Healthy Celebration

Dessert Platter

Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate Love & Happiness.
In our culture, most people like to celebrate by sharing a meal of delicious foods topped off with yummy desserts.  If you are watching your weight or just eating healthier in general, you can still enjoy delicious foods.  Here's what I chose to eat for my Valentine's Day dinner. It was healthy and quite delicious.

Dinner

For dinner, I served grilled salmon, spinach stir-fry and freshly sliced cherry tomatoes. I love tomatoes!
The spinach stir-fry and salmon were both prepared using olive oil and the tomatoes were simply sprinkled with sea salt.

Dessert (pictured above) was a raw dessert platter that included fresh whole strawberries. The strawberries were so sweet...they were perfect. So, what are those heart-shaped thingies? LOL!  They are delicious little morsels of raw goodness. I call them Brazil Nut Dateys (cookies). No sugar is added to these little bad boys making them a very healthy treat. They are made using raw organic Brazil nuts, coconut flakes, barhi dates, and a pinch of sea salt.  I added organic cacao powder  to some of the mixture to create a chocolate flavor.  After all, what is Valentine's Day without chocolate, right?  These little dateys were shaped into mini hearts using a heart-shaped mold, which created the perfect bite-size portion, in honor of Valentine's Day. No guilt there! :-)

I hope everyone enjoyed their Valentine's Day whether you are single or in a relationship. I really enjoyed my evening.

What did your Valentine's Day dinner consist of?

Goal Completed

Mostly Raw (Front Cover)

Hello Everyone!

Just a quick note to say that I completed one of the top items on my To Do List. Yay!!!

It is my first booklet on Raw Foods and Healthy Eating, entitled Mostly Raw.  I personally know how hard it is to transition over to a mostly raw diet, so I created the book to help others who are striving to improve their eating habits and make a Healthy Lifestyle change.
The booklet has been sent to the printer and I should be receiving my copies no later than the first part of next week.

My new website, EatRawYummies.com will be up and running soon. Copies of the booklet may be purchased on the website or at a local health store called Coffee Tea & A Healthy Me, which is located in Avondale Estates.
Join me in 2012 as I up my level of Health & Fitness. I would love to coach you through to success. More info to come about my New Year's Coaching Special and how you can receive a free copy of the booklet.


Have you completed any major goals this year? Please share your good news with our readers if you did.  We want to be excited and celebrate it with you.  
(Leave a comment in the comment section.)

Mostly Raw (Back Cover)

Future Endeavors

Hi There!
It's been a good while since I last posted (almost 2 months!).  So what have I been up to?  I've been in deep thought about my future endeavors.  Over the past few years, I've come to realize that life is not about money and material things. It's about Love & Happiness.  It is about Peace.  It's about Sharing.  With that said, I've been meditating on what truly makes me happy and what direction I should be going in, both in my personal and business life.

I've come to the conclusion that I should re-launch my company, Delicious Blooms.  Delicious Blooms provides edible fruit arrangements, candy & cookie bouquets, chocolate dipped fruit and a lot of other gifts for business & personal use.  I just love taking whole fresh fruit and making it bloom into an edible piece of art.  I do the same with individual wrapped candies and cookies, too.  Nothing makes me more happier than seeing the smile on a recipient's face when I personally make a delivery.  It reminds me that my work was not done in vain...that if only for a few seconds or minutes, my work bought joy into someone's life.  I just love it!

Another thing that has been on my mind is Raw Foods (fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds).  Last year I began a Healthy Lifestyle Journey and it changed my life.  I did the Master Cleanse for 10 days.  I enrolled in an online Raw Food course and I also took a Raw Food Chef course at a local raw food restaurant for a week.  I learned so much in the hands-on course.  It was well worth the money I paid for it.  I've learned so much about whole foods and the health & nutrition benefits of eating Raw Foods.  I've decided to make Raw Foods a part of my business.  I want to teach people how to take control of their health simply by eating more nutritious foods.  I want to share the benefits of eating Raw Foods and how it can change your mind, body & spirit.  I want to share what Raw Foods has done for me & my body.

Banana Soft Serve N'ice Cream

As part of my sharing, I've written a guide booklet on how to incorporate more raw foods into your diet.  It a start-up guide that was written to help you save money and time when embarking upon a Healthy Lifestyle Journey.  The booklet addresses both raw and cooked foods.  Yes, you can still eat cooked foods while adding more raw foods into your diet. :)  There is no need to deprive yourself to get the health benefits of eating more raw foods.  It is all about choices.  I share with you two(2) quick & easy changes you can make right now that will help you be healthier and feel better.  There are even a few simple recipes included in the booklet.  I'm so excited about this booklet!  I'm currently putting the finishing touches on it and it should be ready for release within the next few weeks.

So that is basically what I've been focusing on over the past two months.  I'm just trying to get my plans ready and in order so I can have an awesome 2012.  It's time for all of us to make the necessary changes in our lives to be a more productive and happier...to make a positive change & impact in someone else's life.  If you are already doing those things, then kudos to you.  You are much admired and appreciated.  If you are not, however, put on your thinking caps and make something happen!  Do something you love and share it with others. 

Oh, I almost forgot...I love to blog!  So I will be back to posting on a more regular basis as soon as I'm done with my booklet and setting up the re-launch of my business.  In the meantime, I'll be sure to stop by and post about what's happening in my world from time to time.

Thank you so much for reading my blog.  It really means a lot to me...It really does.  I appreciate you so much!  Peace & Blessings! -rena

Salad Mania

Hello Peaches!

As I mentioned before, I lost about 25 pounds over the past year. Yep, this July makes a year since I started my Healthy Living Transformation. :)
I've done pretty good keeping the weight off so far, but it's time for me to seriously get back on track.
You see, I kinda been eating out a little too much lately. Plus I've been eating all of the bad things that I know don't agree with my body...like cheese. Now, I love me some cheese and it's one of the hardest things for me to put down, but I have to if I don't want to be walking around with a bloated tummy...So Not Cute! According to my scale, I've gained about 5lbs over the past 2 months. No big deal, but it is just so easy to slack off and the next thing you know, those 5lbs can turn into 10 and so on & so forth.
 

So this week, I'm challenging myself to eat "mostly" at home and to get back to the foods that helped me in the beginning like salads and green smoothies.

Freshly Prepared Salad

My body felt so good when I was eating mostly Raw Foods. I added salmon and eggs to my menu options and every now and then I would sprinkle a little cheese. I'm a work in progress, ya know?
I'll share some of the other foods I prepared during my journey in future post, but for now back to the salads...

Salads do not have to be boring at all. You can add all sorts of deliciousness to a bed of lettuce and create an awesome meal. I like to use a Spring Mix Salad that I purchase from Sam's Club. To the Spring Mix I usually add fruit (strawberries, apples, peaches or whatever I have on hand), tomatoes, cucumbers, nuts & seeds (walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds), dried fruit (cranberries, raisins) and as you can see from the above picture, I like to sprinkle a little pepper on mine...that's just me.  If I really need a change or I'm craving for something a little bit meatier, I'll add salmon to my salad as well. Not a fan of salmon? You can add tuna or chicken to yours. For even more variety you can add hard boiled eggs and peppers & onions to your salad if you like eating those foods.

So you see... you can mix & match and switch up your salad toppings every day and get a different meal just by changing up your toppings. You can also give yourself some variety by switching up the salad dressing. I like to make my own salad dressings at home. When I do, I use olive oil and apple cider vinegar as a base. I recently started using balsamic vinegar on my salads, too. However, don't let the dressing stop you. You can always pick up a bottle of salad dressing at the grocery store. There are healthier versions of dressings available, but if your favorite dressing is ranch or blue cheese, then by all means have at it. The most important thing is that you are eating a healthy serving of greens, nuts & seeds, fruits and veggies. Right?

Oh and if you are out and about and need to pick up some fast food quickly, I suggest going to Zaxby's. I have found that they have a better quality salad than most fast food places. They have a mixed green salad and it is always fresh. You can get it with grilled or fried chicken pieces or you can just order a side salad. Now, I haven't tried the salads at Wendy's, but I heard they have come out with some pretty good salads as of late. Can we say, ComPeTition? It's a good thing.

If you are interested in living a Healthy Lifestyle, it can be done. Start with small changes and add on as you begin to make progress. I started out by eating salads and drinking smoothies. Once I got that down, I began to exercise. I chose walking as my exercise choice because of its simplicity and it worked. The more comfortable I got, I began to add more foods to my diet. I found that the best way to take control of your health is by preparing your own foods so I started cooking/preparing more. It's not hard to do, it just takes a little planning and a little bit more of your time.
If you are interested in making a Healthy Change and you need someone to coach you through, please feel free to contact me. I would love to share the knowledge I've gained over the past year. It would be my pleasure. As long as you have breath in your body, it's never too late to start.

See my post on the Green Smoothie here.