How’s everybody doing?! I’m hanging in there – I am SO close to finishing up my HUGE final assignment for school, I can almost taste it! Once I’m done this major project, all I have left is graduation!!! You have NO idea how excited I am. Some of you asked me to do a post on where I am obtaining my certification and what I plan to do with it – I LOVE this idea, and will absolutely do that – so stayed tuned!

The lovely Gillian, whom I adore, and is now living in Toronto! (SO exciting), also recommended me doing a fashion post. Funny thing is, every time I’m on Gillian’s blog, I always think to myself how fashionable she is, so for her to compliment my fashion was unbelievable to me Thanks Gillian – I can’t wait to put together a fashion post – it is definitely one of my other passions in life

Keep your questions and post ideas coming – I love hearing from all of you!!

More business – I want to thank you all for your comments about recovery. I think all of us agree that it really is something that sticks with us for a while and something we always have to keep working at and keep ourselves accountable to. For a long time I was incredibly embarrassed and ashamed about how much I was truly struggling. Now that I am in a much happier and HEALTHIER place, I find it empowering to be able to talk about what I went through. For me it’s very healing and therapeutic to talk about, because it brings me back to those dark days and makes me realize just how much I never want to go back there again. I appreciate my life SO much more these days and it just breaks my heart to know that there are so many young, beautiful girls out there struggling like I used to. It is my hope that I will be able to use what I went through to help make sure young girls don’t go down the same path – so rather than be ashamed of my past – I have decided to embrace it, learn from it, and most importantly hopefully help others

Switching gears, this was a very important week for my family – my Grandmother (I call her Nanny) turned 85 years young!!!

Isn’t she the sweetest looking Nanny you have ever seen! I am crossing all my fingers and all my toes that I look just as amazing as she does at 85! She is honestly the most amazing women ever – so active, so fit and probably the best baker and cook I know . Happy Birthday Nanny!!! xoxo

My bro and I showed up to the party in matching outfits that day – so I promised him he’d make the blog

Twins! Isn’t he cute – LOVE that boy!

A couple of yummy meals I have been enjoy this week . . .

Amy’s California Burger – I generally try to make my own, but these are so tasty and so handy that sometimes I splurge and buy them With a massage kale salad – I haven’t had one of these in some time – this has re-ignited my passion for massaged kale – SOOO yummy. All I do is take the juice of half a lemon, 1 tsp olive oil and about 1/4tsp of sea salt – combined it all with the kale and massage it for about 5 minutes – the kale starts to break down and wilt – and it tastes perfect! I top it with avocado, tomato and red onion and then sprinkle some sesame seeds and raisins and drizzle on some agave.

Another yummy dinner from this week . . .

Mixed Green salad with tomato, cucumber, red onion, roasted zucchini and roasted tofu (coated in miso) and a brown rice wrap on the side – with hummus, avocado, olives and spinach.  My salad is topped with my amazing homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

Super Simple Balsamic Vinaigrette

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard

2.5-3 tbsp agave nectar

garlic to taste

salt + pepper to taste

3-4 tbsp olive oil  

Combine all ingredients together and serve! Super simple, but absolutely delicious! If you find it’s a bit thick, just thin it out with a little bit of water.

I’m always looking for good homemade salad dressing – so if you have any great recipes that you love – send them my way! I find salad dressing can really make a salad sometimes

Time for me to get back to work – 48 hours and it will be all over!! There is going to be some serious PARTYING going on this weekend

xoxo

Krissy

Hope everyone is having a F-A-B week, I can’t believe the summer is winding down, we’ve had an amazing summery weekend here in Toronto – so I’ve be soaking it up while I can!

To be totally honest, I have been craving fall-like foods big time lately! I know I should be enjoying all the raw, fresh fruits and veggies while I can, but sometimes you just gotta listen to what the tummy is telling you!

I had my Mom over for dinner last night and wanted to feed her a vegan feast she would leave satisfied by! Pumpkin Spiced Chick Peas, recipe ala Momma Pea (SOO delicious – although is it really a surprise, she’s my vegan idol!), roasted veggies (carrots, potatoes, beets, parsnips, onion, zucchini tossed with coconut oil and sprinkled with cinnamon – roast for 40 min @ 450), and a simple cucumber, tomato and red onion salad with homemade balsamic vinegar dressing.

For dessert, we savoured one of my homemade gluten free vegan chocolate chip cookies (AHmazing) and sipped on some herbal chamomile tea.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen lately, there is something so calming about cooking and baking, it honestly just brings me so much joy. I had a whole bunch of really ripe bananas that I wanted to use up, so even though I just baked a huge batch of cookies, I decided I needed to bake a huge batch of banana muffins (vegan gluten free, courtesy of Babycakes) to go with them

They turned out great – I froze most of them, when I want one I just pop it out of the freezer and let it defrost or put it in the microwave for 30 sec (if I absolutely can’t wait) and it tastes almost as fresh as if it had just come out of the oven!

Shifting gears . . . 

I often struggle with how personal I want to get on the blog – I know this is out there for potentially the whole world to see – and that can be a little nerve racking at times (as I’m sure many of you can relate to!). Then I think about the reasons I started the blog and I realize that my purpose is to help others who may be struggling with similar things I have struggled with. To let you know that there is a light at the end of tunnel, and that recovery is possible if you really want it and want to work for it. Having said that, I think it’s also important to realize that, while I have come a long way in my recovery, I am by no means perfect. I hesitate to use the word recovery because part of me wonders how long I will continue to use that word to describe myself.   How long will I say I am in recovery, or that I am recovered? These are questions I’m not sure I have the answer to. I often wonder if I’m doing myself a disservice by even using this terminology. Am I still somewhat associating myself with my eating disorder – is it a way of continuing to hold onto it, even just that little bit? Or maybe I’m just over-analyzing everything (very likely!).  At the end of the day, the reason that I’m here is to hopefully touch somebody and make them realize that beauty is not about what the scale says, or how you look in a bathing suit, or the size of your thighs, butt or belly but that beauty is about how you feel about yourself on the inside – and I promise you when you feel that love on the inside – you will scream it on the outside as well!

I feel like my posts have been lacking that personal quality as of late, so I am hoping to add a little bit more of my personality to the blog. If you have any questions for me, or there is something you would like me to include on the blog please let me know – either in the comments section, or feel free to email me at balanceisbeauty@rogers.com As much as I love food pictures, I know that can get boring and monotonous at times, so I would like to shake it up a little around here

It’s your turn to ask me any burning questions you may have, or please leave me any topics you’d like to see on the blog!

I’d also love to hear you thoughts on recovery – do you think it’s something to always be conscious of, or something to just let go of –

Enjoy your evening beauties!

xoxo

How’s everyone doing? Things have been a little bit crazy over here – I wrote my final exam for school (fingers crossed – I was pretty confident going in, but it was much more difficult than I expected ), I have two weeks to hand in my huge final assignment and then I will officially be DONE school – it’s hard to believe. It’s been a year of  A LOT of hard work and the end is so close I can almost taste it I’m excited to be done, and even more excited to think about the possibilities for the future. I have some idea’s about what’s to come, but it’s a little bit overwhelming to think about how to actually make my dreams a reality.  You all honestly inspire me to follow my dreams, so I can promise you I won’t give up until I reach them!

This weekend was a super busy one. It started off with another trip to the farmers market, this time my parents and my hubby joined me – they loved it too! I pick up some pretty amazing goods:

For those of you in the Toronto area, I can’t say enough about Kind Organics. They have the most amazing Greens and Sprouts I have ever seen. The ladies are super friendly, so passionate and helpful – if you get the chance to sample their products, I strongly recommend it! I’ve never tried Purselane before, they allowed me to sample it, and I was totally blown away. It has the most amazing lemony flavour – you can honestly eat it on it’s own as a snack – it’s so crispy and crunchy, I loved it! So far I’ve had it in my salad but I’m really excited to try it in my smoothies as well!

I’m having so much fun using up my produce – here are some of the meals I have been enjoying lately:

Brown rice wrap with hummus, avocado, olives and spinach with a side garden fresh salad.

Tofu in black bean sauce with spinach sautéed in Earth Balance (SO yum) and roasted veggies. 

This morning’s breakfast – Green Smoothie – 1/2 banana, 1/2c blueberries, protein powder, avocado, spinach, 1/2c water, 1/2 c almond milk topped with dehydrated buckwheat and shredded coconut.

Today’s lunch. Leftover quiona salad (with dried fruit and toasted almonds) over a fresh garden salad – mixed greens, broccoli, grape tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, cucumber drizzled with homemade balsamic vinegar.

Tonight’s dinner – Curry tofu over a bed off steamed Kale with stir fried (in coconut oil) zucchini, onion, broccoli, and red peppers.  So satisfying!

I was at a family BBQ on Sunday and needed to come up with some vegan dishes to impress. I decided on a side dish – quinoa with dried fruit and toasted almonds and a dessert – coconut bars.

I tripled the recipe – but the basic recipe is:

1 cup quinoa

1 3/4 c water

3 tbsp lime juice

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup dried fruit (cranberries, apricots, or raisins – I used all three!)

Bring quinoa + water + lime juice to a boil, then lower heat and cook for 12-14 minutes. Turn off heat, add dried fruit and cover for 5 minutes. Stir in toasted almonds and serve.

Dessert – Gluten Free Coconut Bars

Coconut Bars (adapted from Gluten Free Goddess) – I made a few modifications – coconut oil instead of olive oil, evaporated cane juice instead of brown sugar, and they turned out fabulous!

These were definitely a fan favourite – a great recipe if you are looking to serve non-vegans some vegan treats There were not leftovers – that’s a winner in my books!

I’m hoping to get into a better blogging routine – so hopefully you’ll see more of me (no promises though – you know how life is!)

I’m off to watch Bachelor Pad! (Opps – did I just admit that?!)

xoxo

Krissy

I just have to continue to thank you all for you beautiful comments, truly, they mean the world to me – each and every comment I receive brightens my day

As I mentioned in my last post, my Mom and I headed out to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday.  Friends, there are no words to describe the beauty of this market. I was honestly in awe, I believe my Mom had to pick my jaw off the ground a couple of times The beauty of all the fresh, organic, LOCAL, produce was just to amazing to even put into words. For those of you in the Toronto area, I highly recommend you check out the Evergreen Brick Work’s Farmers Market on Saturday mornings from 8:00am – 1:00pm.

Here are the goods, I walked away with . . .

I have so many wonderful memories, from my childhood, of picking fresh wild blueberries at my Grandparents home in Moncton, New Brunswick. When I saw the wild blueberries, tears almost came to my eyes. Isn’t it amazing, how food can bring with it so many amazing memories?!

I’m still rationing them – I’m scared to eat them too quickly because I don’t want them to be gone The strawberries were just as mouth watering, so fresh, SO perfect After eating these fresh, local fruits, you will see the huge difference between store bought and fresh farmed pick produce – there is just NO comparison!

I also came across another, new to me, raw vegan local vendor – Chocosol! Definitely my new favourite chocolate – safe to say I will probably never buy any other chocolate from now on

I definitely indulged The chocolate and cookies are both vegan – it is the perfect marriage of sweet meets bitter – so tasty guys – I wish I could send each and every one of you this delectable treat

I think my sweet tooth was a little out of control that day, because I also picked up this amazing vegan nanaimo bar, from another local vegan dessert company, LPK’s Culinary Groove.

I had to eat this in three sittings because it was super sweet – but super delicious I would love to try and recreate it, but I am really stumped about the cream filling!

With all this fresh produce in my fridge, I was just itching to get into the kitchen! I really wanted to let the vegetables do the talking and not put too much flavouring or spices on them – so what better than a big pan of roasted, seasonal, heirloom, organic vegetables!

Before

After

1 tbsp coconut oil + salt and pepper, throw in a very hot 475 degree oven for about 40 min and voila! These will melt in your mouth guys! SO yummy – lucky for hubby I was willing to share, because I probably could have polished off that whole pan

Along with the veggies, I had some baked tempeh and steamed kale (topped with coconut butter)

A perfect dinner in my books

I’m already counting down the days, until the next farmers market – you can bet I’ll be back on Saturday bright and early

I’d love to hear about your Farmers Market experiences! Don’t you agree, there is nothing better?!

xoxo

Krissy

I have no words – I am quite honestly overwhelmed by all of your support and beautiful words of wisdom you left me on my last post. It just reinforced how much I love this amazing community of strong minded, beautiful women (and men too!).  I thank you from the bottom of my heart and it’s so nice to hear that a lot of you feel the same way as I do about labels

As I kind of suspected, although I have dropped the label, I really have no desire to stray from eating vegan at this time – who knows what the future holds, but right now I truly do feel my best eating as gluten free and vegan as possible   If anything changes – I’ll let you know!

Moving on . . . to the kitchen! I threw on my apron and whipped up another batch of gluten free vegan pumpkin spiced muffins (Babycakes).

I cut down a bit on the agave, and they still turned out amazing. It can be tricky at times when baking gluten free, because I find the end product can sometimes come out a bit dry. So far, Babycakes has not failed me, the gluten free recipes always come out nice and moist – I’m convinced it’s the coconut oil. Coconut oil can do no wrong in my books – definitely my oil of choice! I always test my baking out on my hubby and my parents (none of which follow a vegan or gluten free diet), these definitely passed the test – they all enjoyed them!

I’ve still been pretty much obsessed with wraps.

Hummus, Avocado, Olives and Spinach – obsessed!!! I’ve also reacquainted myself with Eizkiel bread, I haven’t bought it in quite some time, because I’ve been trying to stay as gluten free as possible – but I LOVE this bread and I haven’t any problems with it, so I think it’s here to stay

Bet you can’t guess what’s in there!!!! Hummus, Avocado, Olives and Spinach (I think there’s an echo in here!!). If you haven’t tried this combination – I think it’s obvious how I feel about it – please try it. The only problem I foresee is that you don’t have access to my Greek mother-in-laws olives – I’m not sure what the secret is (I’m pretty sure she’d have to kill me if she told me), but whatever she does to those olives, it’s an experience when you eat them (delicious!).

Mom and I are heading to a new farmers market early tomorrow morning, so I think it’s time for me to get some shut eye! I plan on bringing my camera with me, so hopefully I’ll get some great photo’s for you all to see!

Just want to thank you all again, for all of your continued support!!!

xoxo

Krissy

P.S. To all of you at the Healthy Living Summit – I hope you’re having a BLAST! I’m super jealous – but am living vicariously through all of your blog posts – so keep them coming

Thanks for all the wonderful comments from my NYC recaps! It was honestly one of my favourite trips EVER! So if you have the chance to get there – you MUST!

Now onto more serious business. This post has been a long time coming and was further solidified by something that happened yesterday. I presented my oral case study for school in front of two nutritionists who critiqued and marked it. Although it was anonymous to them, I actually did the case study on myself. It focused on me regaining my heath after battling back from an eating disorder. After I was finished presenting the nutritionists grading me had a chance to provide comments or ask me any questions. The first words out of one of the nutritionists mouths was “What is it with all of these Anorexics turning Vegan – it’s like they trade one form of control for another”. I was completely shocked, and had to hold back from getting into it with her. Remember, she had no idea the case study was about me. However, this comment has not left my mind since she said it. Truth be told, this is something I have struggled with, and actually something I have questioned myself. While I adore animals, and I only want what is best for the environment – I’m not sure that this is the driving force behind my decision to follow a mostly vegan diet. While I have come leaps and bounds in terms of my  health – the truth of the matter is, I’m still not where I want to be.  A vegan diet, completely resonates with me, and I pretty much guarantee that my diet will continue to be 95-100% vegan, however, I have decided, it’s time for me to drop the labels. I am committed to my health, and although I’m so close – I’m not there yet. I feel like putting labels on myself is only going to hinder me in reaching my ultimate health goals, so I’ve decided to drop them. I want to be completely open and honest with you all and hope you will support me in my journey to reaching my best health

This has been a really hard post for me to write because to be honest, veganism has really meant a lot to me and has really kind of been something that has defined me for some time now. With that said, it will still continue to mean a lot to me, and you will still see me eating a mainly vegan diet. There may be some inclusion of eggs and greek  yogurt from time to time, but other than that I don’t foresee many other changes. I’m not sure where I am going with this, but I just want to be able to share everything with you all and didn’t want you to be shocked if you saw an egg or some greek yogurt I already feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I am looking forward to living my life label free I know the blog world is amazing and SO supportive, so I hope I haven’t disappointed anyone! There is still going to be TONS of raw foods, tons of gluten free foods and tons of vegan food – who knows maybe now that I’ve decided to drop the label, I may not even want  anything but vegan foods Only time will tell!

Sorry for the wordy post! I’d love to hear your thoughts on labels and how you deal with them. Do you like them? Do you use them? Or would you rather just listen to your body and cravings?

xoxo

Krissy

Food wise – Day 3 was definitely my favourite day – how could it not be when this is where you dine for breakfast . . .

I was SO overwhelmed by the selection – I wanted one of everything Look at how cute the inside of the store is . . .

After much debate, I decided on a gluten-free carrot cupcake and a spelt biscuit with strawberry jam for later

Hubby went with the lemon doughnut and chocolate brownie cupcake

He was definitely impressed – and there wasn’t a crumb left!

Enter, more site seeing, I’ll get right to the goods and show you our amazing afternoon meal, courtesy of the one and only Pure Food and Wine!

The ambiance of this restaurant is amazing – we sat out on the garden patio and it was absolutely beautiful.

Hubs and I decided that afternoon cocktails were appropriate for our final hours in NYC, and ordered a pitcher of the most delicious white wine sangria.

I was so excited about my meal, that I forgot to take a picture of it before digging in The presentation was beautiful -  I ordered the famous S&M salad and it definitely lived up to it’s rave reviews!

All mixed together.  By the way – those rosemary quakers – OUT OF THIS WORLD! I bought two bags to take home with me – and I am trying my best to ration them (it’s a challenge). I really want to try and recreate these – but I know they won’t live up to One Lucky Duck’s

Hubs had the tortilla’s and I was honestly amazed at how they tasted – they were spot on – he really, really enjoyed them.

Sadly, we were too full for dessert. But I did take a big goodie bag home with me – two packages of quakers, and a package of irish moss – which I am looking forward to experimenting with in the near future. Any raw foodies that know of good ways to use it – let me know!

After our amazing meal, it was off to airport. I was super sad to say goodbye to NYC, but I know we will be back. Both hubs and I had an amazing time and really feel in love with the city. I have to say, I really do have an amazing husband – although our diets may not always match, he was super supportive and willing to take me anywhere I wanted to go. He knows how happy it makes me, and he was totally open to trying everything – I’m one lucky girl   Thanks Hubby, for an amazing weekend

So that was our trip in a nutshell – hope you enjoyed my recaps – I am already looking forward to a trip back – I’ll miss you NYC – but believe me when I say you’ll be seeing us again!

xoxo

Krissy

Lets get to Day 2 in NYC!

It started better than I ever could have imagined . . .

Oh One Lucky Duck, I have dreamed about you for so long, and you did not disappoint. To be honest, I was completely overwhelmed, I wanted to order absolutely everything, but FINALLY I decided on . . .

Avocolada Shake and Lemon Square. They did not disappoint. It was like pure heaven.

Day 2 was spent site seeing – we toured the city from top to bottom – it was amazing. We walked on foot for the majority of the morning and then decided if we were going to see everything we wanted to, we needed to go on a bus tour. So that’s what we did! We rode the bus uptown, midtown, downtown, through central park, through Brooklyn. When you only have a couple of days in NYC I definitely recommend doing this, I think we saw almost every square inch of NYC in two days Here are some of my favourite pics from Day 2:

We took over 400 pictures, so I could go on forever – but I’ll leave it at that. If you are interested in seeing more, you can check me out on facebook (just leave me a comment or sent me an email and I’ll add you as a friend!).

Hubs and I were busy site seeing so we ended up having a late lunch/early dinner. Our original plans were to go to Candle 79

Sadly, when we got there, we realized they didn’t open until 5:30pm and it was only 4:30pm (we were too starved too wait ). Luckily Candle Cafe is just around the corner so we made our way over there.

Both Hubby and I were super impressed with this restaurant, we both cleaned our plates like champions! I had the quinoa encrusted tempeh over brown rice with a bean and avocado puree.

Sorry for the blurriness – IPhone pic. Unfortunately both of us were too stuffed for dessert. I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone in the area. My husband is not a vegan and he order the seitan buffalo burger and could not say enough about it! I love vegan restaurants that have non-vegans licking their plates clean

After our meal we headed out on a Bus Night Tour – it was spectacular it took us through Manhattan and also through midtown – it was beautiful to see the city at night – as you can tell from some of the above pictures.

We ended the evening with some dessert from One Lucky Duck in park near our hotel. I had an unpictured Vanilla Pudding with blueberries – it was so decadent.

You can see the pudding in the top right hand corner – YUM!

Hope you enjoyed Day 2 recap – stay tuned for Day 3, our final day in the city that NEVER sleeps I know it’s hard to believe, after seeing all this amazing food, but I think Day 3 was the best foodie day

xoxo

Krissy

Wow! What a whirlwind of a weekend. To be honest, words cannot described what an amazing time my husband and I had while visiting the amazing city of NYC! I decided to give you the recap in 3 parts – 1 post for each day we were there – that way I can show you lots of pictures! Let’s get to it!

We stayed at the “W” Hotel in Union Square, it was beautiful:

We got ourselves together, and ventured out to explore the city:

We were pretty hungry when we arrived, and lucky for us, we were literally a 2 second walk to Whole Foods.

We have Whole Foods here in Toronto, and it is quite busy, but I was honestly shocked at how busy this Whole Foods was.  It took us about 20 minutes to get through the check out – and that was the “10 and under items” check out!!! Lunch was quick and delicious, we were excited to start exploring the city!

Some pics from Day 1 of our exploration:

First book that welcome me when I walked in to Barnes & Noble:

Washington Square. So beautiful – It was a humid day and there were tons of people splashing around in the fountain!

That evening we had dinner reservation at our hotel restaurant “Olive”, it was included in our package along with a Broadway show.

I wasn’t sure what to expect and was unfortunately very disappointed – there was NO vegan options and they weren’t very accommodating. Hubs and I ended up splitting the fig and prosciutto flatbread and asked for half without prosciutto which they were able to do. It was tasty, but too much salt and I’m pretty sure there was butter on it. For my entree the only menu item they were able to make vegan was the heirloom tomato salad appetizer. It was awful – SOO salty – I cannot handle a lot of salt, and this was over the top. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but it was a fancy restaurant and I didn’t want to whip out my camera The only thing that saved the night was the delicious bottle of wine hubs and I shared

After dinner, we headed off to the Broadway Show:

Guys – this show was AMAZING – it was honestly like being at a rock concert!! There were waitresses in the aisles taking drink orders all night long – totally not your typical Broadway show! The music was amazing and the cast could not have been better! If you get the chance to see it, I definitely recommend it, Hubs and I both agreed this may have been the highlight of the trip!

We walked back to our hotel – it was about a 45 minute walk that took us through Times Square. I was honestly speechless when we headed through Times Square. I don’t think I have ever seen so many people in one place at one time – the lights, the atmosphere were completely breathtaking!

Incredible!

Hubs and I were exhausted after Day 1 – he had 2 hours sleep the night before and I had 4 hrs so we were asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow!

Come back tomorrow to see a re cap of Day 2 (one lucky duck + candle cafe pics + reviews to come!)

xoxo

Krissy

Gotta make this snappy, I’m in the midst of packing hubs and I up for our long weekend away in New York (eeekkk!! I can hardly contain my excitement!). I won’t have time to blog before we leave tomorrow evening, and won’t be bringing my computer with me – so expect an EPIC post upon my return, I promise to try and capture as much as I can on camera

As I was laying in bed last night I was thinking to myself, I must make breakfast a little more exciting – I am going to lose all my readers if I show them another breakfast smoothie. When I woke up this morning, the only thing on my mind was . . .

SMOOTHIE – sorry friends, I wanted to be more exciting for you, but I just couldn’t do it   This beauty contained 1/2 c water, 1/2 c almond milk, avocado, 6 cherries, 1/2 frozen banana, 1 scoop sunwarrior and 2-3 cups of spinach, topped with dehydrated buckwheat and coconut. Can I tell you how amazing this was – sometimes the simpler a smoothie is, the better it is. As much as I love the superfoods, maca, spirulina, etc. Sometimes a smoothie with just plain old whole foods is the way to go – I’m so glad I listened to my craving this morning, because I was definitely satisfied!

About 3hrs later – I made a coffee run – yes another Starbucks Soy Misto (hanging my head in shame). Once I return from NYC, I am really going to work on cutting down my coffee consumption, over the past month or so I have really been letting it get out of control. I think I’ll try and switch to caffeine free herbal teas, and treat myself to Starbucks once in a while – my bank account will definitely thank me for this.

Lunch was delicious:

Gluten Free Brown Rice Tortilla with roasted red pepper hummus, avocado, 2 olives and spinach with a side of cherry tomatoes and carrots and of course more hummus for dippage! As I was working away I may or may not have finished the bag of kettle chips off – I’ll let you decide for yourself

Afternoon snack was a piece of my new favourite raw chocolate I was telling you about:

This is the Caramel flavour (my favourite) as you’ll see below I also have the Maca flavour – which is good, but definitely not as good as the Caramel!

These are pretty pricey – so I doubt I will be buying them on a regular basis – they are on sale right now at my local health food store, so that’s why I’ve been stocking up

If you didn’t know any better, you might mistake my dinner for my lunch, but I assure you there was one main difference . . .

Brown Rice Tortilla with steamed KALE, hummus, avocado, 2 olives with more steamed kale and cauliflower on the side. Ughhh I wish I could grab that wrap out of the screen and take another bite – this was sooo tasty – I think steamed kale has to be my #1 love right now. I really have a hard time digesting raw kale, just steaming it lightly makes a huge difference. Dessert was again, protein pudding – this time however I blended it up with a few frozen sour cherries – it was perfection!

Like usual I needed a little something prior to heading to bed, so I just finished a piece of banana bread – it hit the spot and hopefully now I’ll sleep like a baby!

I hope you enjoyed my four days of food journaling. I’m not sure that I’m going to keep it up. I really love posting some of my meals – but I found it pretty difficult photographing them all. I realized how much of snacker I really am – I think that’s something I really need to work on. I definitely feel better when I eat meals vs. continually snacking throughout the day. Let me know if you guys enjoyed these type of posts – I wouldn’t mind maybe doing a full days eats once a week or so – but I kinda feel like I’m boring you all posting every single meal, every day – especially since I am kind of a creature of habit. I’d love to hear your feedback – after all – I want you all  to continue coming back

Ok friends – time for me to get some sleep – I have a very exciting weekend ahead! Can’t wait to fill you all in on the details! I’ll be back with a massive recap upon my return!

Until Then!

xoxo

Krissy