Author: HairWeavings Editorial Team

The biggest chemical reaction that your body experiences in a day is from the food that you put into it. Therefore, quality counts. And so does the very first thing that you eat each day.

Eating a healthy breakfast does two things for your health. First, it keeps your blood sugar level stable, which in turn keeps you from being ravenous by lunchtime. Also, it helps you function at maximum mental and physical capacity because your body is running on clean fuel.

Grab and Go Breakfast Ideas

Some people don’t like to eat first thing in the morning, or they don’t have the time. For those people, I recommend keeping breakfast snacks in their fridge so that they can take the food with them. These may be:

• Baggies of nuts and dried fruit
• Yoghurt cups (get the kind without sugar)
• Hard boiled eggs
• Baggies of sliced veggies, like celery, carrots and jicama

Also, putting a teaspoon of coconut oil in your morning coffee or tea will stave off hunger and help you ease into your day if you are going to eat later.

Breakfast Salad

I love an energizing salad for breakfast. Chopped lettuce, chopped tomato, ¼ of an avocado, two medium boiled or hard-boiled eggs.

I prefer the medium boiled because the yolks and the avocado coat the mixture like a dressing when you mix it all up. If you use dressing, just use olive oil and a splash of vinegar.

Smoothies

Smoothies are a great breakfast, but only when you make them yourself. Smoothies from fast food places usually have added sugar or corn syrup.

In a blender, use blueberries, a can of low-fat coconut milk, 4 drops of stevia, a few frozen peaches, and a couple scoops of protein powder. Add ice to desired consistency.

You can use some natural fiber too, like one teaspoon of flax seeds. A tablespoon of almond butter will give the smoothie a crunchy taste and digest slower so that you are not hungry before lunch.

Eggs and Greens

In a skillet with a little oil, throw in some chopped chard and a small chopped yellow squash. Add a little water and simmer for about three minutes. Add two eggs and cook until desired consistency. Nutrition dense, low on calories.

Garnett Yams and Quinoa

Garnett Yams and quinoa is one of my favorite winter breakfasts. I do some food prep over the weekends, so that I always have something healthy and nutritious in my refrigerator and cupboards.

I cook up some quinoa and bake Garnett yams, which can easily be stored and used any time during the week for any meal.

Garnett yams

Cut off the ends and then bake on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper for an hour at 350 degrees or until soft to the touch.

Quinoa

Put one cup dried quinoa in a saucepan. Pour 2 ¼ cups of water into the pan and bring to boil. Turn to lowest flame and cover, leaving the lid slightly ajar so that steam can escape. The quinoa should cook and fluff up in about 20 minutes. You can also follow the directions on the box.

For a delicious breakfast, put some quinoa in a bowl and ½ of a cooked & peeled Garnett yam. Mush it all together and throw in some almonds or other nuts and a little coconut oil, if you like.

The breakfast meal should be an energizing experience. Stay away from sugar and baked goods. Keep some vegetable juice on hand to wash down your meal.

Though I am not the biggest fan of on-the-go eating, you can have a nutritious breakfast with a cup of vegetable juice (V-8 style), a couple of hard-boiled eggs and a handful of nuts.

What you put into your body first thing is important and so is what you put into your head and your heart first thing.

Remember what Alice from the Looking Glass said: “Feed your head.” If you can make the time to get up a little earlier, greet the day with gratitude and sit down and share breakfast with a partner, great! Ask each other “What’s in your heart today?” That makes for beautiful conversation.

And if you are eating breakfast alone, like so many working people are, do it while reading something inspirational that will inspire you to be kinder to yourself and others throughout the day.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Do you have a favorite breakfast food? Or a breakfast routine? Please share with us in the comments below.

Late one night, after a recent college reunion, I got to talking with a group of close friends. We’d had a few drinks. And having split our sides laughing over the course of two days about our shared pasts, we began to muse about our individual futures.

One of my friends suggested that we each set a goal we’d like to accomplish by the time we hit our next five-year reunion. He created a make-shift whiteboard out of our cardboard beer carton, so we could write our goals down and hold each other accountable.

The reaction around the room was a tell-tale study in contrasts. The guy who initiated the idea said that he’d like to undertake at least one major creative project by the proposed deadline.

Someone else – who’d endured a particularly gruelling year – said that she couldn’t set long-term goals right now as she was just trying to live day to day.

A third friend confessed that he knew exactly what his goal was, but that it was so deeply fraught and personal that he didn’t want to articulate it just then.

A fourth friend looked at us all blankly. “Honestly?” she said. “I can’t think of anything major.” She paused to give it a bit more thought. “Maybe to keep on improving in CrossFit?”

As for me, I piped up with one goal. And then another. And then a third. I quickly realized that if I didn’t shut up, my personal goal list would completely dominate our whiteboard.

What Are Goals Doing for You?

At first, I felt smug after this discussion. “Yay, me!” I thought to myself. “I’m so focused and determined! I’m awesome!”

I was particularly pleased that my goals extended into all aspects of my life. Not only that, I could name them and own them. I was proud of myself.

But after a couple of weeks passed, I began to question my complacency. Why was it, I asked myself, that I needed so many goals?

Why couldn’t I be more like my CrossFit friend? She was, apparently, so satisfied with what she’s achieved thus far in life, that she could afford to focus on something as seemingly trivial as an exercise regime. No disrespect to cross fitters out there. I know it’s gruelling!

The answer is that goals provide me with an excuse for movement. My worst fear in life is slowing down.

When I move forward – even in a frenzied state – I feel alive. I don’t have to succumb or even catch a glimpse of that awful feeling I associate with stillness. Which is one of fear and sadness that the game is up, and I am only me, warts and all. There is no more chance for self-improvement.

How Dreams Help

Not long after my reunion, I had a dream that I was back in college with that same group of friends. In the dream, I discovered that I had failed to write a term paper that was due in two weeks’ time. I’d had an entire semester to prepare for this assignment, and yet somehow, I’d let it slide.

Panicking, I rushed to the library to do all the necessary research. But as I ran towards the card catalogue – yes, I went to college back in the day when we still had card catalogues… along with the horse and buggy – I noticed a bunch of people off to one side of the room.

They were swinging on a swing set… in the library.

I’ve written before about the window my dreams afford into my psyche. On one level, of course, this dream is merely an apt representation of the person I was in college: someone who, as the phrase has it, worked hard and partied hard. Hence, the duelling images of the library and the swing set.

But I don’t think that’s really what this dream was about. I think it was about my current mid-life quest to integrate the two halves of myself. To allow the manager and the maker to co-exist together, rather than one half dominating the other.

That’s why the swing set is inside the library. The dream isn’t offering these images as stark alternatives. It is encouraging me to bring those two selves together.

In Search of Peace

Which brings us back to goals. What that dream told me is that I need to stop continually setting new goals for myself. Instead, I need to replace all my micro-goals with one, over-arching macro-goal: that of achieving peace within.

If I can do that, then I won’t need the constant churn of goal-setting and goal-replacement. I will just be. And maybe that can be my own form of CrossFit.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What goals have you set yourself for the next five years? Which ones do you think are the most important to you? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Originally posted at: Heather Gay’s Yellow Draped Halter Maxi Dress

Why is it that time seems to fly now that we’re 60 or 70 or 80? I’m often amazed when a wedding, the death of friend or a move to a new city was 20 or 30 years ago. Heavens, it’s already 2024! What happened to 2023?

Now that I’m past life’s midpoint, I appreciate Dr. Seuss’s whimsical perspective from The Cat in the Hat: “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

How to Make Friends After 60: Age and Time Perception

One theory why time seems to zip by as we age is that now, each year makes up a smaller percentage of our lives. One year equals 100 percent of a lifetime to my year-old great nieces. But it’s only a tiny fraction of my life.

Another theory holds that the more memories we create during a time period, the longer it seems. High school and college took forever, but I have lots of good memories.

A theory about time I don’t like is that the brain is less capable of accurately measuring time as we age. Ha! We’ll show them.

When you’re looking forward to something, like a dream vacation a year from now, time may seem slower. Your anticipation will have you counting the months and days until it’s finally time to pack.

Sadness and depression can make days drag too. If it goes on too long, it is important to ask for help from friends or a professional. Getting back to joy and the pace of a more normal life is never out of reach.

Making the Most of an Unknown

Aging specialists believe the first person to live past 150 has already been born. As we live to 100 and longer, will time in middle age seem slower? Will we procrastinate more because we think we have plenty of time for those bucket list items?

None of us know how much time we have on Earth – how long we’ll be with our most important people or how many years we’ll have to do all the things we want to do. No matter how long we live, life is short. We don’t want to reach the endpoint with regrets or what ifs.

Some experts suggest imagining ourselves at our very best when we reach the end of the road. What is our legacy? What have we accomplished? Where have we been? Then go to work being that person with all the time you have left.

Even without the rigorous schedules of our earlier years, setting goals and managing time are just as important now. Everyday time management hacks keep us on track.

Schedule Some Sort of Planning Time

My time is Monday morning. Before I flip my calendar page to the current week, I look at what didn’t get done and move it forward. I check appointments and decide what else I can accomplish in the same part of town. I look for blocks of time to work on bigger projects.

In his book Ready for Anything, productivity guru David Allen writes, “Most people actually have a lot of thinking going on about a lot of stuff in their life and work – stuff that is basically unproductive, distracting, and a source of unnecessary stress.”

A weekly review helps dump our ‘psychic RAM’ and clear our minds for more creative focus.

Another thing I learned from Allen is to move ‘Someday/Maybe’ items to another list.

Do What’s Nagging You First

You know that pesky thing you’re procrastinating about. If you get those nagging details off your list first, your whole day or week tends to go better. Putting off what’s bugging you steals from your mental energy.

Two-Minute Rule

If you can do it in a short time, just do it now: empty the dishwasher, address the envelope, make the phone call. It’s quicker than putting it on a list to do later.

Curb Multi-Tasking

Studies have proven that when we try to do more than one thing at once, each task takes 25 percent more time to complete. Puttering about can be fun, but if you’ve got something important to do, concentrate on one thing.

Rushing Slows Us Down and Makes Us Careless

Our reactions slow as we age, so it’s important to take our time, look both directions three times, watch out for hazards. One rule I follow forces me to slow down – keep one hand free to hold the railing going up or down stairs. Sometimes it takes two trips.

Mindfulness

We all have chores we don’t like to do, like dusting or cleaning the litterbox. But if we do even the most mundane task mindfully, and the very best we can do it, we enjoy it more. Plus, this kind of mindfulness is good for brain density. Who knew?

For most of my adult life, I felt too busy with work and chores at home. But an odd thing has happened in the past few years.

I’m busier than ever but doing more and more of what is important to me. I’m making friends with Mother Time, and she’s going to be my good buddy on my path toward 100!

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What are your time management tricks? If you’ve experienced time moving slowly because of sadness, how did you work past it? Do you like the image of yourself at your oldest old? Are there things you can do now so you’ll grow into the older person you really want to be? What do you think are the best ways to make friends after 60? Please join the conversation below!