Sweaty Sundays and Vanishing Bees

This morning I finally made it to Yoga in the park, and it was worth every second of the early morning wake up call! The birds were chirping, it was warm with a slight breeze, there was a guy with bongoes, and I pretty much felt any tension melt away in a couple minutes. Something I struggle a lot with is tying my self worth to how busy I am. If I'm not busy, I must be lazy and that must equal I'm useless. And worthless. While I'm aware that's not how it works, it's something I struggle with a lot. Trying to focus on just letting quiet moments happen and enjoy them, not feel compelled to fill every single second with work. This past year has been incredibly challenging to me in that respect(moving across the country, quitting my job to focus on my photography, making my own schedule, decisions, choices). While I am extremely grateful that life has allowed me this opportunity, it comes with it's own challenges. In the end it can only make me stronger but trying to maintain balance throughout it can be frustrating(and rewarding too!). So this yoga class was a nice chance to reset, calm my mind, and just chill. The instructor's assistant was super cute too.

Yesterday was great, I went to the Vegan Expo which was conveniently held down the street from my house. It was quiet small, only taking up the front porch and one room of the building. There was some great granola bar samples from Taste Of Nature, which grows it's ingredients with organic sustainable farming practices. I liked that they only used whole food ingredients in them, and they're sweetened with agave and brown rice syrup. I tried the Brazil nut flavor, which was super delicious and not too sweet. There was also a huge array of free food which I attacked, the hummus was my favorite. My only complaint was that the speaker was held in the same room as a bunch of the booths, so you couldn't really comfortably converse with anyone at the booths. Hopefully next year they'll move into a bigger space!

After my roomate and I hung out in the park, then hit up Fresh for dinner. We munched on some Onion Rings, which were amazing as always, and I went with the Holiday wrap without the wrap.

Later last night I watch the documentary 'Vanishing Of The Bees'. After reading all the bee talk on Gena's blog, I was curious to find out more on CCD(Colony Collapse Disorder). It's a phenomenon that's been happening around the world, where bees just seem to vanish from their hives, yet very few bodies are being found. Bees play an integral part of our food chain, pollinating numerous plants which grow into the food we eat. Without bees, the majority of our food and vegetable supply would disappear, which would cause dire circumstances for the entire earth. Speculation about the causes have pointed towards pesticide use and GMO crops, as well as the lack of biodiversity in most farms in the States. In strong doses it appears that the pesticides poison the bees, disrupting their sense of direction and navigation, therefore making it impossible for them to find their way home.

Some beekeepers are taking up a more holistic, biodynamic approach to caring for their bees, and this seems to have a positive effect on them. Yet another reason that I believe farming needs to go back to it's roots and employ organic, biodiverse methods. This would cut down on pests' ability to flourish, as well as enable bees to have a wide variety of crops to pollinate and feed off of for longer periods of time,as opposed to fields of entirely one crop which bloom and die all at once. This type of farming forces beekeepers to move their groups(hives? herds? I don't know what you call them) to different fields all over, disrupting the bees and probably confusing them as well.

The documentary is as fascinating as it is disturbing, you can find it here: www.vanishingbees.com.

I've never really been sure of where I stand on honey consumption as a vegan. I don't eat a lot of it generally, but after watching the documentary I think I'm going to make a conscious effort to exclude it from my diet, perhaps unless I know where it is coming from, and how the bees are treated. Treatment of bees may sound a little ridiculous, but after watching the documentary and seeing how colonies are treated in larger scale factory farm bee situations, it's not something I'm really comfortable with, or that aligns with my beliefs.

Bees live in colonies each with a Queen, the rest are worker bees(all female), and drones(males, whose sole purpose is to mate with the Queen). In factory farm bee operations, the Queen is generally artificially inseminated after been drugged, and then after a short period of time being Queen she is killed to make room for a younger replacement. If left to their own devices, bee Queens in the wild may live for up to 5 years. As a vegan a principle I try to live by a Sanskrit phrase 'Ahimsa', which translate to 'avoid violence', or 'do no harm'. In my life I try to practice non-violence, whether towards animals, myself, or others. Bees are included as animals, and I just don't find myself comfortable with farming practices which kill needlessly or cause harm.

I'm aware that not all beekeepers run their hives this way, some take a more holistic approach to it, and maybe it would be a different situation if I knew how the bees were treated. Maybe not, though, since the same argument can be made for cattle that are grass fed, antibiotic free, and the like. It's a slippery slope when you start justifying some means of animal farming.

Anyone else have any thoughts on bees and beekeeping? On whether vegans should eat honey or not?

Shoes shoes shoes

Yesterday I met up with my friend Billie for lunch and some shopping, and I finally picked up some Nikes I've been eyeing up for a little while. Not gonna lie, partly just for the colour. Up until a month ago I was rocking the same Nikes I've had for 6 years, and for some reason they just wouldn't wear out(not a bad thing, really). Although the insides were a little softer than when I first started. While I was in Vancouver I picked up a new pair (New Balances, if you care to know). They weren't the comfiest, and I thought maybe they'd break in a little with a bit of wear. Sadly, I was wrong. The shoelaces were also the most useless pair I've ever encountered, they untied themselves every couple minutes. Even with triple knots.

Anyways, I got these babies home and I was super excited to take them for a spin so I ran down to the gym and hopped onto the elliptical on random. They literally had to kick me out of the gym(my habit of loving to work out at night just won't die). These shoes are perfect, like prancing on clouds but you also feel barefoot. And they're so bouncy. I'm in love.  Normally I'm more of a 5 inch platform kind of girl, so these are a bit of a departure from the norm. The colour makes me smile when I look at them though. Which happens a lot, I'm surprised I haven't run into something yet.

Something I've been learning lately is that you need to listen to your body. This is a new thing for me, I feel like I've spent so much of my life just making it do things it's not interested in(hours of cardio, for instance). In general I hate doing things I find boring(don't we all?), and my body seems to tolerate things it hates in the same way. Since completely changing my approach to fitness and working out, I now get so stoked to work out. Hence the double time at the gym yesterday. It kind of scares me sometimes. It reminds me of when I was suffering from an ED and forced myself to attack the exercise bike for hours despite the fact I was exhausted, and hating myself when I didn't. I hated that point in my life. This feels different though. I'm doing it cause I'm genuinely enjoying it. I'm learning more and more that your body is your house you have to live in, you need to work at making it last by taking care of it. It's such a revelation but so simple. But most important things in life are, I think. It usually just takes some living to figure it out.

This morning I tried to make it to the free yoga class at Lululemon, but unfortunately they had switched it over to Trinity Bellwoods park, so there was no way I was going to make it. Next week hopefully! Instead I went to Winners and finally bought a yoga mat to have here(I left my other one in Vancouver). There was also some kind of race going on in downtown Toronto, and it made me unreasonably gleeful to see all these other people working out. Like we were part of a secret society of people who like running around or something. All while I was bouncing around in my new shoes like a baby lamb, grinning from ear to ear, and clutching my new yoga mat. People must have thought I was nuts.

Sunday's my rest day, so I took it easy today and did a bit of gentle yoga to stretch out. Walked to get some groceries, prepped some food for the week, and caught up on Girls. I'm addicted to this show. Although the more I watch, the more it makes me miss NYC!

2 Lbs is No Joke!!

Up until recently I've been using 8 lb weights, so I decided to switch to 10 lbs this week. Who knew 2 little pounds would make that much of a difference? My biceps were dying for 3 days after. Honestly I'd been kind of intimidated to use weights in our gym, but then I realized no one cares what you're doing, they're just focussed on their own workouts. So now I'm over it. Kind of. This morning I woke up at 9:30(sleeping in is a thing of the past now that the sun has decided to get up nice and early and heat up my room making it impossible to sleep). Went to the gym and did this workout:

Bicep Curl to Arnold Press x 15(10 lb)
Bent over Dumbell Flyes x 15 (10 lb)
Overhead Tricep Extension x 15 (15 lb)
Tricep Kickbacks x 15 (10 lb)
Outward Bicep Curl x 15 (10 lb)
Deadlift with Dumbells x 15 (15lb)
Crunches x 15 (15 lb)
Russian Twists x 15 (15 lb)
x 3

and then did some 2 minute sprints with 2 minutes rest on the Treadmill for 20 minutes!

This week's been a little crazy, I shot the cover for an upcoming issue of Chloe Magazine the other day, which I can't wait to see hit newsstands! Last night for dinner my friend Dani and I hit Whole Foods, where I got a ginormous salad(obviously), and stuffed my face not so secretly with chocolate almonds in the bulk food section. And guzzled Kombucha, which for some reason was super bubbly and made me burp all throughout the night(TMI? Possibly. But it happened.) We watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which was hilarious. I don't think I've ever seen Keanu Reeves so unbrooding and chipper.

I also picked up a Black Bean Burger from Whole Foods yesterday and crumbled it up and topped a salad with it today. It was pretty tasty, I think I may attempt to make my own. It's hard to get off this tofu kick I've been on lately, I just can't help it!

I recently found out Lululemon has free yoga classes on Sundays, so I'm hitting that up tomorrow! Why didn't anyone tell me this? I feel like everyone's been holding out on me!! FREE YOGA?!!! I can't wait.