The first day of Spring was Friday, so I thought I’d post one of my favorite beverage recipes: mint lemonade. Although most of us are awaiting Spring weather, this will be a refreshment to anticipate as the climate warms up again.
5 medium lemons, juiced
3 small limes, juiced
1 bunch of organic mint leaves with stems
organic raw agave or honey
carbonated water
Boil approximately 12 ounces of water. Steep the mint leaves in the hot water for 3-5 minutes, making a mint tea.
As the mint steeps, juice the lemons and limes into a pitcher.
Add cold water to the brewed to mint liquid to bring the tea temperature down. Pour into the pitcher to combine the mint tea and lemon-lime juice. Add agave to taste, approximately 1/2-2/3 cup, and stir. Pour your mixture into a glass of ice, approximately 1/3 to the top. Add cold spritzer water to the glass, garnish with mint leaves, if desired, and enjoy! (You can add more agave for extra sweetness.)
Featured on episodes of the Today Show, MSNBC Nightly, and so many other television news segments, the SAME Cafe, in Denver, Colorado is inspiring lots of good will. What makes this cafe different, and not the “same” as all others, is in its name; SAME stands for “So All May Eat”.
Owners, Brad and Libby, after having volunteered at soup kitchens, realized that all people deserved a choice to eat healthy, organic foods, but soup kitchen patrons did not have that choice or the budget. Soon, they opened SAME Cafe, where they serve soups, salads, and artisan pizzas in exchange for cash donations or a few hours of work. What is amazing is not just how this cafe’s business model is constructed, but how it has inspired large demographics across the social board to dine together and help one another. Affluent patrons are seated next to people who may have walked over from a local shelter and enjoying the same fare. This must warm hearts on cold Denver days. If it warms yours, and you feel so inspired, you can donate to their cause by visiting their website.
I hope this inspires to do the same elsewhere in our country…anybody here in Santa Monica feel inspired? I’ll help!
Recently, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a study examining which diet is best for one’s weight loss goals. 811 participants were put on four different diets. These diets for each individual consisted of the same amount of calories, with varying ratios of carbohydrate, protein, and fat content. All participants consumed a minimum of 1200 calories daily and exercised, conservatively, 90 minutes per week. At the end of the six-month study, all participants, regardless of diet, lost an average of 13 pounds. After two years, all kept off an average of nine pounds. The take-home message from this study is that no fad diet is better than good-old lifestyle change–incorporating portion control and regular physical activity and leisure time exercise.
One week after the above study was published, the Journal of Nutrition published a study done by Donald Layman of the University of Illinois. This study followed 130 people, separated into two groups–one consumed a moderate protein diet (40% carbohydrate, 30% protein, 30% fat) and the other consumed a diet based on the USDA’s food guide pyramid (65% carbohydrate, 15% protein, and 20% fat). Total caloric consumption were identical amongst both groups. The result–both groups lost the same amount of weight. However, the higher protein dieters lost a greater percentage of fat, thus improving their overall body composition.
Are you confused as to what to do? Simply, if your goals is to lose scale weight, you must reduce your caloric intake and adopt a regular exercise routine. If your goals are to look more “sculpted” and improve/maintain athletic performance, a moderate protein (good quality protein from lean meat, egg whites, whey, etc.) diet is advised, which ensures that most of the weight that is lost is fat weight and not weight from your muscle.
In addition to the above studies’ findings, I recommend including regular strength training in your exercise routine, which will further ensure your prevent osteoporosis, maintain muscle mass, and improve ratio of fat:lean mass weight loss.
Last week, my husband sent me a link to an article that Shape magazine published, titled “3 Reasons Your Workout Isn’t Working.” At the heart of this article is that you need to be crosstraining, which is something that my clients are familiar with hearing from me. Simply, crosstraining means changing up your workout routine. It is good to “shake things up” with various activities, including changing up your strength training exercises.
Here are my five flubs that keep the flab on:
Overeating. Your workout does not give you a green light to eat whatever you want, unless your goal is to gain weight (even then you need to make conscientious food choices). An easy estimate of how many calories you ought to be consuming daily, to support your life function, is multiply your body weight in pounds by 10. Add approximately 400 calories per hour of moderate intensity exercise.
Undereating. You already realize that you should be at negative calorie intake, consuming less than you burn, so you eat just 1200 calories per day. Unless you are a 120 pound, sedentary woman, that is not enough for you. If your do not consume enough calories throughout your day to sustain your body’s organ function, your body will go into famine mode, conserving your fat stores and burning your lean tissue-muscle.
Overtraining. Yes, you can workout too hard. Intersperse your highly intense workouts (the ones that leave your body exhausted until the next day) with medium and low intensity workouts. You should not do more than two high intensity workouts per week. Appropriate recovery is just as important as your workouts in attaining your athletic performance and weight loss goals.
Not crosstraining. Just as your mind gets bored when performing the same activities over and over again, so does your body. When your body gets bored with your workouts, it stops responding. To continue on a path of fitness improvement, mix up your workout routine by varying the mode of exercise (running, biking, stairclimbing, swimming, etc.), the types of strength exercises (strength training machines, cables, dumbbells, body weight, etc.), and pace (slow, medium, fast-only when you have mastered the exercise at slower speeds).
Underhydrating. There is scientific research reporting that drinking more water promotes weight loss by altering your metabolism, helping it work more efficiently.
Most of us have set health & fitness-themed New Year’s resolutions, as we have in years past. Many of us have had difficulty meeting those goals…
I’m plugging a little shameless self-promotion in this blog post, since a project that I have been working on for nearly 6 months will finally go live this week–just in time to give you tools to achieve success in conquering those pesky resolutions!
Balanced Strength, Inc. presents V4 Fitness…a members-only, one-stop, total fitness community that provides you with resources and expert advice on exercise, clinical and integrative nutrition, Habit Reprogramming™, weight loss, injury prevention, and stress management.
We strive to help the busy working professional learn how to get and stay healthy and fit when time is your endangered resource. Your membership entitles you to:
Communicate with experts in fitness & wellness at your convenience.
Interact with others in the private blog, “Coaches Corner”.
Access the comprehensive Exercise Library.
Receive daily exercises that you can do in your office and at your desk.
Receive healthy lifestyle tips.
Be accountable for a daily healthy habits checklist.
Track your wellness progress.
Register for online fitness competitions that help you get fit fast.
Sign up on our preview list at http://balancedstrength.com/v4fitness/ before January 1, 2009, and you will receive a free one-month membership upon our launch!
For the month of January, I am also offering my workshop, “Ready, Set, Fit” free to your corporations! After attending this workshop, you will have the tools to overcoming the obstacles that keep you from meeting your health & fitness goals and set milestones toward achieving your successes. Contact christine.kwok@balancedstrength.com for more information and to book your event.
Although slightly unrelated, this photo is too cute not to post. Found this courtesy of the Twinsline Flickr stream, http://www.flickr.com/photos/twinsline/2048353476/
Thanksgiving Turkey Wrap
This may be arriving late for some of you. However, I have a few more bits of turkey and Thanksgiving sides left in my fridge.
The idea of a Thanksgiving sandwich sounds great, but the thought of turkey, cranberry, mashed potatoes, stuffing, stuffed inside bread, with gravy smothered over it, gives me food coma…and a stomachache screaming for some Pepto Bismol.
Here’s a suggestion to lighten the caloric load and to keep the food coma at bay. It’s the collard green wrap revisited, with a Thanksgiving twist.
Start with an organic collard green leaf, stem cut off. Add your stuffing and/or mashed potatoes, turkey with a cranberry sauce smear, fold it up like a burrito, and omit the gravy. Using the collard green leaf adds more nutritional value to this lunch. Omiting the extra bread and gravy keeps, at least, 250 extra calories off your waistline.
Just say no to needing elastic pants this Thanksgiving and the weeks that follow… Here are three simple, easy to follow tips to stay guilt-free after your holiday eating parties.
Use smaller plates.
You will have to serve yourself smaller portions. Serve yourself 1/3-1/2 you would normally put on your plate. Follow the following the tips. If you end up going for a second serving you will know what you want, but still serve a smaller portion. You will save yourself at least half the calories of Thanksgivings of the past.
Savor every morsel of food you put in your mouth.
In order to prevent guilt-ridden overeating and letting out the waistband on your trousers, serve yourself smaller portions, enjoy your food, and take smaller bites.
Practice conscious consumption.
Rather than eating while deep in conversation. Look at what you stick your fork into before putting it in your mouth. Enjoy the flavors, while letting the food stay in your mouth longer as you slowly chew. You will be less likely to overeat the food that is not as satisfying to you, become satiated faster, eat more slowly (which means you will have less time to go up for seconds), and enjoy the taste of your meal at the first plate.
Start practicing now, as your party season begins.
After making mashed garnet yams and crispy fennel, a la Pace Webb, I was left with long fennel stalks. I was planning to try Pace’s fennel apple salad. However, I didn’t have apples, nor gorgonzola in the refrigerator. What I did have was celery, so I thought about what would compliment the flavors and texture of celery & fennel. The product…
4 celery stalks, 2 fennel stalks, 1/2 small onion, 1 cup frozen corn, 1 tbsp olive oil, pinch of kosher salt, pinch of ground pepper, dill & fresh parsley to taste
Chop celery and fennel into 1/8-1/4 inch slices and roughly dice onion. Heat the olive oil in a pan over med-low heat. Saute celery, fennel and onion, with salt, for 2 minutes. Add frozen corn, heat for 3 more minutes. Add pepper, dill, and parsley. Stir for another minute to marry the flavors. Then plate.
For a lunch salad, you can add grilled chicken or toasted pine nuts and gorgonzola cheese crumbles.
Not including any chicken or other additions, this whole recipe, which serves at least two (more if used as a side dish), contains about 300 calories-total. The health benefits include being high in fiber, antioxidants, and minerals. The sweetness of the corn can curb a sweet tooth, while the high fiber content helps inhibit the absorption of fat.
