The Beauty Bite

Reclaiming beauty one bite at a time

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Good Husbands | January 18 2013

I'm so glad my husband is on the gluten free journey with me. It makes meals so much easier to enjoy, especially when I know my children will eat it too! Really, going gluten free isn't hard.

Here's a really simple gluten free lunch. Brown rice pasta sauteed in a little butter, garlic, and parsley with cremini mushroom. We've been digging cabbage salad as of late. It's so sweet. Amazing how your taste buds come back when you eliminate bad things from your diet! 

PS: Brown rice pasta is by far the tastiest pasta out there, much better than white, brown or multi-grain. It's very smooth! 

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Spa Day | January 15 2013

This time of year, I always feel a little rundown. After Christmas and a busy year of photographing what seems to be everything under the sun, I take a little time to give back to - myself of course! And what better way to give back then head to the spa. I bet you thought I was going to say gym right? ;) Well, that'll come soon enough! Right now, I need pampering.

I went to the Dove Spa with my cousin and enjoyed a chocolate body wrap. It was pretty heavenly. After my treatment, I enjoyed my first blooming tea. If you've never tried one before, I highly suggest you do. They're pretty cool and extremely pretty (but as with any tea, if you leave it in long enough, your tea will go bitter). 

I left feeling invigorated despite someone hitting my car earlier on that day. Yep. She even tried to leave without a note as I was inside Starbucks with a client. Thank God for the good samiritan who saw everything and waited for me to come out! 

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Holy Crap | January 14 2013

So, I saw this the other night and thought .... holy crap! What the heck is it? So, I turned to Facebook and of course, my trusty friends chimed in at 100am to tell me that it's delicious and totally worth the $9.99 price tag (and that was the sale price). I saw a huge bin of it at my local grocery and thought, "hmm, interesting". Turns out, the creators behind Holy Crap have been hugely successful in bringing their gluten free and GMO free breakfast cereal to the mainstream with the help of Dragon's Den. 

Well, I'm a week gluten free today and feeling great. I'm down 3 pounds and no longer feel bloated. I had quite a few nagging headaches last week, which I thought was attributed to the lack of sugar in my diet but it turns out it was likely just the barometric pressure shifting yet again as we experienced spring like temperatures over the weekend. 

Anyway, after speaking with a few friends on Facebook about it, I knew I had to try it. In fact, I kinda promised I would and report back. I should have taken a photo of what it actually looks like (I'll amend this tomorrow) but basically, it's made of chia seed, buckwheat, hemp seed, and organic fruit (raisins, cranberries, etc). It is absolutely delicious! It's crunchy and sweet. I sprinkled half a tbsp of it onto my gluten free oats this morning and mmmm, it was divine! We usually make a dish of oats a few nights a week, which gets refrigerated for use over the next 2-3 days. We cut slices out from the dish and microwave it for 45 seconds. I flattened mine to add Holy Crap on top and drizzled with pure gluten free maple syrup (Kirkland makes a great syrup that you can get year round from Costco). 

Apparently, there are lots of different ways to enjoy your Holy Crap. Personally, I just enjoy saying the name first thing in the morning! ;)

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Happiness | January 10 2013

Down 3 pounds since Monday. Who knew losing weight could be so dang easy! :)

Also, I'm keeping my fingers crossed but I think my bench for my kitchen table is coming today. It's been on back order for over a month. My beautiful solid real wood kitchen table came with 5 leather chairs and a wooden bench (perfect for my kids). I love eating on it, shooting on it, and entertaining with it. It seats 8. It's rustic perfection! 

Update: Still bench-less :(

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Kind Food | January 8 2013

Today, I woke up feeling better than I have in a long time. Maybe it's psychosomatic  Maybe not. But my tummy wasn't bloated and I'm down 2.5 pounds. It's starting already. My dress fit much better too around my mid section, and mentally, I was just happy. 

I had my morning cuppa joe and did a little work before heading out to meet Alyssa at Kindfood in Burlington for lunch. Good grief, what took me this long to try their amazing food? They are only organic gluten free and vegan cafe and bakery in Canada and right in our backyard! We both indulged in their BLAT (vegan bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato with homemade vegan mayo served on buckwheat chia bread) and a green smoothie (made of spinach, kale, orange, banana and apple). Seriously delicious! 

Then, before heading back to my house to do some work, we stopped in at Kelly's Bake Shoppe (which was a part of Kindfood until December when they opened up a separate store just for their tasty treats). Their cupcakes, cookies and brownies are gluten free, vegan, dairy free, egg free, butter free, peanut free, soy free, casein free, trans fat free, cholesterol free, lard free, preservative free, free of artificial colour and made with love (taken directly from their website). So, you must be thinking .... are they free from taste? Hell no. I cannot stress this enough. Their treats are probably some of the yummiest morsels of goodness I've ever tasted. I highly recommend their mile high brownie. It was beyond good.

My girl Alyssa does all the photography for Kindfood. So proud! 

Tonight, I made a warm tabbouleh salad for dinner (I can provide the recipe if you want). I improvised because I didn't have a lot of time (basically, I didn't have mint and we ate it warm instead of cold) but it turned out great! In fact, we had seconds because it was so good (and we have a ton left over for lunch tomorrow, which is a huge bonus). Best of all, the boys LOVED it! At first, we told them it was mini butter noodles but when we noticed they were devouring it, we told them the truth. It was quinoa (pronounced keen-wah). We cook with it a lot. Really, quinoa means nothing to them. A name is but a name. It's how it tastes that counts ;)

Taking pics of the food I make really sucks when there's no natural light! 

For the boys, I put some plain quinoa aside and sauteed it with garlic and a touch of salt. That's it. No oil. No butter. Nothing. I was going to use a little chicken stock but I fear what I have in the house isn't gluten free so I opted to keep it out. Plus, I wasn't sure they'd like all the "green" that was in our tabbouleh, but I was wrong. 

Last but not least, I made another sorbet with my Yonanas tonight. This is by far my favourite sorbet thus far. Can you guess what it is? It's super healthy and deceiving! It's gluten free and made with absolutely no dairy! It's the marriage of two amazing flavours! C'mon... take a guess!

Fresh out of the Yonanas and ready to freeze!

Alright, I'll tell you since you may want the recipe. It's chocolate peanut butter sorbet made of only 3 ingredients - 3-4 frozen bananas, 1 tbsp of natural crunchy peanut butter, and 1.5 tsp of premium cocoa powder. You can use your food processor to whip the bananas together (I used my Yonanas). Then, by hand, mix in the cocoa powder and peanut butter. HELLO! I am never buying ice cream again! 

Until next time! x

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Beautisumption | January 7 2013

So, what did I eat on Day 1 going wheat/gluten free?

Here's my day.

Breakfast: Green Mountain coffee brewed from our Keurig with 1% lactose free milk and agave nectar and 2 free range/grain fed eggs (over easy with a dash of salt and pepper).

Lunch: Quinoa nut salad (100g), white rice gluten free pasta (about 1 cup) with gluten free bolognese sauce (about 1.5 tbsp).

Afternoon snack: Organic carrots and cucumber with organic/lactose free roasted garlic hummus (1.5 tbsp), half an orange and half a cup of watermelon.

Prepping veggies for tonight's dinner

Dinner: Tuna salad (made with water based tuna, 2 stalks of romaine, half a cucumber, 2 tomatoes, half a green pepper and 1 carrot, topped green onions, radishes, parsley and cilantro to garnish). We made a gluten free garlic vinaigrette for our salad, which was delicious and better than any store bought dressing we've ever had (just extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, lots of fresh garlic, salt and pepper).

Tonight's dinner dressed in all its glory! 

Shortly after dinner, I had an herbal tea with soy milk cream and xylosweet with 1/2 cup strawberry coconut lime sorbet (made with frozen strawberries, coconut milk, agave nectar and fresh lime juice - that's it). 

Evening Snack: Gluten free smoothie (made with frozen strawberries, pineapple, coconut milk, vanilla almond milk, and vanilla protein powder) and 1 tbsp of natural crunchy peanut butter. Took the edge off. 

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Beauty Bites | January 7 2013

Beauty bites. No, it really does. But I'm not doing this to be beautiful. I'm doing this because I love myself enough to put my health first. 

My DH and I decided it was time. Time to get healthy (and I don't mean cutting back on McDonalds french fries or eating low sodium chips). The fact is, we're dying. Every day, we die a little more and that makes me so incredibly sad. It's sad to age. It's sad to find grey hair and wrinkles but it's also sad when I can barely make it up the stairs because I'm exhausted. It's sad when I'm too tired (both mentally and physically) to play with my kids. It's sad when 8 hours of sleep isn't enough. Something is wrong. Something needs to change. 

Over the Christmas break, we had some much needed downtime. We spent time with each other. With our kids. We saw tons of friends. We filled it with love. And at night, we watched TV, snack in hand. OK, I know it sounds bad but we filled our nights watching healthy documentaries about the food we eat and what it's doing to our minds, bodies and souls. I've watched a few now, and more than ever, I know I'm ready to make a change.

Last year, I went on a pretty strict diet and lost 30 pounds. I was so proud of my accomplishments (especially because I did it over Halloween and Christmas) but I wasn't happy. I wasn't truly happy; from within. I couldn't wait to get off the diet and feel normal again. That's because diets never work. I lost the weight but I also lost a bit of my soul. I used to think food was fun and interesting. But I found myself eating to stay alive. Trust me, there's no fun in that. So, what did I do? I went back to my old eating habits. I didn't eat bad per se. I just didn't eat right. And I knew it would come back to "bite" me in the behind. And it did. Now, more than ever, I feel sick when I eat. Nothing is agreeing with me. I feel tired. My brain is foggy. All I want to do is sleep. Is this seriously how I want to live my life? Hell no. There is so much more to life than this. And you know what? I deserve better. 

I've been talking about going wheat/gluten free for a while now but I was scared. Scared because I knew it would entail work. A lot of work and time to figure things out. But it's a lame excuse. The fact is, the food we eat is killing us. The salad you think is healthy from McDonalds probably isn't (really people, did ya think it was???). Aspartame isn't just bad for you ... it'll kill you. And MSG makes us fat. Yep, they use MSG to fatten up mice for experiments, yet it's in over 80% of the food we eat. Helllooo!!?? Eat MSG, gain weight. Simple. I watched a documentary called "Hungry for Change" the other day and it really opened up my eyes to a few things. It's one thing to watch a chicken being abused and slaughtered for our eating pleasure. But it's another thing to hear someone tell you that the food you're feeding your children is killing them. Honestly, it broke my heart. It made me angry. I thought about my family and realised I was failing us. It wasn't my fault but now that I know, I just can't sit back. And so begins my quest for a better life. To bring the joy of food back to my life, one bite at a time. And if I lose weight, well ... I will certainly not complain as it's been a struggle for me for the last 10 years.

I will admit, today was a bit tough. I was overwhelmed and a little confused at the organic store. I took all the advice I got and tried to shop without buying every single thing in the store. I spent $40 and walked out with a few items. Although I had dinner 3 hours ago (a big tuna salad), I'm a bit hungry as I type this knowing that I can't turn to a late night nibble. But I know tomorrow will be better. The toxins are slowly leaving my body with all healthy things I'm choosing to put into my body; that alone makes me feel better than I have in a really long time. 

The purpose of this blog is to track my journey. My progress. To share my highs and lows. To share experiences. Recipes. Things that I learn. Feel free to follow my journey and share yours with me! Thanks for reading! 

Robyn x-