Natalie Kelley

Since it’s the middle of winter I thought we could all use a little sunshine in the form of paleo lemon cake (the best kind of sunshine in my opinion)! And trust me when I say this paleo lemon cake tastes just like lemony, denser, dreamier versions of angel food cake. This is something I encourage my clients to do if they’re struggling with finding their healthy food groove – start with the “easier” healthy foods like healthy sweets, healthy waffles or healthy smoothie bowls (that taste like ice cream) before jumping into more exploratory foods. Although I’m truly addicted to vegetables and have no fear of trying wacky healthy food, I understand that jumping right in with roasted brussel sprouts and oatmeal made from cauliflower rice may be too big of a jump.

, I love plain, raw veggies too (even though they don’t love me too much because of my autoimmune disease), but roasting them, steaming them and dipping them By trying veggies in new ways, like making these “cheesy” tahini cauliflower bites, is a great way to sneak in more veggies without feeling like a rabbit. As it says, roasting can be a hit or miss, but I believe just eating more veggies, despite if they’re raw, roasted, baked or broiled, is better than not eating them at all! This has become one of my favorite snacks because it’s packed with vitamin C from the cauliflower, healthy fats, magnesium, phosphorus, iron and calcium from tahini and vitamin B from nutritional yeast.

And I’m sharing this because I’m fed up with everyone preaching “exercise freedom” and “listening to your body,” but turning around and judging others for working out longer than 30 or 45 minutes. Exercise freedom means doing a long run one day and restorative yoga the next because that’s what your body is craving. There’s this constant questioning – am I making this health-centric decision because I truly want to and enjoy eating or doing XYZ or is this a past exercise addiction or eating disorder behavior? So to me, exercise freedom and listening to my body means I like to lift heavy sh*t, and run really far, and climb walls, and punch bags, but I also love my rest days and am okay switching up my plans.

I have been on a mission to create a paleo and Specific Carbohydrate Diet friendly snickerdoodle cookie forever now, but kept getting scared off because I knew I couldn’t use cream of tartar. Well, if you didn’t know the cream of tartar is what gives snickerdoodle cookies that almost sour bite to them that makes them just different enough from plain-old sugar cookies. Without the cream of tartar, it’s essentially a sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon (also who knew snickerdoodles don’t actually have any cinnamon IN them! ? I used Wild Harvest organic coconut flour, honey, organic cinnamon and organic nutmeg in this recipe and loved that I could feel good about the products I was using!