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The Significance of Now and a New Whole30 Fiesta Frittata
I actually gasped as I received a work meeting invite yesterday for a Q1 business review scheduled just a few weeks from now. Although, I spend plenty of time with my calendar, it provided me with an alternative (and startling) perspective on the fact that we are already halfway through the third month of the year – which served as a powerful reminder that there truly is no time like the present. One thing I have started trying to do consistently over the past month is to observe what Gretchen Rubin calls the “One Minute Rule.” In her book, The Happiness Project, she talks about her commitment to automatically do…
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Whole30 Meal Prep Secrets :: Prepare the Basics and Learn to Mix and Match
I recently shared some of my background and experience with the Whole30 program and one of the biggest (not so secret) secrets of being successful when it comes to doing a Whole30 or eating healthy in general is to plan ahead. Life is messy, the day-to-day is busy and unexpected things and stressful situations often come up with the potential to derail the best of intentions. Besides, as Melissa Hartwig and Dallas Hartwig wrote in The Whole30, your brain loves a plan. Planning ahead reduces decision fatigue, the need to resist temptations or exercise self-control. By setting aside a little time each weekend for meal planning and prep, I have…
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Choosing to Invest Time Wisely and the Value of Meal Prepping
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What in the World is a Whole30 (and More Importantly – Why Would Anyone Choose to Do One)?
As you may have noticed, many if not most, of the entrée recipes that I post are tagged as Whole30 compliant and you may or may not know what exactly that means. In short, the Whole30 is an elimination diet which outlines specific rules and recommendations around foods which are commonly problematic for many people as they tend to violate at least one of the “Good Food Standards” outlined by Dallas Hartwig and Melissa Hartwig in their book, It Starts With Food. I recently reread this book, and was surprised by how much of the fine detail I had forgotten. The book is a robust review of research in the…
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It’s the Little Things and Whole30 Buffalo Broccoli
Throughout the past year, I have devoted a large proportion of my reading time to studying the topic of “happiness” deeply in order to gain minor subject matter expertise. Although there may be some discrepancies as to the actual weights which should be ascribed to each category depending on the study, by in large, all psychology presents “Happiness” formulaically as an equation: H = S + C + V, where H is your enduring level of happiness, S is your set range, C is your life circumstances, and V includes activities and actions under voluntary control. Much has been written on the topic and to really even scratch the surface…
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Energy Boosters: Sunshine, Tackling Nagging Tasks, and Whole30 Swordfish with Pistachio Gremolata
As the winter **hopefully** approaches a turning point, I have been thrilled with the slightly longer days as opposed to pitch darkness starting around 4:00 PM. I find it amazing the extent to which exposure to light has been shown to impact our moods – something which certainly rings true for me. In a cross-cultural study of participants from four different countries at varying distances from the equator, Kuller et al., found that those subjects which were located furthest north experienced “significant variation in psychological mood over the year that did not occur in the countries closer to the equator… [and] the light and color of the workplace itself also…
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Happy Memories and Whole30 Broccoli Cheese Soup
Just as we tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what is possible over the long run, it can also be challenging to objectively measure or recognize our progress even when we are consistent. It’s like watching a plant grow every day or bringing water to boil. We can kind of tell things are headed in the right direction, but when we wake up each day with ourselves, it’s often hard to see the small and slow changes that are being accumulated. I recently realized that I am over halfway through my year long Happiness Project and therefore stopped to consider whether or not…
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Act the Way We Want to Feel (and Whole30 Chicken with Almond Butter Satay Dipping Sauce and Coconut Cauliflower Rice)
Leveraging the Familiarity Principle :: Basil Artichoke Chicken Butternut Squash Pasta with Cauliflower Alfredo
Self Knowledge, Being True to You, and Craveable Chimichurri Steak with Crispy Smashed Potatoes
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Be Consistent – Those Small Steps Add Up :: Whole30 Chicken Pesto Pasta
As always, the time that I spent back home with my family for Christmas was fabulous (although already becoming a faint memory) and went by MUCH too quickly. Especially whenever I am with my sister, it seems that we have a million and one things that we want to do and accomplish, but never have nearly enough time. Although we had a lot fun and I wouldn’t have changed a thing, we had wanted to meet up with more friends, visit a Christmas lightshow, check out a new restaurant, take a barre class together, and so on. I guess time does fly when you’re having fun. And in many ways,…
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Reward, Intrinsic Motivation, and How to Make Ghee!
Most people are probably aware of the basic framework for habit formation and more or less familiar with some version of what Charles Duhhig has termed the “Habit Loop.” We can learn to automate a particular behavior by establishing a relationship which involves seeing the stimulus or cue, which invokes a routine with a specific action, in order to attain some reward. Of course, this is true, but I think that in many ways our idea of what exactly constitutes a “reward” has become a bit misconstrued. Ultimately, we need to ensure that said rewards are appropriate for and aligned with the habit we are trying to form. As someone…
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Visualization and a Visually Appealing Whole30 Salmon Nicoise Salad
Something I always find interesting when I learn something new, hear about a particular concept or idea, or start a different activity, is the feeling that it seems to pop up everywhere, across a variety of settings. The Pacific Standard described it well: “your friend told you about that obscure blue-grass-electro-punk band yesterday morning. That afternoon, you ran across one of their albums at a garage sale. Wait a minute -that’s them in that Doritos commercial, too! Coincidence… or conspiracy? More likely, you’re experiencing ‘frequency illusion,’ somewhat better known as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.” And although research has shown that this occurs due to the psychological processes of selective attention and…
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Positive Thinking, the AIM Method, and Spirulina Bliss Balls
I wrote not too long ago about the Cognitive Triangle which describes the interplay between the way we think, feel, and act. Although we may mistakenly believe that one always influences the other, there is a lot of evidence which shows that in reality, each of these processes actually both affects and is affected by the others. In that post I considered the ways that acting the way we want to feel can lead to a shift in our emotions, which is something I have tried to remember in my day-to-day experiences. But more recently I read about the power of positive thinking on our subjective well-being in Ed Diener…
