Every Sunday brings a moment of alarm. The moment my phone sends a notification of screen time averages for the week. I can't say I'm surprised. I know I spend more time than I would like on my phone. But the amount is still disturbing.

Have you ever considered what you could accomplish or genuinely enjoy if you reclaimed that time?

Looking back, I can’t say my screen time ever feels worth it. Most of the time, I can’t even remember what I was doing on my phone fifteen minutes ago, let alone justify the hours I spend scrolling through the week. It’s embarrassing, but I know I’m not alone.

Recent statistics show the average person spends about 4 hours and 37 minutes on their phone daily. And that doesn’t include time spent on computers or watching TV.

Rather than justify it, I’ve decided to take control, inspired by my friend and author Hannah Brencher’s book, The Unplugged Hours: Cultivating a Life of Presence in a Digitally Connected World.

On her 33rd birthday, Hannah realized something had to change. She challenged herself to spend 1,000 unplugged hours over the course of a year. In a recent podcast episode, I interviewed her about this journey—what she learned, what surprised her, and whether she plans to continue.

If you’re ready to rethink your screen habits, give it a listen. It might inspire you to live differently in the year ahead.

Learn more about today's episode: https://thelivingwell.com/346.

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

This is a recording of my latest live class as a part of The Weekly Fill for paid subscribers. Do you want to be a part of participating in these live classes and submitting your questions to have Alexa answer them? Subscribe to The Weekly Fill here to get the information on the next live class is ready to be scheduled.

Take things to the next level: Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. It is the only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here.

Learn more about today's episode and get the free download for my Health Sugar Guide: https://thelivingwell.com/345.

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

Food has a lot of power in the health space. It might even be the reigning king, but sometimes, it's distracting you from more important issues. Take sugar, for instance. It's not the villain in the story. In fact, there are many benefits of sugar (some may surprise you).

Spoiler to tip one: Your body needs sugar.

Unfortunately, our use of processed and modified sugars has led many people to overconsume them, creating a cascade of health problems associated with sugar. But to clarify, those problems exist not because you consumed sugar but because it causes instability or a rise in your blood glucose levels that are outside your homeostatic balance.

I think it's important to clarify the problem - that sugar is not the problem but the instability or spikes in your blood glucose - when you understand this, you can focus more on blood glucose regulation and less on restriction.

Inside this podcast, I teach you the benefits of sugar, including why you need it, what happens when you eliminate it, the addiction behind it, and the real problem (that is less about sugar and more about stress).

Listen to today's episode to learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/344.

Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate. Take things to the next level: Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here. Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

Forgiveness is not the sexiest tool in the health space. In fact, most wouldn't consider it a health tool, even though it has a massive health impact - arguably just as much (if not more) than what you eat.

Research has found that forgiveness changes your mind and biology. It improves heart health, immune function, hormonal flow, and reproductive health, to name a few.

Unfortunately, most people aren't great at forgiveness, especially forgiving themself. 

Honestly, I wasn't any better. My stubbornness is partially to blame, but I also misunderstood what forgiveness meant, keeping me stuck holding on to my pain and anger. It kept me holding onto the hurt that ended in bitterness. Thankfully, I didn't stay here. 

After years of studying and living in a posture of forgiveness, I have new thoughts and research on why it's one of the most remarkable healing tools we have at our disposal. Not to mention, it's free!

In the podcast, I present a new view of forgiveness, using it to gain health. It helps you heal from bad diet advice, but more importantly, it helps you forgive, which is the epitome of good diet advice. If you want to be well, you have to forgive. 

Listen to today's episode to learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/343.

Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate. Take things to the next level: Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here. Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

There is a lot of bad diet advice out there, and while it's easy to blame diets, at the root, bad diet advice is not the problem. The problem is our need for diets. A problem stemming from generational beliefs about health that have created the idea that your body is the problem.

I'm certainly not attempting to put everyone in the same box. But regardless of where you fall, understanding generational beliefs, challenges, or trauma is worth talking about. We all have them, regardless of our environment.

While parents and grandparents are the main culprits of these beliefs, the culture and environment of our childhoods also play a defining role. For many of us, there was no escaping the health storyline the media portrayed. Historically, these health beliefs have spanned everything from magazines to TV and magazine ads (even for kids).

Growing up in the 80's and 90's, I was exposed to an entirely different set of beliefs than culture portrays now. The same would be true of our grandparents generation. There was always a belief about health, but that belief has shifted throughout the generations, bringing a world of confusion.

Currently, we exist in a tangled mess of two very large extremes—the beliefs created at the peak of diet culture in the '70s, '80s, and '90s that skinny was in and how you looked determined your worth to the 2000s when health shifted to body awareness, and strong was the new skinny.

I'm not saying what message is true or if any are, but rather proving that regardless, we've all been shaped by these cultural ideas. There is no escaping them. If you fail to change them, they will become your beliefs. 

In this podcast, I discuss generational beliefs about health and the trauma they have caused. I also show you how to let go of these unhealthy beliefs and establish new (and true) beliefs that will change your health and your health legacy. 

Listen to today's episode to learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/342.

Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate. Take things to the next level: Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here. Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

If you're breathing, it's assumed you've been exposed to bad diet advice.

Growing up in the '80s and '90s, I lived through what some consider the peak of 'crazy diet advice.' From cabbage soup to grapefruit diets and liquid fasts, the '90s were anything short of one wild idea to the next that might help someone achieve their desired outcomes.

Bad diet advice didn't just emerge in the last few decades; history proves it has been circulating throughout different millenniums. It's part of our history and still part of our culture.

Yet, under the surface, there is more to dieting than meets the eye. It may feel like an approach to reach a better destination, whether through weight loss or another metric, but dieting creates a sense of safety, no matter how artificial it may be.

It feels strange to combine dieting and safety—even contradictory. But if you dig deeper, you'll find that people seek diets to create order in what feels chaotic or dysregulated. They seek a system that provides safety when they don't feel safe.

Safety is a human need (not a wish), and diets provide just enough safety to keep people needing them.

In the podcast, I share a shift in understanding diet culture. I also share where it's led us astray and how to use it to better your life. Bad diet advice is only bad because we misunderstand what we need. This is different from your average conversation about bad diet advice. It's deeper and yet more profound.

Listen to the podcast to understand the full story.

Listen to today's episode to learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/341.

Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate. Take things to the next level: Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here. Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

Self-confidence doesn't exist. Only holy confidence does.

I spent most of my life looking for confidence in a place it doesn't exist. I lived chasing an idea, attempting to prop myself up enough to believe I had what it took, and if I believed it, then I would be confident.

It's similar to assuming you'll be more confident when you look a certain way or secure a set amount of money in your bank account. While those may bring some confidence, they don't make you confident.

Unfortunately, I chased a version of confidence that left me getting swallowed in the pit of endless self-help books, leaving me longing to uncover what my problem was. No amount of self-help led me to true confidence because true confidence is not found in self-power or self-perfection. It's found in something outside of yourself, which stems from recognizing, even owning, the weaker parts of yourself.

Listen to today's episode to learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/340.

Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate. Take things to the next level: Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here. Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

The idea of discipline used to repulse me. It felt like I was forcing myself into a box I didn't choose. In many ways, discipline equated to hate. I assumed self-disciplines were the same.

Instead, I stuck with setting goals.

But as my life progressed, I quickly realized that setting goals is one thing, and meeting them is entirely different (learn what has and hasn't been working in my health here). Ironically, achieving my goals required self-discipline.

As I started to study self-discipline, I came upon a new understanding of discipline. One that is more about protection and purpose, even pushing you forward, and less about dictatorship and punishment. In all areas, growth requires self-discipline, which creates the action to birth the outcome.

I realized I needed to incorporate self-discipline to achieve my goals.

All good things in life take work. That work comes from healthy self-disciplines. But honoring that and even living it means you must change your view of discipline. I share more about that inside this podcast and the five self-disciplines that have changed my relationship with my husband, God, and myself.

Listen to today's episode to learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/339.

Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate. Take things to the next level: Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here. Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

It's easy to assume nutritionists don't struggle with food. But it's often the opposite. At least it has been for me.

Recently, I took a very unexpected break that happened for a million and one reasons, including some current health struggles (or what I labeled as health struggles based on what I saw on the surface).  

Luckily, the space gave me time to reflect.

In this podcast, I share my current health struggles and my wins. As much as it's easy to miss the wins, I don't want to discount that regardless of what I see, this is what I know. Listen to the podcast to get my vulnerable conversation about what I'm dealing with.

Listen to today's episode to learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/338.

Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate. Take things to the next level: Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here. Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

If it feels like we’ve been here twenty times over, asking what is good and what is bad food. While it might seem elementary, food is still the most debated topic in health. The health space seems to continuously change what food they claim is ‘good.’ It’s like the flavor of the day.

Fifty years into the bloom of the health era, we’re still asking the same question: what should we eat?

It’s the same question I asked when I set my life path as a nutritionist. I wanted to help break the noise and define what foods create health. But that path was harder than anticipated. It wasn’t straight or clear but it felt narrow, even elusive. 

Many people find themselves in the same boat. Just when you think you have it figured out, your ideas about what is healthy change again. 

Yet, the longer I’ve been in the space and recognized patterns, the more I’ve realized it’s really not about a list of healthy and unhealthy foods. It’s about what your body needs. Your diet is personal.

Of course, I know that’s not as sexy as telling you exactly what you should eat. I do hope you can see the freedom that health isn’t as complex as we’ve made it. It’s just showing up daily and feeding your body what it needs to thrive. 

With all of that said, there are still some frameworks to follow. A set of boundaries that helps clarify what is more healthy and potentially what is less. In this podcast, I lay out that framework by teaching you how to determine the difference between healthy and unhealthy food.

That begins by learning how it interferes, influences, and alters your internal energy.

Inside the podcast, I break it all down.

Listen to today's episode to learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/336.

Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate. Take things to the next level: Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here. Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

Even after getting my nutrition degree, I spent a lot of time thinking that health was a to-do list. I believed health was the product of what you did or didn't do. And in a lot of ways, this is true. But there is something more true.

What is more accurate is that your body isn't just responding to what you do. It's responding to your perspective of what you do, your essence, how you show up, and your motivation.

It's really about responding to how safe or unsafe you are, which is determined by your presence.

I invited Jessica Ash to come on the show and talk more about embodying your healthy masculine and feminine energy, how this reacts inside your biology, changing your metabolic output, and how it changes your view of life.

Listen to today's episode to learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/335.

Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school

Don't forget to track where your energy level using: This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output. This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate. Take things to the next level: Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here. Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple. Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.