Sudden Fame, Soup and Salad

I saw one of my ongoing clients today at 9:45 in the morning. She had a double hip replacement a couple of years ago, and is doing pilates privately with me twice a week to become stronger in her hips as well as to gain overall strength and flexibility.

but right as we were wrapping up her appt, S., the owner of the studio, came into the room and stood there, looking at me with some urgency. This was odd. he doen't usually show up like that. He asked me if I had 20 min. or so, and I said yes. He asked if I would "jump into" the pilates classroom, where an advanced pilates class was happening (taught by his wife and co-owner of the studio, H.). There was a camera man in there, filming for either a commercial, or a webpage.. I'm not sure which yet, but S wanted me to get on the one last empty allegro (pilates machine) so that the class would be full during filming. Two of my co-workers were also in there, taking part in the class, so the room would look nice and full. I knew that we were going to be doing some filming this weekend, but I had no idea that they were actually starting today.

I didn't have time to think really... just ran to the back room, put on my toe sox really fast, and ran into the classroom. The class was going in full force - right in the middle of doing some intense 100's roll ups, H. cueing abs and rib funnel. It was fun and slightly surreal all of a sudden to have to "perform" and have a camera man stare down at me with his lens. The whole class was more quiet and focused than it usually is. People act differently when they're on video!

I didn't bring quite enough food to work with me today. Lunch was a sprouted wheat bun, toasted (the toaster at work has really come in handy) with almond butter on it. I also had a banana, an orange, and half of a Pure bar for a snack.

Towards the later afternoon I was really hungry. I stopped at my favorite" save-me -in-a-starving-pinch" health food store on the way home from work. Seriously, I'm sometimes embarrassed to go to this store, because I'm there just about EVERY day. Yes, I'm the woman who doesn't know how to do a big shopping once a week (I'm working on that). I picked up some ready-made organic salad. I love shredded beets, so my salad was full of beets, some sprouts, purple cabbage, shredded carrots, pumpkin seeds ( REALLY good in salad), and a little bit of feta dressing. I added some flax oil to it when I got home. I also had a big bowl of lentil soup that I made a couple of days ago, some raw filbert nuts, and lemon/ginger tea with agave and fresh lemon juice. It was delicious! Soup and salad are two of my favorites. I'd like to make a pot of soup every weekend during the fall and winter.

True Colors

Like many people who are trying to eat nutritiously, I sometimes use stevia powder as a sweetener. I use the little packets of white stevia powder to sweeten my tea, lemonade, smoothies, and even coffee. The packets are convenient and since it is so sweet, a little goes a long way. But being the organic snob that I am (I'm admittedly addicted to organic food), I began to wonder why I can't find any organic stevia.
Today, I wanted to make a smoothie as part of my lunch, and I had an idea. I'd look at my favorite health food store (just a few blocks away from my house), and see if they had any organic stevia in their bulk spice section. They have just about every other spice and powdery substance in bulk, but I never thought to look for stevia there.

And I found this:


organic stevia leaf.

It's green......

It makes sense that it's green, since stevia is a green leaf plant. I wonder if they process it to make it into the white form that you usually find it in.
So, this made me very happy to find! It's organic and it seems to be closer to its natural form. You should take a look at your health food store and see if you can find some. It's realllllly sweet. I used a little too much in my smoothie, but it was still tasty:

(all organic)
apple juice, non-fat milk, frozen strawberries, apple, cinnamon, and stevia.

I drank it with this:


two organic frozen flax waffles, with organic peanut butter. It was delicious, and just the right fuel after my run and before I went in to the pilates studio to work.

Oh, and half of this bar which is my favorite right now. It's organic, raw, vegan, and so GOOD. It's a chocolately brownie treat with walnuts. I'm thinking of buying a bulk box online.



Speaking of colors, I'm loving the fall colors of this time of year:
My buffet at the moment:


Bright red (spotted while taking a walk):

Enjoy,
xo