Hi! How is your week going? We’ve been staying busy here and having a great week. Lots is going on here, all good things. My sister has this week off so we’ve had an abundance of auntie time.

Liv walks around allllllll day saying “tee tee”. It’s really no different than any other day except my sister is around this week. Liv loves her so much, it’s the best thing to watch and see.

We had such a nice weekend over here, that was now a couple of days ago. We stayed put which was nice because of traffic, but made it down to the beach and boardwalk twice. I’m only 20 minutes away, so I try to take advantage as much as possible.

Some recipes I made over the past week:

We’ve been firing up the grill a couple times a week. It’s just so easy and the clean up is so quick.

Favorite marinade/dressing lately is: olive oil, braggs apple cider vinegar and Dijon mustard. I usually do 2:1 olive oil to vinegar and a good spoonful of Dijon. Usually about one tablespoon.

For vegetables on the grill I typically do balsamic instead of apple cider vinegar.

I made Jessica’s summer salad. I added 1/4 cup chopping candied walnuts and left out the chicken & feta. This was delicious and I’ll definitely be making it over and over again.

Sunbutter chocolate chip cookies for a coffee date with my cousins.

Coconut flour blueberry pancakes. I added 1/4 cup ground flax. These were AMAZING. Best coconut flour pancakes I’ve had yet.

Coconut butter/peanut butter/chocolate cups: 1/2 cup coconut butter, melted with 1-2 tsps honey mixed in, 1/2 cup melted chips (I used enjoy life) and peanut butter. In silicone cups spoon in 1-2 tsp chocolate, then some pb and top with the coconut butter. Freeze for about 20 minutes. The coconut butter tastes like white chocolate. They’re so good!

Things I plan on making:

Cookie Dough Snack bites from Primally Inspired. Love finding new blogs & recipes!
Whoa Ice cream sandwiches from Clean Eating with a Dirty Mind
Chicken fingers

Hope you all have a happy Thursday! Almost to the weekend!

10 days is almost over…after today it will be. I’ve been thinking a lot about this “cleanse” I did and why I did it and how it effected me.

Last week I felt REALLY good. Like REALLY good….but the whole thing I have to admit, was hard. I don’t like feeling like I have restrictions, but I got past it because I wanted to try to see what upset my stomach and if it had any link to my eczema. I have to say it wasn’t that hard to give up grains or cheese because it was only 10 days. The hardest part was giving up whole milk (or soy milk) & sugar in my iced coffee. There were times where I just wanted a quesadilla, but really it was fine. (I should also mention I stayed away from broccoli also because my stomach doesn’t like it either.)

I had zero bloat, indigestion or gassy belly symptoms….and then I “cheated”. (I HATE the word cheat because of it’s negative connotation and the guilt it induces, but using it for the purpose of saying I veered off course.) On Monday I had some Eden soy milk in my iced coffee…and guess what, I paid for it all of Monday and Tuesday. I experienced immediate bloat and pains in my stomach…lasting all the way until Tuesday when I felt like I had a stomach hangover. I can’t believe the reaction lasted so long. I also read the package AFTER the fact and realized it has wheat in it. I really don’t think it’s the wheat causing the reaction, but no matter what I’m staying away from it for awhile. (Yesterday I attempted to make homemade hemp milk and today I’m going to try cashew milk…without a vitamix it’s pretty hard to make it perfectly.)

I mentioned before that I don’t like feeling restricted. It messes with my head because I already feel like I eat so healthy, why should I not be eating specific groups of food? Well, basically the soy thing is exactly why. There are foods that cause me discomfort and they shouldn’t be a part of my every day life. On the other end, I shouldn’t and won’t make statements about cutting out complete food groups because THAT doesn’t work for me. I AM going to avoid dairy for awhile…and then at some point in the future try little bits. I have to say that I’ve always felt and thought there is a link between dairy and my eczema. In 10 days of not having dairy the eczema on my fingers has cleared 80%. It hasn’t looked this good in 9 or 10 months.

I’m going to slowly work the food I cut out into my diet, adding in one thing at a time. Right now I’m going to do this for a few more days (maybe 1 or 2) because I want to make sure I end on a good note after that downfall AND that I keep feeling good.

So the positives were that I felt REALLY good. The negatives were that I spent A LOT of time planning and thinking about food, which I don’t really like. It was a lot more work because I had to make sure I had enough options AND that Danny had his meals and snacks. If you’re like me, you know food can consume you and that’s not a good way to be. I’ve always felt like food is meant to be enjoyed, which is why I couldn’t keep up with such a restrictive diet long term.

All in all, I would try this again because I feel like it was a good reset. I do feel badly that I cheated ONLY because it gave me a bad reaction. If it didn’t I really wouldn’t care. I think the good outweighs the bad in the sense that it gives you a reset AND insight onto what issues you may have with food that work/don’t work with your body. It’s also never a bad idea to cut down on sugar and other inflammatory foods.

If you want any more info on what I did over the past 10 days, then feel free to email me! I hope I didn’t contradict myself the entire time in this post, which I feel like I kind of did. Summary: I felt great. It was hard not having sugar. I liked how I felt. I didn’t like thinking so much about food and how restricted I felt. The end.

Good morning! Today Danny and I (and a bunch of my friends) started a ten day cleanse. We are avoiding grains, dairy, soy, beans and sugar. I started out wanting to do this because after Easter, I felt like crap. I told Danny about it and he jumped on it. He gets some joint pain and wanted to see how it helps him. (His father has RA, so he gets tested yearly to make sure he doesn’t have it…we’re just mindful and he generally is GF because he feels the best when he stays away from it.)

After a couple of days obviously I felt better from Easter and I kind of was like ehh, why am I going to do this? But I still have some eczema/rashes and flare up occasionally, sometimes multiple times a day, so I want to see if there is any correlation between food and my flare ups. (Note: I have been taking a prescription anti-histamine every other day for two months, but I stopped taking it Thursday and really don’t want to go back on it.)

I prepped some food yesterday. Mainly, chia pudding and muffins. The muffins are mostly for Danny so he has something he can snack on during the week, besides nuts. They are grain free, dairy free and soy free. They have date syrup in it, which acts as a sweetener but as far as I’m concerned it directly from a whole food, so it’s fine.

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If you try them let me know! They are a really great breakfast or snack throughout the day!

You all know my favorite place to get my world news is from the Today Show. (My in-laws are totally baffled by this I think.) I just can’t say no to Matt, Nat, Savannah…and really, Willie too.

A couple of weeks ago (maybe even last week) they had Mark Hymen on talking about his new Feel like Crap detox. You know I’m not a fan of anything extreme….but once I started listening & watching, I realized this isn’t extreme. What he’s proposing is basically EAT REAL FOOD for 10 days. No grains, no sugar, no dairy, no beans, no processed foods, no refined vegetable oils, alcohol or caffeine.

Mark Hymen suggests you may want to do this if you have: fatigue, bloating, fluid retention, constipation, congestion, brain fog, eczema, bad skin, insomnia, depression, autoimmune disease, headaches, etc. Read more about it, if you think you might be a good candidate of this 10 day detox. It’s NOT meant to be a diet and it’s NOT meant for you to be left hungry or deprived. I don’t think you need to really buy the book if you want to do this because there’s so much info on the internet. (BUT, you may want to buy the food if you don’t eat mostly vegetables/fruits/unprocessed foods)From what I can tell, it’s basically like doing a whole 30 for 10 days.

Just real food. If it has a label, he says, don’t eat it. The thing is, is that even though I eat very well, (this week) I feel like crap. We had a pretty healthy Easter. I made those lasagna cups and we had an abundance of vegetables and salad. The thing is, I picked out a broccoli dish to make and I didn’t read it through. My uncle made it and it was DELICIOUS. So delicious I ate a bunch of it. It was raw broccoli…which basically means my stomach will be in knots for days. Add in the 16 handles (fro-yo) cake we had for my sister…and two days out from Easter my stomach = MESS Monday & Tuesday and is just recovering today. I

I had a small piece. There was no seconds…even though I totally could have had one. So between the raw broccoli, the fro-yo and all the cheese eaten, my stomach is not happy. I have been trying to be kind to my stomach and eating mostly cooked foods to make digestion easier. I feel better than yesterday, but I’m still off. I still can’t stomach to eat any raw foods, so I’m still having all cooked foods and laying off salads for a couple of days.

So what to do. This detox sounds very interesting to me. I don’t think it would be especially hard for me, but I’d have to cut the sugar I put in my iced coffee (among other things…like grains and cheese but I don’t eat too much of those things). I love dairy & I love grains…but I think this is worth a shot to see how I feel after. I’m sure that my stomach will feel better by Sunday, but I like a good challenge…and it’s only ten days.

(Also a little disclaimer that I do think grains like brown rice & oats ARE REAL FOOD, but just for these ten days, it’s avoidable.)

I also love that you can kind of reset during & after this. When it’s over I would start by adding in one of the groups every 2 or 3 days and see how your body reacts to it. If you experience any discomfort or symptoms from eating say dairy or gluten, then you may want to consider that you have a sensitivity to it.

Danny and I are pretty sure we’re going to start this on Sunday. My mom is already 2 days in on her second whole 30 and I’m thinking I can also get some friends to join in. If anyone is interested in some of the recipes I’ll be making, I’ll be sure to share. Feel free to email me if you want an idea for recipes beforehand. I already made a general outline of what we’ll be having.