31 Days off Your Duff {Day 7} - Just Get Up!

Because I have a busy day today, and didn't plan ahead, today's post is going to be short and sweet. It's about the greatest struggle I have in my life:

Getting out of bed.

Everything else, I can shrug off or eventually find a way to deal with. Getting out of bed? That's a horrific, internal battle every single morning.

BUT! There is hope for people like you and me...

Just do it.

I know, this sounds like terrible advice, or not even advice... I've researched techniques or asked friends before, and I remember a lot of,

"You just have to make yourself do it!"
"Set your alarm for the same time every day!"
"Have a schedule you must adhere to!"

Hmm, helpful.

But you know what? One day not too long ago, I started doing just that.

My alarm would go off... and I just got up. Wow!

Tips

Well, I was going to give you my newfound wealth of tips to make this a little easier, and I looked it up online just to see if I was as smart as I feel.

Nope. Turns out GeekDad kinda beat me too it... a long time ago. Where was this article when I was searching for help?

Anyway, you can go check out his humorous post, but here is my list of tips as well.

Don't keep your alarm next to your bed.

When my alarm was right beside me, I could just turn it off and not realize I had even woken up. I moved it away from me, and that has definitely made things easier; its not as hard to keep from going back to bed, as it is to get out of bed.

However, I may be moving it even farther soon. My morning self has realized that she can kind of slither and stretch to reach the alarm without fully leaving the bed.

Sneaky woman.

Get your clothes ready beforehand

WOW, it was always stressful for me to stumble around, half-conscious, and pick out sane outfits. Once I finally got something together, usually 20 minutes had passed and I was already frustrated with my day.

Picking something out the night before is fun, takes 6 minutes, and I can look forward to wearing it when I wake up.

Tea

Ooh, tea. I love tea. With all that outfit-choosing time I've saved, I started making a little cup of tea in the mornings. It's important for me to have that tiny bit of alone time before I go to work, I've come to realize. And again, having something to look forward to makes getting up all that much easier.

Bathroom

This is where I was really laughing at GeekDad's post. He said he gets tons of reading done in the bathroom, and looks forward to doing so in the mornings.

I guess I do kind of the same thing. The bathroom is usually good for more time alone; half the time that's why I'm in there in the first place.

After I've gotten up, I'll give my eyes a few minutes to un-blur as I check the couple of things I need to on my phone. THEN, it's off for tea!

Exercise

This is my last tip, but it's a very important one. If you are like me, it can sometimes take hours to expel that tired feeling out of your head and muscles.

However, I've recently started exercising in the morning. The moment I turn off my alarm, I drop down and do 10 pushups. The rythmic moving tries to put me back to sleep again, but it loses out to the muscular wake-up call.

I will then do 10 reps of squats and one other miscellaneous exercise. Then, I start my tea water boiling, do 10 more reps of each, and it's off to the bathroom!

All Done

There you have it. This didn't turn out to be that short, but oh well.

As I've just given you all my morning wisdom, I have nothing exciting to say for the ending. It's up to you now!

Get off your duff and... well, just stay that way! No going back to bed!

31 Days off Your Duff {Day 6} - OCM (Oil Cleansing Method)

Again, here's a really popular idea that is spreading around the world. But I can't have a blog without talking about OCM!

The Idea Behind OCM

In case some of you haven't heard yet, the Oil Cleansing Method is like the no 'poo of the face.

Basically, typical face washes strip your face of its natural oils, which causes it to overproduce oil for the rest of the day. The exfoliating face washes are actually pretty harsh on your skin, and will often leave tiny little abrasions on your face that you can't see with the naked eye. Mm, infection, anyone?

A lot of people, myself and boyfriend included, have decided to ditch the harsh, chemical-laden face washes and start cleansing the natural way!

But What Oils to Use?

What's fun about the OCM is there are so many options to choose from. Your most typical oils are:

- Grapeseed Oil
- Almond Oil
- Jajoba Oil (good for acne)
- Olive Oil (be sure it's actually, truly extra-virgin! See CrunchyBetty's amazing post about that here.)
- Sunflower Seed Oil
- Avocado Oil
- Tamanu Oil (not a typical one, but a good, expensive, face-loving option.)

You can't really go wrong here. Feel free to test all the oils, give each a couple weeks to get the full effect, and see which your face likes best.

My boyfriend and I have so far tried Grapeseed, Almond, Jajoba, and we just bought Tamanu. He has a dry, acne-prone face, and I have combination skin that likes to get little white heads sometimes, and so far we actually both prefer Jajoba oil (the Tamanu is too new to tell).

So those are a few of your options for the carrier oil. The oil that is actual going to get your face clean is castor oil. Typically, people use 1/3 castor to 2/3 carrier. But again, test the ratios and see which your face likes best.

Everywhere I look, people find out what ratio they want and then mix all their oil together in advance. I personally don't like that idea; I have a pretty little bottle for my castor oil, since I buy it in bulk, and I keep the carrier oil in whatever bottle it came in. That way, I can change it up as I see fit; if I had a particularly dirty day, I can use a little more castor oil than usual. Plus, my boyfriend and I use different ratios, so we just find it easier to keep the oils separate.

Time to Wash!

So now that you have your oils ready (you do, don't you?), you can go wash your face! It'll be near impossible to wipe the oil off unless you have a washcloth, so bring one of those with you too.

I'll walk you through my routine:

1. Pour the oils into my clean hands
2. Turn on the water to let it heat up while I...
3. ...Start massaging oil into my face
4. Keep massaging for about a minute
5. Wet my washcloth in the hot water
6. Drap cloth over my face until it cools, about 20 seconds
7. Wipe away oil (be sure to get your difficult jawline!)
8. Repeat 5-7 three times
9. Marvel at how fresh, clean, and soft my face feels

That's it! It's a nice calming routine, as the warm cloth feels really nice draped over your face. Take that total of l minute to clear your mind of the day's worries and calm yourself.

The End

Alright, there you have it! Don't be afraid to wash your face with oil; it makes you feel very clean, I assure you.

As with anything else, give your face a few weeks to adjust. It's used to being stripped and covered in chemicals, so it may not know what to do at first. As with my hair though, my face was so ready to stop using commercial products that it just flourished immediately (I know I'm extremely lucky; don't hate me).

Even if you start to break out, don't worry right away; some people just have so much dirt and grime under their skin that regular cleansers ignore, and the oil is going to extract those.

Good luck! Get up off your duff let your face know that you love it!

31 Days off Your Duff {Day 5} - Nutrition Facts!

Oh boy, doesn't that title make you tremble with excitement?

Well, I'm pretty nerdy, so probably only a few of you will be as excited as I am by this post.

Recently, I was reading up on the wonders of B vitamins and all the natural energy they give you. I work very long days during the week and my sleep definitely suffers for it, so an extra dose of energy sounds great. Now I know people can take B vitamin tablets/pills, but I personally have never felt comfortable with those artificial forms of vitamins. I would much rather get everything I need from my food.

So, after looking for a site to give me lists of high B-vitamin foods, I came across Health-Alicious-Ness.com They have categories of vitamin, minerals, and nutrients that your body needs, along with comprehensive lists of the foods you can eat to benefit from these.

They also have a fun comparison tool, so you can type in whatever food you are looking up, and get the complete facts on it. (some foods are not on there list, and some are just under really specific names)

After looking at these lists, I realized I am severely lacking in B-vitamins. Luckily, I love making my own lists, so I organized all this information in a way that I want to use it. I can easily make sure I am eating my vitamins now!.

My Meal and Ingredient Lists

Here, for your enjoyment, are some samples of what I created using the data off of Healthaliciousness (sorry, my computer only makes tiny screenshots apparently. Clink on the link if you don't have super-powered eyes and need to see a bigger picture.)

Bigger Picture
Eat your Kale!

This first picture is part of my ever-expanding nutrition list.

-The actual foods are colour-coded by type
-The nutrients, if they match a special colour with another nutrient, should be eaten
 together because it helps your body in the absorption process
-If an ingredient's Vitamin A is written in red, that means it isn't the best form
 that vitamin comes in, sadly.

Ahhh I love lists. Next!

Bigger Picture
A simplified meal

This depicts a super-simplified dinner recipe. I did this in Microsoft Excel, so I ordered it to total my meals up for me. Now, clearly, this isn't enough for the day, but remember this is just from dinner. I can look and see that:

"Oh, I'm missing a lot of B2, let's see.... *checks ingredient list* I think I'll have yogurt(11) and banana(5) for breakfast, and a feta(14)-seaweed(9)-avocado(8) salad for lunch!"

That would bring my total B2 for the day up to 64% of the recommended value - not bad, not bad. Ribolflavin is a hard one to get naturally, but there are plenty of vitamins that I can eat the full 100% of each day.

So! Now that you are filled to the brim with information, get off your duff and go grocery shopping!