Sunday, May 4, 2014

Tasty Banana Soft Serve and Finding a Way of Eating that’s Right for YOU

When it’s getting warmer, I enjoy a nice cold treat once in a while. Lately, I have been making banana soft serve with some twists. Here is a combo we have been enjoying a lot:


Creamy Banana Almond Butter Soft Serve

2 Servings

Ingredients
  • 1 frozen banana (cut the banana into thin slices before freezing it)
  • 1 cup Greek yogurt
  • 2 – 3 Tablespoons raw, creamy almond butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Stevia drops (optional)
Directions
  1. Process all ingredients in a food processor until the bananas are incorporated into the yogurt.
  2. Enjoy!
My Way of Eating

Recently, I have been getting quite a few comments and questions about the way I eat. I often get asked why I eat the way I eat. I tell people that my current way of eating has evolved over a long time.

While I have been focused on eating healthy for many years, I made major changes to the way I eat when I did the Conscious Cleanse for the first time in January 2013. After doing the cleanse, where I eliminated and then reintroduced numerous common allergens, I determined that I couldn’t digest wheat and eggs. So I eliminated them. I also got used to starting my day with warm lemon water and a green smoothie. Since the cleanse, I am also even more focused on eating greens and keeping added sugar to a minimum. I also keep an eye on my dairy consumptions, but I haven’t eliminated it completely.

Sometime in summer 2013, I came across the documentary Eat, Fast, and Live Longer by Michael Mosley about the numerous benefits of intermittent fasting. I had read about intermittent fasting before, and I was intrigued. Mosley discusses numerous ways of intermittent fasting. The way that worked for him was eating very few calories (about 600 calories; he recommends 500 calories for women) two days of the week, and the other five days he eats the way he has always eaten.

I tried the 5:2 way of eating, but it didn’t work very well for me as I didn’t like the very low calorie days. I also read numerous blog posts about intermittent fasting, and it is often suggested to not eat breakfast but start eating sometime around lunch time and finish eating around 7:00 p.m., thereby creating a smaller eating window. But not eating breakfast doesn’t work very well for me either.

What does work for me is eating breakfast around 6:00 a.m. and then eating a big lunch between 12:00 and 2:00 and then not eat for the rest of the day. That gives me an eating window of about six to eight hours, which works very well for me.

So here is what a typical day of eating looks like for me:

Breakfast (6:00 a.m.):
  • 32 ounces warm lemon water – I usually drink the water as soon as I get up, around 4:00 a.m.
  • 32 ounces green smoothie with lots of greens and a protein add-in like hemp seeds
Second breakfast (between 9:00 – 10:30 a.m.):
  • Raw veggies and hummus OR
  • Greek yogurt with veggies or dried fruit and various seeds OR
  • Cheese and almonds or walnuts OR 
  • Bircher muesli (a version of overnight oats) OR
  • Avocado cream and veggies OR
  • Leftover lunch from the day before (veggies & fish or meat, etc.)
Lunch (between 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.)
  • Large salad with spiced beans OR
  • Large salad with grilled salmon OR
  • Roasted veggies with sautéed ground bison OR
  • Lentil soup with lots of veggies OR
  • Vegetable soup with beans
After Lunch Treat
  • A small piece of dark chocolate OR
  • Banana soft serve OR
  • Fruit with almond butter
Afternoon/evening
  • Various herbal teas
Once or twice a week, I eat an early dinner around 5:00 p.m. so that my body doesn’t get too used to only one eating window.

I’m not sharing my way of eating with you so that you can copy what I’m doing because chances are it won’t work for you. I am sharing the way I’m currently eating with you to let you know that you’ll often have to try out different things and see what will work for you. Chances are that you’ll have to adjust a particular way of eating. I get a lot of inspirations from Paleo blogs and books, but I don’t follow a Paleo lifestyle to a “T” (I’m eating some dairy and legumes, eat less meat, and eat several “veggies only” meals) but am adjusting it to fit my life and my body.

For me, the Conscious Cleanse is always a great way to see how different foods affect my body as each cleanse creates a clean slate. And when I’m re-introducing the foods that are off limits during the cleanse, I can really see how different foods make me feel. And things are always changing, and I know that I’ll have to adjust things as my body changes, and I’m getting older.

Questions: Do you have a favorite frozen, healthy treat?  How do you decide what you eat and what’s best for your body? Do you follow a particular food template? If so, what is it? How do you decide when it is time to adjust the way you are eating? 

Be well,
Andrea