Nell Stephenson's Blog, page 37

Healthy Holiday Tip of the Day: Shop Early, Shop Fueled and Shop with a List

How do you feel when you try to squeeze in a trip to the grocery store on the way home from work?   You’re pressed for time, it’s far later than you thought it would be by the time you roll into the parking lot and your kids, who are hungry after swim practice are whining in the back seat.

Not exactly the best circumstance to do an efficiently timed and planned grocery shop.

Compare that to a Saturday morning when the kids are at soccer, you’ve gotten in your morning spin at the gym and have fueled properly afterwards.

The same applies to holiday shopping.

If you try to squeeze in a frantic trip at the last minute, not knowing what you’re getting or where you’re getting it and you’re in a unpleasant, stressed out mood, it’s not going to be pretty.

What’s the solution:

Shop early! Early in the season, and early in the day, if you can.  Less crowds and more time on your hands to make it feel less like a ‘now or never’ endeavor.
Shop fueled!  Do not go in hungry.  Eating a balanced, Paleo meal before you go to elicit a positive mental attitude is definitely in your best interest.  Focus!
Shop with a list!  Know what you’re getting, for whom and from where.  Sure, it’s a lot of fun to peruse the shoe sale or linger at the book store, but you’re on a mission! Save the former two for later.

Now get out there, armed and dangerous, and get that shopping done!

Healthy Holiday Tip of the Day: Plan Your Special Occasion Splurges

Approaching December with the mindset that ‘you’re never eating chocolate again’ if you’re someone who loves chocolate, may not necessarily be your best route.

Similarly, if one of the holiday parties you’re attending is at the house of a friend who happens to have an amazing wine cellar and you’re like I am, and enjoy a beautiful rich glass of Cab now and then, it may behoove you to actually plan to partake.

Yes, you’re reading this correctly.

Here’s the deal:  select the handful of occasions on your calendar for the festive month of December and plan around which will be fitting to have something a bit out of your norm.

That glass of wine as in the situation mentioned above may be just such a case.

The holiday office party, where wine from a box might be served, not so much.

Then, when you’ve determined which will be those special occasions for you, plan around it.  Increase your veggies even more that day, hydrate beyond what you normally do, stay extremely on top of maintaining your blood sugar with healthy proteins, fats and copious amounts of veggies, and steer away from sugar- even fruit. You’ll be getting enough from that wine!

This way, you don’t feel deprived, you stay on track and, by the way, you’re a lot less likely to pack on any holiday pounds!

Back for the 2014 Holiday Season: Your Paleoista Healthy Holiday Tip of the Day

Were you up first thing this morning, rushing out to hit the stores early during the business in-store shopping day of the year?

Did you have a chance to get in a workout first?

Or eat?

Or…breathe?

It’s funny- I’m actually writing this post partly to remind myself to do exactly what I’m going to suggest to you, too: breathe!

Seriously. Slow down and breathe.

It sounds like the simplest thing to do, yet it’s often something we don’t do properly.  We get caught up in the stress of day to day living and end up adapting a very shallow, ineffective, constricting breathing pattern…almost as though we’re wearing a corset!

If you can start tuning into this…now, you’ll not only set yourself up for a more peaceful few weeks leading up to the holidays, you’ll pave the way for a better sense of calm, period!

The easiest thing to do, perhaps, is to take  a simple five minute break to yourself, and focus solely on your breath.  My favorite technique is one I learned from a meditation exercise that came from a sport psychologist I’ve done a great deal of work with:  breathe in for a count of 4, and breathe out for a count of 6.   That’s about 10 breaths/minute.  If you do that for a mere 5 minutes, watch and see if you don’t come away from it feeling just a bit more present and less frenetic.

Laying the foundation for being present, tuning into your body and creating a better sense of inner peace is a key component of a healthy, True Paleo approach to living.  It brings us back to basics in the truest sense and helps offset all those external stressors that are so unPaleo!

Happy Thanksgiving

Good morning, and Happy Thanksgiving to you!

First things first, and this is not a task from the list, but something far more important.  Think about what you’re thankful for.   A loving family?  A roof over your head?  A healthy body?  The ability have the to choice to eat real, healthy fresh foods?

That in and of itself is a lot to be thankful for; I certainly am (and, by the way for all of you who take the time to read what I write and perhaps take away something here or there that resonates…well, I’m very thankful for that, too!)

It’s so easy to get caught up in the countdown to Christmas, the shopping, the festivities and parties to forget to take even a moment to be a bit introspective.

Just a little reminder to take a moment to think about everything in the grand scheme of things.

While you plan your day, keep this in mind and watch to see if the day doesn’t seem just a bit more relaxed and perhaps you feel a little more ‘in the moment’.

For today’s tasks:

Calculate when you’re guests are going to arrive, when you’d like to serve the meal and work backwards to decide when to put the bird in the oven.  (The rule of thumb is that a 10 – 18 bird may need about 3 – 3 1/2 hours to cook, 18-22 about 4 and 22 – 24 up to 4 1/2 (thank you, AllRecipes.Com!).
Also factor in which side dishes may need to be reheated and plan accordingly.
Prepare your fresh salads, as well as any appetizers and hors d’oeuvres.
About half and hour prior to guests arriving, set out the apps to bring them to a slightly less than arctic temperature
Empty the dishwasher so you’re starting with a clean slate
Take a quick five minutes to sit in a quiet place, remember that moment from the morning when you thought about giving thanks, and do it again!

Now, while the morning is still young, go for that hike with your family or a run with your significant other, then come back, put your  and get ready for the day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Only One More Day

It’s nearly here!  Hopefully you’ve kept sane by planning, ticking things off one at a time and working in an orderly manner to keep calm while being super productive.

On the check list for today:

Prepping the bird- as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, if you’re using that 5% margin (or whatever your nonPaleo percentage might be, if at all) to incorporate a not so Paleo food – salt- today’s the day for the brining to begin.   Alternatively, since salt is certainly not a must-do, you can dry rub the bird with your favorite dried spices and herbs to create an equally delicious flavor profile with zero added sodium.
Baking or roasting your sides.  Unless you have a commercial kitchen with two ovens, cooking  the veggies and the bird in very close quarters and hoping they’ll all turn out properly is challenging to say the least.  Use today to roast your sprouts, your root veggie medley and whichever other lovely veggies you’re serving to compliment the piece de resistance.   Bake them, let them cool then place in the fridge to keep tomorrow when all you’ll need to do is warm them  up.
Setting the table…tonight after dinner.  Linens, napkins, place setting, centerpieces… the whole nine yards.  With the dining area ready to receive guests, you’re even further ahead of the game.
Taking care of yourself!  It’s easy to get overly stressed out and skip workouts, go too long without eating and stay up late working on the endless task list.   Move, eat well, hydrate and rest to wake up tomorrow morning excited and ready to host rather than washed out and exhausted.

When tomorrow morning comes, get up and get moving first thing so you can start the festivities with a clear mind and focus completely on running a perfectly orchestrated kitchen while entertaining guests, and even finding some time to enjoy it!

Three Days to Go Until Your Paleo Thanksgiving!

Happy Tuesday morning to you!

What’s up for today?

It’s all about the mise en place!

Setting the table.  (Here’s the caveat: this one likely only applies if you happen to live alone or have kids/spouse/roommate etc. who happens to be very tidy and won’t disrupt it! If that’s not the case, might as well wait until Thursday morning as you may need to do it twice anyway!)
Mise in place – given that tomorrow holds prep for many side dishes one might opt to serve on Thursday, getting all your washing, cutting, chopping, peeling and rinsing out of the way today will save time tomorrow.  Preparing a bounty of minced garlic, chopped onion and celery, peeling your yams, halving and scoring your sprouts and so on will prove to be an immense help tomorrow.  You’ll feel like you’re the host of a cooking show when you see the neatly prepped dishes and bowls of every fresh herb, spice, veggie and fruit in your fridge, ready to go for tomorrow.
Also on the list for today- if you’re going to serve a special occasion, dessert, like my Paleoista pumpkin pie or Paleoista truffles, today’s the day to get that out of the way, too.

Turkey prep will begin tomorrow if you’re going the brining route.   Yes, brining means using salt and no, added salt is not part of a True Paleo diet, however, if you’re so inclined to make this one of those instances categorized as a special occasion, which it certainly is, you may opt to go this route.

Enjoy the day; having a plan in place makes it far less likely to feel so stressed out with prep that you miss out on the fun!

Four Days Until Thanksgiving

What to do today?  By now, your bird has arrived (or at least, is at the store for your pick up!) and you’re finalizing the last details of your menu, making your list, checking it twice (oh, wait that’s next month), doing your shopping and even some preliminary prep.

Each day, I’ll be posting prep tips based on the four day countdown to the big feast.

On the books for today:

Clean out your fridge and kitchen to start with a clean slate prior to stocking up with all the holiday ingredients!  Not sure what to do with all those odds and ends of proteins and veggies?  Perfect occasion for what I call “Refrigerator Surprise“!
Make your shopping list
Grocery shop
Plan your seating chart
Press your table linens
Prepare your homemade cranberry sauce (check out my recipe for a sans-sugar version using fresh cranberries, orange zest and slivered almonds,  in the Paleo Diet Cookbook)
Write out your own to-do list, and make sure you factor in getting a good workout in each morning, especially on the day of. This is not with the intention of creating a caloric deficit to enable a gorge later in the day; rather, to keep your head clear and focused during each of these upcoming hectic days!

Check in tomorrow for what’s up next!   Even if you’re fitting this all in late in the evening after a long day at work, it’s just for this one week and you’ll feel all the less rushed on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning.

Paleo…and Vegan? “Pegan”!

What a fantastic article I just read by Dr. Mark Hyman, about being what he refers to as a ‘Pegan’.

I’ll admit, when I first began reading and prior to seeing who the piece was written by, I feared for what inaccurate information I might come across.

I am glad I my fear was in vain!

The article did a fabulous job of compare and contrast the two eating approaches, but best of all, my favorite part was the sentence in which he writes:

“I vote for being a Pegan or Paleo-Vegan, which is what I have chosen for myself and recommend for most of my patients. Keep in mind that most of us need to personalize the approach depending on our health conditions, preferences and needs.

What is a Pegan?  Well since I just made it up, I guess it’s up to me to define.”

Precisely!  He’s not adding fish to a vegan diet and calling it vegan nonetheless.   Nor is he adding fermented soy or sprouted ancient grains to Paleo and claiming that’s still Paleo.

He made up a word and he owns it.

And he explains why which, by the way, was rather refreshing to see another person agreeing with what I try to teach as well: that both paleo and vegan, when done properly, share a lot in common:  both are plant based, both focus on abundant fresh, local veggies in season, good fat sources such as coconut oil, olive oil and avocado.

The obvious differentiating factor is the protein source.

Again, to reiterate, ‘when done properly’, as both approaches can be done haphazardly to the harm of the person doing it.   I knew a student when I was in college who was also vegan; he ate nothing but bagels, pasta and processed refined carbs of the like.   No vegetables.  No protein.  But technically, he claimed he was vegan because he was, in fact, not eating any animal products.

Similarly, one could create an entire eating plan from the abundance of faux Paleo recipes online today and not get any veggies or omega 3s and pose Paleo as they were not, in fact, eating grains or beans or dairy, except if it was grass fed, of course (ok then).

Dr. Hyman clearly outlines what defines a healthy diet, what we should all be avoiding and then outlines his personal approach, which is not actually Paleo nor vegan.

Again, it’s his approach and he calls is Pegan.

Now if only we could call do that!  Either teach what the truest form of any eating approach really is, or call it something else!

Click here to read the full piece.

 

 

Thanksgiving Countdown

Here we are again, less than a week from what is essentially the start of the 2014 holiday season.

Have you ordered your bird?

Do you know how you’re going to prepare it?  Oven roasted?  Barbecued in a Big Green Egg?

What about your side dishes?

Lots to think about and lots to plan, but in my opinion, very fun, all of it!

Each year, I invite readers to send me their holiday challenges; but there’s an ulterior motive for me. It provides more blog topic ideas! Plus, whatever your question might be, you can rest assured there are plenty of others who are wondering the same thing.

Now is the perfect time to fine tune your plan.  There are still a few days to test, test and retest to develop your perfect holiday meal!

Share your questions and let’s make a plan!

Looking for Chocolate?

“What about chocolate?  Can I have chocolate if I’m following a True Paleo regime?”   This is one of the most common questions ask, along with whether or not a glass of red wine or a cuppa can fit int.

The answer is yes.  But we have to be rather selective and not just grab any old chocolate bar.

The truth is, having some high quality raw, dark chocolate is not only good for your taste buds, it is actually nourishing in small doses as it’s rich in antioxidants and may even be good for heart health.

The darker the better and ideally, the closer to 100% cacao, the better, too.  Don’t go lower than 85%.  And don’t pretend the dutch-process cocoa powder in that coffee blended drink fits the bill.

So then is any dark chocolate a go?

Not necessarily.

In my experience, nearly all the chocolate you’ll find at most main stream grocery stores are emulsified with soy lecithin and/or have added cane sugar (or artificial sugar) and many even have dairy or interesting bits added in, like puffed quinoa (why?) or, of course, bacon.

So where do you get the good stuff?

I recently learned about one great place, and it’s right at your fingertips.

Barefoot Provisions has plenty of Paleo friendly foods, including something for that special occasion chocolate.

Ok, let’s get to the good stuff.

My personal favorite is the Xochipilli 100% Bar.  Before you cringe at how bitter you think it may be, consider this:  they added a hint of dates to this creation.  I actually like the super dark with no sugar but this had just the slightest hint of sweet.

Another delish option is their Chocolate Maca Chunk Handcrafted Raw Organic .  This one has a touch of coconut crystal (which I’d personally rather have than a touch of cane syrup) and Maca.

There are others as well and the ingredients of every single product are right there in plain sight so you can suss out for yourself which are most fitting to your Paleo lifestyle.

Check them out and do a little pre-holiday taste testing.  You wouldn’t want to have anything on your holiday table that you hadn’t tried out first, would you?

I’m teasing…but in all honesty, if you can procure a good quality dark chocolate, all you need is a very small amount and having this special treat is something I’ve found most clients feel provides a nice balance between keeping them on their Paleo path while allowing for a little something now and then.

It’s decadent on its own without being baked into nut-flour based brownie or whipped into a grass-fed milky coffee drink.

It’s just chocolate- raw and unadulterated.