Whole Girl Page 6
But we so badly need the sleep. So I propose a happy medium: somehow, we must get a minimum of eight hours of sleep, every night. Our lives depend on it.
Q&A
Q: I would love to get a full night’s sleep, but that’s just not realistic. How am I supposed to get eight hours, between early school start times, sports practice, and hours of homework?
A: It’s doable. I find the most helpful thing to do is to stay off my phone at night. Ever since I’ve started doing this, my sleep is much stronger. It can be tempting to check Instagram one last time before turning off the light, but don’t do it! The blue light from our devices interrupts our melatonin production, which makes it harder to sleep. Plus, all the content we see on our phones stimulates our brains and keeps us from being able to wind down. Try airplane mode at least two hours before bedtime. It works wonders.
It also helps to get as much done as possible before it gets late. That means writing your essay at 7:00 p.m., instead of 1:00 a.m.! We have to be conscious of the time we spend after school lets out, taking advantage of it and not procrastinating our work. This might mean not watching a show or scrolling through social media right after we get home, and doing our assignments first.
Added bonus: Research shows that a full night’s sleep improves our test scores more than staying up late cramming does. We retain the information better, and we actually learn while we sleep. So coziness really pays off!
MINDFUL MOVEMENT
WRAPPED-IN-BLANKETS STRETCHES
These are perfect when you’re feeling sleepy, low energy, or just so warm and cuddly that you can’t get out of bed. They feel incredible on the hips and back. But this can also be a pretty intense stretch, so be gentle with yourself!
1. Find a comfortable, soft surface (like your bed), and lie down on your back. On an inhale, bring your knees into your chest.
2. Hug your knees deeper into your chest as you exhale. If it feels good, you can also squeeze your head toward your knees. Repeat this cycle a few times: inhale, soften and release; exhale, curl inward.
3. Release your grasp on your left leg. Bend your left leg, then place your left ankle on top of your right thigh. Your legs should resemble the shape of a triangle.
4. Clasp your hands around your right thigh. Inhale. Exhale, and gently hug your left leg toward your chest, if it feels good. Repeat this cycle a few times: inhale, soften and open; exhale, curl inward.
5. Switch sides: Place your right ankle on top of your left thigh, and clasp your hands around your left thigh. Inhale, soften and open; exhale, curl inward.
Pumpkin Cake Doughnuts
When the weather turns crisp and leaves start falling to the ground, it’s time to cozy up inside and bake these doughnuts. Made with pumpkin purée, pumpkin spice, and a pumpkin glaze, they’re the ultimate treat for autumn.
YIELD: 10 DOUGHNUTS
Ingredients
DOUGHNUTS
1 cup unsweetened canned pumpkin purée
2 large eggs
⅓ cup pure maple syrup*
¼ cup coconut oil, melted, plus more for greasing
1 cup blanched almond flour
¼ cup coconut flour
¼ cup arrowroot flour
3 tsp pumpkin pie spice
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp sea salt
GLAZE
¼ cup coconut cream, from the top of a chilled 13½-ounce can of full-fat coconut milk, melted
2 Tbsp coconut butter, melted
2 Tbsp pure maple syrup*
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
¼ cup chopped walnuts, for topping (optional)
Instructions
1. Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease 2 doughnut pans with coconut oil.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin purée, eggs, maple syrup, and melted coconut oil until combined. In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, coconut flour, arrowroot flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, and sea salt. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet and stir until the batter is smooth.
3. Pour the batter into a plastic baggie, then snip off the tip of one corner of the bag. Pipe the batter into the doughnut pans, filling each well almost all the way up and not covering the holes. If you don’t have a plastic baggie, you can spoon the batter into the pans.
4. Bake the doughnuts for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. After letting the doughnuts cool for 5 minutes, flip the pan upside down and transfer the doughnuts onto a cooling rack.
5. In a small bowl, stir together all the glaze ingredients until shiny and smooth. Then dunk the smooth side of each doughnut into the glaze and sprinkle with chopped walnuts. Serve. Store leftover doughnuts in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
*To make this recipe sugar-free, replace the pure maple syrup with monk fruit maple-flavored syrup.
N’Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
If every cozy, rainy morning was bottled up and baked into a cookie, it would taste like these n’oatmeal raisin cookies. They’re nutty, with warming cinnamon spice. They taste exactly like your childhood oatmeal cookies—just without the oats!
YIELD: 24–26 COOKIES
Ingredients
6 Tbsp warm water
2 Tbsp ground golden flaxseed
2 cups finely shredded unsweetened coconut
¾ cup pepitas, roughly chopped
½ cup raisins*
½ cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1 cup blanched almond flour
2 Tbsp coconut flour
1 tsp grain-free baking powder
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp sea salt
½ cup coconut oil, melted
6 Tbsp pure maple syrup*
Instructions
1. Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the water and ground golden flaxseed to form a flax “egg.” Set it aside for 5 minutes, or until a gel forms.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the shredded coconut, pepitas, raisins, walnuts, almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and sea salt. Pour in the coconut oil, maple syrup, and flax “egg.” Stir just until combined.
4. Using a 1½-tablespoon cookie scoop or a heaping tablespoon, scoop the dough into balls and place them on the prepared cookie sheet. I usually do 2 batches of baking because not all of the cookies fit on 1 cookie sheet. If the balls start to fall apart, gently squeeze them with your hands. Flatten the cookie dough balls out halfway.
5. Bake the cookies for 12 to 13 minutes, or until they are golden brown and still slightly soft on top. Let them cool on a cookie sheet for about 15 minutes. The longer they cool, the less crumbly they’ll become. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
*To make this recipe sugar-free, replace the raisins with stevia-sweetened chocolate chips and replace the pure maple syrup with monk fruit maple-flavored syrup.
Superpowered Mocha Latte
Making and sipping this warming drink is the ritual to start your day in a cozy way. The latte is creamy and frothy, but unlike a commercial mocha, it’s not a sugar bomb. Instead, it’s got healthy fats and protein to help you feel fantastic.
YIELD: SERVES 2
Ingredients
4 shots of fresh espresso*
1 cup hot water*
½ cup full-fat coconut milk
¼ cup grass-fed collagen peptides**
2 Tbsp raw shelled hemp seeds
2 Tbsp coconut butter
1½ Tbsp cacao powder, plus more for topping
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
8 to 12 drops liquid monk fruit extract or pure liquid stevia extract, to taste
2 Tbsp organic dried rose petals, for topping (optional)
Instructions
1. Place all ingredients (except the rose petals) in a high-speed blender and blend, starting on
low. Slowly turn blender speed up to high, continuing to blend until everything is smooth and frothy.
2. Taste it, add more monk fruit extract, if desired, and blend again.
3. Pour into 2 mugs, top with extra cacao powder and rose petals, if using, and serve.
*If you don’t have espresso, replace the 4 shots of espresso and 1 cup hot water with 2 cups hot coffee. For a coffee-free option, you could use 2 cups strongly brewed dandelion tea.
** To make this recipe vegan, omit the collagen peptides.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Be Wild
Your Unmodified Self
Try counting how many times a day you alter yourself in some way to please other people.
It happens a lot!
It could be smiling when you’re angry or holding back from speaking your mind. I used to stay quiet when my friends were talking politics because I knew they wouldn’t agree with my opinions. And whenever I was around a certain boy, I would laugh at his unfunny jokes, because I wanted him to think I was fun and not too serious. We feel a lot of pressure to contort ourselves just to fit in.
We badly need to let go of this pressure and, instead, tap into our wild side. When we’re being wild, it means we’re not changing ourselves for other people. It means embracing our raw and unmodified selves, just the way we are.
Your Wild Self(ie)
It’s easy to fall into the self-altering trap every day, but social media makes it even easier. With a few taps, we can completely alter our appearance. The formula for getting a lot of likes on Instagram—a heavily posed, sunlit selfie with some retouching help from Facetune—is one of the most toxic examples of the pressure to alter ourselves. When that altered photo gets more likes, filtering and retouching become a reflex.
We need to stop this artificial craziness and start hanging out with our wild selves. A great way is by posting unretouched photos. Once you start doing it, you might notice that you feel better about yourself. An added bonus is that your friends may be motivated to post unaltered photos, too!
Try this approach:
1. Pose for selfies the way you’re feeling. Don’t contort your body or face to look a certain way if it doesn’t feel natural. If you feel happy, smile! If you feel excited, jump in the air! If you’re mad, yell!
2. Post the photo directly from your camera roll. Don’t zoom in and look at every detail of your appearance. Steer clear of smoothing or brightening filters, and don’t open any retouching apps.
3. Write your caption, post the photo, then exit the app. I had a bad habit of refreshing my photos for five minutes after posting them, to see how many likes they got. Now I post and immediately quit the app.
When you post an unretouched photo, you might not like the way you look. That’s okay. That discomfort is the feeling of wildness in action!
Q&A
Q: Posting selfies is one thing, but it feels way harder to express my “wild” self in real life. Won’t people just judge me if I’m super different than everyone else?
A: You might be surprised how powerful it can be to flex your unmodified self.
Take the example of Sibyl Buck, who braved the cookie-cutter world of fashion modeling in the 1990s. Sibyl is a free spirit who later became a rock musician. She told me that when she was younger, she squelched her vibrant personality to become a model. But she started to feel terrible when she saw that she was part of a toxic culture that was hurting young girls by making them think they should look a certain way.
So Sibyl chopped off most of her hair and dyed the rest bright red. She began embodying different wild aspects of herself each time she walked down the runway. She might grin at the audience or stick her tongue out at the end of the catwalk, instead of the usual deadpan look. This was all unheard of in the modeling world, so Sibyl worried that designers would stop hiring her.
To her surprise, the opposite happened. She started getting more and more jobs. Her career took off. As it turned out, the industry was not annoyed by Sibyl’s wild style. They were intrigued by how bold and confident she was.
This doesn’t mean that being wild will always lead to greater success. But we might end up with an unexpected bonus if we own our wild nature—for example, we might make a new, like-minded friend.
Here are some ways you can express your wildness:
Dress to express. If you have a certain style you love, try incorporating it into your daily wardrobe. I love finding inexpensive, unique clothes at a local thrift store that I’ve never seen anyone else wear.
Listen to the music you love most—even if it’s unpopular—and share it with others. I have a thing for Irish folk music. I never used to share that fact with people because, well, it’s not super cool. But recently I played my favorite Irish song for someone I had just met and it turned out they liked Irish folk music, too! We hit it off. Who knew?
Identify what makes you unique. Is there something that makes you different? Maybe it’s a certain way you speak or how you walk. Whatever might make you stand out, try owning it instead of hiding it. Accentuate it, even!
MINDFUL MOVEMENT
DANCE LIKE WILD
Women in every era and in each culture throughout the world have expressed themselves through dance. When we dance, we reconnect with our roots. Dancing alone is beautiful because it allows us to move through wild feelings without judgment or filter. It pushes our mind out of the way and lets our body express whatever it feels. There are no rules holding us back—we move freely.
Another awesome part of dancing is that it flushes out the lymphatic system, so it can actually help boost our immunity!
1. Choose a place where you can dance alone. It can be in your bedroom or outdoors—anywhere you feel completely comfortable and unselfconscious.
2. Turn on a song that connects with your mood and dance to the music. Or dance in quiet.
3. Express whatever emotions come up through your body. You may find yourself doing the silliest, most absurd moves ever. That’s good! You don’t have to dance in any particular way. You may have the urge to let out a sound, such as a huge sigh or a shout. Let it flow through you.
Matcha Coconut Milkshake
Matcha is a green tea from Japan that tastes wild and earthy. It adds complexity and depth to this thick, creamy shake.
YIELD: SERVES 2
Ingredients
MILKSHAKE
1¾ cups full-fat coconut milk
1 cup ice
1 avocado, pitted and peeled
2 large handfuls baby spinach
2 Tbsp raw shelled hemp seeds
1½ tsp matcha green tea powder
¼ tsp liquid monk fruit extract or pure liquid stevia extract
COCONUT WHIPPED CREAM
¾ cup coconut cream, from the top of a chilled 13½-ounce can of full-fat coconut milk
Instructions
MILKSHAKE
1. In a high-speed blender, combine all ingredients (except for the coconut whipped cream) and blend until smooth.
2. Taste the milkshake and add a few more drops of monk fruit extract if you would like it to be sweeter.
3. Pour the milkshake into 2 glasses. Top with coconut whipped cream, if desired, and serve.
COCONUT WHIPPED CREAM
1. Scoop the coconut cream into a large bowl. Whip using a stand or hand mixer until thick and fluffy.
Maple Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies
There’s no better way to bring out our wild, unmodified selves than by joining two primal flavors that drive us crazy. How about bacon and chocolate? This power duo creates the most divine cookies.
If you’re vegetarian, bake some regular Chocolate Chip Cookies instead!
YIELD: 18–20 COOKIES
Ingredients
1¾ cups blanched almond flour
¼ cup arrowroot flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp sea salt
2 large eggs
⅓ cup liquid bacon grease*
2 Tbsp susta
inable palm shortening, melted
¼ cup coconut sugar
¼ cup pure maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup finely crumbled cooked bacon
½ cup chopped dark chocolate or dark chocolate chips
Instructions
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, arrowroot flour, baking soda, and sea salt. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, liquid bacon grease, palm shortening, coconut sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla extract.
2. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until smooth. Fold in the crumbled bacon and the chopped chocolate, reserving a bit of both for topping. Let the dough chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
4. Scoop 18 to 20 balls of cookie dough onto the baking sheet using either a 1½-tablespoon cookie scoop or a heaping tablespoon. Place each dough ball at least 2½ inches apart, because they spread. I usually do 2 batches of baking because not all of the cookies fit on 1 cookie sheet. Sprinkle on some extra bacon and chocolate chunks. Don’t flatten out the balls.
5. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, or until crispy on the outside. Allow to cool for 3 minutes, then enjoy. These cookies are best eaten the day they’re made, but leftovers may be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.
*If your bacon didn’t yield a full ⅓ cup grease, you can make up the difference with more melted sustainable palm shortening.