Yogahound blog

I love healthy eating, but food temptations that leave me feeling bloated and lacking in energy are everywhere when not cooking at home. Therefore I am always extremely pleased to find somewhere that I can eat foods that are not only tempting but really good for me. On a recent visit to Brighton on a sunny day I was lucky enough to be taken to a deli on a corner close to Queen’s park. With warm weather and good company, I felt blissed out sitting on a sunny deck drinking Almond milk lattes and being able to choose from a variety of wheat-free nutritious food off the menu & counter.

The cafe/deli is called Wild Cherry – this little gem of a place not only serves natural and organic foods, everything they make is just jam-packed full of nutrients AND they cater for special diets. They serve wheat free muesli & breakfasts, juices, smoothies,  organic paninis and colourful quiches, interesting salads and amazing looking deserts that are good for you! When you’re done with your breakfast or lunch on the deck (they also have an indoor seating area for chilly or wet days), you can buy natural and health food items from the stacked shelves. Just think health food store, combined with a coffee, salad and cake bar! A-M-A-Z-I-N-G…. this place is every yoga teacher’s dream.

Don’t miss the Maca energy snack balls – they are like big chocolate truffles except they are full of nutritious goodness.

I envy the lucky people in Brighton who have access to this cafe on a regular basis.

Visit http://www.wildcherrybrighton.co.uk/ for more information.

To those of you heading there soon, enjoy! And if you’re lucky enough to live in or near Brighton, go go go!

x

Some phases of our lives are particularly tough. Life is unexpected, and we can never predict how external events will inlfuence what happens to us. I have often told my students to think of the circumastances in our lives as the ocean, where at times it’s all smooth, calm and reflective and at other times there are plenty of storms and big waves that seem to want to drown us.

Having a practice or discipline such as yoga, running, art etc. allows us find grounding, a reminder of who we really are. The practice is like the board to the surfer, stay with it and you can ride the ups and downs of life. Yoga is definitely my surfboard - when I unroll my mat, spread my toes and stretch up throuh my finger tips, I feel my chest expand, my lungs fill up and all of a sudden I feel so utterly alive and grateful to be alive… I am reminded that I am ok, I am me, and if nothing else, as long as I just keep breathing then that is fine for the moment.

The past 12 months have been particularly stormy for me (hence the lack of blog posts). I have at times doubted everything, wanted to give up and stopped trusting. I even stopped my personal yoga practice just when I needed it most. Funnily enough, I realised that yoga would help me feel better, yet I didn’t feel I deserved to feel better. How bizarre that as humans think we at times think we ‘ought’ not to feel happy or ok.

Then last week on a visit to South Africa to catch up with family and friends, I arrived in Cape Town and spent the day on Camps Bay beach with my cousin. Armed with my camera, and cheered up by the good company and golden light on the beach, my cousin turned my camera on me, and I decided to be brave enough to strike some poses on the rocks with the waves swirling around me. How good it felt to find the focus, the breathing and the trust in myself to balance amongst the surroundings.

A few silly moments striking a few poses turned into a reminder that it’s ok to feel ok. So this morning again, I unrolled my mat and for a whole 50 minutes I allowed myself to feel ok. Just riding the waves.

I had a lovely start to a Sunday.  After waking up, me and my friend Amanda did a short & sweet yoga practice followed by pancakes made on her gorgeous Aga cooker.

Sorry I didn’t take p a photo with my proper camera, so this is just a shot taken with my phone.

I have quite a few different pancake recipes that I fall back on, but I probably use the almond flour ones most often. However, since I ran out of almond flour (or sold as ground almonds in the UK) I decided to use cashew nuts instead. So using Amanda’s coffee grinder, I ground up the cashew nuts and made us a big batch of delicious pancakes that we had with maple syrup & some mango on the side. These pancakes are packed full of goodness. Yes, they are high in fats and calories, but that doesn’t make them bad for you, these are good fats and per calorie you are getting some fabulous nutritional benefits. Here are a few health benefits  of cashew nuts (information Sourced from Nutrition and You):

• They are packed with soluble dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals and numerous health-promoting phyto-chemicals that help protect from diseases and cancers.
• They are rich in “heart-friendly” monounsaturated-fatty acids like oleic, and palmitoleic acids. These essential fatty acids help lower harmful LDL-cholesterol while increasing good HDL cholesterol.
• Cashew nuts are very rich source of essential minerals. Minerals, especially manganese, potassium, copper, iron, magnesium, zinc and selenium are concentrated in these nuts.
• Cashews are also rich in many essential vitamins such as pantothenic acid (vitamin B5), pyridoxine (vitamin B-6), riboflavin, and thiamin (vitamin B-1). 100 g nuts provide 0.147 mg or 32% of daily-recommended levels of pyridoxine. Additionally, these vitamins are essential for metabolism of protein, fat, and carbohydrates at cellular levels.

Happy New Year yogis! For those of you hoping to start the new Year with a new self practice at home yoga routine, I find DVDs are a great help to set up a home practice, or to inspire you if your regular practice has fallen into a lull. I’m always excited to see new yoga DVDs out, especially ones with practices that fit in with busy lives, because let’s face it, not many of us have the time to switch on a DVD with a 90 minute practice on it at home. So I jumped at the opportunity to try the new Tara Stiles This is Yoga DVD range. I was given both the The AM and PM for everyone disc and the Complete Yoga Library for Everyone.

The Complete Yoga Library, is great if you want to remind yourselves about certain poses, have poses you need to work on or struggle during a practice to keep up with certain poses. It’s not something I would use regularly, but I had fun trying out a few of my favourite, and not-so-favourite postures.

The AM/PM Yoga for Everyone disc, is in my opinion, perfect for getting into the habit of a home practice. This disc comes with 4 practices, and what I love is that they vary in length so that you can choose what suits your body and your timing on a particular day.

The practices on this disc are:

• AM Yoga in Bed (5 min)
• Daily Flow (15 min)
• Energy Flow (60 min)
• PM Yoga in bed (5 min)

Now I must be honest and say that I thought that the two short practices in bed would just be gimmicky little add-ons. My daily practice starts when I unroll my mat. But I must say that I really enjoyed both of them, especially since I knew it was only 5 minutes and wouldn’t eat too much into my evening or morning. They are pretty basic but effective stretches to open the body, and after a few tries I found myself naturally stretching when in bed at night before I go to sleep, so they are worth a try.

The daily flow practice, for me, is the handiest one to set up a regular daily practice, it consists of a good 15 minute yoga practice to stretch and strengthen the whole body – short, sweet and to the point. If you have always avoided getting your yoga mat out at home because you think you don’t have time, this is a great practice to get started with, set your alarm clock 15 minutes earlier and give it a go.

The Energy Flow practice is 60 minutes long – perfect for that Saturday morning when you need a good start to your weekend with a longer yoga session to ground and balance you as well as give your body a good workout & a stretch.

Here’s how I suggest you use the AM/PM Yoga for Everyone disc to help kickstart a daily yoga practice in 2013:

During the week, set your alarm clock 15 minutes early and unroll your mat to do the Daily flow session. On those mornings that you just can’t face getting out of bed, have a 10 minute lie in and do the AM yoga in bed practice. And when you are in need of a good night’s sleep do the PM Yoga in bed session.

Then at the weekend, get out of bed as soon as you wake up, or set aside a Sunday afternoon and do the 60 minute Energy Flow class.

Tara’s teaching style is flowing and clear, at times a little bit fast, but once you get use to the routines they are easy to follow along to. Her voice is not too instructional, and I enjoyed the little details she ads. Her voice over on the videos doesn’t feel scripted, and I love the modern fresh scenery. All the sessions are simple and concise without lengthy introductions or too much talking. I noticed that the DVDs are available on both the US & UK Amazon sites, and you can buy the complete set or the DVDs individually and they are really reasonably priced in comparison to many other yoga DVDs I’ve purchased.

Once you get use to practicing yoga regularly and as part of a routine, you will notice how different you feel when you go without. I still reach for my Yoga DVDs to inspire me or kickstart my practice after a lull. And I’m happy to have two new ones to add to my collection.

Have you started a New Year’s yoga practice?

If so, enjoy the benefits!

x

I quite often make frittata for breakfast, it’s quick and made with 4 eggs plus toppings it’s enough for four light meals when cut into quarters. Mostly I use savoury filling such as parmesan, salmon, spinach or onions. However this morning I really wanted something sweet for breakfast and thought I’d try making a sweet version with fruit. I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty it turned out, and with a bit more sweetness it would work well served as a dessert too. The coconut milk in the egg mixture worked really well with the fruit, plus coconut milk is a super good fat that won’t make you fat (see why here).

If possible always use free range or organic eggs – they have  significant higher levels of omega 3 fatty acids. As for the fruit, be creative – but apples, pears and berries are always a great choice. See below for how I made my fruitata this morning….

Breakfast Fruitata

• 4 eggs
• 1/4 Cup coconut milk or nut milk or cream
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• handful of raisins
• 1 apple
• raspberries
• blackberries
• Optional: Stevia or honey for sweetening
• 1/2 teaspoon coconut oil for the pan

I had the urge to bake this morning, and as I had yet to make breakfast I decided to bake some healthy breakfast muffins. This recipe is an adaptation from the Elana’s Pantry blog, and I love it because it’s grain-free, has plenty of good fats and protein. Served with some Tahini, a drizzle of honey and a handful of blueberries, this is a filling breakfast and best of all, it satisfies my sweet tooth too. Have a go, the mixing will only take you 10 minutes tops, the baking only 15 minutes, so you’ll have breakfast ready in 25 minutes or less… or make a double batch and you’ll have breakfast for two days.

Breakfast Muffin Recipe – makes 4 muffins

• 1 Cup Almond flour/ground almonds
• 2 Tablespoons desiccated Coconut (or use seeds or chopped nuts instead)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 Tablespoon Honey
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of Soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar

Mix all the ingredients together, and scoop the batter into lightly greased muffin cups or into a greased muffin tin. Bake for 15 minutes at 200 degrees C. Serve with Tahini or nut butter, a drizzle of honey and some blueberries. Enjoy!

I have to mention that this post was hard to type, because lying next to me right now is Banjo, and he is demanding some attention. Every time I start typing, his paw hits me on the arm… greedy hound! I better take him for his walk.

Have a great week yogis!

Hanri & Banjo xx

I’ve just recently returned from a Yoga holiday to Turkey – it was both my first visit to Turkey as well as the first yoga holiday not related to training to be a teacher… and it was fantastic fun! Take a look, and read on….

The yoga centre based in the village of Gölköy on the Aegean coast of Southwest Turkey, is where hosts Michael and Pervin run weekly retreat with guest teachers from all over the World. The Yoga centre itself has an outdoor, undercover yoga platform with an amazing view, whilst colourful and healthy meals are served on the terrace set amongst the equally colourful garden. The teacher for the week I decided to go was Mark Freeth – founder of the Freestyle Yoga Project and teacher of all poses resembling super hero stunts. So don’t for a minute think that all I did was relax and breathe deeply, Mark made sure that we had no choice but to relax in between the yoga sessions, because I have come home trimmer and stronger and minus my pedicure (more on that later).

Our group stayed in the lovely Babana Hotel. The rooms were really sweet (I had a twin room to myself), super clean, and very funky with the interesting lighting plus a frosted glass divider between the bedroom and bathroom. The majority of the rooms haven’t got sea views, but with a big jetty full of sun loungers and steps leading into the warm salty water there really was no need to spend time in the room during the day.

The yoga centre is a 15/20 minute walk from the hotel, I wasn’t sure how we were going to cope walking there and back 2 times a day and doing strong yoga sessions, but it turned out to be great time to get to know our fellow yogis on the holiday, and walking off the those amazing meals. The first morning session was Mark’s version of an easy class to help ease us into the week, but by day two he was getting us into arm balances, super core work and other nearly impossible poses made more possible by his use of clever sequencing that warms the body up before moving into stronger or advanced postures. One of the days when we were working on core strength, Mark had us doing downward dog on the floor, and then we drag our feet up to our hands for a handstand preparation – hence the loss of my toenail polish and the red marks left behind on the tiled floor – a symbol of the blood, sweat and near tears of doing a strong Vinyasa practice.

After each morning session, we had lunch, and then straight after the afternoon session we sat down to dinner – the food at the yoga centre is a selection of mainly vegetarian platters & salads, and tastes incredible! I don’t normally follow a vegetarian diet, but I truly enjoyed every meal.

Thursdays and Saturdays at the centre are the ‘easy’ days where we have afternoons free to go and explore. Our group chose to go on a boat trip on the Thursday, where they stopped off in little bays so that we could swim and lounge. The food on the boat was fabulous too – with cake & tea and later a main meal of fish and more colourful salads and vegetable platters.

The Saturday the majority of our group took the bus to Bodrum in the afternoon – in Bodrum we had dinner by the harbour followed by a visit to a bar where there was a bit of dancing done into the early hours of the Sunday morning – another first on a yoga holiday for me. Of course this meant that the Sunday morning session was a bit quieter than usual because a few sore heads needed the extra rest and stayed behind at the hotel.

I have always enjoyed yoga holidays and retreats, but this yoga holiday was so much fun because of the combination of the great yoga, magical location and good laughs. With strong yoga sessions that helped improve my own practice, fabulous healthy and colourful food and excellent relaxing time catching sun rays, swimming in the sea and having fun with the group, it was a success. I might have come home a little bruised and a bit tired, but totally happy and relaxed, so I’d go back in a heartbeat.

For more information regarding the Yoga centre in Golkoy, visit the website Yogaturkey.co.uk

If you too would like to do some super hero yoga poses visit Mark’s website The Freestyle Yoga Project.

Whilst on the retreat I took the opportunity to do my first ever proper Yoga Photo Shoot to help build up my photography portfolio. I’m so pleased with the results, and Mark and Anna were great sports – even doing some funky poses in the water for me. I will do another post about the photo shoot soon.

Hanri x

I first discovered Matcha at my local health food store. I was intrigued by the little tin of green powder claiming that 1/4 teaspoon of this stuff is the equivalent of 15 cups of green tea.

Matcha is a fine ground, powdered, high quality Green Tea. Matcha tea bushes are grown under shade which dramatically increases the chlorophyll content of the leaf , and chlorophyll is the bright green pigments found in leaves which is rich in antioxidants. As a matter of fact, drinking a cup of matcha will give you 137 times the amount of antioxidants than a regular cup of Green Tea. It also contains two amino acids: theophylline & L-theanine. L-theanine stimulates alpha brain waves for mental alertness but keeping you relaxed at the same time. Combining the two amino acids with the caffeine found in Matcha, results in an energy boost lasting up to 6 hours. And that, yogis & yoginis, is why I have become a fan of Matcha! Even my husband notices the energy boost on the days I make us smoothies or pancakes with Matcha.

How to use Matcha?

I like putting Matcha in my smoothies, it’s easy and turns the smoothie bright green, and if you’re not a fan of the taste of Matcha this is the best way to take it. I use a 1/4 teaspoon per 250 ml.

But having Matcha the traditional way is really delicious, even for me, and I’m not a Green Tea fan at all. Actually I became a bit addicted to these little packets of instant  Matcha cappuccino when we were on holiday in Boston – but those were a bit naughty because they had sugar and milk powder in them. So to make your own, healthier version of a Matcha tea drink, use 200 ml of milk (or milk substitute such as Almond Milk or coconut milk). Whisk in 1/4 teaspoon Matcha powder frothing the milk. Sweeten with honey or Stevia. And yes, you end up with a bright green cappuccino!

And then lastly, use it in your baking. I make Matcha pancakes, I have added it to my Almond flour breads and so on. Just be prepared for the green colour.

Where to buy Matcha?

This is probably the trickiest bit about Matcha. Unless you live in Japan, it isn’t that widely available yet, or at least I haven’t found it easy to get hold of, and when you do it’s expensive. I’m lucky that my health food store sells a couple of brands. You can get hold of it online, but make sure you get a good quality one, because the quality varies hugely, a cheap Matcha will taste bitter whereas a good quality Matcha will taste sweeter and have a deeper flavour.

A good quality Matcha in the UK is the Tea Pigs Organic Matcha which you can find at health food stores or buy online.

Amazon UK sells different brands, but once again, quality varies, so read the reviews first. And the same for eBay, which is a bit of a gamble. If you have a Japanese grocery store in a city near you, that will probably be your best bet.

Have you tried Matcha? Where do you buy it from? Let me know.

Hanri & Banjo

xx