Unnata Aerial Yoga: Guest Post on Yogaholic

Hello everyone,

Hope 2012 is off to an awesome start for you all!

In the spirit of learning something new this year, I recently attended a workshop in Beirut on Unnata Aerial Yoga.  (Yes, while pregnant). This is right up my alley, because as a child, I was always in absolute awe of the trapeze act at the circus and still am. My wonderful teacher, Dani, is off in New York doing some intense yoga training in this practice and asked me to do a guest post about it on her blog. If you’ve never heard of Aerial Yoga — check it out, it’s pretty amazing stuff !

” Like regular yoga, some poses looked fluid and easy, and others looked super demanding, because gravity and the motion of the hammock add all kinds of variables and challenge our bodies in ways we’re not used to. What’s different is the element of play – when you’re suspended in the air, feeling strong and flexible, sweeping the ground with your hair as you sway back and forth, it feels like that rush of being a kid in a playground again. Not to say that it isn’t a bit scary…….. Read more on Yogaholic 

And since we’re on the subject, here is a gorgeously shot scene from the movie Bye Bye Blackbird,  featuring acrobat extraordinaire James Thiérrée, (grandson of Charlie Chaplin).The beauty! The romance! Enjoy.

About Guilt, Gratitude, & Eggs for Dinner

I don’t know about you, but I tend to be a bit of a snob when it comes to blog content. If it hasn’t been updated in a few months and offers no explanation, then frankly, I’m not impressed.

So this is what happened: I discovered two days ago that this blog has just been mentioned in Elle Arab World – and with a very postive write-up at that. The problem: Anyone who picked up the magazine over the weekend and might have been compelled to check this blog would see that the last post just before this one was published more than 3 months ago! AAaaaarrrghhh!

Elle Arab World December 2011

So what’s the deal, why haven’t I been writing? Sure, I’ve been insanely busy, busier perhaps than I’ve ever been in my life – but then I should have no lack of things to talk about. Let’s see.. I’m starting a new business in a totally new field, renovating a house, organizing a women’s’ retreat for the spring,  keeping up with my workouts, making time to spend with my little girls and hubby and to keep my household running in some semblance of order. Some….Semblance.  I’ve avoided becoming a social outcast by making an effort to see friends, support important events, and generally show up. And all this with about half my normal energy since I am about 5 months pregnant. But so what? There are women all over the world who are doing all this and more, and WITHOUT childcare, mind you – which is not my case, thank you, dear God.

So those are not the reasons why I haven’t been writing. Frankly, it’s the pressure of all of you out there actually reading what I have to say. When I started the blog, I was doing it just for me – as a personal challenge to show myself what I could come up with. If someone read it and liked it, yay! If not hey, no biggie. But then, people started reading. Acquaintances approached  me to tell say ‘I love your blog!’ (Thank you). I’ve been mentioned in a couple of magazines, front-paged on Freshly Pressed  (which brought in 5,000+ hits in 48 hours..) and I have a bunch of subscribers..(in plural, not just my mom).. and suddenly I feel this pressure to be… I don’t know…worthy!

So I’ve used ‘busy’ as my reason for not posting, but I think it’s time to admit that it’s a pretty lame excuse. It does feel great to be this engaged though. Exhausting, granted, but amazing to be creating, to see real momentum happening in my projects, to see my business starting to take shape, to see walls being torn down and rebuilt in our new apartment, to watch our kids discovering the world and to see my stomach getting bigger every day. There is growth all around me, and it’s addictive. About 18 months ago, I was trapped in a negative cycle of complaining that I didn’t have enough to do, and then feeling guilty for complaining, round and round and on and on ad nauseam. At one point, I also had a considerable amount of fear associated with taking all of this on. But in the last few months I’ve learned a really, really important lesson – several actually:

1. Not only is it OK to want more – it’s a basic human need to want to grow, expand, and learn. We should never feel bad about that.
2. Wanting more does NOT mean that we are not grateful for what we already have – ambition and gratitude are not mutually exclusive.
3. There is no such thing as work/life balance. Truly, when you see these incredible multi-passionate super successful women and say “Wow, how do  they do it all?” Trust me, they’re not doing it all, at least not all on their own and not on the same day. It takes planning, asking for help when you need it, (this particular point has been a HUGE revelation to me) and the acceptance that it’s ok once in a while if the kids have scrambled eggs for dinner. They kinda like it actually.
4. Gratitude is a powerful force. When you begin to make a regular habit of practicing gratitude on a daily basis, your perception shifts, and with it, your world.

So, since this is probably my last post for 2011, I leave you with a few thoughts.

• Meaningful lives don’t happen by accident. Let’s find the time in the next couple of weeks to reflect on our past year, and make some big plans for the next one. For some of you, those big plans may actually involve slowing down, which is good too. Give yourself an annual review – there is a good guide here, and put a real plan in place for the next 12 months. Just the act of writing down your goals starts to put them in motion.
• If you want to dig a little deeper into what makes you tick but find that a difficult thing to do, check this out this chapter by Danielle La Porte, she’s pretty awesome.
• Let’s agree to catch ourselves when we get on a complaining carousel, it makes us fuzzy in the head and gets us nowhere. Step off and get some perspective. Again: ask for help.
• And finally, practice gratitude. For little things, big things, things that haven’t even happened yet. I’ll go first: Thank you for reading. And Merry Christmas

4 Books That Changed the Way I Think About Food

I like to read several books at once.  I tend to get into a theme, and then sort of co-read several books around the same topic. I’m not convinced that this system has much merit, but since having children, my attention span has dwindled to some kind of digital age A.D.D. (Anyone know what I’m talking about?), and so I’m only half way through a couple of these at the moment.
However, I have seen enough to know that they are all worth reading, probably more than once. Be warned: All of these books have affected the way I eat, so if you are perfectly happy with a fast, processed, meaty, or milky diet…..don’t read them.

1) The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.

I read this a few years ago, and this is the book that really turned me away from processed food and got me interested in learning more. There is so much information in this book that should be common knowledge, but it wasn’t for me. To name a few things I didn’t know about: What really happens at a factory farm,  at a slaughterhouse, the incredible corporate power of many food industries, the involvement of the pharmaceutical companies, migrant labour issues, the insane amount of environmental damage caused by the factory farming of animals, and the prevalence of processed corn derivatives in EVERYTHING. Pollan goes into all of it, making you really stop and think not only about what you are eating, but the consequences of what you choose to put on your plate.

 

  2) In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan, again.

In a very sensible voice and about 200 pages, Michael Pollan gives a solid, easy to understand explanation of why bad foods are bad for us, and what to eat instead. He boils his recommendations down to this simple phrase:”Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants”. By food, he means the things on the periphery of the supermarket, not in the center aisles, things that will actually rot rather than last forever on your shelf, and things that your grandmother would recognize as food, instead of ingredients you cannot pronounce. Excellent advice.

 

 3) Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer.  

I’m reading this now, and enjoying it. Jonathan Safran Foer is a great writer this is more a personal story than a big, footnoted, scientific one. I think I like it because Safran Foer is from my own generation, and I can relate to his voice and his story. Food is a big part of his family culture, he considered vegetarianism but could never really commit because he really enjoyed eating meat. Then he recently had a child and decided to find out for himself what was really happening to the animals between the farm and the supermarket. (Not that you can call those places farms, they are factories in every sense of the word).  Reading this book has pushed me further away from meat than anything I have read before, although I’m not about to become vegetarian yet. Apparently there are some gross chapters that I haven’t got to yet, but at this point, I still can’t seem to resist my mother-in-law’s kibbe…

 

4) The Food Revolution, by John Robbins.  (10^th Anniversary Edition). How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World.

Ok, that’s a pretty big claim, but this is also a monster book, packed with information and with a forward by Dr. Dean Ornish and over 50 pages of resources and notes in the back. The first sentence of this book is, “I was born into ice cream”. The author, John Robbins, was the only son of the founder of Baskin Robbins, yet walked away from the empire he was being groomed to inherit to spend his life learning and teaching about the impact that eating animals is having on our health and our planet. (He no longer eats ice cream). I’m only about half way through it, but I am finding it to be clear, organized and extremely compelling.

 

 What’s the most important thing I’ve learned?

THAT OUR FOOD CHOICES HAVE CONSEQUENCES. The old rules of supply and demand are in force more than ever, and as long as we keep creating demand for faster, cheaper animal products in huge quantities, we keep encouraging practices that have serious repercussions on our health and yes, on our world.

All of this new knowledge has definitely made me think twice about what I eat and what to feed my family.  We are eating more raw fruits and veggies than ever, experimenting with new foods and grains, reading labels very carefully and asking a lot more questions than we used to, but it’s not easy to change the way your family eats. There is history, memory and emotion involved, not just taste buds.

Here in Lebanon I find it especially tricky, because I still don’t know enough about what is being injected into/fed to the animals that provide our milk, cheese and meat, nor what kind of conditions they are raised in. As a result, we have reduced meat and dairy consumption, but not cut them out entirely. It’s a learning process, and I’m telling you, that kibbe really is damn good :)

What do you think about all this? Do have any suggestions for books to add to this list? 

Bonus Vid: Check out this analyst’s story about how she started looking into what was really in the food chain after one of her kids reacted reeeaally badly to breakfast one morning….

Why I love Mondays

So fresh & delicious, it doesn't always make it to the table!

I look forward to Mondays, and here is why.

Reason 1) My farm fresh veggies for the week arrive today.

This makes me happier than you might imagine. I get two deliveries each week through CSA programs, (CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture), and if you’re not already receiving produce this way, you absolutely must look for one in your area! The first delivery of the week is from Healthy Basket, AUB’s program with farmers in Lebanon.  Most weeks, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to get, I just know that everything will be season, certified organic, and locally produced. And it actually arrives in a basket, not a nasty plastic bag, yay!

Buying your vegetables from a CSA program is a good idea for a multitude of reasons, most obviously because it supports local farmers, giving them a fair price for their produce and providing them with a steady income to help cover their expenses, so they can get back to doing what they do best, (farming is hard work!), instead of schlepping around the country trying to sell their vegetables. Second, you are doing a good deed for the environment buying locally, instead of contributing to a market for produce that needs to be shipped halfway across the world, polluting seas, skies and land on its way over. And third, you are creating a direct relationship with the people putting food on your table.

Very yummy baby artichokes

My other delivery comes from my friend Joanna’s farm. In this case, it’s not strictly organic, (i.e. not certified), but I know that she runs a clean, conscientious farm without dangerous pesticides, which is good enough for me. Plus, I get to pick and choose each week from her varied and interesting selection. (Through her we have discovered kohlrabi, yellow watermelon and baby artichokes, fun!) So the veggies arrive on Monday, and this sets into motion my second reason for being happy:

Reason 2) I get a fresh start on what I am going to eat and feed my family this week.

It’s easy to slip a little on the weekend. Or a lot, even. Recently, I’ve been “leaning” into vegetarianism, even cutting out most dairy as well just to see what will happen to my body/skin. (Another post, another day, maybe). This has influenced what we cook at home. During the week, I try to provide a mixed diet of vegetable stews (bamia, loubia, etc) , lentils, grains and some chicken and eggs. The kids do eat meat in the form of ground beef in mahshi (stuffed vegetables with rice) about once a week, but we try to keep it minimal.  Not because I believe that beef is so terrible for them, it’s just that I have no access to organic beef here in Lebanon, (somebody start an organic dairy farm already!) ….and no idea where the beef comes from at my supermarket, what kind of hormones/antibiotics/chemicals the cows may have been exposed to, or how hygienically or not it has been processed. (Ew.) The same goes for milk. This freaks me out a little, to say the least. I think we do ok, but then the weekend comes…and it’s pretty much over. Between the birthday parties and meals out, come Sunday their little bodies are subsisting on French fries, pizza and ice cream. Which is fine…. but whew! Monday arrives, and we can go back to our healthy habits.

I love getting this new chance to be organized and healthy, every single week. And with this renewed sense of purpose comes my third reason to love Mondays:

Reason 3) I get a great workout in, and with it a whole bunch of mojo that lasts for days.

Again, the exercise falters on the weekend, so by Monday I am ready to burst, which produces a great run or yoga session. Then with all that momentum, I get ahead of myself and make some crazy schedule for workouts all week! Ok, sometimes I do them all and sometimes I don’t, but hey! Come Monday, the wishful thinking starts again! And you know what happens when we exercise…..

Reason 4) I feel more focused at work.

Mondays are for evaluating, list-making, scheduling and catching up on last week’s undone tasks for my new business(es). If I was a superhero and procrastination was a superpower, I would rule the universe. I can also be slightly disorganized, it drives my (Virgo) husband crazy. The fresh start I get on Mondays uncovers The Productive and Efficient Me; Hurray, she does exist! There is huge satisfaction to be had from scratching things off your to-do list, and I do it with relish. I am also in the middle of an 8-week online business course, and a new module is released every Monday, yet another reason to look forward, get my groove on, and you know,  just DO the WORK!

What do all these things have in common? Kaizen, of course!

The beginning of each week brings a new chance to make small improvements in every area of our lives: Our health, our wellbeing, our careers, and our personal growth. What’s not to like?

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• Healthy Basket: www.healthybasket.org
• Joanna’s Fresh Greens: Joanna@bassateen.com

 Do you feel this way? What helps to set you in positive motion? Leave a comment below and tell me about it.