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Setting intentions

by Kasia Gendis January 14, 2021

For most of us 2020 was a challenging time. 

We need to take a deep breath and exhale loooong…..

Sadly it seems like we are still in that same uncertainty and we can not change what is happening around us. But the good news is we can change the way we react to all that is coming at us daily. We can also chose to still focus on the positive things life brings us.

Setting intentions for small changes in our Life is very important not only in the New Year but anytime. 

And by intentions I do not mean goals. I mean that what really expresses the changes we desire to make in our life.

It could be any change in your life whether it is a new eating habit, more patience, more self love, more resilience to stress, losing weight, starting an exercise routine, better sleep. 

Whatever will bring a breath of fresh air for you.

What is that you really need to change in the New Year to support you??

Take a blank paper and just write it down!

For me it is very important to slow down and just be more present to the Life directly around me. 

We all need to live it right now! Give our daily actions more awareness.

Also as every year I will keep the intention of having balanced eating and lifestyle habits support me throughout the year. 

Lets turn more within to get more grounded and resilient. Whatever we set out will ensure the change we desire can be manifested into our lives. 

If you would like to explore more the idea of intention setting check out my practice on IGTV taking you through different aspects of your Life and setting intentions in each one of them.

I wish you all you have been asking for to manifest in this New Year.

Health&Wonderment

Filed under Inspiration

Digestive Elixir

by Patrick Tang December 31, 2020

Are you feeling a bit overloaded after Christmas?

Make sure you do not make yourself feel guilty though.

After the hardship of the year that is about to end we do need softness, understanding and being really kind towards ourselves.

Just embrace the magical moments you had, whatever the celebrations looked like this year for you. Appreciate what you have and who you have in your life, embrace the magic moments of love, peace, kindness, togetherness (even if only virtually this year) and if you were spending it by yourself the relaxing and slowed down time you had.  

Enjoy the last few days of the old challenging year knowing that there is always hope for a better one being just around the corner. Life is about balance!  

What you could do now though is start planning how to balance out the indulgence that some of us might have experienced with a clean eating plan that will bring you back on track. 

It is Ok to enjoy life. We just need to know how to manoeuvre between the extremes and mostly try to be in the middle.

So what would you like to do in the New Year to make yourself feel lighter,  brighter and more energised?

We all have proven ways that work for each one of us. What works for you?

When I feel a bit overwhelmed with food I use this Elixir from our bi-annual detox program:

  • a glass of warm water,
  • juice of half a lemon (or a drop of lemon essential oil you can get it here: www.mydoterra.com/katarzynagendis),
  • 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar,
  • pinch of sea salt,
  • 1 teaspoon of honey.

Mix well and drink first thing in the morning, minimum 20 min before any food.

If you need more support I am planning a 5 Day Body Reset group program starting the 18th of January 2021. 

More details will follow at the start of the New Year. 

The aim of the program is to reset your body and give it a clean, fresh start in the New Year. 

Are you in?? Great!

For now just still enjoy the festivities and do not worry about the rest.  

Filed under Uncategorized

Christmas Time is Almost Here Again

by Patrick Tang December 16, 2020

It is usually a busy time for most of us now. We are running around preparing and getting ready for the celebrations. Even though it will probably not be the same Christmas as usually this year, we still would like to celebrate it the best we can.

It is a special time of increased feelings of love, warmth, gratitude, happiness, laughter and connections with friends and family.
But also, a time where we worry a bit more about our waistline and letting ourselves go again during the festivities.

There is a solution for that though. You can still enjoy your Christmas sweet treats and add to your joy rather than your waistline.

I was trying out a few things in the kitchen the other day and I accidentally came up with this simple chocolate recipe that is so delicious that your usual sweets will not be missed.

I am sharing this recipe for you to enjoy it without any guilt as it only has clean ingredients.

You can also download more of the Clean Treats recipes here:

boostbykasiagendis.com/cleantreats

Choco Loco Block
Print

Choco Loco Block

Servings

12

servings
Cooking time

15

minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Cacao Butter

  • 1 cup Cashew Butter

  • 2 tbsps Cacao Powder

  • 1/2 cup Dried Sour Cherries

  • 1/2 cup Almonds (blanched, chopped)

  • 1/2 cup Dried Unsweetened Cranberries (pre soaked)

  • 1 tbsp Flax Seed (crushed)

  • 1 tsp Cinnamon

  • 2 tbsps Raw Honey (you can add more to your taste)

Directions

  • Put cranberries to soak in a bowl with filtered water
  • Then heat up cacao butter and cashew butter in the pan, when melted add cacao powder. Mix well and take off the stove to cool a bit.
  • Meanwhile chop blanched almonds.
  • Add honey (you can mix with a little bit of water if it is solidified), cinnamon, flax seeds, almonds, drained cranberries and cherries to the chocolate mixture and mix well.
  • Transfer all to a dish lined with baking paper (long, rectangular pan works well) and put to the fridge for a few hours till it sets.
  • Take out the block from the pan, cut in slices and enjoy!! Whatever is left (not for long trust me) keep in the fridge or you can freeze it.
Filed under Inspiration

Digital Detox for Weight Loss

by Kasia Gendis November 19, 2020

Seems like these days we can not live without electronics. We use it everyday for school, work, and leisure. Everything is on our phone. We don’t even have to remember any phone numbers anymore. It is all stored for us. I still remember the numbers I used to dial in pre-mobile times but not the more recent ones because everything is on my phone now.

We wake up every morning with an urge to straight away reach for our phone to check what happened while we were sleeping, any messages, any news? We do that and our stress levels are most likely rising immediately. 

We go to the office or work from home staring the whole day at the computer screen. After work we still need to check our social media, reply to all our new messages and catch up with new posts. Then it is time to rest on the couch and watch tv or maybe read an article or a book (most of the time also digitally). Then we do a final social media check before we try to put ourselves to sleep.

Does it sound familiar?

The whole day we are constantly stimulated. No wonder the teenagers can’t take that pressure and often times have problems with their moods, feeling low and being tired. 

Also for adults it is too much fast information to constantly process.

Using our electronics without a break throughout the day makes us more irritable, tired, overstimulated, anxious, impatient, but also stressed and worried with all the news influx.

We need time during the day when we can just truly relax and disconnect to activate the calming side of our nervous system, bring cortisol levels down and then be able to really rest properly at night.

Constantly elevated stress levels keep our body in fight/flight/freeze mode. It is exhausting to be in it for an extended time. It’s as if we were in a constant state of emergency. We can’t function properly that way, let alone lose the excess weight.

In this state it is also hard for us to fall asleep, have a restful night and recharge to be in the best form the following day.

And when you feel tired and not properly rested the chances are you will be relying on caffeine and extra sugar to  keep you going throughout the next day and the next day and the next day..…after a while we find ourselves in a vicious cycle of blue screens, anxiety, poor sleep, caffeine/sugar  and as a result, at its least weight gain, but also serious mental and physical health struggles.

That is why I have implemented a few small changes in my routines. You can try them out.

1. Try not to reach for your phone the minute you wake up but instead bring more awareness to your usual morning activities: teeth brushing, showering, tea making.

This half an hour in the morning just for you before you let new information in, really makes a difference.

(We can talk another time about more ideas for establishing a full morning routine)

2. The same goes for the evening. Trying to get off your electronics at least an hour before bed time will help you calm down and activate the cooling side of your nervous system, helping you fall asleep and stay asleep. 

(You can also join me live for my ‘Mondays with Inner Stillness’ practices at 9 pm CET on IG  @boost_by_kasiagendis to help you bring stress levels down)

3. And one day in the week, when you do not have to be around your phone or computer (for me Sunday usually works best, when I take a day off) keep your phone in a different room for most of the time and try not to open up your computer at all. 

It is so freeing, relaxing, calming, and recharging!!

We do need a break every so often for our system to function properly.

And even better just get outside without your phone :)))

Filed under Uncategorized

Fermented Vegetables

by Kasia Gendis January 9, 2020

I am sure you have heard the recent trend of fermenting foods. It has become an entirely new business. We can get these goods in almost all the stores nowadays.

Where I come from, our tradition is to eat fermented cabbage, known as sauerkraut, and fermented cucumbers, known as pickles. My mum used to make amazing sauerkraut salad with freshly grated apple and olive oil. Delicious! 

However, fermenting has existed in most of the cultures for generations as it is one of the oldest methods of preserving food.

People thought of it in the times when there was no fridges and they used fermentation to let their foods last longer.

This process not only prolongs the use by date and enhances the taste of the food, but also has a lot of health benefits for our body.

By consuming produce containing live cultures, we absorb bacteria that helps us digest food. The same bacteria, while going through our system, produces a lot of protecting compounds, enriching our inner ecosystem, guarding us from the harmful pathogens and improving our digestion.  It can help with conditions like constipation, diarrhea, reflux, intestinal inflammation, IBS and even vaginal infections.

Live cultures are also awesome to help build back our gut flora that gets destroyed by antibiotics or even by consumption of highly processed foods.

There is a direct link between the health of our digestive system, it’s functioning, and overall immunity of our body.  By strengthening our gut we totally enhance our immunity. We get much stronger and are ready to fight different viruses and bacterias. 

This is also a great way to have nutritious foods, fruits and veggies, on hand during the cold season when not much fresh produce is available.

Especially during that time of the year, remember to keep your body strong and immune to fight flus and other viruses.

Fermented vegetables like sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi and others are a great way of getting vitamins and nutrients into our body and at the same time improving the functioning of our guts.

But fermented foods are not only veggies.

We can enrich our diet also with fermented grains, sourdough bread, yoghurts (made out of dairy but also for example coconut), tempe (fermented tofu), fermented drinks like kombucha and much much more.

Almost every culture has their staple fermented food.

I encourage you to experiment with a wide range of it.

Here is a super easy recipe for fermented Jerusalem artichoke. also known as topinambur, but you can use this method to ferment almost any vegetable: carrots, beets, onions, pumpkin, cucumbers, cauliflower, etc

FERMENTED JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE

around 1/2 kg of Jerusalem artichokes, washed well and sliced 

(try to use eco products)

4 pieces of turmeric, chopped roughly

1 l of lukewarm water

3 tbsp of coarse sea salt 

1l clean jar

  1. Pack Jerusalem artichokes and turmeric, firmly, into the jar
  2. Prepare brine by dissolving 3 tbsp of salt in 1l of lwater (if using fine salt use less) 
  3. Pour brine over the vegetables. Let the water cover the veggies completely.
  4. Leave 2 cm between the top level of the brine and the top of the jar. You can use a weight to push the veggies down, if necessary (for example you can use baking weights or a smaller jar, filled with water)
  5. Close the lid and stand on your counter for 3-7 days, burp everyday (open to let the air out and close again)
  6. From day 3 onwards try the veggies daily and if you decide it is fermented enough to your taste transfer the jar to the fridge, it will slow down the fermentation
  7. Enjoy on salads, in bowls, on sandwiches etc
Filed under Vegetables

The Power of Gratitude

by Kasia Gendis January 9, 2020

 As I was setting my intentions for the New Year, 2020, I started with a reflexion on 2019. What was supporting me last year??

It was a very beautiful but also challenging year for me, filled with difficult moments and a lot of adjustments had to be made. I realised that what really kept me going, helped me see just the blessings, and made me go only forward was GRATITUDE.

I know a lot has been said lately on that and we hear it everywhere. I also have been practicing it for a long time now, but last year was special. I literally lived by it everyday. When I didn’t know what to do in certain situations that seemed hard to resolve, I used gratitude over and over again. There is so much to be grateful for. We ALL have so much to be grateful for. Starting with simple things like running water or clean water to drink, food on our plate, clothes to wear, washing machine to wash it, roof over our head, people around us: friends, partners, children, then of course health, love, peace, kindness, nature around us…..the list is endless.

This brings me back to the times when I lived in Lagos, Nigeria. I have really learned a lot there in respect to gratitude from local people. I have seen so many situations where people had next to nothing and lived in poverty however, they were still grateful for being alive, for food, and for their health. They danced, sang and made jokes on a daily basis. This was so inspiring to watch. In my culture I was not used to it. In Africa I have seen people living without running water, without electricity, without enough food to last them till the end of the month, yet they still were cheerful, grateful, kind and helpful. And somehow they would always make it work. What kept them going was gratitude paired with profound trust in higher power. (I will write on the latter in a separate blog).

And that is how it works.

By just acknowledging a couple of positive things that stood out for us on a particular day, we put ourselves into a spiral of positive energy that we can ride on wherever we want. 

Acknowledging and appreciating what we have, being thankful for it, makes other things just flow into our life. Suddenly everything starts falling into place.

If you still have doubts try it yourself.

PRACTICE:

Everyday (best first thing in the morning or last thing at night) tell yourself 3-5 things you were grateful for on that particular day or the previous day.  You can also write it down in a ‘Gratitude Journal’.

Do it for at least 1 month and see how you feel. At the same time try to restrain yourself from complaining too much. Anytime you feel like it, just start reminding yourself your blessings over and over again.

Try it out, it works like magic!

Filed under Inspiration