Day 11 Crazy Sexy You – Caprese Avo Toasts

Caprese Avo Toasts

Hey there. I hope you had a great Fourth of July holiday. I spent mine with my best friend on South Beach. She has a great place with four balconies and a wonderful view of the fireworks from various parts of South Florida. We counted nine different fireworks displays in total.

Unfortunately, the holiday celebration was a disaster for my Crazy Sexy You journey. It was a meat fast. There's no other way to put it. She had fried chicken, ribs and shredded barbecue pork. In addition, she had these wonderful berry mojito drinks, a big ol' fantastic bottle of French red wine, these adorable mini-cupcakes, and these to- die-for chocolate fudge filled cookies. How was I supposed to resist that? All I can say is that I need to start over today.

Kris Carr teaches us that one bad day should not make a bad week. Up until dinnertime yesterday, I'd been a good girl. For example, on Tuesday, the scheduled  breakfast was Caprese Avo Toasts. Basically, it's mashed avocado with salt and pepper and sliced tomatoes on top with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar on two pieces of gluten-free toast.

As a child, I ate tons of avocado. My father is from Panama, so it was a cultural thing. I ate so much avocado that, as an adult, I was sick of it. I was tempted to substitute the avocado toast for another approved beakfast recipe (I did that on the last round of the Crazy Sexy You program), but this time, I decided to give it a try.

I fully expected not to enjoy the recipe but I actually enjoyed it very much. For some reason, the salt, the fresh tomato, and the balsamic vinegar made the avocado somehow less pungent. It was a great melding of flavors and textures. I guess the moral of the story is: “don't knock anything until you try it.” It's a cliché, I know, but it's true. I plan to put Caprese Avo Toasts into my regular breakfast rotation.

Today, I got to eat one of my favorite breakfast recipes in this program – Almond Butter Banana Toast. Yum!

I'm going to work out today to make up for last night and drink lots of fluids to wash out the alcohol and meat toxins I put into my body.  Then we'll see what we shall see.

Peace,

LJ

Crazy Sexy You Day 9: Carrot Ginger Aid

Carrot Ginger Aid

As I sip the Carrot Ginger Aid juice designated for Day 9 of the Crazy Sexy You Program – a concoction made of carrots, cucumbers, romaine lettuce, a green apple, and ginger – I can't help but reflect on the many health benefits of ginger.  I'm actually kind of mournful about it since I rushed through reading the recipe ingredients and forgot to put the darn ginger in the juice.

Ginger has many health benefits including aiding in digestion, staving off nausea, aiding in cold and flu relief, reducing inflammation, reducing post-workout muscle pain, reducing menstrual cramps, and possibly reducing blood clotting and cholesterol,  and helping to maintain healthy blood sugar levels.  On that note, I think I'll juice that piece of ginger I missed later and put in this afternoon's juice snack to make up. It's going to be spicy.

The past few days of the CSY diet have been interesting to say the least.  I didn't go to the networking reception I had planned to attend on Thursday night – partially because I didn't want to be tempted to drink wine and partially because it was too soon after leaving my employment with the City.  I wasn't ready to field the barrage of questions and deal with people shaking their heads and telling me how risky it is to be out on my own.

I fell off the CSY vegan wagon hard on Saturday when I met with a fellow coach, author, and friend for dinner on Saturday night to discuss collaborating on a few projects. She's on a Paleo diet so she served me champagne and a healthy chicken and veggie meal from the meals she has delivered by a service every week.  Needless to say, chicken is not vegan.  The worst part is that I was still hungry when I left her later that night (the meal portion was tiny) and completely unprepared (no bottled water and CSY trail mix to save me), so I ended up driving through a fast food joint on the way home.

The wierd thing is that I didn't enjoy the fast food nearly as much as I have in the past.  Although I enjoyed the familiar mouth feel of the food, it tasted very salty to me.  All I could think about was the amount of sodium and toxins I was consuming.

Yesterday, I had to bring my car in for repair and rent a car to use in the meantime.  My appointment was at 8:00a.m. I had a smoothie for breakfast but no green tea and I forgot to bring my midmornng snack with me. The process took forever and by 10:30a.m. I was starving and irritable, so I drove through Dunkin Donuts (bad move I know) and got coffee and a breakfast sandwich.  You would have thought I had learned my lesson on Saturday night.  What can I say? I'm an Aries.  We tend to be hard-headed.

The coffee was heavenly (I've missed it as it's not on the CSY protocol), but I did not enjoy the breakfast sandwich at all. I'm kind of glad I fell off the wagon because it made me realize that I don't really want fast food or meat for that matter. I'd of been much happier with a vegan burrito made with a gluten free wrap like Amy's Gluten Free/Dairy Free Burrito.*

Note to self: Always keep CSY Trail Mix in my purse. Carrying around single serve portions of CSY trail mix and bottled water saved me from making unwise choices while on the road a couple of times last week. I think I'll make a habit of that.

Other than those two lapses, I've stuck to the CSY meal plan and I'm happy to announce that I'm firmly back on the CSY bandwagon.  I even got in a couple of workouts in the past few days – specifically the first two workouts on Leslie Sansone's Walk of Fat Fast* (affiliate link).

I love Leslie Sansone's workout videos because they're moderate workouts that burn fat without overworking you or leaving you completely exhausted. You don't have to kill yourself to shed pounds and tone up.  You just have to move briskly several times a week. I once lost 60 pounds by being on WeightWatchers and doing Leslie Sansone workouts in my living room 3-5 times a week. Then I stopped working out, started driving through again, and gained it all back.  Ugh.

Anyway, I've got to get to work on my novel, so I'll leave you with a challenge: Find a way to incoporate ginger into your meals and drinks today.  Make yourself a stir fry and start off with some ginger and garlic, put some ginger into your juice or smoothie, or make yourself a cup of ginger tea. Let me know how it goes.

Peace,

LJ

*The links in this post are affiliate links. If you click on them and buy something, I will get a commission at no additional cost to you. You should know that I only recommend products that I use myself and love.