Tips for Surviving Whole30

It is no secret that Whole30 has been one of the most fascinating, challenging, and life changing things I have tackled so far this year. Though it was difficult at times, I really truly loved the experience and can't wait to keep challenging myself by sticking to the program principles. I am even going to take on a Whole60 next month and am really nervously excited for that journey!

For those of you thinking of starting your own Whole30 or already have, here are some tips that I came up with from my own experience that should help you on your journey!

+ Keep it simple.
I know that a large part of my success with Whole30 was due to keeping it simple. I would look at my meals as a sort of formula (protein, veggies, and healthy fats) and found things that I could quickly whip up to fit that. If you have the time to research or create new recipes, that is great and you should definitely go for it. I knew two things about myself, though, that did not lend itself to doing that every day: 1. I don't like spending very much time in the kitchen and 2. I am lazy. Those are the facts. So, know yourself and do what you need to do to make your Whole30 a success!

+ Don't think "I can't have." Think "I'm choosing not to have."
A lot of the work involved in Whole30 is mental, and it can sometimes be draining. When you start to think of this challenge as something you are choosing to do though, it helps. When you are at a gathering with family and everyone is chowing down on cupcakes and pizza, and you are eating a salad or some veggie sticks, remember that those foods that look pretty appetizing aren't things you can't have; they are foods you are choosing not to have right now. It is pretty freeing to realize that you are not controlled by these things you "can't" have, but are rising above them and choosing to eat things that you know are better for you.

+ Always have a few Whole30 approved snacks with you.
It is advised in the Whole30 program rules to try not to snack in between meals, as you should be eating enough food at each meal to hold you over to the next one. BUT, if you are out and suddenly get hungry, it is better to grab a Whole30 approved snack from your purse rather than pulling into the nearest drive thru. Great snacks on the go include cut up veggies, dried fruit (make sure there is no sugar added!), nuts, and Lara Bars (sometimes...).

+ Use this time to try new things!
To keep things interesting, it is a great idea to try new things! Have you never made anything with eggplant before? Pick one up and try creating something! Tired of just drinking water or unsweetened tea? Buy a bottle of kombucha and give it a chance! This is a perfect time to try new fruits, veggies, meats, drinks, etc. Plus, you never know, you may really love something you have never given a chance!

+ When things get tough, remember the reasons you are choosing to do this.
Sometimes it can be easy to lose sight of the reasons why you started this journey, especially when you are particularly hangry and walking through the bakery section of the grocery store or are chopping yet another damn bell pepper to go with your dinner. In those moments, just try to remember why you decided to take on this challenge in the first place. Was it for your general health? To kickstart weight loss? To help with some pains you have? Whatever your reasons are, remember them and keep going! You aren't going to achieve your goals by giving up.

+ Follow other Whole30ers on social media!
Being able to connect with others on the same journey was great inspiration and motivation! I found that Instagram was an especially helpful source (@teamwhole is by far my favorite!), as scrolling through a feed of healthy foods and others' successes helped to keep me on track. If you enjoy taking photos of the things you make or want to document your journey without spamming all of your followers with Whole30 things all the time, you could even make a separate account devoted to your new adventure! That's what I did and it was a really nice way to keep track of my progress and to see where I started :)

I hope that this was helpful to some of you! Please let me know if you have any questions because I am happy to help in any way I can and can pretty much talk your ear off about Whole30 all day ;)

Have you done a Whole30? Are you planning to do one? On the fence about it?

My Blogging Essentials

Happy Friday, friends! It has been a pretty good week over here! The new semester started yesterday, so I am just getting back into the swing of school again and also searching for something to do with all my extra time since I am only taking one class. I'm thinking another nanny position for the mornings or maybe an internship of some sort! I am really looking forward to having more free time than in past semesters though so that I can be a more consistent blogger :)

I always enjoy getting a peek behind the scenes of other bloggers and what tools they use, so I thought I would share a bit about mine! I am no blogging expert of course, but it is always nice to share what I have learned along the way :)

+ Macbook Pro
Obviously, a computer is essential! Believe it or not, there are bloggers out there who can get away without one by using a tablet or something, but I am definitely not one of those bloggers! I use it for everything and couldn't imagine trying to put a post together without it. For photography things alone it is my rock. I do have an HP laptop (that is in dire need of a new battery), but I prefer working on my Mac, especially since it is smaller and easier to bring along for a busy girl like myself.

+ Mouse
When I am using my laptop for long periods of time or am editing photos, I use a mouse. It is much faster and more comfortable for me, plus gives me more control in photo editing or designing on the computer. Mine has a small USB nub that plugs into the computer and wirelessly connects to the mouse. I never leave it behind when I am planning to get some blogging done!

+ Editorial Calendar
Once I started utilizing an editorial calendar, the blogging game changed for me. It helped me to be so much more organized, allowed me to easily plan days, weeks, or even months ahead, and motivated me to stick to the schedule I had planned. For a while I made my own calendar sheets, but then I found a simple monthly planner in January 2014 from Sugar Paper's line for Target. I was sure to snag another one up for this year because I love it! It is nice to have all of the months together in a small booklet.

+ DSLR Camera
I love the convenience of an iPhone as much as the next girl, but a blog needs real, high quality photos! At least once in a while ;) I have owned a DSLR for five years now and it has practically become an extension of me. If you are a blogger, I highly recommend investing in a starter DLSR and learning to shoot in manual. You will be amazed at how it will instantly punch up the quality of your blog. (This is a great starter DSLR and a newer generation of the one I started on)

+ Memory Card Reader
I really dislike connecting the cord between my laptop and camera to transfer photos, so a card reader is a must for me! I like that I don't have to have my camera present to transfer the photos and can simply just grab the memory card to take along when I know I will be needing the photos off of it.

+ Sketchbook
This is where I write down all of my ideas for potential blog posts. There are notes and fragments of ideas strewn about its pages, which I love. Whenever I am in need of an idea, I go to the beginning of the book and flip through the pages, looking for inspiration or ideas I may have forgotten about. It keeps me sane!

+ Highlighters & Pencil
These may be silly and obvious, but are essential to me! In my editorial calendar, I plan all of my posts out in pencil because sometimes life happens and things don't go according to plan. When I publish a blog post, I highlight the square on the calendar that the post is on in green. On days that I don't blog, I cross the square out in orange. It is a great visual way for me to see how my blogging month is going and to see where I can improve or celebrate.

+ Photoshop
I do not understand how any bloggers can possibly survive without Photoshop. It is my lifeline! I use it for nearly every single post, whether it is to add text to an image or resize images so that they fill the entire posting area of my blog. I know there are ways around Photoshop, but for me it is definitely an essential!

+ Lightroom
Photoshop is great for so many things, but when it comes to photo editing, Lightroom is hands down the best. I have been using Lightroom for a year and a half now and I can't even tell you how it has dramatically changed my editing process! It is so much faster, more streamlined, and simply more high quality than it ever was with Photoshop alone!

+ Flickr
My friend Britt mentioned to me that uploading her photos to Flickr instead of directly to Blogger has made such a difference in the quality, as Blogger tends to distort things. Since great photos are very important to me, I gave it a shot and haven't looked back! It may require a bit more work, but the difference is definitely worth it to me! I highly recommend comparing the processes.

+Photobucket
Before I started using Flickr to upload my photos instead of Blogger, I used Photobucket for a while. It was alright, but I found that Flickr was much better quality. Though I don't use it for blog images anymore, I still use Photobucket for all of the other elements on my blog, like the header, sidebar, etc. I have found that it is better for that than Flickr is and is an easy way to get the job done.

There you have it! I hope it was fun to get a behind the scenes peek at my blogging routine and that it was maybe even helpful to some of you!

What are your blogging essentials? Do you agree with some of these? Do you have an essential to share that isn't on this list?

Have a fun, relaxing weekend! It is sunny and 66 degrees here in CA today and all weekend, so I will definitely be soaking that up :)

Tips for Beginning Bloggers

Hey guys! Today I wanted to talk about something that has been on my mind a bit: blogging advice. There is so much of it out there and I know everyone has different things that work best for them when it comes to blogging. I don't consider myself an expert by any means, but I have been at this whole blogging thing for two years now, Foreign Room being one-and-a-half of those two years.

I never really thought I would be one to give others advice, but WOW, I have come a long way (Pssst! And am SO close to 200 followers on Bloglovin'!)! People (outside of my family) actually read my blog! And comment! And care about what's going on in my life! And care if I post here or not! When you start the journey of blogging, it can be a lonely thing, but is so worth it when people start to take notice of what you do and decide to stick around.

To be at a point where I am actually feeling pretty confident in all this is amazing. It takes a lot of work to get here, but I am so happy with where I am and want to share a little of that love with those of you who are just starting out in all this.

Here are some things that I have learned from others along the way, figured out myself, and maybe wish people told me when I was just starting out. Of course, these are tips for bloggers who are looking to build a strong community around their blog and maybe even earn a bit of a living doing so. For those of you who blog solely for your own pleasure, keep on keepin' on!

So, here goes...

+ Be genuine and be yourself.
If you only take away one thing from this post, I hope it is this: If you are not genuine, people will notice, and if you are not yourself, what is the point? Be yourself, be sincere, and people will notice. And guess what? They will come back. The internet is a big place full of people who will like you just the way you are. Of course, not everyone will like you, but there will always be people who do, so be yourself for them and to heck with the rest.

+ Connect with others.
This is what blogging is all about! Follow others on social media, reply to Tweets, comment on other blogs, don't be afraid to e-mail people to ask questions or simply say 'hi'. These are all great things you should be doing if you want to get to know others and build blogging friendships! And, hey, these are the people who will become regular readers of your blog, which is awesome.

+ Invest in a clean, streamlined design.
I'm gonna be really honest here: I cannot stand blog designs that are sloppy and look like a beginner put them together. Design and coding is not everyone's strong suit, I get that, but there are plenty of great (inexpensive) blog designers out there and even fairly cheap pre-made templates to choose from. If you are hesitant to invest the money into your blog, don't be! You are investing in yourself and your success, which is priceless.

+ Focus on community, not numbers.
I cannot tell you how long I agonized and obsessed over the stats page of my Blogger dashboard. It was unhealthy and I knew that it wasn't helping me be a better blogger, so I just stopped looking. I focused on writing, being sincere, and creating content I was proud of. People took notice and comments started coming, friendships formed, and new opportunities were presented to me. A community was forming, forming without me even keeping track of page views and visits (all that stuff is so confusing to me anyway). To me, the "success"of posts is now measured in comments. I am still giddy with excitement whenever I get a new comment on a post because it is an opportunity to build friendships and expand this community!

+ Proofread, proofread, proofread.
We all make mistakes here and there, but some writers continuously make errors that become down right annoying or distracting. It is truly one of my pet peeves! Please take the time to proofread and edit your writing so that you can share your very best! It really will only make you better in the long run.

+ Set goals.
Setting goals in all areas of life is the best way to ensure that you are moving forward with what you want. Blogging is something that I feel especially needs goals! Whether you make weekly, monthly, or yearly goals (or all of the above!), it is a great way to motivate yourself to keep growing and learning. Plus, it always feels great to know that you have accomplished something you want!

+ Reply to comments (& return the love back!)
Remember all that talk about building a community? This is how you do it. Reply to comments that others sweetly take the time to leave on your posts, show them that they are heard and cared for. Then, do your best to visit the blogs of those who have reached out to you, especially if you notice particular people continuously commenting. Boom. A friendship is now made, a friendship that holds endless possibilities! Also, honestly, if you are a smaller blog and people leave comments, but you never reply to any of them, it makes you look bad/snobbish/insincere. We don't want any of that!

+ Utilize a monthly editorial calendar.
This is something that has overall dramatically improved my blogging! I use a small, paperback monthly calendar that I got from Sugar Paper's line for Target at the beginning of the year, and simply put, I love it. It helps me to plan ahead, set monthly blogging goals, make notes, keep track of post ideas, and record social media stats from each month so that I can clearly see my growth. I highly recommend doing something similar for yourself to make things easier and also help keep yourself on track for meeting your goals!

+ Do your best not to compare yourself to other bloggers.
I'm not gonna lie, this can be tough to do, especially when you are just starting out. Blogging is hard and it is even harder to look all around Blogland and see others who already seem so "successful" or "put together." It is difficult to have confidence when you see all that! But, if you are going to give this blogging thing your all, you have to focus only on yourself and do your best to encourage others!

+ Don't let blogging get in the way of living your real life.
Sometimes a day or two (or three) will go by and you have not put any blog posts together. That's okay. You are out living your real life, one that doesn't always need to be narrated online. Readers get it. If you aren't feeling inspired or don't have the time to write a post, don't worry. We would all much rather you come back when you have something you can say wholeheartedly instead of just a slopped together post for the sake of having a post. Go live your life, guilt free! This is, after all, just the internet.

And there you have it! I often still think of myself as a beginning blogger since I know that I have so much more to learn, but I think I have experienced enough to share a bit of what I have learned (mostly through trial & error). I hope that this was helpful to all of you in someway!

What do you think of this advice? Do you agree? What would you add?

Also, thank you to those of you who come back to my blog time and time again! It really means the world to me! :)