Thyroid-Boosting Macaroons

Hello! Okay warning: These macaroons are so ridiculously yummy that you are going to fall passionately in love with them… And want to SCARF all of them them up immediately, until your fingers and teeth are covered in a chocolately coating of raw heaven. 🙂  They are a good brownie replacement, with a gooey center. And because they are nut-free, they are great for those of you that may have any nut allergies. If I do say so myself, they are Ridiculous!!! Remember to eat in moderation- cacao should not be an everyday food!

This recipe is a great way to get coconut oil in the body- an amazing ingredient from which we could all benefit from having more. Coconut oil supports thyroid function and contains lauric acid, which is the good fat that the body burns off rather than stores, and actually helps us burn off the stored fat. Oh yes my friends— is is true!!!!!!!!! Yay!

Coconut oil is just so beautifying. It is high in antioxidants and vitamin E and protects us from free radical damage. There is a good amount of coconut in The Brightening Cleanser (we are fixing the packaging issue by the way, it is coming!), for these very reasons and also because it is a potent and natural anti-microbial, so will help keep the skin pure and blemish-free.

Raw cacao is something that again, must be eaten in moderation. While it does have some good minerals, like magnesium, there are other sources of these minerals. Cacao should not be considered a “superfood,” as the real superfoods are from greens, which are actually balancing. Cacao on the other hand, is unbalancing. It contains caffeine, and has some toxic qualities, including a compound called theobromine.

–    1 1/3 cups raw, organic cacao
–   1/2 cup raw organic honey
–   Liquid stevia, as needed to sweeten to taste
–    1/3 cup raw, organic coconut oil (sometimes called butter)*
•    You don’t have to refrigerate coconut oil. Be sure it is liquid when you use it in this recipe
–    1 Tbs. vanilla extract
–    ½ tsp. Celtic sea salt
–    3 ½ cups dried, unsweetened coconut flakes

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients well. Then use a spoon to scoop rounded mounds onto dehydrated screens. Dehydrate at 110 degrees for 24 hours. They will be crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside, just like brownies!!

If you DON’T have a dehydrator, you can put them in freezer like my Raw Cacao Truffles! You can place them on layers of wax paper. Freeze overnight or at least for a few hours ( Hands off naughty girl! Patience! ) before eating. Keep them in the freezer until a few minutes before you serve.

Well, have an awesome and blissful weekend!!! Try to take some time for yourself, a few minutes to just be still and ground down and breath, to recenter yourself after all your week’s worth of activities and running around.

All my love,

Kimberly

Grounding Down and Expanding Out

Hello My Loves!

Hope all is well and that you had a relaxing Memorial Day weekend, wherever you happened to be. Did you have fun, I hope? 🙂

I just got back a few hours ago. I was up along the beautiful coast of Maine, where there are lots of wildlife preserves, walking trails, and big, deserted beaches! It was at a spot where I used to go as a little girl, so besides the great scenery there were nice memories. There is still this quaint inn I stayed at when I was little, and when I called my parents and told them how I saw it and remembered it, the first thing my dad said was, “Oh yeah, that is where you buried your clam!” I guess I found a whole clam on the beach one day back then, and when his little slimy head or fingers or whatever poked out I realized he was alive! And I wanted him to be my pet! But after 24 hours, even though I kept him in a pail of sea water…alas, he did not make it. So I had a whole funeral for him, and buried him in the back of this same inn! Aahhh…memory lane. 🙂

Check out these sea vegetables I found!! I wouldn't eat them straight off the beach like that, but you can get plenty of types of sea vegetables from the health store. Full of minerals and B Vitamins, they are a great addition to the diet.

Anyways, being up there reminded me that one of the best and easiest forms of therapy: Touch the earth. Yes, touch the earth! The earth has subtle magnetic vibrations, and when we are more in tune with that, we can connect back more with the earth and all of nature. Concrete sidewalks and rubber-soled shoes (or any shoes!) can keep us isolated from our innate connection with the vibrations of the earth. It is important to restore this connection as much as possible- by walking barefoot when we get the chance. Walking barefoot grounds us down into the earth- and all those 1,300+ nerves in our feet can open up and be in the fresh air and the earth’s full magnetism.

If we isolate ourselves all the time- in our shoes- or in our minds for that matter!- we can get too wrapped up in our own perspective and limited egos. It is important to expand out, to expand our consciousness, so we can fully feel and realize our connection to the earth and all other beings!

So literally stepping down on the earth is one way that I have found very therapeutic for me in my own life. Though I live in NYC, I do get out often, and you can be sure that I am always walking barefoot in the grass or on the beach whenever I get the chance! I also live right near a park in New York, and often take my shoes off and walk around over there and make phone calls (“Oh yes, I am outside actually! Sorry I had to do this conference call outside, because I um…got caught up with something and couldn’t make it back inside. You can hear me clearly though right? ☺ Hee hee).  It makes me feel grounded and strong and supported- and helps me put things back into perspective.

So I hope you will kick off the old shoes next time and as many times as you can find the opportunity, and just feel relaxed and connected back.

Happy short work week!
Lots of love, Kimberly

Sometimes being barefoot makes me feel so free!!! I love to be a big DORK sometimes!! 🙂 🙂

Feel and BE more Sexy

Ha! Do you like my title?? Bet you wanted to read what I was talking about, didn’t you?? I mean, who doesn’t want to be sexy? I think that sexy is so much more than slapping on nice makeup and heels. It has to build from within. And that starts on the cellular level with providing our cells with optimal mineralization to build strength and vitality and magnetism…

Sexy, attractive, magnetic people are healthy-looking and strong. We are programmed from the beginning of mankind, from the time of our ancient ancestors, to be attracted to a potential partner of the opposite sex that would be a good carrier and producer of our offspring. ( This is in a general sense- I know that many people choose to live very happy, healthy lives and don’t want to actually have children or opt to adopt instead of having their own, which is great. So don’t take this tooooo literally…. bear with me!) For women, that translates into a curvy differentiation between the waist and hips (to translate into being able to bear children), healthy hair (which implies mineralization, being a strong, healthy mate), and glowing skin. That is why I think ultimately and overall, strong, curvy and healthy women are much more attractive than girls that don’t eat!!

Focus on eating for nutrition- so will feel strong and healthy, which will automatically make you more sexy. If you eat "fat-free", "low-carb" processed crap, that can throw your body out of balance and can promote seeming dissatisfaction with oneself and one's appearance- since you feel that you can't eat "real" food. Focus on being healthy, and focus on what you like about yourself. Everyone has things that they'd want to change- so why even focus on that??

So let’s get down to food. We truly are what we eat- and the energy of the food we eat will get assimilated into the cells of our body, where it will become part of OUR energy, and the energy we radiate out into the universe and what all other people that cross our path sense and feel, whether they realize it cognitively or not. That is why people that eat more raw, living plant food, grown in abundance right in the earth, are more magnetic and glowing than those that eat the flesh of dead animals (Eeeewwww). I mean sorry, but look at fresh luscious spinach, healthy as can be and bursting with life force. Would you rather that be part of your constitutional makeup or a piece of dead pink salmon- that has been plucked from the sea, probably suffocated to a slow, horrible death, and plunks on your plate where its dead-energy muscles are going to make up your lunch?? It is not living anymore – it is dead in every possible sense of the word. I mean yucky yucky yuck.

But I didn’t want to go on a vegetarian rant today! I wanted to talk to you about fruit! And in particular seeded vs. seedless fruit. Fruit is an amazing gift from the earth, and so full of life force that the great yogi Yogananda says that it should be the first thing you eat after you meditate, to support your prana and life force swirling through your body.

The very definition of a fruit is that it bears its own seed (that’s why tomatoes and avocados are really fruits!). These seeds have the DNA programmed in them to become huge trees or plants. Seeded fruits are ripe, pregnant with fertility, and the potential to reproduce. Oooohhh- isn’t that sexy??? ☺  So when we eat seeded, natural fruit, we TOO can take in the energy of that fruit, which is bursting with life force and reproduction capabilities, and increase our own magnetism. Now this is true for women of all ages- it doesn’t matter if you’ve passed menopause or not! Don’t take it too literally, remember I am talking about energy and radiance. Some of my favorite fruits are avocados, durian, cherries, apples, pears (well seemingly everyday and boring but great staples!!), lemons, papayas, blueberries, Acai, Goji berries, etc. etc.

In Bora Bora, French Polynesia in November when I shot the yoga video. The people over there are So glowing and magnetic- magical really. I ate the best watermelon over there, bursting with huge seeds. And of course all their indigenous fruit is totally natural and luscious!

No nothing is more sad to me than when I see a sign for “Seedless Watermelon” or “Seedless Grapes” at the grocery store. Do you know what those poor inert pseudo-fruit beings are??? They are HYBRIDIZED. It means that their genetic makeup has been tampered with by scientists in a lab to produce strains that would sell well commercially (Scientist, “Yes, let’s make seedless grapes, because people are too lazy to pick out the little seeds and then we’ll be able to sell tons of them!”). Scientists have engineered a way to make these hybrid fruits lack a double set of chromosomes in their reproductive cells. So it means that these fruits can no longer reproduce- they don’t have seeds!!! And that defies the very definition of what a fruit is in the first place. And that is SO not sexy. Hybrid fruit is so unnatural and is also much higher in sugar and lower in minerals. And that is not helping our sexiness factor either.

So to feel and be more sexy from within, always go for the natural, organic varieties of fruits which have not been tampered with and DO bear their own seeds. I relish in picking out about 12 seeds from each of my lemons before squeezing it onto my salads.  I would much rather take the 30 seconds to do that and know that I am getting the freshest, best lemon juice on the planet, from a living, sexy fruit!!!

Have an awesome Memorial Day! Yay, for the beginning of summer. I’ll talk to you at the end of the weekend you sexy thaaaaaang. 🙂

All my very best,
xx Kimberly

Call me Up!!

So tomorrow, Tuesday, May 19th, I’ll be working on this special Health and Nutrition hotline for the New York Daily News! I’ll be on the phone from 9- 12:00 noon. Give me a call if you have a health question!! The number is 212. 210. 2044.   Hope to hear from you! xx Kimberly

Tribute to my Teacher

Sri Dharma Mittra in Times Square. "All is within," he always says.

So this past weekend was the birthday of my dear yoga teacher Sri. Dharma Mittra (not to be confused with my guru- who is Paramahansa Yogananda), who turned 70 years young! Humble and gentle and psychic, Dharma has been teaching yoga in New York for over 45 years (another !!). He is commonly known in the yoga world as “the Rock of Yoga,” and for his experience and knowledge as “the Teacher’s Teacher.” There were many times that I would take class and catch Dharma’s eye for a second- and know that he knew exactly what I was thinking. Often too, I would come to class with a question in mind, especially if I was going through a hard time, and he would always say something to address my question or thought- without me having to even ask the question. My schedule doesn’t allow me to see Dharma 5 days a week, the way I used to, but I know we are still connected whether we see each other physically or not.

Dharma always emphasized the spine in his asana series- as backbends open the heart and the chakras, energy centers.

Dharma has had a major impact on my life, and I can only humbly put my hands together for him and bow my head in thanks. He taught me that yoga is about devotion, love, and presenting your asanas (poses) as an offering. Though he is one of the most accomplished yogis that ever lived in terms of asanas, he is the very FIRST to say that the poses are not the end goal of yoga, or what yoga is all about. The poses merely help discipline the body and mind to prepare for meditation and the higher limbs of yoga, and again, can be seen as an offering past the limited ego.

Here I am following what Dharma always says to do, "Copy the Teacher!"

In 1975, Dharma demonstrates Bhuja Vrischikasana; Handstand Scorpion posture.

Dharma accepting his birthday cake yesterday. He is the sweetest man ever!

An avid proponent of Karma Yoga- doing acts of love and kindness with absolutely no expectation of any return, Dharma’s very name, “dharma” means performing our highest duty.

Dharma is also the person that introduced me to raw food!! I was already a vegetarian when I met Dharma, who tirelessly promotes Ahimsa (non-violence) thru veganism and kindness to all living beings, especially our inferior brothers (the animal kingdom). But his teachings on how raw food greatly benefit your meditation practice, freeing up the energy to go up the spine, were new and fascinating concepts to me. Dharma always said, “If you want to feel cooked, fried, and dead…then eat that food which is cooked, fried and dead!”

I did indeed try raw food to help my yoga practice and meditation- which it did! And then it just mushroomed from there into a major, major passion of mine- exploring the nutrition behind this way of eating.

“The one message of all saints and sages is the message of love. Ahimsa is the highest of all traits found in the mind, speech and actions of all perfected souls. There is only one religion- the religion of love, or peace. There is only one message, the message of unconditional and universal love. Ahimsa is the supreme duty of a Yogi. If you are established in Ahimsa, you have attained all virtues. All virtues spring forth from Ahimsa.

Ahimsa may appear to merely imply non-killing. But, non- injury is not merely non-killing. The true meaning of Ahimsa is non-harming in thought, word, and action. The absence of causing any harm to any living creature. Ahimsa is true strength. No Self-realization is possible without Ahimsa.”
– Sri Dharma Mittra

Well, not much to say after the great Dharma’s closing words! Except that I wish you a great week, and great, unlimited love in your life.

Shanti and Love,
Kimberly

Here I am with Krishna Das, whose kirtans I try to make whenever possible!! Krishna Das played a private concert at Dharma's birthday party, as they are close friends. He is the musician I play the most!! I play his music in all my yoga classes. His music is awesome. I love all his albums, but especially All One and Door of Faith.

In 1984 Dharma completed the Master Yoga Chart of 908 Postures, as an offering to his Guru, and for all Yoga aspirants. This original masterpiece was meticulously assembled from over 1,350 photographs of posture variations he took of himself, all hand done before the computer age. He held the camera clicker in his mouth! He said in each and every picture he took of himself in a yoga asana, he was thinking of God.  Over 300 of these postures that are very popular today are created by Sri Dharma (of which he will only say “came through” Divine intuition). It has been an invaluable teaching tool over the past decades. You will find it in just about every yoga school and Ashram worldwide including India.

Raw Beauty Tabouli Salad

Okay, so I’m pretty obsessed with my tabouli salad right now- and I think once you make it and try it, you will be too!
It is simply YUM, fresh, super easy, and wait until you hear of the benefits!

PARSLEY: This herb has so many health benefits. I try to throw it into my green smoothies every day, and here is another way to incorporate it easily into your diet! Parsley is rich in the beauty Vitamins A and C, folic acid, and has flavonoids that act as antioxidants- which put the kabash on free radicals creating damage to the cells.

Parsley is also very high in iron, and the high vitamin C content assists the absorption of iron. It is a blood purifier and helps to kill bacteria in the body.  Parsley is an excellent digestion restorative remedy. It improves the digestion of proteins and fats, and because of its high enzyme content, parsley benefits digestive activity and elimination. It also helps cleanse the liver of toxins and rejuvenates it (!).

If that weren’t enough, parsley is also high in B12, chlorophyll and essential fatty acids- and helps balance hormones in us women! Now I bet you think of parsley as more than that a dinky garnish you push to the side of your plate with the edge of your fork…hmmmmm????

HEMPSEEDS: (My favorite seeds) Hempseeds are 33% easily digestible plant protein, and 3 tbs. serves up a whopping 11 grams of protein! Loaded with Omega 3 fats, and the beauty minerals Magnesium, Zinc, Iron and Phosphorus, these little seeds are perfect little gifts of nutrition from nature. These are NOT of the same strain as the um, smoking kind of hemp, which contain THC. So don’t worry, you won’t get high from them (only a natural high from the amazing flow of nutrition!), they are legal…and they WILL help your skin and hair will look gorgeous.

LEMON: Like a reoccurring favorite song you can’t stop playing on your iPod (okay I have like 10 songs that are pretty heavy in rotation, despite the fact I have like 10,000 songs on my iPod 🙂 ), lemon always seems to sneak into my blogs! What can I say? Lemons are amazing cleansers and I would love it if you guys would make an effort to include them regularly in your diets. Lemons have over 200 enzymes and are one of the most restorative foods for the liver! So here is yet another way to get more lemon into the diet- what a Godsend.

(And finally…) The Recipe!

–    1 huge bunch of either curly parsley or Italian flat parsley, or 2   smaller bunches
–    ½ white onion, diced
–    1 organic tomato, diced
–    5 heaping Tbs. of hempseeds

–    Juice of 1 lemon
–    1 clove of garlic
–    ¼ cup of first cold-pressed olive oil
–    ½ tsp. sea salt

The other good news is that it takes like 7 minutes to make this salad of beauty and health!!!!!

Chop the parsley and throw it into a large bowl, along with the tomato, onion and hempseeds. In a blender, combine the lemon, garlic, olive oil and sea salt and blend until a smooth consistency.

Pour over the salad and mix well, and you’re ready to go!!

** Note: If you cut up an avocado on the side to eat with this salad, the way I do sometimes, this would make a wonderful, filling, and super nutritious raw lunch or dinner!

I hope you love this as much as I do. 🙂 Have a beautiful rest of your week!

xx Kimberly

Really, is there anything more beautiful than a flower growing wild in nature?? I was biking in Venice this past trip to CA and happened upon these amazing flowers growing near a stream. I Just had to stop!

Going Green and Giving Back

Hello Guys!

First off, Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! What an amazing and important role to fulfill here on earth. Now here is the clip from the San Diego morning show! Amazingly enough, that was filmed in San Diego only hours after I wrote to you last time from LA, the day of the infamous beach faceplant/passout. 🙂

I’ve had a blast on set with Iron Man 2. I even got to try on Robert Downey Jr’s ironman suit- well only the arm parts, and that was enough for me! So fun!!!

The other big thing I’ve been up to is the Project Concern charity event that took place at Saks Fifth Avenue in San Diego on May 7th.  Check out some of the pics!

Have a great week. And please visit me soon.

xx Kimberly

The Project Concern Charity Event at Saks Fifth Avenue. Chatting with the women that attended and came by my table. Project Concern is our charity partner to which we donate 10% of our proceeds.

Here I am with Uli Heine, the Director of Development for Project Concern.

The Project Concern Event at Saks turned out great! I met so many people, and had a chance to really connect with so many new women, which I love to do. It was so inspiring for me to be there with all the staff of Project Concern International, and hear about what new projects they have going on. We are brainstorming some exciting new ways to get even more involved with this amazing charity, which I’ll share with you sometime soon!!

Sometimes there were so many people talking to me at the same time, signing up for our newsletter, etc. that I would get all tongue twisted. 🙂 And by the end of the night I started getting delirious as to what I had said to whom, as I had already spoken to hundreds of people!

Setting my table area, with some of my travel pics. Ironically, our setup was designated in the fur section!!! I definitely chose to ignore that fact however. 🙂

Project Concern works on sustainable projects in the areas of microenterprise, clean water initiatives, emergency medical relief and education.

Movie Sets and Charity Events

Hey Guys,

I’m in sunny, warm LA! I just got in yesterday.

So today I was on the set of Iron Man 2 all afternoon and night. It was great- I can’t believe how many props and equipment and crew are involved in making a humongous movie like that (!). The actors are all great too- very friendly and sweet. Definitely some of my faves.

I have to tell you a funny story that happened this morning. I walked down to the beach in Santa Monica for a walk and a long meditation. It was so nice to just hear the ocean and reconnect back. Then after I was done meditating I put my sweatshirt down in the sand and thought it would be nice to lay down “for a second.” Ahhh….so comfy and nice to rest! 🙂 Well I woke up about an hour later, face down in the sand, my hair and half of my face COVERED in sand, and I completely forgot where I was for a minute. It totally reminded me of my around the world trip, where I was moving so much that I often forgot when I woke up where I was, and what country I was in. I mean, I just totally passed out. Then I remembered I had a conference call in half an hour so dusted myself off as best I could (after looking around sheepishly, I must have looked like a passed out drunk), and hurried back up the hill to where I’m staying!

I’ve been working a lot lately…All day long running around, then going to bed at 2:30 am every night and waking up early. So it finally caught with me, and yes, I passed out face first right on the beach!! To that end, I better make this short as I have to wake up at 5 am to drive to San Diego to be on the morning television show (gosh, I’ve barely gotten to think about that!!! and figure out what I’m going to wear!!), and then the Project Concern Event is tomorrow night. If you live in Southern California, please come by!

(Yawn) Okay my loves, I’ll write more tomorrow or Friday. I’ll let you know how the event was and I’ll be back at set on Friday.

Lots of love, Kimberly

Skincare on the Brain…and “Raw” Skincare??

When I'm feeling overworked and overwhelmed (like Now!!), then my mediation practice truly saves me and keeps things in perspective for me.

Hey Guys!  So I recently wrote this interview for iVillage, and I thought it was totally relevant to share with you guys what is on my mind at this exact moment! Here goes…

iVillage: Why is natural skincare important in terms of health and putting less toxins on the body?
Kimberly: 70% of what you put on your skin, the largest organ, is absorbed into your bloodstream and into your liver. Toxins in cosmetics and skincare products can lead to problems with the endocrine system (especially the thyroid), the reproductive organs and the brain.

When you consider that products sit on the skin 24 hours a day, constantly being absorbed, you realize how significant this is! Think about it…that is why more and more medications are administered through the skin, such as the nicotine patch.”

iVillage: Since you are a raw foodist, do you recommend using raw product? As in cold-pressed oils?
Kimberly: It’s great to be natural, but…we still want to see results.  As a raw foodist myself, I am familiar with the benefits of ingesting raw olive oil, coconut oil, etc. as well as raw aloe. However, as far as facial skincare products go, I would NEVER be so literal as to only use raw ingredients!! If you want to see results, it is essential to include the potent scientific ingredients. There is no such thing as “raw” DMAE or “raw” Alpha Lipoic Acid or “raw” dipeptides, etc., which are powerful lab ingredients.

Please be sure to check the ingredient list for any skincare claiming to be “raw”- it will be made primarily of aloe as its main ingredient, and some other botanicals. I’m all about natural and chemical-free…but remember that if you want your skin to glow, be youthful and smooth, you need to use a whole lot more than aloe!

iVillage: Can you ever make a product 100% natural – why or why not (the need for preservatives, especially)?

Kimberly: Well you do need to have preservatives in products, as well as anti-microbials. It is important to read the safety profile for each such ingredient and determine which one is best. Parabens, which mimic the endocrine system and are carcinogenic, are not necessary. It’s really scary when certain products have parabens listed high up in the ingredient list! However, an anti-microbial called phenoxyethanol has a good safety profile comparatively, and is considered safe in very tiny quantities. Plus, it is illegal to sell products in certain countries, such as Japan, without this specific ingredient.

iVillage: Do many of the products that claim to be natural not live up to the fact?
Kimberly: Unfortunately, I think a lot of companies label themselves as “natural,” when in fact they are using different technicalities to use that term. For instance, some companies say they are paraben-free, but use grapeseed extract stabilized with parabens in the product, to get around the labeling! However, I am optimistic that more and more people are getting educated, and will be able to identify the truly beneficial companies out there.

This is the same with using products that you think are vegan or not created with animal cruelty. For example, “natural, organic” Hyaluronic Acid is usually derived from rooster feathers, and is not as stable as the lab form of HLA. Using the absolute most natural form of all ingredients whenever possible- for example, the active form of Vitamin A as Retinyl Palmitate, but without the potential side effects of Rentinoic Acid, and Phosphatidylcholine (PPC), in its natural form of lecithin is important.

iVillage: Can you ever be sure what’s going into your cosmetics? How?
Kimberly: Well you can check out the ingredient label first, and look out for mineral oils, which can sit on the skin’s surface, clogging it, hindering its respiration and oxidizing into free radicals.  Other ingredients I avoid are sulfates, urea, glycol, ethyl-alcohols and parabens.

But for the reasons that I mentioned in Question #2, you really CAN NOT be sure what is in your products just from looking at the label. You really have to trust the brand, the formulators behind it, and the ethos of that particular brand and what they stand for.

iVillage: What should people be careful of when buying products from large established cosmetics lines?
Kimberly: Well… (LOL) this is a funny question for me because I worked at one of the largest beauty companies in the world and I know how good they are at getting around labels and identifications in order to cut costs.

So yes, I would always be careful. Large companies have a lot of infrastructure and people’s salaries to pay, so profits and the bottom line are the top of the priority list, NOT making sure you have as few toxins as possible going into your body.

Well I think I have spoken on that topic! 🙂 I hope you guys have a great week.

I’ll be heading to LA tom. for press and for the Project Concern charity event at Saks Fifth Avenue, so I’ll write to you from there.

xx Kimberly