Category Archive

Hoooooooolyyyyyy Basil! 🍃
Aka Tulsi. My favouritest adaptogenic herb.
My fuzzy hair and I have been tending to my seriously neglected Toronto garden today as I dig up some of my mama’s ostrich ferns, sedums and bleeding heart to transplant to our new home in Dundas, and harvesting + seed saving as I go!
Holy Basil/Tulsi makes a great tea or tincture (soak leaves in alcohol) to help combat STRESS! Boy do I need summa dis right now 😅
Hanging this bunch to dry so I can have tea alllllll winter long ☕️ yayyyyy homegrown adaptogens!

CATTTTACK! 😽
Haha! Currently knee-deep packing in Toronto 📦📦📦 while Jeff works on the bedrooms in Dundas, but at least I have this guy here with me for some comedic relief / entertainment!
Nev can always be counted on for that 😆
Wishing you a lovely Sunday from me and the Cattacker!

Feeling rather under the weather today, so taking a page out of this guy’s book and dialing it back.
Currently resting with him right up against my side until my double header ball hockey games this evening (yeeepppppppppp 🤦🏻‍♀️).
It’s a weird time of year, bouncing back from summery to deep fall feels, cozy sweaters to t-shirts, A/C to heat, fires to sunbathing and in our case, trying to transition from one house to another (which seems to drag on endlessly 😩).
Anywhooooo, Fall is awesome still and there’s always so much to appreciate.
My advice: listen to your body! If it is asking for more sleep or extra rest this time of year (common), don’t fight against it. Give it what it needs and be kind to yourself along the way! 🙏🏼

Looking for a last minute cranberry sauce recipe that’ll knock your family’s socks off this Thanksgiving?! 🍗🍁🙌🏽
I gotchuuuuuuu.
With hints of orange and cinnamon, my clean cranberry sauce recipe is one that won’t be forgotten.
Plus, it’s pretty damn easy too! And you can make it in your pajamas (like me, here.)
Go grab some fresh cranberries and click on the link in my profile for the recipe— you won’t be disappointed.
🍁
Happy Thanksgiving fellow Canadians! 🙋🏻‍♀️
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[on Facebook or Twitter, visit freshandfrank.com, click the ‘Recipes’ tab at the top right and type “cranberry” into the search bar. It’ll pop up!]

Oooooh hey there, I’ve been MIA🙋🏻‍♀️
Currently in the midst of:
1. Selling a house
2. Moving into another house
3. Maintaining both said houses
4. Kicking ass in my Functional Medicine Health Coaching course
5. Not being a social hermit
6. Working out again (GYM) and playing more (HOCKEY +…)
6. Staying rested, healthy and sane (my body wants 9+ hours of sleep at the moment, holy moly)
☀️
Insta hasn’t really fit into this lately, so posts haven’t been happening.
But that’s okay!
So for now, know I’m alive, and enjoy this photo of the winery I visited with my bests last weekend. I managed to fit that in somehow, probably because it was planned months in advance lol.
There’s more to come when the time allows.
✨And do me a huge favor: please direct some universal energy toward someone (preferably wonderful) purchasing our Toronto home ASAP 🙏🏼 because I’m SO ready to move forward and that is definitely a significant source of time + energy + stress at the moment. ✨
If I can direct some universal energy towards anything happening for you, please let me know! I gotchu 😘

How do you PLAY?💃🏻🤸🏽‍♀️🎨🤪
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Play is a significant pillar of wellness that is very often overlooked or not even considered.
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When most of us think of “wellness”, we think of diet and exercise, but it’s so much more than just that.
Put broadly, wellness is ‘living your life consciously in ways that improve your health and well being’, and this includes many elements such as relationships, eating, community, environment, movement, self care, and PLAY. ✨
As we graduate into ‘adulting’ and all the seriousness, responsibilities, expectations and obligations that accompany it, we kinda all just naturally abandon play 😱.
But this is crazy, because play is essential to our happiness!
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Play comes in so many forms and is unique to each of us, but is generally a CHOSEN activity that makes you feel carefree, joyous, smiley, have FUN + de-stressed etc.
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My intuition has been telling me, recently, that I need more play in my life.
It’s a pillar of my own wellness that I don’t put enough energy into and I’m not afraid to admit that.
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But today I decided it was time to play more. So I signed up for a sport I have no experience playing;
FLOOR HOCKEY! 🏒 [don’t worry, it’s rec.]
I won’t be good (that’s the point) and I don’t know anyone on my team or even in the league (also the point), so it’s a great way to play, to overcome our common fear of looking stupid in front of people AND to make friends in my new hood👌🏼👌🏼
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Team sports aren’t everyone’s jam and I respect that, but for me I think they’re an excellent way to experience child-like play (plus an efficient way to satisfy other pillars of wellness such as movement, community, & transcendence/growth).
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After retiring from soccer 4 years ago and taking the subsequent years to gently regenerate and heal my broken body, I really haven’t played any sports!
But I’m excited to get back out there in a challenging yet ‘for-fun’ way 🙌🏼.
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So— I’d love to know— how do YOU incorporate play into your busy life? (or, like me, is this an area you need to put more energy into?)❤️

Nev has an upper respiratory infection, but is on the mend!
He loves his cream caramel pediatric antibiotics (🤷🏻‍♀️) and is getting organic grass fed kefir and wild caught salmon multiple times a day to repopulate his kitty microbiome (natural probiotics!), boost his immune system and build up his strength.
So basically he’s living the life…
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#whenyourmomisaholisticnutritionist #handsome #😻

Pumpkins and mums on our new porch— fall is certainly on its way! 🎃🌼🎃🌼🎃🌼
Don’t they go so nicely with our monarch butterfly welcome mat?
Jeff found this because he knows how much I love Monarchs, and I love that it adds a pop of joy to the front door.
I looked up the spiritual meaning of Monarchs and this is what I found:
• “To Native Americans, the [Monarch] is a symbol of change, joy and color. The exquisite butterfly was considered a miracle of transformation and resurrection.”
• “Around the world, people view the butterfly as representing endurance, change, hope, and life.”
🦋🦋🦋
It just seems so fitting to have this at our door in what is a massive period of change, transformation and life growth for both of us 🙌🏼.
If you’re curious, we still haven’t moved out of our house in Toronto so are still very much in between homes, but if all goes well, hopefully will soon!
Curious: how do you add joy to your space?? 🌼

Food for thought:
WHAT YOU EAT WHEN is important.
For sustained energy throughout the day, I recommend holding off on the majority of your carbs until nighttime.
If you eat breakfast (I don’t, I intermittent fast with a high quality coffee and don’t eat until between 12 & 2pm every day), stick to protein and fats ONLY.
Otherwise, you’re likely setting yourself up for a rollercoaster of a day filled with blood sugar lows and highs, energy crashes, cravings, fatigue, excess hunger and unstable moods.
For lunch I recommend mainly fats + protein again (like my salad pictured here). Of course, a TONNNN of veg as this is the universal way to win health!
Eating your carb heavy foods in the evening (like squash, sweet potato, potato, rice etc.— STILL in moderation) will ensure balanced energy throughout the day AND better sleep! 😴
It will also limit you from overdosing on carbs, which is something most of us are probably doing and we absolutely don’t need to be doing 🙅🏻‍♀️.
No need to be rigid but if you follow this simple nutrient timing rule most of the time, you’ll see and feel the benefits pretty quickly 👌🏼.
Try it out for a month and let me know what you think! 🙋🏻‍♀️

Update, cuz I love ya! 😘
I’ve had quite a few of you lovelies ask if I have started my Functional Medicine Health Coaching program yet.
YES! 😁
It started on September 1st and I am enthusiastically on my way to completing Month 1 (it is broken up into monthly modules; genius!).
This month we are easing in by learning the fundamentals of coaching and working with clients, the importance of gathering ourselves, building rapport and the deep positive impact that health coaching has on the transformation of our clients (and more!)
Many fellow students in my program express that they are feeling overwhelmed but I am not, at least yet, as I think it’s all relative and I am comparing it to my experience at The Institute of Holistic Nutrition (which was the definition of overwhelming😱).
I feel very aligned and exactly where I’m supposed to be.
I’ll continue posting updates as I move through the course content!
For now, enjoy the photo I took last week on a long exploration walk around my new ‘hood! ❤️