What if you woke up 10 years younger...?

I had a thought the other morning: what if you woke up & it was 10 years ago (year 2004 for clarification), BUT knowing everything you had learned and experienced in those 10 years? Would you do things differently? How differently? Besides saving the world, how would you change just your life?

My first few thoughts were health related: start paleo earlier, get allergy blood tested earlier, begin yoga earlier (esp during stressful high school tests I let get to me way too much). Of course this matters to me, because I truly believe a change of diet could have prevented me from losing 3 feet of my intestines.

Next: Focus less on stress & drama and more time with friends.

Also: learn skills and hobbies. College would have been so much better had I been a master chef or gardener or tailor! :p

All of these given where I currently stand in my relationship with the Lord and continuing to trust more in faith.

After I was done fantasizing about sewing pillowcases on weeknights at the age of 15, I realized it's never too late to "start over". What changes can I make now to make for a better me 10 years down the road? I sure could name a few. While I am glad to say some of the things I would change I am in fact changing now, I asked myself why stop there?

The Lord gave me that thought to fantasize my "could be better" life now, though knowing all past events led me to where I am now. If it weren't for my emotional breakdown at Fish Camp over my surgery/diagnosis that led me to want to become a fish camp counselor, how could I have ever met James? Has anyone else wondered how to have met your spouse if one pivotal moment never occurred, and for the sake of the game, you knew he/she was your soulmate? I concluded I would have had to stalk James at the REC in order to meet him.

So the question is, where do I want to go from here? What does 35 year old Rachel want to know how to do? Where does she want to volunteer her time? Who are her friends?

I love the perspective that comes from trying to envision life differently. I also love waking up every day to a clean slate and opportunity to grow! New Year's resolutions come once a year, and most people don't  keep them. Why not change your life...today? It is NEVER too late!

Philosophically yours,

RR

Meal Planning 101

Meal planning isn't something new; for some people what I have to say in this blog is a no-brainer. But for many people living on their own for the first time, whether that's college or thereafter, this is a skill that should be quickly learned and utilized. Your mother is not cooking for you anymore; it is now time for you to create your dinner plan!

For many of us who may lean more Type A, meal planning offers us a small bit of relaxation by planning our lives, even if it just revolves about the week's or month's dinner line up. HOWEVER, this relaxation technique has other benefits that just so happen to fit into our areas of expertise:

1. Dinner is planned, so no stress that night wondering what to cook. (Our FOOD Pillar)
2. As discussed in my crock pot blog, planning=financial saving as well. (Our FINANCES Pillar)
3. You can plan to rotate foods through your diet and aim for proper nutrition. Though a one up from ordering pizza, chicken and rice every night for a month just won't cut it nutritionally. Don't forget about the variety of vitamins and minerals from consuming varying meats, fruits and veggies! (Our FITNESS Pillar)

I personally like to plan a week or two at a time, unless I know I'm in for a crazy month, in which case I do more. Planning in this manner allows me to put like foods semi close together for grocery shopping ease and food optimization. However if I plan a month-long dinner plan, I create a second grocery list for the produce for the latter half of the month so they won't go bad! Essentially, plan asparagus meals within a certain time-frame that balances you not getting tired of asparagus and not letting said asparagus go bad. This being said, I do analyze the produce in the fridge and blanch/quick freeze anything on the verge of going bad.

Questions to ask prior to meal planning:
1. What is your grocery budget for the month?
2. What produce do you have in the fridge you need to use?
3. What meat/veggies do you currently have in the freezer that should or could get eaten?

Things to consider:
1. Travel plans: who will be home that night?
2. Work schedule: should you prepare meals at the beginning of the week?
3. Visitors: do you need to plan to serve more than just the usual one or two people?
4. Weather: what foods pair best with the weather?

Things to research:
1. Foods in season: veggies and fruits not in season are more expensive!!
2. Store specials: advertised online or in those circulars in newspapers you can pick up on your driveway or at the store!
3. Coupons: having a loyalty card with Kroger, they send me coupons every month, plus offer more online via an online card account. These loyalty programs will sometimes offer more personalized coupons in accordance to your actual purchases. Yay for proper marketing & purchase tracking-my college diploma applauds you. Also, coupons are usually in the weekend newspaper! I'm not an extreme couponer but multiple times I have saved about a quarter of my grocery bill by optimizing coupons and store sales. Still working on being better but no shame there!
4. Recipes: time to actually look through that Pinterest recipe board. Dust off those cookbooks and post it mark any & all recipes that look appetizing. This could be a joint effort, often I hand James a stack of recipes, my phone open to Pinterest or a cookbook and tell him to mark which ones appeal to him!

Time to ACTUALLY USE those pretty cookbooks!

Those lists might be intimidating but when sitting down and looking at our January, I knew:
-We would be traveling A LOT (can plan smaller grocery budget or use buy high priced meats or stock up for the future-icemageddon could happen again!)
-I would be home by myself a few evenings, so one meal could probably last 2ish dinners plus lunches, depending on dish. As many individuals agree, it's hard to cook for JUST yourself everynight. So I cook larger meals I can eat for multiple days. If I weren't married, I would still do this then freeze half to pull out later that month to not eat the same thing all week all of the time.
-There was frozen meat we should use from prior Sam's purchases.
-It would be cold; hello roast and hearty meals!
-Any coupons I had on hand would be looked over to help plan dinners.

So this is what our January looked liked:

The plan:
Since we are primarily paleo, we don't do a lot of sandwiches for lunch. This means leftovers from one night's dinner becomes the next day's lunch. If you like having different lunches, this could be one way to spread out how long a meal lasts. Just remember to plan your lunches out too! Same with breakfast!

We cook practically every night. Yes, it gets exhausting. Yes, we have cleaned every cooking dish and utensil multiple times in one week before. Yes, I wear supportive shoes in the kitchen when I'm in for a long haul ;)

I love gathering meal recipes, and planning actually allows me to be creative with dinners and not resort to my comfort food of chicken & veggies EVERY night.

This is literally a whole counter full of clean dishes, and the dishwasher had just ran as well.

HELPFUL HINTS

The List:

Include quantity of items (ex: 3 medium carrots, one 4lb spaghetti squash) as you go through recipes. It'll help when you hit the supermarket and debate prices and quantity! And it stinks to not buy the right amount for your recipe!

Coupons:

Get these organized so you don't forget them when you reach the cashier! Pay attention to brands, but also use them to debate whether that coupon will actually save you money or if you could buy a generic at a cheaper price!

Item ingredients:

This is a HUGE point when dealing with allergies. I read every single ingredient in anything I buy that has a label. Some brands are cleaner or don't contain our allergens so unfortunately some items can throw a wrench in the plan when it comes to shopping by coupons or meals. Start paying attention to which brands you use, when they go on sale and which supermarkets carry them! I stock up when I see a great sale on these approved items!

Sales/organic items:

I know manager special items get added on certain days at my store, so that's the first place I go. Blanch the veggies and use them later or move around your meal plans if there are items there you can use!

As I am starting to learn, there are certain foods that should have a higher priority to be bought organic. Lots of lists out there help you prioritize which produce to buy organically, so keep an eye out for sales!

DON'T GO GROCERY SHOPPING WHEN HUNGRY & ALWAYS BRING A LIST. 

Your budget and checking account will thank you.

Any other helpful meal planning advice to add? Any questions I didn't answer?

Now if you excuse me, I need to finish planning for the month of March!

Financial Peace, Food Love & Joy

RR

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”
― Benjamin Franklin

21 Day Sugar Detox: Week 1 Recap

I have been posting all over Facebook and Instagram about this Paleo 21dsd I'm doing.

Boy has it been an adventure. Here's the recap:

I'm doing Level 3 with the Autoimmune modification. I chose this level since I already was on paleo, can't handle dairy anyways, and my autoimmune modifications worked best with this level. Specifically I'm staying away from nightshade vegetables & nuts compared to the usual paleo, plus eggs (allergen), all grains (oats included), soy (allergen and non paleo), dairy (allergen/intolerant and nonpaleo). And the list actually DOES go on to limit all fruits except minimal green apples and green tipped bananas, specific to the sugar detox.

The point for my specific level and modifications is to, while I am trying to curb sugar cravings, I am also attempting to try a diet and lifestyle of consuming foods that will not irritate my stomach/intestines and cause inflammation, since this is a HUGE deal for me and Crohn's and my lack of 3 feet of intestines.

So instead of focusing on the bad (this really got me down at one point last week), I'm focusing on what I CAN eat. And that's a whole lot of different meats and veggies!! For example, ground turkey meatballs were something my mother made me pre-surgery and making them again for a different reason has been extremely wonderful. And I like them, a lot.

I bought weird things. Ground bison and ground lamb meats? Kroger actually had those; I was impressed. Parsnips? I legitimately googled from the middle of the produce section what those were so I would even know where to look!! And here I thought I was fairly knowledgeable when it came to plants due to my cooking, gardening and college classes that led to a horticulture minor. Canned coconut milk, as compared to the carton coconut milk beverage, who knew!? Fish sauce?!

Produce

Just the MEAT

These will be fun to cook with!

I have made weird things! Herbal tea gelatin? Check.

It's like jell-o, but not sweet or sugary

Everything has tasted AWESOME though. I love new recipes; they get me outta my groove and I LOVE IT. 

Green Apple Breakfast Sausage
Who knew you actually can make your own sausage using ground pork and spices? blew.my.mind. (Yes, I realize this is how breakfast sausage is made; I have never tried it though.)

Sausage with spinach-best breakfast yet

Carrot-apple skillet breakfast hash

Meatza with a salad

Greek style Turkey Meatballs

Cinnamon & fennel braised pork, prepped

I apparently did not get a close-up of that nice pork dinner. So enjoy this Valentine's day dinner view where you might be able to make out food on a plate.

Lamb Burgers

Artichocke & lemon chicken with capers

 Also not pictured is the spaghetti squash bolognese that I made and substituted canned pumpkin for the tomato paste; it was pretty good, except for me over-cooking the spaghetti squash.

See? Not super hard recipes, and all are paleo!

I have so much energy and stay full longer. No 2 o'clock drowsies (though that went away when I began a paleo diet-goodbye gluten comas and sugar crashes). I WANT more food but I don't feel hungry. Snacks are easy to make though so that helps for times like this! 

I have cheated. I would say failed but I'm not done yet and I haven't given up yet. This being said, I ate more gf/vegan cupcakes and chocolate covered bacon in 3 days this past Valentine's weekend than I normally would have than I wish to admit. I ate hummus with bread and chips for dinner one girl's night. I liberally "taste-tested" the nut mixes I made for James's Valentine's Day gift.

But it's...kinda Paleo right?

Those were painful. Not the kind of pain that's mental of "why do I have no self-control?" Side note: perhaps this is the reason it is the last listed fruit of the Spirit-because it's definitely hardest for me to attain and strengthen. The fruit of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and....I'm coming for ya self-control. (Galatians 5:22)

But we're talking straight up physical pain the next morning from cheating. Perhaps not everyone will experience the same results after cheating when it comes to food. I didn't eat my bloating or sinus pressure causing foods (soy, eggs, gluten), just sugars and grains really. My intestines screamed at me. I'm not sure how to explain it other than being frank, so skip ahead if you just don't want to know. When they sewed my intestines together after removing 3 feet 5 years ago, a pocket occurred at the crime scene. Meaning solids/gases get stuck and occasionally I apply pressure to that region to keep things moving. (Tmi?) Sometimes there are a few moments of pain as things move through this region. It's something I keep an eye out for. Doesn't happen too often lately though.

BUT! It was because of my first successful 5 days of this detox that I realized the latter pain DID NOT occur. At all. For real, honestly, legitimately and seriously, et. al. For me, that has made this detox successful and those cheat days worth it. And that wasn't even the point of this whole detox!

I miss chocolate and sweets but I have found some good alternatives for snacking that are healthier, more nutritious and tastier. So yay for opening horizons!? I also ordered 8lbs of almond flour so I'm definitely looking forward to some serious paleo baking once I get off this detox!

Dipping vegetables into a homemade avocado dip (like guac but without pico really)

So simple. So delicious.

I haven't noticed much change with facial skin, so I'm continuing to lookout for that. That one day will be its own blog post. Maybe even two or three at this rate. However, the bumps on the back of my arms have reduced in numbers. Did some googling and seems as those can be caused by food allergies. Sweet. 

For me, I don't desire a weight change but have noticed a few pounds decrease. Some would find this change beneficial and could see a larger difference depending on the diet pre-detox. Then again, many people say they see weight loss when switching to a paleo diet, so that's not really ground-breaking news.

The hardest times are when I'm at work and someone brings in food (make myself stay busy and not walk past that table full of doughnuts and cookies and candy and sandwiches!) And in the evenings when I'm bored (once again, stay busy. Who knew the study and garage could be so organized and clean? Next up, steam mopping the floors).

I bought way too much food/meal planned for the first 7 days so I still have dinners to make to probably last until day 12, especially now that my vegetable zoodle maker has arrived! :)) But I'm off to plan the remainder of the meals and organize my grocery list! First thing on the list? Bacon. Lots and lots of bacon.

Current kitchen wants:

-Fancy crock pot that has a timer I can set; overcooked spaghetti squash mash is just not the same thing as faux spaghetti noodles.

-Juicer. Oh no, I'm becoming that fanatic! Better just pack the bags and move to Austin!

-Better zester. Or maybe I should just google how to zest without getting most of the zest stuck in the zester itself. Any suggestions?

-Mandolin slicer: after discussing with a friend what this is, it would make things SO much easier.

-Kitchen Food scale: because, I'm not a good judge of how many chicken thighs make up 3lbs after I have already removed said thighs from the package for freezing.

Peace, love & paleo

Cavewoman in the making