Hello Friends!

And welcome to all my new friends!  Happy to see you over here from Fitnessista!

OK, now for confession time.

I.Love.To.Eat.

This being one of the many reasons the fruity lifestyle works so well for me.  I was never all that keen on portion control, so I really appreceate getting to eat all I want whenever I want.

There are days however, when I just don’t feel like doing the jaw work.  This is where juice and smoothie days come in!

It can be awesome to give your digestive system a break, and just have liquid food for a day or two.  Remember, your digestive system is basically working to make all your food into a liquid so that it can be absorbed.  So by taking in food already in its liquid state you get faster delivery of nutrients as well as a nice little reprieve for your body.  Plus, smoothies and juices are really good if you know how to make em.

Here is what my last juice/smoothie day looked like.

Blendy needs to get bigger…

This is a smoothie of pineapple, mango, lime and mint;

You can dip your finger in, I wont tell

It was amazing.  As you can see here;

Clearly the only solution to a bottle that could not fit the whole smoothie…

My other smoothie was mango, papaya, date and vanilla;

Dates make everything better.

Another option for liqidy days are ice creams like this one;

I am a good option

And then there must be the token green juice at this partay;

So much foam.

Just in case you are wondering, no I am not a tidy cook;

It is kitchen mayhem up in herrrr

But it all looks and tastes so nice when you are finished;

All the buddies all together.

So, what say you?  Juices and smoothies?  Or do you like to eat your food?

<3

In order to have a successful trip to the market, you must first be prepared for your haul;

If you can’t find a wheely-dealy or a back pack, you could also use a car, I guess.

It helps if you can find yourself a market to go to;

They never close.

Next, you must be OK with lots of people in a small space;

This pic doesn’t do the cray cray nature of the market justice.

First things first when you arrive, always scope out and raid the shaddy bins;

Fruit for a monie? Don’t mind if I do!

Getting a case load of things can lead to discounts;

No it is not to many. Yes, we are monkeys.

You must hone your wheely-dealy steering skills, lest your wheeling privileges be revoked;

The wheely has tipped.

In order for market day to be a true success, you must enjoy admiring all of your bounty;

So many bounties.

Look at it all!

admiring.

Lastly, you must posses proper pantry space;

Enough bananas for like five minutes…

As well as ample Fridge space;

Happy fridge

Happy shopping.

<3

Hello and Happy Monday Friends!

OK, I have to tell you a story.  When I was younger, i was OBSESSED with chocolate mint ice cream.  That and cookie dough, but that is a story for another time and place.  Then, when I went vegan, I would eat this soy ice cream.  It was $8.00 for about four servings.  But it was SO good.  I would get that ice cream, and have my little 3/4 of a cup ritual every night.  It is my opinion that chocolate and mint are a flavour match made in heaven.

Now that I am raw vegan, I most certainly do not purchase chocolate mint ice cream.  I also tend to be of the belief that a life without cacao is a good idea.  This means that I have not had anything chocolate mint in a very long time.  That is, until last week.

I was sitting in class writing my final exam for psychology of disease (it was no where near as intense as it sounds, trust me) and I was feeling rather warm.  Summer has offically arrived in Van-city, and this fact has made me crave ice cream.  Usually I stick with your generic fruit ice creams, lots of mango and pineapple, as you have all seen.  But for some reason I really wanted something even more refreshing than that.

I finished my exam within about 25 minutes, and so was free for the rest of the night. Obviously I had not been focusing all that hard on my exam, because by the time I left I had come up with recipe for chocolate e mint ice cream.  I turned in my exam and left school, headed to the most dangerous place on earth for a foodie, Whole Foods.

I wondered around there for about a century looking at everything.  I feel like since I have stopped eating processed foods, so many new things have been invented!  I will tell you one thing, the amount of roasted/toasted/flavoured/seasoned sea weed snacks that have started to pop up could fill a whole store in and of themselves.  Eventually I managed to gather my goods, and I headed home to make the best ice cream ever.

Here is what you need;

This all equals delicious.

Just frozen bananas (I had about 9 cups there) peppermint extract and the secret ingreadient, CAROB POWDER!

Carob, for those of you who do not know, comes from a flowering evergreen shrub, also called St. Johns Bread.  It is high in fiber and minerals, is great for digestion and has none of the stimmulating effects of cacao.  It has more or a caramel like flavour, but its rich nuttiness is reminiscent enough of chocolate for me.  You can get it roasted or raw, and of course I recommend you go for the raw.  The taste is slightly milder, but all the nutrients are retained.

To make our ice cream, all you do is process your bananas through your juicer (I used my Champ) or you can blend them in a blender or food processor.

Creamy dreamy yummy

Next you add your peppermint extract and your carob powder.  I did 2 tbsp of carob powder and about a teaspoon of peppermint.  You can also add a little vanilla here as well.

um, it tastes better than it looks.

Stir it up.

ooommmmnnnoooommmmmnnnnooooommmmmmmmmmmmmm

And there you have it.  So smooth, creamy and minty.  The perfect chiller for a hot summers night.

I hope you enjoy bats!

<3

Hey hey hey people!

Today I come to you with a readers request!  I have been asked to explain how I build a fruit plate that is tasty and satisfying, as well as being calorically dense enough to sustain us life lovin’ kinda people.

As a Holistic Nutritionist, (plug plug, heehee) I am asked to make meal plans all the time.  This is something that I assume I am going to be doing for the rest of my live long days.  It is always an interesting process to work with people and to mess with their food.  Most people do not like it very much, but I digress.  Making meal plans for those following an 80/10/10 lifestyle (yes, lifestyle, this is no diet) is really quite easy for me.  (want to learn more about 80/10/10?  Check out the home of it all: http://foodnsport.com/)  It is simple because I follow this way of eating, so I can just tell you to eat what I am eating, and also because I get to throw out all the little “rules” that they teach in school.  Rules like having a “balanced” plate with a source of carbohydrate, a source of fat and a source of “protein” – which is generally just a glorified source of fat or carbohydrates.  The other thing that I love about making 80/10/10 meal plans is that I get to add at the end “eat more if you feel like eating more.”  Yes!  No restriction, ever!!

Fist things first.  You need to figure out how much you need to eat.  I have seen formulas, such as this one:  Take your ideal weight, multiply that by 20, and that is how many calories you should eat from fruits and veggies in a day.  Then plan to burn at least half of those calories as physical activity.

Freelea and DurianRider of 30 Bananas A Day (check them out here: http://www.30bananasaday.com/) say minimum 2500-3000 cals for girls per day, and 3000-3500 for men, more if you are active or if you care to eat more.  I like this idea better.  The truth is, our bodies do NOT tend to store carbohydrates as fat.  Every single cell in your body runs on glucose, including every cell in your brain!   Also, the law of nutritional thermogenisis tells us that if we do happen to ingest “excess” carbohydrates, our bodies will burn them off as body heat, rather than storing them as fat.

The take home message?  It is far more important for you to be concerned with getting ENOUGH food, than it is for you to be concerned about getting too much.

I tend to eat mostly fruit most days, and then will have a green meal once or twice a week.  I also eat overt fats only once a week, and almost always comes in the form of durian.

I eat 2-3 meals a day.  This means that almost all of my fruit plates are going to average around 1000 calories.  That is my template.  From there I just look at what I have in the house, decided if I want a mono or a mixed meal, and then go from there!  This means what you should do is :

1) Figure out how many calories you want/need in a day

2) Figure out how many times you want to eat in a day

3) Divide your calories amongst your meals (This can be an even split or you are going to do around can have bigger meals with smaller snacks)

4) Decide what you are going to do about you 10% protein and 10% fat.  This means figuring out how many calories of veggies and fatty foods you need to eat to meet this criterion.  I recommend that you use cronometer to figure this out. —>http://cronometer.com/

5) Look at the fruits and veg that you have available to you that look good and start making meals!

Here are some examples of my plates;

Those babay mangoos make my life.

We have here 7 cups of mango, half a large papaya and an extra-large banana.  This meal was around 998 calories.

I will never not get a kick out of eating ice cream for dinner.

This was 6 cups of mangoes, 3 cups of banana, 170 grams of black berries and 170 grams of raspberries.  Totalling around 1150 cals.

Fruit pile

This was 5 cups of mango, 1/2 a large papaya, 2 cups of pineapple and a lovely dragon fruit.  This came to 895 calories.

JACKFRUITTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was a special meal!  This was 3 cups jackfruit, 4 cups mango and 4 large bananas.  It weighed in at 1350 calories of amazing.

I friggin live to eat dates.

Dates are one of my most favourite things to make meals out of.  These little guy have around 16 calories each.  I ate 48 of them with a papaya.  It came in at around 850 calories.

Eye balls.

I LOVE longans.  They are lower in calories, so I make sure to pare them with higher calorie fruits like bananas and mangos.  This was 100 longans, 8 strawberry guavas, 1 papaya, 4 mangoes and a medium banana.  It was 842 calories.

For my green meals, I like to make pasta;

So much on the fun side of things.

I love my pastas.  This one had 4 cups of zucchini, the juice of one orange, lemon and lime, some dill, parsley and cilantro with about a cup of cherry tomatoes.  It only had around 300 calories, so I was sure to eat my fill of fruit before I ate my pasta.  You could also serve your pasta over greens!

As for the fat, once a week I have this;

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Durian.

I love durian at an embarrassing level.

This is what works for me.  Some like to have a little fat every day, such as some avocado or nuts in their salads.  I have some once  week.  You just gotta do what works for you!

I hope this post was helpful and encouraging.  I like to plan out what I am going to eat in the morning, that way I don’t run into a situation where it is night-time and I have under eaten.  We must all find our own way however!

Lastly, the most important nutrient you must always take in, at least once a day;

Sun in the eyes

<3

Would you guys like to see more day in the life style posts from me, or do you prefer the more educational style?

See you fruity friends soon.

Hey Guys!  Happy long weekend to you if you are in a part of the world that has a long weekend right now!  If not, womp womp.  Just kidding. Sorta.

My long weekend was mostly working, but I still had a nice time!  The weather here in Van City was amazing, and I really like my job and the hours are really great so I was not bothered one bit.

There has been a bit of a trend these days of people blogging about “a day in the life.” So, being the copy cat that I am I decided to join in the fun!  Here is what my Saturday looked like!

I woke up at crows piss to do my Cardio.  Like seriously so early.  Saturdays as of late have meant Fire 60 from the workout package TurboFire;

Awe Yeah

That would be Chalean Johnson.  She is  a fitness instructor and motivational speaker for the company Beach Body.  I luff her.  I have been doing a hybrid of P90X and Insanity, also beach body programs, for the last almost three months.  I do TurboFire on my days off from those two work out programs.  It is cardio kick boxing mixed in with High Intensity Interval Training.  But mostly, it is FUN.

After that, I wrung out my clothes, tried to pretty myself up as much as possible, and headed to work.

On my way I saw this racoon;

Run little guy run!!

He was running because this crow;

Caw! Caw! Caw!

Was flipping absolute S^*%  that he was there for some reason.  They must have gotten into a fight about something.  I do not know off the top of my head what crows and raccoons would fight about.

I walked the rest of the way to work, and was greeted by the quiet peace of my post;

My job is inner peace.  Thank you Semperviva.

I busied myself with all the opening tasks, including making look nice the studio (I am not illiterate.  This is a quote from The Producers.  If you have not seen it, DOITNOW)

So Tidy Oop! (again, quote, not illiteracy)

After all the clients arrived and were tucked nicely into class, I did a few more tasks, and then I pulled some tarot cards.  I know, my life is so hard.

Cards are so pretty.  The one on the far right says “GO NOW!”  Al right, al right!!

When I was finished my shift, I went home to collect My Love.  As a side note,  My Baby Sister is in the shittiest place on earth (Calgary) for the next month, so you will not be seeing much of her.  But if you do see her, tell her Calgary is poop and we want her home.  Any way, My Love and I headed down Broadway to see the sights.  We stopped into this little candy/fancy foods store.  It was cool!

Kinda neat! Lots of spices and chocolate and vintage candy.

They had some Spanish smoked paprika, which I am thinking I am going to go back for, because it gives me an idea for a raw low-fat dip!  After that little stop, we kept heading down the street and were greeted by this lady;

She knew what she was singing…

I have no idea what she was singing.  The only way I can describe the sound is that her voice was making one note to all the words, and her little stringed instrument was making an entirely different note over and over and over again.  Also, her eye shadow was the same colour as her shirt.  I will be this lady one day.

After more walking, we finally made it to one of our intended destinations.  Aphrodite Cafe!  It is a neat little spot on 4th ave, and they are famous for their pies.  Also for their local art work;

Umm…???  I will admit, I perhaps just do not understand art.

My Love got himself a burrito and a half eaten salad;

I am only kidding. He had eaten the salad himself before I had a chance to snap a pic.

And I got Peppermint and licorice tea.  So yum.

Two faves rolled into one. Love it.

My Love was full from all his burrito fun, but could not leave without taking a teeny tiny little slice of chocolate cherry cream pie for the road.

I know. You can barely even see it.

Next it was BANYEN BOOKS!  I love this place.  It is a rather mystical book store with lots of crystals and incents and cards and everything a mystical person could ever want.  So much fun.

Tis a magical place.

We played with more cards;

I know I know, how many cards are to many in a day? No such thing, that is what I think.

Looked around at all the books and then decided it was time to go home.  I needed a snack;

I <3 SUMMER

Watermelon is starting to pop up everywhere and this particular one was so very juicy and sweet!  I bid fare well to My Love at this point as he was heading to the beach to partay down with is friends.   (He ended up coming home really early because he was suffering from allergies.  Poor My Love!)  I headed to Semperviva again, this time so that I could take class.

I swear, this is my last Semperviva plug of the day. But really, they do kinda rock.

I attended a Vinyasa Power Flow class lead by the lovely Jazz.  It was the perfect mix of intensity with challenging postures and hard-core relaxation.  It got into revolved bird of paradise for the first time.  NEAT.

I then came home for dinner;

Dragon fruits make my life better.

Mango banana ice cream, with a side of banana and dragon fruit.  because one can never have too much banana.  I snuggled in under by comforter and switched on my guiltiest of guilty pleasures;

So outstandingly dramatic. I lobes it.

Glee.  So.so.good.

And that is a Saturday in the life of a Fruit Bat!  What did you do on Saturday?

Before I go, are you guys interested in my posting more about my fitness regiments and what not?  I like to read about other peoples’ work out routines and the like, so if that is something you are interested in learning about me, let me know!!

<3

Hello all my fruity friends!

I was so pleased to hear that you all were not bored with me, and that you actually wanted to see my come back!  I am happy to blog for you, and to show you all my fruity goodies.

I received some requests for dip recipes and some videos, and those will be coming.  Today I want to show you all the meals that I have been eating whilst I have been away from cyber land!

In some coming posts, I will show you my latest trip to the market, and some special fruit that I have had.  For now, on to the fruity porn.

Those little gems in the middle are neked dragon fruits

Mangoes are back, and have been a staple for My Love and I.  I was waiting and waiting for them, and then all of a sudden BAM, they are everywhere!

icecreamicecreamicecreamicecream.

This was some mango, pineapple and banana ice cream.  I added a touch of vanilla and a side of smelly papaya.  Yeah, they smell like feet.  I am OK with it though.

No, not a pile of bugs. Those are dates silly!

Dates have come into my life, and I had no idea where I have been without them.  They give such an amazing sugar hit, and they tastes SO sweet.  These particular dates are the Hafez variety, and they are rumoured to be eaten at wedding ceremonies.  Now I understand the weird bride on the box cover…

Bowl of eyes. Or longans, whatever you prefer I suppose.

I will never tier of longans or of those little strawberry guavas.  The longans are so different and the guavas, so crunchy.  If you have not tried longans yet, I highly suggest that you do!  They are similar to lychee, but I think they are tastier…  It is fruit love over herrrrr.

Fruit salad, yummy yummy.

This fruit salad was inspired by a fruit ice cream that I used to make.  I used to blend together frozen cantaloupe and frozen raspberries.  I wanted something fresh, and I wanted this combination.  I had a honey-dew that needed to be eaten and an abundance of mangoes.  So what I did was chop up the melons, then I added to them some chopped mango and raspberries and mixed it all up.  As I did this the raspberries and mangoes fell apart and make kind of thick sauce.  It was AMAZING.  And as a side note, I don’t know if I will ever be able to spell cantaloupe without spell check.  Seriously, I don’t know what is wrong with me.

I cannot even tell you how amazing this tasted. I just can’t.

I could not leave you without showing you this little ditty.  This was mango and pineapple ice cream with fresh black berries and fresh raspberries smashed and stirred in.  OMG.  So yum. I just juiced the frozen mango and pineapple into an ice cream, and squished the berries with my fingers and stirred them in.  The berries give it some texture and tang, and the ice cream is just so smooth and sweet.  Good to eat.

Next post I am going to show you how I make a meal out of fruit.  I will show you what enough calories looks like in a meal, so that you will all stop being afraid to eat ALLOT.  I will have pictures.  So basically just more fruit porn.

<3

Hello all you wonderful people!

I have missed you!

Life has been crazy, and I have to admit this.  I stopped blogging because I thought maybe you all were getting bored with seeing my fruit and day to day stuff.  But I have actually received some comment s as of late that you people miss my ramblings!

Well, if it is ramblings you want, it is ramblings you shall receive.

I want to start making videos, so please, send me all your questions that you would like to me answer about me, yoga, being fruity or any thing else that tickles your fancy!

Will have some pics for you soon.

For now, let me know what you want to see around here.

Love you!

<3

Hello all!

I would love for you to come check me out on my new website!

http://unitycoaching.weebly.com/

Much Love

<3

Hello Fruit Friends!  How has life been?

Things have been amazingly fruity over here!  I have been eating a tonne of really awesome stuff.

Wanna see?!

Mangos are back!!

I had just been wishing for mangos to come back into my life, and then lo and behold, they did!

Mangoes and bananas

After I had been happy to see a few mangoes, one day this happened;

That is one full back pack.

I had this feeling last Saturday that I HAD to go to the market.  Usually I avoid going on weekend days, because it is so busy and everything generally gets picked over.  This day, I decided to throw caution to the wind, and see what was there.

I meandered my way through the crowds to my most favourite place, and the guy behind the cash register, (who has never spoken to me, and I have been going to his stand for over a year) came up to me and said ” You want more mango?”  I was aghast for a moment, blinking profusely, when I replied “Uh, yeah.”  ”How many mango you want?”  I said, “How many have you got?”  And he brought out a giant box full of these little beauties.  ”How much you do you want for it?!”  (Yes, I was shouting because I was excited, let it go.”  ”Seven dollar.”  YES.  So I ended up getting 31 mangoes for 7 monies.  My life is amazing.

I had mango mango and mango ice cream.

Looks so good right?!

I added some vanilla to it, and it tasted like amazing.

Om Nom Nom sums it up I believe.

There was also an amazing melon moment last week;

Look at dem!

I chopped them up good and froze them for melon ice cream;

A freezer full is a fruit bat secure.

I also had many persimmons, which never seem to be going out of style.  I am not upset about it.

So Many Yum

I realized you can separate out the little insides, the skin and the goop.

The skin and the seedy parts

Then you get persimmon pudding!!

so so good.

And finally like any good 80/10/10er,  I have been noshing on many bananas.

Part human, part MONKEY!

I have clearly been eating well.

How about you fruity friends?

<3

Hello Fruity Friends!  How is life treating you?

I hope that all of you had a wonderful and love filled day on the day of love.

I tend to look at Valentines day as a day to be extra generous with your love, not just with your special someone, but with ALL your special some ones!  I think it should be viewed as an awesome opportunity to remind all of the people in your life that are special to you that you love and appreciate them.

Our V-Day was filled with love exchanges.

First, My Love gifted me with this most lovely token;

On the purple back-drop of my "The Count" t-shirt.

I gave him this in exchange;

What? You don't want this?

Just kidding!  I cooked that batter into apple cinnamon pancakes.  Because My Love loves nothing more than Pancakes;

He nomed those like they had never even existed.

Baby Sister exchanged her pancakes on a lovely plate in our warm home, for pancakes in a to go container;

Mmmm, plasticy.

She was supposed to have the night off, but there was an emergency at her place of work, and so she exchanged rest for a shift.

"How did this happen to meeeee?"

In exchanged for the packaged pancakes of love, My Baby Sister gave My Love and I some tea;

Who does not love tea?

And finally, in exchange for chocolate and candies and other v-day classic treats, My Love and I dined on this;

VITAMINS on V-Day

Because there is no greater love than the love from Mother Nature, yes?

How did you celebrate the love exchange day?

<3