encourage you on your journey of living your best life. , Hopefully more of a plant-based incorporated life, but living your best life. So we hope that our gifts will just be an incentive to continue making changes in a healthy way.
[00:26:53] So we're challenging everyone to just communicate with us, send us a form of communication and we'll put you in the drawing for that fun gift. Yeah. I think we'll do one per week for the, for the month of September. Yep. Once per week. So get the word out there everyone. Get the word out. Anything you wanted to add to that? No, that's all good. Okay. Sounds good. I'm excited. I'm looking forward to all the comments and input and feedback that we get and I'm sending out these fun prizes
[00:27:32] . So have a good day, everyone. Good week we look forward to hearing from you. Go to the show notes. Yes. Everything Shonda said. Bye.