5 Ingredient Raspberry Sorbet

July 13, 2020 Comment : 1

Ottawa is in the midst of a major heat wave. As someone living without central air, turning on the oven is simply not an option right now.

The problem with not turning the oven on is that I love to make my own food for myself. If I don’t turn on the oven, I can’t cook many hot foods, which I adore. Admittedly, I love a good dessert, maybe more than I should, and the idea of going days without a home baked dessert? Preposterous.

There was a lot of fruit in the house, so I considered making some ‘nice’ cream, but I wasn’t really feeling it. I did a quick google search of what to do with excess fruit and an idea was born! I’d make sorbet, a childhood favourite, that I could easily make at home!

This sorbet was super easy to make and it only took 5 ingredients! The hardest part about this recipe, will be waiting for it to freeze. Keep in mind as well, I do not have an ice cream maker, and this still turned out so well! I will definitely be making this recipe again and again.

For this recipe I used frozen raspberries that I had been keeping in the freezer for smoothies, but you could use any fruit you want! I did leave the raspberries out to thaw before using them, but I don’t think it made a difference in the end. If you give it a go, I wouldn’t worry too much about whether the fruit is frozen or not.

5 Ingredient Raspberry Sorbet

Recipe by whollygennaCourse: Dessert, SnacksCuisine: ameriDifficulty: low, intermediate, easy

Servings

servings

Prep time

minutes

Freezing Time

hours

Ingredients

4 cups of raspberries (or fruit of your choice)
1 cup of water
3/4 cup of sugar (or honey for paleo option, maple syrup for vegan)
1 tbsp of lemon juice
1 tsp of vanilla

Directions

Combine 1 cup of water and 4 cups of raspberries in a high speed blender or food processor and blend until a smooth puree forms.
Strain the water and raspberry mix into a freezer-safe dish using either a fine mesh strainer, or a nut milk bag in order to remove seeds. You should end up with a raspberry juice.
Add sugar, lemon, and vanilla in to raspberry juice mixture. Whisk to combine.
Place mixture in the freezer for approximately 2 hours. Continue whisking mix every 20-30 minutes while in freezer to ensure you get the right sorbet texture.
Mixture should be completely frozen, but still easy to scoop or cut into when ready to eat.

Notes

It may take longer than 2 hours to completely freeze. I left mine for 4 and it was perfect!

Mine kept well in the freezer for 5 days! I’m sure it could have lasted longer, but I wanted to eat it all up!

Enjoy, and let me know if you try this out!

Genna

BODY CONFIDENCE, FITNESS, LIFE

What is diet culture?

July 9, 2020 Comments : 2

Diet culture.

You’ve probably seen these words strung together hundreds of times. But what do they really mean?

Diet culture is:

The belief system that controls how you think about fatness and thinness.

The system which values size and weight, over wellbeing.

A culture which equates thinness with health, even though that is not always the case.

A belief system that creates good foods, and bad foods.

Diet culture often leaves us feeling as if we’re not enough. As if our fatal flaw, is that we do not meet a certain ideal of thinness or of health. It makes us feel guilty for enjoying foods, and moving differently.

How does this affect me?

Personally, diet culture leaves me feeling as if I am an impostor in my own world. Sometimes I wonder, who would ever want to take nutrition and fitness advice from someone like me? I don’t have a tiny body, I don’t look like most of the fitness people you see on Instagram, or at the gym. Everyone must be judging me so why do I even bother?

Yet, here’s the thing I wish I’d understood a long time ago – you can love fitness without diet culture. In fact, it’s much easier once you’ve rejected the idea that you have to look a certain way at all times, to enjoy moving your body.

Even when we realize the pervasiveness of diet culture, it is hard to let go of because everyone is reinforcing it, constantly.

Remember this:

Your main goal in life is not to shrink your body.

You do not need to be a certain body type to be healthy.

Health looks different on us all.

Our bodies are not meant to all conform to the same standards. Your body is different and that is okay.

How to ditch diet culture?

For me, the best ways to ditch diet culture in my life were the following:

Unfollow social media accounts which make me feel badly about my body.
Speak to myself about my body the same way I’d speak to a friend about theirs.
Stop associating foods with good and bad. Food is food, there’s no morality to it.
Tell myself I belong in beauty, fitness, and food spaces, regardless of my size.
When people make comments on my body, or my eating, ask them to refrain from it.

The best thing you can do for yourself from that list?

Unfollow anyone on social media who makes you feel badly about yourself. This was the very first thing I did, and once I did that, the other steps came much easier.

A final note:

If you catch yourself looking at someone else and wishing you were more like them, remember this – the world would be an incredibly boring place if we all looked the same. Our differences are our power, and they should be celebrated, not erased.

Genna

BODY CONFIDENCE, FOOD

Food Guilt

July 5, 2020 Leave a Comment

Do you deal with food guilt?

I certainly do.

And it stems from the idea that there are good foods and that there are bad foods, when the reality is, there is just food.

Barring cultural specifications and concerns, food in itself has no morality attached to it.

We feel guilty about food because we live in a culture obsessed with correlating thinness with health and beauty at all costs – even if it is not the case.

Even now, I preach self-love, body confidence, and eating when you need it, but still, I struggle with eating some things.

I’ll crave a ‘bad’ food, and then put off eating it, until eventually I binge on it. This is followed by feelings of immense guilt, as if I have done something bad, shameful, and should avoid this in the future.

It’s the same as the idea of having one ‘cheat meal’ that suddenly turns into an entire ‘cheat weekend’. The idea that, well, I already blew it by eating something ‘bad’, so I may as well eat it all. It simply doesn’t work and it leaves you feeling as if you’ve lost all ‘willpower’.

And then you gain that willpower back, and restrict yourself and ignore your cravings, until it all happens again.

When we restrict something we’re actually all the more inclined to want it.

A much more sustainable way to eat? Eat what you want, when you want to. If it’s important to you to track your food consumption, eat what you want, and make it fit into your food for the day.

Admittedly, I feared giving up restriction because I thought it meant I would gain weight.

What I didn’t realize was that my body is a lot smarter than I thought. Your body knows what it needs, and lets you know. By allowing yourself to eat without restriction, you’re able to listen to your body’s hunger cues, meet your nutritional needs, and actually avoid binging on foods.

Instead of obsessing over what you ate and feeling shame, think about how you feel after each meal. Do you feel satiated? Did the food make you happy? How did it taste? Did you have any physical reactions to this food? Would you like to feel this way again?

When you listen to your body’s cues, mindful eating practices become that much easier, and you can slowly begin to build or repair your relationship with food.

And if you do find yourself feeling guilty for eating something, let it go. This is the kindest thing you can do for yourself. Move on, return to normal, do not punish yourself for feeding your body.

Most importantly, remember to honour your body by feeding it what it needs, judgement-free.

Genna

BODY CONFIDENCE

Body Confident Affirmations

June 30, 2020 Comments : 3

What are positive affirmations?

Positive affirmations are statements you make and repeat to yourself in order to help overcome self-sabotaging thoughts.

Self-sabotaging thoughts occur in all of us, and for a variety of reasons. They can be in reference to your job, life, relationship, even body image.

How they work?

The whole point of an affirmation is that if you repeat something to yourself often enough, you’ll start to believe it.

Sounds crazy? Well, whether you know it or not, you tell yourself negative affirmations all the time.

How many times have you repeatedly said that you are going to fail at something, and then you did?

How many times did you have to tell yourself that your body wasn’t good enough, until you believed it?

When we are bombarded with messaging, we eventually begin to believe it.

I often find myself in a situation where I could get ten compliments from ten different people, and one criticism from one other person. Instead of focusing on those ten compliments, I will focus on that one criticism.

I will repeat that one criticism until I believe it myself. From then on, everything I do, I am thinking about that one criticism. It holds me back from experiences and opportunities, because not only does someone else say this about me, but now I think it as well. And it didn’t take much to get me here, it was just a story I repeated until it became the only plausible explanation.

But what if instead, we only repeated the positive things? What if instead we bombarded ourselves with messages of love? These are positive affirmations.

Creating your own affirmations

When writing positive affirmations, I suggest beginning with the negative statements that you often repeat about your own self.

For me, I would often tell myself this, “I hate my body. I need to lose weight.”

These were never my own thoughts. I promise you, yours are not either. This is the messaging that is shared with us every day in the media. The idea that we need to hate ourselves smaller in order to be happy. And we believe it, because we are told it – over and over.

Change your negative statement into its opposite, and share a gentler message with yourself.

“I hate my body. I need to lose weight” becomes, “I love my body throughout every step of the journey. I accept my body as it is.”

10 body confident affirmations:

I would encourage you to write your own affirmations, tailored to the messaging you know you need to hear. The following are 10 that I have written for myself.

I am allowed to take up space.
I am confident in my body.
I am more than my weight.
My body belongs just as much as the next person’s.
I feed my body and move my body because I deserve it.
I eat for nourishment.
I am grateful for my body so I treat it with respect.
I am gentle with my body.
I love my body throughout every step of the journey.
I accept my body as it is today.

Note:

I’m not saying positive affirmations will cure your body image woes, change your job security status, and fix your relationships. Nothing works that easily. But it’s such an important place to start from. Once you have the ability to validate yourself, believe in yourself, and find confidence within yourself, you will open so many doors, and work that much harder (and smarter) for positive change in your own life.

Genna

FOOD

Creamy Coconut Iced Coffee

June 24, 2020 Leave a Comment

In the summer of 2018, I visited Thailand. It was an incredible experience, filled with amazing sites, elephant visits, beaches, new food, and new drinks. One of those drinks? Thai iced tea. It was the very first drink we tried, on our very first day there.

Lately, I’ve been reminiscing on those vacation days, and I wanted something to remind me of them, since it is impossible to travel right now.

I was thinking how I love coffee and I love specialty drinks, but I hate to break the bank purchasing them. Plus, with so many dietary restrictions, sometimes it can be difficult to find the right coffee shop to accommodate.

I was walking through my local grocery store’s international foods aisle, when something caught my eye. Bottled Thai iced coffee. It looked fairly similar to the Thai iced tea I’d tried, and I knew I just had to have it!

Unfortunately, the drink in question, was not dairy-free. In fact, it was loaded with dairy (condensed milk being the key ingredient).

Disappointed, I left it behind. But when I returned home, I did a quick google search of vegan Thai iced coffee, and I was on my way.

This creamy coconut iced coffee is inspired by the tastes of Thailand and Thai iced coffee. I won’t say it’s the same, it’s not. But it’s still pretty darn good!

To start with, you’ll have to make your own vegan condensed milk, using coconut milk! Once this is done, the recipe pretty much makes itself.

You can read all about it, down below!

Creamy Coconut Iced Coffee

Recipe by whollygennaCourse: FOODCuisine: coffee, keto, paleo, veganDifficulty: low

Servings

servings

Cooking time

minutes

Calories

111

kcal

Ingredients

4 cups black coffee, chilled
Condensed coconut milk
1 can of full fat coconut milk
1/3 cup of Swerve brown sugar substitute
1 tsp vanilla
Add-ons
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Coconut Whipped Cream

Directions

Preparing Condensed Coconut Milk
Combine coconut milk and sweetener in a saucepan, whisking constantly on medium heat. If you are choosing to add cinnamon and nutmeg, add now.
When mixture begins to boil, reduce heat to low (simmer) and continue to whisk.
Whisk on low for approximately 20 minutes, or until mixture becomes thick, and water from coconut milk is completely reduced.
Remove mix from heat. Place in a container to cool down and then place mix in fridge until completely chilled.
Preparing your drink
Pour chilled coffee into a glass with ice.
Pour approximately 1/4 cup of condensed milk over coffee.
Stir to combine.
Optional: Top with Coconut Whipped Cream.

Notes

Nutrition facts are a rough estimate. For more accurate results, you can calculate them yourself using an online calculator.

Nutrition Facts

4 servings per container

Amount Per ServingCalories111
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 11g 17%
- Saturated Fat 10g 50%
- Trans Fat 0.5g
Sodium 26mg 2%
Potassium 29mg 1%
Total Carbohydrate 12g 4%
- Sugars 1g
Protein 0.4g 1%

Calcium 1%
Iron 2%

* The % Daily Value tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

BODY CONFIDENCE

Transformations

June 19, 2020 Comments : 7

Shrinking yourself:

I used to be obsessed with becoming smaller.

In my mind, every photo that I took was a ‘before’ photo. I couldn’t wait for the day where I could post a transformation photo, and ‘show them all’ how much I’d changed.

One of my friends was taking pictures of me and told me that I didn’t have sex appeal. Other friends would post photos of me, showcasing mainly my double chin. To them, this was a joke, they likely had no malicious intent. To me, this was just another unwelcome reminder that my body would never be good enough.

I tried to avoid photos. When I was in them, I tried to make a silly face, or hide myself behind others. I figured, if I made myself out to be silly, then no one could make fun of me for being anything else.

Hundreds of photos of me exist where my face is only half in them. Looking at that now, hurts.

The journey:

In 2018, I began a weightloss journey. I was miserable and uncomfortable. I was drinking too much, sleeping too little, and never taking care of myself. My body showed it. I was bloated all the time, I looked tired constantly, I was insecure, and it reflected in everything I did.

I convinced myself that if I lost weight, the rest would fix itself.

It didn’t.

I began to lose weight. I began to see those transformation photos I had desperately wanted. I still have them saved on my phone, and they were my pride and joy.

Yet, I wasn’t losing the weight like I wanted to. I was still binge drinking every week, I was still eating fast food, I was still miserable.

Dieting eventually consumed my every thought. I needed to become smaller. I needed that transformation and I needed it to be drastic.

You see, the crazy thing about dieting is, it doesn’t work. The diet industry is a multi-million dollar industry that preys on our insecurities. It draws us in, time and time again, tells us we need to be smaller, and that we’re failures if we don’t make that happen.

The diet industry offers us the promise of a transformative experience, but, at what cost?

I sacrificed my mental health many times, in order to make myself smaller. For myself and many others, constant dieting, led to a binge and restrict cycle.

I was actually dieting in this photo and barely eating, but you couldn’t tell. This was on vacation in Thailand with a friend, a vacation where I was too scared to eat carbs and ruin my ‘progress’. The bloating, digestive issues, and insecurity still remained.

For another year I kept up with this same lifestyle. Binge, restrict. Binge, restrict.

The Change:

Some major life events occurred for me in the middle to end of 2019 that sent me on the search for true wellness. I knew what I was doing wasn’t working. I knew I couldn’t stand dieting, and I knew I just wanted to feel a little bit more free.

I went to therapy. I unfollowed negative influences on instagram, and instead filled my feed with people who looked more like me.

Little by little, things started to transform.

By 2020, I was ready to say goodbye to diet culture. I realized I could eat good and whole foods, and still enjoy myself.

I stopped letting myself believe that all my problems could be solved by a drink, or a McDonald’s order and I faced them head on.

Finally, the transformation I had wanted all this time, began to occur.

I began to eat intuitively and gave my body what it needed, when it needed it. Much to my surprise, everything was okay. Unlike what I had previously believed, I did not fall apart without a diet. Working out became a celebration of me, not a desperate ploy to shrink my body, eating was fun again.

Remember this:

You are so much more than a ‘before’ photo and your value does not lie in your ability to transform into a smaller version of you. Transformation comes from more than just weight; it is spiritual, physical, emotional, and more. It is beautiful and ugly at the same time, and it will teach you invaluable life lessons.

Genna

LIFE

Welcome

June 16, 2020 Leave a Comment

Welcome to my website!

My name is Genna – I’m 22 years old, Canadian, I love health and fitness, and I hate diets.

2020, in all it’s craziness, marked the start of a new journey for me. I began to celebrate my body, feed and nourish it appropriately, listened to my own needs, I’ve been active, I’ve been inactive, I’ve done it all.

I, like many others, grew up hating my body. I never saw people like me representing health or fitness in the media, unless it was for a ‘before’ photo. I’ve dieted for years, doing damage to myself, and even those around me. It took me so long to realize that I am so much more than a ‘before’.

I created WhollyGenna because I want to share my passion for body confidence and self-love with other people like me. My purpose is to foster an inclusive space for food, fitness, and self-love. These are spaces where so many bodies are made to feel is if they do not belong.

More than anything, I’m here to encourage you to eat, to move, to rest, and to find some beauty within you.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey.

Genna