Eat Dance Live

Day 1 of juice feast, my reaction is very mixed. I started my morning with a couple sun salutations and began my first day of my juice feast with hope. One glass of warm water with the juice of 1/2 a lemon and my daily dose of MSM followed the salutations. About 15 minutes later I opened up my new toy for the next two weeks: Gaia Her bs 's Super Cleanse Kit. I have full faith in this company because of their ethics. I wanted to try out of one the detox kits they have at the Whole Foods, but didn't know which one to choose. I settled on Gaia Herbs because they are one of the only organic ones. On top of that, they are certified by Oregon Tilth , currently the most stringent organic certifier recognized by the USDA. They have a beautiful farm in NC and I really support their research and environmental efforts, so from the get go, the company got two thumbs up in my book. The cleanse is made up of 3 parts and lasts 2 weeks. There is a morning fiber powder, called the Rejuve Powder...

Food for the Day 1. Warm lemon water w/ raw honey (my throat is feeling a little funny) 2. A very citrus-alicious Pink Grapefruit & Lemon Splash from Le Pain Quotiden and some stolen berries from Andrew's Berry Cup 3. 1/2 a clementine on the way to the gym 4. 1/2 an orgasmic gala apple (I go through phases where I'll obsess over one type of apple for a little while and then move on to another one) 5. Chef tastings (I know...) of a chocolate mint tofu pie I made for Andrew (made with chocolate crust, raw tofu, mint & mint extract, agave, sea salt, vanilla, and mint chocolate shavings... I'm experimenting with sprouting spelt rather than using oat groats for part of my crusts all the time) The reason I love surfing around the blogosphere (yes, I still feel silly using that word) is that I often come across life-altering articles, amazing people, or more selfishly and egotistically, wonderful justifications for my own life choices. Tonight was one of those nights, whe...

So I finally got my act together, and thanks to Jae's recent love list and Tonya Kay's nutrition and workout log , Andrew and I have just completed our second Bikram class over the past two days. My hope is that this will become a month long learning experience through Bikram. Dwelling only on the positive aspects of our first practice yesterday at 11am and our second one this morning at 9:15am, I have to say that despite feeling a little sore, I feel cleaner from the inside then I have in a very long time. Like most other people, I can't say I've had a perfect diet my whole life. I've had my share of Happy Meals as a kid, chicken nuggets from Costco, Kraft macaroni and cheese, and all the usual nasty suspects, but every time I've tried to detox through a nutritional cleanse or a fast over more recent years, I can't say that I ever got any 'real' results. I've had friends and others tell me about the incredible experiences they had with detoxes...

I think one of the easiest ways to enjoy life is to appreciate the little things, and by little things, I mean the things we would otherwise take for granted, the things we pass by every day and overlook, the things other people just shrug at and say 'yeah, what about it?'. Those things. During the summer of my second year in college, I was had the amazing opportunity to study at the Queen's International Study Center, aka. Herstmonceux Castle . Where I got to spend my days going to class walking through the English countryside (in the spring when all the flowers were blooming), taking drama classes held in an mid-15th-century ballroom, and hold baby ducks in my hands that I saw grow up for a season on the castle grounds. Every day, I'd wake up in my dorm and think "I can't believe I'm here." I'd take it all in like a baby takes in life (I probably looked like it too), but never ever ever for the whole six weeks did I ever get bored of being in thi...

So it seems like the entire raw food blog world is on some form of cleanse/detox/challenge to begin the New Year and I clearly failed to jump onto that bandwagon, giant pieces of galette and all... Now that I feel that I've finally settled back into our home now after all the holidays, traveling, etc. I decided to make up my own little cleanse to try to get back on the track I've slightly derailed from since getting back from Salem (that's what happens when you get back to your own kitchen I tell you! It does things to a woman!). Once again, I have to rant and rave about the benefits of the raw diet though. Last night, I just didn't feel like sleeping so caught up on some raw recipe reading until about 2:30 am, and bounced out of bed at 9am... It feels pretty good when little things like that happen. Anyway, here's what I did for my first day (all recipes were of course for 2), nothing two fancy, but just trying to keep myself in check :) 1. Waking up started wi...