Welcome to the STRIVE with Janelle Blog!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Lao-Tzu You may have heard these famous words by the Chinese philosopher a dozen times before, especially around the New Year. But this time I want you to stop and really think about them. I’ll give you a minute. In analyzing these words myself, I kept going back to my personal barriers. I’ve mentioned a couple of them before: time constraints, and lack of self-confidence. But Lao-Tzu’s words made me realize that all my barriers come down to taking that first crucial step. I finally understood the true amount of...

I wish I could say I’m a woman of adventure; that spontaneous is my middle name and I crave the unknown. But I’m not, it isn’t and I don’t. I’m a woman of knowns. I crave schedules. I need a plan. My adrenaline rush comes from using all of my brain power to push through the tasks at hand. I love a day packed with urgent to-dos I can cross off with a vengeance. I thrive under the pressure of getting stuff done. But when plans go awry and I have to deviate from my list, it really throws me...

Did you know that heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States? Yep, nearly 610,000 people pass away due to heart disease— that’s one in every four deaths. Scary, right? We may be able to do without an appendix, spleen and even one of our kidneys and lungs, but without a heart we don’t have a beating chance. This National Heart Month we wanted to take a minute and talk about the essentials of heart health and what you can do to keep your ticker in tip-top shape. What is Heart...

My sister and I can use one simple word to communicate an entire state of being. CRISPY. When those six little letters get spoken we instantly know the other is experiencing complete and utter burnout. We are at the point where we just can’t take in one more thing, because the brain has stopped being able to process new information. We become emotional and tend to overreact to small things. Mole hills have become mountains and we are clawing our way to the top of all of them. In reality, we just want to dig under the mountain and hide. Does...

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, but those heart-shaped boxes of chocolates have been tempting us since the day after Christmas. We’ve somehow managed to abstain from the allure of truffle-filled goodness, but our craving for sweet treats is still very much alive! This got us thinking that there has to be a way to indulge without sending yourself down a shame spiral of sugar and regret. So we turned to our favorite food blogs for some sweet inspiration, and it turns out we were right! We found dozens of great recipes that fit our healthy lifestyle standards while also satisfying our...