Nurture By Nature and Fall Routines I Love

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As much as I enjoy the relaxed vibe of summertime, back-to-school season (and the beginning of those crisp fall days) is my favorite time of year. I am one who loves the predictability of routine and the organized feeling that it brings. To me, back-to-school is even more about resetting goals and examining habits than New Year’s is. Thus, as Mazen’s school year starts up in about 3 weeks, I am hoping to get my own routines in order too.

The pillars of feeling great are: sleep, nutrition, beauty, and fitness. Here’s how I am embracing routine in each of these areas.

1 // Sleep. The foundation of a healthy life! Truly. If you aren’t well-rested, you won’t have the energy you need for all the other areas. I go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, which is a nice routine to embrace. I set an alarm on weekdays to try and beat Mazen out of bed, but I barely beat him. I would like to move my wake-up time back 30-45 minutes in order to have a little personal time and get the house organized before my little guy gets up. Probably the biggest factor in this is not spending 20-30 minutes catching up on my phone in bed. I admit — I am slow to rise — but I think if I just get up and do some of that on the computer, the procrastination of getting up will be minimized.

Routine: sleep the same time every day. alarm. 5 minutes. get up. get going! 

2 // Nutrition. Just like pumpkins creep into August and Santa creeps into October, I have already started getting back into a routine on the meal prep front. For the first half of summer, I tend to wing it, eating from the garden, going to out to dinner more, and attending all the fun social events that pop up when the weather is at prime temp. But by August I am craving the routine of a predictable meal schedule and healthier options. This post I wrote about Prep Day has all the key tips for an organized week of meals.

Routine: meal plan. shop. prep. cook healthy real food. don’t procrastinate. 

3 // Beauty. My beauty routine is all over the place. And with the wedding coming up, I want to get on a schedule of doing some nice masks and hopefully keep my skin in tip-top shape. Generally, when I think of “pampering” I think of doing masks and face creams at night, but I have found that I am always too tired to put something on and let it sit for 10 minutes. I’d fall asleep! So my new thing is putting on a mask in the daytime. Not necessarily first thing, but whenever I am ready to shower, I put the mask on 10 minutes prior and then rinse it off when I get in. So much more user-friendly for me!

After I wrote this post about Pura D’or hair products, the company sent me samples of their Nurture by Nature skincare line, also known as NxN. Like the Pura D’or line, this collection contains organic ingredients that I can pronounce. NxN products are powered by key organic ingredients, free of artificial colors, paraben free, sulfate free, hypoallergenic, dermatologist tested and made in the USA.

I love the Gel to Milk Cleanser from the Total Moisture kit with coconut, Amazonian cacay oil, camellia, green tea, and grapeseed oils. It comes out as a gel and then magically turns into a creamy milk texture in your hands.

I have also been using the Zero Gravity Whipped Day Cream, which includes a blend of marine minerals, raspberry seed, sea buckthorn, grapeseed, and Amazonian cacay oil. The texture of this cream is just as it sounds — delightfully rich but not greasy. Because it’s whipped, it absorbs very quickly. I have dry skin, and this is the perfect level of moisture for me. Beauty Sleep Invisible Hydration Mask is the night cream. This bad boy boasts chia seed extract, pumpkin seed oil, Amazonian cacay oil, and grapeseed oil, and I love that, like the day cream, it’s not greasy at all.

haaaayyyyy!

But perhaps my favorite product they make is from the Zero Shine kit — the Power Detox Clear Complexion Mask. Its ingredients, like green clay and kaolin, fermented red ginseng, and Amazonian cacay nut, draw out impurities and clear pores. My face had a nice red glow after rinsing it off!

Both of the kits at 2 Minute Club come with a free Glow Remedy Powered to Foam Exfoliator right now, which has the popular activated charcoal inside. It becomes a nice scrub with a little added water and left my face so smooth.

As a gift to you, NxN is offering either of their kits for $30 off with the code KATH. That’s the set for only $9.99! Check here to check them out.

Routine: Religiously use a complete line of beauty products made with natural ingredients and incorporate a mask into my daytime routine when I will actually have the energy to do it.   

4 // Fitness. My exercise routine gets all out of wack in the summer with two mid-week soccer leagues going on (sometimes at the same time), and all the fun we have outside. Now that Mazen will be back in school and travel season is (almost) over, I’m ready to get back into a weekly gym schedule. Matt and I are also working on streamlining our co-parenting instead of just working around social events and travel, so once that is more predictable, my workout schedule can fall into place. I’m thinking it will look something like this starting with my double soccer Sundays:

Soccer – Hot Yoga – Afterburn – Strength – Afterburn – Run – Wildcard (Ath Con, Run, Rest)

Routine: keep workouts varied, consistent, and fun!

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What are your favorite back-to-school routines? New classes? Crisp Saturdays at the farmer’s market before you meal prep? Favorite beauty tricks?

This post was sponsored by Nurture by Nature Skincare and 2 Minute Club