I will eat...

I write in a journal every morning, the Woman's Life Organizer, a book that takes you week by week and asks inspiring questions, always grounding me in what I need to give more time to, how I need to better support myself and be a kinder person. This book was instrumental in getting me through the deep, dark days of anxiety and so instead of locking everything up from that time, I try to celebrate those tools and know that they can still help me. It's my second year of going through the journal, and I really do see myself using this for the rest of my life.

Each week there is a section where you can scribble things you want to: let go, have to, could do. Always, always, always, every week I write down something about eating better, eating more natural, not snacking so much, cooking more, but that wasn't cutting it. So when I looked at Jennifer Louden's email about her conditions of enoughness list to stop eating sugar, I knew this would be something that might really work for me. The idea behind it is, how can I keep doing things that make me feel so gross and bloated and not satisfied. I was craving healthy and it was really messing with me because I wasn't making any real actions towards what I wanted.

So last weekend I found a few recipes, went to the farmer's market, found an amazing health food store in Whittier and spent Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon in the kitchen. Then I made a list of what and how I will eat and what and how I won't eat and read it out loud to Mona and my mom to make my declaration. And damn I feel good after a week and I'm really excited to have this shift in eating that I've been craving.

Here's some of what I made last week:


Edamame hummus from Adrienne Eats. Instead of making it a wrap I ate it as my afternoon snack at work with some carrots. So satisfying and a good way to eat ginger everyday.



Creamy basil dressing from Your Vegan Mom. I usually eat salad everyday and I was noticing how much sodium is in even just two tablespoons. So this dressing is perfect for a daily salad, fresh and exciting to eat even when still emailing at my desk during lunch at work.



Granola! I felt most at the core of my healthy cooking when I made this on Monday night. I didn't know how relaxing and satisfying making your own granola can be.


Squash and potato torte, or grown up cheesy potatoes from Smitten Kitchen. This was more of an indulgent recipe, but good for a Saturday night meal.



I went to the HollyWood Bowl again and wanted to make something new for our pre-show picnic. Jorge loves egg salad but tries to stay away from so many eggs because of his cholesterol, so when I found a recipe for vegan egg salad I knew this was going to be our sandwich choice for the night. It's good, really good.

Mark this as the start of my fall new beginnings cleanse as I transition into one year older, one more school year at my job, less sun in the evenings and figuring out when and how long to jog now every week.