Today’s Challenge: Vegan cuisine! I think I aced this challenge, but it wasn’t without a few hiccups!

Breakfast: Smoothie take 2: I started with a basic recipe: nut butter, a fresh banana and soy milk – instead of ice I used frozen peaches. I blended – I tasted – I didn’t like it. So I made a second batch to add to the first and voila – it was good! The second batch I used another banana, more soy milk, fresh raspberries, and more frozen peaches. MAIN HICCUP HERE: 1/3 of it ended up in the seat of the car =(

Drink: Raspberry Green Tea

Lunch: Now lunch was a treat. I have only had one type of hummus in my life that I ever “liked” all the rest – gross!! I’d thought I’d try to introduce it since I was on this new journey. The result – deliciousness!!!!! I had 3-4 baby portobella mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, and pita bread with hummus and tabouli!! It was so good & surprisingly filling! I practiced not drinking while eating which Madam B Fly says aids in better digestion and absorption of nutrients into your body!!! HICCUP HERE: Carrots are too loud and crunchy for a working lunch meeting – I had to eat the rest for my afternoon snack.

Drink: Tea and water

Snack: a few bites of a new trail mix – it was gross – had wasabi peas in it – wasabi is only for sushi (at least for me!)
Snack 2 (while cooking dinner): Soy chocolate milk -about 2 oz. then about 15 minutes later another small taste of hummus and tabouli with pita bread and one mushroom

Dinner: Baked sweet potato with soy butter and honey, green beans with onion and garlic, and soy nuggets (mainly for the men of the house). HICCUP HERE: I forgot the nuggets were in the oven and overcooked them – they weren’t black – every morsel has been eaten!

Dessert: A few spoonfuls of raspberry sorbet to satisfy my sweet tooth!

FLAVOR of the day???? Raspberry it seems!

Lesson of the day(lesson from yesterday – but there’s not enough hours in the day for me to truly chronicle all of the journey): BE PRESENT DURING MEALS!!!
Madam B. Fly says to be present and experience your food – I tried! I worked really hard to not eat standing up – almost succeeded in this until the snack while I was making dinner and the second helping of green beans I ate hovering over the kitchen counter. Oh well – I’ll try that challenge again tomorrow.

Happy Cleansing!

Read this this am on sparkpeople.com:

Easy Ways to Boost Fiber Intake

Fiber is one of the easiest nutrients to incorporate into your diet, and one of the most important. However, many Americans don’t reach their much-needed daily requirements for a healthy diet. Adults need 25 to 35 grams daily. Generally, children under 18 years require less. Using the “age plus five” rule will help you determine your child’s needs. For example, a 5-year-old would need 10 grams daily (5 + 5 = 10), and a 10-year-old would need 15 grams (10 + 5 = 15).

Insufficient fiber intake can increase your risk for many health problems, including constipation, high cholesterol, weight gain, irritable bowel syndrome, and even cancer of the colon. Here are more fiber-rich tips:
•Choose fresh fruit and/or vegetables over juices.
•To get more fiber and nutrients, eat the skin of cleaned fruits and vegetables.
•Include bran and whole grain breads daily.
•Drink more water to accommodate your increased fiber intake and reduce indigestion.
•Eat fewer processed foods and more whole foods.
•Try to meet your fiber requirements with foods rather than supplements.
•A large increase in fiber over a short period of time could result in bloating, diarrhea, gas, and all-around discomfort. It is better to add fiber to your diet gradually over a recommended period of about three weeks, to avoid abdominal problems.

Here is another interesting message from my e-mail in-box and the reason why I must go see FOOD INC ASAP!

This is interesting . ..
Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow colouring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavourings….

DO YOU KNOW… the difference between margarine and butter?
Read on to the end…gets very interesting!

Both have the same amount of calories.
Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams.
Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few
only because they are added!
Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavours of other foods.
Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years .

And now, for Margarine..

Very high in Trans fatty acids.
Triple risk of coronary heart disease .
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)
Increases the risk of cancers up to five fold….
Lowers quality of breast milk.
Decreases immune response.
Decreases insulin response.

And here’s the most disturbing fact…. HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but one molecule away from being PLASTIC..

This fact alone was enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

You can try this yourself:

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:

* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)
* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weenie micro organisms will not a find a home to grow.

Why? Because it is nearly plastic . Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

Share This With Your Friends…..(If you want to ‘butter them up’)!

Chinese Proverb:
‘When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it, you have a moral obligation to share it with others.’
Pass the BUTTER PLEASE

In general, I don’t formally make resolutions.  I may say I want to lose weight, workout more, make more money, travel more, more time, more and more (you know the story of american abundance and materialism) but what I actually need is LESS! 

So this year I have two major priorities (in the spirit of simplicity).

1. Eliminate any and everything that is counter productive to my life purpose, passion and priorities. i.e. if its not about my family, growing my businesses or my being (spiritual, physical and creative) I am not doing it! 

And sorry folks this includes idle hours spent on the web that aren’t productive for any of these purposes!

2. Be consistent. I have tons of notes on business ideas, concepts, hobbies, activities, contacts, etc…that see 3 minutes of fame from me.  I will continue to take note of these (one of them has to be a goldmine and I am welcome to share them for a small fee) but I will only bite off as much as I can chew – including my approach to blogging.

I have started to journal (again) because not all people close to me are comfortable with their own -ish so I can’t share everything with you but i will share the highlights.  I also am committing to sharing something – however simple – at least once per week on this site. It is pitiful that I have notes of random thoughts and topics listed in my crackberry notes but they have never found their way to this medium… i have got to get them here!

So that’s it!  Two things that in reality aren’t so simple to achieve, but instead of saying I am going to use 30 lbs that I might not, that I am going to make $30k/month that I probably won’t, I’d rather focus on those two things which will have a profound affect on my life and the lives of those closest to me!

What are your priorities for 2009???

An almost perfect day

(well it’s only 3:00 p.m.)

Since there is an air conditioning outage at my 9 – 5, it was able to work from home today!  YIPPEE!

I was able to sleep a little later. Enjoy a quick breakfast with my son and retreat at the computer at my leisure.  Cleaning up my work e-mail box (nearly impossible), enjoy a healthy lunch with my husband all with the ease of not having to be “in the office”. 

It feels great to sit on my patio, turn on my music and just enjoy the beautiful day and occasional breeze – all while crossing out items on my to-do list! It is a beautiful feeling.  The taste of freedom is so sweet to me, it’s almost intoxicating. 

I am reminded today, more than ever, that I can achieve more balance being amongst the things I love most in the world, my family – nature and fresh air – and good music. Simple things that the average person does not have the opportunity to experience in the day to day rat race! 

It is time for me to exterminate any remnants of rats in my life.  This is a gentle reminder that my number one goal in work and life is to find MY way to make MY ideal amount of money without a traditional J-O-B! I am praying that will happen with my businesses this year!  Check them out:  www.adaru.com and www.thecharlymag.wordpress.com !