Yesterday, before I was even finished with my morning smoothie, I was positive that removing clumps of hair by the fistful would be more fun than dealing with the shitstorm I found myself in the middle of. My little bubble of zen was completely punctured and there was air exploding wildly (and loudly) and throwing my little bubble every which way with uneccessary force. Not cool.

I’m sure you can relate. We all have to deal with things we’d rather sweep under the rug. Some of us (this is me, raising my hand and waving it around overzealously) have to be pushed into the lion’s den and forced to take action because we hate confrontation. Others enjoy a good battle and head into it with a little bit more gusto.

Either way, dealing with sticky situations can leave us wallowing in little pools of sorrow and self pity. I try desperately to pull myself out of these toxic pools by wading into much more positive territory. As silly and as hokey as it may sound, I often start the process by burying myself in inspirational quotes. I like to get the good vibes flowing and take the next step from there.

This post is for any of you who currently has a handful of hair and a cloudy outlook. Take a deep breath and rebuild your zen bubble…

Have you ever woken up one day with the realization that maybe you don’t feel as good as you could?

Tired of weird stomach issues and feeling bloated and zapped of all energy, I took to the internet one day searching for books about healing yourself through your food choices. I poked around for awhile before putting six or seven of them on hold at my local library, determined to make a change.

While all of the books were interesting, I was totally pulled in by Alejandro Junger’s Clean and its message of restoring your body’s ability to heal itself by getting rid of inflammation and toxicity. The more I read, the more I nodded my head. I’ve experienced so many of the symptoms discussed in the book and couldn’t think of a good reason not to give his 21-day cleanse a try—especially since I could do it and be done in time to indulge in a big, fat brownie on my birthday. 😉

Now, this isn’t one of those hardcore starvation cleanses. It’s really just an elimination diet (which removes a lot of the foods that cause inflammation) combined with a cleanse that aids digestion—basically, you have a liquid breakfast and dinner (which can be a smoothie, green juice or soup).

Being a relatively clean eater in the first place, I didn’t expect to have too much trouble—although I was afraid of my sweet tooth and tendency to closet binge when stressed. I kept a diary to track my progress and any changes I felt and thought I’d share it with you guys in case you have toyed with the idea of doing something similar.

Warning: I’m going way out on a limb here and sharing detailed statistics (both pounds and inches) and before and after photos. Be gentle. 

Like last year, I want to shine a little bit of light on all different sorts of love this February with a Love Letters miniseries. Every Friday I’m featuring posts about love from some fabulous guest bloggers—and they’re not the typical boy meets girl, cue fireworks kind of love story. These stories show that love comes in all different shapes and sizes—and all of them should be celebrated. Today’s post is from Katie of The Superfoodery.

Why the person you should be loving this Valentine’s Day is not who you might expect…

This Valentine’s Day marks 10 years since my first cancer diagnosis. I was mid-20s and ‘living large.’ I’d moved across country twice since finishing university. I was moving up the corporate ladder. I had a man, but no responsibilities so life was a pretty awesome party.

Then I turned 27 and my new life—the After Sick life—began.

I fell crazily ill, hospitalized in Intensive Care for weeks. Every organ was biopsied, every medical specialist had a look. Answers were not forthcoming. It was literally months later, when I was living with ambiguity, loaded to the eyeballs on steroids and 45 other daily meds, when I was given the diagnosis on Valentine’s Day. “It’s good news,” my doctor said. “It’s an answer. And we have drugs for it.”

I have a lot of questions. Once in awhile, I want the comfort of speaking to an actual expert on the topic that I’m looking into, rather than a chorus of randos on the internet. I know I’m not alone in this, so sometimes I like to Ask the Expert. I’ll take our burning questions and bring them to trained professionals. If you have a question you’d like to add to the list email it to me at jen@cuddlesandchaos.com.

If you’ve read this blog for more than a few months, you know that I’m a smoothie lover. I usually drink one every day and I make sure to pack it with greens and seeds (sometimes the greens/fruit combo makes it a vomit-like color that makes people turn up their noses in disgust. To that I say: you can’t judge a smoothie by its color, people!). They’re delicious and nutritious which sounds perfectly perfect to me.

But then there’s the whole juicing thing. I have heard people talk about juices and smoothies interchangeably, but I know that’s not right. Juices are much more fluid and—from what I’ve heard—much more labor intensive to make. I mean, I just throw some ingredients in a NutriBullet, drink it out of the same cup and am done. All I have to clean is the cup and the blade and the whole process takes maybe five minutes.

Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what the nutritional differences were between the two. Then I got an email newsletter from the amazing Bailey O’Brien about juicing and I knew I had to ask her.

Can we talk about the Always Superbowl commercial for a second? It hit me hard. I cried actual tears. My husband looked at me like I was crazy, much like when our oldest daughter was born and I would randomly burst into tears while sitting on the couch watching TV.

I hit puberty at nine. Nine. My daughter will turn nine this summer. When I think back, that was the time period that changed everything. I was suddenly conscious of my body; uncomfortable with it. From boys in my class noticing and mentioning how much I had grown (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) to grown men starting to look at me in a way I hadn’t experienced before, my body suddenly seemed like this foreign thing that I had no control over. I hadn’t grown accustomed to it yet and felt like I needed time to understand it, yet it felt like the outside world was already judging it.