Encouraging Health through Instagram Pictures

Good morning! I have an idea I wanted to share with you all. I know many of you are not on Instagram and have no intention of starting it. I understand. Social Media does have its down side. BUT Instagram pictures are fun and I’m on there almost every day sharing tips and encouragement (it is so much easier than creating a blog post!!), so I thought I would bring Instagram to you once a week. Something like a “week in pictures” post. IF you like it, let me know so I will know if it’s of interest to my readers or not. Let’s try it and see. I will not label or describe each one, just enjoy the view. But, if you have questions about anything, feel free to leave questions in the comments. OK, we’re off…..

Hope something in here inspires you toward a healthier life, aka #lowcraplifestyle!:)

Encouraging Health,

Dana, the Organic Eater

My First “Farm to Fork Dinner” : the Good Life in NC

Friday night I experienced one of the most lovely evenings one could imagine! In Union County, NC there is small but thriving organic farm at the corner of Way-On-Out-There and Are-We-There-Yet. They grow “beyond organic” produce, which means pesticide free (blog post explaining that term is coming soon) produce for Atherton Market and for 7th Street Market on Saturdays. The Ross family hosted their first “Farm to Fork Dinner” at their farm, and it was one of the happiest nights of my foodie life!

It was the ultimate in “eat local” and “eat seasonal”!

Upon arrival, we could feel the peace of country living flowing in and the stress of city-life ebbing away.  We breathed in the fresh air and blooming flowers. We toured the organic vegetable gardens, strolled among the blueberry bushes, marveled at the edible flowers and herbs, and smiled at “the ladies” who greeted us from behind the chicken wire. Dinner was being created by Roots as we toured the farm. Then we gathered, about 30 of us, to hear from Baucom’s Best about the exceptional quality of the pastured chicken we were going to enjoy at dinner (did we ever!). The food was blessed, and we were grateful to sit down to what we knew would be an amazing meal (Roots has an exceptional reputation here in the Carolinas!) I was so excited, my real-food-foodie-heart was about to burst! And then the serving dishes were placed on the pristine white tablecloths for us to eat “family style” and we dug in. Perfection pictured below:

Local greens, flowers, and beets, with parmesan “crackers”

Pasta with herbs and vegetables from the garden

Main Course: local pastured chicken

Dessert: Strawberry Milkshake and Biscotti

Almost everything on the menu was from the Ross’ farm, Bell’s Best Berries, but any additional ingredients were definitely local. Chicken came from Baucom’s Best, another local union county farm.

The beauty of the farm is indescribable. Not enough adjectives to properly put into words.

This “Bells Best Berries” Farm also happens to be where I spend my Fridays, helping the Ross family prepare for Saturday’s Markets and CSA members (Community Supported Agriculture). Can you imagine a more lovely place to “work”?! It’s a beautiful commute, and the benefits are innumerable. If you have any questions about their CSA membership or buying produce from the markets, you can contact them on their Bells Best Berries Facebook page. I will include more pictures from the dinner below, if you care to look. I hope you too will find your own local sources of organic or pesticide free produce and be able to participate in a Farm to Fork dinner in your area. Let me know if you do!

A big thank you to the Ross family of Bells Best Berries farm, Roots catering and Baucom’s Best farm! Let’s go ahead and get another one on the calendar!

Encouraging Health,

Organic Eater

all photos taken with my iPhone. Thank you for being awesome, Apple.

Happy First Birthday Bloggy!

February 28th came and went. Oh, and so did March. Dang it! It’s April and I’m just now wishing an official “Happy First Birthday” to my little Organic Eater Blog! I spent some time reading posts and comments tonight, and I must say I like my blog (is that OK to admit?). I even found some information quite helpful because I had totally forgotten some things from a year ago. I think it’s probably a good sign if you learn something by reading your own blog:)  It has been an amazing year of learning and doing something new and completely out of my comfort zone (creating a blog from scratch was way outta my league, or so I thought. Thank you, WordPress). It’s been healthy and challenging to do something completely new at 45. My heart is full of gratitude to all of you followers, especially the commenters who let me know the information here is helpful to you. I appreciate your feedback SO much! THANK YOU for all of your encouragement, support, great questions, and re-posting and re-tweeting! This first year of blogging has been exciting! People’s lives are changing, and there are new things on the horizon for Organic Eater. I look forward to sharing those new things with you in the coming months.  Let’s continue to get the word out about real and organic food and continue to educate, inform, and mostly encourage healthy living! I appreciate you all so much! I look forward to many more birthdays with you in the years ahead!

Ps: this picture has NOTHING to do with an OE Birthday. It’s just a picture I found a year ago, and loved it, but was never able to use it in a post this year! haha! It is a pretty chicken, though, isn’t it?!

Encouraging Health,

Organic Eater

 

One of My Favorite HIIT workouts: Tabata from Lindsay’s List, and advice for how to start!

Today I’m linking you to one of my favorite blogs, Lindsay’s List, which also happens to include one of my favorite workouts, the Tabata. It’s a fancy word for moving hard and fast (HIIT means High Intensity Interval Training) for 4 minutes. Yep, 4, with rests in between the moves. Easy peasy. Start with one tabata. Get the hang of it, and go to 2 as soon as you can. It’s an awesome way to get started with HIIT exercising, and get that heart rate up, which is key in fat burning. HIIT was one of the keys to turning my body into a fat burner instead of a sugar burner. Now I do it because it works so well for a busy mom’s schedule and has kept me maintaining my weightloss for 2 years now! Woohoo! There are lots of ways to incorporate HIIT exercise into workouts, but Tabatas are an easy way to get started, with just 4 minutes. You can take anything for 4 minutes! Lindsay has several different lists of exercises you can do in your Tababta. I started with ones that didn’t require any equipment, because I didn’t have much at the time. Nowadays, I love my kettlebell and don’t know what I did without it! Oh, yeah, I got flabby and weak, that’s what I did without it! Boo. Now I know better. And you can too. This is such an easy way to get started! She also has videos on her blog, so you can see what the moves are supposed to look like if you need help.

No matter what you do to incorporate exercise, here’s my advice: move long & hard enough to make you sweat so badly, that you wouldn’t want to be seen in public. Your face should be ugly by the time you’re finished**. If you’re just “glowing”, you probably didn’t work it hard enough:) And lastly, if exercise is not even a part of your normal routine (I was there!), start with a movement you ENJOY, even if it’s just a walk through the neighborhood. Start with something easy enough to motivate yourself to do it. Figure out your schedule, commitment level, and then get into the HABIT of moving (some activity you enjoy). After it becomes a habit, a normal part of your weekly routine (at least 3 times/week), THEN you can move on to exercising for health benefits (harder, faster, stronger, more often). But just to get started, create the habit and routine first. If you’re already consistently incorporating exercise into your routine, that’s awesome! Tabatas can be as difficult as you want to make them, so go check this link out below!

Sweat is fat crying. Go make your fat cry!!

**See “uggie face” below, so you’ll know what I’m talkin’ ’bout!

And finally, here is the link.  Keep Calm and Tabata.

Tuesday Trainer – Tabata -.

Encouraging Health,

Organic Eater (and Mover)

Do you guys have any HIIT exercises you recommend? Share in the comments if you do!

A First for me: one of my recipes posted on another blog!

“Go ahead now, go ahead, get down!” in the words of Kanye West, I believe. That’s what I feel like singin, cause I had “a first”: one of my recipes was posted on another blog! Woot! Now, if you read my blog, you know I don’t actually create many recipes myself. I usually find one that another blogger created and give you guys the link! (why re-create the wheel??!!) But for my Chia Seed Dressing recipe, I actually created it all by my self from scratch, without any help from a “real” recipe creator, or my mama! Sometimes I amaze myself, it’s true. And all this on the one year anniversary of the Organic Eater blog, hurray! Happy 1st Birthday, bloggy! More on that later.

And so, this recipe was reposted in a B-utiful post at Rate Your Burn, which has 14 gorgeous chia seed recipes in the post. It’s really weird to see your own photograph on somene else’s blog. It looks sooo much prettier there. wow. Check it out!

RateYourBurn | 14 Creative, Delicious, Protein-Packed Chia Seed Recipes.

Encouraging Health,

Organic Eater