NARA ROSSER Into The Ordinary

Nov 10- Day 7 of 21 Day Challenge

eats

Well for dinner Monday night I actually came up with something pretty good.  I was craving pesto and whipped up one of my best batches ever- just pine nuts, basil and olive oil.  Used sea salt instead of parm and you couldn't even tell  the difference.  I sliced up a zucchini in the fettuccine size slices and chopped up a tomato and tossed it together.  Yum!  Rainbow chard, apple, cucumber, carrot lemon for breakfast.  Banana for snack.  Snap peas and cashews for lunch on the road.  Made up a much better version of miso soup for dinner.  Threw a carrot in some water.  Let the carrots get a little tender. Added baby spinach and mixed in miso paste after I removed it from the heat.  Forgot the ginger I bought at the store.  I was still hungry.  Ended up having more cashews, snap peas and then dried apricots.  I feel like I might be cashewed out.  I felt like a recurrence of the bladder inflammation Sunday night so I got some cranberry concentrate that I've been adding to my water bottle throughout the day and night and all traces are gone.

yoga

Did Susanne's 9:30am Anusara class at the studio.  I've been kind of burnt out on alignment but there's something about the way Anusara lays out anatomical and energetic alignment cues that can lead to really powerful experiences of yoga postures.  Susanne led an evolution of Bridge pose I never experienced before.  When I have a new experience of a pose I've done over and over many times, that's what keeps me coming back to yoga.  I also got a nice little neck adjustment in Standing Side Angle which has never happened before.  Later in the day I had a private session with Kaiopa who was visiting from Arizona and holding a Continuum workshop over the weekend.  There's really no abbreviated way to describe Continuum but it focuses on the fluid, non symmetrical qualities of the body.  It reignited old parts of me that loves forms of expressive movement beyond yoga and let  me focus on the suppleness, organicness and fluidness of the breath and body.  I got breath into areas of the body that haven't seen the light of day in a long time.  And after focusing on straight spine and coordinated breath it felt good to let go of that.  I actually had a point where I felt reptilian.  It was fun.  

Nov 9- Day 6 of 21 Day Challenge

weekend report

Let me just say for the record that though I didn't do yoga over the weekend I was still on my diet and supplement schedule so really it's longer than a 21 day challenge when it comes to eating....  The highlight of things so far is the amount of energy I have.  For the first time in over a year I have energy when I wake up.  I usually try to steal sleep over the weekend when I can sleep in.  But both days I woke up before 9 ready to bound out of bed.  Me getting up anytime before 11 on a weekend is a miracle. In general I've noticed that just by taking time for yoga and to fix myself some food I end up feeling like I have more time. Maybe it's because I'm not trying to eek more moments of sleep out of the day because I'm so exhausted and maybe it's because it's caused me to be more prepared and to do less rushing.  But it's amazing that adding things has made me feel like I have more time.  Slowing down feels good.  

Some old recipes from the days when I studied and ate Live Foods (all raw fruits and vegtables, and sprouted nuts and seeds) is coming back.  I soaked sunflower seeds and blended them with dates for a cereal I remember being pretty good from back in the day and topped it of with blackberries.  NO! The berries were good but the "cereal" was not good.  I'm not sure if it's cuz I made it in the morn and didn't eat it until lunch or just that it's really disgusting.  On the other hand I had one of the most delicious dishes I've had in the last 6 months, veggie or otherwise.  Chop up kale and rub sea salt and a little water into it and it breaks it down as if it's been cooked but maintains a really great flavor and then you chop up avacado and add it in.  It's reaaaaaaaaaaaally delich and simple.  Who would have known.  

eats

I went shopping Sunday night and the total was $81.  A few supplies will last longer than a week and I'll have to drop by the store once during the week for some more greens and a few things but that's pretty much a weeks supply for one person and, pretty much all organic (which is expensive in these parts).  I typically spend more than that in a week between the grocery and going out to eat so that's not too bad. It seems like Fred's has better produce than Safeway but I prefer the Safeway shopping experience.  So I've been trading off.  I actually crave my juice in the morning now.  This morning it was especially great. Rainbow chard, half lemon, cucumber, apple, carrot.  Banana for snack.  Didn't take lunch with me when running errands.  Big mistake, as I was hungry with no kibble to munch in the car.  Got home and ate up a bunch of cashews and sugar snap peas.  Now I'm eating up a Honeycrisp apple which is my new favorite apple, introduced to me by Angela, following teaching yoga class and will have a late dinner now that it's 9:30pm.  Will report on that tomorrow.  

yoga

Mondays are tough for me.  I usually get caught up on personal paperwork, bills and errands.  And all the sudden it's time to teach my two evening yoga classes.  So it seems I end up practicing at home before I head off to teach.  Got in 45 minutes of a low key practice.  Just got down on the wood floor with no sticky mat and did what felt good.  It was hard to let go of planning class and just get into my own zone. But even with my distractions it made me feel better.  

Nov 6- Day 5 of 21 Day Challenge

eats

My breakfast juice experience is getting to be habit at this point and I realized that cleaning the juicer is actually easier than cleaning out a coffee pot.  Rinse with hot water and your done.  There's not a bunch of grounds to smear everywhere.  Not that I ever make my own coffee.  I usually let someone else do that, add chocolate and steamed milk and charge me $4.50.  I need more snacks these days since my appetite is back so I had a banana before lunch.  And since I'm a good little food preparer these days I had a baby spinach salad with a chopped avocado, chopped tomato and cucumber ready to go for lunch.  I brought along a dressing that was just olive oil and apple cider vinegar.  Unfortunately I forgot my seasoned pumpkin seeds so it was lacking the flavor and crunch that could of made it really hit the spot.  Good thing I made it big because I ended up being at the studio much later than expected and so I had the rest for dinner.  It was sufficiently marinated by that point which made it better actually.  I finished off a good amount of cashews before I remembered I had it.  I hate to admit it because I love cheese and bread and all manner of good tasting goodness but my digestion is the best it's been in a long, long time.  The facial skin problems of extreme redness and dryness and agitation are totally gone.  

yoga

I knew my night would be busy so I caught our noon $5 Friday class.  It's the most active class I've done in awhile (besides Kundalini class).  I can feel my energy and strength coming back and am looking forward to a few weeks from now when I can glide through plank (push-up) pose again.

Nov 5- Day 4 of 21 Day Challenge

eats

Same juice for breakfast.  I've got my formula down which yields about a tall glass and a half of juice. I've gotten through the resistance of cleaning up the juicer and waking up earlier to actually prepare a meal before I rush out the door.  Got taken out again for Thai food by my sis this time for picking her up from the tire shop.  Mixed veggies and hot tea again.  No disrespect to Bahn Thai but Thai House's mix dominated.    All I could think about this  afternoon was, "MOCHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I nearly became possessed when I passed by Taco King and wanted nothing more than to pull in and gorge on a burrito, but somehow I summoned the strength to drive by burritoless.  Apparently after being sick and loosing my appetite it's coming back with a vengeance.  My mom invited me to bring my own meal for of course, their chicken enchilada dinner.  Can I just say... torture. Chicken enchiladas with some type of delicious looking white sauce, drenched in melted cheese, spanish rice and a salad with tortilla strips and some kind of salsa-sour cream dressing.  I slurped up my leftover pureed soup which next to enchiladas seemed kinda like baby food.  Still ravenous I headed to the fridge and settled on using the baby carrots to scoop up guacamole.  Still hungry I had mixed nuts and a banana for desert.

yoga

Gretchen's 5pm Gentle class is one of my favorites at the studio.She's got this down-to-earth, everything's-OK, easygoing nature, which along with her hypnotic background music gets me in a good space.  Plus I love it when I think, "oh I hope we do this next" and then that's what happens.  She has a great instinct for sequencing poses.  I ended up getting into class 15 minutes late but it still gave me a good 45 minutes and 15 minute relaxation.

Nov 4- Day 3 of 21 Day Challenge

eats

My breakfast juice was perfect this morn: red chard, half of a lemon, 1 apple, 1 cucumber, some parsley. Got the formula right this time so there wasn't too much lemon, but I do prefer lemon and apple together- it makes it taste just right. So I pureed my vegetable soup in a blender and it turned out to be a pretty good soup since it had things in it like carrot, sweet potato and zucchini.  Still had too much onion.  I packed it for lunch but wouldn't you know it when I picked my Mom up from work after her car refused to start in the morning she offered to take me out for Thai food.  At first I declined but then realized I could have some stir fried veggies and pass on the rice, so that's what I did, and some hot jasmine tea. I complain about the lack of suitable restaurants in this town but it's amazing how much wonderful Thai food we have to choose from.  Bahn Thai served it up.  Had the soup for dinner.  It worked.

yoga

Kundalini yoga has been a treat for me, because it differs from my normal teaching and practice style which is typically Vinyasa.  I went to our 5:30pm class in my jeans because I forgot my yoga pants, or as a little 3 year old friend of mine says, "soft pants", but luckily it didn't stop me, as it was just what I needed.  I confess I'm growing wary of sun salutations and feel like I've hit a plateau where I have to step out of teacher mode and into student mode for awhile to reinvigorate things.  It's nice to have a break from focus on alignment and give more attention to yoga's ability to work with the glands, systems and energetic system in the body.  With yoga's relocation to the west it's easy to forget that yoga was mostly used to prepare the body for meditation or as a meditation itself and to open the energy channels and centers in the body.  Kundalini always challenges me in the way that other yoga practices don't.  The repetition is a welcome change from holding poses but I thought my arms were going to break off which caused me to burst out into laughter as a coping mechanism.  Luckily others could relate to my lack of arm strength.  But I hit that sweet zone a few times where movement ceases to be directed by my mind which is one of my favorite places to be.  And final relaxation was bliss.  It wasn't like the rest you get from laying down or even a good nap.  It was that kind where I can't feel the edges of my body and there is absolutely no discomfort of this or that needing to be moved or altered.  

Nov 3- Day 2 of 21 Day Challenge

eats

Juice for breakfast was good but too much lemon.  1 apple, beet greens, 1 lemon, 1 cucumber.  I'll go for half a lemon next round.  Nice to have a real juicer.  Cleaning them- not so much fun.  But this Juiceman Juicer is easier to clean than my Champion that's locked away in a storage unit in Ashland.  I munched on grapes for a snack.  Had my leftover avocado - tomato salad for lunch.  Not as tasty the next day.  Munched on more grapes.  I forgot that fruit is pretty tasty.  For dinner I had a vegetable soup.  I had put an onion, sweet potato, couple zucchini, celery and garlic in the crock pot the night before, thinking then it would be ready and i could just reheat portions and add miso.   I realize now it would be easier to just make individual portions and then I don't have to eat old soup.  Miso and some Bragg Amino's (kinda like tamari or soy sauce) finished it off.  It was good but the a whole onion was way too much.  Not feelin' the onion.  My digestion is already showing signs of improvement.  No bloating like usual.

yoga

 I went to Yin/Restorative class at 5pm with Gretchen who is subbing while Trista is at her AcroYoga training.  The music and her voice and the fact that we didn't have to leave the floor were perfect.  I'm reminded how yoga everyday is necessary for me to stay sane but I forget when I've been away from a steady practice, like as of late, and often don't remember until I put myself back in the saddle again.  It's not only my body that feels better but I can feel my whole system decompressing.  The class is perfect after being out of commission and in bed for days.  I'm relieved not to be pushing through sun salutations.  

Nov 2- Day 1 of 21 Day Challenge

eats

Well I wasn't prepared, not having brought my loaned juicer home yet.  The doc told me to start each day with a green drink so I blended spinach and frozen blueberries in water.  Sounds gross but really it was just benign and neutral. Lunch came and still unprepared.  Raw almond butter in celery sticks.  Also boring.  I recovered with putting pieces of dried dates on top.  Pretty tasty actually once the dates entered the picture.  Don't know if your mom ever packed ants-on-a-log in your lunch box when you were a kid  (same concept: celery sticks, peanut butter and raisins).  Well in school I tended to pass those by to get smashed and smeared in their zip-lock bag but heah, now at the age of 33 it's good enough for me. Dinner- once again unprepared and starving after teaching and getting done at 9:00.  Head to the store and pick up some supplies and open a bag of cashews for munching (which I forget at the store, great investment).  I make an avocado-tomato salad by chopping up an avocado and a tomato and tossing it with sea salt and apple cider vinegar.  Something quick and surprisingly tasty.  After a path of indulgence this summer I think my tongue may actually need a break from Bearnaise sauce and is quite enjoying the taste of fruits and veggies... for now.

yoga

Well I almost bagged yoga for the day and decided I would just start the whole thing tomorrow and then decided that's probably not the way to kick things off so I decided to pull myself out of bed.  Well not really... I stayed on the bed and did about only four poses in that 45 minutes; seated forward bend, bound angle, child pose, one legged forward bend (each side) and then final relaxation.  I held each pose for a long time and at the end I did feel better, I was ready to get my but in gear and teach.  I had reached a new level of exhaustion after a two week stretch of staph and a busy previous Friday and Sunday before I was ready to hit high gear again.  Not a great start on either fronts but I did it.

Introducing The 21 Day Challenge

Since the beginning of the year I have envisioned creating a 21 Day Challenge at the studio.  It would consist of an initial Saturday Foundations class followed by yoga five days a week for four weeks.  Having experienced the benefits of a daily practice I wanted others to have the same experience of how much yoga can change your body and life in a short amount of time requiring no more than an hour and fifteen minutes a day, weekends off.  With 3-4 classes offered a day, as well as a Sunday class it seemed plausible that each person could craft a schedule that fit into their own lifestyle. 

Up against my own health challenges I've decided to be the guinea pig, posting each day to report the reality of it.  Though I love yoga, I also love staying up late, cocktails and dancing, and the pleasure of taste sensation and so the next part of the challenge I will also post about candidly.

Too boot I have decided to up the ante by embarking on a cleansing program as developed by Dr. Susan Godwin, ND. at Woodland Wellness Center simultaneously. All my training and background is in Natural Medicine and Yoga so one would assume no big deal.  But over the years I have developed an oppinion that being overly restrictive in an approach to health, acting as if everything that touches your lips needs to be organic, didn't float with me anymore, especially after being in areas where people were happy just to eat and drink and seemed very healthy despite their violation of "all natural standards". At the same time I have experienced in my own body and in observing others both acute and severe  medical conditions turn around through Naturopathic and Yogic means.  Once again I'm on the fence straddling two worlds.  Knowing the amazing benefits and knowing the risks in becoming fundamental. If pleasure, fun and spaciousness gets taken out of the sensual experience of living that's not good either.  Ask and the French and Italians who take time to enjoy their food and wine. 

I have tried many different ways of consumption: eating vegan (i did miss cheese and ice cream); ruling out sugar (hard at first, beneficial, but a big bummer when the chocolate mousse pie shows up); no empty carbs (not that big of a deal but so not gonna be one of those ordering my hamburger without a bun people); live foods- nothing but raw fruits, vegtables and sprouted nuts and grains (man did i feel great in puerto rico but started to crave meat when I hit AK- 3 weeks great, establishing it as a regular thing-extreme diligence); eat-anything-you-want diet (my prefered- i figure if you don't create a bunch of restrictions your mostly going to choose food that makes you feel good or tastes good and a balance of both are important- health and pleasure); the rum-lobster-jerk chicken-beans & rice diet (you start to miss vegtables after awhile but tasty and lots of foreign fun, and fun is indeed, according to me, a vital ingredient of health)... the list goes on but the punchline is...

As soon as I decide yes this is the way, it's not the right way anymore.  Life keeps moving, requires adaptability and asks something new of me.  And right now I'll try anything because stress has taken it's toll and for a year now I have been encouraging my immune system back to it's full strength.  So far what has brought the most relief is yoga; vacation with sun, fun and dancing; stess reduction through saying "no" and "hell no-more" when i need to; dare I say it,  "good lovin" (there I said it); and yes cocktails (I have a European standard when it comes to that). So I'm going to see how Green Drinks and supplements fit into this which strangely I also enjoy and eliminating some of the previous for a 21 day stretch.  I like to feel good and everyone has to find their formula.  So here goes, I'll keep you posted.

Here goes

This blog has been sitting dormant for months waiting for the right opportunity.  I originally anticipated anectodes of my little adventures, which often times take place minutes from home (which at the moment is Fairbanks, AK) and sometimes requires an aircraft to get me to a new location.  I've always tried to reconcile the different sides of me that can feel equally at home eating gorgonzola and drinking wine as I do in a biker bar, or munching up sprouts at yoga retreat.  None of it fits together and logically makes no sense and I've pretty much finally come to terms with this.  Generally I tend to be surrounded by an asortment of interesting characters whether it's the health-nut type, the construction variety, or the urbanite.  And so I thought I would share snippits of the extra-ordinary.  A combination of Into The Wild & Out Of The Ordinary.