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10 Healthy Living Hacks For Traveling

I’m writing this post on a four hour Amtrak train ride from Boston to New York, wrapping up a nine day trip with my husband. 😊 Travel strategy is fresh in my head, and since it’s been a few months since my last post, I wanted to catch up with everyone here!

(Links updated, 2024. Originally written in 2017)

Today I’m sharing a bit of what worked and what didn’t along our travels these last seven days. To make this trip happen, we DROVE 🚗 from our home in Atlanta in our minivan to South Florida, dropped our three kids off with my parents there and took a PLANE ✈ to New York. Then we took the AMTRAK train 🚄 to Boston and then back to New York where we will catch a PLANE 🛬 back to South Florida and will drive back home to Atlanta. 🚗

Phew. And YES we are very grateful for my parents wanting to binge watch their grandchildren. 😜

 

PERFECT isn’t a thing….especially on vacation.

I am proud to say that we are not PERFECT people. I ate steak once on this trip. And had a bit of ice cream. And on the Amtrak I ate a microwaved sandwich. Oh Lordy Be I was starving. I even joked to my husband…”you know <insert any health blogger here> would say that they just FAST if there’s nothing healthy to eat”….as I bit into my rubbery sandwich. <sigh>

These are obviously not everyday healthy choices and definitely not anti-cancer. But it has been 9 years since my cancer diagnosis and more than 8 years since remission. It’s nice at this point to occasionally have a treat that I enjoy and loosen the obsessiveness and intensity this lifestyle can create.

I still struggle with guilt sometimes about eating food I typically don’t eat (especially sugar when I rarely do,) but I’ve learned over the years that if I choose to do it, I’m going to let it go and enjoy the moment.

I’ve also learned that I don’t eat a lot of it. With sugar in particular too much of it makes me feels sick. Even if I order the kid-sized portions I usually don’t even finish that.

It’s nice to open up a bit to you all today. Sometimes it is easier to keep the stuff I eat that I’m not so proud of to myself, but I’m a real person and “Mom!” to three kids. It’s nice to RELAX the rules and rigidity sometimes.

Click “Continue Reading” for those 10 tips and hacks 👇

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6 Salad Bar Ideas for the Whole Family (Healthy, Fun, Stay-at-Home)

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Looking for at-home salad bar ideas? Have a big family or having friends over? Here are a few set-ups that will make your gathering a lot easier and more fun!

Have you ever thought it was funny how blog posts nowadays seem like they are written by a computer? Well, it’s because they probably are! This is really me though, Cortney, the author of this blog since 2011. 😀 But lately bloggers are using AI to write their blogs because it can create perfectly formulaic posts that grab the search engine’s attention.

Anyways, enough of that. I just though it was interesting (and scary?) to share. Since this is the first brand new blog post I’ve written in a while, it’s just what is on my mind while I am writing. Algorithms and AI is also why you may see the key word “salad bar ideas” all over this post. The more I say it, the more Google picks up on this post and bumps it up in the search results! Did you learn something other than salad bar ideas? HAHA, mentioned it again. 😉

I think ya’ll will find this blog post (on salad bar ideas😁)  so helpful. Having a family salad bar night is truly an excellent way to make everyone happy and meet everyone’s different dietary needs and preferences.

And if you want more content like this SUBSCRIBE to my weekly, sometimes monthly email list so you won’t miss it!

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Easy and Tasty Kale Chips

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I know that many of you may already be making kale chips, but this is the recipe that I have found easiest and most delicious. In fact, last week my daughter ate that entire tray you see her holding….by HERSELF. I actually had to bribe her with the kale chips to take bites of the other part of her dinner.

They are crunchy, have a tiny buttery factor from the olive oil, and are topped off with salty deliciousness. And this is without mentioning their amazing cancer-fighting abilities. Read on for the recipe!

Updated: May 17, 2023, originally published 2012

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How to Clean Your House With Norwex (non-toxic cleaning)

When it comes to cleaning, I’ve noticed people tend to settle into two different camps. They love it or they hate it. They let it build up until they can’t stand it anymore (or they have guests over), OR they have a militant cleaning schedule and can’t do anything for the day until the cleaning is done. Learning how to clean your house with Norwex products brings a joy and simplicity to cleaning that I’ll talk about in this post. 🙂

Since we were both raised in a stricter cleaning environment, my husband and I tend to lean the other way- towards TIDY but “oh, there’s a pink mold ring in the toilet? Ok, I’ll get the toilet brush…” mentality.

We have always struggled with maintaining a cleaning schedule because with the little amount of downtime we have, we don’t want to spend it cleaning!

Until now. Cleaning is SO MUCH EASIER and FASTER and I love Norwex. 🙂

**GO STRAIGHT TO NORWEX CATALOG HERE**

Post updated November, 2022. Originally published March, 2017.

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Taking Beta Glucan for Cancer | My 15+ Year Experience

As cancer researcher and author of Cancer-Free: Your Guide to Gentle, Non-Toxic Healing, Bill Henderson once said, “No cancer either begins or thrives if the patient’s immune system is strong.” So, a first priority for either prevention or healing is to prioritize equipping your immune system. We can learn about one of the fundamental ways to do this through the research of pharmacologist and immune system expert, AJ Lanigan and his product, Beta 1, 3-D Glucan for cancer.

This post includes an interview with AJ I did in 2022 and answers many great questions I have been asked about Beta Glucan since I started taking it in 2008. I really think you’ll enjoy it! (If you are short on time, there are timestamps in the video description so you can skip between questions.)

***For the lowest price on Beta Glucan visit this link —> HERE! 

(Updated: November, 2023. Originally published January, 2011)

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Samaritan Ministries Review 2023: Our 10 Year Experience

2023 marks TEN YEARS of being Samaritan Ministries members for our family. And we have definitely had some experience with health care sharing since we’ve joined! Lots of variety of injuries, birth stories (several home births), and other recoveries and testing. I can’t wait to share our very honest and detailed Samaritan Ministries review with you. 🙂

For those of you hearing about healthcare sharing for the first time, it is an alternative to health insurance that satisfies insurance requirements and functions similarly to insurance without being (or costing as much) as insurance.

In this post I talk about what it means to “share” with other members each month, what it is like to submit a medical need, the various needs we have experienced, and using alternative medicine doctors as your primary provider. We also had several emergency hospital stays that we paid with 50% discounts. It’s all in this post. 🙂

(Originally published in 2015. Revised 2018, 2022)

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5 Cancer Charities That Actually Help People

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So you decided NOT to run or race for a cure this year because you don’t agree with where the money is going? You want your money to go to cancer charities that actually help people? Maybe you want your money to make a difference in non-toxic cancer research and cancer prevention?

Every year MILLIONS of Americans will give their hard earned money to a conventional cancer charity in memory of a precious loved one impacted by cancer. From this, BILLIONS of dollars will be used to fund more research on harmful, carcinogenic, patentable chemicals and procedures “experts” say will be the next big cure for cancer. They have no idea that prevention makes a huge impact and that integrative and alternative cancer treatments are options for healing cancer as well.

Chris Wark gave a great explanation of why not to donate to some of the most popular cancer charities and how very little of your donations actually go towards helping cancer patients. It is SO worth a watch. Check it out HERE.

Also, read the financial details of both Komen and American Cancer Society and decide for yourself where you’d like your money to go.

Neither are cancer charities that actually help people nor do they support research on  prevention strategies  or non-toxic alternatives.

But the below organizations do!

These 5 non-profits (cancer charities that actually help people) are devoted COMPLETELY to helping people impacted by cancer. Several of them directly help patients and most of them focus on teaching prevention and non-toxic strategies. I love that they are all unique in their purpose and how they are supporting people and families going through cancer. You can make a donation today by clicking on the red donation links below each organization. 🙂

(Updated: October, 2022, originally published 2016)

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2022 Update + 10 Year Blogger-versary

Well, hello! 😀  Recently I have gotten a few messages and comments asking if I am still alive, 😳 so I guess it is time to hop on here and share a bit about what has been going on lately.

So YES, in case you’re wondering, I’m still cancer-free 13 years now and so grateful to be turning 40 this year.

Last May we had our 5th baby and first boy, so our days are THAT kind of full and blessed. Our kids are now 12, 8, 7, 3, and 8 months, and our days are filled with homeschooling, baby feeding, lots of cooking and blending, big toddler feelings, and of course lots of fun, too. 😉

Another big milestone that happened is my blog turning 10 last year! I can’t believe it has been that long. In that time I taught elementary school full-time, helped start HealingStrong, became a stay-at-home mom and had 4 out of 5 babies, and wrote 243 blog posts. And life was so busy last year, I forgot to say anything about it. So, yay for 10 years! And thank you all for reading!

I actually created an page listing out all of my blog posts by category a few years back. You can check it out HERE.

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How Do I Share About Alternative Cancer Treatment?

If you’ve been studying alternative or holistic cancer treatment for any length of time, you may have pondered how you would introduce it to a friend who hasn’t yet considered it or doesn’t know of it as an option for healing.

It can be a bit nerve-racking to think of offering such controversial “unsolicited advice.”

But when your friend or family member is diagnosed with cancer, you KNOW what they are going to be told by their oncologist, and you want them to know other options. I know for me- it feels like if I didn’t, I would be doing them a great injustice!

If you have been following my blog or simply have been researching on your own about the business-side of the pharmaceutical cancer industry for a while, then you would know that the conventional recommendations for cancer are pretty standard and (for the most part) really tough on the body. There is a time and a place for conventional care, but a dietary and lifestyle change as a first step is reasonable and important.

So how do you talk with them about dietary and lifestyle changes prior to beginning treatment? And how do you bring it up without getting push back or feeling like you’re overstepping boundaries?