Source: http://www.fannetasticfood.com/2016/04/28/my-fave-homemade-veggie-burgers/

Hello my friends! Matt and I had a really fun night last night because one of my best friends from college, Lu (aka Laura), and her boyfriend Connor are here visiting! They are on a big road trip (living out of their awesome tricked out van) and swung by DC as part of the adventure. They live out in Berkeley, CA so we don’t get to see them much – such a fun treat to have them here!

I invited them over for dinner at our place last night; they are both vegetarian so it was a good excuse to bust out one of my old favorite recipes: Easy Lentil Veggie Burgers!

I hadn’t made that recipe in way too long and was a little nervous about how they would turn out, but they ended up being delicious! Super easy recipe to use for entertaining, too, because you prep everything beforehand and then when your guests arrive and you start getting close to ready to eat you just pop them in the oven! They don’t look delicious raw (let’s be honest, they totally looked like poop – Matt was a little nervous about them lol) but they taste really good when cooked, I promise. <img src="http://www.fannetasticfood.com/wp-…

Source: http://www.thefitbits.com/2016/04/where-it-all-began-how-i-got-into.html

Facebook reminded me of something great yesterday.

On 27th April 2011, I tentatively walked through the door of a popular Zumba class near my house with a friend. I’d heard about Zumba before but assumed it was basically a bunch of old ladies side-stepping to salsa music.

It was the very first exercise class in all of my 25 years’ existence, and I spent the whole class three steps behind everyone else, with the grace of a charging elephant, but a grin plastered across my face. Zumba taught me not to give a shit about what I looked like when exercising.

I met some amazing people (like Linda, below), and realised that fitness could actually be fun.

Linda showing us why Zumba’s so much fun – and me facing the wrong way AGAIN

It was the beginning of the end. Of the old me, that is – the lazy, podgy smoker whose idea of a healthy breakfast was three cigarettes and a cheese toastie. (Man, I want a cheese toastie now…)

Don’t get me wrong – I was by no means unhapp…

Source: http://clubindustry.com/planet-fitness/woman-drives-car-through-california-planet-fitness-gym-seriously-injures-four

A 70-year-old woman who was trying to park in a handicap parking spot crashed into the Planet Fitness gym in Torrance, California, on Wednesday.

read more

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Source: http://greatist.com/live/should-you-stop-hugging-your-dog?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_http–greatistcom-

By now you’ve probably seen at least one headline claiming that dogs hate hugs. But what you may not know is that those articles are not referencing a scientific study but rather an op-ed from Psychology Today.

The author of the article, Stanley Coren, Ph.D., analyzed more than 200 photos of people hugging their pups. He looked for signs of doggy stress—drooped-down ears, half-moon eyes (when you can see the white part at the corner or rim), turned-away heads—and found that the majority of dogs displayed at least one sign. His theory? Dogs are naturally built to run, so when you restrain them from moving, it makes them more stressed.

Worst news ever, we know. But it’s important to recognize that this is just one researcher’s observations, not a peer-reviewed study. As The Washington Post points out, we don’t know how random the photo selection actually was, nor do we have much background on the photos (was the pup already stressed? How does the dog typically appear when he’s not being hugged?).

So while we’re not suggesting you smother your dog in hugs and kisses, more research is certainly needed. The most important thing is to pay attention to your own dog’s reaction. And if you’re at all worried, you can always opt for a nice belly rub or head pat instead.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/nfoiNc_7vy0/

“The cure for the pain is in the pain.” ~Rumi

Your body keeps a physical memory of all of your experiences.

You have lots of memories stored in your brain that you can recount at any given moment. You can recall names, faces, where the event took place, what it smelled like. But over time, these memories fade or change as time passes and we mature. However, even when the memory begins to fade from your brain, it lives on in your body in the form of physical sensations and behavior patterns.

The body doesn’t forget.

The events of our lives leave physiological imprints in our bodies, especially when we experience trauma or situations of extreme stress that cause the body to fight, flee, or freeze in order to cope.

In a perfect world, we would be able to release the trauma or soothe the stress response soon after it was triggered. But we don’t live in a perfect world, so we’re all walking around with physical imprints of past experiences (good and bad) stored in our bodies. Most of us don’t know how to release them because we don’t even realize they exist!

You may feel your body tense up when you have to ask for help or borrow money, or your face may get hot when you’re asked to speak in front of a crowd. The …

Source: http://www.sonima.com/meditation/reflections-passover-preparations/

Passover is a holiday about storytelling. We spend weeks preparing, cleaning, learning, and meditating, so that we may unlock the doors to home and self; so that we become vulnerable and ready to reorient ourselves towards the Passover narrative. Each year, we retell the Exodus story, but we also reenact our own stories.

Leading up to the seders—our ritual nights of order and of commandment—I’m in the kitchen with my mother (and often my grandmothers), preparing the feast. It’s a gift to be around her. The way she moves so gracefully and ungracefully from stove to sink to cookbook and back again. ShareTweetPlusPin

In the times of the temple, the high priests would prepare the korban, the Paschal sacrifice. Each move, each garment, each seasoning was dictated. We freestyle a little more than the priests did, but that, too, is part of our dance.ShareTweetPlusPin

Though we spend hours on our feet washing, chopping, peeling, slicing—the food is not at the center of the seder experience. And so, we experience the transience of the color…

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/04/27/472581773/loathed-by-farmers-loved-by-ancients-the-strange-history-of-tiger-nuts?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

The earliest records of tiger nuts date back to ancient Egypt, where they were valuable and loved enough to be entombed and discovered with buried Egyptians as far back as the 4th millennium B.C. Now, tiger nuts are making a comeback in the health food aisle. Nutritionally, they do OK.

Matailong Du/NPR

Take a look at some lawns this spring. You might see something that looks like a crown of thin leaves and spikey, yellow flowers shooting over the grass, particularly if you live in the South. If the stems are triangular, you’ve just found a sedge. Dig it up. If it’s the right kind of sedge, clinging to the roots will be a few chewy, brown, marble-s…

Source: http://www.sonima.com/videos/meditative-seat/

Watch video on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDzqViN8cJA

One of the most basic purposes of the yoga practice is to help prepare the body for meditation. When the body is at ease, and all the kinks are worked out, sitting for an extended period of time becomes more possible. In this short tutorial with Jai Sugrim, a New York City-based yoga teacher, you’ll learn a couple different variations for finding a comfortable meditative seat. Regardless of the tightness of your hips or back, you’ll come to understand a few basic points for assessment that will help gauge your range of motion. Follow along, and get comfortable!

Related: Join Sonima’s 10-Day Meditation Challenge

The post How to Find a Comfortable Seat for Meditation appeared first on Sonima.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/4jmWpLipVqI/

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.” ~Carlos Castaneda

I’ve always had issues with food, but in the past five years this struggle became a full-blown eating disorder.

I remember the first time I thought I was too big, in fourth grade. Now I know that I wasn’t too big. Maybe I hadn’t outgrown my baby fat yet, but I wasn’t overweight. Still, all the other girls at my school were smaller than me.

There was one day when a pediatrician came to our school for a health check. Everyone was measured, weighed, etc. I can still feel the sheer horror I felt when my friends asked about my weight.

I lied, but they didn’t believe me. Instead, they called me fat and ugly and told me that they didn’t want to play with me any longer.

This feeling, this shame, stuck with me all my life.

Since that day I’ve struggled with low self-esteem and the fear of not being accepted for who I am. I believe this was beginning for my eating disorder.

Inner Voices

In therapy I learned that my self-talk influences me tremendously, and I also learned that the inner voices aren’t always right. Sometimes they are ego-driven, and not focused on what’s the best for me in …

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/04/27/475768129/nurse-spy-cook-how-harriet-tubman-found-freedom-through-food?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

Harriet Tubman, who will soon be the first African-American to grace a U.S. currency note, spent her whole adult life raising money either to rescue slaves or help them start life afresh on free soil. While her abolitionist friends in the North were generous contributors to the cause, Tubman also self-funded her heroic raids through an activity she enjoyed and excelled at: cooking.

Tubman’s role as a professional cook, which provided her with a much-needed source of money in her long and poverty-stricken life, has often been overlooked.

Tubman was the daughter of a cook. Her mother, Rit Ross, worked in the “big house” on the plantation in Dorchester County, Md., where Tubman was raised. An early food-related incident is testimony to the future General Tubman’s strong-willed character. When she was about 6, Tubman was hired out to a neighboring farm – a common practice at the time – run by James and Susan Cook. When she got there, writes biographer Kate Clifford Larson in Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero, the hungry little girl was so nervous in the company of a white family, she refused the milk offered by her new mistress.

“I was fond of milk as any young shoot,” Tubman later said to her first biographer, Sarah Bradford. “But all the time I was there I stuck to it, that I didn’t drink sweet milk.”

She spent almost two unhappy years with the family, during which she was regularly flogge…