Goodbyes and Changes

December 27, 2012 by

Oh, the holidays! Such a bittersweet moment for them to be ending!

I had another Christmas celebration again today, since my parents are divorced. So, Christmas is spent on at my Mom’s and Boxing Day is spent at my Dad’s house.

All around everything went super smooth. I enjoyed every moment, but am also happy the holidays have come to and end (well, for this week) so we can all return to a bit of a normal routine.

Now, to chat with you all about food.

overnight oat bran

{ goodbye egg white oat bran }

My morning Breakfasts,Snacks, Lunches, and Dinners can have the habit of planting a smile on my face and making me feel good, throw in a curve ball (like a change of plans) and well that mood can be turned sour almost instantly.

There have been times in the past, where when I didn’t get exactly what I wanted from a meal, I’d end it feeling sad and annoyed. Yah, it’s ridiculous. Things have improved a lot since I’ve gotten healthier.

banana frosty

{ good bye greek yogurt + cashew butter }

However, it know longer controls my mood, feelings, reactions to things now. Sure I love to have great tasting meals, but realistically food isn’t going to be gourmet or perfect every single meal. Some days, I’ll have to eat quickly in the car or grab something instead of sitting at the table for 20 minutes enjoying the food I’m eating. No big deal in the end.

I’m also the queen of comfort. Throw me in for a loop and I tend to feel a bit out of control.

granolapancake2

{ goodbye granola pancakes }

I just don’t like change, but they say change is what makes us grow and make us learn. This isn’t all going to be a HUGE change by any means, but it’s still a change that I wish I didn’t have to make.

I’ve been going through some severe digestive issues for the past 3 years. We thought after initially recovering they would diminish, but sadly things got worse and I felt crummier, bloated, fatigued, and was always in a little “brain fog” every single day. I’m tired of it, so after talking to my nutritionist we agreed it was a good idea to get an allergy test done.

Initially, I tried elimination diets, but those only led me to relapse and I usually wound up more confused than when things started.

egg and almond butter sandwich

{ goodbye eggs }

I ended up seeing a naturopath and getting my testing done. There were a bunch of foods I originally avoided since I thought I had a sensitivity to them, I was wrong about almost every one of those though.

With this all being said, I will be making diet changes in my life and they’ll be big ones for me.

To start, I have to completely eliminate ALL dairy. This means, casein, cheese, cottage cheese, cows milk, goats milk, mozzarella, whey, and yogurt. Yes, I have intolerances to all of these things.

As well as eggs. All eggs. Duck eggs, egg whites and egg yolks.

These are going to be the main challenges for me. I love my eggs, egg whites and greek yogurt. In fact, this is where I get most of my protein from.

buckwheat

 { goodbye buckwheat with egg whites }

Some more intolerances that were severe include black pepper, amaranth flour, brown rice, cashews (SAD), flaxseed, kamut, millet, pistachios, navy beans, and sesame seeds. (EDITED TO ADD: These are not true allergies, rather intolerances/sensitivities to foods. I’m sorry if I offended anyone with my previous wording.)

Yes, things will have to change around here. Another problem I’m facing is getting in enough protein. I’m not a huge meat lover and now have to eliminate all dairy and eggs.

egg+goatcheese sandwich

 { goodbye strawberry goat cheese }

Unfortunately since I’m sensitive to brown rice too, I can’t consume anymore of my sunwarrior protein powder (major sads). I just thought I’d let you all know what went on during this appointment since you will obviously be seeing these changes on the blog!

It’s fine, not a huge deal at all really. I already feel TONS better without these things in my diet. Seriously, I’m actually very happy I got this testing done because without it I’d have guessed all the wrong things and still be suffering.

Sorry this post is extremely long, I’ll leave it at this for now.

Feel free to ask me anymore questions if you’d like!

Do you have any food allergies?

What’s your favorite (non rice based vegan protein powder)?

Have you ever counted on food for source on enjoyment in your life?

Have an amazing Thursday all!

{62 Comments }

Pumpkin Protein Bars

November 6, 2012 by

Hi-diddly-ho bloggerinos! Ned Flanders? No…this is awkward.

This morning I finally tried out a workout after feeling better with my neck injury. It gets a little frustrating being out of commission, but I have to do what is best for my body.

I attempted a leg workout, but only got about half way through before my neck started aching again. I’m hoping a little more rest will finally make it all better.

And let’s be honest there’s a lot worse that I could be going through, so its kind of not worth it to complain about stuff out of my control. When I can control getting better, without aggravating this injury further.

Enough about that. After my “workout” I fuelled up with a baked egg in a pepper with a side of ezekiel, coconut oil, cinnamon, and a little stevia. Awesome.

*******

So you all probably by now understand my love for pumpkin. It’s one of my favorite things to always have on hand.

Whether I eat it in oats, yogurt, smoothies, bars, bread, okay I could go on way too long with this list.

Now, I have another way to eat my favorite squash. I know lots of people like their applesauce, but since I’m not the biggest apple fan in baked goods I can always rely on pureed pumpkin.

You could always swap out applesauce for the pumpkin though, if you’re that person who prefers apples to pumpkin.

I also have a large amount of protein powder on hand right now, and since it’s definitely not the season for smoothies, I decided to put it to use in these bars for a little added protein bonus.

Pumpkin Protein Bars

  • 1/2 cup amaranth flour
  • 1/4 cup buckwheat flour
  • 1/4 cup protein powder (make sure it’s not whey protein, or it will turn out rubbery)
  • 1/4 cup flax meal (ground flax seed)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons maple syrup (or use 1-2 teaspoons stevia or other sweetener)
  • a few drops liquid stevia (if needed)
  • 3 tablespoons coconut oil

Directions:

Mix together all the dry ingredients.

Combine wet ingredients (make sure the coconut oil is melted, so that in can combines with the ingredients properly).

Incorporate the dry mix into the wet mixture.

Pour in a lightly greased 8 x 8 pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. (Mine was in for about 22 minutes).

Allow to cool completely before slicing.

Yum.

As always, this recipe is super simple and doesn’t require a long time baking away.

It’s filled with healthy ingredients and makes for the perfect post-workout snack.

Now go get you baking pants on.

What’s your favorite fruit to add to baked goods?

Are you sick of pumpkin yet? (I hope not)

Do you ever use protein powder in baked goods?

Hope you all have a terrific Tuesday!

{19 Comments }

Pain In My Neck

October 31, 2012 by

Good morning friends, and Happy Halloween!

It’s great to hear that everyone makes their best efforts to remain positive in those less than ideal situations and try to stop taking the easy way out of life’s challenges.

It’s crazy that Halloween is already here. I’m still undecided if I will be going out tonight. Since it is crazy with rain, and I still can’t decide on a costume. I suppose I could always pull out my costume from last year….okay, you probably don’t care if I go out or not tonight; so onto the food!

It’s the last What I Ate Wednesday of October! Neat-o.

Pre-Breakfast – Green Juice with spinach, cucumber, water, cinnamon, apple cider vinegar and and juice from an orange. Once you get used to the green-ness of this juice, it is quite delicious!

Breakfast – pumpkin oat bran

Since it’s halloween I had to celebrate by having pumpkin oats! It’s the only way to go.

This bowl contained 1/2 cup oat bran, 1/4 cup egg whites, 1/3 cup pumpkin, about 1/2 tablespoon each of chia and hemp seeds, a dash of cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and stevia.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve struggled with a strain in my neck.

At first, it wasn’t so bad to deal with and I continued exercising throughout it (dumb). I knew I probably should’ve backed off with the working out, but I was being stubborn. Well, yesterday it really took a turn, and my neck is in quite a bit of pain.

Honestly, I kind of deserve this injury for not honoring my bodies warning signs for me to slow it down. It’s okay. For now, I’ll be sticking to walking until I see the Doctor and know how serious this is.

I’m back on the egg train! I don’t know what happened those last few weeks, but eggs just weren’t appealing at all.

Lunch – I made a little egg omelette (1 egg, 1 egg white) cooked in coconut oil, with a side of ezekiel, topped with goat cheese and homemade blueberry jam and a spinach salad on the side.

Tuesday’s are my grocery shopping day, so I went to the market which was awful in the pouring rain and picked up a few things I needed for the rest of the week.

I also stopped by the pumpkin patch to get a last look at all the pumpkin festivities!

It’s the Great Pumpkin! Charlie Brown reference?

No…okay, moving on.

Snack – I came home and snacked on some leftover roasted kabocha squash with coconut butter.

Lovely, per usual.


For dinner, I decided to cook up my first chili of the season!

Since it was so dreary out, today was the perfect day to break out the cozy comfort food that is chili.

I didn’t want to wait hours for my chili to cook up, so I just made my own quick sweet potato chili (I’ll post the recipe later).

Dinner – sweet potato and turkey chili with mashed avocado on the side.

While writing this post, I’m drinking a warm cup of pumpkin chai tea! Mmmm.

And I have a snack prepped for later.

Which will be a green protein muffin (kind of spooky?), with coconut flour frosting and peanut flour paste.

This seems to be the typical night snack for right now.

Have you ever strained your neck before? Any advice?

Are you doing anything exciting tonight for Halloween?

Be safe, and have a spooky night! I’m off to catch up on Dexter!

{47 Comments }

Two-fer Tuesday

September 18, 2012 by

Happy Tuesday!

This week has been a doozy for me, just struggling with thoughts and doing my best to meditate each morning with them and become more positive with everything happening.

Lately, my mornings have been starting out with my new favourite green juice. It’s the perfect energizer for the morning, until I sit down for my actual breakfast.

This one had spinach, cucumber, leftover romaine, 1/2 an apple, lemon juice, stevia, and apple cider vinegar.

Paige has been doing these Two-fer Tuesday posts the past few weeks, and I thought I’d tag along:)

 2 things I ‘m eating…

-Lots of breakfasts for dinner. Ezekiel bread with a little coconut oil, almond butter, and an egg. Truly delicious combination.

-This Once Again creamy almond butter. Seriously, best I’ve ever tried. And this almond butter may just be involved with a delicious recipe I’ll have for you later on;)

2 realizations this week…

-Artisana cacao butter is magical. And is also meant to be melted in almond milk.

-Increasing your calories is a lot harder than it should be, my mind has been amuck with emotions and thoughts, and it has been a rough few days.

2 random things about myself…

[Source]

-I prefer reading the good ol’ fashion books, compared to those on my kindle. After reading Gone Girl, I wanted to check out more of Gillian Flynn’s work. I haven’t started this yet, but am hoping it lives up to Gone Girl!

-Sometimes without notice, I randomly talk in a British accent and then people will ask me where my accent is from…talk about awkward.

2 recipe I want to make NOW…

-Chelsey’s Mexican Spaghetti Squash with Creamy Avocado Spread

-Mama Pea’s Roasted Tomato Basil Soup (minus the onions)

2 things I’m watching…

[Source]

-Sex and the City re-runs. I have all the seasons on DVD and have been catching up on my old favourite show. I miss it.

[Source]

 -The X Factor. I just can’t resist it now that Britney Spears is on the show. She’s a gem.

What foods are you loving lately?

What are your favourite shows?

Have an amazing day!

{39 Comments }

Appreciation

September 7, 2012 by

Morning!

Its been a doozy of a day.

I started off the day with a spin class, another great one! It was a little brutal getting up this morning, but I always feel reenergized after a morning sweat session.

Its fun when you get to class before everyone, but awkward when someone walks in and you’re taking a picture of your empty spin bike.

When I returned home, I instantly made another green juice to enjoy. I can’t get enough of these lately.

This one had

  • 2 cups spinach
  • 1 cup kale
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 1/2 a leftover carrot
  • 1/2 cucumber
  • 1/4 cup strawberries
  • stevia
  • 1 cup water

Planning, thinking, appointments, e-mails, laundry, basically crossing things off my to-do list. I wanted to get a bunch more accomplished, but time was just not on my side.

I swear we need more than 24 hours in a day, there is simply not enough time for everything I’d like to have done…or I just wish I didn’t need to sleep. That would make life easier.

Starbucks was much needed. Isn’t it always though? Enjoyed with a side of blogging

Americano saves the day.

I decided that once I got home I’d add some cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice for a nice autumn touch, did the trick.

A hearty lunch was needed to keep up my energy throughout the day.

Ezekiel bread topped with almond butter, an egg, and homemade blueberry jam. With a spinach salad on the side!

Eggs, almond butter, and jam is a weird, but delicious combination. For seriousness.

*******

Appreciation is something that is so overlooked in our society. It’s certainly easier for us to look at all the stuff we don’t have, or the body we wish we had, which only leads us into a negative spiral. Feeling unworthy is easier then working on our happiness.

How many times do we hear people talking down about themselves and their situations negatively. Getting mad about the fact they only ran three miles, feeling guilt from eating a slice of cake, or feeling they will be “happier” when they have a certain item in their lives.

[Source]

These things are a privilege for some other people. How does complaining about these things change your life for the better? It doesn’t make me feel better if I start complaining about these things, in fact, it makes me feel worse about myself.

What happens after we get these things, we usually replace them with the next thing that will “make us happy”. If we aren’t happy in our journey to to get what we want, we want be happy once we get there. And then this cycle continues.

When we lack appreciation, aren’t we just making those things so much worse for us to deal with. If we feel we are not getting enough from life, its easy to continue a “lacking mindset”.

We have the power to approach these situations with a positive attitude instead, showing up with intention, and appreciation. Shifting our energy and focus into the positive things happening in our lives. I can now look at my body and my life with more appreciation then I did before.

Choose self-acceptance, not self-loathing. We deserve self respect. Even if we aren’t aware now, we all have something to give in this life. Be grateful for what you have, even if it starts with focusing on the little things.

Tell me what you appreciate right now!

Any excited plans for the weekend?

Happy Friday! Hope everyone has an amazing day.

{48 Comments }

Granola Pancakes

September 5, 2012 by

Wow, Wednesday already? This week is flying by. Must be that holiday Monday that happened. This week is already full of changes and hopefully future rewards, and I’m ready to get this September starting off on the right foot.

Another Wednesday, another new month, which means another day of eats.

Again, I’ve been failing miserably on my more sleep goal. Oops.

I did manage to still get up and go to spin class. I made sure to purchase a heart rate monitor, so I can be aware of my heart rate during class and make sure I don’t push it too much.

Breakfast – 7:30:

Breakfast was a granola pancake.

  • 2 tablespoons coconut flour
  • 2 tablespoons brown rice flour
  • 1/4 cup egg whites
  • 1/4 cup banana (melted, and mashed)
  • ~1/4 cup almond milk
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • stevia
  • 1/4 cup granola
  • handful of frozen blueberries.

Mixed it all together, minus the granola, then folded the granola in. Cooked in a big pan with about a teaspoon of coconut oil.

You can also add a little almond milk to the batter, if it’s needed to thin out.

Topped this off with some creamy almond butter. Yummy.

Anyone else find it super weird to wake up early and instead of being light it’s super dark out? Looks like fall is coming soon!

Lunch – 12:

Lunch include socca with a side of roasted zucchini and aspragus.

The socca was simply made with 1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour, 1/2 cup water, and cooked in a teaspoon of coconut oil.

After, I added a little extra coconut oil and nutritional yeast, so it made a “cheesy” like sauce.

Also a side of avocado in a shot glass.

Snack – 3:30:

For a snack I decided to try out a new recipe, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as I hoped…it also crumbled a little too much and is clearly not blog worthy yet.

I’ll have to work on this one!

And yah, I happen to think the green colour is cool;)

I had this alongside leftover greek yogurt and a few strawberries and blueberries.

Oh goodness, I just realized how excited I am for Starbucks’ red holiday cups to return!! I wonder when they get those in?

I’m pretty sure last year they started giving them out early, so hopefully the same goes for this year.

I think I’m getting a little too ahead of myself over here.

Dinner – 6:

After I did all my “housekeeping” chores for the day, I whipped up something fast…

Just a simple slice of toasted ezekiel bread with avocado an egg, and a side of kale “chips”.

Easy, but tasty.

Now I’m drinking a cup of chocolate coconut butter milk.

This was fantastic.

I simply heated up a cup of almond milk and 1 tablespoon of raw cacao bliss, for about 1 minute and 40 seconds in the microwave.

It created a warm coconut-ty, yet chocolatey beverage. One of the best combinations out there.

Off to catch up on Grimm. Enjoy your Wednesday, make it a good one!

Anyone else excited for the holiday cups at Starbucks?

What is your favourite easy dinner?

*Remember there are only a few days left to enter my coconut oil giveaway!

{75 Comments }

WIAW #17

July 18, 2012 by

Happy Wednesday!

It’s that time, What I Ate Wednesday once again!

Last night, I managed to get to sleep nice and early and slept a whole eight hours. I don’t think this has happened in months. It feels nice to be a bit more refreshed this morning. Although, my shoulder has a slight pain in it this morning, I guess I did something in my sleep to it?

I put together some breakfast relatively quickly. While I’ve eased up on the exercise this week, I’ve felt more hungry. That’s fine though I just got things together quick and dirty.

Overnight oat bran, banana, nectarine, and cashew butter. I realized I don’t really enjoy nectarines actually, so these were picked off after.

7 – Breakfast:

Usually, when I feel this hunger, I would ignore the pangs and wait for my “breakfast time” to eat. If I’m hungry, I’m going to eat, no more messing with my hunger cues.

After switching up breakfasts lately, my taste buds were demanding oat bran this morning ;)

Grocery shopping did not end up happening yesterday, so while I was up and at ‘em early this morning I drove over to the store to pick up a few things. While at the store I got a killer headache, so just picked up a few things to head home before it got worse.

Weird, I’ve been getting splitting headaches, almost like migraines on and off for the past few months.

11:30 – Lunch:

Ezekiel bread, goat cheese, homemade strawberry jam, egg, and spinach.

I attempted to read a bit, but my head was making it far too difficult to actually absorb any of the book I was reading, so mindless TV it was.

After some lounging and cleaning, I was hungry again.

3 – Snack:

Yesterday, I cooked up a protein muffin so that I could have at some point today.

Served it up alongside some tasty coconut spread (just coconut flour, stevia, a little greek yogurt, and almond milk).

I wandered outside after to soak up some refreshing sunshine and drink tea, while talking with a friend over the phone.

There was also a bowl full of perfectly ripe berries I snacked on.

I seriously have eaten 2 whole pints in about 3 days. I can’t stop eating berries. They are just too darn delicious right now.

For dinner, I decided I wanted something relatively easy, so I just roasted up some pre-cut kabocha squash and had it with a side of coconut butter and a poached egg.

Easy and splendid.

5:30 – Dinner:

I haven’t had a snack yet, as I’m writing this post, but I have plans to have some coconut cookie dough and am looking for a recipe to make tomorrow. I need some new snacks to have on hand.

Since my headache is still not better, I’m just going to take it easy, catch up on Pretty Little Liars:) and head off to bed early again.

It has also been a bit of a mentally exhausting day, so I just want to get to sleep and hopefully feel better in the morning.

What is your best headache remedy? What are your favourite berries?

Have a fabulous day beauties!!

{45 Comments }