Getting strong with Eleiko friction plates

I'm home again after my travels. It's been a busy week as we are working hard on our new website and business development. I also have two posts about Biosig CE coming out, but I just want to give the finishing touch to the texts... if you want to read more about detoxification that I learned from Charles and also about benefits of muscle testing, stay tuned!

Great news is that Eleiko just opened a webshop a week ago - go check it out here:

Eleiko Webshop

All of their equipment, from friction plates to benches, cable stations and so on can be bought from Eleikoshop.se. For coaches and PT's one of the most important piece is a set of friction plates, in my opinion. They can be bought in a 10kg case containg small plates and you can use them as collars. I know many PICP coaches have bought them when taking courses at Eleiko and they praise them as much as Charles!

Here's a video where Charles Poliquin explains the benefits of using friction plates.

I also got Eleiko plates while in Sweden to take my strength to NEXT LEVEL when training at home. I don't have a gym but I care about my own progress and thought they might be beneficial. Earlier in the fall I bought two 0,25kg friction plates and two 0,5kg metal plates that I begun to carry around in my gym bag when I trained. Last week I added two 1kg and two 2kg friction to my plate collection... maybe that's the beginning of my own gym (or at least a more sturdy gym bag). In 20 years I'll look back and remember my first little plates and trips to Home of Strength, Eleiko ;)

After the Body Comp Intern, I've noticed that the small friction plates are really good. They work as collars, as they have a little rubber ring that will prevent the plates from slipping off. The normal collars weight 2,5kg so often they can't be used with females who aren't (yet) very strong. Also using the typical increments in weights (smallest plates we have in our gym are 1,25kg) won't let me advance in small enough steps to be able to add weight on every workout. I can't really add 2,5kg (2 x 1,25kg) to my pressing weights etc. every week - but I've been able to add add 0,5kg (2 x 0,25), then 1kg (2 x 0,5kg) and eventually 1,5kg (2 x 0,75kg) quite easily.

Every PICP coach knows that you should be stronger every workout - either be able to add weight or add reps which means you're progressing well. The price was very reasonable (like 10-20 euros per plate)... and it's an investment in my strength!

This week I've practiced olympic lifts on my own. With the friction plates I was able to test my strength on cleans. My best set so far was 5 x 41kg. Every rep "flipping the shirt" just like Jud Logan taught me ;) How FUN!

Eleiko has another webshop as well, for Eleiko clothes and accessories. I bought the Eleiko hoodie while in Halmstad and I gotta say it's wonderful for training in the winter. Our gym gets really cold and sometimes it's difficult to keep the sweat on. The more heat you generate during the workout, the more growth hormone will be released.

I'm feeling stronger than I've been in a long time. It was great to train almost every day during my trip, some days even twice. I've kept it up and it's been a good training week! I'm aiming for five gym sessions a week now, four of them consisting of big lifts and one of remedials, abs and calves. I'm very energized after spending time with such an inspiring group of people and great teachers plus training with like-minded coaches.

Below is the 0,25kg friction plate. As you can see, no need for collars when using them.


There's something authentic studying at Eleiko, as you can even see how the bars etc. are made. I peeked into the factory side of the building one night after the class and this is what I found - a guy working on the barbells, one by one. I'm looking forward to doing some more courses there next year :)

*** Suomalaisille vinkki: voimaharjoittelu.fi myy Eleikon kitkalevypainoja ***

Biosignature CE, Day 1, Halmstad

Day 1 of my third Biosig CE course is done. Today I can feel my brain trying to connect all the dots from the previous weeks and days - I'm flooded with information and my poor brain is having hard time saving all the jewels! We have a big group on this course, about 60 Biosignature practitioners from all over the world, mostly Europe.

So why am I doing this course over and over again? Because there's no single Biosig course that is 100% same as any of the previous ones. Even Biosignature 1 changes all the time because the information is changing all the time and multiplying at a faster rate than anyone of us can imagine.

I wanted to do this Biosig CE because I've been interested in hearing Dr Robert Rakowski talk. He is a widely known speaker, natural healer, chiropractor, nutritionist and detoxification expert who gave a lecture earlier this year at Poliquin Strength Institute (here's a trip report of that, not mine by the way). Many of my colleagues raved about it later so I thought I better get to his next seminar. Soon some of my Biosignature friends emailed me about their results of a seven day cleanse that Charles had done as well (his blog posts about it are here and here).

I'm a very curious and open minded person so I decided to do it in the beginning of August... just to find out that my body is very very toxic! Honestly, until then I had lived in some kind of utopia, thinking that of course I'm not THAT toxic - it would be a piece of cake for me. I thought that living in "clean" Finland, my young age, healthy eating habits compared to most people and so on would mean something. So what happened? I had awful detox reactions and honestly it was one of the worst weeks I've had in a very long time. I can be a robot and do short term stuff like that - staying on shakes and green vegetables for a week - quite easily. After all, I've done a figure show playing the robot part for over 20 weeks training 20 hours per week while eating 900-1300 calories... consisting of tuna twice a day - a little mercury and BPA here and there can't hurt that much, right? ;)

A cleanse like that will cause many things to surface, things I did not expect to see. I didn't expect to...

-have emotional breakdowns (liver cleanse will bring up blocked emotions, it's good to tell this to your loved ones before beginning ;))
-have extremely heightened sense of taste (couldn't finish my servings of white cabbage one day - it burned my mouth so bad, not sure why)
-have ringing ears (also related to liver cleanse)
-get so tired that I had to nap numerous times a day
-sneeze so hard I thought it would never end, it continued with a continuous runny nose for the whole day (two packs of toilet paper made me look like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer in two hours)
-run to the bathroom every 15 minutes (and thinking I should have evacuated the house first so nobody would faint)
-have my scalp suddenly begin itching and get white spots on it

...on some days and so on!

Just lots of stuff that can't be explained by anything else than doing detox - and doing it for a reason. I probably could have fixed many of those by adding more aminos, more antioxidants etc. but I didn't know what or when. Next time I'll know better as now I've heard Charles' lecture about the detox numerous times. The cleanse was rewarding anyhow, as I noticed that after the week I've slowly begun getting rid of things that have bugged me for quite long now. Not as much anxiety anymore, less energy crashes, better strength in the gym, increased mental performance, higher sex drive - just better life quality as a whole. And now that we've got that part clear - all of us are toxic - I think we're all on the same page. Let me put it in one paragraph:

We must help our bodies detoxify at all times by giving them adequate sleep and organic, as nutrient rich nutrition as possible. High quality supplementation plays a crucial role as soil has become poor with minerals - it takes over 30 elements to build a healthy human, our soil has now about 3. Thus everyone of us should help their bodies function optimally by using omega 3 oils, plant nutrients from organic greens powders and high quality a multivitamin + mineral complex. According to research done in 2007, today's food is too weak to replete depleted cells and bodies. WHO's number 1. cause of death is currently malnourishment.


If polar bears are toxic, how can we really think we aren't? Many of the problems we face with our bodies today can be explained by understanding that the toxic load on our bodies is higher than what the body can process with the resources it has. It's been shown now that a newborn baby has 250 toxins in his or her body on the time of birth. I can only wonder how many do I have? Actually, thinking that thought makes me sick to my stomach. Maybe by learning this now will help me whenever it's the time to have kids. If we can have any, you never know! Fertility on both males and females has dropped dramatically and the researches are putting a lot of the blame on environmental toxins and hormone disruptors. I would like to do a toxicity and plastics test at some point to see how I'm doing. And do the same for my hubby. Charles will teach us more about toxicity tomorrow. It's one of the most interesting topics that I want to learn more about right now.

Today's lecture's topic was HEALTHY. LEAN. STRONG. How to get there? Put it shortly:

"Healthy is a matter of choice, not a mystery of chance." -Aristotle

Things to consider - I strongly believe that most of us (who aren't in their perfect health) still don't have these habits (below) 100%. So I challenge you to pick TWO of that list that you will focus on for the next couple of months. On a scale from 0 to 10, where are you with each of these? Below are my thoughts of the habits we covered during the day. There was much more, everything from using supplements to balancing the hormones, but if the basics aren't covered, those don't matter that much. And the habits below will do much of the work anyway!


Sleep

Everybody should sleep 8 hours a night - uninterrupted. Sleep will raise growth hormone, body's main fat burning and tissue rebuilding hormone, as well as improve detoxification. Liver and gut work when we sleep. The room should be pitch dark, cell phones turned off or in another room when possible (electromagnetic radiation will affect the brain, as you may not produce as much melatonin, the sleep hormone, and less "recharging" as EMF is a stressor as well). It's not always possible but those are things to consider if sleep is your weak link. I've put a lot more emphasis on having enough hours in bed during the past year. I've rather slept than trained, next I will work on having both of them in my daily life :) I still wake up between 1-3 am so it suggests that all the detoxing isn't done for me yet. That's liver meridian working.

Eat organic, clean foods

Lots of protein, lots of vegetables, some healthy fats. All unprocessed, as local foods as possible to make all the nutrients are still inside the food you eat. An orange flying from the other side of the world (even if it's organic) will have minimal amount of nutrients left when I buy it in the store. So I'll rather have berries that were picked close and frozen right after picking.

"If God made it, it's good to eat - if man made it, don't eat it." or as Michael Pollan says in his books: "Eat real food. Mostly plants." Animal protein is needed to maintain and grow muscles and to supply enough amino acids for the liver to do its detoxification process. Without enough protein there's no complete detox. I think Charles said once that the first 30 grams of protein you eat will be used by the liver. If protein supply is inadequate, liver may be creating even more toxic components as phase 2 can't be completed. It's also crucial to know that the body actually breaks down the protein - test the stomach acid level to make sure the protein is digesting well.


I learned how to eat by reading John Berardi's Precision Nutrition. It's probably the best $99 I've spent as it pushed me to begin tweaking my nutrition, get on the PN board, become a moderator of the board, meet Krista Schaus, got introduced to Biosignature... and so on! After following the typical fitness bunny diet (weigh everything from cucumbers to egg whites, follow a diet on a paper that's attached to your fridge door, eat anything else = might as well blow the whole thing and eat everything in sight on one sitting), I was very confused about HOW or WHAT to eat. PN changed the way I view nutrition, cook and look at my meals as a whole.

I'm very passionate about my food. I have a created a gallery of meals that I've made at home or while travelling, eaten in restaurants (it's easy to eat healthy when you eat out - just need to know what habits to follow) and so on. I call it Flow Food - food that is fun to make, healthy and delicious. You can go check my gallery on Facebook. These photos here are from my recent travels... the meal above was made in less than 5 minutes after rushing through the door after a very long day with clients. The meal below is from a restaurant I had my lunch in one day while in Helsinki. High protein, loads of veggies and a little bit of berries or fruits plus healthy fats. Can't get much easier - but it's a matter to choice, as there were boatloads of bad foods to choose from. No bread, mashed potatoes, commercial salad dressing or desserts etc. for me.


Drink

Dehydration is more common than we can think! Everybody should drink at least 2-3 liters of pure water per day. It's also one of the major reasons for overproduction of cortisol. 40-60% of the body is water. And no - diet soda, coffee, milk and fruit juices don't count. They just make everything worse by putting a chemical load on the body and raising insulin. A well hydrated body means well functioning brain and happy muscles :)

Poop

We need to take care of our gut health to eliminate toxin components of the body. Yes, it's that important that I will put it out here! Using enzymes, HCl (WHICH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO TEST), probiotics and fibers helps a ton. I meet clients every once in a while who tell me they go to the bathroom once a week. Imagine how many toxins their body reabsorbs from the large intestine during that time?

Move

The human body is made to move. We need to strive for a body that's flexible, strong and aerobically conditioned. Doing regular strength training or other intense exercise (interval training / that type sports) sessions, regular yoga / stretching sessions and some aerobic exercise will improve health of any single individual. Doing any of the extremes is unhealthy - meaning that drug-enhanced bodybuilding, powerlifting or in the other end of the scale marathons, triathlons etc. put the body under very high stress. I think the minimum anybody should do is four workouts of mixed types of training per week. I can feel it when I do less and it's just not enough. We sit way too much on our butts - it's not healthy! This is one of the things I will focus on during the next months.

Think right

We need to learn to run our own brain. We can't eliminate stress from our lives, but we can learn to perceive life's stressors differently. I'm all for positive thinking and always try to find the bright side of everything that happens! It's not always easy. I still fall in mudhole of dark thoughts once in a while. I believe we go through difficulties because "somebody out there" knows we have the strength. And through those experiences we learn and grow. The same things will happen as long as we learn the lesson that's needed to learn. So it's all about learning to perceive life's lessons in a new way.


This is the hardest one for me and needs the most work. I've taken NLP courses to learn about the structures of my own thinking and behavior. It's very interesting and has given me new perspectives. One of the most important ones is that even though figure competing messed up my body and mind, it was the first step on this path that I'm walking now. So instead of seeing myself as a failure in competing in figure, I'm trying to learn to see myself as a success as everything that happened just made me a stronger person in the end.

Talk right

We need to talk right to ourselves and everyone around us. Negative self talk is like mental abuse. I need to practice this a lot as well. I can be very very hard on myself. After giving a public promise in Biosignature 1 in NYC that I will be more grateful to myself for all the things I do and what I am, I've begun observing my inner talk more. When I find myself saying ugly things to myself, I apologize and try to go behind the thought to see what's there. Most of the time it's fear over something, and sometimes it's a negative belief. I use Byron Katie's method "The Work" to break the into the structure of negative beliefs. It's very effective (for me). And when I talk nicely to myself, it's way easier to talk nicely to others - not because I want them to like me, but because it comes from the heart.



By watching Robert talk, I think I finally know what True Health looks like. He looks very energetic, happy, lean and healthy. And he SMILES. A lot. From the heart :) I want to feel the same and look as healthy (but with more muscles, thank you ;)). I will turn 30 in June 2012, and I want my 30's to be about HEALTH. It's time to get strong and healthy... if I accomplish both of those, it must eventually lead to lean as well!

SCTS: Olympic Lifting, Halmstad

Yesterday we finished a two day course of Olympic Lifting seminar here in Halmstad. It's just one part of Poliquin's Special Consideration Training Series (SCTS) two day seminars. PICP trained coaches can participate in the courses they feel are most beneficial to them. This year there have been seminars on training female clients, program design, lower body training for soccer and so on. There will be a couple more this year, mainly on program design (as Poliquin has come out with a new software containing more than 8000 exercises and variations of them) in the US and Europe and a couple training seminars in Australia.

On Monday the seminar begun with a practical session on how to do the snatch. Charles mentioned on his Facebook page the day before that his Swedish friends had taken him to go dip into the freezing ocean to have a little Scandinavian experience on healthy habits people have here ;) In Finland people do that in the middle of the winter. It's called ice hole swimming, which means swimming outdoors in a round hole that's drilled into the ice. Why is this relevant to the seminar? Because for me it was like a jump into an ice cold lake (only that it lasted for two days) as I had no previous olympic lifting experience... nor any theoretical knowledge either.

I was actually quite nervous coming here which is not common for me. I guess those 17 guys who took the course with me came here to learn olympic lifting, but I came here most importantly to get out of my comfort zone and do something new. I believe that I grow the most when I stretch myself into something that might not always be fun in the beginning or requires effort. Through those situations I gain insights and continue the inner work that all of us should do once in a while. So of all the courses I've done with Charles - the count is 10 now - this one is mostly for myself only.

So the first day Charles and Jud went over how to learn the snatch in reverse. Charles mentioned that learning it in reverse is the easiest and fastest way to learn it. We begun in learning the right grip width, then shrug, upright row and proceeded in small progressions in four people groups and finally doing a full snatch with a very light bar.

Probably the most important piece of information I got was that the reason why learning olympic lifting is so important to strength coaches or PT's is that it's the best way to increase vertical jump. And vertical jump is required in all team sports. Another interesting thing is that when doing olympic lifting, sets of 6 reps are enough for getting an excellent hypertrophy response. Knowing how to implement olympic lifting into the program (even if you don't coach it yourself - and if you don't know how to do or coach them properly, it's easy to get injured) might be a good thing for any athlete and a great challenge for any regular PT client. So we learned the technique ourselves first and then practised coaching the technique on fellow course mates.

We've spent lots of time on practical stuff on the course, here and there we did a lecture and then went back to learning the lifts and their progressions. Here's Jud Logan teaching his little lecture: this was a demo of a "knee to heel" split squat he uses with his athletes before proceeding into step ups and front foot elevated split squats.


One gem I learned from Jud was that the best way to learn squatting is to use slow tempo (5 second eccentric) or do 1 + 1/4 rep squats. In the end of day 1 we did a workout like this:

Warmup:
A1. Snatch grip flip & catch, 5 x 6
A2. Barbell jump squat, 5 x 6

Workout:
B. Back squat, 5 x 5, tempo 5050

On second day we did a morning workout, 8 sets of snatch. It was getting FUN! This is our little group practicing under Jud Logan's eye... gettin' some tough love huh ;)


Here's Jud showing the group how to make the bar travel with a greater velocity. It has to flip the shirt!


Some photos of the morning workout session. Everybody learned fast and it was surprising to see how quickly all the guys progressed into lifting with a good technique. We didn't hear yankee stomps anymore!


The second day's objective was to learn the technique of clean and jerk. We finished Charles' lecture on how to fit olympic lifting into the program of an athlete, how to periodize and which lifts to use for different sports. As I don't really work with athletes, this lecture was way more challenging to me than any of the Biosignature lectures.

In the morning we had quite a long session of learning how to do the clean properly. It was the most fun practical session yet, as I finally got to put some weight on the bar. I did 7 sets of cleans with 35kg, emphasizing on different things every set as we got instructions from Jud on how to correct the technique. We also learned some new exercises like Pierre Roy squat (below).


Later the day we had our last practical session in the weight room and went over progressions of how to learn the jerk. Having good shoulder health and strength is critical for doing the jerk. First we did some military presses which also great for increasing bench pressing strength.

Charles taught us all the progressions on how we can design a program that eventually leads to practicing jerk, which means focusing on overhead pressing with different exercises over a 6-8 week period. If shoulder health is not your strongest link, you can't go straight into doing jerks! What we learned during Jud's lecture in the class room holds true: if you have functional weaknesses, it's impossible to reach your highest performance (in any lifts).


In the end of that practical class I did a push jerk with 45kg to my own surprise. Talk about having a blast! I have no idea whether if that's good or bad for a female, but beginning with zero experience on these lifts and proceeding to feeling quite confident in doing them gave me a huge boost. Today I'm very grateful to myself for having the courage to do the course. Here's Happy Kaisa with Jud the Teddybear.


Like on most classes, the last thing we did was to give Charles a promise of what we are going to change when we go home. My promise this time is that I will train no less than 4-5 weight sessions a week consistently from now on. Time to get back into working through the mindset of an athlete.

Here's a little competition for the readers of this blog. Here's the question:

What is the best...
1) power exercise for increasing vertical jump?
2) strength exercise for increasing vertical jump?

I'll post the answer later this week. The first right answer will receive.. hmmm.. something fun, I promise! :)

That's it for olympic lifting. Today we're into day 1 of Biosig CE, Robert Rakowski is teaching us and it's one of the most interesting lectures yet! I will post more tonight or tomorrow. It's going to be an interesting course.

Here are my very happy but sore legs after the course... this is what you get with a bad technique. The technique was actually easy to correct - begin the lift with 3 seconds from the ground, then explode up from the knees. And remember to flip the shirt!

In Halmstad again

The Journey continues! I had a very busy week in Finland after my trip to the US. Over the course of four days I met 50 Biosignature clients in two different towns, designed a couple of training programs, did a lecture about Biosignature in one of Finland's biggest gyms and had numerous teaching sessions with my new Biosignature girls who just had their first clients last week. They're learning fast. And the reason for that is that these girls have a hunger for learning and they're very enthusiastic about it. Those things can't be taught!

I'm glad I got to spend time with my dear husband Joni (who's taking my travelling very well... and I'm very grateful for that) and met a couple of friends. I had a little bit of downtime that I was longing for: put woolly socks on, crawled into comfy pajamas and read while sipping a cup of hot tea. I also squeezed in three sessions with weights. I'm getting stronger again - every workout - which is great!

Hmm. The past week was a good lesson to me that it is possible to work long hours AND be relaxed. I can honestly say I can't remember when I've felt this balanced in my mind. It's very surprising since I've been more busy than in a long time. Maybe all the detoxing I've been doing and slowly healing my adrenals with nutritional support is finally beginning to show its effects? I'm not sure, but I'm happy about this change. I still have some ugly issues to solve that affect not only my body but also my mind (I'm suspecting food intolerances due to what's going on with my gut), but I'm getting there. "It's always darkest before the dawn" as my Lithuanian colleague told me.

So, right now I'm in Halmstad, studying more of Poliquin's wisdom in Eleiko Center - this is home of STRENGTH as Eleiko equipment is manufactured here. I flew here from Helsinki, landing in Copenhagen and then took a train to Halmstad. It's actually very easy but ironically takes me almost as many hours as flying to New York. I'll try to gather a post about this soon as I know there are many people who wonder what's the easiest way to get to Halmstad.

This is a beautiful time of the year here: trees are colorful with foliage, the sun is still shining but I can really feel that the first days of winter are close. My mom sent me a text message from northern Finland - they got their first snow already! I have a feeling that this is going to be the best winter in years. It will be a winter when I heal myself and get in a better shape than I've ever been. I'm planning on writing a lot and taking more time just for myself.

I'll post a review of the course I'm taking right now later today: it's Olympic Lifting with Charles Poliquin and four time Olympian hammer thrower Jud Logan. We have a group of 17 guys and me. Tomorrow will be the first day of another Biosignature CE; looking forward to learning more about detox, nutrition and muscle testing!

New York photos

Here are some random photos from my trip to the USA. My trip back to Finland took 24 hours total from East Greenwich, Rhode Island to Tampere, Finland where I live. While travelling, I had lots of time to go through all the things that have happened during the past two weeks - it feels like forever since I left home!

When we got to NYC, there was a tornado. I wondered why the taxi line was so long as I never had had to wait like that. This was the reason... if the taxi line had been any shorter, this could have been our taxi! The tornado had hit the same highway we drove just about 5-10 minutes earlier.

Chelsea Star Hotel, also known by "rathole". Not a very nice place to stay in - but cheap enough for 10 nights. Accommodation in NYC is awfully expensive. If you like rodents and bedbugs, stay here.

View near our hostel - it was just a couple of blocks from Empire State Building. By the way - the photos are taken with my iPhone, can you tell I'm addicted to the application called Hipstamatic? :D

Whole Foods Market is one of my favourite stores in the US. I have probably spent more time between the aisles there than checking out the sights...

Goat milk in Whole Foods - wish we could get this as easily in Finland as well. It's not allowed to sell goat milk for drinking purpose, so it has to be labeled "goat bath milk" in Finnish ;)

One of the yummy post workout meals in Whole Foods. Most days we went to train in Crunch near Union Square and after lifting we headed to Whole Foods to eat. Loaded up on kale, broccoli, some quinoa salad, berries and different protein sources. Probably my last meals with any dairy... as I tested very weak with it on muscle testing day :( There goes my feta cheese, mozzarella and halloumi! I need to ask Tytti to muscle test me on goat milk cheeses and see how that works out.


Gettin' to know Rockefeller once again ;)


This was THE BEST meal during our whole trip. Mambo Sushi in Greenwich Village. The movie Prime (very funny!) had some scenes that were filmed here. I ate teriyaki beef as my main course, it was amazing! And... the broccoli made me very happy too :)


We spent one day exploring Brooklyn. The photo below is from Hanson One Plaza's flea market. Fun vintage clothes, jewelry, local artists, handcrafts, raw chocolate and stuff like that. Beautiful venue!


Tytti enjoying a pedicure in Brooklyn. Our feet and legs were MUSH.

This is inside of the nail salon, what a cute place. It's called Dashing Diva and they have locations in many places in NYC. They took extremely good care of hygiene which is a bonus.


New York skyline from Brooklyn Heights. It looks so bald without WTC towers... glad I got to visit those 10 years ago. But what a tragedy 9/11 was :( My heart goes out to anyone who was closely affected by the incident.

Tytti looking so cute :)

Hipstamatic style skyline.

That tiny little thing in the horizon is the Statue of Liberty.
Tytti's photography skills ;) After this we had a mini lecture about how to adjust the horizon when taking photos (thanks to my sister's excellent photography skills, I've had the same lecture so many times I won't mess it up that often anymore)! :D That's me in the photo.

Brooklyn Bridge from below.
Madison Square tower at night. We went to the movies to see Eat, Pray, Love and I fell asleep :O Not due to the movie (I loved the book!) but due to jetlag and a super long day.
We ate breakfast at Fresh & Co most mornings during our Biosig 1 course. They serve organic coffee, eggs and healthy choices for omelette add-ins. My favourite was... surprise - broccoli & spinach omelette ;)


Before I fly to a new destination, I always check out the places where I want to eat by using Google Maps. It's SO EASY. I think eating bad while travelling is pure laziness. I want to stay true to my lifestyle and hold feeling good as one of my priorities every day. To me, feeling good means that I try to give my body the best foods available so my tummy won't get upset (happens very easily) and that my brain stays as sharp as possible. I pay loads of money for my travels so I really don't want to spend the days wobbling around suffering from brain fog, burping, farting and running for the next toilet :D Jet lag and different food bacteria will do enough to make it difficult!

I've seen the most common sights of NYC a couple of times already but since this was Tytti's first visit to NYC, we decided to buy a tour ticket for two days. CitySights offers an affordable way to see the town - hop on, hop off bus + cruise around Staten Island where the Statue of Liberty is located. The tour guides were very fun, I'm glad we took the bus to see the city! It would have been a very long walk to go around by feet.
The Pump Energy Food, like Whole Foods, is a place where I always eat while I'm in NYC. I have all their locations checked in my NYC map so where ever I am during the day, most of the days I head to Whole Foods or The Pump to get my healthy main meals. The Pump has a great concept: energizing food with loads of protein. I like that!

This is chicken salad with guacamole. At The Pump, they go a long way to serve healthy food. Chicken is marinated in olive oil instead of bad quality veggie oils. Check out their menu, I've got great ideas for my foods at home just by visiting this place so many times!

This photo is from South Street Seaport. I was sooooooo happy to find new Reebok Classics from the Seaport Mall! They're the most comfy shoes I've ever had. I walked so much in my previous one that they begun to resemble two pink bananas with a rubber sole :D This time I got two pairs... black and silver. With the latter ones, the only thing I'm lacking is an tin foil hat to block voices and mind control ;)

Manhattan Bridge, took the photo during our bus tour.
Sometimes you can see strange things in NYC :D I happen to love animals but this is a little too much...

I'm always amazed by the high risers in New York. In Finland we call a building with six floors a high riser, heh.
The following photos were taken during a boat ride that was included in our NY CitySights tour. That's Chelsea pier, behind is the Empire State Building.

Lady Liberty


The most bland tasting salad I had during our whole trip. Looks awesome but it's easy to tell this stuff did not have the label "organic" in it. Non-organic American strawberries... like cancer in a box :( Their pesticide concetration is VERY high! They're ranked third in "the dirty dozen", a list of twelwe veggies & fruits containing most pesticides.


Times Square, the most intriguing and anxiety causing place in Manhattan. SO noisy, crowded, colorful, electric. I don't feel good here. But it looks fun in the photos.
Chrysler Building in the background is one of my favourite buildings in NYC. Playing with my Hipstamatic again...


New York Skyline at night. Plus a bridge - it's either Brooklyn Bridge or Manhattan Bridge, but I'm not sure which.

Can you tell Halloween is coming? Pumpkins in all sizes and shapes appeared in the stores during our trip.
Tytti's new lifting shoes... Vibram Five Fingers. Is there anything more funny and cute than this :D
I was SO happy to go to Rhode Island. We were finally able to cook our own food. This is organic ground beef (thanks Mitch!), macadamia nuts, spicy hummus, organic spinach and pear slices. My breakfast actually.

I'll post some course photos in another blog post :) So that's it for now. I'm glad to be home! Enjoying the company of my three furry animals (we have three cats) & not-so-very-furry husband but disgusted by the furry ground beef and broccoli I found in the fridge...