Simple Changes to Improve your Health

Some easy ways to change up your lifestyle to be healthier.

• Make your lunch the night before you need to eat it. ( A healthy lunch preferably.) *This will help you save money, and have something decent prepared for yourself. *
• Eat a bowl of cereal in the morning ( bran flakes are nasty, but they will make you lose weight like no other mother.)
• Drink water all day everyday. Just go buy yourself a water bottle and keep filling it up when it's empty. You can still have other drinks, but it's really good to have just water all day to filter out toxins, and keep hydrated (even in the winter! People always remember to keep hydrated in the summer but when it's winter it's like it all disappears from their heads)
• Cut out pop from your life. I used to drink about 2-3 bottles of pop every day. I would drink pop instead of water ( big mistake especially with Cola's. They're really dehydrating). I went cold turkey on New Years and I lost 20 lbs in a few months from that alone. Carbonated drinks make you bloated. Nobody wants to look like a puffer fish. I recently tried a can of Coke that was accidentally sent to me from a delivery order, and it didn't taste anything like I remembered. It was so nasty. It's amazing how your tastes change when you start eating healthier!
• Find joy in cooking. A lot of people say they never make dinners and lunches because they just don't have the time to do it, or they're exhausted when they get home. Easy solution, people:
  Make cooking into a meditative process. Like any form of meditation, you need to have something to focus your energies on. Cooking is a perfect way to do this, with it's mundane tasks. Cleaning veggies, cutting things, washing dishes, slowly cooking meat, creating various sauces and flavors(that last one can be a really fun and creative outlet.) Basically, if you have a stressful day at work, don't be lethargic. Just go in the kitchen and start cooking. You'll soon realize how much fun you're having and feel much calmer. Plus you get a fancy meal afterwards! Good work!
• Clean your dishes as you make them. People who hate doing dishes are usually the ones who leave them sitting in the sink all night..... or week. (*beurk*) The grime sticks to the dishes, you have to scrub like a crazy person, and it smells like a big ol' butt hole. If you include cleaning into your cooking process, it makes things so much better! Nobody likes doing dishes after they've eaten dinner. As for the dishes you're actually eating your dinner with, well, what's a couple of plates forks and knives? Pretty simple. Even if you do get lazy by that point, its a couple of dishes rather than an entire mountain. That makes it a lot easier to want to tackle later.
• Meditate. I don't care if you're religious or not. Just take time every day whenever you want, to just sit, let everything in your head go away, and just breathe. Even if it's just before bed, lunch time, whatever.  Breathing slowly like you do when meditating is a good way to regulate your thoughts, with the fast pace of today, your mind deserves a break now and then. And let's face it. People just don't know how to sleep right these days either.
• Sleep Right. Most people don't fit sleep into their schedule right. I try to make sure I get 6-8 hours of sleep. 8 is prefered, because sleep cycles are 4 hours long, so when you wake up after 8 hours, you won't intervene with a sleep cycle, so you'll wake up easily. Also, you shouldn't have lights on in your room. Not even little blue ones from electronics. Even though your eyes are shut, your brain can still pick them up loosely through your eyelids and it really can interfere with how well you sleep. Don't eat right before bed. Your stomach will feel heavy and gross and you won't get comfortable. Make sure you go to bed in a well made bed, not a mess of blankets. If you sleep in a freshly made bed, your mind is free from the chaotic atmosphere and you'll be able to go to sleep easier.
  
  *More to come, folks*

Tohru's RiceBall Analogy from Fruits Basket

(Kyo walks in to the kitchen and decides he's going to make himself a riceball for lunch.  Tohru walks in a few seconds later and watches him work.)Tohru:  Wow, Kyo!  The way you make rice balls you're really talented!  I had no idea!!

Kyo:  I just make the plain kind.  Nothin' fancy.

Tohru:  Even so, I bet if we found someone who had devoted their whole life to the art of riceball making and asked them; they'd still say they admired how well you do it!

Kyo:  (shouts)  Where the hell you gonna find someone like that!  (mutters to himself)  Art of riceball making...

Tohru:  That still doesn't change the fact that it's admirable.  (whispers to herself as Kyo walks off towards the dinner table)  Why can't he see that himself.  (she follows, then speaks)  Maybe the reason you don't see it, is that it's stuck to your back.

Kyo:  Huh?

Tohru:  What I mean is, a person's admirable qualties.  They're just like... say... a pickled plum on a riceball!  In other words, the person's the riceball and the plum's stuck to their back.  So, all over the world you could have riceballs, made with all sorts of wonderful ingredents.  All different flavors, and shapes, and colors... but since they'd be stuck in the middle of everyones back, someone could have a plum and not even know it!  They'd look at themselves and think, "I'm so plain.  Nothing but white rice."  Even though it isn't true; because turn them around and sure enough... there it is.  (smiles warmly at him)  Yup, I can see it, I can see it very clearly Kyo!  You have a great big plum on your back!!  Yuki's admirable in his way... and you're admirable in yours.

Kyo:  (blushes bright red) That's gotta be the dumbest thing I've ever heard!

Tohru:  (bows apologetically)  Oh... I'm sorry.  Maybe I should've used salmon instead.
(kettle begins to whisper) 

Tohru:  (in a somber voice)  Excuse me... I think I left the kettle on the stove.  (she begins to exit the room) 

Kyo:  (abruptly, through the silence, he mumbles to her)  You've got one too... stuck to you back.

Tohru:  (grins widely with excitment) 

Kyo:  But it's really small.  Like a baby.

Tohru:  Well, I love baby plums!

Kyo:  No.  I mean, it's really tiny.

Tohru:  Wha!  Really!?
(they're friendly bickering trails off as we cut to the next scene)