Self Help Daily

Inspirational and Self Help Blog with a Save the World Complex...

You are here: Home / Archives for Self Help

Self Help

Six Easy Ways to Eat Less Every Day

by Leave a Comment

Don't Skip Breakfast!

Don’t Skip Breakfast!

Most people have the best intentions when it comes to their diet. Unfortunately, hunger pangs or cravings can encourage people making the wrong food choices, which can lead to excess weight, low energy, and health complaints.

If you are struggling to eat healthily each day, there are ways to stop reaching for sugary, fatty snacks, so you will only indulge in moderation. Read the six easy ways to eat less every day.

Use a Small, White Plate
If you want to feel full after every meal, you should use a small plate. By avoiding large plates, you’ll be more likely to enjoy smaller portions of food. A Cornell University study also found you’ll serve yourself less food if it contrasts with the color of your plate, so use a white dish when serving yourself some chocolate cake!

Try an Appetite Suppressant
A big appetite could lead to you indulging in all sorts of unhealthy foods in order to fill yourself up. Curb those annoying cravings with an effective appetite suppressant, which could help improve your relationship with food and transform your health. One of the most prescribed appetite suppressant on the market is Phentermine, which is FDA approved. The affordable suppressant can help you to take control of the food you eat, so you’ll be less likely to overindulge.

Focus on Your Food
How often do you eat meals or snacks in front of the TV? Probably a lot, right? Sadly, distracted eating could increase your hunger pangs, as you’ll be more focused on a TV series or movie instead of the food in front of you. So, turn off the TV, sit at the table, and focus your attention on your meal, and ensure you savor every bite.

Add More Low-Calorie Food onto Your Plate
Rather than piling plenty of fries onto your plate, load up on lower calorie foods, such as broth-based soups, salads, or vegetables. Doing so will ensure you’re not craving dessert or snacks after a meal, which could help you to create a healthier body.

Stop Skipping Meals
Are you guilty of skipping breakfast every morning? Or are you so busy at work that you miss lunch? This could lead to you indulging more than you’d like to by the evening, as you’ll want to fill up on food to increase your energy levels. Make time for three meals per day to help you feel fuller all day long. For example, eat a banana on the commute to work or pack a sandwich to eat at your desk.

Find Different Ways to Reward Yourself
Many people turn to food to reward themselves after a hard day. Rather than reaching for a tub of ice cream, you should treat yourself with a hot bath, a walk in the great outdoors, or a foot spa. Stop rewarding yourself with food and focus on other ways to spoil yourself after a busy day. Your body will be glad you did.

Infographic: 12 Uses for Turmeric

by Leave a Comment

Turmeric is one of my favorite spices to use in cooking – I actually loved it even before I discovered how healthy it is. While there are endless ways to “sneak” extra turmeric into your cooking and meals, my absolute favorite is with rice. I’ve never tried turmeric tea (as mentioned in the beautiful infographic below) but I’m making it a point to do so asap!

Turmeric: 12 Uses For This Powerful Spice
Source: Turmeric: 12 Uses For This Powerful Spice

Praying for Your Elephant by Adam Stadtmiller (Review of an Amazing Book!)

by Leave a Comment

Praying for Your Elephant by Adam Stadtmiller

Praying for Your Elephant

I read A LOT of books… Spiritual books, Old Hollywood Biographies, inspirational books, Agatha Christie mysteries, American History books, Ancient Egypt books, cookbooks….

You get the idea. I’m almost always seen with several books in one hand, a caffeinated beverage in the other, and a cat (or two or three) in my lap.

I always have more than one book going at once – usually 3 or 5 because my interests are all over the place. Having said that, three genres are constant:

  • Agatha Christie (I read and re-read her and have one Hercule Poirot mystery going at all times)
  • Inspirational Book
  • Old Hollywood Bio

Agatha Christie is like playtime for my brain.. I simply love everything about her mysteries. Old Hollywood books are an absolute obsession – if I’m not watching an Old Hollywood movie, I’m lost in at least one biography. As for inspirational and Spiritual books – they feed my soul.

The book you see pictured here, Praying for Your Elephant, is one of the best books of any genre I have ever read. You read that right…. I loved it that much.

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Prayer Warrior?” I have considered myself to be a Prayer Warrior for many years. This simply means that I pray day and night with the fervency and determination of a warrior who is smack in the middle of the battlefield. I pray for my family, friends, people I read about, strangers, crazy drivers who run red lights, individuals I see prayer requests for, etc. With this much praying going on and with this much on the line, I need all the inspiration I can get! Naturally, the Bible provides the bulk of said inspiration, but God uses Christian authors to further inspire and motivate.

Prayer does the salvage work of raising the sunken treasure of our lives. – Praying for Your Elephant Page 57 

This particular author, Adam Stadtmiller, has written an extraordinary book and it has taken my prayers to a whole new level. I’ve always believed in asking God for all needs – from small to large and all sizes in between. However, this book has inspired me to go further. It takes the phrase “small to large” and asks, “Why stop at large? Aim for COLOSSAL!”

Elephant-Size Colossal!

From the Back Cover:

What If Your Biggest Prayers are Too Small?

Get ready to re-ignite, re-imagine, and repurpose your prayer life while experiencing great intimacy with God. This is an invitation to identify your elephants—to name, through specific and strategic prayers, the 100 most important and audacious petitions you can imagine. These are the elephants that—if answered by God—would be game changers in your life and perhaps the world.

By supersizing your prayers and daring to ask for the big things – your elephants – you will come to know God in a way you never have, even if His answers aren’t what you expect. Dive deep into the adventure that is the prayer-filled life!

Praying for Your Elephant starts off with a bang. The author guides you into a 40 Day Prayer Challenge: Forty Days to Praying for Your Elephants. He gives you 10 suggested “categories” to create to organize your prayers and all but dares you to pray big!

My take away from this section was to pray as big as the God we’re talking to. Again, COLOSSAL comes to mind.

The book provides a chart for these categories, or you can simply write them down on paper or (my own personal approach) in a Prayer Journal. Writing prayers down helps you to see, over time, which prayers are answered and which ones may take a little longer. I have also experienced something else in my prayer journal – sometimes your prayer changes as God guides you from one destination to the next.

“There is no way that Christians in a private capacity can do so much to promote the work of God, and advance the kingdom  of Christ, as by prayer.” – Jonathan Edwards

Praying for Your Elephant is available on Amazon and I, quite frankly, could not recommend it enough. I love to tell you about books that have the potential to change your life for the better… to help you open up a whole new world… to touch you in such a way that you feel empowered to do anything you set your mind and heart to!

This is such a book and I really hope you’ll grab your copy as soon as possible. You won’t regret it. ~ Joi (“Joy”)

Find out more by visiting Praying for Your Elephant!

About the Author: Adam Stadtmiller is lead pastor at one of the San Diego’s most historic churches, La Jolla Christian Fellowship. A regular contributor to Christianity Today’s Leadership Journal, he is also the author of Give Your Kids the Keys and Discover Your Kid’s Spiritual Gifts. Adam lives in Carlsbad, California, with his wife and two daughters.

Praying for Your Elephant Quote Graphic


How To Start A Kitchen Garden

by Leave a Comment

Mini Peppers

by Delicia Warren

Having a kitchen garden is a great to utilize the extra back yard space and also save some money by growing your own food. This gives you more control over the ingredients you use in your food preparation and offsets some of the grocery shopping expenses.

To get started, you need to have gardening tools such as a spade, gardening gloves, Backpack Pump Sprayer, hoe and a wheelbarrow. It also important to create time in your schedule to attend to your garden otherwise your plants will die due to neglect.

Before you start, here are a few kitchen gardening tips to help you.

Choose a suitable location
Your kitchen garden should get a good amount of sunshine so avoid the side of your house where the shadow falls and near tall trees that will also compete for nutrients with your garden plants in addition to casting a shadow over them.

Soil type is also key as you want soil that drains well, that is it doesn’t drain too fast or hold water for too long, so loam soil is ideal. You’ll also need to make sure that the soil is healthy enough to sustain life so adding compost to it will continue to nurture the soil and grow healthy plants.

Choosing your crops
You need to research on what the plants you want to have in your garden need in terms of weather conditions, water, soil fertility and sun light. Unless you are setting up a glasshouse, go with plants that naturally thrive in your climate.

The best way to choose plants for your kitchen garden is by looking at your domestic demands. Plant a crop that you use often in your kitchen like spinach, tomatoes, lettuce and chilies. The goal here is to grow food for your family consumption.

Planting your crops
Once you have made a decision on your choice of crops, the next step is to prepare the garden and plant them. With most crops, you have the options of seedlings you transplant to your garden or seeds you plant and wait for them to germinate.

Although the cheaper option, seeds take longer to grow plus there’s a possibility some may fail or get eaten by rodents.
Whichever option you choose though, ensure that there is enough spacing between your plants. Do not squeeze in too many plants in a bid to increase your yields. This is usually counterproductive since the health of your plants will be poor due to high competition for water and nutrients and some might even die.

Maintaining your garden
Maintaining a healthy garden is easy if you have the time for it. You need to keep your soil fertile by adding mulch in the form of leaves, cut grass or dead weeds to it. This keeps moisture in the soil, prevents the growth of weeds and maintains the soil temperature at favorable levels.
It also important to regularly water your young plants which don’t have deep roots yet. Water your plants at their roots, not on the leaves.

How Bad Habits Can Affect Your Health

by Leave a Comment

by Maggie Hammond
Different people develop different habits. Habits are not easy to do away with, but if you can accept you have a problem, and have the right support, you can always live without them. Here are some of the bad habits that can cause harm to your body and should be avoided as much as possible.
Eating Junk Food 
Processed and fast food may be yummy and appealing but they are harmful to your body. Taking too much of junk food may cause obesity to young people, diabetes as well as other chronicle illnesses. Junk food mostly contain carbohydrates and can therefore lead to weight gain which causes heart problems as well.
Nail Biting
This habit will not only expose you to bacterial infection through eating of the germs on your hands, but it can also damage your front teeth. Many people eat their nail out of stress or idleness and you can avoid it by keeping yourself busy, doing an exercises to avoid stress and also keeping your nails trimmed and neat.
Not Having Enough Sleep
The experts recommend you sleep for 8 hours in a day. Otherwise you’ll find yourself being stressed, not concentrating well and having a poor memory among other things. Create a good routine before you go to bed or even listen to soothing music in order to have a good night sleep.
Skip Flossing
You may think since you brushed your teeth well, you can skip flossing for some reason. Flossing is as important as brushing your teeth. Skipping flossing can cause you oral problems such as gum disease. Gum disease can also cause crooked teeth or even tooth decay. In case you suffer from crooked teeth, you can use power chain braces to straighten your teeth.
Not Drinking Enough water
You can survive without food but you can’t survive without water! You should ensure you take 8 glasses of water in a day. Here are some of the benefits of water in your body:
  • It aids in food digestion
  • Clears all the toxins from your body
  • Helps with bowl movements
  • Make your skin flawless
  • Prevents you from having dry mouth
  • If you don’t take as much water as required, your health will be affected negatively
Sleeping With Your Make Up On
When you sleep without removing your makeup, you can suffer from eye diseases as well as skin disease such as acne. For your skin to be flawless, one thing you should ensure is, never to sleep with your make up on.
Smoking
Smoking as well is very harmful to your health. It can cause lung diseases as well as cancer. Smoking will also affect your oral health badly. Quit smoking for a better healthier body.
You should always strive to avoid the above habits if you practice any of them for your own good. If you find it difficult to leave some of your bad habits, you can talk to a specialist. Letting the people who are close to you know about it, they’ll support you and you’ll definitely make it.