#also shes gluten free so it was like oh i need all these special ingredients instead of the things i have lying around

[shipatfirstsight]

my sister hates her birthday (which is tomorrow) so I was like...what would make it good for you, so she said each of us decorating individual cakes so I was like sure....now I'm four different flavored cakes deep and regretting everything

[onlydreamofmysoul]

Let Them Eat Cake Part i  (Wolfstar Bake off AU)

Welcome back to the newest season of The Great British Bake Off.

Remus walked into the iconic tent, holding his breath. He had quite literally grown up watching this show - it was a staple in the Lupin household and now here he was, about to be on it.

He wasn’t even sure if it had properly hit him yet.

He made eye contact with one or two of the other bakers, some of whom he had begun to get a little acquainted with, all of them smiling nervously back at him and he swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. This was really happening. He wandered over to the bench he had been assigned, running a hand over the wooden worktop reverently. It was pristine now - all the surfaces were, but Remus knew for a fact that the particular sparkle they boasted would be gone quick enough.

“Welcome bakers!”

Remus looked up as the two presenters; Sirius Black and James Potter waltzed into the room, followed closely behind by the two judges; Minerva McGonagall and Dumbledore. Remus’ breath hitched in his chest in a cacophony of feelings and somehow all he could think of was ‘does Dumbledore have a first name?' Remus had certainly never heard of one.

“It’s lovely to have you all here for this season’s Great British Bake Off.” James said, picking up from where Sirius had left off. “I’m sure you all must be very nervous to meet your judges, but let me assure you,” He paused to look around the room seriously. “The only person you need to impress here is me.”

The room let out a nervous laugh - a quick release of tension and James grinned. “In all seriousness, it is great to have you here. Now, allow me the pleasure of introducing you to our judges.”

McGonagall and Dumbledore both stepped forward, smiling slightly. “Welcome, everybody.” Dumbledore said, looking around the room. “It is with pleasure that I announce that this week is our cake week.”

Remus nodded. They, of course, already knew this, having practiced their showstopper challenge about a million times each (or precisely sixteen and a half in Remus’ case) but this was for the benefit of the viewers. He had to admit, it was really strange looking around the tent he had familiarised himself with long ago and seeing a bunch of cameras and microphones. He had expected them to be there of course, but it was still slightly off putting having someone with a big metal stick follow you around.

“For our first challenge, Dumbledore and I want you to bake twelve individual muffins, with six of one flavour and six of another.”

“Each cake must be identical,” Dumbledore continued, “We’re looking for a lovely even bake with a nice firm inside and of course,” He said looking around teasingly, “No soggy bottoms.”

Remus chuckled along with everyone else in the tent and the two presenters stepped forward once more.

“The time has come Jamie, are you ready?”

“I most certainly am Sirius, but the question is… are our bakers ready?”

Sirius looked right at Remus and grinned. “I suppose we’re about to find out.”

“On your marks,”

“Get set,”

“Bake!”

Remus set off, measuring his ingredients and pulling out bowls and whisks as the tent broke out into a flurry of movement. He was careful not to let his nerves get the best of him - he would stay calm and take his time, rushing wouldn't help anything. He was vaguely aware of the camera crew moving around the room but he was in his own little bubble for the moment.

“Hey, Remus yeah?”

Remus looked up at the familiar voice and fuck, Sirius Black was talking to him.

“Um yeah, that’s me.” He laughed, trying to pull himself together because there was a camera trained on them and he would be damned if the entire nation saw him make a fool out of himself.

“So, what’re you making today?” Sirius asked, leaning his hip against Remus’ worktop and essentially looking like one of Remus’ many daydreams about the man in that very same leather jacket.

“Enchiladas.” Remus deadpanned and was delighted when Sirius laughed. “I’m making lemon and blueberry and also bacon and maple syrup muffins.”

“Bacon and maple syrup?”

Remus nodded, his face flushing a little. “Yeah, I've been making these ones for years actually. When I was a kid I used to put maple syrup on literally everything so it’s really not surprising that it made an appearance in my baking.”

Sirius grinned at him and began to move away. “I’m excited to try them so.”

Remus smiled, biting his lip before shaking his head and getting back to work. He wasn’t here to chat to Sirius Black. He was here to bake.

Baking had always been one of Remus’ pastimes. It was like his own little form of therapy. Whenever he was stressed - he would bake. Whenever he was really stressed, he would mix everything by hand. All that beating was really cathartic (Also it gave him really strong arms but that's besides the point). He whipped up the batch of lemon and blueberry first - they were a staple in his house and he could make them with his eyes closed. He used his time chopping walnuts to relieve any remaining nerves that lingered after talking to Sirius Black for a mere minute.

“Hey Re.”

Remus whipped around to face Lily, the contestant right behind him. They had met last night - in the ‘Bake Off Bubble’ after everyone had moved in and Remus had known straight away that they would be friends.

“Hey Lily,” Remus glanced at her counter. Well, what he could see of it, the entire surface was covered in a layer of cinnamon and sugar, left behind after she had dusted one set of cakes. “How’s it going?”

Lily leaned forward a bit giggling. “I’m afraid to say this, because I’ll totally jinx myself, but it’s actually going really well so far.”

Remus grinned. “I’ll say it for you instead.”

Lily nodded solemnly. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” She paused, grinning, to stop her mixer, running her spatula along the edges of the bowl a few times in quick, practised movements to ensure all the batter was being thoroughly mixed before turning back to Remus. “Have the judges been over to you yet?”

Remus shook his head. “Not yet, just Sirius.”

Lily wiggled her eyebrows. “Ooh, having chats with Sirius, are you?”

Remus rolled his eyes. Pre-competition bonding, alcohol and a curious redhead did not go well together. Remus hadn’t even been here a full twenty four hours and he had already exposed the fact that he used to have a bit of a crush on one of their presenters.

“Oh hush you, they’re coming around to all of us.”

“Indeed we are, Mr Lupin.”

Remus whipped around, his face burning to see the two judges standing in front of his bench. “Oh, hello.”

“Good morning.” Dumbledore said, smiling warmly. Remus pretended he couldn’t hear Lily sniggering in the background. “What will you be presenting today?”

The pair listened, nodding along as Remus told them of his plans, only stumbling over his words once and managing to restrain from toying with the cuffs of his sleeves. He knew the cameras were on him.

“I must say, I’m surprised at the lemon and blueberry choice, some people would say that it’s a little predictable.” McGonagall said, peering at him over the rim of her glasses.

Remus didn’t blush, he had known this comment would come. “That’s true I suppose, but they’re my favourite. I’m a coeliac and this was the very first recipe I got right with gluten free flour so they’ve always had a special place in my heart.”

Dumbledore smiled, meeting his gaze and Remus was startled at how incredibly blue his eyes were. “I look forward to trying them.”

Remus glanced back at Lily once, as they left in a ‘please tell me they didn’t overhear our conversation’ but Lily was no help, she just laughed at his pain. Remus just sighed and set back to work. He lined his muffin trays with strips of bacon, making sure they were all nicely covered before pouring in the batter. He popped the trays in the oven, taking a moment to appreciate how well everything here worked - all the doors slid seamlessly, every knife was deathly sharp and every tool was gleaming. Back at home, there was nearly always something broken or in a state of disrepair that would make Remus have to improvise a little bit. He put the lemon and blueberry muffins on a cooling rack and having already made the maple filling he set about making a cup of tea.

“Oh can we have a cup too?”

Remus looked up to see both James and Sirius at his bench, grinning wickedly at him.

“Yeah, of course.” Remus pulled out two more mugs and dropped a tea bag into each. Strong or weak? He asked as he left his to brew.

“Weak please.” James said while Sirius went for strong. Remus slid James’ mug and milk across the counter while he removed the tea bags from the other two mugs before adding a fair amount of sugar to his own, causing Sirius to raise an eyebrow.

“What?” He defended himself. “I’m on Bake Off, it can’t be a surprise that I like sweet things.”

Sirius’ laugh was like a lovely little reward for saying something even remotely funny and the little fanboy inside Remus perked up at the sound. “Besides, who drinks black tea these days? I thought only dramatic movie characters did that.”

James nodded along as he swung himself up to sit on the bench. Remus raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “That’s what I say! I think he’s too pretentious for his own good really. It’s the same with his coffee - ‘Black for Black’.”

“Wow.” Remus said, smiling into his cup even as Sirius hot James’ shoulder playfully. “That’s dedication if nothing else.” Before Sirius could reply, Remus’ timer went off.

“Ooh muffin time!” James sang, hopping down from the counter and out of the way as Remus opened the oven and pulled out the muffins. Not to brag or anything, but he thought they were perfect.

“We’ll leave you to it.” They said, taking their mugs with them and moving out of the way. Remus was a little disappointed, but also glad because he needed to focus and he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to do that if Sirius Black had stayed to watch.

He placed the hot muffins on their own cooling rack and filled a syringe with the maple syrup concoction before injecting a fair amount into each one. It was ridiculously satisfying to watch them swell a little as he filled them, but he had to remember to pull back lest he add too much and throw off the delicate balance.

“Bakers, you have two minutes left.” James called and despite being nearly finished, Remus felt that little spike of panic flow through him. Where had the time gone?

He quickly transferred both sets of muffins onto his plate for presenting them, lining them up in four rows of three, quickly dusting just a faint hint of icing sugar over the top and moving away.

“Bakers, your time is up, please place your cakes at the end of your bench and step away.”

Remus sat down on the stool he pulled out from under the bench and took a deep breath. He made it in time. His cakes looked okay. He could totally do this.

The judges entered the room and started making their way around the tent. Remus smiled at Lily nervously before tucking his hands under his thighs to hide the fact that they were trembling softly. He tried to pay attention to what the judges were saying to the others but really he could only hear his heart pounding in his ears. They moved away from the first contestant and then a few minutes later, from the second and then they were standing right in front of him. This was it - his first chance to prove himself.

“Hello again Mr Lupin.” McGonagall smiled as James and Sirius flanked the judges. There was a tense silence for a few minutes as each judge picked up a cake.

“They’re all identical, which is really nice to see.” Dumbledore said, right before halving a muffin. “Lovely even bake through this.”

McGonagall cut open a bacon and maple syrup and the sweet filling oozing out of the cake. “Look at this,” She said, “Really lovely work there. And I really like how the cake is wrapped in the rasher.”

Remus held a breath as they each took a bite, barely able to breathe.

Dumbledore smiled and relief flooded through Remus’ system. “Some excellent work here today Mr Lupin, well done.”

“Thank you,” Remus stammered, hardly able to talk though the beaming smile that had taken over his face. The judges moved away but James and Sirius lingered a moment longer.

“Can we try?” Sirius asked, pointing to the cakes. Remus nodded and while James went straight for the bacon and maple, Sirius paused.

“You said the lemon ones were your favourite, right?”

How did Sirius even know that? He wasn’t even there when Remus had mentioned it to the judges… he must have overheard. Nevertheless, Remus nodded and tried to hide a confused little smile as Sirius plucked a lemon and blueberry.

“Oh my god this is unreal.” James moaned as he started to walk away, clapping Remus’ shoulder. “Well done mate.”

Sirius closed his eyes, smiling as he chewed his. “They’re my favourite too.”

Remus was glad he was sitting down. Having anything in common with his celebrity crush was in itself nearly too much for him to handle, but said celebrity crush liking his baking? Well, not to be repetitive but; Remus was glad he was sitting down.

“That was crazy.”

“I know.”

“Like… So crazy.”

“I know.”

Remus and Lily were sitting outside on the lawn, eating their lunch before they had to take on their next challenge and they had both been saying the same thing for a solid two minutes.

“It’s just so crazy!” Lily exclaimed. “We just did our first challenge! And it went well!”

“I know!” Remus was still in shock himself. He had given all his cakes to the crew - all the bakers did, bar one for themselves. Remus had eaten his gluten free lemon and blueberry muffin, savouring the fact that the judges liked it and certainly not thinking about how Sirius Black had liked it too.

Nope, definitely not.

“The whole thing has made me a bit calmer about the next challenge, how about you?”

Remus nodded along in agreement as he stabbed another bunch of lettuce with his fork. “Yeah, I mean I’m still a bit nervous, but less so having actually done one.”

“And let’s not forget the fact that you had a bit of face time with Mr Black himself.”

Remus refused to let himself blush. “Oh shove off, I never should have told you that.” He said laughing a little defeatedly, wiping at his flushed face with his hand.

“No, you were definitely right to have told me. Now I can say that he looks at you way more than the others.” She teased, drawing out the ‘way’.

Remus rolled his eyes. “He’s Sirius Black. I’m just a book-loving, cardigan wearing, baking nerd from Wales. Until today, he never even knew I existed and whenever this show is over, he’ll soon forget about me.”

“Okay.” Lily said, her tone indicating she in no way believed him but she would let it slide for now. Remus breathed a sigh of relief. He could totally do this.

Remus Lupin could not do this.

His cakes weren’t rising, his cream was melting in the heat and those fucking instructions were useless.

“Ah I recognise the face of someone dealing with their first technical challenge.” Sirius said, appearing at his side.

Remus scrubbed his face tiredly. “Make a Victoria sponge.” He said lifelessly. “Those were their instructions. Nothing more. Like, what?”

Sirius bit his lip. Remus had to avert his eyes, he already had one crisis to deal with right now. “Yeah those two apparently aren’t very big on words.”

Remus just groaned at the attempt at humour. “This isn’t going to work.”

“And you called me dramatic?” Remus peeked out between his fingers to see Sirius leaning on his worktop grinning up at him. “You’ve got this Lupin.”

Remus began to nod slowly. “You think so?”

Sirius scoffed. “Of course!” He stood up straight and began to walk away. “Besides, if everything goes to shit, the worst thing that could happen is you embarrass yourself on national television and get sent home.”

At that, Remus burst out laughing. “That’s certainly an… interesting pep talk.”

Sirius grinned. “That’s me.”

Remus was still smiling a little while later as he assembled his cakes. Yes, the sponges didn’t rise as much as he would have like, but otherwise they were fine. He had managed to salvage the cream by putting it in the fridge for a while and the jam that he made had turned out really nicely. If nothing else, he had that going for him. The two presenters called time and the contestants all placed their cakes on the table at the front of the tent, behind the pictures of their faces. This challenge was a blind judge - McGonagall and Dumbledore didn’t know who had made what until after they released the results.

Remus sat down on a stool, with Lily on one side of him and a bloke named Peter on the other.

“Good luck.” Peter whispered to him and with that, the judges re-entered the tent.

“Good afternoon bakers!”

“Afternoon!” Everyone chorused back and Remus had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing at the sudden sensation that he was back in school and the teacher had just come into class.

“Okay, let’s just dive right in shall we?”

They all waited with baited breath as the judges tried each and every one of their cakes.

“Now this one is excellent.” Dumbledore said, taking a bite of the cake behind the picture of the pretty girl with bubble-gum pink hair. Remus glanced down the line and saw she was trying to hide a relieved grin. Lily was bouncing her leg incessantly and Remus had to cover her knee with his hand to get her to stop. He knew the cameras had caught the movement and to top it all off, Sirius raised an eyebrow at him. Remus bit his lip but didn’t move his hand - Lily had smiled at him gratefully and they both needed a little human contact right now.

“Now this one is a bit flat - the sponges didn’t rise enough in the oven it would seem.”

Remus flinched and looked up. Yep, they had reached his. The seconds seemed to crawl by as they cut themselves a slice and finally they tried it.

“However it tastes very good, I particularly like the jam - blueberry, that's quite unusual.”

Remus finally let out the breath he was holding. He was going to be just fine.

“Okay Mr Lupin, stand right there, if you would.”

Remus adjusted himself to stand where the camera woman had pointed to and looked at her. “This okay?”

“That’s perfect Mr Lupin-”

“Just Remus, please.”

“Alright then Remus, I’m Marlene.” She reached over and shook his hand, her green eyes kind and an array of wild blonde curls piled on top of her head.

“So Remus, how are you feeling after today?”

“Um, I feel pretty good?” Remus said, laughing a little at himself when he phrased it like a question. “It’s really hard to tell - especially since this was the first time I’ve done this. It was good though, no matter what it was a great experience and meeting so many like minded people is pretty cool.”

“And what about your placement in the technical challenge? Third place? Not too shabby.”

Remus laughed properly at that. “Yeah, that was really great.”

“And how are you feeling overall?”

Remus tilted his head side to side in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “Alright. I’m excited but also nervous. I think today was the most exhilarating yet stress inducing day of my life.”

Marlene giggled. “Yeah I’m getting that impression. That was great Remus, you’re free to go.”

Remus’ shoulders slumped and he was surprised at himself, he hadn’t realised he had been that tense.

“Please tell me that I didn’t look like a deer in headlights.” He groaned, making Marlene laugh. “Nah, you’re good I promise, no deer here,” She paused, leaning in conspiratorially, “Except the deer that’s James’ screensaver, but shh, you didn’t hear that from me.”

Remus chuckled to himself all the way back to the hotel.

“Round two, here we go.” Lily said, rubbing her hands together eagerly as she and Remus walked into the tent together.

“Okay but, how weird is it that we have to wear the exact same outfit again today?” Remus asked.

“So weird.” Tonks replied, magically appearing at their side. “Usually at home I take off my clothes and fling them somewhere in my room but last night I had to consciously put them away together so I wouldn’t lose anything.”

Lily giggled and Tonks grinned at her. Remus was settling nicely into the sense of camaraderie that was forming in the tent. Being in a ‘Bake Off Bubble’ changed the dynamic to other years (not that Remus really knew what other years were like) but essentially living with the others was allowing for a nice bond to form between them all.

They chatted a little as everyone filed in and James and Sirius wandered over to them.

“Hey guys!” Tonks chirped and the two lads grinned.

“Ready for another day?” James asked, the question posed to the group, but his eyes were on Lily. Her cheeks flushed a little and Remus made a mental note to tease her about that later.

“As ready as we can be I suppose.” She said, fiddling with equipment that did not need organising. Remus met Sirius’ eyes and they both grinned and for a moment, just for a split second it felt like they knew each other, like they were friends and had jokes and shared secret knowing looks.

“Okay guys, let’s get going.” A producer called and it snapped Remus out of his thoughts. He and Tonks went to their own benches and Sirius and James walked to the front of the tent to stand next to the judges.

“Today, my lovely little bakers,” Sirius began dramatically, “We want you to bake a cake.”

“I think that’s a given, considering it’s cake week.” James chimed in and Sirius shushed him.

“Hush, let me finish. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” He said, glancing pointedly at James to the amusement of the rest of the tent, “Today we want you to bake a cake. But not just any cake,” He said grandly. “We want a cake with several tiers and three different flavours. Your cake can be decorated any way you like, however it has to represent something important to you.”

Remus wasn’t surprised. None of the bakers were - they were told about this challenge in advance so that they had time to prepare and practise. The challenge was being announced simply for the benefit of the audience.

“Ready?”

“Set.”

“Bake!”

Remus cracked his knuckles and set to work.

“Does three different types of chocolate count as three separate flavours?” Sirius asked him, standing on his tip-toes to peer over Remus’ shoulders.

“I sure as fucking well hope so, cause it’s too bloody late for me otherwise.” Remus mumbled, concentrating too hard to even register what Sirius was saying properly.

“Language Re, now we can’t use this footage.” He laughed, scuffing Remus’ shoe with his foot.

“Oh no, the nation won’t get to see a few more seconds of me stressed off my head, what a fucking pity.”

Remus didn't look up but he could practically hear Sirius’ eyebrows raising.

“Mr Lupin, what would the queen think of such appalling language?” He asked, pressing a hand over his heart. Remus did glance up this time, to shoot the presenter a dry smile.

“I’ll be sure to ask her, if I ever meet her.”

Sirius’s eyes lit up at the banter, and one part of Remus wanted to say ‘fuck this competition, just spend all your time here chatting to Sirius bloody Black’, but that part of him was very small and the urge to win was very very large, so instead, he let Sirius wander along to the other contestants and he set back to work.

His white chocolate and milk chocolate sponges were still in the oven, but Remus had taken out his dark chocolate layer. He set to work, cooling it and carefully cutting it in half, repeating the process with his other two cakes. Next, he carefully stacked all of the pieces on top of one another, spreading a thin layer of salted caramel icing in between each layer, leaving him with six tiers total. He took a moment to step back and roll out his shoulders quickly before continuing to give his muscles a quick break.

“All good Remus?” James asked and Remus smiled weakly. “Yeah, all good.”

He had his cakes stacked on the stand he would be presenting them on, and set to work carefully cutting off sections of the cake until he was left with a lovely sphere shape. Satisfied, he grabbed the bowl of icing he hand made, the salted caramel a pale yellow and Remus added just the tiniest hint of food dye so it had the faintest grey tint before spreading it liberally all over the cake.

“So Remus, might I ask what you’re making today?” Marlene asked, appearing by his side, camera braced on his shoulder.

“Um it’s supposed to be the moon actually.”

“Oh hey, I can kind of see that.”

“What? Only kind of? I’ve completely finished!”

A panicked look overtook Marlene’s features and Remus burst out laughing. “I’m only messing with you. I’m not done yet. I’m going to get to work doing all the craters and stuff now.”

Marlene looked at him, her face completely blank. “I feel like I should inform you that if it wouldn’t get me fired I’d totally kill you for giving me that heart attack.”

Remus stuck out his tongue playfully. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now leave me alone, I need to get back to work.”

“Yeah, you tell her Re!” Sirius enthused as he walked past, not even pausing in his path over to James and only having heard the tail end of the conversation. Marlene just rolled her eyes and followed him.

For the first challenge, the judges had come around to their benches. All of the cakes had been presented at once during the second. The third, Remus decided, was most certainly the worst, because you had to carry your cake all the way up to the judges and present it to them.

Remus really fucking hoped he didn’t trip.

“I must say, the detailing on this is quite nice.” McGonagall said, picking up a rather large knife and Remus smiled weakly. “Thank you.”

She cut right down the centre and Remus almost winced because he had worked so hard on that but these are the troubles when your artwork is edible.

Dumbledore looked at him curiously. “Are these just different flavours of chocolate.”

Remus pursed his lips. He had no idea if they hated it or not. “Yeah it is… I really like chocolate.” He added lamely and flushed a little at the chuckles that elicited from around the tent.

“Well Mr Lupin, I must say I’m rather impressed.” McGonagall said after trying it and Remus honestly thought he was going to cry with relief. One thing was for sure - the endorphin levels that being on this show elicited were on a whole other level.

He walked back to his bench, half in a daze, smiling at Lily who passed him on his way, her arms full with a cake decorated with the most realistic iced lilies he had ever seen.

“Remus? Are you ready for your interview?”

Remus looked up from the cup of tea he was nursing. “Yeah. Outside again?”

Marlene nodded and he followed her out, taking a deep breath of the clean country air.

Marlene signalled to indicate the camera was rolling. “So, you survived?” She said, her tone teasing.

Remus smiled. “I survived.” He confirmed. “I’m so, so delighted for Lily, she really deserved to get star baker.”

“So you weren’t disappointed?”

Remus laughed at the almost ludicrous question. “I’m still surprised that I made it here in the first place! I wasn't expecting star baker, I wasn't even aiming for it today, I just wanted to make it through the week.”

“And you did.”

“That I did.” Remus repeated, smiling warmly. Some guy, Caradoc, was going home. Remus had only spoken to him once so he couldn’t say he was all that torn up about it.

“This question is for a bit of voice over for the episode, alright?”

Remus nodded.

“Your cake was a moon, can you explain the significance of that?”

Remus sheepishly rubbed his hand over his face. “It seems kind of dumb now that I say it but, I used to be obsessed with the moon. Still am really, if I’m being perfectly honest. It got to the point where I now have the nickname of ‘Moony’.” He paused smiling as Marlene laughed. “But it just always made me calm. My mom and I used to drive to the beach in the evening just to watch the sun go down and the moon come up. It was great.”

Marlene smiled. “Perfect, that’s enough, thanks Remus.” She hit a button to stop the recording and Remus began to move away.

“So you’ve reason to stay another week anyways?” Marlene asked.

“Yeah.” Remus said, surprised to find his voice soft. He turned slightly and his eyes landed on Sirius walking out of the tent, pulling his hair out of the top-knot it had been styled in for the last two days. “Yeah, I think I do.”

[likethetailofacomet]

Tag, I’m it

thanks @brightpinkpeppercorn and @ooo-barff-ooo for the tags! 

I love these getting to know you thingies. 

1) Are you named after anyone? Ha. okay, yes and it makes me laugh. My parents were big “Who’s the Boss?” fans and thought Alyssa Milano was adorable and also liked her name so... I’m Alyssa. 

2) When was the last time that you cried? 2 days ago after i got some unfortunate news that i’m still processing with the love and support of my family and friends (irl and these angels that I’ve met here in internet land <3) 

3)Do you have kids? No...

4)Do you use sarcasm alot? OH EM GEE DO I?! I’m rolling my eyes at myself right now. 

5) What’s the first thing you notice about people? If they are friendly. I really only have time for good peeps these days. 

6)Eye color? Blue 

7) Scary movie or happy ending? I’m a sucker for a happy ending (when called for- like, if shits hitting the fan like in the final minutes of act 3 and then all of a sudden its rainbows, I ain’t buyin’ what you’re sellin’.) BUT: My sister and I also have a thing for really terrible low budget horro movies from the 80s, so...both i guess?

8)Any special talents? Um...I don’t really think so? I was a bartender for years so I can make a mean cocktail and spin bottles and stuff...does that count? 

9) Where were you born? New Jersey, born and raised! I’m a shore baby! 

10) Do you have any hobbies? Too many sometimes. Writing, first and foremost. Reading, is coffee a hobby? the way I drink it it kind is. I love to bake- I am gluten and dairy free and its often like doing chemistry experiments to get things to taste right with substitute ingredients. I dabble in beekeeping- my father has 6 hives (over 200,000 bees!) and i help him inspect them and harvest honey. it’s real effin cool and if you have questions please ask because i’m low key obsessed with bees. 

11)Do you have any pets? Yes! I have a 6 year old cat named Sandy. We adopted her after she was found as a newborn in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. I also have a 2 year old Alaskan Husky named Theodor Herzel (named after a real person in history due to the similarities in facial hair) but we call him Theo for short and he is actually a limitless ball of energy. and fluff. 

12) How tall are you? 5′7″ 

13)What sports do you/ have you played? I have been a runner since I was walking; getting back into it now after some years off due to injury and surgery. I am also a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu blue belt, again getting back into it after time away. I am competitive in both- when I lived in Colorado I won the state championship tournament. As a kid i played softball but i was terrible TERRIBLE at it. I also danced but I am definitely the least coordinated person you know, so that didn’t last. I do love physical activity though, so i’m up to try any sport or venture. 

14) What was your favorite subject in school? In high school it was AP Literature (my teacher was PHENOMENAL, like i was in HS when LOST was a thing that the world was obsessed with, and this woman used to tape the episodes for me because she knew I worked on the nights it aired. Also she made me have very strong feelings about Beowulf.) And I also loved Play Production. I was in a play that we put on for grammar school kids called “The Princess Play”. I played Snow White- it was about a witch that was trying to cast a spell but her magic wasn’t woprking and she kept inadvertently summoning princesses to her cave. It was a riot. In college I loved LOVED loved this class that was a study on Geoffrey Chaucer and the whole thing was in middle english. (hi, i’m a certified nerd.) 

15) Dream Job? Easy peasy and needs no explanation: NOVELIST. 

tagging: @the-whiskeywife @endlesshero1122 @cordonianredruby @cordoniantrash

and like anyone else who wants to tell me about themselves. because again, i like these thingies. 

[rogue-snorunt]

Can I still be nosy? 7, 8, 16, 18, 19, 31, 43, 44

i’m shook because someone actually wanting to get to know my doofy ass ; u ;7. Do you have tattos?Yep! got 3 tho tech one is a two-parter: +The Great Chain from Bioshock with “A man chooses, a slave obeys” quote on left wrist.+ Assassins Creed feathered insignia from the second game on right wrist.+ White ink skeletal angler fish on right side of left calf with its angler wrapping around to left side turning into a branch in which a cute ass fluffy owl sits as its lure.8. Want tattoos?Yep, and I want to get more : Gene’s star tattoo from Outlaw Star; Cardinal and some Daisies ( nana and great nana’s spirit bird and favorite flower) and a crow (my favorite birb) done in a mixed style of abstract and geometric shapes. The Marker from Dead Space with possible “Altmen be Praised” But both a phobia of needles (ironic i know but the tattoos i have already I did as a sort of self forced exposure therapy) and money currently prevent them,16. I’ll love you if…You treat me like a decent human should treat others; give me food, are patient, I am able to relate to you due to similar likes and interests. 18, Most traumatic experience:strap in- this is gonna be long  and I apologize: 

three years old- dad chasing and holding me down and forcing piercing my ears with a needle and an ice cube.six years old - the cat I’ve had an lived since birth and was my only friend: scratching me in the face , it was my fault as I pulled his tail like dumbass kids tend to do, resulting in the cat running outside and getting ran over by my day. i lost my best friend and my right eye that day.16 years old - accidentally getting left behind at a gas station in new jersey because I had to pee and left my phone in the car.

17 years old - Let my fathers dog - Milkshake out before taking a quick shower only to get a knock on the door a few minutes later by a random dude who informed me he had hit Milkshake. there was nothing anyone could do and no place was open so on christmas day I laid in the snowy road with Milkshake while she choked on blood for a couple of minutes and than died.  19 years old - 3 months into driving, a deer running out infront of me and I swerved to miss it resulting me to go off the road on a steep guard rail-less hill. my car got air and I popped all four tires; the frame got shifted 4 inches to the right, bent the control arm, it flipped on its side and my 50 pound toolbox getting thrown my backseat, missing my head by a few inches and smashing into my windshield. my car landed a few feet from a metal pole in a ditch. the only reason I was able to get out was because I happened to have the sun roof open that day and managed to fit through it.   Instead of  going to the hospital after, like the intelligent person I am,  I just went home and slept for 3 days.22 years old - getting rammed from behind doing 75 on the highway by a white truck while trying to pass a semi-truck while driving home for the weekend from college. fishtailing then doing a couple 360′s managing to not hit the semi truck besides me or the truck behind me and stopping inches from hitting the guardrail, facing the opposite direction. again, did not go to hospital; went to my friends restaurant where I worked at the time and just went to sleep on the dining room floor.22 years old - crossing the crosswalk on my way to my friends restaurant and assuming the suv coming down the hill would abide by the laws of this land but instead getting double-tapped by an old lady.  No hospital - went to restaurant and went to sleep in the hallway to the house above the restaurant.23 years old - the head gasket in my 88′ Ford Bronco exploding while driving back to college on a dark and very stormy night. I had to stand in a downpour next to a giant fireball for 2 hours waiting for the cops to come.25 years old - moved to Wisconsin for a bit and while riding the bus to work, a man apparently disapproved of how I was sitting and punched me.Few months later a finch flew into our apartment building and I tried my best but it died in my hands.26 to 27 years old -  Moved back to new york; where my step mom died and her appearance at the wake still fucks me up.Than I began working at a bakery and worked with an unstable man who would black out; scream, throw and break equipment and threatened to hurt/ kill me and lock everyone inside the bakery and burn it.and finally 27 years old: on january 31st - my friend was driving me home before a bad snowstorm hit and we hit black ice and slammed into a tree. the airbag broke my hand; face and glasses and fucked up my ribs, left lung and have a damaged nerve in my neck. The feeling of getting the air knocked out of you and not being to breath and the agony of trying to was the worst pain i’ve ever experienced  in my life and I was in and out of the hospital for 5 years with pancreatitis, kidney stones and infection, ulcers and organ shut downs all at the same time. last: having to put my dog with prostate cancer down after he wasn’t getting better. he died in my lap and it still haunts me.19: a fact about your personality take away the silly manner of speaking and vocab; puns and dumb jokes, pop culture references and goofy mannerisms : I’m just a dumb emotional asshole. 31. Last text message“I can’t help that I’m a slut for grade a memes and maple candy, stop shaming me”43. Sexiest person who comes to mind:tbh, i havent had a thought like this but now that I am @life-is-no-sugarlicking ‘s roy ; gage , dean winchester and ryan goslin come to mind.44. random fact:alot of food advertised as gluten free is naturally so already. Companies like advertising that and repackaging it to sell at a higher price just because they slapped “GLUTEN FREE!” on something they been selling already for years. and its a trap alot of people newly diagnosed with celiac’s are victim too.   Rice; Veggies, Meats, Potatoes, Corn starch, Corn Tortillas, Cheerios, Rice Chex, Fruits, marshmallows, chocolate and gummi worms/bears/etc, also oatmeals are naturally gluten free so you don’t need to buy that special overpriced junk.if it requires a rue (thickener like in gravies and chowder) / is a soup/ requires a binder such as meatballs and meat loaf/  needs to be baked or fried / beer or other alcohol like that  = 99% chance its gluten, don’t eat it! vodka; rum; tequila, i believe gin and apple ale are all gluten free.you can use corn starch in lieu of flour for making gravies and soups Advice? Read the labels for everything. Personally, as long as it doesnt actually contain wheat/wheat by products or gluten, I can have things with “MAY contain..” but everyone is different and more sensitive than others. just be careful and read everything. (soy sauce and corn pops are fucking traps because soy sauce is alot of the times made with soy AND WHEAT so check!!! and corn pops are shitheads because you think “oh! CORNpops! I must be able to have it! cause its CORN pops! FRIGGIN CORN-POPS! CORN!!” NO YOU CANT BECAUSE THOSE SNEAKY MUTHAFECKERS USE WHEAT AS LIKE THE 2ND INGREDIENT AND I AM REALLY SALTY ABOUT IT) 

[curutquit]

Oats banana tikki with pita bread. Oat Flour Banana Bread is made with Gluten-Free oats, butter, and Greek yogurt, you will love this Gluten-Free Banana Bread Recipe. Raw banana has lots of health benefit also. Today I am introducing a veg Kebab/Tikki using raw banana (Most popular veg starter). Пита Простой рецепт вкусной лепешки с полостью внутри

Heartier than normal banana bread, this Banana Oat Bread makes the perfect breakfast bread! Just sweet enough with great texture, this bread is the best way to start the day. Do you see a theme going here?

Hey everyone, it's Jim, welcome to my recipe page. Today, I will show you a way to prepare a distinctive dish, oats banana tikki with pita bread. It is one of my favorites. For mine, I will make it a little bit tasty. This is gonna smell and look delicious.

Oats banana tikki with pita bread is one of the most popular of current trending meals on earth. It's easy, it's fast, it tastes yummy. It's enjoyed by millions every day. They are nice and they look fantastic. Oats banana tikki with pita bread is something which I've loved my whole life.

Oat Flour Banana Bread is made with Gluten-Free oats, butter, and Greek yogurt, you will love this Gluten-Free Banana Bread Recipe. Raw banana has lots of health benefit also. Today I am introducing a veg Kebab/Tikki using raw banana (Most popular veg starter). Пита Простой рецепт вкусной лепешки с полостью внутри

To begin with this particular recipe, we have to prepare a few components. You can have oats banana tikki with pita bread using 18 ingredients and 6 steps. Here is how you can achieve it.

The ingredients needed to make Oats banana tikki with pita bread:

{Prepare 3 cups of whole wheat flour(atta).

{Prepare 1/4 cup of oats flour.

{Prepare 2 tsp of active dry yeast.

{Take 1 tbs of olive oil.

{Take 1 1/4 cups of warm water.

{Get 1 tsp of salt.

{Prepare 1/4 tsp of sugar.

{Make ready 1 cups of Oats.

{Make ready 4 of medium Raw banana boiled, peeled and mashed.

{Make ready 1/2 tsp of Salt.

{Make ready 1/2 tsp of Red chilli powder.

{Take 1 of Onion (chopped).

{Make ready 1 tsp of Garam masala powder.

{Prepare 1 tsp of Chaat masala.

{Take 1 tbs of coriander leaves (chopped).

{Make ready 1/2 cup of Carrot grated.

{Get 1/2 cup of milk for coating.

{Prepare as needed of Olive oil for greasing and cooking.

I mentioned last week that I was on a banana bread kick, and from the. I have been getting few requests for Snacks using Oats from my readers and hence I had come up with an Oats Tikki recipe which is an easy and healthy snack. I have included oats in my breakfast in many interesting options and now slowly started to include them in various varieties other than breakfast. See more ideas about banana oats, banana oat bread, greek yogurt muffins.

Instructions to make Oats banana tikki with pita bread:

Mix together yeast, sugar, and 1/2 cup warm water in a bowl, then let stand until foamy, about 5-10 minutes..

Mix whole wheat flour and oats flour in another bowl and salt, olive oil and yeast mixture and knead with the help of warm water till soft and smooth dough. Keep the dough into greased container with some olive oil applied all over the dough and close the container.Rest for 2 hours or until it doubled in bulk (about 2 hours)..

Punch down dough and cut into 8 pieces. Form each piece into a ball. Dust the working surface with flour and roll each ball into round like roti with rolling pin. Preheat oven/ electric tandoor (I used tadoor to make it) bake Pita bread till golden, about 2 minutes. Turn over with tongs and bake 1 minute more. Bake all pita bread in same way. Your pita bread is ready..

Mix boiled banana,salt, red chilli powder, onion, garam masala powder, chaat masala, coriander leaves, carrot and 4tablespoons oats in a bowl..

Divide mixture into 8 equal portions and shape into tikkis. Dip them in the milk and roll in oats and set aside. Heat a non-stick tawa and cook tikkis on medium heat, turning sides, till golden brown on both sides tikki is ready..

Cut pita bread from middle in half like packet and put tikki,onion,tomato, cucumber slice and lettuce leaf in the packet of pita bread and serve..

But she can have flour, oats, bananas, maple syrup, and Greek yogurt, which is exactly what's the kind of ingredients you'll find in this loaf of Greek What I did was take the recipe for my Greek yogurt banana bread and tweak it a little bit to allow for the addition of oats. Oh, and to make everything in. Health Benefits - Banana Oatmeal Fitness Cookies. Perfect for when you need an energy boost on the go. This banana bread not only the best way to use up old bananas, but this banana bread makes a great freezable dish, you can pull out when ever you're in a crunch for breakfast, need Unlike your average banana bread …my recipe features a lot less sugar, honey oats and my absolute favorite…walnuts!

So that's going to wrap this up with this special food oats banana tikki with pita bread recipe. Thank you very much for your time. I am confident you will make this at home. There is gonna be interesting food at home recipes coming up. Don't forget to save this page on your browser, and share it to your family, friends and colleague. Thanks again for reading. Go on get cooking!

[gethealthy18-blog]

308: How to Use Your Hormones to Your Advantage With FloLiving

New Post has been published on https://healingawerness.com/news/308-how-to-use-your-hormones-to-your-advantage-with-floliving/

308: How to Use Your Hormones to Your Advantage With FloLiving

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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Katie: Hello and welcome to “The Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And this episode is all about hormones, specifically for women, and how we can use our hormones and monthly fluctuations in hormones to our advantage. I’m here with Alisa Vitti, who is a women’s hormone and functional nutrition expert and a pioneer in female biohacking. She is the best-selling author of a book called “WomanCode,” the creator of “Cycle Syncing,” which is a female-centric diet and lifestyle program that leverages our hormonal patterns for optimal health, fitness, and productivity. As the founder of floliving.com, she has built the world’s first menstrual health care platform that helps women around the world put their period issues to rest using her natural protocols. She’s also the creator of an app I use all the time called MyFLO, which is a period tracking app. But it’s the first and only one that gives functional medicine period tracking advice, and it’s designed to help users eliminate symptoms and schedule our lives according to our cycles. It’s consistently ranked one of the top 10 paid apps in health and fitness. And in this episode, we are going to go deep on all things related to female hormonal health, and how you can use your hormones to your advantage. Alisa, Welcome, Thanks for being here

Alisa: I’m so happy to be here, Katie. Thanks for having me.

Katie: I’m so excited to chat with you, mainly because you’re so fun to talk to anyway. And also because you have so much important information to share This topic is increasingly important. I know you’ve just written a new book “In the Flo” and a term that stood out to me and I think we need to establish as a starting point is the idea of infradian biological rhythm. So, if you don’t mind, let start there. Explain what that is.

Alisa: Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, for me, so the infradian biological rhythm is the special biological rhythm that women have in their reproductive years. So, from puberty to menopause, you have this activated infradian rhythm. And, you experienced that, you know, across the month in your monthly cycle. However, it isn’t just something that affects your reproductive health. It affects five other systems of the body and really, you know, dictates the quality of your overall health. And it’s something that is a term that comes from, you know, chronobiology, but it’s not a term that we’ve heard about before.

We’ve heard all about the circadian rhythm. We know how important that is. We know we should be taking care of it with our blue-light-blocking glasses and with, you know, getting to bed when it’s dark, and waking up with the sunrise, and not messing with that. And there have been numerous studies, for example, the nurses study back…it’s been a multi-decade study confirming that if you disrupt that circadian pattern, you will develop big disease of inflammation. And what I was really so excited to share in this new book is just how critical, health critical it is for women to be caring for their infradian rhythm while it is active as really the foundation, the cornerstone of absolutely everything they do because it affects so many systems of their body while it’s active.

Katie: Yea, that makes a perfect sense and that’s actually probably a new term for a lot people. It was definitely a new term for me. And I’d love to hear, I’ve read some of the research and I hear from a lot of people daily about women who are struggling with health and especially with hormone related health issues. But I know, in your research, explain some of the stats. How big of a problem this is that we are facing now.

Alisa: Oh, my goodness. I mean, you know, 47%, and I think that’s a conservative number, of women are dealing with a hormonal health issue. You know, 90% of moms feel like they’re chronically stressed and exhausted. You know, almost all research, medical, fitness, nutrition research is being done on men, but then those suggestions and recommendations are being shared to women as things that are going to help them, and then they end up feeling worse because their infradian rhythm’s disrupted. And I think it’s just so important that we recognize that if we’re not specifically supporting and working with our infradian rhythm, we are actually disrupting it and making ourselves unnecessarily sick, stressed, fat, tired, you know, you name it, and, of course, hormonal. But nature really with this infradian rhythm has designed you to be super optimized, and it’s really the ultimate biohack, in my opinion.

Katie: Yea, I love that. I think understanding that gives us more tools in our toolkit to address these things. But to circle back, you mentioned that all these studies are done on men. Explain that. Explain why, because you’re right, a lot of studies I read even on Pubmed, are on male. Is there a reason this is the case?

Alisa: Yeah. So, I mean, there’s a long history of women being excluded from medical research. I mean, some of it is just some good old fashioned research bias in terms of whoever has been historically conducting research. You know, you have to keep in mind, women have only been allowed to practice medicine recently in recent history, so you had a lot of male researchers just coming from their point of view. But then there was also sort of a big, terrible crisis that happened with a drug trial for thalidomide in the ’60s that caused a huge amount of birth defects, and so women were then actively, during their reproductive years, excluded from drug trials.

However, in 1996, the National Institute of Health put out a special committee to request that medical research actively go out of their way to include young females in their studies, young being women, you know, over the age of 21 and not postmenopausal. And then, in 2016, VWC Women’s Health Collective published kind of a progress report following that mandate, and, you know, the unfortunate update was that progress has been basically slim to painfully slow. And, you know, we’re just nowhere being included. And that’s important from a medical point of view because, of course, you know, medications and all these things are not being developed or dosed, you know, within a female ecosystem, but then it also has transmitted this sort of gender bias into nutrition and fitness research.

So, again, here, all nutrition and fitness research is really mainly done on men and postmenopausal women because they find it to be, I guess, too difficult to try to figure out how to create experiments for women in these different stages of their infradian rhythm. But what then happens, of course, is that you’ll get, you know, some sort of new discovery like intermittent fasting is probably my favorite one to talk about because it’s so…you know, the promise of intermittent fasting is absolutely fantastic, right? It’s going to help with insulin sensitivity, it’s going to help with cellular health and anti-aging, and it seems to be this universally wonderful tool to help you stay healthy.

But the truth is that those studies are done on men and postmenopausal women for whom intermittent fasting is a fantastic health tool. But for women in their reproductive years, the few studies that have been done, which I sort of detail in the new book, they actually show that it has the opposite and adverse reaction in women in their reproductive years. Meaning if you do intermittent fasting while you have your infradian rhythm active, you will make your insulin sensitivity worse, right? So instead of improving it, which is what all the intermittent fasting research shows for men and postmenopausal women, for women in their reproductive years, you’ll have worse insulin sensitivity. You can gain weight. You can increase your cortisol levels dramatically. You can shrink your ovaries, stop ovulation, disrupt sleep, and dysregulate your mood. So it’s not like a little bad for you. It’s completely bad for you.

And I think that’s really important because we need, just like medicine is moving to more bio-individual forms of treatment for cancer, for example, for all sorts of diseases, we really need to look at making the nutrition information that we’re being given specific to the biological rhythms that are affecting that individual. And that sometimes can be gender-based.

So I love the idea of women sort of understanding that not everything is something that they should try. And it really should be much more detailed about, you know, “This study was done for men, or for postmenopausal women.” But if you’re in your reproductive years, I’d love to see that kind of coverage being shared in mainstream articles that, you know… You know, for example, and I know Mark Sisson has done this in some of his blogs when he shares about the ketogenic diet, and how that has…the few studies that have been done show that actually can disrupt women’s thyroid hormones and not have them have all the weight loss. It can disrupt fertility.

So to make sure that that is being presented to women when they’re reading about these health trends, I think, is so important. And it’s important because we have been sort of, you know, living in an environment, culturally as women, that basically has told us one story, which is, you know, “Your hormones are crazy and not to be trusted. Your metabolism is slower than men’s, and therefore, you have to compensate for that by just generally finding new and better ways to have some sort of restrictive diet and to work out more. And that’s how you’re going to ‘have the body or control your body in the way that you want.’

And that is just not accurate at all. In fact, in the book, I kind of go into how your metabolism actually is affected by the infradian rhythm and how you can eat to, you know, maximize your metabolism. It’s completely different than what we’ve been taught.

Katie: That’s so fascinating. And I get in the research sense why it’s easier to work on men because their hormones are more stable. But, like you said, it’s a disadvantage to women and I think a lot of women have turned to figure out what works for them individually because of that. Because there’s not a lot of knowledge of this in the medical system. I’m curious, you mentioned you can eat in rhythm with your infradian rhythm and that can be really beneficial. Is that also true for time restricted eating or for any type of fasting. Because like you said, the research is really amazing on what fasting can do in the body and I know a lot of women want to try it. Is there a time in the cycle that is less problematic?

Alisa: Yeah, you can do intermittent fasting much more safely in the first half of the cycle when your metabolism is naturally slower and you need less calories. But for women in their reproductive years, the only amount of time that is safe to do intermittent fasting is the 12-hour kind of like between dinner and breakfast fast. So, you wouldn’t want to…as soon as you push past the 12-hour mark, then you start to have all the adverse reactions that the studies sort of outline. So you don’t want to do like a two-day fast or, you know, a 13…even the 13-hour fast is too much. Again, once you’ve completed your…you know, once you’re postmenopausal, you can go to town and do as much intermittent fasting as feels good to you. But while you’re in your reproductive years, you know, let’s say you’re done with dinner at 7:00, just don’t eat breakfast till 7:00 the next morning, and that will be every-single-day intermittent fast that is hugely health beneficial and will give you all those great benefits without harming you. And that will be much easier to do in the first half of your cycle because of your metabolic changes.

Katie: That makes sense and I think that’s another important distinction. We all “intermittent fast” while we’re sleeping, no one is eating while they are asleep. I know there is good data, even for women, about not eating too late at night. Because that digestive system interrupt and how you want your digestion to be pretty calm so your body can do other things.I think that’s an easy, like you said, even when you’re pregnant, you can choose to not eat after 7pm and just eat a good breakfast.

It’s not like you have to eat every three hours while you’re sleeping, but it means you don’t have to do a super long fast either. I also think, I wonder if there’s an alternative side to this. Which is yes, women are harder to research because our hormones change, but because of this, we get so much more data if we pay attention to our hormones than men do. And I know you have an app that I use regularly, the myflo app, and seeing those hormonal changes and getting input on what you’re supposed to eat that time of the month, it makes a huge difference. And so I try to think of it, on the positive side, I think we also have this amazing benefit if we learn to pay attention to it of how our hormones change. So, walk us through some of those things that those monthly fluctuations and hormones tell us.

Alisa: Well, I mean, first of all, the fact that we think that our hormones are not stable, or that, you know, it’s harder to research, it’s just not medically accurate, you know, which I go into great detail in the book. You know, the truth is, the men’s hormones fluctuate, they just fluctuate in a pattern that mimics the circadian pattern, meaning…and I like to kind of contrast this to just…and I’ll go right in into how your hormones fluctuate in the infradian rhythm.

But for example, men, they make all their testosterone while they’re sleeping. They wake up with the full dose of testosterone that is concurrent with their big surge in cortisol that everyone gets in the circadian biological rhythm. So they wake up with all of this. And then they get, you know, two, three more pulses of that in decreasing concentration throughout the day. So you’ll get a big dose at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, then there’ll be another pulse at like noon, another one around 3:00, and then that starts to really taper off so that they can wind down for the evening and go to sleep.

But this is exactly why that it’s easier for them to, let’s say, do research on men because they’re just tracking the sort of one or two, you know, cortisol and testosterone, but they’re tracking it throughout the day. So they are factoring in time differences and hormone differences. So, for example, Olympic coaches who train Olympic athletes will have men do any sort of training that will help them gain muscle in the early morning when testosterone and cortisol is at a maximum. It’s going to make that happen more easily, and it’s going to help them be able to do that with less risk for injury versus, let’s say, having them train later in the afternoon. And they’re doing this based on all this research that goes deep into the fluctuating levels of hormones for men. It just happens in a shorter timeframe in a day, 24 hours, versus women happening over 30 days.

But the technology or the technique to create studies that factor in these changes already exists because they’re using them for men. So I think the medical community realizes they need to figure this out. They actually have created a menstrual cycle in a petri dish, you know, hooked up to a computer, and they’re starting to do some testing of medications throughout the cycle, which I think is a huge step forward. There’s a long way to go. But I think the more that women like you who are tracking where you are in your cycle, and I’m so thrilled you’re using the MyFLO app, you know, that we can actually participate in studies with the full knowledge of where we are in our cycle. And so people can do studies for women who are just in the follicular phase, or just in the ovulatory phase, or just in the luteal phase, or in the menstrual phase.

And these four phases have their own distinct hormonal signature, a ratio of hormonal combination that create a certain response in these six systems of the body, which include the brain, the metabolism, the immune system, the microbiome, the stress response system, and the reproductive system. So, you know, any sort of testing or research could be done on any of these systems of the body to see how they fluctuate. In fact, in 1996, Catherine Woolley from Northwestern University published a really important paper, you know, in psychoneuroendocrinology about her research looking at the fluctuating levels of estrogen throughout the infradian rhythm and how the brain actually changes 25% across the cycle. And just knowing that is really important because, you know, knowing that your brain is going to change throughout the cycle can help you set yourself up for, you know, better productivity, better workflow with less stress throughout the month, for example.

And, of course, this can be applied to your workouts, to your eating. And it’s just amazing once you understand these fluctuating patterns, just how easy it is to just work with that, to go with the flow, to get in your flow, and to start making everything just less of a push, less of a force, and more of this state of flow, which I just think is so important.

And I don’t know about you, Katie, but, you know, I’ve done all the fun, personal growth and development things. Like I’ve attended one of my favorite Tony Robbins, you know, the weekend, where you walk across the firewalk and, you know, listening to people and experts talk about these peak flow states and biohackers talk about these peak flow states. And I always found…I felt a sense of disconnection from achieving that because it was all predicated on this concept that you have to do the same thing day in and day out to achieve that peak flow state, to put you in a peak flow state, right, to optimize for that. And that really makes sense, you know, to have a morning routine, for example, that’s the same day in and day out if you have the male hormonal pattern that closely mimics the circadian biological rhythm. Because it does make sense for them to get up in the morning, to do a big workout, to do some of their big deep work first thing in the morning when their cognitive focus is really turned on. But it doesn’t make sense for women. In fact, I find it…it kind of feels like this…for me, that somehow I have to feel like I’m a failure already even though I haven’t started my day, right, because I don’t always feel like depending on where I am in my infradian rhythm, jumping out of bed in the morning and doing a workout. And the pushing and forcing myself to do that actually is infradian rhythm disruptive. And so what I want to say to women is you can achieve a peak flow state, but it’s going to look very different from that of men. And it means that instead of trying to force yourself to be the same every day, to do the same routine at the same time, to eat the same food day in and day out, week over week, month over month, that actually is disruptive to you and forces your body to perform sub-optimally. The way you’re going to achieve your peak flow state is to really work with your infradian rhythm and to optimize for that week over week. So, your state of flow is going to look very different from that of men.

And I also think it’s really interesting that biohacking is such a popular concept among men. And that also makes sense because there is a real energy cliff that happens for them around 3:00 in the afternoon when testosterone and cortisol really start to move toward their lower serum concentration levels in the body, so they’re less able to focus on deep project work, they have less energy and stamina for workouts. And, you know, using nootropics or upgraded coffee or things like that really do help in that timeframe to help with that natural energy cliff. But as women, we don’t have these energy cliffs. You know, because we’re the ones that carry babies when we’re pregnant, natures made our bodies extremely good at conserving nutrients and energy. And so if you support your infradian rhythm, what you’re going to find is that you don’t ever fall off the energy cliff.

And Katie, you might be saying now to yourself, “Well, what about PMS and all the things that happened to women around their period where they do feel so bad?” I’ve been taking care of women with their hormones and their periods for close to 20 years now. And myself, having suffered from a major, you know, bout of PCOS in my 20s, in my teens and 20s, and having recovered from that, what I can tell you is, the reason, the deepest reason why so many women are struggling with their hormones is because everything we’re doing, the way we’re eating, the way we’re working out, the way we’re organizing how we work during the day is disrupting our infradian rhythm. And when you disrupt your infradian rhythm, you disrupt all those six systems of the body, and you just can’t feel your best. You can’t be your healthiest. You can’t have the energy you want. It’s not in your head. And it’s not that you’re a failure and you have no willpower and you just can’t stick to these days, you’re just using the wrong system to support your biological rhythm.

Katie: That makes so much sense. And a couple of follow-up questions to that, a short one to begin with. So I do regular blood tests just to keep track of all my metrics, and I also track, like through my Oura Ring, for instance, and, like, kind of line that up with my cycle so I can see what’s going on. Is there a time of the month for women that’s the best to get blood test if you’re going to do regular blood testing, or is it more about getting it at the same time in your cycle?

Alisa: It really depends on what you’re trying to test. So if you’re trying to test progesterone levels, right, you would want to test those in the luteal phase, you know, because that’s when your progesterone levels are active. You know, if you’re doing fertility testing, some people will recommend that you do that on day three of your cycle. So it just depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re trying to test for cortisol levels, you can do that, you know, sort of in a 24-hour saliva testing situation. I really just think it’s about what you’re trying to test. And, of course, that’s for static blood tests where it’s a standard blood draw. I think there’s a lot more sophisticated things now that you can be using like Dutch testing and for urine analysis and saliva testing that gives you a spectrum of hormonal levels over time. That’s always the best way to see things, is, you know, how do your hormone levels rise and fall over the whole course of the infradian rhythm? And the first place to really start doing that, you know, every single day is just with some basic basal body temperature tracking to just see. Even though many people use that for fertility, it also will sort of indicate, you know, how your infradian rhythm is performing over the course of a month. Katie: Got it. Okay, that’s really helpful. So then you’ve mentioned several times, like, different ways we can start to support our infradian rhythm, through different lifestyle factors, through diet. I’d love to go a little bit deep on some of these, maybe starting with diet. I love and totally resonate with that idea that if you are having trouble sticking to a diet, it’s probably not really that you’re doing it wrong, it’s that you’re on the wrong type of system for your body right now. So let’s start with food. How can we support our infradian rhythm using food?

Alisa: So first, we have to understand how the infradian rhythm affects our metabolism. So in the 30-day period where the infradian rhythm makes ts like one rotation, right, as opposed to in one day, you will have a pretty dramatic fluctuation in your metabolism. So in the first half of your cycle, meaning the follicular phase and the ovulatory phase, your metabolism is naturally slower. So you can actually get away with fewer calories and, you know, lighter meals, in general, and I’ll go into specifics of what you should be eating.

In the second half of your cycle, the luteal phase and the bleeding phase, your calorie requirements are higher, in fact, up to anywhere between 16% and 20% more caloric levels are required during this time and your metabolism speeds up because there’s an epic amount of structural changes happening inside the body during this phase of the cycle from a reproductive standpoint. You know, the lining of the uterus is being built and maintained, the corpus luteum is growing, and, you know, all of this is happening, and it takes nutrients to make it happen. Plus, you have to build, manufacture bigger levels of estrogen and progesterone to have a healthy cycle.

So, again, the nutrient requirements are much greater in the second half of the cycle, and your metabolism speeds up. It’s important to know that for, let’s say, metabolic maintenance, or another way to say this, like weight maintenance or blood sugar stability, that when your metabolism is slower, right, you can eat lighter. So I always suggest in this phase of the cycle, you know, and I break it down by each of the four phases. But for today’s purposes, we’ll kind of just talk in sort of broader swathes here, that in the first half of the cycle, you can eat more, let’s say, raw foods, salads, smoothies, kind of like what you would associate your typical diet, healthy light eating, right?

You know, steamed veggies, and poached fish, and things that are going to be easier on the digestion because your metabolism is slower. It’s going to seek to conserve those nutrients. You don’t need to snack as frequently because, again, slower metabolism, you’re going to conserve these nutrients for longer. And you can just get away with a lighter, less fat in the diet, in the food preparation during this time.

Then when you switch to the luteal phase and the menstrual phase, this is when… I’m trying to think of like a dietary type that you could easily grab on to. This is kind of like the luteal phase, which is 10 to 12 days. I always say this is kind of like your macrobiotic phase where you really want to be eating proactively slow-burning carbohydrates, and whichever ones work for you. If they’re legumes, great. If it’s some grains, great. If you can’t do grains, you can do root vegetables, whatever your digestion and food sensitivities can handle, but making sure that you’re proactively eating more of them because your metabolism is so much faster and your caloric needs are higher, you have to put that in proactively. We all know what happens when we don’t, right, when you try to stick to this stereotypical lighter eating, the salad life, you know, in your luteal phase, what happens when you do that all day, right? You have your smoothie in the morning, you have a salad at lunch. And you get home from work, and you just start eating, and you don’t stop, and you don’t know what happened like four hours later. You’ve eaten chips, and crackers, and pasta, and cheese, and cookies, and your body is like trying to make up for its caloric requirement, but you’re now binge eating because you haven’t proactively been eating slow-burning carbohydrates throughout the day.

So we have specific meal plans and recipes to help you really understand what to eat when so that this is not confusing for you at all because I know this can be an adjustment because we’ve been told just to eat the same way every day, and that’s completely wrong for your infradian rhythm. And then in your menstrual phase, you don’t need as many complex carbohydrates, but you do need more fats and proteins. And so this would be more of like, let’s say your paleo or keto week, if you will.

So to help you kind of break it down into these diets that you are familiar with, that would be the way to think about it. And doing this stabilizes blood sugar throughout the infradian rhythm, optimizes your metabolism, works with the metabolic changes that are happening, and keeps your energy and your mood, like, supercharged, right? So instead of falling off the energy cliff around the luteal phase because you’re not nourishing your body the way it needs, and you’re now tired, PMSing, fatigued, stressed, moody, instead you’d feel the opposite. You feel good, you feel energized, you feel clear-headed and happy, and you don’t have PMS symptoms that, you know, certainly will balance that out because you’re also eating foods that are going to help you make more hormones and break them down more efficiently.

So some of us struggle with, let’s say, estrogen dominance. The foods that you’re going to be eating, the foods that are in the food chart in the book are going to help you, you know, both manufacture and metabolize hormones really efficiently as well. So that really helps stabilize any symptoms that you’re having throughout the cycle.

Katie: Yeah, when I learned of this concept from you, it was kind of like a paradigm shift for me because I started just paying attention to what was already happening but that I had never really paid attention to because I didn’t know to pay attention to, and I definitely noticed that shift. Like, in the first half of my cycle, I really wasn’t that hungry. I could do like soups, and salads, and light stuff and like generally not think about food. I’ve been on a pretty big, like, weight loss journey the last year as I’m finally now not pregnant or nursing a baby. And I’ve noticed that first half of my cycle, it’s easy to lose weight, and then that’ll, like, stabilize. I won’t gain weight in the second half, but it’ll just kind of like rest there for a while, and then the next first half of a cycle I’ll lose more weight. And I also noticed, like, when we start paying attention to our hormones, it’s like my cravings now are telling me what I actually need. So in the second week of my cycle, I’m craving like salmon, and sweet potatoes, and tons of olive oil, and like all the green things I can possibly eat for the micronutrients. Like I’ll make a pesto out of, like, so much parsley, and cilantro, and all these things.

Alisa: Oh, my gosh. I’m so proud of you.

Katie: But it’s just amazing when you have that lens to look through. I just, like, start seeing those patterns, and then it’s, like, I don’t have to stress about it. I can be like, “Oh, first half of cycle, I don’t have to really worry about getting enough calories. I’ll just eat when I’m hungry. It’s totally fine.” And then second half, I pre-plan, so I know I’m not going to hit that afternoon like, “Oh my gosh, I’m starving.” I have sweet potatoes pre-made or whatever it may be, and like just having that prep makes it so much easier. I’m also curious, are there different nutrient needs at different times as well? Like, are there supplements that can be beneficial at certain times, and is it also that we shouldn’t take the same supplements every single day?

Alisa: So that’s interesting because there are micronutrients that are, you know, pretty universally required by the endocrine system to function. So, you know, I think the endocrine system, we want to be supporting that too. So, I would say that yes, nutrient needs do change throughout the cycle, but certain baseline nutrients like B vitamins which are water-soluble, and you need to put that in every day. Magnesium, which is lost daily, again, water-soluble. So some of these very transient micronutrients that we tend to be very deficient in or easily depleted with due to stress, or caffeine intake, or chemical exposure, it is really helpful to keep putting those in on a daily basis, especially if you’re someone who’s dealing with a health issue. Giving yourself that extra boost of certain micronutrients, which I outline in the book can be really, really helpful. But from the food point of view, and taking micronutrients is one thing. Macronutrients, which are these food changes that you make, you know, we’re really talking about, for example, in the ovulatory phase as you know, Katie, because I know you’re a cycle syncer, is that, you know, you’re eating foods that are high in glutathione and in the most bioavailable form. And this is because estrogen is at its peak concentration, that it will be, throughout the cycle, that its most serum concentration that you’ll ever have. And so depending on how your body is functioning, right, if your liver is optimized, for example, for elimination, or if you’re having great bowel movements, or if you’re having constipation, you may be more sensitive to that estrogen, right?

So if you’re breaking out during ovulation, that’s a sign that you’re not metabolizing that estrogen efficiently. But by eating the foods in the ovulatory phase that I’m outlining for you in the book, you’re going to break down that estrogen as quickly as possible because you’re supercharging the liver with glutathione. So that’s a great example of these types of macronutrient and micronutrient intersections that happen throughout the cycle. And I think the more we leverage that like you’re describing in your own experience, you lose weight more easily. You know, you maintain your energy.

And I think this weight loss thing, this is like a personal thing for me because, you know, you know me. I used to be 60 pounds heavier, and I gained quite a bit of weight when I had my pregnancy. And I’ve lost all that without dieting, right. And I love saying that to people because that just doesn’t make any sense given the current cultural narrative about how you’re supposed to lose weight as a woman. You know, actually, it’s not really gender specified, though it should be.

So how men lose weight is just by restricting calories and working out more, but how women lose weight is not by restricting calories. So you actually have to nourish yourself in order for your metabolism to work optimally. And I love that you’ve already seen for your own weight loss journey that you are able to take advantage of that slower metabolic phase, right, the first half of the cycle, the follicular and ovulatory phases to slower metabolism, which, if we listen to the current rhetoric, would mean that you wouldn’t be able to lose weight during that time. But by eating the right way during that time, you do lose weight.

And then instead of eating the same way during the luteal phase, which would if you continue to eat the lower-calorie, let’s say, format in the luteal and menstrual phases, you jack up your cortisol levels, okay, because that creates internal stress on the body to be calorically deprived when you have new caloric requirements. And that cortisol increase signals to your fat cells to stay put, right? So now you’re gaining weight, or at least not losing any weight, and that’s why women feel so frustrated like they can’t lose weight. They’re like, “I don’t get it. I’m depriving myself. I’m counting my calories. I’m doing the same thing each and every day.” But if you do do it each and every day, you’re actually, again, disrupting your hormones, disrupting the infradian rhythm, and you’ll end up either, at best, not losing any weight or, at worst, gaining weight. And this also has big implications when we start talking about fitness as well.

Katie: That makes sense. And I want to…let’s jump into fitness in just a second. But to reiterate what you said as well, that was the other really staggering thing for me. I think there’s, especially for women, that we often underestimate how much the emotional and mental side really is important for stress, and for weight loss, and for everything. And I know that’s an area I fought for a lot of years. And when I finally addressed that, it was like my relationship with food entirely changed. And I was able to lose weight without dieting, without really changing my diet or exercise at all.

I think there was such a shift in my stress response, and so I think that’s another issue. I always say to women, like that’s really worth looking at, whether it’s therapy, whatever your process is going to be. That was hugely pivotal for me. And I want to talk about fitness too because I’m really curious now. So you said men have this 24-hour cycle, and they’re better to train in the morning. For women, are there times of the month that we should maybe look at different types of training that can really line up with our biology?

Alisa: You bet. In fact, not only is this like…And, by the way, this is like not just a nice idea or like, “Oh, this would be fun to try.” This is a must-do. Like just as much as we now know disrupting the circadian rhythm causes disease, disrupting your infradian rhythm really messes with your health. And so much so that the U.S. women’s soccer team is cycle syncing and training their athletes based on this methodology because they understand that there are metabolic changes and, you know, fitness requirements of the body that really affect performance as it goes throughout the cycle.

So what that means is in the first half of your cycle, let’s say you want to put on some lean muscle and lose some body fat, like who doesn’t want to do that right? And that’s just good for all-around well being. The way you want to accomplish that in the first half of your cycle is with cardio-based exercise, and then high-intensity interval training. However, if you were to continue to do the cardio and the high-intensity interval training, which, by the way, is kind of what we’re told to do every day, right? Like, I mean, think of any workout slogan like Nike, like “Just do it.” Push yourself. Don’t quit. Just commit. No pain, no gain, right, all of this like… Just even if you don’t want to, you should keep trying to do the same thing every day. That’s really good for guys, really bad for you. Because if you do cardio and high-intensity interval training in the luteal and menstrual phases, you turn on fat storage and turn on muscle wasting.

So, here you are. And I discovered this years ago in my practice because I routinely be like, 15 years ago, there was this trend for people to get fit by training for a triathlon, even if they weren’t like athletes. They just used it as an excuse to get in shape. And I had many, many clients coming in to see me say, you know, “Gee, I don’t understand what’s happening. I’m running five miles every day, I’m swimming, you know, four times a week,” and whatever else they were doing, “and I’m eating what I’m supposed to be eating according to my trainer.” And they’ve put on 20 or 25 pounds at the end of three months. And I, you know, looked into that, and, of course, the answer was very clear, “Because your metabolism changes. And if you do the same physical activity at the same intensity day over day throughout the infradian rhythm, you disrupt it, you increase cortisol, you mess with estrogen levels, and you end up gaining weight. And that’s the fact.”

So if you are somebody who’s been, you know…you know, New Year’s resolutions or you sign up for some online fitness program, and it’s the similar kind of workouts every day, high-intensity interval training, you should expect, at best, not to gain any weight, or sorry, not to lose any weight. But at worst, you’re going to gain some weight. And that’s what’s so frustrating because we’re told the wrong information. We’re told information that’s meant for men or postmenopausal women. And if you’re in your reproductive years, you need the right information. And that’s why I’m so excited about having written this book because it’s finally just clearing this up once and for all.

There is an infradian rhythm, you have to work out differently. First half of the cycle, you’ll do your cardio, you’ll do your high-intensity interval training. Second half of the cycle, you’ll do body resistance or slow strength training with no cardio component. So that could be lifting a heavy set at the gym or in your home gym, that could be just doing push-ups and, you know, squats up against the wall, or that could be doing pilates, or doing, you know, strenuous yoga.

And then in the menstrual phase, it could be walking, it could be just like a yin yoga stretching class, or it could be napping. And I say that, and I know that that might make some you laugh, like, “Oh yeah, I’d love to take a nap during my period.” But actually, depending on your hormonal status quo, meaning if you have hormonal issues, if you’re dealing with elevated levels of cortisol due to, you know, emotional or lifestyle stresses, taking a nap can be hugely restorative and actually boost your metabolism during the menstrual phase. So that is one of the exercises that’s listed in the exercise chart in the book during that phase because it is so beneficial. And it’s so important that I point that out because the truth of the matter is when you work out with your infradian rhythm, you can work out less and get more fit. And you can work out less at the right times, including napping during the menstrual phase and still, at the end of the month, either maintain the weight that you hope to maintain or lose weight if that’s what you’re trying to do.

And, again, having done this myself two times with big numbers, you know, 60 pounds the first time and 40 to 50 pounds the second time with my pregnancy again using this methodology, it’s just so effortless. It’s just so easy. It’s not a push, it’s not forcing. You don’t have to just do it. You don’t have to push yourself. There’s no pain and all the gain that you want. And I think that’s just such a comforting thought because I don’t know about you, but I’m just tired of this idea that you have to work so hard to achieve small results because we’ve been working for these little crumbs with the systems that were designed for men when if we simply use a system that was designed for us, we could really get the gold.

Katie: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I think that’s been a really big shift for me as well, the effortless part of this. My whole adult life, it feels like I fought my body trying to get it to do what I wanted. And then when I finally learned to love and support it, it just naturally started doing those things I had hoped to do all along. It reminds me there’s a beautiful quote online, I’ll have to look up who said it, but it’s basically the idea that, like, “I said to my body, ‘I want to be your friend.’ And it took a deep breath and said, ‘I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.’” And I think that’s what you teach. It’s so beautiful. And you’ve kind of explained the concept of cycle syncing. But for anyone who’s new to this, can you just kind of give us like the really technical definition and what that looks like?

Alisa: Yeah, so I created this term, gosh, many, many years ago now, but it was this idea that once I really understood the infradian rhythm, I wanted to create a term that would help women understand the active part of what it means to connect with that, to support it. And so cycle syncing, syncing your activities, your food, your fitness, your sex drive, your relationships, your career, your parenting styles, all of that can be synchronized with your cyclical changes with these fluctuating hormones, with these four phases of the infradian rhythm. And when you do that, things just get in the flow.

Katie: Makes so much sense.

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Katie: I know it’s not, or I’d love to talk about a little bit like the emotional and stress response side of the cycle as well, and if there are things we can do, A, to optimize those, and, B, like how we can use that to our advantage in relationships.

Alisa: So, you know, you are more sensitive to cortisol in the second half of the cycle, which is why it’s so important to do the right eating to stabilize blood sugar so you’re not, you know, adding the cortisol demand in the second half of the cycle and that, again, you’re doing the right workouts. Doing those two things will decrease your stress levels dramatically in the second half of the cycle. And, by the way, if any of you are struggling with, you know, luteal phase anxiety, or depression, or mood swings, or irritability, again, just doing these first two components of the cycle syncing method with the food and the fitness, you will see enormous impact in a positive way on your mood and your energy levels. And, again, it just it’s remarkable what happens when you start taking care of this biological rhythm.

So I think we have to look at stress as external stress, right, things that are like, I don’t know, the kids are driving you crazy, you’re having friction in your relationship, something is going on that’s stressful at work. And that these are things that involve other people that are outside of your control, and that’s just life, and we all have to learn how to balance our emotional reactivity in those situations, to not take things personally, and to really rise above and figure out how to navigate that with a lot of emotional intelligence. But then there are these types of stressors that can be managed by understanding the infradian rhythm.

So, for example, we just talked about how you can create unnecessary amounts of stress cortisol level in the body by eating and exercising incorrectly during the luteal phase, for example. But you can also have stress created at any point in the cycle by, let’s say, you know, not feeling…and let’s pick career or work, right? So I obviously cycle sync absolutely every area of my life, which I outline in great detail in the book and give you every chart that I created for myself. But in work, for example, because we know the brain changes by 25% over the course of the month, there are certain times that you’re more naturally inclined to do certain activities. You can do anything you want anytime you want, of course, but when you’re in the mood to bake cookies, right, that’s like more fun. But then when you have to make cookies for the class, you know, fundraiser and it’s late at night, you don’t feel like doing it. It’s stressful, right? So that’s a great example of doing things when you’re in the mood to do something. They feel effortless and pleasurable versus pushing yourself to do it when you, you know, don’t really feel like doing it.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could set up your workflow to just kind of always pick the things that you’re naturally in the mood for so everything feels like that joyful, like, “Oh yeah, I’m so happy to be baking these cookies right now, you know? I’m so happy to be working on this marketing copy, or I’m so happy to be doing this report for my boss, or I’m so happy to be doing this customer call because just really my verbal social center is being stimulated right now by my estrogen in my ovulatory phase. This is working for me I’m feeling really good.” It’s so fun since these changes are predictable, and they repeat, you know, every month. You can map out your calendar to optimize your work around this. And, in fact, I put in my own daily planner into the book because…this is another fun funny personal aside.

But years ago, I mean, I was always an eager student, you know, even at a young age, I remember I convinced an employer of mine. I had an internship in high school, I said, “I believe that the key to success is figuring out how to manage your time successfully.” So I convinced them to send me to a time management class, Franklin Covey. And specifically, you know, that’s that whole rhetoric of like, “You gotta sharpen the saw every day and do the same activities and big rocks and the whole thing,” right?

And I had the planner in the analog days, so, you know, it was a big notebook, spiral notebook. And I remember being so excited. I literally was holding this, like, “This is going to, like, change my life.” I filled it out, and, you know, I was, like, really diligent for a week or two and then something changed. I didn’t know what then because I was only in high school, I hadn’t yet done all this work that I now do, and I just felt like I couldn’t do the things that I had mapped out in my calendar. They felt like a burden, and I felt so bad. I felt so self-critical. I said, “Oh my God, I’m so lazy. I’m so undisciplined.” That inner critical voice just started raging, like, “What’s wrong with you?” And I kept trying for several months to just like really stick with whatever it was that I was… Like, every month would start off the same. Like, I’d be, like, “Okay, great. I’m in the zone. I’m doing what I said I was going to do each day,” and then something would change.

I didn’t realize then it was my hormonal brain chemistry was changing. Then I couldn’t follow those same plans in the schedule, and I felt so bad. I literally, after a few months, was so upset about the whole thing. I stopped using that planner. I broke up with time. I stopped wearing a watch. I was like, “That’s it. I’m just never going to be a success because I can’t manage my time.”

Then fast forward years later when I discovered the infradian rhythm, and I create the cycle syncing method, and I start, like, planning all of my work around my biochemical advantages throughout the month for each week. The amount that I could get done in a month astonished me. I mean, I just couldn’t believe it. Because I was enjoying what I was doing. Everything was flowing in terms of my work, and my productivity, and my creativity, and I wasn’t draining my energy, right? We cannot make more time, but we can make more energy. And by working and doing the things that are my natural proclivities based on my infradian rhythm at any given week, I never put myself in the energy hole, right.

Like, you know, when you bake these cookies at 8:00 at night, you don’t really want to do it. You feel exhausted afterwards, and you feel sort of energy hungover the next day. Because we’re not planning our productivity and our creativity around our infradian rhythm, we’re in an energy hangover, in fact, an energy crisis all of the time. And I did say earlier, 90% of moms feel exhausted and to the point where just last year, the World Health Organization made burnout an official medical diagnosis. We’re all working in a way that’s not supporting our infradian rhythm, and that’s really to our detriment.

Katie: It makes so much sense. And I’m so glad that there are people like you out there really breaking this down for women and giving us practical tools, even if the research hasn’t quite caught up to our hormones yet. I think that’s been the lesson for a lot of us. I know it’s part of my story and part of yours as well is that, at the end of the day, we do have to take our health into our own hands. And doctors can be amazing partners, and hopefully, we find some incredible ones to work with. But at the end of the day, we’re the ones responsible for those changes and having tools like this make it so much easier.

And that point we’ve mentioned several times in this interview of just not having to fight your body, that alone is just a complete paradigm shift for women. And so I love that you are spreading the word about this, and I highly recommend your new book. Of course, it will be linked in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm, but any starting advice for women who are listening to this going, “Oh my gosh, yes. I need to do this.” Obviously, get the book but what else? Where can we start?

Alisa: I mean, I think you’ve got to know where you are in your cycle. So like yourself, Katie, if you haven’t downloaded the MyFLO app, that’s a great place to start because it’s going to tell you…it’s the world’s first and only cycle syncing app, of course. I had to build one. So, you know, you’ll know which phase of the cycle you’re in, and it will start to teach you what you need to know about that phase when you go into the cycle syncing section. And it will remind you and send you reminders about, “Okay, you’ve just moved into this phase, you know, you want to think about eating these types of foods, etc.” And we also have content that, you know, you can get more recipes and meal plans, and workout videos, and all of that as well with the cycle syncing membership. So that’s a place where you can get more support. But I would say start with just being aware of where you are in your cycle.

Of course, we didn’t get a chance to talk about, “Well, what if you have hormone problems, or what if you’re on the pill?” And I’ll just quickly say that if you have hormone struggles, you know, I would say, you know, if you have a diagnosed condition like PCOS, or fibroids, or endometriosis, or you have irregular cycles, you do need to do kind of the cleanup work that I describe in my first book, “WomanCode,” to help your body, your endocrine system, let’s say, recalibrate or get back to homeostasis so you can get yourself to a regular cycle so your hormones are giving you the opportunity to have a healthy infradian rhythm.

If you’re on a hormone suppressive birth control, whether that be a pill, or a device, or an insert, unfortunately, then you will not be able to…it kind of really messes with the infradian rhythm, and so you’re not going to have the cycle happening over the 30 days. You’re kind of in this like phaseless no cycle zone, and so you won’t experience these changes. And, of course, I go into detail about what you can do in the book to kind of understand what you need to know about that.

So first things first is just to understand where you are in the cycle, and then pick a lane, right? So there are five different areas in the book that you can start with. You could start with food. You could start with fitness. You could start with the new daily planner, the time and, like, your work, your monthly project list. You could take this into looking at your sex life and relationships, romantic relationship, and you can look at motherhood.

So there are these five charts in the book, then you can just pick one of them and decide that you’re going to just do an experiment for that month. You’re going to just change your food for one month and see how that makes you feel, or you’re just going to do the workouts for a month and see how that makes you feel, and then you start to slowly add, right, because this is really about a system that allows you to really optimize every area of your health and life. So, you can’t expect to make all the changes at once, but you want to build on them over time. And using the charts in the book are really going to help with that. In fact, we also have a great, like a starter, you know, in the flow quick start guide that people are getting when they order the book that’s on the book website. So before the book arrives, you can start to figure out, you know, which life area you want to address, health, work, or relationships, and start to make these changes for that week that you’re waiting for the book to arrive to see how you can apply this in each of these four phases. It’s much easier than you realize once…like, Katie, you’ve been saying, you just start to have that awareness, and then it goes from there.

Katie: I love it. And we might have to do another round one day to address those specific hormone-related, like if you have PCOS, but I love that we covered this for now. And lastly, is there a book or number of books that have really dramatically impacted your life besides obviously your own?

Alisa: Oh, well, yes. There are… I mean, my books are my, like, prized possessions, I would say, and I was really thinking about this. So I think, for me, the very first book that woke me up to the idea that our bodies are special and sacred were “Daughters of the Earth,” which is a book about Native American menstrual rights that I came across as a junior high schooler in my local library, and just something about that was really like a call home in some way. And then Natalie Angier’s book, “Vagina,” hugely eye-opening, and Clarissa Pinkola Estés, “Women who Run with the Wolves.” Also a very game-changing book for me.

Katie: I love it. Those are all great recommendations. I’ll make sure they’re in the show notes as well. But Alisa, thank you so much for your time and being here. I love the education and the work that you do. And I’ll, of course, make sure everything we talked about and a link to our website are in the show notes so you guys can find those if you are walking, or running, or driving while you’re listening to this. But thank you so much for being here.

Alisa: Thanks for having me. It’s always a joy to have a conversation with you about cutting-edge health information.

Katie: I love it. And thanks as always to all of you for listening, for sharing your valuable resource, your time, with both of us. We’re so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama Podcast.”

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/floliving/

[debtfreeinthree]

6 Grocery Saving Tricks That Will Save You Hundreds

Since starting this blog, I’ve also become a financial coach. I help people figure out their goals, determine what they need to do to get there and create a plan for them to follow. I love coaching and motivating people. Personal finance is so taboo that many people don’t know where to go for good advice.

Usually what I do with my coaching clients is have them go over their expenses for a couple months and write down how much they spend. Then, we divide the expenses into categories and see how the math adds up.

Inevitably, they’re surprised by how much they spend. When you bring home $2,000 a month, it’s hard to fathom spending it all. That’s why tracking your expenses is so important – it’s the only way to see where the leaks are in your budget.

A major reason for all those leaks? Grocery shopping.

Why Groceries Matter

There are two types of expenses in your budget – fixed and variable. Fixed expenses stay the same every month; these include your rent, internet bill and car insurance. No matter what happens, your rent will be the same next month and the month after that.

Variable expenses change based on your usage and the time of the year, like utilities, gas and of course, groceries. It’s easy to plan ahead for some variable expenses. For example, the amount of gas I use doesn’t change that much month-to-month. I use budget billing for my heating and electricity, so I get the same bill every month, and I also use an HSA that I contribute to monthly and pay any medical bills out of that.

But groceries? Groceries can fluctuate by as much as $200 a month. I’ve had months where I spent $100 for one person and months where my husband and I dropped $600 on food.

When you’re on a tight budget and are paying off student loans or credit card bills, every extra dollar matters. The less you spend on groceries, the faster you can be debt free.

For most people, groceries are their biggest category after housing, transportation, and insurance, and when you change how much you spend on the biggest category, you see the biggest results.

The Biggest Way to Save on Groceries

Meal Plan Ahead of Time

It won’t surprise you that the biggest way to save on groceries is to meal plan before you shop. Meal planning lets you create meals based on what you already have, so you’re not buying all your ingredients from scratch. For example, if you already have chicken thighs in the freezer, why make spaghetti and meatballs? If you already have green peppers and tortillas, why not make fajitas?

It’s like buying clothes: when I buy a new shirt, I run through what I already own. Will this shirt match any of my pants or skirts? Can I wear it for multiple occasions? If it fails the closet test, I put it back. That’s because if I buy a shirt and don’t have anything to match it with, I won’t be able to wear it or I’ll have to buy a set of pants to match. That’s wasteful and inefficient.

Groceries are the same. Plan your meals around what you already have and then go grocery shopping for the rest. I am really, really bad at meal planning, but my husband is a whiz at it. He can scan through our freezer and quickly decide what kind of meal he can make while not buying a ton of new ingredients.

If you’re more like me, then meal planning is scary, overwhelming and BORING. And when something is overwhelming, I tend to avoid it. That’s why I recommend the $5 Meal Plan Service from my friend Erin Chase. She’s a mom of four boys and has created meal plans where each meal costs less than $2 per person.

&amp;lt;img src=”https://s3.amazonaws.com/5dollarmealplan-affiliate/5DMP-728×90-cheaptastymealplansmadesimple-learnmore.jpg” alt=”See Cheap Tasty Meal Plans!” border=”0″ /&amp;gt;

Even though I’m not a mom, her recipes still work because they’re quick, good and easy-to-understand. Plus, you can customize by specific requests (vegetarian, gluten free, etc) and even type in what you have to get recipe suggestions. Erin also offers slow cooker meals, 20-minute meals and slow-cooker meals – you get 8 total meals for $5 a month.

If you don’t want to pay or are a little more carefree in your meal planning, there’s other sites that can help you, like Foodily. You type in the ingredients you have and the site spits out recipe ideas. I used to use sites like these ALL THE TIME when I lived alone, because I hated spending a lot of money on groceries and I didn’t want to waste the food I already had.

For example, if I have potatoes and carrots chillin’ in my fridge, I can type those ingredients into Foodily and it’ll spit out some recipe ideas. How cool is that? Seriously, this site rocks.

In general, we always decide what to cook based on what we already have, whether that’s something in the fridge, pantry or freezer. Starting there will always be cheaper, more efficient and less wasteful.

  Take Stock of What You Already Have

Unless you regularly cycle through your pantry, you probably have some food you’ve forgotten about. Case in point: in college, I had a bad habit of buying brown sugar. Every time I went to the grocery store, I convinced myself that I didn’t have any brown sugar at home, so I’d buy a box. At the end of the semester, I had five boxes of brown sugar that had gone stale.

Before you go to the grocery store, take stock of what you already have. Why? Because today I accidentally found some cous cous in the pantry, enough for at least two meals. I also forgot about some falafels and turkey meatballs I have in the freezer. When you shop on a regular basis, it’s hard to remember if you’ve used up everything from your last visit.

Every time my husband and I get ready to go to Costco, we take a quick scan of our cabinets, so it’s rare we buy something already in our pantry. I don’t have to wonder if we have canned tuna, because I checked the house before I left.

Eat from the Freezer

How often do you look inside the freezer to see what you already have? Seriously. Every time I have to dig around in the freezer for ground beef or leftover pasta sauce, I end finding something I’d forgotten about.

My husband and I freeze a lot of stuff and every couple of weeks, we take a couple days to defrost and eat few meal’s worth of leftovers. It’s not as exciting as a hot meal straight from the stove, but it saves us time and money. Plus, there’s no big pile of dishes to clean up afterwards!

Food stored in the freezer doesn’t go bad as quickly, so it’s easy to forget about it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stored away something only to find it right before I moved out.

Shop with a Plan

Have you ever gone grocery shopping without a list? I once did this at Target. I assumed I’d wander the aisles until I remembered what I needed it. It was a disaster. I tried to walk around each aisle, staring intently at plastic wrap and deli meat and wondering if I needed them.

Never shop without a plan. I try to keep a notepad near the fridge where I can quickly note what I need, so when I do go to the store, I’m only buying the essentials. My husband and I also keep a list of what we buy from Costco so when we go there, we just shop based on what the list says. You can do this using a notetaking app or with a physical list – just try a couple of methods to see what works for you.

Be Wary of Sales

Do you ever notice how excited you get when something is on sale? It’s like I can feel the dopamine rushing to my brain when I see a great deal. “Oh my god, I have to get this – it’s on sale!!” I think to myself.

But sometimes the sales are how I get tricked into buying something I don’t really need.

Once after Thanksgiving, I was visiting my then-boyfriend at Whole Foods, where he worked at the time. He told me I should look around the store for any special deals on Thanksgiving-related foods, since they were heavily discounted. I wandered around until I found frozen turkey legs at a huge discount.

Of course, I didn’t really know what I was going to do with frozen turkey legs. I mean, does anyone actually buy raw turkey outside of Thanksgiving? No, they don’t. That’s why the turkey was on sale. Those frozen turkey legs sat in my freezer for months until I finally tossed them.

Don’t get excited just because something is on sale. If it’s an item you love, like Rocky Road ice cream, sure, stock up on a few. But if it’s something you don’t really care that much about, like turkey legs, let it go. It’s better to spend $20 on your favorite meal than $10 on food you hate.

Find Cheap Recipe Ideas

After I graduated from college, I spent a summer interning at a magazine and working part-time at a call center. My internship was unpaid and since I was trying to be an adult, I promised my parents I’d pay for all my expenses myself. It finally hit me that I had left the comforts of university life for the uncertainty of the real world. To that end, I started really looking at my budget, especially my groceries.

I relied on blogs like Budget Bytes for cheap recipes. Some of them were a miss, but most of them I really liked it. Finding recipes is such a chore, and it can be hard if you don’t want to buy a bunch of expensive spices and ingredients.

  6 Grocery Saving Tricks That Will Save You Hundreds was originally published on Debt Free After Three

[kristinsimmons]

Obsession-Worthy Peanut Butter Cookie Ice Cream

Many years ago, I was reading a blog post by a blogger I’d been following for a while. She wrote about a recent struggle with depression and her honest words made such an impact on me. I remember thinking how brave it was for her to tell her story. While I hated that she was going through it, I also recall feeling comfort in her words because it was another reminder that even those we admire and put on a pedestal are human. I was just like…Wow, it must’ve taken so much for her to share that. At the time, I was early on in my blogging journey, and I told myself that I would always try to share my struggles, just like she did. 

Last week, I gave a speech at the University of Guelph at their Awards of Excellence Gala (you can see some photos in my saved story on Instagram!). In my speech, I shared how I’ve struggled with my mental health, like anxiety, since I was very young and how it’s felt debilitating at certain points in my life. I spoke about how various personal challenges have coincided with a career that’s made me face them head on. The day before the event, I almost decided to scrap my speech and write something that was easier to talk about, but I said screw it and decided to share it. It was my story! Allowing myself to feel shame surrounding my story only gives it power. 

After my speech, a man with a warm smile came up to me, crouched down next to my chair, and thanked me for my speech. He talked about a time in his life when he struggled with his mental health, and we both had tears in our eyes by the end of our conversation. Another man came up later to tell me about his young relative’s struggles. This night was yet another reminder of the power of vulnerability and it left such an impact on me!

It’s been a bit of a strange year for me (one that I can’t believe we’re already half-way through!). I went through an emotional time for the first few months of the year and found myself in a mild depression. I lost joy and passion for so many things. At certain points, I couldn’t even bring myself to get back to messages from friends and family. It makes me emotional just writing about it now because the difficult emotions of that time come back so easily. After suffering in silence for 2 to 3 months, I finally opened up to my friends and family about it and got help. I’ve been in a much better place since the spring. I wanted to be honest about it and to let you know what was going on at the time, but I didn’t feel strong enough to talk about it when I was in the thick of it.  

There’s also been another reason for my absence and this is something that’s much easier to tell you about! I have a third cookbook in the works and I’ve been working on it for about a year and a half now! Okay, okay, I did let this news “slip” in the blog comments a couple times and also in my Instagram DM’s, too, so you may already know. ;) I’ve held off announcing it here because during certain periods, well, I wasn’t even sure if it was going to come to life. When I fell into my depression at the beginning of the year, I lost passion for almost everything. Creativity and motivation aren’t things that can be forced so I just went with the flow and tried to trust that I’d feel myself again.

After working through some things and starting to feel better, it was as if a lightbulb flicked on in my head. I came to life. I was suddenly thrilled at the prospect of creating again. I could not get to work fast enough. And since late winter, I picked up where I left off before January and dove into the work that I love so much. Shortly after, Eric, Nicole, and I started working with our recipe testing group (about 40 incredible testers strong!), and things have been going better than I could’ve imagined. The recipes are so delicious…my testers are telling me it’s my best collection of recipes to date. I’m so proud of it and I’m nearly finished, only about 1 month away from handing in my manuscript. Once my manuscript is in, I’m going to be diving into the food photography, which I’ll be shooting for this 3rd book. I’m a bit nervous at the prospect of shooting 100 photos in 2 months time, but I’ll get there, one day at a time! It will be fun to shift from recipe creation and writing to something so artistic like photography. 

The cookbook is going to focus on something you all have been asking for more and more of over the years, and that’s more dinner and lunch recipes! It’s mostly going to focus on savory recipes, with a dessert chapter, of course (how could I not include a dessert chapter?). It’s going to feature food you’ll want to make for weeknight dinners, weekend meals, portable work/school lunches, and special holidays and occasions. Gah. There are so many gems. It’s slated to be out fall 2020, so not too long to wait (at least in the publishing world, this feels SO soon)!! If there’s anything you’d love to see in the book, please leave a comment below and let me know!! 

Thanks for listening and for your support through the ups and downs of life. I’m so grateful you’re here as I’ve felt like a big ‘ol failure on the blogging front this year. It’s time to shake the guilt and move onward and upward. And if you’re reading this and struggling too, I’m sending you all the love in the world and hope you can find a support system!

This is my first ever vegan ice cream recipe on the blog (can you believe it?!), and oh dear me, it’s one we can’t stop eating. I’ve been in a bit of a vegan ice cream bender since I bought this Cuisinart ice cream machine in the spring. It’s so much easier to use than I thought! Almost too easy. 

Happy Canada Day long weekend to my Canadian Friends! And an early happy 4th of July to my American friends! Have a safe, happy, and delicious weekend, everyone.

5 from 1 reviews

Obsession-Worthy Peanut Butter Cookie Ice Cream

Vegan, gluten-free, oil-free

This is my favourite kind of summer indulgence! My reader-favourite Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies meet my dreamy homemade peanut butter and coconut milk ice cream in this cooling summer treat. Chewy coconut, snappy chocolate chips, and tender bites of soft peanut butter cookies blend perfectly with a creamy vanilla and peanut butter vegan ice cream. If I’d known how simple it was to make my own vegan ice cream (only 5 ingredients!), I would’ve invested in an ice cream machine long ago. Well, I’m making up for lost time now! The peanut butter ice cream is inspired by Cookie + Kate.

Yield 8 (1/2-cup) servings

Prep time 10 Minutes

Cook time 12 Minutes

Chill time overnight (ice cream bowl) + 30 minutes

Total time 22 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 batch Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies, divided

2 (14-ounce/398 mL) cans full-fat coconut milk*

1/2 cup (105 g) natural cane sugar

3 tablespoons (45 mL) smooth natural peanut butter

2 teaspoons (10 mL) pure vanilla extract

1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste

Directions:

Chill the ice cream bowl in the freezer overnight, or for at least 12 hours. This step is very important to ensure the ice cream thickens properly. 

Prepare the Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies. After baking, cool the cookies for 10 to 15 minutes, then transfer each one to a plate. Place in the freezer on a flat surface for a minimum of 25 minutes. As soon as you transfer the cookies to the freezer, get started on the ice cream.

Add the ice cream ingredients (entire cans of coconut milk, sugar, peanut butter, vanilla, and salt) to a blender and blend for about 8 to 10 seconds, until smooth (be sure not to blend longer than 10 seconds, as it may effect the final texture of your ice cream). 

Place the frozen ice cream bowl into the ice cream maker, insert the churning arm, cover with the lid, and turn on the machine (if the instructions for your ice cream maker are different, please follow the directions that came with your machine). Slowly pour the mixture into the bowl as it churns. Churn for about 22 minutes, until the mixture has thickened into a very thin, soft-serve texture. 

Once the cookies have been in the freezer for 25 minutes, chop 6 of the cookies into small, almond-sized chunks. Reserve the remaining 7 cookies, at room temperature, for later.

After 22 minutes of churning, slowly add the chopped cookies, a handful at a time, to the mixture while the machine is still churning. I like to use a fork to gently push the chopped cookies into the ice cream and help it along. Churn another 5 to 8 minutes, until the ice cream has thickened a bit more. It will have a thick, soft-serve texture when ready. There will be some hardened ice cream along the inside of the bowl...I like to think of this as the chef’s extra helping (wink, wink)! Serve immediately, or for a firmer texture, transfer the ice cream to a loaf pan or airtight container and spread out smooth. At this stage, I like to crumble an extra cookie all over the top (and gently push it into the ice cream) to make it look extra-enticing, but this is optional. Cover and freeze for 2 hours for a more traditional ice cream firmness. 

To serve, scoop into bowls or ice cream cones. Or, if you're feeling wild, make ice cream sandwiches with the leftover cookies...oh yea!!

Storage tip: Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for 3 to 4 weeks. Be sure to cover the ice cream with a piece of wrap to prevent freezer burn. To soften, let the container rest on the counter for 20 to 30 minutes before scooping.

Tips:

* The cans of coconut milk do not need to be chilled beforehand.

  Always follow the directions that come with your ice cream maker as there may be slight variations. My churning time is an estimate only; you may find you need more or less time with your machine! Watch closely during the last few minutes of churning. It it still looks too soft, feel free to let it churn a bit longer than the range I provide.

  This is the ice cream maker that I use and love. Pro tip: This machine is a bit noisy once the mixture starts to thicken, so I like to keep the machine in a nearby room with the door closed while it churns (don't worry, my machine doesn't seem too offended and still makes great ice cream!).

  No ice cream maker? No problem! The blended liquid can be poured into popsicle molds for creamy frozen popsicle treats. Simply add the blended liquid to each popsicle mold, leaving at least an inch of room at the top. Now, carefully add some cookie chunks to each, pushing them down slowly into the liquid. If needed, add a bit more liquid to completely fill each mold. Secure the tops and freeze until solid. Run the popsicles under hot water to loosen them from the molds.

Want to torture a person? Give them an ice cream cone on a hot day, and tell them they can’t eat it until you’ve snapped a good pic. bahaha.

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[beccameliora]

Read More Obsession-Worthy Peanut Butter Cookie Ice Cream

The following post Obsession-Worthy Peanut Butter Cookie Ice Cream is republished from Oh She Glows by Angela (Oh She Glows)

Many years ago, I was reading a blog post by a blogger I’d been following for a while. She wrote about a recent struggle with depression and her honest words made such an impact on me. I remember thinking how brave it was for her to tell her story. While I hated that she was going through it, I also recall feeling comfort in her words because it was another reminder that even those we admire and put on a pedestal are human. I was just like…Wow, it must’ve taken so much for her to share that. At the time, I was early on in my blogging journey, and I told myself that I would always try to share my struggles, just like she did. 

Last week, I gave a speech at the University of Guelph at their Awards of Excellence Gala (you can see some photos in my saved story on Instagram!). In my speech, I shared how I’ve struggled with my mental health, like anxiety, since I was very young and how it’s felt debilitating at certain points in my life. I spoke about how various personal challenges have coincided with a career that’s made me face them head on. The day before the event, I almost decided to scrap my speech and write something that was easier to talk about, but I said screw it and decided to share it. It was my story! Allowing myself to feel shame surrounding my story only gives it power. 

After my speech, a man with a warm smile came up to me, crouched down next to my chair, and thanked me for my speech. He talked about a time in his life when he struggled with his mental health, and we both had tears in our eyes by the end of our conversation. Another man came up later to tell me about his young relative’s struggles. This night was yet another reminder of the power of vulnerability and it left such an impact on me!

It’s been a bit of a strange year for me (one that I can’t believe we’re already half-way through!). I went through an emotional time for the first few months of the year and found myself in a mild depression. I lost joy and passion for so many things. At certain points, I couldn’t even bring myself to get back to messages from friends and family. It makes me emotional just writing about it now because the difficult emotions of that time come back so easily. After suffering in silence for 2 to 3 months, I finally opened up to my friends and family about it and got help. I’ve been in a much better place since the spring. I wanted to be honest about it and to let you know what was going on at the time, but I didn’t feel strong enough to talk about it when I was in the thick of it.  

There’s also been another reason for my absence and this is something that’s much easier to tell you about! I have a third cookbook in the works and I’ve been working on it for about a year and a half now! Okay, okay, I did let this news “slip” in the blog comments a couple times and also in my Instagram DM’s, too, so you may already know. ;) I’ve held off announcing it here because during certain periods, well, I wasn’t even sure if it was going to come to life. When I fell into my depression at the beginning of the year, I lost passion for almost everything. Creativity and motivation aren’t things that can be forced so I just went with the flow and tried to trust that I’d feel myself again.

After working through some things and starting to feel better, it was as if a lightbulb flicked on in my head. I came to life. I was suddenly thrilled at the prospect of creating again. I could not get to work fast enough. And since late winter, I picked up where I left off before January and dove into the work that I love so much. Shortly after, Eric, Nicole, and I started working with our recipe testing group (about 40 incredible testers strong!), and things have been going better than I could’ve imagined. The recipes are so delicious…my testers are telling me it’s my best collection of recipes to date. I’m so proud of it and I’m nearly finished, only about 1 month away from handing in my manuscript. Once my manuscript is in, I’m going to be diving into the food photography, which I’ll be shooting for this 3rd book. I’m a bit nervous at the prospect of shooting 100 photos in 2 months time, but I’ll get there, one day at a time! It will be fun to shift from recipe creation and writing to something so artistic like photography. 

The cookbook is going to focus on something you all have been asking for more and more of over the years, and that’s more dinner and lunch recipes! It’s mostly going to focus on savory recipes, with a dessert chapter, of course (how could I not include a dessert chapter?). It’s going to feature food you’ll want to make for weeknight dinners, weekend meals, portable work/school lunches, and special holidays and occasions. Gah. There are so many gems. It’s slated to be out fall 2020, so not too long to wait (at least in the publishing world, this feels SO soon)!! If there’s anything you’d love to see in the book, please leave a comment below and let me know!! 

Thanks for listening and for your support through the ups and downs of life. I’m so grateful you’re here as I’ve felt like a big ‘ol failure on the blogging front this year. It’s time to shake the guilt and move onward and upward. And if you’re reading this and struggling too, I’m sending you all the love in the world and hope you can find a support system!

This is my first ever vegan ice cream recipe on the blog (can you believe it?!), and oh dear me, it’s one we can’t stop eating. I’ve been in a bit of a vegan ice cream bender since I bought this Cuisinart ice cream machine in the spring. It’s so much easier to use than I thought! Almost too easy. 

Happy Canada Day long weekend to my Canadian Friends! And happy 4th of July to my American friends! Have a safe, happy, and delicious weekend, everyone.

Obsession-Worthy Peanut Butter Cookie Ice Cream

Vegan, gluten-free, oil-free

This is my favourite kind of summer indulgence! My reader-favourite Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies meet my dreamy homemade peanut butter and coconut milk ice cream in this cooling summer treat. Chewy coconut, snappy chocolate chips, and tender bites of soft peanut butter cookies blend perfectly with a creamy vanilla and peanut butter vegan ice cream. If I’d known how simple it was to make my own vegan ice cream (only 5 ingredients!), I would’ve invested in an ice cream machine long ago. Well, I’m making up for lost time now! The peanut butter ice cream is inspired by Cookie + Kate.

Yield 8 (1/2-cup) servings

Prep time 10 Minutes

Cook time 12 Minutes

Chill time overnight (ice cream bowl) + 30 minutes

Total time 22 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 batch Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies, divided

2 (14-ounce/398 mL) cans full-fat coconut milk*

1/2 cup (105 g) natural cane sugar

3 tablespoons (45 mL) smooth natural peanut butter

2 teaspoons (10 mL) pure vanilla extract

1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste

Directions:

Chill the ice cream bowl in the freezer overnight, or for at least 12 hours. This step is very important to ensure the ice cream thickens properly. 

Prepare the Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies. After baking, cool the cookies for 10 to 15 minutes, then transfer each one to a plate. Place in the freezer on a flat surface for a minimum of 25 minutes. As soon as you transfer the cookies to the freezer, get started on the ice cream.

Add the ice cream ingredients (entire cans of coconut milk, sugar, peanut butter, vanilla, and salt) to a blender and blend for about 8 to 10 seconds, until smooth (be sure not to blend longer than 10 seconds, as it may effect the final texture of your ice cream). 

Place the frozen ice cream bowl into the ice cream maker, insert the churning arm, cover with the lid, and turn on the machine (if the instructions for your ice cream maker are different, please follow the directions that came with your machine). Slowly pour the mixture into the bowl as it churns. Churn for about 22 minutes, until the mixture has thickened into a very thin, soft-serve texture. 

Once the cookies have been in the freezer for 25 minutes, chop 6 of the cookies into small, almond-sized chunks. Reserve the remaining 7 cookies, at room temperature, for later.

After 22 minutes of churning, slowly add the chopped cookies, a handful at a time, to the mixture while the machine is still churning. I like to use a fork to gently push the chopped cookies into the ice cream and help it along. Churn another 5 to 8 minutes, until the ice cream has thickened a bit more. It will have a thick, soft-serve texture when ready. There will be some hardened ice cream along the inside of the bowl...I like to think of this as the chef’s extra helping (wink, wink)! Serve immediately, or for a firmer texture, transfer the ice cream to a loaf pan or airtight container and spread out smooth. At this stage, I like to crumble an extra cookie all over the top (and gently push it into the ice cream) to make it look extra-enticing, but this is optional. Cover and freeze for 2 hours for a more traditional ice cream firmness. 

To serve, scoop into bowls or ice cream cones. Or, if you're feeling wild, make ice cream sandwiches with the leftover cookies...oh yea!!

Storage tip: Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for 3 to 4 weeks. Be sure to cover the ice cream with a piece of wrap to prevent freezer burn. To soften, let the container rest on the counter for 20 to 30 minutes before scooping.

Tips:

* The cans of coconut milk do not need to be chilled beforehand.

  Always follow the directions that come with your ice cream maker as there may be slight variations. My churning time is an estimate only; you may find you need more or less time with your machine! Watch closely during the last few minutes of churning. It it still looks too soft, feel free to let it churn a bit longer than the range I provide.

  This is the ice cream maker that I use and love. Pro tip: This machine is a bit noisy once the mixture starts to thicken, so I like to keep the machine in a nearby room with the door closed while it churns (don't worry, my machine doesn't seem too offended and still makes great ice cream!).

  No ice cream maker? No problem! The blended liquid can be poured into popsicle molds for creamy frozen popsicle treats. Simply add the blended liquid to each popsicle mold, leaving at least an inch of room at the top. Now, carefully add some cookie chunks to each, pushing them down slowly into the liquid. If needed, add a bit more liquid to completely fill each mold. Secure the tops and freeze until solid. Run the popsicles under hot water to loosen them from the molds.

Want to torture a person? Give them an ice cream cone on a hot day, and tell them they can’t eat it until you’ve snapped a good pic. bahaha.

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© copyright 2019 Oh She Glows. All Rights Reserved.

[susantregre]

Obsession-Worthy Peanut Butter Cookie Ice Cream

Many years ago, I was reading a blog post by a blogger I’d been following for a while. She wrote about a recent struggle with depression and her honest words made such an impact on me. I remember thinking how brave it was for her to tell her story. While I hated that she was going through it, I also recall feeling comfort in her words because it was another reminder that even those we admire and put on a pedestal are human. I was just like…Wow, it must’ve taken so much for her to share that. At the time, I was early on in my blogging journey, and I told myself that I would always try to share my struggles, just like she did. 

Last week, I gave a speech at the University of Guelph at their Awards of Excellence Gala (you can see some photos in my saved story on Instagram!). In my speech, I shared how I’ve struggled with my mental health, like anxiety, since I was very young and how it’s felt debilitating at certain points in my life. I spoke about how various personal challenges have coincided with a career that’s made me face them head on. The day before the event, I almost decided to scrap my speech and write something that was easier to talk about, but I said screw it and decided to share it. It was my story! Allowing myself to feel shame surrounding my story only gives it power. 

After my speech, a man with a warm smile came up to me, crouched down next to my chair, and thanked me for my speech. He talked about a time in his life when he struggled with his mental health, and we both had tears in our eyes by the end of our conversation. Another man came up later to tell me about his young relative’s struggles. This night was yet another reminder of the power of vulnerability and it left such an impact on me!

It’s been a bit of a strange year for me (one that I can’t believe we’re already half-way through!). I went through an emotional time for the first few months of the year and found myself in a mild depression. I lost joy and passion for so many things. At certain points, I couldn’t even bring myself to get back to messages from friends and family. It makes me emotional just writing about it now because the difficult emotions of that time come back so easily. After suffering in silence for 2 to 3 months, I finally opened up to my friends and family about it and got help. I’ve been in a much better place since the spring. I wanted to be honest about it and to let you know what was going on at the time, but I didn’t feel strong enough to talk about it when I was in the thick of it.  

There’s also been another reason for my absence and this is something that’s much easier to tell you about! I have a third cookbook in the works and I’ve been working on it for about a year and a half now! Okay, okay, I did let this news “slip” in the blog comments a couple times and also in my Instagram DM’s, too, so you may already know. ;) I’ve held off announcing it here because during certain periods, well, I wasn’t even sure if it was going to come to life. When I fell into my depression at the beginning of the year, I lost passion for almost everything. Creativity and motivation aren’t things that can be forced so I just went with the flow and tried to trust that I’d feel myself again.

After working through some things and starting to feel better, it was as if a lightbulb flicked on in my head. I came to life. I was suddenly thrilled at the prospect of creating again. I could not get to work fast enough. And since late winter, I picked up where I left off before January and dove into the work that I love so much. Shortly after, Eric, Nicole, and I started working with our recipe testing group (about 40 incredible testers strong!), and things have been going better than I could’ve imagined. The recipes are so delicious…my testers are telling me it’s my best collection of recipes to date. I’m so proud of it and I’m nearly finished, only about 1 month away from handing in my manuscript. Once my manuscript is in, I’m going to be diving into the food photography, which I’ll be shooting for this 3rd book. I’m a bit nervous at the prospect of shooting 100 photos in 2 months time, but I’ll get there, one day at a time! It will be fun to shift from recipe creation and writing to something so artistic like photography. 

The cookbook is going to focus on something you all have been asking for more and more of over the years, and that’s more dinner and lunch recipes! It’s mostly going to focus on savory recipes, with a dessert chapter, of course (how could I not include a dessert chapter?). It’s going to feature food you’ll want to make for weeknight dinners, weekend meals, portable work/school lunches, and special holidays and occasions. Gah. There are so many gems. It’s slated to be out fall 2020, so not too long to wait (at least in the publishing world, this feels SO soon)!! If there’s anything you’d love to see in the book, please leave a comment below and let me know!! 

Thanks for listening and for your support through the ups and downs of life. I’m so grateful you’re here as I’ve felt like a big ‘ol failure on the blogging front this year. It’s time to shake the guilt and move onward and upward. And if you’re reading this and struggling too, I’m sending you all the love in the world and hope you can find a support system!

This is my first ever vegan ice cream recipe on the blog (can you believe it?!), and oh dear me, it’s one we can’t stop eating. I’ve been in a bit of a vegan ice cream bender since I bought this Cuisinart ice cream machine in the spring. It’s so much easier to use than I thought! Almost too easy. 

Happy Canada Day long weekend to my Canadian Friends! And happy 4th of July to my American friends! Have a safe, happy, and delicious weekend, everyone.

Obsession-Worthy Peanut Butter Cookie Ice Cream

Vegan, gluten-free, oil-free

This is my favourite kind of summer indulgence! My reader-favourite Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies meet my dreamy homemade peanut butter and coconut milk ice cream in this cooling summer treat. Chewy coconut, snappy chocolate chips, and tender bites of soft peanut butter cookies blend perfectly with a creamy vanilla and peanut butter vegan ice cream. If I’d known how simple it was to make my own vegan ice cream (only 5 ingredients!), I would’ve invested in an ice cream machine long ago. Well, I’m making up for lost time now! The peanut butter ice cream is inspired by Cookie + Kate.

Yield 8 (1/2-cup) servings

Prep time 10 Minutes

Cook time 12 Minutes

Chill time overnight (ice cream bowl) + 30 minutes

Total time 22 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 batch Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies, divided

2 (14-ounce/398 mL) cans full-fat coconut milk*

1/2 cup (105 g) natural cane sugar

3 tablespoons (45 mL) smooth natural peanut butter

2 teaspoons (10 mL) pure vanilla extract

1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste

Directions:

Chill the ice cream bowl in the freezer overnight, or for at least 12 hours. This step is very important to ensure the ice cream thickens properly. 

Prepare the Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies. After baking, cool the cookies for 10 to 15 minutes, then transfer each one to a plate. Place in the freezer on a flat surface for a minimum of 25 minutes. As soon as you transfer the cookies to the freezer, get started on the ice cream.

Add the ice cream ingredients (entire cans of coconut milk, sugar, peanut butter, vanilla, and salt) to a blender and blend for about 8 to 10 seconds, until smooth (be sure not to blend longer than 10 seconds, as it may effect the final texture of your ice cream). 

Place the frozen ice cream bowl into the ice cream maker, insert the churning arm, cover with the lid, and turn on the machine (if the instructions for your ice cream maker are different, please follow the directions that came with your machine). Slowly pour the mixture into the bowl as it churns. Churn for about 22 minutes, until the mixture has thickened into a very thin, soft-serve texture. 

Once the cookies have been in the freezer for 25 minutes, chop 6 of the cookies into small, almond-sized chunks. Reserve the remaining 7 cookies, at room temperature, for later.

After 22 minutes of churning, slowly add the chopped cookies, a handful at a time, to the mixture while the machine is still churning. I like to use a fork to gently push the chopped cookies into the ice cream and help it along. Churn another 5 to 8 minutes, until the ice cream has thickened a bit more. It will have a thick, soft-serve texture when ready. There will be some hardened ice cream along the inside of the bowl...I like to think of this as the chef’s extra helping (wink, wink)! Serve immediately, or for a firmer texture, transfer the ice cream to a loaf pan or airtight container and spread out smooth. At this stage, I like to crumble an extra cookie all over the top (and gently push it into the ice cream) to make it look extra-enticing, but this is optional. Cover and freeze for 2 hours for a more traditional ice cream firmness. 

To serve, scoop into bowls or ice cream cones. Or, if you're feeling wild, make ice cream sandwiches with the leftover cookies...oh yea!!

Storage tip: Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for 3 to 4 weeks. Be sure to cover the ice cream with a piece of wrap to prevent freezer burn. To soften, let the container rest on the counter for 20 to 30 minutes before scooping.

Tips:

* The cans of coconut milk do not need to be chilled beforehand.

  Always follow the directions that come with your ice cream maker as there may be slight variations. My churning time is an estimate only; you may find you need more or less time with your machine! Watch closely during the last few minutes of churning. It it still looks too soft, feel free to let it churn a bit longer than the range I provide.

  This is the ice cream maker that I use and love. Pro tip: This machine is a bit noisy once the mixture starts to thicken, so I like to keep the machine in a nearby room with the door closed while it churns (don't worry, my machine doesn't seem too offended and still makes great ice cream!).

  No ice cream maker? No problem! The blended liquid can be poured into popsicle molds for creamy frozen popsicle treats. Simply add the blended liquid to each popsicle mold, leaving at least an inch of room at the top. Now, carefully add some cookie chunks to each, pushing them down slowly into the liquid. If needed, add a bit more liquid to completely fill each mold. Secure the tops and freeze until solid. Run the popsicles under hot water to loosen them from the molds.

Want to torture a person? Give them an ice cream cone on a hot day, and tell them they can’t eat it until you’ve snapped a good pic. bahaha.

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[recentanimenews]

Cooking With Anime: April Fool's Onigiri from Food Wars!

  It's my favorite time of the year: April Fool's! Last year we made the mighty WcDonald's burger, and this year I really really really REALLY want you to make these Russian Roulette onigiri. They're multi-effective. Use them to trick your friends—you can pretend you made some delicious onigiri to share with everyone and then watch and laugh as they run, screaming, to vomit in the sink (no, of COURSE this didn't happen to ME, you fools, I am STRONGER than other mortals!). Or you can play a good, old-fashioned Russian Roulette, where you take turns picking mystery onigiri and celebrating, or lamenting, depending on what you choose. 

    The inspiration here comes from Food Wars!, and Soma and his father's truly horrendous creations—peanut butter squid and strawberry jam sardines. I thought it would be fun to turn these into onigiri fillings and see what happened and boy oh boy....well...just watch the video below. It isn't pretty.

      On the other hand, I felt we needed one great onigiri, to truly offset the misery of the other two fillings, and Megumi's pure and beautiful creations came to mind. Among other flavors, she has a delightful garlic pork recipe that looked truly captivating. I thought it would be fairly straightforward to make, and the recipe I came up with is just that—it took me less than ten minutes to throw together, is really tasty, and is gluten-free, to boot! If you take nothing else away from this article, I hope it's the recipe for the garlic pork, because it's really excellent. Megumi knew what was up when she made this for everyone at Polar Star dormitory. 

    In any case, I hope you enjoy this recipe! It's fun to try the different food combinations, even if they are mostly horrible. In the video below, you can see our reaction to the onigiri and get a sense for yourself exactly what we sacrificed to try them for you. Have a happy April Fool's Day!

  Watch the video below for step-by-step instructions!

      Ingredients for April Fool's Onigiri

  Garlic Pork

-1/2 lb pork belly, cut into small pieces

-2 tbsp minced garlic

-2 tbsp sake + 2 tbsp sake

-2 tsp awase miso

-1 tbsp honey

-salt

Peanut Butter Squid

-2 tbsp peanut butter

-2 tbsp chopped salted squid

  Strawberry Sardine

-2 tbsp strawberry jam

-2-3 tbsp chopped sardines

  -You will also need freshly cooked rice and nori sheets for wrapping the onigiri.

    To Make the Onigiri

  1. Start your rice cooking so it's nice and hot by the time you're ready to make your onigiri.

  2. In a medium pan, dump in your pork belly. Cook until browned, and season with salt. Remove from the pan and set aside, leaving the drippings in. Sautee garlic briefly, until fragrant, then deglaze the pan with 2 tbsp sake. With a wooden spoon, scrape up any brown bits. Then, add in miso and honey, stirring and mashing until it all comes together. Add more sake as necessary to loosen up the glaze. Then, toss pork belly back in, toss to coat, and remove from heat and set aside. 

  3. Mix strawberry jam and chopped sardines together. Set aside. Do the same for the peanut butter and squid. 

  4. Form your onigiri! I made two of each. Use a mold, fill halfway with rice, and make a circle in each for the filling. Pack with more rice, and squish together. Use a nori stip to make a little handhold for the onigiri, and set on a plate. 

  5. Scramble the onigiri on the plate, and play a little game of Russian Roulette with your friends! Or pack a ~special~ lunch for your kids. Or leave these out for a co-worker to find!

    I hope you enjoyed this post! Check in next week for another recipe, and to check out more anime food recipes, visit my blog. If you have any questions or comments, leave them below! I recently got a Twitter, so you can follow me at @yumpenguinsnack if you would like, and DEFINITELY feel free to send me food requests! My Tumblr is yumpenguinsnacks.tumblr.com. Find me on Youtube for more video tutorials! Enjoy the food, and if you decide to recreate this dish, show me pics! :D

  What other famous anime dishes would you like to see Emily make on COOKING WITH ANIME? Let us know in the comments!

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[derrickappleus]

21 Healthy Family Instant Pot Recipes

It’s so difficult to find healthy meals that the whole family will enjoy. I mean, now that I think about it, it’s actually pretty hard to find healthy recipes that don’t require hours of work in the kitchen. Every once in a while, I’ll find a dish that my entire family loves but it might take three hours to make! I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time for that. That’s why I wanted to share these 21 healthy family Instant Pot recipes. They’re quick, they’re easy, and they’re kid approved!

The Instant Pot has found a special place in my heart. It really brings out the flavors of different ingredients, it’s super easy to use, and it literally does the cooking for me. On top of all those amazing qualities, my Instant Pot is also a magical device. I know, I know: that sounds crazy. But there’s just no other explanation for how these 21 healthy family Instant Pot recipes please every single member of my family. Talk about amazing!

If you don’t believe me, grab your Instant Pot and get to cooking the recipes below. You’ll be amazed at how much they please everyone (including your kids).

1. Easy Instant Pot Jambalaya

It’s truly incredible how quickly the flavors come together in this recipe (thank you, Instant Pot!). This is a perfect weeknight dinner recipe because it’s ready in only 30 minutes. Seafood-loving families will really dig this recipe, too, because the shrimp really pops in this meal!

2. Instant Pot Cajun Chicken Pasta

My family and I love Cajun pasta, but it’s not easy to find a good healthy recipe. This meal by Lexi’s Clean Kitchen is healthy and deliciously creamy. In fact, it’s so yummy that it’s hard to believe that all the ingredients are totally clean and it takes less than 20 minutes to make.

3. Low Carb Corned Beef and Cabbage

 The creator of this recipe, Sugar-Free Mom, is notorious for making meals that the entire family loves. That being said, you can trust that this is one of those healthy family Instant Pot recipes that’s a total crowd pleaser. Whether it’s St. Patrick’s Day or not, your family will thank you for making this corned beef and cabbage recipe.

4. Instant Pot Minestrone Soup

This soup recipe by Pinch of Yum is a perfect, warm bowl of tasty ingredients that fits the bill on a chilly winter night. It’s especially great for snow days! Enjoy this as a healthy dinner after a full day of playing out in the snow with the family, making snowmen, and having snow ball fights.

5. Instant Pot Loaded Baked Sweet Potato

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like baked potatoes. I mean, what’s not to like about them (except that they’re usually unhealthy)? Thanks to this SkinnyMs recipe, you can have a guilt-free baked potato because it’s made using only healthy ingredients. Since it’s just as delicious as the typical baked potato, everyone in the family will love it.

6. Instant Pot BBQ Pulled Pork

Smoky, savory, and super tender: this Instant Pot recipe will not disappoint you or your family. It only requires a handful of ingredients and it can be served however you like. I love making this pulled pork by Gimme Some Oven, buying some whole grain buns, and serving it up as a sandwich.

7. Healthy Chocolate Steel Cut Oats

If you thought that your Instant Pot could only be put to use for dinner recipes, boy were you wrong! This breakfast recipe by A Virtual Vegan proves that breakfast and Instant Pots go hand-in-hand. Since it involves chocolate, you better believe that this is one of those healthy family Instant Pot recipes that the whole family will love!

8. Chai-Spiced Instant Pot Applesauce

As it turns out, not all store-bought applesauce is actually healthy for you. Fortunately, Oh My Veggies makes a healthy applesauce using pears, apples, and a ton of tasty spices. It’s easy to make in the Instant Pot and it’s the perfect snack or dessert for the whole family!

If you’re looking for an Instant Pot applesauce recipe that sticks to using apples as the only fruit, try our Instant Pot Applesauce!

9. 5-Ingredient Instant Pot Mac and Cheese

We’re talking about healthy family Instant Pot recipes, which means that including mac and cheese on this list is a must! When it’s as healthy as our SkinnyMs recipe, it truly is perfect for the whole family – kids and adults alike.

10. Quick & Easy Lo Mein Recipe

This Instant Pot recipe by Simple Healthy Kitchen is one of my favorites. It’s the perfect healthy option when the family is craving Chinese food! Plus, it’s customizable and can be ready in just 15 short minutes.

11. Instant Pot Potato Salad

If you’re looking for something healthier to bring to your next summer BBQ, Fit Foodie Finds has your back with this Instant Pot recipe. She turned a summertime favorite into a healthy choice by swapping out unhealthy ingredients. Instead, this recipe uses nutrient-dense choices like:

Greek yogurt

Apple cider vinegar

Fresh lemon juice

Green onion

This recipe was a hit at my last family BBQ!

12. Instant Pot Classic Hummus

All I have to say about this Instant Pot recipe by A Pinch of Healthy is “WOW!” I had no idea that you could make hummus using an Instant Pot, and now I plan on doing it all the time. My entire family loved this dish when I made it as an appetizer last week.

For more healthy hummus recipes, check out our White Bean & Herb Hummus, Avocado Hummus, and Roasted Red Pepper Hummus.

13. Instant Pot Chunky Beef Stew

If your family prefers to warm up with meat, this SkinnyMs recipe is for you. Thanks to the beef, one serving has 23 grams of protein. And, because it has an abundance of veggies, you’ll get tons of vitamins with this recipe, too.

14. Instant Pot Refried Beans

Laa Loosh loves creating healthy family Instant Pot recipes, and I am so glad she does! With healthy ingredients like pinto beans and cumin, you can’t go wrong with this side dish. Especially because it tastes so delicious, too!

15. Instant Pot Chickpeas

Chickpeas are one of my favorite foods for multiple reasons. They’re a great source of plant-based protein, they’re yummy, and they make a great healthy side dish for just about any meal. If you’re not so sure, try out this Instant Pot recipe by Healthy Nibbles and Bits and see what the family thinks.

16. 15 Minute Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes

In my house, the family breaks out into song and dance when I say that mashed potatoes are going to be on the dinner table. “Monster Mash” just starts coming out of everyone’s mouths and that’s the end of it. The kitchen turns into a Broadway stage right before my eyes!

If you and your family feel as strongly about mashed potatoes as we do, you need to try this recipe by Delish Knowledge. It’s one of my favorite healthy family Instant Pot recipes.

17. Instant Pot Asian Sticky Rice

This is such a great recipe because it gives the family a reason to try to use chopsticks. Talk about a fun – and yummy – healthy dinner option!

18. Instant Pot Spaghetti

Get your Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene on with this yummy meal! Cooking Classy found a way to take spaghetti and turn it into one of our favorite healthy family Instant Pot recipes.

19. Instant Pot Butter Chicken

This recipe from Well Plated has all of the warming, heart-throbbing qualities of a typical butter chicken recipe. But, this version is so much healthier. She even gives you the option to use coconut oil instead of unsalted butter for those who are dairy-free! The whole family will love this flavorful Instant Pot meal.

20. Instant Pot Vegetarian Chili with Summer Vegetables

She Likes Food is the recipe developer behind one of my favorite delicious and healthy family Instant Pot recipes. This Instant Pot Vegetarian Chili with Summer Vegetables is enjoyable to a wide range of people because it’s:

Dairy-free

Gluten-free

Vegetarian

Vegan

It’s great for all members of the family regardless of your diet!

21. Instant Pot Corn on the Cob with Chipotle Sauce

I’m ending this list of 21 Healthy Family Instant Pot Recipes with the ultimate summer side dish: our SkinnyMs Instant Pot Corn on the Cob with Chipotle Sauce. Would a summer dinner really be complete without corn on the cob? In my family, the answer is “no!” This healthy and easy version really completes a summertime meal.

This list may be over, but your Instant Pot journey is just beginning! With these healthy family Instant Pot recipes, you now have the opportunity to spread the love and deliciousness in a quick-and-easy way. Your family is sure to thank you for it.

For more amazing recipes, check out our Facebook page, and follow us on Instagram and Pinterest.

The post 21 Healthy Family Instant Pot Recipes appeared first on Skinny Ms..

source https://skinnyms.com/healthy-family-instant-pot-recipes/ source https://skinnymscom.blogspot.com/2018/08/21-healthy-family-instant-pot-recipes.html

[lewishamledger]

Pride and Joy

Joy’s Health Sanctuary has been spreading goodness in the Catford community and beyond since it opened in February last year. We met owner Joy Thompson and her two daughters at their health food hub

Words: Rosario Blue; Photo: Lima Charlie 

Nestled snugly between La Ciabatta and The After-School Club on Catford’s Rushey Green, you could miss Joy’s Health Sanctuary if you weren’t looking.

Arriving at the small but perfectly formed shop, I am met with a warm, welcoming energy and beaming smiles from a team of glowing and busy women, who are hard at work serving a queue of appreciative customers.

Joy’s Health Sanctuary is run by three enterprising women, all from the same family and each with a shared goal: to promote and nurture healthy living. Joy Thompson is the owner and her daughter Karlene Davis is her business partner (she cooks, too). Joy’s older daughter Katrina Thompson is a nutritional therapist.  

What turned into Joy’s Health Sanctuary began while Joy was working for the NHS. “I used to bring in all my fresh juices, my cakes,” she explains. “I used to hand it all to my friends and they really enjoyed it.

“People got to hear about it and then friends and colleagues were putting in their orders. Every Monday I would bring their orders in, run around to different departments and hand out my cakes and my juices. From there I thought, ‘I could do this as a business.’ So I started looking for somewhere.”

Her first “somewhere” was Elephant and Castle Market. “On the market it was good,” says Joy, “but it wasn’t easy to work there during the winter months.” As a result she decided to find herself a shop.

“The reason I chose Catford was my three daughters – they all live in Catford,” she says. “I found this little shop. It wasn’t the size I really wanted but you know what, sometimes the universe gives you things you can handle. The only downfall is that we have grown out of the space.”

Katrina teaches nutrition, offering various programmes designed to suit a range of people and keep them engaged.

“You have to work at their pace,” she says of the role. “Because a lot of times they know they need extra help, but there can be resistance. You know, ‘I have to give up this, I have to give up that.’”

Katrina says that encouraging customers to improve their health is all about baby steps – and a positive attitude. “I’ll say, ‘Don’t focus on what you’re giving up. Focus on what you’re going to have now and what you can enjoy, and think of these foods as being healing.’

“You just start with something where they can go away and feel like, ‘Yeah, I can do that’ and then they can make that into a habit and move on to the next thing, rather than giving them so many things they’ve got to do so they become overwhelmed and don’t do anything.”

Joy’s offers a range of juice cleanses, where customers receive a pre- and post-cleanse support guide, five cold-pressed juices and aloe vera shots, a juice plan, juice recipes and a consultation.

With three, five and seven day options available, the cleanses promise to boost energy, regulate blood sugar levels and bolster the immune system. All the juices can be collected from the shop, making the process as easy as possible.

Every Thursday or Friday, Karlene makes healthy vegan ready meals that customers can pick up pre-cooked for lunch or a lazy but super-healthy dinner. She is also working on her own hair care range.

“Karlene, she does the food and she does a brilliant curry – organic brown basmati rice with butter bean, sweet potato and spinach,” says Joy. “It’s all vegan, it’s all healthy and it’s all organic.”

There’s even vegan cake on offer, with no sugar, dairy or gluten but with a taste as sweet and soft as an average waist-attacking cake. Favourites include a pineapple variety made with spelt flour and coconut oil.

In addition, the shop sells healthy fruit juice, dairy smoothies and protein shakes. The smoothies are blessed by the gods. They come in an array of mixed fruit and natural herb flavours, with various health benefits to match.  

The Joy’s Green Special option, for example, is made with fresh coconut water, kale, cucumber, celery, kiwi, moringa, lime and mixed greens such as chlorella, barley grass, wheatgrass and spirulina.

The incredibly tasty callaloo patty, meanwhile, is not just a show of talent; it is also evidence that meat-free doesn’t have to mean fun-free. It is proof that anyone struggling to live the meat- and dairy-free life could do it with ease and enjoy themselves while doing so.

What’s so great about Joy’s Health Sanctuary is that it helps to promote healthy living in a way that doesn’t feel like doom and gloom. Joy and her daughters are happy to talk in detail about their products but also encourage all their customers to do their own research first.

Speaking about the importance of letting customers be in control of their choices and decisions, Joy says: “You’ll get customers come; I say the first thing they need to do is have a good cleanse.

“I don’t say, ‘OK, buy this, buy that off the shelf’; I say, ‘Do your research, have a good cleanse and then come back and then, you know, if anything, I will link them up with Katrina to help them on that healthy path.”

As we chat, there is rarely a moment for Joy, Katrina and Karlene to pause for breath – the shop is a hive of activity and all hands are truly on deck.

Customers are never left aimlessly searching for products; they are immediately attended to. If they weren’t, there would quite easily be a queue leading out the door, given the number of people passing through.

Since the business has clearly proven a hit since it opened last year, has Joy thought about expanding? “That’s been my dream from day one,” she says. “When I got the shop, my girls were saying to me, ‘Oh Mum, it’s too small, it’s too small’.

“They said it was too small for what I wanted it for, because initially I always wanted to have a space where customers could actually come and sit down, relax and have a nice healthy meal.”

Joy’s vision for the business includes a wellbeing centre fronted by Katrina. “I also want space for Katrina to have her office, because she’s a nutritionist. Customers could come in and have their consultation with her.

“There could also be a treatment room where they can come and have a nice massage or a facial and then go upstairs, order a nice healthy meal and a juice and sit down and just chill out. That’s my dream.”

If the business were to expand, there’s no doubt that Joy and her daughters would have plenty of support from their customers, who include both Catford residents and workers and others from further afield.  

A quick glance at the shop’s reviews online reveals a multitude of happy shoppers, including Maya Matanah, who said: “Thank you all at Joy’s Health Sanctuary for sharing such love as you provide goodness in the community.”

Another fan of Joy’s, Sabena Malik, said: “Joy makes her juices with only the best organic ingredients. I’ve always been a bit sceptical about vegetable juice but Joy made me her special and I absolutely loved it.

“I got so many tips on juicing and inner health too. Joy also sells organic health food from all over the world. I travelled 1.5 hours to get to Joy’s Health Sanctuary, so worth the trip. Love a family business with a personal touch.”

A third, Dorothy Norris, added: “I love this place – I love the atmosphere, the warmth, the laughter, the shared knowledge, the smoothies – and I love that anything you buy here is healthy.”

Johnson Olaniyan described the shop as “a blessing for the Catford community of Lewisham borough”; while Joanne Marrtin said: “The knowledge Joy is happy to share is amazing. Please support this store, it’s a gem we benefit from having in our community, so support.”

Having built up such a loyal clientele, there’s no doubt that Joy’s Health Sanctuary is heading for continued success. They are promoting a lifestyle that is so desperately needed right now; and they are making a difference to people’s lives.

“We have had customers who have come in and bought products from us to help them with whatever issue they have, and they have then come back like a month or so later to say it has actually worked,” Karlene says.

“For instance, we have a lot of elderly people who are coming and saying, ‘I’ve got high blood pressure, how can you help me?’

“We recommend the product, tell them to do their research; they’ll buy whichever products that we may recommend and then they’ll go away and come back and say ‘Oh, I’ve come back for some more. It’s really, really worked.’ So obviously that makes us happy.”

[watsonrodriquezie]

Goodies Against the Grain: Sadie’s Story (and 2 Amazing Recipes) + IG Giveaway

Today’s guest post is offered up by Sadie Radinsky, whom I had the pleasure of chatting with on a recent episode of her podcast, Jump For Joy. I think you’re going to love her story and be inspired by her success—in reclaiming her health and in following her passion. And the recipes she’s serving up? Grok never had it so good. Just in time for Valentine’s Day. Enjoy, everyone! And be sure to check out the giveaway at the end.

Hi, Mark’s Daily Apple! I’m Sadie, a 16-year-old food blogger, Paleo dessert chef and writer. I am so excited to share my health journey with you today, as well as two scrumptious Valentine’s Day treat recipes.

A little background about me: I grew up a vegetarian, with a diet that consisted mainly of whole grain products, beans, veggies, fruit, and the occasional fish. All of this would soon change because at the age of nine, I had to miss six months of school due to health issues. Every day I would wake up with intense stomach pain, fatigue and nausea. Most days it was hard to get out of bed. Pretty fun, right?

My parents knew something was wrong, but they just didn’t know what. My mom took me to countless Eastern and Western doctors, and still… no diagnosis. One day, she had the brilliant idea that I should go gluten-free for a little while and see how it made me feel.

Two months later, I was completely healed.

Food has an immense power on our bodies. As a nine-year-old, it was empowering to see how changing my diet made me a healthy and happy person, free from pain. Oh, but the change did not stop there!

When my family stayed at a farm in Vermont that summer, I tried beef for my first time. This was beef from cattle who had spent their days munching on green grass pastures at the farm. It was then my family realized we could eat meat while still upholding our belief that animals should be raised humanely, in good conditions. Plus, our meal options were rapidly decreasing as gluten-free vegetarians, and my mom needed some darn food to put on the dinner table!

However, there was still a problem: I loved baked goods, but all the gluten-free treats in stores were overly processed and dry. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands! I began making gluten-free dessert recipes that I found online. I soon stumbled upon a Paleo recipe for Sugar Cookies, and I was enthralled; the cookies used nutrient-dense ingredients like coconut and almond. I realized this Paleo diet was the same thing my dad had been so excited about recently! Eventually, I began concocting my own recipes. This led to the creation of my Paleo dessert blog, Goodies Against The Grain, when I was twelve.

Soon, it was not only treats. My family began eating almost completely Paleo, save for some occasional grass-fed butter and cheese. We all felt amazing! Any bellyaches I used to get from rice and corn went completely away.

Now I am an avid runner and yogi with loads of energy and not a stomach ache in sight! Going Paleo truly changed my life.

Along with creating Paleo treats for my blog, I have written articles about teen empowerment and food for Justine, Shape, and Paleo Magazine. I am now writing a healthy lifestyle cookbook for teens (coming soon!). You can also listen to my podcast, Jump For Joy, and the episode I recorded with Mark here. Make sure to follow @goodiesagainstthegrain for more healthy recipes and lifestyle tips!

Oh, one last thing: always remember to treat yourself (literally). I believe you should never deprive yourself of fun desserts just because you’re on a gluten-free, Paleo or Keto diet. That’s why I’ve created some DELICIOUS, chocolaty, healthy recipes for you today! Let’s get into those now…

Red Velvet Raspberry Fudge Bombs

They’re rich, fudgy, raspberry-y and just about the best thing ever. They have a few secret ingredients that you’d be surprised of: avocado and Chocolate Collagen Fuel. Yup, that’s right! These truffles get their smooth texture from avocados, and an extra boost of protein from the collagen. So basically, by eating these treats, you’re making yourself a healthier person! The white chocolate drizzle is totally optional, but I think it adds a romantic flare and amazing flavor.

Makes 12

Ingredients

Fudge:

¾ cup avocado meat (approx. 1½ avocados)

1 cup raw cashews

3 scoops Chocolate Collagen Fuel (or other favorite protein powder)

1 Tablespoon melted coconut oil

2 Tablespoons cacao powder

3½ Tablespoons freeze-dried raspberry powder (see below)*

3 teaspoons granulated monk fruit sweetener**

Coating:

5 Tablespoons freeze-dried raspberry powder*

Drizzle (optional):

¼ cup finely chopped raw cacao butter

3 Tablespoons full-fat coconut milk

1 Tablespoons coconut oil

½ teaspoon granulated monk fruit sweetener**

Directions

1. Using a food processor or high-speed blender, pulse the cashews and coconut oil until smooth. Blend in all the other fudge ingredients until creamy. 2. Scoop mixture into a bowl and freeze for 30 minutes. 3. Meanwhile, for some extra flare, make the drizzle: melt the drizzle ingredients together in a small saucepan over low heat until they’re all combined and smooth. Remove from heat and let cool for at least 10 minutes. 4. Scoop the chilled fudge dough into 12 balls. Roll in the raspberry powder coating and place on a plate. Drizzle the white chocolate coating on top, then serve. 5. Store leftover fudge bombs in the freezer and defrost for 5 minutes before eating.

Notes: *To make raspberry powder, smash the contents of two small bags of freeze-dried raspberries using a mortar + pestle or spice grinder. I used two 1.2 oz bags of freeze-dried raspberries from Trader Joe’s. Then, push the powder through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds. Now, measure the powder for the recipe. **You could also sub maple sugar here, but I cannot guarantee results will be the exact same.

Mini Chocolate Bundt Cakes

Don’t you wish you could enjoy a special Valentine’s day bundt cake while still sticking to your Keto or Paleo diet? Oh, wait… you can! These legit cakes are sweetened with monk fruit, so they don’t have any sugar. Plus, they use avocado oil as a fat, so you’re simultaneously eating chocolate cake while boosting every cell is your body. Pretty rad, if may say so myself! The texture is exactly that of a traditional chocolate cake, so I’m sure you will adore it.

Yields 6 mini bundt cakes (which are quite larger than a normal cupcake).

Ingredients

Wet:

1/3 cup dark chocolate, chopped

4 large eggs

1/3 cup + 2 Tablespoons almond milk

¼ cup + 1 Tablespoon avocado oil (or sub melted butter), plus more for greasing

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Dry:

1½ cups blanched almond flour

3 Tablespoons tapioca starch

2 Tablespoons coconut flour

6 Tablespoons granulated monk fruit sweetener**

¼ cup cacao powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon sea salt

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350° F. Use avocado oil to grease a mini bundt pan (mine had 6 wells) or a muffin tin. 2. Using a double boiler or a small saucepan on low heat, melt the chocolate, then let it cool for 10 minutes. 3. In a stand mixer or using handheld mixer, whisk together the eggs until frothy. Add in the other wet ingredients and mix until smooth. 4. In a separate large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Slowly, whisk the dry into the wet and stir until smooth. 5. Pour the batter evenly into the bundt pan wells. Bake for 20 minutes. Then, let them cool for 30 minutes before flipping the pan over to remove the cakes.

Note: **You could probably substitute coconut sugar here for a non-Keto version, but I haven’t tested it yet.

Now for the Giveaway…

Follow @goodiesagainstthegrain and @marksdailyapple on Instagram. Then comment on my Instagram post with Sadie to share your favorite paleofied treat for a chance to win my entire line of PRIMAL KITCHEN® collagen protein products (U.S. and Canada only). For additional entries, tag friends on Instagram. The winner will be announced February 19th at 10 a.m. PST. Good luck!

Want more Primal recipes? Try the Primal Blueprint Slow Cooker Cookbook for free here.

[cristinajourdanqp]

Goodies Against the Grain: Sadie’s Story (and 2 Amazing Recipes) + IG Giveaway

Today’s guest post is offered up by Sadie Radinsky, whom I had the pleasure of chatting with on a recent episode of her podcast, Jump For Joy. I think you’re going to love her story and be inspired by her success—in reclaiming her health and in following her passion. And the recipes she’s serving up? Grok never had it so good. Just in time for Valentine’s Day. Enjoy, everyone! And be sure to check out the giveaway at the end.

Hi, Mark’s Daily Apple! I’m Sadie, a 16-year-old food blogger, Paleo dessert chef and writer. I am so excited to share my health journey with you today, as well as two scrumptious Valentine’s Day treat recipes.

A little background about me: I grew up a vegetarian, with a diet that consisted mainly of whole grain products, beans, veggies, fruit, and the occasional fish. All of this would soon change because at the age of nine, I had to miss six months of school due to health issues. Every day I would wake up with intense stomach pain, fatigue and nausea. Most days it was hard to get out of bed. Pretty fun, right?

My parents knew something was wrong, but they just didn’t know what. My mom took me to countless Eastern and Western doctors, and still… no diagnosis. One day, she had the brilliant idea that I should go gluten-free for a little while and see how it made me feel.

Two months later, I was completely healed.

Food has an immense power on our bodies. As a nine-year-old, it was empowering to see how changing my diet made me a healthy and happy person, free from pain. Oh, but the change did not stop there!

When my family stayed at a farm in Vermont that summer, I tried beef for my first time. This was beef from cattle who had spent their days munching on green grass pastures at the farm. It was then my family realized we could eat meat while still upholding our belief that animals should be raised humanely, in good conditions. Plus, our meal options were rapidly decreasing as gluten-free vegetarians, and my mom needed some darn food to put on the dinner table!

However, there was still a problem: I loved baked goods, but all the gluten-free treats in stores were overly processed and dry. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands! I began making gluten-free dessert recipes that I found online. I soon stumbled upon a Paleo recipe for Sugar Cookies, and I was enthralled; the cookies used nutrient-dense ingredients like coconut and almond. I realized this Paleo diet was the same thing my dad had been so excited about recently! Eventually, I began concocting my own recipes. This led to the creation of my Paleo dessert blog, Goodies Against The Grain, when I was twelve.

Soon, it was not only treats. My family began eating almost completely Paleo, save for some occasional grass-fed butter and cheese. We all felt amazing! Any bellyaches I used to get from rice and corn went completely away.

Now I am an avid runner and yogi with loads of energy and not a stomach ache in sight! Going Paleo truly changed my life.

Along with creating Paleo treats for my blog, I have written articles about teen empowerment and food for Justine, Shape, and Paleo Magazine. I am now writing a healthy lifestyle cookbook for teens (coming soon!). You can also listen to my podcast, Jump For Joy, and the episode I recorded with Mark here. Make sure to follow @goodiesagainstthegrain for more healthy recipes and lifestyle tips!

Oh, one last thing: always remember to treat yourself (literally). I believe you should never deprive yourself of fun desserts just because you’re on a gluten-free, Paleo or Keto diet. That’s why I’ve created some DELICIOUS, chocolaty, healthy recipes for you today! Let’s get into those now…

Red Velvet Raspberry Fudge Bombs

They’re rich, fudgy, raspberry-y and just about the best thing ever. They have a few secret ingredients that you’d be surprised of: avocado and Chocolate Collagen Fuel. Yup, that’s right! These truffles get their smooth texture from avocados, and an extra boost of protein from the collagen. So basically, by eating these treats, you’re making yourself a healthier person! The white chocolate drizzle is totally optional, but I think it adds a romantic flare and amazing flavor.

Makes 12

Ingredients

Fudge:

¾ cup avocado meat (approx. 1½ avocados)

1 cup raw cashews

3 scoops Chocolate Collagen Fuel (or other favorite protein powder)

1 Tablespoon melted coconut oil

2 Tablespoons cacao powder

3½ Tablespoons freeze-dried raspberry powder (see below)*

3 teaspoons granulated monk fruit sweetener**

Coating:

5 Tablespoons freeze-dried raspberry powder*

Drizzle (optional):

¼ cup finely chopped raw cacao butter

3 Tablespoons full-fat coconut milk

1 Tablespoons coconut oil

½ teaspoon granulated monk fruit sweetener**

Directions

1. Using a food processor or high-speed blender, pulse the cashews and coconut oil until smooth. Blend in all the other fudge ingredients until creamy. 2. Scoop mixture into a bowl and freeze for 30 minutes. 3. Meanwhile, for some extra flare, make the drizzle: melt the drizzle ingredients together in a small saucepan over low heat until they’re all combined and smooth. Remove from heat and let cool for at least 10 minutes. 4. Scoop the chilled fudge dough into 12 balls. Roll in the raspberry powder coating and place on a plate. Drizzle the white chocolate coating on top, then serve. 5. Store leftover fudge bombs in the freezer and defrost for 5 minutes before eating.

Notes: *To make raspberry powder, smash the contents of two small bags of freeze-dried raspberries using a mortar + pestle or spice grinder. I used two 1.2 oz bags of freeze-dried raspberries from Trader Joe’s. Then, push the powder through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds. Now, measure the powder for the recipe. **You could also sub maple sugar here, but I cannot guarantee results will be the exact same.

Mini Chocolate Bundt Cakes

Don’t you wish you could enjoy a special Valentine’s day bundt cake while still sticking to your Keto or Paleo diet? Oh, wait… you can! These legit cakes are sweetened with monk fruit, so they don’t have any sugar. Plus, they use avocado oil as a fat, so you’re simultaneously eating chocolate cake while boosting every cell is your body. Pretty rad, if may say so myself! The texture is exactly that of a traditional chocolate cake, so I’m sure you will adore it.

Yields 6 mini bundt cakes (which are quite larger than a normal cupcake).

Ingredients

Wet:

1/3 cup dark chocolate, chopped

4 large eggs

1/3 cup + 2 Tablespoons almond milk

¼ cup + 1 Tablespoon avocado oil (or sub melted butter), plus more for greasing

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Dry:

1½ cups blanched almond flour

3 Tablespoons tapioca starch

2 Tablespoons coconut flour

6 Tablespoons granulated monk fruit sweetener**

¼ cup cacao powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon sea salt

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350° F. Use avocado oil to grease a mini bundt pan (mine had 6 wells) or a muffin tin. 2. Using a double boiler or a small saucepan on low heat, melt the chocolate, then let it cool for 10 minutes. 3. In a stand mixer or using handheld mixer, whisk together the eggs until frothy. Add in the other wet ingredients and mix until smooth. 4. In a separate large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Slowly, whisk the dry into the wet and stir until smooth. 5. Pour the batter evenly into the bundt pan wells. Bake for 20 minutes. Then, let them cool for 30 minutes before flipping the pan over to remove the cakes.

Note: **You could probably substitute coconut sugar here for a non-Keto version, but I haven’t tested it yet.

Now for the Giveaway…

Follow @goodiesagainstthegrain and @marksdailyapple on Instagram. Then comment on my Instagram post with Sadie to share your favorite paleofied treat for a chance to win my entire line of PRIMAL KITCHEN® collagen protein products (U.S. and Canada only). For additional entries, tag friends on Instagram. The winner will be announced February 19th at 10 a.m. PST. Good luck!

Want more Primal recipes? Try the Primal Blueprint Slow Cooker Cookbook for free here.

[vitalmindandbody]

5 BS Concoction Gwyneth Paltrow And Alex Jones Both Shill

I believe you can tell a lot about a personality by the products they shill. Michael Jordan was some sort of plays guy, so he wanted you to buy hyper-expensive Nike shoes. Jamie Lee Curtis assumes you have trouble shitting, so she developed yogurt. And if Larry the Cable Guy doesn’t feed straight Prilosec, he turns into a Xenomorph. The two luminary endorsers I find the most interesting are Alex Jones and Gwyneth Paltrow. Though they’re about as different as you can possibly get on the surface, both have put together profitable slope business … in a lot of specimen, selling the exact same situations. Jones exchanges( and claims to take) so many augments that I have a theory he’s actually a beanbag chair substance with capsules, while Paltrow is more generally into anything that resonates dumb. But strangely, they do share some common ground. For instance …

5

They Both Crave Your Teenagers To Shut UP FOR FIVE GODDAMN MINUTES

Infowars Sells:

Alex Jones accuses “modern mind control” — which is everything from music to sugar to unspecified globalist brews — on teenagers being unable to focus and pacify the inferno down. Fortunately, he’s here to force-feed your children catnip and lemon ointment in hopes of allowing you precious fucking instants of peacefulnes to scrapbook all of the excellent occasions you’ve had with your them.

In the commercial for Child Ease, Alex Jones ascribes himself with developing it, while also territory, “Young humans has still not developed their nervous system.” Which prepares me wonder his credentials as an inventor of things that go inside a child’s organization. He knows we’re born with nervous system, right? Likewise, saying “young humans” builds him sound like an alien. If you took the Child Ease commercial-grade and had Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama chronicle it, it would prepare infinitely more sense.

Goop Sells:

Chill Child is a “calming mist” which somehow use sonically tuned masterpiece elixirs and Reiki-charged crystals to “get your kiddos to chill.” It may ogle exactly like what you would use to spray irrigate on a feline to get it off your kitchen bar, but you’re not supposed to do now spraying it instantly on small children. And for the love of god do not tell them inhale it, that would be crazy . It goes on their halo. I can only assume that once the child’s halo is sufficiently coated in this mist, it expires, leaving your child an auraless husk and you free to do Pilates.

I’m pretty sure “sonically chanted masterpiece elixirs” is code for some rocks Gwyneth Paltrow sing to. Nonetheless, mining a little deeper, I found that it’s practice dumber than that. Both “moonlight” and “love” are legitimately listed as ingredients. I can’t promotion but consider all this spraying will do is establish hollering sticky children somewhat chamomile-scented, which I suspect is technically further improvements. At least you’ll be allowed to smell them coming, so you have time to hide.

4

They Both Crave You To Experience Big, Meaty Boners

Infowars Sells:

Via Infowars

Super Male Vitality utilizes something announced extraction technology, along with various herbs and removes, to give you a super good boner. Just request Boner King Alex Jones, or this commercial-grade, which features Alex Jones announcing a humanity doing a push-up “unprecedented.”( Something that I premise is 100 percent genuine for Alex Jones .)

You determine, according to Alex Jones, who is to boners what Jesus was to Lazarus, someone is putting “estrogen mimickers” in the nutrient and water supply, who the hell is werewolfing gentlemen into the worst possible thing he can imagine: wives. Simply Alex Jones can save you from this horrible fate. So if you’re afraid your dick will shrivel up and fall off, thus robbing you of the one thing retaining you sane in this mad, effeminate world-wide, turn to Alex Jones for not just sorcery boner-giving liquid, but too magic boner- obstructing liquid. It’s $ 50, and I hope you suffocated on it.

Goop Sells:

Via Goop

Sex Dust sounds like an STD that’s going around a nursing home. Who could think “Sex Dust” is a good name for- oh, anticipate, she appointed her business “Goop.” She appointed one of her children “Apple.” I’m pretty sure Gwyneth doesn’t even register “sex” or “dust” as real words.

Read Next

Why Your Brain Can’t Empathize With Large Tragedies

Goop wants you to put Sex Dust inside your mas. Specifically, you can add it to any red-hot or cold liquid and booze it, but it’s specially good with nut milk. Fucking – god, this writes itself. Goop describes Sex Dust as a “lusty edible formula alchemized to erupt and agitate sex power in and out of the bedroom.” Unlike Super Male Vitality, Sex Dust doesn’t promise to protect you from the terrors of femininity in your lesbian irrigate, but it does have something announced “horny goat weed” in it, which seems like a promising herb for delivering horniness. This is especially true if you happen to be buying this as a goat.

3

They Both Crave You To Be Kept From Invisible Demons

Infowars Sells:

Living Defense claims to offer protection against “invading organisms.” I swear to god I tried to figure out what that symbolizes. I ran deep into the Infowars world, which is just a knot of bunkers full of grey men with giant boners, all crying. Please, Alex Jones, Pied Piper of erectile dysfunction, tell me what the hell this product is for.

What I can tell you for certain is that nine out of ten people are infested with harmful creatures. Destructive organisms can spread during sexual practice. And pets are mostly metropolitans for them. So if you enjoy a happening, it’s probably filled with injurious organisms. No one knows what they are, but Alex Jones damn sure known to be they’re bad. Actually , now that I think about it, it’s probably just a metaphor for his posture on immigration.

Goop Sells:

Man, when you get into a crazy-off with Infowars and prevail , that’s really saying something. Something pathetic. I was certain the most maniac concoction bestow would go to Mr. Jones. Unhappily, Ms. Paltrow, in a last-minute volley of idiocy, secreted psychic ogre repellent. And no, that’s not a restate, parody, or ridicule. That’s literally what it’s called.

The spread wasn’t in her advantage, but she took home the W with a 3.4 oz bottle of pure Reiki-charged insanity. This bottle of sadness sea claims to “banish bad vibes( and shield you from the people who may be causing them ). ” I generally use pepper spray for that, but I’m sure if you got this right into someone’s eyeball, it might protect you from them. Once again, you’re not supposed to spraying this directly on someone else, because also once again, that would be crazy. It goes on your aura. Again.

2

They Crave You To Have A Squeaky-Clean Rectum

Infowars Sells:

Via Infowars

Oxy-Powder is an oxygen-based intestinal disinfectant, which means that if you take it, you’re about to get real acquainted with your porcelain cousin. Which is the nice style of saying “You’re going to shit out your actual soul.” Infowars certainly spells this out for you in the important information region at the bottom of the sheet, territory: “Oxy-Powder will effect runny, gaseous stools. This is no longer clinical diarrhea; it’s the byproduct of oxidation.” So don’t worry, it’s just oxygen vacating out your colon like Godzilla on a sea slide.

Wait, how the blaze does oxygen clean out your colon? According to the chiropractor who shills these super not-FD-Aapproved capsules, it’s “using time-released oxygen through oxidation reduction.” And one thing I heavily agree with is that those are all messages that exist in the English language.

Wait, isn’t that the same guy from the boner capsule commercial-grade? Huh.

Goop Sells:

I’m now a ex-serviceman of the bullshit augment battles, and like the prophecy of Delphi, I can accurately interpret the glittery predicts lovingly dispersed around this product. The ten-day detox supplement kit promises to treat, purge, and repair the gut, increase force, improve climate and sleep, shorten stress, restore glow and vitality to surface and hair, and more. If it shapes me glow, I hope it’s in the dark so I can frighten all my friends.

What it for sure will do is shape you poop your whole butt off. This knowledge came to me as I was reading the advise in the description: “It’s best to start over a weekend so you can get abundance of rest.” The subtext there is that you will need to rest between all of the pooping you will be doing. It will be so much pooping that you are required to hire an extra bottom for all the resting you will need to do between all of the pooping you will definitely be doing. I don’t know who you are we equate pooping a lot with having a health mas, but apparently everyone does. In Goop’s case, beings are willing to pay $169 to achieve what one fried chicken quesadilla from Taco Bell could do for $5.

1

They Require You To Use Vegan Deodorant

Infowars Sells:

If you didn’t just knowing that Infowars was and stumbled into their shop by some inauspicious internet accident, you are able to think it was a website for a health food store in Portland. Who would have believed cruelty-free vegan deodorant would be so important to a humankind who caused the parents of assassinated children to be provoked?

It’s also free of gluten, soy, and dairy, in cases where you want to eat it, I guess? I would fully expect to hear from Goop that you can use “the earth’s mineral crystal be included with natural botanicals” as deodorant. But nope, that’s from Alex Jones. And I think it’s exceptionally important that you understand that I’m not reaching up the “mineral crystal” thing, so here’s the sheet, where you can see it for yourself.

It’s vegan deodorant for everyone who dislikes Muslims but affection swine. You can also get a variety of organic shampoos and soaps from the Infowars shop, so you can get the government out of your gun locker and your grace number!

Goop Sells:

I know Goop isn’t a surprising region to meet vegan disinfectant. It is precisely the kind of commodity I would expect Gwyneth Paltrow to shill. Goop flows on the proposition that the world is a soiled place full of poors, and they are able to cleanse their dreadful aroma away with an $18 rail of charcoal-gray soap motivated by shamans.

This was the make that really hammered residence for me the way both Goop and Infowars tango around FDA regulations. They sell concepts they claim are organic and natural and therefore safer and more efficient than trash like real drug prescribed by real physicians … or merely be convinced to take 30 pills a daylight that aren’t sanctioned by authority oversight. After writing this article, I’ve decided to never eat anything organic for the rest of “peoples lives”. It’s all bullshit. I’m putting nothing but Cheetos, Baja Blast Mountain Dew, and pure plastic in my figure, and I’m going to live to be 100.

You can follow Lydia on Twitter . Almost any multitude of soap and deodorant should fit your needs. Most importantly you won’t have to jeopardy utilizing some expensive fear-based quack concoctions that might as well be peddled by a Batman scoundrel . If you desired this article and crave more content like this, support our locate with a see to our Contribution Page. Or sign up for our Subscription Service for exclusive content, an ad-free know, and more . For more, check out 4 Celebrity Products That Are Proof People Will Buy Anything and 27 Disappointing Ads By Celebrity Who Should Know Better . Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out The 6 Most Surreal Fame Endorsements, and watch other videos you won’t examine on the site !

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