And so the journey begins…

When we embark on something grand, or are debating such an embarkation, the space of the endeavor can be overwhelming. There is so much room. Room to succeed, room to fail, room to totally fall on our ass. The question is: how do we define that space? How do we conceptualize that room to move? Is it as emptiness or as potential?

Geeze. I would say about 6 months ago I decided that I wanted to get stronger. Like I wanted to be the steeze at lifting heavy shit off the ground super duper fast and multiple times if needed. I wanted, I want, test my potential – I want to see how strong I can get when I actively pursue that goal, instead of just seeing what happens if I show up everyday to do the work. I love me that goal in the context of several sentences. It sounds easy, right: get stronger. But oh balls. It is way more complicated than that, and thus welcome to me 6 months later still struggling with how to start.

When I look out at this ginormous goal, often all I see is space. And it isn’t necessarily happy, twirling in a meadow sort of space, it is more along the line of, alone in the dessert without any water, sort of space. Not good. For a long time I have defined that space, that room for improvement as emptiness. And emptiness is overwhelming as f*ck. Instead of looking at this journey in the context of things I can improve, I’ve been looking at it as things I’m lacking. The space between here and where I want to be has become a void. And what are you supposed to do with vast, empty space. From experience, I would say nothing. You do nothing with nothingness besides get stuck.

How do we re-contextualize space? How do we transform it into something active, something alive, and something malleable? Well, most simply, we change the way that we think. Easy: no. Necessary: definitely. Changing how we look at external/internal forces is what we do in the gym every day though – we should be pros at this by now! This is why pushing yourself in the gym is so very important, because it teaches you how to respond, how to take a moment of chaos (example: me in the middle of a set of double unders) and gain control over that stimulus.

We can become very good at pausing, taking a breath, and then diving back into what needs to get done. If, mid double under set, we let frustration, shame, and/or weakness overwhelm our thinking then we’re screwed (trust me – not awesome, and may result in you throwing your rope across the room like a 5 year old child – hasn’t’ happened yet, but almost…) We will not finish the workout, or at least not happily. But if we can instead, take a step back, re-frame our mindset into understanding that the jump rope is not out to kill us, and that we will in fact survive – then we will! Here’s the problem though: giving in to negativity is waaaaay easier than standing up against it. You have to choose. You have to grab onto the choice to see things differently and hold on like you mean it, or else you will sink.

Space works in the same way, although it is slightly more elusive than double unders (but only just slightly.) You don’t have anything physical to grab onto like that handy dandy jump rope, and thus you must create physicality within yourself, within your own mental construct. Potential. That is what you have to grab a hold of mentally. Unlike emptiness, potential has a starting point. It has progressive steps. And each piece has an end point. Winning.

Changing the way that we look at space doesn’t change the work to be done. Oh, it’s still there for sure. But, it changes the inflection of the word. It changes our energy towards the work to be done. And that changes everything. Dread to hope. Futility to opportunity. There is always a choice on how we respond, on how we define space. Always. But just because there’s a choice, doesn’t mean that both options are equally effortful. It is easy to see emptiness. It is easy to see all the reasons why we will fail. It is hard to see potential. It is hard to see all the ways we will win. That takes faith, belief, and rock solid will. But if we make that choice we create space to grow, to move, and to change.

How do you define space?

Where i’m going with this whole, let’s take a big old Paleo breath convo is that for the longest time I refused to eat chia seeds because I remember reading somewhere that they weren’t Paleo (I believe that they can sometimes / to some people be a gut irritant.)  I started a nutrition certification a couple months ago and they keep coming up in lectures – mostly from Vegan and Raw Foodists – those peeps love them some chia seeds! Here’s the “chia seeds are a freaking super food perspective:” they are high in Omega-3 fatty acids (ALA,) are high in fiber, are a complete plant protein, are a source of calcium and other minerals, and can have a cooling effect on the body. Here’s the Mark Sisson less excited version: they do have some Omega-3s, but aren’t the best source or totally accessible by our body, they are a seed, so technically Paleo, but probably won’t be life changing (unless you eat them in this pudding – then life = changed forever!) and you probably shouldn’t eat them everyday. Two different perspectives. Here’s what I say: try them out, and see how you feel. Draw out the raw foodist in you and enjoy experimenting a little bit. And sometimes you just want some deliciously creamy chocolate pudding that doesn’t make you very unfortunate to be around for the next 6 hours…

Also this pudding is officially the bomb diggity and takes about 60 sec of actual work time to prepare.

Ingredients: (makes 1 serving)

• 2 tbs chia seeds
• 1/4 c. coconut milk
• 1/4 c. H2O
• 1-2 tbs raw cacao pwder or unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1-2 tsp honey (optional)

How it’s Done:
Put your chia seeds, coconut milk, and water into a small bowl and mix thoroughly. Make sure none of the chia seeds are hanging out on the sides of the bowl because then they won’t get all hydrated and crazy-like.

Walk away.

Come back 10 – 15 minutes later. Surprise! Chia seed transformation. You can shorten or lengthen your soaking time depending on how thick you would like your pudding.

Add your cacao powder and honey to the chia mixture and aggressively stir.

Done and done.

Throw some fruit, coconut flakes, cacao nibs, more coconut milk or whatever makes you happy on top and enjoy!

Oh, the rings…

Why are you here? I ask this of my students quite a bit. What forces brought you through that door and got you moving? Before I found my gym homes at Qi and Crossfit Verve the answer I got all to often from instructors was minimization. “Every squat you do gets that butt even tighter.” “Want those arms to stop a wavin’ – pick up those weights!” Yeah, sure we all want to look good naked (and in our snappy clothes too for that matter.) Affirmative. No questions asked. And not to toot my own horn, but I’m feeling pretty darn solid sans clothes of late. But here’s the thing, if we surround ourselves with those types of cues, if we let them become part of our own mantra, we orient our health around the concept of reduction. The problem with reduction: you can always get smaller. You can always get skinnier. And skinnier does not mean healthier, happier, or stronger.

Health goals almost always in some way involve a change in aesthetics. And of course they do since our body is a physical entity that can’t help but be affected by activity. We expect the body to change. And it is the place where we can most easily see change. But if you think that the physical body is the only thing that changes when you enter the gym, either you’re not working hard enough, or you need to have a serious sit-down chat with your mind. When we seek out change, we must also seek out discomfort. And discomfort is not purely a physical sensation. To become uncomfortable, to exist in a state of discomfort we must recruit the mind, and if all you’ve got is that you’d like to look good in a bikini – chances are you won’t be able to withstand being uncomfortable for very long. Purely aesthetic goals simply aren’t enough. They might get you through the door. They might even get you skinny, but where do you go from skinny? If your goal is to reduce the body without any thought to building the mind – you are just left with less. And when is less enough? Reduction rarely has a cutoff.

When we embark on a weight-loss or body change expedition we rarely take the time to consider why we really want that physical change. And this is the step we absolutely cannot skip. Chances are you want to feel better in your body – you want to feel confident; you want to feel powerful; you want to feel sexy. None of these notions are physical (sexy is a state of mind people!,) rather they are mental shifts masked in physicality. They are what result from pushing yourself extremely hard. They come from diving into something that challenges every part of yourself – your mind and your body – and coming out a different person on the other side. Perhaps rockin’ bods are what get us into the door that first time, but these mental shifts are the reasons that we come back every day, and they are the pieces that truly facilitate change. They transform us.

Next time you walk through the door at your gym ask yourself that question. Have the answer ready, and when shit gets hard, when you come to that moment of resistance where you have to make a choice – drive forward or recede – answer that question. If the answer is purely aesthetic, at the moment of decision you will walk away.  Significant change requires significant effort. If your answer is to be more powerful you will seek out that sensation and move into the challenge. When we strive for maximization over reduction, strength over skinny, our opportunities for growth are limitless. Ask yourself: why am I here?

Ingredients: (makes 4 cakes – good for two people)

• 7.5 – 8 oz fresh salmon (if the fish guy is nice, ask him to remove the skin!)
• 1 lime
• fresh italian parsley (flat leaves – but don’t stress if there is only the curly kind…)
• 2-3 cloves shallots
• 2 eggs
• spices: salt, pepper, chipotle, sunny paris (the bomb spice blend from Penzey’s – don’t have it, just rock some onion powder and a spice combo you like – maybe a little dill…)

How it’s Done:

Remove the skin from your salmon if it’s still on your fish. Doesn’t have to be the prettiest job ever, so don’t stress too much – just get it apart one way or another (I cut my fish into smaller fillets and with sharp, short strokes slowly removed the meat from the skin – there was also some general yanking involved – no, it was not my most precise work by any means, and no, I’m not proud of it…) Once you’ve removed the skin, chop the salmon up into small, about ¼ inch pieces and place into a medium sized bowl.

Coarsely chop parsley  – think midway between finely chopped and just pulling those leaves off the stem. Throw chopped parsley into bowl.

Finely chop shallots and add to bowl.

Zest your entire lime and add zest to bowl. Save your lime for later to squeeze over your finished cakes.

In a separate bowl, scramble eggs and then add to salmon mixture.

Finally add your spices. Truth – I did not prescribe amounts. I put about equal amounts in of all my spices, which was between several and many hearty shakes. More if wine consumption began during and not after the cooking process. Get a little crazy with those spice shakers. Let loose a little bit.

Mix everything together.

Two eggs should be fine, but take a gander at your mixture. Your salmon shouldn’t be floating willy nilly in your egg mixture, but there should be a good amount of egg “batter” to work with – if it’s looking super dry, just add in another egg.

Heat up a frying pan (cast iron is the bomb here) to medium – maybe flirting with medium high – heat. Throw a hearty spoonful of fat into said pan – both coconut oil and olive oil work great, but if you want to mix it up, get crazy with that fat!

Spoon about a ½ cup of “batter” into the per cake, and cook each cake for 3 minutes on each side.

Consume right away with a slice of lime. Why wait?!

These taste awesome with a simple salad. My sister whipped up a delish counterpart in an arugula salad with roasted walnuts (roast them – they taste 800x yummier in salad!) shaved fennel, and avo.

These can also kick butt for brunch. Or maybe made mini for some Paleo style appetizers. Enjoy!

Showed up to my USAW Olympic lifting cert this weekend carting one of these bad, and very green boys – add full lulu into the mix and being one of two women… feeling VERY girly. Owned it!

When we look back at our lives we remember pieces. Not a narrative, but little moments that have stuck into our consciousness. Our memories are filled with the good as well as the bad, but both are pieces that have changed us, that have transformed us into the person that we are at this very moment. And we are constantly filling our heads with moments that haven’t yet happened. We construct future narratives via imagined pieces. Through the ideas of what our life should look like in this future we have perfectly mapped and set before us. In this world full of moments, it seems the one we most neglect is the one we are in currently. In our mess of backwards and forwards reflecting and projecting, we lose the moment that perhaps matters the most, and we prevent ourselves from being genuine, physical, and tangible entities in our own lives. Through the absence of the present moment in our consciousness we lose our ground and we lose ourselves.

It’s super easy to say, “live in the moment” when the moment rocks. Duh. You should live in those moments. Those are the freebie instances of the “live in the moment” mentality because they take zero effort and they make us light and happy. We need those moments, and we need to exist in them like it is our job. The trick though is letting those instances of bliss wash over you and engulf you, instead of projecting away from the moment: when will this end, change, etc. Because those things will happen whether we will them to or not. Moments always change, and pretty much always in ways we don’t see coming. Let the world unfold. Because it will, and it will surprise you.

Extremes are always straightforward, mostly because you can’t escape them, they will engulf you no matter what. As such, existing in the present when the present sucks is also pretty easy. Sometimes we like a good wallow, and sometimes we simply can’t escape the weight of the world pressing down on us. I’m not saying that when the moment sucks, relish in it fully, but perhaps don’t run away as fast as you think you should. Give yourself time to react, to move within the suck. It’s similar to that moment in a terrrrible workout, the one that threatens to totally derail you. You can let it. You can let it consume you and finish you. Or you can breathe. You can take a second to look around and to see what’s really happening. Can you handle the load? Can you press against it? Chances are it won’t be pretty but it will be possible. Chances are that you are stronger than all those past moments you have stored in your mind are telling you, because you are stronger now then you were then. You’ve already lived in those moments and learned from them. If we constantly live by what we have done and let that dictate what we do, then we will never get to see what we can do.

The moments that are possibly the most difficult to exist in are the ones that are unclear. When stacked together they make up the pieces of our lives that feel directionless. How do we live in the present when the present doesn’t make sense? Easy. We just do. We of course have to be active participants in our own lives. Making shit happen when we feel stuck. Taking chances, making mistakes, you know, the likes… But, don’t totally dismiss the possibility of existing in uncertainty. It means that a shift is about to occur. Maybe not right away, and quite possibly after a butt load of uncertainty, but it will happen. Be patient.

In these moments in which it seems both everything and nothing is happening: breathe. These are the moments from which big things happen, they are the ones that we build off of into something new. Sure the hard moments and the great moments can do that too, but those are quite often at the peak or valley of our journeys. They are the moment right before the reset. The confusing, muddled ones: those are the reset and thus the most limitless, the most filled with possibility. So exist in them. Like really hunker down and seek out all the feelings of doubt, intrigue, and possibility, and move from there, from that moment, from that impulse – not from a separate moment you have remembered or imagined. Those moments are gone. Take the chance to work from the cues of the present. Or at the very least, let them take the driver’s seat. By doing such, you open up the possibility of trust, of intuition, and of limitlessness. So live  in your moment. Embrace each one, and then let them go. Store those special ones to come back to every so often, but always know that you are forever evolving, forever changing. Let that happen. And enjoy the change. Enjoy who you are right now.

I sat down and turned on the tube, almost changed the channel from whatever random, food related show was on the cooking channel until I heard, “lasagna cupcakes.” First response: gross. Second response: curious. The more I watched, the more I desperately wanted to consume those televised goodies, and the more I wanted to consume them without my stomach telling me that I suck as its general overseer of happiness. Thus began the quest to make Paleo-fy Aarti Sequeira’s Lasagna Cupcakes. I kept the first part of her recipe the same because it totally rocks and is Paleo friendly, (you can find her original recipe here,) but I went in and did some serious tweaking with the rest. Actually, not so serious. Very easy and straightforward tweaking. I promise. I also have recently become OBBSESSED with making and consuming my own coconut butter a la Mark Sisson – aka: the man! Here is his recipe. I promise it’s like the easiest thing ever and totally worth it. This recipe has said coconut butter in it, but you can always just use straight-up cashews and I’m sure it will be marvelous.

Next step: start planning a party to celebrate your little meat cups! And then giggle. Just a little.

Ingredients:

Meat Sauce:

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 inch piece of cinnamon stick
• 4 whole cloves
• 1 onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 lbs Italian chicken sausage, casings removed
• ¼ c. tomato paste
• 1 (28 oz. can) crushed tomatoes
• ¼ c. chopped fresh basil

Cashew Coconut Cream Filling:

• ¾ c. raw cashews
• ½ c. coconut butter (check out link above for recipe, or rock some more cashews, or maybe some macadamia nuts…)
• 1/3 c. mango chutney (I had to scour WH a bit to find this, but make it happen, b/c it seriously makes this filling happen!)
  
• salt and pepper to taste

Other Stuff:

• 2 zucchinis (3 if they are tiny little guys)
• ¾ lbs proscuitto (proscuitto, while kick ass, can be a little pricey. Chicken deli meat can also totally work as your cups, it is just provides a little less of the salty, crispy pork experience…)

How it’s Done: 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Soak cashews in a bowl of warm water (makes them easier to break down for the sauce.) Start coconut butter if you are going the homemade route (recipe above.) Technically, you may be better off making your coconut butter a few hours to way earlier in order to allow it to harden slightly, but I think you should still be ok making it as you go. Your filling will just be slightly runnier – still delicious though. You can also buy coconut butter, I just don’t like the taste as much – or you can use more cashews or perhaps macadamia nuts.

Start with the sauce. In a large pot heat up olive oil, and then add the cinnamon stick and cloves. Let these simmer for a little bit to allow them to open up – in the meantime, finely chop your onion. Add onion to the oil and spices along with a little bit of salt. Cook until it starts to become translucent. Chop garlic and add to the onion. Allow to cook for about 1 more minute. Fish out your cinnamon and cloves at this point before you lose them forever, and to prevent you from chomping down on a whole clove mid meal: less than ideal.

Remove your sausage from its casings. I cut it down the center; turn it inside out, and break it down with my fingers as I drop it into the pot. You just sort of need to go after it – aggressive sausage breakdown!

Continue to break the sausage apart with your stirring implement until it is in small chunks. Allow it to cook until it is no longer pink. Add your tomato paste and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Add your crushed tomatoes, chopped basil, and salt and pepper. Stir together and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes while prep your filling.

Put your cashews along with a tablespoon or two of water in your food processor and blend till they are almost completely smooth. Think just before nut butter texture. Add coconut butter and blend till combined. Scrape out your cashew/coconut mixture into a small mixing bowl. Add mango chutney allow with a hefty grinding of pepper. Combine.

And now we construct…

First lets prep our zucchini. If you have a mandolin, mandolin those squashes right down the middle to make long, thin slices. Then, cut eat long slice into about 1 ½ inch pieces (they should be just narrower than your muffin cups.) If you rdon’t have a mandolin I might rock first cutting the zuchinni into 1 ½ inch chunks short-ways, then cut each chunk into thin slices about 1/8 – ¼ inch thick.

Next: proscuitto. You are using each piece of proscuitto to line a muffin cup in order to create a base for your lasagna experience. Depending on the size of your proscuitto, you can go about this in several ways. When I had larger pieces from the butcher I used the whole piece and wrapped it around the cup. When I had slightly smaller and thicker pieces from a pack, I cut them in half and crossed them in the bottom of the cup. Both worked. And don’t stress if they’re not perfect – they will still be super neat and delicious. Breath!

Once the proscuitto is down, spoon a small amount of sauce in each cup (about 2, maybe 3 Tbs.) Top sauce with a small scoop of your cashew/coconut cream (about a tsp.) Then top with a piece of zucchini. Layer one: done! Repeat the above process one more time: meat sauce, cream, zucchini. Finally drizzle, or rock the spray can, olive oil over each cup, and top with salt and pepper. Boom!

Cook the cups for 25-30 minutes, or until the zucchini starts to soften on the top.

Pair with a yummy salad (I did arugula, avo, strawberries, olive oil, and balsamic,) and enjoy those happy little cups of deliciousness!

*Got extra basil – throw it on a salad, maybe with some strawberries and avo. Got extra tomato paste that will inevitably go bad in your fridge before you remember it again – freeze it in Tbs size portions to be ready to go for next time!

Sometimes you just have to test that edge…

Sprinting up a hill is a tricky thing to do in a spin class. Ignoring the fact that there actually isn’t a hill in the first place: irrelevant. What is tricky is that high resistance on a bike can easily be translated to going hard simply because it’s heavy. So it’s heavy. Freaking duh! It’s supposed to be heavy; you are theoretically climbing a monstrous hill here people. But is it just heavy? The question is: are you allowing that resistance to act on you, or are you acting on that resistance? Are you creating power, or are you succumbing to load?

Let’s continue on with this whole spin metaphor before breaking out into real life. Run with me on this one. I love sprinting with a heavy load because that load is what facilitates power. If you are sprinting with the resistance super low and your feet are moving at lightning speed, while it’s awesome, like super, duper fun, you don’t really get any physical push-back from the bike. You’re just movin’ and movin’ fast. However, when you add load underneath your feet, all of a sudden you feel that load – the pedals press up against your feet at the top and pull down upon them at the bottom. You are acutely aware of the effort it takes to continue pedaling. In fact, you have to commit at the top and the bottom of each stroke in order to continue to do so. But, where at a light, airy level 5 you are trying to harness your momentum, at a so not airy level 9 you get to create it. At every stroke the pedals provide you with a platform to drive off of into the next stroke. And you thus get a choice every single stroke. Do I press, do I drive down and pull up, or do I stop? Do I shy away from the wall presented to me, or do I commit to the effort and drive right through it?

It is easy when life turns awry to just focus on living in the suck. I’m surviving, right? Isn’t that good enough – isn’t that hard enough? Well, yes. Sort of. Sheer survival should get you some serious points no matter what. But, what if we change the way in which we interpret the suck. What if instead of allowing it to stop us in our tracks or to pull us off our path, we let it be a platform. Easy, right? Bullshit. This reconstruction of struggle is an extremely difficult thing to do. But let’s give it a shot. Just for giggles.

The gym is my jam. Partly because it is one of the few spaces in which my awkwardness shines in a beautiful and charming way. Partly because it is my place of calm – somehow I just feel centered amidst the pounding of barbells and the soft whir of spin wheels…But, most importantly because it is the safest place to test shit out. You can create your own little world of suck, and just see how you respond. Worse comes to worse: you sit on your butt and cry for a minute. If you’ve ever seen me in this state, then I have just attempted to do multiple reps of cast handstand wall walks – spontaneous tears, like always.

Anyways every time I (or whatever wonderful person is yelling at you in that moment) ask you to climb up a hill in class or to press your set of reps out for two more before you drop that bar, you are creating a platform and you are conditioning a response. And every time that happens you get to play with not only how you respond, but how that struggle gets interpreted. Does it pull you down and defeat you, or do you allow it to elevate you? We can get so anxious at the gym or in life when those feelings of struggle begin to creep in, and often end up shying away from them – running wherever we can to avoid that sensation of doubt and pain. But, just as we grab onto and allow happiness to wash over us, we can react just as actively struggle. We can construct it into a base for change versus derailment. Do not be passive in the face of resistance. Do not settle for mere heaviness. Create power from that heaviness and drive forward.

You may have some extra sauce if you use a smaller spaghetti squash. No worries! I made some killer “green eggs and ham” with the extras. Just heat up a pan over medium heat. Put some of the extra broccoli mixture in first to heat it up, and then throw in your scrambled eggs, followed by your bacon. Mix it all up (maybe drizzle with some balsamic vinegar) and enjoy!

Ingredients: (Serves 2-3)

• 1 spaghetti squash
• 2-3 heads of broccoli
• 1 small yellow onion or ½ large yellow onion
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• ½ c. roasted cashews (I used unsalted, but just take down the added salt if salted cashews are what you’ve got…)
• ¼ c. whole fat coconut milk
• ½ c. almond milk
• coconut oil
• to taste: salt, pepper, onion powder, paprika, cayenne

• chicken prep of choice – I cheated and used a routisere chicken, but you could also broil some chicken breasts with olive oil, a little balsamic, salt, pepper, red pepper, and maybe a little rosemary. You can also totally rock some fried eggs on top instead.

How it’s done:

Preface: Depending on the size of your spaghetti squash, you may have some extra sauce going on and the end. If your squash options are little guys, go for two, or reduce the recipe above by a bit. But you can also use that leftover sauce for those super yummy scrambled eggs above, or just eat it with a spoon. I went for both routes myself…

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. While your oven is heating up, prep your squash by cutting it in half lengthwise. Rub the whole squash down with coconut oil (it works the best of your coconut oil is solid.) Don’t worry about removing the seeds or the skin at this point. Literally just cover that thing in coconut oil. Place your squash halves face/seed side down on a baking sheet. Bake your squash for 50-60 minutes, or until the meat easily breaks away from the skin.

Next up: broccoli. If you have a steamer, set up a pot with a about an inch of water at the bottom (so it sits just below your metal steamer,) and let water come to a boil. Cut up your broccoli into medium florets. When water has come to a boil, put your broccoli florets onto the steamer, cover the pot, and let steam for about 5 minutes, or just until tender. Set your broccoli aside for the moment. (If you don’t have a steamer, sauté your broccoli florets in a little bit of coconut oil until, likewise, they are just tender. Or rock a steam/saute combo and pour some water into the hot pan with the broccoli – so it steams – and cove with a lid.)

Empty the water out of your broccoli steaming pot, and put back on low to medium heat with a tablespoon of coconut oil. Chop your onion, garlic and sauté along with your spices until onions begin to look translucent. Throw in your broccoli and let cook for a few more minutes to allow it to get all spiced up.

Turn off your heat and transfer your onions and broccoli mixture to your food processor. (Hold onto the pot – you’re going to need it at the very end.) Add your cashews and your coconut milk. Pulse the mixture until it becomes “rough.” Play with the texture a bit according to what you’re feeling. More blending will result in a super smooth and creamy sauce, less will result in a little more pointed presence of broccoli. I went with a happy medium between the two.

Your squash should be just about done. If that is an affirmative, scrape your squash out of it’s skin with a fork and transfer it into your pot. Add your now blended onion and broccoli mixture to the squash along with your almond milk (play around a little bit here with how much sauce you want and how thick you want it – more almond milk will result in a thinner sauce, and less – you get the idea. You may also want to add the broccoli/onion mix little by little so that you can control the sauce to squash ratio…) Mix everything together, taste, re-spice as needed.

Spoon your kick-buttedly creamy squash mixture into bowls. Top your squash with chicken and drizzle with balsamic vinegar. Yum!

A rather apt description of my general state of late…

How do you respond when you lose your footing? Sure, it’s easy to imagine that you’ll be cool calm and collected – or in my case, quite easy to imagine the opposite, and instead wait for the utter meltdown of my personal sanity to ensue… But either way, we often expect our reaction to crisis to be binary. We expect to flourish in the face of adversity or to flounder. We don’t necessarily expect to do both – especially not concurrently. But hey, we’re complicated beings here people. Of course our reaction to a sticky or generally un-fun scenario is going to be equally as complicated, and the thing is, we need to allow it to be so. Otherwise, we truly are setting ourselves up to fail.

I came into my 6 weeks of prescribed rest expecting, well, let’s go with: a total disaster-zone. For someone who spent the majority of her collegiate rowing career injured, you’d think I’d have my, “I’m injured” shit together and dive into this whole recovery experience like a champ. Instead, all I did was sit and wait for everything to fall apart around me. Suddenly I wasn’t coaching, I wasn’t doing gymnastics teacher training, I wasn’t working out – all I was doing was waiting – waiting for myself to lose control.

I was talking to an injured compatriot and coach this last week about the mentality of being injured. As coaches I think both of us feel a discrepancy in both being a coach, but also being unable to cleanly and constantly handle being injured. Shouldn’t we at least have our business together since we coach others to when they are in the same scenario? But the thing is mentality is a choice. How you respond to being injured is a choice. And it is not a choice that can be made only once. I think that is where we often get stuck amidst recovery. We expect that once we’ve decided to no longer be stagnant and whiney that’s how it’s going to go down from here on out – period. Decision made. We don’t expect that we have to make that choice to keep moving, to keep breathing every single day. And we don’t give ourselves the space to not make that same choice every single day.

Sometimes we are going to be able to tell ourselves that we are stronger than whatever crap is going on in our lives. And sometimes we are going to be angry, and upset, and stagnant, and our cookie consumption will suddenly sky rocket. And that’s ok. We can’t set up the expectation that we will never and should never be angry or petty about adversity. Adversity sucks. Like really sucks. And making the choice to be stronger than that is not only extremely hard, but it also takes a ton of work. Sometimes we are up to that effort – let’s go with 85% of the time we are up for it. But 15% of the time – it’s just not going to happen. Fifteen percent of the time you very well may feel like crap. That’s cool.

But failure is scary as shit. And that’s usually what that 15% is going to feel like. However, if we set up the expectation that we’ll always be stronger than the crap that is going on around us, then we will fail completely. Be angry, but don’t be angry every day. Acknowledge the suck – it’s there, you might as well say hi – but don’t allow it to consume you. If you pretend that it’s not there, that you should be bigger than it always, that’s when it’s going to sneak up on you and kick you in the face. Seriously. Avoid that scenario at all costs. Respect the process. Respect that it IS a process. But keep moving. Keep seeking the top of that hill. The crazy thing about being injured or dealing with something that asks for so much of you, is that at the top of the hill you are no longer the person you were at the bottom. You are changed. And you are stronger for having failed. You are stronger for having been angry. And you are stronger for having chosen 85% of the time not to be. I would say enjoy the ride, but that isn’t fair. It’s something someone says without acknowledging that there’s a good chance that ride’s going to suck – at least some of the time. Respect the ride. It will challenge you, but it will change you.

I have been trying to find a good Paleo brownie recipe forever, as well as one that is not all nut-based or that blows through half my carton of happily free-roaming eggs. I love me some nut butter and nut flours, but sometimes it is just too much! There are times when I am totally down with consuming half a cup of nuts in brownie form, but now is just not one of those times. And thus, the brownie mission began. It’s goal: to create a straightforward, super fudgy brownie base, with a little bit of fruity, creamy intrigue swirled into the mix. One epic and aesthetically disastrous fail later, and some serious re-working, led to these little gems. Warning: you will hear their chocolately goodness calling to you from the fridge, so invite some friends over and be done with them! (Although maybe hide one for later, because it would be sort of sad not to remix this consumption experience at a later date…) Oh, and maybe do a little happy dance: jazz hands required.

Ingredients: (Fills an 8×8 pan) 

Brownies:

• ½ c. coconut flour
• ½ c. plus 1 Tbs. raw cacao powder or unsweetened baking cocoa
• pinch of salt
• 6 dates plus 2 Tbs. water
• 4 eggs
• 1/3 c. honey
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 c. ghee, melted

Raspberry Cream Cheese:

• ½ c. raw cashews plus 2 Tbs. hot water
• 1 Tbs. Lemon Juice
• 1 tsp. honey
• 1 c. frozen raspberries (fresh totally works too)

How it’s Done:

Preheat your oven to 350. Next, deal with some prep stuff. Pit your dates and let them soak in a bowl of hot water to help break them down a bit. Put your eggs in a bowl of warm water to help bring them to room temperature (just helps when adding them into the melted butter so that they don’t cause it to re-coagulate.)

Combine all your dry ingredients (coconut flour, cacao/baking cocao, and salt) in a medium bowl.

Put your dates, plus 2 Tbs. of the water they were soaking in, into a food processor. Blend those puppies until they start to stick to the sides of the bowl and make blending them anymore impossible. Don’t worry if they aren’t totally broken down yet. Scrape the bowl down, and then add the rest of your wet ingredients (eggs, honey, vanilla, and ghee.) Blend until everything is almost totally combined. There should still be some date pieces hanging out – totally cool.

Add your wet ingredients to your dry ones and mix until they are totally combined. Don’t worry if it looks sort thin right now. Coconut flour has an amazing ability to sneak up on you and thicken as it sits there…Oh, and you should probably try the batter multiple times here. Just sayin’.

Scrape out all your batter into a greased 8×8 baking pan. Smooth out the top so that it is moderately even.

Next up: the topping. Rinse out your food processor. Put the cashews along with 2 Tbs. of hot water into your rinsed bowl. Blend and scrape a couple of times until again, just like the dates, your cashews refuse to come off the sides of the bowl to be mixed anymore.

Put ½ cup of your frozen raspberries into a microwave safe bowl, and you guessed it, microwave them for about 30-45 sec, or until they are totally thawed and there is some raspberry juice at the bottom. Add raspberries, juice and all, lemon juice, and honey into the cashew mixture and blend until the cashews are almost totally broken down. Melt your other ½ c. of raspberries just a touch, and without using the blade, just mash them into the cashew/raspberry mixture so that you have some big pieces of raspberries in there too.

Pour your cashew/raspberry mixture on top of the brownie batter. I did it in three parallel lines. Then take a knife across the lines, swirling the topping into the batter.

Bake for 18-20 minutes. They may not look super done in the middle due to the moisture of the topping, so make sure you take the pan out and check with a toothpick to see if it comes out clean-ish. These can get overdone and dry fast, so err on the side of caution.

Nom away my friends.