vegan beauty

The 2014 Holiday Vegan Gift Guide, Part 2

December 15th, 2014

So I had some more ideas for holiday gifts for vegans. 10 more to be exact. I hope you find them helpful. Let me know what you think on Facebook or in the comments.

1. House plants

I saw this image about house plants that clean your air on pinterest and it made me crave a baby rubber tree for my apartment. How cool would it be to have all of these plants in your room. Anyway, you could pick up one of these at a nursery or order them online. Another great idea is to get someone a potted lemon tree. I bought one for my dad last year and it has grown so many lemons, even in snowy, cold Connecticut.

2. Wooden Bowel and Mezzaluna for chopped salads

Ever since I got the idea to buy a wooden bowl and chopper on amazon, I have eaten salad almost every night. I like the taste of chopped salads way better and it is a lot of fun to see how effortlessly the mezzaluna chops everything. I don’t know what I would do without mine now. I think it would be a pretty cool gift.

3. Warrior Princess necklace

For some reason I never wear jewelry but I fell in love with this woman’s jewelry store SdeVDesigns when I saw it in a holiday market in NYC. She travels all around the world sourcing stones and beads from exotic locales and she has a great eye because all the colors work so well together.

I bought this necklace they call the Warrior Princess for myself and I love it.

4. My current favorite item from my cool vegan shoes pinterest board

I don’t make any money from my cool vegan shoes pinterest board, but I just thought I’d mention it again in case you are in need of a vegan gift since there are already 752 vegan items on there you can buy online (although some of the really old ones are probably sold out by now and shouldn’t count(but most are still available)). All you have to do is click on the image and it will take you to the place they’re selling it online. One of my favorite items on there now is this fairy tale like snow white/evil queen ish coat I found from fellow vegan blogger @fashionveggie.

asylum coat in prussian blue

I would feel as if I were being chased by wolves through a snowy Russian forest wearing this or maybe that I was a enchantress versed in the dark arts who communed with the wolves.

5. The Vegan Stoner Cookbook for New Vegans

I am not a stoner, but this vegan cookbook that I found in the book section of Urban Outfitters is surprisingly amazing. I wanted to buy it, but thought I shouldn’t because I am trying to do the whole High Carb Low Fat fruit based vegan thing. But if you know someone who cares more about eating amazing vegan food than being uber low fat, this recipe book would be perfection because the recipes look so good yet are so simple to make using only a couple of ingredients. If I knew anyone who had just gone vegan I would buy them this book for sure. Maybe I should have a copy on hand just in case…..

6. Salt Crystal Lamp

There is something so magical about these lamps with their warm pink glow. You see them in spas a lot and I’ve always loved them. You can find them for pretty cheap on amazon and in different shapes like a pyramid and a globe if you prefer. This one is the highest rated though and the one I think I would buy after much thought.

7. A dehydrator

A dehydrator is a really cool thing to have for a person interested in raw veganism or health. You can make apple chips, kale chips, your own sundried tomatoes, dehydrated bananas, and these really awesome raw vegan cinnamon rolls which caused a panic/feeding frenzy at the Woodstock Fruit Festival. I want one.

8. Tickets to the Woodstock Fruit Festival in Hawaii

Although this would be a really extravagant gift, it would be an experience of a lifetime. I’m really excited for this event. Michael Arnstein, the founder of the festival, said he wanted to throw it so people can really experience what it’s like to live a fruitarian lifestyle in the tropics where it is meant to be lived. Anyone planning on going?

9. 3 Creamy Vegan Cheeses

Out of curiosity I am very interested to try these vegan cheeses made by this famous vegan cheese maker. I think this would be an awesome gift. Classic double cream chive? Imagine how good that tastes!

10. 7 hot dates sampler

7 Hot Dates is an organic date farm in California that grows many cool varieties of dates that are way fresher and better tasting than dates you can get at a supermarket. You can get a sampler that will last you months. The dates taste like caramel candies and everyone loves them (I made the mistake of leaving my sampler on the counter and my favorite section was picked clean in a day).

Well that’s 10. Also check out my first Holiday Vegan Gift Guide for 2014 if you missed it. And let me know if you have any other good gift ideas. Hope you all have a wonderful day.

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Does Raw till 4 Work for Weight Loss? For Me it Did

September 22nd, 2014

Hi guys,

Wanted to give a little update about my weight loss.

It’s kind of shocking to me and also a little confusing. I was a person who thought I would never lose any weight. I had tried so many things in the past.

It reminds me of something Doug Graham (author of 80/10/10) said at one of his lectures at the Woodstock Fruit Festival. He joked that the alternate title he was considering for 80/10/10 was “Because Nothing Else Works”.

He was like, “But seriously, how many of you guys tried vegetarian? (yes) vegan? (yes) high fat raw? (yes) raw till 4? (yes)…”

He was like, if they worked for you, and got you the results you wanted, you wouldn’t have done 80/10/10. He was like, believe me, the only reason I do 80/10/10 is because it works. I like bread as much as the next guy.

I had to agree, I myself had gone through all those stages and had to agree that for weight loss, energy, fitness, 80/10/10 is the best. I think raw till 4 (which is what I’m back to doing) is still very good and perhaps a lot more sustainable, but 80/10/10 gets you it all, if you can do it.

Anyway, even being raw till 4, which is basically doing 80/10/10 correctly most of the time…you can get amazing results.

For weight loss, it works. I see many people talking about weight gain on raw till 4 but I never gained…I’ve lost! I’m kind of in shock that it actually worked 1 and 1/2 years out.

I feel almost lame admitting it, but weight loss was one of my deepest wishes for so much of my life.

You know how when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake and make a wish. I wished so many times to be skinny.

I wish I could have been truly happy with how I looked, as I see so many totally adorable chubby kids. But I didn’t know how.

I couldn’t get over the fact that I didn’t look as good as the little kid models in the American Girl catalog. Ha. I really wish I had figured it out back then and was super happy with myself and said F THE HATERS!!! I LOOK AWESOME every day in the mirror when I woke up.

But it’s ok that I didn’t.

In a sense, it is good as I now fully understand the struggle so many women have with their weight on a gut level. And I would never judge anyone for being fat. I know what they deal with. And I think dealing with it made me a more sensitive person than the norm…in a good way. Sometimes I even wonder if that is why I like and understand animals so much and even became vegetarian and then vegan. I think being an outsider in some way because of my weight made me sensitive to animals, who many are too busy to take the time to understand. Do you guys think that ever?

Anyway, the other day I weighed myself at I was 146 pounds, which is the lightest I can remember being since this one crazy year in high school. I used to be around 160 for a long time.

(ME–sorry my eyes look very DEAD in this photo)

I bought bikinis the other day even. I wanted to wear a bikini for so long but felt I looked so far from what you were supposed to look like in a bikini that people would be scared. I remember last year I bought this pink bikini thinking that thanks to all my raw food I could finally wear a bikini…but I felt so pasty and blob like I just sent it back. But now, I look a lot different.

(me in a fruit bikini. still very curvy? But that’s in these days)

My before photo:

I did it.

With no dieting. No calorie restricting. Never being hungry.

I can’t believe it.

Longterm the weight will come off little by little. Freelee the banana girl is right about that I guess.

So does raw till 4 work? I never thought I’d be the one saying this, but for me, a person who never thought she would ever lose weight, having given up on losing weight, it worked.

You can see before and after pictures of me here. The latest ones are at the bottom of the page.

How are you guys doing on raw till 4? Have you gained? Or lost? I have been doing it for 1 an 1/2 years so it has taken all that time to lose 15 pounds…like Freelee says it take a long time….but i think it was very worth it.

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