This looks about where I started, but it just goes to show that fat inches and weight loss can be two different things. As I mention in my video, it’s impossible to lose more than one pound of fat a week. So, I am looking at a slow and natural evolution in my body.
Exercise
My goal is to have fun. I want to enjoy being active not dread working out! I am going simple again with:
walking daily 2-4 miles
sun saluations daily, I want to try this fierce flow ! core rhythms (this was a gift from a friend and I LOVE it). I fall in love with dancing again and again. 🙂
I have never claimed to be a genius in the kitchen. I’ll leave that to the pros! However, I am proficient at following recipes. I don’t even follow them exactly and they still seem to work out fine.
After the video footage my son decided he did like the wrappers after all, and we devoured the rest of the wrappers. This was super fun and easy to do with my kids. What a great way to teach them a healthier way of eating. I feel good that their recipe knowledge has a healthy base unlike my upbringing. I learned as a kid how to make things that tasted good, but health wasn’t the focus. I am glad I am turning it around for my kids.
The wrappers are very filling and I can see if the presentation was done correctly that it would be a hit at events. I normally keep things simple for raw potlucks,but this would be awesome, even for non raw people.
The cheese is creamy with a little tang to it, the dehydrated tomatoes have an intensified flavor, the avocado and basil just round it out. A total comfort food! The wrappers called for spinach juice, but I used kale juice. It didn’t affect the flavor, but it did intensify the color. The wrappers tasted like creamy bites of heaven with vibrant flavors from the cheese, tomato and basil. A must try!
Every Saturday, I help organize our local organic produce buying club. It was founded by Alexis aka ThriveSurvive in 2007. Since then it has grown to be the largest of it’s kind in the United States with over 600 members. I feel so fortunate to have been able to participate with this group. I love meeting all the people in the community who share the same interest of a healthy body and a healthy planet. My dream would be that all communities have a group similar to ours.
Later, I had the honor of meeting Happy Oasis. She is the founder of the Raw Spirit Festival. She was speaking at our local raw food meetup. I first learned of Happy from watching the “Rawkathon” by Kevin Gianni, which is a series of interviews with people who are prominent in the raw food community. I felt an instant connection and knew I wanted to meet her. She is kind and genuine. Love emanates from her being and beyond. Her stories and adventures are captivating and I find myself lost in them. I could listen for hours. I feel centered and HAPPY just being in her presence. I have never attended the Raw Spirit Festival, however this June there will be an event in Santa Barbara. I would love to see the interaction of this community and I am definitely planning on attending. I look forward to sharing with you my experience there unless you’ll be there too! In that case, I look forward to meeting you as well. 🙂
Yesterday was such a nice day. It started with checking my emails and receiving a message from Dhrumil of We Like it Raw. He has created a page called Masala that lists” the hottest mix of raw food blogs online”. I was humbled and honored that my blog would even be mentioned. It feels good knowing that somebody is reading my jumbled blogs. I love sharing my experiences and stories. Even better I love receiving comments from others stating that I have helped them. How cool is that?
I took my little poochie, Hailee out for a morning walk and just savored the gorgeous weather. I feel so lucky to be alive and have my life. I have so much to be thankful for. I am smart, healthy, and creative. I have 2 awesome kids that I spend lots of time with. I have a home that I can play around with decorating and gardening. I live in Southern California and we have such mild weather. It’s funny how fast we can forget these things and we always seem to find room for complaints on where we are lacking. I really want to turn that around and only see what is going right in my life. It definitely far out weighs any nitty gritty complaints I may have.
I came home and read 2 chapter “Loss of Innocence” from “Mastery of Love” by Don Miguel Ruiz to my children. This is such easy reading and they understand the message. Wow, this really put me in my place as a mother. It explains how children are tuned into love and enjoying the present moment. As parents condition and dump our “hell” on our kids and they develop emotional wounds like shyness, fear, etc… Our kids start to try to please us (parents, teachers, etc) for approval. Anyhow, I was brought to tears. I love and adore my children. I know they are my teachers and they remind me about real life. So much of our existence is fluff. I want the real stuff, the good stuff. The stuff that matters. I want to live in love all day long. I actually said my goal for the day was to “make love all day long”. That is my ultimate goal. I may not be there 100%, but I’ll tell you what, each day I try I grow by minutes. Before I know it I’ll be there. Practice makes perfect.
My kids and I played around in the kitchen and created this. I love when I just whip something together without any planning. It’s always a surprise. I had some serious sweet tooth going on and instead of eating something really off the charts we had made chocolate ice cream by blending frozen bananas with cacao. We just kept going from there and this is a quick video of what we came up with. Meg wasn’t in the mood to be on the camera so she acts a little silly, but kids will be kids.
Then a beautiful gift wrapped book came in the mail from Matthew Kenney. He sent me his book “Entertaining in the Raw“. Of course it is beautiful and he truly is a genius. Sorry to keep repeating it Matthew, but it’s true! I remember last year thinking there needed to be a book for raw entertaining. Ta da…here it is. Literally, my daughter and I sat and went through every picture salivating. I really didn’t know which recipe to try first. So, of course Matthew recommend I make the basil wrappers. DOH! I should have known, he had sent me that recipe before the book came out last summer. Oops! Well, you don’t gotta tell me again… I am on it! I’ll post a video of the final product as long a you guys realize it won’t be nearly as pretty as his photos show.
Anyhow, I just enjoyed a simple mellow day filled with lots of hugs and cuddles with my kids. I felt centered and balanced. So, I want to keep up with my daily goal to make love all day long. I can see how one day went and I look forward to more. Just thought I’d share. 🙂
Many are asking about my bikini body progress. Well, I started to feel overwhelmed and too wrapped up in every little thing I ate or did. It started to turn into a stress rather than a fun transformation. I was putting unneeded pressure on myself in order to lose weight. It felt more like a struggle than anything else. So, I needed to take a break and change things up.
Not only was I stressing myself out emotionally, I think my workouts were too high stress for me. I even think that the adrenalin rush I would get from intense workouts were defeating the progress. If the cortosol levels are too high in the body and the adrenals are overworked it will suppress thyroid function. Not good for someone who is already dealing with a slow thyroid. So, I decided to pick up the yoga and drop the hard core boxing and boot camp classes.
I even laid off spinning since it really reduced my range of motion and slowed the progress I was making with yoga. I have been dealing with a considerable amount of low back pain. I have hyper lordosis which simply means my low back is really overly curved. It makes it a bit more vulnerable. I injured a disc 10 years ago and it just seems to be my weak link. However, when my quads and psoas are fully stretched my back pain greatly reduces. So, lunges, splits, warrior 1 and all those similar stretches are rocking out! Plus lots of core work keeps me better aligned.
As I was clearing out old data in my computer today I came across pictures I didn’t realize I had. This is me weighing in at 108. As you know I am a little over 5’5″. Don’t mind the boob slippage. I was laying on my tummy and sat up quickly . I didn’t realize I was doing a “fashion DON’T”. 🙂
I decided to post these anyway since it really got me excited to think of being that size again. When I see these pics , it takes me back to that feeling confident in my body. I am enjoying this process. As long as I stay in this zone I feel energized and not pressured. I am happy to watch my transformation.
I want to stay in a state of excitement and gratitude. I want to be thankful for what I have now and remember how lucky I am to even have a healthy able body. So many people are less fortunate, disabled, or ill and how dare I complain. I am one lucky chick and I look forward to being as healthy as possible.
If you are running through life feeling overwhelmed and not really making the impact you know you want, or wishing you felt alive and filled with passion then you are going to LOVE me!
