Go Hard, Go Fast, Eat Your Sweets and Always Make Time for Peace

February 17, 2012 by 1 Comment

Watched a segment with Shaun T. from the INSANITY workout videos.  He is busy spreading the word of 15 minute workouts that can change your body.  His theory is 3 minutes of HIGH intensity moves followed by 30 seconds or so of recovery.  So basically work as hard as you can with big explosive movements that involve your entire body for three minutes, catch your breath for 30 seconds and repeat 3 more times.  Everyone has 15 minutes!   He suggests we eat our meals in a way that makes TOTAL sense to me.  Every meal has protein, carbs and fat, but most of the carbs are at breakfast, less at lunch and even less at dinner.  He also highly recommends that we eat sweet potatoes every single day…in fact, he recommends 2 servings of the beautiful spud each day.  I, for one, can do that…time to make some more of “Aunt Arlene’s” sweet potato soup.  If you missed it the first time, I am pretty sure you can search for it at the top of this site. It is a very easy recipe!

The softer, orange-fleshed variety of sweet po...

Image via Wikipedia

For a little bit of fitness this weekend, Mitch and I will definitely be walking around downtown Ft. Lauderdale…and while we are there, we will be finding some peace at the annual John Lennon art exhibit.   Love to soak in all his work and the wonderful energy that still lives on his art, his music and his message.  Who knows, maybe one of these years we will even break down and purchase one…

Since I love to spread GOOD news, I just read that “the number of Americans filing for new unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell to a near FOUR YEAR LOW last week, suggesting labor market recovery was quickening. ” Joel Naroff, an economic advisor, says that “the numbers add to the belief that the economy is shifting gears.”  This is, no doubt, great news to all.  Pass it on, have a wonderful Friday and don’t forget to eat your sweet spuds!

 

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Filed Under: Fitness, Food, health and happiness, weight loss ·

And the Trophys Go To…

February 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment
INDIANAPOLIS, IN - FEBRUARY 02: Singer Madonn...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Congratulations to the Giants (I will always think of them as the NY Giants, no matter where they play) for the big win last night…and to the Patriots for a game well played…Hats off to Madonna, who, though I thought she started off just “OK,” built into a wonderfully explosive finale and as promised, did not disappoint…Congratulations to Carol for finishing her first 5K, yesterday morning at The Butterfly Run.  I am so proud of you, Carol.  What an awesome feeling to not only run through the finish line, but to accomplish the goal and burn off some Superbowl calories AHEAD of time!  Good thinking….Thanks to Jeff and JJR Photography for giving of their hearts and time to take photos at the soup kitchen this past weekend.  With your attention to detail and perfection, I am certain the photos will well tell the story of the clients served.  You are very much appreciated…while so many of us were overindulging in food and drink this weekend, there are so many, right in our own backyards, who were going hungry.  Congratulations to my nephew, David, who is living proof that we are not who we used to be.  We are so proud of you for all you have accomplished.

If you are anything like much of the rest of the country, you either ate too many wings, drank too much beer, or both, last night.  If first you play, than after, you must pay!  With  a full day of fitness ahead of me, even with  hamstrings and glutes that are still screaming from Friday/Saturday workouts, I will hit the trifecta of fitness…cardio/strength and flexibility…personally, I am burning off deconstructed guacamole and stuffed mushrooms…relatively harmless, but still the scale is not my friend, this morning.  It’s all good, as we will make up by tomorrow.  If you, like me,  were lucky enough to have more than enough this weekend, lets not just work on burning it off, but also on being thankful.  And speaking of more than enough, thanks to Erica and Jeff for cleaning out their pantry and filling a big box to go to the soup kitchen today or tomorrow and make some hungry tummies, very happy.

Filed Under: Food, Football, The Soup Kitchen ·

The Stuffed Mushroom

January 30, 2012 by 1 Comment

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSMaV8G6xIwmFpyQHa9xKzEnNXejHmxfjTIQQk0Avm72gSjSXsNIf I had a restaurant, or a food truck, I would call it The Stuffed Mushroom.  But right now, the best I have is my kitchen, which I love to cook in, especially on Thursdays and Sundays.  Yesterday, I made a big salad, a pot of split pea and barley,vegetable soup (including a bit of that demon, the white potato) and, as I have been experimenting with the past few weeks, I made a couple of stuffed portobello mushrooms (mine being my “main” course).  I look for nice, big, round portos, clean and de-stem then,  and then in a drop of oil saute up some other chopped mushrooms. Yesterday I used a blend of mushrooms with some garlic and celery.  Then I added some spinach leaves and a half a diced tomato.  Instead of bread crumbs, I used one piece of very grainy wheat bread and crumbled it into the pan, which worked well enough to soak up some moisture and somewhat bind the ingredients.  After loading up the caps with the “stuffing,” I baked them in a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes. I opted to leave any bread crumbs off the top, this week, as the bread was enough. They were very satisfying in terms of taste, presentation, satiation and decadence, low in calories and filled with nutrition!  Gotta love the stuffed mushroom and know that you are only limited by the boundaries of your imagination!  With all the health benefits they provide for such a small amount of calories, let us eat our mushrooms!

On the fitness side, my animals had their yearly check-ups on Friday.  Our wonderful vet, Dr. Mike, was so quite surprised and pleased at how well Blaze is doing with his “bad” leg.  He says Blaze is bearing more weight on it than he has seen him do since his injury well over 3 years ago.  I am convinced that there is one and only one reason why he is doing as well as he is, at almost 11 and that reason is WALKING…EVERY DAY.  The doc was also impressed with his dental and general overall health.  Once again, I am reminded of not only  how important daily exercise is for all that ails us, but how great it is for gaining and maintaining general health.

How are you doing with your 10,000 steps a day?  Let’s all get moving and make it a marvelous Monday.

Carol and Nicole, hope you both had wonderful birthday weekends!

Filed Under: Food, health and happiness, Recipes ·

We all Gotta Eat…

January 27, 2012 by 1 Comment

Judy, you are right!  We do think way too much about food in our society…and I read very deeply into things regarding health.  I always have, and I always will.  In 6th grade, my teacher gave me 2 books at the end of the school year as a gift for being the biggest reader.  While I don’t remember what one was, the other was a book about a girl with a physical disability and I loved it and it began a life time of interest in all things related to the human body AND the human spirit.  Through my years of teaching fitness, I have pushed people to jump, run, dance and lift more because I always believed it to be the magic bullet (and I still do).  More recently I “push” the plant-based diet thing, because I believe there are some disconnects.  I promise, I don’t do it for me, I do it because I believe it can cure the incurable.  No, Rita, you are not alone, because others that are perfect weight, or even on the low end of their ideal weight, have also been diagnosed “pre” diabetic, so there is a disconnect somewhere.

There is also a disconnect between how much food we have in our country and the fact that still, people go hungry.  Thank you Lesley and Richard, for allowing me to join you at the soup kitchen yesterday and get a glimpse into what it is that’s going on there, how you are helping and how I can help, too.   If you are local and you are reading this and know of any restaurant or store that discards ANYTHING food-wise or otherwise at the end of the day, please let me know so I can pass that information on.  This place is in need of most everything, yet they manage to feed over 100 hungry people each day (amongst other things that they help with).  I will be organizing a fund-raising effort in the form of a Friday evening class, probably in late February or early March.  More about that as I figure it all out!

* “Because the suffering of any human being diminishes all of us, it’s our responsibility to try to ease that suffering. It is not a matter of titles, but of responsibilities.”
– Khaled


Filed Under: Food, health and happiness, Plant-based diet, The Soup Kitchen ·
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