Transformation Celebration: Lainey Fisher!

CLIENT: Lainey Fisher

WEIGHT: 120 - 114 = 6 lb loss

PERSONAL DISCOVERIES:

• CORN: Impacted Skin Clarity, especially Skin Tone
• GLUTEN: Causes Bloating
• RED MEAT: Decreases Energy, Increases Caffeine Cravings

PROTEIN DISCOVERY: Feels best with a variety of fish and plant-based proteins. Animal protein creates fatigue.

FROM LAINEY:

"During my peak energy I found myself up and out of bed an hour earlier than my alarm. Shocking!! Looking for something to do I  found myself cleaning out my closet before my kids got up for school! At this point I was convinced I was on to something that would change my life! Thank you Kim Love for providing such an amazing insight to my diet and how it could make such an impact. Learning through experience and awareness was powerful! I am eager to do the Love Cleanse again and again!"

New Restaurant: How Do You Roll?

How Do You Roll is a cool new restaurant concept in the build-your-own food model with locations throughout Austin and San Antonio (coming to Houston soon). What is build-your-own? Think Lego’s of healthy foods. We think this modular system offering a choice of singular whole food ingredients is a great way to ensure you are receiving tasty, simple food free of many of the additives. It is also easy for our clients to find compliant meals without having to embrace their inner Sally!

Word of caution for those that are sensitive to certain ingredients: There are gluten, soy and dairy containing marinades in most of the meat items and most of the sauces contain soy, citrus, eggs or gluten. However, the veggies and most fish are ready to roll!

How do you roll?

• Step 1: Seaweed or Soy Paper? Brown or White Rice? Skip the soy! We recommend seaweed and brown rice over white.
• Step 2: Choose 3 veggies: Delicious veggies offered including: asparagus, avocado, cucumber, spinach, sprouts and more. If you are going with a veggie roll, choose as many veggies as you wish and simply pay a small up charge of .50cents for each additional veggie.
• Step 3: Choose fish or meat: Choose fish if you are concerned about inflammatory ingredients. 
• Step 4: Top it off with a sauce: Skip the sauces if you are concerned about inflammatory ingredients

June Tips: Eating Healthy on The Road

Summer is upon us! Vacations and more idyllic summer schedules gift us a wonderful pause from our daily routines, offering much needed R&R from the chaos of life. With more lax schedules, come more lax habits. How can we enjoy the fun of summer, often while on the road, while also continuing to nourish our bodies?  

Stay tuned this summer – we will be featuring tips to keep you feeling your best on vacation while averting a backward slide!

June Tips: Eating Healthy on The Road:

1. Load up on Healthy Snacks For the Car. Avoid driving yourself to the brink of H’angry on your road trips, which is a recipe for grabbing Snickers and a corn syrup-riddled toddy at the gas station. What constitutes a healthy snack? Whole Food, High protein, minimal sugar, no additives. Check out our Snack Section for great options.

2. Eat these small snacks throughout the day to balance blood sugar and minimize cravings. Pack little snacks in your purse or pocket and aim to eat something every 2 hours. Eating regularly throughout the day will allow you to stay a step ahead of your cravings! 

3. Avoid sugar, corn syrup and even too much fruit. Sugar begets more sugar setting us up for viscous cycles of cravings throughout the day. We recommend avoiding the sugar-based snacks, even fruit, since this will often trigger increased cravings shortly after.

4. Choose healthier Road Food. Finding healthy food on the road can be tricky! When options are limited, consider packing your own lunch in a cooler. Or pull over to locations where you can choose healthier options. At Subway, choose a salad with tuna or meat. Cracker Barrel offers some simpler veggie sides. And Chili’s has many locations scattered throughout smaller towns. 

5. Your go-to for dining out: Salad. Opting for a salad with some protein is always a great option! Salad dressings are often a hidden source of many inflammatory ingredients including – soy, gluten, MSG and more. Choose oil and vinegar dressing on the side.

6. When All Else Fails. Everyone’s version of vacation looks a little bit different! If despite the best of intentions, you back slide and over indulge, skip the heaping serving of guilt! This is one condiment that is as inflammatory as sugar! Remind yourself that tomorrow is a new day and seize the opportunity to simply note how your overindulgences made you feel, guilt-free. These indulgences are a gift, sent to inform you, if you so choose! Allow that feeling to be the motivation for a new beginning and simply begin again.

Transformation Celebration: Steven Sides!

CLIENT: Steven Sides

WEIGHT: 204 - 177 = 27 lb loss

PERSONAL DISCOVERIES:

• CASHEWS: Decrease Energy, Increase Headaches and Brain Fog
• SOY: Decreases Energy, Increases Weight, Brain Fog and Congestion
• DAIRY: Slightly Impacts Congestion

PROTEIN DISCOVERY: Feels best with plant-based proteins. Sugar cravings are directly correlated to receiving enough plant-based proteins at key times throughout day.

FROM STEVEN:

"I have been working towards a goal of better health and weight loss for quite awhile. I had adjusted my diet (became a vegetarian), watched calories, exercised, and practiced yoga. I felt somewhat better but seemed to have hit a plateau. My weight would not seem to want to ever get below 200 lbs., I did not really think I ever would. I would eat great for awhile and then binge on chocolate and sweets. My weight would bounce from 204 to 218. 

I had seen the Love Cleanse on a news report, thought it looked interesting but did not pursue it. I came across it again on Facebook of all places. It was friended by my acupuncturist. I asked her about the cleanse and Kim. She thought it may be a good thing for me to explore. 

What a true blessing Kim is. I was impressed at my first contact with her. She has a great deal of knowledge and her enthusiasm is infectious. I decided to take the plunge knowing it would require a great deal of commitment and will power. While initially Kim’s program takes commitment, for me, it has been a life changing, life enhancing experience. I have learned a great deal. Whereas before, food controlled my life far more than I was aware, my new found knowledge about how foods effect me personally, has allowed me to change the relationship completely. 

In 8 weeks I went from 204 lbs to 177 lbs., where I am holding steady. I have tremendous energy, I have all but eliminated my allergies, my flexibility and lucidity have increased exponentially. I feel great! 

Thank you Kim and the Love Cleanse Team!"

Daily Juice Discount for Love Cleanse Clients!

Now included in our Love Cleanse Kits for all programs is a 15% off card that can be redeemed for a Daily Juice Gift Card. What's that mean? If you purchase a $50 card, you'll be charged the exclusive Love Cleanse rate of $42.50. Want $100 worth of juice, pay just $85 with your special pass! Not only is Daily Juice always 100% organic but alkalizing juice is their specialty and they offer our Love Cleanse Juice by name so go ahead, get your juice on! 

Raw 'Cream' of Cucumber Salad

This month we're excited to feature a recipe from Dan Marek, Healthy Eating Specialist and Chef at Whole Foods Markets. Over the weekend instead of our typical potato salad, we whipped up this beautifully creamy cucumber version at our neighborhood BBQ and it was the first thing gone off the buffet table! We are certain it will be a staple this summer. Thanks Dan!  

Raw 'Cream' of Cucumber Salad

From Dan: "In my family, a summertime favorite is my grandmother's cucumber and dill salad. This healthy alternative is sure to be a cooling favorite for you too. Replacing the mayonnaise or sour cream with cashew turns it into a vegan dish that is better for you, but still has a bit of the fat that makes this dish so delish."

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cucumber
• 1/4 red onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 cup of cashews
• 2 tbs fresh dill
• 1 tbs fresh mint
• 1 tbs white wine vinegar
• 4 tbs water
• 4 tbs lemon juice
• 1 tsp salt

INSTRUCTIONS:

Cut the cucumber in half and scrape the seeds into a blender. Dice the outer cucumber and toss with onions. Puree the garlic, cashews, dill, mint, vinegar, salt, water, and lemon juice until you get a sauce that is somewhat thin. If the sauce seems too thick, you can add a little water to thin it out. Pour the sauce over the cucumber and red onion and toss. Serve chilled and garnish with dill or mint sprigs.

Snack of the Month: Savi Seeds

A new breed of seed has come to town, straight from the jungles of Peru. Move over nuts! Savi looks like a nut, tastes like a nut, but it quacks like a seed. Much heartier than it’s pumpkin and sunflower kin, this is no ordinary seed.

It contains the highest levels of antioxidants on the planet! And it meets all of our criteria for a healthy blood sugar balancing snack – high protein, high fiber, whole food, no additives and it could not be simpler to pop in your mouth on the go.

Carried in the raw food snack section of Whole Foods or it may be found online here at Sequel Naturals.

Dining Out with Food Intolerances

Masses of people are becoming empowered by learning how to feel, give and live their best possible lives through the foods that they eat each day. 

Once we have embodied these new states we can become addicted not to the foods that once held us captive but to those that captivate. Foods that create inflammation for our unique constitutions, whether sugar or carbs or an orange, tomato or gluten particle-are avoided like the plagues they induce within us.

For those of us that have discovered our unique triggers, dining out becomes an adventure fraught with both deflating and elating experiences. Victories abound upon discovering or visiting accommodating new haunts while unwanted impacts from an establishment that is not so accommodating could haunt our bodies for days.

A recent experience and numerous others throughout my life have sparked an inspiration. 

How do we dine out while keeping ourselves happy, healthy and sane?

We are creating a forum, part selfish gratification and part tribal aggregation, as we share experiences with you, while requesting that you in kind, share yours with us. As individuals we must demand attention, but by joining together as a collective, we are able to command that which we deserve.

Stay tuned as we will be featuring chefs and restaurants that are conscious and even perhaps excited about the opportunities that exist to cater to an ever growing and more educated audience. We are a community who has discovered how to utilize foods to crash through our ceilings not just by avoiding, but by choosing wisely what we eat. And as these chefs will happily discover, we support those that support us - our faces joined by the faces of our families, friends and larger communities will become permanent fixtures in these businesses that embrace us.

Veggie Black Bean Burger

Last week we received an email wondering if we had a good recipe for black bean burgers. While we did have some recipes we didn't have a great recipe we thought worthy of sharing. So we hit the test kitchen, mixed and matched, packed it full of whole grains and veggies and are pleased with the end result of the following recipe. After a bit of experimenting we found that in this instance, thinner burgers are better burgers - they crisp up more and overall have a better texture than thicker ones. Feel free to load 'em up for a bigger bite and make your own double stack! 

After you finish baking the patties they freeze well for lunch during the week. Just pop one in the toaster over for a few minutes until thawed or eat at room temperature. 

INGREDIENTS:

• 1-1/2 cups cooked black beans (or 12 oz can of canned beans, drained and rinsed) 
• 1 small sweet potato
• 1 cup of corn kernals
• 2 shallots, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 green pepper, chopped
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 2 TB cilantro, chopped
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 TB ground cumin
• 1 tsp cayenne (optional)
• 1 tsp salt or a couple shakes of soy sauce/tamari (gluten-free is available)
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/3 cup flax meal or fine ground cornmeal
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice
• 1-3 TB olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Peel and cube the sweet potato placing a in pot of water. Bring to boil, cooking until soft, about 15 minutes. Drain the sweet potatoes let cool

While the sweet potatoes are cooling, in a small amount of olive oil saute the shallots, garlic, green pepper and celery together unti onions are translucent. 

In a large bowl mash together the sweet potatoes and black beans. Add the sauteed vegetables and the remaining ingredients and mix until fully incorporated. Form the patties with your hands. After a bit of experimenting we found that in this instance, thinner burgers are better burgers - they crisp up more and overall have a better texture than thicker ones.

In a a saute pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat and lightly fry each side of the patty. Finish the burgers in the oven at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes, flipping half-way through. Serve on your bread of choice (we've seen some gluten-free hamburger buns appearing on shelves!). Add all the hamburger fixins or eat over a bed of fresh greens. Our favorite? Grainy mustard, crisp lettuce, avocado and thick slices of perfectly ripe tomatoes. 

Coffee

Coffee can be an inflammatory ingredient for many, triggering blood sugar spikes and artificially induced adrenaline surges. For others, one cup of coffee each day has little impact on these levels. For the most optimal experience, we recommend eliminating coffee seven days prior to the start of the program and testing how it works for you during Phase 2. 


Please do not wait to eliminate coffee at the beginning of the program because going through caffeine withdrawal will skew the signals you will be poised to receive from your body throughout the program. It would also trigger a more intense transition phase, creating unnecessary discomfort.

Transformation Celebration of the Month: Sarah Luna

CLIENT: Sarah Luna, SATYA Transformational Coaching

Weight: 134 - 127 = 7 lb loss

Personal Discoveries:

• TURKEY: Impacts Weight
• GLUTEN: Increases Bloating, Decreases Skin Clarity
• SUGAR: Decrease Energy and Mental Clarity
• EGGS: Possibly Increase Irritability

FROM SARAH:

"My experience with the Love Cleanse has been remarkable. Kim’s support, guidance, and encouragement are offered with compassion, and laser like insight. Kim is clearly passionate about this process and it is contagious! Kim’s consciously integrated process has transformed my relationship with food and has enhanced the experience of my physical, mental and emotional body. 

I now have a clear sense of which foods works well for me and which ones have a negative impact on my well being. Additionally, I have learnt and adopted strategies for overcoming and managing cravings. In the second week of the cleanse, my energy soared to levels that I did not even know were possible – my habitual mid-afternoon slump disappeared and I found myself sleeping more deeply  and feeling more rested when waking. I am now able to get up earlier in the morning and get going without needing a caffeine kick. 

Along with energy surging, lowered weight and improved digestion, I have also gained insight into how food impacts my emotional and mental state. My emotional state has become more centered, mood swings are minimal and I experience lower levels of anxiety, and irritability. My mental focus and short term memory have sharpened dramatically due to my brain receiving appropriate and consistent nourishment. 

The inherent and undeniable link between what we eat and who we are is compellingly clear to me thanks to this masterfully guided process. If you are ready to become more conscious with food, enjoy increased energy, mental alertness, balanced emotions and improve your overall experience of living in your body, I highly recommend working with Kim!"