From the monthly archives:
May 2008
Benefits of Personalized Yoga Instruction
Personalized yoga instruction can be a great way to get fit, lose weight, and feel great. If you are having trouble getting started with a yoga practice or making time for class, maybe personalized private yoga sessions are the answer to helping you get started. Sometimes just a few sessions are needed to help you establish a home yoga practice of your own that you can then supplement with Yoga DVDs or CDs. It might be the perfect alternative to traditional personal training sessions too.
{ 0 comments }
A Simple Salad: Shredded Romaine & Dill Recipe
T his simple salad has become a recent favorite around our house. I can’t seem to get enough since first making it at The Conscious Gourmet Cooking Retreat I attended in Sedona with my sister last month. All of the food was delicious, but this was a revelation — how can something so simple be so good?
With just three ingredients — romaine, dill, and scallions — and a simple vinaigrette, I find myself turning to it regularly.
{ 2 comments }
Why I Do Yoga
Why Yoga? What makes it so special?
The truth is I don’t understand completely how yoga works, how it has done what it has for me. I know that it has been a constant companion through good and bad - sickness, health, happiness, sadness, divorce, death, marriage - and my life is better because of it.
{ 0 comments }
Apple Pecan Muffin Recipe
I continue to experiment with healthy muffin recipes. The key for me is finding that perfect balance between taste and health. I’m not a fan of artificial sweeteners and hate those rubbery fat-free, sugar-free, taste-free concoctions out there. I don’t want cake masquerading as a muffin either. I prefer something a bit hearty and not too sweet.
As my weight management and healthy cooking experiments evolve, I’m learning that I would rather eat a reasonable amount of delicious real food than something that is supposed to be super healthy, but tastes like drywall. Life is too short not to be able to enjoy your food. At the same time if I can boost the nutrition content while decreasing unnecessary calories, especially from sugar and unhealthy fats, I’m all for it.
This is a recent find from Food Network, Ellie Krieger’s new cookbook, The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life. These muffins are full of chunks of apple and topped with a delicious crunchy mixture of pecans, cinnamon and sugar.
When I checked out the fridge and pantry last night I discovered all the necessary ingredients –just enough applesauce, a granny smith apple, buttermilk and eggs — so I hopped out of bed this morning anxious to stir them together and get them in the oven.
Many of my favorite healthy baking recipes contain non-fat buttermilk which adds moisture and tenderness without extra fat.
{ 0 comments }
Berry Hill Muffin Recipe
This is another great healthy muffin recipe that is adapted from The Conscious Gourmet Cooking Retreat I attended in April. It takes a little more work — grating carrots and apples — than is ideal for a lazy cook like me. But it makes a big batch — 18 muffins — that freeze well. I love having healthy frozen assets readily available when the ambition to feed myself well wanes.
It’s a hearty fruit and nut filled muffin that isn’t too sweet. When we made them in Sedona we used maple sugar, a delicious healthy alternative to sugar that is expensive and not always easy to find. Either brown sugar or sucanat will work as substitutes. While the recipe also calls for for spelt or barley flour, whole-wheat can be used if you prefer.
{ 0 comments }
Making a Mightier Muffin
Commercially prepared muffins can be real diet disasters. More cake than muffin, they are usually huge (3 to 4 servings) high in calories, and full of unhealthy ingredients. A single-serving muffin, the size of one you would make at home in a standard 12-cup muffin pan, can fit into a healthy eating plan, especially if it’s packed with nutritious ingredients like whole-wheat flour, flax, fruit, nuts and eggs.
{ 0 comments }
Mindless Munching
There’s an interesting article in today’s Wall Street Journal called, Putting an end to Mindless Munching. According to the article, Mindful Eating, the art of slowing down and paying attention to what you are eating, is being studied at several academic medical centers and the National Institutes of Health as a way to combat eating disorders and the results are promising.
{ 1 comment }
Is My Clutter Making Me Fat?
Does our clutter make us fat? Simplification and organization expert Peter Walsh thinks so. This is the topic of his book, Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?: An Easy Plan for Losing Weight and Living More.
He makes a strong case for the link between excess stuff and excess body weight. “As a society we keep getting fatter and fatter and our stuff keeps getting bigger and bigger from the size of our burgers and fries to the size of our houses and cars. We keep filling ourselves up inside and out with more and more stuff.”
{ 1 comment }
Yummy Healthy Whole Wheat Donuts
After locating a donut baking pan at our local kitchen shop Saturday, I decided to make the healthy whole wheat donuts I mentioned last week for breakfast yesterday. Fortunately, I doubled the recipe and made a dozen because they turned out perfectly and my donut loving Dad devoured four himself!
They satisfied my donut craving without creating the blood sugar spike and subsequent drop I usually experience with conventional donuts. I used half organic sugar and half xylitol in this experimental batch and finished them with a dusting of cinnamon and sugar upon removal from the oven. You could always drizzle them with icing if you wanted something a little sweeter.
Served with a steamy latte, organic strawberries, and Greek yogurt for a light and satisfying breakfast this may be the beginning of a new Sunday morning breakfast ritual.
{ 2 comments }
Healthy Baked Whole Wheat Donuts
Just two nights ago, I expressed the desire to find a healthy donut recipe. Donuts were a favorite treat growing up but they no longer fit my approach to healthy eating and living.
My dad, who is currently visiting from Florida, had just returned from the market with six raised glazed donuts, a bag of Doritos, and a package of bologna. Fortunately, none of this was the least bit tempting. Okay, I confess, I did have a handful of Doritos, but they really weren’t that good and the donuts didn’t tempt me because they were full of junk (partially hydrogenated soybean oil and artificial flavors) and not the kind of donut I like.
While my Mom and Dad liked raised donuts, I preferred the cake style. And that got me thinking, and wishing for a healthy alternative.
In yesterday morning’s food section of the Arizona Republic, right there in black and white was a recipe for a Baked Whole-Wheat Cake Donut! (Talk about the power of intention!) It’s adapted from the Hodgson Mill Whole Grain Baking: 400 Healthy and Delicious Recipes for Muffins, Breads, Cookies, and More book and something I intend to make as soon as I invest in a donut baking pan.
Here’s the recipe if you want to give it a try:
{ 0 comments }
