Category Archives: nutrition

Pain is not life

  By Crystal Clarke | February 13, 2017 - 7:30 am | , , , , ,
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Pain_Quotes6

Life is pain. That’s what some believe and in some ways it’s true, especially for me right now. The past couple of weeks I have experienced acute pain in my back. It is likely a combination of physical and emotional stresses. As if getting up at 6am isn’t hard enough already, but I have had spasms in my back every morning. The only thing that made getting out of bed worth it was that the pain meds were downstairs and I had to walk to get them. After a week of “ouch ouch ouch” my partner said, “Ummm… maybe you … Keep reading →

Recipe: Tomato and Rice Soup

  By Crystal Clarke | February 10, 2016 - 5:01 pm | , , ,
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rice soup

When I cook rice and quinoa I like to cook a whole bunch at once so that I can use it in different dishes through the week. Last week I took it a bit too far and had about 4 cups of leftover cooked mixed grains of brown rice, quinoa, basmati rice and wild rice . I knew I had to use them up yesterday and decided to make a Tomato and Rice Soup. I thought maybe the grains would be too “grainy” tasting, but it actually worked out really well and added some nice texture to the soup. I don’t … Keep reading →

Cleansing

  By Crystal Clarke | December 14, 2015 - 4:55 pm | , , , , ,
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Over the past two weeks I have been doing a clean-eating cleanse that involved no sugar, no caffeine or alcohol, no soy or wheat, no eggs or dairy (that one was not hard for me), a green smoothie each morning, a lot of water (half my body weight in ounces), and daily yoga. In addition to this I started out doing the December 1-mile a day challenge and a push-up challenge. The cleanse was a success for me! I feel really great and I think I’m going to keep going with most of it, except for caffeine. With the medication that … Keep reading →

Two steps forward, one step back

  By Crystal Clarke | July 18, 2015 - 12:01 pm | , , , , , , , ,
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physical-pain-quotes-20150312154852-5501b564317dc

This last weekend I went to the Winnipeg Folk Festival with some great people. It was probably one of the stupidest things I’ve done in a long, long time. My over-confident self thought that I would be able to hobble around the festival without problem. That was a stupid thing to think. Or maybe just very optimistic? Either way, it was a difficult lesson to learn. Let me sum up the weekend: the music and people were awesome, I was in pain and quite miserable most of the time. The website says the following: “There are ten stages of music to … Keep reading →

Welcome back… kind of

  By Crystal Clarke | June 13, 2015 - 3:45 pm | , , ,
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2015 - foot injury

One week ago my foot broke. Sometimes small mistakes have big consequences. In two seconds half my summer will be in a cast using crutches to get around. In my true fashion, I am trying to see the bright side: my one leg will be stellar strong, my arms will be buff, and in a couple of weeks I should be able to start biking again and maybe swim. If I can get on my bike soon then I won’t go completely insane AND it won’t destroy my race in August. Another silver lining is that this has me itching to train. … Keep reading →

Raw Vegan Olympian: Alexey Voyevoda

  By Crystal Clarke | February 18, 2014 - 7:55 am | , , , ,
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Alexey Voyevoda is a World Champion arm wrestler and an Olympic bobsledder from Russia. He is a big guy…. like, really big, weighing in at 253 pounds and stands 6’4″. I would love a photo beside him as I’m 4’11” and 130lb. That would be a great photo! Yesterday his team won the 2-man bobsled competition at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and the prominent fact about him was that he is a raw vegetarian (vegan?). Before that was announced I had no idea. Of course I wanted to know more about this guy! PETA has a good, but short, article … Keep reading →

Salads

  By Crystal Clarke | January 24, 2014 - 9:00 am | , , , ,
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I have a secret to disclose to everyone: I don’t like salad! I’ve been vegan for almost 12 years now and I have kept this secret until recently. There is an assumption that because someone is vegan that means they like salad. It is often used as the go-to food at a restaurant that has nothing else. “There’s nothing you can eat? Well, you can have a salad!” Blah! This week I have tried having a salad for lunch a couple of times. One day I had a salad with quinoa, grape tomatoes, and baby greens with a ginger-sesame dressing. … Keep reading →

5 Days Strong

  By Crystal Clarke | June 17, 2013 - 9:07 pm | , ,
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Today it was a struggle to get outside for some “real” exercise. I managed to get out for a good speed walk. It was a cloudy day but it turned out to be a beautiful evening. So this vegan triathlete went for a good walk fighting the mosquitoes and felt better. I was not feeling well today so it was hard. I did it, though, and the sense of accomplishment is great. Day 5! My 40-day challenge is coming along well and I’m  happy with my daily exercise goal. I’m not going to lie, this weekend was weak in terms … Keep reading →

Week 14

  By Crystal Clarke | April 8, 2013 - 10:29 am | , , , , , , , , , ,
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14 weeks. 14 weeks until my A-race of 2013. Holy S**t. When I counted the weeks this morning I had a little jump of panic. Why? Well, let me just tell you why. The past few months I have been more active than I have been since the marathons last spring. That really isn’t saying a lot since I did almost zero activity from June to December. The reasons for that were numerous: burn-out (2 years of straight training will do that), a knee injury, a lot of various family issues from my brother being in an accident to my … Keep reading →

Weekend Recipes!

  By Crystal Clarke | January 13, 2013 - 3:03 pm | , , , , ,
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Two pancakes with Becel Vegan margarine and maple syrup. Delicious!

Last week I made a wonderful meal of steamed veggies (peppers, onions, and spinach) on top of quinoa with a simple tahini dressing/sauce (tahini, garlic, Bragg’s). It was delicious when warm and then the next day for lunch when it was cold. Last weekend I made some delicious dahl from my new Forks Over Knives cookbook that I got from my sister for Christmas (Thanks Ash!). I was planning to make home-made naan to go with the dahl, but I got lazy and had a double lentil meal with some lentil rolls a friend randomly gave to me earlier that … Keep reading →