Fellow blogger Elizabeth Mitchell, is a Healthy Lifestyle Consultant, Fitness Trainer and author of the blog.thefitnesshustle.com and the website The Fitness Hustle. She was kind enough to be a guest blogger on Savvy Brown this week. Both Elizabeth’s blog and website have some great tips about clean eating,  getting and  staying fit the healthy way.

“Five Reasons to Exercise”
by Elizabeth Mitchell

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was constantly telling my dad to “stay away from those ribs and chopped pork”. And asking, “How long has it been since you’ve been on that bike?”

I remember when I had my garbage disposal put into my new kitchen years ago, I thought that I was doing something “green”, my food waste was NOT going to waste carbon emissions being trucked off to some some landfill somewhere, and would return to the earth’s natural resources to fertilize the soil and feed Bambi and the kids.

Um…not.so.much.

Apparently, when food goes down the disposal, water is whisked out and yes, that is a natural substance and not harmful to the environment, but the solid waste leftover is screened out at your local water-filtration plant and is sent where? You guessed it to the landfill.

So what? It’s organic material right?

Well… yes and no.

THE WINNER OF THE WONDER CURL GIVEAWAY IS …

ELENA

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Here’s what you’ve won…

A few weeks ago after washing and detangling my hair, I stepped out of the shower, put on my glasses…and freaked.

When I peered back into the shower it looked like I’d just groomed a poodle. There were large clumps of hair everywhere.

BIG ones.

I ran to the mirror checking for bald spots, thinking that my near-sightedness had caused me to confuse my bottle of depilatory with my shampoo. But thankfully, that was not the case. I stood there for a minute, tapping my chin trying to figure out what I had done wrong. I hadn’t changed my routine, I wasn’t using a new comb or anything. The only thing that had really changed in my life…well…was me. You see when damage shows up on my skin or with my hair, I know that it’s usually my lifestyle, and not necessarily the products I’m using that are the culprit.

I was right.

Stress from my work had caused me to stop eating as well, and stay up late, which led to coffee-laden afternoons, and insomnia-ridden nights. Exercise? Yeah right.  So since the beginning of the year, I’ve actively been trying to approach my hair and scalp health from the inside out. And it’s been working!

Here’s what I did:

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW OVER, THANKS FOR PLAYING!

I did a review of this stuff last year and I LOVE it! To check out my review click here. Scarlett, the lovely creator of Wondercurl products has been nice enough to sponsor this giveaway with not just one but TWO of her all-natural hair care products.

WONDER CURL GIVEAWAY!

1/15-1/22

Here’s what you can win…

Last week, Carolynn of the HoneyCee Blog emailed me about a blog post she did all about conditioners and natural hair. I thought it was REALLY informative and upon her request decided to repost part of it here.

Excerpt from “Conditioner: the Natural Girlz Creamy Crack!”:

“I was de-tangling my hair with my new found favorite conditioner and it occurred to me that conditioner is to a lot of natural women what relaxers are to chemically straightened women: CRACK! I mean lets be real about the situation, if there is one thing that most natural women can’t go without its conditioner. Whether it be a leave-in, moisturizer, or a rinse out we panic when we’re about to run out lol. So, I decided to do a little research on this product that we love so much and discover what it is really that makes this product beneficial to our hair.

Here is what I found:

I was at the local Foodtown the other day and came across this package of root vegetables and herbs for $2.99. It was labeled “Soup Greens”. No recipe or anything just a bunch of ingredients that, I guessed, if magically thrown in a pot, would make soup. Well my curiosity got the better of me so I bought it. This is what was in the package….

So I picked up a box of Unsalted Vegetable Broth and went home to experiment. I poked around allrecipes.com and cobbled together a couple of recipes until I came up with this one. I’m happy to say the soup was delicious! It was great with some crusty bread. And most importantly..

IT WAS CHEAP AND EASY.

I NEVER thought that this lil blog about my crazy journey to be a little healthier, greener and richer would be as successful as it has become. Thank you so much to all of you who have supportd the blog (and me) and who have commented, emailed, Facebooked, Tweeted and talked up this little project. the first year was a bit overwhelming for me, but I’m SO ESSITED about what’s in store for 2011.