Plastic reduction tips

I wanted to write this blogpost for a long time. I don’t think a lot of people are aware of this topic: Plastic. I feel like, every time I start to discuss it with someone, most people just roll with their eyes. They think: Let’s focus on what is actually important, plastic is not on their list.  

I don’t want to sound negative in this post, however I think it is relevant to talk it out. 

The fact is: I try to avoid plastic as much as possible. I’m far away from being a perfect example. My toothbrush is made of plastic. And some foods I buy are wrapped in plastic. My shampoo comes in a plastic bottle.

Still, I find myself turning around in the supermarket in slow motion – and I feel like an alien.

The fact, that almost everything is wrapped in plastic is shocking. And if there are loose oranges or avocadoes in the supermarket, people still go and get plastic bags to transport them. I don’t understand this behaviour. I really don’t. Especially when it comes to something like oranges and avocados, fruits and vegetables that we peel before we eat; there is not even a hygienical benefit to putting it into a plastic bag! Why is a cucumber wrapped in a condom? Why? 

It makes me wonder, there must be a big marketing going on behind the scenes. Maybe people think that their fruits and vegetables are “brand-new” if it comes wrapped in plastic. Maybe they like it because they think that nobody has ever touched it before they after unwrapping it. Which is not true. Someone does the picking, the assorting (finding the moldy and bad veggies), someone does the quality management. Lots of people can have their fingers on your cucumber, before it gets wrapped in its condom.

Maybe its just that soft, straight, see-through shiny feeling that we like between our fingers. It makes us think that we buy is a high-quality product. Wrapped for us. Like a birthday present. 

Whenever my boyfriend and me go shopping together, I have a really good time. We have fun, only picking the fruits and vegetables that you can buy loose without any plastic. We almost always find everything we need, or else we simply substitute things (like picking sweet potatoes instead of a plastic bag full of normal potatoes). These exchanges don’t harm our creations, our meals. In fact, sometimes it even tastes better. We like the change and we like the feeling of not supporting the plastic industry. We transport our veggies and fruits loose in our own textile shopping bags that we like to reuse. Here in Canada, they use the concept of “un-packed self-service fill up stations” where you can bring your own container and fill up your customized amount of products, like nuts, seeds, noodles, rice, herbs and spices, oats, wheat, anything. I love that concept. No plastic garbage is created, unless you rip off a new plastic bag to fill it up (which is totally against the beautiful concept).

When we arrive at the cash register, we see lots of people with lots of single plastic bags. One for the tomatoes, one for the bell pepper, some people even stuff them with products, that are already wrapped in plastic! It’s unbelievable. 

If you think I am overexaggerating then read this collection of facts: 

• On average, a plastic bag is used for 11 minutes.
• An average European causes more than 100 kilograms of plastic, every year.
• In the oceans there are over 100 million tons of plastic swimming right now. Of course, sea life is affected by this. Fish, and all other sea animals struggle and die out because of this. Birds that catch fish are affected too. Scientists found plastic in seagulls and sea eagles
   for example.
• Once plastic is produced, it wont disappear. Actually, it takes 500 years till plastic rottenes.
• One tube of toothpaste may contain up to 10% of microplastic. 
• Plastic often contains a softener, bisphenol A. Its scientifically proven to cause cancer, asthma and infertility. 
• Only 11 out of 100000 substances, that are used for the production of plastic in the last decade, have been analysed.
• The plastic industry in Europe only makes over 500 billion Euros every year. I didn’t quite find the number for north America and Asia but it must be at least equal.

Isn’t that shocking? What kind of world did we create for our children and grand-children? 

If you want to improve your plastic consumption (and at the same time save some $$$); here are some of my tips:

• Recycling: You can re-use all plastic bags that you have at home right now. If they are dirty, wash and dry them. Use them, as long as possible, now that you have them. 
• Prepare for your shopping trips: Set aside some textile shopping bags and some of the smaller plastic bags that you already have at home and take them with you when you go shopping. 
• If you go shopping unprepared (or you forgot your bags at home) here is a lifesaver: Just grab a cardboard box (you often find those at the fresh veggies or fruits), it should help you carry your groceries to the car. Bonus: while heavy plastic bags often rip, these boxes hold way more weight!
• Collect your organic garbage in a separate bin. Order garbage bags online that are made of corn starch, they will just disappear with your vegetable and fruit garbage.
• This one is for all women: Use a mooncup/lady cup/menstrual cup instead of tampons. Ok, its made of silicon but it will last a long time and you save so much plastic garbage by simply not buying tampons anymore.
  For all mamas: Use textile diapers for your baby. These diapers are made to reuse. You can put them in the laundry. This is also a lot cheaper.
• Topic: Toothbrush/Toothpaste: I use a toothpaste that is made out of natural ingredients only, it comes in a little glass jar and it whitenes the teeth. Also there is the option of purchasing a toothbrush that is 100% recyclable, its made with wood/bamboo, check it out here. Its not a lot pricier, and you get a good quality.
• Getting fresh veggies and fruit: Check online if you find a local market in your area. You will not only get good quality from local farms, but also support the local vegetable farmers. Also its nice to eat “with the season” and adapt a little bit to what is available right now. Sometimes you get good deals on these markets as well. 
• Water bottles: If you want to avoid buying water bottles, consider getting one nice metal water bottle, that you can refill. I cant drink tap water where I live (it just doesn’t taste good to me) so I got 2 15 litre bottles that I fill up, either in the supermarket on a fill-up station or in the nature by the creek (we found a natural quarry nearby).
• Replace takeaway articles with re-use articles: Use a metal bottle instead of plastic bottle, bring your own coffee cup to starbucks instead taking a plastic cup. Cheap, There are even straws made of glass or metal that you can put in the dish washer. Get one good razer instead of single-use razers. By the way, here is a trick to use razorblades longer than just for a week (up to a month): Simply use an old pair of jeans to sharpen it: With slight pressure, move the razorblade in opposite shaving direction over the jeansfabric. 
• Have a backpack or shopping bags with you when you go to get new shoes, clothes or books. The cashier almost automatically puts them into a plastic bag. 
• Check your clothes and avoid (unless its sportswear) polyester. Polyester is plastic. Use tencil, cotton or linen instead.

Please share this with your friends and your family. It is really important that we all do steps in the right direction now. 

*The links added just serve as inspiration. There are no affiliates attached, I don't get anything if you make a purchase.

Everything has changed. Yoga Teacher Training

I used to think quite different, when someone started to talk about yoga.
Yoga. That weird thing describing an activity somewhere in between Massage, therapy and some Buddhists sitting on round pillows meditating. I didn’t really get the point...

- You are not sweating.
- You are not burning fat or calories
- Its for people that can’t do ‘real sport’
- Meditation is a waste of time
- People are sitting and singing songs in a weird language and hugging trees
- Its only for housewifes that need a soft activity between their shop at whole foods and getting new eco sandals made of recycled bamboo
- Its for hippies.

Yes – these were the thoughts a few years ago.
I already went to a yoga class occasionally at my local yoga studio, and I guess my impressions were confirmed. Yogis waiting in the studio for the teacher to start the class, stacking cushions above each other, sitting cross-legged in the room enlightened by a lot of candles.

All those props, bolsters, blocks, straps, pillows, blankets, cushions – not for me. They are only for old people and everyone that is not flexible. In my first years of yoga, I never got any props. Because I’m not an unflexible loser. And I didn’t chant with the others. I was more coming back for the flow. Breathing and moving in a symmetric way, Inhaling and moving forward or upward, and exhaling while moving back or down. I liked that dynamic.
And that’s how I found ‘Power Yoga’. Power Yoga doesn’t contain chanting, or meditation. This is purely about the activity. Moving, creating heat in the body and the room, sweating. I never stayed in a pose for too long, so the alignment was more or less unimportant. The teacher guided us through the flow, anything beside that was pointless.

And I still love Vinyasa Power Yoga flows. They are very detoxing, emotionally and physically, you are so in the practice and the flow, that you will forget all those thoughts that are in the mind, like “What will I have for dinner?” “Do I have a dress for Annes Wedding?” and “Do I look fat in these leggings?”
Especially in the winter, when its dark, cold and wet outside, this is one of my favourite indoor “Sport Activities”. And if you don’t believe me, try it. This definitely deserves the undertitle “Sport”.

In my 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training, I learned to love the asanas, the mula banda, the meditation and the philosophy behind the yoga tradition. This training made me understand that there is so much more behind the single asanas, that we store emotions in postures and in parts of the body. It made Yoga so much more interesting and Yogis so much more vulnerable. There is a reason, why we all come back to our mat again and again. Why we go through flows, and why we hold postures even if it gets uncomfortable. And yes, it will make us stronger and more flexible and like in any other activity, progress doesn’t come over night.

With my Yin Yoga Teacher Training with Bernie Clark I got to know the other – until now hidden – side of Yoga. The Yin Tradition. Yin, the opposite of Yang is the introverted, feminine and mysterious Yoga, whereas Yang is the extroverted Power Yoga.
And every Yang needs a Yin, so I want to share with you, what I learned in this Training:

Staying in a Yoga pose, becoming still and holding it over time, does not make you sweat. But it does something to you. Yin Yoga is designed to affect our body in a deeper, slower way; we put stress on our bones, ligaments, we stretch our fascia, connected tissues and organs.
While Power Yoga and all other Activities that train our Cardiovascular System (like running, cycling, sweating, swimming) prevent our heart muscle from slowing down – yes the heart is a muscle and we need to train it – yin yoga is crucial as we get older: We all get stiff. Yin Yoga actually stretches and loosens our inner organs, tissues. Imagine an old person with a walking aid (walker or walking stick) – running and cycling would have helped him to stay fast, but Yin Yoga is what keeps him upright.
Mostly its not a lack of muscles that curves the spine in old people, its stiffness in the ligaments and connected tissues and nerves.
It takes a certain amount of time to get the “creep”: You have to stay in certain poses for an amount of time to loosen. Some effects, like a deep stretch in the muscles, will be found after a minute. In order to put enough stress on the bones, you might have to stay for up to 20 minutes in a pose. Stress has a very negative connotation. But its actually very healthy, because it will send the information to the body to rebuild bones (so they don’t get hollow when we get old).
Yin Yoga is hard work. Trust me. In one week, I participated a Yin Class every day in the morning (between 90 and 120 minutes long) and my body is tired, like you can’t believe! I feel like my spine is worked quite a lot and I have even lost some weight. Probably some water weight that was stored in unnecessary places in the body and finally got released. Also I had quite a detoxing process happening in my body.

Yin Yoga asks for a good anatomical understanding. I believe, the smaller the class is, the better. As a teacher, I would want to have enough time to check in with my students, help them and hand them props. Oh yeah, one thing that I wanted to say about props: I love props. Seriously, from avoiding them, now I feel like I need a shopping cart when going to the shelf with the props. I want them all. Especially sandbags are quite helpful to intense some of the Yin Poses, like Sphinx.
Everybody is different. Every body is different. Bernie Clark showed me again (I remember these differences from Kreg Weiss’ Workshop) how people have totally different bone structures and how it affects the asanas. Not every pose is good for everyone. And not both sides of the body are equal. Sometimes we need to support one leg/knee/shoulder/hamstring with a prop and the other side not. Every body is different. And every day is different. That’s the magic about Yin Yoga.

I can highly recommend to try it out. Find a studio that offers Yin Classes, and be open to 90 minutes stretching and stressing the body. If you don’t want to miss out on the sweaty part, then simply find a day where you can sign in for a power yoga afterwards.

Update: Summer-Hair.

Summer is great in so many ways. But there are also things that suck: Humidity, being drenched in sweat before you even arrive at work and endless heat. I used to wear my hair in a bun most of the time. In the office, the only hairstyle I could do, was a half-up, half-down where you divide your hair into two parts and the upper part is put together in a little pony tail. My biggest challenge: I have a little crown on my front part that doesn't allow me to have bangs or wear my hair down.

Last week, I found myself on the couch with my sweaty curly hair sticking into my face. I couldn't see myself in the mirror anymore.
It was a disaster. I was thinking about cutting a big part of it off, maybe wearing it in a long-bob. Cutting it off was never a plan because I know I will look like a teenage boy with short hair. In that moment, I was overly dramatic of course. But the fact is: I needed a change. 

Thank god, I have a hairdresser in my family. Peggy literally saved my life. I have a little hair update for you. 

For the very first time, I tried a Keratin Treatment on my hair. Peggy showed me a product, that is formaldehyde free. It doesn't only make the hair shinier and silkier but also my hair only takes five minutes to blow-dry. It takes away the frizz. Check out the before-after picture down below. 

If you have fine or oily hair, this treatment is probably not right for you. It works best on medium to thicker hair types with coarseness and/or frizz. I would say my hair is medium thick (its definitely not the thickest) but for sure not oily. If I want to I can not wash it for 5-6 days. 

This is how it works: Peggy washed my hair with a special shampoo twice, so there is absolutely no oil left. The hair feels super sticky. Then she blowdried it well and applied the liquid keratin in very small sections. It is left to process for about 30 minutes. Then she washed my hair, but only for a few seconds, so a part of it stays in the hair. She blowdried it well and ironed it. Then she cut it. The entire process took about three hours. The price is about $350 CAD / $200 USD depending on Salon and product.

The upkeep of a Keratin Express treatment is more about avoidance of products than adding anything new, and you likely already have many of these products in your beauty arsenal. It’s just a matter of being selective and savvy about what you use. The treatment requires that you use a sulfate-free shampoo.