Below is the trailer of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore. I’ve seen the movie a couple of times and I’m sharing this with you, my hot mom community, so you can see the importance and urgency of making your lifestyle changes in support of Mother Earth. Earth Day is a day to celebrate how far we’ve come in our efforts to save our planet, but also serves as a challenge for us to do more.
As we learn to appreciate the things that makes life precious, let’s ask ourselves how we can give back to the very thing that’s been sustaining us from the very beginning — our Mother Earth. After all, as Al Gore puts it, it’s our ability to live is what is at stake.
Here are some of my mom tips on how we can help save Mother Earth. Let’s take Earth Day to heart and celebrate it everyday!
I’m A Hot Mom is celebrating Earth Week so the young and fabulous series this week is also green and gorgeous! Yesterday, I talked about incoporating green fitness into my fitness family activities.
Today, we’ll talk about how to be green and gorgeous in our quest to be young and fabulous.Did you know, that according to the Environmental Working Group, only 11 percent of 10,500 ingredients in beauty products have been tested for safety?
One in thirteen women are exposed every day to ingredients through their personal care products that are known or probable carcinogens and reproductive toxins. The average woman’s morning routine puts her in contact with a hundred chemicals before breakfast! Oh my gosh!
These chemicals might contain impurities that are carcinogenic, and many of them are actually classified as neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors. Certain chemicals mixed with other chemicals become carcinogenic or another chemical in a particular formulation may cause liver and kidney abnormalities. And yet we pay to have these terrible, nasty stuff get into our body, then washed them off and pollute the environment.
Okay, enough whining, let’s put on our hot mom cap and get educated on what bad stuff to avoid. If you’re like me who is paranoid enough and reads the ingredients of everything you buy, good for you. If not, it’s time to pay attention so you don’t waste your money poisoning yourselves slowly!
Ingredients to avoid at all costs:
COAL TAR: Used in dandruff shampoos, anti-itch creams. Coal tar–based dyes such as FD&C Blue 1, used in toothpastes, FD&C Green 3, used in mouthwash.
FRAGRANCE: Term is used to mask hundreds of ingredients, including phthalates.
HYDROQUINONE: Found in skin lighteners and facial moisturizers.
ALUMINUM: Often used in eye shadow as a color additive and also used in deodorants.
TRICLOSAN: Used in almost all antibacterial products, including soap, toothpaste, and cosmetics.
P-PHENYLENE DIAMINE: Also listed as 1,4Benzenediamine; p-Phenyldiamine and 4Phenylenediamine.
LEAD AND MERCURY: Lead could appear in toothpaste as a naturally occurring contaminant of hydrated silica. Also appears as lead acetate in men’s hair dye. Mercury is found in a cosmetic preservative called thimerosol.
Cocamide DEH
Lauramide DEA
Cocamide MEA
Triethanolamine (TEA)
Diethanolamine (DEA)
Mineral Oils: Appears on labels as “petroleum” or “liquid paraffin.” Prohibited in Europe but not in United States. Why?????
Parabens (methyl-, ethyl-, propyl, butyl, isobutyl-): Chemical preservatives.
Phthalates: Often hidden as “fragrance”. Dibutyl and diethylhexyl have been banned in the European Union but not in the United States. Another why???
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) and Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate (SLES): It is used in brake fluid and antifreeze and also in a huge variety of skin care products, including toothpaste, shampoo, bubble bath, and soap.
Polyethylene Glycol (PEG): Typically used as a grease-dissolving cleaner and a thickener for skin care products. Also look out for propylene glycol, isopropyl alcohol, and butylene glycol.
Formaldehyde-Producing Preservatives: Examples are hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, and diazolidinyl urea.
Talc: Found in baby products, underam deodorants, and cosmetic powder products, talc contains a chemical that is similar to asbestos and can increase the risk of certain ovarian cancers.
Acrylates and Methacrylates
Alcohol, Isopropyl (SD-40)
Tocopherol Acetate: synthetic version of Vitamin E.
Phenonip: Peservative blend that contains the parabens: phenoxyethanol, methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, proylparaben, and isobutylparaben.
Quaternary Ammonium Compounds (Quats): listed on your ingredient list as benzalkonium chloride, cetrimonium bromide, quaternium-15, and quaternium 1-29.
Cationic Surfactants: Look out for these ingredients: stearalkonium chloride, benzalkonium chloride, cetrimonium chloride, cetalkonium chloride, and lauryl dimonium hydrolyzed collagen.
Benzyl Alcohol
Silicone Derived Emollients: These emollients include: dimethicone, dimethicone copolyol, and cyclomethicone.
Carbomer 934, 940, 941, 960, 961C
Where to start? Gather your personal care stuff and READ the labels. Shampoo, conditioner, soap, body wash, toothpaste, lip products, hand lotions, creams, makeup, etc. There’s no other way to do this but to go through each one. My personal technique and time saver is that if there’s a long list of ingredients and lots of words too cryptic for me to read, I toss it out or don’t even buy it.
There you go, my hot moms. I hope this list helps in getting you started to be more conscious on what you slather onto your body. Organic or all-natural doesn’t always mean they’re good for you. Not because an item is on sale means it’s good for you. It may be good for your pocket, but not necessarily good for your body/health. You have to read the labels/ingredients. Being green and gorgeous is a win/win for both you and the environment.
The series of posts I’ll be doing this week will be dedicated to being Green in relation to the Earth Week celebration. I’d like to focus our fitness family activities this week educating and getting my family more exposed and involved in green living.
Let’s start with our diet. If you’re close to me, you already know that I’ve converted to organic and all-natural diet five years ago. Why? Healthy eating for me doesn’t just involve calorie counting. Most importantly, I prefer to eat foods that are not genetically modified, does not have pesticides, antibiotics, additives, preservatives, or growth hormones in it. I’d like to eat foods that are produced naturally without any man-made chemicals. I’ve dedicated a whole article on why I’ve chosen to adopt an organic and all-natural lifestyle for my family. Now I’m not saying that we don’t eat anything else but organic, but if I can limit it, especially at home where I have more control, why not? My kids are becoming more and more aware that it’s really important to pay attention on what we put into our body. Eating less processed, all-natural, and organic foods that are not loaded with toxins is one of the best defenses we could give our body. And in doing so, we also help save our environment and planet by supporting our local farmers.
Workout routines. This coming week, my family will be focusing more on outdoor activities like:
More family walks / biking around our community. It’s funny coz my kids are begging me if they could go to school just biking. If their school is not 12 miles away from our home, I would gladly let them. But since we’re driving them to school instead, we’re thankful that we have a hybrid car to use.
Raking, mowing, and cleaning the front/backyard. Hopefully this week will be warm enough so we could finally do this.
Jogging/running outdoors. I will be taking a break from the 30 Day Shred workout this week to run and appreciate nature more, and help conserve electricity.
If we have time, I’d also like us to do some gardening. I’m sure my kids would have a blast planting, but our priority would be the raking and mowing first.
There you go my hot moms. I don’t have a lot of update this week except that I continued doing the 30 Day Shred level 1 and I am ready to progress to level 2 which I’ve decided to postpone so we can focus on working out outdoors, save electricity, and enhance our connection with both the environment and community.
Did you know that? Sounds ridiculous isn’t it? But according Realage.com, you can burn up to 80 extra calories just by drinking a few cups of tea a day! Compounds in tea called catechins may help turn up the dial in your metabolism, increasing the calories you burn as you go about your day. Some research also suggests that tea drinking provides more slimming support by helping calm appetite and curb food intake due to tea’s combination of caffeine and special catechin called epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG).
Here are a few more reasons why should be a tea lover by now:
White tea may help shrink fat cells.
Green tea is great for achy knees.
Black tea is best for improving blood sugar.
Regular tea drinking affects your risk of having a stroke, thus, lengthening your life.
Green tea help revive aging skin cells too!
There you go my hot moms! Tea is inexpensive, calorie free, and full of amazing, good for you antioxidants. So brew yourself a cup of tea and drink up!
Being a mom means we’re all over the place, trying to do too many things at once, fast. It seems like 24 hours is not enough to do what the job description requires us to be especially if we have careers on top of being a mom. This can lead to stress most often than not which could cause physical and mental problems.
According to Cheryl Borst, a clinical psychologist and panelist at Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital, “Health is a complex interaction of habits, lifestyle, attitudes and social support.” She further explains that “there is a significant research showing how much the mind and emotions affect physical well-being through hormones, neurotransmitters, and stress response. Stress produces an abundance of adrenaline and cortisol, which decrease the feel-good chemicals like serotonin. Over time, that imbalance can cause depression, anxiety and chronic anger, which can harm your heart, immune system, and overall health.” Totally not a pretty picture.
Finding balance in our lives and thinking more positively is the key to managing stress, and helping us stay young and fabulous. Believe me, if there are two things I want my kids to learn and remember from my never-ending lectures to them, it’s the taking care of themselves part and the focus on positive and what makes you happy part. If they master those two things, I can say I’ve succeeded in being a mom!
So here are some mom tips in finding that balance and help us build a better mood:
Physical
Regular exercise fights stress and increases serotonin. Stop giving excuses of not having time to go to the gym. Plug in those exercise dvds or use your kids’ wii and sweat it out! I don’t go to the gym, I make use of what I have here at home. Even walking counts. Just move it!
Follow a healthy diet. And I don’t mean starve yourself. Eat less processed and more whole foods – veggies, fruits, foods that are closer to the source. More of these types of foods to keep you feeling full, less of the chips, soda, candies, sweets, and junk, if you cannot totally eliminate them.
Deep breathing is essential when you’re feeling stressed. Practice a few minutes just closing your eyes and being mindful of your breathing.
Get plenty of sleep.
Avoid alcohol or drugs.
Mental and Emotional
Find the time to engage in self-nurturing activities like having lunch with a friend, or getting a massage regularly. I get a massage on a weekly basis. Not from a spa but from a chiropractor’s office. I had back problems before which they treated, and now I go there weekly for maintenance – to make sure I’m aligned, and of course, an hour long massage to relieve stress and muscle tension.
Practice good communication skills and positive conversation with family on a regular basis. This is why I enjoy talking to my kids. The conversation is light and happy most of the time, I just follow their lead, and it lightens my mood everytime I hear them giggle and talk about “shallow” topics. It’s actually the shallow topics and their attitude about life that keeps the conversation happy and light. I learn a lot from them!
Open up your mind and assume that people have positive instead of negative intentions.
Practicing being fully present each moment keeps you from feeling distracted from outside stressors.
Spiritual
Finding a sense of purpose or passion encourages a positive outlook in life.
If you’re stuck to feeling angry all the time, let go, and work hard to forgive those who anger you. To most people, this is not an easy thing to do at all. Whenever I’m feeling angry, I tell myself that I don’t deserve to feel this way, and I don’t want to waste my energy on these totally unworthy causes. I’m way better than whoever caused me to be angry. And that I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me miserable and angry — so I let go, and make them realize that I could care less about them or what they did.
Get connected to something bigger than yourself, whether it’s religion, community, or even nature or the environment.
There you go my hot moms! A balanced mind, body, and spirit, is key to being young and fabulous!
I have completed the EA Sports Active More Workouts Six Week Challenge! Woo-hoo! It felt really great, only thing is, I got stuck to my weight at 143 lbs (from 147.5 lbs in January). Oh well, I’ll keep on working out and if I lose weight, great. If not, I know it will come eventually. Since my doctor already said I have a healthy BMI of 26, there’s no rush. After all, my original goal is to incorporate more activity and workout routine into our lifestyle this year along with healthy eating habits which we’ve already incorporated in the previous years.
Anyway, now that I’ve completed the six week challenge, I moved on and started the 30 Day Shred. I was so thankful that I had my training from EA Sports or I won’t be able to cope up. I still felt sore the next day. The family have been doing a lot of family walks (the kids were riding their bikes) lately, which the kids LOVE doing. My goal for the family walk is to get hubs moving and so far, he’s liking it so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
My goal for this week is to do more 30 Day Shred workouts, with Zumba and 30-minute step aerobics from EA Sports Active More Workouts in between. I’m hoping to find a good yoga dvd or online video that I can use so if you have links to any, please let me know.
Yes, you heard me right. Oprah is looking for twilight moms and fans and wants to hear your stories! Share your twilight passions, how Robsessed you are, like me, or how you find Jacob really cute! I was watching New Moon at a friend’s house and my daughter’s friend (8 years old) casually told me, “Jacob is so cute! I really like him”, with “dreamy” eyes. OMG, good thing I haven’t seen any of my kids so passionate about Twilight… yet. I’m the only one so obsessed.
Anyway, head down to https://www.oprah.com/ownshow/plug_form.html?plug_id=3932628 and share your funny or passionate Twilight stories to Oprah. They’re looking to pick someone to feature/guest on their show! Maybe Rob is gonna be there. OMG, I totally have to join, then. Race you there!
First, let’s put it all together. The Core Energy Coaching is a critical part of this series in helping my hot mom community move forward and achieve their goals. Below is the outline of the Core Energy Coaching process that we’ve touched on.
We can finally move forward by restating what we want into SMART goals for clear, measurable outcomes.
It is very critical to find support as we work towards achieving our goals.
And finally, how do we incorporate this into our life?
If you have goals that involve wellness, relationships, health, lifestyle, self-improvement, or even business, chances are, it involves either forming new habits, dropping old habits, or both. Losing weight for instance, doesn’t just entail that you lose the weight and go back to your old lifestyle. To keep the weight off, you have to keep doing what you did or a modification of it to maintain it, thus incoporating new habits and dropping old unhealthy habits from your life.
Here are some tips to help you incorporate your goals/habits into your life:
Practice patience. It takes about 180 days to drop an old habit and start a new one. Stick with it.
Be compassionate with yourself. Don’t beat yourself up if you repeat an old habit. It takes time, remember?
Celebrate catching yourself. Despite the old habit showing up again, realize that you are committed to changing it. Celebrate the fact that you managed to catch yourself and become aware of it.
Use reminders – physical structures, to help you be reminded of the new habits you want to adopt.
Enlist support of family, friends, co-workers, groups, to help you stay engaged and motivated.
Get a coach! Helps you get clear about what behaviors you really want to change, gives you support, holds you accountable to do what you say you will do, etc.
There you go, my hot moms. I hope you find the Core Energy Coaching aspect of the young and fabulous series very helpful. I would love to hear from you on your progress about your goals. Drop by and let me know!
On one of my fitness family posts, I talked about how I love and enjoy my EA Sports Active More Workouts. Today, I’ll be showing you clips of me doing the EA Sports Active More Workouts. I’m almost done with the six week challenge, but this will definitely stay as part of my workout routine.
What has helped me a lot is to get my workout done first thing in the morning, before I even turn on my laptop. I always say, get it done and over with so I’m free to do my work, chores, and other stuff that may show up. Not to say I didn’t miss any of my workout schedule. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t able to do any for two weeks, which made me realize that if I get it done before I even start working, then I’ll be fine even if I get swamped with work. I also find it motivational to tweet about it using the hash tag #easactive everytime I get done, to remind and inspire others to get theirs done as well.
So everyone’s curious about Zumba, including me. I went to a facility offering Zumba classes but their schedule wouldn’t fit with mine. But I still wanna try it, and I’m sure my hot mom community would love to try it too, so I searched online and found a 20 minute Zumba Xpress from YouTube. It was fun, it got me sweatin’ and I love it! Until I’m able to find time to go to the gym, this, plus EA Sports Active More Workouts along with my other workout routines at home will have to do.
So for those of you who were asking me for the link, here you go. Have fun!
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