Jamie Oliver, health in this country and a pasta recipe

I don't watch much reality TV. I like The Amazing Race.
Not because I care about the teams, but mostly just to see where they travel to and what tasks they need to complete. Occasionally there will be some funny, albeit sad comments, like " how is champagne made, is it wine and club soda?" Oye!My mom recommended that I check out Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I have to say I found it interesting. here is the basic message from Jamie's web site: "I believe that every child in America has the right to fresh, nutritious school meals, and that every family deserves real, honest, wholesome food. Too many people are being affected by what they eat. It's time for a national revolution. America needs to stand up for better food!

You live in an amazing country full of inspirational people and you have the power to change things. With your help, we can get better food into homes, schools and communities all over America and give your kids a better future."
I hope he is able to make a difference. Although so far in the first two episodes he has been met with resistance and hostility.Some of that is to be expected and understandable. Anytime someone is faced with a change from how they done something for years or getting the feeling someone has told them they way they are doing it has been wrong for all these years, there will be resistance and hard feelings. However, the health and ultimately the lives of the children are at stake and that is more important.
I want to stress that as much as we change the eating habits of this country we also need to get people moving. Exercise is the other key to healthy living and weight loss. So Let's get to the gym, workout outside when possible or even get to a class, like aerobics, or dance. Next add healthy, fresh and unprocessed foods to the diet.
Recipe for today:
Pasta with pesto
Pasta of your choice (spaghetti, penne)
Cook pasta
Saute mushrooms, garlic, onions and other vegies of your choice (spinach is another good one)
When pasta is done add a pesto sauce, olive oil and the toss with the vegies, sprinkle on grated Parmesan cheese.
Simple, quick and good for you.
Enjoy!

Food Journal, Week One.

A food journal is not as easy as it sounds. I think it is working though. It's been a week since I started it and been going strong. The thought of having to write down every little (or big) thing that I put in my mouth has been a bit overwhelming and I think realizing that you have to write everything is what works against over-eating. It's a bit annoying actually. I'm hoping this will help from too much snacking. What I have found to be helpful is keeping a journal that is small and can be taken everywhere. I bought a small notebook and write down each meal, snack and drink. Everything goes in it, so if someone has a bowl of candy (yes my office has that) then if I were to eat a piece it goes in the notebook. Last week I was very good. I didn't eat any of the bagels that were brought in for St. Patrick's Day, okay it did help that they were green, a little less appetizing, but I also didn't eat the extra ice cream that was leftover from a birthday party or more than one piece of chocolate from the bowl I mentioned earlier. The next best thing would be to figure out and record the calories, but let's be realistic about this. Anyhow, I'm hoping that this will help keep snacking down and still eat healthy. I've made it through week one, let's see if I can keep it going.

Now speaking of food. I know I haven't done a lot of recipes for things other than fish, but I have another salmon recipe. I also have a make your own tortilla chips recipe too.

First, honey dijon salmon with walnut crust. The recipe calls for pecans, but I had walnuts.

1 pound of salmon, 1 tblsp of olive oil, 3 tblsp of butter,melted, 1.5 tblsp honey, 3 tblsp mustard, 1/4 c bread crumbs, 1/4 c nut, walnuts or pecans, 1 tblsp parsley, chopped, 1/4 tsp thyme, salt and pepper.

400 degrees, sm bowl combine oil, honey, mustard and butter. Set aside. In another bowl combine breadcrumbs, nuts, parsley,thyme, salt and pepper. Brush the salmon with the honey mustard combo, sprinkle evenly the breadcrumbs mix. Bake for 12-15 min. It says to serve with lemon wedges, but one thing I might do another time is add a little lemon juice to the honey combo.

Calories: 312

Baked tortilla chips. Take 6 corn tortillas and lightly coat each side with and olive oil spray, and sprinkle salt. Stack each tortilla and then slice through creating triangles. Arrange the triangles on a baking sheet and bake for 5-7 minutes until crisp but not over done. Don't over do the oil or salt. Too much oil will make them a little soggy and take longer to bake.

Calories: 77

Those are the recipes for tonight.

This weekend was lovely. Got out for a nice hike and then had dance classes. I hope you are enjoying the warmer temps and sunshine, but be sure to remember your sunblock. The sun is getting stronger and the skin hasn't seen the light of day for several months, be careful out there. Looking forward to more summer like days in the days to come. More hiking, biking and hopefully kayaking to come.

Beach Ready Body

With spring on its way and summer around the corner a beach ready body is what I'm thinking about. So I went to the gym tonight and did the Jillian Michaels Beach Ready Bootcamp podcast. It's a podcast found on iTunes. The workout consists of four circuits. Each circuit is made up of four different exercises done in three sets. Each set has 10-20 reps of the movements. The first two times I've done this podcast I only managed to get through the first two circuits. Tonight I went through the all four circuits. I know, amazing right. Well, I went through the first three doing all three sets but the fourth one I only did the first set, it was a good hour of exercise. Some of the great moves in the third circuit included dead lifts with bicept curls, flyes and crunches. Some of these were done on the body ball. That is a good prop to have for workouts. By lying on the ball you engage core muscles in keeping balance so you work more than just the target muscles. With the flyes, crunches and tricept press you lie with your head, neck and back on the ball and keeping stable with your legs. It makes for a little tougher workout and helps to get you on the road to a beach ready body.

On Saturday I mentioned that I went cycling and a neat news bit about cycling today, Google has launched Google Maps with bike directions. Check it out the next time you want to go somewhere by bike. I did and it has a few good features.http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/biking-directions-added-to-google-maps.html

Dance classes tomorrow and then on to the weekend. The weather doesn't look great so it may be indoor gym time instead of outdoor, but as long as we keep at it in some fashion.

Spring

The sun is shining, the temp is warmer, the birds are singing and the flowers are starting to awaken from slumber all signs that indicate spring is coming. What a lovely weekend it was here in Washington, DC. Saturday was a great day to get out on the bicycles that haven't seen the light of day for a couple of months. It was in the 50's and although that doesn't sound super warm we were not bundled up. We rode up the Capital Crescent Trail to Bethesda and then came back down through Rock Creek Park. It's around about a 25-mile ride. We stopped at a riding club to visit with the horses, who were too busy eating to say hello. We also stopped to do a few other exercise too. There is a section along the Rock Creek Park trail where the Park Service has set up exercise stops for chin-ups, sit-ups etc... We were out for three-hours. It was a good workout and time to replenish the vitamin D. Sunday I had dance classes and tonight is a rest day. Tonight I have a recipe for you. Salmon and asparagus pasta. It can be made vegetarian by leaving out the fish or using a fish substitute. I may have mentioned this one before, but really like it so it's worth mentioning again.

The recipe I have calls for penne pasta but you can use any kind. Tonight it was egg noodles. Asparagus, salmon, green onion, egg noodles,feta cheese (or soy feta) olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon to taste. Heat the olive oil,adding the salt, pepper, then add the asparagus and green onion until asparagus softens. Then add the salmon until fully cooked and pour in a little lemon juice. While the asparagus is cooking boil water and add pasta, simmer until pasta is soft. Once the pasta and fish/asparagus is done, toss together and add the feta. The spices I used were salt and Trader Joes mix of salt, pepper, lemon rind and garlic, so I didn't use juice, but you can. It's a healthy, tasty meal. Speaking of fish I read today in the RX Fitness for Women magazine that eating cod promotes weight loss. It's high in vitamins A, E and Omega-3 fatty acids. This is from a study in Nutrition, Metabolism, and Cardiovascular Diseases. http://www.nmcd-journal.com/article/S0939-4753(09)00004-0/abstract See the abstract. Stay tuned for cod recipes.

Tomorrow night dance practice, Wed back to the gym and dance classes on Thu. Now it's back to resting and enjoying the thought that spring and eventually summer are close at hand.

After a Cold, Day Two of The 30-Day Shred

Getting back to exercise and everything else on the other side of a cold takes time, but feels great when all is back to normal. Over the last week I spent time recuperating. The only stress I put on my body was two days of dance classes and that was plenty. You need to figure out what you can comfortably do without over-doing it. The last thing you want to do is make a cold worse or last longer than it should. Tonight I got back to the 30-day shred for day two. It felt good. One thing I changed to see what would happen was use less weight for the strength portion of each circuit in level one. I kept the 12 lb dumbbells for only the incline flye and the row, but the rest of the movements I used 2.5 lb. This wasn't enough however, so I think 5 lb would be a good place to start. Guess I'll have to get a pair of those. I still find it amazing what 20 min of non-stop exercise feels like. I will workout on level one for eight more days and hopefully progress to level two. The Olympics are now over, but they have certainly motivated me and I'm looking forward to the weather getting warmer and the prospect of taking the workouts outside. Cycling and hiking here I come.

Before finishing with this post tonight here is an article from the NYT on sitting. Yep, sitting, you may want to do more standing, really.

Finally one thing that helped get me back on my feet was tea. Drink plenty of it to stay hydrated and take in its medicinal properties, they even say it can help with weight loss. Hmmm something to think about. Stay healthy!