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Summer Solstice Week: Menu Plan Mondays

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This past weekend I went to the natural foods grocery store here called Earthfare.  When I first went here I was a little shell-shocked at the prices, but now that I’ve been shopping at the regular grocery store for a few months, I realize there’s really not much of a difference.  Some things are cheaper, some things are not, and it doesn’t really depend on rather its organic or not.
This Wednesday I’ll respond with what I actually ate last week.   I got a little detox/sick this past weekend as well, so I didn’t buy a ton, a lot of dried fruit/veggies, all sorts of berries, cherries, bananas, cantaloupe and veggie burgers.  Once again I’m happy to link up with a few hundred menu planning bloggers at org junkie.

Monday went like this:  Brunch:8  Bananas  Dinner 1:  Potato/okra veggie burgers in lettuce wraps & veggie burger on rice/almond bread  Dinner 2:  Cereal

Tuesday plan:  Breakfast: Watermelon  Lunch:  Banana/berry smoothie or “cereal”  Dinner 1:  Vegan French toast & Pineapple/Grapes/Green Smoothie(very yummy)  Dinner 2:  Guacamole wraps & cauliflower rice w/ tomato sauce

Wednesday plan:  Breakfast:  Watermelon  Lunch:  Cantaloupe  Dinner 1:  Banana smoothie  Dinner 2:  Carrot slaw & Yucca/potato soup

Thursday plan:  Breakfast:  Chopped fruit w/ banana mylk  Lunch:  Cantaloupe  Dinner 1:  Rice Salad & Fruity lettuce tacos & raw broccoli/tomato/orange blended soup  Dinner 2: Melon

Friday plan:  Breakfast:  Melon  Lunch:  Banana/fruit icecream  Dinner 1:  Fruit salad Dinner 2:  Gazpacho w/ tomato & avocado & steamed broccoli w/ hemp seeds& sweet potato fries for daughter #1 (cause Friday is “fries day”)

Saturday plan:  Breakfast: Cantaloupe Lunch:  Cereal w/ Coconut mylk  Dinner 1:  Raw peach cobbler &  French toast  Dinner 2:  Sonora burgers w/  & gazpacho

Sunday plan:  Breakfast:  Cantaloupe  Lunch: Raw Peach cobbler   Dinner 1:  Banana pudding & raw carrot slaw Dinner 2:  Whatever

*Snacks as we go, Second dinner is optional

*Sunday we’re going to a luau so I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that…I’ll let you know what we do next Wednesday.

Menu Plan Mondays

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I like to plan my meals.  Especially when transitioning or maintaining a fruit-centric lifestyle without a natural abundance of fruit.  In other words, when I shop at the grocery store, I have a hard time keeping my food and meals in check.  If I don’t meal plan I get lost in the haze of eating and shopping.   Next Wednesday I’ll respond with what I actually ate.  I believe this will help me determine where I am and where I need to go with my eating habits.   I’m happy to link up with a few hundred menu planning bloggers at orgjunkie.com

It’s still Monday for me(though not technically).  I bought groceries tonight and procured 2 pints of strawberries, a pint of blueberries, 6 cantaloupe, 2 watermelons, plums, nectarines, pineapple and organic bananas.  I also got iceberg lettuce, cauliflower, tomatoes, avocado, celery and yucca and other things you don’t wanna know about.

Monday went like this:  Breakfast: Watermelon  Lunch: 10 bananas  Dinner 1:  Rice noodles soup w/ lentils Dinner 2:  Pineapple, Sweet potato fries & rice noodles

Tuesday plan:  Breakfast: Watermelon  Lunch:  Banana/berry smoothie or “cereal”  Dinner 1:  Vegan French toast & Pineapple/Green Smoothie(yum, that sounds good)  Dinner 2:  Raw vegan cabbage coleslaw w/ hemp seeds & Potatoes (lemon/herb)

Wednesday plan:  Breakfast:  Watermelon  Lunch:  Cantaloupe  Dinner 1:  Banana smoothie  Dinner 2:  Cabbage leave tacos & Yucca/potato soup

Thursday plan:  Breakfast:  Chopped fruit w/ banana mylk  Lunch:  Cantaloupe  Dinner 1:  Rice Salad & Fruity lettuce tacos  Dinner 2: Melon

Friday plan:  Breakfast:  Melon  Lunch:  Banana/fruit icecream  Dinner 1:  Fruit salad Dinner 2:  Guacamole wraps & Cauliflower “rice”

Saturday plan:  Breakfast: Cantaloupe Lunch:  Cereal w/ Coconut mylk  Dinner 1:  Raw peach cobbler &  French toast  Dinner 2:  Sonora burgers w/ Sweet potato fries & gazpacho

Sunday plan:  Breakfast:  Cantaloupe  Lunch: Raw Peach cobbler   Dinner 1:  Banana pudding & raw carrot slaw Dinner 2:  Whatever

*Snacks as we go, Second dinner is optional

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Describing Kundalini Yoga, Pt. 1

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Meditation

Meditation (Photo credit: Gurumustuk Singh)

 

There’s a reason Kundalini yogis don’t usually go the easy route and just say “I practice or teach yoga”. I mean, I’m sure some of us do from time to time, especially when tired, but when we’re on we know we absolutely have to tell the whole truth and that is that we practice Kundalini Yoga.

 

Modern ideas of yoga can be very limited when Kundalini yoga is so diverse and different from what many yoga practitioners experience in their gyms, community centers and Yoga centers. From what I’ve seen Kundalini yoga is usually practiced in more spiritually minded centers and in studios owned by Kundalini yogis themselves.

 

Of course it is also practiced in schools, prisons, hospitals, in homes and parks. You can even occasionally find Kundalini yoga in a gym or yoga studio that offers different types of yoga. But I really want to explain what sets Kundalini Yoga apart.

 

My daughter was an accomplished yoga teacher before she was 2 years old. She led a room full of adult yogis on a regular basis…she knows her Kundalini. So today when she was showing some impromptu yoga to my teenaged cousin my cousin doubted that what she was doing was actually yoga. “I thought yoga was quiet”. My cousin said. “Not our kinda yoga.” I responded. But I don’t know if she understood that I wasn’t talking about my daughters personal brand of spontaneous yoga or a strong lineage of the Kundalini Yoga community.

 

Another time she saw my daughter doing self-professed yoga and responded “that’s not yoga, it’s just running around.”  I explained to her that sometimes in Kundalini Yoga we run around in circles.  Later she saw my youngest daughter doing breath of fire and questioned, “what are you doing?  Oh, you’re doing yoga?”  She’s starting to get it.  I taught my cousin a KYoga class once, but it was just a beginner’s Spinal Kriya.

 

So what exactly is Kundalini Yoga and what sets it apart from other types of yoga?  Well Kundalini Yoga is not the only type of yoga that is mind, body dynamic, but in my experience it is the only one that works as fast as it does.  Kundalini Yoga is breath-centric.  We don’t just breathe deeply…we breathe in completely, extending the breath and do the same with exhales.  We focus our breath on our mudras, or internally, we use only nostril breathing, alternate nostril breathing, and different techniques of using the tongue to manipulate our breath.  Most well-known is breath of fire.  A type of pranayama that has been insultingly described as hyperventilating, but actually expands the breath capacity and is focused in the belly, rather than the chest, it feels freeing rather than restricting.

 

There are so many aspects to Kundalini Yoga that I cannot write in just one blog post.  But most important to the practice is breath of fire.  You could practice breath of fire in bed, in the car, while walking, while dancing, in the shower, or you could sit down, with legs crossed for 11 minutes everyday to practice it and you will get joyful results.   If you start with the breath it will take you places and that is where I will end this first introduction to Kundalini Yoga.   I will return with the other aspects shortly.

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Crazy Melon Mama!

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Watermelons

Watermelons (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yay!  It’s melon season!  My introduction to eating a high-fruit diet was over 3 years ago.  It started with bananas, but things got really, really good when melon season came along.  I was in Florida at the time, orange season was ending and I was traveling.  I spent my time eating melons, pineapples and bananas.  We’d eat maybe 2 melons a day as a family.  We’d go the park or the beach and stay there all day and devour a sweet juicy melon, or two.

The next year we did the same thing in desert CA.  The year after that it was the Capital city of California and now, I walk into the local grocery almost throwing my small frame into the huge box of watermelons to get the ones that are truly ready.  I lean over the edge, rolling melons out of the way, toppling dark green fruits towards me and carefully lifting the cool giant fruit into my palms and tapping.  The best melons only need to be slightly tapped once.  Usually I can tell as soon as I hold the baby in my arms.

My daughters in the plastic grocery store car portion of the cart want to play the tapping game too.  So we go through this container of 20 or so watermelons and pick out the best eight.  When I get to the check-out I draw a crowd.  My cashier doesn’t know how to ring up all the produce I have…not including the watermelon which he didn’t see since I left them in the cart.

The teenaged boys have a boisterous conversation about my grocery choices. One assumes I’m from Jamaica.  I really don’t hear them.  I’m in my own world.  Dreaming of watermelon breakfasts.  It is an ordeal to get my groceries rung up and put into bags and carted off in two carts to the car.  One of the boys told the others not to hate me for my health.

They ask if I’m having a fish-fry.  That would be the only reason for having 8 watermelons in this town.  I tell them I’m going to eat one everyday, and one is for my mom.  The guy who brings my cart can’t believe I’m going to eat a whole watermelon everyday.  I can’t wait. I’m untouched by the surprise.

I also got lots of peaches, 2 containers of strawberries, a bag of apples, grapes and bananas.  I’m kind of sad that orange season is over.  Matt’s Organic Valencia’s made my spring!  I’m ready for melon mornings to become a new norm, however.  Melon before or after Sadhana?  That is the question.

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