This photo was taken at my big party last summer and then made into a life-sized cardboard cutout for last night's party. NBD.
Last night, we joined about 50 other people in surprising Justin for his 30th birthday. We dressed up in as much gold and silver as we could find, and spent the evening enjoying the homemade delicacies prepared by Coastal Coffee Company‘s Ben and Bree Gingerich (I’m SOOO glad my Whole30 break fell on this weekend!).
Party food extraordinaire (Yep, I took a diet break... more on that soon)
30 is a bit of a turning point in life, I think, so you might as well do it in style. Justin and his wife Hayley (the mastermind) did not disappoint.
My pictures do, however, disappoint. My apologies.
All I can give you is a tiny glimpse into what was really a great party. A night full of catching up with old friends, solidifying acquaintances, and making new connections. A chance to enjoy some fabulous culinary and decor skills. An opportunity to admire the cocktail outfits we never get to see on our friends.
Party animal wannabes
And a time for me to forget the zombie that the next two weeks will make of me as I slog through four papers due within 5 days of each other (Yes, feel bad, it’s gonna be hell).
Meanwhile, today is the last day of my “break” before starting another Whole30, and I have pretty much fallen off the wagon. Either that or I’m testing my body’s tolerance for eating things I used to love, to see whether I still do love them, and whether I think I can live without them. The jury is still out, but perhaps after tonight’s as-healthy-as-I-can-manage-while-still-including-flour-and-cheese pizza, I’ll know better.
I picked up my first Good Food Box yesterday! Okay, my friend Hayley picked it up for me on Thursday, but I picked it up from her.
I’m excited to a) get more involved in my community, b) pay less than supermarket prices for produce, c) get better than supermarket value for produce, and d) eat locally-grown produce!
My box this month includes: red potatoes, apples, a cucumber, carrots, a coleslaw mix of chopped cabbage and carrots, a large turnip, a bag of mixed onions, and some Weth mushrooms.
A booklet with information and recipes was included, too.
I’m really impressed and I can’t wait to start eating this food!
Do a Good Deed
And, as a bonus, I learned that you can purchase a Good Food Box for people that can’t necessarily afford one. Hayley told me that there was a month when she wasn’t able to pick up her box on the distribution day, and found out later that it had been donated to a family who had not eaten for a few days. Chances are, that family would have been forced to survive on Kraft Dinner and pork & beans before Hayley’s unwitting gift.
Do a good deed: buy a Good Food Box for your family, and one for another family if you can!
Distribution Sites and Payment Information
You can currently order and pick up your Good Food Box in Bayfield, Blyth, Clinton, Exeter, Ethel, Goderich, Grand Bend, Hensall, Seaforth, Vanastra, Wingham, and Zurich.
One box costs $15 cash (no cheques).
For April, order and pay for your box by Friday, April 6th, and pick it up on Tuesday, April 17th.
In May, order and pay by Friday, May 4th, and pick it up on May 17th.
Before I embarked on the Whole30 nutrition journey, I hardly ever read labels. I thought label-readers were obsessive calorie-counting control freaks too concerned with numbers to enjoy food (no offense, calorie-counters that I know!).
Before I started reading labels, I had no clue how prevalent sugar is in food items that we would consider staples. It comes in so many forms! Dextrose, sucrose, glucose, the list goes on.
Sweetness isn’t inherently bad for us, but we love it so much that we compulsively over-indulge, and that’s when things start going pear-shaped. Literally.
There are many forms of naturally-occurring sugars. Primarily, they are found in fruit, but there is also honey *and maple syrup.
Should you choose to accept this no-sugar-for-a-week challenge, those naturally-occurring sugars are acceptable, but none others. That includes “naturally-occurring” brown sugar and white sugar: cut them out for a week. Especially avoid any artificial sweeteners: become a label-scanner for a week!
But…!
But you have a sweet tooth and you can’t help yourself? You can do it. All you need is some determination, some “healthy” sugars, and some creative ideas.
Idea #1: Make or buy a cocoa, vanilla**, nut (walnuts or almonds), and date blend that looks and tastes pretty close to brownies. The recipe I use is called Fudge Babies. No, they’re not as sweet as the brownies you’re used to, but they’re good! You’ll see.
Idea #2: Cut bananas into bite-sized chunks. Line a freezer-prooftray with waxed paper, and lay the banana pieces on it to flash-freeze until hard. Then store in an air-tight container in the freezer. You can use these just to munch on, or blend them into smoothies, or even a sort of “ice cream” with coconut milk, a bit of vanilla, cocoa if you want, perhaps some pineapple or orange… Yum, right?
I have also mixed some coconut milk and vanilla and drizzled it over banana chunks and then frozen them for some added deliciousness.
Other ideas: Try honey or maple syrup in your coffee or tea, spread honey on your (whole grain) toast, put maple syrup on your oatmeal, and try using fruit juice as a sweetener in a dressing or a sauce.
There really are so many ideas for recipes that avoid sugars–look for some!
This idea comes from the 100 Days of Real Food website. It is listed as Mini-Pledge Week #9. The challenge is also issued by the Miami Herald in this article, where you can read more about the evils of sugar.
So. Can you do it? Will you be brave enough to try?
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*Honey: If you can get raw honey, use it. Again: less processed=better. **Vanilla: Use pure vanilla if you can, or make your own from a vanilla bean.
Also, to clarify: I am not eating honey or maple syrup on the Whole30, but I am not expecting my readers to be that hard core for this challenge. Unless you really do have what it takes…..! 🙂
I made it! I actually did a Whole30 without cheating! Yes, folks: no grains of any kind, no dairy of any kind, no sugar/sweetener of any kind, no legumes, no preservatives, no additives…!
This is kind of a big deal for a bread, cheese, chocolate, and wine lover.
It’s not over: After some celebratory eating this weekend, I will continue on to do another Whole30 (I’ll need another badge for my site, I guess…) to really kick my bad eating habits.
Today is record-settingly warm. Hot, even. It’s about 20 degrees (Celsius) warmer than it should be at this time of year. Perhaps the apocalypse is hovering at the edges of our atmosphere.
While meteorologists attempt to decipher crazy weather patterns and most normal people sit on decks and patios and lawns and beaches, I am writing the paper that was due yesterday and won’t be finished before tomorrow. In my defense, I only lose 2% per day, and chances are I’m going to do pretty well on this paper.
I did get out to complete (official) run #6 of the Couch to 5K program, aka the last of week two. It has taken me longer than two weeks to get here, but I’m pretty much on track now.
Anyway, here’s me outside and inside.
A posed selfie on the side of a country road during a walk breakMy running trail"Democracy and Deception: How Censorship is the Byproduct of the Manufacture of Consent" (Don't you wish you could read it?!)
I have relied heavily on other people’s food ideas this past month, and so I thought I would share what’s on my plate daily and where I get my recipes from, to inspire others who are trying to get “wholly healthy,” too.
Check out my new page, “Whole30 Eats”. You can see it in the menu bar just under the header of my page, between “Weekly Series” and “What I’m Reading” (who would have guessed that I’d have more “W” titles than any other letter?! Random!).
When you hover your mouse over “Whole30 Eats” in the menu, you will see a list of sub-menus or sub-pages come up. If you click “Whole30 Eats”, you’ll be taken to the intro/explanation page. To see each day’s food report, choose a page from the drop-down list.
Since I started the Whole30 diet four weeks ago ago tomorrow (has it already been that long?!), the way I think and feel about food, as well as the way I interact with it, has changed.
My carb cravings have all but disappeared. I confess I really wanted to snatch one of Johnathan’s McDonald’s fries last week, but I restrained myself.
I am getting used to waiting a while for my food to be done. That and stocking up on pre-cooked veggies and raw veggies and stuff like that. Good food takes time!
Every time I go to the store, I buy avocados. And coconut milk. And tomatoes.
For the first time in my grown-up, shopping-for-myself life, I go through fruit and vegetables before they go bad! Though that pineapple that’s been around for a couple weeks might be done for. Oops. In my defense, I bought it in the first couple of weeks of my Whole30, when the sweets cravings were pretty strong, and I was eating about a case of clementines every day. Well, at least a handful of them, anyway.
That was before I found out I was supposed to take it easy on the fruit, lest my body not be allowed to learn that what it needs most is vegetables!
Veggies: Learn to love them!
My “Whole30 and Getting Wholly Healthy” post talks about how I stopped weighing myself, even on the Wii Fit. This diet, this process is not about losing weight, as much as I would love it if my little paunch would just disappear forever (Keep reading to see what I am doing about that).
I make my own salad dressings, either using extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) and balsamic vinegar or another vinegar, or using my homemade dairy-free mayo as a base and adding garlic and/or spices, etc.
Instead of ketchup or barbecue sauce on meats, I use salsa or guacamole.
Real food tastes good, people! You just have to get out of the habit of relying on processed, sugar- and preservative-laden ingredients, and you’ll discover that the grass really is greener on the other side.
Cheating?
A few people have asked me whether I have cheated on the diet. Since I am a goody-goody that tries not to break clearly-defined rules, the simple answer is no. Technically, before I realized that not all bacon was made alike, I ate a lot of bacon the first week on the diet. I also ate a lot of fruit that first week or two, not remembering that thing about going easy on the fruit.
Also, even though Dallas and Melissa of Whole9Life are adamant about not trying to “Paleo-ify” dessert items while on the Whole30 by making cakes with almond flour or coconut flour, or breads, etc., I have to confess to a lingering sweet tooth which led me to the Fudge Babies recipe. I have made two batches of these over the past couple of weeks. Each batch makes about 10 balls of chocolatey goodness, and most days I only eat one, if any. Since they’re made with mostly raw, Whole30-approved ingredients, I don’t consider this a cheat. Though, if I were more hard-core, I would ix-nay those, too, I suppose. My sweet tooth has also influenced me to keep a container of banana pieces in the freezer for those moments in the evening when I’m studying or reading and could really use something that tastes yummy.
Fudge Babies
There have been a few times, while making a Whole30-approved recipe, that I have used something like curry paste which was already in my cupboard, that may have contained traces of things I’m not supposed to eat, like soy and peanuts, or a common preservative. Again, I don’t consider this a cheat because it was in such small amounts and because I’m a poor and starving student: I can’t afford to buy everything brand new!
Exercise
Yes, I have begun a regimen of regular exercise as part of this whole personal get-healthy endeavour. Many Paleo eaters are also Crossfit-ers. That is WAYYY too intense for me right now. I am getting my body in shape more slowly and easily.
A couple of weeks ago, I started the Couch to 5K running program. I will officially do the third run of the second week. Couch to 5K is an interval training program designed to get beginners out and running at a pace they can handle, then build their endurance until they can run 5K non-stop, 9 weeks later.
In week two, I warm up with a brisk five-minute walk, then run for ninety seconds, then walk for two minutes. I repeat the run and walk six times, then do a five-minute walk to cool down. On Friday, I will run ninety seconds, walk ninety seconds, then run three minutes and walk three minutes. The first week was one minute running, ninety seconds walking. You can see how easy it is for the couch potato to get their rear in gear. (More about the Couch to 5K in an upcoming post)
Then there’s the wee paunch I mentioned earlier. You probably never noticed it – I apparently have a gift for hiding excess weight. I have no idea how this is possible, because it’s clear to me any time I put on a pair of jeans and flesh squidges up over the belt. Gross, right?
The Plank
It’s not huge. I’m not fat. I just don’t want to “let myself go”, if that makes sense. Imagine what that little paunch-ette would turn into if I were to start having babies before getting my stomach muscles into good shape! I would probably be a lost cause at that point.
Hence the being proactive in giving my belly flab a run for its money. Every other day, usually on days I run, I do a series of tummy workouts based on this post on the Women’s Health website (thanks for that, Britt and Pinterest). I add as many crunches as I can take, both straight and to the side, some side weight-lifting (holding some weight in one hand, bend sideways so the weighted arm moves down towards the floor, then flex the ab muscles (think: love handles) on the opposite side of your body to pull yourself back to a standing position. Repeat several times, then switch sides.), and then I sit on a chair holding a broomstick across my shoulders (holding weights in my hands, too), and twist as far as I can to one side, feeling the pull in the side muscle on the other side. Then I twist to the other side, and repeat several times. These last two exercises are thanks to Johnathan.
Results
Is it magic? The Whole30? The exercising? No, none of it is magic. It is all part of a process. A time-consuming, effort-involving process that requires dedication and discipline.
But is it worth it? Absolutely. You will feel great by the end of your first week on the Whole30, ’cause you’re not putting ANY junk in your body anymore! Everything worth having requires some effort to keep, including your health.
If you’ve been following my posts, you may have read about how our new apartment must have a dishwasher. John hates to do dishes, and I’m not a huge fan, either. Doing the Whole30 has made the dirty dish situation infinitely worse: practically every time I walk in the kitchen translates into an extra ten minutes of dish-washing!
But even so, it is still worth it. I am willing to pay more, do more work, establish new habits, and learn new skills, all in the name of being “wholly healthy”. Aren’t you?
Continuance
That’s why I’m going to do another Whole30, back-to-back with this one, a Whole60, if you will.
At the end of this week, I’m going to have a glass of wine, a slice of cheese, a piece of whole-grain bread, and a small piece of dark chocolate, and then the next day it’s back to grain-free, sweetener-free, legume-free, dairy-free, additive-free living, until it’s practically second nature!
This is the only picture we have right now... meet our new home!
Yup, you heard me. Johnathan and I are no longer searching for apartments. WE FOUND ONE!!!
John told me when we started this process that most people look at eight to ten places before finding the right one. We thought number four was it. Then I thought number six was it. But really, it was number nine. Go figure.
Our future new little place (it’s ours as of May 1st) is a whole house! It has three small bedrooms with closets, a private fenced-in backyard, a renovated kitchen and bathroom, new windows, nine-foot ceilings with fabulous original trim around the windows and doors, a full finished basement, lots of cupboard space, enough space to squeeze in four cars (Hey, we each have winter and summer cars. Don’t judge us. Or maybe judge Johnathan. He has two summer cars and a motorcycle on the road. And a couple more vehicles in a barn waiting to be restored, and… you get it.), and character!
When I posted my Adventures in Apartment-Hunting post last week, we had been recently disappointed with the loss of number four. Then I got excited about number six, but Johnathan knew there was something better out there. He kept up the vigorous Kijiji (and Padmapper.com, thanks, Michelle!) search, having me call places to make appointments for when he was done his work day.
John had to pull off the road to call me after he went through what will be our new place. This from a man who was already on his way to my house, and who doesn’t like to make phone calls. This was an excited man.
He’s also a considerate man: instead of telling them he’d take it on the spot, he told them he had to make sure I’d like it, too, and that he would bring me with him first thing the next morning. True to his word, we were there at 9:00. AM. On a Saturday morning. It’s about an hour and fifteen minutes to drive from my place to our new place. Plus shower time. ::yawn::
Imagine this with our vehicles and without the canopy over the door...
But it was totally worth it. That man also has good taste. It has everything we need. Well, except a dishwasher. But we WILL find some way around that, or I don’t know Johnathan at all!
The only thing that matters now is that we know where we’re going to land. Our patience and hard work have paid off, and we are no longer slaves to Kijiji!
PS: It’s in London. We’re moving to London. Not sure how I overlooked that fact when I first posted this. Oops!
I know that sometimes it can be brown and slushy and mucky and muddy, but spring is my favourite season.
All that new growth! Rebirth!
I get excited about new buds on the trees and the narcissus and crocuses and snowdrops poking their little green leaves out of the ground.
Everyone is full of hope for a season of warmth, eager to put winter behind them.
These days, since the weather has been so unseasonably warm, I have caught the “bug” of spring. Perhaps this is not universal to everyone, but for me, the spring “bug” gets under my skin and burrows into my psyche, so that everywhere I look, I see reminders of spring. I smell hints of it. I hear strains of bird song or other sounds that point towards spring.
Even in windowless, basement rooms, I will see the colour of someone’s shirt or catch a whiff of their shampoo and think: “Spring is coming!”
Each morning, I am excited to look for new signs of spring: flowers popping out of the earth, the disappearance of the snow (not difficult this year), the reminder that there are only a few weeks of class left, talk of summer jobs…
Ahhh. There is nothing quite like the smell of a world coming to life again after being covered (at least off and on) with snow and cold for a few months! Do you smell it? Spring!!
A Transparent Life 