day 10 - just your typical day at the office

i'm convinced that lack of sleep causes weight gain.

i hopped on the scale this morning and found, to my horror, that i had GAINED half a pound! how that happened -- considering how i hardly ate the day before -- i have no clue, but i'm sure it has something to do with water retention or something.

WHATEVER.

anyway, i was back to the usual cleanse schedule with the detox drink, the tonics, the supplements, the meals. nothing too out of the ordinary, which is why all i'm going to do is post the photo i took before the late night yoga class i took with dan ward at power yoga west. (i was so busy trying to get dan in the frame that i didn't notice the yogini setting up her mat in the foreground. my apologies.)

the class was so scrumptious that i fell asleep right after i had dinner, totally forgetting to take my end-of-the-day colon tonic. i somehow woke up many hours later, took the missing dose, then went back to sleep.

ho-hum.

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today's yoga class: a power yoga class with dan ward at power yoga west

click here for yesterday's post

day 9 - one crazy weekend, part 2

as if saturday's schedule wasn't the most conducive to a set feeding/tonifying/detoxing schedule, sunday's was even less so.

it started at midnight, right after i left jai uttal's kirtan at bhakti yoga shala, a room that was so packed that i had to stand during his entire performance. while chanting and clapping along. and in some cases, dancing when i had room to move. so much for my plan to catch some rest before pulling an all-nighter.

i biked a short block to the metro 4 bus (aka the long slow crawl up santa monica blvd), put my bike on the rack, and found a seat up front. it was late at night, so i figured it would be nice and quiet and i'd be able to catch a quick nap before reaching my destination an hour later. but it wasn't to be; it seemed like every worker from every store and restaurant was taking that same bus to get home. we stopped at every bus stop. and each time, the interior lights would turn on full blast, rousing me from the seconds of sleep i happened to fall into. then there was the crazy guy who boarded the bus across the aisle from me and kept yammering on about jesus and god and who knows what. sigh.

i reached silverlake at 1am, quickly found a friend who had arrived shortly after i did, and next thing we knew, it was 3am, thanks to our iphone clocks springing forward for daylight saving time. i was tempted to run to the mickey D's across the street for an iced coffee to rouse me from my stupor, but alas, caffeine is a no-no while i was on my cleanse. i settled for the last two date cakes i had brought along with me, just in case something like this happened.

more friends showed up, and by 4am, we were raring to take off on the wild and crazy bike ride known as the marathon crash race, rechristened the marathon crash ride (that's me on the left in the photo with the beverly hills sign), thanks to a last-minute kibosh by the city officials. someone shouted out "rolling!" and we were off.

i was sailing along quite nicely along a downhill stretch of santa monica blvd in century city, trying to catch up with one of my hardcore biker friends, and right when i shifted to a higher gear, my chain decided to slip off one of the cogs on the back wheel. luckily, i was riding with experienced cyclists; they spotted my predicament and moved aside so i could pull over.

other friends rode by, asking if i was ok, and i said i was, or at least i thought i was.

as it turned out, my chain got all twisted-up on itself, bending some of the links in the process. in other words, it popped off every time i tried to turn the crank. just then, another cyclist stopped to save the damsel in distress -- namely, me. he straightened out the links as best he could, then offered to follow me just in case it didn't work. but it did. and by the time we reached the end of the ride, he was nowhere to be found. and i didn't even get a chance to get his name nor thank him properly :(

he definitely earned himself some karma points in bicycle heaven. and loads of gratitude from me.

6am. it was pitch dark, my bike was squeaking up a storm, i was hungry and tired. now what? the sane person would've gone home and called it a day. or a night. but noooo, i still had more fun and games planned. i rode my crippled bike a mile and a half to the hotel where my running group had established its headquarters on marathon day, where i found my first meal of the day: an orange and a banana. i also found a row of chairs to snooze on, but before i could find myself in restful REM sleep, a fellow runner tapped me on the shoulder. sorry to wake you up so soon, she said, but it's time to go. we'd planned to walk to one of our aid stations along the marathon route so that we could both run with people we knew to the finish line.

it was a 4-mile walk to our destination in brentwood. i was quickly losing steam from lack of sleep and hunger. just then, nykki, my reset self cleanse coach, sent a text message, asking how i was holding up (she knew about my insane plan for the day). i told her i was beyond hungry and needed to find something quickly. she told me to get a juice somewhere, and in a strange "you must be reading my mind" coincidence, i just happened to be walking right past the pressed juicery store. voila!

speeding up the story, we got to the aid station but i didn't end up running with my friend because i was way past zombiefied. i had a friend drive me back to the hotel where i'd left my bike. before leaving, i treated myself to a massage from one of the skilled therapists, headed straight for the bike shop to get my chain fixed, then home for my first real meal of the day and a much-delayed snooze. then dinner. then lights out for the night.

by the way, the detox drink and liver/colon tonics for the cleanse were eventually taken sometime after i got home. hopefully i took them in the right order because i was half-asleep when i did.

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today's yoga class: savasana at home. twice.

click here for yesterday's post

day 8 - one crazy weekend, part 1

unlike weekdays, where i know exactly where i'll be and what i'll be doing and at what time, my weekends are usually pretty spontaneous. which makes it really hard to follow a cleanse with a set feeding schedule, and even harder to bring along bottles of tonics and bags of powders that have to be mixed into drinks and consumed an hour before those meals that are hard to plan for.

such was this weekend, where i barely made it to yogaglo in time for tara judelle's 10am yoga class, then had to dash to norwalk for the holi festival of colors at 1pm, then made a pit stop at home to catch some rest before heading out to bhakti yoga shala for kirtan with jai uttal at 9pm. i'd just have to wing the what/when/where of my meals for the day and hope that i'd be able to eat/drink everything i was supposed to and none of what i wasn't.

i knew that the food at the holi festival was going to be vegetarian, at a minimum, so i planned on lunching on some veggies and rice, and maybe even some dal. but nooo... the line at the krishna's kitchen booth was way too long (and i was way past hungry), so i chose to go to the govinda's booth instead. with my only choices being pizza or a vegan enchilada and beans plate, i had to go with the latter, even if i had a feeling that something in it was probably something i shouldn't have eaten. like the tortilla used to make the enchilada, for example. but i was starving, dammit, and i just had to eat SOMETHING. at least it was closer to what i needed to eat than a cupcake from the cupcake truck (which had a much shorter line, i should add).

i spent the rest of my time at the festival either behind the stage, schmoozing with the musicians, on the stage, taking photos of the bands and the crowd, or roaming the grounds, checking out the vendor booths for good deals on merch. the music was high-spirited and the audience was loving it all, especially when it came time to throw the colored powder up in the air! i managed to catch lokah bhakti dance, larisa stow & shakti tribe, DJ drez, and the kirtaniyas perform; i was a bit bummed that i had to leave before the headliner, MC yogi, took the stage.

on my way out, the line at krishna's kitchen had shortened considerably, so i ordered a plate with veg curry, rice, and a samosa and took it home for dinner.

and no, i didn't eat the fried dough covering the samosa. i ate just the peas and potato filling, which was just as well because i was stuffed by the time i was done.

once i was fed, showered (to wash off all the colored powder), and rested, i hopped on my bike and headed  to the kirtan with jai uttal. which should've ended my night, but no, there was more to come...

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today's yoga class: a level 2/3 backbend practice with tara judelle at yogaglo

click here for yesterday's post

day 7 - a test of self control

if you ever plan to go on a cleanse, make sure you check your calendar to see what's coming up before you do.

when i'd planned mine, i thought i'd picked the perfect time frame. the start date, march 1st was a new moon, "a magical time of beginnings, when you can recharge goals or set new ones." and the end date, march 17th is st. paddy's day, and we know what that's all about. not that i'm a big boozer, but it seemed a festive way to mark the end of a cleanse.

perfect, right?

not quite, because i'd forgotten that the natural products expo west was scheduled right smack in the middle of my two-week cleanse.

try showing up at a the largest food sample expo in town while you're on a meat-free, dairy-free, wheat-free, sugar-free diet. but then again, with the current food manufacturers trying to win attention from those on vegan, gluten-free, low-fat, paleo, and diabetic diets, i was hoping that i'd be able to get my fill of tastings, somehow.

but what i found was that most food items had at least one item i needed to avoid, whether it was soy, flour, eggs, cane sugar, tea, coffee, or chocolate. (i later found out that i was supposed to avoid honey and agave, too. which i didn't. eek.)

i did manage to convince some vendors to give me full-sized packages of the food they were sampling -- especially the chocolate! -- so i could try them once my cleanse was over. and many of them were nice enough to oblige. so i now have a large tote bag full of chips and crackers and chocolate that will be hidden away until after st. paddy's day. at least these snacks are of the supposedly healthy variety :)

while at the expo, i was on a quest to find guests for next week's yoga chat show. my criteria: vendors who sold food that i could eat while on my cleanse and who had an inspirational story to tell -- whether it was about how their company came to be or how they were being socially and/or environmentally conscious in the way they ran their business. since i was at the expo for only three hours (i totally blame its distance from my home plus another event i had to get to later that evening), i concentrated my attention on the booths at the NEXT pavilion that featured emerging brands. i found three, with one runner-up. i've reached out to them and will reveal the show guests next week.

after the expo, i dashed back to downtown LA and attended a classical music performance at the disney concert hall (the iconic building that seems to show up in every ad filmed in LA). we barely had time for a quick dinner before the show; i had to pass on the entrees, soups, sandwiches, and prepared salads and settle for a simple salad from the salad bar.

we then moved on to urth caffe in the arts district for a late-night herbal tea. to my dismay, there wasn't a single item on the dessert menu that worked with my restrictive diet, which drove me nuts. speaking of nuts, i raided my friend's cupboard later that evening and polished off the last of his cashews... just in time, i should add, because i was starting to get cranky from having to skip dessert. when i later found myself nibbling on a package of dates, i decided to quit while i was ahead and went home before date night turned into "honey, i ate all your dates" night!

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today's yoga class: just saying 'no' as many times as i did today should easily be considered a practice of mindfulness :)

click here for yesterday's post

day 6 - needing to remember not to forget

according to my cleanse schedule, this was the day detoxification was to start in earnest. i was supposed to start my daily am detox drink regimen when i woke up this morning -- but i didn't because i forgot. i only realized my omission when i got to work and checked the packet paperwork that nikki gave me at the start of the cleanse. oops. needless to say, all the powders and measuring spoons are now nicely laid out on my kitchen counter, ready for tomorrow's dose...

as for today, for breakfast, i had the bottle of suja juice i'd bought two days earlier at whole foods (cold-pressed apple, celery, cucumber, spinach, collard greens, kale, lemon, and ginger juices). and because i wanted to chew on something, too, i ate one of the date bars (made from dates, shredded coconut, and almonds) i'd picked up at the farmers market this past saturday. i started out with 18 date bars and have been slowly whittling them down to just 3. and now, minus the one i ate this morning leaves me with two. they've been my go-to whenever i've had a munchie craving; i'm beginning to worry that i'll eat the last one before i get back to the market to buy more!

for lunch, tired of packing the same salad from home, i ventured into the fast food salad world and popped by subway to get their chopped salad. i've had it a few times before, but each of those times i'd ordered it with a veggie patty and cheese. this time, because soy and dairy are on the "AVOID" list, i asked the server to load it up with every vegetable they had, easy lettuce, extra spinach, please. it was palatable, plus i had some left over for later.

for dinner, i picked up a freshly-made vegetable sushi roll at yen sushi. it was a straightforward affair with nori, rice, carrot, avocado, cucumber, and wakame (i asked for gobo -- burdock -- but somehow got the seaweed instead). there was a sesame oil dressing that came with it, but since i wasn't exactly sure what its ingredients were, i drizzled just a bit of it on the roll to give it some flavor. that and my leftover salad were perfect for filling my belly before taking a late night yoga class. no need to panic; it was a gentle restorative class in a slightly heated room at corepower yoga in brentwood. no inversions, no crazy twists, no crazy binds. my stomach was safe.

tomorrow is friday, the start of my weekend. i'll be up and about, flitting about between anaheim (the natural products expo) and downtown (a show at the disney concert hall). i have no idea how i'll be fitting in all the tonics, drinks, supplements, and meals on my list for that day; all i know is that i'll have to carry them around with me until the right time presents itself. maybe i should set an alarm so i don't forget? brilliant idea!

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today's yoga class: a corerestore class with alex artymiak at corepower yoga wilshire

click here for yesterday's post

day 5 - it's wednesday, and you know what that means...

... it's yoga chat time!

for those of you who've been following my twitter feed, you probably know by now that i have a radio show called yoga chat with the accidental yogist which airs every wednesday at 1pm pacific on killradio.org. i've been hosting and producing it for almost three years now, and it's been a really fun experience. on the show, i get to interview guests of all backgrounds about whatever it is that they do best. or like to talk about best. i also play music from the wide assortment of kirtan and conscious music performers i come into contact with here in town as well as around the world.

this week, i invited nykki hardin, the founder of the reset self cleanse i'm going through, so she could talk about her background, how she came up with the cleanse, and why it's one of the better designed cleanses on the market today. or at least that's my opinion, which is why i'm doing it in the first place.

i also invited michelle lindner, the co-founder of the run + yoga = roga series on the santa monica pier, and caru das, the temple priest of the krishna temple in spanish fork, utah and the producer of festival of colors USA. you can listen to their interviews on the podcast here:

yoga chat episode 142 - pushing the reset button

note that nykki offered a $50 discount on the cost of her cleanse to show listeners, so take advantage of it if the specifics of the cleanse speak to you. the code to use is JONI. yup, that's me!

the show went swimmingly well, except for a predicted, but unavoidable, phone battery problem that only the live listeners knew about. i edited it out of the podcast, so if there are small transitional changes that are noticeable, you know why.

anyway, since i usually spend most of the morning before the show researching the interviews and the music and all the little details that go into the making of the show, not only did i skip breakfast, but i also missed my first liver tonic dose. tsk tsk. i did drink half of a bottle of kombucha on my way to the studio, so i essentially took my end of the day serving of probiotic at the start of my day. and i lived to tell about it :)

after the show, i stopped at a mediterranean place near the killradio studio, hoping that they had at least one item on the menu that was vegan and not fried -- which meant no falafel. drats. as far as i know, stuffed grape leaves are usually vegan, so after they had proven to me that there was no animal product in it, i bought a side order with some hummus and proceeded to eat it with gusto after first downing the liver tonic dose i'd missed.

there i go again, doing things at the wrong time.

finally, after an interview i had to do for an article i'm writing for LA yoga magazine plus a yoga class, i was on my way home. and HUNGRY. i began mulling about my dinner choices while i drove. the co-op, again? veggie grill, again? whole paycheck, again? what i needed was an inexpensive place that sold vegan food. indian food would work, wouldn't it? i considered govinda's, the restaurant at the culver city krishna temple, but they'd be closed by the time i got there. i ended up at india's sweets and spices around the corner from the temple, and they had exactly what i was craving: baingan bharta (eggplant), squash, brown rice, and a couple of papadums (which they swore was just lentils and no flour). it was hard to pass on the samosas and pakoras, but knowing that there's just a little over a week to go made the pain a little more tolerable.

by the time i finished editing and uploading today's podcast, i was all caught up with my meals, my tonics, and my supplements. not in the correct order, mind you, but at least i got them in.

tomorrow, as they say, is another day.

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today's yoga class: a power yoga class with liz espersen at hollywood power yoga

click here for yesterday's post

day 4 - happy mardi maigre!

today's fat tuesday, the day before ash wednesday, otherwise known as mardi gras in new orleans and anywhere else people need an excuse to party and overeat.

of course, being a quarter of the way through my cleanse means that i can't derail the effort i've put into getting this far. which means no king cake. no seafood gumbo. no jambalaya. no crawfish etouffee. no po-boys. no beignets. no fun.

and did i mention that it's also national pancake day at IHOP? which is on my way home from work? and i can't have those pancakes, even if they're FREE??

welcome to my mardi maigre (lean tuesday) celebration.

any gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan version of any of the above still won't work on the reset self cleanse i'm on, only because they'll probably still have sugar, tofu, and/or salt. or some hidden ingredient from which i'm supposed to be abstaining.

but instead of dwelling on what i CAN'T eat, i made myself focus on what i CAN eat: fruits and vegetables in all forms (fresh, dried, juiced, pickled, cooked, and raw), herbal teas, kombucha, and to a lesser extent, beans, seeds, and whole grains.

i started with an apple (again) for breakfast, then a green salad (again) for lunch. by late afternoon, i was climbing the walls with a major munchie craving. my boss reminded me that i could have some trail mix as long as it was just fruit and nut, so i walked to the whole paycheck up the street and splurged on an half pound assortment of superberries (goji, golden, maqui, and mulberry), raw cashews, sprouted almonds, and sprouted walnuts. i threw them all together in a bag and commenced munching. of course, the need to snack had pretty much passed by then, so i ate less than a handful of the mix and stashed it away for the next time a mid-day craving hits at work.

i also was given a coupon for $1 off a bottle of suja juice by a sales rep when i walked in the store, so i treated myself to a bottle of their fiji blend, made of cold-pressed fuji apple, cucumber, celery, kale, spinach, collard greens, lemon, and ginger juices. note to self: this brand is way too pricey to become a regular habit. unless, of course, it goes on sale. like half off, preferably.

speaking of drinks, the liver tonic has this way of making me want to pee constantly (i know, TMI, but this IS a cleanse, after all). does this mean i've been retaining all this water? or does this mean all the food i've been eating is primarily water? or both?

anyway, right before i started the cleanse, nikki instructed me to weigh and measure myself, then wait until after the cleanse was over before doing it again for a comparison. while i still haven't measured myself (although i can tell that my clothes are already fitting differently), i have been weighing myself on a daily basis. but i'm not saying if my weight's changed or not because i'm not supposed to know :)

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today's yoga class: a gentle warrior flow (per my request - thanks, adam!) with adam schomer at sattva yoga. and yes, i went to yoga class instead of going to the local IHOP. woohoo!!

click here for yesterday's post

day 3 - brownbagging it

i've never been much for brownbagging a lunch to work, partly because i like to my meals to be somewhat spontaneous. and partly because i'm always rushing out the door in the morning and don't have time to search for and pack the various items that go into said brown bag.

i usually put off deciding on what to eat until right around lunchtime. so what will it be, chinese or thai? a sandwich or pizza? or something that involves walking to a nearby food truck or coffeehouse? should i get something light or something that'll leave me in a food coma all afternoon?

not knowing what i'll eat until i actually scout out and purchase it makes my lunch routine somewhat more adventurous. unless, of course, when i'm on a set schedule of raw veggies for lunch and already have a fridge full of those veggies at home.

plus i had to remember bring along the cleanse tonic so i could take the prescribed doses when i needed to.

so right before i ran out the door this morning, i grabbed a vegetable juice, apple, and multivitamin for breakfast, the liver tonic, and the salad and chlorella tablets for lunch. then dashed out the door.

it was only when i arrived at work that i realized i'd forgotten the salad dressing that went with the salad. argh.

after mentally running up and down the street, trying to figure out where i could get a fat-free, sugar-free, salt-free, dairy-free, preservative-free serving of dressing from the restaurants around me, i ended up calling one of the acupuncturists whose shift started later that afternoon. luckily, her fridge is stocked with that exact kind of dressing, so she said that she'd gladly bring a bottle when she came in. problem solved.

one o'clock rolled around and my belly reminded me that it wanted lunch. but the dressing wasn't coming in until two hours later. what now?

i ended up running to the mediterranean place down the block to get a half order of hummus and ate it with half of my salad, intending to eat the other half when the dressing showed up.

normally, i'd relish the warm pita bread that comes with the hummus. but because i'm not allowed to eat anything bread-like, i had to give it away; sadly, no one wanted it. it pained me to have to throw away perfectly good food, but at least i'll know to have them hold it until i'm off the cleanse. two weeks, i keep telling myself.

by the way, as a follow up to yesterday, i did take my liver tonic when i was supposed to - a couple of hours before lunch, and a couple after. at least i got it right this time!

while on this vegan cleanse, it seemed appropriate that i ended my evening with a zocalo public square talk on factory farming. not only were we told how the companies that monopolize the chicken, pork, and cattle business financially control and abuse the smaller farmers who raise the livestock, but we were also told about the inhumane conditions the animals have to live in to make the whole meat business profitable. disgusting. another reminder why i shouldn't be eating meat...

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today's yoga class: went to the zocalo talk instead :)

click here for yesterday's post

day 2 - it's all in the timing

it takes time for something to become a habit. according to this article from the today show, it takes 66 days, or a little over two months.

so i'm cutting myself some slack for totally forgetting when i was supposed to take the herbal tonics which are the key components of the reset self cleanse i started the other day. after all, today is the first day i was supposed to take those tonics: one to cleanse the liver, the other to cleanse the colon.

nykki gave me a meal and supplement schedule that i was supposed to follow. not to the letter, i hope, because i failed miserably on this first official day of the cleanse portion of the program.

it didn't help that i woke up after i was supposed to eat breakfast. i'm not an early riser; what can i say.

and i really didn't have time to eat that delayed breakfast because right after i woke up, i felt compelled to take a yoga class... and because i remembered that i had still some class credits from a package i'd bought at maha yoga late last year (see what happens when you cut sugar out of your diet? your memory comes back!), there was a class that i could catch if i jumped in the shower at that very moment and hopped on my bike for the 2 mile ride to the studio.

as i was about to head out the door, i realized that not only would i be skipping breakfast, but i'd also be skipping my first dose of the liver tonic. and my vitamin/mineral supplement. argh. i turned back around and headed to the kitchen to gulp both down, then ran out. or rather, biked out.

once back home, my planned breakfast (an orange) and lunch (a salad) were combined with the scheduled chlorella supplement. finally caught up. whew.

a quick shower, then some time spent in front of the computer... and next thing i knew, i had to drop what i was doing and head to the typhoon haiyan fundraiser i was supposed to be at in an hour. and as we know, when rain is thrown into the forecast here in LA, anything can happen, traffic-wise. it was only when i was sitting at a standstill on the 10 freeway that i'd realized i'd left my liver tonic at home (my next dose was due during the fundraiser). although i did bring along the probiotic (as in kombucha) i was supposed to drink after dinner. i'm sure you know where this is going.

anyway, long story short, there was food at the fundraiser. filipino food. which contained sugar, sugar, and more sugar. and there were chocolate peanut butter cups, too. CHOCOLATE!!!

self control. i prayed for self control.

i deserve an award for eating nothing but fresh fruit and the crudites. and pretending that i didn't see the chocolate. yay me!

now it's time to catch up on the liver tonic, dinner, the colon tonic, and my evening probiotic. oh wait. i already drank that.

there's a chance i might finally get the hang of this just in time for the cleanse to be over.

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today's yoga class: level 2/3 with tom morley at maha yoga, prana flow with natalie macam and amy valdez at the typhoon haiyan fundraiser

click here for yesterday's post

day 1 - changing up my food vocabulary for the next two weeks

while shopping for food staples for my upcoming reset self cleanse at the local farmers market, i had to laugh when i realized that i'd be switching up my go-to comfort food of cookies, cheese, and chocolate for another set of c's: carrots, cucumbers, and cauliflower. or if i could base it on initial consonant sound, it'd be the three items i'd always thought would make for a great diet fad: kale, quinoa, and kombucha :)

it used to be that every time i'd stop by the saturday santa monica farmers market on arizona, i'd make a beeline for the valerie confections booth at the eastern end. i'd drool over their assortment of hand pies, tarts, cookies, and danish. i'd limit myself to just buying just one (two if i felt especially bad), and gobble it up with delight as soon as i got home. i'd also stop by the spring hill cheese booth and treat myself to either a pack of cheese curds or a block of cheddar cheese to munch on while watching reruns of big bang theory. and just so i could say i'd bought something "healthy", i'd stop by the fruit booths and buy some apples, strawberries, oranges, and stone fruit. i like food that can conveniently eaten with my hands; it must be the filipino in me, the kamayan-style way of eating.

this time, knowing that i had to give up the pastries and the cheese (sigh), i headed straight for the maggie's farm booth to splurge on mixed salad greens. i filled a bag with leaves of various shapes, colors, and tastes and was pleased to find out that it cost less than the hand pie i'd get at the other end of the market. and it had far fewer calories, too!

i stopped at harry's berries, and instead of buying strawberries (which are allowed, but i was on a veggie quest), i picked up a basket of sweetheart grape tomatoes that were so sweet, i felt like i was cheating. woohoo!! i moved on to the jimenez family farm booth and picked up a bunch of small carrots, perfect for throwing into the gigantic salad i was mentally assembling. i would've wanted to pick up a few more items, but my bike pannier was already overflowing and i still had to stop by co-opportunity to pick up some supplements i forgot to get when i went all crazy the night before loading up on kombucha that was on sale.

since i had a late start and dashed to the farmers market shortly before noon without having breakfast (i know, shame on me), nykki suggested that i treat today as another pre-cleanse day and start the program tomorrow instead.

i agreed, although knowing that i had to hold off on the chocolate for one more day was killing me. so when the craving hit, i popped a stick of sugarless gum in my mouth instead. now i know what nicotine addicts and alcoholics have to deal with :(

postscript: while at the maha shivaratri celebration at bhakti yoga shala later that evening, they passed around the prasad: chocolate hershey's kisses. i took one and ate it, knowing that shiva would be disappointed if i didn't. om namah shivaya!  :)

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today's yoga class: a gentle flow with neil martin at bhakti yoga shala

click here for yesterday's post