Life be "life-in" around here... Like kinda pretty much completely fallen apart, but we will save that story (can of worms?) for another time... but I know my cortisol is through the roof, even all I teach.... Here's some common symptoms and what you can do about it!

 Common signs of high cortisol:

-Anxiety, racing thoughts, & poor sleep

-Constant anger/rage

-Craving sugar & salty snacks nonstop

-Brain fog

-Waking up tired after a full night of sleep

-Feeling wired but completely drained

-Stubborn belly fat that won’t budge

-Digestive distress

-Getting sick more often

-Increased body odor

Ok so now you know some common symptoms of high cortisol but why does that matter and what can we do to help especially when "life be life-in'?

I feel like 95% of us are “stressed,” and we all have our journeys and our struggles but I feel like as Mom’s it hits differently… we take on everyone else’s struggles, there’s no one to take care of us and we can’t take care of ourselves un...

Want to eat healthier, drink more water, add in fitness, lose weight or gain muscle?

Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-bound

Instead of just an open ended goal of working out more, make it specific, workout 3 days a week doing weight training for 35 minutes at the gym, which also makes it measurable. Make sure this is attainable, maybe you have kids or work 12 hour night shifts, adjust to make it work, maybe it’s at home workouts before school/work. Make sure it’s relevant to you, why do you want to workout 3x a week? For overall health? Maybe to look and feel you best for a trip? Find your why! Last make it timely. I want to be doing 3 workout a week every week by Easter, or maybe I want to lose 20 pounds by July 4th!

Whatever your goal is, breaking it up into smaller goals. This not only makes it more manageable but also gives you the opportunity to celebrate your wins along the way. Instead of aiming for 20 pounds by July 4th, why not celebra...

I’m sure you’ve heard of intermittent fasting at this point and I’m sure if you’ve heard of it you’ve heard of all of the contradictions surrounding it!

So let’s get to the facts:

Intermittent fasting is great because it lets your body have a break in order to break down all the food and toxins your body accumulates from food, air pollution, tap water, alcohol, antibiotics etc. However it comes with a point of diminishing returns. More is not always better. If you fast too much/too long it will slow down your metabolism and put your body in a “stressed” state.

The duration best for everyone varies due to sex, body type. weight, age height etc.

What I recommend is a 12-14 hour nightly fast usually 7pm to 7, 8 or 9am. (The more hours before midnight the better!) The general rule is once you start to deal with stress, getting the kids ready for school, traffic, work stress starting, etc it’s time to eat.

The problem with a longer extended fasts are if you don’t put enough of a brea...

Recently I was asked, ok I've been asked a lot over the past decade, how to know if you're using quality supplements! So here's a little snippet of what I'm teaching on this week in my Restored and Revitalized Course, to help you find the best for you and your family as well as where to find them!

Quality Supplements:

• GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) Certified (FDA standard, part of USP:United States Pharmacopoeia)
• 3rd party tested
• Formula based on studied dosage
• Freshness
• Gluten, dairy, soy etc. free
• Where it comes from (China etc.)
• Not paying huge money for marketing (money instead goes to research)
• Taste (fish oils that taste fishy are rancid and most likely doing more harm than good)
• Read reviews 
• Don’t get your supplements where you get your paper towels and toilet paper!

Reputable Quality Supplement Brands:

EquiLife

Apex Energetics

Thorne

Pure Encapsulations

Integrative Therapeutics

Ortho Molecular Products

Hey ya'll! So this one is a more "informal" blog but I've been a bit MIA on the blogging for the past little bit but with good reason!!  

"Brea Sharron Estep was crowned Mrs. United States 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada October 7th, 2021.

Brea is an Integrative Health Practitioner, Personal Trainer, Group Fitness Instructor, business coach and author of the amazon best seller "Holistic Health Clean Eating Cookbook". She was born and raised in Greensboro NC where she graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with her bachelor’s in business and became the owner of Foundation Fitness studio for 8.5 years. Brea recently moved to Morehead City NC with her husband Tim and two pups, to enjoy living their best life at the beach. She is proud to represent her home state as Mrs. North Carolina United States and now Mrs. United States, where she promotes her platform, her non profit Youth Fitness Link. Which shares her life’s mission statement “build health positive relationships...

Through my studies on my road to becoming an Integrative Health Practitioner, a decade in the health and fitness industry, plus all the trial and error I’ve done on the latest and great diets (maybe you remember last year’s #ketofail...) I’ve discovered there really must be something to this whole “eat your greens” thing our parents taught us.

Although I’ve knocked it for years, I’ve seen so much research supporting a plant based diet, specifically the way our bodies are created. However for me, working out 6 days a week, a strictly vegetarian diet would be a struggle (I’m all about animals, insert hamburger emoji here...) so hear me out.

By switching two of my meals to an easier to digest, non animal protein sources (hemp and pea protein, not soy) and doing more eggs and wild caught fish in some of my other meals as well as dropping red meat to only cheat meals, I’ve noticed a HUGE positive impact on my health!

More energy, better digestion, less inflammation, and great immunity have all...

I’ve recently been leaning about the difference in store bought vitamins and REAL quality vitamins.
Make sure your vitamins are:
-GMP certified (good manufacturing practice)
-Third party tested
-Free of pesticides, heavy metals and microbes (mold, yeast etc)
-Dairy free, gluten free, dye free and soy free
-Fresh (a five year shelf life probably doesn’t equal fresh...)
-Fish oils/omegas should not taste fishy or make you burp fishy-yes putting them in the freezer helps but the fishy taste means they’re rancid (oxidized, like you anti-oxidants we talk about for anti-aging..) and doing more harm than good
​
Moral of the story:
Stop buying your vitamins where you buy your tissues and toilet paper!! (As I throw away my vitamins from Costco...)

Quote of the day: “It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” - Ghandi

New year, new you; new years resolutions; most resolutions are broken by February; and here we are. We’ve all heard the same thing every single January but why should you actually stick to your goal’s of “getting healthy, looking better, and feeling better” this time around? 
 
Exercise releases positive endorphins, and positive endorphins make you feel better about yourself as well as increases energy.
 
Exercise itself increases energy, stamina as well as mental alertness.
 
Exercise makes you want to eat better in order to “perform” better, which in turn increases your overall health.
 
Exercise, whether it is indoors at a local gym/group classes, or outdoors at a park/ trail is a great way to engage with new people with positive life goals.
 
Exercise has been proven time and time again to decrease and even alleviate depression, anxiety, stress, negative self-esteem and cognitive function.
 
Exercise is a great way to improve self-esteem through setting and beating personal goals.
 
Exercise imp...

Love going out in my backyard and picking all of my garden goodies!
But not all “gardens” are created equal...
Why go organic?
One word: toxins
Where do toxins come from?
-GMO‘s (genetically modified organisms)
-Preservatives
-Chemical Fertilizers
-Pesticides/DDT
-Herbicides
-Fungicides
-Insecticides
-Rodenticides
-Hormones in animal products
What’s so bad about toxins anyways?
Well they just don’t go away. A study done by the Center for Disease Control showed 99% of people tested had byproducts of DDT(DDE), banned 40 years ago, in their blood.
Long term damage from what’s been sprayed on our “healthy” food includes: birth defects, ADD/ADHD, reproductive issues, male infertility, nervous system damage, autoimmune issues, brain deterioration, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia and even cancer. It also allows chemicals to become free radicals which poison our cells and wipes out our good gut bacteria needed for digestion as well as immunity!
All researcher need is just one pesticide to create cancer in lab...