Attract him

Lynx is known for its iconic ads with the girl and the guy getting together. The 'Lynx effect' is always down to him smelling so good and becoming irresistible. I always thought Lynx should do a female fragrance and it's arrived: Lynx for Her. After all it's not just men that are irresistible...

With a light floral scent, the new female 'deodorant body spray' leaves a lovely fresh odour, reminiscent of nice shampoo. It dries quickly on the skin and doesn't leave any residue.

It might not instantly attract Mr Right but it might perhaps save you a few pennies mid recession on perfume. At £3.25 its definitely worth a try if you're to believe the marketing.

www.trisori.com

The body and the mind

I read this newsletter from Gwyneth Paltrow"s lifestyle website Goop, where one of the holistic therapist she works with, Vicky Vlachonis, explained how your body's pain is connected to how your mind works or let's say how it is connected to the negative minds of us. The more important part of this letter is about...how to solve it.

After reading that, I couldn't agree with her more. My personal experience is that all of the tips she gave out works perfect for me: proper diet, hot bath, and exercises...well I am not sure I can go for it every day though. Now what I need to try is the glass of the day.

The whole story is below:

http://goop.com/newsletter/148/en/

Girls, enjoy reading and take the action!



www.trisori.com

Hello Paleo – My first week on the Paleo diet

Starting the Paleo Diet was an impulsive decision I have to say but it has certainly been a fun experience so far. If this were a battle, I am certainly fighting with myself.

Monday:

Breakfast: Fruit salad from Pret. I wasn't prepared for Paleo until the Sunday afternoon, therefore nothing in the fridge could allow me to cook a home-made brekkie. My usual daily routine is a cup of soya flat white, but now I change to a Nespresso in the office (luckily I ordered a pack of capsule already).

Lunch: It was a long morning for me as fruit salad doesn't take long to digest and half of my brain had been occupied by the idea of where to get lunch. At 12:00 sharp, I rushed to a Japanese take-away in Liverpool street arcade. They have yummy Miso Chicken, usually with rice. Now I had to order a portion of Chicken without rice, and a mixed green salad. Hmmm that seemed a lot.

Snack: Meals without grains and starch make me hungry quite easily. I brought lots of fruits with me: apples, peaches. Nuts apparently are a bit tricky. I want something meaty! After checking out the website, I ordered a few packs of beef jerky...

Dinner: It wasn't very difficult in the afternoon. For dinner, I made a pork broth with carrots, mushrooms. It was a big portion and I guess I could have them for two days almost.

Tuesday:

BreakfastI: I was better prepared this time! I cooked a mushroom omelette at the night before and brought it in a bento box to the office. This morning was beautiful!

Lunch: Take-way black pepper chicken with steamed vegetables from ASAP, a pan-Asian take way close to the office.

Dinner: Same as Monday

Wednesday, the fun part started. You know, it is always difficult to follow certain type of diet when you are travelling. And I had to spend 1.5 days in Paris for a client event.

Breakfast: I was sitting in a Eurstar train to Paris at 06:50 (lucky me, didn't have to take the first train this time). Breakfast was served shortly after the train took off. Coffee? Yes. Bread basket? No. Juice? No. Yogurt? No. Finally hot food was served: Baked tomato, sausage, canned mushroom and potato wedges. Carefully putting the potatos aside, I started swallowing the Paleo compliant breakfast, feeling sad on the one hand and satisfied on the other hand. I had never been a huge fan of bread although I was very fond of potato. But I believe that I craved for them only because they were forbidden.

Buffet lunch was served in the hotel where the conference was held. Yeah I thought at least I could choose what I could eat. The starter plates have various dishes which I couldn't really figure out: mixture of different ingredients and I was quite sure each dish includes at least one forbidden food for me...bloody French food! Well, let me skip to the main course instead: baked salmon was tasty in the end. Then the most annoying thing happened: half of the buffet table was occupied by different deserts and I could not take any of those. Considerably, they had fruit basket. My lunch finished with a few grapes, figs and a cup of espresso.

Dinner: I was lying just now. The worst part was just about to happen. Apparently it was a tradition that the first night of the event included a cooking class of French food in the evening with all guest. I had to be there. It was always a fun thing to do: You messed up with all the foods you were given and in the end you had to eat them. The problem for me this year was that obviously I did not know what to cook and eat. After I deboned a few squids, sliced a bunch of rhubarbs, Chorizo, tomatoes and red peppers, there came the menu:

Starter: Pan-fried squid cooked with red pepper and chorizo served with a chilled tomato soup and rocket. Yum!

Main: Carnaroli rice risotto with sliced asparagus served with pan-fried king prawns and asparagus tips, all finished with a spinach cream. Rice! Cream!

Dessert: Layers of poached rhubarb and shortbread finished with a zesty chantilly cream and rhubarb drizzle.

“I will be hungry tonight.” I told myself.

Thursday started from the Eurostar journey back to London. Instead of sausage and mushrooms, the “edible breakfast” was a small herbal omelette. After cups of coffee, I was able to take a morning nap before a hectic day.

Lunch: ASAP take-way again. I think lunch is the easy part, as long as I dont take bread, noodle or rice. Maybe also those Eat / Pret soups full of beans...

Dinner: Rushing into Harvey Nichols for a fashion show. Among all the guests with bubblies, holding a glass of water didn't look cool. A light dinner in the Cafe: Baked Hake with vegetables.

Friday finally came.

Breakfast: Mixed leaves with quail eggs and salmon flakes. All materials available in Waitrose.

Lunch: Pret Chicken salad with Miso soup

Dinner: a Sichuan dinner in Bar Shu after the Degas exhibition, the worst Chinese restaurant I have ever been.... Boiled fish, marinated chicken, jelly fish, pork knuckle, and fried vegetables.

Saturday

I opened my eyes at 11:30, realising that my lunch with friends will take place in 2 hours in Chiswick, a place I have never been. The rushing started again after I had a cup of black coffee. After more than 75 minutes, I finally arrived at Hedone, the venue opened by the Swedish chef Mikael Jonsson. For people on diet in such a big lunch in a desired restaurant, finding an excuse to forget about rules is easy. I skipped the bread, which looked really special and tasty. Wines were brilliant, so I heard. Then came the five courses. Instead of their signature dessert Chocolate Bar, the restaurant offered me fruit salad. In the end, I had a bite of the Chocolate Bar, heaven!

The lunch lasted till almost 5pm. All were full and tired. I had a very nice meal, very satisfied but not feeling my stomach too heavy. I start to believe that Paleo diet will help you enjoy food more.

Sunday is usually a lazy day for me.

A salami omelette starts my day.

Lots of fruits

Dinner: pork rib stew.

Have a nice week to you all!

www.trisori.com

You are what you eat - Hello Paleo

Yesterday I was invited by my friends J and A for a “Paleo-friendly feast” at her home. The very tasty meal included Mint Lamb Kebab, Harissa-marinated chicken, Smoked Cod Fillet, Mixed Green Salad, Roasted Sweet Potato and Steamed Quinoa. Almost all the guests asked about what “Paleo” is and why they follow it. J has been always sensitive to the foods she eats and normal diet always makes her feel heavy. Apparently she has felt an improved condition of her digestion system and a lot of allergic symptoms have disappeared since she started Paleo Diet. This interested a few guests at the table, including myself.

Paleo Diet (Paleolithic diet) is also called Cavemen Diet. The concept is to follow an eating plan which is based on an ancient diet which comprises of wild available animals and plants during the Paleolithic era. The rationale behind is that the energy intake from modern diet is mainly from sugar, grains, diaries and all kind of processed foods. Assuming human bodies have been in a similar conditions as Paleolithic era, i.e. before the advent of agriculture, our common diet usually makes people “over -eating”, which results in all kinds of indigestion and discomforts.

As convincing as the story sounds, I don't have the knowledge of an anthropologist to make my own judgment. However I have tried to understand this from a nutrition and health's perspective.

Long story short, a refined idea of Paleo diet promotes large intakes of fresh vegetables, fruits, lean meats, seafoods, to ensure sufficient but not excess of energy, vitamins, minerals and exclude Saturated fats, the "bad fats". Paleo-diet also stresses the importance of Omega-3 fatty acids, which is believed to improve human's cardiovascular conditions and could not be synthesised by human bodies. Another key word is “fresh”, hence frozen or canned foods are not ideal in Paleo Diet.

In the mean time, Paleo diet also has a long “banned food” list, which includes all kinds of grains, beans, sugar, diary products (except butter), starchy foods, yeast containing foods and fatty part of meats, processed meat (including hams, fatty bacon, lunchmeat), as well as alcohols. (you can see a full list of banned food for a strictly followed Paleo Diet). The list is long and the rationale behind it is even longer. However the bottom line is that the Paleo Diet claims that the foods to avoid usually provide little nutritions and sometimes impair human bodies' intaking of other nutritions. Interestingly, compared to the USDA Food Pyramid, the Paleo Diet is much higher in protein and lower in carbohydrate.

As controversial as it has been since it was invented, I don't believe it will be a universal diet for every one (I am clearly not capable to buy the idea that we still have cavemen's stomachs), however the view on the balance but not in excess of nutritions makes sense to me. Variations of Paleo diets have been created to suit different needs, including improving athletes' health and purifying skins and metabolic system. It sounds interesting enough for me, to put myself as a guinea pig and I hereby announce that my experiment of Paleo Die will officially start today, for 30 days.

Will keep all of you updated and wish me good luck!

xoxo

www.trisori.com

Chicken soup for the second heart

The traditional chinese medicine theory names feet as human's second heart which indicates that the wellbeing of your feet is related to your overall health conditions. Remember Trisori's experience in Bali ("Health: The Balinese Way")? Foot massage in Bali every day will make us bankrupt but we can still indulge our feet and heart in a much easier way without understanding the locations of all the pressure points.

Like hot bath in the tub in the western culture, soaking feet in hot water with salt or other herbal medicine in a wooden bucket is part of Chinese daily life. Our feet, furtherest to our heart, have the responsibility of the circulation of the far end of our body. Because we sit in the office with feet down every day, our feet need to be bettern taken care of in this way or other.

One may say I run everyday and take bath from time to time, wouldn't that be enough? Well, hot water obviously provides a different kind of relaxation and stimulation. Hot bath in the bath tub too frequently is on one hand too exhausting and on the other hand, consuming a lot of time and water. On the contrary, we can soak our feet in the hot water every everyning with limited consumption of time and water.

Here are a few tips for your daily footbath ritual:

1. The container: The ideal container for footbath is a wooden bucket with the hight of around 35-40cm. Wooden bucket holds the water temperature better than other materials and is easy to clean and maintain. The best material for such bucket is oak, which is however heavy and expensive. The second best choice currently is platycaldus. The reality is, unfortunately, due to different quality standards of wooden products between the EU and Asia, the export of such products has not been very easy. I spent equal amount of money in buying such bucket from China and in delivering it to London. Alternatively, you can easily get a metal bucket (no matter what it is originally designed for) or even a plastic bucket. The water temperature drops faster in metal or plastic buckets though. The key point in my opinion is the hight – make sure that the water level could reach almost your knees. I would not recommend those electronic foot spa which only contains water barely reaching your ankles...

2. Temperature: 40 – 50C would be warm enough to start with although I personally like soaking my feet in very hot water. Be careful, don't burn your feet!

3. Time: the whole point is to warm your body through your feet and this usually takes at least 20 minutes if not longer. Usually I will wait till I feel that it start to sweat slightly on my back. Add more hot water when needed.
   

4. Recipes: I do free style, with stuff I got from Lush or Bodyshop with pepermint or rose. Essential oils do their job properly as well. I read about adding vinegar into hot water in winter to prevent catching nasty cold which I will try maybe in December!

I guess that's all the “need to know” of a traditional Chinese style of footbath. Now burn a candle or an inscent, pick up a book, it's time to switch off and feed your feet with the chicken soup.

www.trisori.com