Men are from Mars…

There was a time not too long ago where for me being skinny would have been at the top of my wish list. And as shallow as that sounds I can bet that 99% of females have had the same thought.

The runway is full of stick thin girls and horror stories of models surviving on an apple and coke diet grace the pages of magazines. I can only think of a handful of girls that have gone into the social scene that is Hollywood and come out the same size they were when they went in.

We should all work hard to achieve what we want in life, whether that be a great body or change of career or lifestyle in general but when does it reach the point of being too much? When do we cross that line between doable and dangerous? When do we start doing things not because they are what’s good for us as the individual but because we think it’s what other people will like more?

I love the saying “Men are from mars, women are from venus.” It wasn’t until I started to get a bit older that I started to appreciate what this saying actually meant. For example now I know that when I write a long message to a guy and he simply puts “ok” it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like or want to talk to me, it’s just that he’s more likely engrossed in the footy game he has on with his hands down his pants. Or if I need a good cry I don’t go to my boy bestie because he’ll get weirded out and start making inappropriate jokes about my “hot” Mum to ease the situation. Accepting that men is different is just a part of life.

But much the same as they don’t think as emotionally as us or with their hearts, it would seem they also tend to differ from us on our opinion of the “perfect body” and our perception of what guys think is attractive is actually not the case for a large majority of them.

I asked the males in my Facebook friends list what their opinion of the perfect female body was, giving the options of thin, curvy and athletic.

The results were as follows:

Thin 0%
Curvy 78.5%
Athletic 21.5%

Now isn’t that funny. It would seem that although we as females tend to be right (most of the time, c’mon guys!) the boys have got something right here for a change.

Whilst I understand that some people are genetically very thin regardless of what they eat, a lot of what we see in the media is not natural and therefore not achievable at a safe level. The bodies I’ve seen and heard of friends and young girls trying to achieve just isn’t feasible yet we still beat ourselves up when we haven’t accomplished it.

I’ve battled with body image like a lot of us out there and I can honestly say that the one of the worst times for me has been when I’ve strived to achieve a body shape that isn’t practical for me physically, emotionally or mentally.

Yes I want to be the best version of myself but not at a cost to my happiness or more importantly, my wellbeing. So now it’s about eating more of the right things and working out because I enjoy it and it’s what leaves me feeling my best. I don’t under eat as a quick fix or stare longingly at size 0 models desperately hoping that one day I’ll be able to run in a bikini and have nothing that wobbles apart from boobs. I do what’s right for me and accept that however I turn out, whatever clothes size my body slips into, that will be what the big man upstairs intended.

Much like my thin friends who can eat and eat what they like and remain tiny, I shall land on whatever size I am to be as me. Not as a result of a crazy starvation diet but of a realistic, sensible and healthy approach to living a lifestyle that suits me and my needs.

It’s common sense. We have one life and if we do it well then that’s all we need. A mars bar will only make you happy for a second and starving yourself will leave you miserable for hours so realise that there is no logic to either and approach it from a different angle.

Real foods, heart pounding exercise and big laughs. That’s the stuff right there 🙂

Pancakes make me happy

So I have a confession to make and it’s a shocking one so don’t judge me ok?

I had never made pancakes until this morning. Ever.

I know, I know, I can hear you from the other side of my computer screen “But what about pancake day?”. Well I never really celebrated it to be honest as pancakes just didn’t do it for me.

But then yesterday I had this sudden urge to be creative with my breakfasts and step away from my usual porridge or omlettes and try something new.

So after researching the basics on what can go into a pancake and what can’t, I threw this little concoction together and I have to say they were bloody tasty! So sound the trumpets and make way for my tasty banana and oat pancakes…

Ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats
2 ripe bananas
3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

Cut bananas into small pieces and blend with the almond milk until you get a purée like consistency.
Then add the oats, baking powder and salt and blend for a further minute.
The mixture should be fairly think by this point.
Pre heat a pan with coconut oil and divide mixture into 8 pancakes (about 1/4 cup of mixture will make one pancake).
Cook for two minutes each side or until golden.

Now serve with topping of your choice. I used coconut cream, frozen berries, a sprinkle of raw cacao and chia seeds – yum!!

David Wolfe – My Best Day Ever!

What better way to start my “Pecan Princess People” section than with a date with David Wolfe himself!

Unfortunately it wasn’t the by candlelight with music type of date and I did have to share him with about 300 others but it was amazing all the same.

“The best day ever!” was held at the Ridges Perth and seeing that I’ve never been to a raw food conference before, I wasn’t really sure what to expect…

When you think of raw foods, do you think of a rabbit munching on a carrot? Or a hippie type lady smoking whilst dancing around a campfire with no underwear on? Glad I wasn’t the only one then 🙂

It’s that typical situation of us not understanding something new so we fear it and stereotype it, a little bit afraid of accepting change. But I needn’t have feared because I was met with 3 of the most exciting hours of my life from a nutritional perspective. David literally BLEW MY MIND!

Not only did he discuss the hundreds of super foods out there and the effects they can have on various diseases, he also talked about how we can prevent illnesses before they even happen, all whilst delivering this information in a fun and interesting way. He kept me hanging on to his every word.

David was also very relatable, being a man who had grown up with a different outlook on life than the one he shares now. He followed the typical over processed, harmful westernised diet that many people currently live and so he talks from experience.

Here is some of the information I took away from David:

The top 10 anti-aging super foods are chocolate (raw cacao), olive oil, tobacco, honey and port wine (the unprocessed kind)
Cacao is higher than any other plant in iron and is also high in magnesium. This combination could explain why women crave chocolate when we have our period so let your partner know this the next time he sees you tucking into a raw chocolate bliss ball 😉
Foods that are black are the best for you such as schisandra berries and olives (when an olive falls to the ground from the tree and has not been touched by man)
Foods that look like body parts help that body part. For example a walnut is good for your brain, a tomato is good for your heart, celery for your bones and berries for your eyes.
Salt is amazing for us! But not the kind we find in processed food. The natural kind. In fact warm salt water can help with many problems and has been spoken about for years, it’s just in our current day and age the message has become somewhat contorted.
Medicinal mushrooms (shiitake, chaga, trametes, reishi etc.) are the most powerful healing foods.
We need to be stacking the favours in our odds, implementing small changes daily that set us on the path towards self-healing.
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

And the most important thing I took away from the 3 hours was this following piece of information:

DEVELOP SOPHISTICATION ABOUT YOUR BODY – ACTIVATE SELF HEALING AT HOME. TRY EVERYTHING OUT THERE AND FIGURE OUT WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU.

No one way of living is right. What suits one person may not suit you so listen to your body, try new things and eventually you can feel what works for you and what doesn’t.

For me David confirmed something I’ve thought for a good 6 months or so now – that we as a generation have made things all too difficult. We have become far more “materialised” as he put it and now conform to a way of living because we have been brought up with it in our faces. Everyone in the room that night had reached a point in their life where they knew that there was something more out there, something they hadn’t quite sussed out yet or were on the cusp of realising. Some had had a life threatening disease and had witnessed the miracle of food and lifestyle changes for themselves whilst others were more than likely there just to see what all the fuss was about.

Whatever our reasons, I don’t think anyone can say they left that room without plenty to think about. I know I certainly didn’t. And whilst I didn’t go 80% raw the following day, I have incorporated more raw veggies and fruit into my diet daily since and am on a mission to make a mean raw cheesecake very soon. I accepted a while ago now that what I had been brought up believing was good for me, simply isn’t so a lot of what he said rang true for me.

David lives an amazing life travelling worldwide and experiencing the world in a light I’ve never seen. It’s one to be respected and I feel a little more blessed just for having heard about it. The universe has everything ready in place for us to be our best versions and I think he realised that a little bit sooner than the rest of us…

I have butterflies!!

Eeeeeeeekkk so here it is! My very first blog post! I guess I’d probably best start off with why am I here, why This Pecan Princess?

For as long as I can remember I’ve felt a little bit inadequate, a little bit anxious and a little bit sensitive… I’ve made decisions based on what I don’t necessarily agree with or want to do but what I thought would eventually make me happy.

Then one day on a complete whim I thought, I’m going to move to Australia. I’m going to leave everything and everyone I’ve known for 25 years behind me and go and live over 8000 miles away. I mean why not right?

So after 8 months of planning and saving and boring everyone around me with monthly, weekly and daily count downs, I left. And life was never the same again. In fact it was the most awful it’s ever been for a time.

Do you know what happens when you have nothing and nobody familiar around you? When you don’t even recognise the street you are on and have no one to call and talk to about your day? You start to look at yourself long and hard and start over thinking things and it becomes very apparent (and very quickly too) if there is something you aren’t happy with. Because you literally have nothing else to do but to search within yourself. You aren’t going about your normal routine, rushing around and blocking out thoughts and feelings. For once you can actually hear the noise in your head and you can’t escape it! It’s a scary thing.

But it was the best thing to ever happen to me. It made me face what I had been hiding from for so long. All of these little niggling doubts about the types of people I should be having in my life or the food I was eating because I had been told it was good for me or the lifestyle I should live because that’s what you do when you’re an adult. I was at a cross roads and it was time to start making decisions based on what was best for me…

I started to be kinder to myself, working out because I enjoyed it and trying new forms of exercise which lead to making new friendships. Eating wholesome foods because they actually made me feel good and not because a new diet said I should eat them. I began to form friendships based on people who brought out the best in me and I them and I said goodbye to the people that brought me down instead of holding on to them for fear of feeling like a bitch.

And then one day it hit me – i’m happy! And it was all down to the simplest of changes, so simple in fact I can break it down into one sentence for you:

Treat your body and soul with kindness and happiness is yours for the taking.

That’s it! Just those 14 little words and yet it had taken me 25 years to figure it out.

So why it had taken me so long to realise where I was going wrong? It’s because the everyday noise and bullshit around me had prevented me from waking up to it sooner.

And so, This Pecan Princess was born!

My site is dedicated to promoting a healthy and balanced lifestyle that is maintainable by anyone and everyone. It doesn’t focus on a size or a shape and there is no right and wrong. I am not a personal trainer or a nutritionist and I don’t have a degree in psychology. What I am an expert in though is me. My thoughts, my feelings, my wellbeing and my happiness and if how I live my life can help or inspire even just one other person out there who is just as lost as I was, well then that makes me feel all giddy inside!

So welcome! This is the first of many posts to come, posts about wholesome foods, exercise, positivity, love, friendship and an overall healthy and happy lifestyle that leads to just one thing – your very best you 🙂