Fun and Mental Changes

With February fast approaching, I was reminded this morning that it's almost time for another Master Cleanse. Every February and every August I try to complete a 10 day round of a cleansing fast called The Master Cleanse. So with cleansing the inside to remove toxins, I also try to keep the outside clean of toxins by using all natural soaps and shampoos, haircare products, make up, even my toothpaste to all natural... well, I try to use them all the time, but CERTAINLY during my cleanses twice a year. So this morning when I opened up my Vital Juice Everywhere newsletter to see an ad for affordable, all natural soap, I was super psyched that I might be able to save a little coin on beauty products this go around on the cleanse... Body Soap AND Facial Soap!?! I think I might have to be all over this one. True Body soap is made with only five ingredients (facial soap is 7): Palm Oil, Coconut Oil, Water, Vegetable Glycerin and Sodium Citrate. It’s unscented, which means there’s no ad...

Breakfast At Subway! Wow! Subway did it again! A healthy option for the fast food crazed nation. And like their classic lunch menu, this breakfast blows what others offer AWAY! Here's what I ordered today: WESTERN EGG WHITE MELT Multi-grain muffin (toasted) Egg white Ham Onions Green bell pepper Then Toasted a second time... a matter of seconds in the toaster Salt and pepper Provolone cheese A TON of spinach That's it! Nothings fried or greasy or sticking to any one's ribs. It's just whole and hearty and DELICIOUS!!! And you Weight Watchers fans out there will be thrilled to learn that the sandwich I just ate had only 3 points!!! Not bad for a complete breakfast that included a serving of vegetables!!! Take that McDonald's! And since I'm bringing up McDonald's.... now's the perfect time to mention, "BOYCOTT MCDONALD'S"!!! Last year I saw Food Inc. when it was in theaters (now it can be found at Blockbuster) and heard how McDonald's pret...

THEY GET EVEN BETTER!!!! Welp, since reading The Green Smoothie Revolution by Victoria Boutenko, I've now incorporated a green smoothie into my morning ritual. Strike that... the green smoothie IS my morning ritual! I SO look forward to that morning green bliss, well, after I get back from the gym that is. For anyone who wants to try, here is my favorite concoction. 2-3 heaping cups of spinach, kale or any other green leafy vegetable 1 cup of organic coconut water **(see the bottom of this post for more on THAT) 1 whole organic mango peeled, pitted and sliced 1 medium organic pineapple peeled, cored and sliced 1 large banana peeled 2 cups of ice cubes (optional... I like mine REALLY cold) Add all ingredients above in Vitamix or high speed blender. Blend on high for 30 seconds or until the mixture is blended REALLY well. You can also add ground raw flax seed for an added nutritional punch. If the smoothie is too thick add some spring water or more coconut water to thin it out. Thi...

A few years back I decided to make a change in my diet to incorporate raw fruit and veggies. As with many who attempt the raw food lifestyle (I do still eat meat, just much less and I try never to cook my veggies), I over-complicated things. But I've discovered two key tips that EASILY incorporate raw food into my diet... mix of flavors and marinate, marinate, marinate! 1.) Green smoothies ROCK! Mixing 60% tropical fruits and 40% dark green leafy vegetables together makes for an AWESOME drink!!! What an exotic and fancy way to get 5 servings of fruit and vegetables into your diet without a lot of work! Today I mixed 2 cups of spinach with 1 mango, 1 orange, 1 banana and 1/2 of a large pineapple with a splash of water into my Vitamix blender (you REALLY need a high speed blender for these smoothies) and got a wonderful drink that started out my morning quite nicely. Tomorrow I'm mixing coconut water, 1/2 cup coconut meat, 1 mango, 1/2 of a large pineapple with 1 - 1.5 cups of d...

Ok.... Green Smoothie Revolution by Victoria Boutenko... High Five Victoria, High Five!!! I was SUPER excited to start this cleanse after reading the book and even convinced my husband to do this cleanse with me. I think he agreed to it since there isn't a "salt water flush" to do every morning and I can change up the smoothies every day. Not to mention that the smoothies are blended (more bulk) instead of juiced (more liquid), so I'm thinking that "full" feeling will help the cause. He agreed to 7 days with no meat, dairy or wheat, drinking only the green smoothies from this book for all his meals during the day. I told him that he can drink as much and as many smoothies as he wants. Today was the first day for both of us and I mixed a WONDERFUL concoction using fresh, organic, pineapple, peaches, dandelion greens and celery mixed with water. The pineapple and peaches made it REALLY sweet.... so I would have to say that the first day is a SUCCESS. Tomorrow...

Well... this last Master Cleanse only lasted me 5 days.... UGH! I was so hoping to finish a 40 day cleanse this time! DANG IT!!!! Oh well, I guess I'll just switch some cleansing gears. I just read Green Smoothie Revolution by Victoria Boutenko and now I'm SUPER motivated to give this "experiment" a shot! A special shout out to my sister for recommending the book! What a great (and tasty, judging by the recipes) way to continue cleansing at a slower pace while still filling up on fruit and veggies! You just blend it all down to liquid form with a high speed blender and "viola" super green super food perfect for on-the-go! I gotta admit, a smoothie seems like the perfect vehicle to get the cleansing job done without "emptying" (you devout lemon heads KNOW what I'm talking about here) and time prepping. Plus... did I mention some of these recipes rock? Even though I'm drinking my meals, which I'm totally used to with The Master Cleanse, ...

Well... all is well! It has been a tough two weeks, but as always, when you make it through, things get significantly brighter. As is the case today. I'm on the Master Cleanse again (it's that time again folks... I'm twice a year now) and I'm doing very well. I'm going to cleanse for 40 days this time, so I'm in it for the long haul. I'm reaching for homeostasis, and only TIME cleansing can give you that. I will then be following that up with a much slower cleanse with raw food so hopefully by the end of the year I will look 10 years younger! HA! Don't judge! God uses vanity to motivate too! LOL! Seriously though, my goal is ALWAYS divine health!!! So if things weren't already wonderful today with the cleanse, I was also just asked to be a Copic Marker demonstrator for a scrapping event this weekend!!! What an amazing honor! And this will work out perfectly with this cleanse because it will occupy my hands and my mind and keep me from eating!!! LOVE ...

Meet Charlie. He is one of many helpers in my garden. I found him this morning when I went out to the garden. Prior to gardening, I couldn't stand bugs. Bugs would make me jump and were always associated with fear and (in most cases) annoyance. Now bugs hold a special place in my heart for the services they provide to my organic garden... well, now that I know a little more about them. Spiders I would never have considered myself an arachnophobe, but I had a definitive dislike for spiders only tinged with a slight fear. Now I know better. While you don't want an infestation of spiders, having a few on hand (not literally) actually keeps other bugs away. According to Dr. Linda S. Rayor, Assistant Professor of Entomology, Cornell University , spiders are considered to be the most important terrestrial predators, eating tons of pest insects or other small arthropods every year. And those webs, that have always creeped me out, are actually my gardens best defense against unwante...

With this crazy economy and money tight, I STILL manage to vacation at least once a week. I had a phone conversation with my sister the other day and we discussed the power of visual and scent or flavor triggers that make you relax. Pictures of tropical beaches that we love to set as our screen savers is a VERY good example. So today I'm going to touch on how and where I "vacate" every week. I'm also going to throw in a little bonus a la my sister. 1.) Key lime Pie Protein Smoothie: A protein shake recipe straight out of my favorite recipe book of all time, Eating For Life. Every time I taste this shake I'm whisked back to my visit to the Florida Keys a number of years back, enjoying the BEST key lime pie on earth! Every sip is a mini vacation. You can see from the pic that I milk this mini-vacate to the hilt, full-on with decorative palm tree drink stirrer... a frozen one at that! It extends my get-away a little without leaving my kitchen. 2.) Tea Time: I don...

I'm tagging this post under Bible Study, but a Bible study isn't really a part of today's blog post. It's really just an observation that struck me this morning while I was in the garden. First off: MY FIRST SPROUT OF 2010!!!! Woo Hoo!!!! And of course its Zucchini! I love zucchini and seemed to have mastered growing it last year with my first garden ever. So I'm not surprised that I'm pulling it off again this year. But while I was in the garden this morning it hit me how our creator... call Him whatever is applicable to your particular faith, made us to constantly be creating (*please note here that I'm not taking any glory from God, I'm only referring to the work I'm doing with my hands. But I will add that it is my own personal belief that there is the power of creation in our free will). Moving the soil of our lives around, burying seeds and watching it grow.... creating something of beauty that is useful. Of course we can't forget that we n...

Wow... another birthday is fast approaching and as is customary for my wonderful, awesome, out-of-this-world husband, I could pick anything I wanted to get. Well, this year I wanted a Kindle. This wasn't a willy-nilly decision. I've spent about a year mulling over whether or not to even convert to an e-reader. My concern was the strain on my eyes and, well, I wouldn't be reading real books anymore. There's something so organic with the look and feel of books... even the smell cannot be replaced. But thanx to a Kindle demo done by my sister, I got over that fast. THE SCREEN LOOKS LIKE THE REAL THING!!! She also purchased a super special cover (I'll be going into that quite a bit in a sec) that REALLY helped me decide to venture into the digital world of reading. And when I said a moment ago that I will not be reading real books anymore, I mean it. With the $200-$400* pricetag on these e-readers, the 'ORGANIZATIONAL' aspect of this item was a huge driving fact...

Like with so many other natural, organic foods, I'm surprised to find out how EASY it is to make beans, and yet I've NEVER made them until two days ago. So I'm going to break it down to three easy steps so that others can start making beans for themselves too and not be subjected to possible BPA poisoning (in can lining) and high levels of sodium. Not to mention, although I totally am, that fresh, homemade beans are just better for you since the vitamins and minerals have not been depleted or altered. They haven't lost nutrition in some chemical processing or canning process and the flavor is out of this world. I literally ate black beans right out of the pot without a lick of anything for flavor added... and they tasted WONDERFUL! Your health is worth the time and a hill of beans. At the end I'll post the recipe for the awesome fajita mix you see in the pic here. Beans (Black, Red, Brown, Pic your favorite) My method of making beans saves me a ton of time, but it r...

Sorry, no pix for this one. I made these to take with me to the Halloween party last night and returned empty handed! LOL! I was complimented by a request for the recipe, so I thought I would post it here for EVERYONE!!! :) They are actually just a spin off of an old favorite of mine..... Banana Cupcakes . What a versatile recipe! Click the link for some serious YUM! Pumpkin Muffins 2 1/4 Cups whole wheat pastry flour 2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 2 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg 1/2 tsp. ground ginger 1/4 tsp. ground cloves 1/2 Cup agave nectar or maple syrup 2/3 Cup unsweetened applesauce **** 1 whole egg 1 egg white 2 Cups pumpkin puree 1/3 Cup crushed pecans (optional) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients together; set aside. Mix the pumpkin, agave nectar or maple syrup and applesauce together. Beat the eggs into the wet mixture. Add wet mixture to the dry and mix well. Fill lightly oiled muffin wells 3/4 full and bake for 30-35 minutes (mini...

Years ago, prior to the healthy lifestyle changes, or what I like to call "the change", I had basic dietary staples. Among those staples were bread (usually white), crackers (assorted types), peanut butter, canned veggies, canned soups, boxed EVERYTHING (from mac n' cheese to cake and pancake mixes) with the biggest staple being minute rice. Anything that takes a minute to cook IS ALTERED FOOD, but I won't go into detail with that tonight... only to ask if you've considered how healthy ALTERED FOOD really is? If something is SO PROCESSED that it takes moments to prepare... how nourishing is it to your body? How healthy and fit can it make you? Could our obesity epidemic in America be linked to the very fact that we are not nourishing our bodies therefore our bodies are hording fat thinking they are being starved??? Just a thought, but I digress. Over time I came to understand that anything refined was missing important nutrients that my body needed and on top of t...

What is it we all KNOW to do? ... Eat our veggies. Fitness professionals, Weight Watchers, nutritionists and the like will all tell you that you can almost eat as many vegetables as you want as often as you want and it will help you lose weight. Heck, an entire eating plan revolves around the concept... ever heard of a little thing called Volumetrics!?! But what if I told you that I had a proven method to not just eat your vegetables, but get more vitamins, minerals and enzymes from them and actually use them to substitute the things you already love? Wow... you'd say that I sounded like a pitch man from a sales infomercial! hahahaha! Well, I'm not selling anything, but I do want to share the proven method. When I say proven method, I mean that it has proven itself true to work for me. It may or may not work for you, but ask your doctor and see what they think about RAW FOOD! Actually it's just raw fruit, vegetables, seeds and nuts. I still eat cooked meat (organic of cours...

Raw Cacao Chip Ice Cream 2 Cups raw organic cashews (soaked overnight) 1/2 Cup agave nectar 1 Cup coconut water 1/2 Cup coconut oil/butter 1 Tbsp cacao powder 1 tsp mesquite powder 1-2 Tbsp cacao nibs (real chocolate chips! Yay!) In a high speed blender, combine all ingredients (leaving out the cacao nibs... add nibs the last five minutes in the ice cream maker) until the mixture is smooth. Place mixture in the freezer to get nice and chilled through (about an hour) but not frozen. Remove from freezer and complete in an ice cream maker using manufacturer's instructions. This stuff is amazing because not only is it SOOO FREAKIN YUMMY, but it's also soooo much better for you! It's not super rich, and in my opinion, tastes better than anything you can buy in a store! :) Happy snacking on this one.

Tonight's raw dinner was stuffed bell peppers with "cheezy" chips The power flavors for the meal were parsnips, wild rice and nutritional yeast (or brewer's yeast). This recipe is a HOME RUN! Because I had meat eaters at the table tonight, myself included, I also added cooked organic apple chicken sausage to the raw stuffing recipe.... they are on the left in the pic. It was funny to see how the meat darkened the entire dish since the only thing cooked was the meat. Funny! This one is FANTASTIC with or without meat and is a FitterTwit original! Stuffed Bell Peppers 4 Bell peppers, tops and ribs removed 1 Cup organic wild rice soaked for three days (change water twice a day) 1 Cup grated cabbage 1/3 Cup diced parsnip (remove the brown outer skin so it will look like rice) 1/3 Cup chopped onion 1/3 Cup Chopped bell pepper 1/2 Cup chopped celery 2 cloves garlic pressed 2 Tbsp liquid aminos 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 2 Tbsp raw organic apple cider vinegar 1 Tbsp sto...

Well, today's post was SUPPOSED to be raw Nori Rolls, but halfway through preparing them last night, I couldn't finish... they were TERRIBLE!!! I painstakingly found dehydrated nori sheets (instead of toasted... they were kind of hard to find) in keeping with the whole "raw" theme, but found out very quickly that dehydration INTENSIFIES the fishy flavor of the seaweed. Yah, I HATE FISH!!! I have always loved California Rolls and have never once been bothered by any fishy taste; well now I know why. Toasting the seaweed lessens the fishy flavor while dehydration concentrates it. And yes... I know that dehydration also means that you are getting all the nutrients and enzyme goodness that you don't get from the toasted seaweed, but YUCK! Now, the rolls that you see in the pic are clearly California Rolls instead. The rice did a MUCH better job dialing the fish flavor down (notice how thick I had to make the rice layer...hahahaha!) and if I was going to add the rice, ...

This is a FitterTwit original folks! I literally was playing in the laboratory, uh, I mean kitchen, attempting to recreate one of my favorite Asian foods.... lettuce wraps. You will see in the pic that I used swiss chard for the lettuce. I DO NOT recommend using anything but iceberg lettuce. I really missed the cold crunch! But other than that, they turned out FANTASTIC!!! Lettuce Wraps 4 whole pieces iceberg lettuce leaves (NOT swiss chard unless you are ok with a much less crispy and tasty wrap) 1 Cup Raw Almonds that were soaked for four hours 1 Tbsp Miso 1 Tbsp Nama Shoyu 1 Tbsp Asian Chili Garlic Sauce/Paste (VERY spicy, please adjust to taste) 1/4 Cup Flax meal 1 clove garlic minced 4 green onions 1 zucchini 2 stalks celery Set the lettuce leaves in the fridge to get nice and cold. In a food processor add almonds, miso, nama shoyu, chili sauce, garlic, and flax and process until large pieces are processed and the mixture has the consistency of the chicken filling for lettuce wra...

Here is my fabulous magic bullet concoction! Done in minutes and tastes wonderful! Lemon Cilantro Dressing 3/4 Cup celery juice 1/3 Cup fresh cilantro 2 Tbsp. lemon juice 3 Tbsp. raw tahini 1 Tbsp. flax oil (optional) 1 clove garlic In Magic Bullet, juice celery (using the bonus juicer attachment). Pour juice into bowl. Remove juicer attachment and celery pulp. Replace juice into blender attachment adding remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth (about a minute). This recipe is so simple, so quick and so yummy. This would also make a great sauce for grilled chicken or salmon! ***This is a modified recipe from Living In The Raw .