Chanel T.'s Guide to a Better Life

I remember the very first day/class I had at St. Edward’s University was my Rhetorical Composition class and my professor said something to me that I will never forget:

“Know your audience. Grow to understand what is the best way to communicate and express your points to them.”

This got me thinking whether you think so or not, your friends are your audience.

Whatever you tell them, they are hearing you out in every way possible. Since we all know that everyone is different and handles every situation different, it’s easy to see why I feel it is important to know your audience (friends)—because this way, you’re able to figure out the best way to tell your friends something (be it good or bad).

I understand that I have some friends I am able to be very blunt with if I have a problem or a situation I need to address with them.  I also have friends who prefer I sugarcoat every single thing I tell them.  My attitude with approaching things is usually nice with a hint of bluntness, but not everyone likes that.

I believe that by knowing what manner your friends like to be addressed in, it shows you truly understand them as a whole and are able to better communicate with them! (Who doesn’t want to know the best way to communicate with someone?)

Pay attention to your friends and loved ones, you’ll find out a lot more about them if you do and it will do nothing but benefit your relationship.

-Chanel T.

Growing up, I heard a lot of “sayings” from my ever-so-clever mother.  One of the ones that has stuck with me was:

“If you want something, it doesn’t hurt to ask. If the answer is no, then you’re back to where you started which isn’t always a bad thing”.

I was in Orlando, Florida last week for a conference and was lucky enough to be able to attend with a good friend of mine.  We were able to go out on our last night in Orlando and were supposed to meet up with some friends I have known for years but it ended up not panning out.  We decided we would go sit at a bar and just the two of us would talk. We went to this amazing restaurant that we had been to 2 nights previously and ran into the owner of the restaurant.  He remembered us from the last time we came in so we figured we’d test our luck and ask if he could give us broke college kids a deal on their frozen margaritas. <—Remember, it doesn’t hurt to ask, if the answer is no, we’re back to where we started.

The owner smiles then asks us to follow him to one of the bars within the restaurant (mind you there is a about an hour long wait and all the bars’ seats are filled with people) and he tells the bartender to give us whatever we want, for FREE! Yup, that’s right, FREE! 

The owner then tells us he’s going to find us chairs so we can sit down and enjoy the drinks.  We’re thinking he’s gonna find bar stools for us but he ended up giving us a 2-seater table on the patio that was near the live music playing outside! Once we sat down, the owner asked if we were hungry and if we wanted anything to eat. We told him we recently had dinner and so we were full but he brought us chips and salsa to munch on.

Everything we got, the huge goblet of frozen margarita to share, 2 pina coladas, and the chips with salsa, should have been a total of about $50 BUT we got it at a sweet price of FREE! Not to mention we got to cut in front of everyone to get a table!

So the lesson of this very long story is that it NEVER hurts to ask someone for something. My friend and I did and look what it got us: free food and drinks and a nice table without the long wait! So test your luck. If they say yes or make a deal with you then that’s just awesome. If they say no, you’re back to square one which isn’t so bad!

My mom has had this motto for years and it has gotten her free food, better discounts on clothes, and so much more! Of course, I want to end this post with saying do a good deed as well for someone else and to not forget to thank the person who did a sweet deed for you! By keeping the good deed cycle going, everyone wins.

There is this idea that anything with protein is high in calories but I’m here to tell you to forget that statement.

Research has shown that having protein in your daily diet actually helps with weight-loss.  Foods that are rich in protein take longer to break-down once it’s inside your body.  This means that because it takes longer to process within your body, the amount of calories it takes for your body to process the food increases.  A study that was published in Nutrition Metabolism, a health-fitness journal, that people who increased their protein intake, lost weight faster than those who didn’t.  In fact, people who consumed protein ate 450 calories less than those who didn’t and lost 11 pounds over a 12 week study.

Instead of reaching for snacks to keep you going throughout the day, grab a protein bar and eat it slowly! After a couple days of making the swap, you’ll notice you remain full for much longer of a time than you did when you would eat a different type of snack!

Of course, there are many other ways you can get your protein intake aside from protein bars.  Protein bars are just a quick and efficient way to get your daily intake of protein.  Fish, skinless chicken, vegetables, low-fat dairy, and so much more are other ways to get your daily intake! If you’re not sure if something is high in protein, check the label! If there isn’t a label, look it up on the internet! (After all, you can find the answer to pretty much anything on here anyhow).

Doctors recommend trying to get at least 30 grams of protein for breakfast.  Once you wake up in the morning, your body is craving for protein to help keep you full longer as well as put back the protein your body missed out on while sleeping.  This is yet another reason why skipping breakfast is a BAD idea!

Work on making protein your best friend.  Once the relationship develops into a strong and healthy relationship ( <—- see what I did there?) you will notice a great change in your overall lifestyle.  From being full longer, to having more energy, protein does a lot for your body.

-Chanel T.

Since I love reading about relationship advice, I figured I’d write a blogpost on some!

A lot of my girl friends tell me about these wonderful guys they have met and how close they’ve gotten to be with one another—basically telling me nothing but great things. However, the problem is that person hasn’t committed to them, (ask her to be his girlfriend). So they feel they are in “limbo” meaning they’re not sure if they should move on from this guy or if this guy really likes them and simply hasn’t asked them out yet.

Here’s what I think you should do if you’re in a situation like this: just ask the person.

If you && the other person have such a wonderful relationship, that would mean both of you are able to tell each other anything, then you should be able to ask the person “where is this going?” or “do you see us going any further than what we are now?”. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, then clearly the relationship is not as strong as you think because you should be able to tell someone you care for (who also cares back for you) how you feel and what you think about things, without them getting upset/hating you for it.

By doing this, you will for sure get an answer. Now, whether it is an answer you were hoping for or something else, is a totally different thing. I find that a lot of people who choose NOT to be direct && simply ask the person how they feel about them do this because they are afraid of what the answer could be.

If the person they have feelings for gives them an answer that they’ll never become official, or go any further than just being friends, then it results in a bit of heartbreak on the person who asked the question. But the way I see it, wouldn’t you want to know if you’re wasting your time on something that possibly will never happen? This way you are able to pick your pieces up && move on. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

I hope this helps to anyone who is in this situation or similar. This idea of being direct with the person you have feelings for can apply to any scenario. You want an answer? Just ask the person! Can’t ask the person? Build up the courage to && if you’re not comfortable with being able to ask the person you have feelings for a question, then maybe the relationship isn’t as great as it seems. In any good relationship, you should be comfortable with asking your significant other any question. It’s as simple as that. This is why I think relationships aren’t confusing.

-Chanel T.

It’s that time of year again people! The time of year when  festive, ornate candies and treats seem to be everywhere we turn.

I tweeted the other day that I always say I’m going to give up candy for good but I always tend to come up with that brilliant idea around Halloween which is a BIG MISTAKE considering I have the world’s biggest sweet tooth.

However, I will say this, just because candy and treats are everywhere around you, doesn’t mean you’re excused from eating everything in sight!

Of course, this idea of making sure you don’t eat everything in sight is a year-round thing you should be doing anyhow, but for some reason holidays always get us in the “eating-spirit”.  In my last post, I wrote about how we need to stray away from “mindless eating” so it’s a similar aspect in the sense that you’re eating more than you should/eating and you’re not even hungry, except in this case you KNOW you’re eating more than you should/too many unhealthy things.

I’m here to tell you that you CAN have that candy….just not as much as we would “ideally” like to consume.  If you’re craving a candy you can have 1, but make sure you actually savor every single bite! Drill into your head that this is the only candy you can have for a couple days. This is seriously the ONLY thing that helps me keep my sweet-tooth at bay—well that, and the fact that it’s unhealthy on so many different levels to eat so much sugar!

Besides, studies even show after the first couple of bites of whatever food you are eating, your brain automatically tells you your craving has been fulfilled. This means that the last couple of bites don’t feel as great as they did when you first took a bite of your food, so this helps when trying to limit your sugar intake.

So while all these treats will be floating around, you will have read here how to combat the the desire of returning to the candy bowl for the “last” piece of candy. You only get 1 so make it last! Remember that!

-Chanel T.