DrewTaddia

Writer and advocate for fair and equal education, Clayvon C. Harris earned a BA in English literature from Swarthmore College where students are taught they have the ability to change the world and an MFA in Cinema-TV/Screenwriting from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. 

During her time in Los Angeles, Clayvon wrote for a number of TV shows, including Living Single, Soul Food: The Series and Star Trek Voyager. She is a member of the Writers Guild of America.

Harris currently lives and writes in the Philadelphia area where she specializes in messaging strategy, digital content creation and script development. Her first book is the award-winning collection of essays, Year of Trial, Year of Grace—A Catholic’s Search for Faith. For more information, please see: www.angelwalk.biz

Direct download: EMB_541.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:00pm MDT

Artist and photographer Nicole Asherah focuses on the gritty and conflicting emotional process involved with healing in her powerful, moving debut poetry book, A Life Cycle: A Guide to Healing and Rediscovering Yourself (March 14, 2022).

While many would consider Nicole young at only 22 years old, she carries the wisdom of many lifetimes lived. Based on Nicole’s journal from three years ago when she was 19, A Life Cycle takes us through a full year of transformation in her life after being sexually assaulted, revealing hope for a new generation.

Normalizing emotional processing, Nicole expertly knows how and when to dive into heavy topics and emotions. Her insight and perception come through clearly in the instances of hope and joy she interweaves throughout the narrative, a reminder that life is never just one thing. A Life Cycle strikingly champions the idea that life always holds the propensity for change.

Direct download: 540_Nicole_A.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:00pm MDT

I wanted to talk about listening to your body, as most of you probably know or have guessed, that we often talk about things that we're going through in life. So that's why a lot of times when we're doing something with the Fitness Family, if we get a lot of questions about something in particular, that means a lot of people are going through whatever issue it is. So I thought, why not talk about listening to your body? It's an important subject and I feel like more of us can listen to our body. So that's what we're going to talk about today. 

It's kind of crazy. And, you know, I was actually just reading this article about how, like many of us know that depression rates are up and anxiety, mental health is a major issue right now. And I feel like it's not just because of the economic situation right now, but also what I was reading was because of, you know, like when we get excited about something, we have different chemical reactions, we have endorphins flowing through our body. So, you know, like people are actually addicted to likes and we check for likes and like, well, I wonder how many people like my post or comment or share. It's definitely very apparent in the business world for sure, because we post and we're like, Oh, the more we post our we should have more of an outreach and then the more of an outreach, maybe we can get more sales.

And then if we have more sales, we can feed ourselves. So it's relevant. I'm not saying anyone is at fault for this and I think it's not just business. When we post we want to see reactions, but we actually get obsessive over the feedback. When you put something up, people actually check like, Oh, I wonder how many comments, and I've actually witnessed this, I wonder how many. But those are like a chemical reaction in our body. It's our brain. It's actually giving us. It gives us a sense of belonging, almost like when we put something out to our community and people like and respond. I suppose more than anything it gives us a feeling of belonging and of acceptance. So the article I was reading was saying that. It's not just the economic situation that's going on everywhere in the world. It's also how we're responding and how we're reacting to different things in the world. So we want instant gratification. We want gratification. We want instant support. And don't get me wrong, I can understand each one of these. And we have the same feelings in some regards or the same reactions.

But what I'm trying to express here is that our senses of appreciation have been dulled. And it was like I said, it was this article I was reading. It was very profound or extraordinary. It was very interesting to me, like, It's never enough. And we know that as a society, we don't have a big enough house, we don't have a nice enough car, we don't have enough money in the bank. And whatever it is, these are all materialistic types of things. But when, the more you achieve, I suppose, or the more you gain, the less that excites you.

Direct download: EMB_539_Lets_talk_about_listening_to_your_body.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:25pm MDT

Let's talk about cravings! They come when our bodies are missing something in our diet. If you are cutting something out like refined sugar, cravings are very normal. You can handle the cravings by replacing what it wants with something healthy.

For example, when you crave sugar you could have something with a natural sugar like an apple or orange, have some healthy baking (granola bar, muffins, cookies etc.) make tea with honey in it or take your mind off the situation completely and go for a walk or get out of the house. Chances are when you come back you won’t think about it anymore.

Remember that cravings are normal. You aren’t doing anything wrong. I still get cravings. Usually when I’ve missed something in my diet that day. Maybe not enough carbs or fats for example.

Address your cravings in a healthy way and they will subside. Also, it is very important to have an evening snack to keep your metabolism going. I believe that the old trick don’t eat after supper comes from the idea that evening snacking is unhealthy food. In this meal plan our snacks are healthy so you don’t have to worry about the food being stored as fat.

Our snacks are very nutrient dense so your body is going to recognize and utilize the nutrients from the food. It won’t be stored. It’s a hard concept to wrap your head around but eating more food (6 small healthy meals a day) will help you lose weight. It keeps your metabolism running at a higher rate and burning off fat.

You don’t want to cut off your metabolism too early in the evening because then it will slow down and stop burning fat. Plus it will be harder to jump start in the morning.

 

Our top 3 Tips on How to Fight Cravings

#1. Consume Smaller Meals Throughout the Day

#2. Always have a meal/snack meal prepared in the fridge

#3. Don’t buy low quality food (so it’s not tempting you sitting in the house)

#4. (Bonus) Find Healthy substitutes

Direct download: EMB_538_Lets_talk_about_sugar_cravings.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:02pm MDT

1