A Whole New Way of Eating

Have you heard of Whole30? You've probably heard it mentioned a time or two in passing. Or maybe you know someone who is a pretty healthy eater who lives it day in and day out. I first heard mention of it a couple of years ago and thought it was poppycock. Give up dairy? No way, Jose! Say no to my nightly sweet treats? You must be crazy! Eliminate ALL processed foods? Here, let me direct you to the looney bin. 

I mean, we've always eaten fairly healthily but nothing super extreme. Usually a meat and two veggies at supper with bread a distant thing of the past. Our (started as mine and I slowly brought David's tastebuds around. . .) downfall has always been dessert. Have you seen the foodie section of this blog?? It wasn't until my kidneys stopped responding to the steroids as they had in the past that I started really investigating our diet and what we were doing to ourselves. I was amazed at how poor our choices had become over time. It was time to hit the reset button.

So, that's where we are-hitting the reset button. We're not going into this in hopes of losing weight, but more in jumpstarting our bodies. Trying to kick the sugar addiction (yes, it is a total addiction for me!) and eliminate the ick that we take in. It certainly won't be easy, but we believe it will definitely be worth it!

For those of you who have walked this path I would love any advice you have on food and good recipes. Pinterest has been super helpful, but I love hearing what worked for real people! 

Cilantro Lime Chicken Skillet

Part of Crossfit's mantra is clean eating through the Paleo lifestyle. It took some time for David to convince me of this, partly because I just didn't want to give up certain things! Here is a great infographic to help break it down:

via

No, we're not completely paleo, but we try to eat the best we can!

Ingredients

2-3 Chicken Breasts, cut up

2 Tbls (or as much as you like) fresh cilantro

lime juice

1 1/2 Tbls. Olive Oil

sea salt and pepper

 Directions

Mix all the ingredients together and let marinate for a few hours.

When ready to cook, dump mixture into a pan and cook over medium heat until done.

Part II:

Ingredients

 1-2 avocados, cut up

cilantro

1 onion, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

lime juice

sea salt and pepper

garlic salt

Directions

Mix it all together and add whatever spices taste yummy to you.

This dish was easy to put together and perfect for a hot summer night!

Summer 2013 Bucket List

Today is officially my first day of Summer-WAHOOOO! A few Summers ago I came up with a "bucket list" of sorts. A list of activities and tasks I wanted to accomplish over my two-month break. Enter an impromptu nannying job and buying a house and those to-do's went out the window. I'm giving it another go with a few things I want to tackle on my break!

apply for a passport

Where are we headed? Nowhere in particular, but we figured it might be a good idea to get me one in case we want to go somewhere. When we were looking at Spring Break trips we felt limited because I didn't have one and we don't want that to happen again.
 

study for (and possibly take) the GRE

Y'all, I'm scared. We've been talking about me doing this for a while now and the first step is to take that nasty test. The funny thing is I teach kids how to take tests all the time, but I'm terrified to do it myself. I haven't taken a standardized test since I was in high school! Cue freakout in 3, 2, 1. . .

top to bottom clean

I want to do a top to bottom clean of our house. David always jokes that our house is so much cleaner in the summer because I finally have time to pay attention to it. It's the sad, sad truth.

cooking

I really would like to get back into trying new recipes. A lot of time I don't have the energy to do this after school, but with hours of free time I will have no excuse!

summer reading

Ditto above, just substitute books instead of recipes. The school year does not afford me much time for personal reading and I would really like to take some time to do that.  

crafting
I have a slew of projects I've been pondering and this summer is the perfect opportunity to complete them!

sunrise/sunset
This is an item on my 30 Before 30 List and I would love to knock it out this summer. It seems like I'll either see the sunrise or the sunset, but never in the same day. I'm hoping to partake in this glorious creation sometime this summer! 

Anything else I should add??

30 Before 30: Farmer's Market Feast!

David and I have always preferred buying local to not. If it comes to going to the corner coffee shop or Starbucks, we choose our local place. When it comes to produce, we always try and buy what we can from the farmer's in our area. About a year ago we started getting a box of fresh produce from a local farm. Each week we stop by and they give us a great selection of what's in season. So when I created my 30 Before 30 List I knew I wanted one of the items to reflect this passion of ours. So I chose to attend a local farmer's market and create a meal from the things we pick out. All that happened this past weekend!

We headed over to the local market armed with cash and a cooler for our goodies (we were running errands afterwards). Neither of us were in the mood for anything in particular for supper, it was only 9:30am after all and we had just gorged ourselves on breakfast. So we started perusing to see if anything caught our eyes. After a loop around (we wanted to get an idea of what was out there) we ended up with the following items:

eggplant

spaghetti squash

mushrooms

sweet potatoes

green beans

zucchini

There were lots of other items to choose from, but since our weekly CSA box included a bunch of items this week I knew we didn't want to go overboard. Anywho, what in heaven's name could we make with the above items?? We decide on eggplant parmesan with spaghetti squash and sauteed mushrooms with a bonus dessert of zucchini bread! I don't have the recipes organized quite yet but will be sharing them all in the coming weeks. Until then just know that our supper was absolutely awesome made even better by the fact that it was provided to us by the little old farmers behind all the stands.

What's your favorite thing to get at a local market??

Friday's Letters [08.17]

It's another edition of Friday Letters with Adventures of Newlyweds!

Dear Harris Teeter manager, Thank you for sharing more couponing secrets from the other side.

Dear summer vacation, It was nice while it lasted. I'm sorry to see you go, but know that your return will be that much sweeter following your absence. Keep up the great work when it comes to relaxing people.

Source: someecards.com via Lauren on Pinterest

Dear crockpot, How could I have forgotten about all your magical qualities?? You have reintroduced a whole new level of quality to our week's meals. Be prepared to get kicked back into high gear when our schedules pick up in the coming weeks!

Dear robot checkers on websites, I promise I am not a robot so please let me buy my product or add my comment. It's not my fault you scramble things up so beyond anything readable that I cannot decipher your code.

Dear years of swim practice, I am pleased to report that the thousands of hours I spent in the pool as a kid were not a total waste. The other day that hubby and I went up to the pool to swim a few laps and it all came right on back to me. In fact I actually got a little nostalgic and maybe even missed the green hair and smell of chlorine constantly emanating from me. Maybe.