Started A New Blog

Hi guys!

Hope you've all been well.

So... Some of you know that I've been thinking of starting a new blog on my health+wellness adventures now that I'm doing my part-time Naturopathic Nutrition course. I've been tinkering around a bit and decided to finally do it. YAYYYYYYYY!

It'll be a blog documenting my food/ nutrition/ detox experiences and experiments as I make my way through naturopathy school.

You're welcome to check it out here at: The Enlightened Spoon, or click on the website image below.

And follow the Facebook page, so you can see updates on your timeline.

Thanks for your support! :)

Spring Cleanse: Day 3

- On rising: 1 cup Fenugreek water (see yesterday's post for explanation), followed by 1 cup lemon water and Triphala supplement.

- 7.30am: Breakfast smoothie

Ingredients:
Spinach
Apple
Parsley
Basil
Ginger
Turmeric (this stuff STAINS, so if you have a white blender, like me, wash it STAT)
Sprouted hemp seeds
Chia seeds
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Water - enough so the smoothie is your desired consistency.

*Because I had 1 glass less water this morning, I wasn't running to pee as much in today's workshop (Yup, was at Day 2 of Paul's pranayama and ashtanga workshop again today). 

- 2pm: Lunch while at this workshop and so no juicing... 
Cucumber slices
Carrot sticks
Pineapple chunks

...Followed by a wheatgrass shot from the deli round the corner. 

And then it pretty much all fell apart from here... coz I went to see Iron Man 3 after the workshop and then caught up with Paul over dinner. Funny enough he said "how many days cleanse are you on? 3 days only? Pffft... you're fine to break the juicing tonight". 

HAHAHAHA. That's why Paul Dallaghan is one of my fave yoga teachers. He's been through all the hardcore teachings and traditional ascetic practices, but now embraces a "No dogma" approach. 

I'm good with this. I wasn't going on a hardcore week-long fast this time anyway, just wanted a very gentle reset from all the sugar and coffee and craaaaaaap I'd been eating. So... We went for Vietnamese since this was pretty much "easier" for my "cleanse". 

7.30pm: Dinner. Veggie rice paper rolls. 

...and then it REALLY fell apart when I started picking at his mixed vegetables, white rice and fried noodles. And er... we ordered dessert to share (!!) HAHAHAHA. I had just a few spoonfuls of banana and coconut custard. My belly is confused now and feels heavy. But oh so satisfied... ;p 

Guys - Please. That dinner is a good example of what NOT to do when on a cleanse. And what not to do when just getting out of a cleanse. I should've just stuck with the rice paper rolls only and not gone further tonight. But... You only live once. Heh.   

- 11pm: Yogi Tea Detox Tea with Triphala supplement. 

Overall, I'm feeling good - not feeling particularly springy with energy as I have on previous detoxes, but neither am I feeling low on energy either. I think if I'd have kept this up for 5 or even 7 days, I probably would've felt the benefits more intensely. This is the shortest cleanse I've ever done, so I've got nothing else to compare it with. It's probably a good idea to keep this up every few months just to hit the reset button with the digestive system. 

I'm glad I did this... Gives me some ideas on how to formulate other DIY detoxes down the road too...! Hope it's helped you too in some way. :) 

Spring Cleanse: Day 2

- On rising: 1 large glass of water, followed by a cup of Fenugreek water. This is just Fenugreek seeds soaked overnight and you drink that water the next day. It's an Ayurvedic practice I picked up on a previous detox... it apparently lowers blood-sugar levels, but I really don't know enough about whether its got other cleansing properties. It didn't do any harm on the last detox I did, so I figured why not. 

Google says it's great for milk flow/ lactation. Great! Super handy right now. Bahahaha. But then Google also says it tastes like maple syrup. ?!? Bollocks. It's got a very herbal taste... Tastes like I walked into a Chinese medical hall. This is what it looks like soaking in water: 

And then I chugged another glass of hot water and lemon with a Triphala supplement after that. 

And voila!! "Elimination time"! Sorry, you don't need to hear about my bowel movements but I've got to reiterate how IMPORTANT it is to have a dump when you're on any kind of cleanse. Toxins leave your body 3 ways: through your skin, pee and poo. A large percentage of toxins gets dumped out in your large intestine, which is why it's CRUCIAL you have regular dumps, to get rid of those toxins before your body reabsorbs them again. Which would be a pointless detox. Apologies... It seems I can't talk about food without also talking about poo... But hey, the two go hand in hand! :p  

** Sidetrack: this is why it's important to drink loads of water too - to eliminate through your pee, and also to help keep stuff flowing in your gut. Another great thing to do is keep exercising or sit in the steam room so you get your pores open and sweating out all those toxins. And now back to regular programming **

- 8am: Breakfast green smoothie.

Ingredients: 

Spinach

Cucumber

Apple

Ginger

Sprouted hemp seeds

Juice from 1/2 a lemon
Water - so the smoothie gets to your preferred consistency

The breakfast of Incredible-Hulk champions...

Then I went to Paul Dallaghan's Pranayama and Ashtanga workshop... and of course within the first hour, I was running to pee about 10 times, all throughout the quiet meditation introduction. Arrrggghhhhh!! And then the same thing happened in the second hour. I'm not joking... people must've thought I had the bladder of a squirrel... But... Did you see how much fluid I'd downed in the first hour on waking up?! 

On a side note, this is the gorgeous space we were practicing in today: 

So then of course I couldn't juice anything for lunch while on the workshop. But I went prepared with my little bag of tricks that contained:

Pineapple and cucumber slices (odd flavour combo, I wasn't thinking this morning!)

Raw cashews and almonds (nuts probably aren't so great on a cleanse, especially unsprouted, but I figured "screw it", I needed something convenient and there are worse things than nuts to snack on so these would do.) 

Chia seeds

Yogi Tea Detox Tea

Cayenne Pepper

Turmeric

...Turns out I only ate the pineapple and cucumber slices at lunch, along with some of the cashews. Even Paul commented "you're on a cleanse and you're eating nuts?!" Hehe. DEAL WITH IT.

- 5.30pm: Post-workshop late lunch smoothie. Also took a Vitamin B-complex supplement along with this coz... Oops, forgot to take it in the morning... 

Ingredients: 

Carrots

Celery

Parsley

Ginger

Chia seeds

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Turmeric

Cayenne Pepper (the amount on that teaspoon was waaaaaaay spicy, even though I can handle "Asian level" spiciness)   
Water - so the smoothie gets to your preferred consistency

- 8.30pm: Yogi Tea Detox Tea with a Triphala supplement. (should've done Triphala before bedtime. Dunno why I decided to do it now. Probably coz I read the label and it said "take before food". So I did. Hahaha.)

- 8.45pm: Dinner smoothie

Ingredients: 

Sprouted cashews (raw cashews soaked for 8-10hrs)

Virgin cold-pressed coconut oil

Cardamom

Cinnamon

Vanilla bean

Maple syrup (just a dash. It's still good without this but I couldn't help myself)
Water - so the smoothie gets to your preferred consistency

It's the same ingredients as last night's dinner smoothie, except I added Cardamom and ooooooweeeee, YES!!!! This one is so good I will make cashew milks with this recipe even when I'm not detoxing. It is soooooo good (can you hear me patting myself on my back now). 

- Nightcap: A glass of Fenugreek water. The same seeds from this morning can be re-used once, so that's what I used to re-soak again. 

How I feel today: Pretty normal. No mood swings. When I woke up, it felt like my tongue had a coating over it. And at the start of the workshop, it felt like I had the coating again over it... Maybe it's psychosomatic coz when I looked in the mirror, there was no white stuff or "ama" on my tongue at all. 

Otherwise, I'm feeling good! The funny thing on these cleanses is - I almost always end up feeling ultra-bloated anyway coz of all the fluid intake... Ugh. 

...Also, I might end up not juicing at all at my last meal tomorrow night as I'm going to catch up with Paul over dinner. How can I say "No" to a meal with one of my fave teachers? :) Let's see how we go though... Didn't think I'd manage to stay as raw and juiced as I have today, so never say never! 

Spring Cleanse: Day 1

- On rising: 1 large glass of water, followed by a cup of hot water and lemon. 

(this is my usual daily ritual anyway, usually I add chia seeds to my lemon-water, but not today as I'm planning on having some chia-lemon-water later in the day, if and when I start to get hungry). 

- 8am: Breakfast green smoothie. (I call this a smoothie only coz I use a blender and leave all the pulp in, adding as much water as I want so that it's not chunky/ gloopy but more like a pulpy juice. That's a smoothie to me. Bam.) 

Ingredients: 

Basil (growing by my window)

Cucumber

Celery

Sprouted hemp seeds (unhulled and soaked overnight. No idea if soaking unhulled hemp seeds actually has any real benefit, so gotta look into this a little more.) 

Juice from 1/2 a lemon
Water - so the smoothie gets to your preferred consistency
(All pre-chopped the night before so I'd have less to do in the AM). 

- 10.45am: Pineapple snack. Multi-vitamin and algae oil (for Omega-3, EPA+DHA) supplements. 

- Fresh mint tea (hot water with fresh mint leaves) and then more lemon-water. This combo is chugged throughout the day. 

- 1.30pm: Lunch smoothie. 

Ingredients:
Apple
Carrot
Ginger
Cayenne Pepper
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
Water - so the smoothie gets to your preferred consistency

I was sipping on this pretty much between 1.30-3.30pm and didn't finish it one go.

- 4.30pm: Hot lemon-water with 1 tablespoon of chia seeds as I was getting hungry. Chia's also good for more Omega-3 (ALA) essential fatty acids, while adding bulk to your gut! (If you're good with psyllium husk, you could do that instead. Me and psyllium just don't get along - gives me the massive bloat and even 1/2 a teaspoon makes my gut feel like it'll explode). 

- 5.30pm: Pineapple snack with a cup of Yogi Tea Detox Tea. Containing burdock, dandelion, juniper berry. 

- 8pm: Dinner smoothie. 

Ingredients: 
Sprouted cashews (raw cashews soaked when I left for work this morning)
Virgin cold-pressed coconut oil
Cinnamon
Vanilla bean
Maple syrup (just a small dash for flavour)
Water - so the smoothie gets to your preferred consistency

I'm a sucker for sweets and dessert, can you tell? Saved the best for last... Figured I'd have a slightly heavier smoothie to last me through the night. 

- 10pm: Night cap of Yogi Tea Detox Tea, with Triphala supplement (Ayurvedic supplement that aids digestive health, also acts as a very mild laxative to help keep things moving). I mean... c'mon. It's a detox. The majority of toxins are gonna get dumped in my colon from tomorrow onwards. And er... I usually have to "go" twice a day or I'd feel gross, so this is super important!! ;p

Of course all of the above was interspersed with lots of water, lemon-water, or fresh mint tea (or fresh mint-water, really) throughout the day... 

How do I feel today? ...Perfectly fine, normal, nothing out of the ordinary... until around 6.30pm at work when I started getting grouchy and irritable. Maybe it was the crappy conference call I was on that dragged on so I couldn't get to a yoga class, but I definitely got snappier at the people around me. Glad to be home and away from non-stop chatting of people. And now I'm properly tired. 

Forgot to mention that it's been non-stop partying from a week ago when we had a big office party, then Queens Day on Tuesday this week with an all-night dance-a-thon the night before, then I flew to Madrid on the same day to watch the UEFA semi-finals, and we continued dancing till 5am and flirting with hot Spanish boys, only to fly back the next day on 2 hours sleep. That was 2 days ago now, but I'm definitely still recovering from that and this cleanse is definitely part of the grounding I need! 

Oh well, tomorrow will be a new day. And a pranayama/ ashtanga workshop with Paul! ...haven't decided yet how I'll continue this cleanse while on the workshop, but there'll probably be less smoothies involved. 

Stay tuned! :) 

3-Day Spring Cleanse

Hola Guapas!

It has been a super looooooong time, innit. Loads of things have happened since my last post 1.5 years ago... Suffice it to say: I'm still in Amsterdam, I'm still loving life and my current job... On the love front, boys have come and gone, but I think my heart is still somewhat intact... I've taken breaks from asana, gone on more retreats involving Pranayama and detoxes and more Ashtanga yoga... And look, I'm still living to tell this tale (maybe not to you and not on this blog. Haha.) 

Life is actually pretty sweet right now. :)

In October last year, I also added one more thing on my list of "to do's" in life: I'm currently studying Naturopathic Nutrition part-time and hopefully in 3 years, I'll qualify as a Nutritional Therapist. And if I can hack it out for a 4th year, I'll be qualify as a Naturopath. Oh, this course is also in London, so I've also been spending more time in one of my favourite big cities. If you've followed this blog from ages ago, you're probably familiar with my interest in food and how I keep mixing things up and experimenting with what goes in (and er... what comes out. Heh.)

"Why are you doing this course?" is what my oh-so-very-Asian parents keep asking me, as I'm not even sure if I want to practice as a Nutritional Therapist eventually. Hahaha. I don't know. All I know is: I'm starting with an interest. I want to know more and in even greater detail than what I'm already reading up on my fave blogs and books about food, its healing properties, and how much one is a measure of "you are what you eat". So I figured if I'm gonna delve into this and spend the time reading up and studying more about this, I might as well do it through a good program where I'll get certified too. Yes, how over-achieving Asian of me. And yes, I believe that down the road, my path will eventually lead me more into the world of health and wellness, so this course is simply an extension of my interest and exploration into this world. Dipping my toes into it, so to speak. 

I started this post as I've been feeling like I need to do a Spring cleanse. Should've started one at the new moon 2 weeks ago, or maybe during the official start of Spring when everyone else was doing some kind of cleanse about a month ago... But... I guess life got in the way and with all the travel I've been doing, the only real down time I've got will be in the next 3 days. And since I'll be doing a Pranayama workshop all of this weekend with one of my all-time favourite Ashtanga and Pranayama teachers who'll be in town, Paul Dallaghan, I figured "Feck it. Now's as good a time as any other." 

So I'm making this mini-detox up as I'm going along... Basing it off some of the other cleanses I've done in the past... I figure my system just needs to hit the reset button, albeit in a gentle fashion. I'm going to do a mix of green smoothies, fruit and raw veggies. My shopping has landed me with a basket full of spinach, kale, celery, lemons, apples, pineapple, ginger and I'll add some sprouted hemp seeds and chia seeds into the various combos I'll make up. Think I need to run out and get some kale and chard too. Maybe at night I'll finish off with some sprouted cashew smoothies. I'll attempt to document each "meal" I'll have as I go along. 

And this is all probably because I couldn't find any iPhone app that would help me document some kind of detox journal... Then I remembered that once upon a time, I had a blog that helped me do that. So here I am. Hahaha. 

Warning: this might turn out to be a total failure as on days 2 and 3, I'll be at a yoga/ pranayama workshop. No idea how I'm going to juice anything, so I might just end up chugging a load of chia seeds and lemon water. And maybe just eating fruit and veggie sticks. Gulp. 

I've been more active on Facebook and Instagram, so follow my picture updates there, and I'll give the day's round up in pictures in summary on the blog here. How's that for total social media engagement. 

Wish me luck! 

Pausing to say "Hello"

Hello.

As you might have noticed, I've been on an extended, unannounced holiday from this blog. It was totally unplanned - a few days' break led to a few weeks' break led to a few months' break. How does Blogger even work now?! They've changed the backend completely. Wow. Guess I've been away for THAT long.

I have no other reason than I didn't feel like writing. So I didn't.

It wasn't like I was short on material either... From my last post in July till now, I've had one kitchen drama after another (and the kitchen is STILL incomplete, mind you), my siblings came to visit me in the dam, I went to Berlin to watch a friend run the Berlin Marathon for the first time, I went to Ljubljana in Slovenia and shot in the most magical Hobbitville forest, I went to visit some of my best friends in London after the births of their gorgeous babies, I was getting out and actually socializing for the first time in ages, even meeting boys and going out on dates and navigating the minefield that is "the dating game" (I hate it, by the way. Boys today are just too complicated), I've had visitors from out-of-town coming and going from my flat, I've been practicing ashtanga yoga a little bit, then I've not been practicing ashtanga yoga at all, then I've got back on my mat again and I'm still trying to find the balance between managing yoga and life, and life and yoga.

And y'know... I was just getting out there and "living life". And I guess I was getting out of my head a little, experiencing life without processing too much (or possibly maybe TRYING not to process too much!) I guess if this were a movie, this would be the part where a montage of different scenes from the past few months flies past in fast-forward. HAHA.

I definitely needed that blog-break. Not to say that I'll be back to regular writing again, but as with all things, it's always good to stop what you're doing, take a step back and put things in perspective again. When it came to writing about yoga, I felt like all I was doing was moaning about asana. "Wah wah wah, I can't do this and wah wah wah, I can't do that". I was boring myself to tears. I think I was/am also coming to a point where I don't particularly feel the need to share everything that's going on in my head about my practice. It helped me internalize stuff to blab about it before, but maybe it's coz my practice is taking a more inward turn that I haven't felt the need to talk about it. Also, I'd been going down the same stop-start-stop pattern in my practice that I wasn't even sure what to make of it anymore.

So... I just gave it a break. A break from all that writing and thinking and navel-gazing about it. And I think out of all that time-off to JUST BE, and get out and do stuff without thinking... Now that I'm finally sitting down to think about it, I'm gonna mix it up a little bit with my practice. Sticking to a 5 or 6-day practice a week is just not do-able in my current situation. Not if I also want to have more of a social life, or enough hours of sleep a night especially when work starts to go balls-to-the-wall busy again. And I'm done with feeling guilty and beating myself up on it when I can't stick to that practice schedule no matter what the reason (or excuse) may be. At this point, I'm gonna allow myself a 3 or 4-day practice a week (maybe less sometimes) and say "yes" to more social events. 2011 is my year of "speaking my truth" anyway, and the whole point of turning up on the mat, for me at least, is tuning in to a more mindful/ conscious way of living and not sticking to dogma for dogma's sake. And right now, it feels like this is what I need.

It makes me a happier person, and that's a good enough reason for me.

I guess that's the conundrum of being a modern-day yogi. I felt myself always having to choose between "life or yoga?" or "work or yoga"? (and I refer to "yoga" in the asana sense of "making it to practice") It shouldn't even have to come to this double bind, but I guess life just throws stuff your way and you just deal with it the best you can.

I'd much rather be caught in the RyGos double bind. Mm-hmm.