Eating Green

I've been following an anti-inflammatory diet for over 2 weeks now. I hate the word diet. It sounds so restrictive, temporary and just down right lame. And this has been anything but lame. In fact, I'm sort of loving it. Partly because I look at it from a "look at all the cool things I get to eat" standpoint and partly because I don't kick myself when I eat something outside the diet (like the to-die-for chocolate souffle my husband made for mother's day). I refuse to feel guilty.

What is this all about? Well, despite being on some icky steroids, my inflammation levels are still really high. Pain and inflammation, inflammation and pain. It's a vicious cycle. So, being the cooperative partner I am, I'm helping my body out by eating foods that are anti-inflammatory and well, not eating foods that are inflammatory. Simple as that. Lots of veggies, low-glycemic fruit, fish, nuts, soy, beans and whole grains. Check out Dr. Weil's anti-inflammatory food pyramid for more information.

I can't remember the last time I ate red meat and it has been 8 days since I've eaten any kind of meat. I'm not trying to go vegetarian but it's sort of just evolving into that. I'm seeing all the other options out there and getting creative with my own cooking. A huge plus is going out into the garden and being like "hmmm, what should I eat?" and then picking some incredible spinach, kale and swiss chard.

By the way, isn't it amazing how much the garden has grown (see above). We harvested a bunch of greens the other day and I ran out of room in my fridge. I rinsed each leaf individually (or else we'd be eating slugs), put them through the salad spinner a couple times, then bagged them up. I just love it. Speaking of the garden, I have to go water it now, which is FANTASTIC because that means it's actually not raining for once. :)

Hope you're having a great day.

Kim

How Does Your Garden Grow?

We finished planting our second raised bed last weekend (and by we I mean I chose the plants and my husband did all the work). He planted romaine, celery, rainbow swiss chard, sprouting broccoli, red russian kale, carrots, beets and onion. I love it. I can't wait to grab some greens from our yard to juice in the morning.


In case you're wondering, the "cage" around the bed is to protect our precious veggies from the friendly neighborhood deer that hang out in our yard (oh, and the raccoons, squirrels, and wild turkeys too).

We also have some beautiful basil, mint, oregano, cilantro, thyme, rosemary, sage and lavender growing on our deck.
My daughter planted these sugar snap peas and is really excited about them growing up the fence. She checks on them every morning :)


There's no doubt that our garden is well-loved. My husband spends most of his spare time taking care of it. He even puts a special "blanket" on it every night to protect it from frost. It's his 3rd child for sure. I, on the other hand, will get dirty when it gets a little warmer out. Until then, I admire from afar and daydream about all the yummy dishes I'll soon be cooking up.

Happy Growing,
Kim

Live Like You Mean It

A few weeks ago I started thinking about how different life would be if my results came back positive. I thought about what I would have been doing differently. And then it made me wonder. Why should my actions be any different? Why do we wait until we think we're dying to start fighting for our lives? It's so much easier to fight for our lives when we're well. And so I started to make some conscious decisions to live like I mean it. First up: optimum health.

When we were in the hospital my husband kept shaking his head and saying, "But you're so healthy. You eat well and take care of yourself. I don't get it." But really, I knew that there was more I could be doing. Laying there in a hospital bed, bruised from dozens of blood tests, I knew that I wanted to eat to nourish my cells, not make them work any harder than they have to.

With the help of Kris Carr's incredible book Crazy Sexy Diet, some Google research and a little soul searching, I created a plan that would work best for me and my family. In a nutshell, half of what we eat will be raw organic plant-based goodness, the other half will be a combination of lean proteins, cooked vegetables, fruits and whole grains. And with that, we got to work.

1st step: Plant an organic vegetable garden in our backyard.

My husband has been wanting to start a garden for over a year. In fact, one of the top 3 criteria while we were house hunting was garden space. He built these 2 beds over a weekend.

So far we've planted 2 different kinds of lettuce, kale, spinach and beets.

2nd step: Start juicing! (Thank you Grandma Jane for the new juicer) My goal is to drink green juice (kale, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, celery,broccoli stems and ginger) 4 times a week for breakfast. It actually tastes a lot better than it sounds. And the thought that I took in that many vegetables before Sesame Street is pretty incredible.

On the days that I don't have a green juice I'm experimenting with other vegetable smoothies. This one has romaine, cucumbers, avocado, banana and agave. I'll be honest, this one was hard to swallow. Okay, I gagged through the whole thing. It wasn't so much the taste as it was the temperature and consistency. I'm going to crush up some ice next time. :)

Adding these goodies to my diet has been fun and easy. It's the taking away that has been (a lot) harder. I'm trying to cut out all refined sugars. Let me tell you, it has not been easy. Have you ever seen those tobacco commercials with the woman who smokes the cigarettes through the hole in her throat? I sort of feel the same way about sugar. It's addictive! Oh, if only my green juice would cancel out that bowl of ice cream, I'd be golden. I know what you're thinking - there's nothing wrong with a bowl of ice cream every now and then. I absolutely agree. There is nothing wrong with it, but I just don't think it's helping me either. If my inflammation levels weren't still sky rocketing maybe I would have a case. And if my body wasn't throbbing in pain from whatever it is that's throwing it out of whack, I would say that it's harmless too. But the truth is, sugar wreaks havoc on your immune system and is highly inflammatory so I don't exactly have the luxury to indulge at the moment. It's all good though. There are few things that are truly worth fighting for and health is absolutely on the shortlist.

Cheers to some green juice,

Kim