10 Things About Me (That Have Nothing to do With Yoga)

I read quite a few blogs (favorites include Dexotinista & Carrie on Vegan), and I don't know about you, but I like learning a little more about the person behind the blog. So I'm taking a break from yoga/health-related posts for a second to get a little personal and tell you 10 things about me that have nothing to do with yoga. Tell me some random facts about you in the comments! 

1. I hate to kill any insects. It's the worst. I hate the crunching sound they make when they die. And I feel really guilty, even if it's a mosquito. So I usually either try to get them out of the house without killing them... or I ask someone else to do the dirty work. :(

2. Inspired by my experience as a foreign exchange student in Costa Rica, I decided to be an au pair in Geneva after high school for a year. It didn't work out (gross understatement), and I left early (read: ran away in the middle of the night). I did, however, achieve a decent understanding of the French language, and I highly recommend visiting Geneva if you get a chance - it's a gorgeous (and super clean!!) city.

3. In high school, I was in an a cappella group. We were called The Sweethearts, wore shimmery dresses, and sang a lot of doo-wop. (Shout out to Johnny Angel.)

4. While on vacation when I was 7, I pretended I was Inspector Gadget and tried to scale the side of a hotel. It ended with tears and a torn up foot. Thanks, Nickelodian.

5. I still get nervous when I have to show my ID for entrance to a club or to buy alcohol. I'm always scared they're not going to believe it's me.

6. I used to camp out for basketball tickets in college, (go Huskies!) but I never actually made it through the night. I'd always leave around 4am to catch a few hours of quality sleep before sneaking back in line at 6am. Those were the days.

7. I have a hard time being around music and not dancing. I love to dance. I once found myself in the middle of a dance off (seriously?!) and won $200. 

8. While in Spain during our study abroad, my friends and I were invited to an international pot luck dinner. Everyone was supposed to bring a traditional meal from their home country. We didn't know how to cook (and we lacked imagination), so we brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (For the record, peanut butter was (is?) extremely hard to find in Spain, and our little creations were a hit at the party. The British students said, "These taste like cake!" ...but we're still pretty embarrassed about it.)

9. Cousins are awesome. I have 30 of them. On my mom's side. 

10. I have a serious fear of optometrists and all eye exam procedures, especially the one where they shoot air into your eyeball to look at the back of your eye. (Who came up with that idea?! It's a punishment!) The last time I went for an eye exam, I had a nervous break down and almost passed out. The nurse freaked out and called in another assistant, who made me drink orange juice and put my feet up.  

PS- I love to travel. Read about my worst flight to date. 

5 Day Juice Cleanse Recap

5 Day Juice Cleanse Recap

5 Day Juice CleanseRecap

*DISCLAIMER* This is just my personal experience, and the tips I offer are just general guidelines after a lot of research and after completing my own detox. I am not a doctor. You should see a doctor before starting a cleanse or detox.

I wrote about the first few days of my juice cleanse last week and today I wanted to do a recap of the whole experience overall, in case anyone out there is interested in trying one. 

The juice cleanse turned into a 5 day detox - where towards the last few days I mixed in smoothies and some real food.

My five day detox "meal" plan

Juice and Smoothie Recipes

I used my green drink recipe for the first day (sometimes adding mint/basil), then omitted the apple and just used half a lemon to cut down on sugar (this is all explained in my first post about juicing). I also switched up the green base- the recipe calls for spinach, but sometimes I used chard (highly recommended, it's very light), arugula (extremely bitter) or romaine (also light). I would've liked to use fresh kale, but I couldn't find any at the store. 

The coconut water was recommended for anyone doing a juice cleanse, but then I read that it contained a lot of natural sugar, so I ditched it for the other four days. 

The orange drink recipe and beet drink recipe were used on day one and morning of day two, but then I focused on greens because I wanted to get away from the starchy veggies (carrots) and the sugar content in the fruit.

The green smoothie recipe was used on the rest of the days, though I varied the green base between frozen kale and frozen spinach (if you use frozen veggies, you don't need the ice cubes the recipe calls for). I also used a quarter of an apple instead of the whole thing, and half a lemon to cut down on sugar.

I made a homemade ginger tea (so easy, post coming soon) and enjoyed that each night, as it's got a little spicy kick to it. 

When I had those almonds? Ohhhh baby. It was like tasting an almond for the first time. The flavor was so intense! Same with the other "real" food. Flavor explosion, I tell you. 

So why did I not stick to juices?

The answer is simple. I would've liked to, but I a) have a hard time finding a variety of green bases for juicing here in Germany, and b) I needed to build my energy level back up because I'm going to an intense yoga workshop at the end of the week.  

Pros to 5 Day Detox

 -I felt really good. It is hard to explain, but I felt light, clean, and rejuvenated. 

-I never felt hungry. 

-Enough energy to do 45 min walks every day. 

-Slept like a baby! (Maybe this is a coincidence, but worth mentioning.) 

-No need to stress about cooking! (Is that kind of a reach for a pro?)  

Cons to 5 Day Detox

-Not as much energy as usual - I couldn't do a vigorous workout. I would imagine that if you are doing this during the work week, make sure that you either have an easy workload or have the type of job where you don't have to expend a lot of energy. I couldn't do this when I was teaching in the middle school. 

-Dealt with cravings. I didn't have withdrawals (which I talked about in the post last week), but I did miss chewing. I snack when I watch a show or when I read, and I missed crunching on something. I tried all natural gum (apparently that's "allowed" on a detox), but it pretty much tasted like cardboard.

-Day 2 is the worst. I was irritable for about 30 minutes. Nothing too crazy, but just kind of on edge. The juices kept me full, but I still felt "empty," if that makes any sense to you. It made no sense to me, which added to my irritability. Eating is emotional for a lot of us, so you might have some sort of emotional reaction - or you might not - just something to keep in the back of your head.

Would I do it again?

Absolutely. I'd like to try again in a few months, and maybe if I don't have something to prepare for I'll stick to just juices.  

My advice to anyone considering a juice cleanse

The biggest piece of advice I can give is to be honest with yourself. What is it that you want to achieve? What is your diet currently like? If you eat a lot of sugar/processed foods/meat, you should probably do a 7-10 day (or even longer if you've been off track for a while) diet change to prepare, eating simple foods - veggies, fruit, no refined sugar, no processed foods, nothing too hard to digest. After that, you can start your cleanse and hopefully that diet change will have prepared your body so it won't go into shock when you start the cleanse.

When you start eating again, slowly reintroduce foods either in the form of smoothies, or easily digestible foods. You don't want to shock your body!  

Also, listen to your body. If you feel hungry, drink more juice. If it's truly awful, go to smoothies if you have to. 

A lot of our lives revolve around food, so I personally think it's best to avoid gatherings with friends during this time because you'll be tempted to break the cleanse (and you may not have the energy in the first place). Instead, take short walks, bike rides, or swimming. Do gentle yoga, read, write, watch a tv show.

I also think it's important to keep a journal of your experience - first, to make sure you're getting enough juice/water, and secondly, so you can document any changes you feel or see.  

Take a look a Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead if you're interested. It might inspire you. :) 

So what do you think? Would you ever want to do a cleanse? 

PS- The Yoga Forum just launched! Come join in on the conversation with likeminded people - we chat about everything from chaturangas to chocolates! There's even a place to share recipes! 

Doing a Juice Cleanse

Fruits and veggies for juicing

About a week ago, I decided to do a cleanse. I just feel that something is a bit off in my body. It's been one year and five months since I stopped the long term antibiotic treatment I was on for Lyme disease, and while my health is okay overall, there is room for improvement. I did a lot of research, and decided that a juice cleanse was the best option for me. 

My goal was to do three days, evaluate how I felt, and maybe try for two more days. Today is day three. I'm going to wait until the end of the day to decide what to do. 

I already eat pretty clean, but I didn't want my body to be in complete shock with a cleanse, so a couple days leading up to day one I really focused on eating a lot of vegetables and other light food, and drinking a ton of water.

On the first day, I drank fruit and vegetable juice that I made with my juicer. But then, I decided I should eliminate a lot of the fruit, as my goal here was to alkalinize and fruit sugars don't help in that respect. So day two was just vegetable juice with a little bit of lemon. Today, I am half-way through day three, and I'm still just doing the vegetable juice with minimal fruit. When the cleanse is over, I'll do a post with the exact "meal" plan, if you're interested.

Irritable when hungry? 

One of my biggest fears was that I was going to have really bad withdrawals. This happened to me when I completely cut all sugars out of my diet a few years ago. I went through terrible, terrible withdrawal symptoms. (Side note: did you know that sugar affects the brain the same way cocaine and heroin do? It's no wonder the withdrawal is awful!) Since I've slowly reintroduced sugars (not refined, just natural like fruit, maple syrup, etc) into my diet, I was scared I'd have the same reaction. So what happened?

I didn't wind up having withdrawal symptoms! Yay. Just minimal irritability from cravings. I am a texture person, and I am craving smooth almond butter, soft sunflower seeds, and crunchy kale chips (which is brutal, because I cannot find kale chips in Germany). Those are kind of weird things to crave, I know, but it is what it is. The irritability lasted about thirty minutes on day two, but other than that it's been smooth sailing.

As far as energy levels - I haven't gone to the gym, or done a vigorous yoga practice, but I have been able to take my dog for a 45 minute walk every day without feeling lightheaded or sick to my stomach. I've been able to run errands without any problems. This is all a great relief to me, because I had feared I'd have zero energy.

I will report back Monday with my overall experience with the cleanse once it's over. 

Have you ever done a cleanse? What type? How'd it go?  

PS- Gratitude for the little things, my personal experience with anxiety and depression, and self-care.

Weekend Recap

Saturday night drinks have changed over the years....

Sunday morning yoga

I wish I had something more exciting to tell you, like 'Oh I went on this amazing adventure and you'll never believe what happened!' The truth is, however, this weekend was pretty quiet and uneventful (unless you count being rerouted through small German towns due to autobahn construction and subsequently getting lost despite having a navigation system in the car (that kept telling me to turn onto pedestrian only walkways)). Saturday night found me juicing up a fridge full of greens, and it cracked me up because Saturday night drinks aren't what they used to be! I mean, I wonder what 23 year old me would've said if she knew that in a few years fresh green juices on a Saturday night would make her happier than a college night out with no cover and penny drink specials. Anyway. Then I curled up to finish Osho's book on courage, and started a new read.

On Sunday, I taught yoga and was psyched to see a couple faces I haven't seen since I taught in Germany last winter. The clip below is part of the warm up I did before class. I like that wave through the spine thing where you go from downward dog to plank pose. It's a good way to gently loosen up the body, and nice practice for rolling over the toes. The focus of the class was twists, which are really detoxifying for the body. I think the sequencing of the class was well received, though I don't think they were pumped about the abs I had them do, haha. (Twisting requires good oblique support, so we did a lot of core strengthening poses.)

How was your weekend? 

Travel tales

When we found out about the explosions yesterday at the Boston Marathon we were speechless. What happened is horrifying. Our friends and family who were there are safe, and for that we are grateful. Our thoughts are with the people of Boston and all those affected by the tragedy.

Today is our travel day to Boston and so far we had a minor glitch in our travel plans when we found out the airline changed the aircraft last minute to a plane that wouldn't accommodate our dog. They helped us book a new flight for later in the day and so now we are just killing time in the airport. We found a place that makes fresh juices- I had carrot, ginger, apple and Greg had pineapple, apple and banana- so delicious. Hopefully the rest of the trip will run smoothly and then this will resume as a healthy living/yoga blog and less about our travel life. Thanks for reading along.