A Simply Healthy Life: Your Guide to Cultivating a Happy, Connected, and Intentional Life

by Caroline Fausel

Are you ready to change your life for the better?

Do you wish you knew what practices actually lead to a healthier, more meaningful life? With all the information bombarding us, it can be hard to cut through all the noise to discern what’s most important. If only someone you could trust would parse through all the data, test it out in real life, and then cut to the chase about what really works.

Good Health coach and wellness expert Caroline Fausel has spent the past decade researching what it really takes to live a healthy, fulfilled life and create a home where everyone in the family can thrive. What she discovered has changed her life and can make all the difference in yours.

In A Simply Healthy Life, Caroline shows you how to

Envision what it would look like for you to feel genuinely happy and healthy;Fuel your body so you feel great and integrate exercise in a way that is realistic and shame-free;Create a clutter-free, non-toxic home;Use spiritual practices like Sabbath rest to grow deeper in your relationship with God;Set up your day with habits to reinforce your healthier choices, and more!When you make purposeful choices about your health, spiritual growth, and relationships, you will be able to flourish—and help those you love flourish too. Get started today!

Contains helpful appendix with mental health resources, recipes, and discussion questions for each chapter!

251 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 7, 2025

About the author

Caroline Fausel is the creator of Olive You Whole, a successful clean eating and lifestyle blog. When it was time to feed her daughter solid foods, she and her husband Chaz started to rethink their nearly-vegan lifestyle… They tried the Paleo diet, and felt better than they had in years! Caroline created so many new recipes to fit this new lifestyle that she decided to start a blog, and Olive You Whole was born!

Caroline is the author of the cookbook Prep, Cook, Freeze: A Paleo Meal Planning Guide. She is passionate about helping women live healthier, more intentional lives. As a board certified health coach (NBCHWC), she has developed a loyal community of followers who love her recipes and guidance on living a toxic-free lifestyle.

Caroline is married to her college sweetheart Chaz and they have two precious kiddos, Ella Rae and Owen. They call Denver, Colorado home and love hiking and skiing in the great Rocky Mountains when they're not traveling around the world.

Reviews

[Maggie]

I am not going to give this book a star rating because it will be swayed. I think this is a fantastic book for someone who is new to the health and wellness space. She gives good actionable and easy to follow ideas to improve your life in many different areas. I have read pretty extensively on this topic so for me, I didn’t really gain anything new.

Would recommend for someone looking for a good place to start that’s not overwhelming!

[Em · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Tyndale House Publishers for giving me an eARC to review prior to publishing.

I chose to read this book because I'm all about quality of life. Who doesn't want to be happy, connected, and living intentionally?

Physical health is such a huge determinant of the quality of our lives. Unfortunately, if you're a typical American who works full-time, it's hard to establish and maintain a healthy lifestyle that includes enough quality sleep, high nutrition without too many calories, and all the exercise we need (cardio, strength, flexibility, balance). Plus, there's social connection, the fun factor, brain health, etc.

This book is written for young or youngish Christian women who are most likely married and have children and are struggling to take care of themselves with all of their responsibilities. There are Bible quotes in it to support its statements. While I do not fall into the target audience, I know women who this book is geared to. These women often give until they are shells of themselves. I can see why a book like this could be helpful to women who think it's selfish to take care of themselves. As a former caregiver, I know how hard it is to balance caregiving with self-care, if there is any balance.

While I found too much "girlfriend-to-girlfriend" chatter in her writing, I understand that the author is trying to establish a rapport with her ideal reader.

I would list the table of contents, but in the eARC, it's a bit all over the place in the format I can see. The best way to list it seems to be

Introduction
Part 1: Health and Wellness
Part 2: Environment
Part 3: Connection
Part 4: Finding Your Purpose

Apologies to the author and publisher if I didn't list the contents correctly.

There are better resources out there. She referenced some, including James Clear and BJ Fogg. However, she's trying to reach a target audience who might not pick up those books.

I like the chapter summaries she offers at the end of the book.

While there's some good stuff in this book, it's not tightly edited, and there are also some issues with some of the information she's stated, such as the benefits of raw milk. It's geared to young or youngish women who are Christian, married, and have children or want children. There are better books out there about mental and physical well-being. There are a lot of anecdotal stories that seem to try and establish an emotional connection with the reader.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this book. She spoke so very clear and enunciated well. It's a very factual, researched book with a few personal antidotes scattered throughout. Scripture references were an added plus.

She covers a lot. I bookmarked a lot! And went back and made notes to reference again. Somethings I already understood and had implemented in my family life, but she gave me better understanding and besides its always good to revisted things again.

[Virginia Kackley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okayyyyyy I struggled to read this one I’m not sure if it’s a reading slump or if it’s just I feel like this is something I’ve read before. I really love a good self help book but it’s felt like I’ve just been reading the same book in a different font. I think it was good but it definitely wasn’t great and wasn’t anything ground breaking.

[Haley Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this one fairly quickly. Lots of good advice and spiritual wisdom.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Simply Healthy Life was a great book to start off January with! It covered a lot of different topics for healthy living such as: good habits, sleeping, moving, finding and being a good friend, faith and finding your purpose. I enjoyed the challenges at the end of each chapter that had beginner, intermediate and advanced challenges to choose from. I feel like this is the type of book that I'd definitely prefer a paperback version and be able to underline and highlight areas that are important to me and ones I want to come back to in the future. Reading this book also prompted me to look for Caroline Fausel's website, Olive You Whole and even start listening to her podcasts!

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Publication date: 7 January 2025