Be careful with “I Wish”…

Today I saw a woman I was in complete awe of. She was taking part in a Cross Fit challenge at Perth Exhibition Centre and rocking a full on 6 pack in a sports bra and tiny shorts. Her physique was simply incredible, no other way I can describe it. And whilst her body was something of a masterpiece in many ways and I felt a huge amount of respect towards her, I have to say I was glad to find myself saying to my friend “She looks amazing but I wouldn’t want that body”. Why you ask? Well because I realised soon after that whilst I would like to be more toned or a little leaner or change certain parts of myself, like 99% of us do, I could appreciate this woman for what she was without an ounce of jealousy and not by comparing myself to her.

How many times have you seen a person and found yourself wishing that you had what they had? Wishing you were as thin as them? As fit as them? As pretty as them? And then begun to compare yourself and start picking apart each little thing you aren’t quite happy with about yourself? Done that recently have you…?

Jealousy is a nasty little thing. It can steal away present moments and bring out a side in people they never knew they had. You are always going to come across someone who has something you want or who seems further along in life than you; they could have an amazing job, that caring partner or those ripped arms you one day see yourself showing off in a halter neck.

But the beauty of working towards your own goals and being the best version of YOU and you only, is that when you see others achieving their own success you can genuinely be happy for them. By following a path true to you, regardless of the outcome you hope to achieve, you will feel a sense of satisfaction in knowing that you are on your own journey and you too will reach your goals in life. Whether it be job satisfaction or dropping a few kilos it’s all the same. We all have ambitions, hopes, aspirations, dreams; whatever you want to call them! It’s when we start to lose focus of what we as an individual want in life or stop pushing ourselves to go after it that we can begin to act bitterly towards those who do.

Go after what it is that you want; eat the way you want to eat because it makes you feel great or workout 6 times a week because you have a bikini you want to look amazing in. But do so with dignity and a passion that ignites a spark in others and not a negative attitude that leaves a foul taste in someone’s mouth.

Don’t wish for what others have and be envious that you don’t have it. Make your own goals, race after them and I guarantee everything else will fall into place…

Baking with besties

Do you know one of the things I love most about food? Aside from the food itself of course! I love the way it brings people together.

Some of my fondest memories are of family English roasts at my parents house in England or a Saturday night get together with friends where we all bring our own dishes and munch in our pjs. Food is fun and the sooner we start to accept that no good can come from starving ourselves or binging and that it is not our enemy, the sooner we can begin to enjoy it for what it is and see food as a positive thing.

I’ve been experimenting with a lot of main and breakfast dishes since starting this blog and my Facebook page This Pecan Princess so I thought it about time I made some healthier desserts.

As luck would have it a friend of mine is currently pregnant with her little girl and keen to learn some new recipes for treats so she found a couple of great links for us to work with. The first recipe is linked below which we did not adapt in any way:

Chickpeas Mini Chocolate Chip & Peanut Butter Cookie Bites

These mini bites were simply divine. They had a slight crunch on the outside and a warm, gooey middle! We actually let ours cook for 15 minutes instead of the recommended 8-10 and for the chocolate chips we used organic dark chocolate. Raw cacao nibs would also work with this recipe. Using chick peas for cookies is a new one for me but I have to say it worked and this is a simple recipe ill use again.

The second recipe we tried was an adaptation of the link below:

Mini Mars Bar Bites

For the crust we didn’t use any protein powder as we believed it would be sweet and sticky enough with the dates and for the filling we substituted the protein power for a teaspoon of organic honey.

As for the topping we decided to make our own chocolate sauce from scratch – see below for recipe:

4 Tb coconut oil, melted
2 Tb maple syrup
3 Tb raw cacao powder
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Mix all of the above into a bowl and then pop in the fridge for a few minutes until a sauce like consistency.

You layer your base onto grease proof paper and then top with your filling. When we came to top with our chocolate sauce we found some of it ran onto the grease proof paper so we popped it all into the fridge anyway and allowed to cool for 15 minutes. Then the sauce that had run we picked off of the paper and used as extra topping, creating a mosaic like effect which worked wonderfully! I just have THE best memory of picking those chocolate bits off the paper… “One for me, one for the cake, one for me, one for me, one for me…”

Again this recipe was quick and easy and super yummy. And what I liked about both of these was the mixture of organic peanut butter and raw cacao – both rich in taste and leave you feeling satisfied.

Needless to say yesterday was a world class day full of my besties and chocolate! The only thing missing was Channing Tatum feeding us our bite size creations naked. But there’s always next time right???

Friendship is good for the soul

My dog is my best friend. There, I said it. She makes me smile every day and does things that literally have me snorting I laugh so hard. She listens, she makes me happy and she is there for me always. That’s the definition of a friend right?

As a human we all have this basic desire to do things that make us feel good about ourselves. We work all year round for that holiday or we buy a new pair of shoes because they winked at us and made us feel special. We exercise to release feel good endorphins or we have sex to…well…you know 😉

Friends are the beings that leave footprints on your soul and a smile on your face. They love you for you and they do so without judgement or jealousy. For me a life without friends would be a lonely place. My crazy, irrational, emotional, sensitive, geeky self is enhanced by the beings I choose to have around me and call my buddies.

People come and go but these guys, these guys are wedged firmly in my heart.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you meet someone new for the first time and you just know? It takes something so simple like a comment or a common interest or a joke that no one else would think was funny and that’s it – you know you have years ahead of you filled with tequila, spooning and tears. You are going to speak to this person so much about the same shit yet never get bored or you’re going to have no contact with them for years and when you meet again, it’s like you saw them just yesterday.

This person is going to slut drop with you on the dance floor like the best of them, eat that piece of cake when you’ve had your heart broken and help to pick you back up when you make a mistake. They are there when you are at your best and there when you are at your worst and they want nothing in return; they do it just because.

When you have these people in your life you stop thinking that friendship is based on quantity and start to realise that it’s about quality. You feel whole and accepted – you are a part of something that cannot be faked and is not based on what you do or don’t have. You start to understand more about the person you are as you see it mirrored in the friends around you.

Without a shadow of a doubt friendship is such an important thing when it comes to being your best self and we cannot expect to live a positive life if we surround ourselves with negative people. Life is too short to waste on people that bring you down and stepping away from those that do doesn’t make you a bad person, it makes you an honest one.

My friends enhance all of the good qualities I have and help to silence the bad ones. They make me feel lucky and at times, a little big headed because I think to myself “If these amazing people are making an effort to be in my life, does that mean I’m a little bit amazing too?”

It doesn’t matter if you have one or several of these friends in your life; what matters is that you make them feel just as lucky as you do right now…

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 🙂

Let Go, Guilt Free, Kick Start

I hate things not going to plan to the point where it makes me feel anxious. Since moving to Australia I’ve found great comfort in planning for things and seeing them through, it’s been a security blanket in a way.

It makes me feel strong when I set my mind to something and achieve it like rolling out of my onesie an hour earlier to go for a run or opting for one of my homemade cacao balls instead of the easier processed option. I am all for doing things my way, going against the grain, as long as I’m not hurting myself or anyone else and even if it means putting in a little more effort.

But if we never alter from a plan then how do we learn to adapt to situations and create a solution? How is it healthy for us if things always go the way we expect them to?

I left Perth for Bali on Friday for a girl’s holiday or to be more specific, as a date for one of my pregnant best friends for her friend’s wedding and I already had a plan of action set out in my busy little mind. I was going to research massages and relaxation methods, sample healthy local cuisine and create new smoothie recipes using Indonesian inspiration. And I was super excited! I wanted to show people that going on holiday isn’t simply about eating more than normal and forgetting to exercise.

But then I thought you know what? It actually is and I spent 5 luxurious days eating all manner of Indonesian delights from coconut pancakes to greens with peanuts and satay sauce and passionfruit cocktails with a side of chocolate wedding cake. I practically lived in a bottle of red wine one night and I slept in till 10am daily. And I genuinely think I’m a better person for it.

What is life if it is not without balance? Why do I take care of myself 11 months of the year, fuelling my body with the foods it needs for optimal energy and pushing myself beyond my limits at the gym if there is no end release? No prize if you will at the end of it? There needs to be something we strive for in order to keep pushing, something in our minds eye that we reward ourselves with so we feel like it’s all worth it.

Being the best version of ourselves requires some effort; in fact it probably requires a lot more effort than we care to think so there comes a point where you just want to say “Sod it!” I don’t want to think about what I’m eating today and I don’t want to do 50 burpees. I want to wake up at 11am, throw on my bikini and sunbathe with a mojito in one hand and a croissant in the other. I want to celebrate being careless and free in this rare moment for no other reason than because I can!

My Bali blog post change of plan was a blessing in disguise. It allowed me to think about other topics which hadn’t arisen in my mind until this moment in time, topics that were important and relevant to not just me but I imagine to all of us.

It showed me that in order to be successful in our journey that first we need to we need to let go, just for a little bit. Let go of our routine and our pressures and lifestyle timetable and simply kick back. Eat that ice cream – eat 5! Do as you please and do it well.

But remember that in order to do it well we also need to be guilt free. It can be hard to enjoy foods you try to keep off limits or to laze around when you pride yourself on your gym attendance – I know this and it’s something that I have to constantly work on. But letting the guilt melt away is what leaves you with that amazing care free feeling and its music to your soul. It’s what lifts you after everyday life has worn you down a little bit, without you even realising.

And finally kick start your next life chapter after time spent recharging. Throw yourself back into your life with even more focus and determination than before and set new goals, make new plans. You’ve had time to think back on what you have achieved so far and can now look forward to what’s to come.

And when something doesn’t quite go to plan don’t be too hard on yourself. Instead relish in the fact that you stared change in the face and adapted to the situation and with grace at that. You didn’t run and hide or go and spoon your pillow. No, you offered change a Cosmopolitan and a space next to you on your sun lounger…

Who are we to judge?

I think unfortunately it’s in our nature to judge. As a species we are so competitive and constantly strive to be better and there is nothing wrong with that. But does being our best self make as any better than the person next to us? Does eating a sugar free diet make us better than our friend who starts her day off with a croissant and jam? Or does the fact that we run 5 kilometres every day make us better than the stranger we travel past doing a fast walk?

The answer is no.

Being a truly wonderful version of you is not all based on a rocking body that you feel confident in and an attitude to match – it goes so much deeper than that. You aren’t better than someone simply because you have worked for a body you’re proud of or because you haven’t eaten a carbohydrate in 2 years. And your idea of a happy weight or way to eat is more than likely going to be completely different to at least 90% of the rest of the population so why waste your breath judging others around you just because they don’t believe in what you do?

Be proud of what you have achieved and the journey you have taken. Share it with others and be excited that you have found yourself! But beware the fine line of sharing and preaching…

I like to remind myself sometimes that if I could eat ice cream covered with marshmallows and toffee sauce and chocolate sprinkles and caramel wafers…caramel…caramel…caramel………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..where was I? Oh right ice cream! So I like to ask myself, if I could eat ice cream with let’s say (to be on the safe side) a variety of delightful toppings for each meal for the rest of my life and not work out and have the body of a Victoria’s Secret Angel then would I? Uhhhh hell yeah! I mean who wouldn’t right? But the simple fact of the matter is that just won’t work for me and the harsh truth is i’d probably kill myself within a year or turn into a 99 flake. Oh and just so we’re clear I wouldn’t last longer than a day as a 99 flake as either i’d eat myself or the dog would so this is just not an option for me! The point is if we are really honest with ourselves, we would most likely choose the easy way if it were viable in helping us achieve our goals. Only it’s never that simple and if it were, well it wouldn’t be a journey now would it.

So instead we set our goals and we work hard for them, sometimes making sacrifices and doing things that we might not always want to do and yes I get it. I understand the frustration that can arise when you say no to the bread basket or no to that cocktail with your friends because it’s not going to help with your class tomorrow. I appreciate it can be difficult and seem a little unfair and so when we finally hit our goal we may somehow think we are ever so slightly inferior to everyone else. But step down from your pedestal and don’t judge because they’re on their third cosmopolitan of the night – it’s not their journey remember.

Instead be graceful and embrace their choices as you would hope for them to embrace yours because after all, what’s so special about everyone being the same??

Make your journey a positive one by letting go of any negativity and in doing so you’ll make it so much easier for yourself, I promise 🙂

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…

Take yourself out of the box…

Did you know that I’ve been a vegan? I’ve been a raw foodist (for a day – it was really hard!) I’ve been a tomboy, a horse rider, a singer, an artist, a runner – the list goes on and on.

Until recently I’ve always thought that I had to give myself a label or be good at one particular thing in order to have any self-worth, that I had to be the funny one or the pretty one or the clever one. I dabbled in various things whether it be a new hobby or a type of diet that looked interesting or a new idea and each time I felt a little let down that I didn’t feel more like I’d found my place…

And then one day it dawned on me. I am not just one thing – I am several. And the label that I had been trying to give myself for so long was staring me straight in the face. It was called “Emma”.

I am Emma. I love animals, dancing like an idiot, laughing so hard at absolutely nothing, being a geek, wearing no makeup and trackies, dressing up to go out, high shoes, wearing no shoes, eating food with my hands, having a night in alone, watching funny videos on You Tube, singing in the car, the sunshine, the rain, the snow, early mornings and lay ins. I am made up of a million things that allow me to be one thing – me.

And the same goes for what I now eat and how I life my daily life. If I want to eat raw foods one day, I will. If I want to go easy on the meat another day, helloooo “Meat Free Monday”. If I’ve cut out all dairy but one day a Nutella jar is looking up at me screaming “EAT ME!” then chances are I’m going to nose dive in head first and you won’t see me for several hours.

I now make decisions on what I want and how I want to feel and I take away all of the pressure that’s involved in conforming to be one particular thing. Because let’s face it, life is forever changing and on some levels you have to just kind of go with it.

And to be quite honest, having this kind of balanced approach seems to be working for me. Nothing is off limits. If I want to eat ice cream for a whole day and nothing else, I will. If I want to go out and drink tequila and throw some t rex shapes on the dance floor, I’m doing it!

Making healthy and clever decisions seems to come more naturally now I don’t restrict or ban or class myself as one thing or another. Life is about having fun with friends and family and living in the moment! I want to eat well and workout most of the time because this is what keeps my body healthy and carries me to that next fun moment so it makes sense for me to do this. But drinking cocktails and sharing a bag of malteesers occasionally with my girls is what’s good for my soul and isn’t that just as important…?

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 🙂