I don’t know about you, but I sure do love picnics and outdoor parties in the summer! If you have an upcoming casual social event, and you’re not sure what to take, look no further than this quick and easy guacamole recipe!

Whether or not you’re following my 4-Week Summer Challenge, this is a healthy dish that you can easily whip up. Unlike creamy or protein heavy dishes that can spoil easily in the warm weather, this guacamole dish is a safe and low maintenance option for outdoor parties. It is as simple as it is delicious, and it’s sure to please everyone, especially if you bring a variety of “dipping” options to choose from!

This recipe is also gluten-free, dairy-free, paleo (depending on what you serve it with), vegan, and full of healthy fats. Anyone with a dietary restriction will be thrilled to have a delicious and healthy party snack!

Simple Guacamole Recipe

Ingredients:

4 avocados, mashed

1/3 cup finely diced cucumber

1/3 cup finely diced red onion

1/3 cup finely diced tomato

3 cloves minced garlic (more if you love garlic, like me!)

3-4 tbsps. fresh lime juice (plenty of lime juice will keep the guacamole green and fresh)

½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. pepper

Optional Add-Ins:

¼ cup fresh cilantro, chopped

¼ cup jalapeno pepper, chopped

¼-½ tsp. yellow mustard

1/3 cup diced mango or pineapple

Options for Dipping:

Sliced raw turnips

Raw baby carrots

Sliced bell peppers

Sliced cucumber

Organic corn tortilla chips

Anything you desire!

Instructions:

To make the guacamole, simply mix all of the ingredients together in a serving bowl, then add salt, pepper, and optional add-ins as desired! Chill the prepared guacamole in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Serve with a variety of dipping options like sliced turnips, which are a healthy alternative to chips that still offer a great crunch. Sliced cucumber, baby carrots, and bell peppers are delicious and healthy dipping options as well. Of course, you cannot forget the tortilla chips! Look for an organic version made with minimal ingredients.

Although cucumber isn’t a traditional ingredient in guacamole, I love the fresh and crisp flavor that it adds. Adding mustard to guacamole may also sound extremely unusual to you (and it is!), but I love the layer of flavor and tang it adds, especially if you get a less than perfect batch of avocados. Typical guacamole includes cilantro, but I personally loathe cilantro, so I choose to exclude it! If you like it, add it generously!

Consider These Tips When Making Your Guacamole

I suggest preparing the guacamole the day that you plan to serve it to ensure maximum freshness, as the guacamole may start to brown slightly after a day. However, it is helpful to plan a few days ahead of time to go to the store to pick your avocados.

It can be difficult to find perfectly ripe avocados (at least where I live!), so it’s a safer bet to get them ahead of time and allow a few days for them to ripen. If you need to slow the ripening process, you can place them in the refrigerator. If you need to speed up the ripening process, you can wrap the avocados in aluminum foil and warm them in the oven at about 200 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes, or until they soften. Let them cool completely before removing the foil.

Enjoy this delicious, easy, healthy, and fresh summer snack at your next party!

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What other ingredients do you like to put in your guacamole? What do you like to serve your guacamole with? Do you have a “go-to” summer dish that you like to take to picnics and other outdoor gatherings?

The Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 BCE), often referred to as the Father of Medicine, said: “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have the safest way to health.” In other words, a healthy lifestyle is prevention and is better than cure.

Nutrition is the study of nutrients in food and the relationship between diet, health, and disease. A healthy diet is all about putting the science of nutrition into practical action so that we nourish our bodies in the best possible way. I’d like to tell you about some insights and reading materials that have helped me to do this.

Why Eat a Healthy Diet?

Quite simply because we want to be healthy and strong, and live a long, healthy life. Good nutrition is important from the earliest days of our lives, but it’s never too late to start focusing on it.

Where to Begin?

The problem with changing any part of your lifestyle is knowing what to change first. There are a few simple no-nos that experts have suggested are a good start.

Many diets involve cutting out the white foods: white flour, white rice, salt, sugar, dairy produce, potatoes. White flour is stripped of all nutrients and is high in calories, which means if it’s consumed in excess, it will result in added weight.

Too much salt causes the body to retain water, which increases weight and can lead to high blood pressure. Too much white sugar leads to weight gain, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Milk and dairy products are not too good for many adults. They can cause bloating and gas because the body doesn’t have the tools to process them. Yogurt is better.

As the Harvard School of Public Health explains, potatoes have a high glycemic load – in other words, they are high in a type of carbohydrate that is digested quickly and causes blood sugar and insulin to rise quickly, then dip. Potatoes can add weight if they are not eaten in moderation.

If you manage to reduce your consumption of all these ingredients, you will have gone a long way to decreasing the presence of junk and processed foods and beverages in your diet, meaning you’ll be living a healthier lifestyle.

What Does a Good, Healthy Diet Look Like?

It all begins with breakfast. A muesli of raw oatmeal flakes, raisin All Bran flakes, mixed nuts, and blueberries, topped with yogurt, gives energy for the day. Have it with a large mug of warm boiled water infused with 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, a teaspoon of clear honey, and a large dash of lemon juice, and you’ll be keeping the doctor away.

For lunch, consider having a balanced plate that contains enough protein and the right amount of carbohydrates and fat. Crackers and a little cheese, plus fruit and yogurt and some nuts, is one simple option that fits this bill.

For dinner, the experts tell us it’s advisable to eat raw food in the form of a vegetable-based salad: spinach, lettuce, cucumber, mushrooms, red onion, sweet peppers, broccoli, avocados, and root vegetables such as carrots. As dressing, olive oil and balsamic vinegar add further healthful vitamins. This salad can be accompanied by a small portion of sweet potatoes, brown rice or wholegrain pasta. To add protein, we can have fish, or a little meat. Eggs are also healthy in moderation.

For dessert, try fruit salads with a good variety of fruits, perhaps alongside frozen yogurt. Nuts can be added. Sugar can be replaced by natural honey.

We need to keep hydrated by drinking enough water (6-8 cups a day). To deal with that sweet craving, eat 3-5 dates, 5-6 grapes, or honey on a cracker.

Dietary guides tend to recommend not snacking between meals. However, if we have to, go for things like nuts, celery sticks, carrots, crackers, broccoli, apple slices, and kale chips.

Finding Balance

We can keep our weight in good balance with our height by eating in a more mindful way. One technique that helps us become attuned to our body’s actual needs is to learn how to be comfortable with the feeling of being a bit hungry, which is a question of habit formation.

We don’t necessarily need three meals a day; perhaps two would be sufficient. Many people like to fast one day a week. We can experiment to find out what suits us personally. The caloric intake you need will depend on things that are unique to you, such as the particularities of your own metabolism and how many calories your daily routine burns.

Remember

A 4 oz. glass of wine has 100 calories. A 6 oz. glass of wine has 150 calories.

So be aware of your alcohol intake.

There are so many books on good nutrition. Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating (2017) contains everything you need to know. It suggests that dark chocolate can be used as dessert. This ought to be enough to persuade chocolate lovers to buy the book. Outline, the Science and Art of Longevity (2023) by Dr. Peter Attia is a New York Times #1 bestseller, and it is excellent.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

There are a lot of different diets out there. What works for you? Where do you find information on healthy diets and eating habits? Are you aware of the nutrients your body needs?

Dolores Catania’s Black Tie Back Ruffle Dress

Real Housewives of New Jersey “Teresa Gets Married” Fashion

The weather is getting warmer and it’s time to pull out your cute summer dresses. And if you don’t have any, please do not blame Dolores Catania. Because her black tie back dress on Teresa Gets Married is just one of the many affordable, perfect-for-warm weather dresses that she has worn this season. And if you haven’t scooped any up yet don’t fret, you can still get your hands on this one and I’ve linked some other in stock summer styles she’s worn at the end of this post.

The Realest Housewife,

Big Blonde Hair

Click Here to Shop her We Wore What Dress

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Originally posted at: Dolores Catania’s Black Tie Back Ruffle Dress

From time to time, all of us glance in the rearview mirror of our past.

Whatever the reason we find ourselves looking into the past, it’s usually prompted by a desire to improve the quality of our life in the present.

If that is true for you, there is no quicker or more guaranteed way to do so than by dumping outdated stories.

What Are Outdated Stories?

An outdated story is based on a set of limiting beliefs, which were formulated in our past. They may have once benefited us but at this stage of our life, they no longer serve our well-being today.

To better understand this, let’s go back to our childhood.

There was a point when the world was a blank canvas on which our imagination would paint anything our heart desired.

We believed in fairytales, and, in many instances, we made up our own. In these stories, we could be, do, and imagine anything.

As we grew older, we were forced to give up the stories that made us happy in lieu of accepting stories about how the so-called real world worked.

What we didn’t understand at the time is how the limiting beliefs that populated these stories would come to affect how we see ourselves.

Now that we are over 60, what are we to do about these outdated stories?

Honoring Your Past

Every experience in your life was unconsciously influenced by the stories you accepted as true about yourself and the world.

Does that mean these stories remain true for you today?

Whether they are or not, the first thing to do when dumping outdated stories is to honor them. For in doing so you are honoring your journey in life.

This is about honoring your past, not holding onto it.

In my experience, the way you can honor your past without allowing it to define you today is surrendering limiting beliefs and outdated stories you once defined yourself through.

Here are three examples:

1. Perhaps you once believed you needed to forego your personal desires in order to be of service to others.
2. You may have believed it was necessary to sacrifice fun and your health to get ahead in life.
3. To feel validated and worthy, you may have felt the need to compete against other women or harshly judge other people.

I am not suggesting any of this is bad or didn’t help you survive a turbulent period of your life. I am saying, however, who you once needed to be to feel safe, worthy, and valued is not who you are today.

6 Steps to Surrendering Outdated Stories

Today, you are wiser than ever before. You also know giving away your power to limiting beliefs and outdated stories does not serve your well-being after 60.

Ok, now what?

Now, you begin to honor your past by dumping limiting beliefs and outdated stories.

Here are six essential and simple steps to get you started.

Schedule a Quiet Moment in Your Day and Journal Your Five Most Heartfelt Desires for Your Life After 60

These desires could be loving more of yourself, taking a dream vacation, exercising more, improving an existing romantic partnership, attracting a new beloved, starting a hobby, or even launching a new business.

Identify Your Inner Obstacles to These Desires

This step is about going inward and identifying what limiting beliefs and outdated stories show up that tell you why you can’t be, do, and have your desires met after 60.

Appreciate the Lessons and Gifts of Your Past

Journal the lessons and gifts associated with outdated stories. Write out why you appreciate them, even if they are linked to limiting beliefs you once defined yourself through. This is where you begin to rewrite the narrative of outdated stories.

Get Present with Your Life as It Is Today

There is no quicker or better way to get present than by appreciating your life as it is today. Granted, there may be things you want to improve but you cannot manifest new desires by complaining about what is not working.

Imagine a New You Through Daydreaming

Daydreaming is not a waste of time. Use your childhood imagination to feel into new beliefs and stories by visualizing yourself experiencing the new you.

Surrender Your Desired Outcome and Embrace the New You

This does not mean you sit quietly and do not participate in life. Nor does it mean there’s no physical effort applied to achieve a desired result. It means you don’t worry about how things are going to turn out. Instead, you allow yourself to receive the benefits of your new beliefs and stories.

Celebrate the Gift of Your Life

When you are aware of what is getting in the way of your desires coming true, you can more easily remove the obstacles on your path.

This is the art of surrendering outdated stories and the beliefs associated with them.

What do you do once these stories and beliefs are let go?

Celebrate the gift of your life without limits.

Please join me in the video above where I will share additional insights on each of these six steps and what you can do to apply them in your life right now.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What limiting beliefs and outdated stories are holding you back at this time of your life? Have you tried creating a new story for yourself? What would this new story look like?

Ariana Madix’s Blue Printed One Shoulder Dress

Vanderpump Rules 2023 Instagram Fashion

Ariana Madix is right, there are two things you can always trust. One being your gut and the other being your financial planner. But when it comes to shopping I’m sure you’re listening to your gut more since your financial advisor may not always be on board. But thankfully when it comes to Ariana’s blue printed one shoulder dress we have the real deal and of course some real $teals below (which your FP could def get behind trust me ).

Sincerely Stylish,

Jess

Click Here to Shop Her Rhode Dress

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Photo: @arianamadix

Originally posted at: Ariana Madix’s Blue Printed One Shoulder Dress