As you know, from my past posts, I’ve taken a stronger, healthier, more active role in mine and my family’s health the last year or two. Better late than never, right? Well, I’m very excited to share with you this great healthy food program I came upon recently! Simply stated, The Green PolkaDot Box (“GPDB”) is a new, emerging buying club that is dedicated to delivering organic and natural foods, and other healthy, environmentally friendly products at record shattering low prices!

With GPDB you will save up to 60% on the top name brands and foods – including fresh produce, organic meats and dairy products – you already buy. So, if you’re spending $400-$500 a month on groceries, including organic foods, you can cut that bill in half and save about $3,000 per year! But it doesn’t stop there…

For a short time, they are opening up Founding Trust positions with GPDB and if you add the cash benefits you get back with a Founding Trust Membership you’ll get an additional $4,500 in purchasing power. So, as a Trust Member in GPDB you’ll get back about $7,500 in savings on organic and natural foods!

But there’s more… there are a host of other financial benefits included with this special offering:

A Lifetime Personal Purchase Discount whenever you shop
FREE memberships you can give away to family members and friends!
A Lifetime of PolkaDot Rewards to reduce or eliminate your grocery bill altogether!
A Lifetime membership with no annual fees!
And FREE Shipping by FED EX Ground!

If you enjoy a healthier lifestyle, natural and organic food choices, and want to save some money, I hope you check out this unique healthy buying club opportunity today! Watch the video, it gives great background info from Rod – the CEO. Make an informed decision about which membership you’d like (and yes, one of the options is totally FREE!) And then make sure to tell all your family and friends!

It is such a huge pleasure to experience the benefits of organic and whole food eating when the bounty comes from my own garden! Since our garden is still young and on the small side, we supplement what we need by buying fresh from our markets and local stands. I no longer purchase meat as I dropped all meat from my diet two years ago and have recently dropped way back in the amount of dairy I purchase and personally consume. My family still gets a good amount of dairy in their diet, but eat much less meat as they’ve developed a fondness for the fresher, more natural foods that are now abundant in our kitchen. As a teacher, I get a nice long summertime break and this is absolutely the best time to indulge in healthy seasonal foods from the backyard garden.

Whole foods are foods which contain no harmful additives which you will find in processed foods. Whole foods are foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible. Foods which are considered to be whole foods do not contain added ingredients and are as natural as possible. They are absolutely the best source of nutrition and give us maximum nutritional value.

In my garden, I grow three different varieties of tomatoes, three varieties of peppers, zucchini, cucumber, pumpkin and strawberry. I also have a few herbs like rosemary and basil, and then there are our citrus trees – lemon, grapefruit and orange – yum!

If you are new to whole food health, I have a few of my favorite sites I’d like to share with you for information and ideas.

Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits is one of my all time favorite sites in general. He shares honest, and inspiring ideas about living well, healthy and minimally. Here is a link to one of his posts on diet and lifestyle.

I adore the Sprouted Kitchen, not only for it’s organic, health-minded recipes and ideas, but for it’s amazingly beautiful photography. This is a great resource and a visual delight!

The Whole Food Nutrition Kitchen and The Best Vegan Guide are two more very worthwhile blogs I subscribe to and visit often.

So, back in August of 2009, I posted briefly about trying out a vegetarian lifestyle.  I started a vegetarian diet in July ’09 actually, and it stuck. I enjoyed it, and still do – 7 months later. I can’t do Vegan as it’s just too restrictive for me, but the Pescetarian way suits me very well. This is a change I plan to keep and continue with for a long time to come.. along with consuming more whole foods and organic foods in general. It makes me feel good, healthy and positive. I’m trying to also exercise more, though I’m not much of an exercise fan. My work on the computer finds me quite sedentary, so I have to make myself stop working, get up, out, and active. I take a walk almost every day which helps too.

Back in October, I posted information about some pain I was experiencing and researched. Cubital tunnel syndrome is what I diagnosed myself with, and unfortunately, am still dealing with. It got worse in December and then just recently, in the last couple of weeks, has improved some.. so I have hope that it is finally healing. I have spent quite a lot of time with the one of those ACE bandages on.. the one for the elbow, which I think has helped. I’m hopeful it is getting better.. slowly.

For years now, it’s been an important pursuit of mine to be positive. I’ve been trying to make physical and emotional changes in my life that promote positivity in and around me. It’s not always easy, but it will always be something I work on/strive for and I think I’m doing pretty well. I see this as so much more than just a positive attitude.. it’s a way of life. It’s what you seek, what you promote, what you say and what you do.  It’s my belief that when you give out positive energy, you receive it back as well. I think it’s a conscience choice people make. Positive, Negative.. they are directions. You can choose one direction or the other.

I hope your new year is off to a good start so far. If you’ve set goals or made plans for yourself, I wish you success with them. Whatever you do, I hope much happiness follows.

- Karlyn