Longevity on Oprah

I don't watch too much tv but last night I watched an Oprah show that caught my interest. The topic of the show was Life Extension. The first couple guest were people who were on the calorie restriction diet. They were on about 80% raw diet and consumed around 1900 calories for a man and 1600 for a woman. All the guest claimed that this diet have changed their lives. They had more energy, looked younger, haven't been sick for years and their life expectancy was greatly extended.

The doctor on the show, Dr. Oz explained that the way the calorie restriction diet work is that once our bodies have a calorie restriction, they start to work and use the energy more efficentlly therefore making our cells age slower. Of course, I'm sure that the major part of this diet is the raw part. I mean, I honestly doubt you'd be getting these benefits from eating burgers and fried food, even if you kept down the calorie intake.

Another guest on the show was 85 year old David Murdock, the owner and founder of Dole. Mr. Murdock swears by the fresh fruit juices he consumes daily. He can do 50 pushups and feels better than ever. You can check out the clips from Oprah's show here!

Now from Oprah's diet to my diet... I had a great day as far as staying raw and feeling good. Here's what I had today:

2 liters of water
1 pear, 1 banana, with some raw granola and raw walnuts (yummy yum..I cant emphasize enough how much I love this combo)
2 slices of sprouted bread with tomato hummus, tomatoes, radishes, and green onions
1 champagne mango (good, pretty much the same as a regular mango)
Couple handfuls of raw walnuts
another bottle of water

So I'm very happy with my food intake today. I felt great most of the day and not even really hungry. At one point in the day I started to feel like I was coming down with a cold but it went away. I ended my day with a half an hour walk on the treadmill and listened to the first 30 min of Steve Pavlina's new podcast. The podcast started of with some interesting points and I cant wait to finish listening to it tomorrow. Well nite nite everybody!

City Girl - Country Girl

In my life I had the pleasure of both living in the city and the suburbs... and I must say, I am definitely a city girl! Some people think that I'm crazy, they automatically bring up all the possible issues: the traffic, the pollution, the crime, over crowding... but for me the city makes me feel alive. When I'm living in the city I feel more alive... more alert. Why? Maybe because you do have to be more alert. You have to keep your eyes and ears opens so you don't get ran over by a crazy cab, or even mugged. But living there just makes me feel like I accomplish more, even when I'm driving in circles trying to find a parking spot it's like a challenging game. You have to find the spot, then somehow squeeze your car in and not to mention trying to undig yourself the next day during a crazy Chicago winter. As opposed to living in the burbs and pulling up on your driveway, pressing a button and pulling in to the garage. Easier? Yes! More convenient? Definitely? More fun? Not for me... I love the challenge of the city.. the parking hunting, the killer traffic, crazy people.... Oh the people, how I love people watching. All these goofy individuals, I love them all. I can sit and watch and wonder what their story is. I mean, I'm not gonna go into all the wonderfulness of living in my favorite city in the states...Chicago.





It makes me feel alive...it makes me happy! But there also is something to be said about the happiness of the suburban living. The peace and the quiet... but what draws me to it the most is the nature. The green trees, and the trails, and just being able to get out and all you hear is the birds. It's a different way of being and feeling alive and I also appreciate it very much...but deep in my heart I know I am a city girl...and I can always find that piece of the suburbs in the city but I can not find the city in the burbs. To be honest, one of my dreams which I will hopefully achieve sooner than later, is to have my bad ass condo in the city and a log cabin somewhere in the country... and I mean real country, not just the suburbs.

Now few word about my diet...so I finally made the decision to get serious...and here is what I had today:

1 liter of water with my green supps.
2 mandarins, an apple, and 4 carrots

Now this is where I got myself a little screwed up, my friend asked me to join her at Chevy's today. So I did, and tried to order something somewhat healthy which actually didnt work out that great, I had:

couple chips with salsa
half a salad
half a flan
and a tall glass of beer

This all doesn't sound too terrible but it actually gave me a massive stomach ache which felt like my intestines were being twisted...yuk!

On the brighter side, I did a lil bit of shopping at Whole Foods today and came out with some goodies including: strawberries (2 boxes for $3.99 - which I though was a great steal), champagne mangos (never had them before but very excited to try) pears, pineapple ($3.99 - another great deal, I thought) avocados, some raw walnuts, bananas, and my yummy raw granola (that one is way too expensive - $9.99 for a small bag) Well, so there you go, I guess we all know what I'll be eating for the next few days ;-)

Oh Yumminess!

I had the best breakfast ever today... and to think I probably spent like 20 minutes laying in bed deliberating if I should have raw breakfast or go for SAD breakfast. So with all my planning and goals, I came to a conclusion that I'm just not a person who can stick to an hour by hour plan... but is anybody really. With that figured out (what a genius I am) I decided that I'm going to make it easy on myself. So here's my simple yet workable plan... ready? Are you sure? Because this is a groundbreaking concept...here it goes... Have a Raw Breakfast, Have a Raw Lunch, and for dinner have whatever my little (big) heart desires. I really think this will work for me, at least for a while and until I know that I'm ready for the full 100% transition. So the rules are pretty simple as long as I don't overdo the dinner part. Which, of course I'm not gonna run to McDonalds to get a Big Mac or anything like that. But I might share a dinner with my family (which is usually 100% cooked) and which I can usually modify and make it just a little bit healthier or just eat the "healthy" part of the dinner. I mean whatever, just go with the flow. I am tired of restriction and just want to enjoy living my life with freedom and joy. Same goes for working out... why torture myself on the treadmill when I can go and do something I actually enjoy. For example, yesterday early morning I took my dog to the local forest preserve and trust me we both enjoyed it greatly. We got to walk and play for over an hour, all while enjoying a beautiful day in nature. Another thing I enjoy doing is going to a yoga or pilates class, even a weight training class as long as I'm not stuck at the gym by myself trying to lift weights on those miserable machines. Balance and enjoy... it's all about finding the happy medium and sticking to it... the rest will fall into place at the right time.

And now that I got a little side tracked, back to my yummy breakfast... I call it "Banana & Pear Cereal"... even though it's not even cereal :-)

Ingredients:

1 banana
1 pear
couple tablespoons of raw granola
couple tablespoons of raw nuts (any kind)

So this is very simple as you can see, just make sure both fruits are very ripe. Take your fruits, cut them into small pieces and sprinkle the granola and nuts on top. The ripeness of the fruit will make the other ingredients stick to the fruit making sure that in each bite you have the texture of the fruit and the crunchiness of granola. Oh it was so yummy and perfect... just a perfect combination!

Failure

Oh how I hate that word... and I really don't hate a lot of things. I don't even wanna write about the last few days... they were days of feeling like crap, pigging out, and not working out. I actually even started couple of days correctly but by the time noon came, I was already on my way to pig out. But I will not give up...oh no, not that easily. I need to regroup, rethink and come up with a new plan of action. I am a kind of person who needs a schedule so I can stick with things and I think that in this diet thing I'll need to approach things in a similar way. So.....let's try this out:

Goals for tomorrow:

1. Get up no later than 9:00 o'clock
2. Drink a bottle of water n take my green supplements
3. Do 1 hour of callanetics
4. Eat a healthy breakfast (fruits, fruit juice)

I want all of the above done by 10:30

4. 10:30 - 12:00 take care of appts. emails, job hunting
5. Around noon and depending on the weather either do half hour on treadmill or ride bike outside
6. After the work out have a healthy lunch (preferably salad)
7. Spend at least half of the rest of the day working on my website

As far as food options - breakfast and lunch will be all raw and dinner will be vegetarian. Also dont forget...water water water!

Does this sound doable? I hope so... I really hope so...because I refuse to fail...and I will keep on going until I achieve my goal. By the way if anybody has any insight on making this easier... please, please share!

Day 3 & 4

Ayyyaaa yayyy....These have been pretty tough days as far as staying raw goes. First of, I woke up yesterday with major muscle aches...talk abut post work out burn. I managed to get myself on the treadmill and put in my half an hour.






I also got a hold of a callanetics video which I read great reviews about. Basically, callanetics is somewhat similar to pilates and includes a series of slow, precise movements. The claim is that you will see major changes in your body after only 10 sessions. So after I jumped off my treadmill and popped the tape in I had all the intentions of completing the work out. But my body and especially my muscles weren't on the same page as my mind. Even though the movements seem very easy, my sore muscles just didn't have enough strength to keep going. I'm typically the person who jumps into a new work out routine and....over does it. Well, this time I decided to give my self a break.

I was also more hungry then usual yesterday. Well, actually I'm not even sure if it was hunger.. I think more like boredom (emotional) eating. Actually I started of good, but as the day progressed... well see for yourself:

Breakfast: glass of freshly squeezes orange / carrot juice (A+)
Lunch: Orchard Harvest Salad from Panera (I'd say mostly a good choice. Lots of veggies, some nuts, dried cranberries, pears, and some chees)




Dinner: 2 slices of sprouted bread with tomato hummus and sliced tomatoes (still not bad)
Snack: Berry Topper from Jamba juice (this typically is not too bad since its frozen fruits, soy milk, sorbet, and organic granola - but I feel like I started to overdo it here a little bit and didn't really need to have this)
Snack continues: Chicken (yikes...yea I know...but I just couldn't resist. The fam. cooked dinner and my stomach was growling like crazy so I had few bites)

Well, there you go. That was yesterday and I decided I'm not going to beat myself up over little mistakes. Just go day by day and try to do the best I can.

Today I woke up feeling much better, definitely wasn't as tired and groggy as yesterday. I didn't get to do my treadmill because of a bunch of things I had to do this morning but I'm planning to hit the gym tonight. My body's feeling less sore so I shouldn't have any motivational problems. And here's the food list:

Breakfast: glass of chocolate almond milk
Lunch: 2 scrambled eggs with couple slices of rye bread (damn Panera and their irresistable bread)
Snack: Apple
Dinner: Fuji Apple salad from Panera
Snack: Bread (more bread...grrrr!!!)

I'm not weighting myself til Monday, it's gonna be a week. I really hope that the scale won't disapoint me, but either way I'm not going to give up. I just have to continue and try to improve day by day. So far I think I've been about 50% raw and 90% vegetarian. So the goal is to bring these numbers up as much as possible. Happy Munching Rawckers!




My b-day tulips still holding up ;-)

Day 2

Well, I would say I had another successful diet day. Could do a little better with the raw part...but overall I'm satisfied with the process. For breakfast I once again had my Yummy juice (carrot, orange, and apple) with some raw granola. For lunch I had 2 slices of sprouted bread with 2 fried eggs and a tomato and green onion salad. After that I had a glass of chocolate almond milk and in the evening it was couple carrots with Tomato basil hummus and a cup of tea with honey. Oh wait I also sneaked in a couple small pieces of the cold smoked salmon from the day before.

As far as the work out goes...another successful day. In the morning I did my half an hour on the treadmill and in the evening I went to a weight training class at Bally's. And, man was that class great. I can already feel my sore muscles throbbing. But it's a good pain. I actually like the after work out burn... it gives me a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment and I love it.

Other than that... I'm feeling a little stuck in my life. But I have a feeling things will get better soon... I mean it has to, once you hit the bottom the only way to go is up. Once again, I just have to keep myself busy and on track and hopefully I'll have work soon and start bringing home the bacon, or in this case lettuce :-)

Day 1

So today started day one of my diet / workout / lifestyle change and I think It went pretty good. I started my day of with some freshly squeezed juice of carrots, apples, and oranges. Along with the juice had a banana and overall it was a yummy and fulfilling breakfast.






Ingredients for my morning juice - 4 carrots, 2 apples, 2 oranges - makes about 3 glasses. To make my juices I use the Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer. I think that juicer works great and will have a review on it shortly.






Breakfast is served!

After that I jumped on the treadmill and did half an hour. I'm starting of slowly with 1 min. intervals of running and 5 min. walking. I am planning to up the running time by 30 sec. each time.






My efforts ;-)


After the quick workout I had a some errands to run and didn't get to eat til a little bit later this afternoon. For lunch/dinner I had some cold smoked salmon (which by some is considered raw) with some rye bread (I bought some sprouted bread but couldn't resist the warm rye from Whole Foods) and fresh tomatoes with green onions. Then in the evening, me and a friend decided to go to Yoga. Before heading out I grabbed an apple for a snack. Yoga class was very relaxing, but it definitely made me realize how heavy I feel and how out of shape I got again. Once I got home, I had a final meal of the day (actually more like a snack) which consisted of some raw granola and a small glass of chocolate almond milk. Overall I feel like I started of pretty good and plan on continuing on the right track.




Laughing at my efforts







Another one mocking me

Camino de Santiago - The Milky Way

I became infatuated with Paulo Coelho and his writing since I read one of his first novels “The Alchemist”. From then, I read each and everyone of his books which led me to “The Pilgrimage”. In the story, Paulo sets out for the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Since reading the accounts of his travel I now became infatuated with the actual Pilgrimage, and knew I had to do it sometime in my lifetime, preferably sooner than later.

Camino de Santiago or The way of St. James is an ancient route traveled by pilgrims for over 1000 of years with the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela being the final destination of the pilgrimage. During the medieval times it was one of the most important pilgrimages for Christians. The other two are the pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem. Legend holds that St. James’s remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to Northern Spain and buried at the site which is now Santiago de Compostela.

The symbol of the road is the Shell of St. James, which is a scallop shell typically found on the shores of Galicia. Over time, the shell has taken on a mythical, metaphorical, and practical meaning. There are two mythical versions of the scallop, the first one states that when St. James body was being transported to Spain, a heavy storm hit the ship and the body was lost in the Ocean. After some time, the body washed up on shore covered in shells. The second version claims that as the ship with the body of St. James approached land, there was a wedding taking place on shore. The groom was on horseback, when his horse got scared and ran into the ocean. Miraculously, both the horse and the rider emerged unharmed and covered in shells.

The shell also acts as a metaphor. The grooves in the shell, which come to meet in a single point, represent the various roads the pilgrim travels ultimately ending at the final destination at Santiago de Compostela.
As far as a practical use, the pilgrims used to use the shell to gather water and for eating and drinking. The scallop also proved that the traveler has finished the pilgrimage. Now a days, the shell is mostly used as keepsake, as well as a way for the pilgrims to recognize each other and the “road”.

The road itself, has many paths but the most popular one is the French Way or Camino Frances. Historically the Spanish, considered the Pyrenees the starting point. One of the most popular staring points on the French side is Saint Jean Pied de Port and Roncesvalles or Jaca on the Spanish side.

So this is just a brief description of the “Road” also known as the “Milky Way”. As far as me, I plan on doing the pilgrimage sometime in march or April of next year, possibly earlier depending on my financial situation. Traveling the Camino is not really too expensive. Typically the travelers stay in free hostels along the road, so the biggest expense of the trip is the actual flight to Spain. My plan is to fly into Barcelona, since that’s the city I have always wanted to see and staying there for about a week. After that I will most likely travel by train to one of the cities on the road on the Spanish side and set off from there. The Pilgrimage itself usually takes about a month and covers anywhere from 100km - 500km by foot. Different people do it different ways, they walk, they bike, or even ride a donkey. You can travel by yourself or come along with friends. Personally, I want to do the Pilgrimage alone. I think it will be more of a Spiritual and learning experience (plus I doubt I would be able to find anyone to do it with me). Another thing is that you are never alone on the road... you make friends with the road, other pilgrims and yourself.

Move Day

This move really is breaking my heart.  Now I'm here unpacking and on the outside I'm calm but on the inside I'm torn apart.  After living by myself for years, moving in with my family is not easy.  Dealing with their prejudice and negative attitude is even worse.  I honestly don't know how I'll make it.  I guess I'll just have to try and keep myself super busy...which might not be exactly the easiest thing to do, especially since I do not have a job at the moment.  Which I guess brings me back to the point of doing and trying different things to finally hopefully get results.  Raw starts tomorrow.  I'm excited!  At least the fridge s stocked with all the yummy veggies and fruits.  Also, running starts tomorrow.  This is pretty much the only thing I'm excited about.  I want to find a little bit more about the Chicago's Raw community.  I think it would be fun and interesting.  I also want to sign up for the Web Dev. seminar going on on the 26th.  It would be another great networking opportunity.  As, I said before, my biggest goal while I'm here is trying new things, improving my body, networking and meeting new people, and learning new things which will help me be more creative and bring money in.  Hopefully, I'll be able to do this without losing my sanity while living with these lunatics... don't get me wrong, I love my family but some of them are just on a whole 'nother level... and not in a good way.  Well, I just have to stay positive and do what I need to do.  By the way, did I mention that tomorrow's my birthday.  Big 28... A perfect day for a new start, right?

Rawking It

What a tough couple months it has been.  I am typically a very positive person but some things that have just happened recently just got me thinking and reevaluating my life.  In October of last year I have moved to the great city of Chicago.  I moved here with big hopes and dreams but now as I'm standing here in front of my empty closet ready to move back I realize that I might of been wrong.  My biggest hope was that I'm going to meet some great people, people that would be my new friends, new business associates and even maybe a my new love.  But once again as I stand here, I realize that people are the same everywhere.  It doesn't matter if you live in the suburbs or in the city, in the US or Europe.... the people are the same.  You will meet good people, bad people, and whatever people.  You can't change anybody, you can only change yourself.  And as I put another self improvement and spiritual book in a box, this is what I decide to do, Change myself.  Not anybody else, only me!  

The mistakes of my past lead me to this point.  I always believed that the definition of insanity was "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results", and unfortunately I have been insane for quite some time now.  It took a a little old man in a Ford Taurus to knock me out of that state of insanity.  How did he do that?  He literally ran into me and me and my insanity landed on his hood.  After this incident which left me with some physical, but mainly mental injuries I decided to change.

One thing that I have struggled with pretty much my whole life is my weight.  Ever since I can remember, even as a little girl, my weight was a major issue.  The funny thing is that I never was really fat, even now I'm not really fat.  And I actually can cover it up pretty well.  But it's when the bathing suite season comes, and the skin on my legs and ass look like a rotten apple and my arms have more dimples than cottage cheese, that's when you know how fat and out of shape I really am.  So here's my solution, are you ready?  I am going Raw!  Crazy?  Extreme?  It's the only thing that makes sense to me.  Start time....immeiatelly!  On top of this I plan to add on a work out routine, but more bout that in future blogs.

Some of my other issue that I will talk about in this blog include man (looking for love and getting rid of the bad ones), spirituality (yoga, meditation, inner peace, living with purpose).  Basically, I dont want to give this blog just one subject matter... because this about my journey, improving my life, and manifesting positive changes.  Well, Happy reading and Happy changing!