I was so bad this weekend.

How often do you hear yourself saying this about yourSelf and your food?

Stop it.

PLEASE don’t talk about how “bad” you were because you ate the cake ( or the dessert, or too much)

EAT THE CAKE!

If you want to eat it, eat it and own it. Stop labeling yourSelf by the decisions you make around food. Stop making yourSelf wrong.

I’ve spend years beating myself over what I should or shouldn’t eat. It took years to come to the decision that I CAN eat whatever I want as long as I eat consciously. Most often I focus and decide on clean naked food because I want to, not because I have to. I feel the difference in how I feel and I choose based on that.

Today I am focused on cake. Maybe obsessed with cake is a better description, because I’ve created this new recipe that is over the top delish! And I am so excited to share it with you.

What makes this new recipe so special is that it is special. I’ve used all whole NAKED foods to make it. And this is one of the ways in which I choose to eat my cake and I own that. Because I have decided that:

MY BODY IS WORTH TREATING WELL.

There are 2 ways to eat cake without feeling guilty about it or feeling sick to your stomach.

1. REPLACE GUILTY WITH MINDFUL.

Eat mindfully while being selective about what you eat. Then discerning when you eat, why you eat, and how you eat it.

Let me explain how this could look. Suppose it’s your birthday and your Mom baked your Grandmother’s secret recipe and surprised you with it. You might feel excited and honored and decide that you want to enhance your life with the experience of enjoying this cake fully. So you eat knowing that this cake feels really good. While savoring slowing, eating with pleasure and feeling gratitude about the whole piece of cake, you create a divine chance to be totally in the present moment. This feels awesome!

On the other hand, if you are out at a party and everyone is eating cake, but you really don’t feel like eating it, for whatever reason, and you do it! ARGH! You don’t really want to eat it, but you feel pressured to make others happy and join them. So eat it. ARGH! Then you feel sick to your stomach because your body really didn’t want it but more importantly because you didn’t honor yourSelf and your decision. This feels yucky!

The invitation is your to take. Which way do you enjoy your cake? How do you honor your one very precious body?

2. REPLACE THE REFINED ADDICTIVE WHITE SUGAR WITH THE REAL DEAL.

A store bought box cake has the following ingredients,

Sugar, Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil Shortening (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Propylene Glycol Mono- And Diesters Of Fats, Mono- And Diglycerides), Cocoa Powder Processed With Alkali, Dextrose, Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate). Contains 2% Or Less Of: Wheat Starch, Salt, Polyglycerol Esters Of Fatty Acids, Cellulose Gum, Xanthan Gum.

EEWW! This sounds and tastes yucky. And it feels yucky too. Don’t get me wrong. I hear you. For a moment, while eating it, it could whirl you right back into your kid-ness, and your past, standing next to Grandma. However, give it a second and you’ll feel sick.

Even if we step outside the box (of cake) and go to homemade.

You’re talking cups of white sugar, white four, vegetable oil or butter. Again YUCK. And unless you are consciously intending to let it transport you back to your childhood days, with super amazing memories of LOVE and happiness, take a pass on the sugar and get real with yourSelf.

You can decide that the real deal is the way to serve and treat yourSelf well.

That means, being open to the idea that a cake can be made in another way. Just because you haven’t yet imagined it, doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Because it is possible. I promise you that.

I’ve made this cake out of left over dinner. Using my baked sweet potatoes, roasted beets, avocado, coconut, raw cacao, cashews, dates. I’ve use real naked food in an extra – ordinary way and viola…

YUM-azing.