Over the years, I cultivated healthy habits that have made a healthy lifestyle easier, especially on a budget. At 36, I am making a huge career change to a GIA Graduate Gemologist and jewelry designer, from a former life as an accountant. This means I have to be smart with our money, since my husband is now the sole provider and we live in California.
Through this blog, I will show you how I’ve integrated the change and saved money along the way. My husband and I have been living this way for about 8 years now. We live very normal busy lives, so it’s very important that we fuel our bodies with the best food choices as possible. Yes, we eat junk food, but I read the labels and avoid certain ingredients. Applying that simple principle, will help you cut out a lot of bad food choices. We also go out to dinner or order delivery when I’m too busy to cook. I never feel guilty about those splurges because I know we eat well 80-90% of the time.
The goal is to help you live a healthy lifestyle all around. In my recipes, I will share how to alter traditional recipes using healthier ingredient substitutes. I will also explain cooking techniques and tips on how to pick your produce for the meals. For the past few years, I reduced our use of a lot of conventional products. I will share my share my findings and experiences with natural or less toxic products from cosmetics to home goods.
My Thoughts on Food
When it comes to food, I’m not one for diets, detoxes or strict eating rules. I love to eat, especially baked goods–it is my weakness. I know it’s bad for you, but that’s why I tinker with recipes so that I can have my cake and eat it too. I figure, if I generally eat well, then I do not need a special detox diet or cleanse. According to some medical research, there’s little evidence that these quick fixes are effective. The body is an amazing machine if you just take good care of it, kind of like our cars: you don’t want to put cheap gas or the wrong kind of oil in it and damage the insides of the car.
My Thoughts on Make-up
I started using make-up in high school. I was obsessed with mascara and different eyeshadow looks. Sometime during that period, I became curious about what made makeup work, such as long lasting lipsticks or mascara that made my your eyelashes look like they grew in seconds. I sat next to a really smart guy in my AP Chemistry class and commented on how I liked my new mascara. Being the young scientist, he explained to me how polymers and fibers worked in my mascara. Thus, began my cosmetic product label reading and researching.
I must thank Ruth Winters for being the pioneer of defining cosmetic ingredients in her book:
I don’t remember how I found this book, as it was the days before the internet and Amazon. I probably found it at Borders or Barnes & Noble. I referenced this book so many times that I became familiar with the basics of formulas and what ingredients to avoid. Now we have it easy with EWG’s Skin Deep website. That’s when my label reading went to another level. I looked up ingredients almost every time I bought a new product and used EWG because of their rating system. Sometimes the information got scary and I would return the toxic product.
I hope you find the information on this website helpful. Please feel free to comment or contact if you have questions or want to share your own findings. Let’s help each other live the healthy lifestyle we deserve!
Do we look 36 to you? People often think we are 25. I’m convinced it’s our eating habits and lifestyle.