What I'm {Not} Eating Wednesday

Over the past few months I've been taking a really big look at my digestion.  I've had digestive issues since forever (we decided I had IBS in elementary school) but after starting my studies at CSNN I realized just how seriously an unhealthy digestive system can effect the body!  Not only have my digestive issues hampered my physical health, I also feel that they have caused me a lot of anxiety and upsets emotionally and socially.  Anyone who has had symptoms of IBS will completely get where I'm coming from.

Although I've made efforts to improve my food choices on and off throughout my life, these past few years have seen me putting forth more time, effort, and thought.  The more in tune I become with my body though, the more I realize that food choices alone aren't going to fix this, so I enlisted the help of a holistic nutritionist (The Healthy Ginger), an acupuncturist (Open Gate Acupuncture & Herbal Clinic), and a naturopath (Kootenay Health Centre).

While I'm slowly working towards healthier digestion, I've realized that this is a really intricate journey and not something that will happen overnight.  I'm trying to journal my successes and failures and hope to be seeing a huge improvement by this time next year.  While I am having improvement compared to this time last year, I think that realistically it is just going to take a lot of patience and belief in myself to get to where I want to be!!  While food choices are an important factor, what is most difficult is realizing how involved emotions and feelings are.  I guess I've known this for a while (deep down) but now am realizing I'm going to have to learn how to deal with stress, anxiety, feelings, etc. in a way that hopefully won't effect my digestion, I feel that it will be my biggest struggle.

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So this weekend I had about a million digestive issues.  Since it was a weekend and I was feeling nice and calm I decided it had to be food choices and not stressy feelings that were messing me up, so I got to thinking that maybe I needed to evaluate what I've been eating lately.  I referenced my handy Health Binder where I keep track of such things, and noticed that my intake of prepared - yet healthy - foods has been quite high lately.

While I try really hard to cook and bake everything from scratch at home, sometimes it is sooo tempting to grab a healthy pre-made alternative.  I think in rare instances this works well for me, but as it becomes a more frequent habit my system starts to go into rejection mode.

I've decided to nix these (my faves) and most other pre-made foods until May 19 (the day we leave for California), my favorite go-to's, my sometimes saviours, and also the stuff that could very possibly be contributing to the violent gut ache I had all weekend.  I'm already excited to add them back into my diet at some point...  So long for now friends...

WHAT I'M {NOT} EATING WEDNESDAY

Vans Waffles

Amy's No-Cheese Pizza

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Amy's Gluten Free Indian Aloo Mattar Wrap

Mountain Range Spelt Brownies

Store-Bought Sauces

I want to point out that these products are GREAT options for alternative food eaters and have really awesome ingredients, it's just that I took using them to the extreme.  

Check out Peas and Crayons for tons of other WIAW posts, it's a great way to get inspired!!

Click the WIAW tag on the side of this page under "Labels" for more of my What I Ate Wednesday posts.

Have you had problems with your digestion?  Do you have an IBS success story?

XO - Michelle

Five Things Friday {2}

Happy Friday!!!  We are welcoming the weekend with a surprise snowy visit, which as usual, I'm into! 
 
Cody is heading back to work on Sunday, which is sad, but in the meantime we have some things to look forward to such as buffet dinner with the fam tonight, seeing our friends Marshall & Heather, dinner out at Pedal and Tap with Danielle & Will tomorrow, and (for me) A LOOONG WEEKEND for BC's Family Day! 

I'm back for another Five Things Friday link up thanks to Clare at Fitting It All In!!

Five Things I Ate: 

My favorite breakfast - Sweet potato hash, chicken cranberry sausage, and an egg. 

Barbeque bacon burger with rosemary garlic mushrooms (Against All Grain), with potato wedges.  Add a little homemade guac, low sodium ketchup, and some Amazing Dad's BBQ sauce on the side for dipping and it's a perfect Celebrate Thursday meal!!

The most delicious quinoa bowl!!!  Loaded with prawns, tofu, broccoli, red pepper, carrots, sweet onion, and green onion and flavoured up with World Foods Turmeric Lemon Grass sauce.

Deer meat taco bowl.  In love with how low fat and truly free-range this deer meat is!

Perfect Fit protein pancakes!

Five Teas I'm Loving:

Traditional Medicinals Echinacea Plus

My go-to cold remedy tea.  As soon as I feel any cold symptoms, I brew up a pot of this tea and truly believe that it helps me fight it off.  Something that I love about Traditional Medicinals tea is that they leave a little love note on all of their tea bags:

Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane

I think this was my first favorite tea.  It's like a Christmas party in your mouth.  Deliciously candy cane like, it's a seasonal tea and one I try to stock up on to get me through the year until the holidays come around again.

Banff Tea Co. Candy Mint

Similar in flavour to the Candy Cane Lane, but in a league of it's own.  I love that it's loose leaf and I also love that it's made in Banff!

Pukka Night Time

I found this tea at Sprout Grocery and decided to give it a try at bed time.  I'm thinking it works!!  On the nights that I drink it before bed I have a WAY easier time falling asleep!! Although it smells kind of like it's not going to taste good it actually has a really nice mellow flavour.

Silk Road Chai Tea

My brother bought me a tin of this tea for Christmas, and it is so aromatic and delicious!  It's loose leaf, which as I mentioned before is my favorite.  My mom introduced me to making a Chai Latte, which is my favorite way to use this tea: half a mug of steeped chai, half a mug of warm almond milk, add raw honey to taste. 

Five Random Things I'm Loving Lately:

The warming socks treatment!!!  I've had nothing but success fighting colds with this handy little trick.

Vega Recovery Accelerator in Tropical.  I swear by this stuff to help my muscles not ache for dayssss after a workout.

Hawaii Five-0, our new favorite show!!!

Local bacon, I feel SO much better about eating local meat.  You can find this stuff at Centex in Kimberley.

The fact that OUR TRIP IS BOOKED!!!  We are heading to Manhattan Beach in May, I am so excited!!! 

Enjoy your weekend!!!!

XO - Michelle

WIAW {2}

Breakfast:  Perfect Fit Protein Pancake topped with coconut oil and pure maple syrup

Snack: Chia Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

Lunch:  Amy's Indian Aloo Mattar Wrap

Snack:  Coconut Cream Lara Bar (recycled picture)

After Work Snack:  Smoothie with Greens Powder (not pictured)

Dinner:  Tofu & Prawn Quinoa Bowl

Check out Peas and Crayons for tons of other WIAW posts, it's a great way to get inspired!!

Click the WIAW tag on the side of this page under "Labels" for more of my What I Ate Wednesday posts.

XO - Michelle

Five Things Friday {1}

THE WEEKEND IS HEEEEERE!!!

Congratulations to all of us for making it through another week.  Gosh, it's just the best feeling!

I decided to participate in the Five Things Friday link up hosted by Clare at Fitting It All In because I love reading other people's Five Things!! 

5 Things I Ate:

Root Beer Pulled Pork

This recipe hails from Healthful Pursuit, and it's a winner!!!  Cody's dad and I put our pulled pork on mashed sweet potatoes while Cody and his bro went with delicious looking buns.  I made a few adjustments to the recipe such as using about a 3 lb pork tenderloin and replacing the Zevia Root Beer with Blue Sky Root Beer.

Quinoa Crusted Snapper in a Chili Lime Marinade

I've featured this recipe from Inspired Edibles using sole on a different Friday, but thought it merited mentioning that snapper is also a delicious option!  As well, this time I used olive oil instead of coconut oil and marinated the fish in the fridge for a little while.  It was more flavorful this way and also the quinoa flake mixture stuck a lot better since the olive oil didn't harden like the coconut oil did.

Lara Bars

Lara Bars have been saving my snack life this week!  Since I didn't prep many snacky foods, these have been my go-to and it's great to have a good option available for grabbing out of the pantry.  This week I had Coconut, Apple, and tried Blueberry for the first time!

Popcorn

Such a yummy snack!!!  My favorite way to dress my popcorn:  pumpkin seed oil, chili powder, nutritional yeast flakes, sea salt.  So good.

Hardbite Chips

I buy them mostly because they're tasty, but I have to admit a big winner for me is that they have pictures from different BC scenes on each different flavor's bag!!!  Smokin' BBQ, for example, is a pic from the Kootenays and Rock Salt & Vinegar is a surfer catching waves in Tofino; very smart marketing, I may be a sucker to fall for this but I really do think it's cool!

5 Songs I'm Turning Up:

Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys

White Walls - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

What If I Was Willing - Chris Carmack (From Nashville!!)

Sweater Weather - The Neighborhood

Drink to That All Night - Jerrod Niemann

5 Words/Phrases/Things I've Learned From My In-Laws:

"Dirty Bulking" - When someone is eating a surplus of calories to bulk up, and they incorporate those extra calories in the form of McDonald's or junk food.

"Freshie" - Like a powder day, new snow.

"Like it's my job" - For example:  "I checked the snow report all day like it was my job".

One footed tricks are the new thing to do on a snowboard.  As in you do a back flip with only one foot strapped in to your binding.

You can never have too many blender bottles.  You can use your blender bottle to mix up scrambled eggs.

5 Things I'm Coveting From Winners:

This tree painting, it's huge and would fill up our loft wall perfectly.

This tree, we have a smaller version but this one is big and I think it would look great above our headboard.

This chair, to use as a desk chair.  Currently I have a crappy folding chair at my desk and it's hard to spend more than an hour sitting there.  Uncomfortable.  This chair = comfortable. 

Maxi Dresses.  I bought a really cute one last time I was in, and it's got the perfect racer back and I think it could be dressed up or down.  Now I want a few more...

Tights.  Winners has the most amazing selection of tights and I would be happy to stock up on some more

5 Reasons I'm So Excited To Eat At Pedal and Tap Tonight!!:

One:  We don't have to cook

Two:  We don't have to clean up

Three:  I would really love a Pedal to the Meadow burger, please

Four:  I would also love to have a delicious caeser

Five:  Pedal and Tap is always a win

Be sure to check the link up to read other bloggers Five Things Friday post.  Enjoy your weekend!!


XO - Michelle

Make A Plan Monday {3}

Welcome to a new week!!

I am happy to report that I got my butt off the couch this weekend and am definitely reaping the rewards.  It's crazy how important it is to get moving, especially at this time of year when the winter blues come crashing in.  Check out this post from Peace, Love, & Oats about fighting the winter blues!

Cody is due home today, as are his Dad and brother who are coming down for a snowboarding trip and visit.  I am keeping my expectations of myself low this week as I know I'll feel busy with visiting and hostessing, so just want to focus on a few things:

• Keep healthy options available, and choose them over snacky/socializing foods
• Try to get out for walks or do some yoga (see below for my yoga discovery)
• Keep the house tidy and laundry caught up to help me feel calm and organized

And that's it!  Other than that I plan on visiting and hopefully going out for dinner one night.

Instead of structuring a menu plan for this week's dinners I just came up with a list of ideas and bought the ingredients, this way we can go with what everyone feels like that night:

Dinners for the week of January 27-31

Root Beer Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

Quinoa Crusted Sole in Chili Lime Marinade

Barbeque Bacon Burger

Pedal and Tap

Butternut Squash Chipotle Chili

Quinoa Bowl with Tofu or Prawns

Remember to check out Food I'm Loving Friday for my fave eats from that week.

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In exercise news, although my week seemed off to a horrendous start I finished on a positive note.  

Saturday I got out for a great walk in the community forest with my pals Danielle and Kirsten which felt so great!!  Fresh air and conversation with friends is the best!  We walked for around an hour and then parted ways.  I then went to my parents house and they were just headed out for a neighborhood walk, so I joined them for another 45 mins or so.  It was icy on both of my walks which translates to some sore inner thighs from trying to hold myself up!  Luckily I managed to not bail, which is pretty rare for me :)

Sunday I had big plans of doing something but by the time I finished cleaning and organizing it was evening and I was beat!!  Danielle and  Kirsten had been talking about yoga the day before and that thought sent me to old faithful (Google) to see if I could find some sort of online class.  I found a great website called Do Yoga With Me that allows you to filter skill level and class length so I completed my first yoga class and loved it!!!

I hope your week is off to a positive start!!

XO - Michelle

Food I'm Loving Friday {2}

This was a pretty good week.  It seems as though almost everyone in my life is trying to make their lifestyle a healthier one, thereby making my lifestyle a healthier one!  Texts and conversations with friends, family, and Cody throughout the day keeps those healthy thoughts in the forefront, which seems to be the key to success.

While I didn't work out nearly as much as I was hoping, I took some of the advice that I gave to a friend and focused on eating healthy meals and not feeling guilt over the lack of scheduled exercise.  The healthier my food choices get, the more energy I'm going to have in the coming weeks to add more and more exercise to my life.

Props to:

• Cody for heading to the gym almost every night this week!!  Knowing he's dedicated makes me want to be dedicated as well!
• Nancy for making healthy food choices all week long and texting me daily to check in
• Danielle & Kirsten for a lovely dinner out at Hot Shots full of positive conversation
• Mom for making me a healthy lunch when I didn't bring anything into town and keeping me upbeat

Happy Friday y'all!!!

Food I'm Loving Friday

Jennies Carob Macaroons

Cody put some of these in my stocking and they're a really decadent treat/snack! 

Beer and Bacon Chicken with Gravy 

You can never go wrong with a Healthful Pursuit recipe!  My mom made this for family dinner and it was absolutely yum!  We used GF beer and had sides of mashed sweet potato, roasted beet/turnip/carrot, rice, and salad.  I plan on using this recipe at my house sometime soon!  It's also one of those meals that makes the house smell amazing all day!!

Chia Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

These breakfast cookies from Eating Bird Food are the perfect morning snack!  Kind of like a chocolate chip banana muffin, kind of like oatmeal; my new 10 am go-to snack :)

Quinoa Crusted Sole  

A healthy version of crispy breaded fish, I saw this recipe from Inspired Edibles on Pinterest and am so glad I tried it!!

XO - Michelle

Food I'm Loving Friday {1}

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Yahoooo!  Another weekend is here, so happy :)

My most favorite, share-worthy eats from this week:

Deer Tacos

My mom made bison tacos last week that she was kind enough to share with me for lunch, and since then I've been craving MORE!  So more we made.  We used ground venison from Cody's first deer and he seasoned it up with his cooking magic.  I toasted a brown rice wrap in the oven until it was taco shaped, and then filled it with sauteed veg, venison, home made guac, and daiya cheese.  The key to delicious guac = jalapeno!!!

Banana Nut Waffles

I wanted some banana waffles on the weekend and found this recipe from Cookie and Kate.  I subbed in brown rice flour to suit my dietary preferences and was so thrilled at how well they turned out!!!  I topped mine with ghee and pure maple syrup, while Cody went the peanut butter route.

Wild Blueberry Crumble

I used a recipe from Eating Bird Food for this crumble and it is so amazing that we've already eaten our way through two batches of this deliciousness.  I paired the crumble with some vanilla coconut milk ice cream made in my new ice cream maker (thanks to Mom and Dad, who gave it to me for Christmas)!

I found frozen BC grown blueberries at Centex in Kimberley and they are so much tastier than the usual frozen store bought kind.  Hopefully this spring/summer I can do some berry picking of my own for some uber-local berry goodness.

Pedal and Tap

My usual order of Pedal to the Meadow, which is their veg burger option and my tummy-friendly option!  

Fish Tacos

I suppose mine wasn't technically a taco, but that was the idea.  I toasted a brown rice tortilla and topped it with broccoli slaw (mayo, dijon, maple syrup, lime juice), sole (lime juice, grapeseed oil, Oleo & Spice Thai Spice Blend), guac, and tropical salsa (created by Cody).

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

XO - Michelle

WIAW {1}

Happy Wednesday!!

Mid week = Happiness

I have been following What I Ate Wednesday blog posts for oh so long now, and I am really excited to be participating in my first official one!  For a rundown of what What I Ate Wednesday is all about, click here.  


Breakfast was my usual fare: baked sweet potato hash browns topped with Antoinette`s Salt Spring Dip, an egg, and a side of chicken bacon.

Morning Snack:  Smoothie -  banana, scoop of Sunwarrior vanilla protein powder, chocolate almond milk, and ice

Lunch:  Fish Taco leftovers, so good!  Toasted brown rice tortilla, sole, broccoli slaw, guac, and mango&kiwi salsa.

Afternoon snack: Almond rice pops with blueberries

Before dinner snack (because I can never wait): Chocolate almond milk

Dinner: Breakfast for dinner!!!  One of my most fave things to do :) Turkey Cranberry sausage made by Kimberly Sausage and Meats that we bought at Sprout Grocery and Blueberry Banana Waffles from here (I subbed in brown rice flour and used BC grown blueberries bought from Centex in Kimberley)

Evening Snack: To be determined ;)

Check out Peas and Crayons for tons of other WIAW posts, it's a great way to get inspired!!


XO - Michelle

Marvelous in my Monday {1}

As if it's Monday already!!  Weekends always seem so fly by so fast, I'm relieved to have Tuesdays off now as it breaks my work week up so nicely!!

I heard about a blog link-up called Marvelous in my Monday and decided to participate!!  Check out The Healthy Diva for more MIMM posts :)

Some marvelous things that happened this weekend that are brightening up my Monday:

• Dinner at my fave restaurant, Pedal and Tap, for a Friday night date night with Cody. YUMMMM.  Check out what I wrote about P&T on my Kootenay Love & Local Reviews page.
• A beautiful, but windy, Saturday morning neighborhood walk; and a nicer, warmer one on Sunday.
• Watching my cousin's hockey game and getting to visit with my Aunt and other cousin while we watched.  My uncle was coaching which was also pretty fun to witness!
• Late lunch at The Heid Out Restaurant and Brewhouse with my wonderful mom and dad, & Cody too!
• Grocery shopping.  I LOVE having a freshly stocked fridge and pantry.  So. Many. Options.  It seemed like everything on my list was on sale, how great is that!?
• I purchased my first bottle of essential oils (Lemon) that I plan to start using in home made cleaning and bath products.
• Completing my list of how I want to live in 2014, check it out here.

As I mentioned on Friday, there are a few ideas that I've come up with to hopefully keep me from being distracted from my health and fitness goals.  This is what I've done so far:

• I went through my closet and pulled out all of the clothes that don't fit properly at the moment.  I piled them all in a clear bin and labelled it "Goal Clothing".  As the clothing starts to fit again I can add items back into my closet.  I prefer to judge where my body is at by clothing fit rather than weight so this method resonates well with me.
• I put a picture on my fridge of an outfit I would like to wear to California (May/June).  The idea is that every time I open the fridge I see myself in the outfit and make a healthy food choice. 

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• Prep cooking!  I have been working on baking big batches of gluten free dairy free "treats" so when a craving strikes I have a better option available to me.  
• Setting up my basement work out area.  I want to organize all of my workout equipment so it's streamlined and easy to use.  I'm mostly done, but need to figure out where to set up my Rip:60 and resistance bands...  I also decorated with some inspirational posters, quotes, and pictures.

I hope you check out the Marvelous in my Monday link up and find some inspiration to light up the beginning of your week!

XO - Michelle