Saturday, April 3, 2010

Olivia Visits Philly!

I was super psyched to get some quality time with Olivia, HHJ contributor and dear friend, during her visit to Philadelphia! As you may know Olivia and I met while working on the board of a young women's organization in the city and became friends over a shared passion for nutrition and wellness. We've guest-blogged on each other's sites (VitaMix Love/Balancing Act) and have experimented together with elimination diets and a no-meat challenge. After exchanging countless emails over the course of her year abroad, I was elated to catch up with her in person!

We met up on Friday for yoga in Rittenhouse. We had some giggles as we made our way through a 90-minute vinyasa class. Olivia and I had been practicing yoga regularly (check out her blog post on this incentive) but for 20-30 minutes per day at best. This particular yoga class was hard-core with many balancing acts and contortions. We exchanged several funny looks but in the end the practice was om so worth it.

Famished from the class, we quickly headed to an italian restaurant across the street for yummy veggie dishes and an outside dining experience. We were so lucky to have beautiful weather too!
We caught up on the usual topics (work, man friends - she just got engaged!!!) and then got into our latest news on our nutrition goals/experiences. We've both felt really good after excluding meat from our diets but we occasionally struggle with foods that don't like us (gluten allergy and sugar sensitivity for her; dairy sensitivity for me).

We commiserated over our efforts of spending months of time away from trigger foods and how our bodies have negatively responded with even the slightest bit of transgression or divergence from our food plans. Why can't we have a glass of wine or a bite from a boyfriend's chocolate bar from time to time without having a breakout? We both also noticed that, ironically, we allow ourselves these trigger foods when celebrating or eating for comfort when the wisest thing would be to do the exact oppositge: celebrate and comfort with foods that are not detrimental to our health! We still want to tell our bodies to cut us a freakin break but they've gotten so accustomed to good nutritious food that they don't really appreciate the alternatives. They get really sensitive about this issue. :P

So after dinner when we headed to Rum Bar to meet up with her friends, we grabbed some club sodas with lime (YUM!). A fresh juice (pineapple, carrot, cucumber, lemon, lime, and orange) in the morning got us jump-started and pumped for our day - a long run on Kelly Drive for me and travel and family time for her. I wish I could see her more often but she'll be back in no time for her Fall wedding. Yay!

Seeing Olivia, fellow wellness warrior, and celebrating good health was the highlight of my week!

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