Good morning, beautiful people! It´s Monday (yey !!!) and I am here to give you more reasons to be happy and full of energy. We are starting Week 2 of our Gut Glow-Up Challenge. Our task this week is gently introducing fermented foods. Don´t exagerate with quantities and listen to your body and note down how it reacts. - Monday: Greek or Coconut Yogurt (check for "Live Active Cultures" on the label) - no sugars or sweetners added. - Tuesday: A small glass of Kefir (it has more bacterial strains than yogurt) - again, no sugars or sweetners. - Wednesday: 1-2 tbsp of raw Sauerkraut (look in the refrigerated section, not the shelf). - Thursday: Miso soup with lunch (don't boil the miso; heat kills the bacteria). - Friday: Kombucha (choose non-pasteurized, no sugar added). - Saturday: Kimchi added to a bowl of rice or scrambled eggs. - Sunday: Pickled cucumbers (must be brine-fermented, not vinegar-processed). This is a difficult task and some of you might not find all these fermented foods in your area. Don´t worry! Just choose as many as you find and alternate them during the week. Have a glorious week !

In the morning: lavender, jasmine, rose, mint, white tea and stevia. In the afternoon: butterfly pea flower, purple amarant, forget me not flower, lemon and stevia. In the evening: lavender, yellow lily flower, chamomile and stevia. in addition: curcumin, gingger and lemon. What do you think about it?

Walk into an ancient forest and you will notice that the ground is soft, yielding beneath your boots. This is the richest soil there is and it is the forest’s memory. Throughout the year, the canopy sheds its tired leaves and old branches succumb to the wind, falling into the shadows below. To the casual observer, this looks like death or waste. But to the forest, it is the beginning of a masterpiece. Fungi, bacteria and hidden invertebrates descend upon this debris, breaking down the complex structures of the past into the raw nitrogen and carbon required for the future. Without this cycle of decay, this formation of humus, the forest would literally choke on its own history. It would run out of room to grow and nutrients to thrive. It survives because it knows how to recycle itself. Deep within the microscopic landscape of your own body, a nearly identical process of "intelligent decay" is happening right now. It is called autophagy: a word derived from the Greek for "self-eating." For decades, we thought our cells were relatively static until they died. But in 2016, a Nobel Prize-winning discovery confirmed that our cells possess an exquisite internal recycling program. When the cell detects that a protein has become misfolded or an organelle (like a tiny cellular power plant) has become sluggish and damaged, it doesn't just leave the "trash" lying around. It creates a specialized bag called an autophagosome, captures the debris, and delivers it to a recycling center called the lysosome. There, the waste is stripped down into its basic building blocks - amino acids and fatty acids - which are then released back into the cell to build something brand new. Autophagy is the body’s internal "forest floor." It is how we stay young at a cellular level, clearing out the metabolic clutter that leads to inflammation and decay. But there is a catch: the forest floor only works effectively when the canopy stops dropping new material for a moment. In our bodies, autophagy is governed by a delicate energetic switch. When we are constantly "fed" - consuming calories from dawn until late at night - the body stays in a state of growth and storage. The signal to "clean up" never arrives. It is as if the forest were hit by a perpetual autumn where leaves never stop falling, eventually burying the decomposers before they can do their work. When autophagy is suppressed by constant snacking and high insulin levels, cellular "trash" accumulates. This buildup is a primary driver of everything from brain fog and low energy to more serious age-related decline.

We grow most of our veggies, so we make the salads quickly :)) We always have Okinawa spinach, curry leaves, fresh herbs ... I always have boiled eggs in the fridge and some other cooked protein for quick fixes (meat, fish etc) or a can of something like tuna/beans etc. And I put together a salad in under 10 minutes. This one has green leaves (a mix of what we had around), raw carrots, green olives, boiled eggs and tuna, some roasted buckwheat and a mustard vinaigrette. It´s a quick fix when you are in a hurry and still wanna eat heathly. What´s your lunch/dinner today?

Our local goverment has issued a red alert right now, classes suspended and all activities on hold. I am leaving work in an hour and fingers crossed to have electricity at home I will keep you posted.