Monthly Archives: June 2011

June 16, 2011 · 4:09 pm

Nutritarian

I’m a nutrient nut.

And I’m thrifty.

Combine the two and I’m a nutritarian!

I’m all about getting the most nutritional BANG for my calorie BUCK.

Breakfast fit that description perfectly.  Each ingredient was thoughtfully choosen for what it would add in terms of overall taste and nutrition.

It all started when I received a little box in the mail yesterday.

Inside were a few treats direct from Peru.

My lovely friend Cristina did a little shopping for me on a recent trip South.  Bee pollen and maca.  Sure, you can get both products here but in Peru they are fresh, inexpensive, and easy to come by.  And they will remind me of both Cristina and Lima each time I use them. 🙂

Bee pollen is a rich source of antioxidents and protein.  It is energizing, can improve metabolism, and is excellent for the immune system due to it’s high levels of vitamin C.  Bee pollen has a strong flavor and is best used a teaspoon or so at a time. *People who are allergic to bees should avoid consuming bee pollen*

Maca, “the gift from the andes” as the bag reads, is a powder made from a turnip-like root that grows high in the mountains of Peru and Bolivia.  Maca is known for balancing hormones (who couldn’t use a little help with that!) and is 22% protein, providing you with nearly two grams for 30 calories.  It has a slightly sweet, slightly butterscotchy flavor.

Not planning a trip to Peru any time soon?  Both of these products are commonly found at health food stores.

I thought there was no better way to add these superfoods into my breakfast than a jar of overnight oats!

Want to most nutrition from your morning oats? Soak ’em!

Last night I mixed up

  • 1/3 cup rolled oats
  • ~1 cup plain homemade yogurt + a little extra whey (for protein, probiotics, and calcium)
  • 1 tsp. chia seeds (for protein and Omega-3’s)
  • 1 tsp. maca
  • 1 tsp. bee pollen
  • cinnamon (to stabilize blood sugar)
  • stevia

I let the mixture sit at room temp for a few hours them put it in the refrigerator overnight.  Soaking oats at room temperature with a little acid (from the whey in the yogurt) aids in the digestion of the oats.  Don’t worry, the acid prevents the mis from going bad.

This morning I added antioxident-rich serviceberries from the freezer and a few Omega-3-full walnuts.

This super-nutritious jar left me satisfied but feeling light and energized.

I’m excited to experiment more with maca and bee pollen.  I recall having a particularly amazing raw chocolate pie made with bee pollen years ago…got to figure out how to recreate that!

I’ll leave you with this classic Hippocrates quote to mull over when choosing what to lunch on.

“Let thy food by thy medicine and medicine by thy food.”

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June 15, 2011 · 2:05 pm

Motivational Mojo

I used to be a go-getter.

I always had a project or three in the works and was constantly running from rehearsals to one of my many jobs.

Then I moved to Lima, Peru and daily tasks became daily adventures.  Most of these adventures were a result of language issues, I am particularly challenged in this field, but the cultural differences were not to be taken for granted either.  Grocery shopping, getting laundry washed and gas delivered for the stove became the main items on my to-do list.

At first I attempted to seek out dance classes and volunteer opportunities but quickly got discouraged when class info was never correct and you had to pay to volunteer.

Life slowed to a crawl.

Maybe I am being to hard on myself. I did hold mat Pilates classes out of our spare bedroom. I had a number of personal training clients.  I worked for and with this amazing young women, helping her through her day and doing therapeutic exercises with her.  I went to Machu Picchu three times in a year.   I had house-guests for over three of the twelve months we lived there.  I formed a few international BFF’s.

I had big hope and ambition that I would hit the ground running when I returned to “the States”.  I was ready to build my career, make a name for myself in my new home of Charlottesville.  But there were a lot of setbacks.  My certifications had expired while I was gone.  Purchasing the building for the clinic and my studio got delayed by the bank month after month.

Then my certs were updated and the building was ours.  It was the dead of winter and the gyms weren’t hiring, my studio was super slow and the clinic deserved my full attention.

Here we are in June.  I’ve lived in Charlottesville for 9 months.  I am thrilled with the clinic, thrilled with our house, thrilled with town, and thrilled with our community.  But something is still missing.  I need projects!  The blog has been a wonderful, grounding, satisfying aspect in my life over the last year but I am ready for a little more.

I want a few things in my life that feed me the way teaching and dancing does.

The problem is that the dance scene is in a downswing around here and, while I do have a few teaching opportunities in the hopper, classes are few and far between.

Are these just excuses?  Sometimes I feel that I hit a motivational wall in South America and now I am just drowning in apathy.  Don’t worry, I expect no sympathy for this; apathy is, well, pathetic.

I like to point the finger at small town living, less dance, less teaching opportunities, less students to go around, but what’s all that finger pointing going to get me?

The reason I’m putting this out there today is a hope that publicly proclaiming that I am ready to get my ass in gear and make some stuff happen for myself will be the proverbial kick in the pants I need to get into gear.  I’m ready for my motivational mojo to return!

Thanks for listening!

“Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.”
-William James

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