The Holistic PCOS Chick

Iron is something a lot of people just can't seem to keep a handle on. Personally I struggle with low iron, and I know many women who's low iron takes it to an all new level of low. NOT GOOD! Being tired is hard enough by itself, but if you struggle excessively low iron you can have all sorts of awful symptoms. For example: Feeling weak and tired out easily. Dizziness. Grumpy or cranky. Headaches Looking very pale. Feeling short of breath. Trouble concentrating. These are just a few symptoms listed. Typically after being diagnosed with anemia the Doctor will prescribed an iron supplement. I don't know about you, but these cause me to get severely constipated. Which just makes everything worse! After all we need to be able to assimilate our supplements, so being constipated makes this even more difficult. I have had better luck with using iron rich foods. Not only do the foods make me feel better, but they are much more easily digested. Another things tha...

I found this cute idea after being annoyed with my daughters baby towels. Very poorly made and don't absorb much either. If you have ever gone shopping for a hoodie towel, you will find they a quite expensive too! So I decided to do a little research and came to find out I could save some money and make them myself. The towels I purchased from Target, Walmart and Sam's Club. I paid more at Sam's and didn't find the towels to be any better quality. So lesson learned. For info on how to make these towels check out my DIY page.

I had an epiphany about life while running yesterday. It was a nicer day, the sun was out but the wind was blowing. I was jogging with my daughter in her stroller, which is usually pretty light when its just Kloe and the stroller. But today with the wind blowing I had Kloe strapped into her carrier, bundled up and snapped into the stroller this way we had use of the double canopy for a wind break. As I ran up a hill I got a strong blast of a head wind. The head wind used my daughters stroller as a wind sock, which made the stroller even heavier to push. This happened a bunch of times on my run. And with each hill I was getting more and more tired. I was starting to think about giving up and I just couldn't wait to turn the corner just to have the wind blowing at a different angle. After laboring pretty hard up one particular hill while with the wind at my face I had this wonderful epiphany about life! Life tends to be hard sometimes. We have our big hills and small hills. We st...

I really enjoyed reading this blog! If you have a little one who just doesn't sleep much or sleep well, take a look. My daughter has not been the best sleeper either. I call her queen of cat nappers! She is almost 11 months old and has never needed more then 4-5 hours sleep at a time. If I am lucky. Although I really love snuggle time, I was starting to really struggle with not having enough sleep to function. I am typically a happy person, and was becoming a real Oscar the Grouch. Yikes! After reading this blog, I relaxed a bit and stopped worrying about her cat napping so much. We weren't doing anything wrong, she just needed to be close to us and for that time period and didn't seem to need to sleep for really long periods of time like other babies. Recently we started setting in place a bit more structure, because her internal clock was about 12 hours out as well. All that wonderful cat napping will do that to a tiny human. :) We started with a bed time routine whic...

It's that time again!! School is getting ready to start and so we are gearing up our plans for the new school year at home. Last year was our first year home schooling so it was a little strange due to all the changes within our family. Pregnancy and new baby... Made life just a little more difficult as we ventured into New Homeschooling territory. Thankfully the plus with home school is you can be very flexible, which came in handy for us last year. However this year I am looking forward to changing things up, as we learned what not to do, and what will work best for our family. Since I only have one child that is school age, (my son is 10 yrs and his sister is 4 months) it has been a challenge to find other homeschool families in our position. Most families are homeschooling more then one child and so the kids have lots of company and don't get lonely. But this was not the case for us. Once soccer season was over it was hard to find people who were willing to do outings o...

Including your children in the meal preparation process increases their awareness and appetite for healthy eating. When we as parents communicate interest and enthusiasm for making healthy meals, we are more likely to instill the same attitudes in our kids. The next time you are unsure about the importance of family meals, consider how shopping, cooking, and eating together will reinforce your family’s healthy habits by: Empowering your kids: Teaching your kids how to cook is something that will help them to make their own healthy choices as they grow up.  Cooking will allow your kids to develop their food preferences and understanding of nutrition to apply into their own healthy lifestyles. Improving Communication. Shared meals create an additional avenue of communication for families. It can be a place to discuss the day’s events, enjoy each other’s company, and provide a time for family discussions. Asking open-ended questions such as “How was your day?” rath...

Had a great workout today? Feeling like the extra pounds are finally coming off? Perfect! But that rigorous exercise probably made you hungry enough to eat your entire refrigerator! So, what did you do? Did you reach for the first thing you saw in the pantry or fridge? Did you carefully plan out what you were going to eat? Chances are you may have chosen the wrong post workout snack. Eating after your workout is as equally important as fueling up before hand, but you don’t want to reach for just anything! What you put into your body after you workout has a major effect on your weight loss goals! If you’re eating the wrong foods post workout, you’ll be sure to cancel out all of the work you just put in exercising! After that tough workout, be sure to avoid these foods after your sweat session! ·          Raw Veggies : Raw vegetables are among the healthiest and most nutritious foods you can eat, they aren’t exactly the rig...