Healthy Life Lessons

Good morning and welcome to the last Monday of January. At least February is a short month, huh? As you know, I am a huge fan of shirataki noodles. I eat them many times a week, and not just because they are healthy or low carb or low cal, but because I truly love them. For my recipes check out my konjacforlife website. I hadn't really bothered trying shirataki rice, possibly because I have had bad experiences with other shirataki noodle shapes, such as fettuccine and penne (though in both cases these were the shirataki noodles made with tofu, which I don't like much). Then I discovered a new brand (to me) at my favorite local grocery store, Fiesta Farms , which is the awesome-ist, family run grocery store that carries a crazy-ass selection of healthy food and gourmet foods and has good prices. Its called Better than Rice, and it is vegan, gluten-free and organic. Unlike the shirataki noodles I use, it contains oat fibre along with the konjac. I used it for my recipe...

Good morning and happy Friday! I for one am super happy its the weekend. Adam has been in NYC all week for work. He gets home late tonight. Things started out fairly smoothly but as the week progressed Big A started getting more obnoxious and the girls started fighting more and more. Thank goodness for apples! I love apples. In fact, I like to think I am quite the apple afficionado. Don't you dare give me a Macintosh or Red Delicious! Blech!!  My palate is too refined for that. I like more upscale apples. Oh, and I don't bite into a whole apple. Ever. No, I cut them up and eat them with a knife and fork. Okay, I am kidding! But I do cut them up first, because otherwise the skin gets caught between my teeth and it hurts. Anyways, I really would rank apples up there as one of my favorite foods and my most favorite variety, as I have probably told you a thousand times, is Mutsu, which you might not have ever tried before. You are missing out! Honeycrisp are also pretty a...

Good morning, its Workout Wednesday here today and I'm reviewing some DVDs for you. I waited patiently all fall for the new DVD set I ordered from Cathe . Turns out by late fall, they meant it would arrive after Christmas while we were in Florida! Sadly, I am disappointed :( First off, I don't find any of the videos as challenging as a few of hers I have already, and I guess I was expecting them to be. Second, one thing I have loved about her DVDs is that almost every one includes an awesome unique ab workout. All the DVDs in this set use the SAME ab routine. Blah, what a cop-out! Third, a few of her past DVDs have used real music, but most of it in this series is instrumental yuckiness, and I didn't recognize a single song. Here is what is included (I have not yet opened the cycling DVD, but hope to one day): PHA Training PHA (peripheral heart action training) maximizes the amount of blood that circulates to your upper and lower body as you complete a se...

Oy, has the last month been stressful! At my annual physical this year, my doctor handed me a requisition for my first mammogram. Because my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer at 52, the recommendation is that I start them 10 years earlier, which is this year. I have been nervously anticipating this for the last 20 years! What a rollercoaster this has been, and I now understand why experts often disagree about screening timing, frequency, etc. It's pretty murky in terms of what the best course of action is (I just read an article in the paper summarizing a large study that found that mammograms do not cut death rate for aggressive/late stage breast cancers, but do significantly increase the rate of false positives. Anyways, here is how things went down: December 16 - Mammogram at  Princess Margaret Cancer Hospital. Wasn't painful at all for me, though lots of women find they are. The next day hospital called to say they wanted me back for follow up ultrasound...

If I think back far enough, I remember having a lunch box as a kid, but what the actual food was wrapped in, I don't recall. By highschool, it wasn't cool to have a Charlie Brown lunchbox (or maybe it had Lucy on it), so I threw a sandwich in a plastic sandwich bag, and threw that in a brown paper lunch bag with an apple. Nowadays,if you do that for your child, the Eco Police will be at your door in minutes and you will be marched away for the parent walk of shame.  Besides, a lot of schools (like ours) have waste-free lunch policies so you aren't allowed to bring anything that has to be thrown away. Even Tupperware is frowned upon because of the toxins from reusable plastics. We've gone through a range of options with the girls but their favorites are always wide-mouth thermos containers, both because they keep food hot or cold, and because, they are perfect for dinner leftovers, which the girls prefer for lunch because it means they don't have to make a lu...

As promised here is a recipe using Yves Veggie Ground Round that I came up with. The weather has turned rainy and unseasonably warm, but the dampness still makes me crave, hearty comfort food, how about you? Did you ever eat Hamburger Helper as a kid? I did not! My parents aren't health foodies, but they are foodies, so they mostly cooked from scratch. I doubt I missed much though. I know I didn't from a nutrition perspective, that's for sure! In any case, I've created a healthified version, using the Yves Ground Round we were sent, that is super yummy. Its that time of year when we crave warm, heavier, comfort food. Believe me, this fits the bill, even though it is vegan, low-carb and low calorie. I promise you won't miss a thing! You can add cheese at the end, if you wish, if you eat dairy, or a non-dairy cheese. I planned to but, forgot, and it was still delicious! Shazamburger Helper 1 pk. Yves Veggie Ground Round (or other soy crumbles) 2 cl...

Despite most people assuming I am vegetarian or vegan, I am completely omnivorous. That being said, I do minimize my consumption of red meat (like really I only eat it a few times a year), and I do try to make the majority of my meals meatless. For proteins, I eat chicken/turkey, fish, eggs, dairy, beans, soy...and faux meats. Yes, I love me a good veggie sausage! Now some health gurus squawk about faux meat because they are processed. Yes, they are. They do tend to be high in sodium, so if that's an issue for you, be warned. But as someone who needs lots of protein (I crave it like no tomorrow!), and wants as much variety as possible while keeping my consumption of animal proteins to reasonable levels, I love the flexibility of using faux meats. For many years, I have been a consumer of Yves Veggie Cuisine products. If you have tried just a few faux meat products in the past and not been impressed, keep in mind that there is a lot of variety and they range from barfy to fant...