A great night sleep with a side of primal pizza

Remember when I declared sleep my new best friend? Well soon after I announced to sleep that we would be hanging out a lot more often, sleep got cold feet. Sleep felt like I was getting too serious and maybe a little too clingy & stopped showing up for many of our dates. And when sleep would show up, sleep seemed very distant and distracted...we had trouble connecting with each other. But all the sudden this past week or so, I've been sleeping like a baby. And the difference it makes the next day is enormous. I must reiterate how very important it is to sleep well and treat your bodies need for sleep with respect. I felt like I nearly tripled my productivity this week because I was actually well rested. Clear thinking followed by immediate execution. Whole new world.

So what's different?

1) I'm back in a good flow with my workouts. The extra sleep I get from switching to the 7am class has really helped & the clear goal of re-gaining my upper body strength keeps me motivated.

2) I have my first 5K coming up in a few weeks. Whenever I have an exciting event with a specific date attached to it, somehow my life seems more organized. Plus, this means I get to hang out with my family in LA and that makes everything feel right with the world.

3) Taking an break from alcohol means I've not been metabolizing any sugar while trying to sleep.

4) And this has made the biggest difference so far: I eliminated stressful thoughts from my mind. I zoomed in and identified what thought patterns I had that were making me feel anxious in any way. I then identified which were reflections of real external circumstances that I could work on changing and which were simply stressful thoughts. Turns out about 99% of my thoughts were from a stressed perspective and not from reality. This is something that you always kind of know happens, but it wasn't until I fully internalized that only my thoughts were causing me stress, NOT my situation, that I finally began sleeping again. I feel like this is a lesson we sort of learn over and over again in life. We just need to check in with ourselves every once in a while and make sure our thought patterns are not causing us unnecessary stress.

So sleep, thank you for returning to me. I had really been missing you!

And now, as I prepare to slip into bed for my nightly hang out with sleep, I feel FULL with Primal Pizza. I went overboard, but it was oh, so tasty!For anyone who is going gluten free, I highly recommend this particular recipe for pizza crust.

Taken from Mark's Daily Apple:

Ingredients:
Crust:
2 Cups Almond Meal/Flour
2 Eggs
2 Tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tsp salt

Instructions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. This should give you a ball of “dough”. If your dough is too “mushy” (like mine was), continue to add almond flour until you get a good consistency.
3. Make a pizza sheet or baking tray non-stick. This is VERY important if you want your pizza slices to come off in one piece.
4. Press your dough on the sheet nice and even about 1/4 inch in the middle and 1/2 inch at the edges.
5. Put crust in the oven for 15 minutes. It should look slightly golden brown when you take it out.

Then add whatever toppings you want. If you want a more traditional pizza & you eat dairy-go for pizza sauce and cheese. Or just load it up with pizza sauce and tons of veggies and/or a protein of your choice. You can even make your own pizza sauce by mixing 1 Can Tomato Paste, 1-2 Cups Water (To desired thickness), 1 Tsp Dried Oregano, & 1 Tsp Garlic. Just load it up and pop it back in the 350 degree over for another 15 minutes or so. Voila!

Here's the scoop: The thinner the crust, the better. It takes a while to get it thin and even. The almond flour is extremely filling and can overwhelm the toppings. And if you are following the zone diet, there are about 5 fat blocks per small piece, so be aware of that. But I love this recipe because it feels like a real crust to me and totally satisfies my craving for a bread/crust type item. There is a lot of crispy integrity...plus I super love almonds. However, I wonder if the fact that I don't eat very much bread anymore is why this tasted like the greatest meal in the world to me. Because my husband just said he feels like he has a pile of mud sitting in his gut. So maybe it's not for everyone :)
... I did say it was filling!