Guest Blogger: Juice It Up

Today Guest Blogger and yogi Nealy Fisher tells us about how to lighten up your summer eating…

Greetings from summer in paradise! I am in Montana on my family’s ranch enjoying the dry air, sunshine and very long days. Food has become a central part of our experience here since mealtimes are gatherings for family connection.

We just had a big dinner with wine and delicious brownies for dessert. It was amazing while it lasted but I woke up so tired the next day, my joints felt stiff and my body felt heavy and overheated. Wine and chocolate are appropriate sometimes but the lightness and the heat of summer begs us to eat according to the rhythms of nature. So I discovered that my meal was simply out of balance.

For those of you who exercise and practice yoga its important to remember that what goes into your body affects your output capacity. Summertime is an opportunity to feel more vibrant, healthy and light. What is required is for us to make mindful and lighter choices about what we consume in order to feel more balanced. Because if we don’t, the heat of summer combined with heavy eating can often make us feel lethargic, fatigued and heavy.

Check in with yourselves after you eat. Can you articulate how your food made you feel?

An easy way to lighten up during summer is to start juicing. Juicers are relatively inexpensive and once you invest in one you can experiment with juices for kids. They are also a great way to sneak in some vegetables. I just added some beetroot to my daughters juice and since her monthly favorite color is purple she loved it!

Here is a juice recipe that I learned from my dear friend Cate who is an Ayurvedic practitioner in Driggs, Idaho. But the world is a small place, check her out online at www.yogahealer.com. Cate has taught me the importance of syncing with the seasons and feeding ourselves for vibrancy, health and happiness. She also leads a global yoga detox via teleconference which I highly recommend if you are curious about how food can help you feel more free inside and out.

Suggested recipe:
2 green apples
1-2 lemons
1 inch chunk of ginger
Big bunch of organic greens (kale, boy choy, choy sum etc)

Place all above through your juicer without peeling. Adjust quantity if you like it more sweet, tangy or spicy. If you are feeling heavy, want to lose a few pounds or want your yoga practice to explode, eat your last meal of the day at least 3-4 hours before bedtime. For breakfast the next day, drink this juice all morning. One of my teachers once told me that life is a laboratory and we are here to conduct the experiment. Try this for a few days, see what happens and tell me how you feel!

Love from the mountains,
Nealy

Nealy teaches anusara yoga, prenatal yoga and has created yoga workshops for labor and postpartum. You can connect with her at [email protected] or come to her classes at pure yoga in Central.