Archives: July 2010

Dear friends,

It’s been an exciting few weeks! My gluten free, vegan, baking adventure is quickly taking off. My new name is The Lovely You Bakeshop. We’re working hard on getting our samples out to lots of different people and stores to see everyone’s reactions. We’ve had very good responses so far and are continuing the process to see where this takes us.

We tackled our neighborhood of the upper west side today and it was a lot of work but we met some really great people who gave us lots of advice. Stay tuned to see where our brand winds up. If there’s a store or café that you feel we would be a good fit for then please let us know, we’d love to talk or send samples.

Thanks for your support!! We hope to spread our gluten free, vegan goodness all around New York and the surrounding states.

Don’t forget to treat yourself!

Hi friends,

Have you ever heard of Kripalu? Well if you haven’t boy have I got news to share with you! It’s a yoga retreat center up in the Berkshires in MA. Chad and I went to this place last weekend not knowing what to expect – we knew we needed to relax so that’s why we signed up for the relax and renew program to just chill out! We were both spiraling into a stressed out world and knew that we needed to get away.

We stayed in the annex which is the air-conditioned, luxurious part of the whole place – yes it was beautiful. The whole place is very green conscious and even the room we stayed in had all eco friendly materials, furniture, flooring, everything!

It was awesome!

I do have to say this, the place focuses a lot on yoga and there are wonderful classes to take that are included in your package. There are other packages to take as well, for example when a visiting teacher comes they create a whole program based on it, check their website to see if any of your heroes will be making an appearance there.  All 3 of your meals are included in your program as well, and the food was amazing. Although, I don’t think I was so used to all the fiber and ended up having some issues on the second day… Beware of that!

We took a meditation class, I took a class on having a healthy gut (obviously!! HA), we took a yoga nidra class, which is yogic sleep and there are many other options to choose from.

We both came out of the weekend feeling refreshed and renewed, which was exactly what we needed.

When you feel yourself getting too wrapped up in your own head with stress and negative thoughts, take yourself out of the situation and find the getaway that’s right for you. Kripalu was PERFECT for us and I highly recommend it. I’m just so thankful that I’m still young and I found this now, as opposed to being older and missing out on it for all those years.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter how old you are, get yourself on a retreat and you won’t regret it – who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by a positive bunch of people?! Go for it!

I just went for my annual physical checkup today and was so pleasantly surprised when Dr. Lee took a look at my latest colonoscopy results and stated “it looks like your colitis is getting smaller and smaller.” I’ve been having a flare up for 3 years and the time is finally here when not only are my flares getting less and less but also, the colitis is diminishing all together!

You might be asking how in the world did I do this?!

Let me explain – over the past year and a half I’ve taken the time to read many books and educate myself on how to cure myself of this belly bloating, gas producing, uncomfortable, colitis.

I know that there are lots of sufferers out there and I totally get what your going through – I promise I was right there with you not too long ago.

Instead of only listening to my GI doc, I decided to educate myself even further on the topic. I wasn’t happy about taking steroids for the rest of my life so I made a decision not to do it. Yes I did take the suppositories when needed but I coupled them with the eastern side of medicine.

I do yoga, acupuncture and see a chiropractor on a regular basis, which are all part of eastern medicine. I believe that these forms of medicine have helped calm belly.

I’ve made the conscious choice to change my diet and I haven’t looked back since. Well… maybe I’ve looked back when everyone is enjoying their glutinous filled pizza and all I want is that NY slice… I have found other options for pizza and they are pretty delicious, but when it’s right in your face it’s very hard to say no – the only way to really say no is to remember how you feel when your belly hurts and for me that’s plenty. I’m so happy to have my gluten free, dairy free Amy’s Pizza readily available when I need my pizza fill. It takes strength and a good support system but you will overcome it.

If you have specific questions on what books I’ve read or what I’ve done to help cure myself please feel free to message me. I want to keep an open communication with you and anyone you know who suffers from a hurting gut.

Please take care of yourself.