Inspiration to your inbox

How To Shrink Your Belly: Here Is A 7 Day Keto Diet Plan To Get Going

Sticking to any sort of diet or meal plan can be hard, but planning your meals out ahead of time can make it so much easier. Meal planning also helps you make sure you have easy meals on hand, plus a steady supply of healthy food like what the keto diet includes.

The keto diet is about training your body to burn fat as fuel instead of the traditional carbohydrates and glucose. This prevents energy crashes and helps you feel better overall. Following is a seven-day keto diet plan that you can use whether you’ve been trying keto for a year or are in your first month.

Here’s a 7 day keto diet plan to help you get started:

Day One

-Breakfast: Ham and cheese omelet
-Lunch: BLT wraps (try adding boiled egg slices for extra protein)
-Dinner: Cheeseburger lettuce wraps (make a regular burger, using large lettuce leaves as the bun, and top with your favorite toppings)
-Snack: Celery and cream cheese

Day Two

-Breakfast: Cream cheese pancakes.
-Lunch: Tuna salad served in a tomato instead of a sandwich
-Dinner: Smoked sausage and veggie kabobs
-Snack: Tomato and avocado slices

Day Three

-Breakfast: Green smoothie (look for dark and leafy greens, like kale and spinach)
-Lunch: Loaded cauliflower, with extra vegetables on the side
-Dinner: Taco salad (most taco shells have too many carbs. If you need a crunch, try using pork rinds)
-Snack: Slices of deli meat (make sure there’s no added sugar) with 2 cheese sticks

Day Four

-Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, and 2 strips of bacon.
-Lunch: Keto nachos (use pork rinds as chips, then add cheese, ground beef, avocado, sour cream, tomato, etc)
-Dinner: Cream cheese and ranch chicken, with a salad on the side
-Snack: Carrot sticks with hummus (store-bought or homemade)

Day Five

-Breakfast: Avocado, tomato slices, and 2 boiled eggs.
-Lunch: Chicken Ceasar salad
-Dinner: Baked salmon with a tossed salad full of greens and ranch dressing
-Snack: Cottage cheese with a few berries added in

Day Six

-Breakfast: Egg muffins with your choice of protein and keto approved vegetables
-Lunch: ham and pickle roll-ups (spread deli ham with a layer of cream cheese for extra flavor and protein)
-Dinner: Cheesy ranch, chicken, broccoli
-Snack: Veggie sticks (celery, peppers, carrots) with guacamole

Day Seven

-Breakfast: Sausage and egg scramble with chives and greens
-Lunch: Cheesy bacon stuffed peppers (mix ground beef with bacon, cheese, and cream cheese. then stuff the mix into peppers. Very easy to prepare the night before)
-Dinner: Pizza with a cauliflower crust
-Snack: A serving of nuts, like almonds or walnuts

Eating in line with the keto diet revolves a lot around limiting your carbohydrate intake. This eventually trains your body to burn fat for fuel throughout the day. This will first come from your body fat, and then from the fat you eat. This means that if you plateau, then you can try lowering the fat intake from your meals to see if that makes a difference. Lastly, anyone on the keto diet should remember to always include a solid mix of greens and healthy fats.

Conclusion

As you can see, following the keto diet may not be as difficult as what you may have previously thought. You will want to make sure you keep your carbs low, protein at a moderate level, and fill in the rest with fat intake from healthy sources. The numbers you aim for when you first start your journey will likely continue to change each time you lose weight. It’s best to re-evaluate your results and progress every few weeks to make sure you are staying on track. In no time, you will see belly fat start to lessen.

In addition, ensure that you are both eating plenty of greens, healthy fats, and staying hydrated. Keto gets a bad reputation for being the bacon diet, but it is so much more than eating bacon to lose weight. In fact, those who don’t follow the keto diet plan appropriately can end up doing damage to their bodies and find themselves diagnosed with serious conditions. Hopefully, this meal plan helped give you a head start on foods that are approved to eat, or gave you new ideas to include in your future meal plans.

The Most Fantastic Fulvic Acid Benefits For Your Skin And Hair

Though the average woman would typically be taken aback by the very idea of putting acid anywhere near their face, fulvic acid benefits for skin and hair are almost endless. When digested, the acid will help the body to absorb the nutrients we take in through our food source. It will also help to use the nutrients to their full potential.

If there ever were an anti-aging potion, the first ingredient would have to be fulvic acid. The acid is easily able to enhance the way the body’s cells take in and use up things such as antioxidants and electrolytes. Because of its high power over the cell, fulvic acid has become well-known for slowing the aging process. The original chemical structure of the acid is what allows it to improve digestive functionality and protects cognitive brain health.

Here are the fulvic acid benefits for your skin and hair:

It Doesn’t Burn

Anything that ends in the word ‘acid’ sounds like it would be undoubtedly harsh on the skin, but fulvic acid doesn’t strip your skin at all. In fact, you probably wouldn’t notice it in your everyday moisturizer or cleanser.

It doesn’t burn; it actually has the exact opposite effect. Fulvic acid benefits the skin by helping the surface to absorb more water and oxygen. It’s been proven by modern science that acid-based products are more beneficial than alkaline-based products. Alkaline-based skincare can completely throw off the skin’s acidic pH balance, which can cause inflammatory acne. By mimicking your skin’s natural pH levels, the fulvic acid-based products will help prevent and treat your acne, while also working to restore your damaged skin.

Sag No More

Fulvic acid is essentially a metabolite that is generated by the soil bacteria that accumulates during the decomposition of organic plant matter. One of the best fulvic acid benefits for skin is the way it smooths out wrinkles. If you experience wrinkles, fine lines, or sagging skin you stand to benefit abundantly from this acid. The natural antioxidant property held within the acid is known to show significant progress in smoothing away those unsightly lines that develop on the face.

fulvic acid benefits
It penetrates the skin so efficiently and without any help from other compounds. A boost in the skin’s tightness will surely be noticed if you stick to a skin care regimen that includes fulvic acid. The next time you are in the market for a new cleanser or moisturizer, be sure that fulvic acid is included in the first few spots in the listed ingredients.

No More Coffee

One of the more uncommonly thought of fulvic acid benefits is the fact that it gives a significant boost in energy. More energy from the acid means reaching for the coffee mug less and less. Drinking fewer cups of coffee each day means whiter teeth and more pleasant breath. The acid is a natural electrolyte that helps to awaken and energize nearly every biological process in the body.

What About My Hair?

Fulvic acid benefits way more than just facial skin. It is also very beneficial to hair growth. Using a bottle of shampoo with fulvic acid included in the ingredients can increase the thickness of your hair, as well as generate and pursued the follicles to produce more strands of hair. It also helps to get essential nutrients to the scalp.

The anti-inflammatory and detoxifying properties of the acid may help to prevent alopecia and male pattern baldness. Because the acid can increase the absorption of nutrients so seamlessly, it is also a great supplement to take if you experience brittle nails that you would like to see grow strong.

Fulvic acid benefits are truly endless when it comes to skin and hair. It also improves the health of your gut and builds up your immune system. It helps to detoxify the body and lowers free radical damage, all while repairing and protecting the skin.

You can get fulvic acid in several convenient forms to target specifically what you’re aiming to improve. Some supplements work great for cognitive and digestive health. There are shampoos and essential oils for hair and nail growth. The list of fulvic acid benefits goes on and on. Who would have thought that the acid derived from the Hungarian Moor mud would be so wonderful?

10 Ways Sleep Meditation Can Improve Your Life For Better

Our world is fast-paced. We have deadlines, traffic, stress around every corner, and our lives are scheduled minute by minute. Consequently, our bodies are under a constant state of stress, and this does not bode well for our waking or sleeping lives.

Thankfully, there is something we can do to help erase some of that frantic energy. There is something we can do to better enrich our lives, both mentally and physically, and that is sleep meditation. But could it really help our lives all that much? Yes!

Here are those sleep meditation benefits you probably didn’t expect!

1. Soothes Stress

When you meditate you help reset and activate your autonomic nervous system. You tell your body you are no longer in fight or flight mode so that you can finally relax and take a break from that constant state of survival stress puts us in. Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of Benson-Henry Institute of Mind Body Medicine, a Harvard affiliate, even claims that such meditation is one of the ways people can easily engage the relaxation response, a physiological alteration in the body that directly opposes the stress response. In other words, meditation before bed helps put you in a state that is the exact opposite of that of stress.

2. Brings a Sense of Peace:

When we lay our head upon the pillow, we often use that time to recap our day, mostly focusing on what went wrong. We also use that time to worry about tomorrow, examining all the stresses we are to encounter in the future. However, sleep meditation can help you focus on the present. Essentially, meditating before sleep will help ward off all those worries that consume your thoughts, allowing for peace instead of chaos to reside in your thoughts.

3. Helps with Insomnia

One study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Medical School found that meditating before sleep was more effective than focusing solely on helpful sleeping tips. Such meditation showed significant sleep improvements for 58% of participants, and of those on sleep medications, 91% were able to stop taking their medications to sleep! Meditation before bed also helps produce more brain waves responsible for relaxation and fewer beta waves/those responsible for active thinking; thus, meditation enables our brain to take us into deeper, restful, less-fretful sleep.

4. Lessens Fatigue

When we don’t sleep well, we simply don’t feel well-rested the next day. Sleep deprivation ravenously eats into our day, making us less productive and feeling fatigued. However, meditation has been linked to increased melatonin production and enhanced REM sleep, all of which allow for us to feel more energetic in the morning and throughout our entire day.

5. Mood Enhancement

Lack of sleep and being in a constant state of stress can wreak havoc on our mental health, often worsening depression and anxiety. With meditation allowing for greater quality rest and a more present state of mind, many find that meditation before sleep leaves them feeling both energetic and happier in the waking hours.

6. Helps Ward off Disease

Sleep deprivation often goes unnoticed or at least unspoken of in our society, yet both sleep deprivation and stress are responsible for increasing risk of many diseases, including cancer, obesity, and heart disease. Simply allowing yourself better rest and peace helps lower your risk of such diseases.

7. Better Digestion

With many of us stressed and eating poorly, our digestion suffers. Yet, when we allow for the autonomic nervous system to be reset through meditation, we allow for our digestive system to better do its job, leading to a happier and healthier you.

8. Lower Blood Pressure

One of the reasons sleep meditation can help bring about peace and relaxation is that it helps lower blood pressure and slow down your heart rate.

sleep meditation

9. Pain Relief

Inflammation is responsible for all sorts of ills in the body, pain being one of them. Because meditation can help decrease inflammation at the cellular level, those who meditate often find they experience less pain upon waking. In fact, in some clinical trials, more than 50% of participants reported less pain just from engaging in meditative practices.

10. Helps Hormone Regulation

Our hormones are responsible for so much, from how much we eat to our sex drive; and when our hormones become unbalanced, we can experience many unpleasant side effects. Meditating before sleep, however, can help reset those hormones, better balancing our bodies as well as our minds.

While all these sleep meditation benefits sound wonderful, you may be wondering how you can somehow “meditate” in a way to achieve all these benefits. However, you do not need to stress over the sleep meditation itself. If you are wondering how to go about getting yourself in that restful state, check out how you can teach yourself in fifteen minutes or less. Additionally, here are three techniques for perfect sleep meditation.

With everything you have going on in your life, what is there to lose by trying these meditative techniques?

benefits of meditation

Share this Image On Your Site

If You See Turtles Often, This Is What It Means

Do you see turtles showing up frequently? It might mean that you should take heed to how you approach your path in life.

Turtles are peaceful, determined creatures that walk their path steadfastly yet serenely. Turtles have a dogged determination, despite their slow speed. They’d rather get somewhere slowly than nowhere fast. 

If you see turtles often, they want you to really examine your life and see where you might want to slow down and look at better solutions for how you approach problems. The turtle symbolizes the ability to thrive in a busy, hectic world without becoming lost in the madness. The turtle doesn’t care how fast others move – it walks at its own pace, and couldn’t be bothered with conforming to the hectic speed at which the world moves.

Turtles can live on land and in water, and move at different speeds depending on their environment. They encourage you to switch speeds from time to time in order to gain perspective. Pay attention to the animals and signs around you, especially if you see turtles often – the universe is trying to teach you powerful lessons.

IF YOU SEE TURTLES OFTEN, THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS

Here are some messages you might need to hear.

Turtles represent peace and tranquility.

It prefers to take the slower route and grow over time in a series of steps rather than speeding ahead in short bursts. Turtles like to take their time in life and see the world in all its wonder. As such, transform with each new step they take. They don’t make any rash decision. Indeed, each choice they make has been carefully calculated and planned out. Call on the turtle when you need help with grounding energy, or when you would like more peace and order in your life.

The American continent is called “Turtle Island” in Native American folklore.

The tale says that the Turtle carried the weight of the land on her back as she journeyed across the Americas. Hindu and Chinese cultures have a similar belief about the turtle, as you can find pictures of the turtle holding up Mother Earth and holding her in balance. Having the turtle as your spirit animal means that you have a strong understanding and relationship with ancient wisdom and the old ways of living. You feel a natural calling to the earth and all of its elements, and carry your home with you wherever you go. You can live anywhere and feel perfectly at ease.

Infinite wisdom

The wisdom of the turtle totem teaches us to persevere and stay strong despite what we might face in life along our path. This animal encourages us to look deep within and trust ourselves and our hearts no matter what fear we may feel by doing so. The turtle can help us greatly to keep at it when we feel like giving up. You can call on the wisdom of the turtle when you need help pushing through obstacles and sticking to your guns.

Since the turtle generally lives a long life, you can relate this symbolically with creating long-lasting success in your life by staying determined and not allowing yourself to give up.If you have the turtle as spirit animal, you might take longer than others to make decisions and carefully analyze each aspect of your choice. Don’t feel bad about doing this – you might take a while to produce results, but they will generally turn into long-term successes.

Bring peace to your life

Turtles represent a peaceful walk through life, internally and externally. This animal represents peace in the Native American culture. Feminine energy and peace go hand in hand. So many cultures call on the turtle to provide the necessary feminine wisdom in order to go about life with calmness and clarity of mind. With the spirit of the turtle totem in your life, you can rely on the turtle to slow you down when you feel overwhelmed or rushed by a situation or important decision. If you move too fast through life, you will miss important details that could’ve helped you to stay on the right path. The turtle can ground you and give you support when you feel lost, discouraged, or that you’ve been walking aimlessly through life.

Your spirit animal

Use the turtle spirit animal when you feel you need peace and greater understanding about your path and purpose. Call upon one of these peaceful creatures when you feel the need to slow down and gain better understanding and grounding if you feel lost or imbalanced. Also, if you feel that you want to just give up and can’t possibly move forward, the turtle can help you to gain encouragement and get back in the saddle again. Finally, if you feel you can’t understand your emotions, the turtle can help you gain clarity.

Related article: 12 Touching Stories That Show The True Soul Of Animals

As with any other animal totem, turtles will show up when you need a sign from the universe to assure you that you’ve chosen the right path. The turtle represents a variety of different meanings and perspectives. But if you see one, it will definitely provide you with comfort and motivation to pursue your path and not rush through an important decision.

Radiate Positivity In Your Life By Reading These Magical Quotes About Happiness

Sometimes it can be a challenge to remain positive and upbeat when so much of what we see every day is negative. Even without news feeds streaming bad news, each and every one of us will have a bad day some time. So when life gets you down happiness quotes can help you find your center and regain your inner balance.

Starting each day with quotes about happiness will help frame your thoughts and enable you to spread light and happiness throughout your day. Positivity is contagious so read these happiness quotes to give you a little extra boost to help radiate positivity and spread happiness all around.

20 Magical Quotes About Happiness to Help You Radiate Positivity

Quotes to Remind You to Let the Past Go

Hanging on to the past is counterproductive. As long as you learn from your mistakes and make a commitment not to repeat them, there is no value in reliving your blunders. In fact, remaining focused on past mistakes and failures can do you more harm then good. Use these quotes about happiness to remind you to start each day fresh.

  • “We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.” — Steve Maraboli
  • “When things go wrong, don’t go with them.” — Elvis Presley
  • “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today” — Will Rogers
  • “We do not heal the past by dwelling there. We heal the past by living fully in the present.” — Marianne Williamson
  • “Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” — Charles Dickens

Quotes to Remind You to Embrace Yourself

Every once in a while, we all need happiness quotes to give us a boost to our self-esteem and remind us to stay authentic to ourselves. By reminding yourself that who you are matters, you can help other people embrace themselves, too!

  • “Do not become a stranger to yourself by blending in with everyone else.” —Dodinsky
  • “Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” — Marilyn Monroe
  • “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — E.E. Cummings
  • “I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we can do.” — Brené Brown
  • “You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.” ? Diane Von Furstenberg

Quotes to Remind You to Love Your Life

Quotes about happiness can help give us a little boost to reflect on all the wonderful things in our lives. When our cup of happiness is full we exude positivity and become a beacon for more good things to come into our lives. In fact, the happier that you are the happier you will become.

  • “This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen it before.” — Maya Angelou
  • “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” — Marcel Proust
  • “There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.” — Buddha
  • “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” — Echart Tolle
  • “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” —Willie Nelson

Quotes About the Simple Things

Quotes about happiness don’t have to be about grand things or wise concepts. Sometimes happiness is a cup of coffee, the purr of a cat, or a good book. When we reach to our favorite quotes about happiness to remind us of the simple things in life, we reinforce our joy and positivity.

  • ”Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” — Marthe Troly-Curtin
  • “Happiness is a warm puppy.” — Charles Schulz
  • “You can do it.” — Coffee
  • “I’d rather be happy than right any day.” — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
  • “This morning, with her, having coffee.” — Johnny Cash, when asked for his description of paradise.

quotes about happiness

Surrounding yourself with quotes that bring you happiness, or making a daily habit of finding an inspiring quote to begin your day, will increase your joy and mental positivity. When you start with a dose of positive motivation you are better prepared for whatever may come your way — good or bad. Fortunately, when your thoughts are aligned with happiness you will find that your days and life are full to bursting with positivity, and you will radiate joy.

I Embraced These 5 Better Money Habits. The Best Decision Of My Life.

You’ve worked hard for your money, and it only makes sense that you should be able to keep it. If you don’t know where your money is going or even how much you have at any given point, it can be difficult to not only make sure things get paid for but to also be able to save for your future.

Learning better money habits might sound difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. This article will give you a list of five money habits you can start using today to get on track and start investing in yourself.

Here are 5 better money habits that will give you more abundance:

1. Knowing Your Budget

A budget has got to be the first money habit you change if you want to take control of your finances. Learning about what your income is and when and how much your bills and other expenses are is crucial for gaining financial ground. Sit down and take a look at your check stubs and bank statements to determine where your money is going. For your income, it’s best to take a number from the lower range, and a number from the higher range for your expenses. This way, you can be covered no matter what situation may come up.

2. What are Your Goals?

If you don’t know where you’re headed, how will you know when you get there? The same concept applies to your finances and building better money habits. It’s important to set goals, and then include them in your budget so that they don’t end up as a surprise or passed up completely. Some ideas of great goals to include would be saving for yearly car repairs and maintenance or getting some money into your emergency fund on a regular basis. If all you can afford to put into savings right now is five dollars per month, then add it anyway. Don’t be discouraged by the small amount because the effort and small increments will still add up over time.

3. Ditch the Debt

Another great money habit to have is knocking out your debt as soon as you can. For those with student loans or high amounts of debt, this idea may seem impossible, but it’s better to keep paying it off on a regular basis than to throw a few dollars at it once in a while. This also applies to your credit card bills. Paying off the balance at the end of the billing cycle can significantly improve your credit score and show other lenders that you are able to be responsible with your money.

4. Insurance

If you are trying to build better money habits, then be sure to look into your options for life insurance. This is a way to protect yourself from any sort of incident that could occur in the future. If you carry insurance, then these events, like a home flooding or a car crash, can usually be covered in all or part by insurance. Something like renter’s insurance can even help you replace items if they’re stolen from an apartment or home that you’re renting. These benefits are only there if you get started and continue paying your premiums.

5. Retirement

Planning for retirement is one of the great ways to build better money habits because it allows you to invest in your future and make a plan for what lies ahead. You should contribute to a retirement fund as early as possible because interest rates can only help magnify the amount you will have available when it’s time to retire. There are several ways to get started with these money habits, such as through programs at work or through your local bank.

better money habits

Conclusion

As you can see, there are quite a few ways to be able to build your wealth by simply making a few changes to the way you handle your money. The idea of building better money habits doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming because you can easily implement one small change at a time and reap the benefits of changing your habits.

Better money habits are a great solution if you constantly feel like you aren’t in control of your money. They can help put you back in the driver seat of your future and prepare you for what lies ahead.

Skip to content