In my quest to add a broader range of foods to my diet, eggplant makes another appearance.
Some good ol’ chicken breast baked with tomato sauce, mushrooms, onions, eggplant thrown on top of some whole wheat pasta.
Of course a little parsley sprinkled on top prior to the meals photo-shoot.
Family day in several other provinces, but since we live in Manitoba, today’s holiday is appropriately called Louis Riel Day.
We got to sleep in a little bit today which allowed for a little more time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast.
Shredded potatoes/hash browns with onions and a tomato, mushroom and extra old cheddar cheese omelette.
Garnished with my favourite food: Avocados
Time to enjoy the Festival du Voyageurs!
Never, ever made beets before.
Mrs. OddBody/Shortcake loves beets.
I have some in the pantry…I know, why don’t I cook them!
Genius.
Here is a recipe for a simple, yet tasty beet salad.
I used 4 beets. Boiled them, peeled them and thinly sliced them.
Cut up up several radishes mixed them all with red wine vinegar, olive oil and mustard. Which I conveniently also had in my fridge for the first time ever!
Placed it all on a bed of lettuce and sprinkled the mixture with parsley.
Surprisingly filling…and super tasty.
Beets will definitely be making a few more appearances in my meals
I mean, just look at this nutritional info!
After getting my computer back from hp, in what I must say was record time, looks like it is time to start penning my “information” back into the blogosphere.
I’ll start off nice and lightly with my Valentines Day workout. Which I must say, was surprisingly good.
After several cups of oatmeal, 6 pieces of pizza and breakfast pancakes over the last 12 hours, I was a big ball of potential energy and it made for a very good workout.
Started things off as per the usual with some weighted wide grip chins. Warming up with body weight for a few reps and then 5 or so reps with 45 lbs.
The meat and potatoes work included two sets of 6 reps with a 65 pound dumbbell. This was followed with some close-grip chins with a 65 lbs for 6 and then 45 lbs for 8 or 9. After the heavy weights, I always go for an all out set (of wide-grip chins) with no weight for as many reps as possible..got about 15 or so today.
Next on the menu was some barbell rows: 4 sets {135 lbs x 12; 185 lbs x 12; 205 lbs x 11; 225 lbs x 6}
Really getting a good burn today so all I needed to finish things off was some deadlifts.
And boy did these finish me off.
4 Sets {225 lbs x 12; 315 lbs x 8; 365 lbs x 4; 405 lbs x 2}
Haven’t tried to do 405 lbs for a while (at least 18 months), but it felt good to feel some heavy weight again.
Time to eat and recover.
Is chocolate a good post-workout meal?
Happy Valentines!
Feeling like some Saturday night burgers?
I know I am!
But let's make them turkey burgers.
Add:
Add it all into some ground turkey mix it up and roll it into balls and place them in the fridge.
When you are ready, throw them on the foreman grill or the frying pan and when they are cooked throughout, melt some cheese with some mushrooms and onions on top.
Today, these delectable burgers were served on thin whole wheat burger buns with some home-made fries and Caesar's salad.
Sometime I just get into a groove and to save time for the rest of the week I cook 3 or four meals at once.
Last night was one such night!
First on the menu, well mostly to snack on while I cooked, some hummous and veggies!
I finally prepared some soup from the vegetable broth I had slaved over last Friday (by slaved I mean thrown veggie debris into water and cooked for 4 hours without paying attention)
This hearty soup consisted of:
1 cup of black beans
2 Russet Potatoes
1/2 cup of basmati rice
Several medium-sized carrots
An onion
Several stalks of celery all sliced up
Some green onions
One large Green Pepper
Minced Garlic
some salt and pepper
I brought it to a boil and let it simmer on low for a couple of hours while I prepared my pasta (The actual meal of the day)
Today's pasta ended up with a mixture of left-over spaghetti mixed with some shell noodles to finish off a couple of bags (luckily both were whole grain, phew, dodged a bullet there)
The sauce was rather meaty with a pound of extra lean ground beef, an onion and several cups of spinach simmered in a can of tomato sauce.
Magnifique!
When all was ready, I mixed all of the noodles up with the sauce to make it all so hamburger helperesque
Throw on some mozzarella cheese, blur the picture and you have a good meal...or three!
Does anyone else have a day of dinner mass production?
Tonnes of protein, tonnes of energy...Perfect!
Here is my typically breakfast right now:
About a cup of egg whites + 1 whole egg + a whole wack (wack is a unit of measurement right?) of mushrooms, scrambled.
1 Cup of oats + raisins or banana + almond or peanut butter sprinkled with shredded coconut
And a cup or two of Joe (fair trade of course) to set my gears in motion!
This Friday, we found ourselves a little burned out with Friday pizza but just as I had suspected when Super Bowl Sunday rolled around...we were craving it once again!
And here is the result:
Super cheesy, non?
I'm glad things are back to normal.
Although this omelette has nothing to do with football; it is a bit of a Sunday tradition...so today it is super!
Sorry it's a lousy picture, this super-omelette is filled with fried mushrooms, some old cheddar cheese and some green onion and is composed of about one cup of egg whites and two omega-pro eggs.
Accompanying the omelette is hash browns (4 potatoes worth) with an onion and a finely sliced orange.
This was all eaten post-oatmeal of course, can't go a day without oatmeal.
Enjoy the game!
So leg day rolled around again today, as it seems to every Tuesday. Things started off slowly, as it was the end of a long day.
The squats weren't as good as would have liked them to have been.
Nonetheless, I pressed on and found myself pouring buckets of sweat with a great leg pump that I'm sure will be the cause of much soreness on the morrow.
Exercise order of the day:
Warmed-up with a 400m run
Back Squats: Sets {135 lbs x 15; 225 lbs x 12; 265 lbs x 6; 225 lbs x 8}
Wide Stance Squats: 1 Set of 135 lbs for 12
Front Squats: 135 lbs for 12 reps, also only one set
Stiff-Legged Deadlifts: 4 sets {135 lbs x 12; 225 lbs x 12; 275 lbs x 12; 315 lbs x 6}
Barbell Lunges: 2 Sets {135 lbs x 8}
Leg Press: 3 Sets {320 lbs x 30; 410 lbs x 25; 500 lbs x 25}
Lying Leg Curls: 3 Sets of 12 reps with 90 lbs or so (Not really sure with those machines)
Some standing calf raises and then some light stretching.
Phew!
Quite a bit of volume, but I am eating a tonne right now so hopefully I'll be able to recover well enough.
Perhaps I'll get a massage from Mrs. Oddbody (hopefully she is reading this)
Off to bed!
This Sunday, Mrs. Wife decided she wanted to make an ultra cute bento box lunch that involved a bunch of sticky rice.
Being true Vancouverites, you know what that means...
Time for some home-made sushi!
Unfortunately, I was a little too gung-ho and when I decided to start the sushi construction I realized I had very little fixings for filling up the rolls!
So I looked through the pantry and grabbed a tin of pink salmon and loaded up the first roll.
Amazingly, I actually rolled these up properly
And I didn't even destroy them when I sliced them up!
I ate these tasty little pieces for a snack and then made another salmon roll along with a very basic carrot roll
Like I said...very low supplies
Although I did have seaweed handy.
Strange.
The last two rolls shall be my lunch tomorrow, hopefully they taste just as good tomorrow.
Bonito Appetito!
Researchers have identified a virus (AD-36), that when caught by humans can turn stem cells into fat cells!
Apparently it can also potentially turn someone who was once thin to become overweight.
The symptoms someone exhibits when they catch this virus are also quite similar to those of the common cold.
So this begs the question...
Do you feed a fever or starve a cold?
watch out for this fat cell found here
Oh goodie, it's another leg-day...
Hooray!
And at the end of a long day of work, who doesn't look forward to a workout that requires more effort than pushing a marshmallow through a key-hole. I'm not really sure where that came from...
Luckily, the joints were feeling good, I had eaten well and plentifully (2 chicken breasts, 2 cups of rice and 2 cups of steamed veggies over the last 4 hours go a long way!) so my energy levels were quite high going into the gym.
Started off with the usual, deep back squats: 5 Sets (135 lbs x 12; 225 lbs x 12; 265 lbs x 7; 285 lbs x 4; 225 lbs x 12). Got a good pump with these, very little rest between sets almost turned it into a cardio workout!
With no break went right into some stiff-legged deadlifts for three sets (135 lbs x 12; 225 lbs x 12 and 295 lbs x 10 or 12 not quite sure, was kind of light headed at this point...but in a good way)
Did a couple sets of barbells lunges (135 lbs x 8) while I waited for the leg press machine to be open where I did three sets of 30+ reps with 320 lbs.
I actually got a cramp at this point so I did some deep breathing and it seemed to go away (probably a little too much food in the tummy)
A few sets of lying leg curls including a final set drop set got my hamstrings sufficiently fried.
Last was seated calf raises and 15 minutes of stretching/lying on the floor followed by yet another wobbly walk up those darn stairs.
Going to try to do some yoga tonight for some more stretching which will hopefully ease the oncoming sore legs.
Since I have been working at night a couple of times a week with limited access to food I decided to make some protein bars that I can eat on the road and that won't cost me an arm and leg.
This is my first time trying this at home so I basically just followed the first result that Google gave me. I picked the bar with the least ingredients/had all the ingredients that I have at home.
Here is the easy to follow recipe:
3 Cups of Rolled Oats
1/2 Cup Peanut Butter (Where the ingredients are only peanuts)
1 Cup Skim Milk
4 Scoops of Chocolate Whey Protein Isolate
Dash of Cinnamon (I didn't use this)
Start off by dumping the oats and 4 scoops of protein powder into a bowl
Then blend the peanut butter into the milk (I used the good old Magic Bullet)
Then just fold the peanut-milk into the oats until it is nice and evenly mixed. This will be an intense arm workout, so blast through the pain!
When it starts to look edible you can scoop out a piece with you hands and mould it into bar form (or any form you like)
Wrap it up and store it in the freezer until you want to eat it.
I got 8 bars out of this recipe, should last me a couple of weeks as long as I don't eat them every day.
Extras that I may add next time:
-Chocolate Chips
-Flax Seeds
-Shredded Coconut
Anyone Else have any tasty ideas for quick meals or other foods that could be put into bar form?
On any given Sunday I decide to throw together a massive feast for my wife and I and probably Harvey too.
This time we had some eggplant lying around so I decided to do something useful with it: Stuff it! (I have no prior experience with eggplant).
I found this yummy little recipe for eggplant in my online quest to find something to do with said eggplant.
It looked easy enough so let's give it a shot!
Started off by frying up the stuffing for the eggplant (1 red pepper, 1 green pepper, 1 onion, 2 tomatoes and the inside of the halved eggplant)
Also heated up the two eggplant halves before commencement of the stuffing
After I filled them up with all of the goodies I sprinkled a little feta cheese inside them and placed them in a dish, filled it halfway with water and threw it in the oven for 50 minutes or so.
Next up was the yam fries with the enormous yam that was bigger than Harvey! It's like a Zeppelin flying over top of him.
Here's how I cut them: Quartered then sliced into delicious fry-sized morsels.
And finally the coup de gras, le chicken! Some of the left-over eggplant stuffing on top of the chicken which is sitting on a bed of spinach. Let's not forget the mozzarella cheese sprinkled on top!
Here it is on the way in:
And on the way out:
And when it is was all put together...(Stuffed eggplant at the top)
I know someone who was pretty interested in this meal...
Have a good week everybody.
Surround yourself with good food!
You've heard it before, but that's all you need to do. And it is just that simple.
First place place to tackle is, obviously, your home.
Next up: Work
This is the worst place for bad snacking for most people. When birthday parties roll around or during the holidays {luckily those days are behind us for a little while} the office is ripe with tasty temptations.
In the Car
There you have it, just a few simple tips to help keep you from going overboard during the day and digging back in to that Ben-Jerry's at the end of the day.
Anyone else have any other snacking tricks that they would care to share with the rest of the class?
I stumbled upon this article on WebMD this morning that reviewed a recent study showing that if 40 year old women didn't watch what they ate they were at risk for serious weight gain in the future. The researchers found that the women who consciously "ate less" were able to prevent this mid-life weight-gain.
The so-called "emotional eating" was the usual cause of the weight gain over-time, and the researchers urged that women try to deal with emotionally stressful times in ways other than "binge-eating".
Although the researchers acknowledged that binge eating is more likely to occur in people who restrict their food intake, they did not see any evidence of this in this study.
Unfortunately, the article did not mention any important biomarkers or signs of impaired health that occur when women knowingly restrict their food.
Unfortunately it did not mention the nutrient intake of the various groups in the study, just weight gain.
A study done at the University of British Columbia found that women who practiced dietary restraint, excreted significantly higher levels of urinary cortisol.
Cortisol, which is a marker for stress may be related to the constant stress of always monitoring your food intake, not a very fun way to live.
If you want some better advice on eating nutrient rich food and enjoying every bite of it, go here.
Just don't drool on your computer too much.
Well it looks like that there are some new phytochemicals that have been found that may help in the treatment of breast cancer...hooray?
These phytochemicals found mainly in extra-virgin olive oil or olives have been shown to inhibit some proteins that are involved in breast cancer. Now, researchers want to extract them and hopefully apply them as breast cancer treatment drugs; putting them on the last line of defence as opposed to being on the preventative front-line.
Now if there is anything that we have learned from isolating nutrients, antioxidants and other phytochemicals from food, they just do not work the same way at preventing disease after being taken out of "context"!
And I don't expect whatever trials that follow these isolated chemicals to be any different.
Luckily, these phytochemicals are still intact if you choose to use extra-virgin olive oil as it is not refined so severely as pure or virgin olive oil.
Therefore, please enjoy this quick and easy recipe for some delicious Greek salad that I made last week! (not my video)
It's loaded with all of the aforementioned nutrients and is also packed with extra-yummy tastiness particles.
Ciao!
Recently stumbled across this nice little tool at the Eat Well Guide web site.
This site is great because it allows you to find farmers, farmer's markets, food co-ops, or other stores that sell healthy beef, dairy, eggs, bison, chicken produce or anything else you are looking for.
The beauty part is that you can screen through whatever sustainable production method you would like your food to have gone through. Anything from no antibiotics, organic, non-certified organic, grass-fed to biodynamic farming where the animals are read bedtime stories and live in the house with the farmer! Okay, I made that last one up, but overall a very useful search engine if you are looking for an alternative to the same old fare.
happy cow found here
Back the days when I was a young stallion back in my undergrad, it was nothing to go into the gym and squat 315 lbs for 8, 10, or even 12 reps good, deep reps! But now, working hard in grad school (sometimes), married, living out on my own (sort of), it's much harder to find the time to get back in to shape and stay there for a long enough period of time.
Luckily, I do have one thing on my side...
Experience.
Muscle memory is a fantastic thing. As long as you have put in enough blood and guts at one point in the gym, you should have no problem getting back to where you once were.
Luckily, I am still a fairly young buck and this getting back to my so called "peak" should be no problem. So this time I am going to do it smart, and that requires about 4 things:
1) An Efficient Training Plan coupled with well placed intensity
2) Good Eats
3) Loads of Recovery
4) Staying Healthy
Number 4 is the most important and has been quite the thorn in my side for some from a lingual hernia surgery, dislocated shoulders and an inflamed (or sigh...tennis) elbow hampering me for the last several years.
There is a fine balance between finding max strength while trying to avoid injury (at all costs)
So how do you do it?
At this point in my life there is no more room to get hurt, because it is those extended training periods that leads to those long term gains.
So how do I train hard, heavy and make gains without the inevitable injury?
There are a few tricks that I have adapted to my routine that seem to do the trick:
1) Warm-up thoroughly with mild stretching
2) Do several exercises before the heavy hitters (Squats, Deadlifts, Bench Press):
You'll still get a lot out the big three but the pre-exhaust exercises will take the edge off and will not tempt you to push yourself over the limit while still reaping all of the benefits that these exercises provide.
3) Make sure you stretch between sets and after you are done for a few minutes.
4) Include some light cardio on rest days to help speed recovery and keep blood and nutrients flowing to the muscles, because you are likely going to be much more sore after your workouts as you age.
With enough persistence you should be able to get back to your glory days, you'll just be a lot smarter about how you do it.
The beauty part is, you'll be able to do it faster too! No more messing around with lousy exercise or supplement schemes that don't work, because with age comes wisdom....I hope.
Any other tricks that you know of for combining intensity with longevity, I would love to hear it!
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