For the last three years, Michelle and I have done a practice called an Annual Review. It’s an opportunity to intentionally reflect on the past year and think of the things that went well, things that didn’t go so well, and to take all that information and start planning for the upcoming year and beyond. We highly recommend this activity as an individual, as a couple, and even as a family. Don’t know how to start one? Check out this awesome free workbook from our friends at Live Your Legend and example posts from the Art of Non-Conformity. 

At the beginning of this year I made a pronouncement to make this the “year of productivity”. I even wrote a post explaining my plan here.

I was going to:

• Learn Spanish (mind)
• Get ripped and in-shape (body)
• Grow in my faith (spirit)

How did I do? Well… Continue reading “2016 Annual Review Part 1: How Well Did The Year of Productivity Go?” →

Every year Michelle and I have tried to do some sort of food fast, and this year we decided to try the Whole 30 challenge. You can read about why we decided to do this challenge here. 

We really like this practice of doing challenges as it helps us learn how to be more intentional, disciplined, and most importantly, become more aware of our own behaviors that we typically wouldn’t think much about. For this specific challenge we are focusing on what we eat.

Whole Foods for 30 Whole Days

We did it. Mission accomplished.

For 30 days, we intentionally avoided eating sugar, dairy, beans, rice, grains, gluten and other food that could potentially cause inflammation. We followed all of the Whole 30 rules. By doing so, we turned down offers of pizza and dessert, as well as many of our other favorite things to eat. Overall, it wasn’t that bad.

In fact…we both learned a lot*. Continue reading “Whole 30 Challenge Review” →