And Now to Get Honest

I talked yesterday about “getting real” – how eliminating processed foods, sugar and alcohol from your diet will make you feel better, you’ll have more energy, and most importantly, you will be doing the best you can to prevent disease, never mind that your body will likely start to change shape too.

Here’s the thing.  Making the decision to eliminate these foods from your diet isn’t going to change you overnight.  You won’t instantly feel better.  You won’t automatically have more energy.  Your body takes time to change.  And you won’t know how well you’ve done in terms of preventing disease until much, much further down the line.

In fact, you’re likely going to feel pretty horrible when you make the leap to a “real” way of eating.  Your body has to literally go through a detox process; yup, sugar addiction is a real thing.

And while the physical discomfort you might experience switching to this cleaner way of eating can be unpleasant, there are also mental/emotional consequences that don’t often get discussed.

Friday nights in our house, as I’ve talked about before, are usually a night to unwind, see family and friends, order in pizza and have some wine.  Oh . . . and the Husband is known for often bringing home cupcakes for everyone to enjoy too.  If we’re not hosting a pizza night, the Husband and I often go out for a date night to one of our favourite restaurants.

Personally, I find it extremely difficult to abstain from having a glass of wine when I’m surrounded by my friends who are all imbibing.  And while there are lots of gluten free pizza options, I have yet to find a place that delivers pizza with organic toppings, and logistically, making homemade pizza for more than just our family of 4 . . . well, that’s not exactly a relaxing evening!

I also find date nights hard . . . lingering over a cup of herbal tea at a restaurant where you’d normally be having an after dinner drink . . .well, it’s just not the same.

So I spent this morning alternating between moping and texting the Husband to see if we could come up with something “fun” for tonight that fit within our eating parameters.

And then it hit me.  We can have family date night.  Complete with homemade organic gluten free pizza and cupcakes!  While I don’t LOVE the gluten free crust mixes you buy at the grocery store, they will do – hopefully one day I’ll be able to come up with something that is a little better – and our fridge is already stocked with the rest of the ingredients we need.

Which brings me to the cupcakes.  Gluten free cupcakes made out of ingredients I have on hand . . . because . . .to be really honest, I do need to get to the gym today (one of my little ones has been sick this week which has meant no gym for me for most of this week) . . . and that taste as good as the store-bought ones.

Ok . . . so I’ll admit, I’m cheating a little bit.  Because I just happened to have 2 boxes of organic sweet potato flour in my pantry.  Why?  Because I’ve been meaning to make these cupcakes for a while.  I bought this brand from Barefoot Provisions – I checked all the major stores, Whole Foods, and all the small health food stores for it, and no one carried it – hence ordering it from the US.  So, unless you happen to have sweet potato flour in your pantry, you won’t be able to just whip these up.  That being said, these turned out pretty well – they will make an excellent snack for the kids (I’ll freeze what doesn’t get eaten and use them for Friday treat snacks) as they are nut free!  Oh . . . and they are free of refined sugar too!!!