My Raw Cleanse Begins

Greetings all & happy Monday!

Today is not just any Monday for me, but the start date of my raw vegan cleanse.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, there is such a thing as raw veganism. This means that everything consumed in this diet is in its natural state, food that has never reached above 118 degrees F. In eating only raw plant foods, the complex balance of micronutrients remains intact, delivering the body with the maximum amount of vital nutrients.

After finals week, Christmas sweets and the new year ahead of me, I figured I am just about due for a cleanse. To me, going raw seems like the perfect way to do just that. My goal is to make it until 4PM each day (#rawtil4), as it is winter and I may just be dying for some hot food on these chilly days. If I’m feeling up to it though, I may just stay raw the entire day (ambitious me!).

P.S. I’m allowing myself to cheat with green & herbal teas for warmth!

I will be continuing on my workout routine and will try to take photos everyday documenting my results.

So far, my food today has consisted of…

• Almonds (pre-workout)
• Fruit & veggie smoothie w/ PB2 & chia seeds (post-workout)
• Red bell pepper
• Chopped brussels sprouts & kale mixed w/ olive oil, garlic, basil, lemon & black pepper topped w/ sunflower seeds
• Red grapes
• Green tea

I feel very content.

My goal is to stay raw for 2 weeks! Feel free to join me on this raw vegan adventure. I’m excited. 🙂

I’ll keep you all posted. Chow for now.

My 2nd Vegan Christmas

Merry Christmas, all!

The holiday season is honestly the best time of year by far. As I get older, I seem to appreciate it even more and more. Not for the superficial commercialism that it tends to become, but the true meaning of the season.

In the spirit of it all, I can’t help but feel so blessed for all that I have. I’m healthy, happy and surrounded by an amazing bunch of friends and family that love me. What more could I want?

Although some delicious plant-based cookies never hurt…

Here’s the round-up for this Christmas!

• Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Cookies (The Skinny Fork)

My favorite cookies so far!

• Pumpkin Truffles (My Whole Food Life)

Not as picture perfect as we would have liked, but still taste good!

• Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies (Detoxinista)

• Raw Chocolate Truffle Balls (Divine Healthy Food)

Maybe best served frozen for a harder consistency

On Christmas morning, I started off with one of my amazing smoothies to energize me for present opening.

Frozen bananas, frozen blueberries, spinach, almond milk, PB2 & chia seeds on top

This year, I received some excellent gifts, per usual, but especially cool kitchen-related ones. Santa gifted me with an easy-off cutting board, paring knives, large burrito-bowl shaped bowls, top-notch peelers and the most amazing food processing system, the Ninja.

As a treat after opening presents, we whipped up some Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls (Vegan Richa)—which trust me, were long awaited. I can’t even tell you the last time I’ve been able to have cinnamon rolls. Well, I guess over a year and a half ago for sure.

For dinner, my mom and I made some Pumpkin Chili (Julia’s Album), in an attempt to use up the last of the pumpkin puree we had around the house. We even doubled the recipe knowing it would probably be a great one, and we were right. It was so delicious–what a great switch up of pumpkin to the savory variety.

Again, I feel so incredibly blessed to live the life I do and the holiday season is just the perfect reminder of that.

I’ll leave you with this Christmas 2014 farewell from Hudson, the Elf!

Stay healthy & happy, my chowido-ers!

Chow.

 

Blog Face Lift

Seasons greetings!

Winter break has officially begun, and I couldn’t be more excited to be home with my friends, family and little pup.

Amongst all the excitement of the season and the new-found down time I will have  leading up to Christmas, I decided my blog needed a little face lift. After all, it’s been since May 2013, when I first created CHOWIDO, that it’s been changed.

So…I gave it a new theme, upgraded to my own domain (chowido.com), updated my “About Me,” “Recipes,” added “Contact,” and “Why Vegan?” and created a brand new logo! I hope you all enjoy the makeover as much as I do.

In the meantime, life is good. This past semester, my very last fall semester of college and easily my most hectic, is complete. How bittersweet it is.

Like I mentioned, I have been super busy these past four months or so, so as you can imagine, there was not too much time to be blogging. I tried for quality over quantity, so I hope you beared with me.

Here are some note-worthy updates though!

• I founded The Veg Club of Virginia Tech in August and have made slow, but sure progress in establishing it on campus. We are up to 29 members and plan to go through a full recruitment process come Spring semester. I am overjoyed at the passion that this club already possesses. It’s amazing the power a group of passionate individuals can have when joined together. I see a real future for this organization and I’m just glad I could place down the stepping stones.

• I finished my year-long term as President of my business fraternity, Pi Sigma Epsilon. I gained a tremendous amount of experience as a leader and marketing professional and am so grateful to have had the opportunity to serve so many remarkable individuals.
• My career search is still on-going! I am very interested in a particular natural, wholesome foods focused grocer, and have been putting forth full effort to snag a job with them. Hopefully the odds will soon be in my favor. I have been highly interested in this company for a while, enough so that I am completely open to any relocation (hello West coast?). I see myself working for a company that holds the same worldly mission and beliefs as I have grown to have, and this company has exactly that. At this point, sitting at a desk 8+ hours a day on a computer is out of the question. I know I need to be on my feet and making a difference.

In other news…

I’ve been obsessed with smoothies lately, and not just that, but smoothie bowls! It’s so much fun to eat a smoothie with a spoon, and especially post-workout. It’s just the fuel my body needs to recover and move on with my day with full-fledged plant-powered energy.

My Perfect Green Smoothie: 2 frozen bananas, handful of frozen blueberries, handful fresh spinach, almond milk, PB2, chia seeds on top

Blueberry Loaded Smoothie: 2 frozen bananas, 2 handfuls of frozen blueberries, handful of fresh spinach, almond milk, PB2, chia seeds & PB2 on top

And when my sweet tooth hits, just a slight variation of the smoothie bowl and I get nana-nice cream! (I add slightly less almond milk to create a thicker, fro-yo like consistency)

Cinnamon PB Nana-nice cream: 2 frozen bananas, almond milk, PB2, cinnamon and walnuts & PB2 on top

Before I go, I want to leave you all with the song that I can’t seem to get out of this christmas-fied head of mine. It’s actually from Glade’s holiday commercial. As a marketing major, I have to give them props. They achieved what they set out to do.

Well chow for now! I’m sure I’ll be back before Christmas. Mother and I have some serious baking plans in the near future.

A Day in My Food Life: Finals Edition

College student or not, I think most people can understand the immense stress that comes along with one full week of nothing but studying and exams, a.k.a. highly caffeinated cramming, little to no sleep and mind vomit onto scan-trons.

Amongst all the craziness though, I thought I would make some time to blog for a little de-stressing.

I was inspired by a Rachael Ray post on Carrie Underwood to start writing my own “A Day in the Food Life…” that I pondered upon this morning. I know I really enjoyed getting an insider’s look into the daily life of one of my favorite vegans, Carrie Underwood, so I figured my readers would feel the same about getting a VIP look into their favorite vegan’s life…since Carrie Underwood and I are basically the same person (#dreaming).

Today: Friday, December 12, 2014

8 AM My alarm clock goes off, but I usually lay in bed for about 8-10 minutes or so checking my phone and stretching.

8:30 AM I’m off to the gym –> leg day today! On the car ride over, I nibble on a handful of raw almonds.

8:45 AM Workout time! (10 min high intensity cardio followed by 60 min of strength training for my legs)

10:20 AM I arrive back home & make a recovery smoothie bowl (frozen bananas, frozen blueberries, spinach, almond milk, PB2 w/ chia seeds on top).

10:30 AM I shower & get ready for my day of studying.

11 AM I grab a soy latte at ABP, then head to Torgerson Bridge to snag one of the highly demanded cubby desks (my favorite study spot on Virginia Tech’s campus — I got so lucky).

12:30 PM I’m done with my buyer-seller relationships paper!

1 PM Study break! I head over to Owen’s to pick up my favorite Mexican salad combination to bring back to my beloved study desk.

3 PM Finish my HTM Revenue Management study guide — onto Finance!

5 PM Decide enough is enough (focus=gone), pack up and head home for the day. Who knows…maybe I’ll be back later tonight?

5:45 PM I heat up some Amy’s Black Bean Chili w/ a dab of tomatillo salsa on top (Amy’s is always the perfect lazy option).

6 PM I begin BIT Operations Management studying.

7:30 PM I am lured into the living room to hang with my roomies & friends.

8:30 PM I enjoy some honey crisp apples slices & almond butter while getting back on my BIT grind.

10:30 PM I get into bed & fall asleep rather quickly — per usual.

Yes, the bedtime is a guestimate, as it’s currently 9 PM, but I would say it shouldn’t be too far off. I’m a sleepy girl today!

I hope you enjoyed this little peak into my daily food life. You should definitely be expecting more posts like this in the future.

At this point, food pics are second nature to me, it only makes sense to blog about them. And when I’m out in public and people give me looks, I know they’re just thinking they would do the same if their food looked as good as mine! 😉

Chow for now!