Month: June 2014

In the book I just finished reading “#Girlboss”, Sophia Amuroso says,”Learn to create your own opportunities. Know that there is no finish line; fortune favors action. Race balls-out toward the extraordinary life that you’ve always dreamed of, or still haven’t had time to dream up.”

First of all, I highly recommend “#Girlboss”, if you can’t tell, I absolutely loved it. Second of all, Sophia is a thousand percent right and I could not agree with her more. FORTUNE FAVORS ACTION. The only way to get out of your own way is by taking action. You may be saying but I don’t even know what kind of action take, I can’t even bring myself to begin. Well there is an action for that as well. The best thing you can do for yourself is start moving yourself forward and here are three of the biggest ways to get into action by taking very small steps..

1. Make ONE small tweak. Getting into action doesn’t have to be a massive ordeal. It can be as simple as waking up an extra 15 minutes earlier to meditate in the morning or making a conscious effort to eat green veggies twice a day. Just find one small thing and promise yourself to get into action with it and watch how that naturally will help you build momentum to go even farther.

2. Get CLEAR on what you want. Write down on a piece of paper or journal it out and get really clear about what you desire, whether it’s personal, business or health oriented. You will be instantly better at taking actions in line with your goals when you are crystal clear about what your goals are. I find it helpful to keep that piece of paper or note in my wallet or next to my bed so that I’m constantly reminded of it.

3. Ask for HELP. Whether it’s a professional like me who can help you through health coaching or business advice or it’s just a trusty friend or family member, sometimes when we’re blocked we just need an outside perspective to help us along in the right direction. A lot of my clients hire me solely to help keep them accountable, in action and on the path to their goals. I also am a big advocate for “accountability partners”, if you can find a friend or family member who you can check in with regularly and make sure each other is on track they can be worth their weight in gold. It’s important to understand that asking for help, whether it’s just a silent prayer to the universe, in the form of typing in Google’s search box or sending an email to set up an appointment, is a crucial but small step to getting out of your own way.

I hope that helps you start taking action this week! If you need help busting through those blocks or finding what actions you need to take feel free to email me at cassandra@gosweetandskinny.com to set up a breakthrough session and get yourself in to action. If you have success with these tools and are able to get out of your own way with it, I ‘d love to hear! Feel free to write about  your experience in the comments below or post it on the facebook page and I’ll be sure to respond!

Need a great, superfood packed, gluten free, sugar free breakfast option!? Look no further. This Chia Buckwheat cereal is not only crazy easy to make ( we’re talking like five minutes and then let it sit while you shower) but it’ll leave you feeling full and give you some good clean energy to start your day right! Chia seeds are packed with good for you omega 3s and buckwheat groats are a surprisingly delicious gluten free options for your breakfast. Oh, it’s also VEGAN! Or as I like to call it, accidentally vegan because it’s not missing any animal products. Feel free to make it your own by choosing soy milk, almond milk or coconut milk as well as topping it with your favorite seasonal fruit. I am obsessed with using berries because they are full of antioxidants, low in sugar and straight up delicious. This chia buckwheat cereal is a great healthy option for those of you who like a hearty breakfast but are watching your weight. Its also a great vegan breakfast option for those of you (like myself) with all sorts of food allergies, it’s hard to find great tasting gluten free, sugar free and dairy free breakfast option so I’m excited to share it with you guys!

Check out my Mango Chia Seed Pudding with Toasted Coconut recipe up on Shape Magazine’s website, I’ll be making healthy recipes on Shape.com all summer long so check back every Monday for another delicious, healthy, summer recipe!

Mango Chia Seed Pudding with Toasted Coconut

1 cup of Silk Vanilla Soy milk
1 ripe mango
1/3 cup of chia seeds
¼ cup of unsweetened coconut flakes

In a mason jar, combine 1 cup of soy milk with 1/3 cup of chia seeds. Mix and let sit in the refrigerator for 4-6 hours. Mix periodically if needed to evenly distribute the chia seeds. Puree mango in a blender, leave a couple slices to the side for garnishing and mix in to chia seed pudding before serving. Place coconut flakes on a baking sheet and broil for just a couple minutes till toasted. Scoop out serving of pudding and garnish with toasted coconut and a slice or two of mango.

I’m actually sad to see my seven day Gingersnap’s Organic cleanse come to an end but I am so excited to share my cleanse results with you! I have been feeling absolutely amazing these last few days. I’ve loved all the delicious food they’ve given me for the past four days, two days on Spirit Junkie which was half liquids, half solids and two days on their GO cleanse which is all real, raw, vegan food. The last stage of the cleanse has had me on a menu that includes chia seed pudding in the morning, a delicious salad at lunch (sprout salad or spinach salad) and then a creative raw dinner with a  side salad (reuben wrap or thai kelp noodles). I even get a dessert! The raw banana and mango puddings were super tasty and left me feeling like I had more than enough food for the day. I can’t even tell which meals were my favorite because I honestly enjoyed them all so much.  I have been so full, my belly has been so happy and my energy has been through the roof. I seriously don’t want to go back to eating the way I did pre-cleanse, and I wasn’t even really eating bad!

This raw vegan reuben wrap from gingersnap's organic blew my mind. I didn't even think I liked regular reubens but this was out of this world.
This raw vegan reuben wrap from gingersnap’s organic blew my mind.

This cleanse has re-energized my passion for cleansing, it made me realize how even the “healthiest” of us can use a good cleansing and how fantastic our bodies are meant to feel when we’re fueling them with the right stuff. I’m going to continue eating as close to this as possible from now on, I may not be able sustain total raw veganism but I’m certainly capable at keeping away from the sugar, dairy, gluten and eating as much fresh, organic, raw vegetables as possible. Of course, I love knowing when I’m in a jam I can always swing by Gingersnap’s and get something to hit the spot.

I would highly recommend this combination cleanse to any of my New York buddies, to me, it did exactly what a cleanse should do, energize you, make you feel better and inspire you to eat healthier following it. And yes, I did lose weight, I know that’s the first question everyone asks. I lost about 5-7lbs over the week but more importantly I gained a glow! Isn’t that what we really want?

Gingersnap’s has definitely inspired me in my journey of creating a Go Sweet and Skinny Cleanse for all of you out there who don’t have the priviledge of being close enough to a kick-ass place like G.O. where you can just drop by and pick up your food everyday. It’s certainly a bit more work to have to make all the food yourself but it’ll do the job and make you feel great just the same. As for me, this was my first cleanse where I didn’t prepare any of the food or juices and let me tell you, it was a pleasure!! I absolutely loved getting to pick up my supplies each night and not use my kitchen for the entire week. It made life so much easier and once we got into the real food portion some of the meals were certainly something I could have never whipped up at home like that raw reuben wrap. It was so nice to be able to relax during the cleanse, enjoy the carefully crafted meals they had chosen for me and worrying more about taking care of myself then preparing a slew of meals for the day.

            It’s my second day off the cleanse, I’m still in the habit of eating my chia seed pudding for breakfast except now I top it off with some fresh berries, still eating clean, veggie packed lunches and dinners, and most importantly, still feeling like a rock star.

For more information on Gingersnap’s Organic cleanses, click here.

Woo Hoo!!! 3 days of pure juice all done! Yesterday was by far the toughest for me because I was on set all day shooting these delicious recipes for Shape.com and making this super healthy, oh-so-tempting food all day long! Feels GOOD to get this far with out many other cravings though. I haven’t felt crazy hungry or weak at all. It’s been much easier for me this time around than usual (when I make my own) and I can’t help but think that the low to no sugar in Gingersnaps’s juice is the reason it’s been a much smoother ride. Although I do have one ridiculous juice-zombie story for you, I was so exhausted yesterday from the shoot that I got home, took an hour “power nap” and when I woke up I got dressed and left my apartment like I was on autopilot searching for food. Luckily I snapped out of it by the time I got to a nearby cafe and got myself a tea and walked myself back home, haha. I think I’d blame that one on exhaustion from a crazy week though and less on actual hunger because by the time I snapped out of it I realized I wasn’t even that hungry. Had my savory “green soup” made of kale, cucumber, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, nutritional yeast, olive oil, cayenne, ginger, tumeric, curry and sea salt, and was barely hungry enough to finish the whole juice/soup!

The highlight of my cleanse so far, liquid-wise, has definitely been the Sugar Free Vanilla Superfood Milk (made of raw almonds, vanilla extract, stevia, maca, sea salt and filtered water), it literally tastes like the best milk shake I’ve ever had and doesn’t make me painfully sick afterwards. I’m totally in love and will certainly be frequently buying this gem from Gingersnap’s post cleanse. On Tuesday (day 2), I was on the train in the morning and I got my whole bag of juices stolen from me! Totally unbelievable, right? I am still in shock that someone would steal sixty dollars worth of juice but I guess I like to believe that people are inherently good and that no one that loves juice as much as I do, would find snatching someone else’s an acceptable thing but you never know. I’m safely assuming that some guy thought he was going to hit a jack pot and realized he just got a ton of fresh juice. Regardless, I hope someone drank it because it was too wonderful to go to such waste. So I was forced to improvise during the day, which was hard because I was on set filming cooking videos all day in a studio out in Connecticut. Luckily, one of the producers was nice enough to go to whole foods for lunch and pick me up a fresh, organic, green juice to hold me over. However, by the end of the day I was literally dreaming of my visit to Gingersnap’s later that night to grab the next two days worth of my cleanse and buy a Vanilla Superfood Milk to immediately put to my face. I drank that milk so fast when I got there that I actually gave myself a stomach ache, but it was glorious and I was satiated and so so happy.

The highlight of my juice cleanse and new personal obsession, Sugar Free Vanilla Superfood Milk from Gingersnap's Organic.

Feeling wise – I’m doing okay. I have bursts of incredible energy during the day from the juice but also sleep like a little baby at night and quite honestly, feel like I could sleep even more when I wake up in the morning. It’s hard to say if that’s the juice because I have a lot going on right now both professionally and personally and our body tends to need more rest during intense times. However, it would also make perfect sense for my body to want to relax during this cleansing process since I’m sure a lot of toxins are being released and removed. I do have a surprising confession to make however, I have been having a lot of trouble finishing all the juices! I’ve never liked beet juice so that particular one never quite gets finished despite my best attempt, and the “green soup” that Gingersnaps Organic gives you for the end of the day is absolutely delicious (I wish I could heat it up and drink it like real soup!) but I hardly have enough appetite to drink it all by the time I get to it. I feel slightly conflicted about this because whenever I talk to someone about doing a juice cleanse I will be the first person to scold you about drinking ALL the juices, no matter what because your body needs the nutrients and the calories. However, I feel so full and content, it’s hard to push it. Plus, I feel like not being hungry while cleansing is a very lucky thing, so hopefully I’m not jinxing myself!

Today I get to start the “Spirit Junkie” portion of my cleanse, inspired by my spiritual guru, Gabrielle Bernstein, this part of the cleanse is mostly liquid with a little light food. I start off my morning the same with my SF ginger lemonade, then move on to “KICK” which is a green juice with ginger, soon after I get to my fabulous SF Vanilla Superfood Milk, then a green SMOOTHIE (yipee!!!) and finally some food, SF vanilla chia seed pudding and a borecole salad. I’m excited! I’ll be doing this for two days and then graduated to their all food cleanse. Can’t wait to share how the rest of it goes!

AKA. Why I’m cleansing this week..

gingersnaps organic GO Deep Juice Cleanse

            I’m on the first day of my Gingersnap’s Organic cleanse, this is my very FIRST cleanse where I’m not making all the food myself and I’m beyond excited for this week. I’m in the process of writing my own detox and am savvy enough to put myself on my own sort of cleanse/detox/juice fast (hey,  I even wrote a book about how I do it) but there is something quite delightful in having someone else handle all that for you and I was eager to give it a go. Everyone has different reasons for wanting to cleanse, sometimes you’re feeling gross from several weeks of eating processed foods, maybe you’re feeling sluggish and want to boost your system back in to gear and lots of  people go on a cleanse because they want to lose an extra few pounds fast. My reasons are none of the above. I actually eat pretty healthy, feel just fine and have no desire to lose weight.

I’m cleansing mostly for my mind! See, my favorite thing about doing a juice cleanse is the crystal clear focus that comes from it after the first few days. I love that excessive amount of clean energy that just oozes out your pores and makes you feel like you can take on the world. I’ve decided to do this cleanse to help focus. Writing my first big girl book about my entire lifestyle plan, creating a detox, planning lots of exciting events and handling some personal and family things that have come up have really made my brain mush. I forget dates, sometimes forget emails, and I’m just struggling to finish writing sometimes, to be really honest. Also, I’ve been under a lot of stress, a break up, family health issues, it’s enough to turn even this green juice drinking, meditating body into an acidic danger zone. Even the healthiest of us still release stress hormones that can turn our inner environment acidic, lower our immune system, slow us down and make our skin break out. So it’s always a great idea to focus on eating alkaline, organic and nutrient dense food when your world is spinning a little too fast for your own good, but you know what’s even better?! Having an amazing place like Gingersnap’s handle it all for you so that you can have one less thing to worry about and know that you’re in good hands getting the nutrients your body needs to function at it’s best. As someone who makes food all the time for my blog and for various cooking videos and appearances, it’s such a pleasure to have it all come to me for a change and be able to focus on my life and my work instead of worrying about what I’m making for dinner, or what I’m juicing for the day.

Of course, the other reasons for cleansing are also very valid so I don’t want to completely skip over them. Going on a cleanse is a great way to get back into the habit of healthy eating when you feel you’ve fallen off track for a few weeks, it puts you on a strict regimen so it’s a lot easier to avoid temptations that pop up and remind you of how amazing you can feel when you are treating your body right. I highly recommend it to my clients who are struggling with gaining motivation to make some serious changes. It’s also a great way to rev your body up if you’ve been feeling sluggish because chances are you’re feeling sluggish because you’re not getting enough nutrients in your diet or you’ve let stress bog you down and need a nice healthy rush to re-calibrate you. While I never recommend trying to do something drastic to lose weight quick, if you need to drop a few pounds for a special occasion, going on a cleanse is a great way to accomplish that by flooding your system with glorious good for you foods or juices and NOT depriving yourself! Plus, instead of feeding  unhealthy behaviors like some crazy get skinny quick schemes do, going on a vegan, raw, organic juice or meal cleanse will actually influence you to start putting healthier, good for you foods into your body when you’ve finished.

Why did I choose Gingersnap’s Organic out of all the juice spots in NYC?

Gingersnap’s Organic is a raw, vegan, organic cafe in the East Village that makes all of it’s cleanses (and juices or food you can purchase) on site. I love that I know where my juice is being made and I can trust that it’s the freshest possible because it’s not being carted on a truck from a warehouse somewhere in Queens or Brooklyn. I also know that the juices are made as a whole, in other words if there’s a juice with kale, cucumber, pear and lemon, it’s being made all at once and there isn’t a massive container of kale juice, a massive container of cucumber juice, etc, that’s being mixed together to make my juice. This may seem a little crazy but there are actually some well-known juice spots that do this sort of mixing. The reason why that’s not so fabulous for your juice quality is that when they are mixing batches of juice like that you could be drinking kale from 3 days ago, cucumber from this morning and lemon from yesterday. Not an ideal situation. You should always be stickler about your juice, and even more so on a cleanse where you are drinking a lot of it. NEVER drink juice that’s not made with organic fruits and vegetables, you do not want all the nasty chemicals, hormones and antibiotics that can be found on non-organic produce inside your body. Also, never ever cleanse with pasteurized juice, look for cold pressed or high pressured processing like they do at Gingersnap’s.

I also chose Gingersnap’s Organic because of their kick ass founder, yogi and raw foods expert, Jamie Graber, she personally sat down with me and helped me customize this cleanse for my needs. Gingersnap’s offers a wide variety of cleanses from all juice to all food and they let you mix and match them. When I told Jamie about why I was doing the cleanse and that I was pretty open to whatever she wanted to throw at me, she encouraged me to do a combination of three. We decided I would start off on their Go Deep Sugar Free juice cleanse for two days, then move on to their half liquid, half solids Spirit Junkie cleanse (inspired by my guru, miss Gabby Bernstein) and finally finish off the week with their Go Cleanse which is all real vegan, organic and gluten free meals. I loved the idea of being able to experience a whole range of cleanse options and work my way from liquids back to solids over the course of the week. I also find Jamie totally inspiring and love how passionate she is about making the best possible juice and food for her clients. I know my body is in good hands with her this week!

 

One of the most frequently asked questions I get, other than “what is Anthony Bourdain like in person?” is always about how I got started with my health coaching business and my blog. Sometimes I don’t get the opportunity to send the lengthy emails I’d like to, to tell all of you lovely budding health coaches and entrepreneurs about it so I decided that I would make a video! I’m also really excited to announce the launch of “breakthrough business sessions” due to overwhelming demand of people wanting to chat with me about their business.

In my breakthrough business sessions, we’ll spend an hour together discussing your business goals and ideas, your brand, where you’re target market is, your income stream, among other topics (depending on your personal situation) and then leave you with an actionable list to get started on immediately. If you’re curious about learning more or wish to get one scheduled ASAP, please feel free to email me at cassandra@gosweetandskinny.com.

This Guided Meditation for Channeling Your Inner Rockstar is all about accessing your BEST self on a daily basis. Join me for a short visualization that I do with all my clients to help them tap in to their ideal body, ideal life and connect with the place in them that knows it is possible. You can re watch this meditation over and over again and use it in your daily practice by forwarding to the 1.30 mark and skipping all my intro chatter. I hope that you use this to help you connect to the you that’s trying to break out and live your best life. Unleash your inner rockstar everyday and get ready for some major changes in your life with this practice alone. By allowing ourselves to visualize our best self in this guided meditation, we are able to get a clear picture of what we want the future to look like and use it to inform our decisions and actions today.