Healthy Snacks: Kale Chips

The first time we had kale chips was during a trip to San Francisco a few years back, and we’ve been hooked ever since! There are delicious store-bought ones (Solar Raw Food makes amazing Better than Cheddar kale chips covered with bell peppers and cashews that taste just like cheese!), but they’re usually pretty pricey. Homemade kale chips are a lot less expensive and really easy!

Before: Ready to Bake

After: Kale Chips! 

Ingredients

• A bunch of kale
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• Salt or other seasoning to taste

Directions

• Cut or rip the kale leaves off the stems, then tear the leaves into smaller bite-sized pieces
• Wash the leaves and dry thoroughly
• Once dry, put all the leaves into a bowl and toss with olive oil and salt
• Spread evenly on a baking try lined with parchment paper, foil, or baking sheet
• Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 300°F

Tips 💡

• Make sure the leaves are completely dry! Any moisture will make the kale soggy. In addition to air drying the kale, we used a salad spinner and paper towels.
• You don’t have to tear the leaves into bite-sized pieces, but it makes it easier for the kale to crisp in the oven.
• Try not to stack/layer any leaves on top of each other while baking because it’ll prevent them from crisping.
• Some people suggest adding salt after the kale is baked (salt draws out the moisture from the leaves and can make them soggy).

Easy Smoothies: Mint + Watermelon + Frozen Banana

When it comes to smoothies, the options are endless! I was apprehensive about the watermelon-banana combo, but it turned out to be delish 🙂

Ingredients*

• 1 cup of watermelon, cubed
• 2 frozen bananas
• Leaves from ~2 sprigs of mint
• 1 cup of coconut water

*These are the amounts I used for our 2 smoothies, but the beauty of smoothies is that you can adjust everything to your liking!

Directions

Put all the ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth!

Guest Post: The 2 to 4% Rule

Today I actually also have a guest post from Matt, who has been an absolutely amazing positive influence on me in terms of new commitment to healthy living! While we’ve both taken steps to eat healthy and shed the pounds, he has really dedicated himself to exercising almost daily, and the results have been awesome! I’ll let him speak a bit about it himself:

With my wife now blogging, I might have caught a little bit of the writing bug myself.

So my wife has hypertension. When she first told me that her doctor said that her blood pressure was abnormally high, I really thought nothing of it. This is because I thought, “Hey, she’s a young gal—I’m sure this is just a blip on the radar, and it’ll go away later.” If you don’t know April, she is a worry wart at times, so I was just brushing it off as another case of her worrying over something that will go away quickly. Luckily, her doctor suggested that she go to a pharmacy another day to do another reading on her own in case her elevated blood pressure was due to her being anxious at the doctor’s office.  As you might have seen from her post, we know what happened. I was definitely worried.

Since then, we have changed the way we eat and the way we live, including more sleep, cleaner food, and exercising when we can. As you see from her posts, we have been eating better—not always cleaner, but the off days when she doesn’t post about food, it’s because we are eating our weekly “staple meals” to keep it healthy. I’m sure she will eventually post about some of the everyday meals we eat.

Being in shape for our honeymoon in Thailand

So we’ve booked our honeymoon this year, and we’re going to Asia!  While we’re there, we’re going to a wedding for one of the bridesmaids from our wedding.  It’s going to be in Phuket, Thailand, and I’m super excited to go! When we knew we were going to go for sure, I told April that I wanted to be in shape since we will be beach-bound when we in Phuket.  At first, I really wasn’t taking exercise seriously and to be honest, I wasn’t sure myself if I would be able to lose the weight. I’m not blessed with the “eat anything I want and not gain weight” gene, which is bad since I love food so much. Then one day while on Instagram, I saw a fitness post that has really given me the motivation to keep going. And now, with less than a month to go, I’m the lightest I’ve ever been since I can remember.

Losing 15 lbs following the 2 to 4% Plan

So what’s my secret? Eat clean as much as possible, learn to portion control, get rest, and exercise. All of these are things that have been told to us all the time, but we never listen. But back to that Instagram post… If I told you that you just need 2 to 4% of the 24 hours you have each day and 3 to 5 days a week of exercise, would you do it? That’s been my motivation and what I’ve been trying to do each day, which has been working so far. The 2 to 4% I’m asking for is only half an hour to an hour of the 24 hours you have each day. I have no trainer, no gym membership. Everything I do is at home, and all I have are my running shoes and resistance tubes, so cost is not an issue. And all I’ve been doing is running 3 to 5 km, and then doing burpees, crunches, and resistance tube exercises to help work out most of my major muscles. I have been exercising this way since July 15 till now, and in 3 months, I have lost about 15 pounds—and that’s with me still drinking beer on the weekends! If you’re in a similar situation, just make the time to do the 2 to 4%, and don’t make any excuses! It really works if you willing to try.

As you can see, this has been working well for Matt, but we’re always open to hearing about new ideas, especially now that it’s getting cold and we’re not outside as much! If anyone has any other tips or stories to share, Matt and I would love to hear them!

Where We Ate: Fresh on Spadina (Toronto)

My close friend A loves trying new restaurants as much as I do, so when she suggested Fresh, I was keen to try. We don’t go out for vegetarian much, and what’s not to love about food that’s healthy and made from fresh, natural ingredients?

Fresh on Spadina is one of 4 locations around the city, and it was understandably busy at lunchtime on a Saturday. Fortunately, the others waiting were part of larger parties, so we didn’t have to wait long! There were a bunch of items we wanted to try on the menu, but we’re suckers for brunch, so we ordered from the brunch menu.

What We Ate

• We shared the quinoa onion rings (not on the brunch menu), which A highly recommended. They were delish!!
• I have been craving pancakes for the longest time—which is weird because I usually prefer savory brunch items—so I had the pancake platter, which had 2 gluten-free pancakes (I chose banana nut) with dark maple syrup, scrambled tofu, and grilled vegan sausage.
• My friend A decided to try the tempeh florentine, which had an a whole-grain English muffin topped with tempeh bacon (tempeh is a soy-based product), grilled spinach, and vegan hollandaise, along with a side of sweet corn chowder.

As you can see, the portions were huge, so we were stuffed! Everything was really yummy. I’m not a vegetarian or vegan, but I believe that vegetarian/vegan food can be delicious, and this is another restaurant that proved it. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!

I have hypertension: blessing in disguise?

This is a bit of a long story, but a recent turn of events has led to a complete reevaluation of my health and lifestyle choices. The last time something affected my health in a serious way was when I herniated disc in my spine during high school!

It all started with unusually high BP readings at my annual check-up…

At the end of August, I went for a regular annual check up with my doctor. Everything seemed to be fine, except for one thing: my blood pressure seemed unusually high. Because white-coat hypertension is sometimes the cause for a spike in blood pressure, my doctor suggested that I visit a pharmacy/drugstore the next day to do a retest in a different environment. I did what I was told and called the doctor’s office with my readings the following day. My doctor called back later that afternoon, her voice full of worry. Apparently, my blood pressure was at hypertension urgency levels, and she urged me to leave work right away and go to the ER.

… which led to a long night at the ER and coronary care unit

That night, I was admitted into the ER with BP readings of approximately 200/130 mm Hg (to give you a frame of reference, 120/80 is considered normal levels!) While high blood pressure is dubbed the “silent killer” because it’s often asymptomatic, the doctors and nurses still found it puzzling that I wasn’t experiencing any symptoms (headache, dizziness, blurred vision, etc.) with BP levels that high. I spent the night at the ER being asked a lot of questions (probing for family history, potential drug use or pregnancy, among others) and undergoing blood and urine tests and a chest X-ray. During this time, I was kept on an IV drip in efforts to bring down my BP levels.

It was an exhausting night for me and especially Matt, who sat in a chair by my bed all night, only leaving briefly to get a change of clothes. I was eventually transferred to the coronary care unit upstairs. It was a bit of a sad experience–there were many elderly patients, some who were confused about where they were, while others were screaming in pain and yelling for their nurses. We spent a number of hours there, until a combo of oral medication and a medicated topical patch was able to bring my BP down to normal levels consistently for an extended period of time. Once it did, the doctor discharged me from the hospital, with a set follow-up appointment the following week.

and many weeks of subsequent tests

Because I am under the age of 30,  it’s a bit unusual to have high blood pressure, especially at the levels they were at. In addition to the tests in the ER, my doctor from the hospital wanted to do a number of tests to rule out any secondary cause for my hypertension (basically, any other medical conditions that might be causing high blood pressure). Over the course of the next few weeks, I had to do a 48-hour urine sample collection (this might be TMI, but collecting any and all pee over a period of 2 days is more complicated and inconvenient than it seems!), 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring (this does not go well with driving or sleeping), and a renal Doppler ultrasound exam. It meant a lot of travelling to the hospital and a lot of time off work/working from home, but I know that health comes first. Because I also work with medical technology and healthcare content at work, I actually knew what conditions some of the tests were checking for, so it was extremely hard not to self-diagnosis and think of the worst!

The end and also the beginning!

Last week, I was finally told that all the tests–in the ER and in the many weeks after–came out clear! Because I had undergone so many tests, they felt confident that they had ruled out any secondary causes for my hypertension. I will continue to remain on medication to maintain normal BP levels, and I will need to monitor my BP regularly. It makes me a little sad, but I know that it’s not serious and that many people (even my age) are affected by hypertension. It also sparked some positive changes in my life (and Matt’s):

1. Healthier eating and reading nutritional labels: Matt and I have been trying a number of healthy, low-sodium recipes, and there are a lot of delicious options out there! While Matt has always been good about reading labels, we’re now even more vigilant about what we’re buying and what we’re putting in our bodies.
2. Everything in moderation: This might make me sound like an alcoholic, but I love to drink, so cutting down on that has been one of the harder changes. Fortunately, we aren’t still living the life where we down multiple beer towers on the weekends, and I know that this is a necessary change. It’s gotten better! The other side of the coin is trying new food places. As pseudo-foodies, Matt and I are still determined to try new restaurants, but we’re now learning to pick and choose our meals out. We’ll be vigilant about menu options, and we’ll only have food “splurges” once in a while.
3. More regular exercise: Matt and I aren’t exactly strangers to the gym, but things sort of fell by the wayside when we bought our most recent home. Lately though, things have changed. Matt has been better about this than me (he runs 5K everyday in addition to at-home exercises and then often walks another 5k with me when I get home!), but we’ve been rebuilding our at-home gym to accommodate regular workouts.
4. Leaving the stress behind (as much as I can): My team members at work, my parents, and Matt can readily attest to this, but I can be pretty neurotic and stressball-y (my mom calls me a “worry bug”). While I probably can’t do a complete 180, I can definitely try. I have been trying to let things go and to follow this flowchart, which my coworkers kindly shared with me 🙂 There are some things that Matt says I’m honey badger about, so I have to apply that a little more often!

Surprisingly, #4 is working out well for me. I still have occasional mini-meltdowns like everyone else, but I think I feel happier overall. So if some of the stuff I’ve already said wasn’t cheesy enough already, I’m going to one-up myself: maybe all of this was a blessing in disguise, and I kind of think my life is better for it.

Matt has been nothing short of amazing through it all, and I can’t ask for a better healthy-eating buddy/chef and workout partner! He was the one who encouraged me to start this blog to have a healthy outlet to voice my thoughts and to have something fun to do during my spare time (even though I write and edit all the time at work… haha), so we’ll see where this goes!