Juice and Smoothies

Despite the sweat inducing decision making going on in the apartment this week, I've been managing to divert a great deal of energy on health and healthy eating. This is an enormous challenge in France, one that I managed in The States, but am only now managing to grasp in non-veggie friendly Europe.

The two big steps to succes is that I've embraced juicing and blending. Several weeks ago I bought a juicer and followed it quickly by a blender.  Since then, by days have been going more or less like this:

Breakfast:

I've done a lot of reading about how liquids are the best choice for the morning. They kick start your stomach's engine and your metabolism after the night and are considerably easier to digest than solids. So! I start with green tea, followed by a juice: usually carrot, beet, ginger, lemon, a chunk of cucumber, and a few greens: either spinach or a romain heart. 

The result is very aesthetic and oh so good for you. Be careful with this though, get too creative with your juices and you'll end up with something that tastes pretty terrible, so stick to  recipes until you get the hang of it. 

Lunch: 

Since this meal interjects the more active part of the day, (usually,) I cut loose and allow myself something more substantial. Yesterday it was baked sweet potato topped with my vegetarian chocolate chilly. Oooo so tasty.

Dinner:

This is where things get really exciting: healthy smoothie time! Starting with a salad, (often chopped endive, walnuts and raisins,)  I finish off my my night with either a green smoothie or a "chaco-cado" smoothy: (banana, avocado, cacao powder, almond milk, maple syrup, and a handful of spinach.) 

I'd been dying to try this recipe since in the past weeks I've become an avid follow of The Detoxinista, and it was.. interesting, but not nearly as tasty as she lead me to believe it would be. But! On the bright side, I drank a whole avocado and an extra serving of leafy greens! My skin, hair, and morning flat tummy thanked me. 

A Chance for Escape

The new blogger layout is actually discouraging me from posting. Very unpleasant. 

The news of the month is that I am returning to my island paradise on the 4th of July and I'm taking the best part of France with me. That's right, thanks to my favorite student travel website, I'm finally living the dream and am taking TMI home with me to meet the parents and the tropical lieu of my naissance. 18 hours of flight time, but who's counting when your lover is there with you, right? 

On the downside, after the chimerical wonder of having my mate in my homeland has expired,I'm faced with the usual "where in the world am I supposed to be?" dilema. France is expensive, lonely, and lets face it, impractical for someone with roots on the opposite side of the globe. Not to mention unhealthy. I can't seem to stop gaining weight here and my boredom and loneliness are heavier each passing day. The signs all point to a more normal settling ground, which, thanks to my online studies could be just about anywhere, but the human I'm in love with happens to live here, in Dijn, France. Rats. 

Seriously about the getting fat, btw, I was 104 when I left the US a year and a 3 months ago, now I think I'm pushing about 112, roughly a pound a month in this butter cream haven. When I lived in Hawaii or on the West coast it was easy to be a vegetarian, and freedom of mobility as well an employment and same-denomination currency made gym memberships easily attainable. 

But still, I'm thrilled for the coming adventure. Between then and now I have 6 more weeks of Dijon, 3 of which TMI has an internship in the South, so I may get to spend some weekends away. meeeeeh.

Choose Your Classes Wisely

I may only be home for three weeks, but I've made it my business to shave off the extra five pounds of cheese, croissants, bread butter and bacon I put on it France while I'm here. This means: exercise classes with my mom! Zumba! Body Jam! Spin Class! And several other mildly entertaining and vastly embarrassing endeavors in which you shake and shimmy surrounded by 60 something year old saggy women in hot pink sports bras. This was suiting me all right, actually, and combined with lunch at the health food store buffet every day, I've all ready lost two of the five.

Yesterday, however, I got the afternoon schedule wrong and ended up in body combat: Surrounded by scary, screaming, jumping, flying and kicking muscly sweaty Hawaiian guys. The instructor was the muscly-ist and loudest of all; the sweat was fountaining off him as he instructed us to kill imaginary pirates and ninjas with elbow jabs, back kicks, and the most common, knee-to-face plants. I lasted 45 minutes of the hour class before I felt like I'd burst an artery in my brain. Today I feel like I've been hit by a bus. But now I have ROCK HARD PIRATE KILLING ABS YYYEEEEAAAHHHH!!!!

Weight Gain Complaining

The above image illustrates what 9 months in the land of butter and cheese can do to a person. The preceding photos are from two different modeling shoots from my hay day mere months before coming to France. The last is a horrible hit of reality which assaulted me from a pack of paparazzi new years eve photos. Dear God!

As I've mentioned, before France I was a valiant vegetarian and veggie-holic. Here my rabbit life style was seemingly impossible to support and I adapted meat, and, while often being fed by friends and family of the significant other, have also had to embrace a constant supply of "veut-tu un dessert?" "la fromage?" "Ce soir on va manger la raclette!" And other thin-killing assaults.

Looks like a slippery slope to me. Since I'm planning on living in France long term I'm gonna have to figure out how to stay healthy in the land of temptation and all that oozes and melts... and fast!