I'm back... summer recap and a recipe!

Well hello there... it's been a while. Apparently I decided to take the summer off from blogging. Oops. Let's recap:

The first two weeks July were spent at my favourite place in the world... my real home on Prince Edward Island. The weather was spectacular and we had great fun with my family (immediate and extended) and friends. Lots of time at the cottage, beach walks, seafood, bonfires, wine -- everything needed to recharge the batteries after a couple of very busy months!

Arrived in time for Canada Day fireworks in Summerside!
Just waiting for it to get dark.

My mom and I hosted a baby shower for my sister-in-law.
This was one of my contributions for it.

Oh Charlottetown, you're so quaint and lovely.

Ah wine, I love thee.

Cottage life demands bonfires. Every. Night.

Love North Cape! Colours are always spectacular.
The tide was coming in on the reef.

The next couple weeks, I can't really remember what we did, but lots of taking in the sunshine here in Ottawa. Which finally lead to early August, when my other half had a pretty serious surgery -- a total knee replacement. That unfortunately put a bit of a damper on plans for August as we were mostly house bound. However, I still felt like I had a good restful summer despite being the sole cook and cleaner, not to mention ice getter, pill pusher, and all-round "fetcher" of too many things to count. On the one hand, having this surgery so young is a bit of an anomaly, on the other hand, I think his recovery might be going better than the norm. Blessings!

Since I've left you for so long, I've got a treat to share with you! There is a serious abundance of zucchini at my house, and I didn't even grow any in my little garden. Between our produce deliveries and my farmers' market outings, I've got a fridge full! And I don't really care for sauteed or roasted zucchini! So what to do? Make lots and lots of raw zucchini noodles! And baked goods. Yummy baked goods. I give you my gluten-free and vegan zucchini muffins!

Zucchini Muffins
Gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, refined sugar-free
Yields 12 muffins
Adapted from Florida Coastal Cooking

Ingredients
2 chia eggs (2 tbsp chia seeds + 6 tbsp water)
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/3 c maple syrup
1 cup shredded zucchini (tightly packed)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Mix the chia eggs and set aside for about 5 minutes. Mix the coconut oil, maple syrup, zucchini and vanilla in a medium bowl; add chia eggs once set. Stir in cinnamon, flours, baking powder, baking soda and sea salt; mix until wet and ingredients are just combined.

2. Spoon batter into muffin tins lined with liners, or oiled with a bit of coconut oil. Bake for 18 minutes or until browned and a toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy the bounty of the season!

A plastic-free kitchen

I'm a bit of a plastic hater. And becoming more so more recently. We have become used to storing a lot of our food in plastic over the years, because it's convenient. But perhaps not so convenient to our health. Plastics are made of petrochemicals, which can leach into our food over time. Let's not touch the issue of putting plastic dishes in the microwave – that's a whole other story.

So I thought today I'd share with you some of my favourite reusables that take the place of plastic in the kitchen.

• Anchor Hocking Kitchen Storage – Last year some time, maybe before school started in September, these babies went on a big time sale at Loblaws in all different sizes. I think I went three times to stalk up. Always realizing that I needed more in various sizes! They are made of glass and the lids are BPA-free plastic. Fantastic for lunches and leftovers.

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• Klean Kanteen – beautiful stainless-steel canisters. Good for water, juice, smoothies. And they have insulated containers as well for hot food. No more line ups at the microwave at lunch – even better!

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• Stawesome glass straws – for Christmas, I asked for some glass straws and received a set of four! There's nothing like it. And no waste! Just wash or even throw them in the dishwasher. Smoothies and juice taste better with a glass straw.

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• Reusable produce bags – these babies can be found at Farm Boy in Ottawa as well as other retailers. I just love them so much. 

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• RuMe bags – These are by far the most beautiful reusable shopping bags around. I have one and I love it. Holds up to 50lbs, with nice wide straps that you can sling over your shoulder. Great to not only go to the grocery store with, but why not the mall! RuMe also carries all kinds of bags (small baggies to large totes)

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• Mason jars – These are my number one kitchen storage solution. I have so many of them, because they are so cheap. They work out to anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar each. Head over to Canadian Tire and stock up!

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Now if all that didn't inspire you, take two minutes and thirty seconds and watch this:



And if you want more tips on eliminating plastic from your kitchen and life in general, I recently came across a blog called My Plastic-free Life about a woman who is living plastic-free, or at least not introducing any new plastic into her life! Her story is incredibly inspiring and she has some great tips in the Plastic-free Guide.

Hope you found some inspiration to purge some of your plastic, or reuse it for corralling things other than food. Please share with me some of your great reusables.

Another wee milestone

Last we talked I was in the midst of the Fab Uplift Detox. What a game changer! The Detox started March 26, today is April 23... I've eaten so abundantly over the last month – following both the detox guide and eliminating my other food allergies – without gluten-grains, without any sort of dairy, without eggs and without animal protein (other than a bit of fish outside of the detox)! I haven't craved any of those food and I've thrived on what I have been eating, which includes lots of nuts and seeds, legumes, some fruit and lots and lots of vegetables and superfoods!

Life has been ridiculously busy these last few weeks too, but I've still managed to find some lunch to take with me every single day. And sometimes dinner, too, on school nights! It's a lifestyle. Some may cringe and turn their heads at my lovely green/brown smoothies, but I thrive as I know all this goodness is doing so much for me and tastes amazing too, I might add.

About a year ago I guess, I hit a big milestone of losing 20 lbs since slowing getting on this bandwagon back in the summer of 2010, when I saw a number on the scale I never want to see again. Now I can say that I've lost 31 lbs! I think the Fab Detox pushed me over as I had been hovering at 28 lbs for months. Anyway, this is just another little checkmark in my mind. Even though it took a year to lose another 10 lbs, I know I've gained lean muscle mass in the process as my body has continued to change (in a good way!). All this meaning that the total fat loss is likely more than this 11 lbs I see on the scale.

Yay for being healthy the real way – by eating REAL food.

Detoxing, fabulously

I've been absent... Life took over. If I wasn't at work, I was at school, studying for school or sleeping. That's been my life for the last few weeks. Things are on the up and up now though. Some big assignments for school are behind me, so a bit more free time. Hurray!

As I mentioned in my last post (that seems oh so long ago), I made some major changes to my diet over the last few weeks. But the best news is, that I'm having great success! My allergies have piped down a lot and my digestion has never been better! I still have room for improvement, but things are heading in the right direction – so that makes me smile (a lot).

I've been getting some interesting reactions when people find out what I've eliminated from my diet: "so where do you get your protein? your calcium?" My response... uh... plants, some grains and some meat. There is still SO MUCH I can eat that I'm not finding it overly cumbersome. Eating out, on the other hand can be a bit of an issue sometimes... ah well, I'm likely saving way more money by eating mostly at home anyway.

Last weekend, amidst the craziness, I was in Toronto for the weekend visiting friends and relatives. But the real reason for going this particular weekend was to attend a couple of workshops with the lovely Meghan Telpner! One of the workshops I attended was based on her successful Fab Uplift Detox program. Included in the price was also registration into her coached Fab Uplift Detox program that started this past Monday.

This detox is so timely to what I'm going through right now with food allergies/sensitivities and I thought it would be a great "reboot" button for my body. And so far so good! The first four days weren't a big change from the way I currently eat -- just cutting out the meat (which there wasn't tonnes of to begin with), so I didn't see big changes, but Friday marked the start of the real deal leading up to a juice and smoothie fasting for a day, which from my calendar looks like it will fall on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to it and feeling great thus far.

I hope to post a few more times about some of the things I'm eating and how I'm feeling so you can follow along and maybe join in next time, but also for myself, so I can look back and see how far I've come.

Enjoy the ride. I know I will.

21 days (plus a few more) later...

In my last post, I went on raving about Meghan Telpner's 21 Days To Health. Well the 21 days have ended and what have I took away from it? Lots! Let's recap.

So as a refresher the premise of the 21 days is to incorporate one new change each day and build until the 21 days are complete. This is based on the idea that it takes 3 weeks (21 days) to form new habits.

Now it's pretty hard to incorporate all of them, but I'm doing my best and I know many of the changes I have made have stuck so that in itself is something to be proud of. I'm not going to go through the full list of 21 changes, but I will touch upon some of the things I have incorporated and maybe bring a little inspiration to you!

My new habits!

• Drinking lemon water first thing every morning. This was the very first point in the book. Drinking warm water with a couple tablespoons of fresh lemon juice (i.e. from lemons, not squeeze bottles) is a great cleanse for the liver. Meaning it flushes out the liver and gets rid of all the toxins that the liver works so hard at removing from the body.

• Meditating or sitting quietly for at least 15 minutes each morning. This is to stop the fidgeting and to bring calm to yourself and just focus on the breath. I was having a hard time at this one, but recently put together a little morning routine so that I made time for it in the morning. I now have put 15 minutes aside each morning to do this. I also drink my lemon water while doing this (always a multitasker!)
• Flossing - every time I brush my teeth. I've always flossed my teeth, but never with any regularity. I'd be really good for a few days and then slack off. But I can honestly say that in over a month I have flossed each and every day. I'm now working on doing twice per day -- morning and night. My dentist is going to be oh so pleased, I almost can't wait for my next visit!
• Getting to bed 15 minutes early. My old bedtime was around 11:00 p.m. and now I make sure I'm getting ready for bed by 10:30 so that I'm actually in my bed by 10:45. The extra sleep helps with getting up earlier for my quiet time.
• Brown bagging. I'm doing a much better job at bringing my lunch to work. I like how this affects my bank account.
• No more going for seconds. I now make a mental note to not eat a second plate of food no matter how good it is. One serving is all my body needs. The goodness can be saved for my brown bag.
• Cutting out all the refined sugar. I'm super aware of this now. By making your own food, this is super easy to do.
• Cutting out some toxic body products. I recently posted about my soap-making endeavours, but I've also recently changed my toothpaste, deodorant and have stopped using body creams and replaced them with edible oils, like coconut oil. Because anything that goes on the skin should also go in the mouth because it's all the same... either way it ends up in the bloodstream.
• Drink more H2O. I've been making a conscious effort to drink more water and herbal teas. Since doing so, I get a headache in the evenings when I don't drink enough water. Your body tells you everything you need to know if you listen closely enough.
• Meal planning! So important. But I had a head start on that one, I've been doing it for a while!
• Cut out the booze. I've drunk alcohol very sparingly for the last year -- just the odd glass of wine or cider here and there -- but it's a treat! And since going gluten-free I haven't had any beer. So check mark here too.
• Dry skin brushing. This practice is new to me -- I've only become familiar with it recently, but I'm doing it! So good for the skin and for the lymph. More to come on this in a future post, because it's an easy thing to do that I gather most people know nothing about. So stay tuned for that!

I'm pretty proud of what I managed to incorporate in just a few short weeks. Think about how much healthier a society we would be if we all just adopted one or two of these things!

What changes have you made recently to improve your health?

21 days to health

I'm a bit of a healthy living, nutrition blog nut follower. I admit it. Back in January, I came across Meghan Telpner's blog - and fell in love. I love her style, food philosophy, how she cured herself of an 'incurable' disease through nutrition, and how she turned her knowledge and passion for nutrition and food into an amazing and growing business. She's kind of my nutritionista idol, if you will.

A couple of weeks ago she started a 21 days to health challenge based on one of her e-books, appropriately named, 21 Days To Health.

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She describes the program as follows:

21 Days To Health is about incorporating very simple changes everyday for 21 days. By the end of those short three weeks, you will have tried out and gradually added more healthy living practices than you ever thought possible- and done so with virtually no stress and minimal effort. You will have broken old habits and established new ones.

This program has nothing to do with whether you should eat organic or not, or what’s the best kind of fish oil you should take. This is about 21 simple transitions that cover off the 20% of the effort that will give you 80% of the results. This is the important stuff. The changes in this book are not rocket science, they are things we inherently know we should do, but for whatever reason, don’t do.

So, spurred on by her challenge and my wanting to incorporating more healthy living tips into my routine, I'm participating (if you follow me on Twitter, hopefully now my most recent tweets make more sense). And it's awesome!

I've found that a few of her tips I had already incorporated into my routine, including meal planning and shopping with a list, and incorporating more natural body care products. However, I've begun new ones as well that I've been committed to, such as flossing daily (if not twice a day), drinking a large glass of lemon water each morning first thing to help cleanse the liver, alkalize the body and stimulate the acid in the stomach, getting to bed 15 minutes earlier each night and more.

It's a really great book, filled with lots of great recipes and ideas, all with one goal in mind. I'm hoping to get to Toronto one weekend soon to take in some of her amazing cooking classes too... I just can't get enough!

I'm a bit obsessed, but I'm ok with that.