The Vintage Flower Girl

Okay folks, only a few weeks left to go until the big day! Eek! I can't get over how quickly time has passed. We have a fairly large wedding party and are blessed to have in it, our two beautiful nieces who will be playing the rolls of junior bridesmaids (a.k.a flower girls). We chose not to call them flower girls because they are both above the age of 10 and just thought they deserved the mightier title (and also, there would be no flowers strewn about).

With a vintage themed wedding, dressing these little girls seemed like a bit of a challenge. But with some luck and a lot of inspiration, I think they are going to look amazing! Here are some of my most favorite inspiration pics!

1. Flower Headbands

I can remember being a little girl and standing in my aunt's wedding. I wore a beautiful flower wreath in my hair and I looked so pretty. I simply adore this look. When I was choosing my flowers for the wedding,  my florist asked what types of bouquets I wanted for the little girls. I really didn't know. I honestly did not see them wanting to carry them and envisioned them being destroyed or left accidentally on a chair somewhere as they ran off to the party. I opted against a bouquet for them and instead, they will be wearing their flowers in their hair. Nothing says vintage elegance and youthful innocence like these amazing floral wreaths.

  

2. Bohemian Style Dress

As I shopped for my wedding gown, I always peeked at the little girls dresses and although I always oohed and awed at the big, puffy Cinderella type dresses, I knew that I wanted something different. I wanted the girls to carry the vintage vibe as well as find them a dress that they could wear again. I was out shopping and came across a Bohemian style girls dress that I just fell in love with. The dresses are simple and romantic.

  

3.  A Little Girl in Pearls

Well now comes the hard part... well at least for me anyways. I'm horrible when it comes to accessorizing. I just wasn't born with that gene. I tried to think about what type of jewelry would match the girls dresses and would also match the theme of the wedding..... pearls! Pearls are classic and beautiful and will almost make it look as though the girls are playing dress up with their mothers jewelry!

My Green Smoothie

In the past few months, I've realized the amazing benefits that can come from adding a delicious green smoothie to your diet. Although I have a very healthy diet and eat lots of veggies and fruit, I still found that I was missing some essential minerals. Especially on busy days, I noticed that I wasn't getting all of the nutrients that I needed. 

On the advice of my naturopath, I decided to try adding a green smoothie into my daily routine and since doing so, cannot imagine a day without it! I have more energy, my IBS symptoms are less frequent, my mood has improved, and I'm less hungry throughout the day helping me to maintain a healthy weight.

Kim's Green Smoothie

  Ingredients

1/4 cup of gluten-free oats

1/4 cup of whole flax (not ground)

handful of raw cocoa nibs

1/2 ripe avocado

1/2 cup of frozen or fresh fruit (your choice!)
1 tbsp organic honey

1/4 cup coconut yogurt (dairy free)

1/4 cup fresh spinach

1/4 cup fresh green kale

4-5 slices of cucumber 

1 cup of vanilla almond milk (dairy free)

**Additional items that I sometimes add depending on what's in my fridge or fresh at the grocery store/market: red beets, watercress, parsley, aloe juice (unsweetened) almonds, red kale 

 

 I throw everything together into a blender and mix! Now, my blender is nothing special. It is actually quite old and I believe it belonged to my grandmother. So don't feel like you need to go out and buy some fancy juicer or blender in order to enjoy green smoothies - you really can make them at home with a very basic blender. Add more or less milk depending on how thick you want your smoothie to be. 

She sure isn't pretty... but she gets the job done!

Once everything is well blended, I add in about 2 tbsp of chia seeds (not ground) to the bottom of my cup and then pour in the wonderful green yummy mixture! 

Why chia seeds? and why add them after blending?

First of all, chia seeds are a great source of healthy omega-3 fats and fibre. They are tasteless and so easy to add to any meal of the day - especially a smoothie. I got introduced to chia seeds over a year ago by my naturopath as a way to help treat my IBS symptoms. If you know anything about IBS or celiac disease, you'll know that it comes with a lot of stomach cramping due to foods that simply will not pass through your digestive system. Chia seeds came into my life and literally transformed my everyday bowel movements (sorry for the details) and I rarely suffer from stomach cramps anymore.

Here is how they work! If you've never eaten a chia seed before, I encourage you take one and place it in your mouth. Let it sit there for a little while and soon enough you'll start to feel a gel like coating around the seed. Chia seeds when emersed in a liquid take on a gelatinous like coating. Imagine taking in hundreds of those seeds with their wonderful gooey coating on the outside. As they sit in your stomach, they begin to coat the rest of the food and allow it to more easily pass through your digestive track. The food literally glides through and out! 

The reason for adding them after the blending is because you want them to be whole so that they will get gooey on the outside and give you all of those wonderful digestive benefits.  

Here is my smoothy all ready to eat!

I simply cannot live without this smoothie as a part of my everyday diet. I usually have a light breakfast and lunch and fit the smoothie in somewhere around 2pm which keeps me nice and full until dinner. This smoothie could also be a great way to start off your day rather than having a bowl of cereal or let's face it.. a cup of coffee! Make the smoothie, place it in a travel mug and drink it on your way to work. I even once had a colleague years ago who would make her smoothie in the morning, put it in a mason jar, bring it to work and drink it at lunch. Back then, I thought it was gross, but now wish I had started doing it sooner! 

It can take a few tries to get the right combintation of tastes that you're going to like. I don't mind tasting the greens at all while some of you might prefer to taste more of the fruit so might need to load in more of that. You could also replace the almond milk with a juice like orange or apple for added taste.

Bottoms up!

 

Book Review: Wheat Belly

As a devoted gluten-free eater and unfortunate sufferer of IBS, I'm always interested in learning more about gluten, how it affects my condition and how I can keep myself as healthy as possible. A few months ago, I heard about a book called "Wheat Belly" by Dr. William Davis. I thought the title was funny and decided it might be a good read for me. It might be nice to read about gluten from a doctor's perspective.

I grabbed the book at my local Chapters and got reading!

Wheat Belly is a provocative look at how eliminating wheat-even so-called healthy whole grain wheat-from our diets is the key to permanent weight loss and can offer relief from a broad spectrum of health and digestive problems.

Drawing on decades of clinical studies and the extraordinary results he has observed after putting thousands of his patients on wheat-free regimens, Dr. William Davis makes a compelling case against this ubiquitous ingredient. A wheat-free diet has been associated with significant benefits, including the following:

• Weight loss of twenty, thirty, even fifty pounds in the first few months
• Alleviation of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes
• Recovery from intestinal woes, like ulcerative colitis and celiac disease
• Marked improvement in overall cholesterol and LDL counts
• Improvement in bone density and reversal of osteoporosis
• Cessation of skin conditions from psoriasis to oral ulcers and hair loss
• Reduction of inflammation and rheumatoid arthritis pain

Readable, thought-provoking and carefully researched, Wheat Belly offers a new and vitally important perspective on the most critical health concerns of our time.

What I thought about this book..... 

I definitely jumped into this book with both feet (or should I say both hands? eyes?) This is the first book that I've read that talked about being gluten-free and I was really excited about learning more about what it means to be gluten-free and why it is so important.

From the very beginning of the book, it is extremely apparent that Dr. Davis is serious about the issue of gluten and has had many experiences with patients who have greatly benefited from removing gluten from their diets. He is honest (brutally honest at times), knowledgeable, aggressive in his viewpoints and filled with sincere disgust for gluten. He in no way tries to sugar coat how harmful and health altering it can be.

In my opinion, this book is best suited for those who are already living a gluten-free lifestyle. There is a lot of information presented in this book - some very technical and from a scientific perspective and others from a more experience based perspective. If you are new to the idea of going gluten-free, this book may not be the best place to start.  

I figured that since I was already living a gluten-free diet, that I would be able to read this book guilt free and probably feel pretty proud of the lifestyle changes that I've made. I went into this book believing that I already knew quite a bit about the dangers of gluten and how it can affect my body. Well, I quickly realized that I had a lot to learn. Dr. Davis covers the effects of gluten not just on the gut, but goes into great detail about:

• wheat's destructive effects on the skin
• how it affects our brains including dementia and autism
• wheat's role in heart disease and overall heart health
• the role is plays in aging including cataracts and wrinkles
• how it affects diabetes and insulin resistance

I would sit in bed at night reading this book and on so many occasions found myself saying out loud "Oh my God.. that's so true!" or "I feel like that sometimes, I never realized that it could be due to the gluten". I would stop my fiancee from watching tv to read to him the newest insightful passage I had just read. This book literally blew my mind. It made so many personal connections for me as someone who has suffered so many of the unfortunate side effects of gluten for so many years.

In the end, although this was a heavy read (a lot of technical information to take in), I really enjoyed the book and ended it feeling so happy that I had removed gluten from my diet. It really helped me to link so many of the health issues that I had struggled with for so long to gluten. I wish that I had realized it sooner, but without gluten now, feel amazing and am living a very healthy and happy life.