Take a Wellness Vacation - Hawaii Budget EcoTourism Guide

If you're considering a wellness vacation, what more peaceful, spiritual place could you choose than Hawaii? Hawaii can be expensive but it is possible to take an eco-trip to Hawaii on a budget.

A good friend of mine wrote this ebook Eco Hawaii Budget Travel Guide which is packed with valuable, money-saving information on how to take an eco-vacation to Hawaii and save money doing it.

If you're considering a trip to Hawaii, you should check out her website Coconut Roads.com which also offers free and valuable info on Hawaii.

100 Healthy Living Tips - #14 - Add Seeds to Your Diet

Did you know that adding sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and flaxseeds to your diet is good for your heart, your joints, your eyesight and your skin? Just 2 tablespoons of seeds daily can give great health benefits:

• Sesame seeds are great sources of copper which is an anti-inflammatory that will help ease joint pain. Inflammation also contributes to allergies and other health problems.
• Flaxseed contains heart-healthy alpha-linolenic acid with helps lower cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure.
• Sunflower seeds contain Vitamin E, which helps prevent sun damage to skin. Sunflower seeds also contain zinc which helps prevent macular degeneration in the eyes and helps boost your immune system.

How to get healthy seeds into your daily diet:

• Add 2 TBS of seeds to cereal, a smoothie or yogurt.
• Add sunflower seeds to your salad.
• Mix into salad dressings.
• Add a few tablespoons of seeds to your bread mixes, muffins, brownies,  pancakes or just about anything you bake.
• Keep sunflower seeds around for snacking. They also contain muscle building protein.

Adding seeds to your diet is a quick and easy healthy living tip that can fit into just about any meal or snack during the day.

100 Healthy Living Tips - #13 - Eat Flu Fighting Foods

Worried about the H1N1 Flu virus? Whether or not to get a Swine Flu vaccination - if you can even find one - is a very controversial subject and a decision each person must make for their family. Whatever you decide, there is another way to help protect yourself from H1N1, or any other viruses - build up your immunity naturally with healing foods.

In Dave Grotto's book 101 Foods That Could Save Your Life, he offers a great list of every day foods you can eat to help build immunity and avoid illnesses like flu and H1N1.

Here are a few of the flu-fighting foods listed in 101 Foods That Could Save Your Life:

• Yogurt - Probiotics encourage healthy bacteria in your system, which fights virus and flu. Look for yogurt which lists "live and active cultures" such as Activia or Danactive.
• Oysters - Contain zinc which is necessary for a healthy immune system. One medium oyster is packed with almost all the zinc needed for a day. Think oyster dressing this Thanksgiving!
• Fresh Garlic - also one of my first remedies if I feel that tell-tale tickle in my throat. Crush fresh garlic (if you don't have a garlic press, put it in a zip loc bag and crush) and let is sit for several minutes to activate the virus-fighting enzymes. I add it to salsa or put on buttered toast. Garlic contains over 100 sulfuric compounds -- powerful enough to wipe out bacteria and infection. Some studies show that those taking garlic supplements suffer fewer colds but I prefer to get my garlic fresh and powerful. Garlic can also help lower high blood pressure and cholesterol.
• Dark Chocolate - Isn't it nice to see something so tasty also helps give you a strong immune system so you can avoid the Swine Flu? Make sure your chocolate is at least 72% cocao, which supports T-cells to increase the body's defense against infection.
• Almonds - I eat a handful of almonds daily as they contain protein and fiber, which are great for maintaining your weight. Almonds help build a strong immune system too because they are a good source of Vitamin E.
• Sweet potatoes and other orange colored foods contain beta-carotene to help boost your immune system and neutralize disease-causing toxins.
• Mushrooms - Every time we feel "something coming on" one of the first things I do is buy some shitake mushrooms and make a delicious chicken soup with them. Dr. Andrew Weil recommends shitake and maitake mushrooms as immune boosting foods. In Grotto's book, he recommends all mushroom types because of their antimicrobial type fiber, which helps activate "superhero" cells that seek out and destroy infections.

Although fresh is always best, we also take Vitamin Shoppe's - Mushroom Complex every day as well to help boost our immunity against flu and colds in winter. I love Vitamin Shoppe because for every dollar you spend, you get points during the year. At the end of the year, your points are tallied and you receive a gift certificate to spend the following January.

A healthy immune system also protects your body from other disease like cancer. For more great foods to help protect your family from H1N1, ordinary flu and colds, as well a other viruses, get your own copy of Dave Grotto's book 101 Foods That Could Save Your Life

Money Saving Gift Ideas for the Holidays

Everyone appreciates tips on saving money for the holidays. With the economy still uncertain and holiday spending expected to be low again this year, I will be using these money saving ideas for unique holiday gifts.

1. Create your holiday gift list and decide how much you can afford to spend on each person. Stick to your budget and shop for a couple unique holiday gifts each pay day.

2. Gather your friends and relatives together and share money saving ideas like putting everybody’s name into a hat and each drawing a name. Our 4 children and their spouses did this last year and it worked out great. This way everyone gets a great holiday gift and you don’t have to buy for everyone on the list.

3. Agree among friends and relatives that sharing the holiday spirit is more important than spending money on gifts. Host a holiday gathering where everyone brings a festive dish instead and share a holiday meal together.

4. If there are children or grandchildren in the family, agree to focus the gift giving on them to create a special holiday for them. After all, do you really need a new tie or box of candy?

5. If you are shopping, shop early for great gift ideas. Stores will be offering sales earlier than ever this year to get everyone in the holiday gift giving spirit.

6. Start early and make your own handmade gift for those on your list. Get into creative gifts – make a little gift basket with home baked holiday goodies, bake cookies for the mail man or woman. Last year, my youngest daughter and I went through old family photos and made copies, creating a photo album for each my other daughters so everybody had their own copies of treasured memories. We spent a good hour on Christmas Eve laughing and talking about happy memories from their childhoods. Handmade gifts don’t have to be expensive and everyone appreciates the time you took to create their special gift. This year, I took up knitting, so everybody is getting a scarf and hat.

Gift Ideas from Your Kitchen

7. Give the unique gift of time – Offer to babysit for your grandchildren or cook dinner for a friend or neighbor, shovel snow for an older person on your gift list or take a friend to a movie. You could probably find free events too like a Christmas parade to take someone to as a creative gift idea.

8. Great gift ideas keep on giving – give the gift of a magazine subscription. If you know a woodworker, get a woodworking magazine. If your mom is into health, there are lots of great health magazines out there to give as a thoughtful gift. You can get lots of great magazines at discount these days. Many times, you can get a buy one get one free for a friend type deals too.

9. If you didn’t start early this year, do it for next year. The after Christmas sales are a great place to buy inexpensive, unique holiday gifts for next year!

10. Remember unique holiday gifts don’t have to be expensive. Sometimes the cheapest holiday gift can be the most memorable. When I was a child – way back in the 50’s – we each got one gift we really wanted and one new outfit. We spent hours pouring over the Sears catalog choosing a special, unique gift. That one gift was more special to us, I’d wager, than the piles of presents many kids get all at once today.

11. Make your holiday an old-fashioned holiday about love and family togetherness. You may this year is one of your most treasured holiday memories and the most unique gift of all.

More Holiday Articles

Delicious Holiday Idea - Chocolate Gift Baskets by Intentional Chocolate

Do you have a chocolate lover on your holiday gift list? I only recently discovered Intentional Chocolate's chocolate gift baskets and they are really something special in the way of healthy dark chocolate. Intentional Chocolate is made from organic, pure Hawaiian chocolate infused with spiritual energy from experienced meditators who learned from the Dalai Lama himself.

I love the idea of not only giving healthy dark chocolate as a gift but also chocolate which brings loving, peaceful energy and a sense of well-being to the recipient. One reason I love dark chocolate so much is that it's one delicious treat that is actually good for you and Intentional Chocolate brings an extra element of positive energy with it.

Intentional Chocolate's organic chocolate gift basket is filled with Dark and Milk Chocolate Pistols, Chocolate Truffles, Dark Chocolate Goji Berries and more.

If you'd like to support a company which is trying to spread positive energy in the world, shop Intentional Chocolate this year.