Sorry, guys. I have to take a blogging break.
I will still be sticking to (or, rather, trying to stick to) the program,
but I'm not going to be near my computer for the next week.
I'll be back Dec. 27th and I'll pick up where we left off then.
Until then, I hope everyone has a VERY Happy Holiday filled with love, laughter and fresh vegetables.
:)
You've woken up covered in crumbs and cloaked in regret.
Now what???
What is your day after plan???
Eat vegetables and do cardio.
That's it.
Now let me tell you why.
When you overeat, you are essentially treating your body like an overworked, underpaid intern whom you slog all of your undesirable drudgery onto.
"Ummm, Sweetie, will you be a doll and do something with this?"
Your body agrees because it wants to please you, but it has no earthly clue what do with what you just handed it. It doesn't recognize it and it doesn't know where it goes and the more of these indecipherable goopy doodads you pile into your body the more overwhelmed it gets and the more it begins to panic and the more it just tries to stash these goopy doodads anywhere it can fit them.
Namely on your butt.
So stop.
Give it a rest.
You had your fun and now it is your turn to pick up some of the slack.
You are going to want to make your body's digestion workload as light as possible to make up for overworking it the night before.
Eat vegetables.
And only vegetables.
All day.
Or for as long as you can stand it.
(If you get famished eat some brown rice or some beans.)
Your inner intern will be happy to see them.
Vegetables are the cleaning crew. Then get in there and clear the gunk out.
They, quite literally, get the goopy doodads out of your butt.
If you can juice your vegetables or eat a vegetable based soup, all the better.
And then get that butt moving.
Cardio detoxifies.
Cardio inspires.
Cardio can bring a house lump back from the brink.
Get moving.
Get sweating.
Put as much effort into the cardio as you put into the four slices of pizza.
But mostly, don't make yourself feel bad.
Just remember that your body works on the principle that what goes in must come out.
Too much in...you need to give it time to get it out.
It is important to be kind to your inner intern.
Give her proper rest and adequate breaks.
Because, as any good business person will tell you, you abuse an intern...
and that b*tch WILL get you back.
I know I promised some tips to help get your butt firmly back on your wagon...
but Cynthia's post Twelve Keys to Life was so inspiring(!) I just had to share it.
I'll tell you to eat your vegetables and do some cardio tomorrow.
:)
Lost our wagon years ago! About to do a cookie post to make your mission harder:) Sorry!
Darn you, you Crispy Tarts with your delectable blog filled with treats so scrumptious it makes even the most civil person want to lick their computer screen!
Or is that just me?
Ok, fine!
You can have your post where you make Ina Garten's Chocolate White Chocolate Chunk Cookie using (wimper) ONE AND A HALF POUNDS(!) OF WHITE CHOCOLATE.
That's just fine.
I will be here drinking my green juice and NOT licking my computer screen.
And for any of you reading...
ARE any of you still reading or have you just jumped directly to Danielle and Erin's blog???
Oh...I see how it is.
FINE.
Tell your wagon to go take a spin around the block.
Kick up your heels and cookie it up.
When the madness is over, know that I (and the juice) will still be here for you.
Tomorrow some tips to help get back in balance after veering off track.
Now wipes those crumbs off your face...
photo courtesy of the cookie temptresses over at Crispy Tarts
Has anyone seen my wagon???
I seem to have fallen off of it.
The score....
Holiday Cookie Madness: 1
Detox: 0
Stop your laughing, cookies.
You may have gotten the best of me tonight, but you haven't heard the last from me.
Tomorrow you will meet your match.
Cookies say to hello to my little friend...
The Juicer.
Oh, yeah, it is ON!!!
In the interest of full disclosure, I would like to state that the following smoothie is strange.
Even for me.
My impartial taste-tester made a scrunchy face and then declared it:
"kind of chunky."
However, if you are looking for extra credit points on your road to wellness then this smoothie may be for you.
Strange Chunky Smoothie
1-2 Fuji apples
2 cups spinach
juice of 1 lemon
1 cup purified water
blend everything in a blender on high
I got the idea because I wanted Natalia Rose's Green Lemonade but didn't have the spare week and a half it takes to clean the juicer.
So I said to myself, "Self, wouldn't putting all of the same ingredients in a blender taste pretty much the same?"
The answer to that is:
No.
No, it would not.
It was chunky.
Not necessarily bad...
Just chunky.
But that might have been my fault.
I added 1 tablespoon of chia seeds at the end. Chia seeds have a tendency to thicken things. In many recipes that effect is quite delightful.
In this case it turned my smoothie into applesauce.
But chunky or not, this un-smoothie made for a healthy, inexpensive breakfast which, due to its high fiber content, kept me full for hours.
Just needed a spoon to finish it.
It is not normal to stand in Target staring at an espresso maker, on sale for $35.99, for a full 10 minutes daydreaming about how exquisitely chic and charming one's life would be if only one owned this espresso maker...on sale for $35.99.
It is not normal to walk away from said espresso maker, only to walk back a few minutes later just to...you know...see it one more time before you leave the store.
It is not normal to try and convince oneself of the idea that maybe espresso doesn't "count" as the coffee one had given up earlier in the week since espresso is served in tini-tiny cups.
At this time I would like to formally apologize to anyone who I casually told to quit anything, i.e. cigarettes, gluten, dairy, etc.
I would especially like to apologize to my mother to whom I said with such willful ignorance, "Well, you should just give up coffee, then."
"just."
Hah.
Last post about coffee.
Seriously.
"I just don't think I could eat like this for the rest of my life."
"Why? Are you hungry?"
"Well, you know, I just crave certain things and I can't imagine giving them up."
"Like what?"
"Well, like, my Mom's chocolate mousse pie..."
"Traci, no one is telling you you have to give that up. That's something for a special occasion. You're not eating that for breakfast are you?"
"No..."
No one should have to give up their Mom's chocolate mousse pie.
But no one should be eating it everyday.
Healthy eating isn't about finding some perfect plan or magic answer that you must blindly follow for the rest of your life.
Eating is a celebration of life.
It is a supreme pleasure, a great joy, a blessing.
It shouldn't feel like doing your homework.
Even though it is doing your homework.
Food is the prep work you do for your body so that, in turn, your body can do for you.
It just doesn't need to feel that way.
As Michael Pollan says in his must read book In Defense of Food:
"Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."
That is it.
That is the entire recipe for healthy eating.
The trick is in the "eating food" part.
As hard as it is to accept, chocolate mousse pie is not food. A "nutrition bar" is not food. A lot of the bread we eat is not food.
Food looks like food.
It is not something that has been morphed, squeezed and rendered into a food like facsimile.
It is an apple.
It is a potato.
it is a nut.
And when you eat food 80% of the time your body is strong enough to handle the other 20%. It knows what to do when you just have to eat a high fructose, orange flavored, squishy-goopy doodad. It can recover.
Your body is not something to be muscled into submission. You can't just feed it whatever you want and expect it to function the way it's supposed to. That is like going out to your car and pouring diet coke in the gas tank and expecting it to run. There are rules as to what makes a car go and you can't change the rules just because diet coke was all you had in the house.
Your relationship with your body is a give and take. The more you give to your body, treat it well, listen to its needs, the more it has to give back to you. It will give you the vibrancy to truly feast on all of the best of what life has to offer.
Chocolate mousse included.
"If you don't want to do something, don't do it. If you REALLY don't want to do it, do it twice."
-my yoga teacher
I REALLY don't want to clean my apartment.
So, I'm going to do it twice.
Metaphorically speaking.
I'm going to clean with gusto.
I'm going to clean with verve.
I'm going to clean with all green cleaning products.
Check out Kristen's list of ideas for cleaning green.
My favorite trick is baking soda and white vinegar.
It cheap:
A whole vat of vinegar is about $1, same for baking soda.
It is easy:
Sprinkle baking soda all over the affected area.
Pour white vinegar on top.
Scrub.
It is fun (relatively speaking):
When you pour the vinegar on top, the baking soda bubbles over and makes a whooshing sound.
Does bleach do that?
I don't think so.
As for store brand green cleaners, I really like the Method brand and Seventh Generation.
Both are sold at Target and Whole Foods.
photo courtesy of Kristen's Raw
en tea/ truffle addiction...
Hmmm, what's that you ask? Where have I been?
Well, I have been quitting coffee.
"Why?!?!" you ask....
Well, I seem to remember, after suffering through an eight hour mind crushing migraine, a 2am promise, presumably made by me, that if I made it through the night I would quit coffee.
And so I did.
But apparently every thought I've had for the past ten years has been powered by coffee.
The only thoughts that I seem to have organically are:
"Robe."
"Bed."
"Pillow."
I couldn't write a blog! I couldn't put on shoes!
I truly don't understand why there is not a picturesque, beachfront clinic you can check into while quitting coffee.
People should cook for you. And massage you with scented oils. And tell you everything is going to be okay.
No one should be expected to function in polite society while quitting coffee. But they are, and so here I sit, sipping my hot water with lemon, "ready" to start my day.
Ugh.
Robe.
Bed.
Pillow.
please.
For anyone who may be feeling a little...shall we say...full after all the Thanksgiving revelry, here's an easy detox menu to get things back in balance.
I wrote this out last night for my friend who requested a gluten-free detox, but this menu also works great for anyone interested in giving their digestive system a bit of a rest.***
The No's:
No Gluten
No Sugar
No Dairy
No Soy
No starches (rice, potato, pasta) eaten with protein (eggs, fish, meats)
Fruit eaten only with other fruit and, preferably, only in the morning.
No alcohol. (Just for 1 week.)
Breakfast:
-1 cup berries, 1apple, 1 banana (all organic) eaten throughout the morning
or
-Smoothie made with (again...all organic) blueberries, banana, unsweetened hemp milk and chia seeds. (You can use 1 tblsp. raw organic agave to sweeten if you like.)
Lunch:
-Salad with unlimited veggies, 1 whole avocado and 2 organic hardboiled eggs
or
-Salad with unlimited veggies, 1 whole avocado and a handful of walnuts
To make salad dressing whisk together:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar,
1 tablespoon dijon mustard.
Dinner:
-Sauteed vegetables with organic sweet potato
or
-Vegan soup with organic sweet potato
or
-Wild salmon with sauteed vegetables
or
-Gluten free pasta with vegetables (The "I'm friggin' starving and all I want is pasta" Pasta is great option)
Snacks:
-organic baby carrots and/or organic celery with salsa and/or guacamole
-organic popcorn
-organic nuts (Walnuts are great! Trader Joe's makes an Omega 3 cranberry/walnut trail mix that come in individual packets. They are great for taking on the go.)
-Lara Bars (all kinds except those with peanuts)
-organic vegetable juice
-celery with almond butter
-veggies and hummus
-organic tortilla chips with salsa and/or guacamole
Dessert:
-Living Harvest Tempt Brand Hempt ice cream (sold at Whole Foods)
-1 square Dark chocolate
Everyday:
-3 liters of water
-1 cup of green tea
-1 GT's Organic Raw Kombucha Tea
-1 GoodBelly pro-biotic before bed (sold at Whole Foods. I like the blueberry one.)
-1/2 hour cardio (if you feel like strength training, also, great, but at least try to get the cardio in.)
***We all know that I am simply an amateur nutritionist. All of my nutritional advice is just my little ole opinion. ALWAYS consult your doctor before undertaking any new program.
