Soul Cycle, Organic Avenue & West East Bistro

This past Sunday, I dragged my best friend Ashley Zangara to my latest cardio obsession— Soul Cycle!!!! It is basically a intense, high energy, 45-minute indoor-cycling class led by an ethusiastic, inspiring instructor. Every class you attend, you should expect: loud beats that pump you up and motivate you to push harder towards your goals, lit candles that provide an uplifting grapefruit aroma and a total body workout, which includes your abs, arms, obligues, legs, shoulders and back. Within the class, there is also a weights segment, which allows you to tone your body while burning fat. After my first class I was ADDICTED!!! I go to the one in Rosyln, Long Island and my favorite instructors are Nicholas Pratley, Ben Turshen, Bea Del Rosario and Mark Forkos. This afternoon, Ashley and I took Elianna’s 3:30pm class and it was the perfect way to jumpstart our week. Ashley is now hooked and plans to attend at least one class every two weeks (reason- it is $34/class and although she’d love to go more often, she would be broke)!

   After this cardio party, we decided to go to Organic Avenue since it has recently opened in the same center. We were greeted by samples of their zucchini hummus and kale chips, precious pear juice, matcha chia glow and splendid sweet greens juice. In addition to these samples, the girl working there gave us a personalized sampling of about 10 different juices they carry. It was great to be able to sample the majority of them because it helped make our decision when it came to purchasing ONE.

I decided on the Matcha Chia Glow, which contained “Purified Alkaline Water, Pumpkin Seeds, Matcha Powder, Coconut Sugar, Vanilla Bean Powder, Chlorophyll, Cardamom, Himalayan Salt, Chia Seeds.” It was exactly how the description states- creamy, mildly sweet and had a hint of spice. My friend Ashley got the Cheerful Chai Smoothie, which contained “Ingredients: Purified Alkaline Water, Dates, Irish Moss, Cashews, Hemp Seeds, Lucuma Powder, Cardamom, Vanilla Powder, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Ginger, Cloves, Black Pepper, Himalayan Salt.” It was delicious and apparently dates help remove toxins from your body. Lastly, Ashley and I decided to split a protein bar between us, so we asked the girl for recommendations and we went with Keen-wah decadence chocolate protein bar in organic coconut almond flavor, absolutely #delish!!

                                    

After picking up some post- Soul Cycle goodies, Ashley and I went to a nearby coffee shop to catch up. Since I had been away for the past week in Costa Rica (post coming soon), I had lots of details to share. We also discussed our blog, FEED ME FUN, which we founded together and are very passionate about (CHECK IT OUT)!

For dinner, I suggested we go somewhere I had come across while reading the Natural Awakenings Magazine. West East Bistro, located in Hicksville, Long Island,  is an all natural bistro and wine bar, which features “all-natural ingredients like Grass-Fed Beef, Free-Range Poultry and Sustainably Grown Seafood. The decor is beautiful, the staff (including the owner and wife, whom introduced themselves to us) is accomodating and the food is DELICIOUS. I started off with a refreshing glass of red sangria.

sangria

Ashley and I ordered the same FABULOUS entree, an Asian salad, which consisted of succulent shrimp, slices of mango and avocado, candied walnuts and a citrus vinaigrette. We also shared two sides– mashed yams and burnt broccoli (our fave)!

Asian salad

mashed yams

burnt broccoli

We concluded this AMAZING meal with dessert recommended by our waitress. We got the “forbidden rice pudding,” consisted of purple rice, coconut milk and vanilla gelato topped with small pieces of mango. This dessert was unlike anything we have ever tried before, every bite was as mouth-watering as the one before (WE DIDN’T WANT IT TO END)!

“forbidden” rice pudding

This Sunday was a great day filled with lots of exciting things. I would like to leave off with a little inspiration for the rest of April: COLLABORATE- “to stand  apart from your competition, you must first stand together as a team.”

April’s Motivation- COLLABORATE!

This has become my motivation for this month and I was able to practice this during Soul Cycle (because your ride together as a pack), while discussing the blog with Ashley (because we sync our ideas together in order to elevate our blog) and even while dining (agreeing to share sides and a dessert allowed us to taste different things without committing to one and missing out on the other).

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