Destressing is too stressful!

Hey guys! Just want you to all know that I'm not dead as of yet... I know I haven't been updating AT ALL in the last however-long, but I thought I should get up to speed with my life at the moment.

Just quickly as a bit of an intro, I'm finally down to my last spoonfuls of protein powder. Yay! Once that rice protein and rice milk (nearly finished that, not long to go) is gone, I can clean up my act and start going fully, FULLY grainless. That's not to say that the powder didn't teach me anything. I realised that protein powders don't make me gain weight (or lose weight) or get stronger or anything, and I learnt what powders act and may taste like. I've also learned to love smoothies, and how to add extra calories and nutrients into something without being able to taste it or drink a whole heap more. But most of all, smoothies have given me my post workout snack(y-thing). Before I had smoothies, I worked out, and that was it. So I bid farewell to my starchy smoothies and make way for new ones with paleo proteins, like raw yolks and raw grated liver (and bacon on occasion :) ). But one of the smoothies I really wanted to be weird and try out was a broccoli smoothie. It sounded ultra rich in protein and low in sugar, and I hadn't found any idea of it anywhere so I tried it this morning. The verdict? It sucked. It tasted incredibly bland, and no matter how much lemon juice I squeezed into it, it still didn't pick up any flavour, and my throat was sore and scratchy afterwards, even though I boiled the broccoli before. Another lesson: don't eat a whole cupful of broccoli at one time (if you get scratchy throats like me).

On a completely different note now. Last night, I tried to catch up on sleep and get my rhythms and sleepiness back in order. I've been super tired lately and no matter how hard I've tried, I haven't been able to get to bed aaaand fall asleep at a reasonable time. I think I've always had a problem where I just think and think and think for like an hour before my brain eventually realises I'm meant to be restoring myself. So last night I made a list of stuff to do to wind myself down. That included:
- have a shower after all homework, instead of after dinner (gives me more time away from work)
- do some yoga that'll make me sleepy, on my bed
- have a mug of hot tea
- meditate
- continue my normal bedtime routine
- heat up heat packs for my knees (they've been hurting since I've been wearing foot coffins for school - I wonder why)
- go to bed with my door shut.
I was all on time with the showering business, but because I wanted my tea directly after yoga, and I didn't want to wait for any boiling or steeping or whatever, I had to prep my tea before and after my shower (I hadn't opened the packet and it was loose leaf and it just took forever. So I was late, leaving me stressful and made me decide to leave out the meditation. I had to boil the kettle twice because I got out a tablespoon of tea instead of a teaspoon, for one mug... So I had to brew up extra tea and I worried about it all through my yoga, which made me more stressed out. The fact that the yoga wasn't helping me feel better physically also wasn't doing my mind any favours. A bit cranky at my quick yoga that did nothing for me, I sorted my tea and drank that sitting on the edge of my bed in the dark. It had mint, licorice root, fennel and calendula leaves, and it was ah-mazing. That was the best part of the whole night. I discovered a new love for this tea, and sweet mint teas in general (the flowers made it beautifully, sugary sweet). When that was sadly over, I got up, raced around to fix up the rest of my tea and heat up my heat packs, and when I got back I realised I had to do the stuff I do every night, with the blaring lights on. So I crossed off the day on the calendar, wrote down what I'm grateful for, put lip balm and cuticle cream on, plugged in my charger, and made my way to bed. The whole night's procedures had taken me an hour to do, and I was still not sleepy. In fact, I was probably holding more stress and additional anger/crankiness than I was before. I went to bed and, I must admit, I did go to sleep quicker and I had a dream (a sure sign - for me at least - that I've had a deep sleep), but I still woke up with a yawn. I guess, overall, every little thing did its part, but instead of being peaceful and letting it all work to 100% of its capacity, I only let it work 60%. My knees feel better, but only slightly. Yoga before bed stretched me out, but didn't calm me down. The shower got me away from blue screen lights, but didn't make me sleepier.

The idea I got from this is that you don't need a thousand things to get you to sleep. Less is more. During now and the end of the hsc, I'll inevitably lose sleep, and wasting my time trying to fall asleep better is not going to work. I'll just have to pick what method of sleepiness I want to pick up that night.

Tonight, it's meditation and another mug of that cooling, calming, homely tea.

Simple Mango Smoothie

For the last two months or so, I’ve been starting to enjoy having smoothies with my breakfasts occasionally. They’re a quick combination of yummy fruit, lots of protein, nuts and even more nuts in the milk. I might also like them because of the fact that we have glasses that make them look kinda cafe-style. I have a few little mini stories about my two-month progression of smoothie-making and I thought that I could just collect them all and include them all here. So excuse the random jumping around here.

My favourite smoothie fruit is mango. I tried a banana smoothie once, but it was too.. gaggy for me. I think I’ll have more bananas in their whole form before I move onto having bananas in any mashed, mushed or squishy form. I’ve also tried pumpkin and that would have to be my second favourite. And orange just doesn’t work at all; it’s all watery and stuff and that doesn’t go well with the powder. I don’t think I’ve experimented with any other fruits... Does anyone have any ideas for other fruits/vegetables I could try?

It’s a little against my ideals, but I got myself a big bucket of protein powder a while ago and I’ve been popping a tablespoon of it into my smoothies. When I first got it, I couldn’t find a scoop so I assumed it didn’t have one, but I eventually dug down to it and when I found it, it was GIGANTIC! It would have to be at least two tablespoons! How does someone fit all that powder into a smoothie that is supposed to be runny and slurpable? That wasn’t going to happen. Also, the powder I’ve got is unflavoured so it’s not the most... amazing taste in the world. But after having a tablespoon of it nearly daily, I’ve gotten used to it and sometimes I kinda crave a smoothie just for the (overwhelming) taste of the powder. It’s kinda weird. I guess it’s like how I initially detested tahini and now I love it.

I entered a healthy chicken nugget competition some time ago and surprisingly I came a runner up! :D I was so excited that the people who were running it actually tried to make my funny nuggets that I think I was more excited about that than my actual prizes. One of prizes I got was a sample of super greens and reds so I tried it in my smoothie this morning instead of my protein powder and it smelled a bit spirulina-y before I tipped the little sachet in but it tasted great! Well, it didn’t exactly taste like anything; for once, I could taste the mango instead of any powder. It was a nice change from the protein powder, with all the organic vegetables, fruits and superfoods. I can’t say that I can feel any more energy or more vitalised or anything but it's got to be good for you.

I think it’s been two weeks now that I’ve improved the whole smoothie-making experience for myself. I used to own (actually, we still have it) a little tiny blender with a teeny baby 250ml cup thing to put the content in, and while I can actually control how much fruit I need to make a smoothie the right size (or else I’d make a batch for a small community), the stuff at the top wouldn’t be as blended as the stuff at the bottom so I came to liking the idea of a chunky smoothie. A couple of weeks ago, like I said, I upped the ante and I got a big 1.5L blender. I could not be more excited; I could finally have smooth smoothies! So of course now my smoothies are far too big to fit into one glass.

I think that covers all my little stories for now! I don’t even know how I have such a variety of things to talk about when it comes to smoothies, because I barely stray from this super-short ingredient list and I’ve barely had my share of smoothie time. So here’s the recipe to the one-and-only simple smoothie!

Simple Mango Smoothie

Serves 1

flesh from 1 big mango cheek plus all you can get off the stone

1 tbsp nut butter (I have almond, walnut or peanut butter)

1 tbsp protein powder

non-dairy milk (I use almond milk)

a couple of soaked almonds (optional)

Pop the first four ingredients in the blender in the order provided (I find it easiest this way, so that the nut butter or the powder doesn’t get caught up in the blade and do funny things) and when pouring the milk in, pour in about enough to cover three quarters of the content in there or enough to make it runny instead of a puree kind of thing. Pour into a pretty glass and sometimes I like to drop in a few soaked almonds :)

Sources:

http://www.ezyprotein.com.au/

http://naturalnewagemum.com/2012/11/22/kates-almond-crusted-chicken-nuggets-winner-of-the-great-homemade-chicken-nugget-competition/

https://nutraorganics.com.au/our-products/super-greens--reds

More Recipes Coming Up!

Ok, so I might have been procrastinating and not putting anything up for the last few days... I mean weeks...

It's just that so much has been happening since my birthday. Last week we were going out every night, and we had a few exams on too, and basically I had other things to focus on than writing about the stuff I was focusing on.

I've also progressed a lot more in terms of health in the weeks I haven't been here. I've upped my calories and upped my workouts, and for me, increasing calories is kinda hard so I've had to be a bit inventive. I hope to post a smoothie recipe up soon! Speaking of smoothies, I've gotten myself a protein powder just to help with the weight gain a bit. It's 100% unflavoured raw sprouted rice protein, so if you can imagine that, you can imagine why I can only really have it in smoothies! It's just too... funny-tasting to be used anywhere else. I make sure I have some of it every day, so I'm slowly getting used to it.

These past few days I've been cooking a lot more as well (at the moment I've got an eggplant in the oven) so I've got some more recipes to post! None of them are my own but I've tweaked recipes a bit. I tend to tweak a lot of recipes...