These days you can’t turn a corner without “health and wellness” in your face, I personally find it to be a pleasant reminder of the undeniable health crisis we are facing. There are a million movies in my Netflix queue related to the topic awaiting to be played, I finally checked off one this weekend. Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is a documentary about a young Aussie’s quest to break free from the pill box and heal himself with healthy food.

There are parts of this movie that I loved, especially that comic cartoons and basic education around the evolution of man from the hunter and gatherer days, however there are parts that also unnerved me particularly that this guy’s quest included a 60 day juice fast. I am an advocate of intermittent/ short term fasting to give your digestive system a break BUT 60 DAYS?! Ehh… not something I would recommend to the average Joe. Unless you are equipped with infinite willpower, being living off of juices in a demanding society where people are tied to their desks and then attempt to get a quick workout in, is nearly impossible! I’d much rather see someone transform their relationship with food and make wiser choices than depriving themselves.

All in all the message of taking control of your health was empowering. It was a great watch and wasn’t boring and dry like some of these documentaries can be. If you have an extra an hour or two on hand then check it out. http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

There is nothing better than a warm soup on a cold day. Here’s one that’ll bring balance to your mind, body, and soul.

Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10-15 minutes
Yield: 4-5 servings

Ingredients:
4-5 cups spring water
1-2 inch strip of wakame, rinsed and soaked 5 minutes in 1 cup of water until softened
1-2 cups thinly sliced vegetables of your choice (see notes)
2-3 teaspoons barley miso
2 scallions, finely chopped

Directions:
1. Chop soaked wakame.
2. Discard soaking water or use on houseplants for a boost of minerals.
3. Place water and wakame in a soup pot and bring to a boil.
4. Add root vegetables first and simmer gently for 5 minutes or until tender.
5. Add leafy vegetables and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
6. Remove about 1/2 cup of liquid from pot and dissolve miso into it. Return it to the pot.
7. Reduce heat to very low; do not boil or simmer miso broth.
8. Allow soup to cook 2-3 minutes.
9. Garnish with scallions and serve.

Note:
Any combination of vegetables can be used in miso soup. Here are some classic combinations:
· onion-daikon: cleansing
· onion-carrot-shiitake mushroom-kale: mildly sweet
· onion-winter squash-cabbage: great in wintertime
· leek-corn-broccoli: great in summertime

Variations:
· Add cooked grains at the start of making the soup. They will become nice and soft.
· Add a tablespoon of uncooked quinoa or millet at the beginning and let it cook with vegetables for 20 minutes.
· Add cubed tofu toward the end.
· Add bean sprouts toward the end.
· Season with 1/2 teaspoon ginger juice for an interesting twist.
· If using dry shiitake mushrooms, let them soak for 20 minutes, slice and add at the beginning.

A day is bound to come when we crave the richness of certain foods that allow us to unbutton our pants and sit back and sigh in satiation. Comfort foods have gotten a bad rep over the years. When you think comfort you want grandmas mac and cheese, mom’s butter chicken, or dad’s bbq, basically foods filled with love AND the richness of major fat cals. It no longer has to be that way though. With more and more people stepping back to primal and paleo foods, comfort is getting a makeover and Julie and Charles Mayfield are part of the revolution. Their book “Paleo Comfort Foods” is giving comfort a new look, with foods that not only give you the warm and fuzzies but are also good for you.

There is no better day for a comfort meal than a rainy day. Today’s meal came right out of “Paleo comfort foods” and consisted of one my favorite protein sources – Salmon. Not only does this fish taste delicious (when done right) it also nourishes the body with Omega 3s, protein, and bioactive peptides. All in all a great food source to consume. Enjoy and stay dry!

What’s your favorite comfort food? Post to comments…

Cedar- Plank Chipotle Salmon

1. cedar plank, soaked in water for at least 30 minutes

1 ½ pounds salmon filet

1 teaspoon chipotle pepper powder

½ teaspoon fresh cracked pepper

¼ teaspoon sea salt

1. limes, quartered
2. Set up grill for indirect medium-high heat
3. Remove bones from salmon and rinse in cold water, pat dry and place on cedar plank
4. Mix chipotle, pepper, and sale in small bowl
5. Spread mixture over fish
6. Place on grill for 25-30 minutes, heat to 135-140 degrees F
7. Remove and serve immediately (with an amazing side of veggies)

(Optional: enjoy with a glass of Banshee Pinot Noir, a new found vino for me and I love it!)

n!

Ritu Riyat

In just a couple of days the clock will turn midnight and a new year will begin. Although it is just another day, January 1^st is a measurable time marker in our lives. It marks another year older, another year wiser, and another year to set and meet our goals. By the time December rolls around everyone is ready for a new start, people all over the world set goals and resolutions for the coming year. These goals are written in journals, posted in cyberspace via blogs, walls, tweets, and tubes and then 3 weeks into January they are buried underneath a stack of papers or on the bottom of your blog roll. Point being, most New Year’s resolutions fail within the first month. If you make it past the first month then congratulations, you have done something right. If you want to have successful 2012 then you have to get S.M.A.R.T. about your goals. The acronym has been used for years as goal setting best practice across all industries and disciplines, whether you are looking to lose weight or get your dream job, S.M.A.R.T. goals will get you there.

Are you ready to get started? Take out a piece of paper and pen. Now take a deep breath and give yourself a solid 20 minutes to review the SMART criteria below and write down your goals for 2012. Limit these goals to about 3, anything more can be overwhelming. DO THIS NOW!

STEP 1:
First write down 3 general goals then take each one through the Nutritionize! My Goal

criteria detailed below to make them SMART goals.

STEP 2: Nutritionize! My Goal

The SMART Goal Acronym

• Specific
  
• Measurable
  
• Attainable
  
• Realistic
  
• Timely
  

A goal should provide guidance and direction. General goals like ‘lose weight’, ‘get in shape’, ‘get a new job’ ‘eat better’, or ‘have less stress’ are far too vague and unspecific and most likely lead to failure. Use the S.M.A.R.T. criteria to help put more detail into your goal. Spending a few minutes to think through your goals is the first step to success.

S – Specific: I think this by far is the most important step in goal setting because it defines the goal. Answer the 5w’s below to take your goal from general to specific.

1. Who: Who is involved?
   
2. What: What do I want to accomplish?
   
3. Where: Identify a location.
   
4. When: Establish a time frame.
   
5. Which: Identify requirements and constraints.
   
6. Why: List specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
   

    

   Have your goal be like an instruction telling you what to do. EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, “Get in shape.” But a specific goal would be, “Join a Crossfit gym and work out 5 times a week on after work on Mon-Thursday and first thing in the morning on Saturday.
   

M – Measurable: If you don’t know where you started or where you are going you won’t know if you have gotten there.

Measurement is key. I suggest keeping a journal and to determine if your goal is measurable ask yourself questions such as:

• How much?
  
• How many?
  
• How will I know when it is accomplished?
  
• Produce evidence for your progress. If your goal is to “reduce stress” create a stress measure for yourself like the number of times you get upset every day.
  
• Keep a log and record each stressful reaction.
  

A – Attainable: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck then it’s a duck!

When YOU set your goals and identify the goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways to make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals. You begin to look and feel like having achieved that goal and therefore do.

• Your goal should be meaningful to you. It should be set by you, not someone else.
  
• The goal should be inspiring enough that it motivates you to success. If you are not determined to meet your goal, obstacles will be very difficult to overcome.
  
• If your doctor says, “lose weight” and your wife says, “lose weight” but you are not inspired by this, find another goal that also improves your health while you try to find a way to become inspired about weight loss.
  
• Have integrity around your goals, recognize that no one is perfect and there are going to be difficult times that may make sticking to your goal challenging, rather than beating yourself up for falling off the goal, get back on!
  

R – Realistic: Keep it real! Set a goal that you are both willing and able to work towards.

Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Also ask yourself if you have ever done anything similar, for example have you ever been at your goal weight before in your life.

• Goals should be ambitious, but not impossible. Do not set yourself up for failure.
  
• Goals can be high and realistic. Remember it’s okay to go big! High goals are more often achieved because there is higher motivation
  

T – Time: We are a time based society and doing something for time gets us moving real quick! Use your time wisely.

• When will you finish your goal? Choose a time frame that is realistic and ambitious.
  
• Saying “I will lose 20 pounds in 3 months” is good, but saying “I will lose an average of 2 pounds every week for 10 weeks” is better.
  

STEP 3:
Now write your goal:

Finish the following sentence:

I will [your goal here] by [how you will do the goal]. I will know I am making progress because [how you will measure the goal] [time goes here].

For example: I will lose 20 pounds by increasing my exercise to 4 times a week and cutting back on sugar and portion size. I will know I am making progress because I will lose 2 pounds a week for ten weeks.

Here are some SMART goal examples:

• Fitness example SMART goal: I will work out by doing cardiovascular activity of walking 3 days per week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  I will do this at the gym for 30-45 minutes from 5:45pm-6:30pm.  I will pack my gym clothes with me and bring them to work for no excuses.
  
• Life Balance example SMART goal: I will take one hour for myself every evening of the work week to turn off my work phone and computer.  During this time, I will do something for me, spend time with my family, read a book, meditate or do something physically active around the house.
  

Now that you have taken your goal from simple to SMART, go out and tweet it, blog it, wall it, SHARE IT! Post your SMART goals to comments or on the NUTRITIONIZE FB page.

Happy New Year- See you in 2012!

n!

Ritu Riyat

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Upcoming events:
Nourish Me – Mindful Eating Workshop

In this 4 part series, you will develop your awareness of how you eat, what you eat, when you eat and why you eat. Through body movement, mindful meditation, and nutrition education we will begin to unravel our eating patterns and make mindful choices. We will learn techniques to develop mindfulness and apply it to our daily nutrition lifestyle.

 Series starts Thursday January 5^th. Space is limited. Register here. 

I spent the last 5 days in complete silence at a meditation retreat in North Fork, Ca. Yup, complete silence for the entire time which means no eye contact, no gestures, no touching, and definitely no talking to anyone else there. It’s sounds painful but after about a day of twitching out from no FB and email access, the body reconnects with its primal instinct and the natural surroundings. I had a great time, just me, myself, and my monkey mind. The purpose of the retreat is to become more aware and to see things as they are, or simply put, to be in the moment. As simple as it sounds, the web wired world we live in makes mindfulness a difficult feat. One way we tend to complicate our lives is with the lack of being in the moment. We can all recall times where we have gone through a day of multi-tasking and no memory of what exactly we did, or scarfing down a meal and then trying to think about what was consumed or how it tasted. Sometimes it’s OK to not be completely mindful, like knowing where the chair is as you are reading this, but other times, like having your shoulders scrunched up by your ears as your reading this, can lead to problems. Back to the retreat, I spent 10 hours a day trying to sit still and observe my breath and I spent 2 hours a day observing my food.

The meals in silence got me reflecting on food and our relationship with food. It’s been on mind for a while now, with the growing wellness industry and innumerable nutritionists and coaches and blogs out there on food, the focus has been on WHAT to eat. But I wondered is there more to eating than just the TYPE of food? Granted the “what” is a big party of a healthy lifestyle but what about the other questions? To get the whole picture a good investigator applies the “five W’s and one H” concept, the “who, what, where, when, why, and how”. All of these play a role in a “healthy” vs. “unhealthy” meal. I find it ironic that many healthy nuts will avoid “fast food” yet they will eat fast?! Every part of our dining experience contributes to the health factor of that meal because your surroundings have a direct impact on your nervous system which then affects your digestive system and really good healthy food which is poorly digested is no longer healthy.

Not having anyone to talk to and without the social pressures of forced fake conversation with the stranger across the table; I had a chance to give my meal my undivided attention. I ate slow, chewed every bite 20 times (yup, I counted) and engaged each of my 5 senses. Looking at my plate and mindfully created a bite, tasting the flavors, feeling the textures, smelling the spices, and hearing the primal chomp chomp. Every bite was amazing and although I had free reign to attack the buffet line, I knew exactly when I was comfortably full and made the mindful decision to stop eating at that time. The whole experience was about 40 minutes! 40 minutes of me eating my meal in pure silence with no distractions, I can’t remember the last time I had done something like that, can you? I get that we all have busy lives and don’t live in silence day in and day out. We are constantly in motion but developing awareness around when, why, where, with who and how we are eating can optimize the “what” that we are eating. Be your own investigator and experiment with a mindful meal, eat in silence and observe how you feel before, during, and after the meal.

Being mindful takes practice, just like you go to the gym to practice a pull up or a squat clean or add one more mile to your marathon training so to you have to exercise the mindful muscle. You’re probably wondering 1. Where is that muscle? and 2. How the heck to exercise it?! Here are 5 ways to work out the mindful muscle.

1. Keep a diary of your thoughts and feelings. Doesn’t need to be long but focus on answering the “five W’s and one H”.
   
2. Notice… take a deep breath; notice five things you can see. Notice five things you can hear; notice five things you can feel (shoes, pants, hair against forehead etc.)
   
3. Practice a 2 minute meditation, regularly. Find a quiet, comfortable place to sit. Preferably someplace you won’t be disturbed. Close your eyes. While seated, place your feet flat on the ground. Relax your shoulders. Let them drop. Relax your jaw. Unclench your teeth. Slowly drop your chin toward your chest. Take a few natural breaths. It takes a few breaths to calm the body down so be patient. Then take your attention to the tip of the nose, hold the attention there, and take 10 long deep breaths (inhale and exhale=1 breath), if the mind wanders bring it back to tip of the nose. This practice, done regularly, will help you filter out distractions, stop the mind chatter, and get you calm and centered.
   
4. Let out 3 deep sighs or deep breaths before and after a meeting, meal, car ride, phone call, etc. The sigh will automatically release any tension that you created from the activity and make you more present to the activity ahead.
   
5. When you’re annoyed at waiting for a stopping sign, or anything else for that matter, just SMILE (Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Buddhism)
   

Eat your next meal mindfully and post to comments the “What, why, when, where, and how’s” you experienced!

n!

ritu riyat

Upcoming events:

Nourish Me – Mindful Eating Workshop

In this 4 part series, you will develop your awareness of how you eat, what you eat, when you eat and why you eat. Through body movement, mindful meditation, and nutrition education we will begin to unravel our eating patterns and make mindful choices. We will learn techniques to develop mindfulness and apply it to our daily nutrition lifestyle.

Series starts Thursday January 5^th. Space is limited. Register here.

In all my years of teaching yoga and working with health education there is one thing that I felt needed to be tackled before eating well and exercising and that is … drum roll please…. STRESS! It’s not rocket science but it does take a certain level of awareness to recognize our state of stress. If you live and work in America then you probably have chronic stress and are most likely accustomed to it. Can you run your stress away? Perhaps. But when you finish your run the stress comes back. Can you eat your stress away? Hmm… a whole chocolate cake or tub of ice cream might provide short term satisfaction but eventually leave you overweight and more stressed. Stress is a state of the mind… we are stressed because our minds are constantly analyzing, craving, judging, expecting, deciding, and so on. One way to make it shut up is through the age old technique of meditation. Alright, ready… set…meditate! Did it work? Unless you are a practiced mediator this technique probably doesn’t work too well and it takes a lot of time! Trust me… I spent 10 days in silence and still can’t tell my mind to shut up on demand. Alright now imagine some tickling you or listening to your favorite comedian… what happens? Within seconds you are on the floor rolling with laughter… AND you have forgotten whatever was on your mind. Even when you are done laughing and your mind kicks in again it is much calmer and clearer. This is the miracle technology of laughter yoga. Yes, I am calling it a technology- the making, usage and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or serve some purpose.

The concept of laughter for well-being is not new. We have all heard the expression “laughter is the best medicine” it is unknown who first said this but the underlying message is weaved throughout many cultures, traditions, philosophies, and books. Researchers have been exploring this concept for decades and have proven that laughter can reduce the risk of depression, heart disease, obesity, and other mind/body illnesses. Why? Well, the exact methodology is unknown. One theory is that ineffective breathing leads to illness. From a yogic perspective, breath and more importantly oxygen is the vital and life giving force within us. Due to stress and fast paced environments we have programmed our bodies to breathe shallow and irregular. This leads to lack of oxygen and accumulation of carbon dioxide in our blood which further causes anxiety, more stress, and emotional reactions. The good news is its reversible. Deep breathing with awareness can bring more oxygen to the brain and blood cells alleviating the symptoms of stress. A daily dose of laughter is one well proven technique to promote deep breathing and bring oxygen to the blood.

Motion creates emotion. What the mind thinks the body will manifest. So if the mind is stressed and depressed the body will respond by moving slow and hunched over since the lungs are not fully active opening the chest. However, if the mind is awake and in a state of joy, the body too will be energetic and open. Which would you rather be? The nice thing is the choice is truly YOURS. This is the one time pretending and lying is warranted. According to laughter experts- even when unhappy, behaving or acting happy will bring the mind to a state of happiness. Bring laughter to your Body and your Mind will soon follow. Basically, fake it till you make it!

As always don’t take my word for it, try it out and report back. There are laughter clubs everywhere to find one near you click here. If you are in the bay area then you’re in luck. Join me this Saturday for a laughter yoga workshop. Details below.

What makes you laugh? Post to comments…

nutritionize!

ritu

Upcoming events:

Laugh-J-lution Laughter Yoga

Saturday @ 10:30am

Family Life Chiropractic

115 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose, Ca 95112

For more information email nutritionize@gmail.com

What is a Laughter Club?

A group of people who gather together to laugh, have fun, and experience the health benefits of laughter. The club is completely free and open to all ages. No experience necessary, no jokes needed, just bring an open and playful mind.