Tag Archives: hanumanasana

Day 25: Juicy Hips and Crispy Chickpeas

This morning I woke up feeling groggy, a combination of working until 1am and the head cold that came to visit yesterday.  The last thing I wanted to do was turn myself upside down in downward dog when my head felt ready to explode sitting right-side up.  So I decided to take it easy on myself and go back to my quick favorite Opening to Hanumanasana with Adi on Yoga Today (though, you’ll notice if you click the link that I actually do this practice on YouTube).  Even though this class is only 25 minutes, it is full of juicy hip openers (which, if you couldn’t tell by now, I love!) and, more importantly today, not too much upside-down time.  It had been a while since I’d done this one, and as much as I love it, I always dread the pose where you are in a sort of super wide pigeon, with your foot rolled to the outside.  I used to have the worst time with that pose, especially on my right side.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it didn’t make me want to cry or punch someone today.  I’m letting things go guys!

I spent the afternoon working on an online training to become a volunteer tax preparer, which was my favorite project in AmeriCorps and something I’ve wanted to get back into for a long time.  When I got home, I was hungry but still had some work to do before I made dinner, so I decided to roast some chickpeas.  This is something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but for some reason I never have–odd, since I always have several cans in the house at all times.  Anyway, I did a quick search on the googs and discovered the blog How Sweet It Is which devoted an entire post to roasting the little ‘banzos! Excellent.  I followed her method and decided to go with rosemary, garlic powder and salt for my maiden voyage of making what is sure to be one of my new favorite snax.

All ready to go in the oven!

All ready to go in the oven!

Nom

Nom

 

As you can probably see from the second photo, they ended up a little, shall we say, well done.  However, my good friends will tell you that I tend to prefer things on the crispier side, so I was ok with it.  Next time, I either won’t keep them in so long or will lower the temperature of the oven.  However the flavor was great and they were a perfect crispy treat to tide me over until I was finished reviewing filing statuses.

And now it’s time for a little dinner, movie and early bed time to get rid of this cold once and for all!  I’ve got a lot of upside-downing ahead of me tomorrow. 🙂

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Filed under Food, Goals, Practice, Recipes, Roasted Chickpeas, Yoga, Yoga Snax

Day 15: Half-Way Point and Snax Remix

Hey yogis!

I’ve made it to the half-way point of my 30-Day Challenge!  Already I feel a million times better than I did on Day 1 (that is a technical measurement).  Now that my practice is pretty much back to where it used to be, I feel as though I can finally get back to goals that I had set for myself a while back.  One of those goals was to attain a full Hanumanasana, or split pose.

Not me…my hair is curly…

Since I have been noticing greater flexibility in my hammies, I decided to choose a practice that would stretch and lengthen my hip flexors, which are extremely important factor in whether or not you can do Hanumanasana.  I chose Lunging into Freedom from Yoga Today.  It is a shorter practice, and feels even shorter because she includes a guided savasana in there (often they will lead you into savasana and then advise you to stay for 5-10 minutes) but man, was it effective.  Some of the lunges (including lizard pose) were extremely intense and had me focusing on my breath to get through them.  Yet, unlike some hip-focused classes, this one was quite balanced, with plenty of vinyasas to get in a bit of upper body strengthening and bridge poses to clear the hips after the deep lunging.  Next up, I’ll choose a class that includes Hanumanasana to see if I’ve made any progress!

Yoga Snax Remix:  Remember this scrumptious treat that I wrote about last year?  Well I was really in the mood for some avocado toast today, so I made quick work of toasting some good 7-grain bread and mashing a perfectly ripe avocado…only to realize I didn’t have any lemons or limes!  It crossed my mind to just salt the avo and put it on the bread, but that seemed boring.  I scanned my kitchen cabinets, saw the balsamic vinegar and was reminded of the awesome bruschetta I shared with my best friend last week at Eataly.  So with that inspiration, I drizzled a little balsamic over the avocado-blanketed toast (rather than mixing it in with the avocado like I would the lemon–a little balsamic goes a long way, trust me) and I have to say–it was pretty delicious.  Creamy avocado mixed with a little salt was nicely complimented by the sweet balsamic.  Give it a try some time!

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Filed under Avocado Toast, Food, Goals, Recipes, Yoga