Chocolatey goodness!

Happy Easter you guys!

Whatever your religious beliefs, most of us tend to indulge in a bit of chocolate over the Easter break. And I am definitely not an exception! Right now, I am basically experiencing what can only be described as a chocolate coma.

As a vegan, my Easter treats are a little more limited but there are still plenty of dairy-free goodies for me to get my chocolate on. And it just keeps getting easier to buy animal-friendly chocolate too - there are even vegan Easter eggs! Like this yummy Organic Times dark chocolate egg:

Source: www.biome.com.au

Nom!

It is important to note that not all dark chocolate is necessarily vegan - you have to read the label to make sure it doesn't contain milk solids or butter fats. The higher the percentage of cocoa, the more likely it is that it will be dairy free (but this still isn't a guarantee). It is worth searching for though and at least you know that, while you might be being a little bit naughty, at least you are getting a nice dose of antioxidants at the same time!

There is also another issue with our Easter noms that has got a lot more attention this Easter - the use of palm oil.

The use of palm oil is controversial as palm oil plantations have caused the destruction of rain forests in Indonesia and Malaysia, where around 85% of the world's palm oil is produced. This has resulted in habitat loss for a number of endangered species, including the orangutan. You can find out more about this here. Because of its direct impact on the welfare of animals, a lot of vegans avoid palm oil even though it isn't an actual animal product itself.

Palm oil is used in a lot of products - it is usually just listed as a vegetable oil so it is hard to know what you are buying. And this Easter, it was showing up in the ingredients list for a number of brands of hot cross buns - including Woolworths' and Coles' home brand varieties. This received a lot of negative press though so hopefully most people bought their hot cross buns from local bakeries instead.

Baked goods aren't the only thing that can contain palm oil - in the past Nestle has copped a lot of flack for using it in its chocolate.

One way to guarantee that you won't be getting any of these nasties is to make your own. Yes - even chocolate!

I was lucky enough to attend a special Easter yoga event this weekend at the gorgeous yoga studio, House of Yoga in Redfern. After sweating it out through a yummy 90 minute vinyasa class, we all got to indulge in some AMAZING homemade raw chocolate goodies.

I am not exaggerating when I say these were some of the yummiest treats I have ever tasted. I mean it - they were SO. GOOD.

Instead of being made with cocoa (which is what most chocolate is made from) they were all made using cacao. While they might sound like they are the same thing, the differences between the two are very important. Cacao is basically the seed that is used to make cocoa, but that hasn't gone through the cleaning, roasting and processing that cocoa goes through. So cacao is essentially raw. Why does this matter? Well, when it is processed, cocoa loses most of its nutritional value. Even if you eat dark chocolate, if it has been made with cocoa, it won't contain anywhere near the same levels of antioxidants and other nutrients that you get in cacao. In addition to high antioxidant levels, cacao also contains iron, copper, zinc, magnesium and calcium as well as a whole host of vitamins. 

The basic ingredients of cacao chocolate are cacao powder, cacao butter (not actual butter obviously - it is just the fat that comes from the cacao bean) and some kind of sweetener, like honey or agave syrup. The tasty treats that we were served up also had all sorts of amazing ingredients added in - coconut, almonds, dried figs, fresh ginger. All tasty and all super good for you! Win!!

But what if you can't / don't want to make it yourself (or be lucky enough to have yoga teachers that make them for you)? Well, you can buy chocolate made with cacao too so you have no excuses! My favourite is Loving Earth but there are lots of other brands out there and more and more are showing up in the shops as people learn about cacao's amazing properties.

Another easy way to get a dose of cacao is in powder form - I add it to my green smoothies to turn them into perhaps the healthiest chocolate thick shake EVER. You can also use to make up a hot chocolate - definitely something to keep in mind when it gets colder.

So, even though Easter is practically over for another year, you can totally justify getting your chocolate on all year round so long as you make sure it has been made with cacao (oh and, you know, blah blah moderation blah) aaaaaaand you can feel good about doing it! Yay cacao!!!!

Small changes, big difference!

Over a week has now passed since I started my yoga teacher training course. As I mentioned in my last post, the training goes far beyond the physical aspect of yoga (the asanas) and looks at the whole system of yoga (which includes pranayama and meditation).

That said, the training has still made some pretty significant changes to my asana practice. The changes haven't really been big ones - they have just been small refinements - but the impact they have had is quite remarkable. So here are the three things that I have learnt so far that have made the biggest difference.

1. Make friends with your bandhas 

I had heard yoga teachers use the term "bandhas" berfore, but to be honest I have never fully understood what they were talking about. From what I could gather, engaging my bandhas somehow involved keeping firm through my belly. Which, it turns out, is kind of right. But it is not the whole story.

There are actually three bandhas - one at the perineum (mula bandha), one just below the belly button (uddiyana bandha) and the third one at the throat (jalandhara bandha). The idea is that, by engaging or contracting these three bandhas (which is sanskrit for "lock") while you perform your asana, you are able to control the flow of energy ("prana") throughout your body. This helps you achieve balance and also supports and provides stability during your practice. (This is a very basic description - this website provides a pretty neat overview of the whole bandha situation if you want to know more.)

Learning how to properly engage your bandhas is complex and takes a lot of practice (and I am definitely still at the early stages of this process) but there are a couple of simple adjustments that you can do in pretty much any pose that will start you on your bandha journey and improve your overall asana practice.

First, start by drawing your belly button towards your spine. You have probably heard your teacher saying this to you in class during certain poses, but it is good to get into the habit of doing this throughout your whole practice. As an extra benefit, holding in through your lower belly like this will support your lower back and prevent you from overextending your lower spine when you are doing backbends. (Particularly important if you are hyper mobile through your joints - this will save you from very painful lower back SI joint issues in the long run. And trust me, prevention is WAY better than a cure when it comes to your lower back!!)

Second, focus on drawing up through the crown of your head. Together with holding in your lower belly, this encourages you to lengthen out your spine and create space in your body. When you are doing this, your chest tends to lift up and your shoulders drop down, helping you to achieve better alignment. Obviously, extending through the spine won't always be appropriate - for example, it isn't much use when you are in bridge pose or shoulder stand - but it is really useful to keep your torso extended and open in a lot of poses, for example most standing poses, forward bends and even in downward dog.

The final adjustment to make is to lower your chin towards your chest and to gently draw the front of your throat to the back of your throat. This again helps with aligning your spine by bringing your head an neck into line, and also assists if you are doing ujjayi breathing (that raspy sound that your teacher will sometimes ask you to make with your throat while you breathe during your class).

I have found that just by focussing on these three small adjustments during my poses I am able to achieve better alignment - but with less thinking! For example, in downward dog my mind used to go through pretty much every muscle in my body as I tried to get them exactly into the right position. Now, I just focus on getting these three things right, and everything else just seems to happen!

2. Slow down

There is a tendency amongst a lot of modern yogis to move from one pose to another with great speed - particularly in vinyasa and other "power" yoga styles. Maybe we feel like we get more of a work out when we quickly flip from one pose to the next, or maybe it is just a reflection of our busy, overworked lifestyles. But the truth is we are doing ourselves an injustice by whizzing through our yoga sessions. If you have taken the time out of your busy schedule to do a yoga session, why do you want to rush it?

You still get the same benefits if you take the full breath (that is, for a full count of four or so) to gently flow from one pose to the next. In fact, it often takes more strength and control to do your asana at a slower pace because you can't rely on momentum to swing your body into a pose. It also gives you more of an opportunity to get your alignment right.

The other benefit of slowing down is that it helps prepare yourself for meditation by really connecting your movement with your breath and allowing you to more deeply engage with the flow of energy throughout your body. Add this to the techniques set out in 1 above, and you are really getting somewhere!

3. Be still

When I hold a particular pose, I tend to spend the whole time constantly adjusting myself to move more deeply into the pose. I scan my body from bottom to top to bottom again, seeing if there is any area of my body that I can shift to improve the pose.

What this means though is that I never really get to just sit with a pose and enjoy it. I am always pushing, trying to get more out of it.

Now though, when I am holding a pose, I set my alignment up and then - I let myself just be still.

This is easier than it sounds - as an A-type, I naturally tend to want to push myself beyond my limits and to go further. But when I stop trying to force or further refine a pose, I find that I can actually enjoy my practice a lot more. I still work on my edge (that place in a pose where you feel challenged but not so challenged that you feel pain, you start shaking and/or your breathing gets shallow) but once I get there, I just surrender into it. And it feels goooooood.

I am really finding that just by introducing these three, relatively minor changes to my practice, my teacher training is already having a big impact. And these are definitely making me look at my asana practice in a different, more healthy way. I also find I am finishing my classes feeling more refreshed and balanced than I used to. And definitely feeling happier.

Which is kind of the point, right?

What's your dream?

My yoga teacher training has finally started - yay!

Today was day two. I was incredibly anxious before starting - but that is nothing unusual for me. Anything that is unfamiliar and involves lots of other people makes me nervous. My belly was all full of butterflies and it felt like the first day of school. Which I guess it kind of was.

I had the usual first day worries: Like what if no one likes me? What if I'm not good enough? What if I fail? What if I don't enjoy it and it is all a waste of money and time? Blah, blah, blah.

But so far, so good! Everyone is lovely, I don't feel like I am in over my head and I am really loving it.

One thing that has become clear though is that the course involves more than just learning the skills to become a teacher. It is going to be quite a personal journey too with a lot of digging deep. And it is definitely looking beyond just the physical side of yoga - the asanas. We are gaining an understanding of all of the elements and how they can be integrated so that we can achieve increased flow throughout the body and a quietened mind. It is heavy but amazing stuff.

Today, a relatively simple exercise left me feeling a bit lost and, as a result, quite introspective. We were asked to discuss in small groups what our dream life would look like if there were no obstacles. Basically, let our minds go wild and put out to the world our greatest fantasies for an ideal life. What could be easier?

Some people seemed to have no trouble at all. They could articulate beautifully what their perfect life would be like down to the finest detail. And it was out-there stuff too. Global empires and what not.

Me? Well, I came up with some cool stuff, I guess. A house in the rainforest but also near the sea - perhaps in Bangalow. But I wouldn't live there all the time. Nooo. Because I would still have to keep my job, wouldn't I? I would work in the city and then, when I needed to escape, I could go to the house in Bangalow. Oh and I would have a dog in addition to my two cats.

Seriously. I let my mind run wild and that is the best I could do!?! A holiday home and a dog? Thing is, every time I thought of something cool - like living on a tropical island, teaching yoga and looking after stray kittens and puppies - this voice would come into my head saying "But you have to be realistic! Otherwise, you are being silly!"

It didn't seem to matter to me that the aim exercise wasn't to think about what I could realistically achieve. I was meant to be thinking big, thinking outside what might seem possible. I was allowed to be silly!

I found this to be really confronting. Like if I said something crazy, I would be ridiculed if I then failed to achieve it. Which is daft, really. Because when others shared their awesome hopes and dreams, my instinct was not to ridicule them. It was to encourage them. Their dreams sounded great. And I wanted to think of ways that they could actually achieve maybe even just one small part of their dream to help them on their way.

But I was still unable to think of anything for myself. I am just not sure what my real dream is. There is definitely a lot of work for me to do around this.

Hmmm...

So day two and I am already feeling challenged. Imagine where I will be by the end of the year!!

It's all in your mind

While I would love to say that I have a regular meditation practice going on, this would be a total lie. At best, it could be described as sporadic or maybe occasional.

Incorporating 20 - 30 minutes of meditation into my daily routine has been one of my new year resolutions for god knows how long now. I have done meditation workshops and courses, read books on the subject, used podcasts - but nothing has really managed to ingrain meditation in my life.

But I keep on trying! Because I know that it is possible and I know that it is something worth having.

Regular meditation has many potential benefits, including stress reduction, lower blood pressure, improved sleep, increased concentration, pain management and emotional balance.

And while I am obviously no expert, I thought I would share some of the tips that I have picked up along the way - I'm going to be following them myself as I try to get back into it.

1. Start small and build up over time.  Sure, getting 20-30 minutes of meditation in daily might be best for optimal results. But if you try to demand that your brain sits still for half an hour straight off the bat, you are pretty much guaranteeing that you will fail. It takes time and discipline to get to that stage. So start with just 5 minutes and slowly increase the length over time. 
2. Find a space where you won't be distracted. It is hard enough keeping your mind on your meditation without external distractions getting in the way. Set up somewhere where you are unlikely to be walked in on, turn off your mobile (no, seriously - turn it off!), shut the door and, if there is a lot of street noise, maybe shut the windows too (so long as this won't make you too hot). It doesn't have to be perfect - absolute silence isn't something that is that easy to come by, especially if you live in a city - but the less distractions, the easier it will be for you to focus.
3. Be comfortable. Ok, yes - ideally you want to be sitting cross-legged with the weight evenly distributed through both sitting bones and your spine straight. But while you are getting started, this might be close to impossible. It can actually be quite demanding on your back muscles and your hips to sit still for so long. So maybe start off leaning against a wall or sitting in a chair. Try not to slouch though - you still want to stay as much in alignment as possible so that you can stay focussed. Otherwise, you may as well just hang out on your couch. You can lie down if it is the only way you can be truly comfortable - but you might end up napping instead of meditating which isn't really the point, so sitting up right is really the way to go.
4. Just breathe. There are many different meditation techniques out there but concentrating on your breathing is probably the easiest. Start with a few deep breaths to relax your body. If you still feel tense, mentally scan your body and check in with any spots of tension and consciously relax them. Once you feel settled, breathe naturally and start paying attention to your breath - how it feels when you draw the breath in, the subtle expansion through your stomach and chest and then the contraction as you breathe out. And then - guess what? You are meditating!
5. You don't have to clear your mind. Thoughts are going to come into your mind - that is just natural. The challenge in meditation is to just let them come in without getting caught up in them. Acknowledge whatever comes up, and then just let it go and gently draw your attention back to your breathing. This is going to be hard to do at the start - we are so use to just following whatever little idea pops into our head and then obsessing over it until some other thought pops in and takes over and so on and so on. What you are trying to achieve through meditation is to create space between these thoughts - so you don't just jump from one to the next. To begin with, you might be only able to draw your mind back to your breath for a few moments. But that's ok. The more you practice, the more you will be able to turn away from your thoughts and soon the spaces between will be much longer than the thoughts themselves.
6. Set an alarm. To stop yourself from wondering how long you have been meditating for, or how long you have to go, I suggest setting an alarm. Something nice and not too loud if you can so it doesn't make you jump when it goes off. I usually just use my iPhone and use one of the quieter alarm tones, like birds whistling or bells. Just set it for however long you want to meditate for. Don't be overly ambitious though - if you set it for 30 minutes on your first try, it will seem like forever and you are going to still be distracted by your watch to see how much longer you have to go. An alarm is also handy if there is a chance you could fall asleep. Or if you have somewhere you need to be. It cuts out a clear patch of time for you to commit to your meditation but still allows you to get on with your life. 
7. Keep at it.  It is the same as with anything, if you are going to develop a good meditation practice, you have to keep trying. Maybe do it every morning, when your mind is more likely to be calm and less-occupied. Just 5 - 10 minutes is fine. It is more important that you do it consistently. (Admittedly, this is the bit that I usually fail at but I do seem to do better with it each time I try.)

So I am going to commit to getting back into it starting tomorrow morning. Anyone with me? :)

The urban yogi at home

Over the last 6 months or so, I have done most of my yoga at home.

In a perfect world, I would live on a tropical island so I could wake up every morning and do yoga at home, on my front balcony, overlooking the sea and breathing in the salty, fresh air. My morning practice would look omething like this, I think:

Source: www.oneworldretreat.com

In the real world, though, I live in a small apartment just outside the Sydney CBD. It isn't near the beach. It doesn't have a garden or even a courtyard. Our balcony just barely fits a few pot plants.

So when I read articles about creating your own, special place in your home to practice yoga in, I feel like I have failed before I have even begun.

I do have room to do yoga at home - just barely, mind you. I usually do it in the spare room, which has a lounge/bed futon thing in it for visitors in it as well as the stuff that wouldn't fit anywhere else and most of my husband's clothes (because I have pretty much taken over the entire wardrobe in the main bedroom thanks to online shopping, a slightly addictive personality and my love for pretty things). But I can lay my mat out fully, it has a clear wall for me to do inversions against, and there is just enough space to move through most yoga sequences (unless one of my cats gets in the way).

LingLing and I doing yoga in the spare room

It is less than ideal though. Space issues aside, it gets pretty hot in there - especially if I keep the door shut. The last time that I left the door open to let in some cool air through, my savasana was interrupted by the sounds of Cylons attacking humans. (Not an actual invasion - just my husband entertaining himself while I did my practice by watching Battlestar Galactica. Again. And kinda loud.) So yeah, I keep the door shut now and just deal with the heat.

When I am home alone, I practice downstairs in the living room with the doors to the balcony open which means I can enjoy a beautiful breeze while I work up a sweat doing my vinyasa. To make our tiny home a bit nicer, we have put lots of plants on the balcony - and most of them have actually managed to survive. I like to face the windows when I am practicing down there so I have a bit of nature to look out over. Not quite a tropical paradise, but it is nice and green, especially in summer.

My lovely but small living room (and Wookie the tabby)

There is still street noise to contend with - the neighbour's Harley Davidson, the kids across the street shouting and laughing, dogs barking etc. Also, when I am doing floor work I can see all the dust-bunnies under the TV cabinet. And again, the cats occasionally get in the way. (Their favourite trick is to walk underneath me while I am in down dog and then curl up for a nap in the middle of my mat.)

But having a regular at-home yoga practice is still one of the greatest things I have ever done for my yoga.

For a start, it fits in with my life. I do my yoga when I am ready for it, and not the other way around. This is particularly good for when things get busy at work or I have lots of social commitments on. And my sessions can be as long or as short as I have time for.

It also lets me focus on whatever is important to me. If I am stressed out and need to get grounded, I can do a great restorative class with lots of holds and concentration on the breath. And if I have oodles of energy, I can do a vigorous, sweaty vinyasa or ashtanga class. It also lets me work around any injuries that I may be experiencing. The online yoga studio, YogaGlo is perfect for this because it lets you search classes by body part or by the type of class I am wanting to do.

And while I might not have the perfect space in my house for doing my yoga, just rolling out my mat and stopping to take some time for myself makes any space feel pretty special. Even if I happen to be surrounded by laundry and cat fur.

So - vegan, huh?

I get asked all the time why I follow a vegan diet. So here is a blog post that I wrote on that very topic for a friend's blog. I have also added some photos of some of the very yummy food that I get to eat as a vegan.  Enjoy!

It is not something that I actually like to bring up in conversation. Especially if people are eating. But, one way or another, it comes up and there is no avoiding the awkward silences, the defensive comments, the jokes, the lectures...

Yes – it is true. I am a vegan. 

But I don’t get why that makes other people so uncomfortable – I mean, I am the one with the 
restrictive diet but I'm not complaining! Other people though can have a really big issue with it.

Satay tofu sticks on roasted vegetables

The first thing people usually want to know is where I get my protein from. Or my iron. Or my calcium. Or my B12!! I usually just point out that being a vegan or even a vegetarian actually requires you to be very focussed on what you eat and what your meals are made up of and that I definitely think more about these things now than I did as an omnivore. Then I ask them how their B12 levels are. And then they usually move on to a different line of questioning. Like...

“Aren’t, you wearing leather shoes though? You know the cows don’t just donate their skin for you to have a pair of boots. They killed the cow that they came from. In fact, you should thank me for eating the rest of it.”

Kale salad with pesto dressing

Ok. It is true. I own leather shoes. Handbags. Belts. I even have a pair of leather gloves. But since going vegan, I haven’t bought anything made from animal skin. This is going to sound pretty bad but it is the single hardest challenge that I have had to face since becoming a vegan. No more cheesecake? Fine. No more Christian Louboutins? Are you FRICKING SERIOUS???

In my heart of hearts though, I think it is worth it. But no - I did not throw out all of my existing shoes and bags away because I just think that would be worse. And instead of replacing them when they wear out, I will just get them mended. And when my favourite leather shoes can’t be fixed anymore? Well, hopefully I will be earning enough to replace them with a pair of Stella McCartney heels. So don’t bother calling me a hypocrite, alright? Because I am fine with my decision. And also, if you do, I am going to tell you exactly where the beef came from to make your burger and, if you have any humanity at all, it will make you cry like a baby.

Raw vegan brownies - these are super tasty and incredibly easy to make - check out the recipe here

People also like to tell me that I am wasting my time. That I can’t make a difference through my choices – everyone else eats meat and they will just cancel me out. In fact, some delightful people have offered to eat all of the meat that I don’t eat so that the world isn’t affected. These are usually the same people who don’t believe in climate change and who think that refugees are all criminals though so I tend not to bother with them much. Basically, while it might be true that I may not make much of a difference to

the world by being a vegan, I feel better knowing that I am not making things worse either.

Finally, there are those people who just cannot imagine a world without meat. “Don’t you miss it?” they ask, their eyes wide with concern and confusion. “What else is there to eat? Do you just have side-dishes?” Well, sometimes, yes - all that some restaurants offer me to eat are hot chips or a plate of “greens”. But that is ok – I mean it is still food and at least I won’t be starving. If it is up to me though, I will be eating something pretty awesome – curries, soups, stirfries, burgers, pasta, cakes, chocolate – everything can be made vegan. It just takes a little more effort to find it or you have to make it yourself. 

But it all tastes great and I never feel like I am missing out.

Almond butter and jam sandwich cookies - seriously nommy

At this point in the conversation, I usually remind people that their steaks are getting cold and we get stuck into our meals. They seem happy enough to continue what they are doing and I probably haven’t changed their views on what they eat or anything. But I like to think that something might sink in. And even if they just eat a little less meat than they currently do, we will all be better off.

Yoga as therapy

My new year exercise regime of daily yoga and occasional jogs hit a few road blocks this week.

The first was that I started a new job. I like to do yoga in my lunch break during the week but my new work is further away from my gym. The extra distance means I will be hard-pressed to fit a 45 minute class into my lunch hour (and I haven't yet worked out whether I have the flexibility for my lunch "hour" to be a lunch "hour and a bit" so long as I make up the time elsewhere).

But that is easy enough to fix - there is always before work or after work to fit in some yoga goodness. And given that I use YogaGlo, I can do great classes at home whenever it suits me.

What isn't as easy to sort is my stupid lower back. It has been giving me grief for a few days now. Kind of a dull ache across my sacrum. I ignored it for the first few days in hope that it would just sort itself out and I kept up my usual routine, including strong, vigorous vinyasa classes and bouts on the treadmill.

Imagine my surprise when this kind of just made it a little bit worse.

Have I seriously learnt nothing?

Once I came to my senses though, I gave my body and my poor achey back a nice break from all forms of exercise. And that certainly improved things.

I was concerned, though, that maybe there was something that I had been doing wrong that had caused the pain in the first place. (Although, it is also very likely that it was just a sign that my body was tired and wanted me to just stop for a little while. Bodies are so wise - I should really listen to mine more often!) So I Googled my symptoms to see what the likely causes could be and, more importantly, what I could do differently to avoid it in the future.

Apart from a few nasty causes that I quickly dismissed (spinal stenosis or herniated disk anyone?), the most likely cause was a strain from overuse. Oh, and let's not forget that I am getting old. And what did most of the websites I looked recommend to prevent it from reoccurring?

Yoga!

I had been so caught up in thinking of yoga as a workout that I had forgotten all about its amazing therapeutic effects. Unlike most of the other things that you can get up to in the gym, a yoga practice actually has the ability to heal your body and to prevent injuries.

This was such a brilliant realisation as, after two days rest, I was itching to get back on the mat. So that I didn't run into the same problems though, I have done a couple of classes that have been specially designed to care for and strengthen the lower back. The great thing about these classes is that they usually set you up with some great tips that can then be applied to any class so that you can get your alignment right and prevent any future aches and pains.

Yoga IS therapy. You just need to adjust your approach slightly to address whatever concerns your body is telling you it is having.