Hi, I’m Alison, a Physical and Massage Therapist, and I write about healthy living, wellness and rehabilitation over at Berry Happy Bodies. I want to thank Lindsay for letting me guest post today! Lindsay has recently written about her CSA box and using her greens. My husband and I subscribe to one as well. One solution I came up with to utilize all the leafy greens before they take a turn is to make smoothies. When I add a frozen banana it actually satisfies my sweet tooth as well. Win! Here is one of my favorite summer smoothie recipes.
Green Monster Smoothie
Serves 2
Ingredients
1 frozen banana
½ cup chopped pineapple
1 Tsp shredded coconut
2 dates without pit***
½ cup spinach or other leafy green
1 cup coconut milk
1 scoop vanilla protein powder (Vega is good for vegans)
¼ Tsp coconut extract
¼ Tsp coconut extract
Stevia to taste
6-8 ice cubes
Place in a blender and whirl away.
*** I usually soak my dates overnight in water. But, I have made this without the presoak, the dates are just not as sweet.
Ricki Heller, the creator of Diet, Dessert and Dogs, is an educator, writer, cookbook author, natural nutritionist and lover of all things canine. She studied natural nutrition at The Canadian School of Natural Nutrition and is currently a college teacher who works as a part-time cooking class instructor/chef and a part-time freelance writer.
I have asked Ricki to contribute a guest post on Candida Related Complex aka Candida, a condition that arises when someone has an overgrowth of yeast (usually candida albicans) in the body. Ricki has been sharing her personal struggle on her blog since March 2009 and today on my health coaching blog she is giving you the opportunity to learn more about candida, the effects it has on the body and what you can do about it. She also has included a anti-candida (ACD) friendly recipe, which I have included below, for you to try and trust me her recipes are a must try, she is an amazing chef (source).
Here’s an ACD-friendly bread recipe that’s perfect for breakfast or brunch. For a savory loaf (from which you can make sandwiches), omit the nuts and use only 4-10 drops of liquid stevia.
1/4 tsp (1 ml) pure stevia powder or liquid, to your taste
1/3 cup (40 g) lightly toasted walnut pieces or chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Lightly grease a regular loaf pan, or line with parchment paper.
Place the psyllium husks, apple cider vinegar, vanilla and almond butter in a glass measuring cup. Add enough milk to reach the 1-1/2 cup (360 ml) mark. Using a small whisk or fork, whisk everything together until the almond butter is well dissolved in the liquid and no lumps remain. Set aside while you measure the dry ingredients.
In a large bowl, sift together all remaining ingredients except for the walnuts. Whisk well to distribute all the ingredients evenly. Add the walnuts.
Whisk the liquid again to ensure that it’s smooth and everything is incorporated, then pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients and stir just to combine (do not overmix!). Turn the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
Bake in preheated oven for 65-75 minutes, rotating the pan about halfway through, until the bread is well browned on the bottom and sides, and the top springs back when touched lightly (there will be a fairly thick crust by this time, but it should still spring back). A knife inserted in the center should come out moist but clean.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pan allow to cool completely before slicing. The bread is very moist on the first day and dries a bit by the second. Store, tightly wrapped, in the refrigerator up to 3 days, or freeze for later. Makes one medium loaf, or 8-10 slices.
Thank you Ricki for this wonderful recipe and her informative guest post over on my health coaching blog! If you would like to learn more about Ricki head over to her blog Diet, Dessert and Dogs and check out her amazing recipes. I was a tester for her Desserts Without Compromise book and it includes so many amazing recipes perfect for those looking for ACD friendly recipes and for those who just love desserts.
I know I have been a little bit absent lately but I’ve been working hard on launching Running With Tongs and 12 Days of Giveaways both of which launch on December 1st. So until then head over to my recent guest posts:
Hi everyone, I hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving! I’m Erin, the blogger over at Creative Soul in Motion! I am so excited to be guest posting for Cook. Vegan. Lover. and chatting with all of you about my wonderful experience with the 30 Days of Yoga Challenge.
I started practicing yoga a few years ago. At the time I was drowning in work and so stressed I was having problems sleeping and focusing. After months of literally holding my breath I started looking for ways to open up and breathe deeper. That’s when I found yoga.
Since then yoga has become part of my life, part of my entire being.
Even though I’ve been practicing for a few years now I have never had a daily practice. It’s always been a 3 – 4 day a week routine that came and went depending on my schedule and my mood that day. Having a bad day? Do yoga! Have time to make it to class? Great. But it’s never been something I’ve dedicated time to every single day. Until Lindsay posted the 30 Day Yoga Challenge.
At first when I read about the challenge I thought, “Oh, I don’t need to do that. I practice yoga already.” A few days later though the idea of signing up for the challenge called to me and I honestly figured there was no harm. I mean, I already signed up for the National Novel Writing Month for November which means I need to write 50,000 words in 30 days so why not balance it out by promising myself to dedicate 10 minutes to yoga everyday?
It seemed like a good plan: 2,000 words a day + 10 mins of yoga = a happy stress-free Erin!
For the last 24 days I have been writing like a crazy woman but finding peace and relaxation through my 10 minute yoga practice. Honestly, 10 minutes is the perfect amount of yoga for me – it’s enough time to get through a few sun salutations, focus on my breath and feel the stress and frustrations melt away.
Dedicating myself to at least 10 minutes of yoga everyday has…
Helped me find a new source of strength within myself
Given me the ability to slow down and focus on my breath
Helped me improve many of my poses and learn some new ones
Shown me how a daily practice can help me feel more calm throughout the day
Improved my general mood and attitude throughout the whole day
Led me to discover a new way of thinking about my day and schedule
Reminds me that I don’t have to rush around and life is better when you slow down
Now it’s Day 25 and I have to say that I’m SO happy I signed up for the challenge. It’s helped me adopt a daily yoga practice that makes my day so much better. I breathe easier and deeper, feel happier and calmer and live a more mindful life. And all it takes is 10 minutes (but more can be better).
So thank you Lindsay for providing me with the inspiration I needed to adopt a daily yoga practice!
And if you’d like to read more about my yoga practice and attempts at self-improvement come on over to my blog Creative Soul in Motion and say hello!
Hi everyone! I’m Heather and I blog about food & fitness at Better With Veggies. When Lindsay asked for guest posts about fitness a few weeks ago, I jumped at the chance to share my journey to Ironman.
If you’re not familiar with Ironman, it’s a long-distance triathlon consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run. Now before you say you could never do that, let me assure you that you could! It’s all about slowly working your way up to the distance. I firmly believe that anyone can do an Ironman, if they have the patience, dedication, and the will to train for it.
So how did I get here? It all started about a year and a half after college, after trying and failing to motivate myself to go to the gym regularly. I needed a goal – in my case a 5K – to keep me motivated. After 12 weeks of training, I completed my first 5K. Next, I slowly increased my running distances to a 10K, then a 1/2 marathon, then a marathon. I wasn’t fast, but races kept me moving and motivated! I also found that as I ran more, I slowly got a little faster.
After a few more marathons, I gave triathlons a try for more variety in my training. Over the course of 5 years, I tackled the Sprint, Olympic and Half Ironman distances – moving up slowly over time. I registered for Ironman Austria the night after watching my husband complete Ironman Germany, his first Ironman distance race.
Training for an Ironman is a big time commitment, but my goal was to have fun during training. I did a lot of my training with my husband and friends, joined a masters swimming group, and got up early for a lot of workouts! I’m not a morning person, but getting a workout out of the way before starting your day leaves time for a second workout or a little fun!
Race day was one of the most amazing experiences. I picked a scenic location to race my first Ironman – Klagenfurt, Austria. If you’re going to race for 10-17 hours, I think it should be in a beautiful place! My mental strategy for the race can be applied to any long distance event. I broke the day down into smaller sections, refusing to think too far ahead:
First, I went for a “little” swim. I knew I would be in the water for a while, so I just enjoyed the scenery with each breath. I knew the distances between each turn buoy and focused on swimming to the next one.
Next up, time for a bike ride. I broke each loop (there were two) into three sections based on the 3 climbs I had to tackle. I focused on making it up each climb and celebrated my progress. If I started to think ahead, I stopped and redirected my thoughts to something else. No thoughts of running allowed!
Finally, it’s time to run. I didn’t think of running a marathon, focused on one mile at a time. A trick I use on the run is to cheer on everyone around me, which shifts the focus off me and onto other people. For this race, I also tried to figure out what country everyone was from and how to cheer them on in their language. 🙂
Running down the finisher’s shoot is an incredible feeling! Can you see all the people in the picture below – all cheering for me like I’m a rockstar?!
Right in front of me at the finish line was a physically challenged athlete who did the entire race without his legs. He completed the swim with no kicking, hand cycled a challenging bike course, and then powered through the run course in a wheelchair. Simply amazing! As I said at the beginning – anyone can do an Ironman! You just need patience, dedication, and the will to train.
Patience: Don’t sign up for an Ironman tomorrow, if you haven’t already completed a half ironman. It can be done, but you’ll be so much happier if you have patience and work up to the distance over time.
Dedication: There is a lot of training, so you need to be dedicated and stick to your training schedule. You put in the time during training, so race day can be fun.
Will: You have to want it. You won’t have the drive or motivation to keep going when things get tough if you don’t want it. Until you really want it for you, it’s not time to register.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed my story! If you are interested in the much longer version, check out my Couch to Ironman series. I hope you’ll dream big and go after your goals!
Hi Cooks, Vegans, and Lovers! I’m Stacy and I blog about healthy homemade vegetarian food. Lindsay actually won my blog’s first giveaway, so imagine my surprise when we connected as classmates at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition! Through my coaching practice I help busy people overcome overwhelm and paralyzing perfectionism to take back control of their health and lives.
Lindsay has been insanely busy, so I was thrilled when she asked me to contribute a guest post. She needs time to address all aspects of her life (that’s why we’re holistic health coaches!).
That is why I want to talk about self-care. Self-care gets a bad rap as being selfish, indulgent, luxurious, and unnecessary. Not true.
If you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will. And if you’re not showing up for yourself, you can’t show up for others.
This lesson can be hard to learn. I am a lifelong perfectionist who believed the mantra, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” And I tried. The results were a crabby, critical, over-caffeinated, insomniac, and unhappy person.
No matter how much easier I made other peoples’ lives, all they did was cause more problems for me to solve. They were looking out for themselves, and I wasn’t looking out for myself – my fault, not theirs. I was worn down, resentful, and couldn’t do my job as well as I wanted. I was trying so hard to be perfect that I actually made more mistakes. Enter self-care.
What exactly is self-care? Self-care is any activity that recharges and nourishes you: exercise, meditation, massage, girls’ night, a book, or a bubble bath. You might have a whole weekend away, or just 5 minutes of peace and quiet. There is no right or wrong way to fit in self-care. You have to start where you are.
Feeling stressed? Think there’s no way you could possibly have enough time and energy to do this? Let’s start small.
Are you sitting down? Posture check! You should feel as if the top of your head is suspended from the ceiling by a string. Plant your feet on the ground. Feel where your body contacts your chair. Inhale deeply through your nose – your shoulders shouldn’t move, but your belly should expand. Hold the breath for 3-5 seconds and exhale fully through your mouth. Inhale again through your nose, hold it, and exhale through your mouth. One more time.
Ask yourself what you need with curiosity, not judgment. Quiet time alone, or in nature? Physical touch? Music, laughter, a cup of tea? How can you nourish that aspect of yourself? Give yourself permission to fulfill your own needs, and banish the expectation that anyone else will do it for you.
If what you really need is a bubble bath but you “don’t have time” because (for example) you have to make dinner for your partner, you resent your partner for not taking care of you AND preventing you from taking care of yourself. Ask your partner to contribute to the meal, or to pick up pizza so that you can at least take a hot shower with an aromatic body scrub for 10 minutes after work. Then you can really enjoy that time with your partner more, without resentment.
Now that you’ve chosen a method of self-care, here comes the hard part: put it in your schedule. Write it down. Make an appointment with yourself. And then show up for it. Start with 5 to 15 minutes and see how you feel.
Hi, I’m Alison, a Physical and Massage Therapist, and I write about healthy living, wellness and rehabilitation over at Berry Happy Bodies. I want to thank Lindsay for letting me guest post today! Lindsay has recently written about her CSA box and using her greens. My husband and I subscribe to one as well. One solution I came up with to utilize all the leafy greens before they take a turn is to make smoothies. When I add a frozen banana it actually satisfies my sweet tooth as well. Win! Here is one of my favorite summer smoothie recipes.
Ricki Heller, the creator of 
