Thursday, January 29, 2009

Lunch wars

I love wandering through the frozen section at the grocery store, browsing all the bags and boxes. You probably remember that frozen prepared foods were limited to boxes of compressed chopped spinach, pierogies, fish sticks and pizza! TV dinners were a big deal but not much happened again until the microwave-meal BOOM! We were given microwave-in-the-bag cheesy broccoli, microwavable crispy pizzas, diet meals, fully prepared bag meals that we just simmer and so on! The extent to which we have prepared and frozen our foods is astonishing.

Unfortunately, most of these foods with high-tech prep are also chock-full of fake-o ingredients. I read ALOT of ingredients lists and even I'll find ingredients I've never heard of before. That really makes me cringe! I would never worry about this too much before, but with the ever-tightening wallet, the siren-song of the cheap frozen meals has become louder! What are we to do? Think and fight back! Don't let fake-o ingredients win out! Here's a delicious, easy and CHEAP lunch idea.

Easy Shrimp Scampi with Spinach
Ingredients:
6 frozen pre-cooked shrimp (thawed, tails removed. Just rinse 'em and leave 'em in your tupperware lunch container overnight, then you can get the tails off easily)4 cups of rinsed baby spinach
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
garlic powder
salt
olive oil
apple cider vinegar
1 small navel orange

Directions:
Night before: choose a medium, microwaveable lunch container. Take 6 frozen pre-cooked shrimp and rinse them under cool water. Put them in the container in the fridge overnight.
Morning of: The shrimp will probably still have an ice coating but the tails should be easily pulled off now. Chop each shrimp into thirds (optional), and place back in container. Cover with all 4 cups of rinsed baby spinach. If you can jam more baby spinach into your container, I think you should. Chop your grape tomatoes and toss on top. Give a good sprinkle of garlic powder (about 1/4 tsp), dash of salt, 1.5 tsp olive oil, 1 tsp apple cider vinegar. Done for now.
Optional: Add a Tablespoon of Parmesan if you like.
At Lunch: Pop the lid just a little and microwave for 1 minute and 10 seconds. You want to JUST wilt the spinach, warm the tomatoes and heat the little shrimps. DO not overcook or the shrimp will turn to rubber and the spinach will disappear.Toss it all up and there you go!
Easy, good-fat, scampi for lunch! Eat the orange just after for dessert and to balance it all out.

It can be easy to eat well and cheaply! This recipe takes all of 5 minutes to prepare and it's delicious! And you can get baby spinach and grap tomatoes from Costco nowadays...even organic ones!

ENJOY!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Brilliant marketing. Destructive idea.

Anyone hear about the DSRL? I have been hearing about it relentlessly on the radio stations that I listen to as I drive to work in the morning. Then I see it advertised on the television. If, by some chance, you have not heard of this it is the Double Stuf Racing League. What you're supposed to do is buy Double Stuf Oreos and then race your friends to see who can twist, lick the cream off, and then re-sandwich and dunk in milk and eat the Oreo the fastest. I don't have a problem with games. I don't have a problem with healthy competition. I DO have a problem with this not-exactly-healthy competition.

If children in our country treated Oreos as occasional treats then this campaign might be alright. But I think that this campaign encourages children to eat their cookies as FAST as is possible. As is apparent by the growing obesity epidemic our country's children do not know when to say when. I am certain that modifications on the racing rules are being made everywhere; I thought of them, so why wouldn't children? How fast can you twist, lick, dunk 2 cookies? 3 cookies? 2 cookies at a time?

I am also uncomfortable with very high-profile athletes supporting this campaign, making it seem "cooler" to do. They have Eli and Peyton Manning (football) and Venus and Serena Williams (tennis) as their mascots. I'm a little disappointed that these two families have chosen to support this marketing campaign. Let's call it like it is. It isn't a sport, it's a marketing campaign designed to move product in a crumbling economy.

Despite myself, I must say that the DSRL is a brilliant marketing campaign. When people are cutting back on costs any which way, Nabisco is making sure that if a family is going to buy cookies that they are going to be Nabisco cookies. And then the campaign is going to make sure that the children in that household eat those cookies as fast as is possible, which will then hopefully warrant a call to buy more. It is actually quite smart...but at the same time despicable.

I think that the Mannings and the Williams should recognize that their popularity should be used to educate, not fatten and sicken. They wouldn't have gotten to be at the top of their games had they sat at home scarfing down Oreos all through their childhood. They aren't doing any children any favors by being the faces of this campaign.

I think that Nabisco should shoulder some of the responsibility of our overweight nation and provide at least a caution on their DSRL site. I'm not saying that Nabisco is directly responsible for the obesity epidemic, that would be ridiculous. I am saying it would be nice to see them being responsible and saying, "Hey, this is a fun game to play occasionally. The rest of the time you should eat responsibly and mindfully, making sure to get your recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables" or something like that.

I don't think it's too much to ask!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

SPRING CLEANING!

Today I posted to Craigslist requesting the attention of THREE women for the Spring Cleaning Special. I need THREE women that are friends and are currently dissatisfied with their workout regimen (or lack thereof).

I need THREE women that really want to get in shape. These women must be willing to dedicate themselves to two weekly sessions for 3 months starting in February. That's 24 total sessions that will lead you into Spring!

To paint you a picture of what to expect: You and your two friends arrive at the small private gym in Stamford. You warm up; go through our stretches and get all the blood moving. Then you will move on to the workout. The workout will be intense; fast and powerful. Your body will learn to sweat and recover. Skills will be learned, balance and coordination will improve, strength will increase. You will get better, continuously all the time better! Once we're through you will be led through a variety of stretches and cool down exercises. Then you go home and take it easy until the next appointment.

And the price, yeah, that's of concern right now of course! For 24 sessions with a personal trainer it could cost the three of you $5,760...but it won't! Sign up for this Special Offer and you will get it for $3,625 which is less than $51 a person per session!

Friends, fitness, a whole bunch of laughs and a lot of success is a powerful way to do some mental/physical Spring Cleaning! Call or email me now for more information. Remember, it all starts in February, so call me now!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Too cold to work out?



Not always! I went ice fishing this past weekend with my boyfriend and some of his friends. I didn't mean to be, but I ended up being "the cold one". There has to be one person that's colder than everyone else and it happened to be me this time! Okay, every time. Now truthfully I did get a case of frost-bite while I was in Mongolia (very cold in the winter) and so now the circulation in my toes and fingertips is a little sensitive to the cold. So we had to do something other than sit at a hole and jig the fishing line.

A little CrossFit workout was JUST what we needed! A quick circuit of overhead squats with the bait bucket and pushups was perfect for getting our blood pumping.
This just goes to prove that a workout doesn't have to be complex. A workout doesn't have to take 3 hours. Just use what you have at your disposal, in this case a bait bucket, and go to it.

No excuses. Of course use discretion; I wouldn't recommend running on icy streets. But what I did say was work with that you have. If your imagination needs a little inspiration then drop me a line and we'll see what we can find for you to work with!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Happy New Year!

First I'd like to wish all of you a bright and productive New Year!
Second I'd like to issue a warning to be not lose sight of the journey in favor of the goal. Huh?

While watching television I have noticed an increase in the number of diet ads; diet programs, products, pills, meal replacements, cleansing products etc and so on. If you have made the resolution to "get fit" I have a couple recommendations for you.

1) Don't worry about "getting fit". What the hell does that mean anyway? How do you define that? Using amorphous phrases as goals sets you up for failure because your goal is loosely defined. Rein it in ALOT and don't be afraid of numbers; 10 pushups straight, 3 mile run without stopping etc.

2) Be thankful of the journey. So you can't run huh? And your goal is run 3 miles without stopping? Be THANKFUL when you can run 1 whole mile and walk 2 miles. Be THANKFUL that you have two legs to run on and be THANKFUL for any progressions that you make.

!! 3) DON'T give in to fads hoping to cut corners and reach your goal quicker (this especially goes for weight loss and 'get healthy' goal people). You won't learn a thing by skipping meals to cut calories or by eating b.s. diet foods. Treat your body with respect. It really does know the difference!

4) Make STICKING to your resolution part of your resolution! Most people poop out in February. Maybe actually penning in gym-time into your planner seems extreme now, but once going becomes habitual you'll be thankful that you were strict with yourself in the beginning! Remember, when you're trying to change a set routine anything different will feel extreme! So don't give up!

What inspired this? Watching all those ads that I disagree with! My big gripes are when a diet suggestion comes in the form of substituting real foods for low-calorie 100% artificial products. I won't call them foods. Case and point: Low-calorie pancake syrup. Does it make sense to you to slather your white-flour sugar-pancakes in sugar-free syrup? Um, no. It doesn't. Don't think that a sugar-free product is healthier than the original. That doesn't make the original healthy necessarily, but real maple syrup does have minerals in it. And your body can recognize this stuff whereas the low-calorie fakeness syrup is all chemical that is detrimental to your system in a variety of ways and in NO way beneficial.
Okay, so you need a substitute now that I've taken away your sweet moistening agent?
Take a small saucepan. Add a cupful of frozen (or fresh) berries (Mmm, blueberries!). Add a Tablespoon of water and heat on medium-low for a little while. Gently mash them when they're warm. Add 2 Tablespoons of REAL maple syrup or honey. Add a dash of cinnamon or nutmeg (or both even!). When the whole deal is warm it'll be perfect for drizzling over your pancakes.
Just please make them whole wheat! :^)