Please keep in mind we are not nutritionist or doctors. We recommend checking in with your doctor before making any changes to your diet and exercise routine. Most of our information is based upon our own experiences and research, although we do hope you keep an open mind.
We wanted to give you an update on the kraut we made with you all last week.
Check out this quick video:
Raw sauerkraut is easy to, just make sure to keep the liquid above the kraut. When done just transfer kraut to smaller containers and enjoy at your leisurely. Store in fridge.
Update on how we are doing:
Lori had another breakout last week, got a little depressed again, but things are turning up again. We are starting to keep a food journal, finally! We have been doing it for a week, so we will keep you updated on that as once we start to see patterns. Mainly we have been keeping track of our fat and fiber and our water intake. Also when we eat things and when we workout. You may be thinking, I did not think raw foodist cared about calories and stuff. Well this is true but for us to really understand what is going on with each of our own bodies, we want to see what works and what does not. Food journal is the best way to find results for us.
Although our schedule varies everyday so it is hard to keep a routine, but we are trying to find our routine that works for us. Hormones seem to be better for both of us, as least emotional wise, but Lori still has not gotten her period. Michelle will know if she gets her period again next week, so we will let you all know.
Hope everyone is doing good with your hormones and such.
We have to remind ourselves everyday that this is a journey and our body takes time to heal. Stay positive! ; )
But to end on a positive note as we mentioned yesterday we are running a St. Patty’s Day special starting today till Wednesday, so get your orders in!! Our online store has been updated with our specials (our green line is on sale plus some new items for a limited time) and new t-shirts are available, $5 off!!!! The shirts are very high quality, custom designed, some our organic cotton and some our made out of bamboo!!! One of a kind ; ) And you do not have to a raw foodie or vegan to wear these shirts. The shirts are made for anyone looking for a high quality shirts that do good for the planet!! Also the shirts can be translated into your own personal meaning, for instance the Raw t-shirt could mean you enjoy things in the raw, pure state, no bulls**t, so to speak. It does not necessarily only mean raw foods, but it can if that is what you want it to mean. So have fun shopping!!!
Note: the shirts are women sizes again, run a little big.
We have had a busy day…farmers market then had a meeting all afternoon.
Hope everyone has a great Saturday everyone!!
And good luck to our sister tomorrow in her race!! She is running in the Disney Princess Half Marathon. She begged us to do it, but we just could not leave work! ; (
Twin Cakes Bakery has added a few new items to the Pure2raw store.
In addition, for a limited time only Valentine’s Day special treats. The special starts today Monday Feb 8 and ends Saturday Feb 13.
Treat your loved ones or yourself to healthy, fat burning (a.k.a coconut oil filled) raw desserts! We have things for chocolate lovers, white chocolate lovers, and peppermint lovers ; )
Valentine Flavors are:
Peppermint Goji Berry Cocoa Kreme Bites
Chocolate drizzled Vanilla Kreme Bites
White Chocolate Snow Caps Brownie Bites
Heart Shaped Chocolate Cookies
If you get your order in by Wednesday we will throw in a special treat!! It will be a surprise, so get your orders in now ; )
Go ahead a spoil yourself with these non-guilty treats!!
In addition to these new items we are hosting another giveaway.
Pure2raw Valentine’s Day Giveaway
One lucky winner will receive:
Twin Cakes Bakery limited time Valentine’s goodies – Peppermint Goji Berry Cocao Kreme Bites and Heart Shaped Chocolate Cookies.
And now not all our readers will go away empty handed because the great people over atRaw Gaiaare offering ALL our readers a special Valentine’s Discount of 15% off!!!
Go shop now because you are not going to want to miss this opportunity!! : )
Giveaway is going on till Friday Feb 12th!! Will announce the Winner Feb 13th.
Sorry you will not be receiving your goodies till after Valentines…we did not plan this well, LOL, but hey they you got something to look forward too!! More chocolate : )
Rules of Giveaway:
1. Leave a comment telling us your favorite Romantic movie
2. Mention the giveaway on your blog, if you have one, and come back and let us know you linked it back to us
3. And please tweet if you have a twitter account…this is optional, although appreciated ; ) xoxo
Lori and I are so happy to hear that everyone has been enjoying our last two post on hormones. If you missed them, please check them out and let us know your thoughts.
Today we are showing you all a video of what products we currently use to wash and take care of our face. I say currently, well because we are always trying new things, plus as we grow are skin changes too, so are products might change.
As you all know Lori and I have troubled skin, and lately Lori has been dealing with acne due to going off birth control. As for me, I have dealt with it for many many years, and remember we are not experts, this is just what we do and it works for us from our personal trial and error : )
Extra Virgin Coconut oil – we love it to wash our faces at night. Does a great job on getting makeup and eye makeup off! And it taste good too : ) Add we add MSM powder and sometimes B-5 powder.
Live Live Bee Yummy Skin Food – is raw and organic. I apologize for my mistake in the video (i was a little nervous), but I was trying to say it is not vegan because it contains honey, but we still love it. It contains honey, honey cappings, bee pollen, propolis, st john’s wort oil, royal jelly, pure water balsam fir needles.
Raw gaia – raw chocolate face pack – we love it because it contains turmeric, plus cocoa powder, sun-dried red clay, and amia fruit.
The Solution – great face lotion and serum all in one. It contains DMAE, Vit A and E, ALA, plus more great ingredients that are wonderful for the face.
Avocate Skincare – love it because it contains just sea salt, avocado, and honey (again not vegan, but a great natural product). We heard about this product through the lovely and beautiful Jenna.
I rather have my skin care product be non-vegan than contain chemicals I cannot pronounce! I like to know that it is safe, natural, and if some happens to run into my mouth it is okay : )
Now we know there are other natural skin care products, but these are what we use and love.
What do you use? What is your must have natural skin care product?
We have received a lot of emails and comments in regards to hormones and we wanted to go ahead and address this issue on our blog. We wanted to give you all an update on how our hormones are doing since being off birth control.
Twins Hormonal Story:
We both had been taking birth control pills for 10 tens when we decided to call it quits! It was each of our own personal decision to do it. **Remember it is your own individual choice to take the pill or not because everyone has their own reasons.
Michelle has been off birth control for about 1 year. As she learned more about the ‘natural world of eating’ she decided she wanted all of her life to be more natural and went off the pill. She got off it for her own reasons, she did not want to have to take a pill anymore. She just got tired of putting foreign/fake hormones into her body. Her body was also showing her signs that it was time to re-think the pill. She started to see some of her old symptoms coming back which made her realize that the pill and her body were not getting along any more.
I have been off the pill for about 7 months. I definitely have seen pros and cons from going off the pill. I saw Michelle do it first (she is the guinea pig in our family) and saw how mentally she was loving not being on the pill. Though I did see her downsides like breakouts, emotional ups and downs, etc. Even after seeing her struggles I still wanted to GO OFF THE PILL! And I did!
**Side note – plus both of us still have not had our periods since going off the pill. Michelle has had test done, both nothing showed up. We thought maybe it had to deal with thyroid, but test result came back fine. Both of us were at first alarmed but now have realized it will take time for our body to come back into balance. I mean for 10 years it was on auto-pilot, so to speak!
Now I have been sharing some of my struggles of me ‘going off the pill’ here on the blog. Some symptoms I have been experiencing are emotional ups and downs, acne (this has been the hardest to deal with), change in my energy levels, and depression (another big issue). Remember each person will experience different symptoms. Some people may not experience any of these but yet some people will experience all of them. It just all depends on each person individually. Sorry that we can not be like “yeah you will do fine off the pill, you will see no side effects” because that is just not true. Though, we do feel going off the pill has been a great decision no matter the side effects we are going through because we know our body will eventually get back to normal! Remember healing is a journey!!!!!!!
Ok enough of the side effects let’s get into how we are naturally healing our hormonal imbalance!
Twins Healing Hormonal Imbalance FOOD Plan:
Things that we have been doing to help ‘heal’ our bodies after going off birth control are
eating a high raw diet
drinking green smoothies everyday
incorporate at least 2 fermented foods a day
eat more zinc, vitamin A and E containing foods
make sure we are getting are essential fatty acids
increase our coconut oil intake
drinking clean water (natural spring water and/or reverse osmosis)
have MSM powder
incorporate pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds more into our diet
We have been reading and learning more and more about how to ‘eat’ the right things to help with hormones. Our part 2 post will be more about this and our face care routine. We will provide more natural remedies in our next post too.
And we got an email from a reader,Jessica, who told us about a great online community for hormonal and birth control help and advice that she started up. Please check it out, goingoffbirthcontrolpills.com. Also our friend and counselor, Gena, discussed her thoughts on birth control you can read here.
It is great to see others sharing their experiences because it really helps mentally knowing that you are not the only one with issues!
Please stay tuned for Part 2 of Hormones! We have so much great insight to share with you all.
Well we made it last night and did do some unpacking! Although the laundry pile just grew…we slept in a little bit this morning. It sure felt great to sleep in my own bed again!! I have taken it pretty easy and slow this morning though did manage to get to the store first thing in the morning to come back here and make a few rounds of our raw “green” onion breads that we had to get dehydrating for an order tomorrow! Welcome back to work – Lori says! No time for sitting around here anymore.
As I was finishing up the onion breads Lori was gracious enough to make our green smoothies. I sure have missed my large morning green smoothie! And boy was it a “BIG” green smoothie. We each had two cups of it! Lots of double fisting going on this morning.
water, granny smith apples, hemp oil, lemon, lots of swiss chard, basil, turmeric, and stevia
It was delicious!! I wanted more : )
Now I am about to discuss a topic Lori and I have debated over and over if we want to talk about here on the blog. We have realized it is important to us and feel if we share our story maybe it will help someone, which is why we started the blog in the first place.
So here I go…
Ever since Lori came to visit me in OKC, we have been realizing our bodies were still telling us we are not done detoxing….breakouts, constipation, bloating, tiredness, depression…which we have discussed some of the issues before here and here. We know you might be thinking doesn’t raw foods heal all of these issues?? Well here is why we are still suffering…
First I read a book (The Living Foods Lifestyle by Brenda Cobb) while in OKC that I got from one of my fellow classmates, which opened my eyes to something new….even though I was eating everything I should be (lots of greens, no sugar, no caffeine, no meat, no dairy) and exercising…there were still two things I was not taking care of….my mind and my colon. Brenda did a great job in explaining the importance of having a healthy colon and why you should care how important your mind can be. Now looking at my struggles going into a raw foods diet it all makes sense. Since I have struggled with constipation my whole life (my core problem) everything I was eating was just getting recirculating back into my blood stream…therefore the problem remains. Then my mind would come in and I would say things to myself like, “I will never go to the bathroom,” “I will always have ugly skin,” “I will never get better.”
Hello Michelle!!! No wonder my body kept fighting me…I was not doing the one thing to help it…cleaning out my colon. Brenda mentioned how this is one subject no one talks about….they are to embarrassed, which was exactly my problem. All growing up I did not want to tell people my problems, so I become depressed! I believe things happen for a reason, so reading Brenda’s book came to me at the right time, because I was just getting to a point of getting into deep depression again but this book re-focused me.
Now back to present, Lori and I have come to realize our problems still a issue due to eating mostly a 100% raw diet lately. So we have decided to do another “cleanse” to finish up our detox and finally clean out. But this time do it right! We learned a lot from talking with Ani, Anthony, Philip, Karen, Tim and Courtney at the live and learn event. They each shared with us some tips, so we ready to give it a go…DETOX! In addition we have also talked with friends and nutritionist…I have seen doctors and no one could tell me what was wrong with me, so I pretty much decided I will figure it out! And my gut tells me I am getting close to healing : ) finally.
But before I begin on what we plan to do for our detox, Lori and I want to share our story of how we came across raw foods and why we love it. Please keep in mind this is our experience, our struggles…everyone will and has experienced detox differently! In our past cleanses we thought we were doing it right, but we have learned we were not doing everything!! It is important to work with someone as you journey into this lifestyle, since everyone will be doing it for their own reasons, you need to make sure you are doing the right things to heal your body! If you need help please contact us, twins@pure2raw.com and we can recommend some great people that we have recently come across.
The reasons Lori and I are embarking on this cleanse is for these reasons:
1. acne/breakouts
2. depression
3. constipation
These 3 issues have been health problems we have dealt ever since we were really young. Now a lot of raw transformations we have read have been around other health issues like weight loss, IBS, Crohns disease, cancer, diabetes. Hearing all these inspiring stories really gave us hope that we too can be cured because to tell you the truth I am sick of feeling tired, sad, bloated, blocked-up (both mentally and physically). Lori and I struggled finding others who had similar issues because most blogs/research we were finding were related to weight loss and other health issues. Not many talked about acne, depression, constipation, and detox for that matter.
As we were reading one of our favorite blogs, Susan from Rawmazing, she just discussed her issue with what the typical raw foodie is supposed to look like. Well I can tell you I am not, neither Lori and I feel we look like raw foodies. Now we are fortunate not to have weight issues, I would not call us skinny, just in shape (which we work hard at) but we do not have the glowing beautiful skin and abundance of energy….although we know we can achieve this over time.We believe raw foods is the way we will nourish our bodies back to health.
Why do we have to have labels on everything? Why do we have to feel like we have to look like someone else? Why do we let society pressure us to think we have to be a certain way?
We are all different…we are all unique…frankly, if we all looked the same it would be very boring. We feel everyone should be supporting one another and wish the best for someone as they conquer the task they set out to attain…instead of judging or creating unnecessary drama.
Whew…okay enough of my rambling…our story will be continued….
I did end up having a pretty good day. I managed to get a 3 mile run in, did my laundry, cleaned the place, went grocery shopping and ate a glorious dinner
Kale, dandelion leaves, avocado, herb crackers, nutritional yeast with a creamy tahini dressing
Hormones can be a pain for most women which is why there are so many “hormone” treatments out there. Most women suffer from a variety of symptoms like migraines, cramps, swelling, bloating, fever, nausea, and vomiting. Most women take birth control to regulate their hormones and manage these symptoms this is why we did.
Both of us have recently stopped taking birth control to regulate our hormones. We have recently noticed our body struggles to get back into balance. Everyone has there own reasons to get on birth control and to get off of it. Well we took BC to help with our hormone imbalances, lighter periods, cramps, and PMS.
Michelle got to the point when she did not want to put “foreign” chemicals into her body. She decided to stop taking it and was off of the pill for 6 months. She experienced some side effects from getting off the pill such as breakouts, irregular periods (which actually she never got it for 6 months). She than felt she must need the pill to help regulate her periods therefore she started to take the pill again. But to only find out your body can take up to 1-2 years to adjust from not being on the pill. She just did not give her body enough time, she starting taking the pill again for 2 months and then finally said NO! Though this time around her body’s side effects are not as bad.
I just recently stopped taking the pill and I am experiencing similar side effects as Michelle did her first time off the pill. My face has broken out in acne with majority of the break outs located around the mouth and chin! We have been told that this means hormones due to the location of the acne.
It is very frustrating to both of us because we thought with eating RAW foods that are full of enzymes and nutrients that our bodies need to heal we would heal quicker, but we are realizing everybody is DIFFERENT! We are trying to enjoy this journey of healing, although there are times it gets very hard to put up with the side effects.
Twins natural hormone balance regimen:
We take Maca. Maca is a hearty plant root cultivated high in the Andes of Peru. This ancient nutritional source and efficacious endocrine system remedy is being dispensed by health professionals as a safe and natural substitute for drugs. It a replacement for hormone replacement therapy! Maca contains over 55 naturally occurring, beneficial phyto-chemicals. These naturally occurring chemicals include important hormonal precursors and sterols proven time and time again to assist the human body in a number of recognizable ways.
We love our MACA
The scientist responsible for much of the current knowledge of the maca root is Dr.Gloria Chacon de Popivici, a biologist trained at the University of San Marcos, in Lima, Peru. Dr.Chacon says that maca root works in a fundamentally different way than HRT, supporting optimal functioning of the hypothalamus and the pituitary, thereby improving the functioning of all the endocrine glands.
Maca is a safe, natural alternative to hormone replacement therapy. It is important to remember that maca does not itself contain any hormones, but its action on the body jogs the pituitary into producing the precursor hormones which ultimately end up raising estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels, as well as helping to balance the adrenal glands, the thyroid and the pancreas. But this occurs naturally, not with time-bomb drugs which throw the entire body into a dangerous state of confusion. It seems to help the endocrine system to stay in balance.
Maca adapts to the body’s needs and supports menopausal health. IT works through the hypothalamus and pituitary to bring about healthy, balanced hormone levels in the body. Many women who start taking maca notice improvements within several days to several weeks. It is best to take maca consistently. Maca allows a woman to produce her own hormones and enhances your body’s production of progesterone and estrogen.
In addition, we are taking a natural hormone balancer called Vitex. Vitex is also known as agnus castus, chaste tree, and monk’s pepper.
Vitex Agnus-Castus
Vitex does not actually contain hormones. It appears to increase progesterone by stimulating the release of a hormone called luteinizing hormone from the pituitary gland. Vitex is also thought to normalize excessive prolactin levels and promote fertility.
Female infertility
PMS, especially breast tenderness, cramping, and headaches
Acne, especially if it is related to the menstrual cycle
Fibrocystic breast disease
Heavy menstruation
Menopausal symptoms
Some other natural ways of helping with hormones production and regulation are:
Milk thistle
Magnesium
Zinc
B vitamins
Royal jelly
Vitamin A
Flax oil or evening primrose oil
And of course exercise and the foods you eat will affect your hormones
If you struggling with hormone balances or are thinking about getting off the pill, I hope you have found there are natural ways of healing! Sometimes the quickest and easiest way is not always the best way. Therefore enjoy the journey of taking a more natural approach to healing and regulating the body’s hormones.
Well we want to share with you more about our history with weight, appearance, self-esteem, and being obsessive with working out. Being twins it was already difficult for us to be individuals because we always were being compared by others as well as with each other. This is a difficult topic to write about because we have struggled with it for years and occasionally still do! We know others have similar problems so we wanted to share our story.
Where to we begin? We could talk about this for hours but we will try to keep it short.
We have been known as gym rats due to our over obsession with working out. We would workout two times a day. Now, that might not seem that bad because exercising is a good thing right? Actually we were really doing more harm than good to our bodies. We were really burning out our bodies and not getting the results we wanted therefore we would push ourselves even more. At the time we did not believe you could over exercise, but no we do. Exercise is something that needs to be done properly with proper nutrition to get great results. Working out and food go hand and hand.
We would actually keep track of how many calories we burned and write it down, then make sure our calories we less. We became obsessed with numbers. It was so unhealthy…we just drove ourselves crazy. Doing this actually mad us fight a lot more between one another because we would get upset if one ate more than the other or burned more calories. Yay….crazy! Now a days we keep track of nothing and it is such a relief. The stress alone from making sure our numbers were right probably was worse than what we actually ate. We still stress a little if we did not get a workout in, but each day we are making improvements.
We never were really “overweight” to some people but to us we were not happy with how our bodies looked. Therefore we would push each other to eat less and workout more. And when we did splurge on food we would totally over do it which made us run till we burned off those extra calories we just consumed. For instance, we would mix protein powder into our morning oatmeal…ugh. We grew up that you don’t waste food, so we ate no matter if we like it or if we full. Food just doesn’t get wasted. Wow! We were crazy….haha. Now we look at food more as nourishment, something our bodies loves and needs for fuel.
When we went to such extremes we were totally depleting ourselves…no wonder our bodies were not looking “good”. Your body needs food for fuel to exercise! This battle went on for awhile for us. Today, we still struggle with it even though we are a complete 180 of what we used to eat and do for exercise.
Along with the over exercising we thought we were eating the correct foods but came to realize it was all “junk”. We based our diet around consuming protein, protein, and more protein from meat and dairy because being athletes that is all you hear. Now we have learned there is good protein and bad protein, some are just better quality! We ate a lot of protein bars, protein powder, canned tuna, egg whites, and etc. And lets not get started on food combining….chicken with rice….a big no no. And we lived off coffee! Not only was majority of these foods processed but….it was fake food!
One advantage is that we gave up soda in middle school so drinking tons of water was not an issue for us. Sometimes we might have drank to much water that it was just flushing the nutrients right out of us. It is extremely important not to drink water when you eat! When you eat and drink water, your body is not able to digest the nutrients from the foods you consumed, so it is stored as fat. If looking to lose weight this is one thing you can do to help, drink water at least 30 minutes before or after a meal. If you feel that you need to drink water with your meal add a lemon to it!
We have learned a lot over the years as we struggle with food allergies. It really made us start looking at food differently. We are what we eat! Once we accepted this, we total stopped eating all that junk. It was not easy to let go of somethings, but over time you body starts craving “good” things. We never thought we would be obsessed with swiss chard, parsley, and cilantro! Now that’s crazy! We love your GREENS!
We understand the importance of what you eat and when to eat it. We see ourselves as athletes and that is what we want to look like, so we are slowly trying new things. Body image is something many women struggle with….we do! When some people see us, they do not understand why we would (we are small but not skinny), but everyone is their worst critic. But we also work hard to keep us in shape. We love to eat and exercise and nowadays it fun because our bodies are happy. Now our minds are a little slower to grasp this concept so it it our goal everyday to keep positive!
The mind has a huge affect on you! Mind over matter as some say, well it is true. We believe most people’s problems are in their mind because our society has created these images of what you are supposed to be…and it gets exhausting to keep up. The biggest thing is to learn to be able to look in the mirror and despite all your flaws, see yourself as beautiful! Really have to picture yourself happy! Write down a sheet paper 5 things that you like about yourself and keep it with you so you can look at it when you get down. And remember to say 5 positive things that you did that day before you go to bed. This really helps with ending the day on a good note!
Now this is an uphill climb for many people. Just remember you are not alone! We are all here for support and guidance. Keep your hand up and smile!
Till next time, cheers from our running shoes to yours!
As you can see from the title of the post that we are getting ready to do a 5 day cleanse. This is mainly due to Lori not feeling the best and both of us are breaking out again and experiencing headaches. We are finally listening to our bodies and going to give our bodies a break. The goal of our cleanse is not to deprive ourselves as some may think when they hear the word cleanse, but we are going to eat a very clean raw diet. Majority of the meals being liquid base because it is easier to digest, which means our bodies can focus on detoxing not digesting!!
Two of other raw foodies that we admire recently discussed detox too. Kristen from Kristen’s Raw blog talked about her juice feast as way to detox, heal, and lose some body fat. And Kimberly from Kimberly Snyder blog, has done a few posts regarding detox. Kimberly recently talked about castor oil and detox, which we have decide we will do tonight. So tonight before we head to bed we will rub castor oil on our tummys, let it sit for 45 minutes with a heating pad, and let castor oil do its thing. Castor oil is very powerful so just by rubbing into our skin it will absorb into our digestive tract and elimate toxins! LOL. We are excited.
Michelle has tried a “cleanse” before where she had to drink it (which she couldn’t because it is disgusting stuff), so she is thrilled this detox does require drinking it to get the benefits.
Now we are following Kimberly’s way to do the castor oil pack. There are some other ways to do it, which require a cloth to dip the oil in instead of just rubbing it. So by us placing a cloth and heat pad over the castor oil we are creating a castor oil pack. This alternative way to enhance circulation and promote healing of the tissues and organs dates way back to ancient Egypt.
You will need:
bottle of castor oil
wool or cotton cloth (so health foods store sell these next to the castor oil) (optional)
Plastic wrap
heat pad
Now this will be messy so use old sheets and clothes!
We will report how we did tomorrow morning. We are excited to get our 5 day cleanse started right with this castor oil pack. We will try to do this castor oil pack detox 2 more times this week.
Today’s Food re-cap:
Breakfast was a grape fig smoothie (great for cleansing!!)
Morning snack was our raw cinnamon chia flatbread with cashew maple spread, courtesy of Pure 2 Raw : )
Lunch: vegeable wrap….which turned more into a salad
We used meyer lemon juice as the dressing. So simple, besides julienning the vegtables : ) But it is worth it…love the crunch from all vegetables! We used sliced daikon as the wrap and it was filled with beet, carrot, and zucchini.
Snack was a simple shake full of coconut water, Sun is Shining, maca, bee pollen, stevia, frozen acai, and some cinnamon.
Not sure what dinner will be but we will make it a good one since it will be our last “solid” meal for 5 days!
Twins Workout:
We did not get a workout in yesterday, just too tired from the markets and the cleaning the place. So we decided to just take the day off and relax!
Today we finished up the cleaning plus some light yoga, push-ups, and some calistheics. We do not have much energy plus are not feeling the best, which makes it hard to feel good to workout. We know that getting in some type of exercise will help us, so yoga works for us!!
In regards to a previous post on what we trying to eliminate from our diet to help us with skin issues we are still facing, we have noticed our skin has been loving coconut butter. We use it every night to wash our face from makeup, dirt, and oil from the day, and it leaves our face smooth and soft. Oh and smells so good too…hard not to eat it : )
We both have been doing some thinking and reading (getting great info from the Thrive book). Both our bodies are telling us it is time for some change, so we have decided we are going to do a mini cleanse, although we do not always like that word because is has different meanings for different people. For us, we just want to do a week of good clean eating to give our bodies the nutrients and rest it needs.
We plan to have everyday this week:
One green smoothie of some sort every day
One detox smoothie (apples, pears, lime (or lemon), aloe vera, turmeric, cilantro (or parsley), and hemp (oil, protein, or seeds whatever we got on hand))
Juice (usually for us is celery, cucumber, romaine, ginger, turmeric, beet, apple)
A raw meal (this will change depending what we feel like or what we have on hand, so could be another smoothie, salad, etc)
We already had one detox smoothie today.
Detox smoothie
We feel it is important to listen to your body…it always gives you signs that something is wrong (breakouts, tiredness, achy muscles, stomach aches, etc). So slow down and listen. Your body is an amazing thing, so treat it good and it will do the same back.
We will post on how our weeks goes this week, so stay tuned.
Do you suffer from skin problems? If so please give us your feedback because we are both our experiencing skin breakouts. We are very frustrated because we have been eating majority a raw foods lifestyle, and everything we have read mentioned that eating raw foods will help the appearance of your skin. Eating live natural foods will help give your skin a glow…blemish free skin….okay then what are we doing wrong?
We eat about 90-95% raw foods. We are going on our 2nd year of eating this way and we thought at first it was part of the detox. Getting rid of the old toxins from our previous way of eating, but we are still struggling. We go through periods were our skin starts improving and then the next day we will have a new pimple or two. What is going on?
We drink lots of water throughout the day, skin brush, workout regularly, we have a juice about once a day, eat huge green salads, and have one or 2 green smoothies a day. We have cut back on our sugar, which we thought was the problem still, just rely on fresh fruit and stevia, and occasionally dried dates. We try to rotate our foods as best we can, although our diet is limited due to our food allergies and sensitivities.
We eat tons of greens…kale, collard greens, swiss chard, parsley are some of our favorites. We love our lemon and lime to use in smoothies, juices, and salad dressings. We do enjoy hemp seeds, flax seeds, and chia seeds. We occasionally eat tahini, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. When we first went raw we ate a lot of nuts and seeds, which we noticed made us tired. So we have cut back on nuts, but are thinking about bringing them back more into our diets, any suggestions?
As we mentioned we are not 100% raw because we run our own gluten free vegan peanut free bakery, which we also make raw goodies as well. Majority of our products are also corn free, sugar free (most things are sweetened with agave nectar), and soy free. So we do occasionally have some of our goodies, mostly when we are trying out a new recipe or making improvements to current recipes.
We did a post on face products that we have tired to help us out with our skin. We understand that beauty comes starts inside, so we do not understand what our bodies are trying to tell us. Are we still detoxing? Are we eating something we shouldn’t be? We have talked and read about other people struggle with skin while eating raw foods, so it is somewhat nice to know we are not alone, yet still is frustrating. Altough we are determined to figure out what is happening with our skin.
We have decided to make a few changes to our diet and face care routine. First we are going to try not to have any soaked and sprouted quinoa, buckwheat, and millet. Secondly try to eat more seeds and nuts, not in heavy amounts but increase from what we eat now. Thirdly try to increase our water, even though we get about 60 oz of it a day. Next we are going to rinse our face in the mornings with just water followed by skin brushing and use The Solution on our face. And lastly, at night wash our face with coconut oil. Yep coconut oil, maybe rotate in coconut butter. Trying to remember less is more : ) when it comes to putting products on our face.
So we will see what happens. We plan to give these changes a week before we make any adjustments, so here is what we had today:
We worked out first thing this morning, a full body lift followed by a little yoga.
Then enjoyed a purple smoothie that was full of coconut water, Sun is Shining, Vega protein, and blueberries.
Later was a juice: celery, cucumber, romaine, ginger, turmeric, lime
Then we did some playing around in the kitchen to create some new raw recipes for Pure 2 Raw. We made carob cookies, carob cupcakes, and lemon coconut cupcakes….yes all raw and delicious, it was hard to not to keep eating them.
Our salad was next on the menu.
A mix of dandelion leaves and red chard topped with avocado, pumpkin seeds, and fresh lime juice and zest with some apple cider vinegar. We ate a few bites and realized we were missing the most important ingredient…nutritional yeast
Our last meal of the day is another smoothie: blackberries, coconut oil, chia seeds, cinnamon, turmeric, maca, fresh basil and fresh parsley (which we grow ourselves), bee pollen, lemon juice, and stevia.
We both overall felt good today. We did get in about 10 cups of water. We got a big run tomorrow morning, although it is storming outside so hopefully this does not ruin our plans for running.
Do you love your skin? If so, why, what do you feel is your secret? favorite product?
High raw gluten-free foodie enthusiasts. Passionate about fitness, nutrition, health, cooking/baking, running, yoga, wine and much much more. We are fraternal twins who are raw gluten free vegan chefs/bakers. Living our life long dream running our own bakery - Twin Cakes and raw uncooked bakery Pure2raw. We hope to inspire others to appreciate food as nourishment to the body. Embark on a healthier lifestyle where you enjoy food and exercise, and have fun living your best life to the fullest...pure&simple.
A mix of dandelion leaves and red chard topped with avocado, pumpkin seeds, and fresh lime juice and zest with some apple cider vinegar. We ate a few bites and realized we were missing the most important ingredient…nutritional yeast 
