Inside The Polished Apple

Success is all in the preparation.  For this part of the food challenge we have been largely unprepared.  Never mind that my world was tipped upside down from my recent Advanced NSA Seminar, the food challenge must continue!   Day 21- or Day Zero - I delayed the start of this portion of the challenge so that it wouldn't coincide with my day of travel and airports.  Which meant it was a part-Vegan day, a little bit of cheat day, merging into some meat later in the journey.  When I say cheat, all I mean is I had some yogurt with breakfast, had an incredibly stressful morning so barely ate anyways, and then cleaned out the fridge (Vegan) for lunch.  I had my first meat at the airport with a taco salad (yes, I am in the US) and wine-great combo.   Day 22-25 (Days 1-4) I have very little recollection of food this week-Scott has cooked 3 dinners and we also went out for one.  Relatively standard-meat and vegetables, although we are figuring o...

We're continuing our Ten Day food experiment of eating a Vegan Diet. It's already Day 4 of Vegan (Day 14 of the challenge) and it feels like a fail, but we will persevere. Day 14 - I will say that I'm enjoying learning some new recipes, such as variations on the basic soup recipe-here's a cabbage-lentil-loaded soup. I felt the need for dessert so I baked some plums with a nut-fig-flax-hemp topping. Dessert passed the Scarlett test with 2 helpings. Loaded vegan cabbage soup Plum pudding Day 15 - Complete disaster today.  Missing my eggs, I tried to make a frittata out of silken tofu.  Spongiest, greenest, non-eggs, I ever ate a mouth full of.   http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2012/02/fresh-herb-tofu-frittata-with-harissa.html It was green day, as I also made rice pasta with non-meatballs.  I tried them with white beans, spinach, flax, and some misc. items that didn't work out.  It tasted ok, but was very green and was just a bean paste. ...

I'm stretching the truth a little, I am Vegan for 10 days, I am travelling and have to figure out how to eat until the end of this challenge.  I did a poor job at planning this challenge as I am now at a seminar (for NSA chiropractic) until Monday, at which point, I will no longer be vegan!   I am daunted at the thought of eating out for the next few days, so I'm planning ahead.   First I packed: nuts! (cashews, almonds, pecans, and a few seeds thrown in). hemp hearts granola a few tea bags but that has nothing to do with eating Vegan. That was all fine for border crossing, by the way.    Then I bought a few items at the store-would have liked to say it was Whole Foods, but no.  I was shopping for a take-home toy and wandered into the food section.   Some food I bought: Rice crackers Hummous Pears, apples, oranges Applesauce Avocados Sugar snap peas and carrots Almond Milk Almond Butter Prepared 4 Bean Salad (probably not ...

Ten days of eating Vegan are under way.  This is the food experiment I am dreading the most, but I will try my best.   Why am I wanting to try Vegan? Amount of Protein.   I am curious if I am getting too much protein with my usual carnivore diet.  I haven't convinced myself that I will be calculating my daily protein consumption, but maybe this will give my body a break if I am getting too much.  So far, I'm sticking to my grazing-3 meals and 3 snacks a day & will try to balance them all with protein, fats and carbs. Alkaline State.   Vegan diets support your body being in an alkaline state, which is better for us for many reasons and if I find the time that would be a blog post alone.  I threw this comment out to a practice member and she suggested we get some pH strips to measure, so we did.  (Just from our Health Food Store, but apparently you can also get them at Home Care Centres.) Inflammation.   Too much of the wr...

I wish I read Steiner (the founder of the Waldorf schools) but that will be something I save for the future.   In the meanwhile, an NSA chiropractic friend posted this amazing quote from Steiner.  I wanted to share, as I love when my NSA world collides with my Waldorf world.   "To one who is able to behold it rightly, the skeleton reveals its spiritual origin. But one who looks at the skeleton in its present form - I mean in its form as present-day science regards it - is like a person who says: there I have a printed page with the forms of the letters, but does not read their meaning because he is unable to read. He does not relate what is expressed in the forms of the letters to what exists as their real basis; he only describes their shapes. In the same way the present-day anatomist, the present day natural scientist, describes the bones as if they were entirely without meaning. What they really reveal, however, is their origin in the spiritual." Rudolf Stein...

It's on to five days of No-Wheat & No-Added Sugar and it feels like a rest period after the initial cleanse.   Day 6- Reintroduced my regular foods (aside from what I'm avoiding).  It took my stomach and digestive system a couple of hours to think about the omelet that I had for lunch.  Then I probably went overboard and had left overs for dinner-rice pasta, sausage, spinach salad, and a glass of wine.  An hour later and I'm still thinking about it, even though the portion size was easily half what I normally eat.  And I haven't finished that glass of wine and haven't decided what to do with it.   My appetite was reduced today, but I still have good energy.  I'm also craving more vegetables and fruit compared to my norm.   (Later-Threw out the glass of wine-shocking-and experienced a near comatose state after dinner.) But by ... Day 7 - I feel Normal! Days 8-10- It's really not too exciting for these days.  Our office hosted m...

It was probably my lesson not to text (or Facebook) and work out at the gym at the same time.   A few weeks ago, I was at the gym, on my phone, and this woman started complaining along the lines of, " I would sooner be anywhere but here working out.  Its so difficult to make myself come here, but I have to do it.  I can think of ANYWHERE that I'd sooner be."  (yes repeatedly). I realized that she was talking in my direction so I smiled.  I wasn't able to commiserate and I had a dozen ideas floating in my head.   "Why is she talking to me?  And complaining?-do I look like I'm in misery and want to complain too?  Is this how people connect at the gym?  Why is she here if she doesn't want to?  Is her boyfriend (husband) making her do this?  Did her doctor tell her to lose weight?" And then my coaching information kicked in with an immediate, "Isn't she the one that wants to be here?  Isn't this a gym that we walk in t...