Gorgeous for Good Week One - 30 Days to a More Gorgeous Me From Skin to Soul

Last month I was contacted by one of the coolest green beauty ladies I know, New York Times best selling author and Hallmark Channel host, Sohpie Uliano, to help her promote her new book, “Gorgeous for Good”.  A “skin to soul” program that covers everything from healthy nutrition, natural skincare and beauty, to exercise and meditation. This 30 day program is meant to detox your body from head to toe, bringing out your natural beauty and keeping it, as you age gracefully. I was totally stoked that she even knew my blog, and was super excited to try out her program. Being an inspiration to me in the green living area, this was a prime chance to get to know one of my favorite green beauty experts!

Meet Sophie Uliano - My #GorgeousforGood mentor

Sophie is an Internationally renowned Green and Healthy Living expert. She is the author of New York Times best-selling, book, Gorgeously Green. She has written 2 other books, on food/wellness and Natural DIY’s (The Gorgeously Green Diet, and Do it Gorgeously). Sophie’s education began in the UK where she studied clinical nutrition, homeopathy, and aromatherapy, which led to her interest in healthy eating, and making her own health and beauty products. Sophie is a Certified Holistic Nutritionist, and a Certified Yoga teacher. She has appeared on numerous Television shows, including Oprah, Good Morning America, The View, The Early Show, and Access Hollywood. Sophie sends out a weekly newsletter from her blog www.sophieuliano.com to over 50,000 subscribers from 8 different countries. She posts 2 videos to her Gorgeously Green You Tube channel weekly.  Sophie is the resident green & healthy living expert on Hallmark’s Home & Family, and her new beauty book (her biggest passion to date), Gorgeous For Good, will be published April 2015.

Gorgeous for Good - A 30 day skin to soul program

Unlike other books, Gorgeous For Good takes the middle ground between natural and fake. Rather than focusing on these extremes, Sophie looks at what truly healthy options actually work—and it isn’t necessarily what people might think. In addition, she lays out a beauty perspective that focuses on helping readers create their own unique beauty—inside and out. With her exceptional combination of passionate research and everywoman commonsense, she puts forth a revolutionary, holistic program that covers everything from nutrition to self-care to spiritual connection and includes:

• Well-researched, myth-busting information about commercial and natural beauty products
• Simple guidelines for buying the best skin care products, and easy recipes for cost-saving beauty products to make at home
• Healthy, budget-friendly recipes for food to kick start the new you
• Exciting ways to get spiritually connected

In her girl-next-door voice, Sophie brings all of this together in an innovative 30-day Gorgeous for Good program, offering readers tools for a body-and-soul beauty regimen that will help them stay gorgeous—not for six months or a year—but for good!

My strongest suit lies in my diet

When Sophie first contacted me, I knew that I would not have any issues with the diet side of this program, since I eat a whole foods diet, many nights of which I cook vegan/vegetarian. We always go for organic, and we participate in a CSA where we get local grown seasonal fruits and veggies, along with grass-fed organic farm eggs (which are sooo much tastier by the way!). I knew, from the very beginning, that diet would be a breeze! Since I don't do dairy anyway, I didn't have to give much up. The one new addition to my food/beverage routine, is warm lemon water first thing in the morning. I am thoroughly enjoying sipping my warm lemon water mindfully, and personally I feel like the routine of it is helping me wake up faster.

I am doing what works for my own body

Part of Sophie's 30 day program contains daily exercise. Thanks to my back (and all the problems from surgeries) I am only allowed to do certain exercises. This is an area that I excel in though, so I am doing the types of exercises that I know are right for my body, daily. Yoga has been the most impactful exercise for me. I am capable of doing it to my own ability, and it has really helped me to gain back balance where I can not feel in my legs and feet (Did you know that I am paralyzed from my knees down but taught myself to walk again twice now after a plethora of spinal surgeries? You can read more here.) Yoga has helped me to reduce my back pain, nerve pains, increased my flexibility beyond what I was capable of before my surgeries, and helped me to keep from having any more surgeries. I normally only do yoga 2-3 times a week, but for this 30 day challenge, I am also doing the 28-day yoga challenge on MyYogaWorks.com. They're my favorite because I can do any kind of yoga that I am looking for, anywhere I want!

My surprising weak point gives me something to work on

The one thing that I didn't realize was a weak point for me, was my actual skincare routine. Though I am great at making my own beauty and cosmetic products, with my BUSY schedule, sometimes that little bit of me time goes to the wayside and I forget to wash my face. With this program, I am really working on taking that extra time to take care of ME! Just the actions of washing my face both morning and night, and sipping my morning warm lemon water mindfully, have all made me realize how little time I was giving ME, before. I knew that I was going to get something great from this experience, but I hadn't realized it was going to be a little bit more of ME!

Gorgeous gifts to help me on my journey

Even though I am already going to be getting the most ultimate gift after completing this program, (a more gorgeous me), Sophie is still taking awesome care of me! She reached out to some of her absolute favorite eco-friendly, organic, vegan, cruelty-free, toxic-free beauty brands and I am lucky enough to receive some amazing products to try out during the program! The great thing is, these products are making it so easy for me to follow the program and overcome my weaknesses! In my next post, I will share with you which awesome goodies I get to try and tell you how I am like/loving them! Stay tuned!

You too can learn how to live Gorgeous for Good!

Keep up with me for the next four weeks, as I share me experiences going through Sophie's Gorgeous for Good program! You can also pre-order her book on Amazon and try out her program for yourself in April 2015! If you pre-order Sophie's book, you also get a free entry to win a  Blendtec 625! All you have to do is go to here to enter to win after you have pre-ordered her book!

See you next week with update #2!