good mood food

I am tired a lot of the time. And since that's a terrible feeling, I started trying to find a remedy. I went to bed earlier, tried to get a shower in before the kids got up, added some new vitamins to the mix and even started drinking a cup of coffee every so often.

Then Rory, for reasons of his own, began to cut out as much sugar and carbs from his diet as he could. I didn't jump on his train and it was during those two weeks of his eating spinach salads and meat that I was so, so aware of how I medicate my exhaustion with sugar-starchy snacks. Like a bowl of cereal. Or a granola bar. Or a handful of chocolate chips. Or club crackers. And they're great in the moment, but leave me worse off than when I started.

So it dawned on me that I could do something about these sugar crashes, with hopes that it would help my energy too. I started trying to eat only energy-giving food. I read an awesome hippie-dippy article about how we should envision our bodies as fires. You would never feed a fire kindling (sugar and carbs) and expect it to last all day long. But throw a big log on that fire (protein, fiber) and that fire will stay a blazing a long, long time.

So now my question before I eat is: will this meal or snack give me long lasting energy?

It's a great question to ask and has helped dramatically improve my diet, my attitude (most days!) and my energy.

I was greatly inspired by Elise Blaha's post on what she ate with gestational diabetes. She had to test her blood sugar four times a day, and as Elise always seems to do, she made this annoyance seem like a great awesome opportunity to see what foods were best for her body. I read this post and thought it would be interesting to poke my finger and learn this too. Then I decided I didn't need to poke my finger. I could just monitor my own energy.

In her post she writes about the grain-free granola above. She wrote highly of it and so I gave it a try. And man it is so good. Rory likes it, my mom likes it, Ivar likes it and I love it. And it sort of bums me out that Ivar likes it because that kid is bottomless and eats a lot. But I'll get over it.

Anyway, I just wanted to share the link to this granola recipe. It's my new breakfast of choice and it's easy and so good, packed with protein and starts me out on the right foot. Elise recommends cutting the coconut oil down to just 1/3 cup and I agree. Also, I don't have a food processor or vitamix...I just buy the already chopped nuts in the baking aisle and crush the almonds up with a rolling pin like the olden days. And it works just fine. I keep the granola in the fridge to keep the oil solidified and eat it with milk in the mornings. Enjoy!