Taking a Break And A New Recipe!

I am in the middle of preparing to leave for a meditation and yoga retreat. I am super excited for some downtime! Plus, I look forward to exploring whatever new insights that come up for me - whether it be mind, body, or spirit related. Even though I have a daily practice of meditation and yoga, I have found that retreats to be an important part to revitalizing and expanding my daily practice. 

Before I go, I wanted to leave you with a recipe for a meal that is both nutritious and tastey - just how I like my meals to be.  

Rice Soup

1/4 Parts of rice used to make risotto - my current favorite is Aquerello Italian Carnaroli or Lundberg’s White Arborio.  

3/4 Parts of bone broth

Other ingredients:

Sea salt - to taste - personally I like to use a 1/4 teaspoon for every 4 cups of bone broth.

Olive oil - for every cup of bone both, add 1 tbsp of olive - feel free to add more after cooking it.

Chopped fresh parsely - for every cup of bone both, add 1 tbsp. 

One garlic clove for every 2 cups of bone broth - feel free to add more if you are into garlic breath.

Liver Pâté

I plan to write out my favorite home recipe when I return from retreat. In the meantime, check out the bacon-beef liver pâté recipe by Mickey Trescott.

Tools: pressure cooker and measuring cup or your eyes (my preference).  

Instructions:

Add rice, bone broth, sea salt, olive oil, and garlic to the pressure cooker. If you are using a stovetop pressure cooker, cook these ingredients at medium heat for about 10-12 minutes.  Adjust the burner so that the pressure remains between low and high.  If you are using an instant pot, choose the high heat setting and cook for no more than 10 minutes.  After the time is up, allow the pressure cooker to cool down on its own.  Once the pressure cooker is ready to be safely opened, open it and mix in the parsely.  The soup is now ready to be served with liver pate.  I personally like dunking my pâté into the soup, but do whatever works for you.  

When I get back, I look forward to hearing how the recipe worked for you and sharing what I learned from retreat.

What Is Your Body Saying?

The vehicle through which we experience ourselves as organisms is the “felt sense.” The felt sense is a medium through which we experience the fullness of sensation and knowledge about ourselves.     - Peter A. Levine

Following up with my last post on practicing alternate nostril breathing, I wanted to share with you another practice I do -  when alternate breathing does not work or is not enough to calm my nervous system down.  It is called the ‘felt sense’ - also known as your body sensations.  

Connecting to your body sensations may sound obvious to you, but I have met plenty of folks -including me - who have had a hard time confusing the felt sense with thinking (your mind) or feeling (your emotions).

Because  getting in touch with the felt sense can be incredibly grounding and easy to get out of touch with, I felt the need to share some of the  practices that have worked for me and my yoga therapy clients. If you got  5-20 minutes, feel free to check out and try some of these practices.

• Hold a warm (please make sure it is not too hot before trying this exercise) cup of tea or bone broth. Allow yourself to sense the temperature and texture of the cup in your hands.  
• Take an epsom salt bath - you can do a full body or just soak your feet. Notice how your body moves with your breath and how your skin feels (ex. cold, relaxed, wet, warm…) in the water.   Please let go of your devices during this time.  
• Learn how to do a self-body massage or go get a massage by a licensed practitioner. Your bodyworker or massage therapist can teach you techniques you can safely do at home, work, and while traveling.
• Take a warm shower or run water over your hands in a sink - notice how the water feels against your skin.  
• Go for a walk or run in nature. In the Bay Area there are a ton of urban trails. Just watch out for the bikes!  During your hike, sense how you body (ex. feet, hips, ribs, head) moves and feels as you walk.
• Dance to your favorite song. Notice how your hips, hands, and the rest of your body sense the music and movement. 
• Revisit your coloring books. If you cannot find one, get a magazine you enjoy. Then grab a pen, crayon or pencil and fill in or follow the lines of the pictures in the book or magazine. Notice how the temperature and pressure of your hands feel against the pen, crayon, or pencil you are holding. 

Allow yourself to stay with your sensations as you practice these exercises.  When you find yourself getting lost in your thoughts - gently go back to your body sensations.  With practice, you will find yourself getting caught less in thought and feeling more relaxed and present at the end of your practice.  As with all practices, please remember practice makes permanent, not perfect.  

With continued practice, connecting to your felt sense will help support you to being mindful and present; state of beings that are associated with all sorts of health benefits and wisdom!  Because of these benefits, I encourage you to find practices that work for you - whatever they may be.  

After you have tried some of the ones I have listed,  I would love to know how they worked for you! If you have practices that I did not list,  feel free to share them in the comment section too!

Simple and Powerful Grounding Technique!

Have you ever noticed your hands and feet being cold, your heart racing, or that your inner critic is taking too much space?  I have. Sometimes it could be a reaction to something I ate (ex. sugar or a food intolerance) or a message from my subconscious that something wants more processing (ex. Is SF or Portland a better city?). Typically, practicing some type of mindfulness practice or breath work helps calm my nervous system so that I can feel more grounded and connected to the present moment. With this type of centering, I can get back to whatever I was doing with more ease. Sometimes this type of mindful breathing practice is not enough. If that is the case, please read my next blog post. Next time, I will talk about other grounding practices that I do when mindful breath work is not enough for me.  In the meantime, please check out my video on alternate nostril breathing!

Whole 30 And I

Yesterday, I attended a San Francisco signing for the New Whole 30 book. While attending this event, I contemplated on how much my relationship with food has changed since implementing Whole 30 as part of my Autoimmune Paleo Protocol (AIP). And how my new relationship with food has impacted my current health.  

Before starting Whole 30, I couldn’t sit at a cafe without endulging myself on some type of dessert or sweet pastry. After several Whole 30’s and working with an Integrative Doctor, I no longer get caught in this type of behaviorial pattern. Now, I can walk into a cafe, order some cupcakes, and give them as a gift to a friend without ‘taste trying’ them.  And when I do endulge, it is with full awareness.  Some people may call this building self-control. I would call it what Whole 30 folks label it - ‘Total Health and Food Freedom’.  

By going through several Whole 30’s while on AIP, I learned how foods - including different sugars - impacted my body, mind, and spirit.  Following this type of paleo based elimination diet and lifestyle wasn’t an easy task. It is why I repeated the program several times - a total of 5 times. Each time I got back on the Whole 30 path and fell off of it, I returned back with more strength and wisdom.  

I decided to first try Whole 30 due to their social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook.  With their behavioral coaching messages and nutrient dense recipes, I got hooked to following their daily posts.   In addition, I loved how I rarely saw them post a sweet ‘treat’. Their zero tolerance - if you exclude Melissa’s Cadbury Eggs - for posting added sugars on social media was great for sugar sensitive folks like myself. 

This month may be my last Whole 30, since I feel pretty close to ‘food freedom’ and feeling as good as I can through the changes I have made while on the program. This doesn’t mean to say that I still don’t experience food or sugar cravings, but my old habit to give into unhealthy ones rarely pop up. I have replaced my endulgences with habits that support a diet and lifestyle appropriate for me.  And when I do eat added sugars or other foods that don’t nourish me, it is from a more conscious place with full awareness. 

Some Whole 30 non-scale victories I experienced.

Why Do Cooking Skills & Experimentation Matter on AIP?

If you don’t know already, I am following a diet and lifestyle protocol called the Autoimmune Paleo Approach (AIP) to heal from an autoimmune condition called Ankylosing Spondylitis.  In case the term AIP is not familiar with you, it is an elimination diet that is nutrient-dense focused, along with a lifestyle approach to support the process of healing for people with chronic conditions.

One of the popular questions I receive from folks is, "What CAN I eat on AIP when seeds, nuts, grains, egg whites, nightshades, additives, added sugar, and legumes are not included?" I normally answer back that I have plenty of choices of foods that I CAN eat - such as vegetables, herbs, starches, meats, seafood, berries, lemons (I don't do well with the other forms of citrus), sea salts, offal, and good fats.

The more appropriate question I would love to receive more often is, "Do I know how to cook and have the willingness to experiment with my food choices?"  Without my ability to cook and willingness to experiment, I would not have lasted long on AIP.  I would not have tried cooking nutrient-dense dishes that I now have on a weekly basis - such as liver pâté and bone broth. Ultimately, I would have gotten bored with my food choices and my past standard flavor combinations.  On top of that, I would have had to spend so much more money to eat this type of food at a San Francisco restaurant on a daily basis.  

Because it is much easier to track and control the type of food and its cost when I buy and cook it,  I encourage people following AIP to do the same and to learn how to cook in whatever way works for them. There are YouTube videos, books, workshops, friends, relatives, social media, and you experimenting (how we all learn) with food. For inspiration and proof it can be done, I have some pictures of dishes I have made while on my elimination diet. Do any of the dishes look deprived or lacking?  Geez, I hope not!

If you know of anyone who could benefit from following AIP, please share my story with them.  

Duck with Fried Oregano, Sweet Potato with Coconut Oil, Spinach and Bacon

Wild Salmon Topped with Seaweed and Wasabi; Plantains Covered in a Beet Reduction Sauce and Steamed Cabbage

Egg Yolks, Sautéed Cabbage, and Plantains

Chicken Breakfast Patty, Beets, Plantains, Thyme and Liver Pâté

Spring Salad with Chicken Breakfast Patties, Beets, and Citrus Dressing

Sweet Potatoes Stained with Beet Juice

My Trial With A Vibration Plate!

A couple of months ago, I sprained my neck due to choking on some fish bones. SCARY, I know! Since then, I have noticed a decrease in pain and an increase in ROM in my neck rotation whenever I engage in activities that help clear my lymphatic system (ex. manual lymphatic drainage and lymphatic breathing). After reading and hearing from colleagues that the vibration plate may help support the pumping of my lymphatic system, I was curious to explore if it could help me heal faster.

As part of my experiment, I decided to do 4 sets of squats in 30-second intervals at 30 Hz (the speed of vibration).  I used my iPhone to video record my neck rotation before and after each set. In the end, I produced 12 videos in total. You might be thinking that I could have used a more precise method of measuring my neck rotation, but this is what I had access at the time of my experiment. In the future, I may use a goniometer.  

After looking at my neck rotation on video, I measured a bit of improvement in my ROM from my first to my last session (I did a total of three sessions). Whether this progress was due to using the vibration plate or not, I cannot tell you. What I do know is that after every session from performing squats on the vibration plate, I felt more energy and less pain than the days that I did squats without the vibration plate. The increase in energy and decrease in sensation of pain would last, on average, for two hours. Then I would notice feeling more tired than normal at night on the days that I would use the vibration plate.

From my experience, I would probably use the vibration plate again for changing up my exercise routine and for possible benefits in lymphatic stimulation.

For more information on the lymphatic system, click here. 

To watch a video with Dave Asprey on why he uses a vibration plate, click here.  

To watch a great demonstration on how to perform a self-manual lymphatic drainage for congestion, click here to view the video.