green love juice recovery tonic September 16, 2009
I barely survived a week in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with 30 of my nearest and dearest friends and coworkers from MINDBODY. It was too much fun! I truly work with an incredible group of people. One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to witness a huge sea turtle dig a hole for her eggs on the beach, bury them, and make her way back to the sea. It was really cool to witness, and it seemed like an exhausting mission for her. I also enjoyed making new friends, exploring Bucerias, and watching the snarky shows the hotel put on in the evenings in the purple room, in particular the Michael Jackson tribute and the Titanic mock show where they threw ice on the drowned victims.
All the vacation fun was too exhausting. Most of the people who were on the trip were sick by the time we returned to reality. I always have a hard time finding a balance between enjoying myself and taking care of myself when outside of my normal routine. I get overly excited and don’t notice that I’m wearing myself out until I’m sick. On one hand, I’m getting better at giving myself the rest I need. I took two days away from drinking any of those evil, free cocktails and hid from our group so I could get some quiet, alone time. I practiced yoga facing the ocean 3 out of 6 days. On the other hand, their were many moments of spontaneous fun that couldn’t and shouldn’t have been denied. I just seem to be getting sick easier lately, and any behavior that wears down my immune system worries me. Maybe it’s just that I’m tracking how often I get sick now in a calendar so I’m surprised to see that I am sick almost every other month, almost always a sinus flare up. That just seems to be too often to me. What about those centurions living in the mountains in Russia who have never been sick? How am I going to be teaching and practicing yoga at 100 if I get a little sick every other month? While I don’t want to be too restrictive, I want to live an enjoyable life and I want to do what I can to take good care of myself, within reason. I don’t want to get cancer just because I eat what some corporation told me to eat in some subliminal marketing campaign.
On that note, I have been drinking some Liquid Love Green Juice this week along with eating wholesome, vegan meals. Liquid Love is this amazing vegetable juice made by a local raw, vegan cook with kale, cilantro, celery, cucumber, garlic, and lots of other green goodness. It’s kind of like drinking wheat grass all day long, but it tastes better. I feel great after drinking it for the last 2 days. It’s amazing how much better I feel after a little Roxy love the last few days eating well, doing yoga, and getting plenty of rest. I’m heading to Michigan this weekend to visit family, then to Estes Park, Colorado for the Yoga Journal Conference. It is my favorite yoga conference and I’m sad that I don’t get to take classes this time. I am teaching E-Marketing at the Business of Yoga Workshop though, which is always fun. One day my friends, I will be teaching yoga and business at Yoga Journal…you just wait!
A few nutritional ideas, to help keep you well:
1) Cranberry juice, or cranberries, or their extract, taken daily. Chemicals in CBs keep many bacteria from colonizing, reducing infection. The effect(s) spread throughout the entire alimentary canal – from the sinuses, to the teeth/mouth, all the way through, etc. Just watch out for excess sugar, since the berries are sour by themselves.
2) Omega-3 fatty acids (EPA & DHA, from fish oil). Not vegan ALA from Flaxseeds. If you need to know why, do the research. Figure on 2-4 grams/day (net) of EPA+DHA.
3) Animal protein. Consider the possibility that your body needs more of the amino acids in animal proteins than you are getting. Some people get very sick on a partial or complete vegetarian diet. Assertions that vegetarianism is optimum for everyone are highly debatable (Paleolithic diet, etc).