Last May Neil and I did a short detox where we avoided caffeine, alcohol and processed sugars. Although challenging at first in the end it felt great to take a break and let my body rest. As much as I love coffee and a really nice microbrew or glass of red I’ve decided that I want to do a pre-Christmas detox. I also think it pairs well with the 30 Days of Yoga Challenge.
So from now until Christmas I’m going on a caffeine and alcohol detox. I know it’s going to be a challenge with the days getting colder but instead of turning to a nice warm cup of coffee I’ll be turning to a nice decaf tea. As for the alcohol not as big of a challenge but I’ll just have to wait to try Neil’s newest home brew until Christmas.
Tips to Reduce Coffee
To slightly reduce the depleting effects of coffee add a bit of ginger, cardamom and a few grains of salt to your coffee.
Try half herbal coffee such as Teecino and half regular coffee. Slowly increasing ration of herbal until you make the switch. Alternatively try half regular and half decaf and use the same method.
Switch to teas such as green tea and yerba mate both of which boost energy but without the negative side effects associated with coffee.
Are you a coffee drinker? Have you ever tried to eliminate or reduce your coffee intake?
I hope that everyone racing this weekend has a wonderful time and good luck! I’m not racing this weekend but I did get a nice run in yesterday afternoon and I have a 5-Miler on the schedule for tomorrow. I also finally got myself back to the yoga studio yesterday for a wonderful 60 minute community class. I am loving the 30 Days of Yoga and have been finding it so relaxing and calming. I might just have to do 60 days (we’ll see).
After my run and yoga class Neil and I decided to take ourselves out for a dinner at one of our favorite restaurants A Single Pebble. Honestly some of the best Chinese food that I’ve ever had and always great service. Last night I started with a seltzer, decided I needed to hydrate after all of my activities.
For dinner we had the scallion pancakes, general chou’s mock chicken (requested vegan), dry fried green beans (requested vegan) and double garlic broccoli.
Everything was delicious and we had tons of leftovers, which we ate for breakfast, whoops!
Now we’re off to the farmers market and to run a few errands. Enjoy your Saturday!
Last night Neil and I headed to the gym after work to get in a cardio session in before heading home for a little yoga and dinner. I was already planning on making red curry vegetables and tempeh for dinner so I was delighted to see a box from Village Harvest Rice sitting on my doorstep. Neil and I anxiously opened the box to find a variety of frozen whole grains just waiting for us to heat them up. Since I was already making curry for dinner and planning on making a grain to go with I was excited to try one of the varieties out. I let Neil choose and he decided on the red quinoa and brown rice blend. All I had to do was cook my curry and heat the grains up on the stove for 3-4 minutes. Simple and quick. I was as little weary about whether the grains would hold up or if they would be mushy like other heat and eat grains I had tried before.
Conclusion: The grains were perfect. They were not over cooked, not mushy and they held up really well with the curry sauce. I am very impressed! This is just the thing I need to have in my house for busy nights since grains always take the longest to cook.
Since we were pretty hungry last night we didn’t have enough for leftovers so I made beans, greens and grains this morning for our lunches. I decided to try the wheatberry and barley blend to serve along with my stir fry of black beans, spinach, zucchini and peppers. I snuck a few bites and I’m excited for lunch to come.
I think lunch will be the perfect fuel for my run this afternoon. Then it’s off to yoga and out for a drink with the Hubz.
November 1st marks the official (acceptable) start to the Holiday’s in our house and I have been soaking up the holiday music already. I have been listening to the new She & Him holiday album on repeat lately but this morning I decided to put on my favorite album: Christmas with the Rat Pack. I think I was born in the wrong decade. Evidence:
My celebrity crush:
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My top 5 all time favorite movies:
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I really wish we could bring the 50’s and 60’s back, at least the style, the cars, the music and the film. Something so much classier and intriguing about that time period than today.
Do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong decade?
Good Morning! Neil and I had a crazy busy afternoon yesterday running errands and then spending a little quality time together over a drink and dinner. Remember our elliptical? Well about 6 months ago it stopped working. KAPUT! Just like that. After having it for just over a year, the display decided to just stop working. Well, we finally got around to contacting Costco about what they suggest we should do and they told us to return it. We were shocked at first, could it really be that easy? Just take it apart, drive it over and we’ll give you your money back? We asked my dad to help us move it in his truck and we returned it last night and received cash back for our faulty elliptical. I am very impressed with Costco’s return policy and their service. How easy was that?
We ended up picking up a few goodies on our way out including this giant 4lb bag of organic quinoa (swoon).
Following our Costco trip we took my dad out for a “thank you beer” and then we both headed on our way. Since it was getting late and Neil and I hadn’t spent much time together over the past few days we decided to have a spontaneous date night at El Gato Cantina where we dined on delicious Mexican food and I caught Neil up on Gossip Girl.
A few weeks ago I e-mailed El Gato Cantina to inquire about vegan options and this was the response from their chef:
“So, for our vegan options, we have the vegan taco(sheffield seitan marinated in a sweet and spicy ancho chilie sauce), veggie tamales (the veggies in the tamales changes due to seasonality, as of right now they are sweet corn, pablano peppers and tomato), guacamole and chips, all 4 of our salsas, black beans, all of our meat dishes can be subbed out for seitan, and we have two veggie tacos that can easily be made vegan sans the cheese.”
Just FYI the rice is not vegan but they will happily double up your order of black beans which are amazing. The staff is also very knowledgeable about which options are vegan. Last night I had my heart set on the seitan tacos but just before we ordered, our waiter informed us that they were all out of the seitan. WAH! Well I decided to try the black bean tostada with no cheese and extra beans and it was amazing. Neil also ordered the tostada and added a veggie tamale which was so good.
After a busy afternoon and a late night (for us) we headed home to do our yoga session for 30 Days of Yoga. Probably wasn’t the greatest idea, since I was filled to the brim with Mexican food, but a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.
I am now off to get ready to conquer the day which will involve work, organizing my elliptical free office, running and yoga.
I know that lately there have been a lack of recipes up on the blog but that is going to be changing soon. I am back in the kitchen working on a variety of new recipes and will soon be posting a few of them here. The others I am working on for another project and a possible third e-book. Here is a sneak peak:
Q: What recipes would you like to see? Any special ingredients you’d like recipes for?
I am thrilled by how many of you are participating in this months yoga challenge. This month you will challenge your body and mind by taking on a task that many of you have never done before. I know this is going to be a challenge for me but I am already carving time out in my busy schedule for yoga to make sure that I succeed.
Also there is still time to sign up! Today marks the start so if you can get in a 20-25 minute session today you can still participate. Just sign up here.
