Getting ready for 2018!

What better way to get ready for the new year than to start a blog!

A little about me, my name is Cindy, I teach dance, acro and cheerleading. I enjoy singing, making AND eating food, photography, traveling and spending time with my amazing, beautiful and talented daughter, my two dogs and my best friend and other half, the Sour to my Sweet… ok and sometimes the Sweet to my Sour.

I have traveled and lived in many amazing places and in each place have found wonderful friends. I’m new here enjoying the snow and mountains it is all very breathtaking. My last home was in Hawaii where I fell in love with the warm weather and beautiful beaches, so being here in the mountains of the mainland, now is quite the contrast.

This blog I am starting is just a little look into my day to day life. I’m a girl who loves to talk and meet new people. I love reading other people’s blogs so I’m excited to start my own!

Now on to the good stuff! My first recipe on my new blog!!!

I woke up and had some fresh juice (apples and half a lemon) before heading out to run some errands.

I came home and woke up Carlos with a coffee so I could toss together one of our favorite little brunch meals.

Tofu scramble

• 1 Package firm tofu

• 1/2 red onion

• 1 clove garlic

• 1 tbs turmeric

• Dash of smoked paprika

• Salt and pepper to taste

Heat pan with your favorite oil and let the onion and garlic sauté (I let it go about 3 to 5 minutes) Then drain tofu and crumble it into the pan and mix with your onion and garlic. Season with turmeric, paprika, salt and pepper and let cook on low heat for another 5 minutes stirring often.I like to serve with fresh cilantro, tomatoes and avocado. We had some mushrooms in the fridge and so I cooked some up with garlic and smothered it over the scramble. If you try it let me know what you think! I hope to blog my favorite recipes on here and get inspired from others to create some amazing plant based food.Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time!

---

Summer body

It’s time, summer is just around the corner.

The plan: workout 5- 6 days a week

The food: plant based raw till 4

The goal: drop fat add muscle

Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings cardio run. Tuesday, Thursday mornings elliptical. Gym in the afternoon/evening.

Weekends, relaxing yoga/Pilates and long walks with the dog.

First thing, cup of green tea with lemon each morning. Green tea helps boost metabolism.

Breakfast, fresh juice and fruit.

Lunch, smoothie with lots of spinach and green tea.

Dinner salad with veggies, avocado and hummus

Before bed simple smoothie made with green tea.

March 2018

It’s been a while since my last post. We have had a very busy month. So I thought I would highlight some of the things we did this month.

We started off with this guys birthday. We had a small party at home and then took a road trip to the city to sample a few vegan restaurants.

March was also dance competition month. We traveled and stayed for 2 weekends.

Spring is here so we took a few trips up for some camping and hiking.

It has been a fun month for sure with lots of traveling, I do miss my juicing so I’m glad to be back home for April and have my fresh juice every day! I also hope to start blogging again on a regular basis.

We bought our first conversion van!

We have been looking for the perfect starter rv, something small enough to get around in but big enough to sleep comfortably on spontaneous camping adventures.

We were able to pick up a 1995 chevy roadtrek 190 versatile. It only had 55,000 original miles on it and in very good condition.

We drove it home and i personally am very excited that I feel comfortable behind the wheel. I was worried that we would have something that was too big for me, but this drives just like a SUV.

There are a few things I am not sure how to work on this, like how to get the coach battery to work so I can have lights in the dinning area in the back. If anyone knows a thing or two about roadtrek, let me know.

I have my Instagram, where I will be posting from the van.

@ sweetandsouradventure

I can’t wait for our first adventure!

Raw till 4, what I eat.

So it’s Monday and I’ve had lots of really good days until yesterday. But I realized every day is not going to be perfect, so you do your best and move on.

Let go of negativity and breath in positivity. Fresh raw foods help me to feel clean and positive about life, as silly as that may sound.

Focusing on my goals and reminding myself, you can do this. Today I started off with a very strong juice that woke me up right away, and for my breakfast I made a banana smoothie. I have the rest of my day planned out and I’ve found that’s the key. Here is my day eating raw till 4:00.

Wake up

The green lime zinger made in the juicer:

• 1/2 Lime
• 2 Cucumber
• 1 stalk of Celery
• 3 Apple

Breakfast

Banana power: (not pictured)

• Almond milk 1 cup
• 2 bananas
• 1 tlbs almond butter
• Plant based protein (raw organic chocolate from garden of eden)
• Spoon of hemp seed
• Spoon of chia
• Spoon of flax

Mix in the blender add more milk if you like a thinner shake.

Snack

Orange carrots in the juicer:

• 2 oranges
• 10 carrots
• Small piece of ginger
• Splash of coconut water

Lunch

Purple dream in the juicer:

• Half head purple cabbage
• 3 apples
• Half a lemon
• 1 stalk of celery

I also had a banana and the other half of the banana power shake I made for breakfast.

Dinner

Quinoa bowl

• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• Spring salad mix
• Hummus avocado mix
• Cilantro

Fill the bowl first with quinoa then layer salad on top. Mix equal parts of mashed avocado and hummus together and top the bowl.

Snacks

Almonds and freshly made popcorn with nothing added.

Overall a god day, and a great start to the week!

Friday, you always make me happy!

Ok so I don’t really have a topic for this blog, but it’s Friday so that’s a good thing.

It’s a beautiful middle of January, sun shining, cool crisp morning, nice slow easy going kinda day.

I woke up and made breakfast for Carlos, then got ready with my glass of celery cucumber apple juice.

I took my time getting ready and then had my Friday morning lazy couch time.

I have just started a new workout program and I feel better than I have in a long time. Between the raw till 4 and new workouts, not to mention getting extra sleep the other day, I really feel like a new person. I’m ready to transform in 2018!

Juicing and workouts

Hello world, today I am awake and rested but not energetic for the day yet. 7:30am, laying on the couch, noticing that I’ve been up for over an hour this morning already. I have errands I have to run before work but they are not open yet. That means I have free time to blog!

So I’ve been doing a juice cleanse/raw till4 combination this week. I have done a juice fast many years ago and made it fine. I am finding this time around a little harder so I am juicing from morning till about 4pm then I’m eating 1 of 3 things; a salad, a rice/quinoa bowl, or overnight oats with chia. I’ve shown some salads and oats in my blogging before, so let’s talk about the rice bowl.

Rice bowl:

• Rice or quinoa
• Spring salad mix
• Beans
• Tomatoes
• Peppers
• Hummus
• Avocado
• Lemon
• Cilantro

Add your cooked rice or quinoa to your bowl, top with salad mix, beans, peppers and tomatoes. In a separate bowl mix 2 spoons of hummus with 2-3 avocado and mix with juice from 1 lemon. Add mixture to your bowl and top with cilantro.

Serve with a little celery juice. I like to add a little apple and lemon to this juice. Very refreshing and so many health benefits!

Sunshine in a glass.

It is freezing today, grey and cold outside just makes me want to stay under The covers. But I decided to get up and make it a large glass of orange juice for breakfast.

Sunshine in a glass:

• Oranges
• A lemon
• Fresh ginger

I put this in my juicer and not only does it smell amazing, it makes me feel happy.

These are really big glasses and it took us probably 30 minutes to finish.

Now that I’m up moving around I’m feeling ready for the day. We are going to head out to the gym soon and when we get back I’ll make another juice.

I always love a relaxing weekend and even though it’s not a bright sunny day, I’m feeling good, full of energy and ready to go out. Much better than staying under the covers all day, that’s for days you are sick and I’m not sick so let’s go!

Raw till whenever

Good morning, the sun is out and it’s a cool crisp morning. I didn’t wake up very hungry this morning so I had a small glass of pineapple, apple, orange juice.

I also made a beet lemon juice and a carrot apple juice.

Raw till 4 is something I found out about a few years ago when I was living in Hawaii. It is a lifestyle that really worked well for me. I love it for a few reasons, first off it helped me get down to a healthy weight. I also really like how easy it is! I like to cook every now and then, but I would much rather spend my time at the beach, on a hike or shopping. Eating raw till 4 I just get up and my food is already to go, a banana for breakfast, some grapes for a snack, carrots and tomato tossed into a bed of spinach with some avocado and nuts for lunch, oranges for a snack and then a cooked meal like rice with hummus and veggies and then a fruit smoothie for dessert. I usually juice everyday or every other day and I have fresh juice during the day as well.

And now after writing this blog, I’m hungry, so time to go grab some fruit. Have a great day.

It’s January!

Welcome to 2018!

I just started this blog in December 2017 for a few reasons. First of all, I love taking pictures, especially of my food and this is a way for me to share my recipes. Secondly I am using this as a little online diary to put down any excitement that happens in my life. Third, I want to meet other people! I love to travel and have met so many awesome people, and here withe the magic of the internet I can meet even more!

I would love to use this blog to meet at least 5 new people so please introduce yourself!

Those of you who have already seen my blog the past few weeks know that I am a plant based, raw till 4 believer.

I have not shared my before and after photos yet, so here we go.

This first picture was taken in 2013

This next photo was taken December 29 2017.

I chose these photos because I was not at my highest weight in the top photo but you can really see the puffiness in my face.

These next before and after we’re taken in 2014 and 2015.

The key to losing not only weight, but puffiness for me were these simple steps;

• Green tea in the morning

• Eating raw till 4pm (fruits and veggie meals till 4 and then cooked meal after 4)

• Cutting out processed white sugars

• Cutting out breads and pastry (no yeast)

• Moving more even if it was just walking

I believe anyone can do this and I will be sharing what I eat in this blog so you can get some ideas of a raw till 4 lifestyle!

But first let’s talk about party food! Don’t think that you have to eat salad every day of the year for the rest of your life, even though I make some amazing salads! I’m going to show you our party banana split we had last night.

Doesn’t that look amazing? There are so many different flavors in this bowl but they all blend together to make a party in your mouth!

Party banana split bowls:

• Banana

• Pineapples

• Raspberries

• Blueberries

• Strawberries

• Fruit persevere of your choice, I used peach

• Mango sorbet

Cut fruit into bowl add sorbet and fruit preserve and enjoy!

I hope you all enjoy ready my blog, I would love to hear for you all! Have a happy Monday!

Sunshine salad

I was so hungry after my busy day, “what’s for dinner?” We put together this orange sunshine salad in no time!

It’s Friday, I had my last day at sephora and then ran to sprouts to pick up some fresh produce. I’m glad I did because when I got home I checked the mail and got a letter I’ve been waiting for that required be to turn around and head right back out the door to run some more errands.

Needless to say when I got home from all that I was ready to eat!

Sunshine salad:

• Lettuce
• Cilantro
• Yellow and green bell pepper
• Garbanzo beans
• Cucumber
• Tomato
• Avocado
• Oranges
• Almond

Chop and toss all ingredients. Squeeze a fresh orange over your salad before eating.

Fast, easy and filling. Now time to lay down on the couch for a bit and get ready for the weekend!