April All Natural Day 12
I’ve almost made it 2 weeks! I haven’t really noticed anything negative (duh), but my skin has cleared up, my skin is softer, I have more energy, and overall I just feel significantly less poopy than I did after eating so much sugar and processed stuff. I’m not saying I will completely cut out all processed things and all sugar forever (what fun would that be???), but I was in need of a break from it. I will eat unhealthy things occasionally, but not nearly as often as I had been. I believe in treating yourself at least once a week, but maybe that’s just me.
So anyway, I got up nice and early with a hungry puppy and decided I needed to start my day off with some chocolate. I’ve only made chocolatey oatmeal once before and I ended up throwing it away, but this time I wished I had made 2 servings! It was a pretty simple recipe, just the usual 1/2 cup oats, 1 cup almond milk, 12 frozen dark cherries (I cut them in half), 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder, and a couple tablespoons of maple syrup. I decided chocolate cherry oatmeal is now getting throw in the daily oatmeal rotation. I took a picture of the oatmeal, and just realized it’s a very unattractive and blurry picture, so you’ll just have to wait until I make it again to see what it looks like.
I definitely needed the chocolate too because it was grocery day, where we head out early in the morning and hit up the Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Walmart. We used to do most of our shopping at Whole Foods and Walmart, but we’ve started getting the majority of our groceries from Trader Joe’s now because it’s cheaper than Whole Foods, but you can still get the same quality items. We mostly go to Whole Foods for things we can’t get at our other two stores, like seitan. Plus our Whole Foods has these amazing vegan chocolate chunk cookies, so we get one every Sunday. We call it our Sunday treat. So far, our weekly expenses haven’t really gone down too much, but I’m pretty sure it’s because we buy a lot of nuts, and we loaded up on Whole Soy yogurt the past two weeks since they have gone out of business :(. They were completely gone this time.
By the time we got home, it was time for lunch. I had another tempeh bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with watermelon and raspberries because that’s what was in the fridge. Then it was back to work. My parents spent the day weeding and shoveling mulch while I was inside doing more chemistry homework. I would have much rather been doing yard work, but that’s what I get for being such a procrastinator. Once I finished up, I went for a nice 4 mile run, which may not seem very far, but I haven’t done more than 3 miles in over a month, so I was pretty happy I could still go that far. Plus, I ran it faster than last time, so my little one mile speed training days are showing results!
Once I got home and my parents finished up in the yard there really wasn’t much time left for making the falafel I had planned for dinner, so instead we threw some sweet potatoes in the oven, made some black eyed peas and collards, and ate in front of a fire in the back yard. All in all it was a pretty great day.
Remember, if you’d like to follow along or play along with our April All Natural Challenge, tag your posts with #AprilAllNatural!
-Hunter