Spring Cleanse 2012: A Walk in The Park

Spring has sprung in California!  The hills are green and wild flowers abound.

When it comes to self care during a Spring Cleanse, taking a walk in nature comes highly recommended.  Especially when you slow down from your regular fast pace, and meander slowly along the trail, breaking here and there to stop and snap a picture of anything beautiful or captivating that catches your eye - or just to breathe all that beauty in.

Imagine the warm sun on your skin, a gentle coastal breeze in your hair, insects humming, birds chirping, and  the gurgle of a creek as you take this walk in Edgewood Park, Redwood City Ca. with me.

Nature's natural fence of poison oak lines a lot of the trails - these on the right are 6 plus feet tall

Like looking at the ocean floor without the ocean

A doe and her fawns passing through

So grateful for this beautiful California day

On life's path

Spring Cleanse 2012 is on! Week One

Salmon Tacos - dinner night #1.

It's that time of the year again!  Spring is here, the sun is shining, and after dealing with a bad back and weathering through the heavier foods of winter and holidays past, (including eating a chocolate Easter bunny meant for my husband the night before I started the cleanse) it's time to get back to eating clean and feeling lean - inside and out!

It's time to load up on healthy and energizing foods; let go of a few pounds (and a few bad habits); get creative in the kitchen and luxuriate in some concentrated self care.  All under the loving and nourishing guidance of Julie Vance and Carolyn Knobel - the creators of  Yoga Niche's  2012 Spring Cleanse.

Kale and Radicchio Salad

This is my second cleanse with the Niche and I am loving all aspects of it.  This year's plan includes seafood (though not a lot) and is dairy and gluten free   Last year's was vegan - and it was a great way for us to transition into a diet free of animal products.  In fact, we were eating a vegan diet right up until my back went out in December and we were faced with holiday meals and entertaining.  Right now we are "flexitarians" - eating mostly vegan/vegetarian at home, and flexible when out at a friend's.  (I still chafe about contributing to animal suffering - but at least we're contributing less than we were two years ago.)  

Thai Noodle Pesto - no animals in here!

Cleansing is in part about releasing toxins,  Along with eating whole grains, fruits and veggies; sipping on lemon or spa water, herbal teas and a variety of cleansing elixirs to help move those toxins along - this is also an important time to take good care of yourself.  To pamper yourself with massage, yoga, acupuncture, facials, gentle exercise - whatever makes you feel good inside.  If your job is less than pampering - it's a good idea to take some time off if you can. 

Last year I got a few massages for self care, but this year, I'm doing things a little differently. This year, I'm investing in myself in a completely different and decadent way.  This year -drum role please - I bought myself a Vitamix blender!  

The Vitamix's inaugural blend

I heard about the Vitamix blender in last year's cleanse.  Oh how great it was they said.  Blending smoothies to perfection, making ice cream and soup, paying bills, doing laundry, and picking the kids up from school.  (ok - maybe not those last few.)  Sounds great I thought until I checked out the Vitamix website and saw the triple digit price tag.  Spend that much on a blender?  You gotta be friggin kidding me.  No thank you, I'll pass.  I'll covet you but pass.  

Then Costco started offering it, a client made me a shake with one during a lunch meeting, and I was back,a year later, at the cleanse.  Still great they said.  Still blending like a pro. And yup, still priced at $450 plus.  When the universe gives you a nudge though - you really ought to listen.  I grappled with myself a few more days - and then finally, in the spirit of self care, decided to take the plunge.

Radish Refresher (breakfast) on old blender

 

Radish Refresher (breakfast) on the Vitamix

Oh.My. God.  If you, like me, have been on the fence about this thing - I only hope you find a way to bring it into your life.  (in a legal and healthy way of course ;-)  You will not regret it.  You will only kick yourself for having waited so long - enduring little lumps of ice in your not so smooth smoothies if your blender is anything like mine was.  I am giddy with joy.  Really.  Giddy.  I am so happy I invested in myself.  (Because up until recently - I've been pretty good at socking it away for my future self, but more miserly on investing in my current self.  But that's a topic for a whole other post.)

For now - I'm going to revel in the joy of giving myself this gift.  My new "precious".  The plan, once the cleanse is over, is to make a smoothie every day until they cost just $1 a day to make.  That's a lot of smoothies.  But oh - how enjoyable they'll be!

Healing with a Smile

Health is everything.  Losing it in some way shape or form - especially if you are kinesthetic like me - has a way of sucking the joy (not to mention momentum) out of life.

When I think of of my current aches and pains though - which I'll tell you about in just a bit - I can't help but think of my husband's stepsister, Sandra, who died last year of a rare soft cell sarcoma.  Sandra was a vibrant, smart, and glass "full-to-the-brim/overflowing" kind of gal.  

We spent a long weekend with her and my husband's family along the coast of Germany were we laughed, walked, biked, talked and teased (her a lot about the existence or not of alcohol free wheat beer.)  Parting ways - I still remember how much I looked forward to spending time with her again.  She was diagnosed shortly thereafter, and for the next two years or so, we watched her pore every ounce of energy and will she had into staying alive.  She was 32 years old when she lost her battle, and we lost all our futures with her.

I don't know how she did it. I'm sure she had her moments - but it was rare to see her without a smile on her face.  She was - and is in my memories - a woman who was filled with an inspiring, positive can-do-energy - no matter the odds - and the odds, in the end, were never in her favor.

This is all a long way to get to where I am today and to why I haven't blogged since last year.  No - I don't have cancer.  Nor am I fighting the kind of battle that Sandra valiantly fought and  many are fighting today.  But I have, since November of last year, been plagued with a number of back-to-back health "setbacks" - for lack of a better term.  All requiring some kind of diagnostic testing and multiple doctor visits.  (and this for someone who up until now has prided herself  on not requiring anything more than the occasional annual preventative check-up).

Has middle age come a knocking?  Is this what this is all about?  When I kicked this blog off last year - I talked about "redefining health and fitness in a middle aging body" as something I anticipated doing as part of living an "invested life".  When I wrote that though, I thought I meant learning how to modify nutrition and exercise habits to accommodate hormonal changes as I get older.  Never in a million years would I have thought it would include addressing blood showing up where it shouldn't, immune systems attacking, or childhood falls coming back to haunt me in the form of a whacked out disc in my lower back.  But then - this is life. 

That last one though - my back going out on me - is the one that has me thinking of Sandra.  The first time I threw it out was smack dab in the middle of the World Series playoffs that the SF Giants would go on to win.  Sure I was laid up a bit - a great excuse to lie on the couch - cheering Buster, the Beard and their fellow teammates on.  But I figured I'd get back up to speed on my own.  I'd work out my core, which truth be told - I'd been neglecting.  I'd get back into yoga.  And I'd ramp back up into my weight training routine.  And I did.  Slowly but surely - get back into some semblance of a work out routine.  Not as much as I'd been doing before - but I did.  And as I did - the serious pain ebbed - but it never went entirely away.  It continued to  nag. Mostly in my lower back and hip.

In retrospect - that constant low level chronic pain took a toll not only on my physical health, but on my emotional well being too.  Chipping away at full joy.  Making me feel limited.  Making me cautious and guarded with what I committed myself physically to.  Subtle - but a toll.  Low level pain became my "new" normal.  I got cranky.  And that became normal.  My poor husband.  I knew I didn't want it to be this way - and held out that at some point I would feel better if I just kept doing what I was doing.  It just never seemed to get any better.

 

Maybe I'm lucky that I live with, among others, Charlie, the cutest cat in the universe. Charlie loves sitting on laps, but as the runt of the litter, he's incapable of jumping up on them himself.  Instead, he'll signal his desire to be lifted onto your lap by sitting close and looking up at you in that adorable and expectant way he does.  I'm lucky because if I hadn't have leaned left to pick him up, I wouldn't have experienced the tiny pop in my lower back.  I wouldn't have woken up the next morning incapable of moving because my back was locked tight, and I wouldn't have gone to the doctor, gotten the MRI, or gone through the eight weeks of physical therapy that followed.  I might still be trying to do it myself, experiencing the same minimal results.

I wish I could say I was 100% again, but I'm not.  I have an inkling of hope though - having experienced a day or two of 0 back pain, and I have a lot more tools and learning than I had before I set out on the healing journey.  I'm learning, the hard way, what triggers a setback.  I'm on what I hope is the tail end of a second setback.  Over did it activity wise at home a few weeks ago.  Learning to take "back breaks" when I feel it tightening up.  The pain is back to about a 3-5 on a scale of 10.  Not great.  Chronic.  Eating away at joy.  

And then I stop.  I think of Sandra.

I think of all those days she had to wake up with the knowledge of the cancer eating away at her.  I think of how she held on to hope and fought so hard to find a cure. I think of the pain, discomfort, and emotional fear and upheaval she must have experienced - day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.  I think of how she threw herself fully into living - not just enduring her treatments - but taking classes and experiencing as much living out of life as she could.

If she could stop cancer from taking that beautiful smile off her face - than to honor her - I'll be damned if I let a little back pain rob me of mine. 

Wherever you are girl - this one's for you.