All posts tagged: weight loss

Anti-Aging, Fat Blasting Blueberry Smoothie

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All these low-carb/no-carb diets are giving fruit a bad rap, but the truth is carbs aren’t evil. It just depends on the kinds of carbs you’re consuming. The brilliant thing about berries is they have a lower sugar content than other fruit, so you can eat them without experiencing a potentially drastic sugar spike. Blueberries reign supreme as a not only a power food, but also a beautifying food. When you eat beautifying foods, the ingredients work from the inside out, creating total body change. You can slather the most expensive lotions and potions and magical ingredients on your skin, but the saying “skin deep” exists for a reason. These ingredients literally mask the results of poor health and/or an unhealthy diet, but it’s impossible for those expensive ingredients to really penetrate the deeper layers of skin. All the creams in the world don’t do anything for your total body wellness. Blueberries have the highest antioxidant capacity of all commonly consumed fruits and vegetables.  If that’s not enough to convince you to try out this …

Eat Your Way to Youthful Skin

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We live in a society that’s pretty obsessed with beauty—outer beauty that is. The makeup industry is a multi-billion dollar corporation, and the average medicine cabinet is overflowing with lotions and potions and concoctions promising to make up more beautiful. More youthful. More desirable. Beauty is a business, and booming one at that. Somewhere along the way though, health and beauty became two very separate entities. The ingredients in these “anti-aging” and “beautifying” products often cause way more harm than good. Recently, I went to my dermatologist for the good old Let There Be No Skin Cancer checkup (all good in the hood; all those years of drenching myself in SPF and assiduously hiding under an umbrella at the beach like a stowaway vampire have finally paid off). I had just run out of the nighttime essential oils I use, so I asked about moisturizers and an anti-aging cream. She gave me two products and sent me on my merry way. Both creams cost around $200 (JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL) and what’s worse, when I looked …

How to Do: Side Crow

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Arm balances just makes me soooo happy, I can hardly stand it. I mean, honestly, every time a yoga instructor calls out an option for an arm balance or an inversion, I’m literally like, YAAAAAS GAWD. Unless I’ve eaten all the things right before class and feel as though I’m made of bricks. Then I’m like, WHHHHYYY, make the lambs stop screaming!!! Yoga is cruel to the gluttonous, just so you know. But when a girl’s gotta eat, she’s gotta eat. Even if it’s right before class. Here’s the thing I like to tell my own clients regarding the oh-so-tricky art of arm balances and inversions: it should be fun. Sure, it’s difficult—really difficult. After all, you’re both balancing and holding yourself up on a tiny portion of your body. But this isn’t the time to go Type A or let your perfectionism kick in. This is the exact moment to practice patience and give yourself grace. Before you even start, lay your ego at the door. Hey, I know you just skimmed that sentence! …

When Dairy-Free Milk Wreaks Havoc on Your Gut

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Many people switch to nut milk in pursuit of healthier options, completely unaware of some companies using ingredients that are highly inflammatory for your intestinal tract and harmful to your gut microbes. It seems like everyday, more people are ditching cow’s milk and switching to healthier options, like nut milk. With increased demand comes increased supply, so many mainstream food brands are now marketing nut milk of every variety. Many people switch to nut milk in pursuit of healthier options, completely unaware of some companies using ingredients that are highly inflammatory for your intestinal tract and harmful to your gut microbes.This should be a good thing…but it’s not. While you’d might think consumers should be able to waltz into any grocery store and not have to worry about what the hell is in our food, that world just doesn’t exist anymore. The food industry is a massive business and, like many other businesses, it’s more concerned with product sale than people’s health.  The simple truth is not all dairy-free milks are created equal, but there’s …

Ditch the Sugar, Lose the Weight

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  Pour some sugar on me… But not on my food. No way, no ma’am, no thank you. I not-so-secretly adore sugary things. Actually, I love salty foods. Fatty foods. Fried foods. If it is dyed an obnoxious color, I’ll probably like that too. (Those chewy Swedish fish make my day. Some part of my brain knows it’s not a real food, that fish are neither chewy nor bright red nor sweet, but I become 100% committed to devouring the entire box the second they’re in my hands.) I use so much salt on my food, it looks like a literal snow blizzard has descended upon my plate. But out of all my vices, I think my sweet tooth is the worst. Scratch that, it’s not a sweet tooth, but teeth. Like, a mouth full of ’em. I’m pretty sure my body is out to get me. When science is finally confessing sugar is silently killing us and likens it to a hyper addictive drug, what’s a girl to do? Find ways to cut sugar out …

Review: Best Yoga Books (for yoga addicts like you)

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I collect two things in life: books and music. And according to my bank account, I apparently go a little overboard with my obsession for both. I am unrepentant. I am without question a book fanatic/literarazzi/reader-of-all-the-things. I don’t know about you, but any location that houses books in a happy place: libraries, used bookstores, Barnes and Noble, that random pop up store down the street, etc etc etc. I’m not kidding when I say I read at least a book or two a week. I will happily turn down social engagements to snuggle up with a my fat cat and a book. HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH—called my sofaaaaaaaa. Anyway, now that we all know the real reason I’m sometimes a terrible friend (those books aren’t gonna read themselves, people), I wanted to share with you several that I’ve found really beneficial to my yoga practice. Inspirational and philosophical books are pretty easy to come across, but books with a technical focus are often difficult to find. I’ve curated several gems along the way, and they’ve made …

Surprising Health Benefits of Probiotics (and how to take them)

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Happy New Year! Praise baby Jesus, 2016 is over. …Damn, 2016. You were vicious! Don’t even get me started on all the celebrities we lost, because we lost our humanity for a hot minute and I think that’s a bigger deal. It was like a poop cloud of negativity hung over the entire year in the form of politics, social media, and the news (ok, and celebrity deaths). Most of the time, I felt like I was a very reluctant extra in a HORRIBLE episode of North & South. On a personal level, it was actually a good year for me and my husband. DESPITE the presidential debates, we can’t complain (#DodgedThe2016Bullet), but man, our hearts have been breaking for so many dear friends and even strangers who are hurting from last year. Here’s all I have to say about the Wretchedness Which Was 2016: whatever  personal opinions and views we value, let’s make sure we value people as well. I hope 2017 is marked by our kindness and desire to unite with one another instead …

Nail Your Handstands & Forearm Balances

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My mentor and teacher Kino MacGregor is a yogini extraordinaire. Her handstands are like whoa! Actually, I think all of her asanas (poses) are ah-maaaaa-zing, but those handstands! OMG those handstands! SO fabulous! It came as a huge surprise to me when Kino confessed handstands are her weak point, literally. She’s naturally more flexible than she is strong, and she loses strength easily and has to work hard to build it back up. The fact that Kino has Mere Mortal Syndrome is both a huge relief and also tremendously inspiring. She has perfect inversions, because she trains to have perfect inversions. The take away: you can nail any asana with diligence and consistency. I’m still working on building up strength so that I can easily do my handstands and forearm balances even after doing a million vinyassas during my practice, but I’ve learned a lot after training with Kino both one on one and also in various yoga intensives. I wanted to share some of her knowledge. Another great way to get handstand training is …

Smoothie Fail: Is Your Drink Making You Gain Weight?

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Smoothie drinks, smoothie bowls…they’re all the rage now. It seems like almost everyone I know is throwing their not-so-healthy, sugary yogurts in the trash in favor of the smoothie trend. Smoothies are a great way to get a huge amount of nutrients with minimum effort. Everything about this seems awesome…right? So why are people worrying that their oh so healthy smoothie might be the culprit behind their weight gain? Is it even possible to gain weight from something so healthy?! The terrible answer is yes, but don’t freak out! I’ll break down why your smoothie or shake might be sabotaging your weight goals and what you can do about it! So let’s get down to business. My milkshake does bring all the boys to the yard, only it doesn’t have milk or sugar. It does have all the nutrients my body desperately needs and then some, but it’s easy to ruin a good thing if we fall into these traps: PORTION CONTROL Unfortunately too much of a good thing can be high calorie. ARGH! MUST …

Eggs Over Probiotic Rainbow Hash

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One of the things I absolutely loved about dining out in Europe was the brilliant use of vegetables in dishes. Cooking with whole foods isn’t a novelty concept or a trend in the UK, it’s just the way food is prepared. I absolutely loved how easy it was to find healthy options. I became addicted to a delicious probiotic rainbow veggie mix while I was living there for the month of September. The vegetables were brined in a delicious, slightly sweet vinaigrette with sea salt, and I ate it by the gallons. Interestingly enough, while we’re usually vaguely aware that we don’t incorporate enough vegetables into our diet, we usually forget that we’re severely deficient on eating enough colors. Studies prove we fail to get enough red, purples, and yellow veggies. Brightly colored veggies contain phytochemicals, which are substances occur naturally only in plants and provide amazing health benefits. According to information from the Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH), phytochemicals act as antioxidants. They protect and regenerate essential nutrients, and/or work on a cellular level to …