Cooking for health: chicken strips, sweet potato fries, and carrots

Here is another one of my stressful cooking moments. Now I have been thinking about it and for some reason I decide to make moments stressful instead of enjoyable. I am not sure why we (now I say we because I hope there are others out there with the same problem), like to think only about the negative things that happen. For instance my training on Thursday. I felt like I had a great training session and my mind felt clear. There was one thing that went wrong. I couldn't snatch 130lbs! And you know out of an hour training session that was the one thing I focused on. I didn't think about the fact that I snatched 125lbs beautifully or the fact that I squatted 215lbs after many reps. So last night now looking back at my cooking experience I am remembering it as a negative experience. I remember saying how hungry I was, how much I hated cooking, what a mess my kitchen was, the list goes on and on. The ending to the night was the only thing I enjoyed....yes this was eating the food! It seems if I don't eat on time I start to get a little edgy. So this means since I eat every 2 to 3 hours that could equal a lot of moments so feeding me would definitely be recommended. But since nobody else is going to feed me at this moment let me tell you how I fed myself.

When I typed out the title for this post I realized one thing that could of been improved upon my dinner last night. That is the fact that sweet potatoes and carrots are the same color. The meal probably would of been a little more well balance by picking a green vegetable but I had a craving for carrots.

We can start it off with the fact that I went to the grocery store hungry. Again this is a bad idea. All day at work I was planning on coming home and looking for a recipe to cook. So this means I got out of work had to come home and find the recipe and then go out to the grocery store. Of course there was not a parking spot in the whole lot so here I was waiting for someone to back out so I could steel their spot and I feel a bump on my car. Yes this nice gentleman decided to back out of his spot before I was out of the way. Considering this is my new car and I am madly in love with it. I got out of the car very nicely but the inside of me was about to bring out my old black belt skills. Luckily there really wasn't a mark on my car so I let him go without any bruises. Now I was reminded last night this is not using my zen like mindset. So I guess I have to get working on this a bit more. But now I am getting off track.......

I better keep these kicks on the mat and not the parking lot...Yes this is me!

So after walking around the store forever trying to find a spice they didn't have called Herbamare which I have learned is an organic herb seasoning salt. I had to settle for some italian seasoning. I did get my recipe out of a new book recommended by my naturopath called The whole life nutrition cookbook  by Alissa Segersten and Tom Malterre, MS, CN. I went by the chicken nuggets recipe but decided it was easier to make strips.

Here goes: Preheated oven to 400 degrees F. Got 2 bowls out. Put 1/2 cup hemp milk in one bowl (soy could also be used or if you are a 100% paleo kind of person I would imagine eggs or even water would work because you just need something to make the chicken wet). No it did not say this is the book I am just thinking it so if I am wrong you didn't hear it from me. The second bowl I put 1/2 cup brown rice flour and 1/2 cup almond flour. The recipe called for just 1 cup brown rice flour but I decided I wanted a little more healthy fat in the meal so I made a substitution which wouldn't be a bad idea if you were 100% paleo you could do all almond flour. If you don't know what paleo is it is also referred to as the caveman diet. You eat the foods that the caveman had available to them back in the day. So meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar.

Next I took my package of chicken strips that I got from the store of course all natural, no hormones. Dipped each strip first in the hemp milk and made sure it was completely covered and then same process with the 2 flours mixed together. After that I put it in a baking pan that I had already rubbed with coconut oil. I was supposed to put my seasoning in the flour mixture but forgot and ended up sprinkling the italian seasoning on top of the strips.

Then put them in the oven to bake for 20 mins. I cut the thickest strip open to see if it was done cooking and found it was due to there being no pink in the meat.

Next I went on to cut up a bag of organic carrots I got from the store. I thought about the baby carrots that are already small but have heard they are not as healthy. Now since I had no idea what to do with the carrots, if I had taken an idea out of my head I would of boiled them in some water. Not sure how that would of turned out so to make sure I was doing it correctly I decided to look  in a cookbook I have called How to cook everything by Mark Bittman. Very good book if I say so myself. So I washed and peeled the carrots then chopped them into fairly large chunks. I place all the carrots into a pot with 2 tbs smart butter, 1/4 cup water, black pepper, I squeezed 1 small orange in the pot and put 1 tsp ground ginger. I turned the stove onto high to get it boiling and covered the pot. After it started boiling I turned the heat to medium and cooked for 5 mins. After that I uncovered the pot and turned up the heat to let it cook until there was no water left stirring occasionally until tender.

After that I fixed the sweet potato fries. Yes I could of saved a lot of time preparing everything first but I managed to do it one at a time. Which is why I didn't actually eat the food until 9:30pm. I cleaned a sweet potato and cut off the ends and dark spots but left the skin. Then I sliced it up into wedges. This recipe was under the oven fries in the whole life nutrition cookbook. I preheated oven to 420 degrees F and now that I am reading the book it was supposed to be 425 degrees which is why mine probably could of cooked a little longer but I guarantee I had no trouble eating them. I placed the sweet potato wedges into a large bowl. Added 1/4 cup olive oil, sprinkled some italian seasoning, black pepper, 1/2 tsp turmeric, garlic powder and 1 tbs paprika. I tossed it all together to try to get the sweet potato's coated well. Next I put them in a baking pan which I had put coconut oil in but that doesn't have it in the recipe and is probably unnecessary since the potato's have oil in them. I baked these for 30 mins.

Final Result: 3 chicken strips, carrots, sweet potato fries and 1 spoonful of honey mustard. (tried to find the healthiest one on the shelf)

By the way I did want to eat the entire pan of chicken strips by the time I was done but settled for 3 and it was plenty as far as my body went my mind that is a different story. One of the main problems I have found with cooking is the mess and the fact I am too tired after to clean it up so this is what my kitchen still looked like in the morning.

This is not exactly what you want to wake up to and no I won't be having anybody over anytime soon with my house in this condition. Kind of embarrassing and here i am showing it on the internet. Very strange character I am!

So I have to say this meal was very healthy and yummy. Really one of the best things I have eaten in a while considering I normally live on plain chicken and veggies. One thing I have to work on is being more prepared. The day before after training I also went to the store hungry and got very irritated at all the people with a piece of pizza in their hand only because I wanted to have something so easy. But really I don't. I know deep down inside it is my choice to live this way. The difference in how my body and mind feels being healthy makes life the best thing ever when I remember how miserable and disgusting I felt being overweight and unhealthy. Let me clear one thing up is the fact that being overweight isn't necessarily the problem. If you are healthy then the weight will take care of itself. We are all going to be different shapes and sizes and that is how it is supposed to be. We need to be happy with how we are inside and out but if you give being healthy a try with nutritious foods and exercise you will find a whole other world for yourself and I promise you will love it.

Letter to Myself

I was talking to a good friend of mine and we were discussing my problems with competition. During our brain storming we came up with the idea to write a letter to myself that I can read. It probably sounds really silly to a lot of people but really it's not a bad idea. Who better to write a letter of inspiration then the person who knows us best.....ourselves. I have been sitting on this letter for a few days and I am sure there will be ways to tweak it and make it better but for now here it is.

Dear Kim,

I know you are probably really nervous right now. Maybe 

starting to have some doubts about if you are really ready or not. What you have to remember is you are ready and you are already a winner. You can't fail no matter what happens. Remember how far you have come and how many people would love to be in your footsteps right now. Remember you are the only one who has the power to make your dreams come true. Nobody can do it for you. You have to find the strength within. Go out there and give it everything you got and I promise if you do that there is no way you can lose no matter what happens. Embrace the journey and believe in yourself. The power lies within you. Dig deep within your soul and when you reach you will find victory.

Labor Day Washington Exploration - Leavenworth

I love to travel. There are so many great places out there. Taking a drive to Leavenworth in my little convertible driving through steven's pass with kid rock blasting on the radio was amazing. The mountains are gorgeous and experiencing the wenatchee river wasn't so bad either.

When my husband and I got there we drove around town over and over again trying to find a parking spot. This must be a nice place because it seems nobody leaves. When we arrived of course I am thinking about food but what part of the day am I not thinking about that? Yes, I eat a lot!  We started off with a trip to the Cafe Christa to see what the German food was all about. My goal was to find something healthy to eat which it seemed was nearly impossible unless I had ordered a plate of lettuce. We shared a cup of goulash, the frigadelle (German meatloaf) and the Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes with weisswurst). Not exactly the type of food I would be eating at home but not the worst choice either.

Next was the hat store. Kind of a cool place. Here are a couple of our favorite hats....

 

So randy's favorite is the king hat for himself but I personally think the curly hair is awesome. He says it looks too natural.

 

I can't say my hats are as funny but lets face it I am more concerned about cute then funny. I did get a picture with the hat on the left and some pink glasses on but it reminded me too much of when I was a little kid and wore mickey mouse glasses. Yes I was the biggest nerd! I would show a picture but I think it has been banned from the internet. 

After the hat store we went into a hippie store. Now I can't be certain if that was the name or not it's getting kind of blurry but it might have been. Randy made fun of me because I took a picture of every quote in the store. some are a bit hard to read on picture so here are a few basic ones. Yes I know I am weird but somebody has to play the part.

I am kind of a sucker for quotes lately. I guess it helps keep my mind on track. I have been working really hard to get rid of my nagging negative self talk that I have somehow developed so reading positive quotes is very helpful. It seems getting rid of a bad habit like that is not exactly so easy. 

Next stop was the wine tasting. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures or even the name of the winery we went to because I was too busy sipping the glass. Yummy! I am a sucker for great wine. 

We did stop by the chocolate factory but thought it was kinda lame that it wasn't filled with german chocolates. So I took their free sample of fudge which was smaller then my finger tip and headed out the door. 

After that was a little stop by Cured by Visconti's and of course I had to try a piece of the buffalo jerky. Not too bad except I almost broke my teeth. 

To take away the pain in my teeth we now walked by the art in the park where they were selling a bunch of paintings and photos of washington and I wanted to buy every picture.

Then we had to turn around so I could stop by the cup and kettle tea shop. I am sure my wallet would of thanked me for missing it but what can we say. How was I supposed to pick just one tea when they made all of them sound amazing! I bought so much they gave me a free cup of tea to go. My mouth is still recovering from my first sip of tea in my new mug...ouch! From what I could taste with a burnt mouth it was very yummy through.

If you don't know my husband he manages a beer and cigar store so yes he loves beer. We stopped by the Icicle and got a sample of each. 

We did order a veggie plate and you can imagine how excited I was to find the healthiest thing of the day. 

Beers we tasted: 

Khoas Kolsch (german blonde ale)

Colchuck wheat (american wheat)

Freund Festbier (german amber lager)

Bootjack IPA (indian pale ale)

Priebe Porter (american porter)

Don't ask me to pronounce the german names because I failed spanish in high school and can only imagine how german would go. I will leave that to the professionals. I was kind of partial to the first 2 beers but the porter wasn't so bad either. 

Well I will have to cut this a little short which I am sure you are thankful and skip to dinner. The lady at the winery suggest we try South which is a mexican restaurant. I am proud I made a pretty decent choice, yes I did think of making a bad choice but talked myself out of it knowing it would not of made me feel good. It was not a lot of food and it was very good. 

We took a little different route on the way back and this time drove through snoqualamie pass with stevie ray blasting on the radio. Not too bad for a day trip. Ended up home a little past my bedtime but still enough sleep to PR on my clean the next day at 185lbs. Slowly but surely it will come. Next step of course get 185lbs again but next time prettier and overhead. :)

Late Entry: 

Ok so I left out a couple things. I kinda put this together in a hurry and my boss would not of liked it if I was late for work because I was too busy blogging. My husband mentioned the cheese shop we went to. Now not remembering the name but it is in the comments if you are interested. Anyway they had the most incredible carmalized goat cheese! I don't know how I forgot about that. It tasted like cheese that was candy. Wow!

I also forgot to mention the fact that I tryed to find the bakery that was listed on the town map on the way out of town. Luckily for me they didn't exsist anymore because I was determined to eat a german streusel. If that is how you spell it. Anyway pastries was on my mind but since I was already on my way out of town it was too late. Definitly didn't need the calories anyway. Yes I am human and love sweets even though I can't eat them very often.

Then and Now

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Unknown

THEN

NOW

 I always like to remind myself how far I have come so I make sure I am proud of myself and I don't go back. This change is forever. It doesn't even matter what I do it is just the fact that I am doing it that counts. Taking the first step is the hardest after that you feel like you are flying.

Cooking for Health

Turkey Meatballs and Veggies

This whole post was very clear in my mind last night while I was cooking until I fell into a meatball coma. During the cooking process I felt like I was on a cooking show. I thought of so many funny and informative things to say in my blog. Now you are just going to have to laugh to humor me since I have forgotten it all.

After a nice long walk at chambers bay after work yesterday it was time to decide what to eat. Most days I am on my own since my husband comes home from work after I am already asleep. I am not much of a cook but definitely love food. My husband won me over by cooking me candle light dinners and he can cook some amazing food. Sometimes I do take the easy way out and get some already prepared food from a store that is as healthy as I can find. It is always better to prepare your own food since stores usually add a lot of unnecessary ingredients. I stopped by Trader Joe's on my way home (now at this point I was already hungry, not recommended unless you have lots of willpower). I was really in the mood for turkey meatballs. They didn't have any already made and after walking around the store forever I just said forget it I will make it myself. Walked out with ground turkey, 1 eggplant, 1onion, tomatoes, mushrooms, and tzatziki (a cucumber yogurt dip).


Now take into consideration here I am a beginner cook. I am no Rachel Ray and cooking is not exactly my favorite thing to do but I have made improvements in it over the years. Maybe if someone was available to clean up the mess for me after I wouldn't mind it so much.

I started off browning the meatballs. I really didn't put much in the turkey other then some spices but I did threw in some onions and mushrooms to saute in the pan with the meatballs. I just sprayed the pan with pam in order to not get too much fat from a whole bunch of oil.

After browning the meatballs a little I transferred them to a baking pan and poured the sauteed onions and mushrooms on top. Preheated the oven to 350 degrees and baked for 20 min.

Next was time for the veggies. I have never cooked eggplant but I saw some grilled eggplant in the frozen veggies section so I decided to try and cook it myself. I threw in some eggplant, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and collard greens in a pan with a little olive oil. Let me say collard greens is something that is hardly tolerable by itself but what I have found is if you mix in just a few with something else you don't even really notice. One of the most important things I have learned is you want a variety of colors in your food. Each different food has different nutrients. Diversity is very important when it comes to diet.

Now for the finalized meal. Really didn't turn out bad at all for not looking at a recipe. Spices I used were Italian spices, allspice, garlic, black pepper, cinnamon, celery seed and nutmeg. No rhyme or reason to how much I threw in the food. I did add a little tzatziki dip for the meatballs. No I did not make this one myself I would of been up until midnight. I also added a little feta cheese on the veggies.

One of the key points here is your are worth knowing what is in your food. You can still enjoy food and make it healthy. Sometimes you have to let a few household chores go by the waist side and dedicate that time into yourself. There is not always enough time in the day for everything but we do what we can with what we have. Have you found any delicious healthy recipes lately?

Food Addiction

Recently I had the pleasure of enjoying a visit from my mother. I took some days off of work and we had a really great time. For the most part my eating was very healthy except for a couple little cheat meals. It is definitely good to treat yourself once in a while but what I have noticed is when I do this it makes me want more. When I am strict on my diet I don't really crave the bad stuff. Even though eating bad doesn't make you feel good, something makes you want more and more of it. Interesting........Have you experienced this?

I have noticed it is harder for some people then others to make sure they get themselves right back on track. It is even harder if you are surrounded by people who don't eat healthy. I wouldn't tell anybody that being healthy is easy. It is very hard. It was hard to lose the weight and it is hard to keep it off. Certain parts of it get easier but it just has to be part of your life. It has to be a choice you have made for yourself. That is the only way it will work. If you are tired of the roller coaster then you should try making the sacrifice for yourself. There is no greater feeling then being healthy. Your energy will be high, you will be happy with your body, your mind will be clearer.....I could go on and on.

Since I made my transformation my goal is to help others realize they can do it also. I know I won't be able to reach everyone, but you can help the world one person at a time. All of us have a choice. Nobodies choice is necessarily right or wrong, it just depends on what you want for your life. If you just sit down and think about how you feel and how happy you are with yourself.........would you change anything? If not then I guess you are living your dream. What is stopping you from making a change?

Goals: Making dreams come true

"Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill."  - Muhammad Ali

I have found coming up with a good blog post takes some time and planning. On that note lets get into talking about my goals. Coming up with goals is not exactly one of the easiest things to do or is it? It is easy to come up with some sort of goal but is that goal realistic? If so have you actually came up with a plan as to how you are going to reach this goal? If not it might be quite difficult for it to come true. It could just be a dream that will remain a dream forever. To have a dream come true I think it takes setting the right goals to make that dream a reality.

What do I want to be when I grow up? Lets talk a little about trying to figure out what you want to be and what you want to do with your life. Me for instance.....I have gone back and forth with crossfit and olympic weightlifting. First I wanted to go to the crossfit games. I was introduced to olympic weightlifting through crossfit. I started training with my wonderful trainer Ramin Robinson to improve my olympic lifts and become more efficient. I fell in love with it. It is very challenging for me but I enjoy striving to make myself better. Olympic lifting challenges me both physically and mentally which in turn helps me with my life outside the gym. Now I have gotten off track a little but my point is if you really want to succeed at something you have to make up your mind that that is what you want to do.

So lets start with dreams that may be a little far fetched:
1.  Go to the Olympics:  When I was younger yes I did dream of going to the Olympics. At that time I dreamed about going for Tae Kwon Do. I had chosen to go to college instead. I am not saying this would necessarily be a bad goal but if that is what I am focused on at this point in my life I will spend most of my time being very disappointed since I am not even close to lifting at that level yet. Not bad to dream about it but not realistic to set it as a goal.
2.  Go to an international level compeition:  This goal would at least be a little more realistic then going to the olympics but still very far off. I think only a few get picked to compete internationally each year and those are the top athletes. My total is not even close to them.
3.  Total 200kg or more:  So if I did this then the other dreams above would probably come true. Again ok to probably think about these things but it would probably be more productive to think about smaller goals that will get me closer to the big ones. If I spend my time getting disappointed that won't help me at all.

Let get realistic........Goals:
1.  Keep bodyweight at 153lbs or below:  The main reason for this goal is because this is the weight I am happy with. When I start gettting above this I start to be a little unhappy with my body.
2.  Gain muscle:  Now I do understand that gaining muscle may equal gaining weight but if my body weight increases due to muscle I will cancel out my first goal as long as I don't look like I am on steriods.
3.  Improve technique:  Making sure I get my head through (not looking to the sky so my bar has no where to go but down), Keeping my elbows and chest up (those kind of go together....if elbows fall chest falls and in turn the bar falls to the ground which is not where I want it), Keeping my back flat (very important especially if I want to keep lifting for many years and not have a bad back), Push knees out (I know a lot of people have trouble with their knees going in so that they are almost touching but not going to help me complete my lift), Starting lift slow and controlled and finishing fast and smooth (a lot of the time I seem to think the faster I pull that bar off the ground the better my chance of getting it overhead. What I am finding out is this is not true. As coach Mike Burgener told me "Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast".
4.  Improve the mind:  Be able to visualize the perfect technique and apply it to my lift, Get better at clearing my mind and develping no mindness, Believe in myself and gain confidence, Have fun....not letting the stress make what I enjoy not be fun anymore, After having a failed lift be able to regain composure and get the next one.

So I have been working very hard on this post but while reading through it again it was kind of putting me to sleep. Weather that is because I have been working all day or because the post is too long not sure but hey I tryed and I am sure someone will find it interesting. If not I have my goals down in writing.