DAY 28...About yoga

Yoga continues be one of those very confusing things to people, so I thought I would take the opportunity to throw my two cents into the mix.

There really are many different types of yoga and most people don't understand that. I regularly ask friends what kind of yoga they do and they say 'well, you know, yoga - yoga'. But, all yoga is not created equal and that is important to realise. There are many different reasons to do yoga and many different styles to choose from.

Before you read any further, you should know I have a very firm belief about yoga, and it is that yoga chooses you. By that I mean I believe that the yoga you fall in love with is the yoga that you are supposed to do. It is the yoga that is tailored for your needs physically, spiritually and mentally. I say this because I've often heard people say they have tried yoga and hated it. I think the style they chose just wasn't the right one for them. But hey, that's just my take, I'm no expert.

I have however tried many different styles of yoga and I've hated many of them. Often I would arrive at class believing I was doing something great for my mind and my body and I would leave wondering why I had wasted my time.

Those styles just weren't the right ones for me, that doesn't mean they won't be right for you.

But I told you, I forge ahead, that's what I do, I forge, so I continued with my quest. This yoga thing was not going to beat me.

One day however I walked into a Kundalini yoga class. I have no idea why I went, but shortly after I sat down everyone started chanting and singing. I wondered how quickly I could pick up my mat and sprint to the door before anyone opened their eyes and noticed me missing. I could see another yoga experience quickly going down the drain in front of my very eyes.

But, I was too embarrassed to leave, so I ended up pretending I was chanting along while feeling incredibly uncomfortable. Half way through the class, I realised something had happened. I was calm, I was serene, I was happy, I was shining. I still had no idea what I was doing, but I was loving doing it. I walked out of the studio in a daze, my head was in the clouds, I didn't care about anything except doing more of this, I could have stayed there the whole day.

To this day Kundalini yoga remains my passion. It is the yoga of my heart and my soul, the yoga that brings light to my eyes and puts a spring in my step. It is the yoga I love. And while Kundalini is a physical yoga, it doesn't feel that way to me, instead it just feels like it fills me up with light and with love.

So, I also do Hot yoga (you can substitute Bikram, Hot, Moksha) here. The styles I just mentioned do not all conform to Bikram's 26 postures, but they are similar in format and are all practiced in a hot room. You'll have to see which works best for you.

Hot yoga is not the yoga of my soul, but it is the yoga of my body. Where Kundalini feels like a bubble bath with candles and a glass of champagne, Hot feels like running a marathon. Where Kundalini feeds my spirit and heals my psyche, Hot yoga pushes my physical limits. Most importantly, Hot yoga makes me sweat. It makes buckets of water leech from my skin and run in streams onto my mat.

Let me tell you, when you are detoxing and trying to change your eating patterns, sweating your little heart out helps a lot. While you are ridding your body of all the rubbish it has accumulated, it feels great to sweat it out.

Now, don't get confused, Kundalini helps to draw the toxins out of your system too. However for me having that intense sweat helps me to flush the bad stuff out and feel good doing it. So I highly recommend any form of Hot yoga along with Kundalini while you are doing your detox. You really will notice a difference.

So, that's what I do. I believe I am drawn to those two styles of yoga because they are the right ones for me. They talk to me physically, mentally and spiritually. Now my one friend, he's an Ashtanga guy, you can't drag him away from Ashtanga. My other friend, she's an Iyengar girl, she will fall on her sword for Iyengar.

You have to just go on and give it a shot. Try different styles, try different teachers and somewhere out there, you'll find the one that's right for you, the one that gently whispers your name. Don't give up because you didn't like one class. The benefits you will reap from yoga will be priceless down the line.

DAY 29...Green Juice

Just in case you didn't know, green juice is the elixir of life. Seriously, I am not kidding. In fact after only being raw for almost two weeks (hey, I'm one day away, I think I can say 'ALMOST two weeks), if you cut me now my veins would run green not red.

Okay, well maybe that's not exactly 100% true, but they would run greener than they did almost two weeks ago.

You see green juice has many, many, many beneficial properties and I'm not going to go into all of them here for fear of boring you to tears. But, I will tell you this:

Green juice helps your body move from an acid state to a more alkaline state.

You would never eat the sheer quantity of greens in a day that you can put in a juice.

Greens have chlorophyll, we need chlorophyll. It oxygenates our bodies allowing us to release more carbon dioxide, toxins and stress (and lets face it, who can't do with some help releasing stress?).

Green juice gives us the trace minerals our bodies need.

If your system is a little out of whack, green juice helps you to absorb the nutrients from the greens without having to struggle so much.

So I think those are pretty good reasons to drink green juice. Oh, and everywhere I've used juice, you can substitute 'smoothie', there is much debate over whether juicing or smoothying (is that a word?) is better, but quite frankly, I don't care. If you come from a SAD (Standard American Diet) way of eating any greening will be better than none.

Well, that's the science. But let me tell you my reasons for drinking green juice:

I've just got a new juicer - it cost a fortune - that's super incentive to drink juice.

There is no way I can eat kale every day, or a bunch of parsley, or a whole head of celery. While I like all of those in moderation, the quantities I need to help my health improve a little quicker are easier to acquire through juice. Let's face it, I decided to go raw, I have not yet decided to become a rabbit.

I refuse to gnaw on wheat grass for an entire afternoon!

I'm not so keen on apples - I know, strange - but I have a tumultuous relationship with apples, we have our ups and our downs and go for long periods of time not speaking to each other or returning each others phone calls. Nevertheless I know that an apple a day keeps the doctor away and most green juices require at least one apple to make them palatable. This way we can interact without speaking.

When I am hungry, but shouldn't really have another meal and can't bare the thought of yet another drink of water, I have a green juice. This way I kill several birds with one stone.

I like the green taste - yes, there is taste of green, I know it's weird - and it makes me feel super healthy. I always run to the mirror after a green juice, because it makes me feel like I instantly lost 10 pounds.

Now for some tips:

All of these are great ingredients for green juice - celery, parsley, kale, cucumber, spinach, romaine lettuce and butternut squash. (Okay, I only threw the squash in there to see if you were paying attention).

However, they are not so great on their own, so you should add some, one or all of the next ingredients: apple, banana, ginger (just a hint, don't be like me and throw the whole root in, more here is NOT better), carrot, dash of lemon juice, water.

But remember it's not really a green juice and it's not really that beneficial if you are using 10 apples to every 4 leaves of kale! Then you are cheating and we will know. You have to make the bulk of it green veggie and then just add a dash of the others to sweeten and lighten it and make it yummy.

Okay, so some of you will never find green juice yummy, but go ahead, give it a try, it doesn't bite back and it can do you the world of good.