Boho Beautiful Detoxify Recap

Last week my husband and I completed the Boho Beautiful Detoxify program. Through a 7 day schedule of clean eating meal videos & recipes combined with daily detox yoga classes, DETOXIFY has been designed to help you find your new potential of health, vitality, and daily energy. There is so much to discuss you guys! First off, it was incredible. Truly life changing in so many ways. But it was a lot of work! Not just to eat plant based for 7 days and do daily detox yoga routines, but also to organize and execute 14 new meal recipes, 7 new juice recipes, and 7 new smoothie recipes during those 7 days!
But with a little prep (ok, actually a lot!) and some organization it is defiantly something I would highly recommend to all.

By day 7, Ryan had lost 9 pounds and was feeling ready to re-introduce meat and alcohol. ;) I was down 6 pounds and ready to continue on a more clean eating path going forward. My skin has never looked so good, my inflammation and bloating are way low, not going to lie, my vegan body is a favorite of mine! So for now I'm vegan and taking it day by day, but even it you just want to try this for the detox, it's 100% worth it.

Here is a little break down of everything and my thoughts. I even have some tips if you are planning to do this detox too. Ok, let's get into this, shall we?

YOGA: I love doing Juliana's classes. She is an incredible athlete and really has a way to keeping both my husband and myself motivated. This 7 day program kicked our butts in the best way ever. Five classes are advanced and challenging, two are on your mat and stretching classes. Lots of deep stretches, twisting, and abs/core work all through the week. I am so glad I own these so I can go back and do them whenever I want. In the end, they were really great classes that not only challenged us, but really got that digestive system and metabolism moving. Worth every penny!

RECIPES: I'm not going to lie, it's time consuming. I spent a good 3 hours a day in the kitchen prepping, juicing, blending, chopping, and cooking...but here's the thing, it's magical. There is just something about looking at so many beautiful colors for hours each day. It's rejuvenating. It's truly wonderful working with produce and organic grains and nothing processed or packaged. I learned so many great ways to feed my family better and learned my kids love a lot of vegan food too! I never felt hungry or dissatisfied which was a concern of mine before I started. 

Now let's talk food. It is seriously delicious! There were maybe 4 out of the 28 recipes that my husband did not love and only 1 that I just couldn't do. I did have to make some substitutions because of food allergies, but overall, I kept it as close to the original recipes as I could and all the food was very good. Like gourmet good you guys! My top five are: Garden of Vegan Aioli, Ziner Chocolate Protein Smoothie, Lava Smoothie Bowl, Brown Rice Pudding, The Boho Buda-ful Bowl. The program is worth it just for the recipes alone. 

 

I learned so much about food during this week. I also learned that I really do enjoy eating and cooking vegan! 

SHOPPING AND PREP TIPS: 

Give yourself a week or two to read all the material and get supplies ready after you make this purchase. We are still in a pandemic so it is difficult to get these items quickly if you are not already eating plant based. There is a shopping list, but there are no amounts on the list. So I did have to spend a couple hours going through the recipes and adding up the amounts I needed of each item for all recipes from this week. This familiarized me with the menu though. There are 14 food recipes and 14 drink (7 juice and 7 smoothie) recipes during this detox. Yes, that is 28 new recipes to take on in one week. It can feel overwhelming, but as someone who just did this, I am telling you, it is very doable. And very worth it! 

 -Each night, look at the menu for the following day making sure there is nothing you need to prep. There are a couple days that require you to refrigerate items over night.

-Prep for the full day of recipes each morning and label everything properly. I started doing this by day three and it really helped me with time management throughout the day. Each morning I would do yoga, make the breakfast recipe and eat, then prep all veggies and fruits needed for the smoothie and juice. I would even look ahead to the dinner recipe on a few of the days and get the chopping out of the way so that nights cooking was a bit quicker. 

-Keep you juicer, blender/ninja/pans on the counter for the week. You are using all of these each days save yourself the hassle! 

-If you are doing this with your spouse like I did, have them do all dishes to take some of the work load. There are many dishes each day and using plastic or paper just isn't an option we were going to take. In addition to yoga and plant based diet, there is an Earth challenge as well! 

-Take a day (or two) off of yoga leading up to the detox week. Your body will thank you later. ;) I forgot to do this! Live and learn. 

-Shop local if you can. We went to a Windy Acres Farms in Geneva and picked up over half of our produce for the week. Then, we did "delivery" from Walmart and found they were out of a few items we needed so we added an Aldi trip in as well. Oh and grabbed a few on Amazon as well. There are links in the PDF for shopping items on Amazon so make sure you utilize those if you are having a hard time finding a few of the items. 

-If you shop for all seven days like I did, freeze some produce! I ended up freezing my (steamed) cauliflower, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, mango, pineapple, bananas, and broccoli. This was helpful with smoothies, I no longer needed to add ice and all my produce stayed fresh for the week to boot. 

-Let the kids try! My husband and I did this detox, not the kids, but I did make extra each day and let them try. In the end, they ended up eating most breakfasts, smoothies, a couple of the juices, and a couple of the dinners. I was blown away at how open they were to trying plant based food and now I will continue to give them more options! 

So that's it folks! This week was truly a labor of love and it's just another pivotal point in learning more about mine and my families health and our food choices. Have you ever been vegan? Have you ever tried a detox before? If you do try this one, I really hope you love it as much as we did! 

Here is a video recap of the entire week of recipes and yoga: 

Thank you so much for stopping by the blog today, I hope you make it a great day! xoxo 

Boho Beautiful Virtual Yoga Retreat Recap

About a week before quarantine, I took yoga back up for the first time in well over 18 months. I began doing it in my living room after I would drop the kids off for school, not knowing a few short days later we would all find ourselves home for months due to COVID-19. My husband had interest right off the bat and asked if he could join in my morning sessions. Honestly, I was so excited to have a workout buddy! I found yoga classes on Youtube and began to gravitate toward the Boho Beautiful channel. By the second week, all four of us were doing yoga 4-6 days per week. Ryan and I really wanted to buy something from Boho Beautiful because we were doing her workouts for free so often, so I headed to her shop page. I saw she offered a digital yoga retreat and was so excited to be part of something like that during this weird time in our lives. Looking back, I'm so grateful we had 5 weeks of daily classes under our belts before we began this. Even with those weeks, it was still a very challenging week for us both! 

My Mediation Journey Plus My Favorite Apps

(Morning meditation on our deck.)

Today I want to talk to you guys about something that has really changed my life for the better, meditation. Last January I was in a really bad mental place, so I started meditating daily. My goal was not only to lower stress level and take 10 minutes a day for myself (which were added benefits), but I really needed to figure out a way to be more in control of my thoughts. Now, 15 months later I literally feel like a different person! Some days I only meditate for 10 minutes, some days I end up doing it for more like 30. It has become an important part of my life and I feel my best when I do it. To be clear, it's not easy. It's something you have to work at, but the benefits are so worth it and over time it becomes easier and you crave it more.

Summer Bodies are Made Durning Quarantine

To begin with, thank you to all the first responders, healthcare workers, grocery store employees, delivery service drivers, essential workers, & everyone else putting themselves out there during this time. 

I used to think summer bodies were made in the winter months, but apparently that can all be undone in under two weeks of quarantine while baking daily and eating comfort foods. Grrrrr So, I decided to take this time to get my family on a good health track. It's so important to be eating healthy and also to be moving your body durning this time. Plus, don't forget to take your vitamins to keep your immune systems as strong as you can. So that's it then, I've decided. Summer bodies are made during the quarantine. I'm hoping habits we choose now stay with us long after! 

Recipe: GF Ice Cream Sandwiches

With "stay home" orders in place, we are finding comfort in our weekly baking challenges. Last week, I asked my kids to pick a recipe from the eight cookbooks I set out to choose from. My daughter found the most delicious ice cream sandwich recipe so we did our best to find the ingredients so we could make it. We also supported our local ice cream shop, picking up a curb-side order to add to the fun. These were pretty easy to make if you're OK rolling with it. The cookies were supposed to be round, but they all cooked together making it more like a full sheet pan of cookie than individual cookies. I moved quickly after getting them out of the oven, cutting into small rectangle shapes. In the end, they were delicious, they looked more like classic ice cream sandwiches with their rectangle shape, it counted as "creative time" for school, and they made my family happy in general! 

Here is the recipe so you can try them out too!