I’m in New York City!! I’m a self confessed shopaholic and a massive Sex and the City fan (yes, I do own the entire series and it did come in a stylish pink overnight bag), so Manhattan being the shopping capital of the world and the home of Sex and the City was a destination I’ve wanted to travel to for a long time.
On my second day here I walked past the Magnolia Bakery by accident. If you’re not a Sex and the City fan, then let me explain. The Magnolia Bakery sells gorgeous little cupcakes that two of the characters in the show, Miranda and Carrie, where eating in one of the episodes.
This scene put the Magnolia bakery on the map. I read online that you have to wait 1.5 hours in a line to get served, and they churn out around 10,000 cupcakes a week.
And since I stumbled past the bakery, of course I HAD to have one of these little cupcakes. And not just because I was passing one of the landmark Sex and the City sites either. There’s something about cupcakes that I absolutely love. They’re small, sweet and pretty. I love them.
Me at the Magnolia Bakery
I’ve since been into the bakery to buy a cupcake four times out of the six days that I’ve been in Manhattan. The longest I’ve had to wait in line is five minutes so I think the site claiming the 1.5 hour wait is a little exaggerated, but it has been surprisingly busy every time I’ve been in there.
The 90/10 rule revisited
The 90/10 rule of eating is a concept I picked up years ago from my naturopath who gave me a printed two page list of basic rules on how to eat well.
I was eating a lot of meat, refined carbohydrate and refined sugars at the time, so when I started following the guidelines in the list, it was enough to make me feel a lot better. I had more energy, my skin was more hydrated, I had less allergies, mental clarity, my mood improved, my skin cleared up and I just felt better all around.
The 90/10 rule goes like this –
Eat 90% for your body and 10% for your soul.
The older I get and the more I learn about nutrition, the more I’d prefer to eat 100% for my body. But I’m not there just yet, and I know most people reading this blog don’t want to be either, so following the 90/10 rule is something we can apply that will make our bodies and of course, our skin, a lot healthier without having to give up any of those ‘treat’ foods that we love so much.
I have a strong sugar addiction so my 10% is always something sweet, like a cupcake. If you prefer savory then your treat may be something like a slice of greasy pizza or fries.
Why we don’t want to eat this bad stuff all the time
1. Refined sugar
There are two different types of sugars – refined sugars and natural sugars. Refined sugar is an empty carbohydrate that contains absolutely no nutrition, and is never good for our bodies or for our skin. In fact, our bodies react to refined sugar as if it’s a poison!
Natural sugars like fruit, honey and agave are healthy sugars to eat. Please be cautious however if you know you have a lot of Candida in your body, because even eating natural sugars can feed the Candida and therefore increase the severity of your acne.
2. Greasy and fatty foods
Overly greasy foods like deep fried foods or foods that contain a lot of trans or saturated fats, can get clogged up as toxins in our liver. If you suffer from chronic acne then it’s likely that your liver has a hard time processing fats.
If too many toxins get clogged up in there, then they can enter the bloodstream and come out in some other way, like the skin ..which of course results in acne.
How to measure 10%
It’s not like I measure my food by weight so I can perfectly eat 90/10 all the time. I do more of a guesstimate and simply follow my intuition on what seems about right.
Until tomorrow when I board that plane back to Toronto, I’m going to indulge in one more pretty pink cupcake!
My definition of the rule also changes according to my current lifestyle. When I was settled back at home in Brisbane, I’d eat healthy Monday through Friday, then have a couple of treats on the weekends. I liked this balance, felt healthy for it and my skin loved it.
I always indulge a lot more when I’m on holidays so since I’ve been in New York City I’ve had more treats than I’d normally allow. I’m just here for a week so it’s not so bad. However, I find that if I start indulging in sweet food once a day, or even every other day, I start to crave a few days in a row of healthy eating.
How you measure your 10% is up to you. Follow your intuition and your body will let you know when it’s okay to have a treat.
9 responses ↓
Apart from going to Carrie Bradshaw landmarks you’re in the no.1 fashion district in the US so have fun with that.When we eat our 10% can we just let ourselves go?Yesterday there was a whole fresh batch of cookies at my home so I just ate as much as I could.Apart from being gluttonous,
,is it better to do that than have it drag on for days by not eating as much? Also, I heard our metabolism slows down after 6 so would it become harder then to eat our “soul” food and should we try to eat everything before?
Sometimes I like to eat a whole lot of cookies too. I can’t eat as much now anyway. You’ll find that if you ever have a stint of not eating sugar, like for a month, then your tastes change a little and you can’t handle eating a lot anymore
As for the 6pm thing, everyone is different, so follow your intuition. The only thing you may find is that eating meat too close to bed time is tough on your digestion so may make it more difficult to sleep.
Hi Fran!
I wanted to know more about this rule. I am vegetarian so my treat is usually something sweet. However, I feel that with just one of those cupcakes my body would reject it, being so used to healthy eating.. does that happen to you? I really try to eat healthy all week but there is really NO absolutely natural store that I know, and I’ve searched so much! They all use brown sugar (not natural.. the one that’s nearly white) or margarine or vegetable oil.. etc. So the only place I can eat healthy is at my house and with my cooking.. But I’m not here all day long!): so I have to calm hunger down with the best I find outside, if I can’t find fruit or I just need something to really fill me up. Still, I could try much harder to make my snacks at home and everything.. but I’m afraid my skin will react as I told you at the start. Thanks for everything, you’re great =) !!
Fiorella- I have this problem too. I’ve been very creative lately with some awesome treats that I’ve made at home. I’ll have to post my chocolate almond balls recipe some time. They’re awesome. But I agree that sometimes I’d prefer just to buy something
I know ALL of the health stores in my area and usually I can find one or two treats in the ‘bulk’ sections or up at the counter that are kind of homemade by someone else and the ingredients listed are all really good. I just buy a heap of them and carry them around. When I was in NYC there was an organic store just around the corner from our apartment (which we were very lucky to be near), and in the bulk section, next to the organic rice and flour, etc ..I found some cacao protein balls made with dried fruits and other great stuff. They were a great snack to carry around.
I also always carry around a lot of nuts and a piece of fruit in my bag wherever I go. Cashews and almonds are my favorite. They’re a really great protein snack that tastes good and fills me up quickly.
Otherwise search online, and don’t be afraid of ordering from a store
hi frances! love your pics, you look like you’re really enjoying those cupcakes- how many can you eat in one sitting? i think i could have 20, have a break, then another 20.
wing hong- yes, so could I, easily! Although I’d feel very sick after that. So I just bought one each time then left the store, eating it on the way home. This way I only had one a day
Hi Fran.
I am going to NYC in december and likewise I am a huge Sex and the City fan. I can’t wait to try some of those cupcakes myself! I was just wondering if you could point me in the direction of the organic store that you were talking about, it sounds ideal!
I am a healthy person and believe in taking good care of my body. I think that the 90/10 rule is a wonderful approach to nutrition as it is realistic and can lead to an overall sense of wellbeing; you don’t have to completely deprive yourself of all the things you love in order to be healthy.
Thanks for a fresh perspective!! BB
Have fun in NYC, it’s awesome. The organic store is called Fairway. It’s on the corner of 75th and Broadway. The lower floor is a normal grocery store. The upper level is all organic
Hello Fran ~ I just stumbled across your website doing a maca search and have been browsing. I really like your site so far! Great info, especially about the skin. Just wanted to say that I love this concept of the 90/10! I have a major sweet tooth and I have been in denial about it. LOL. But deep down, I do know! And my skin has been affected moreso this past year. Grrrr. Thank you for this post! I look forward to learning more from your site. I am filipino and my skin was fine until last year when I started having more breakouts. I do eat high raw, but the past year or so, I have given into a lot more “organic junk food” and not been eating as healthy as I should — and it’s showing!
Blessings…
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