Eat Dance Live

Though this is coming slightly belated: Happy Halloween/Day of the Dead/ Samhain to all! Hope you all had an amazing weekend, I certainly did! It's funny how during certain times of the year, we are compelled to make changes in our lives. For some it's at the turn of the calendar year, on their birthday, or before bikini season starts, I have always tended to want to make resolutions in the Fall, and that time has come yet again. I don't know if it's because I've now been a perennial student for the past 20 years (holy crap! I just realized that when I wrote it... scary...) or just because I love Fall, but there's something about the leaves turning and the way the air smells that strikes me as a call to action. More than that, it's the time when I've made resolutions that I've actually stuck to more than during any other time of the year. So for the Celtic New Year, as market stalls are closing down for the winter here in Ottawa, and as I can feel th...

First off, the big heads-up on my blog is for you to look out for my first essential raw food equipment giveaway coming up next Monday!!! It's going to be a good one :) Day 1 of the Green Smoothie Queen's 10 day Challenge was a fast until dinner. The beautiful thing about being on a raw diet is that fasts really aren't a big deal anymore. Yes, I don't do them often, but when I choose to, I don't really get hungry and it's perfectly painless. I've seen people go through 1 day of fasting and act like it's the most torturous thing they ever have to do, they feel hungry, they get headaches, they can't be very physically active, etc. On a raw diet, I got up this morning, walked around the shops of Georgetown for a couple hours, went for a double weights workout to make up for this weekend, and walked 2 mile home. The result? I feel great! I'm not trying to drum myself up here, but the lifestyle choice I have made. It's really quite fantastic. Ac...

Week 2 of Gina 's Summer Shape Up with minor schedule adjustments. Again, gotta say, my back is dying for it but I can't get motivated to do yoga. Why is it that even if we know that something is good for us we still don't do it? My goal is to push myself to actually do more of that for Week 3 which is what I'm assuming will be in store :) Before I get into the workouts though, I do have to say that I may or may not have had one of the worst (or best?) detoxes ever recently. I was suppose to take those Gaia Herb tinctures that I mentioned 2 weeks ago for 14 days and that time has pretty much come to an end. Two nights ago, I woke up with this crazy stomach pain and won't go into the icky details but... wow. Ever since I've felt amazing though. I guess 1 week of chakra feast juicing and 1 week of green smoothies has really had an effect! Tomorrow, I'm starting the Green Smoothie Queen's 10 Day Green Smoothie Challenge , and I'm psyched! Monday Day ...

First off, have you entered Averie's latest nut butter giveaway ? Another go at a Sacral Chakra feast today focused on all things sweet. I started with my usual glass of lemon water and then it was time to start my cycle of powders and tinctures that I now have to take for 13 more days. After yesterday's nauseating experience , this one went much better. Instead of 2 heaping teaspoons of Rejuve Powder, I only took one and while it was still vile and did give me a little bit of the shakes, it went much more smoothly. Breakfast wasn't quite a juice but was more focused on balancing my chakra using sweetness, aka. a cherry banana whip (with spirulina of course!). A post-workout lunch (thanks again to Gina for an awesome start into her 2010 4-week Summer Shape-up ) were two Vitamix-ed oranges with a 1/2 C of kombucha. Then I descended into kale chip making madness. I'm working on two different recipes right now that I think they may be my best yet! Throughout the day, I to...

Where was I yesterday? I was getting ready: For the crowning moment of the past two years of my life: The day didn't happen without its share of toil and trouble: it all began with my big family grad dinner getting postponed because my mom and my grandmother are actually really sick. However, my mom is an amazing trooper and managed to make it out to my graduation ceremony despite not feeling well. After not being sure whether my mom would make it or not, I got off the phone just to get an email saying that my diploma was damaged by the printer and they didn't notice until the day of, meaning... no diploma for me. Really?! Who does that actually happen to? Me apparently, but better me that someone with worse coping mechanisms! And they're supposedly sending it to me by mail anyway. However, my amazing sister and her boyfriend saved the day. After the ceremony that both my parents and Andrew made it to, the two of them took us to dinner and to see Iron Man 2. Because my sis ...

My day began and ended with mint in stranger ways than I could have ever imagined... Over a breakfast of green juice for breakfast (kale, cucumber, apple, celery, mesquite and maca), I created yet another raw ice cream. This time it was a variation on previously made mint chocolate-chip ice cream in what Andrew called my new raw 'mint oreo ice cream'. Here's the secret: Raw Mint 'Oreo' Ice Cream 2 C cashews, soaked overnight 1 C water 2/3 C agave nectar (or maple syrup, I think I did half of each) 1 tsp vanilla (or 1 whole vanilla bean) 1/3-1/2 C crushed mint leaves 1/2 tsp (or to taste) of mint extract dash of salt pinch of spirulina for green color raw oreo cookie dough (see below) cacao nibs, optional 1. Blend everything in a Vitamix (or blender or food processor) until smooth 2. Pour into ice cream machine and follow directions! 3. In the middle of the ice cream machine process, or once the ice cream starts to get a solid enough ice cream consistency, blend in t...

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...