Book Review: The Hormone Diet

In my undergrad I was constantly meeting people (usually gym rats) who claimed that effective weight loss through exercise and slight diet modifications alone was possible.  I'm a huge fan of both exercise and diet modifications (hello, have you seen my blog?) but I always felt that there was another part of the equation that we were missing.  It seemed that everyone I knew knew someone (or a few someones) who were diligently exercising and eating healthy meals and yet were struggling with weight loss.  What was the missing link?

Luckily, my colleague Dr. Natasha Turner discovered the winning equation and wrote a fantastic book about it!  As it turns out:

diet + exercise + HORMONES = weight loss

The idea is balance your hormones with personalized lifestyle changes,  supplements and dietary changes and you will see lasting weight loss.  My favorite part of the book is that you can evaluate the areas of your body that are prone to weight gain (abdomen, back of the arms, hips etc.) and gauge which hormones you are deficient in or in excess of and go from there.  Another cool thing? She has a website, in case you can't wait to get your hands on a copy.

Not only could I not put this book down, I now have a great gift idea for Christmas....

Enjoy!

The Importance of Self Care

The Vancouver coastline

Yes, we all have obligations to people and tasks in our lives.  Far too often, we put ourselves last in an effort to appease everyone else and we find ourselves constantly saying "yes" to everything that is asked of us.  Consider this quote provided by one of my favorite professors:

"When you never say 'no', your 'yes' isn't worth very much."

In this world we value the rare, so ration your "yes"'s and spend the rest of your time doing some (or all) of the following:

• read a book
• take a long, relaxing bath
• meditate (or just close your eyes and take deep breaths in and out)
• go to your _____ (insert any sport here) league to play a game
• go for a long walk, taking lots of detours to meander through public parks
• go to a pottery class
• write in your journal 
• make something (knitting, sewing, woodwork, painting) 
• take a nap
• crank your ipod and have a one-person dance party in your apartment
• spend all day in a used book store
• spend all day in a cozy cafe with your sketchbook
• make music with anything from a piano to an empty ice cream tub

Fostering your creative side and honouring your self care regime will add balance to your life and ensure that you enjoy life and don't feel burnt out.  

Have a wonderful day!

Chocolate Chip Cookies: I Can't Believe It's Gluten-Free!

One of my favorite past times is perusing through my Gluten-Free Cookbook from Babycakes Bakery in NYC.  Usually I just imagine myself walking up Fifth Avenue, on my way to the Met, with an infamous Babycakes Cupcake in hand but yesterday I decided to come down to earth long enough to make some cookies!

Normally these cookies call for Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour mix, but I was feeling inspired and decided I would make my own Gluten Free flour mixture.  Here's the recipe:

2 1/2 c. brown rice flour
1 c. potato starch
1 c. arrowroot powder
1/4 c. Bob's Red Mill Coconut Flour
1/4 c. Bob's Red Mill Garbanzo-Fava Bean Flour
2 tbsp xantham gum

Mix all the ingredients well and the mixture is ready immediately to use in your recipes.  Store all remaining flour in a plastic bag in the freezer for up to 6 months. Thaw for 15 minutes before using.

GF Chocolate Chip Cookies


1 c. coconut oil
6 tbsp. applesauce
1 tsp. Himalayan salt
2 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 c. evaporated cane juice
2 c. GF Flour Mixture (above recipe)
1/4 c. ground flax meal
1 tbsp. baking soda
1 tsp xantham gum
1 c. vegan chocolate chips

Oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  In a large bowl, mix first 5 ingredients together well.  In a smaller bowl, sift the remaining ingredients together (except the chocolate chips). Add the contents of the smaller bowl slowly to the large bowl and stir with a rubber spatula until a grainy dough is formed.  Gently fold in the chocolate chips.
Place heaped teaspoonfuls of dough about 1 inch apart on parchment paper and squish flat with your palm.  Bake in oven for 15 minutes, turing 180 degrees after 9 minutes.  Let the cookies stand 10 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to wire rack until completely cooled. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Chances are, these guys won't last 3 days.

Enjoy!

No, You Shouldn't Order that Taco Salad: A Lesson in Food Combining

Allow me to introduce the Taco Salad:

Yes, Taco Salad may look darn tasty but did you know that it may actually be wreaking havoc on your digestive system and contributing to that lower abdominal bulge?  Yes, sorry to say, Taco Salad is a food combination nightmare!

Proper food combining is the technique of placing together certain food groups for maximum digestion that allows the foods to be broken up as quickly as possible so that they can make a speedy exit through your system and not sit in your bowels, fermenting for days.  Fermentation of lingering food not only causes you to be uncomfortable (think bloating, flatulence and constipation) but it also feeds that annoying Candida and contributes to its overgrowth in the body.

I know this all seems very bleak, but there is some good news here! Food combining is actually incredibly, astronomically, magnificently EASY!  It all boils down to this simple rule: flesh with vegetables or starch with vegetables.  Since Taco Salad combines ground beef (flesh) with refried beans (starch) and rice (starch) and vegetables it is not proper food combining (see previous paragraph).


So, if you want a chicken breast (flesh) you can enjoy it with steamed broccoli and a mixed greens salad (vegetables).  Or, if you happen to feel like a pizza (starch), you can enjoy it with all the vegetable toppings you'd like, you just have to hold the meat.  You see, when meat and starch are present at the same meal they will bind to each other and slow both of their passage through your GI tract, contributing to your feeling of abdominal discomfort.  But when they are kept well away from each other, things will continue along swimmingly.  Please note though, that cow dairy is bad no matter which way you combine it so you're best giving it up in favor of a non-dairy alternative (click here to see my almond mylk recipe).  Fruit should always be eaten on its own, far away from meals (first thing in the morning is best).

Here is a handy chart to give you a basic understanding:

Flesh	Starches	Neutral
Organic Chicken breast	Baked Sweet potato	All raw vegetables
Organic Fish/seafood	Baked squashes (butternut, acorn, spaghetti)	All cooked vegetables (that are not starches)
Organic, cage-free eggs	Baked Yams	Lemons
Grass-fed, hormone-free, organic meat	Millet, Quinoa or Buckwheat (all GF)	Himalayan Rock Salt
	Avocados	Almond Milk
	Beans	Raw Chocolate

So, you can choose either a flesh or a starch and combine them with any neutral ingredients to make up a meal that leaves both your stomach and your waist-line happy!

Happy combining!

Traditional Chinese Medicine and Raw Foods

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a modality used by Naturopathic Doctors in clinical practice.  It combines acupuncture, herbs and nutrition to bring balance to individual patients and thus expel disease (which is said to be caused by an imbalance).

TCM has often promoted the idea of cooked foods and often links eating too many raw foods to certain disease patterns.  Because I study TCM, I was always fascinated with this take on the raw foods diet, considering I found raw foods to be the only protocol that was able to bring about healing in my life.

My professor at school informed us that the reason a predominately raw food diet is not preferred is because the foods carry so much water and 'cold' in them, they are often hard on the Spleen and Stomach TCM systems that need to digest them.  Cooking was seen to pre-digest the food and allow the Spleen and Stomach an easier task.

That being said, I took this information to another TCM practitioner (who happens to be a raw foodist) and asked their opinion on this topic.  The TCM practitioner agreed that most raw foods are 'cold' for the body, but he also rationalized that they can be easily warmed with certain herbs and spices.  For example, adding freshly squeezed ginger to your juices and sprinkling cinnamon in your smoothies and desserts. Another option is adding cayenne, black pepper or turmeric to your entrees. These spices 'warm' the food without cooking it and make it suitable from a TCM standpoint for your Spleen and Stomach.

That being said, the best scenario I found in the winter is to eat raw foods for breakfast, lunch and snacks and then to come home and enjoy a nice cooked dinner.  Just because you eat raw foods for health doesn't mean you have to be 100% all the time.  In the summer it may be easy to be 100% raw, but in the winter you may need to make adjustments.  Just listen to your body and you can never go wrong!

Have a wonderful day!

The Gathering Conference: A meeting of minds

The Gathering Conference is happening right now at the CCNM!

If you'd like more information on what it's all about, click here: .http://www.naturopathicgathering.com/

Have a wonderful weekend!

The Most Colourful Salad

I look forward to my weekly excursions to 4 Life Natural Foods in Kensington Market.  After much shopping around, I have come to realize that this place has the best tasting greens in the city.  And, of course, everything is organic.

After I came home from buying it, I couldn't remember the name of Radicchio at first but thanks to this incredible post on Epicurious, I was able to identify it!

Colourful Salad

• radicchio
• romain lettuce
• cucumber
• grape tomatoes
• hemp seeds
• dulse flakes
• a sweet vinaigrette to balance out  the bitter, salty flavours of the salad

Thai Carrot Coconut Soup (from Uncooking with Raw Rose)

I found that this soup actually tastes a bit better after sitting in the fridge for 24 hours.  I think it has to do with all the flavours being allowed to mingle together.

• 1 cup water (can be warm or cold)
• 1 1/2 cups carrots (cut in 2" chunks)
• 1/3 cup fresh parsley 
• 1 green onion
• 1/4 of a lemon (peeled)
• 3 tablespoons dried, unsweetened, shredded coconut
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp fresh ginger, diced
• 1/2 tsp himalayan salt
• 1 avocado (diced, for topping)
• 1 tsp hemp seeds (for topping)

Blend all the ingredients, except avocado, in a high speed blender.  Pour into a bowl.  Top with hemp seeds and avocado.  Enjoy!