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9 Meals to Stock in Your Freezer

Guess what?! Meal prepping can be as easy as combining all the right ingredients in a large freezer bag and repeating the process until you have enough recipes for the week ahead. Check out some of my favorite meals from The Chic Site to store for an easy week night dinner.

1. Broccoli Cheddar Soup

2. Chicken Enchilada Soup
3. Tortellini Minestrone Soup

4. Chicken Pot Pie Soup

5. Green Chicken Chili

6. Shredded Chicken Tacos

7. Slow-Cooker Vegetarian Chili

8. Sweet & Spicy Meatballs

9. Slow-Cooker Turkey Chili

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Easy Weeknight Dinners
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Want more delicious recipes? Head on over to The Chic Site now! You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel or follow me on Facebook and Instagram.

Don't forget to Pre-Order My Cookbook HERE!!

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You Are Your Own Worst Energy

Have you ever heard the term "You are your own worst enemy"?
Well a little while ago I started using the term You Are Your Own Worst Energy, but what does it mean?

How many times have you been on the brink of a wonderful opportunity, only to go and either self-sabotage it or have a huge obstacle appear in your way? Well, I have -- lots of times.

Let me share something personal with you.

I used to feel like this was all a bit unfair and like life was out to get me. I was a victim. I couldn't understand how some people had it all so easy and I had to work so, so hard, only to have it all taken away from me or make a massive error and lose all I'd worked so hard to create. It didn't seem right and it made me mad. I really believed that I was unlucky and that there was some negative force acting to destruct my life and ability to achieve happiness. I wanted to do the right thing, but somehow always messed up.

Enter Law of Attraction...

When I started to learn about the law of attraction, I loved the concept of it. I was fascinated and tried it out with hit-or-miss results. I couldn't ever get consistency with it and I realised that deep down I didn't believe it would actually work for me because I held the belief that life was out to get me and I was a failure.

The realisation that you create your experiences in life with the energy that you give out had massive implications for me. I felt annoyed that I had wasted so many years of my life bumbling around and failing at things and frustrated because I didn't know how to change my energy to let the good stuff flow in. I learnt that my beliefs created my thoughts and my thoughts created my energy.

I was my own worst energy.

I had so many negative beliefs about myself that I didn't know where to begin. Many beliefs remained buried in my system and took a while to uncover. I started exploring and healing old beliefs that were stuck in my body and my energy from childhood.

I felt like I was an inherently bad person trying to convince everyone out there that I was good, and that deep down I was ashamed of who I was. I attracted experiences into my life for years and years that bought me shame, like failing businesses and soul-destroying jobs, along with money and relationship problems.

This belief I held was, of course, ridiculous.

During my childhood and I had somehow picked up the belief or energy that I was bad, that I was wrong and that I was no good to anyone. Then I had carried this through into adulthood. I believed that I didn't deserve good and was stuck in self-destruct mode for way too many years.

Clearing this childhood belief helped me to change my energy and realise that I am not worthless, bad and wrong. Once I had identified it I could feel a physical block in my heart area. The more I thought about this belief the more I felt a heavy pressure pushing down on me. It was preventing me from really ever feeling like I could be genuinely loved and create happiness in my life.

During the clearing process I cried floods of tears and grieved for all the time I had wasted and all the years that I had been stuck. Afterwards, I stopped feeling ashamed of everything that I did and achieved and started embracing life from a higher perspective. I started to feel proud of myself and happy for what I had. I stopped worrying that all the good things I had in my life would be taken away from me. It was like I had started again, started a new life.

I had become my own best energy.

It was a long journey to get to this point and I used tools like meditation, emotional freedom technique (EFT), energy clearing and of course, practicing gratitude; but if I hadn't embarked on that journey I would probably still be creating and repeating those same negative situations in my life.

So do you feel like you are your own worst energy?

Clearing false beliefs is a sure-fire way to release heavy and negative energy, but how do you keep your energy elevated?

Here are my top 5 tips:

1. A Daily Gratitude Practice.
You knew I was going to say that didn't you! Well, it's true. By actively cultivating the feeling of gratitude you improve not just your psychological wellbeing but your physiological wellbeing too. Plus life starts to feel lighter and more fun! You can do this by sitting quietly and thinking grateful thoughts but a gratitude journal is the simplest, most effective way to tune into that feeling. Make a commitment to yourself to write in it every single day without fail. I do it, you can do it (apparently even Oprah does it!). Gratitude even has a positive effect on your self-esteem and your relationships with others improve too.

2. Meditation.
Don't worry if you don't know how to meditate, or you've never done it before. There are many different techniques and you can find the best one for you. I personally like guided meditations as my mind still flits from thing to thing and I find listening to someone else's voice helps me to focus. Sometimes I do breath work meditation -- just focus on your breath going in and out and try to clear your mind. The important thing is that you are still, and quiet, and if you are feeling peaceful afterwards, you have done it correctly. You will get better with practice but it's not a competition, it's a very personal thing. You can also access lots of free meditations on YouTube or get a good CD or app like Omvana.

3. Healthy Eating and Stop Boozing.
It goes without saying that a fitter, healthier body is going to raise your energy levels, right? I'm not saying never have a glass of wine, but if you use alcohol or food as a way to "zone out" of reality, you probably need to look at what the underlying issues are, so take a look at why you're doing it.

4. Do a Random Act of Kindness.
Not everyday, but once in a while do something kind for someone that you do not HAVE to do. It can be someone you know or a complete stranger, but whatever you do make sure you are doing it from a good place and not just to get something in return. P.S. if you want to do it every day that's okay too!

5. Affirmations.
Affirmations are clear positive statements in the present tense that you repeat all throughout the day. I use gratitude affirmations like "I'm so happy and grateful to have a healthy body." Adding gratitude into your affirmation supercharges it and makes it more powerful. It sounds a bit nuts, but it works! It shifts your mindset from emanating a negative energy to a positive energy.

Nothing can reach you until it matches your energy. Expand it. Lighten it. Love it.

Natalie Fox is the author of Gratitude Journal: 100 Days of Gratitude Will Change Your Life Available on Amazon and other leading retailers. The book came about after Natalie used a daily gratitude practice to cure her anxiety, start a business and repair her broken marriage. You can find out more by visiting her website here: www.gratitude-journal.com


Have these five tips helped you? If so I'd love to hear about it in the comments below.

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Sen. Claire McCaskill: 'I Have Breast Cancer'

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How Are We to Eat? Philosophers at Table

Photo: Art Institute Chicago

Almost everybody is familiar with the phrase: "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are", which the French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin famously included in his Physiology of Taste. The idea, later expressed by the German thinker Ludwig Schopenauer as "man is what he eats" (much more effective in his native language: Der Mensch ist, was er isst) reminds us of how much our food choices have an impact on who we are. Over time, the old adagio has had subsequent incarnations, pointing to various aspects of our relationship to food. One of the best known is Wendell Berry's statement that "eating is an agricultural act," and that as a consequence we are co-producers through our decisions regarding what to buy, consume, and dispose of. Lately food designer Pedro Reissig has turned the assertion on its head: "You eat what you are," highlighting on how ideas and values about who we think we are influence our eating behavior.

In their book Philosophers at Table: On Food and Being Human, Raymond Boisvert and Lisa Heldke (whom I had the pleasure to meet for the first time many years ago during a conference on food and philosophy at Mississippi State University in Starkville, MS) extend the conversation to "How are we to eat?", turning the spotlight on the undeniable fact that "food is a fundamental source of meaning and value in human life. Indeed, food is a fundamental source of human life itself."

The book is delightful, deep but never pedantic. The great philosophers of the past are widely considered and their theories analyzed, but the goal is not to provide a historical excursus on what thinkers of the past wrote about food. The authors compare their work to plumbing, in the sense that they try to understand the nuts and bolts of how things work, and above all how ideas and values - often taken for granted and never fully discussed -- greatly shape the way we understand and interact with the world. There is no more immediate perspective to do this than by looking at food, an experience that everybody, one way or another, shares.

Boisvert and Heldke reflect on everyday occurrences, rather than on abstract theories. A discussion about hospitality and whom we invite to our table leads to tackle larger ethical issues, such as the difference between being rational and reasonable, and the inevitability of interdependence among human beings. The topic of taste and pleasure takes us to a critique of theories of knowledge that peg us as detached spectators rather than active participants in our environment. As a matter of fact, the authors point out how "food reveals the inadequacy and inaccuracy of time-worn dichotomies like objective/subjective, mind/body and theoretical/practical."

Food reminds us that we cannot maintain the fantasy of being self-sufficient and self-contained. Food enters us and more importantly becomes us. Our digestion is the result of the interaction between our organs and the host of microbes and bacteria that inhabit us (and that we stubbornly try to destroy). As Boisvert and Heldke suggest, "appetite re-emphasizes our continuity with the natural world. It makes aware of our multiple connections and interdependencies: with the sun, soil, ants, bacteria, earth-worms, plants as well as with other humans that grow, harvest, deliver and distribute foodstuffs." If we let ingestion guide us in understanding our relationship with reality, we may embrace our lived experience as interactive creatures that need others, admitting that we constantly and uncertainly depend on external factors to survive. Rather than scaring us, the authors propose that this approach should lead us to discover ways of eating "experimentally, thoughtfully, wisely, judiciously. By tasting."

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This Vet Filmed Himself Trying To Get A Doctor's Appointment At VA. It Wasn't Pretty.

WASHINGTON -- Army veteran Dennis Magnasco spent two days trying to get a doctor's appointment at his VA clinic in Bedford, Massachusetts, but he couldn't get through to anyone on the phone. So he and his boss, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), came up with another idea: filming.

They set up a camera, put the call on speakerphone and dialed in again. For nearly five straight minutes, their video shows Magnasco being swept up in a loop of automated voices telling him to press different numbers, which sent him to other automated voices, which sent him back to the beginning of the original recording. Over. And over. And over again.

Moulton, an Iraq War veteran himself who's introduced several bills aimed at fixing problems at VA, wanted to put a human face to the widespread problem vets have in accessing care. He posted their video on his Facebook page last week. It went viral.

Why We Need the Faster Care for Veterans Act

Watch as Dennis, Army veteran and one of the District Representatives on my staff, tries to schedule his doctor's appointment at the VA. This is unacceptable. Our returning service men and women deserve better. I'm committed to doing everything I can to improve this flawed system and introduced the bipartisan Faster Care for Veterans Act to bring veteran health care into the 21st century. #fastercareforvets

Posted by Congressman Seth Moulton on Wednesday, February 10, 2016

More than 2.1 million people read Moulton's post and watched the video. More than 20,000 people shared it. Within a few days, the VA fixed the phone system at its Bedford facility and Magnasco was able to make an appointment. And Moulton suddenly had a dozen new co-sponsors on his bill, the Faster Care for Veterans Act, which would make it easier for vets to schedule their own VA appointments. He's up to 19 co-sponsors, both Democratic and Republican.

"We had a good number of co-sponsors before, but several of my colleagues said they heard from constituents about the video who encouraged them to get on the bill," Moulton told The Huffington Post on Friday. "We're just delighted."

His bill would require VA to run an 18-month pilot program that lets veterans in certain networks use an app on their phone to schedule or cancel VA appointments themselves. If it sounds simple enough, that's because it is: these apps already exist in the private sector and have been successful. Moulton said it makes way more sense for VA to adopt this technology than to do what he discovered the agency was preparing to do.

"They were planning to spend $623 million developing their own app," said Moulton. "This is available today. God knows how long it would take them to spend that."

VA has fallen short with its technology systems for years. A computer system glitch has been denying health care to tens of thousands of combat vets, who are entitled to free health care. A document leaked to HuffPost in July revealed that nearly one-third of 847,000 veterans with pending applications for health care had already died. More recently, a February report by the VA's Office of Inspector General found that a VA suicide hotline sent callers to voicemail and did not return some calls.

Moulton said he hasn't been able to get an answer from VA on why they would spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing an app to let vets schedule their doctors' appointments when these kinds of apps already exist. He said it seems like VA just prefers to have its own proprietary systems.

"They gave a variety of silly excuses," he said. "None of it makes sense."

A VA spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Moulton's legislation may be one of the few bipartisan bills that moves this year in an otherwise gridlocked Congress. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who is a member of GOP leadership, is an original co-sponsor of the legislation. The bill is on track for a hearing in a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee soon.

Moulton and Magnasco both emphasized that despite problems they've faced in getting VA appointments, once they're in, the care is excellent. To that point, Moulton says he still gets his health care at VA, even as a member of Congress.

Asked how he didn't smash his phone into tiny bits during the two days that he couldn't get anyone to answer at VA, Magnasco said it was "aggravating" but he tried to stay focused on the bigger picture.

"I was thinking about all the other vets dealing with the same issue," he said.

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4 Surprising Everyday Items That Can Hurt Your Health

SPECIAL FROM

You may watch what you eat, drink filtered water, and use your seat belt to protect yourself on the road. Yet many health hazards are lurking around us in not-so-obvious places. Here, a few to steer clear of:

1. Scented candles

A fragrant candle may help you unwind and de-stress. But burning those containing a chemical calledlimonene, often used for citrus-scented candles, as well as many cleaning products, can produce fumes that are downright unhealthy.

Recent British research found that households with a high levels of limonene correlated with high levels of formaldehyde, which irritates the eyes and throat and may lead to nose and throat cancers. Limonene reacts with gases in the air to create formaldehyde.

What's more, "just burning something is a source of particle pollution," Janice Nolen, assistant vice president of national policy for the American Lung Association. The smallest of these particles can permeate the lungs, kicking up irritation and asthma, and may over time set the stage for cancer. Smoke may also penetrate blood vessel walls leading to heart attack and stroke. Burning the occasional candle is fine, she says, just don't make it an everyday ritual.

2. Pizza boxes

Your pizza man delivers more than a scrumptious cheesy treat. That greaseproof pizza box is likely to contain perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs. Also used in outdoor clothing, non-stick cookware, Chinese take-out boxes, furniture, and carpets, PFCs are resistant to stains and repel water.

The problem: "They associated with adverse health effects, such as cancer, obesity, thyroid disruption, high cholesterol, and low birth-weight and -size," says chemist Arlene Blum, Ph.D., a visiting scholar at U.C. Berkeley's department of chemistry and director of the Green Science Policy Institute.

Blum and a group of 200 other scientists recently released a statement calling on governments to require more testing of PFCs. Research has already shown that they accumulate in the body--and the environment. "They contain carbon-fluorine bonds, which are extremely stable and degrade very slowly, if at all," she says.

3. Dollar store items

Toys and everyday products from popular dollar stores can sure save you money. But could the savings come at the expense of your health and that of those who love?

To answer that question,researchers recently tested 164 products purchased at the four largest U.S. dollar store chains, including Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and 99 Cents Only, for questionable chemicals, including lead, phthalates, and polyvinyl chloride plastic (PVC or vinyl). The alarming result: more than 80 percent of the products tested contained at least one hazardous chemical above safe levels. Children are most at risk.

Phthalates--used in many inks, paints, and other materials--may interfere with the body's hormone system, causing birth defects, reduced fertility, prostate and testicular cancer, learning disabilities, asthma and allergies, and diabetes. Lead, which is often used in PVC and to produce metal products like jewelry, harms brain development. It's linked to learning disabilities, lower IQ, and behavior and attention problems. Present in many plastics, PVC releases harmful chemicals, such as mercury, vinyl chloride, and dioxins. These chemicals are linked to everything from liver damage to cancer.

To find safe alternatives to these consumer goods, go toGoodGuide.com, which evaluates a variety of consumer products and companies, andHealthyStuff.org, featuring health rankings for over 5,000 products.

4. Anti-bacterial soaps

Antibacterial soaps might promise to germ-proof your home or workplace. However, the risks associated with regular, long-term use of these products could outweigh any benefits, especially if the product contains chemical ingredients like triclosan and triclocarban, which can have unwanted hormonal effects.

Animal studies show that triclosan interferes with the body's regulation of thyroid hormone, which could contribute to infertility, early puberty, obesity, and cancer in humans. And research shows that long-term exposure to the chemical may increase the children's allergy risk.

Another potential problem: "Some have theorized that antibacterial soaps might contribute to increasing antimicrobial resistance, but more studies are needed to know if this is the case," says Melissa Brower of the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion of the Centers for Disease Control. "In the meantime, we like to point out that good old-fashioned soap and water are just as effective with less potential for harm."

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