Five Essential Elements for a Nourishing Summer

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In this Navigating Nourishment Podcast, Debbie and Wendy discuss the essential elements for a nourishing summer. They emphasize the importance of connecting with nature, practicing mindfulness, and prioritizing self-care through activities like napping, movement, and socializing. Debbie highlights the natural cravings for sweets during the summer and suggests replacing them with fresh fruits from local farmers markets. Wendy stresses the significance of sleep in the longer days and shorter nights and provides a practical tip for improving sleep quality.

Transcript

Debbie 0:06

We are health and wellness coaches and we wanted to kick off this podcast, saying that coaches are a little bit different than, say, your doctor, or nutritionist who tells you what to do – we offer prescriptive.

Wendy: 0:23

We work hand in hand with you, and really sit down and look at your entire life and see where you could make mini tweaks to get to feeling better. Because we want to live a really long life. And we want the vitality to go along with it!

Debbie 0:42

Definitely. And one of the biggest things we do as coaches is: we’re your accountability coaches. And that’s where people really have struggles, because everybody knows what to do for the most part, and they know they need new habits or to get rid of old habits. Having someone that you have as an accountability person is wonderful. How do we do it!? We use our Five Foundations of Health. And today, we’re going to be talking about Summer Tips paired with our Five Foundations.

Wendy 1:20

At the time of this recording, we have just celebrated the summer solstice – the longest day of the year. And so we wanted to frame this podcast around very specific tips for the summer.

Nutrition and Sweet Cravings

Debbie 1:37

Our first foundation is Nutrition. We want to talk about your sweet cravings in the summer.

Wendy 1:45

I know I have them and it’s natural to have them.

Debbie 2:06

We often go towards things like iced coffees with a lot of stuff in them. Or ice cream, for example. And it’s not that we don’t eat those ourselves. We love them.

Wendy 2:07

And there are tons of fruits now that are just popping like crazy. We just got through strawberry season and now we are in blueberry season – and we’re headed into stone fruit season soon.

Debbie 2:20

The whole reason we crave sweets is because we need energy. And we need our most energy in the summertime because we’re so active, and there’s so many things to do. And our days are long, and we need extra energy to get through these long days to be productive. So we crave sweets a lot in the summertime. Fruits are essentially what we crave. So we want you to think about that the next time ice cream pops into your mind. Maybe you can grab a handful of blueberries and see how that makes you feel.

Wendy 2:55

Play around. Get curious.

Debbie 2:59

And check out your farmer’s markets because they’re going to have the most local and the most fresh fruits available. Oh, I’m so excited for this ongoing fruit season in the summer. It’s like it’s almost too much!

NJ Farmer’s Market Guide

Wendy 3:12

It is! We have a family tradition to go blueberry picking and we go really early in the morning. You’re out there with all the birds and everything. And every now and then one pops in your mouth while you’re out there.

Debbie 3:30

Yeah, definitely. Here is our local, favorite blueberry picking place: Emery’s Farm https://emerysfarm.com/

Wendy 3:37

Our second foundation of the Five Foundations of Health is Sleep.

Sleep – mask up

Debbie 3:42

Yes. Sleep. It’s ever elusive to so many people.

Wendy 3:47

Yes it is. And like all of our Foundations, we want to bring awareness. For this particular one, we wanted to give a very specific and practical tip.

Debbie 3:58

Right now, as you know, we have such long days and short nights as far as light goes. And a lot of people don’t get enough sleep because of that. We’re going to bed later. The light is waking us up earlier and yes, it gives us that much more time to get things done. But we need our sleep.

Wendy 4:18

We need our sleep and we negotiate it more often in the summer. For me, I do take naps.

Debbie 4:31

Great idea. I’d like to get into doing more naps, but I’m not much of a napper. But what I have instead is a sleep mask. I don’t even wear it all night long. The robins wake me up at four o’clock in the morning and I know it’s time to put my sleep mask on before the light comes. And so that allows me to get that extra hour of sleep that I need. So if you have blackout shades or masks – it will help you get that extra sleep. It’s really needed this time of year.

OK, number three is our Movement Foundation. We’re all about movement.

Movement – get outside

Wendy 5:19

And we love talking about movement snacks. But today our idea is to get outside. And maybe it’s an early morning walk because you’re up early because of the birds! Or maybe it’s the evening stroll for sunset but it’s really helpful to be outside. Connecting with nature and getting fresh air.

Debbie 5:48

Yeah, because nature is such a beautiful healer. And we need to be outside in this weather.

Wendy 5:52

We need vitamin D and we need the wind in our hair and the sun on our skin and sand in our toes.

Debbie 6:02

Exactly. And the idea is that we often get into routines, and especially if you’re really happy with yourself or having a routine of either being on the peloton or the treadmill or something or the gym. And we keep that routine in the summer. We want to remind you – maybe take that routine outside.

Wendy 6:36

And again, these are ideas for you to be curious about.

Mindset – deep appreciation and present moments

Alright, the next one, is our Mindfulness Foundation. And this just goes along with everything. It’s kind of like the cornerstone. And summer is a very busy time gardening, the birds and the bees, the butterflies and going sailing or going to the beach or having cookouts. And it goes so fast.

Debbie 7:16

Ah, yeah summer! It goes too fast. I don’t know anybody who gets to the end of the summer and says, ‘Damn, this has been such a long summer.’ Right?

Wendy 7:23

So we want to talk about the practice of deep appreciation. And maybe play around with how you do that. Maybe it’s journaling something beautiful that happened every day or naming all the colors in the sky during sunrise or sunsets or asking: how can you be more present?

Debbie 7:44

Yeah, being more present and mindful and appreciating, it will just make summer feel longer overall. One of the things that I do is I take pictures of wildflowers that I see outside. I’m seeing all the changes from the spring into late spring and now early summer. It’s just really cool. And so I’m appreciating it. Or, I’ll just stand outside and take some breaths and be like, Ah, this is so nice.

Wendy 8:00

Yeah, we get to be outside!

We get so busy and days go by without even thinking about it. So take some moments each day to appreciate whether it’s sunny weather, it’s cloudy, whether it’s raining, but it’s summertime.

Connection – say yes!

Debbie 8:08

Our last Foundation, which isn’t really our last, I mean, they’re not really in any kind of order – they’re just all so important – is about Connection. And we already talked about connecting with nature, which is a huge part of our connection. But connection with others is such a huge part of our health, as it’s been proven over and over again. And we have a few podcasts about that, that we can refer to. (Hungry for Connection Podcast) But the idea is that it’s this kind of big piggyback on the mindfulness about your opportunities to connect in the summertime.

Wendy 9:04

Yeah, we really want to encourage you – if you haven’t connected with someone or you get invited to someplace you haven’t been, we want you to say yes! It’s easy to be a homebody. I know – I speak for myself! It’s so easy to just stay home. But getting out and connecting with other people and socialization is really good for the soul. So yeah, pick someone that you haven’t seen for a while or a group of people and say yes, OR maybe you’re the spearhead of a little gathering.

Debbie 9:49

Exactly. And it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Just say: Hey, let’s go for a walk or Hey, let’s go grab some lunch or go blueberry picking.

Wendy 9:59

So you can combine a lot of the foundation’s with this one Connection.

Debbie 10:04

Okay, so these are our five foundations quick tips for the summer. We hope that you can figure out something to do to nourish yourself.

Wendy 10:13

And if you have ideas for us, we’d love to get your feedback. And if you want to share this with your friends and family that you love and care for, and maybe you send it to them and say, Hey, let’s connect.

Debbie 10:25

That’s the biggest compliment you can give to us is by sharing our podcast with your friends and family.

Wendy 10:28

Happy Summer.