I Can’t Believe THESE Are The Foods I Crave

“The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.”

Thomas Edison

I just completed my intermittent fasting blog post (that was a huge undertaking for me, and I STILL don’t feel like I captured it in all its glory), and the natural place for me to go next, would be food.

So, I am coming at you live, from the choc-o-holic center of the world: my house … I LOVE chocolate. I love chocolate so much that it was like it was born into my DNA. I remember I had a conversation with my mother, years ago, and in that conversation she told me she craved two things when she was pregnant with me – chocolate and beer. At that time, chocolate was, of course, my jam, but I really disliked beer. Go figure. So, when I looked like that little girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, stuffing my face full of any chocolate I could get my hands on (Milky Way – Milky Way is by FAR my favorite), it just seemed natural.

What didn’t seem natural however, was the weight I was gaining. At the time, I really didn’t care. I mean, I said I didn’t care – and in many ways, that was true – but I did care that I felt like people were looking at me as the new chunky girl. That may not sound very PC, but it was honestly what I was thinking.

So, how did that all change? Well, as I have said before, things shifted greatly due to implementing intermittent fasting into my life; but, specifically what IF did for me, is force me to look at my food choices, decide what I wanted to spend my time on, and start making better decisions.

I really, greatly believe in the thought, that food can either feed disease, or it can feed health. I have always believed in elements of that concept, but now we are entering an age where scientists and doctors are finding evidence to support that claim. Our soil has been massively depleted of the nutrients it used to hold, we are genetically altering our foods and over-processing them, we are dumping LOADS of sugar (real or not) into our bodies, and then we are complaining that we don’t feel well, or that our “machines” are not running properly. I mean, it doesn’t take a brain child to find the common denominator.

But, finding the common denominator, and DOING SOMETHING about it, are two very different things. It really takes a trigger, or if nothing else, an over-hauling of your mindset, to actually change your vices. And for most of us, food isn’t really for nutrients – food is simply a vice.

So, when I started IF, I didn’t have a choice – I HAD to make some decisions. When you eat in a narrow window, you simply don’t have the time to fit everything in. You need to focus on what is most important to you, and also, what will sustain you until the next time you eat. If I spend my 2(ish) hours of eating, choosing breads, and sugar, and flavored coffees, and chips, and .. you get the picture .. then, when am I going to eat the good stuff? And you can bet your bum that if I don’t make time for any of the good stuff, that I am either, not going to be able to make it through my fast the next day, OR, I am going to be HANGRY. And no one wants to work with me when I am hangry. So, I found my “staples”. Foods that I eat every single day, that I know I will consume, that offer health benefits to me. And if amongst those staples I get to fit something else in, great! But if not, then I know that I am at least taken care of for the next 20+ hours.

Avocado

Man, I love me some avocado. Don’t I wish that the saying was, “an avocado a day keeps the doctor away” – I would so be in compliance. My husband grumbles at me due to the cost of them – when they are like $1.29 a piece, and there is no deal, he starts to sweat when I grab a few – but, I can’t help it. I put one every day in my salad, although, I love them enough to simply cut it and eat it on its own. You don’t even need to make it into guacamole for me! (I tried it in a cake recipe for a Keto cake once though – uh, I DON’T recommend it).

**Oh yeah! – I have a salad every day as well, but until I just typed that paragraph above, I didn’t think to talk about my salad (i.e. no picture). So, just know that, that is a staple “food” for me as well.

Pistachios

These may be my ride-and-die. If there is a day that I somehow forget to grab a bag of pistachios to take with me, or I run too close to the end without getting more (I make sure this happens infrequently) than I am legit, lost. Pistachios are such a healthy fat, but they also satisfy the need to crunch something. So, instead of grabbing Cheez-It Extra Toasty Crackers like I REALLY WANT TO, I grab my pistachios. Sometimes I make room for my Cheez-Its, but my pistachios allow me to make it more than days, or even weeks, without them.

Apple and Natural Peanut Butter

Here is my “apple a day”! This is my afternoon snack, usually right before I close my window to start fasting again. I cannot say enough about that peanut butter, and for whatever reason, it tastes like heaven on an apple (my apple of choice is always Pink Lady). I simply slice the apple up, and gob the peanut butter on the individual slices. It truly is [for me] a match made in heaven.

So, I have talked mostly about “snacky stuff”, what about food, food? I am only going to mention two items here, because this is supposed to be my “staple food” info. While I eat A LOT more items (including meat) than what is listed here, I wanted to stick to showing you my constants.

Roasted Asparagus

I could eat asparagus any way that you cooked it – heck! I could probably even eat it raw! It was never something that my mother made for us growing up (she had her staples of what she prepared, as well) but once I met my husband, and he made me some asparagus, it was all over. It now ranks right up there with spinach and squash for me.

Roasting the asparagus is probably the way that I prepare it most, and I usually have to fight my 9-year-old in order to get to it (that’s the case with avocados, as well). All I do is sprinkle some olive oil, salt, and pepper on it, throw it in the oven at 400 degrees, and cook it until the tips (or the “tree-looking ends”, as I like to call them) are a little crispy looking. Mmm, magnifique!

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

So, here is another vegetable that mostly happened for me, after my husband and I got together. He is from California, and he grew up eating a lot of different foods than I did. (I have also tried fresh artichoke hearts, courtesy of him, but they are WAY too time consuming to mess with).

I had tried brussel sprouts before my husband, but I STRONGLY disliked them. I had only ever tried them steamed, and EWWW.

The roasting aspect of them came much later, when a colleague mentioned that she puts a balsamic glaze on hers, and then just pops them in the oven. I thought, what can go wrong?, so I tried it, and huzzah! I love them! The roasting and a little bit of glaze seems to take the massive amount of bitterness away for me, and they have since become my “second in command”, after my asparagus.

All this post is trying to show you, is that you just need to find your staples. Find what you love, find what works, and eat that stuff FIRST. Sure, have your Milky Way, or your Doritos, or your Cheez-It Extra Toasty Crackers – but AFTER your staples. Feel free to see if you have any room left for the extra stuff.