Swimmin' and Sweatin'

Hey everyone, I thought I would send out a reminder about Becky and I’s class tomorrow night at The Food Garden in Orem. The address is 698 East 300 South in Provo. Here is the info from the flyer that was sent. I hope we get a big turnout. It always makes it more exciting the more people we have.

Raw Living Q&A June 15 – 7pm $5 fee at the door

Rachel Talley and Becky Johnson will be talking to us not only about Raw Foods, but the emotional and spiritual side of Raw Living. This promises to be an enlightening and fun evening! This class will be have a Q&A forum so come prepared with any questions about raw foods, transitioning, prenatal health, emotional health, love, spirituality, transcendence, enlightenment, and energy work. Rachel and Becky are pioneers in the Utah Raw Foods and Natural Birth Movement, and have been teaching classes here in Utah for many years.

Rachel Talley www.livingmom.net is a teacher, lifestyle coach, nutritional herbologist, energy healer and midwife. She has eaten a 100% raw food diet for almost 5 years and has inspired many people to achieve their goals in all aspects of life. She feels uplifted to watch others take full responsibility of their own creative power and find inner peace.

Becky Johnson has been involved in health, herbs, energy healing and raw foods since 1996. She has taken many classes and is also self taught. She owned one of the first raw food catering business in UT. Many years have been devoted as a life coach. She loves to see people take hold of new ideas and change their lives for the better.

So…let’s see. On Tuesday night, Chris and I went out to celebrate his birthday. One of his FAVORITE restaurant

s is P.F Chang’s at The University Mall in Orem. If there are any of you who are trying to eat healthier but not all raw, this is an EXCELLENT place that offers very healthy vegetarian and vegan dishes. There food seems to be more authentic Asian cuisine. From what I remember, everything I tried was DELICIOUS! I never tried any of the meat dishes because I was a vegetarian before I had ever eaten there. Chris really likes The Veggie Lettuce Wraps . I think he was sad because he LOVED their Great Wall of Chocolate. But a gift he gave me for my birthday was to be vegan for a year along with cutting out all sugar. He was sad but didn’t really show it. The waitress was so sweet because we told her it was his birthday and she felt bad he couldn’t eat a dessert so instead she brought him out a bowl of fresh fruit. He even shared it with me. It was YUMMY!! It had all kinds of berries. Oh and the other really good thing about the restaurant is that they offer brown rice so you don’t have to eat white. They also do not use MSG in any of the food. It is a great place to go when you are transitioning to a healthier diet.

My AMAZING sister in law, Yulia, let my kids sleep over at her house while we went out. Our kids LOVE each other. She is pregnant right now and is due at the end of July. With her last delivery, she had an unassisted birth which means it was only her and her husband delivering their baby. Her birth went BEAUTIFULLY and she LOVED the experience so much she is planning on doing it again. I am really excited for her. She is one of the most courageous, strong, empowered woman I know. I will just add that she makes the BEST lentil soup. Here is the link to Yulia’s Lentil Soup.

Yulia is Russian and you can tell she carries the strong Russian blood in her. When she was in Russia, she used to sweat in the Russian Bania’s. After sweating, they would break the ice on a frozen lake and swim in it to boost the immune system into maintaining the action of cleansing and rebuilding that took place in the heat of the Bania.

The REALLY cool thing was the Birth Bania’s. This was a place where woman would come to deliver their babies. It was consider a very sacred space where evil spirits could not abide. This meant that the birth should be more productive and effective when a woman was placed in this environment. Woman in Russia during pregnancy are still swimming in freezing cold water to keep themselves healthy and strong for the upcoming event of labor. There is an AWESOME website called Birth into Being where they have a video that shows pregnant woman swimming in the frozen lakes.

Jumping in cold water to aid in the immune system becoming stronger is very foreign to most Americans but has been around for years in Russia. Victoria and Igor Boutenko recently sent out a newsletter where she discusses the health benefits of swimming or wading in cold water. You can read all about it HERE! I LOVE this article and I absolutely believe it. When we finish with our sweat lodge ceremony, each person is dumped with cold water to spiritually and physically keep the body strong and safe after the process of cleaning our internal house through sweating. More often than not, sweat lodges are built next to a stream or running water source where you can dunk your whole body or even wade in the water. There is a sweat lodge that was just recently built up in Nebo with a stream running right next to it. I have yet to sweat in that lodge but I am excited for when I can.

Here is the anxiouly awaited pictures of my sweat lodge. Here is what it looked like when we first noticed it was growing leaves. We weren’t sure if our plan to make a living lodge was actually going to work. I have yet to meet anyone who has even seen a lodge like mine. I have met quite a few people recently who had seen dozens of lodges and they have made comments that mine is the MOST GORGEOUS lodge they have ever seen. I am not trying to brag here, well okay maybe I am a little but…I am really happy about it.

Notice the leaves starting to sprout. I wanted to cry I was so happy they were starting to come out. All our work and effort was coming to fruition. What a good feeling. Isn’t my lodge MAGNIFICENT? Any one of you are welcome to come to my backyard and see it. Or even better yet, come and sweat with us in it. If there is anyone who might be interested in participating in a lodge, just email me and let me know and I will put you on a list where you will contacted when we put a lodge together. Here are the new pictures I just took today. It has only been about 2 weeks since that those last pictures were taken. Notice how much they have grown since then. The ones of Chris and I were taken earlier but I thought they were really cute so I thought I would share.

Wow, this post is taking me MUCH longer than I thought it would. I decided that I had, not knowing it, took a longer break from the fat thing than planned. But…today I am jumping back on the wagon. I had a good time but I can tell my body is ready to go to back to no/fat & salt for awhile. So, here is what I ate yesterday.

Wednesday, June 13th:

1 whole cantaloupe

2 quarts of green drink

2 cups marinated mushrooms

lots of watermelon

This was a FUN post to write. Until next time.

Abundant peace to you all,

Rachel

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