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Food Diary: July & August

evolutionyou.net | pineapple chunks

It’s no secret that I love food, but what you may not know is that I also like to take pictures of it. As a part of my ongoing commitment to fitness, I’m sharing my favourite healthy culinary creations with ya’ll in a new Food Diary series. Bon appetit!

July went out with a bang because I was on vacation. This involved all sorts of terrible, delicious things like pizza, daiquiris, sushi, and shrimp/lobster quesadillas! 😉

evolutionyou.net | quesadilla

evolutionyou.net | sushi

evolutionyou.net | strawberry daiquiri

evolutionyou.net | pizza

Back when I was doing my Spring Fitness Challenge, my friend Lou told me about the 80/20 Rule. The 80/20 rule says watch what you eat very carefully 80% of the time and don’t even worry about the other 20%. I love it! I think it’s a very practical stance on food. So, as soon as I got home I got straight back to business.

Juicing
Matthew and I have been juicing for awhile. In the past we’ve gone through periods of juicing regularly and then long stretches of not juicing for months. Recently we’ve made it a priority to make juicing a regular habit once again. The benefits of juicing are endless. Drinking fresh, raw fruit and vegetable juice is the absolute best way to allow your body to absorb vitamins and nutrients. A juicer is a powerful motor with teeth, that breaks the cell walls of fruits/veggies and releases all of the nutrients into a solution that your body sucks up like a sponge.

We juice a variety of produce but mainly oranges, apples, lemons, carrots, beets, and celery. We recently tried a grapefruit and a cucumber from our garden! Variety makes things interesting.

Many thanks to Matthew for making me juice every morning and cleaning the juicer afterward, too! 🙂

evolutionyou.net | juicing

evolutionyou.net | juicing

Summer Chili
I am such a chili girl. I could eat chili every day and not get sick of it. There is nothing like a piping hot bowl of chili with a nice dollop of sour cream. But, seeing as how it’s been sweltering hot here in New Jersey, we’ve not quite been in the mood for chili lately. So, once again, I decided to experiment! Earlier this week, I made my first batch of Summer Chili!

evolutionyou.net | summer chili

Ingredients:
Organic quinoa
White kidney beans
Pineapple chunks
Butternut squash soup (or any other soup base that you prefer)
Black pepper
Sea salt
Red cayenne pepper
Stir fried vegetables of your choice

Directions:
Boil a big batch of quinoa. Add boiled quinoa, soup, kidney beans, pineapple chunks, and stir fried veggies (I used leftover mushrooms/green beans/onions from the night before) to a big pot. Heat until everything comes to a slow boil. Reduce heat. Add spices. Let simmer for twenty minutes. Enjoy!

evolutionyou.net | summer chili

evolutionyou.net | summer chili

I served the chili with a side salad of romaine topped with raw nuts, soy cheese, and raspberry vinaigrette. It was divine!

Cherry Tomatoes
And last, but not least, our cherry tomatoes are finally starting to ripen. We pulled the first one from the vine last night and cut it in half. I could have died right there—it was so good!

evolutionyou.net | cherry tomatoes

That’s all for this edition. Eat well, be well!

xo,
Dena

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    Are You Oblivious, Aware, or Getting It?

    This is a guest post from my friend, Andy Feld.

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    As I travel and meet new people all over our country, it seems most everyone falls into one of the three areas mentioned in this month’s title. What am I talking about? It’s the societal evolutionary change which is now in progress, although admittedly sometimes imperceptible. It is easy to see that violence rarely leads to anything but more violence. Overt materialism, absent integrity, brings happiness and abundance to very few. Additionally, centuries of male dominated insensitive energy added to a populace unwilling to take responsibility has us at a precarious tipping point.

    So, do you sense what I say is true? Are you oblivious to these changes in the air, or are you ahead of the curve and already taking the steps necessary to not only survive, but thrive in the years to come? Frankly, I am often greeted by individuals with long faces who tell me they will be happy again when things get back to ‘normal’. Normal for many means simply getting back to a life dominated by financial gain and the purchase of new things, but those days may be long gone. Banks are not lending money, our population is increasingly unemployed or aging and dependent, houses are not selling, there seems to be an oversupply of everything and worldwide competition is greater than ever. What if today is the way things will be for the next 20-30 years or longer? What are you going to do to be happy, prosperous, and emotionally abundant?

    Make no mistake, everything is changing and just about everyone is affected. Personally, my income does not approach what I once earned as a corporate CEO, my car is not as new and shiny as it once may have been, and I visit fewer restaurants, but my life has never been more pleasant. Would you agree that now is the time to not only re-evaluate, but also re-create our lives? If so, you are GETTING IT loud and clear, but if not, let’s look into what we can do about it.

    1. We are all One, connected with a common thread of spirit. When I say WE, I mean ALL humans, animals, plant life, earth, and stars. We all are of the same source energy, and understanding and respecting this Oneness is a key to thriving in our new age. Allowing all else to be, with love and respect, and without judgment of unique individual differences will open our portals to Universal Light. One cannot mistreat another human, the earth, our vegetation, and the animals without also mistreating oneself. We are all connected and what we put forth to others is what will always come back to us.

    2. Listen to our heart, our Inner Radar as I call it in my books, without the fear of judgment from others. We are all unique and different, and learning to reach within and hear that guidance we all individually brought forth to this lifetime allows us to grow and prosper in alignment with our life’s purpose. There is no better way to accomplish this than a regular practice of meditation and contemplation.

    3. Understanding the process for manifesting our life’s dreams. It takes quite a bit of practice and self-discipline, and you may be getting tired of hearing me speak about it, but we are the product of our thoughts, emotions, words, and actions. Very little we desire will manifest without the alignment of these four elements. Believe in this, practice and have faith and you will embrace your life like never before.

    4. Learn to appreciate all that you have. From hot running water, to clothes in your closet, and food in the refrigerator, most of us have so much to be thankful for yet rarely acknowledge. The beauty of nature, our relationships, our health and the list should go on and on. Write it down and truly rejoice in how many ways you are blessed.

    5. Diligently work on balancing your male and female attributes. We are all a combination of both masculine and feminine, and the more we keep these two in balance the more we vibrate with the earth.

    Yes, everything is changing. First, become aware and then jump on board, but it will always be the choice of the individual. No one, other than you is responsible for your rescue.

    Whether it is a business, an organization, or individual, the time for changing the status quo in right now. How to go about it in this new environment is what I speak about and teach. I would love the opportunity to work with you or your group.

    With much love and appreciation,
    Andy

    ———-

    Andy lives in Morrison, Colorado outside Denver. He travels the country as a frequent speaker on life inspiration and business sales. He is also a regular guest on radio programs across the United States and on local TV.

    You can read more about Andy at his website, Simple Happy, and you can find his books on Amazon at the following links.

4 Comments

  1. Fab post as always and the food just looks wonderful. Summer chili and cherry tomatoes are just the best.

    I should do more juice, just lazy and don’t take the time to do it right.

    Have a great weekend.

    1. Thanks, Lou! And more importantly thank you for sharing the 80/20 rule with me. You’ve always been such a “wellness inspiration” to me. 🙂

      Hope you have an awesome weekend, too!

  2. Your tomatoes look great! Isn’t a great feeling when it finally starts to grow and you can eat your yummy veggies. I want a juicer, but I also like that I can just go to a local juice bar and they do all the work for me. Do you spend a lot on veggies to make the juice? I feel like one juice takes a lot!

    1. Hey Meg! You are so lucky. We don’t have any juice bars around here, but then again, we live in the woods! It’s a drive even to the grocery store. 🙂

      It can get expensive. We set our budget and then stick to it. I try to buy whichever produce is on sale. For awhile I was doing 100% organic but that got really expensive really fast. Good news is that it doesn’t take too much to make two nice glasses of juice. A typical juice breakfast for us is 2 carrots, 2 pieces of celery, 1 beet, and a piece of fruit.

      Still, if we had a juice bar nearby, you bet I’d be there!

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