Recipe: Tabouli

This recipe is easy and low calorie. Enjoy!

 

Ingredients
1 cup water
1 cup fine cracked wheat
1 cup minced fresh parsley leaves
1/2 cup minced fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion
3 tomatoes, diced
2 cucumbers, seeded and diced
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice, or to taste
1 teaspoons sea salt

Directions
In a large mixing bowl, pour the water over the cracked wheat and cover, let stand about 20 minutes until wheat is tender and water is absorbed. Add the chopped herbs and vegetables and toss with the mix. Combine the oil, lemon juice, and salt in a separate bowl. Add to wheat mixture and mix well. Chill. Serve and enjoy.

 

Source: Food Network!

Trimming the Fat on my Fitness Magazine “Beef”

I stopped picking up a lot of the fitness magazines that I used to love. Let me tell you why:

My first reason is that they are cutting back on the quality of information and recycling it in future issues. I remember picking up a magazine that I won’t name (not so much into slander these days, sorry) and seeing beautiful depicted anatomy pictures. You have to know what you’re working on in order to know what you’re doing, folks. I don’t expect you to know all the “big names” of muscles but it’s nice to physically see how that anatomy works.

Is it just me or are people too trusting these days? Let me get on a little soap box about this before I continue ..

You go to a health club. You decide you need some help..you ask for a personal trainer. You walk in for your first session and your personal trainer shows up and is maybe 19. Maybe. Male or female, they have a great body. Pause.

How many 19 year olds DON’T have a great body??  Ask them what THEY ate for lunch and it’ll probably be something like “Subway 6 inch sub with chips and a diet coke” or..even worse…”Pizza”. Now ..before panties get in a bunch, this is not the BIBLE of scenarios but this is typical. I’m 37 years old. If I eat a subway sandwhich with chips and a coke everyday for lunch, I’m gaining at least 5lbs by the end of the week.

Let’s also point out that they work in a health club. They train people all day. That’s moving around, demonstrating exercises and running back and forth between protein bars. It’s the same concept as The Biggest Loser. Those people spend their day being active in a controlled environment with cooked meals. It’s an amazing transformation and they work VERY hard, but the average person doesn’t achieve those kinds of results for a reason. Note that you shouldn’t be discouraged by this NOR should you use it as an excuse. It’s just a reality check.

Now back to my beef :

I understand that in order to stay in business, there has to be advertisers. But when I’m paying $4 for a magazine, I don’t want to have more than half of it be advertising …and most of all, for things that aren’t related to health! There has to be a better idea than posting 12 full page advertising ads in between “Building better abs” and “Gorgeous Glutes”.

I don’t care what the latest sexual stimulant is. I don’t care about Bat-dung based supplements. I want to see REAL people, in real fitness gear, in real life situations coming out on top. I’m tired of seeing celebrities who have money for the luxuries of 5 day a week personal trainers, on call chefs, swimming pools in their bedrooms and liposuction on “bad months” when they couldn’t do it themselves. I want to see real struggles. Fall on your face for us, but get the hell back up and show us we can too.

And for the love of all things holy, stop putting the “Increase Breast Size Cream” ads in your magazine!!

FREE STUFF

I’ve decided that I’m going to get this blog going again with a bang!

So what does that mean for you? FREE STUFF.

Random posters/commentors/questioners will get something free from me. It could be something as small as a water bottle or something bigger like free supplements. Maybe a T-Shirt. You get the idea. So post away!

If there are any sponsors that would like to get in on this, please contact me at serialtrainer@gmail.com

Recipe: Brown Rice Sushi (Shrimp)

Brown Rice & Shrimp Handrolls
Ingredients for 2-3 people (6 cones):

+ Nori – get the roasted and salted kind
+ Brown Rice – short grain, 1 1/2 cups
+ Shrimp – cooked and peeled (1 pound, extra large)
+ Avocado – very thin slices
+ Cucumber – very thin slices (seeded)
+ Sesame Seeds – black
+ Roe – (small container)
+ Scallions – thinly sliced, lengthwise
+ Rice Vinegar – 1/4 cup (to taste)
+ Mayonnaise – Hellmans
+ Lemon Peel
+ Prepared Seaweed Salad – (available in most sushi supply shops and major supermarkets)
+ Pickled Ginger
+ Soy Sauce
+ Tamari (wheat-free)

Make The Rice
Mix 1 1/2 cups of brown rice with 3 cups cold water. Bring to boil and immediately cover and turn to lowest heat setting. Leave for 40-45 minutes. When done, add rice vinegar and stir. Transfer to a colander to cool quickly.

Chop shrimp into half inch pieces and add desired amount of mayo.

Roll Your Cones
The most important part of Temakizushi, or hand rolls, is to make sure not to overstuff them with rice. We find that 4-6 tablespoons is plenty. Add your shrimp mix and any combination of other ingredients to taste. Season with wasabi, ginger and soya sauce.

Some Tips For Making Temaki
Place a half sheet of nori horizontally on your mat and put some rice on the left side of the nori, but make sure to leave a border of nori all around. Next put your ingredients vertically across the middle of the rice. Take a corner of the nori and tuck it into the middle of the nori, about 1/3 of the way down from the top, and continue rolling. You can also wet the nori just a little bit to help it stick together at the bottom of the cone.

 

Protein: What’s It All About?

Protein Shakes, Protein Supplements, Protein Diets. We hear the word every day but do we really know anything about it?

What is Protein?
Protein is vital to life. That’s the first thing you need to know. Protein is found in your hair, your eyes, skin, muscles, blood, etc. It is second to water as being the most plentiful substance in your body.

Protein can be put together by our body, which I like to refer to as machines (yeah, I did watch a lot of Transformers as a child). Did you know there are about eight types of protein that we cannot produce? That means we must get them from the food we eat. It is harder to gain those essential amino acids from plant life and so the easiest and fastest way to getting them is through animal protein.

Before anyone starts finding out where I am and throwing buckets of blood on me — stop, breathe, and take the CARRIE DVD out of your player. I’m not encouraging anyone to eat meat, that’s a personal issue. I’m just stating the facts here. You can get protein from plants but it’s harder. It’s found more abundantly in animal protein and it is also a little harder to digest plant protein.

So how much protein do you need a day? Well that’s a great question! The answer is that it varies. Take into account a person’s sex and age and refer to the chart below.

[ the chart was borrowed, forgive me I lost my source! you can click on the image to enlarge it]

* Teenage boys and active men can get all the protein they need from three daily servingsfor a total of seven ounces.
* For children age 2 to 6, most women, and some older people, the government recommends two daily servings for a total of five ounces.
* For older children, teen girls, active women, and most men, the guidelines give the nod to two daily servings for a total of six ounces.

Studies have shown that we take in much more protein than we need, which leads to what? Say it with me! More calories.

Benefits of Protein:

* protein aids in the repair and recovery from workouts
* protein strengthens your immune system
* protein increases your lean muscle mass
* protein aids in satiety
* protein make antibodies and hemoglobin (delivers oxygen to blood cells)

Those of you that are participating in a high protein diet or thinking about it should know that there are serious side affects. Please do not attempt any diet unless you’ve consulted with your doctor. Diets high in protein produce rapid weight loss by stimulating the loss of fluids from the body. That sounds great to people desperate to lose weight but this can be extremely detrimental to your health.

BodyBugg Results: Aug 7, 2008

For everyone who is tracking or paying attention to my BodyBugg results, I had to edit the first entry because..yep. I put the wrong date. Sorry ’bout that!

Also, for the nutrition portion, I’ll be more careful next time. I usually forget to sort the meals out in breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack so it looks like I only ate twice in the day. I didn’t get to eat as much as I should’ve and I felt drained by the end of the day. As you can see, I burned 1700+ calories and I was walking most of the day. On a 2,000 calorie diet, I would’ve been way over my calorie allowance. Instead, I’m way under but I feel crappy.

 

Lowfat vs Light

One of the biggest problems people have when going on “diets” is that they are confused by the labels. Products boasting “Lowfat!” are deceiving buyers into thinking they are getting something good for them. Here is the difference between these two products.

Lowfat items will have a lower fat content, usually, but do not fall into the dark side! Check your calories. Calories are your holy grail to losing weight. You have to consume less calories than what you burn, daily. So what exactly do you need to look for on the label?

First and foremost, calories and serving size. On a can of soda, a serving size could be 2 servings per can. Those small bag of chips can be 2.5 (depending on the size). Be careful to know how big their serving size is for the information it’s giving you.

Next is sugars. A lot of energy drinks contain a lot of sugars. These can sabatoge your workouts. Save energy drinks for when you work out for more than an hour. If you workout for an hour or less, stick to just water.

Another big thing, equally as important are the carbs. Carbs get a bad reputation but learning the difference between your carbs is vital. You’ll hear a lot about slow burning carbs (like oatmeal) and those are great for giving you a full feeling, take a longer time to digest and promote a consistent level of blood sugars. Examples of slow burning carbs are: Yams, whole grains breads, potatoes, or brown rice. If you’re diabetic, your doctor and diabetes nutrition counselor will tell you what the best menu choices are for you.

Sodium is another diet sabatoge. Items with a high sodium content are to be avoided. Too much in your diet can cause high blood pressure and other health ailments.

The “monster” of the healthy eating world? Trans fats. I can not say enough bad things about foods containing this sludge. Go to your pantry and/or cabinets, find anything with trans fats in them and promptly throw them out. They cause a plethora of health issues and I can’t even list them all in one post.

So in light of all this confusion, I’m borrowing the following table to help you sort through the confusion that the manufacturers have caused you and hopefully shed some light into the darkness that we call “translating labels”. Companies are closely regulated when it comes to making statements about the food they sell. When you see information on food labels, this is what it means:

Content Claim	Definition
Fat Free	Less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving.
Low Fat	Three grams of fat or less per serving.
Low Saturated Fat	One gram of saturated fat or less per serving.
Lean	Less than 10 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, and 95 milligrams of cholesterol per serving.
Light	One-third less calories or no more than 1/2 the fat of the regular product; no more than 1/2 the sodium of the regular product.
Sodium Free	Less than 5 milligrams of sodium per serving.
Low Sodium	Less than 140 milligrams of sodium per serving.
Very Low Sodium	Less than 35 milligrams of sodium per serving.
Cholesterol Free	Less than 2 milligrams of cholesterol and 2 grams or less of saturated fat per serving.
Low Cholesterol	Less than 20 milligrams of cholesterol per serving.
Good Source	Indicates that a serving contains 10 to19 percent of the Daily Value of a nutrient.

Winter Herb Pasta Recipe

Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 30 min
Servings: Makes 4 to 6 (main course) servings

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cups coarse fresh bread crumbs (preferably from a baguette)
1 pound dried bucatini or spaghetti
2 teaspoons chopped sage
2 teaspoons chopped rosemary
2 teaspoons chopped thyme
1 cup chopped parsley

Preparation:

Heat butter and 1 tablespoon oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium heat until foam subsides. Cook garlic, stirring, until fragrant and pale golden. Add bread crumbs and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, reserving skillet.

Meanwhile, cook bucatini in a pasta pot of boiling salted water (3 tablespoons salt for 6 quarts water) until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water, then drain.

Heat remaining 1/4 cup oil in skillet over medium heat until it shimmers, then cook sage, rosemary, and thyme, stirring, 2 minutes.

Add pasta, 1/2 cup reserved water, and parsley and toss well. Add more water to moisten if necessary. Serve sprinkled with bread crumbs.

Nutritional Information:

Per serving, based on six servings: 446 calories, 17g fat (4g saturated), 10mg cholesterol, 88mg sodium, 63g carbs, 3g fiber,11g protein (nutritional analysis provided by Nutrition Data)

Credited to: Melissa Roberts and Epicurious.com