Denis lost a total of 93 Lbs

I lost over 50 lbs.

Most of the weight loss came after we switched to raw vegan, but the first weight we lost was after we switched from red meat to only poultry and fish. After a few years on just fish, we lost more weight again.

I do have to confess that being only raw vegan, can also add weight. I’ve been able to keep my weight stable for 2 years and continue to stay on that weight. I have also been able to build muscle on just raw by adding vegan protein. However, the minute I stop exercising to build muscle and didn’t change my way of eating, my weight changed.

Each person is different as I always say, so we all must find what works for us.

I started hearing that it would get worse when you turn 30. Well I just turn 30 and yes life still going fast, but not because I got older. I believe it is because I took on too much since the beginning of 2010.

It all started with going to Bhakti Fest and “preparing” for it. And when I came back from Joshua Tree, I decided to go get certified to teach yoga immediately. It was 20 weekends, and with a full time job, it was extremely busy for me. I also  turned 30 and threw a party to celebrate, then it was thanksgiving, the holidays, and I got married.

Then came New Year’s, still in school, and lots of projects at work. So blogging went out the window and so did reading. I even open a new website/blog that hasn’t taken off yet, but will soon. With all the work and homework and reading and attending yoga classes, I was absolutely ready to quit everything.

In March, I Finally  graduated from Yoga Teacher School and had a breather. But not by much. Friends from out of town came to visit, other friends turned 30 and there were parties to attend, and then at work we decided to move another building. Yey, fun for me!

So instead of drinking heavily, I took on reading fiction series until the next Anita Blake novel is out June

Taking a break has been great, but I’m ready to blog again and have many ideas for not just this blog but also my new yoga blog.  So stay tuned for more to come here at panyvinito! I think I may actually finish the post with all the “Before & After” pictures… yes! Long over due!

Blessings,

Lina

Bhakti Fest

That’s right! Last month I went to Mayhem Fest here in Florida with headliners Korn, Lamb of God, Rob Zombie, and Fiver Finger Death Punch. This month, I went to Bhakti Fest in California with headliners Krishna Das, Bhagavan Das, Deva Premal & Mitten, Jai Uttal, Wah!, and Geoffrey Gordon to name a few (very few).

Two very different festivals, but both very similar to me. People gather, complete strangers, to enjoy music that transport them to a different place, that elevates their spirit. I enjoy all music, except country music; (don’t ask me why, it just doesn’t do anything for me).  So going in, I had similar goals to accomplish at each festival that relate to spiritual growth and the intentions I had set on the last Blue Moon.

Independence

I’ve been working on becoming more independent and trusting the universe that nothing will go wrong if I do things on my own. I used to be scared of being away from Denis too long because I always felt we would loose precious time being apart. I also feared that something would happened to us and I wanted to spend as much time together. I got inspired last year to work on this issue and so far I’ve been able to accomplish it. Proof is I went to Mayhem Fest without Denis and at Bhakti Fest we had different schedules, and last week, I went to a concert by myself. Just me, myself, and I had a blast!

Fear

I don’t have many regrets in life, but the ones I do have are all tied to fear. Being afraid of doing something. Well no more! I decided to evaluate whenever a fear surfaces and tries to stop me from doing things I want to do. For example, when I first got tickets to Mayhem Fest, I was afraid for Denis. It was going to be his first “rock” (metal) concert (for 8 hours!) and I was afraid. So instead of selling the tickets or giving them away, I went with someone else. At Bhakti I was scared of doing yoga for 5 days (including the intensive) and of going to LA. I had heard so many scary stories of the police, etc in LA that I almost wanted to skip visiting the city.  But I didn’t let that fear stopped me and jumped in to each class for 5 days and went around LA trusting our GPS!

Let Go – Clearing Mind Clutter

Most people know that I. LOVE. CLEARING. CLUTTER! I’m now convinced is one of my talents I was born with! But clearing the clutter in the mind is much more difficult that cleaning your space. So I went to both festivals hoping to clear some of the clutter in my head and it worked!

Dance

I love dancing but I almost never have time to dance. So this time at both festivals I took every opportunity to dance. Well, yes at Mayhem there isn’t much “dancing” but jumping and throwing your hands in the air count as dancing. Oh and who can forget rocking your head and hair back and forth to the sound of any Lamb of God song? Yeah that’s dancing in my book!

Guilt

Mayhem Fest - Korn

Like Korn‘s song says: “Let the Guilt Go“, that is one of my BIGGEST issues I’ve been working out this passed 10 months. As any person brought up in the catholic religion, we are made to believe everything is our fault and we must feel guilty for everything. When I was getting ready to go to Mayhem Fest (10 minutes before I left the house) I felt guilty for not taking Denis with me. I finally talked it out loud and expressed myself and realized how stupid of me. I would have felt guilty taking him because metal is not his cup of tea and for not taking him. At Bhakti Fest, I felt guilty leaving early, at 1am, and not staying for the later kirtan even though I was exhausted and sleepy. I felt guilty for not buying more things to support the vendors, and felt guilty for not going to more yoga classes. Finally, I talked to myself and reassured myself that it was OK to rest and not overwork my body and overspend beyond my traveling budget.

At each festival the music, energy, and situations helped me overcome different issues I had to deal with. As different as both festivals were, I went in with the same goals. Best part of both festivals, I had a great time!

To prepare for Bhakti fest, I did what I usually do for any concert or event I go to. I practiced all the songs and studied all the musicians and learned everything I needed about the event. I don’t need to memorize the mantras for kirtan, because we know most of them already from all other kirtan events we have attended over the last 9 years.

For Yoga though, I actually started by registering for yoga classes early this year. But then I quit for awhile and then panicked that time was running out and I was still not ready for 4 days of yoga. So I signed up for an unlimited class pass for vinyasa flow yoga and have been attending three times a week. I guess you may think I’m nuts preparing like I was running a marathon, but if you think about it, I’m doing a “yoga marathon”.

To add more pressure, Denis actually registered me for an all-day-intensive with my FAVORITE yoga teacher/master/goddess ever! Shiva Rea! If there were yoga groupies (I’m sure there are), I would be her groupie. I absolutely adore her and have taken every class she has taught in South Florida. My favorite class is her Yoga Trance Dance.

One year, she invited Denis and I as special guests to one of her classes and it was awesome. I don’t know if she’ll remember me this time because I have lost a lot of weight since the last I was in her class, but I always keep her in my heart. So I gotta be ready for her class.

It’s going to be an exciting time for us, since we get to see a lot of our favorite musicians and speakers. Krishna Das, Deva Premal, Jai Uttal, Geoffrey Gordon, Bhagavan Das, Wah, Prema Hara to name a few. Speakers include Ram Dass, Sam Geppi, etc. Yoga teachers include Shiva Rea, Saul David Raye, Sean Corn, Duncan Wong, and many more!

Hopefully in all my bliss this week, I’ll be able to tweet about this wonderful event.  In the meantime, here is a preview of my favorite kind a yoga. Blessings!

Empty Refrigerator

Since we decided to get all the juices already made at the Josh’s Juice bar, we didn’t shop and our refrigerator was empty. I hid the truffles we had purchased during our trip to Naples and any other “goodies” I would cheat with.
Seeing the refrigerator with no greens, no food made me sad. I felt like I had nothing in life. Empty. Without a home, without love, without money. I felt like my world was ending because my refrigerator was empty. I immediately told Denis about this and he hugged me and laughed. So I started laughing too. This happened the second day of the fast and it was the reason I decided to keep going.
I don’t know exactly how my brain/mind believes that food equal the meaning of life (apparently). All I can say is that it may go back all the way to childhood but I’m not sure yet.

Not Having to Make Food

The second thing that surfaced in my mind was this. I had extra time in my hands by not having to prepare food and not going to yoga class so I was able to take time for blogging. While I was working on my blog, I kept thinking: “Oh I have to go make food, I better stop typing” and then I would remember: Oh I’m fasting no need to make food. Ten minutes later I would start panicking cause I hadn’t make food yet and it was getting late, but then I would remember I’m fasting, no need to make food. And that continue the whole night.
One of the first reasons I got sold on the “Raw” idea was cause it took less time to prepare food. I’m constantly looking to cut things out so that I can have more time to do other things. And I always feel stressed out about making food. Once this issue came right in front of me, I realized that I think making food is all I do and live for. To feed people. I don’t know exactly how to handle this information, but it was very interesting to find that deep inside I feel food is my ONLY job and purpose in life.

Variety of Food

I’ve always known this about me: I get bored with the same thing over and over. And that’s just not food. Everything. Well except for my partner in life (9 years and still not bored one bit!)… Anyways, so going into the fast I knew that having the same juice everyday wasn’t going to work for me and would probably quit by day two. But this time was worse than ever. I didn’t want to see the green juice even as hungry as I would get, I didn’t want it. Instead I wanted to keep drinking water but not the green juice. I believe one of the reasons why I’m creative in the kitchen is because I have to have variety. Even my lunch salad is different everyday.

Sticking with the green juice fast help me see that my issue with food variety is deeper than I imagined.

Dreams about Food

Going in I had the feeling I would be dreaming about food every night and eating all sorts of junk in my dreams. I actually thought that in the dreams I would want to stop my raw diet. But I was wrong.  One night I had a dream about a carnival, possibly Renaissance fest, where I had to drop off something for work. I walked through the food to where I was going, but no I didn’t stop for any food even thought I was offered a donut. That was one of the two dreams about food I had.

During the fast, I wasn’t even attracted to junk food. I didn’t even for a minute think I would run and start eating a SAD diet again, even a vegan junk cooked diet for that matter. But I did want and was tempted to eat the sun dried olives in my refrigerator, my avocados and some oil. So all doubts that I had about ever “cheating” or going back to a cooked vegan diet are no longer there. I now know that I love my raw food, even under stressful circumstances, I only want raw food.

In conclusion, and now a day after we broke the fast, I’ve got work to do with all this information I collected during this fast. I do have to say that compared to the first fast I ever did (6 years ago, water fast for three days while I was still on a vegetarian SAD diet), I did excellent. But compared to my monthly liquid fast, I did not do well at all. I complained the whole time and didn’t want to drink my juice.

Physically my body felt great, happy, healthy and grateful. I’m going to try it again, possibly the next full moon or the one after. Not having any fruits this week was amazing for my body and it let me know so.

So what’s next? Meditate on all these issues that came up.

I tried many times and failed. Of course it didn’t help I stayed up watching TV, reading books, or blogging. But I made a breakthrough! After two weeks of waking up earlier and earlier, my body is finally doing it on its own. Mind you I still wake up ready to kill someone and destroy the world, but I wake up. And to my surprise, I wake up to roller blade!

I don’t know how long this will last as so many of my other “trends” for lack of a nicer term for addiction, but the great thing is that I was able to do it and enjoy it too.

Of course, it’s now 1:48am and I’m here typing away, and probably won’t get up by 7:30am to rollerblade, but that’s ok. I also need to learn to give myself some credit for trying.

Some of you have heard me say this before, my online friend Mike at 365 Ways to Go Green, has a blog about how you can do one green thing a day, well I can open another blog call “365 excuses to NOT exercise” because I can come up with all sorts of excuses why I cannot exercise.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying rollerblading in the morning. Now if I could just get myself to a yoga class, that would be awesome! LOL But one thing at the time!

Photo by alykat

My Aunt and I

After over 8 years in the path to health, I can safely say it’s not all about the food. The more I learn, the more I understand that one thing alone is not going to make a difference. It can start the way to a healthier lifestyle, but it’s not the ticket for sure.

My favorite Aunt passed away last year. She was a happy woman who drank coffee and smoke for a very long time and yet she was in good physical health. She was surrounded by friends and family who loved her. She also kept herself very active and had a great memory and would tell me great stories about her family and friends. She worked hard and enjoyed her life very much.

I was lucky to spend a few summers with her and was able to learn so much from her. In fact, my love for romaine lettuce started because my aunt would eat them for dinner everyday. I didn’t know there were different kinds of lettuce back then, but she taught me and inspired me to eat them. We also eat a lot of candy and coffee, but we had a great time!

She taught me to reuse and not create garbage before it was trendy. She was creative and the first marketing guru I learned from. She taught me how to count money backwards and how to clean windows the right way. She took me for my driving test when I first got my license and helped me pass the test. She was very charming and polite to even the hardest people and customers ever and that’s something I apply in my life everyday. She always smiled and kept herself busy and up to date with news and trends.

She was 90 years old when she passed away a year ago, and that’s how I know it’s not all about the food. She was happy with what she had, her work, her daughter, her dogs, and friends, and of course her favorite niece, ME!

I miss her very much, but I know that she’s with me in my heart and that what I learned from her will stay with me forever. I want to honor her memory with this blog but also share that there is more to life than food. We all need love, purpose, exercise, food, happiness, friends, pets, plants, air, ocean, candy, and more to live a healthy life.

I’m not endorsing smoking or drinking coffee or eating candy, not did I changed my believes about raw vegan organic food. I simply believe that food alone is not the key to a healthy long lifestyle. So today, I encourage you to see what is missing in your life to make it complete, and to remember that one thing alone is not enough. Healthy food is not the only solution!

The Problem

I didn’t enjoy living in such a big space (to me), I grew up in a city in a small apartment, so houses are not my favorite. Plus being paranoid about break-ins doesn’t help when you live in a house with many entrances and windows. So needless to say, I hated the house. I wanted badly to get rid of everything and move to a small space.

Denis had bought me two books on Feng Shui and Clutter by Karen Kingston but I couldn’t get past the first few chapters. It was stressing me out to read the books because I had a cluttered house at the time. The first time we went to Sedona, I decided to take one of the books with me to read in the plane. Of course I didn’t read it on the way there because I was so excited to go hiking in the red stones that I decided to read about Sedona instead.

I  had one of the most spiritual experiences there while in guided meditation and also with a spiritual consuler. On the plane ride back home, I decided to read Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui and couldn’t put it down. When I got home, I decided that I would make the best of the house since we had to stay there to save money for traveling, and once I had a taste of traveling, there was no going back. So I did what a crazy paranoid Scorpio would do, I cleaned the garage.

Where to Start?

I called my uncle and aunt to help me clean and get rid of everything. We made three piles, one for donations, one for recycle, and one for garbage. Oh yes, that one for what HAD to stay. But I was merciless… I donated and recycled away. It took the four of us six hours to clean the one-car garage, but it was done. And once I had finished, wow… what a feeling. It was like I lost 50 lbs. And I was hooked!

Within the next few days, I had cleared a couple of closets that were holding gifts and things people had given us that we had no place for. The next week I moved to our bedroom and clean our closet. Donated clothes we were not using or had never worn. Then it was the dresser and all its drawers with more clothes and things to donate or throw away. After the bedroom, I moved to our bathroom, and this went one for the next few months. Every weekend or so, I would unclutter a small part of the house. One drawer at the time and even our backyard!

Benefits

As I cleared clutter, I opened space for new things in our lives. Wonderful and amazing things began to happen. The energy flow in our house was better and my attitude and mood improved. I actually stopped hating the house and starting enjoying our space. I also enjoyed having less stuff, less clothes, less shoes, less crap to worry about and collect dust. I became less attached to “things” and open my heart to important things in life.
After living in that house for six years, we finally moved to a smaller space in our “dream” location, the beach. Our new home is so small that it took me 1 month to prepare the move. From a 3/3 we relocated to a 1/1! So I had to use all my un-cluttering skills to ensure that I would only take what was needed to our new space. And even after the move, we still wind up having to get rid of more things.

 5 Tips to Keep it Up

• I do a routine clutter clean up without even thinking about it or scheduling it
• I get rid of something if I buy s omething new or if I receive a gift. For example, my friend gave me purple purse as a gift, so when I got home, I found a purse and donated it. I apply this rule to books too (these are most precious possessions)
• I committ to detach myself from possessions by understanding that when that object would be loved by someone else who needs it and will cherish it more than I do
• I abstain from buying unnecessary things that will not contribute to my path… unless they are purple of course! Just kidding!
• I say to myself and other (as a mantra or affirmation) that I’m a minimalist and will continue to open space for wonderful things in my life

I wanted to share this story with everyone because I strongly believe that when one clears the clutter in our lives, one receives more beautiful things in exchange. Clutter is dead energy sucking the good energy out of life. And one way I measure how uncomplicated my life is is by looking at how many keys I have in my key-ring. At this time, I have three keys, car, home, and office… How many keys do you have?

Blessings!

Garage Photo by Irish Typepad

Feng Shui Photo by Samu73

I wanted to start a brand new blog site dedicated to excuses I come up every day when is time to exercise. It would be call 365 reasons to not exercise and it would be one per day so you would have an excuse for each day of the year! But I figured why spend all that energy that goes into creating a new site/blog and instead sit and blog about why I choose to be lazy instead when I can actually put that energy into the exercise itself.

One of my biggest problems is that I need motivation and discipline and/or consequences if I don’t exercise. For example, when I was paying for a gym membership I was going at least three days a week and taking the classes offered to get my money’s worth. That motivated me to go and workout because it would be lost money from my bank account making some corporation rich!  

So on the Blue Moon I decided I was going to sign up for a bunch of classes to get me going again. I signed up for a weight lifting class and Anusara yoga class. I was also planning to take Belly Dance classes again, but found that my favorite teacher had moved and was unable to find another class that would fit into my new tight schedule. The weight lifting class was two days a week, yoga was two days a week as well, and that left me with only Friday night free. My weekends are pretty busy as it is with all the socializing I do at the farmer’s markets and raw foodist hang-outs so weekend classes were out of the question.

The first week of classes everything went great. I was feeling great and both classes seem to be working in sync with each other. Almost as if both instructors had called up each other and agreed on what they were going to be teacher me. I was flying and very happy! My yoga practice (after 8 years) was improving and I was getting strong enough to do hand stands. My arms and my breathing in weight lifting improved so much that my coach was very proud that in such a short time he could see great progress.

At the start of the 4th week, I began feeling the pressure. I was getting stressed out by my busy exercise schedule. So I started skipping class and coming up with all sort of new excuses. I debated and concluded I had gotten my money’s worth for both classes and that I needed more time to concentrate in work and my blog. And I quit both classes and stopped exercising completely.

After about a month, my size 4 jeans were not fitting anymore. I knew it was not the food because I was not eating differently. That motivated me to begin exercising again and I signed for iyengar yoga and even began an online 100 pushup challenge.

Once I got back on the horse, or better yet, on the yoga mat again, I felt so much better. Even though I’m not using financial reasons to get me motivated this time around, the size 4 jeans are. I also decided to keep my weights around my very small living room so that while I take breaks from my busy “online life“, I can workout. In fact, Denis and I made a pact, if we want to watch TV (which is one of my worst addictions), then we will workout while we watch TV.

I’m loving it now, but I know eventually (probably once the challange is completed) I will be bored again and will have to find a new way to motivate myself to get back to exercising. But for now I won’t stress about it and keep going.

Photo by cowbite

In a perfect world, I would enjoy to be able to get a massage, manicure, pedicure, wax, etc weekely. However, I cannot only afford it, but also I can’t find the time to drop everything else I do on weekends (or week nights for that matter) to take care of me and do those things.

I watch Oprah shows about women who let themselves go over the years because of children and other things in their lives, and I always wonder how they got there. But I find myself doing things for everyone else, working from home, preparing food for Denis, Facebooking, and doing chores and no time to take care of me.

At the beginning of the year, I had decided to start doing more for me. I took a weight training class, went back to yoga, and started a Full Moon Liquid Fast. Well it didn’t work out. It made me more stressed than relaxed because I had to leave work on time (yes, I’m not those people who “clocks out” at 5pm, I’m a workaholic and so is Denis) and I still didn’t have time to remove my nail polish at the end of the week! How sad is that? So I decided to quit the classes and concentrate in one thing at the time. But I still didn’t know how to manage my home time.

If you think about it, this is how much time we really have:

Work – 8 hours (but if you are me or Denis 9 to 10 hours), sleep 8 hours (if you are lucky!), commute to work 1 to 2 hours round trip (1 hour for me), time getting ready in the morning – 2 hours (1 hour for me,  I’m quick!). If my math is correct, that leaves us with an average of 4 hours every night. That’s not counting making dinner and getting ready for the next day… and forget it if you have kids! I’m single and only have a cat so I’m lucky I get about 2 hours every night after making dinner and other chores… and that’s with a helpful partner!

A few weeks ago, Denis was listening to the WISH Summit and related some of the information to me, because I myself didn’t find time to listen to the talks. He heard from one of the speakers (sorry I can’t give proper credit, we don’t remember the speaker!) that women should schedule time in their routines or busy lives to themselves. That was my aha moment! So immediately I decided to block two hours a week to do my own version of spa time.

So after careful consideration on what day would work out best for me and moved things around, I squeezed myself in for two hours every Thursday night. So Thursday night came and went and I only managed to get 1 hour to myself. So today I was able to get another hour squeezed in. Got my nails done and other things that I don’t need to share here *wink*. But the point is that it was a great effort in my part to get it going.

I hope I can continue to do this every week and will soon become part of my routine and at least get my nails done! But I hope that by sharing this, you can also find a way to schedule yourself in for time for you alone.

Blessings…

Picture by Nick J Webb