Crazy Sexy Diet Cleanse Take 2: Day 11

Hey everyone! I hope that everyone is finding their post holiday transition back to the grind to be smooth. At least it's only a 4 day week right? Well no not really because I have a wedding on Saturday but it's all good :) I'm getting used to the one day off a week deal again. I've gone way longer with no breaks so I make sure to enjoy every minute of my free time.

Today started off really well! I woke up and got my butt to the gym for some more running. I did the same 2 miles of intervals but switched it up a bit and shaved a minute off my time. It's still a pretty slow time but my motto for this training is "baby steps" ;) Not only did I improve my time but I felt so much better doing it. My breathing wasn't as labored, my legs weren't as sore and it seemed to be just a bit easier. And I am also comforted in knowing that it'll get easier every day. Progress people! After the intervals on the treadmill I hopped on the arc trainer and did 15 minutes just as a cool down.

Something I've come to realize in this cleanse is that my raw:cooked ratio is easiest for me to maintain when I just do one cooked meal and then the rest of my food for the day raw. I have a hard to doing a some cooked food and a big salad all in one meal. I prefer to eat a big salad pretty much every day for one meal and then just cook my other meal (breakfast is pretty much always a smoothie and when it's not, it's raw anyway). And my cooked meal tends to have a bunch of raw elements in it anyway so I'm definitely maintaining my mostly raw goals :) It'll be even easier once I get my dehydrator up and running! Of course today my cooked meal is all cooked because I said that but you know what I mean!

Here's what I ate today!

I tried to be mindful of using my breakfast to aid in post workout recovery so I chose my smoothie ingredients carefully. I used banana for the electrolyte replacement, frozen pineapple because it's an amazing anti-inflammatory, Vega protein powder and a big ol' handful of spinach because greens are great! It was very sweet so I only got through about 3/4 of it but it was good and hopefully it'll help my recovery :)

Late morning I snacked on some of my yummy strawberries.

Lunch was SOOOOO good! I made a veggie packed quesadilla with a little Daiya (1/8 cup) and a little avocado. I packed it full of spinach, onions and a portobello mushroom. It was so delicious and filling. The only thing that bummed me out was that it got really messy. Everything was falling out, I think because of the Daiya but I just shoved it all back in and continued on ;) I served it with a little roasted cauliflower. I am SO FULL! Oh and this is Kris Carr approved which is so awesome! She has a quesadilla recipe in her book, I just switched up the veggies.

For an afternoon snack I am going to have one of my cookies from One Lucky Duck! I forgot about these! After I eat this one I still have 4 left! Definitely making them last :) I still have some of those crackers too actually...

For dinner is a big raw salad! This one has spinach, carrots, cucumber, sun dried tomato and I mixed it up and threw in some raw broccoli! I have a hard time with raw broccoli but I figured chopped up small in a salad won't be too bad and it's always good to throw in a little extra green! Oh, and notice the spinach in every meal today ;)

That's all for today! I have to work until 9 tonight and I can't wait to get home and relax. I feel like I spent all of my spare time this morning doing laundry and prepping meals so it is definitely time to relax when I get home tonight.

I hope you are all well! I also just wanted to thank you all so much for all of your support and positivity you've thrown my way through this entire journey of me being sick and trying to improve my physical and emotional health. I'm so lucky to have "met" all of you and it comforts me to know you have my back! So thank you all so much!

Crazy Sexy Diet Cleanse Take 2: Day 1

Hey everyone! As you know I've been feeling like shit over the past few days. Headaches, stuffiness, complete exhaustion, extreme flare up of my shoulder and now a major stiff neck. This all made me start to do a little evaluation of what may be causing the problem and I have a feeling processed foods may be part of the problem. I've been a bit lazy lately and have been eating a bit more processed than usual and I think my body may be feeling the effects. I decided that I was going to try the 21 day cleanse in Crazy Sexy Diet again. I was going to wait until Monday to start it but I felt so crappy last night that I decided not to wait and to start today.

I was a bit unprepared for it and didn't have meals planned so I had to wing it today. I think I did ok though!

For breakfast I had a blueberry and banana smoothie with Vega (greens, probiotics and omegas!) and a small handful of spinach. I loaded up on spinach today so I can add more to my next smoothies :)

Watermelon and strawberries for snack.

Big raw plate for lunch! Perfectly ripe mashed avocado, celery, carrot, grape tomatoes and some of the raw cheese-y quackers from One Lucky Duck. It was so good! The crackers were great. They were super savory though so you can only eat a few at a time.

For an afternoon snack I had some Roasted Seaweed. So obsessed with this stuff.

For dinner I had a zucchini boat and a big serving of salad. I got the idea for the zucchini boat on Pinterest and just made a few changes. This is just a half of a zucchini with the seeds scooped out, filled with a few tablespoons of organic, all natural sauce and topped with 1/8 cup of Daiya. Soooooo good!

So overall, a really good clean day of delicious food. The Daiya was the only processed bit of it and I only used a teeny bit (and it's Kris Carr approved!) so overall not bad :) I'm going to make another batch of VaVaBars either tomorrow or Monday and I have a few Larabars to hold me over if necessary. I'm really glad I decided to start it. I don't know if it's mind over matter but I already feel my energy improving.

Tomorrow I am probably going to go to a street fair in the city with the usual crew. I'll do my best to document what I end up eating. Most likely a salad will appear haha :) Wait until you see my breakfast! My goal is to do a green smoothie 5 days a week and a healthy, clean meal the other 2. Tomorrow is going to be so good!

Hope you all have a great night! The Strikeforce fights are on Showtime tonight so I'll be watching that and rooting for Gilbert Melendez! Happy Saturday!

Things Are Changing!

Hey everyone! I hope you are all well. So, as of last night I'm officially signed up for Tough Mudder.

See, I got my badge and all ;) I won't lie, I had a mini panic attack when I clicked the submit button. I'm so not ready for this. But I'm determined to be ready for it in 160 days. That means more running, more strength training and eating for fuel. I am planning on starting off running on the rebounder, going to the treadmill, then hitting the streets and adding hills. For strength training I need to definitely just strengthen everywhere, but especially by upper body and shoulders. I have Brendan Brazier's book Thrive which I plan to read again this weekend so I can try and figure out how to properly fuel my body for increased training. I didn't waste any time and started with a 90 minute workout this morning :)

For my workout I did two routines from this Beach Babe DVD from the ladies at Tone It Up. I love their workouts so decided to get the DVD and definitely have not been disappointed! These workouts are tough!! I did the 20 minute HIIT the Beach workout (high intensity interval training workout) and the 40 minute Bikini Sculpt workout (full body toning) followed by 30 minutes of running on my rebounder. It was really tough on my shoulder and I'm really uncomfortable now so I'll have to figure out how to adjust but it felt good to get a great workout in to start the day!

I hydrated myself during the workout with this Vita Coco pineapple coconut water. This is the only brand of coconut water that I like so I grabbed a few when they were on sale.

After my workout I had a Blueberry Muffin Smoothie with protein powder.

My late morning snack was some of the best watermelon I've had in a long time! So sweet, yum!

For lunch I enjoyed some unfried rice. This one has peas and carrots, 1/2 cup brown rice, zucchini, onions and tofu. It is simply seasoned with a little tamari. It is SO delicious. It's even better than the first one I made because I got to eat it fresh which is always better than having to bring it with me and eat it room temp. So good!

My afternoon snack will be one of the raw cookies I got from One Lucky Duck! Can't wait to try this!

For dinner I'm going to pick up a chopped salad. I have VERY limited produce in my fridge, not even enough for a salad and can't get to the store until Thursday so I'm scraping things together until then. I'm planning on having some greens, carrots, cucumber, portobello mushrooms, sundried tomato and chickpeas in the salad :)

Working til nine tonight and I'm sure I'll be exhausted when I get home. I hope that you all have a great day today! 

Mother's Day and One Lucky Duck!

Hey everyone! Happy Mother's Day! I hope that you are all having a lovely day with your kids (fur or human) and/or your mothers! We've had a great day so far!

We woke up early and headed into the city to go walk around Chelsea Market for a bit. I was really excited about it because I was finally going to be able to try some treats from One Lucky Duck! It was the usual crew: me, my mom, my brother, my sister in law and Delilah. My dad works on Sundays so he couldn't come but we'll have dinner together.

Everyone else enjoyed all of the bakeries and bread shops and whatnot but my radar was on One Lucky Duck. I found it and headed right over. It was so hard to decide what to get! I snapped a few photos on my phone. They didn't come out great but I figured I'd show you anyway.

The fridge full of raw goodies including juices, salads, cheese, raw cookies and sweets (mallomars! and fig bars, etc.) and toppings (like rawmesan cheese).

Wall of treats including crackers, cookies, macaroons, rawtella, raw nut butters, cocoa nibs, cacao powder, chia seeds, books, oils and so much more. It was so hard to decide!

I started off my day with the Banana Nut smoothie which has banana, cashew milk, vanilla and cinnamon. It was so delicious! I definitely can't wait to try another smoothie from them.

I also got these cuties! They are Orange Chocolate Pecan cookies. Don't they sound delicious?! I can't wait to try them... and eventually when I get a dehydrator try and recreate them :) There are 6 cookies in there so they will last a while!

I also got the cheese-y quackers. I splurged a bit but I figured that I rarely get to enjoy treats like this since I'm rarely in the city, I figured it was worth it. Plus I worked hard yesterday, I deserve it ;)

After we left the city we re-grouped at my brother's house and went for a late brunch sitting. I enjoyed lots of fruit and some potatoes, some green tea and lots of water. It was very good. Sorry no pic but I felt weird. I felt weird at One Lucky Duck too but I figured they were more used to it!

Check out Delilah rocking Grandma's funky shades. I love that dress she's wearing. She is too cute. She has so much energy!

I hope you all had/are having a really lovely Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day to everyone and especially my amazing mom. She is the best :)

Happy Hump Day!

Hey everyone! I can't believe how absolutely gorgeous the weather has been this week and it makes me so happy for the spring to come. I love spring and fall weather where it isn't too hot or too cold. The warmer weather is also making me really excited for the summer because I know I'll really be able to fully embrace the raw lifestyle in the heat of the summer :)

I had a really great day at work yesterday. It flew by so fast, we did 25 minutes of yoga and we had the breeze flowing through the studio through open doors. I may not have been enjoying the weather outside but at least I got to feel the beautiful warm air at work. Hopefully today will be more of the same, it'll make a 10 hour day go much faster!

I have my food all ready to bring with me today. I still have to make my smoothie so I'm going to apologize in advance but I did use a recycled photo. I know it is frowned upon but it will literally be the same thing and I think that a recycled pic is better than no pic! So let's check it out!

For breakfast I will make a Blueberry Muffin Smoothie. One of my new favorites, it's so good but is so good for you too!

For lunch I'm finally going to finish up this Thai food. It is kind of sad looking now but I just can't throw food out, especially when I paid more than I should have for it. 

So something I've started to do is bookmark Raw food restaurant menus with the intention of recreating items that look great to me. I am not a fan of going to to restaurants on a more than occasional basis. It's partially because I don't like spending money on it and partially because I just don't like going out in general, I prefer to be at home. It's just how I've always been. Anyway, I've seen some amazing items on raw menus that look like they can be easily recreated at home so I've started a collection and I'm going to try to mow through them this summer and try as many new things as I possibly can! They will mostly be smoothies and salads but there will be some other things in there too. Anyway, since it is going to be 70 degrees today(!!!) and since I'm bored of my usual chopped salad I decided to tackle my first salad, one I've been wanted to try for a long time.

This is my version of the S&M salad from One Lucky Duck! I have wanted to try it for so long but never had the ingredients. I'm still missing some and had to substitute some but it is close enough now! The menu describes it as "greens, avocado, hemp seeds, dulse, rosemary crackers, pumpkinseed lemon dressing." Mine has greens, avocado, hemp seeds, crumbled nori sheets and balsamic vinaigrette. I don't have dulse (yet) but I did have the nori sheets I got from Trader Joe's so I thought it would be an appropriate substitute! It's not 100% raw because the nori is toasted but I'm ok with that. I don't have rosemary crackers or the fancy vinaigrette but I like balsamic vinaigrette anyway. I'm so excited to eat this! Not bad for my first recreation!

Oh and I will be snacking on some of that awesome fruit salad from yesterday for sure!

OK time to finish getting ready for my long day. I hope you are all enjoying some warm weather and soaking up some Vitamin D today.