I was compiling a list of recipe blogs for a client new to clean eating and I thought I'd share with all my readers!  I'm a firm believer there's no one right way to eat that works for everyone.  Beyond individual preferences however, there are certainly some individualized considerations that can make a world of difference depending on your unique needs (this is where a dietician, functional nutritionist or health coach can be a big help!)  Here are a few tips that suggest an ideal, but use the 80/20 rule...and when you're in that 20% - enjoy things without guilt!

1. Eat as close to nature as possible - minimally or un-processed, whole foods
2. Eat local and in season: It's great to have even a small garden yourself and shop at farmer's markets when possible or join a CSA (community supported agriculture). This is more environmentally friendly, ensures the food is at it's peak nutritional value and you know more about what's gone into it. This article has a fantastic directory for finding grass-fed meat, eggs and dairy near you - some of which will deliver for a minimum order or small fee. 
3. Eat organic as much as possible.  This is better for the environment and minimizes the toxic load on your system.  But, as my nutrition teacher says, a conventional apple is better than an oreo.  If cost is a concern, follow the EWG's Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen to get the biggest bang for your organic buck.  This article has some great practical tips for clean eating on a budget.  
4. Add in healthy, colorful, nutrient dense foods before you worry about taking things out, especially if you are making a big dietary change.  Finding delicious ways to add in more of what you're missing first can help you not miss the less healthy stuff, and you may forgo it naturally!
5. Eat what makes you feel good.  Now, I don't mean go out and eat a whole bunch of junk food because of the opium-like chemical release you get in your brain.  Start to notice what foods make you feel truly on top of the world versus what foods leave you sluggish, wired, "like a stale chip", hungry again in 30 minutes, etc.
6. Eat mindfully and savor.  How you eat matters just as much for your nutrition and digestion as what you eat.  Chewing is an important part of the digestive process and most of us don't chew enough by a long shot (it's still a tough one for me!).  Slow down, remove other distractions, enjoy your food and really tune into the process of eating.  Pay attention to the preparation process, smells, colors, bringing fork to mouth, physical sensations of the food in your mouth, tastes, and the sensation of swallowing.  Cultivate gratitude toward the nourishment in front of you.  Turn your meal into a sort of meditation.

These recipe blogs are some of my favorites, and contain a variety of styles of cuisine, and cater to varying dietary needs and preferences.  I also use Pinterest to save a visual bookmark of some of my favorite specific recipes. 

• http://myheartbeets.com  – Indian food and more.  Plenty of quick and easy (but still super tasty) recipes
  
• http://brittanyangell.com - auto-immune paleo, identifies other allergens such as egg, nut, nightshade
  
• http://www.healthfulpursuit.com - offers a nice search by dietary needs and cooking time
  
• http://paleoleap.com - browse by special diets including auto-immune, nut free, egg free, low fodmap, etc.
  
• http://www.thekitchn.com - filter by dietary concerns including sugar-conscious, peanut-free, shellfish free
  
• http://againstallgrain.com - wide variety, grain-free remakes of some foods that might be missed
  
• http://thedomesticman.com - if you like to cook and don’t mind spending a little time in the kitchen, these recipes are fantastic
  
• http://thehealthyfoodie.com - all sorts of stuff including homemade condaments, organ meats, fermented foods
  
• http://www.grassfedgirl.com - all sorts of stuff including what to do with organ meats, gelatin and broth
  
• http://www.foodrenegade.com - again all sorts of stuff, lots of homemade ways to make stuff you’d buy in a package like energy bars, nut milks, kale chips
  
• http://nourishedkitchen.com - focused on traditional foods, recipes for fermentation and lots of other categories to browse
  
• http://www.giadadelaurentiis.com - not everything this Italian-American mamma makes is pasta!  She has lots of grain free super tasty choices.  I've found some fantastic uses for herbs in my garden through her recipes!
  
• http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/category/books/jamie-s-15-minute-meals - Super quick and super tasty - check each recipe for specific dietary concerns, but most of his recipes are healthier than typical chef recipes. He also has a “special diets” section on his website
  
• http://www.everydaymaven.com - easier weeknight meals, mostly paleo / whole 30 
  
• http://cookieandkate.com - if you’re vegetarian or looking for a great whole food side dish, she’s got some good ones
• http://www.rebeccakatz.com/recipe-box - Author of several cookbooks including The Healthy Mind Cookbook, The Longevity Kitchen, The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen

Yesterday was our final season concert at the Houston Symphony Orchestra.  They did a lovely performance of Mahler's 3rd Symphony - complete with a children's and adult choir, a soloist, and a post horn.  I've always enjoyed live classical music, thanks in part to my piano teacher Julie Michie getting me off to an early start as a symphony guest!  I particularly enjoy HSO's new conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada as he chats with the audience and dances about the podium conducting.

Yesterday, I suppose as a consequence of spending last weekend with Dr. Sahrmann, I watched the performance with different eyes.  Many of the cellists had their bowing arms in scapular internal rotation - less so for the ones that had longer arms, or had the cello held in closer between their legs.  I noticed the bass players' bowing arms were all in scapular depression as they reached down to their thighs to bow.  They tended not to have as much scapular internal rotation however as they stood on the righthand corner of the instrument rather than directly behind it.  Several of the cellists have a habit of translating their cervical spine forward on the downbeat during more robust parts of the piece.  The violin players were in varying degrees of side bending of the cervical spine to hold their instrument in place.  There is one violin player we can see very well from our seats that I have had my eye on all season.  She seems from my perspective to have a very nice playing posture, and her movements are small and efficient to get the job done.  Of all the string players, I noticed that some accomplish vibrato with shoulder rotation (one cellist in particular is a good example of that), and some do it more with pronation/supination of the forearm.  Fascinating stuff - and that was just the musicians I could see!  Imagine if I had a birds-eye view!


What kind of movement to you secretly watch when you're out?

I had the opportunity to spend the weekend with one of my absolute favorite gurus in the physical therapy realm: Shirley Sahrmann, PT, PhD, FAPTA.  I was lucky to be able to chat with her at lunch about big career things ahead!  As she said, "I've been running this aging experiment for a while now, and it's not for sissies!"  She has a ton of energy, probably due to the regular exercise she gets despite her "senile sarcopenia" (her jocular moniker for her aging muscles).  She's seen the ups and downs and fads in the movement sciences, and although she's technically retired (yea right!), she's still quite busy lecturing and writing a new edition of her first book.  Although this is not my first rodeo engaging with her material, or taking class from her, every time I come away with tons of new tidbits to digest and wonderful words of wisdom.  She is still learning, and not afraid to speak of how she's "seen the light" in regard to things she used to teach but no longer agrees with.  Shirley speaks of how to move our profession forward rather than recite a litany of her great many accomplishments and hot shot friends.  She believes physical therapists have an identity as movement diagnostic and prescriptive experts and belong as birth to death practitioners - just like the dentist - doing annual neuromusculoskeletal screens to catch things before they become big problems.  She is also hilarious, a joy to be around, and believes in the power of smart women.  In case you can't tell, I think she's fantastic and I hope to have an ounce of her wisdom and spunk when I myself have run the aging experiment a good while longer.

My pen never stopped moving all weekend, so it'd be impossible to share all the great takeaways, but I wanted to share a few more general ones:

• "Muscles don't take kinesiology.  They violate the rules because they don't know the rules."
• "Neuromuscular control and performance is more important than muscle strength."
• "Just because you're wearing a muscle doesn't mean you're using it."

• "Find the muscle and use it.  If you can't use it under controlled circumstances, using it functionally requires a lot of luck."
  
• "Doing things easily uses the little guys.  Doing things big will use the big guys." (speaking of intrinsic vs large multi-joint muscles)
• "You get what you train."
• "There's no magic in an exercise unless you see what you want to happen happening."
• On mindful movement: "When a patient asks 'when can I stop doing these exercises?' I tell them when you stop taking a bath and brushing your teeth because you obviously don't care anymore."
• "If the patient doesn't take responsibility, we part company - there's no point."
• "I can't emphasize enough the importance of alignment with gravity."
• "What I had attributed many years to shortness, I don't believe any more is shortness.  It's a relative stiffness problem - not fixed by stretching, but fixed by stiffening what's relatively flexible."
  
• "I firmly believe there are signs before symptoms."  Followed by examples such as you don't wait 'till you have a stroke to get your blood pressure checked.
• "Identifying a pathoanatomic problem doesn't do anything to help you solve the problem."
• "If they taught med students like we teach PTs today, they'd say 'today we're covering cardiology. We've got beta blockers, transplants and antibiotics.  Now you figure out who to use them on.  We wouldn't want to tell you what we learned when we were old 'cause we don't want to stifle you're creativity'." with a hint of sarcasm ;-)
• "Evidence changes.  We need to understand the underlying mechanisms."
• "I don't care how far you go, I just care how you get there."