Phase 1 Reset: Complete!

Success! I completed my 30-day diet reset last week and I'm here to tell about it!  I began this whole journey to better health as a result of my Hashimoto's thyroiditis (hypothyroid). While my symptoms were fairly mild, I had been experiencing very cold hands & feet, dry skin, hair falling out, and low energy. After doing lots of research on healing Hashimoto's naturally, I came across Chris Kresser's book, Your Personal Paleo Code, and decided to give his plan a try. Lots of people wanted to know if I noticed changes, so now that I've completed the first 30 days, I thought I'd give an update on how it went and how I'm feeling.

First, like I mentioned, my symptoms were mild. I still have them to a degree but I feel like some of them are improving. I've definitely noticed an improvement in my sleep. I used to wake up periodically all night and now I'm sleeping soundly until morning {unless the kids wake me up, of course, ha!}. When I wake up in the morning I've also noticed that I feel rested and ready to get up. I used to always need like 15 minutes of "wake up time" before I felt ready to get out of the bed. That has been a really nice change and I'm sure a side-effect of better sleep in general. Another great positive change I've noticed is that I no longer crave sweets throughout the day, or really snacks at all. I used to keep chocolate in my fridge at all times because at some point during the day I'd have a serious craving and if there was no chocolate I'd end up eating a bunch of other crappy stuff. Now I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. Occasionally I munch on a few bites of something in between meals, but it's usually something like a banana or some almonds. I am never in need of a "sugar fix."

So, now that the 30 day reset is complete, I had the option to add some foods back to my diet. I knew I wanted to try dairy since I missed it the most and was quite confident it didn't cause me any problems. After a few careful trials, I've added it back completely with no negative effects! I don't eat it the way I used to {half a gallon of milk per week over cereal}, but I enjoy it within the context of my new eating habits. Mostly, I add some cheddar cheese to things like scrambled eggs or a salad. And I made "meatza" which was much better than I had anticipated! The other things I've added back on a very minimal basis are honey and maple syrup. If I do need a little something sweet, I use those instead of regular sugar. I even baked some cookies for father's day that were sweetened only with maple syrup. Beyond dairy and the occasional use of honey or maple syrup, I've had no desire at  all to reintroduce grains, beans, soy, processed sugar, or any other processed foods. That is possibly the most amazing part of this. In the beginning it seems like you're giving up all these foods you love, and by the end you can't even remember why you ever ate them. My personal theory is that it's a function of the sugar controlling your brain. Break free from the sugar and you truly can be happy on just whole, real, healthy food.

For anyone who's interested, here are some of the things I ate during the 30-day reset:
**Side note: I basically wing it when it comes to recipes. I make up my own stuff and change most of the recipes I find to suit our tastes/needs, so I apologize that there aren't more links to these.

Breakfasts: {I usually chose 1 breakfast and ate that for the week}
-Ground turkey, sweet potatoes & apples
-Smoothies {bananas + berries + peaches + any fruit/veg + coconut milk + chia seeds}
-Turkey meatloaf w/fried eggs

Lunches: {Same as breakfast, usually 1 lunch for the week intermixed with leftovers}
-Leftovers
-Hardboiled eggs w/salad
-Pulled chicken w/salad

Dinners:
-Pulled pork on a sweet potato half
-Asian turkey lettuce wraps {just ground turkey seasoned with coconut aminos, garlic, ginger, salt & pepper. Add some vegetables like carrots, red peppers, green onions and serve in lettuce wraps}
-Old Bay chicken w/sauteed summer squash
-Lemon/pepper chicken {literally just grilled chicken seasoned with lemon juice and pepper}
-Steak & green beans
-BLT's {bacon, tomatoes and any other veggies served in a lettuce wrap}
-Burgers, burgers, burgers {any kind, just serve in a lettuce wrap or over salad!}
-Salmon & sweet potato cakes {mix some salmon, sweet potato, Old Bay seasoning, and an egg. I dusted mine with a little coconut flour before pan-frying in coconut oil just for a little crust on the outside}

-"Chick-fil-a" nuggets

-Spaghetti squash & meat sauce {easy and surprisingly good}

There were more, of course, but I was bad about writing them down/remembering them. Sorry! I'd love to remember to do a post each week of the dinners we eat with the goal being to show everyone that this is not a deprived way of eating. We've enjoyed every meal and have tried a lot of new stuff we never would have before. I'll do my best to keep up with that!

In the mean time, we've made a HUGE decision around here {yes, bigger than going Paleo}. It's going to take a lot of our time and energy in the upcoming months, but I'm excited to blog about it. Stay tuned!!

How To Celebrate Your Birthday, Paleo-Style

Usually when people hear that you're eating a paleo diet, they ask what the heck you DO eat, since so many foods in the standard American diet are excluded. So imagine the questions when it comes to parties and celebrations. How DO you celebrate something without sugar and flour?! 

I'll tell you.

Over the weekend, I celebrated my birthday. If there's one occasion that you'd like to let yourself enjoy, it's your own dang birthday. But this year, I'm eating better and I wanted to be able to celebrate my birthday without going totally off track. So I did some Pinterest searching and believe it or not, there are TONS of desserts out there that are Paleo-compliant {i.e. made without wheat flour or sugar}. In fact, I'd venture to say that almost any food you love can be made Paleo-compliant. I easily found something that sounded birthday-worthy and within the limits of my cooking skills. The recipe was meant to replicate the taste of a Twix bar. Happily, it did not disappoint! The ingredients were simple. The process was multi-stage, but not complicated. And the final product was really, really good. You would never know that it contains no grains, no refined sugar, no refined oils and best of all- no guilt.

The full recipe can be found here, but this will give you the idea....

You start with a simple crust {the "cookie" layer} made of almond flour, coconut flour, honey, butter, and a pinch of salt. Combine those ingredients {I used a fork} and press the dough into the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish. Bake for about 15 minutes at 350 and then let it cool completely.

For the caramel layer, melt a stick of butter in a sauce pan, add a cup of maple syrup and bring that to a boil. Then slowly add a cup and a half of heavy cream while whisking and bring that to a boil. Whisk for about ten minutes or until it thickens a bit. Then pour the mixture over the cookie layer and place it in the refrigerator to harden.

Side note: if this step seems like too much of a pain, I'd bet your favorite nut-butter would be an awesome substitute and would only require spreading!

For the chocolate layer, simply melt some semi-sweet chocolate with a tablespoon of coconut oil. You can use a double boiler, a heat-safe bowl set over a pot of boiling water, or a microwave. Once it's melted and smooth, pour it over the caramel layer and return it to the fridge until the chocolate hardens.

That's it! Real food. Nothing refined. Plenty sweet and delicious. Zero deprivation. If you don't believe me, here's my 4-year-old eating a piece...

Of course you can't eat the whole pan. I actually had leftovers so I cut them up and froze them on a cookie sheet, then transferred them into freezer bags for later. I thought they'd be a perfect take-along option for parties and occasions when I want to enjoy dessert without wrecking my system.

So if anyone thinks a paleo diet wouldn't work because you just can't give up your sweets, or it would be impossible to enjoy a party... that excuse is now gone. You can have your health and celebrate, too!

Half-Way There!

At this point we're just over half-way through the Step 1 Diet Reset phase (very very much like the Whole30, if you're familiar with that). In some ways it feels like the first two weeks have gone quickly, and in other ways it feels like two more weeks seems reeeeally long. But alas, I have survived. I am on track, and I even weathered a holiday weekend mostly unscathed! I'll say it: I'm proud of myself. At the outset this seemed a lot harder than it has been. I'm not sure if that's because I'm only half-way through, or if it's a sign of my mental determination {really hoping it's the latter}, but I'm feeling confident that switches have been flipped... permanently.

My family really wants to know how I'm feeling. Do I notice any big changes? Is this whole thing even worthwhile?? After two weeks, I can't say I feel dramatically different. I still have the hypothyroid symptoms that set me off on this journey in the first place. But, I also don't think it's realistic to expect myself to be "healed" or "cured" after two weeks either. The point of sticking to a strict set of especially healthy foods for this 30 days is to get the other stuff out of my system. It takes time for the body to get rid of some of the things that were party of my previous diet. Once that 30 days has passed and my system has settled and begun to repair, then I will start paying close attention to see if my symptoms start to improve. At this very minute, I'm sitting under a fleece blanket, wearing a hoodie and my hands and feet are ice cold. Somewhere over the next few months, I'll be looking for them to warm up. Over the past week I've found 3 pieces of my own hair in one dish of food, and a piece in my glass of water that ice cubes had fused around {seriously gross, I know}. Six months from now, I'm hopeful that won't be such a common occurrence. We'll see. It's possible that this change in my diet will help me, but that I'll still need thyroid medication. It is what it is. But that doesn't mean that I've wasted my time eating better. Quite the contrary actually.

Here is where I have seen change: The more I read of Your Personal Paleo Code, the more convinced I am to commit to a Paleo-style diet for life. There is so much information and evidence indicating which foods are the most healthful and which foods are lacking {not to mention potentially harmful}. I've also learned so much about how the health of our digestive system affects so many other conditions and areas of the body. I mentioned before that I'm someone who has always been opposed to "diets." This is genuinely not a diet. The bottom line purpose of this information is health and healing. That you will not find from Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig or any of the other common diet plans out there. The goal among them is simply weight-loss, and maybe better health as a side effect. This is something different. Something bigger. Definitely something better. For a while now, despite a handful of people I know endorsing it and encouraging me to try it, I avoided a Paleo diet because I felt like it was unsustainable for me. I thought it was too strict and I just wasn't willing to commit to that for the rest of my life. I could find other ways to maintain my health. Thankfully, circumstances in my own health shoved me toward it to a point where I had to look into it out of curiosity if nothing else. Now that I've learned more and given it a try, I don't see myself going back. Don't get me wrong, I don't intend to stick to the strict guidelines that are used for this first 30 day phase forever, but I don't plan to stray too far from it either. It will remain the basis of my diet. I'll reintroduce some things, like dairy which I've really missed, but I'll probably eat less of it than I did before. And everything else will be an occasional treat. Nothing is banned for life, and for me personally, that helps immensely with my resolve.

So that's where I am at the halfway point: hanging in there better than I thought I could, learning more every day, more convinced than ever that this was a smart choice, and committed. Let's see what the next 2 weeks brings!

Personal Paleo Code: 1 Week In

We've been at this 30-day diet reset thing for a little over a week now {closer to 2 weeks, these posts take me a few days to compose & edit!}, so I figured I'd post an update on what we're eating and how we're doing. First, to give you a framework of what we're eating, the "reset" phase of the Personal Paleo Code consists of: meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and healthy fats. No dairy, grains, legumes, sugar/sweeteners, industrial oils like canola, or artificial ingredients. Sound tough to live off of? It's really not that bad.

For breakfast I've been eating ground turkey with sweet potatoes and apples, berry smoothies made with coconut milk and chia seeds, and of course the incredible edible egg with some combination of salsa/avocado/tomatoes. Who needs cereal {i.e. sugar} to start the day? I will admit that I struggled a little with black coffee. I was used to a little sugar and some half-and-half, and black coffee was just not as exciting for me. I drank it for a few days, then gradually blended it down to half-caff, and finally to none at all. I prefer not to be reliant on a cup of coffee in the morning anyway. I really drank it because I love the taste, and once that aspect was gone there was no point. 

For lunch I stuck to my usual salads, though I switched to olive oil & balsamic vinegar instead of the honey-mustard dressing {homemade} I had been using before. I also had to omit cheese or black beans which I often included before. Instead I added avocado and/or boiled eggs. Sadly that has proven to just not cut it for a lunch meal. I've experienced more than one episode of extremely low blood sugar in the evenings where I start feeling dizzy, light-headed and like I need to eat something, anything immediately. It makes sense since I'm consuming significantly less sugar and carbs than I used to. Hopefully it's just my body adjusting to it's new fuel type. I did some quick online research and some advice was to eat more carbs {fruit or sweet potatoes} and other advice was to stay away from carbs {which could be causing a blood sugar crash} and eat more protein and fat instead. For today's lunch, I decided to skip the salad and go for something heavier.

Two salmon/sweet potato cakes, steamed carrots, and two boiled eggs. I also had an apple after that. 

It did not disappoint! My evening was much better. So, note to self: salad on the side, good dose of protein for the main component.

That brings me to dinner. Dinners have been the easiest and most fun. Some of our dinners have been steaks, burgers with pineapple slices and sweet potato chips, tacos in romaine leaves, pork roast and sweet potatoes, those salmon cakes I mentioned above, and a roasted chicken... all with a variety of vegetables. It's really simple - chose a meat, prepare however you want {within the parameters of the diet, e.g. no cheese}, chose a complementary vegetable.

I've even made ice cream out of frozen bananas using my food processor. Just slice and freeze a banana, place in the bowl of a food processor with other fruit, cinnamon, cocoa powder, nuts, etc. and process until creamy. I'm not sure I'll ever need to buy dairy ice cream again. I also love that it only makes a small amount so it's not just sitting in the freezer waiting to be eaten.

As for how we're feeling- I don't think either of us have noticed anything dramatic at this point. The first 2-3 days were a little rough for me in terms of energy, but I've definitely bounced back from that. I mentioned my couple of episodes of dizziness. Hoping that's just an adjustment to consuming significantly less sugar/carbs than before. I do not find myself hungry or experiencing cravings, which is wonderful and way beyond my expectations going into this. I thought for sure I'd be craving all the things I couldn't have. I used to always eat a bowl of cereal before bed also {a habit from childhood}, and I haven't been eating anything past dinner except the two times we made ice cream. I'm not ready to say that I see or feel my thyroid symptoms vanishing either, but hopefully I'll start to see improvements by the time the 30 day reset phase is ending {which will be June 10}. Without blood tests before and after I won't know definitively if the changes I've made are positively affecting my thyroid function. I do plan to follow up with my endocrinologist to check on my levels. They were only "slightly" off normal before, so it'll still be difficult to say whether any positive change is attributed to my eating habits or not. What I do know is that I've eliminated potential threats. By not eating foods that are known to be problematic both for my immune system and my thyroid, at least I feel confident that I'm not doing harm to myself. 

In addition, eating healthier is... well, healthier. I'm only helping myself in a variety of ways by changing my habits for the better now. My motivation originally came from having an auto-immune thyroid disorder, but the more I learn the more I believe that this change is just a smart thing to do for my long-term overall health. I'm sure there will be occasions and instances where I consume refined sugar or an artificial ingredient, but knowing that I'm careful 95% of the time will make those isolated instances much less of an issue. Therefore, I get to indulge when it's absolutely worth it and still maintain all the benefits of a clean diet. I'd say that's the best of both worlds!

How We Handled Our Picky Eater

{Image found here}

Picky eaters. Most parents deal with them to some degree at some point in their parenting careers. That's where we found ourselves with our just-turned-four-year-old over the course of the past year {give or take a bit}. As a little toddler, Carsen ate just about everything we offered her, especially fruits and vegetables. It seems we were sadly mistaken in believing she was just a really good eater, because somewhere in the middle of being 2 she decided to stop eating some of the foods she once devoured. After being such a healthy eater for 2+ years, her favorite foods began to drop off one by one until the only things she really wanted to eat were the dreaded "toddler standards"- hot dogs, pizza, grilled cheese, and chicken nuggets. Gah! How did we get here? And more importantly, what do we do about it??

I was determined not to make a huge issue out of food. My philosophy on just about everything in life is that if you make a big deal out of it, it will become a big deal. So we tried the casual approach. We encouraged her to eat her vegetables but more and more she declined. We thought maybe it was just a phase that she'd move on from, but she didn't. Like any parent I began to worry about her nutrition. She was still eating normal and fairly healthy stuff for breakfast and lunch, but she was eating less and less for dinner and not much in the way of vegetables at all. I also started to worry that she wasn't eating a sufficient quantity of food in those two meals with what little she was getting from her meager dinners.

Well, we all know what worried parents do... Google. Far and away, the most prominent piece of advice we found, both from people we know and the interwebz, was the "one meal" approach. Simply put, you make one family meal {no short-order cooking}, the kids must at least try each food, absolutely no snacking between meals, and no games/tricks/bribery. They eat or they don't. One mom describes looking her 2 year old in the eye and telling her to "eat it or starve" in this article I read, which I personally found heart-breaking. Supposedly this teaches kids to try new foods and become more adventurous eaters. They'll eat when they're hungry enough, right? ...Right??

We tried. We really did. It's no exaggeration when I say that she would eat dinner maybe once a week. She refused every. single. night. Instead of reducing the stress surrounding meal time, our stress went through the roof. Instead of just fussing at the dinner table, Carsen began asking me what was for dinner the minute she woke up from her nap in the afternoon and would whine and agonize about it all the way through meal time and straight through bed time. Every evening became hours of discussion over what was for dinner, what she did and didn't like, whining, crying, and other generally uncooperative behavior. We were frustrated, annoyed, and experiencing tons of guilt. Our child basically never had a bite to eat after her 12:30 p.m. lunch every day, and was going to bed crying and hungry every night. We don't have a lot, but we have enough food to eat. I can't imagine if I had to send my babies to bed crying and hungry so doing it by choice seemed utterly ridiculous and it ripped my heart out. Worst of all, we were getting nowhere with it.

Then one night while I was making another dinner I knew she wouldn't eat, and she was yet again hungry, cranky, and melting down about everything, I caved and asked, "would you like eggies and peas??" She stopped, I swear to you mid-meltdown, and literally snapped back to her sweet adorable self and said, "Yes I would!" Like flipping a switch, our entire evening did a 180. She began cheerfully bouncing around the kitchen. She ate her whole dinner. She played happily until bed time. After struggling for so long, it was miraculous. I decided that night that if she wanted some damn scrambled eggs and peas every night for dinner that was fine with me.

I immediately felt a million times better and swore to never send my child to bed hungry again as long as I could help it. Sometimes as parents we go against our instincts to follow the latest "expert" advice {or whatever "everyone" seems to be doing at the time}. Truly though, if it causes you and your child stress, it's probably not the right thing to do regardless of what any expert says. The more I thought about the hard-line, no-choice, eat-it-or-starve approach, the more insane I realized it was.

• First of all, I allow her to choose what she wants to eat for her breakfast and lunch. How confusing and frustrating it must be for her when at dinner time she's told she has no choice but to eat what I've chosen or go hungry. Not to mention as a child she is unable to make her own food and is completely at my mercy. This is a situation she literally has zero control over.
• Second, "experts" usually advise that in order to get children to cooperate, you should empower them with choices. Let them choose between the yogurt or banana, yellow shirt or blue shirt, hair up or hair down, etc. Yet when it comes to dinner, the expert advice is to allow no choice at all. What sense does that make?
• Third, my favorite, many experts love to base their advice on how to treat children by referencing how we adults would feel when treated that way. So then my question is: how would we adults feel if we were told we had to eat food we don't like and didn't choose, or starve? I think we'd probably be cranky and out-of-sorts, too. 
• Fourth, this approach flies in the face of everything I know about Attachment Parenting, a philosophy I am wholeheartedly committed to.

And so, our new approach is to feed her what she'll eat, among acceptable dinner-time foods {for goodness sake she's asking for scrambled eggs and peas, not candy}. We ask her to try three bites of the dinner I make and then she can opt for scrambled eggs if she wants. We also started a sticker chart and give her a sticker every night she eats all of her dinner. Guess what? We're going on 2 months straight that she has eaten her dinners! So maybe we're not actively expanding her pallette. Neither is  offering food she doesn't eat. She can't get any nutrition from it if she refuses to eat it. She loves fruit, smoothies, fruit/vegetable pouches, and eats plenty of healthy protein so she's still getting nutrients even if she doesn't gobble up brussels sprouts at the dinner table. Most little kids don't love vegetables. I will continue to offer them to her and otherwise feed her the best food she enjoys eating. Like I've said before- the best approach {to anything} is always to do what works for you and your family. The current "wisdom" didn't cut it for us in this case, so we tried something else that did and are all much much happier and healthier as a result!

Anyone else have experience with a picky eater? What worked for you? What didn't?

Goodbye Gluten

The Luckiest {Household} has recently joined the ranks of many around the country/interwebz who have gone gluten-free. Being gluten-free has become so popular that it seems like, and is often referred to as, a bandwagon or fad diet. For many it may be, but even a little bit of research on the effects of gluten on your body is enough to make just about anyone question if they should be eating it.

For us, it started with my thyroid. Just before I got pregnant with Reagan I had some blood work that showed a very slightly low thyroid function, known as hypothyroidism. Since we were trying to get pregnant at the time, my doctor recommended that I see an endocrinologist, who prescribed a thyroid hormone supplement. When you're pregnant, hypothyroid is associated with lower IQ in babies, so even though I wasn't experiencing symptoms of hypothyroidism, it was best to go on meds for the health of the baby. I was totally fine with that.

Fast forward to after Reagan was born. I was given the option to stop taking the meds if I wanted since my numbers were so very slightly low. I am personally someone who hates taking medication unless I absolutely can't do without it, so given the choice, I decided to try to improve my hypothyroidism with dietary changes instead. When I started my research, I quickly learned that the thyroid is very similar to gluten on the molecular level, so if your body is sensitive to gluten and producing antibodies against it, they may also be attacking your thyroid {autoimmune hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's thyroiditis}. That, in addition to reading just-plain-scary stuff about gluten in your system, led me to the decision to go gluten-free at least for a while to see if it made a difference.

When you read about the process of going gluten free it can be a little overwhelming. Advice included throwing food away, cleaning your pantry top to bottom, and throwing away your toaster. Cross-contamination is a big deal for people with severe celiac, but since none of us had any digestive trouble I decided to just phase it out instead doing a cold-turkey clean sweep of the kitchen. We ate what we had and only bought gluten-free foods going forward.

The first thing we ran out of was bread since Carsen ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every single day for lunch. When the bread was gone I started giving her peanut butter and apples instead. At first I was worried that she'd be begging for her PBJs, but she never said a word. One week after the bread was gone, I also noticed that Carsen's eczema was completely cleared. We had been battling it for months, had switched to all-natural soaps and were applying Babyganics eczema cream to it 2-3 times a day to keep it under control. I realized I hadn't put the cream on her in days and yet it was clear. I immediately thought of the gluten - it was the only thing we had changed. About 2 weeks after that we had a crazy evening and decided it needed to be a pizza night {again, since none of us was suffering severe effects, this was kind of an "oh well" circumstance}. In a few days Carsen's hands were bright red and bubbled up with eczema again. That was enough confirmation for me that her eczema was a result of {or at the very least made worse by} gluten, and we needed to be strictly gluten-free.

Another thing I found when reading about going gluten-free was that most of the recommendations are to seek out certified gluten-free foods and avoid anything that could possibly be cross-contaminated. Again, I totally get that for people with severe reactions. For us so far, we're staying away from any foods that have wheat or wheat gluten, barley, or rye listed as an ingredient. For example, Cheerios are an oat-based cereal. Wheat is not an ingredient, but they are not certified or even labeled gluten-free because they may contain traces of wheat. So far those foods don't seem to be a problem for us, and I see no need to go extreme if it's not necessary.

In all honesty, the transition has not been difficult. We didn't eat a whole lot of wheat in the first place except for sandwiches and occasionally pasta or pizza for dinner. You do have to be careful with some pre-made foods like condiments, sauces, and soups since flour is sometimes used as a thickener, but for the most part I make those types of things myself. I also haven't purchased any GF specialty foods like GF bread or pasta. We're just finding alternatives, like apples and peanut butter instead of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The reality is that most of the alternatives are much healthier choices anyway {apples vs. bread is a shining example}. Pinterest is, as always, an amazing resource for finding recipes. For breakfast we do mostly smoothies or eggs. If we're in a hurry and need cereal, Chex and most granolas are GF. I eat salad a lot for lunch and the girls love peanut butter and fruit or peanut butter on a rice cake. Dinners have been the easiest since we normally just have meat and vegetables, occasionally rice. Snacks are a little tougher, but nuts, fruit, cheese, and raisins have all been our go-to options over the past few weeks. I have made several new specifically GF recipes that were really good like peanut butter cookies and brownies. I'll share a list of some of our favorite GF recipes in another post ;)

Have you ever considered going gluten-free? Did you worry it would be too hard? Feel free to ask away if you have questions about our GF transition. And if you're looking for information about gluten or reasons for going gluten-free, here are some links I came across/found helpful while doing my research:

How Gluten Wreaks Havoc on Your Gut - article by Dr. Amy Myers
Gluten and the Thyroid - an article by Dr. Mark Hyman
The Gluten-Thyroid Connection - an article by Chris Kresser. Noteworthy: while I don't discredit him and actually found the info in this article to be especially helpful, I feel it is always worth noting when the author of an article is also selling a book/program/seminar or otherwise making their living on that information.
How to Go Gluten Free - a really great blog post that advises the RIGHT way to go gluten-free: skip the fake packaged products and just eat real, naturally gluten-free foods!

I personally like to think about going gluten-free not in terms of what I can't have, but what I should have instead. After all, it's a choice to be healthier. I'm simply leaving out unhealthy foods and eating something healthier in their place :)

Kale & Brussels Sprouts Salad

Three words: Easy. Amazing. Healthy {mostly}. 

Does that count as four words?? 

I found this recipe on Pinterest. It had me at kale bacon. If you're a kale or brussels sprouts fan, or if you're a salad person, or if you're just trying to eat more veggies you need to try this. It's simple to make, packed with super-healthy kale and brussels sprouts, and it's surprisingly delicious. The flavors are all bold, it has the right amount of crunchy texture mixed with the softness of the cheese. It would also lend itself well to a variety of other add-ins {off hand I'm thinking hard-boiled eggs, dried cranberries, diced red pepper, black olives, red onion... you get the picture}.

Here's the recipe...

Ingredients:

Salad:

2-3 cups of kale, washed and chopped

1 lb. Brussels sprouts {I think I eyeballed it and used 3-4 sprouts}, finely shredded

3-4 slices of bacon/turkey bacon, baked crisp and chopped

1/4 cup roasted almonds

1/2 cup pecorino cheese

Dressing:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tsp shallot, finely minced

1 small garlic clove, finely minced

1/8 tsp kosher salt

Pinch black pepper

Instructions:

Combine kale and brussels sprouts in a medium bowl. In a small bowl, jar, or salad dressing bottle, whisk together all dressing ingredients. Toss dressing and greens until well combined. Top with cheese, bacon, and almonds.

I made a few small modifications to this recipe. I left the shallots out of the dressing, skipped the almonds, and used feta instead of pecorino cheese since I already had it for another recipe. I also stored the salad in jars since I planned to eat it for lunch over the course of a few days and wanted it to keep nicely. Also because of that, I decided not to mix in the bacon and cheese. I just added those when I got the salad out to eat each day. I had about 4 mason jar-sized portions from what I made. 

When I blew through my first batch, I made another and tried it with this dressing instead. The flavors were good, I just personally have a hard time with plain greek yogurt. The sour/bitter/bite whatever-you-want-to-call-it just doesn't work for me. It especially didn't work with the already bite-y feta in this salad. If that's your thing though, give it a try. I'm ordinarily a big honey-mustard fan.

I love to have such an easy and healthy go-to lunch that I can prep ahead and have on hand, ready to eat. I find when that's the case, I have no trouble sticking to clean, healthy lunches. The middle of the day is usually no time to start measuring, mixing, and chopping around here so simple recipes like this are one are exactly what I need :)

What healthy stuff are you eating for lunch??

Eating Better in the New Year

Welcome to the first post in my series, "Doing Better in the New Year!" I don't really make New Year's resolutions, but I do like to take the opportunity at the beginning of a shiny, fresh new year to think about what I'd like to change or do better this year than last year. It's nice to set out in the new year with a few goals in front of me. One of the things I plan to do better in 2014 is eat better.

We don't actually eat that badly as it is. When it was just the two of us and we still had 25-year old metabolisms, I didn't really think that much about what we ate. We just kind of ate what we wanted, ate out when we wanted, and just didn't worry about it. All of that changed when Carsen was born. That's when I started paying attention not only to healthier options, but started buying more organic foods, started reading more information on healthy ways of eating and the latest research on nutrition, and watching out for things that really shouldn't be in our diet at all like artificial ingredients.

Three years later we've made a lot of progress and are eating much better than we used to, but there's always room for improvement. And even though we've learned a lot about cleaner eating, some of those habits can be hard to kick {choc-a-holic, right here}. We're a long way from perfect, but I'm a strong believer in taking baby steps to make a goal achievable. Changing small things at a time and conquering those tough habits one by one takes time but helps make the effort more manageable and less overwhelming. If I woke up one day and couldn't eat any sweets, carbs, dairy, or anything from a package, I might have a panic attack.

To be clear, eating better for me does not mean cutting out entire food groups. In fact, I find that as soon as I make something off-limits I want it even more than I did before. Instead, I try to focus on what I should eat, and still allow myself to eat the not-so-good stuff if I want it, just not all the time {kind of like an 80/20 rule, but maybe even more like 90/10}. I like knowing that I had the option but chose something better. For example, instead of making cereal totally off-limits for breakfast, I'll try to eat eggs with vegetables, or a fruit & veggie smoothie most days of the week. I find if the new options are interesting enough {eggs baked into tomatoes, yum!} and don't require too much work, then I'll be excited to have them every day. It's certainly easy enough to scramble or hard boil a big batch of eggs on Sunday to eat during the week and I'm definitely going to try some new smoothies like this one or one of these, and I really like this idea. I'd love to get the hubby and kids on board with some more vegetables and I think smoothies might be just the trick. Plus I can add chia seeds and other goodies that they'll never know about ;) There will always be times that I'm in a hurry or just really want a bowl of cereal. For those times I'll keep healthier cereal options in the pantry.

Kale & brussels sprouts salad - don't worry, it has bacon

When it comes to lunch, I often rely on the good ole turkey sandwich. It's quick, easy, doesn't require cooking, and simple enough to keep the ingredients on hand. However, it's not so great for you. Lunchmeat is processed and full of sodium, and bread is something {in my opinion} we should all try to eat a little less of. Again, I wouldn't swear off sandwiches, but for the every day I need to aim for a better lunch plan. A little bit of Pinterest perusing and I'm thinking about adding things like this, this, or this to my standard rotation. I also like a good cobb salad but it can be hard to find a salad dressing that isn't total junk. I found this recipe for a honey mustard dressing that I'm going to try out though and see if that can help keep me in the salad habit for lunch time! Of course, I'm sure I'll still have a turkey sandwich from time to time among other things.

Dinner has always been my easiest meal to plan. I usually just pick a meat, prepare it some way we like, and have a vegetable for the side. Or if we're going meatless, as we do for half of our meals {actually half, not just figure-of-speech half}, then it's usually beans, quinoa, or eggs as our protein source instead of meat. I don't believe in fake meat substitutes like tofu.

Coconut Cream Larabars - My Whole Food Life

Snacks... are my weakness. I have a sweet tooth. Actually it's more like a chocolate tooth. If I try eating an apple instead of chocolate, I end up eating 3 or 4 other things too because, really, an apple doesn't satisfy a chocolate craving. I have found that energy bars like Clif bars or Larabars do the trick since they taste like a treat but are also pretty satisfying. The problem is they're expensive, and you have to watch the ingredients in some brands/varieties. They're really meant to be more like a small meal than a snack, so they're higher in calories than you'd want a regular snack to be- another caveat. Thankfully, there's a great blog I read called My Whole Food Life which is full of recipes for all kinds of wonderful dishes, including homemade energy bars. I've made her most popular Coconut Cream Larabars before, but it was before I had my food processor so the texture didn't turn out. I wanted to wait until I had my food processor to try again, and I just got one for Christmas! I'm really excited about trying some more of her recipes like this one, this one, and this one to keep our snacks healthy and clean. Just to clarify, we don't currently snack on chocolate all the time. Carsen and I both love string cheese, cheddar, raisins, a variety of fruits, and nuts. I try to stick to those {or something similar} for the most part so she develops healthy snack habits. It's me personally who needs to have a better alternative when I'm tempted to grab a handful of m&ms!

Are you eating better for 2014? Trying to better yourself in other ways? In addition to eating better, I'm also trying to parent better, workout better, and better our home in 2014! Stay tuned for those upcoming posts and some others in this series :)

What's for "Pinner?"

For the next two weeks we'll be eating "Pinner"... Pinterest-inspired dinners!

These are all recipes from my Pinterest dinner board and all recipes we've never tried before (except the enchiladas, which are a tried-and-true Pinterest dinner). You're probably wondering how six meals are going to make two weeks worth of dinners. Here's how my system works...

Monday: cook

Tuesday: cook

Wednesday: cook

Thursday: leftovers

Friday: take-out

Saturday: breakfast for dinner (if we're home)

Sunday: big dinner at my mom's house

So technically I only cook three original meals per week. It's a great system. I love that we eat our leftovers so they don't get wasted. Bonus: our fridge stays clean and uncluttered! Rarely am I pulling a container of mystery food from the back weeks after it was put in there. It's also a night I don't have to start a new meal from scratch so it saves time. It also saves money both in that we're not wasting food, and that I'm not buying groceries for 5+ new meals every week. 

Rather than six individual posts, I'll write one big one at the end to let you know how our "Pinners" turned out, including photos, links to the recipes we used, and our reviews. Stay tuned!

Easy DIY Baby Food / Pouches

We are currently past (or in between, I guess) the baby food stage since Carsen is now 2.5, but she is a huge fan of the organic fruit & vegetable pouches. We love to use them when we're on-the-go as an easy, but still nutritious, snack. Sometimes if we're going somewhere fun and I know she's unlikely to to stop and eat a meal, I'll bring one of those pouches so that I know she at least got some kind of nutrition. If you've ever bought these pouches though, you know that they aren't cheap as every variety I've ever found is around $1.50 per pouch. If I buy 10 or so at a time to have on hand, I'm spending roughly $15 on pouches.

Since whole fruits and vegetables are much cheaper by quantity than the pouches, why not just buy the fruits and vegetables and skip the pouches? There are a couple of reasons. First, pouches are much more portable. They take up significantly less space in your bag than individual servings of different fruits and vegetables. They don't need to be cooked or refrigerated. They aren't at risk for squashing or bruising since they're already pureed - though if you tried really hard, they could potentially burst. AND they are suitable for eating in the car (if your child is able to handle a squeeze pouch with minimal supervision) whereas you might not hand your toddler a carrot or spinach leaf to munch on while in a moving vehicle.

What's a mom to do? Lucky for me our local eco-friendly, baby/mama-centered consignment boutique (that's what they call themselves) has started selling re-useable pouches that can be filled with your own food. Wait, let me clarify that. The store also sells NEW items, these are not re-usable as in "consigned" food pouches. {Ick.} They offer the best of both worlds - I get to buy my own organic produce for a fraction of the cost per quantity than pre-pouched food, and I can still serve it easily on-the-go in the convenient pouch form.

Originally I thought it seemed too time-consuming to make my own pureed fruits and vegetables, but I'm here to tell you that it's easy. Really. I already had everything in my kitchen that was needed, and in one 2-hour nap time I was able to make a variety of purees for weeks worth of pouches.

Here's my how-to...

What you need:

-Vegetable peeler (a knife will also do, but may be trickier)

-Mixing bowl

-Blender/food processor/hand blender/potato masher

-Ice cube trays

-Freezer bags

-Reusable pouches

Process:

1) Peel the fruit or vegetable if needed. I'll use apples as my example.

2) Chop into chunks

3) Place in a sauce pan or pot (depending on quantity) with 1/4-1/2" water

4) Cover and steam until soft

5) Place chunks and some of the steam water if desired into a mixing bowl. If you're using a food processor or blender you don't need the mixing bowl.

6) Use your implement of choice (I used a hand-blender which I really love) to puree the food.

7) Spoon small amounts of puree into ice cube trays and freeze until solid

8) Place frozen cubes into freezer bags, label, and return to freezer until needed. The individual cubes make it easy to pull a little bit of this and a little bit of that to make your own mixtures.

Some foods don't require peeling, like broccoli or spinach, and some foods don't require cooking like pears or blueberries. Other foods require nothing but scooping & freezing like Greek yogurt or canned pumpkin. You can also use frozen options which often eliminate the peeling and chopping steps - just thaw, steam and puree! If you have a baby who needs pureed food you can take small portions of your family dinners and puree them for later. So it's a slightly different process depending on what you're making, but the bottom line is that once the food is soft enough to be pureed then you just use your preferred method and you're all but done. It would be easy to do a big batch on a Sunday while your babes nap, or you could do smaller batches one night each week. 

For $5.99 a 3 lb. bag of organic apples made enough apple sauce to create 10+ pouches depending on how I mix them with other fruits and vegetables. The same number of store-bought pouches would cost me 2-3x that amount. As a one-income household, we'll be even happier about the savings once Reagan is ready for baby food in another 7-8 months and we're going through even more of it. 

For anyone who's interested, here are a few DIY baby food resources that I've found helpful:

- Top 100 Baby Purees by Annabel Karmel A great book that not only offers basic information and instructions for making baby food, but breaks down food recommendations by age and offers creative, baby-friendly mixtures and recipes. 

- Wholesome Homemade Baby Food A website that also gives great tips and advice for making baby food broken down by age.

- The Peaceful Mom blog A DIY baby food plan and free printable menu planner. Also an overall great blog for parenting and saving money and keeping an organized household.

- Pinterest as always :)

Leave me a comment if you have any questions or DIY baby food making advice!

Snowman Lunch

To make a snowman lunch, simply cut 2 slices of bread into circles (mine were quite imperfect as I do not own cookie cutters), make a PB sandwich out of them, and use raisins and a baby carrot to create a snowman face!

It was a huge hit :)

Health & Happiness

We all want both health and happiness in our lives, right? Most people strive for both, and it could easily be said that often one leads to the other. But what if you had to choose one or the other? Yesterday I was standing in line at Trader Joe's and overheard some small talk between the customer in front of me and the cashier. They were talking about what looked like some type of energy/meal bars that the customer was buying and she was telling the cashier she eats them every day. The cashier asked a question which I missed, but the customer's response was that she had lost 50 pounds this year. That sounded impressive. I began wondering what these bars were that she was buying. The cashier asked how the customer had done it and her reply was, "Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution." I had never heard of this, so when I got home I Googled it out of curiosity.

Turns out it is a very restricted diet (though it warns that it's more a way of life than a diet) of mostly vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Upon reading this my interest went from peaked to zero in an instant. I'm all about being healthy and doing your best to stay healthy for the long-term, but I just refuse to do so by eating a drastically restricted diet. I understand that there are probably drastic benefits that come from doing so, but I would also be drastically sad to never enjoy any foods except vegetables, nuts, and seeds. So maybe you can live to be 107 instead of just 99. Do I want to live 107 years and never eat a real brownie? I do not. Is that really living? I say, nope.

It seems like these super-restrictive diets are becoming the trend once more. Just when we thought Atkins and South Beach were fading out for good, here we are eliminating entire food groups again! Not so long ago a friend of mine introduced me to a diet that is mostly protein and vegetables with some fruit. No dairy, sugar, or grain though. She was describing all the ways that eating like this can benefit the body. She sent links to articles on the web about the diet, and even added me to a Facebook group where recipes for this diet are shared and exchanged. While I found it interesting, and have no doubt that the benefits are there, I declined to try it out because I just don't think that kind of dietary restriction is necessary to be healthy. When it is entirely possible to live a long, healthy, and full life without cutting vast food options from your diet, I see no reason to do so. Rather, I prefer to eat mindfully, exercise regularly, and just enjoy life without those restrictions. There are way too many super-healthy people and super-old people who eat ice cream to convince me that major food restriction is either necessary or important.

Here's the way I look at it- If I were going for the absolute peak of health that I could possibly achieve, I would have to spend most of my day working out and eat only foods that are nutrient dense and only eat with the purpose of nutrition, not choosing foods just because I like them. Sure, that is a smart thing to do for your body and your health. It's not practical, but it could be done, if I really wanted to be as healthy as possible. It's probably also psychologically much healthier not to associate food with enjoyment. Nevertheless, the human body isn't made that way. We get a kick out of foods we like. So maybe you can retrain your mind or even your chemistry not to want to eat yummy things. Fine. This diet/lifestyle/way of eating, whatever you want to call it still doesn't guarantee a long life. It might help if all else goes perfectly, yes. But... you could still be in a car accident. Someone could still mug and kill you. You could choke to death on something. You could fall off a cliff while mountain climbing. I mean, stuff happens every day. Some of it is more likely than others depending on your lifestyle, but still! Just a couple weeks ago about 10 miles from here two 19 year old girls died when a train derailed near where they were sitting (just sitting and talking!) and they were buried and crushed under coal that spilled out of the derailed train. No one ever thinks something like that is going to happen, and I don't think anyone should live life expecting a freak accident, but let me say that if I were to die tomorrow in some unforeseen scenario, I would not regret those two Oreos I ate today and loved every bite.

I also personally believe that the more you stress over food- what's permitted, what's forbidden, strict rules and all that- the more it becomes an issue in your life. Most people (not to say all) are unsuccessful in adhering to very strict diets. Really, most people are unsuccessful at monitoring their calorie intake (e.g. American obesity epidemic). I have no idea what the science is behind it, but for me personally the less of an issue you make it, the less of an issue it is. If I really want dessert I have it. I don't eat an 8x8 pan of brownies at once or a half gallon of ice cream, but if I want some I have some. The more restrictive I try to be, the more I want the forbidden foods. Why bother? I'd eat less of it and want less of it if it wasn't "off limits" in the first place. Maybe I'm not in as perfect physical condition as I would be if I were a super-strict eater, but I would 100% rather be in mildly less than peak physical shape than have to agonize on a daily basis over what I can and can't have. If I were on the path to health problems, then I'd be more strict. But again, I can still be perfectly healthy without being in peak condition, and perfectly healthy with permission to eat peach pie is just fine with me!

**And I'd like to add the disclaimer that I'm not saying people can't be happy on super-restricted diets. Maybe that's your thing. Maybe the benefits of that lifestyle are what make you happy. Maybe the idea that you are doing something so super healthy is what gives you a kick vs. having a sandwich on foccacia. That's cool. I just think you're rare and special :) I also realize that some people adopt these styles of eating because of health issues like diabetes or certain digestive tract disorders. I completely understand eating a very restricted diet to help manage a health problem.**

My conclusion is simply that if you can have great health and a long life without cutting out entire food groups, I don't see the necessity of a super-restricted diet. It seems more sensible and sustainable to me (and for me, knowing myself) to just make smart food choices and stay active. Thus, my theory is: everything in moderation. Get plenty of exercise. Be a mindful eater. Enjoy life. Order dessert. Have a dinner roll. Seriously, it's not going to kill you.... but a bus might.

The 28 Day Challenge

It all started at the dinner table back in April. I realized that our baby C almost never ate the meat that we would have for dinner. She would much rather make her meal on whatever vegetable was offered. She could take or leave the starch depending on what it was, but honestly I often skipped making a starch. Just one more thing to think of and prepare. At the same time I realized that darling husband J rarely ate the vegetables we had for dinner and preferred to have the "meat and potatoes." Coincidentally, during all of this observation I was doing I had also been trying to think of ways to trim down our grocery budget. These three factors led me to the idea of... vegetarian dinners!

I've never even remotely considered becoming a vegetarian. I was really just trying to come up with a creative way to feed my baby more of what she wants, my husband more of what he needs (and less of what he doesn't) and save some cash at the grocery store. When you build your dinners around a meat entree, you spend a lot of money on meat. So anyway, I hopped online to investigate some recipes in order to determine if this was in any way possible. My husband is really really not a vegetable person so salad 4 nights a week would never fly. I also had to make sure that we were still getting proper nutrition (enough protein tends to be a worry when giving up meat). I started out at www.vegetariantimes.com and was pleasantly surprised with what I found. Not only were there tons of recipes that I thought even my husband would eat, but each one included nutrition information so I could see how much protein, fiber, carbs, sugars, etc were in each dish.

Also on this website was a 28-day Eat Green Challenge. Since we weren't attempting to become strict vegetarians, I mostly used that for recipe ideas and as a time frame for seeing how we'd get by with vegetarian dinners. Somehow, when I presented the idea of vegetarian dinners for 28 days to J he was totally on board. Miracles never cease.

We began the 28-day challenge on April 30th and I'm happy to report I have not bought meat since. That's not totally true. I do keep some chicken nuggets on hand for C since I know she'll eat them when she sometimes won't eat other things. Toddlers, right? Anyway, the challenge went swimmingly. We found a bunch of recipes that we really loved and some that we thought were terrible. I really tried to focus on recipes that use fairly normal ingredients since I didn't want to spend hours wandering through specialty grocery stores hunting for weird items I've never heard of that will cost me $20 for a pound when the recipe calls for a "dash." For the most part that was pretty easy to do. We did start using more of some things we hadn't often used before, but that is to be expected when you're eliminating another item that used to be the basis of your meals.

Some of our favorite recipes are:
Sweet Potato & Black Bean Enchiladas
Black Bean & Quinoa Burgers
Pineapple Fried Rice (we added tempeh for protein)
Broccoli-Cheddar Pockets
Southwestern Salad (we used black beans and added chopped red pepper)
Tempeh Tacos - just use tempeh instead of ground beef/chicken/turkey

These are just a handful of dinners that we particularly enjoyed. I have to say with some of them J told me he didn't even care what was in them because they were so good. How's that coming from a meat & potatoes guy? In addition to vegetarian dinners, we also tried some new shake and smoothie recipes. We love smoothies for summer time so we were excited for some new mixes to try. C's favorite is by far banana-peanut butter-chocolate (cocoa powder). I should also mention that when we're at a friend's house or out at a restaurant we don't necessarily adhere to vegetarian foods. Like I said, the idea was not to become vegetarians but rather to incorporate more plants into our diet and save some money.

I have since also purchased a vegan cookbook recommended by one of my mom's friends. My parents have basically become vegans out of necessity. My mom is allergic to dairy and my step-dad can't tolerate meat since his surgery. The magic of vegan and vegetarian recipes is that you can always add a little bit of meat to it if you want, but you still have a healthy, vegetable-based meal. The vegan cookbook is called Supermarket Vegan ($12.89 on Amazon) if you're interested in checking it out. The focus is on common ingredients and simple recipes which I'm all about!

I'd be happy to answer any questions about our experience if you have them. Just leave me a comment :)

Delish Summer Dinner

I love me a good summer dinner, so when I found a recipe for salmon and sweet potato cakes I was really excited to try them out. It's a Rachael Ray recipe (found here), but I tend to have simpler taste than Miss Rachael (if I want salmon and sweet potatoes, I want them to taste like salmon and sweet potatoes) so I modified it a little.

I only included salmon, a sweet potato, a palm full each of salt, black pepper, and Old Bay, and I substituted saltines for club crackers for a little buttery flavor. I mixed it all up, used a small handful to make each cake and then rolled the cakes in some extra cracker crumbs. Then I just browned them in a pan for a few minutes on each side. They were incredible. Just sayin.