SF Babe Katey Yurko on Her Healthy Faves for 2018

One of the things on our cleanse list this month is releasing things that don’t make us feel awesome and challenged and appreciated and like we’re living that high vibe life. The benefit of any purge? Creating room for more of the good stuff: practices and relationships that enrich and inspire. Which brings me to our guest contributor and founder of awesome, positive, real talkin’ women and wellness-focused site The Violet Fog, Katey Yurko. One of my favorite new friends and inspiring member of the W+A tribe.

Katey, take it away!

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I am STOKED to be a guest on Well + Away! Margaux has enlightened me about many new things in the wellness space so I am so happy to share MY personal favorites for the new year! Feel free to connect with me over my site or on Instagram- find me at @TheVioletFog. I LIVE to connect with other like minded women! Men, too, but we are a site full of girl talk. ;)

My Wellness Faves Taking Me into 2018

1. GUA SHA TOOLS

Holy moly-- this practice is not only effective but it feels SO GOOD. With rose quartz tools (pictured above) you basically make upward motions on an oiled up face to increase circulation and ward off premature aging. In Ancient Chinese medicine, they believe that aging and bad skin comes from a lack of circulation. When circulation isn't in top form, collagen production can break down. Sagging happens. Breakouts happen. Gua Sha facials take TWO minutes and make such a difference. And not only is it good for skin health, it legit gives you a temporary FACELIFT in seconds. You'll love it. You can read my full article here or just skip to the video.

2. VEGAN DELIVERY SERVICES

I will be honest. I'm a health nut who does NOT want to put in a lot of effort cooking. I'm just not super confident in the kitchen and although I know the basics- it's not enough to eat as healthy as I would like to. Using a vegan meal delivery service has saved me: 1, time. 2, money. and 3, a lot of health issues. Eating clean makes ALL the difference in how I feel and when I have healthy food already prepared for me, I am more likely to make healthy decisions. There are plenty of food options out there but my favorite is Thistle- an organization I’ve worked with throughout 2017. You can see my first article here on why I love them. If you are a health nut like me- food delivery services are an awesome resource. I promise.

3. APRICOT OIL

I have always been a HUGE believer in oils. I truly think they are the fountain of youth and the best way to get nourishing ingredients into your skin. My favorite thing to do is a layer of oil and then a thin layer of moisturizer on top to really trap it in. Apricot oil is one of my favorites- it is SO HIGH in vitamin A (which our body needs but doesn't product naturally!) and is so gentle it works on every skin tone. It's anti-inflammatory and when you wake up in the morning after using it you just feel so soft and glow-y. It's incredible. I have gotten many friends hooked on it! You can see my full article here.

4. WELLNESS ESCAPE

I don't have set plans on where I am going to travel. I do have themes around the kind of travel I want to do though and those are: nature, wellness based, and unique culture. I am a very "play it by ear" kind of gal. This year, I would love to do a wellness retreat somewhere in Oregon. I am in love with that state. The people, the greenery. I could live there! I find that a lot of their beauty companies are more on the natural, earthy side- as opposed to more labby and high tech (which I also enjoy.) One shop I’m crazy about is Fettle Botanics in Portland. They have all these elixirs, oils, herbs, and spices. I have an immunity tincture from them that I use all the time. They’re huge on Eastern Medicine healing and in just one trip there you can learn a lot.

I also love Oregon-based Seagape Soaps. It's basically a trip to the Pacific Northwest coast in the shower. They make minimal makeup, balms, and of course- soaps. They are incredibly clean. My favorite product is their healing balm, which another Violet Fog writer recommended to me. It’s incredible! 

Come say hi anytime on www.VioletFog.com or at @thevioletfog on Instagram.

We Just Discovered Healthy Cruising and are Obsessed

Outdoors-y Cruising is the New Glamping

A travel-savvy friend recently took a cruise on one of Viking’s new ocean ships from New York to Puerto Rico, raving about it enough to convince me to pen a Spas at Sea story for RobbReport based on her trip. It also inspired me to try to find a healthy, sea-bound holiday for myself. With the generous help of the Viking Ocean Cruise PR team, I booked a fourteen night sailing through the Norwegian fjords, from London to Bergen, to health and millennial-hack the AARP set’s favorite way to vacay.

True to expectations, my fiance and I were the youngest couple on-board. Which translated into a surprisingly blissful setup: complete lack of iPhones at meals throughout every dining room, zero laptops in public spaces and no rude conference calls in random places getting in the way of my seafaring zen.

But what about the food? And surviving for 14 at sea with just my fiance and our 900 silver-haired new friends? And what did we do all day? Read on!

Dining

Meals were leisurely and a nice way to meet some of the crew - many of whom were in our peer set. The kitchen teams consistently went above and beyond to accommodate my dietary restrictions at all restaurants onboard. While the standard buffet items at the Star’s World Cafe were upgraded versions of continental fare, the kitchen team customized all meals for us making it a bit like private dining - especially because we were one of the very few couples to hit the dining rooms 'late night' - after 8pm.

Activities

My fiance and I easily found ways to age-down the scheduled activities in port stops or DIYd where they weren’t active enough for us, and filled our sea days with gym, reading and spa. A lack of city access while cruising the North Sea wiped out any of my normal weeknight FOMO at home, making it easy to turn in early for another day of exploring (the midnight sun, on the other hand, I never fully adjusted to…). Small fjord town ports were light on fjord-chic shops or temptingly scene-y happy hours, which made it even easier to get ourselves out into nature via hike, kayak or ATV to soak in the fjords from above, below, in and around. Unpacking once and waking up to new wonders of nature almost every morning  never grew old.  

But what did we do when we got off of the ship?

The Trip

Day 1 + 2: London! Highlights were East London Juice Co, Dishoom Shoreditch and White Cube

Day 3: Edinburgh - Highlights included turmeric lattes at Burr & Co, the most filling veggie lunch in town at Henderson’s Vegan and the National Gallery. Accidentally happened upon a whiskey flight at Scran and Scallie, which turned out to be the best part of the afternoon.

Day 4: Sea Day - After sleeping in and reading through Scottish author Jenni Fagan’s Panopticon, I hit the gym using audio workout app Aaptiv followed by the steam/sauna and snow grotto in the LivNordic Spa. The bartending team at the onboard World Cafe made me my first of many custom smoothies using my BYO Sun Warrior protein powder. A leisurely lunch, hot tub time with almost 360 degree sea views, an even more leisurely dinner and after-dinner scrabble matches topped off the first sea day.

Day 5: Orkney - Not really knowing what the differences between the included tours and ‘optional’ (read: $$) ones were, we signed up for the included tour not realizing it was one long scenic drive. Fine for those who aren't super mobile, less so for those with endless ants in their pants. Three hours total in the back of a coach with limited legroom is not my idea of an adventure, no matter how knowledgeable or charming the tour guide (ours was both). We saw just one of the sites we wanted to see (Stones of Stenness, older than Stonehenge!) and should have rented a car to explore on our own. Lesson learned.

Day 6 + 7: Two sea days, one was a surprise after a visit to the Shetland Islands was canceled due to a combination of wind and a slowing of one of the engines. While relatively rare, this is part of cruising. More time for steam/sauna/cold plunge!

Day 8: Lofoten: I was unsure of which excursion to book, and a planned hike was sold out by the time I tried signing up, so I DIY-d a six-mile hike in Tromso. After fretting over a car rental and the cost of taxis in Norway (insane at the current conversion rate) a local guide pointed us in the direction of an amazing hike, 10 minutes from where we docked. It was free, beautiful, there was nobody else in sight and I met a family of adorable sheep.

Day 9: North Cape: I opted to sign my fiance and me up for an ATV tour of the North Cape area, the northernmost point in Europe and the coldest place I've ever visited in summer.  The tour itself was a rainy and scenic ride through town and up the mountain to ridiculous viewpoints of the fjords below and moon-like terrain surrounding us, but some issues that happened with the ship at the dock cut our excursion time in half. Despite the hiccup, the visit itself was a blast and the only way I would want to do the North Cape.

Day 10: Tromso: After hiking and ATV-ing, we felt ready to take on a Husky trek on the outskirts of Tromso. An orientation introduced us to the  working dogs, as well as puppies and teenage dogs who were going through a sort of finishing school for sled dogs, and prepared us for the logistics of strapping ourselves to these super strong animals trained to pull-pull-pull. The trek itself was the most adorable resistance training-meets-cardio I've experienced.

Day 11: Geiranger: I am not the best at maps, and probably should fine tune those skills before renting a kayak and trying to DIY my own fjord-by-kayak excursion of the Geirangerfjord and its De syv søstrene (Seven Sisters). The trip was magnificent and it was surreal to look up at massive waterfalls from the inside of a tiny kayak, but the 6 km ride that turned into 14km due to a faulty navigator made for some sore shoulders the next day.

Day 12: Sea Day: Snow grotto all day! And a facial, with a side of Scrabble and tea. Spa and Scrabble day in the middle of the Arctic Circle is now my preferred way to unplug. 

Day 13: The Troll Church hike instantly sold out to the tour group, so we hopped on another hike to a local waterfall which was lovely but could so easily have been DIY’d and saved tons of time with slow bus ride and a funny, too-long lunch stop at a roadside dining hall for tourists. Lesson? Research in advance what they most popular excursions are and book them as soon as they open up.

Day 14: Bergen: So happy we added a few extra nights here! Ate lunch and a couple of dinners at delightful and sweet Dwell vegan restaurant - which has amazing food and healthy drinks list. The museums are huge and beautiful and wonderfully organized - we devoted a whole day to exploring the buildings of the glorious Kunsthall. Another day was devoted to following Ingrid Williams’ NY Times 36 Hours In story that was hugely helpful and totally walkable. It’s also how we found the gorgeous apparel shop T-Michael, where T Michael himself helped book us a dinner table at Bare Vestland’s upstairs dining room, an eatery with some seriously glam ambience. Pre-dinner, we spent 30 minutes in the attached bar, it wasn’t nearly enough to soak it all in.

All in all, I'm a cruise convert. Viking's ocean cruises visit some ridiculous destinations, and I would argue that visiting them by ship is the only way to do it. I was Googling 'Viking Cruises 2018' as soon as we got to the airport in Bergen waiting for our plane home. I cannot recommend the whole experience enough, and can't wait to do it again.

The Only Detox Guide You Need for a Clean AF 2018

@Goop

There is nothing we love more than a solid, slightly depriving but wholly delicious and all-encompassing cleanse. The way our gut feels, the way our workouts are on point, the mental acuity that comes from it all, and of course the taste of the first glass of wine or piece of pie post-cleanse. But doing a DIY detox is, at least for us, an overwhelming and unnecessary prospect. Knowing what to cut, what to add, how to make our now limited arsenal of ingredients taste amazing and how to stay inspired throughout an entire 30-ish days? Yikes.

So we turn to the experts who develop and fine tune their own cleanses year after year to give us the best recipes, meditations and workouts from which to design our own extra-customized Franken-cleanse of sorts - built from the things that help optimize gut health, fitness, mental well-being and take as little time as possible.

So what are we bookmarking on our browsers and pinning to the fridge this year? Read on:

@ToneitUp

Love Your Body 2018 Series, Tone It Up

As exciting as discovering new, up-and-coming cleanse programs or nutrition and fitness ‘challenges’ are, we always end up back at Tone It Up when looking for commit to something for more than two weeks. The recipes are easy to make and useful for getting out of a flavor rut (normally marinara, taco seasoning or tahini sauce on everything). New recipes for the January challenge include almond butter and cookie shakes, tofu cacciatore and chocolate protein donuts. An accompanying set of daily workouts and encouraging blog posts make the Tone It Up challenge equally immersive and accessible. If you’re the kind of person who like social support, you could spend an entire day on Instagram reading through motivational posts tagged #TIU.

@Goop

 Annual Detox, Goop

The more restrictive - no caffeine, gluten or soy on this detox - and slightly more time intensive recipes of the Goop detox make it sort of like the older sister with a private Pilates instructor and wine cellar to Tone It Up’s beach vibes and rose on ice. Goop’s Detox may be a bit more advanced user, but that might be what is so special about it. It’s not trying to meet anyone and everyone ‘where they are’. The women behind this program are living healthfully year-round and are stepping it up with the annual detox to squeeze every last drop of wellness possible from a 30-day program. Recipes like a sweet potato pancake with coconut and berries and a simple sunbutter satay will be in heavy rotation in the W+A kitchen.

@UrbanRemedy

Metta-Morphosis Program, Urban Remedy

If you’d rather not with the whole cooking thing, or you want to do a shorter and more intensive cleanse, Urban Remedy’s Metta-Morphosis provides juices, nut milks, wellness shots, tinctures, warming soups and texture and flavor-packed salads as part of a three or five-day program. Called a ‘mind and body transformation’ by UR, the program includes prepared meals as well as meditations and movement videos. As far as delivery cleanses go, it’s so much more satisfying than a juice-only cleanse, and the beautiful colors in the food and mind-body focus of the program overall make it easy to stay inspired throughout.

@Sophie.Jaffe

Learning to Release, The Philosophie

Something that these cleanses don’t really talk about but that can a huge part of starting the year fresh is letting toxic shit go. Sophie Jaffe of The Philosophie has a powerful, thoughtful blog post on the importance of ditching relationships, beliefs and practices that just aren’t doing it for you in the new year.

@SimpleHabit

31-Day Fresh Start Series, Simple Habit

We love this one because it’s 100% focused on the mental components of a detox. Want short, theme-specific meditations served in the style of a 31-day program? Simple Habit’s 31-day Fresh Start Series has new year’s themed meditations including Foundations of Mindfulness for beginners, as well as Find Happiness, Start Your Day with Gratitude, Living Your Truth, Sleep Patterns, Better Self Control and others. Most meditations are between 5-10 minutes.

@CodyApp

Journey to Handstand, Kino MacGregor and Kerri Verna via The Cody App

Yes, keeping up with a normal fitness routine is already a time and energy-consuming endeavor. But you know what? This is January when unhealthy distractions are at their least invasive. So why not try to pick up a new physical skill during the month? It can give a cleansing routine more structure, and just be plain old fun. Nothing feels more self-loving and juicy than the January flow of meal prep on Sundays and a little bit more on Wednesday nights, meditation in the morning before the work day, regularly scheduled workouts and new skill work in the evening before or after dinner. The Cody App videos are for the most part sub-30 minutes and a productive cap on the day.

@Scribe

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, Margareta Magnusson

This Northern European take on decluttering, inspired by the morbid but practical ‘what kind of stuff and how much of it do I want to leave behind for my family to deal with,’ is at the top of our detox reading list this month. If you’ve already KonMari-d, give yourself a refresher and check out how the Swedes do it.

Best vegan restaurants in SF, our favorite clean prix-fixe meals and digital workouts

If you’re on the road this month, these resources should give you a leg up on your healthiest year yet.

Healthy Weekend Plans to Kick off your 2018 Resolutions

Courtesy @caligirlgetsfit

Oh hey, 2018! Now that we’re all living our wellness resolutions to the letter: eating lean and clean, going to the gym 5x/week, meditating 4x/week, Marie Kondo-ing everything and sleeping 8.5 hours a night (right??) - what is left to do on the weekends? If you’re local to California, here are our picks for inspiring, local wellness events this weekend. And wherever you are, check out the launch of our favorite new, game-changing fitness and wellness app Everfit!

Jan 5-7

Bay Club: Fitness Open House | daily
Free for members and a guest
Have you had a Bay Club membership and let it sit there, unused, while you galavented from holiday vacation to family celebrations to January 4 ‘ohmygodmyinboxiscrazzzzzy’? Then make a point to stop by this weekend’s Open House festivities at all Bay Clubs from Northern California down to San Diego for new class previews (foam roll, HIIT, Plyojam)and light bites from onsite Cafe Vida. //  All Bay Club locations 

Jan 6

Mattress Firm: Be Well, Sleep Well fair | 10am - 3pm
Free
Take a one-on-one “upgrade your sleep” assessment (with the chance to win a new mattress) and learn some fit tips from local pros while munching on healthy snacks. Sleep specialists will be on-hand to talk neck support, ideal temperature between the sheets and the quality of your current mattress to ensure you have all the comfiest tools to optimize your sleep resolutions. And because who can sleep well if tomorrow’s healthy meals are unplanned, local blogger Cali Girl Gets fit will be talking meal prep and serving her favorite energy bites. Icing on the wellness resolution cake is a fitness Q+A with trainers from OrangeTheory Fitness, as well as an invite to take a free post-fair class at the nearby FiDi location from 11:45am – 12:45pm. Additional sips and snacks will be provided by organicgirl.  //  Mattress Firm Nob Hill, SF

The Pad: Power then Restore with Bryant | 2-4pm
$30
Bryant Resch is leading an hour of high charged, high vibe power yoga followed by a restorative practice designed to help you relax and reset. For us, 2018 is all about recovery, so we’re all about deepening our yin yoga practice!  //  The Pad, SF

Yoga Flow: New Years Resolution & Detox Flow with Libby Murfey | 6-8pm
$30 in advance, $35 day-of
Libby’s detoxifying and intention-setting flow class is meant to solidify 2018’s commitment to breathing in goodness and exhaling toxicity. Lots of twists and balances are used to embrace challenge (and sweat).  //  Yoga Flow, Union Street, SF