Blending vs. Juicing

The beauty of blending is that it maintains more fibber than juicing. Juicing is great for all the vitamins and nutrients in the veggies and fruit, but it loosens the fibbers. Blending however loosens some vitamins and nutrients, but maintains a lot of fibber. So really, you can’t compare both of them. They both share the fact that its food, but each serves different purposes. The beauty of blending or juicing is that you can eat vast amounts of fruits and veggies that otherwise would take you ages to chew down.

It’s completely up to you which one your going to go for! I personally have a lot of raw food in my salads and lightly sautéed veggies (so that the vitamins are kept!) so I get a lot of my vitamins through there. Blending is definitely my way forward baby! And I totally suggest you have a go and implement it in your life too! You will see a MASSIVE change, not only will you feel fabulous but also look like a million dollars! Your skin will be hydrated and glowing from the inside out!

The Green Diva

 

Its recipe time! I had the most amazing smoothy this morning for Break-Fast (important to empathise that it’s Breaking the Fasting you have done since your last meal the night before, so your body is more prone to absorbing anything you put in it! Read below for my water, lemon and cayenne recipe and benefits!) Anyways, I thought I would share it with you, I call it “The Green Diva”:

2 stalks of celery

1 medium cucumber

1 apple

1 pear

1 kiwi

All blended up = Heaven.

It gave me enough for two full cups, I usually like to have more veggies than fruit (usual ratio of 3:1) but today I needed lots of sugar so threw in more fruit… absolutely delicious.  Mmm mmm!!

Patience! Patience! Patience!

After having spent a week in the countryside of Tasmania, indulging in all things naughty - such as free range eggs, lots of bread with homemade marmalade, lots of organic veggies... and OK I admit it lots of chocolate, coffee stops (with cake), Tassie wine and cheese (had to try them!), and shepherd pies, there is no doubt I put on weight (2 kilos) so I have come back determined to lose it. For the past 3 days I’ve been very good eating just fruits and veggies, some tofu (ok and some chocolate..) the way I see it is I muck up everyday, but everyday I muck up less so soon I reach one day that I don’t muck up at all. It takes ALOT of courage to stick to a diet plan... specially after eating everything/anything for a full week!! 

So now, I’m sticking to drinking my 3 litters of water per day, fruits and veggies (mainly raw as this way it keep more water), tofu, fish, eggs (3 eggs per week), have cut back on caffeine (2 cups per day), no alcohol and sweating out at Bikram Yoga (sigh*).   As one can see it sounds very vegetarian.. well, it is.

I’m trying out a new diet and really want to implement this way of eating into the rest of my life. I realise how animal products just stink if you ask me, and do nothing good for you whatsoever.

HOWEVER, right now I’m attempting at “losing weight” – not just “maintaining” this is two VERY different things. When you want to lose weight, you must be prepared to suffer and be hungry (yes, starve yourself!) Sorry but there is no other way. And if you want to come to me and tell me you can eat X, Y and Z “moderately” and lose weight over time… that’s BS because for “losing weight” - It all comes back down to calories. Now this differs from one person to another depending on your age, sex and weight, so I have learnt that for “me” I must stick to 800 to 1000 calories per day. And that’s to “burn”, when I lose the weight then the next phase is “maintenance” and then I eat 1000 – 1200 calories per day. My trick is to weigh myself each day, when I see I’ve gone up abit (or alot like after the trip!) it automatically causes the alarms in my head to go off  and causes me to stop and rethink before stuffing the chocolate down my throat and basically helps me re-determine my goal each morning.

Today I weighed myself and to my shock (or denial) I haven’t lost anything in 4 days. It must be all those little “muck ups” I do each day. I have to remind myself that it takes A LOT of patience to lose weight and that it is a long term goal, because it doesn’t happen over night. I must understand that every day is different and my body is going to behave differently (just like in Yoga). I have to relax, and continue doing what Im doing and give being vegetarian a go for losing weight. I also have to give myself a go, and be confident with my little “muck up plan” that a drastic change in diet (i.e this case: last week eating “everything and anything to this week “back to normal”) takes time to adjust, and that my body has to get used to the idea of i.e no sugars, or less calories to run on.

The idea with this kind of diet is that your body seems to “regulate”, and that you feel awesome inside!! Which I totally do, because it gets rid of the acidity stored in your body, and stores it up with alkalinity! However, as my aim is to lose weight I guess I just have a fear of the unknown because rather than sticking to high protein diet how I have in the past (that gets rid of water in your body in the first few days which encourages you A LOT!! I lost 3 kilos in one week, and 2 more during the next 2 weeks), this type of vegetarian diet should stabilise and help me lose weight in a more balanced way… OK. Patience little one, PATIENCE!! 

P.S.

Note to self: Must chant and meditate for PATIENCE tonight!!!  

Note to reader: I cant wait to tell you that I lost 2 kilos soon!!!

Water+Lemon+Cayenne =Awsomness

Day 3 that I roll out of bed, drag myself to the kitchen, put on the kettle and stare at it come to a boil whilst I very slowly start planning the rest of my moves for the morning...Usually this consists of getting dressed and wearing something fabulous, slapping on the makeup and doing up the hair and then sitting down infront of my altar to do 30 minutes of Gongyo and Daimoku -chanting Nam Myo Jo Renge Kio... (although today I woke up with only 20 minutes to do all this and catch the bus, so i managed to do a full 1 minute of chanting!) and on usual days preper a nice taperwear of salad or veggies or something delish for lunch that day!. So once the water sounds like its coming to a boil I snap out  and pour warm water into a cup of one squeezed lemon juice and a pinch of cayenne powder.  This is doing miracles for my health! My body was begging for it today!! The lemon (although acidy, is actually an alkaline) and seems to break down the mucosity in the system (caused by high acid foods such as diary and animal products, coffee and teas, smoking and processed food - this can be tricky because it may look healthy but once cooked it loses all its goodness and becomes acid!) Although the idea of hot cayenne chilli first thing in the morning sounds disgusting, its actually rather pleasant. the reason I drink this is so that it speeds up the metabolism... and it does! I highly recomend you try it! ;)  Have a nice day!

Water

Ok so we all know that water is good for us and that we must drink something like 10 gallons of water per day right? Well although Im being ironical, the truth is that: YES water is VERY good us, and YES when you start drinking water in your diet it DOES seem like 10 gallons, but trust me soon enough it will be normal. Let me refresh again the fact that I am going to write in this blog from a personal stand point and not as a scientist. So, drinking water is good for you because you must hydrate from inside to outside. Your body is made up of millions and millions of cells, and each one of these represent the entire YOU! For example you are made of 70% water, well guess what? so is each of your cells. I drink water for many reasons, (and when I say I drink water I refer to 3 litters per day. Minimum.). I like to think that the water I drink flushes out the toxins (toxins are all those nasty things we get from pesticides in food, perfumes, cleaning products, pollution etc that are absorbed into our precious bodies).  Yes, drinking 3 litters of waters makes me go to the toilet alot, but thats exactly the point - think that you also burn more calories (just the mere fact of getting up, going to the toilet etc) makes you burn more than not going at all! But also the benefit of water is that it hydrates your skin (bigest organ in your body!!) this means less wrinkles!! It also means your fuller, and less likely to go off and munch on something you dont really need!


Now I want to share my latest discovery. Its not about drinking water "whenever", you see, you can drink water and still not "hydrate" from it. Drinking water has a time: Ideally you should be drinking 2 to 3 litters of water in the morning before you have any food in your system, however you shouldnt drink when you eat and should wait 30 to 60 minutes after eating.  The Harre Krisna diet explains this as the water you drink, turns off the fire produced in your stomach (refering to your digestive acids being "fire" burning the calories you have eaten). This makes alot of sense!   For a whille,  I used water for the opposite purpose, I would use water to purposly slower down my metabolism.  Anyways, we'r all free to experiment... I like to think that the more I practise this "waiting to drink after eating for 30 to 60 minutes" the quicker my body burns what I consume! :)

P.S Coffee, Tea, Coke, Fanta... ANY DRINK OTHER THAN WATER IS NOT CONSIDERED WATER because your body doesnt recognise it as H2O but something other, thus doesnt absorb it into the system and hydrate like it does with water.

P.S.S. My trick to drink water is to pour a full glass and down it. Not sip on it, otherwise i never finish it! At the office I have my bottle and glass infront of me on my desk and during the day I go serving myself BIG glasses of water....hmm thirsty??

Hope this informed :) x

Chakras

 

http://indistinctunion.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/chakras-and-proposition-8/

http://www.chakraenergy.com/

http://www.sacredcenters.com/chakras

A Luscious Lifestyle? A Luscious Lifestyle!

So you may be wondering what exactly I mean with living "A Luscious Lifestyle", well... it comes down to simply: Food.  My awakening to this reality occured just under a year ago when I started doing Yoga. This discovery allowed me to get aquainted to and listen to my body. When I began I was so facinated with it, that I started researching and reading as much information as possible on this thing called "Yoga" and surely found out how diet plays a big role. I started doing my own little experiements with myself through my diet and yoga - Mind you, until that point the word "diet" was stricktly used for "losing weight" as opposed to now, the word diet means "the way I eat on a regular basis practising smart choices with the food I put in my mouth". I found a direct correlation about how I felt, and how "well" I performed my yoga Asanas (poses) depending on what I ate that day. My new Food Guru Kriss Carr, recently introduced to me by my Soul Sister Ale, said "If our body is a temple, our mouth is the Altar". Thats stuck to me alot. So lucious lifestyle to me is being able to eat properly. Allocating time during the week to shop for the right foods, and preper them.. planning ahead the week, It means filling your tummy with lots of yummy raw fruits and veggies! Having a warm "soup belly" after a yummy vegetable minestrone soup!! hmmm.... Im dribbling a la Homer Simpson.. Carrot for Donut.

After having tried many, many, MANY diets (from only apples to onion soups, high protein to high fat... trust me Ive tried them all!), growing up with a Mother who starts a new diet each Monday (sorry but its true Mum!), bumped into anorexia and bulimia (I say bumped in because it wasnt something diagnosed profesionaly and I freaked out before it got too serious!) and well having played with my diet like a yo-yo, when I discovered Yoga my LIFE changed. 

Dont get me wrong, coming from a family who do Argentenean style BBQs most Sundays, and having lived on the Medditerranean sea most my life: I ABSOLUTLY LOVE FOOD!! Having eaten meat, diary, sugars and wined all my life, before this recent phase Tofu seemed like that weired thing hippies eat and to be frank, so did the whole idea of being a vegetarian.. I would say "Why!?" with out wanting to know "why!". So I guess Im lucky to have gone through the stages of self awarness yoga put me through. I am not a vegetarian, nor a vegan (yet). How ever I am on a mission... I feel it within me. Thats why I have developed this blog to go writting my experience and express this transition. If anyone would like to support, please do so, or any tips and recomendations will be really apreciated!! :)  


I guess I just found something good and want to share it. You see, i dont just want to talk about yoga,  food and tofu, its a bigger picture: i want to write about LIFE! About how Im TRANSFORMING MY LIFE!! 


This leads on to my Budhist phylosophy. I practise Nichiren Budhism since 9 years now. I will surly share as much as I can about this too!!! As thanks to this practise I am the person I want to be! :)


Over all, I will be giving tips (note Im not a nutrionalist or doctor, Im just a person will speak from my experience), I will share my daily diet, share any cool recepy or just share information I find interesting! 


Namaste xox

The Tree of Life

One of my favorite Artists - The Tree of Life, by Gustav Klimt

Publish Post