Juicy!

With Simon and Zachary away this week I only have two meat-eaters to cook dinner for. It seems that with the absence of two of my men, I have slipped into juice for dinner. And, as I write, I am enjoying my fourth one in a row.

Cool!

When Simon and I did our cleanse last fall I made it very clear that there was no way I could have juice for breakfast and for dinner because I would starve! Well, I’m certainly not starving and juicing is making me extraordinarily happy!

Here is tonight’s delicious experiment;

• 2 carrots
• 2 lemons
• 1 red pepper
• 2 celery stalks
• 2 brocolli stalks
• 2 beets
• 1 cucumber
• 2 thumbs ginger

I gotta say…I’m just lovin’ this juice thing!!!! 🙂

Super Snack

I am still absolutely loving David Wolfe’s book entitled Superfoods: The Food and Medicine of the Future and am trying to incorporate as many superfoods as possible into my daily diet. I am pleasantly surprised at how many I have easily made a part of my day and it has now become a fun challenge to feed myself super-bly.

I am just about to call it a day but wanted to share my before-bed-super-snack before I hit the hay…

• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 and 1/2 tbsp chia seed
• 1/4 cup goji berries
• 1 tbsp cocao nibs

Stir all the ingredients together in a short glass or bowl, cover and leave in the fridge overnight. The chia seed is gelatinous so the concoction becomes a creamy pudding. And, it offers up three of Wolfe’s ten superfoods; coconut milk, cocao nibs, and goji berries. In tonight’s version I am also going to add some hemp seed (a fourth superfood!!!)…I’ll report on that addition at a later time.

Enjoy…and sweet dreams! 🙂

Super Juice Me!

I have always been a food recipe lover and I have even been known to take cookbooks to bed with me as my evening reading. When I discovered raw food four years ago, my cookbooks just weren’t cutting it anymore so I went out and bought a few un-cookbooks. I also surfed the web and found some raw foodies that appealed to me and subscribed to their sites.

One of my favourites is Russell James. He is known as The Raw Chef and is based in the UK. He shares awesome recipes, tips and raw food tricks and I never miss one of his e-mails. Thanks to Russell James, I am just about to attempt making my own raw chocolate. I will share that new journey when I finish acquiring the necessary tools. Very exciting!

As I drank my Sunday dinner last night I opened an e-mail from Russell. He had just spent part of his weekend at a premiere for Jason Vale’s new documentary entitled Super Juice Me and recommended it highly. I felt like a little bit of raw food entertainment while I drank my dinner so I thought; ‘what the heck‘.

I was sucked in within the first sixty seconds and just cannot wait to finish it tonight.

It is the story of eight people who are on massive amounts of medication for their multiple diseases (including medications for the side effects of the medications). Jason Vale and his team take them away to Juicy Oasis,  his health retreat in Portugal, to see if he can impact their health with 28 days of juice, exercise, rest and sun.

The film is free for the next week and I highly recommend checking it out. I am only about a third of the way in and just can’t wait to have time tonight to finish watching it…I am pretty sure I know where it is going but I just gotta see the end!

Think I’ll make a lemon, beet and celery juice for my viewing snack tonight… 🙂

Here’s the link…enjoy!

http://superjuiceme.com/

 

Sunday Dinner

When I was growing up, Sunday dinner was my favourite meal of the week. More often than not, at least one set of grandparents was with us which always made it feel like a party. We ate in the dining room on the good china and there was always dessert.

Sunday dinner was roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy, roast chicken, pork roast or lamb chops. I would be hard-pressed to pick my favourite because each meal had its own particular character and yummy-ness!

With Simon and Zachary away for a week, I am down two men in my house which makes dinner 50% easier. I made Max and Michael a nice steak dinner with the requested trimmings. And while their dinner was cooking I was preparing my own Sunday dinner. But instead of roasting, steaming, boiling, baking or frying, I was juicing my dinner.

And here it is…(with enough left over for my breakfast!)

• 1 cucumber
• 2 lemons
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 thumb ginger
• 2 small celery stalks
• 1/4 tray of sprouts

My recipe is borrowed from my raw foodie friend, Loren, and it is absolutely delicious. I maybe went a bit overboard on the ginger but it’s got a good little kick to it.

And to finish? Rather than pie, cake, cookies or ice cream, I am going to indulge in an heirloom tomato that I bought at a local farm today with an avocado and some cold-pressed olive oil.

Not sure what my grandparents would have to say about this Radical departure from tradition, but I know what I say…yum!

Happy Sunday! 🙂

 

All-Nighter

I take extremely good care of myself. I sleep eight hours a night, I exercize , I meditate, and I feed my body exceptionally well. Over the past two months I have seriously upped my game on the latter. And since David Wolfe came into my life a few weeks ago, I have discovered a food and nutrition gear that I didn’t even know existed!

I feel awesome! And…it’s just getting better by the day!

One of the key components to my wellness strategy is sleep. I am an eight-hour-a-night kind of a girl. Even on the weekends I am in bed by 10:00 and awake by 6:30. I love sleep and I am a total wimp if I don’t get it.

Two nights ago I pulled an all-nighter to get my taxes done. I decided that I wanted to file on time and didn’t want them hanging over me like a big, black cloud any longer. So I worked until 2:30am and then fell into bed. The problem was, I was so wired-up that I couldn’t sleep properly and felt more tired by the time 6:30am rolled around and it was time to start my day.

The by-product of my all-nighter was that yesterday I felt like I had been hit by a bus! I dragged my butt around all day and felt terrible. My energy was low, I felt weepy and sad, and all the wonderful food that may have helped me to feel better felt like far too much work. Even the bag of goji berries sitting on the counter felt enervating to even contemplate eating.

And the result of my lethargy? Polishing off a half-eaten bag of potato chips standing over the sink. And then feeling totally crappy afterwards…not just physically, but emotionally as well. And guess what? That made me want to eat even more chips. Thank goodness there were no more half-eaten bags in the cupboard or I just might have been unable to resist the siren song of Miss Vickie and her wicked chips.

I feel more like myself today but have had to be very mindful of my food choices. It has not felt easy to feed myself today and I am still craving potato chips.

So here’s my startling observation resulting from my all-nighter…

We are a culture of sleep-deprived people. There are very few of us who consistently choose to put aside eight to ten hours and night for rest. So does that mean that all those sleep-deprived people are moving around in the fog that I felt yesterday? Does it mean that they feel sad and overwhelmed by life? Does it mean that they are simply too tired to make good food choices? Does it mean that they feel that it’s all just so hard that a bag of potato chips over the sink is the answer?

I couldn’t possibly answer any of those questions without a significant amount of research. However, my hunch is that I actually already know the answers.

Here’s my Radical proposition…that for one month every year we choose to leave the invention of electricity behind. That, after dinner,  when it starts getting dark, we do not turn on lights, use the TV, sit at the computer, or play on our devices. We give ourselves an opportunity to tune-in to those Circadian Rhythms that kick-in after dinner that tell us its time to go to bed.

And to navigate around after dark, especially in the winter when it gets dark at 4:30, we could use candle light the way our ancestors would have just over a century ago.

But, really, reading by candle light is the fastest way to put yourself to sleep!

Just sayin’… 🙂

Quirky

When I was in high school I had this quirky habit of cleaning up my room on a Friday night. I would get in from whatever party I had been at and, no matter how late it was, I would clean my room. I used to tell my bemused siblings that I would have a better sleep-in the next morning if my room was clean.

I got teased mercilessly but I always slept like a baby!

Last night felt like a return to my high school days. At 11:00pm, still hip-deep in paper in my dining room, I decided that I was going to finish getting my taxes together and have the dining room returned to normal before going to bed.

And so, after filing the very last receipt, I proceeded to move furniture, shine up the table and even put the candles in their place. I fell into bed at 2:30 this morning with the deep satisfaction of a job well done.

And, as I dropped the whole neatly presented package to my accountant this morning, I felt a nice little kick-back to that quirky girl with the clean room that I was in high school. But now, instead of bearing the teasing from my siblings, it is my family of men that never quite understand that it really can be deeply satisfying to clean.

Oh well…maybe in my next life! 🙂

Different Next Year

It is April 24th. The sun is shining, there is not a cloud in the sky and all I want to do is to be outside basking in the glory of it.

But where do I find myself instead?

Sitting at my dining room table completely surrounded by hours and hours of work. A year of receipts, unopened mail and scraps of paper that could potentially save me hundreds of dollars on my taxes.

Every year I promise myself that it will be different. That I will stay uber-organized so that tax-time is a breeze. I promise myself that receipts will be filed in their appropriate places and it will just be a matter of handing my neat little piles over to the accountant.

But, somehow, by the end of May, the urgency fades and the impetus to keep to my system feels less sexy and compelling.

Maybe this year will be the one that I stay on top of…hmmmmmmm! 🙂

Candid Camera

I travelled to Toronto yesterday afternoon for a follow-up dermatology appointment with a well-known specialist. The first time I saw him was seven weeks ago. I was two weeks off of high-dose Prednisone and my eczema was flaring badly. He told me that long-term Prednisone was not an option and that he would do a chemical allergy test the next time. He could not do the allergy testing at that appointment as my immune system was far too reactive and delicate. So, he prescribed a strong steroid cream and then sent me on my way with a request to follow-up in seven weeks or so.

Seven weeks later I am an entirely different person. My eczema is clear, my energy is fantastic and my hopes for the future are off the charts! The only reason I actually kept the appointment was for the chemical allergy testing. I mean, why not find out what to avoid, right?

After waiting an hour to see the doctor I was ushered into a room to speak with the resident that I had met during the last appointment. She looked at my skin and remarked on how clear and healthy it was looking. She asked me if I was using any other products other than the cream she and the doctor had prescribed during the last visit. I told her that I was not using the steroid cream and she looked surprised. She asked me what I was using and I told her…food. And in particular, no animal products.

She got this amused and slightly patronizing look on her face and, in no uncertain terms, informed me that there would be no correlation between animal products and eczema. She looked to be about twelve years old so, I must say, it was very hard to take her seriously. However, I nodded politely and did not attempt to sway her beliefs in any way.

But wait…it gets better.

The doctor arrived and the resident filled him in on my condition. She told him that my eczema was clear and that I believed it was due to removing animal products from my diet. I couldn’t wait to hear his response to that! He gave me another one of those looks and a sort of energetic pat on the head when he gently explained that there would be no correlation between animal products in my diet and eczema flares.

He went on to comfort me by saying that although I believe my eczema is cleared up, it will come back. He told me that I would always have eczema and that it would probably be better in the summer and then get worse in the winter again. Feeling immensely grateful for his comforting diagnosis of my life-long skin condition, I asked him about the chemical allergy testing. He told me that he could see no reason to do the allergy testing because my skin was so clear.

And, as a parting request, he asked me to book another appointment in six months. Because by then it would be late October and my eczema would be returning.

As I paid my $17.00 for parking I wondered what the heck I had accomplished by spending almost four hours of my day to visit one of Toronto’s most renowned dermatologists. It was so ridiculous I had to giggle to myself as I imagined that I was on Candid Camera and that some funky alternative health guru was going to pop out and have a good laugh with me.

Alas, no one popped out so I had to laugh all by myself.

As I drove the ninety minutes back home, I thought about the silos of our health care. And I thought about all the traditional and alternative practitioners that I have in my life. And as I reflected on all those professionals I wished for an opportunity to bring them together to help me care for my health. Just imagine the impact on our overall health if we all had access to the full spectrum of care. I truly believe that the time for the Integrative Health model is right now!

And…in the meantime, I will continue to eat in a way that makes me feel alive and vibrant and young. My visit to the doctor yesterday reminded me that I do not need to evangelize my lifestyle. I don’t need to justify or convince. And, I don’t even need agreement.

All I know is that ‘you are what you eat’ has taken on a whole new meaning for me in these past nine wonderful weeks. And I know that I will remain in a state of deep appreciation as I am guided toward the next resonant path on this incredible journey!

A Rock and a Hard Place

I have fallen in love yet again. This time his name is David Wolfe and he is completely inspiring me to new heights of health, vibrancy and complete and utter joy.

I stumbled across David Wolfe on YouTube a few weeks ago while watching a health/nutrition/raw food video and have been absolutely enthralled ever since. I absolutely love his message, his passion and his unparalleled knowledge of his subject matter.

Wolfe’s message is simple…the ability to live long, healthy and joy-filled lives is just a matter of feeding ourselves the very best food we can get our hands on. And, he does not advise taking things out of our diet so that we feel deprived. He just recommends adding nutritious, delicious and beautiful foods that will have us naturally gravitating towards the food that is so good for us.

Wolfe has inspired me to add superfoods like goji berries, bee pollen, maca, cocao nibs, and spirulina into my daily regimen. I have also added medicinal mushrooms and ashwaganda to my diet and I am just at the very beginning of my journey with Wolfe.

The result of these changes is that I am feeling an energy that is clean, clear, vibrant and alive. I am absolutely loving the food I am putting into my body and am thrilled with my new awareness of some of the superfoods available to me.

As I was driving to my dermatologist appointment in Toronto this afternoon it occurred to me that my body was just brimming with a feeling of aliveness and bliss. And as the sun shone and I sang along to the music on my radio, I felt a deep appreciation for the right teacher coming into my life at the perfect time with the message that would take me to the next level in my Radical health journey.

What a feeling!

I felt the same vibrancy and joy on the return trip home (even though I had waited and hour to see the dermatologist for three minutes). I was hungry when I arrived home so I put together my afternoon salad and delighted in the process of chopping and prepping. While I ate my beautiful salad I cooked dinner for the family; teriyaki chicken breasts that I had left marinating before my trip to Toronto, basmati rice and a green salad.

By the time dinner was on the table my wonderful energy started to fade. And as I sat and watched my family eat the dinner I had made for them I felt as if all the joy and vibrancy was leaving my body like water down a fast drain.

Simon asked me if I was okay and it was all I could do to answer him as I had no idea what was taking place inside my sensitive Psyche. All I could come up with was that I wanted dinner over with. Simon told me to leave the dishes so that he could do them after returning from Michael’s lacrosse practice but I needed to get the greasy, messy kitchen cleaned up…and fast.

As I did the dishes I felt a sadness so heavy that it almost made me break down and cry. And as I scrubbed the greasy chicken pan it struck me that I had fed my family a meal that I would not eat myself. I had fed them food that no longer resonated with me or my choices or my values. And I had fed them a meal that didn’t even compare to the aliveness that my dinner had.

So here’s the dilemma…how do I feed myself the very best food possible and continue to provide something different for the people I love most in this world? How do I respect their process and not force mine upon them? How do I persuade my kids that kale chips are so much better than potato chips? How much do I insist? And can I stand to support my family in the diet of their choice?

Sitting here between a rock and a hard place sure feels uncomfortable…

It’s All Right

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s all right
– George Harrison

It is a holiday Monday and I spent the afternoon in the backyard with my feet in the grass and my face turned up the sun.

It is a warm 25 degrees Celsius. The kids are playing, the birds are singing their hearts out and the exuberance of spring has taken hold. I have all the windows and doors open and I can feel the high vibration of spring moving the fugginess of winter out of our lives.

George Harrison couldn’t have said it better…it really is all right!