Back when I first started blogging and developing a meal planning business, it was a desperate last-ditch effort to get my kid(s) to eat properly, so naturally I shared my successes and struggles. It's so funny how so much can change in just a matter of years. Now I meal plan to manage our lives - it helps keep us healthy and full of energy to take on whatever we happen to be doing. Somedays I feel like the Energizer Bunny- do you know what I mean?

My greatest passion has evolved from helping picky kids eat to helping busy women eat. They might be mothers, and/or wives, or they might not. But all of them default to take care of everyone and everything else before themselves and I know this is true because it's my natural default too, and I've talked to hundreds of women who admit the same. It's somehow hardwired, or perhaps society encourages this "super woman" mindset? Regardless, most of us are really good at it and not likely to stop any time soon.

I'm a meal planning coach. It's helped define who I am, what I stand for, where I'm going, and who I want to serve. I'll always have a heart for those picky kids- because I'm still living it. But for the caretakers of others, your nutritional backbone matters too. You need real food, not the quick gulp down of energy bars or fast food, or the food leftover on your kids plate. That's why I do what I do. I've found time, energy, and money- I want you to find the same.

If you're in Canada, celebrate our amazing country this weekend, but celebrate yourself too and eat something that makes you feel good. Take some time to yourself to savour real food, because nutrition is what keeps us "going and going". Start weaning yourself off of the quick-fix food lifestyle, and discover how planning can help you find time, energy, money, and happiness.

​For most of my life I've been constrained by food rules. Do you know what I mean? Some foods are good, some are bad, don't eat after dinner, skip breakfast, avoid the carbs, eat the carbs, low fat, no fat, full fat, sugar alternatives, calorie restricted, etc. This is why our food-obsessed culture still struggles with body image, weight related, lifestyle diseases. We put so much emphasis on rules but not enough on individual needs. The majority of our healthcare system treats symptoms but not the root causes, so we end up in this spiral of temporary fixes. I love nothing more than hearing about doctors and naturopaths who work with their clients to treat the causes of these physical symptoms. My hope is that more and more medical professionals will incorporate this sort of holistic treatment going forward.

Over the last few years, and especially in the last few months, I've been taking back control. It's my body- and my needs. No one else can really tell you what you should and should not do with your relationship with food. This intuitive self-awareness is a skill that takes practice. I'm asking myself what I actually want to eat rather than eating just because it's time to eat- does that make sense? The beauty in this is that our bodies are always changing- our needs shift from day to day, and forcing ourselves to follow rules that don't serve our needs may end up doing more harm than good. Here's a wonderful article that communicates exactly what I mean.

Right now it's practiced daily with my lunch salads- what do I want to eat, and how do I want to top it? I'm giving myself free reign to eat what I feel like I need, and it's a refreshing place to be. By stocking my fridge with nutritious choices I know that no matter what I choose my body will be served, nourished, and satisfied. There are no "right" and "wrong" choices here, and that is so freeing and amazing.

Some of my clients are working with their doctors and naturopaths to help sort out and find what food needs they have, with the training to set you on the path you need to go, and I am a partner with them to help you along that journey.

No matter where you are in your journey with food and nutrition, you need to know that you can have that freedom too. If you're ready to eat for yourself, for your health, and to learn to trust yourself one baby step at a time, I'm here to have that conversation with you. With a variety of packages and services to choose from, we can talk about what foods to buy and how to use them, how to build meals based on nutrition and time/budget constraints, and how to make yourself feel amazing. We can cook together, develop recipes specifically for you, or clean out your pantry by doing a kitchen audit. There is no overnight quick fix in the world that actually works, but steady and consistent nutrition will change your life.

Enjoy your day, friends! I look forward to meeting you,
Stacy

I love summer!

I love the blue skies, the sunshine, the warm breezes, and the bird song. I love the lazy days, the play outside, the lack of routines. I don't love heating up the house with cooking, however, so now is the time I start cooking ahead to make summer easier for us at meal times.

I realized today that we're well into summer weather already, and I'm fortunate to have had a jump start in freezer stocking, but it's never too late to start planning and executing some of these tips and tricks for yourself. Here's a short list on ways to get started planning for your own hot-weather meal ideas.

1. Make a list, brainstorming all the foods you like to eat in the summer
2. Separate that list into its cooking needs- grill, slow cooker, stovetop, oven, no cooking, etc.
3. Note what requires cooking, and research if (and how) it can be done ahead of time.

• Can it be partially made and frozen, then reconstructed when you want to eat it?
• Is it something that can be fully made and reheated in the microwave?
• Is there a ready-to-eat substitution you can budget for?

4. Start cooking and stocking your freezer.

• Double your usual meals (as applicable) and package the second half
• Plan on some days being less nice than others, so you can re-stock your favourite freezer foods
• Cook ahead pizza, burgers, meatballs, casseroles so they can be reheated when needed
• Small, individual sized meals reheat quicker than large ones, so consider miniaturizing your favourites- meatloaf muffins instead of meatloaf, for example.

5. Consider how to move your cooking outside.

• Grill
• Slow Cooker or Induction Stovetop on your deck
• Fire pit
• Other people's homes (pot luck meals, neighborhood progressive dinners, etc)

As a family we like to eat a lot of fresh fruit, vegetables, and sandwiches in the summer, but we also enjoy "bowl foods", such as chili and meat sauce and pasta.

Having lean proteins cooked and sliced in our freezer means sandwiches are easy to pull together, and by consciously doubling our chili, meat sauce, casseroles, and meatballs now means there's a supply of meals ready to pull out and reheat. I plan on roasting chicken this week as well as cooking a pork loin in the next week or so in order to put away extra cooked meat for summer. It also makes sense to batch cook rice and quinoa to keep in your freezer so your side dish is ready to serve or turn into something else, such as fried rice, filler for meatloaf, or a salad ingredient.

Recognizing that sometimes summer isn't hot in Alberta, there are also frozen portions of cooked soup ready to reheat on those dreary days or for quick lunches or dinners to serve with salad and sandwiches.

Did this jump start your ideas? I hope you have found some inspiration to keep summer happy and carefree. Cooking doesn't have to stress you out, and I'm happy to offer you custom-built solutions for your situation. Email me here to learn more about my pre-summer cooking mini session.

All the best today, friends!
Stacy

You may also like:
​Fish Taco Recipe
Cool Summer Meals
​Planning Meals in the Heat


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Having a stocked fridge is more complicated, because it has a lot more to do with knowing what you have and using it before it rots then the pantry or freezer.

Our fridge has a lot of condiments- different types of hot sauce, bottled salad dressings for when I'm running low on ingredients or time to make my own, and flavourful sauces for stir fry's and meals such as soy sauce, rice vinegar, maple syrup (the real stuff!), and dijon mustard. I think condiments could take over the world if we let them, and they are one of the groupings in a fridge that can definitely get out of control. If you haven't looked at your condiments lately, spend a few minutes getting rid of expired, old, or moldy items. I've seen jarred garlic, ginger, and jam go moldy, so never assume it's ok if it's been a while since you've opened it.

We have grapefruit accessible as my husband eats that every day for breakfast and they are too big to fit in my fruit crisper. I have the baby carrots my son loves ready to go and easy to see in a container on the lower shelf. I've grouped all my dairy together in 3 places- cheese strings in the pull out drawer on the bottom for the kids to grab for their lunches, coffee cream and milk in the middle, and cheeses, yogurt, and sour cream on the lower shelf next to the carrots.

All our leftovers are hanging out together by date- yesterday's leftovers on the top, and previous ones in the middle. Today I'm assembling the leftover moussaka ingredients to make one for the freezer, and that will clear out the middle space to leave room for any other leftovers we make.

My crispers are full of vegetables and fruit. We generally plan our meals around what's living in these drawers, because if something is going to go rotten and get thrown out, it's vegetables and fruit. We have lettuce, beets, carrots, parsley, and celery in the one...apples, oranges, clementines, and kiwi in the other. Before I buy more vegetables and fruit these need to be substantially emptied. I have a butternut squash living up on the top of my fridge with leftovers, and that is going to be roasted tonight for dinner, and we'll eat steamed beets as well.

I'll share a couple of ideas to make the most out of your fridge space. Please don't hesitate to connect with me if you need some more personalized help :)

• Repackage food into stackable containers if space is an issue. Rectangular and square are more easily fit then round.
• Group like items together, and pay attention to their dates. Plan to use what you can before you know it's going to go bad. My big challenge this week is coffee cream. It's in my fridge from our dinner party, but we usually drink black coffee, so we need to be creative to use this up.
• If you want to eat more fruits and vegetables, plan stir-frys, salads, and soups. I keep a plate out on my table because I don't like eating cold fruit (tooth sensitivity). Figure out what's keeping you from eating more, and try to find a way to fix it.
• Watch the added sugar component in condiments. Sugar is found everywhere, especially in condiments like hoisin sauce, ketchup, and sweet chili sauce. If you're trying to cut out added sugar- start with these items, and develop recipes to make your own flavourful sauces from scratch.

A stocked fridge is more personal, depending on what you like to eat. A wide variety of fruits and vegetables, dairy, and condiments are my main go-to's when planning meals and snacks. The point of shopping for fresh food each week is to eat what you buy, so plan your meals and stick to your list. It's so easy to go overboard with good intentions when shopping, especially when you've got people with you or you're hungry to begin with, but that's how food waste happens. 

Your fridge and freezer are the perfect places to put together flavourful, healthy meals that make your tastebuds sing. You can make your food budget go so much further when you cook for yourself, and I encourage you to find a way to incorporate more of this in your own life. Not only will your wallet thank you, but your body will as well. I offer a meal-planning service that can be personalized to you, your time, your tastes, and your fridge/freezer/pantry. I'd love to chat to see how I can help you use what you have!

Enjoy your day friends! If you enjoyed this post, please share it. I'd love to see you hop over to my Facebook page, where I post almost daily tips, tricks, recipes, meal plans, and interesting news from the world of food and nutrition. Come "like" me so you don't miss anything!

Stacy

​It seems like socks never make it together in the washing machine and dryer. We always seem to have a bin of mismatched socks that look like this...

But with some dedicated time and effort, we can make a little magic happen and many of those socks can be matched and put away...

Going from the overwhelming chaos of the first photo to this one feels like "ahhhhh"...like sipping a cold drink on a hot day, or relaxing into bed at the end of the day and feeling your body melt into the mattress.

Learning how to meal plan feels like that too. Knowing what you're eating and when, especially on a busy night or chaotic holiday season (like now until the end of the year!) can make it less stressful, less time consuming, and less expensive. Meal planning can make your busy nights and chaotic holiday season feel more joyful, more calming, more enjoyable, more cost-effective, and more healthy.

You can do this! Let's talk. I've got space in my calendar so you can start your new year on the right foot...with matching socks (ha ha)

Book your complimentary call here- your confidence is waiting!

To know them is to love them.

Not convinced? Let me try.

Aside from the rhyme we learn as children, beans and other legumes are not as well loved in North America as they are in other parts of the world. Legumes make up a large part of diets around the world, from Africa to Israel, and are especially useful in regions where religion or poverty play a role in the kinds of food people eat, such as India.

If you do a quick google search you will find out many reasons why you should or should not eat legumes. I leave the final decision up to you.

In my role as a nutrition coach I stand firmly behind “common sense nutrition”. I think any food in excess is detrimental to your health and well being.

Pulses are part of the legume family. Pulses refer to beans and lentils (the seed part of the plant). Common legumes are alfalfa, soy, and peanuts.

I use both pulses and legumes as a whole often in our cooking. As a family we enjoy meals that are made strictly vegetarian but also enjoy meals where legumes complement traditional meat-based meals. For example, chana masala was my latest test-kitchen dinner for a client, and that’s a vegetarian dinner. My oldest son loved it in spite of it being a new recipe for all of us, and even went for seconds. We also eat chili a couple of times a month that incorporates both beans and meat.

Lentils can be pureed and added as filler to meatballs, meatloaf, or burgers. They add bulk with nutrition so the meat goes further, and they also give an extra boost of fibre and iron. Beans can be added to salads and soups. Roasted beans are a fantastic snack to keep with you to enjoy when you’re on the run and you know you’ll be hungry. They’re packable, require no special care, and a small amount is very satisfying. My roasted bean recipe will be posted on my Facebook page this week on #foodiefriday. Come check it out!

It's almost summer. Eating meals based on legumes and pulses makes sense in the summer because they can require no real effort beyond opening a can, rinsing them, and eating them cold. When cooking a hot meal with them they really only need to be cooked long enough to heat all the way through- much less cooking time than meat.

*Important Note: Beans and legumes usually require soaking, draining, and boiling. Always follow the package instructions or they can be toxic.

One of my final reasons to eat and enjoy this variety in our diet is a financial one. You get amazing nutrition from pulses and legumes at a fraction of the cost of meat. As someone who is the grocery shopper and meal planner for the family, I know I can attest to the cost of meat on the rise. It makes sense to branch out to seek our nutrition from a variety of sources if nothing else then to stretch the grocery budget further.

Fortunately for us, it’s not a hardship to enjoy this branch of the meat and alternates food group. Do you eat legumes and pulses on a regular basis? If not, I encourage you to schedule a few meals this summer that incorporate beans or other pulses into your regular meal.

Stuck for ideas? I’m only a message away.  

​Counting calories is NOT the best way to approach nutrition. It is only one measurement out of many.

You can count calories to lose some weight. You will definitely lose weight in some way on a calorie deficit, although it may not be the right kind of weight to lose.

For example, losing muscle rather than fat is the wrong direction to take. If you are not approaching weight loss as part of an overall goal to improve your health in general but from a place of frenzy, you will not keep the weight off. In fact, you may even gain. You will find yourself riding that roller-coaster of guilt, shame, and despair.

Friends, come close, lean in, and listen to me tell you something you need to hear because I care about you so much. 

You are enough, just the way you are.

​Really. Counting calories is not going to make you the person you always wanted to be. You will never be fully happy with yourself “after” you lose a bunch of weight if you aren’t there now. Trust me on this. I rode that obsessive roller-coaster for literally years, more than half my life.

It breaks my heart that the most common standard for health advertising for women is the constant promoting of weight loss. “Lose weight now” “Lose 10 lbs in 10 days” “Get that beach body now”. “Detox to Slim”

You want to know why I do what I do?

Because I’m so passionate about health. Your health. Your mom’s health. Your kids. Not just that they’re at the “ideal weight” (Don’t even get me started on BMI!), but that they are actually healthy,

• That when they have blood work done on their annual checkup it is confirmed that they have the right nutrition represented.
• That they can run around and play at recess without getting winded.
• That you can keep up with everything going on in your life and feel really “good”.

Nutrition is so much more than calorie in/calorie out. Science is beginning to prove that different foods are metabolized differently in our bodies. 

Are you sick of being sick? Or tired of being tired? Eating the right foods can take you from surviving to thriving. We only get this short life- don’t you owe it to yourself to really grab on for all you’re worth? Because you are worth it.

You are worth your time and commitment to taking care of yourself. Let me help you get started on your journey. I know it’s confusing, but I’m here because it’s my passion. Let me help make it more clear for you.

Click here to book a free assessment.

“How are you doing that?” my oldest son asked, leaning against the counter and watching me. I was grabbing random jars of spices and herbs from the pantry, taking their lids off, sniffing them, and keeping some out while putting others back.

He’d been watching me for a couple of minutes while I measured random amounts of spices, adding them to my prep bowl and tasting or smelling as I went along. It was a test-kitchen day, and I was working on a new recipe.

“I don’t know,” I answered after considering for a minute. “I just do it. I was born to do this”. And it’s true, I realized.

Before I cooked, and long before it was trendy, I played with essential oils. I used to blend perfumes and massage oils, bath salts and bath bombs. I devoured books and studied everything I could about beneficial properties of different oils, the best oils that worked together, and the different ways to use them.

I remember just “knowing” what scents would work well together, which ones would help when I had a chest cold, which ones would soothe sadness or a headache, which ones would wake me up during a mid-day slump at my boring office job.

Spices and herbs contain essential oils, and recipe development comes naturally to me. I truly was born with this ability, and it’s all I want to do. There are days where I’m desperate to start working on a project that’s been growing in the back of my mind, but I can’t because I don’t have the time. Those days frustrate me because all I really want to do is cook. Then there are the days where I get to spend the whole day in my kitchen, and those are the days that light me up.

This is my passion, and I’m so grateful I get to share it with you!

Please follow me Facebook and share me with your friends! Imagine what a world we could live in if we gave ourselves the gift of real food and greater health and joy.

If you need a hand figuring out how to make food and nutrition work for you, give me a call. We can chat for a few minutes to see if I can help. Sometimes you can't figure it out on your own, but I love that you are trying. If you're at the point where you know you've tried everything you can, hiring me might be your next step.

Enjoy your week, friends!
Stacy
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I had the pleasure of sitting next to an author at Staples on #IWD2017 and we spent some time talking about what goes into publishing a book, because I've got a cookbook going in the back of my mind. It's going to take some time and dedication. I think there's a pretty steep learning curve, too. But I'm excited to take that step down the road.

These pictured cookbooks are two of my favourites, most loved, and well-used out of all my books. But to tell you the truth, I have only used a few recipes out of each of them. Most of the recipes don't suit my family- in either taste or preparation- or I just can't be bothered to try a new recipe when we have the ones we love already, or when recipe development is such a large part of the food my family eats.

Recipe Development is the kind of work that cookbook authors put into publishing their cookbooks. It's taking raw ingredients in their basic form and creating a dish around them. It's deciding to put together certain foods with certain spices or herbs and cooking them a certain way. It's testing the recipe, altering or changing it, and testing again. It's writing everything you did from start to finish, then reading and rereading to make sure you didn't skip any steps, that people can recreate your recipe even if they've never done it before. It's starting from scratch.

I met with someone last week who was a little shocked at the price I currently charge for personalized recipe development. But I stand by my pricing- if anything, I think I still undercharge. When my clients fill out their survey, I take their likes, dislikes, nutritional needs, medication profile, the kind of time they have to work with, how likely they are to try new foods, and so on into consideration. Each recipe I develop for them starts with those basic questions. I purchase the food, come up with an idea, mix random spices or herbs together with ingredients I think will pair well, and cook them in a way they are able to recreate in their home on their schedule. 

Purchasing custom-tailored recipes from me is sort of like buying a cookbook full of your favourite foods. You may not know if you like the recipes yet, but there's a better chance you will like them much more than a random cookbook purchase- because it's built specifically for you.

For a list of all my services beyond nutritional coaching, look here.

All the best today, friends. I will you a wonderful first day of spring!
​Stacy