Detox & Yoga: Day 5

It's hard to believe in 2 more days, we'll be at the one week mark! I'm learning more all the time as I dig into this. It seems overall, my energy is a little less than normal - it could be the caloric intake dropping to around 1200 or less per day, and most of that being "fast exit" food - which is the point - but also means not much of it stays with you. And to be honest, not much is, um, "exiting" either. I don't know where it is going really. :) I'm still curious about the impact after a month, so I'm on board, but the cheating is starting. And really, the 'cheats' are still within the guidelines of the 'maintenance' diet - alkaline foods. Today, my big cheat was I chucked a green apple into my green lemonade. I went to 6 a.m. yoga and felt weak and depleted, and I had to teach at noon! So I did it. And it was good.

Did you know quinoa, which is NOT a grain, but sure looks/acts like one, has a zillion calories? Like over 600/cup. Though it's allowed, I'm trying to drop a few pounds, so...I'm limiting the quinoa intake - that is some killer packed-with-nutrients food. Whoa.

Yoga Day 5: As mentioned, I hauled myself to 6 a.m. yoga which had around 40 (!!!) people in attendance. It was kinda nice, actually, it felt like a full afternoon class. Kim taught, and it was a good one, esp. after that disaster of a class yesterday. I felt good in it - I think overall, I'm pretty ok to be on an empty belly in the morning (6 or 9:30) but it's a lot harder to have eaten all of 1 avocado all day and then hit 4 p.m. or later. Ug.

Detox Day 5: Well, as mentioned we had a little cheat of the green apple. Also, I ate the equivalent of 1 small pickle. That's it though - those are the big cheats! Not bad for 5 days in - this is not easy. The book has so obviously been edited by the publisher to add things like "it's so easy!" and "you'll be skinny" at the end of every other page. Kinda kidding, kinda not... but it's not that complicated, true - but it does require a lot of planning, organizing, time in the kitchen and powering through some hungry moments when you're out and about as there isn't much that you can just grab at the store. The farmer's markets are saving us! Today, we scored some killer cherry tomatoes, gorgeous spinach, and red onions for our salad. So good!

Here's what I ate today:

Breakfast:
Green Lemonade ala Green Apple (for shame!)

Lunch:
1/4 c. quinoa leftovers
1/4 avocado
1.5 c romaine lettuce with a little red onion, red pepper and a tablespoon of corn (leftovers)

Second Lunch :)
2 Lettuce Wraps (Lettuce, Goat Cheese, Pickle, Mustard and Red Onion)
Rainier Cherries

Dinner:
Spinach Salad topped with Cherry Tomato/Raw Corn Salsa (basil, lime, salt/pepper, onion)
6 oz. Swordfish on the grill
Garlic Whips
Butter/Salt/Pepper
Red Wine

Evening:
.75 oz. dark chocolate

Calories: 1200ish
Weight: - 8.8 pounds

Detox & Yoga: Day 4

Doing this during the winter would suck. Seriously, the avocados, corn on the cob, berries. I don't know how I would do it outside of farmer's market season. Speaking of which I practically spent a week's wages at the Farmer's Market in Wallingford yesterday - and can I say, it was worth every penny! Romaine as big as your head, garlic scapes, mini broccoli, Rainier cherries, carrots, beets, garlic, onions, salad mix, green beans, peas...the list goes on. And we keep eatin' it. Our yardwaste bin (which is where in Seattle you are required to put your food scraps) overfloweth. My pal Kirsten brought us a big bag of spinach from her garden for salad, and spicy greens for juicing. The spinach was 86'd by dinner.

It's really going ok, Jill is struggling maybe more than I am but it was my idea - she is (painfully) along for the ride. After all the nutso diets I've done in my life, this is actually (fairly) doable! Though today brough my first cheat: 1 dime size dollop of vinegar for my salad. I can't take the lemon juice salads twice a day anymore - and it's only day 4! But man, dinner with just spinach, shredded raw goat cheese, salt, pepper and that lil' bit of vinegar - YUM. I really cheerfully downed it. Shame on me. Catholic guilt abounds.

BTW, did I mention I've lost 8 pounds in the first 3 days. But then again, I think the first 5 were just the big mountain of Thai food I ate the night before. ;) Jill has lost about 5 pounds.

Yoga Day 4: Dear God. Somehow I did it, Lisa at 4 p.m. Fremont. But when you feel like you're in trouble by the end of the first set of breathing...it's scary. I don't think I was hydrated well. And, I think I'm better going in the morning before eating anything than going later in the day when I've stayed true to the detox and eaten maybe 300-400 calories - undoubtedly those calories were all used up by the time I got to my mat. Oy! Tomorrow's another day.

Detox Day 4: Well, I wrote about it above. Here's what I ate today:

Breakfast:
Green Lemonade

Snack: Strawberries

Lunch:
CornGuac Dressed Salad (I think I've perfected it! Revised recipe below...) in a "cobb" style/presentation
1/2 cup Pumpkin Pie Juice for dessert

Dinner:
Spinach Salad with 1 oz. shredded hard, raw goat cheese - CHEAT: 1/2 tsp Balsamic Vinegar.
4 oz. Grilled Opah
1 c. haricots vert
Butter (1 tbsp. all together)
Celtic Sea Salt
Pepper

Evening
3 oz. Red Wine
.75 oz dark chocolate

Calories: 1,000 calories today
-7.8 pounds

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Recipe:

CornGuac Dressing (See photo above)

2 Avocados
2 Corn, raw, off the cob
Juice of 1 lime
1 small jalepeno pepper, more or less to taste
1 ring red onion, 1/2 inch thick
1 garlic clove (or more, if you like)
1/2 tsp. Sea Salt
Pepper to taste
---
Swirl it all up in the food processor! The coat a giant bowl of greens with it, top the salad with some more of the corn, red pepper, zucchini, avocado, and other veggies you dig. Plop a bonus scoop of the corn-guac atop it, and dig in! Great dip too for veggies.

Detox & Yoga: Day 3

So the author of the book I'm using, Natalia Rose, is a little bit woo-woo. But not THAT woo-woo. One of the things she requires you to do first thing outta bed is called "body brushing" - and I was actually surprised there is no Wiki entry on this! So, basically, it's just taking a brush to stimulate movement of the lymph fluids - which only move if you make them, there is no circulatory system within the lymph glands. Learn all about your lymphatic system here as it *does* have a wiki. Anyhow, the body brushing starts the movement of the lymph, and though it is recommended you use a "body brush" - which you can pay a lot for - I just use cheap exfoliating gloves which, as an added benefit, take with them a layer of dead skin. I must say, I've been diligent about this (evening have to undress and re-dress today, after forgetting at 4:50 a.m. - my bad, really). It feels really good! And does seem healthy and smart to do. Though, with all the yoga, I'm guessing I'm getting it done...

Yoga Day 3: Well, teaching weirdly today (6 a.m., Noon, 8 p.m.) I opted to do a practice alone after my 6 a.m. class. Being a teacher and having access to a hot room with mirrors, it just made my whole day go better and took a ton of stress off of me. I usually listen to music when I practice alone, which is a fun little bonus now and then. Went fine - I felt super open and loose, which then I felt bummed about, figuring a good push from a teacher would've probably elicited a truly kickass post-yoga bliss. Ah well, there is always tomorrow!

Detox Day 3:

The raw veggies are getting to be a little bit...much, especially when you can only dress them with lemon juice. That said, I'm carrying on! If avocado is on the menu, then all is well - easy to make a 'dressing' out of it. However, the detox rules do not allow you to mix "starch" (which for our purposes, avocado is considered) and "flesh" (nice word choice, Natalia) which includes meat, eggs, cheese. So today's lunch salad was what I terms "almost Greek" but it was kinda rough to choke down. If only balsamic vinegar was allowed!

On the upside, my big notion today was to grill asparagus and then wrap it up and take it as a car snack...and guess what? It worked! I miss my tamari almonds and crackers, but found chomping on asparagus after my noon teaching en route to my lunch worked great. Seriously. Asparagus in the car.

Hit the farmer's market today and spent 2 billion dollars but got some GOOD stuff for us to eat in the next several days - splurged on some Rainier cherries (allowed) and got buckets of veggies that we'll hopefully be able to eat cheerfully, even if raw... Here's the the day's food - again I got a little screwed up but I'm ok with how it went.

Morning:
Water
Green Lemonade

Lunch:
2 eggs
Many asparagus spears
Grilled summer squash
"Almost Greek" Salad

• Romaine
• Cherry tomatoes
• Cuke
• Black olives, diced
• Greek oregano from the yard
• Lemon juice
• Sea Salt
• Pepper
• 1 oz goat cheese

Dinner:
A portion of the "Awaken" Warm Grain Bowl from Thrive (check out the menu here!) - we are lucky to have this in Seattle - I'm no 'raw foodie' but for my purposes at the moment...yay! (It's at 65th & Roosevelt, across from Dania on 65th).

Quinoa
Various Veggies
A skimpy portion of Avocado (like seriously, could you spare it?)

Sadly this was a little rough on my lapband, so I didn't eat too much. Which was fine, as I just found out that quinoa - though nearly a perfect food - has 600+ calories per cup!! Since I barely ate dinner in the end, later I had:

A sweet potato
1 oz dark chocolate (which I measured and realize is a LOT. 1/2 oz. is plenty from now on).

1200 calories.

Detox & Yoga: Day 2

I find it fascinating the way we need to hear the same information 100 different ways to "get it." Or at least I do. One of the themes of this cleanse is to turn the body more alkaline, hence, less acidic. If you look at this list of alkaline and acidic foods, you'll see that it's more of the same - this site suggests you aim for 70% alkaline and 30% acidic foods. Surprise! All your green and low calorie veggies, low-sugar fruits, healthy oils, nuts and seeds are alkaline - and then all the "bad" stuff is acidic - meat (no judgment on meat, I love and eat meat! but it is more work for our bodies to digest, that is a fact), dairy, grains, convenience foods, coffee, tea, fruit juices, 'bad' saturated oils, and all sugary fruits (outside of berries, grapefruit, lemon, etc.). So there it is again! I feel like this message has been delivered to me in 100 ways to Tuesday since I was 5 years old. Still, never hurts to hear it in a different way and get a deeper understanding of how the human body works. There's more to think about than just fat, carbs and protein.

BTW: I'm going to try to open each daily post with a little bit about the "point" of the detox, like above.... :) Now, more about me...

Yoga Day 2: Lovely 9:30 a.m. class at Fremont with Julie. Good heat, nice energy - handful of friends and other teachers along. Not to be all woo-woo here, but today in the standing series I just felt the word "surrender" and between postures, I really, really let go and envisioned all of my energy just pouring out of my body through my feet - emptied out and relaxed, I had a lot more focus and new, fresh energy to give my next pose. I was more focused than I have been in a long time! I also got a couple "Good Jenn" on postures (spine twist, for example) I could barely do a couple weeks ago with the sciatica - they still feel a little stiff inside, but good to know the form is good on the outside!

Detox Day 2:
I woke up feeling pretty good - admittedly a little hungry, but nothing out of the ordinary really. I often wake up hungry but after a few minutes and a glass of water, it goes away for a couple hours. Ok - now I plan to talk about 'elimination' in a very, um, internet friendly way. It's part of the deal folks - stuff goes in, stuff comes out! But I'll keep it to polite conversation, as polite as poop can be. That said, things in that regard things started well - she says to expect 2 'healthy' movements a day that just come out, no really effort. All is well in this regard. Then, I had a cup of herbal tea, made my green lemonade and went to yoga. I drank my green juice instead of water in class (timing issue, couldn't get it in before I left) and then came home to fix lunch. Getting better at the salads! Still, at a point it does feel like you've been eating salad for 2 hours.

Had a near little 'melt down' before dinner. I ended up teaching a 4:30 class today so after lunch, I just had water and then about 8 oz. of the "pumpkin pie" juice (primarily carrot, with some raw sweet potato and a little avocado). Class went fine - but driving home, I had a little 'getting off sugar, now, are ya?' headache. Came home and ate a few bites of goat cheese (we had a "flesh" dinner - see below) and a big glass of water with a dollop of lime juice - and all was well.

Car snacks for this thing are near impossible. Unless you like hot celery sticks. Bluck!

Breakfast:
Herbal Tea
Green Lemonade

Lunch:
Corn & Avocado Dressed Salad
5 oz sweet potato with butter, salt & pepper

Corn & Avocado Dressed Salad Recipe

Into the Food Processor:
1 ear of raw corn 'off' the cob
1/2 avocado
1 slice red onion
1/3 red pepper
Chunk of jalapeno pepper
Juice of 1/2 lime
Sea Salt
-
Toss with chopped romaine lettuce. I added a few chopped mushrooms, and placed another 1/4 sliced avocado on top. Yum! Next time maybe more avocado and a scoop of salsa to further jazz it up. Maybe reserve a handful of corn for on top too...

Snacks:
Lots of herbal tea and lime water for snacks today. Trying to keep it clean!
8 oz "pumpkin pie in a cup" juice

Dinner:
Raw beet, carrot & cabbage salad (ok, likely only 1/2 cup...)
6 oz Halibut (fresh, local), with a little lemon butter
Spaghetti Squash with shredded goat cheese, salt, pepper & a little butter
Broccolini, steamed

Evening:
Red Wine (4 oz)
Dark Chocolate (1.5 oz)

Calories: 1500

Detox & Yoga: Day 1

Yoga Today:

Nooner at The Sweatbox Capitol Hill with Meghan. Perfect class for me today - good but workable heat, nice peeps and though I had to pay, decent parking. Overall pretty good practice, though I think I fell asleep at the savasana (I had just taught a 6 a.m. & 9:30 a.m. class...) Still battling the remnants of the sciatica through a totally crap Triangle pose, but otherwise feeling pretty good!

Detox Today:

First day - seems like something that will be so easy once I get the hang of it; but right now it seems exceedingly complex though it's not. The goal of this detox is to starve the yeast and poor bacteria in the body, as a reminder :) In a week this will be a breeze! Here's what I ate today (recipes for my own re-use, but feel free...):

Breakfast:
"Green Lemonade" (You'll see this daily: A head of romaine, 5-8 Kale leaves, a lemon (skin on) and a hunk of ginger through the juicer.

Lunch:
1 Sweet Potato w/ a pat of organic butter, salt & pepper
1 Guacamole Salad

• Head of red leaf lettuce out of our garden, chopped
  
• 1/2 Avocado
• 1/3 c. raw corn off the cob
• 2 big mushrooms, chopped
• 1 tbsp onion
• Stevia drops (sweet), lime juice, hot sauce, salt & pepper to taste

I whipped up the avocado and corn in the food processor and used it to coat the lettuce and other veggies. The options on this one abound - next time, no stevia and I'll what I think without it. It was a creamy, veggie-packed salad that didn't feel like I was eating a whole head of lettuce!

Snack:
"Pumpkin Pie Juice!"

• 32 oz Carrot Juice
• 1/2 Avocado
• 1 peeled/cubed raw sweet potato
• 1/2 tsp each cinnamon and cloves
• pinch salt

Juice the carrots - 32 oz. Then in blender or food processor, blend raw sweet potato, avocado and 1/2 the carrot juice until smooth. Add spices and rest of carrot juice. Really tasty cold! (This is from Natalia Rose's book - but I omitted the Stevia and added salt).

Dinner:

Well, I kinda got timing all messed up and had another batch of the pumpkin pie juice and some carrot/beet salad, that...well, sucked. No, really, it needs work.

Snack:
1 small square of dark chocolate (legal!!!)

About 865 calories all together. Tomorrow will focus on more protein!

And she's back...

Where have I been? Busy. But who isn't?

I think I've been off trying to negotiate and figure out what's next for me in life. Meanwhile, though, I've been teaching lots of Bikram yoga - class #300 last Thursday in fact! Practicing has been spotty since early May when I hurt my right hip and developed sciatica - a condition that I would argue falls outside of Bikram's "you're never too old too sick...etc. to do the yoga." When you can't stand up, well, you can't do this yoga. I rested, it helped, and it's better now.

So here's what's up: I'm resetting! Starting today I'm doing Natalia Rose's Detox for Women. A 30-day detox diet that is reasonably do-able with the aid of a few niceties. And you get to actually EAT, which is the only way I'd do something like this. Here's a link to it:

http://www.detoxtheworld.com/books-detox-4-women.php

So, I plan to blog about it daily as part of my commitment to myself. I'm doing a 30-day yoga challenge too, so I'll report in on that as well!

Blog Shift + 30-Day Challenge #3 for Jenn!

Hello all!

Sorry for the delay in posting. I had been thinking for a while about this blog, and whether or not I could comfortably write about teaching without violating the privacy of students. Sure, lots of teachers in the world blog and write and share their experiences in the classroom...but at the same time, this is different, more personal...and I wondered if this was a good idea. My thoughts on the matter were confirmed today, as I was asked not to blog about students in any way by a studio owner - and that is fair, pretty much in line with what I was thinking anyhow.

I took a couple posts down and revised one other, and from here on out, I will just be blogging about my own experience in a way that is not specific to students. I think my real goal here to just to share my own experience of doing the yoga, as well as the impact teaching has on me as a person and my practice. The nuts and bolts of teaching, while interesting reading, aren't really relevant in the big picture. I'm always happy to share with someone 1:1 about what it's like to be a teacher, about my worst and best days...but that's not so, well, public, now is it? So, if you have questions, ask me! Otherwise, I'll be blogging here about yoga, me and my life in general...and with that, I feel a little better actually. My lack of posting was my own contention with this matter and I was sent a clear direction on how to proceed, and I'm good with that!

Speaking of my yoga, I'm finished Day 25 of 30 on my pre-Maui challenge! I'm moving right along and honestly, have gone through the things one does in a challenge like this. I was excited, bored, irritated, happy, excited, bored, irritated, etc. just like it happens. This is the 3rd time I've done one (not including training, of course) and honestly, the impact doesn't feel quite as fantastic as it has in the past. Still, I have endured the nuances that come with it - the forcing yourself to go because you don't have a choice...period...the manipulating your day to get yourself there, the going at 6 a.m. because it's truly the only time you can make it, the having to do it even when you're teaching 3 that day... but it's good. I don't know that I've felt any grand effects other than that of knowing I can do it, and a a bit of pain in my right shin.

I've been teaching a good bit - still between 8-12/week right now - and that is good. I really dig teaching right around 8, having a couple days where I'm not teaching and can just practice, and once my challenge is over, getting to have at least 1 day/week out of the hot room. Since other work for me has been hit or miss, some weeks I don't at all mind a heavy load, but others - it's rough.

Jill and I are off to Maui to celebrate her big birthday next week! We are excited to do some Bikram Yoga there, of course, and maybe find some other yoga that would be fun to do/try. When I get back, I'm going to diversify my exercise as my body seems to be in a bit of a rut, doing the same thing all the time...I could stand to lob off 5 pounds and just keep things looking and feeling optimal. So, more soon, thanks for your patience those of you who had been asking for a post. I should be back with some better regularity now!

p.s. I've also been working on my book, writing like mad for that which has left me a little deflated when it's come time to blog. Hopefully I can balance the two out since the writing is so different!