First picture taken about thirty minutes after I demolished a mountain of rice, who-knows-how-much almond butter, yummy blueberries and @amazinggrassgreens all mixed together (I do a form of intermittent fasting).
Immediately, I felt super full, guilty and "huge." So I decided to take a picture. I knew I was being silly but couldn't ignore my feelings. I then forced myself to smile and then guess what, my attitude changed. I told myself I was NOT what I felt. I snapped out of it and reassured my belief that if we put nourishing, whole foods into our bodies AND regularly use our muscles/brain power plus heart-fulls of compassion, then we can only grow. The third picture is after I spent a couple hours teaching yoga, surrounded by good vibes and beautiful energies. I spent a couple hours doing what gives me PURPOSE...what literally keeps me going each day and has me excited to wake up in the morning...and my body responded. It USED the food I put into it and cooperated with the energies I surround myself with and cultivate...and BAM...healthy Liv. This is a process. It's taken a LONG time for me to be okay in my body and even now, body dysmorphia causes me to see something entirely different and I get down on myself. What's important though is to love your body no matter what it looks like. Change your mindset. "Fitness" is not as important as overall health. You can look fantastic but not be healthy. You can look fantastic and feel miserable. So do a little self-check today-MENTALLY-and see where you are. Body stuff comes later. Let's heal our minds first.
0 Comments
How many of your are waking up each morning with some sort of unpleasantry? By "unpleasantry" I mean anything from stiff, achey limbs to a pounding headache to slight nausea. How many of you are treating your pains with over-the-counter or prescribed medications? Maybe after you pop that pill, move around and gets yourselves ready for the day you start to feel a little better. The unpleasantries become tolerable and you go about your day. Halfway through the day do your unpleasantries come back? Do you pop another pill, or two, and carry on? Maybe feel better after another hour? I want us all to stop and take a look at our medicine cabinets, glove compartments, purses and pockets. Let's switch from the pill-popping to body-nourishing. Yes, all those little anti-inflammatory and fever reducing pills are convenient; but do you know what they do? Before we even touch the side effects, let's just make it clear that these pills are merely TREATING THE SYMPTOMS of your unpleasantries. They mask the real problem. Most of us don't even back track to solve what the source of our unpleasantry really is. Please, ask yourself... "Why do I have a headache? Why are my joints aching? Why is my stomach churning right now?" Once we figure out the WHY of our unpleasantries, we can really get down to taking care of ourselves and preventing these things from happening in the future. I know what you're probably thinking... "Yes this sounds great. But really, I don't mind my unpleasantries too much. Ibuprofen seems to do the trick and it's what I have been doing for years. Think I'm okay, thanks." NOOOO please, no. What if your unpleasantry were something more serious? Some sort of infection or chronic flare-up or a type of cancer? Would you take me seriously then? I really believe that eating a nutrient-dense, whole food, mainly raw diet can help us not only cure and prevent our unpleasantries, but also introduce a whole new level of contentment and energy into our lives that we've never experienced before. How do you start? My friends, the answer is simple. (Although, I will say that this approach is easier said than done. BUT! Once you make the change and develop a habit and then lifestyle, you'll never want to go back.) If you want to get started right away and can't wait for my upcoming posts....check out these videos! The full versions are available on Netflix: "Food Matters" and "Forks over Knives" .....remember guys, EAT TO HEAL! Apart from the whole sodium-packed, gluten infested aspect of pizza, it really isn't that bad for you. Swap out the dough for a homemade, complex carb version (maybe use coconut, almond, rice or oat flour) or even a grain-free cauliflower crust. Make your own sauce using tomato paste, a variety of delicious pizza-flavor spices and no-salt-added organic tomato sauce. Skip the cheese altogether or go light, swap out a garlicky hummus or just sprinkle on some nutritional yeast (can be found at most natural markets...Whole Foods, Good Foods, Trader Joe's). *** Don't worry, I'll include a post on some healthier whole pizza options at a later date. Right now, this post is about capturing the pizza flavor in a delicious veggie side dish. Everything about it screams Supreme Pizza--the colors, the veggies, the aroma... Here's how to do it: Ingredients coconut or olive oil clove garlic, minced leek, chopped,bulb included organic white mushrooms, rinsed and chopped, stems included 1/4 bag turnip greens, chopped bell peppers (red or orange), chopped 1/3-1/2 cup liquid from reduced sodium manzanilla olives **optional-1/4 cup chopped olive medley (I say optional because the the juice gives enough of an olive-y flavor. However, if you're olive-obsessed like me, by all means add the extra olives) Warm oil in skillet on medium high heat then add garlic until fragrant. Add bell peppers and half of the olive juice and cover until peppers are slightly soft. Add leeks and turnip greens. Cover. Once the greens have reduced in size, add mushrooms and the rest of the olive juice. Cover for 2-4 minutes. And just like that, you're done! Super simple. Serve alongside chicken and overtop quinoa for an easy dinner. Or, add to a serving of eggs as a delicious way to start your day. Hell, even add on top of hummus-smeared toast or bagel. Enjoy!
Whether it's cold, rainy, sleety, or blazing hot outside, this dish is sure to make your insides happy. It's equally yummy served warmed or cold and can easily be transformed into a main dish if you add something meaty (i.e. diced chicken, grilled salmon, shrimp, tofu, cubed eggplant or potatoes). What you need: 1 large spaghetti squash 1 bunch of swiss chard coconut oil 3-5 cloves of garlic, minced wasabi paste soy sauce or tamari red pepper flakes black pepper onion powder salt (optional) Preheat oven to 450 degrees and cook spaghetti squash until soft to the touch. Depending on the size of your squash, it could need anywhere from 30-50 minutes in the oven. Meanwhile, melt coconut oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Sauteé garlic until deliciously fragrant. Then add wasabi (make sure it "melts" and spreads evenly. Wash the chard to get all the gritty bits out and then chop into 1/2 thumbnail size pieces. Add to skillet and cook until soft and reduced in size. Add soy sauce or tamari and then check on the squash. If it's ready, cut the squash in half (long-wise) and remove all seeds. Separate the squash from the outer layer and place in a large bowl or upper ware container. Add red pepper flakes, black pepper, onion powder and more soy sauce (if you choose) to the squash and mix well. Fold in the chard mixture. Enjoy! Not going to lie, every time I make this dish my mind is immediately flooded with Harry Potter scenes and references. More particularly, the hanging shriveled head from the Prisoner of Azkaban who warns Harry of the pea soup. "Make sure you eat it before it eats you," the Head advises in his lovely Jamaican accent. Don't worry though, no carnivorous peas are going to be included in this recipe. Ingredients: 1 whole leek, bulb included (thinly chopped, keeping curcular shape) 1 1/2 cups shopped mushrooms (any variety...I used white) several dashes of tobasco or hot sauce of choice* pinch of black pepper splash of orange juice, pineapple juice or lime juice (perhaps even a combo) coconut oil or non-stick spray optional--> 1 cup cooked rice, quinoa or grain of choice Directions:
*the "tobasco" that I use is homemade from a family friend. He grows the peppers in his garden and has created a 5 star sauce that I've been in love with for years And there you have it! Leeky Shrooms, a dish that even Tom can't pass up. Tom from the Leaky Cauldron, Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter series
My weight changes so often I don't even pay attention to the scale anymore. One day, I'm closer to 116; the next, I'm barely 109.
Numbers don't matter. Focus on how you feel--pay attention to your energy levels, ease of digestion, the way you feel in your clothes. These photos show my body's changes over the span of 9 weeks. Want to know what I did? I listened to my body. I paid more attention to its red flags and subtle messages, and then catered to those needs versus what I thought I needed. But let's backtrack a few... I have a rough history with food. If I solely ate based off of what I thought I needed, I'm sure I could convince myself to not eat anything at all. I remember telling myself, "You didn't deserve this," after every time I ate. Once that goes on for so long, anyone would start to associate a negative connotation with eating. The deserving-factor came about for a few reasons. I honestly can't remember when I went into this mindset because it goes as far back as I can remember. I have memories of counting the exact number of goldfish I would put into my ziploc bag as a snack before heading off to seventh grade at my new public school. I remember cutting protein bars into thirds and telling myself, "You can have this portion for breakfast, and this as a snack and then if you eat it slowly, this may be okay for lunch too." I remember waking up around 5:30/6am before high school so that I could either run at least three miles down the RJ Corman Trail near my family's home or make the mad dash to the gym so I could get in round one of two, sometimes three, in before being forced to sit all day in classes. Then, I remember the shame I began to associate with eating. I believed that if I didn't burn X-many calories then my body didn't need any extra,at all. I adopted the calorie-burned-equals-calorie-deserved mentality. So, let's say my watch said that I only burned 800 calories from my multiple workouts that day...then 800 calories was what I tried to keep my consumption around. The gym became my home. I started to become very small. And fragile. My immune system essentially sucked. Doctors scared me with the early signs of osteoporsis. My periods stopped for five years. Then, I remember going into a deep, deep depression that I'm not even going to begin to touch in this post. I started drinking alot. I didn't really watch what I ate and started eating in private so that no one could tell me I didn't deserve the food. I lost all motivation to do anything, even the only thing that seemed to give me purpose: working out and teaching fitness classes. I started to feel extremely uncomfortable eating around others and therefore, didn't. I remember going weekends without food if I went on a trip or spent that time with a partner. I also remember binging when I woud finally return home, only to purge because I felt so guilty. Long story short, I have had quite an unhealthy relationship with food and the whole concept of eating. All the stomach acid and digestion disruption I caused from restriction and purging led to a wide array of tummy troubles. Now, I can't digest a lot of foods and I often experience pain after after eating which makes banishing the negative association quite difficult. For me, eating meant pain. It went from meaning pain as in guilt and shame to pain meaning actual, physical pain. So even when I fully tried to get better there was so much damage that I needed to reverse. The physical pains from eating were so uncomfortable that it became all I could think about. I began to plan my entire days around when I would eat so that I could time out the pain appropriately. (For example, if I knew I had a social event later that day, I either wouldn't eat at all or I would wake up extremely early and try to eat enough nutrients to keep me going for the day...but I knew I had X-many hours for the pain to hopefully go away that I could be fully engages with those whom I was visiting with). It affected every aspect of my life; the pain interfered with work, social outings, sleep and so I decided to go to the doctor and end the suffering. I found out that I'm experiencing a form of IBS (which sadly, is chronic) but also due to my past of eating disorders. Over the past two years where I've been really trying to cure unhealthy mindset on food, reintroducing normal eating habits has proven quite difficult. My doctor prescribed a certain medication for IBS that helps with intestinal spasms but really, mindful eating is what has saved me. I've adopted a sort of intermittent fasting approach (learn more by following the link--I will do a separate post on this within the next week, also) to eating so that I give my digestive system a good break between meals. Technically, I still time my days around when I eat because I still experience pain; but it's far more tolerable. With intermittent fasting, I eat all my nutrients within a certain time frame so that my digestive system doesn't have to work all day long. Some may argue that several small meals a day is good for your metabolism and that I am hindering my metabolic health this way. However, as you can see from the photos my body and its ability to grow and strengthen has not been hindered by this eating approach. What good is look lean and sculpted if you can't hike 6 miles uphill to your favorite sunset spot? What if you deprive your body of so many nutrients that you physically can't muster the energy to drive 25 extra minutes and support your sister in her cheer competition after you get off of work (yes, that how week you can become from consistly starving yourself. It sounds like an exaggeration; but really, sometimes that energy could not even remotely be mustered)? Are you willing to sacrifice life experiences for the sake of your temporary physical appearance? Intermittent fasting has taught me to look at food as what it is-fuel. Food is fuel for our bodies to do the things we love to do. So now, I know that I must eat and I strive to fill my body with the food and nutrients it needs so that I can actually live life. Since it's still an actual painful process considering my past, I have to go about it with a somewhat-scientific approach. Here's what I mean: Before every meal:
As I eat, I think about what I am eating and what I want the food to fuel me to do. For example, if I'm eating an avocado I will picture the avocado and where it came from, then think, "This will help be do 30 more kettlebell swings later." This way of eating has helped me slow down and really think about what I am doing. It has helped me to stay energized and able to take and teach more classes plus stay productive at work. Added bonus....my abs appeared! Magic. I know that I only briefly mentioned some of the topics in this post; I will into more depth later in separate posts. Until then, peace and love! Get sweaty. Fuel yourself. ~yoginiliv E-mail [email protected] for more information or if you have any questions. You can also see the Contact page for a larger image of these descriptions and links to social media accounts.
|
AuthorNature-loving, adventure-seeking, holistic and wellness advocate: Yoginiliv. Archives
May 2017
Categories
All
|