Christmas is a wonderful time of year, and a perfect time to encourage the aspiring or accomplished Older Bolder person (or persons!) in your life with a thoughtful and useful gift as they progress along their health and wellness journey.
This is meant to be a fairly diverse gift list, and includes a few nifty things for the kitchen (hey, I’m a foodie at heart), though we’ll be posting an Older Bolder foodie gift list later this week with more.
And it doesn’t matter what particular pathway your friend or loved one is taking to improve their health and function – whether it’s Primal, Paleo, or whatever, they’ll need something on this list if you’re still shopping. Note that we’ve not shopped around and found the most expensive versions of items suggested below, but we’ve tried to find great products at prices representing the best value…
A Big Stainless Stock Pot for Soups, Bone Broth, and More
This is one of those essential kitchen items, used for so many things. You’re probably thinking stock and bone broth (so am I), though I can’t even begin to recall how many big event recipes of soup, chili, and gumbo we’ve made in ours.
The decision point here is how big do you really want to go, keeping in mind the bigger sizes must be hand-washed and they’re a bit of a chore to store pending your space available.
Check out these stainless stockpot options from the Webstaurant Store.
Up Your Sausage Game: Home Kitchen Electric Food Grinder
I’m old enough to remember my grandmothers bolting big, cast-iron grinders to a table edge and grinding their own beef and pork for burgers, sausage, and more. I’d give just about anything to have one of those older, classically-made hand-crank grinders as a memory piece…
Grinding your own ground meat at home is a cinch, and you retain absolute control over what goes in your grass fed burgers and sausage. It’s quite easy to spend hundreds on a home meat grinder, though here are a couple of entry level grinders (the Galaxy 400 above and a smallish Weston) that will let you get in the grinding game without investing much.
Worth it to upgrade your home sausage game in particular.
Jump into Sous Vide with the Joule
For a variety of reasons we were a little slow to jump on the home sous vide movement, though chef friends have been wowing us for years with their perfectly cooked steaks, prime rib, chicken, pork roasts and tenderloins (and more) prepped via their commercial sous vide units.
If you’re not familiar, sous vide cooking is done by immersing a sealed bag with the food of your choice in a water bath that’s controlled at a very consistent and low temperature; proteins are then usually quickly browned over fire, under a broiler, or on a hot cast iron pan (or griddle).
Check out the Joule home sous vide unit here.
YETI Panga Duffel
Our family are die-hard outdoor folks – we’ve hiked, backpacked, skied, climbed, cycled, rafted, hunted, and fly fished for decades, and run through a tremendous amount of gear during that time.
One thing we continue to reach for, no matter what we’re doing it seems, are quality duffels, and the YETI Panga Duffel line is near indestructible and has taken whatever we’ve thrown at them.
See their Panga Duffel line here.
The Body Package: Massage, Spa Day, Yoga, and More
One gift that never fails to please is something your loved one or friend can use to pamper themselves a bit, maybe even something that feels like a bit of an indulgence.
You’ll want to personalize this one as best you can, but consider a special massage, a spa day or spa package, special yoga sessions or a yoga retreat for example.
Use your imagination; this one can be really fun to put together.
The Mind Package: Give a Digital Course
There are so many great digital learning packages around these days in the health and wellness arena, we’re not going to bore you with a list here today. The vast array of topics and “teachers” available today duly noted , I like the digital course concept a lot as “the student” can progress at their own pace and rehash material they find particularly compelling, inspirational, or even perhaps confusing.
Digital courses, at least most of them, are multimedia bonanzas, using print, images, video, and more to convey their offerings.
The best I’ve taken personally this year? The Keto Reset Mastery course from our friends at the Primal Blueprint. Worth every penny, and has contributed greatly to making my own keto journey a joy.
Give the Gift of Organization
As I’ve shared before, for decades I’ve personally tried a host of different tools to help organize and structure my time, thinking, effort, and schedule, finally adopting (very happily and successfully I might add) David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach.
There’s a wonderful software program that’s been cobbled together that facilitates this approach greatly – read about Omnifocus here.
Of note, it’s confined to use in the Apple ecosystem currently; we use Outlook otherwise…
Give the Gift of Coaching
I’ve been very surprised this year at the number of inquiries we’ve had about giving the gift of health coaching to friends and family who’ve expressed an interest in being shepherded along in their respective health and wellness journeys.
Particularly useful when someone has told you they’re ready to improve their life but aren’t sure where to start or how to proceed, help them find a coach with similar interests and the necessary expertise and experience. Coaches don’t have to be local with communication tools available today, though sometimes face to face interaction works best of all.
Have questions about our coaching programs? Fire us an email here.
Give Part of Yourself: Become a Mentor
Consider becoming a mentor to a friend or acquaintance hungry for knowledge about something you’re good at (you may even be great at it).
Mentorship is a lost skill these days, and don’t forget not everyone pestering you for insights is ready to be, or interested in being mentored. It takes time, some thought, creativity, and communication skills; you can develop along the way if you feel you’re not quite ready. And the results are often life changing – for both of you.
Be ready when the opportunity arises…
Books, Books, and More Books
One of my family’s favorite gifts to give every year has always been books. We’re voracious readers, reading in what some might call eclectically diverse topic areas, from a wide spectrum of authors, and ranging from just-published to obscure classics. (Between my wife and I, we typically read 100-120 books or more per year.)
Thinking about it just now, I’d have to say the most impactful health and wellness read for me this year has been Steven Gundry’s The Plant Paradox, and I’ve just laughed my way through Rick Bragg’s My Southern Journey – True Stories from the Heart of the South.
Cookbook recommendations in the upcoming foodie gift post…
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