Category: healthy

June 1, 2018

Harmony Patches: Easy Application for Natural Relief of Digestive, Cough, Cold and Allergies

One of the hardest jobs of being a parent? Giving your child, no matter what age, their medication. It has led to tears, screaming and absolute breakdowns in our house.

Both of our children as infants suffered from digestive symptoms, especially our youngest. I breastfed him for the first six months before he decided to wean himself. When we switched him to formula, he began to vomit daily and would cry every night. After multiple different brands tried, our family physician switched him to soy which seemed to help.

On top of this, our children suffer from allergies and eczema. We deal with runny noses, red eyes and coughing from early spring right through to the fall. You can imagine how they have begun to react to having to take medications orally! Not to mention that many of the over the counter medications can not be taken by children under the age of four that leaves you with very few options, frustrating right?

About Harmony Patches

Harmony Patches were designed to be placed strategically on the body for fast relief of specific symptoms. The patches release the ingredients gradually, which provides lasting relief over a period of time (we used ours over ten hours as directed on the label).

The patches are completely natural – ingredients include organic ginger, chamomile and fennel used in differing amounts. These ingredients are completely safe and have been found to be effective for all ages (they have also been used for centuries). The patches adhesive contain no silicone, latex, acrylic or rubber, which makes them gentle and perfect for sensitive skin (and if you suffer from digestive and allergic conditions more than likely, you also have sensitive skin).

The Harmony patches come in:

Infant cough Harmony patches (0-12 months)
Infant Colic Harmony patches (0-12 months)
Child Cough Harmony patches (1-7 years)
Child Tummy Harmony patches (1-7 years)
Adult Cough Harmony patches (8 and up)
Adult Tummy Harmony patches (8 and up)

Our Thoughts

I could not wait to try these patches out both on myself and my youngest. It is allergy season for us and we are all suffering with plugged noses, sinus pain, coughs and red eyes. The products were all natural (a definite bonus) and contained no allergens that could cause my skin to react (I am allergic to latex).

The patches were easy to apply, just peel and follow the instructions on where to apply on the chest or stomach. They stuck to the skin easily and came off just as easy without any pain or leaving any marks or residue. I really liked the ease and simplicity of application, we had no fights or spilled liquid on the floor.

The patches were left on between ten and twelve hours which is great for school and work. I was able to apply my son’s before I left for work and he had relief throughout the day. There were no side effects from the patches – no drowsiness or headaches. Sometimes with liquid medication, we found our youngest would first get hyper and then crash, which forced us to give him medication at night but he was having no relief during the day when pollen count was highest.

The Harmony patches are a fantastic alternative for parents for both their children and themselves, to relieve common digestive, cough, cold and allergy symptoms throughout the year. They are easy to use, provide great relief with no side effects. A win for everyone involved.

About Dr. Loo

Dr. Loo is a graduate of the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine and has served as a Clinical Professor at Stanford University Medical School for twenty-one years. She is an expert in five schools of Chinese medicine. She has been a presenter to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. She is the author of several medical textbooks and has lectured throughout the US, Canada, Europe and China.

Where to Purchase

You can purchase the Harmony patches both on their website and Amazon.

Make sure to follow Harmony Patches on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date with their products and the newest information.

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned products in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

November 16, 2017

Snacking Made Healthy with Spokes

Snacking, despite its bad reputation, is actually quite important for our body. It helps keep our metabolism up and can actually help with weight loss goals. Many people have even shown that it is actually better for weight loss to eat several small meals a day spaced out every 2 to 3 hours. I swear by this rule and it has helped improve my physical well-being and aided in weight loss.

Where people tend to go wrong is what they are snacking on. We want our snacks to be easy to prepare but sometimes this can lead us to choose options that are not so healthy and full of empty and not so good calories. But we all get that craving for chips now and then (trust me I know!) and I think it’s so important to balance out our diet so we don’t cheat and feel worse afterwards.

Spokes, puffed potato snacks, are that perfect alternative for snacking that lets you feel like you are being bad but you aren’t because it so much better for you than other snacks like chips.

Spokes are a light, crunchy potato snack that is air puffed (no frying in oil here), lightly misted with oil and seasoned for their delicious taste. They taste delicious and are quite addictive (I am munching away on a bag of Barbecue Spokes as I am typing). One cup of Barbecue Spokes equals only 40 calories with 8gm of carbs and only 1gm of sugar. The brand is available in nine different flavours, including: Sea Salt, Mango Habanero, Sea Salt and Vinegar, Barbecue, Dill Pickle, Salt and Pepper, Fiesta Salsa, Sea Salted Caramel and Simply Bare.

Top nutritional benefits:

free of 11 major allergens including: dairy, gluten, wheat, soy and egg
no artificial preservatives or colours
no trans fat or cholesterol
Non GMO project verified
40 calories per a cup

Besides tasting delicious, I loved the fact that they were created by a Canadian Mom who wanted better snack options for her family. Moms are pretty creative when it comes to keep our families healthy! She definitely developed quite a hit – I struggled with just having one cup. They were full of flavour and had that crunch that you are craving especially in the afternoon. The best part was that I felt guilt free munching on them because of how healthy they were.

You can learn more about Spokes on their website. Spokes are sold in many retailers across Canada including: Whole Foods, Goodness Me!, Planet Organic, Blush Lane, Safeway, Sobeys (Western Canada), Thrifty Foods, Metro (Quebec), London Drugs and Bed, Bath & Beyond. To locate the nearest retailer, head over to their handy retailer locator on their website.

Make sure to follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep up to date and learn more about this healthy snack.

Disclosure: I received the above named product in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

September 7, 2017

How to Live a Healthy Lifestyle While Keeping Your Sanity with Sundown Naturals®

Living a healthy lifestyle has always been important to me, much more so after having children! After I gave birth to my children I realized that I had to be healthier, not only for myself, but for them too. I had their future to think about. Where would they be without Mom or Dad? But what was a healthy lifestyle and how did I achieve that?

About a year and a half after having my second son, I began feeling tired all the time, my hair was thinning out, and I was just not myself—I knew that something was wrong. While I do deal with depression, I knew that this was above and beyond my normal range of symptoms and that it was important to see my family doctor. After a series of tests, we discovered that I was dealing with a malabsorption issue in my small intestines which was causing me to be deficient in several key vitamins, including Vitamin D, Iron, and B12.

This was a whole new learning curve for me; I had studied various courses during my university years on nutrition and the body, but I was not prepared on how to deal with my vitamin deficiencies and malabsorption. Working with a dietician, we came up with a few great ideas:

Nourish your body with nutrient rich, organic, and (if possible) local food (or even grow your own—gardening is a great stress reliever). We get many of the good things our body need from what we eat, so make every bite count. I know this can be easier said than done as parents. I can’t tell you how many times my meal has consisted of my kids leftovers!

Get enough exercise—plan it out! If it’s not in my agenda then I tend to ignore that it should be leg day, so having a commitment on a calendar is crucial for me.

Get the right amount of sleep. I know you are probably laughing right now—trust me, a part of me gets it—but getting enough sleep really is important. It will help your body recover and leave you feeling refreshed.

Many times, this is not enough.

Let’s face it—life gets in the way and we can eat improperly at times. We put the focus on our children instead of us and we definitely don’t get the required amount of sleep and nutrients. For myself (and many others), we have to supplement with vitamins and minerals in order for our body to absorb and get what it needs in order to work at top form. A daily regime of vitamins that includes multi-vitamin, iron, B12, Vitamin D, Calcium, and Biotin (I added this in when my hair started to fall out!) was worked out with my dietician, and my blood work is ordered and monitored twice a year to ensure my current schedule is working. Sticking to a healthy, nutrient rich diet is tough because, to be honest, it can be hard to meal plan for the week when you have so much on the go and need to supplement to ensure you’re getting enough.

But how do you choose the right type of vitamin when there are so many different brands?

When I purchase a vitamin, the brand has to meet these must haves:

Non-GMO
Gluten free
Free of artificial flavours, colours, and preservatives

Sundown Naturals® is built upon the philosophy to deliver 100% goodness, 100% of the time. They sell a range of vitamins to cover your health care needs—from heart health to immune health to energy support. The best part about Sundown Naturals® is that they are 100% GMO free, gluten and dairy free, and free from artificial flavours, colours, and preservatives. They are also the first broad line vitamin brand to be available at your local pharmacy that is 100% Non-GMO.

With my health conditions, I want and need to ensure that the vitamins I am taking in are high quality and the easiest to absorb for my body. I am confident that each time I take a Sundown Naturals® vitamin, I am taking in the very best to help fuel my body to perform at its best. I am getting all the good stuff without any of the bad stuff. Knowing that I am helping to fuel my body with high quality vitamins to keep it running at its best leaves me feeling confident and at my best.

What is the most important feature you look for when purchasing vitamins and minerals?

Make sure to follow Sundown Naturals® on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest information, news and more.

Disclosure: This post has been sponsored by Sundown Naturals®. All opinions expressed are my own.

August 24, 2017

Monkey See, Monkey Do #SmokeFreeMovies

I grew up in a household where my Dad smoked both in the house and outside. To me this was normal, it was part of my every day and it was socially acceptable. One day, my Dad took all three of us kids to the Doctor’s office. As he struggled to get my younger sister out of the car, he asked me to hold his cigarette while he pulled her out – be forgiving with this action, this was the 80s!! Not realizing what I was doing, I started to put the cigarette to my mouth and smoke, thinking how cool I looked and that I was just like Dad. It was the first and only time my Dad got mad at me! He smacked the cigarette out of my mouth, yelling at me about how bad smoking was for my health and that I was still a child. But to me, as a child, I had a hard time understanding: if it was so bad, why did the people who I loved and looked up to smoke? Wasn’t this normal? And it seemed odd coming from my Dad’s mouth that smoking was bad for me, but okay for him. The signals that I was receiving were confusing and contradictory.

Our behaviour is learned from watching others – we learn about norms, how to model correct (and incorrect) behaviour, and what is accepted socially, all from watching our family members, our peers, and those whom we admire and respect. Children and young adults are susceptible to these learnings and may have a harder time deciphering what is healthy and normal and what may be viewed as “cool” and “admirable” is actually unhealthy and detrimental to their health. As a parent, I have learned that it is my job to help guide them as they mature and begin to learn what is normal, what is right and how to make good decisions for their own health and well-being. For my youngest, this may mean restricting what he hears and sees, while for my eldest talking about the ‘why’s’ behind the decisions we are making.

Seeing a person smoking everyday or even casually in a movie or advertisement normalizes smoking. Our most vulnerable population, children and teens, see their idols and celebrities smoking, want to copy their behaviour, to be just like them. They don’t have the skills or the maturity to understand the consequences of smoking and starting so young. My husband started smoking when he was fourteen and struggled to quit at the age of 30 (he has now been smoke free for six years!). One of his greatest regrets, is that he had started so young.

Smoking in movies is now shockingly widespread; and some of the statistics surprised me! 86% of movies with smoking were rated for kids and teens in Ontario. That’s 37% of Ontario youth smokers begin to smoke due to seeing smoking in movies. Scary right? Even scarier is the fact that smoking has become so normal despite the high number of health campaigns showing the risks of smoking. I bet many of you like me, haven’t even noticed this happening during movies.

So how do parents help protect their children when movies aren’t rated to let us know that smoking is in the movie? Public Health Units across Ontario are encouraging parents to sign a petition that will influence movies to be rated as 18A if they feature tobacco at any point throughout the movie This small step helps us to wisely choose our movies for family time, as well as encouraging movie producers to just not include smoking at all in the film.

As parents, we know first-hand how quickly our children pick up habits (how many of you have said one bad word in the car and that’s it, they are like parrots repeating it everywhere) and we would do anything in our ability and power to protect them and keep them healthy. Signing the petition is one small, but positive step that we as parents can take to help ensure our children are not exposed to unhealthy life choices.

If you are curious about movies titles that may or do contain tobacco, visit the Smoke Free Movies page or the Thumbs Up Thumbs Down page for a complete listing of both tobacco free and tobacco containing movies. To keep up-to-date with all the latest information and status of the petition, make sure to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

Disclosure: I have partnered with YMC and The Smoke-Free Movies Campaign and have received compensation for this post. All opinions in the post are my own.

May 2, 2017

Put an End to Sleepless Nights with Pharmaton® Sleep Harmony™

Turn to the left…squeeze your eyes tight and pray for some sleep.

Ten minutes later turn to the right…squeeze your eyes tight and please let me sleep!

Forty minutes later give up all hope of sleeping as your mind continuously reminds you of your to-do list, your work list that never seems ending and not to mention the stuff you need to buy for your children as they constantly grow out of their shoes and clothes.

Sound familiar?

I am sure so many of us can relate to having our natural sleep patterns disturbed at some point in our adult lives. Sometimes it is for a night or two but for others mild stress can become a burden and force longer periods of sleeplessness.

Mild stress and anxiety can have a negative impact on so many areas in your life. It can affect your relationships, the way you react to situations (even normal situations that you have dealt with in the past but because of stress your mind can’t think properly) and can even affect your sleep.

For me stress and anxiety cause a lot of disruption to my normal sleep patterns. I find it difficult to fall asleep at night (it can be so brutal to watch everyone else sleeping and there you are tossing side to side, trying to keep your eyes closed and pray for just even a few hours of sleep) and I find it even more difficult to stay asleep for more than four hours at a time.

A lack of sleep can have many negative impacts in your life – it makes me grumpy, irritable and I am less on the ball; I make more mistakes at work and even at home. Ever poured a large amount of cumin into a loaf of banana bread instead of cinnamon? OOPS! But that is how a lack of sleep affects me. Not to mention being far more irritable with my family and becoming quick to anger, this hurts me and them.

So how do we fight back against sleep problems? Try these helpful tips below:

Exercise Daily: I am not talking about heading to the gym for an intense workout but something as simple as going out for a walk on your lunch break, taking the dog out for a walk when you get home from work. Just something simple, relaxing but still gets your heart rate elevated. A little bit of exercise goes a long way for stress relief and relaxing the body. Don’t go overboard with the exercise late at night – that will likely reverse the effects and actually give you more energy. This is definitely not something you want to do if you are already struggling with sleep.

Eat a healthy, balanced diet: Nutrition goes a long way for making your body and mind feel good and I am a firm believer of this. It can’t work miracles but when you fuel your body with healthy food products you will feel better too. Stay away from alcohol! Honestly, you don’t need the negative effects of it on your body if you are already suffering from restless sleep.

Practice good sleep hygiene habits: Don’t bring your cell phone and tablet to bed, that is one of the worst things that you could do. It is also one of the habits that I am most guilty of doing. The screen will keep your mind alert and awake and not to mention the constant stress of knowing you have work emails coming through. Your phone becomes like a beacon on your bedside table, “read me just one more time, what harm can it do?” The harm comes easily when you can’t help looking one more time after that and one more time after that! Some nights I find myself working on my blog at two in the morning instead of sleeping and the next day I am mentally and physically exhausted. Or even worse, social media can be a huge distracter when you want to sleep, as you scroll through your feeds one more time or laugh your way through one more meme.

Use a lavender oil on your sheets: I have this great lavender oil spray that I use on my pillows and sheets about twenty minutes before I go to bed. I love the relaxing smell of lavender and it helps to unwind the stress from the day.

If you try all of this and still finding you are having restless sleeps, trying a natural sleep aid can make a huge difference in your life.

Pharmaton® Sleep Harmony™ is a traditional herbal medicine which has been designed to help calm those racing thoughts and improve our sleep patterns at night. Pharmaton® Sleep Harmony™ is made with a patented essential lavender oil, called Silexan™, which has been shown to help relieve symptoms of mild exhaustion and mild mental stress. The best part (and one I know so many of us worry about), Pharmaton® Sleep Harmony™ is non-habit forming, so your body won’t begin to rely on it for sleep. It also doesn’t leave you with that groggy feeling in the morning that many prescribed medications do. This is the perfect solution for individuals who need a good night’s sleep but don’t want to take prescribed medication that can cause your body to need the medication to fall asleep. Before you start this product, make sure it is the right one for you – read and follow the labels.

Do you suffer from sleeplessness? How do you deal with it and what are your best go to solutions?

Disclosure: I received compensation for this post. All opinions expressed are my own.