Daily Routines: Morning

I've always been a morning person. There's just something about the freshness of a new day that I love! I tend to naturally wake up around 5:30 these days, though in the past I have had my fair share of 4am wake up calls in order to get to work by 6:30am. I have also always been a very organized and regimented person, so I often get questions about what my morning and evening routines look like. Truthfully, a smooth morning comes from preparing well the night before, but we'll get to that in my Evening post. 

Here's how I start my days, at least during the workweek! The time schedule might vary a little, but the routine is the same.

5-5:30am: Wake naturally without an alarm.

5:35am: Take temperature as part of FAM (fertility awareness method) and to track thyroid health + take thyroid supplement.

5:40-5:55am: Measure heart rate variability, decide which workout to do (based on HRV), get dressed. (Note: I have a loose plan for my workouts at the beginning of my week, but will modify if needed based on HRV. I use the Polar H7 with two apps, Elite HRV and HRV4Training, and I love it! It's been neat to see how my body is physiologically responding to my exercise and lifestyle changes.)

5:55am: Drink Rootz pre-workout or about 4-8 oz of coldbrew coffee (lately from Superfood Coffee Co) and head to the gym.

6-7am: Workout! I rotate between Kayla Itsines workouts, Metabolic Prime workouts, walking with sprints, or most recently, a class at the YMCA (bodypump, some kind of dance cardio, strength, yoga, etc.). I always spend at least 10 minutes stretching before heading home. I love staring my day with a workout, and don't like to feel rushed!

7-7:05am: Bounce on the janky hand-me-down rebounder in my garage for a few minutes to get that lymph flowing!

7:05am: Take 5gm L-Glutamine (Thorne is top quality! This bottle lasts me for about a month.) in water with 2 MegaSporebiotic capsules (These have really been making a difference for me and are only available through practitioners. Let me know if you want to try them out for yourself!) and 25 bil cultures of probiotic from Custom Probiotics.

7:10am: Dry brush (more lymphatic support), shower, get dressed for work. I use lots of essential oils throughout my day, and they are part of my daily getting ready routine. On my abdomen I use lavender, lemongrass, and marjoram to help with digestive health/abdominal pain, and on my feet I use myrrh, sandalwood, and frankincense to support thyroid health, nerve health, and reduce inflammation. Sometime I put on a podcast (see below for favorites), music, or Gilmore Girls while I'm getting ready, but I also enjoy a quiet morning before the busyness of the day sets in. My hair/makeup routine is minimal, so getting ready doesn't take me too long. (Hallelujah for the top knot, my style of choice 99 days out of 100. Someday I'll get better about styling my hair, but now is not that time.) 

7:45-8am: Eat something. It depends on what workout I did, but I might have a couple of eggs, go ahead and have my shake, or have some BCAA's with MCT oil and save my shake for when I get into work. Regardless, if I eat, I always make sure that I'm sitting and not feeling rushed. If I'm short on time, I wait to eat until I get to work so that I'm not eating in a stressed state, which makes a HUGE difference for me in my digestion/bloating.

8-8:20am: Grab my lunch bag and head to work! My start time varies depending on the day, so depending on how much time I have, I might respond to a few emails, catch up on Instagram comments, read for a few minutes, etc. I almost always listen to a podcast on my drive (about 25 minutes), and I listen to it at 1.5x speed so I can pack in even more information! Some of my favorites are High Intensity Health, The Keto Diet Podcast, The Nourished Podcast, Bulletproof Radio, Fat-Burning Man, The Paleo View, Revolution Health Radio, The Ben Greenfield Podcast, and most recently, The Happier Podcast. See why I have to listen to them at 1.5x speed?? There are so many good ones!! 

That's my morning, in a nutshell! A few things I do to keep things snappy and organized: I get out all my clothes beforehand (more on this in the Evening post). I always put my things in the same place. My Polar heart rate monitor goes on the bathroom counter, as does my thyroid medication. My essential oils are there too. The thermometer lives on my nightstand. I have the same 8 or so outfits that I rotate through every two weeks for work, so those all stay on the left side of my closet, ready to go. I have my breakfast supplies all portioned out and ready to go, same with my supplements. You get the idea. I thrive on structure!

How do you do mornings? Do you have any routines in place to make them go more smoothly? I'm always open to trying something new! 

Macadamia White Chocolate Truffles (Low-Histamine, Low-FODMAP)

If you've been following me for any time at all, you know that I LOVE chocolate. My usual go-to is a hearty chunk of Eating Evolved Signature Dark bar. Unfortunately, cocoa powder is a no-go on a low-histamine diet. From my research, it is on the lower end of the spectrum of histamine containing foods, but for these first few weeks I am avoiding all foods that contain a noted amount. The good news is, cacao butter isn't on that list! Macadamia nuts are also on the "low-histamine" list, so I decided to get creative in the kitchen and come up with a fun sweet treat that I could enjoy. What I ended up with is a batch of macadamia nut butter "cookie dough" and some makeshift white chocolate. I originally intended to chop up the white chocolate and mix it in with the dough, but ended up making some "truffles" out of it instead!

Macadamia Nut Cookie Dough:

• 1 cup raw macadamia nuts

• 2 tbsp brown butter (or sub coconut oil)

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1-2 tbsp pure maple syrup

• 1-2 tbsp coconut flour

• 1/4 tsp salt

1. Blend all ingredients except the coconut flour in a food processor until a smooth paste forms.

2. Add 1 tbsp of the coconut flour and process until combined. If the mixture still seems thin, add the second tbsp of coconut flour. 

3. Scoop into balls using two spoons or a cookie scoop onto a parchment lined plate and place in fridge to set. 

White Chocolate:

• 1 oz cacao butter

• 1 oz coconut butter (Artisana is by far my favorite brand!)

• sweetener to taste (I used 1/2 tbsp maple syrup and 1/2 tbsp coconut sugar)

1. Place all ingredients in a small saucepan over low heat and stir until melted and well combined.

2. Transfer to small molds or a glass dish to later cut into chips.

To make the truffles, I put about 1/2 tsp of the white chocolate in the bottom of a silicone mold, a added a small ball of the macadamia dough, and topped it off with another 1/2 tsp of the white chocolate! 

Store any leftovers in the freezer. Enjoy!

Meal Prep 1/23/17: Low Histamine Continued

Last week's low histamine trial required some adjusting to my usual meal prep routines, but all in all, I made it work without much trouble! I was fighting off a bit of a cold early in the week, so it's hard to say with confidence if I noticed a difference in any symptoms, but I do think it was beneficial (with the most notable change being an increase in focus and a decrease in abdominal pain). The most difficult thing so far has been missing having an acid of some kind (vinegar/lemon) and a daily piece of Eating Evolved (use code "traceygtmt" for TWO free bars with your order through the end of this month!!), but I've found that an extra pinch of salt fixes the lack of vinegar in salad dressings and carob and coconut butter makes a good substitute for chocolate! 

Here's my meal plan for this week:

Breakfast: Protein Shake // 1 scoop Vanilla Build protein by PureWOD and 1 scoop Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides, mixed with Native Forest Simple Coconut Milk, Bulletproof Brain Octane, and 1 cup frozen blueberries, cherries, or peaches. 

Lunch: Lamb Skillet with Sweet Potatoes and Chard // The basic ingredients in this meal are very similar to my lunches last week (which turned out amazing, by the way), but I'm mixing up the spices and veggies for variety. I'm trying to cook use the meats I have in my freezer, hence lamb on back to back weeks! (As always, I purchased my lamb in my bulk order from US Wellness Meats.) For this one, all I did was caramelize an onion in my Le'Creuset, then add the lamb and cook until done. After that I tossed in the chopped chard and covered the pot until the greens were wilted. At the same time, I roasted the chopped up sweet potato in the oven until tender and starting to brown, portioned everything out, chilled for 15 minutes, then froze.

Dinner: Green Soup with Simple Chicken // Loosely based on this recipe, I modified my version to make it more histamine friendly by leaving out the sherry, cayenne, and lemon and replacing the broth with water. I also used a sweet potato in place of the Yukon gold. I cooked the chicken separately and froze it immediately after portioning into jars. 

Snacks: Boiled Eggs + Carob Coconut Butter Bites // The carob bites are my current substitute for chocolate. I have found conflicting information on the histamine content of carob, so I'm being cautious, but sure am enjoying the chocolate-like flavor! All I did to make them was mix up 1/2 cup coconut butter with 1/4 cup carob powder until smooth, then portion into a silicone mold to set. 

Have a great week!

Meal Prep 1/16/17: Low Histamine Trial

Yes, that is frost you see in my meal prep picture this week! As recommended by my ND, I am implementing a two week trial of a low-histamine diet. Histamine is a neurotransmitter involved in many processes within the body, including immunity, digestion, and nervous system communication. When we consume histamine, our body generally breaks it down within our digestive system, but there are certain genetic SNP's that can hinder this process, leading to a buildup of histamine in the body. Symptoms of histamine intolerance include headaches, digestive distress, palpitations, hives, itching, and more. Foods that are highest in histamine are those that are aged or fermented, as histamine is a byproduct of bacterial activity, particularly on proteins. Once created in a food, histamine is not destroyed by any method of preparation, so for those with histamine intolerance, the key is to limit the total intake by emphasizing fresh foods and consuming or freezing proteins immediately after preparing them. Though I was sad to give up my homemade bone broth, sauerkraut, chocolate, and many other high histamine foods (vinegar! citrus! bacon! spinach! fish sauce! COYO! cinnamon! EPIC bars!), I am interested to see if this might be a missing piece to the puzzle of my health. I took extra care to only include foods in my meal plan this week that are naturally low in histamine and froze them immediately after preparation. As well, since my food choices are further limited to low histamine foods, I am including more carbs in my diet this week (compared to my usual LCHF/keto approach) to increase variety.

Here's what the week will look like:

Breakfast: Protein Shake // 1 scoop Vanilla Build protein by PureWOD and 1 scoop Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides, mixed with Native Forest Simple Coconut Milk, Bulletproof Brain Octane, and 1 cup frozen blueberries.

Lunch: Lamb Meatballs + Roasted Sweet Potato + Radish/Cucumber/Parsley Salad // I started with 1# of ground lamb from US Wellness Meats and thawed it quickly in water. I mixed in about 8 minced cloves of garlic, 1 tsp Redmond Real Salt, a handful of fresh mint, and 2 cups of chopped fresh parsley. I formed 16 small meatballs and baked them at 425 for 15 minutes, then transferred them immediately to the fridge for 15 minutes before swapping them to the freezer. At the same time, I roasted some orange and purple sweet potato cubes in coconut oil and salt and added those to my frozen meatballs. The radish/cucumber/parsley salad I'll make fresh each day, but I did make little bags of the veggies for convenience and chopped the parsley. I'll dress the salad with olive oil and salt. 

Dinner: Carrot Ginger Soup with Vital Proteins // This is a recipe from the AIP Instant Pot Cookbook. It's super simple to make (basically just carrots, parsnips, ginger, salt, and cilantro) and comes together in a flash! I left out the broth and replaced with additional coconut milk. I also added Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides to boost the protein (gelatin is approved for a low-histamine diet) and topped it off with some ginger scallion sauce that I toasted up in ghee. Delicious combination! 

Snack: Soft Boiled Eggs + Coconut Butter // I'll boil the eggs each day to keep them fresh, and as usual, will stash a packet of Artisana's Coconut butter single serving packets in case I need it!

I think I need to invest in another freezer now :) 

Have a great week!

-Tracey

How To Charcuterie

Charcuterie boards are one of my favorite ways to eat. Through the summer we were having them every Sunday night for dinner, and when I'm not sure what to cook, they're an easy go-to! One of the things that I love about them is that they are easily customizable and can accommodate a variety of dietary needs at the same time, because each person can choose the parts that work for them. I always try to include a couple of options from each of the following categories for a diverse board with tons of flavors! I've listed some of my favorites, but feel free to branch out and add whatever suits your fancy.

1. VEGGIES // radishes, persian cucumbers, bell peppers, sliced carrots, snap peas, cherry tomatoes, arugula (wrapped with prosciutto)

2. FRUIT // grapes, sliced apple/pear, fresh berries, dates/dried figs/cranberries

3. PROTEINS // smoked salmon, prosciutto, salami/pepperoni (I prefer Applegate brand), cheese (we love the 1000 Day Gouda from Trader Joe's), pâté

4. OLIVES/PICKLES // dried botija olives, castelvetrano olives, cornichon pickles

5. NUTS/SEEDS // I'll use whatever I have on hand, but macadamia nuts, walnuts, almonds, and cashews are some of my favorites!

6. CONDIMENTS //dijon mustard, pesto, aioli (I use Primal Kitchens Mayo as a shortcut!), jam

Once I have all of my ingredients, I like to pull them all out on the counter and add them item by item to the board. I usually start with the bigger ones and work my way down to the smaller. I have as much fun putting together and styling the board as I do eating it!

That's really all you need to know. Charcuterie boards are so versatile and there's really no wrong way to put one together, so jump right in and go for it!