How I Fell Madly in Love in January.. with Myself.

Happy Valentine’s Day, guys.  Oh yeah, don’t worry, I’m not a fan either.  

Okay okay, it’s nice to tell people you love them and give out snoopy valentines and eat a bunch of garbage and get dressed up, but I can do (and do do) all that stuff whenever I want, I certainly don’t need a reserved table or date on a calendar to tell me when.  You know what I think would be a much better holiday?  

A day set aside to just love all up on yourself.  

All damn day.  Buy yourself chocolate almonds with salt on em'.  Call out of work.  Make an epic four course dinner.  Savor every delicious morsel and your ability to create such an event.  

This year, while I want to show love to everyone in my life I wanna go ahead and say it: I deserve all my attention.  In the past month I made some huge progress and fell back in love with my body.  I’ve been doing some intense listening to what it really flourishes and blooms on and also what it shrinks (expands) and withers on.  I’m eating intuitively and moving when and how I want to.  No more running miles and feeling like i’m going to die just because it “gets my heart rate up quickly and keeps it there”.  Running is horrible.  I hate it and always have.  This month, I’ve listened to my pop hits and pounded out 9 miles in antarctica on the bike without even noticing.  If I want a brownie I have a bite and take it from there.  Most of the time I’m so in tune with myself that I right away recognize 1- its too sweet and 2- it makes me feel a little like crap.  Does this happen overnight?  Cha, right.  This is journaling, habit changing, heavy introspection and mammoth doses of get realness from some amazing mentors and most importantly; myself.  

The best part about all of this?  Other than eating what I want and not feeling guilty, pushing myself at my fitness but never doing anything that’s not fun and accidentally dropping 20lbs in a month?  I’m swimming in self confidence.  Seriously.  It’s oozing from my pores.  Sometimes I’ll be leaving the gym, sweaty, unmakeup’d, spandex’d out and catch a glimpse of myself in that locker room and can’t help but take a selfie.  No kinda shame.  My body works HAM for me every day and I want to repay it.  I want to feed it delicious, organic, heavenly earth goodies that make me feel strong and clear minded.  I want to spring for a haircut or a manicure every now and then because it makes me feel glamorous.  I wanna drown myself in gold jewelry some days and skip the gym and roll around in bed.  ‘Cause, me.  The time you dedicate to your self care will circle back and improve so many other parts of your life you won’t even notice it until you’re just knee deep in sickening positivity.  Yeah, that's right; sticky, sweet, ooey-gooey, bubbly butterfly happiness.  I SAID IT.

How are you gonna show yourself some love this February 14th, or any day of this month?  What would life look like if you had a reserved amount of time just for celebrating you?

5 Tips for Conquering Your Sugar Addiction

I've got a monkey on my back.  He's mean and shakey, groggy and mood-swingy... his name is Sugar.

I'm not one for "cleanses".  They usually mean you have to drink green juice and/or maple syrup/cayenne/lemon water for a week and/or poop your brains out.  I mean, i'm all for a good poop but no thank you on the liquid dinners.  I'm someone who gets cranky when I don't eat, I'm someone who can't make decisions or even be nice to you if I haven't had my breakfast and don't even get me started about post-workout snacks.  I'm on a schedule, I need fuel and not the kind that comes out of a blender or through a straw, okay?

Enter October.  October is a lot of things: my birthday, my best friend's birthday, my anniversary (and annual weekend away) and hello, the most important event; Halloween!  All of these things mean cakes, pies, dinners, roadtrip snacks and tons of fun sized candy bars all up in my face.  Apparently I went a little overboard indulging myself this year and I've ended up all bloated belly acne face tight pants.  To remedy this, and my crazy addiction I've decided to go back to where I was happily floating somewhere around summer: unprocessed and unsugared.  More specifically, nothing that comes pre-packaged, nothing that has added sugars and nothing sweet basically that doesn't come out of the ground that way.  YEAH THAT COUNTS AS A CLEANSE.

So if you're in my boat, that ill-fitting bottoms boat, here are my top five tips for making it over the mountain that is sugar addiction.  

1- More sweet vegetables in your daily diet.  It's cold out, so luckily there is a bounty of delicious harvest veg at your fingertips.  Roasted sweet potatoes, squash and carrots all give you that zing of sweetness and actually keeps cravings at bay at other times of the day.

2- Add sweetness where it's unexpected.  I always have a box of golden raisins to add into super savory stuffings and sauteed bitter greens.  Sometimes, offsetting that salty or fatty taste right off the bat with some sweet keeps you from craving it when the meal is done.  Start your tomato sauce off with a batch of caramelized onions to counter balance the acidity or use apple cider as the liquid in your plain oatmeal rather than relying on processed sugars.

3 - Experiment with sweet spices.  Cinnamon not only helps in regulating blood sugar levels but it also adds a sweetness to your dish without any sugar at all.  Adding it to your breakfast is a no brainer but try it in savory dishes to give a little "hmm" to your humdrum.  Nutmeg, cardamom and cloves all also have a sweet note!

4- DATES!!!!  No, I don't mean the kind you have to shave your legs or wear spanx for, i mean the sticky little middle eastern staple food with the big, huge caramel-like taste and satisfying texture.  You can certainly pop these pretties right into your mouth from the package or use them to make raw food crusts when you pulse them in the food processor with say a walnut or almond friend.  My favorite preparation is to combine them with some nut butter, cinnamon and almonds and grind them up into a paste, roll them into bite sized balls and pop them when I'm feeling the craving hit around 11pm.  

5- Get plenty of rest and water.  Being sleep deprived or dehydrated are sometimes the only cause of a craving.  When you feel the rush for a sweet food give yourself a big luscious glass of water or re-evaluate your sleep from the night before.  If your body isn't getting what it needs it will always look for the quickest and most cherished form of comfort, which unfortunately for most of us is anything but a nap or 20oz of poland spring.

Good luck, guys!  See you on the other side!

when your sinuses betray you.

I've had sinus infections for as long as I can remember.  It always starts the same way; the seasons change, something makes me sneeze uncontrollably for an entire day and the next morning I wake up with blurry vision and a head seemingly the weight of a friggin mountain.  Despite my attempts at regulating my diet (low gluten/corn, no dairy, no artificial sugars) I am still blessed every year with some kind of sneezy allergy that doesn't quit.  Most of the time I can head it off with a neti pot cleansing or just my amazing immune system but sometimes I'm not careful and it sneaks up on me.  Here are my tried and true strategies for minimizing symptoms, speeding up recovery and eliminating the dreaded anti-biotic.

#1 Neti the crap out of it.  I used to (re:still do) hate doing this.  It's uncomfortable, it's hard to get the hang of and it definitely is a pain in the ass to travel with.  However, if you're a sinus sufferer, this is the only thing you're definitely NOT doing.  Get it.  Boil the water before you do it (let it cool, obv) and mix in an anti-microbial like grapefruit seed extract.  Oh, you didn't know about that?  Yeah, talk about a powerful natural remedy.  This is your anti-biotic.  If you don't own a neti or don't want to, they do make a variety of nasal sprays with GSE in them.  Get one!

#2 Apple cider vinegar.  You already know it cures heart burn and an assortment of gut issues.  But this thins out the mucous currently occupying and throbbing in between your eyes and let's you expel it much easier.  This sounds disgusting, but you know you wanna expel.  You wanna expel forever.  Make a tonic; two tablespoons vinegar to a cup of water.  Chug it 2-3 times a day.

#3 Watch that diet.  No dairy, no sugar, big time vitamin rich foods.  Don't eat anything that can encourage the mucous, aka put down the pudding.  Load up on your bromelin, vitamin A, C and K aka get on dem GREENS.

Here's to your health, and more importantly, here's to being able to see and hear clearly all season long without the mucous monkey on your back.  Ewwww, mucous monkey.

On holidays.

I'm sure the holidays are rough on a lot of people.  The weather getting cooler, the days getting shorter, waking up when it's dark out - these are all shitty.  Maybe it's lack of vitamin D, maybe it's nostalgia and loss, but this time of year is when I start to feel like I'm a little bit on slow motion.

It starts with me not wanting to get out of bed.  I know that sounds like everyone, right?  Nope, to know me at all is to know I am an early and happy riser.  I love to be up with the sun, getting everything done and multitasking my entire life.  Lately, I'm dragging, I'm sighing I'm even inventing ways to get out of everything I have planned that day to secretly crawl back into bed for another six to eight.  

Then the crying.  Sitting in my car for extra 10 minutes because a sad thought or panic crossed my mind.  Not putting any eye makeup on in the morning because I've already had two welled up moments and I'm still in my pajamas.  Remembering my family or friends who have passed around this time and thinking how unfair it is our time together was too short.  Freaking out about my husband not being home on time and exaggerating some scenario where he's trapped under a subway platform sleeping or something ridiculous.   

It's overwhelming.  And then, I remember, I have to see a large portion of my family soon.  All at once.  And then it's overwhelming times eleven.  How do I cope?

I cook - I cook everything I want, I dive into new techniques and recipes and spices.  I experiment with a little and a lot.  I fall so deep into it that I can't remember anything else.  I have this huge, open kitchen and the possibilities are endless.

I organize my cupboards, my closets, my laundry room, my dressers.  I give everything the place it needs, I sprinkle little bouquets of lavender around them.  I open them one more time to pat myself on the back about it.

I exercise my body and my brain.  I run until I'm sweaty and I don't think I can go anymore.  After that I find the heaviest weights I can manage and I lift them over my head.  I squat, I stretch, I move so much and feel so amazing I can't think of anything else except the sheer gratitude that I am able to perform.  

I meditate.  I take yoga.  I focus on my gratitude and I hone in on my goals and directions for a little while, to bring my focus back.  This season won't get me this time.  I'm prepared.

On getting there.

If you know me at all, you know weight and body image has been a lifelong struggle for me.  This is partially from my love of food (no shame there) and probably also from misplaced anxieties and misguided strategies on reward and punishment regarding food that i picked up somewhere along the way.

As a kid, I was in and out of big diet programs by age 11.  I've been 400lbs at my biggest, 180 at my smallest, and everywhere in between as an adult.  Starting a program has never been hard for me, but sticking to and finishing always seems to be the issue.  This year has been a transformative one for me.  I changed my lifestyle completely and have really begun to examine my methods and open up about my secrets.  I changed everything in the spring and am continuing for what i'd like to say is forever.  I'm ignoring numbers on a scale and sizes in a dress and focusing on pushing myself to do everything I want to and never thought possible.  If every day I can redefine a limit or a maximum, I'm happy and I'm satiated.

I'm not dieting, I'm not starving and I'm not binging.  I'm thinking about how food affects my body and my moods.  I'm challenging myself every day doing things with my body I never thought possible; running, weight lifting, yoga, and even big, scary grown up squats and deadlifts.  I've discovered I am STRONG.  I am powerful and I am remaining honest and open about my limits.  I want to work with anyone who has seen the inside of this issue and wants to come on out.  I want to give back what my favorite teachers have given me.

If you want to come along for the ride, or need someone to help you out, don't hesitate to reach out.  Next spring, I'll graduate and be able to reach out to more people and have nailed down a six-month program to help guide potential clients and friends to their ideal health.  For now, I'm very open to talking and giving and advice I have from my journey thus far.

Candy minus cavity

Is this happening where you are?  Summer is filled with some of the most exciting harvests of fruits and veggies.  One of my absolute favorites is the first, tiny candy-sweet strawberries in June.  These little treasures are from Harbes Farm in eastern Long Island. We made the trek specifically for the sweet little treats and even after loading up 2 quarts we had them just about finished at the end of our drive back to the city!  I hope you're all basking in the yummy seasonal treats coming our way, who knows, maybe I'll have a recipe or two for you if I can manage to stop eating the ingredients.  (Don't get your hopes up.)