Bring on the BBQ – 7 Simple Tips to Savor Summer

Let’s face it. The last thing any of us want to hear at a BBQ is a list of “shouldn’t haves”. Eating cleaner and healthier most of the time – gives us room to enjoy ourselves at parties and celebrations without guilt or negative side effects.

Here are 7 simple tips to help you enjoy a healthier BBQ season without feeling deprived.

  1. Forget “portion control” and tune into “portion awareness.” Load up on heart-healthy vegetables, greens, and salads, make them fill ½ – ¾ of your plate.  Eat the lighter food first, to maximize digestion and reduce bloating. Then enjoy and savor your cheeseburger, chicken, veggie burger or other BBQ cuisine.
  2. Whenever possible, choose grass-fed, sustainably raised meats and poultry. The health benefits here are exponential. These are hormone and antibiotic free, which will support your immune system, hormones, metabolism and digestion.
  3. Check out the sides. Summer BBQ’s are usually full of terrific side dishes, guacamole (avocado is a very healthy source of fat), salads, and fruit. If you’re watching your weight or blood sugar, you may want to choose a bean salad or guacamole over potato salad.
  4. Gravitate towards greens. Whatever is leafy and green, pile it on your plate. Dark leafy greens and dark lettuces (like romaine) add in a ton of nutrients and fiber. They provide energy and lift your spirits.
  5. If there is a bean dish, go for that. Beans are a terrific source of protein, have low caloric density, have tons of fiber, help stabilize blood sugar and lower cholesterol.
  6. Keep yourself circulating and socializing. If there’s an activity, go and play. Focusing on being present and spending time with friends and family recharges your batteries on multiple levels.
  7. Disarm the “Brownie Blackout.”  If you’d like desert, then choose it. Don’t try and avoid it or rationalize it away. If you really want it, eat it consciously, savor it, be grateful for it. Enjoy – or you may just wake up having stuffed 7 brownies in your face without realizing it!

Experiment with these simple tips and observe how you feel. You are the best judge of what’s working for you.

 

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The OK Corral is looking healthy!

On Friday I had the honor of kicking off  Party City’s Wellness Program. It’s fantastic to work with companies who value their employees and promote wellness!

These are some of the early adopters and industry leaders. Way to go!

In addition to the monthly wellness workshops hosted by yours truly, they’ve put together an on-site wellness committee and started a walking club and a basketball team. They’ve got pilates and self-defense classes. It’s outstanding. They even have a gym and showers on site. 

The folks I met over there were super friendly and all fired up about all the new programs in store.

I raffled off a delicious gift basket full of all my favorite goodies. Each month, they host a party for their employees (it is, after all, Party City) and Friday’s theme was… western… hence, the OK Corral. Love it.  So, I gave them some summer BBQ tips that I’d love to share with you.

It was a good time, and I got to meet many bright and lovely people. We kick off the first wellness seminar in two weeks with “Myth-Busting Health:  an anti-rice cake food-lover’s approach to looking good and feeling even better.” It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Welcome aboard Party People! It’s gonna be a fun ride.

 

 

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Best picnic salad ever.

With all the picnics and outdoor bar-b-ques and joyful summer happenings abound, I thought I’d share this quick and tasty salad.

I made up the other day when meeting a friend for a picnic in Prospect Park (Brooklyn).

On a side note about BBQs and parties and keeping your summer figure, I employ a method I like to call:

“I’ma bring what I’m gonna eat. I’ll gladly share it with you.”

This way, I know if I show up and my only options are pulled pork, pig candy (please don’t ask), garlic bread, and a paltry salad, I’ve got myself covered with something that I know I want to eat, I know I enjoy, and I can share it with others. (You may recall my super bowl Sexy Pie post).

So here’s a refreshing summer salad for you to share with friends!

Oh! I almost forgot — the best part of this salad is that it is s u p e r quick to pull together. To recap, it’s the best becasue, it’s tasty, it’s easy to make, it appeals to many, and it’s good for your looks. I’m open to names for this one. Post below.

Best picnic salad. Ever.

Ingredients:

1 carrot

1 beet

1 cucumber

1/3 white onion (or bunch of scallions)

1 apple

1/2 -1 TBS Apple Cider Vinegar (raw)

1-2 tsps Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Celtic sea salt (most mineralizing salt) to tatse

Optional Fancy Stuff:

Chopped up fresh mint

Chopped up spinach

 

Directions:

1. Wash and peel all vegetables .

2. Grate all vegetables with cheese grater – use the larger holes

3. Also grate the onion. Don;t grate the green onions if that’s your onion source. Chop those.

4. Mix together.

5. Add vinegar, olive oil, and salt to taste.

6. Putt on a snazzy sun hat and waltz out the door.

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Asparagus. What the Cool Kids Know About Spring Seasonal Eating

Over here in the northeast, you wouldn’t know it was spring, what with all the rain and jacket weather we’ve been having, except… All the early spring foods are making their appearance. Big time.

The Mighty Asparagus

The Mighty Asparagus!

Taken from a food-grown-in-the-ground perspective, this is the time of year all of the fresh foods come “springing” forth. I’m going to let you in on some inside secrets. What all the seasonal eaters know, is that this is the season of some seriously good eats!

Right now, asparagus is fresh, sweet and delicious. This is very different from the asparagus sent around the country year-round from California. This is the asparagus local to your area, grown from soil rich with microbes, that inhabit the same places as you do. (Umm, okay – nerd alert – pumping the breaks.)

The bottom line is that this food is not only super-fresh but packed with the vitamins and minerals that your body needs this time of year, the food that mother nature intended us to eat right NOW.

Years ago, a friend of mine who worked at the Union Square Green Market in New York, started celebrating “ramps and fiddleheads!” I had absolutely no clue what he was talking about – but I was intrigued. Then a few years later I came across nettles, and my seasonal life changed. People! These foods are incredible for so many reasons.

  1. They are seasonal and they make their appearance relatively short — giving them the status of precious gem of the plant world
  2. Many of them grow wild, making them entirely more nutrient abundant
  3. They help us clear the gunk out from the winter and they hint to us which direction to take our consumption in (hint: green)

Today, I will focus only on Asparagus (so you might go out and consume it with gusto).

Portrait of Asparagus on Rainy Spring Day

Asparagus is a highly alkalizing vegetable. In fact, it is one of the most powerful alkalizers known in the vegetable world. Asparagus is believed to help with fertility and is used around the world in some form for this purpose. In each region it bursts forth from the ground and is up for about two weeks. Barbara Kingsolver writes a beautiful story around foraging for asparagus with her father in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

The “unique” smell that accompanies your urine is the quick flushing of acid waste from your blood and kidneys. This is a great alkalizing cleanse for your bladder and kidneys.

Here are a few quick ways to prepare fresh, seasonal asparagus.

To prepare, rinse and slice off the woody ends of the stems on the bias (they may be 1-2 inches only).

Simple Roasted Asparagus:

  • Slice asparagus in to bite size pieces
  • Put in a cooking dish
  • Add 1 TBS Ghee (clarified butter) or Olive Oil
  • Heat tosater oven 300˚ if using ghee, 200˚ if using olive oil
  • Add pinch of celtic sea salt to taste
  • Roast it for 10-20 minutes (this means walk away and do other things while checking back occasionally) the asparagus would be bright green.

This was so delicious, I don’t even have a photo becasue I ate it right out of the baking dish.

Simple Stir Fried Asparagus:

  • Try a stir fry with ginger, garlic and sea salt

Have either of these by themselves (I eat a whole bunch at one sitting), over millet or quinoa, or with some brown rice pasta.

You can also check this fresh, easy Asparagus Salad recipe I posted last year (it’s below the roasted asparagus recipe). Yes, I realize keep posting about Asparagus. Maybe there’s a reason.

Enjoy!

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4 simple exercises that get REAL results.

I am thrilled to welcome guest blogger, Natalie Rado. She’s an amazingly talented Fitness Trainer here in NYC. I asked her to give us some practical tips for getting fit without a gym membership and to share some moves that fit into busy lives. She came up with a fabulous 30 minute workout that we can do outside practically anywhere. Please enjoy.

Ah, Spring. It’s such a wonderful time of renewal and rejuvenation, isn’t it? It feels so great to walk around the city streets sans heavy jacket and clunky boots.  It makes you want to get outside all the time to smell the freshness of the flowers blooming; feel the sun beating down on your neck; and embrace the joy that not being cooped up in your apartment brings. It’s also a time to move your workouts outside and out of the gym to mix things up and gear up for summer.  Let’s renew and rejuvenate your exercise routine to take you out of a workout rut or just spice things up to get you feeling amazing by the time bathing suit season is here.

Here are 4 exercises you can do in a park, in your back yard, on a jogging trail, or even in your apartment on a rainy day. It will take you about 30 minutes to do on your own, and with this high intensity training, that’s all you need to get results! You’ll perform these exercises using the ladder technique. That is, you’ll start with high reps and slowly work your way down to lower reps. In this particular workout, you’ll perform each exercise in a circuit (do each exercise one after the other without rest), starting with 16 reps, and then going down the “ladder” to 14 reps, 12 reps, 10 reps, 8 reps, and ending with 6 reps. Between each circuit, take a 60 second rest to jog in place or march in place. If you’re outside, you can take those 60 seconds to run to another spot in the park or down the running trail. Switch up your scenery!

 

1)   Squat-thrusts: Start standing with your arms over-head; then put your hands down on the ground to kick your feet back into a push-up position; perform one push-up; jump your feet back into your hands; stand up; repeat.

2)   Walking Lunges: Sink your weight centrally and make sure that both knees are bent at 90 degrees while walking forward. Watch that your knees don’t jut forward in front of your toes.

3)   Mountain Climbers: While in a push-up position, bring one knee into your chest at a time and alternate legs. This is a fast action exercise so try to keep up the pace!

4)   Walking squats: Just like the lunges but in a squat. You’ll step one foot out to the side in a squat and then bring the feet together. Stay down in the squat the whole time, and make sure that you’re weight is pushing into your heels, not your toes.

This April I started this kind of workout myself as a Spring Shape-Up and I’m feeling better than I have in a long while. Also, these are the kind of exercises you can experience in my new boot camp that I’m starting this Spring to get your body toned in places you never thought possible.  Check out my website for details on how you can get started with my boot camp and Be Well!

Natalie is a Certified Personal Trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine, the leading Personal Training Certification program in more than 80 countries. She specialized in the courses Optimum Performance Training for the Pre-Natal Client, Sports Performance, Neuromuscular Stretching, Neuromuscular Physiology, and Kinetic Chain Dysfunction.  In addition, she is CPR Certified by the American Red Cross and a graduate of Western Michigan University.

Natalie trained clients with Method Fitness in Manhattan and Body by Mike in Brooklyn before starting Be Well, personal training for anyone looking to feel great in their own skin and accomplish fitness goals they never thought possible.

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What food or habit is keeping you stuck? – let’s do some blog coaching!

This is the stuff that shows up in our everyday life and although we may find it comforting/delicious/deserving  - it is sabotaging our best efforts to break out of “what we don’t want anymore” and keeping us from liberating ourselves into a “life that we love.”

Sometimes it can creep up on us. For instance, it might magically dawn on us 3 months into a pad thai binge,  that perhaps this might not be the best thing for our ultimate goal ( ahem. purely hypothetical of course).

What food or habit is keeping you stuck?

I invite you to think seriously on this one for a minute. It’s most probably something you do or consume everyday. You may find it in your ‘comfort food’ moments. Or maybe it’s lurking on your to-do list. It could be a behavior that triggers stuck-ness, like working late too often, facebooking all day, sitting in front of the computer, eating a pound of cashews, or finishing off of your kid’s lunches.

Here are a few hints for identifying that lurking Stuckiteer (new term, made it up):

1. you probably do it, eat it, drink it, or think about it daily

2. you probably love it. a lot.

3. you probably know what it is before finishing this list

4. you are probably right now saying, “hey, no way, not that! But I love that!”

“Great. So now what do I do?”

I’m glad you asked. If you’re feeling any resistance or annoyance that’s a really good sign that you’re on the right track.  So now, you wait. Okay, well,  you observe.

This is where we enter into Awareness. Awareness is observation without judgement, shame or guilt. It is about being an impartial observer and identifying what is holding you back or throwing you off course. When you can see your ‘blind spots’ more clearly, you are in deeper awareness. And when you are in greater awareness, you are in your power. You now have the ability to shift, make changes, choose something. Your Stuckiteer is no longer running the show. You are.

Post your responses to these questions below and let’s coach it up:

1. First Step: Awareness – what is your stuckiteer?

2. Second Step: Are you ready to shift?

Ask yourself if you are ready to make a shift. Are you really ready to release the sticky stuckness?

3.  List the benefits of releasing habits and liberating yourself.

4.  List the benefits of staying stuck.

Post your responses below and we will have a blogged-out free stuckiteer power coaching sesison!

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Amazing 4 week cleanse will launch soon!

Hey there, just a quick note about the 4 week cleanse I’m busy putting the finishing touches on. This is a fantastic and proven way to shed weight, release toxins, clear up skin, eliminate bloating, calm digestion and improve metabolism. This is a food based cleanse and it works really well. Early  bird clients have lost weight (10-18lbs), reduced their cholesterol, revamped their relationship to food and eating habits. If this is resonating with you and you’d like to get on the cleanse *hot-list*, send me an email and you will be entered into  a drawing for an incredible gift (that’s all I can say for now).

Here’s a quick overview of what’s in store:

Week 1:

Release Cravings, habits, common allergens

Coffee- sugar- caffeine – wheat – dairy – nuts

Week 2:

Deepening the Cleanse

Adding in deep cleansing foods, teas

Week 3:

In the groove

Raw foods balancing basics

Week 4:

Super Fierce

Super foods

How to transition off

Tips for  maintaining your new metabolism and figure

Extra goodies include:

  • recipes
  • action worksheets
  • How-to tips and tricks
  • Exercise tips
  • Cutting edge stress-bursting techniques

Sign up early by getting on the hot-list and enter the drawing for an incredible gift!

 

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Almost Spring-time Easy Broccoli Soup

On the east coast we’ve had a little winter Revisit. However, Spring is just around the corner! Try this super easy Broccoli soup to get your green on and warm up at the same time. As we go into Spring, we can follow mother nature and eat lots of greens. Greens have low caloric density and tons of nutrients and fiber.

Here’s a recipe form my 4 week cleanse. This is a soup you can indulge in and still shed your winter weight.

Almost Spring-time Easy Broccoli Soup

All measurements are estimates, play around and use your instincts.

You’ll need:

baking dish

high speed blender or food processor

toaster oven or oven

Ingredients:

  • 2 broccoli heads and most of the stem – washed and roughly chopped
  • 4-6 cloves of garlic – whole
  • 3 TBS olive oil
  • 1 cup of vegetable stock (or water)
  • salt to taste
  • 1/2 tsp onion powder
  • Eden Shake to taste and for garnish

Directions:

  1. Wash and roughly chop broccoli. Trim the woody part of the stem, use the rest
  2. Add broccoli florets, stems, and peeled garlic to a baking dish with water still on them
  3. Coat with olive oil
  4. Add some salt
  5. Roast in toaster oven (or oven if you prefer) on 250º for about 30 minutes– we do this on low because of the olive oil. Olive oil can become damaged in high heat and create free radicals in our bodies, so when heating be gentle and use low heat
  6. Remove from oven and transfer to blender or food processor
  7. Add in vegetable stock or water, salt to taste, and onion powder
  8. Blend until smooth.
  9. Garnish with Eden shake or parsley — or just eat as is. As much as you like.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

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Fibroids, Cysts, and PMS

Join me and my colleague Rebecca Curtis, of Green Gem Health for a workshop tomorrow on Fibroids, Cysts and PMS.

PARK SLOPE FOOD COOP

782 Union St., Bkln, NY 11215 (btw 6th & 7th Av.) • (718) 622-0560

FREE

Non members Welcome

Tuesday, March 29

7:30 p.m. at the Coop

 

Participants will learn five effective, natural ways to eliminate fibroids,

cysts and PMS. We will explain underlying causes of hormonal

imbalance, how to resolve them and how to boost energy and clarity

through beneficial diet, appropriate exercise and the use of natural

supplements. This class will provide the supportive environment

participants need to identify and implement the changes

that will improve their health.

Advanced registration suggested: call Rebecca Curtis at 646-483-4571

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Reason #3 Sugar is Messing with You [Video Post]

Reason #3 covers an area that may come as a surprise to you but is extremely common.

What resonates with you?
Are you a chips or a chocolate lover?
Is it bread or sweet honey buns?
What are your triggers?
Where is sugar lurking?
What are you going to do about it?

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