Thursday, December 6, 2012

My pre-New Years Resolution: How I will lose at least 10 pounds over the holidays.

Happy Holidays,

Eat up my friends! Have another cookie. Have another appetizer. Have another chocolate. Have another drink. Potluck till you bust. And then there are leftovers. If there is a time for the eating Olympics it is during the Christmas Holiday Season. I routinely gain about 10 pounds every December. Sometimes I gain more but it is sure thing that I will be busting out of my clothes come January and making a resolution like I do every year. I can't think of a more challenging time to maintain dietary discipline than over the holidays. Besides, I love to cook and I love to eat. I make new things and can't wait for the LA Times Cookie list so I can make at least  half of them. The See's candy is everywhere and I know ever piece by sight like the old TV Show Concentration. In a word: Doomed.
Except this year. I came into some good fortune and I will be hiking the 22 mile round trip Na Pali Coast trail in January 2013 for next to nothing and I want to be down 10-15 pounds in the next six weeks. So the "Reason" is going to trump the "Season". The only way this is possible is if the reason is bigger than the season and I can tell you it is. To be sure, I want to enjoy the food and the new LA Times cookies and I will make them but I want to be lighter so I can hike longer and since I will be overnighting for 3 days I need to carry more in my pack. I will lose the weight to carry a little more weight.
So what is the strategy? First, I will cut out sugar for the next six weeks except at the Christmas Day and New Years Day. Those will be "treat" days. I most likely will end extending a day before and after with leftovers but I will will discipline myself to portion size.  These special days are a week apart which will actually trigger a renewal of the hormone Leptin which is a fat burning hormone that apparently drops when you lower your caloric content. I will bump up my fat content which has more density and is more satiating. I will eat light at night and limit carbs especially at night to trigger more fat burning while I sleep. I will do 20-30 minutes of cardio each day and hike each weekend 10 miles to get ready for the 22 mile round trip hike. I will hit the gym for a weight workout of 40-50 minutes at least 3 times a week. Sound tough? What's tough is trying to suck my stomach in to button my pants in January. Sounds like a win win to me. Happy Holidays.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Recycle your pumpkins!

Greetings fit people!

 I know this has nothing to do with my blogs but this is the only way I could figure out how to add this to facebook.

Not feeling so fit right now and this is always a tough time with all the holidays and sweets. Live it up!
Try these recipes especially the Pumpkin Crunch. I have only made that one but I plan on making all of them with our recycled pumpkins.

Recycle your pumpkins. Read this and try one or more of the recipes below.
Around 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins are grown and sold every year. The majority of pumpkins are sold for Halloween in the United States. Three quarters, the vast majority, of 28,750,000 pumpkins is 21,562,500 pumpkins. Multiplying 21,562,500 pumpkins by 13 pounds per pumpkin equals 280,312,500 pounds of pumpkin that gets wasted every Halloween season. That's about one pound of pumpkin per person living in the U.S.A. Why not recycle?
Silver Palate Cookbook
Ginger Pumpkin Mouse easy recipe to make
4    eggs
7    Tbsps granulated sugar
1    Tbs unflavored gelatin
1.5  cups pumpkin puree  *instructions at bottom of file
¾  tsp  cinnamon
½ tsp freshly grated ginger
¼ tsp grated nutmeg
1    cup heavy cream
minced crystalized ginger (garnish)

1) Beat eggs with sugar until mix is light colored and thick.  Add gelatin
and beat to blend well.  Mix in pumpkin puree and spices and chill mixture
until it begins to set up.

2) Whip cream into soft peaks; fold in pumpkin mixture.  Pour into
  4-6 dessert dishes.

3) chill for 4 hours.  Before serving, garnish with crystalized ginger
Silver Palate Good times Cookbook 
 Smoky Pumpkin Soup
  • 6 slices bacon diced cooked crisp, fat reserved
  • 4 Tablespoons butter  unsalted
  • 6 cups peeled cut-up pumpkin one inch pieces
  • 6 cups soup beef or vegetable soup stock
  • 1/2 cup Marsala
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • salt and fresh ground pepper
  1. Heat bacon gfat and butter in stock pot over medium heat.
  2. Add the pumpkin and sauté about 15 minutes, stirring so the pumpkin cooks evenly.
  3. Pour in the stock and simmer covered until the pumpkin is very tender, about 30 minutes.  Remove from heat
  4. Add the Marsala, thyme, salt and pepper.
  5. Process the soup – meaning, blend it until smooth.  I used my handy dandy Braun Handheld Blender and did it right in the pot.  Whatever you do, be careful because the soup is hot.
  6. When the liquid is all smooth, stir in the bacon and simmer about 10 more minutes.

Pumpkin Crisp This came from Shannon at Roche IT Support

This is an easy to make and awesome use of canned pumpkin. Let it cook the full time so it sets up.

  • 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 1 (29 ounce) can pumpkin puree or 3 ½ cups of pumpkin
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 2/3 cup evaporated milk
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • Cool whip or whipped cream

Directions

1.       Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Set aside 1 cup cake mix for the topping. Combine remaining cake mix, 1 egg, and melted butter or margarine. Pat into a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2.      In a large bowl, mix pumpkin, 2 eggs, spices, 1/2 cup sugar, and milk. Pour pumpkin mixture over the cake mix crust.
3.      In a small bowl, combine 1 cup cake mix and 3/4 cup sugar. Cut in 1/2 cup softened butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle mixture on top of pumpkin mixture.
4.      Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55 minutes. Shake the pan slightly and make sure it set.
5.      Let cool and cut in squares and top with cool whip.
Spinach and Pumpkin Curry from Food.com  for the really daring. Sorry but you will have to do some metric conversion.

Directions:

1.Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat; add the mustard seeds and cook until they start to pop; add the chillies, curry leaves, turmeric and (optional) fenugreek seeds, if using; cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.
2.Add the onion and cook for 3 minutes or until it has softened; stir in the tomatoes, coconut milk and pumpkin; bring to a simmer and cook over a medium heat for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is tender.
3.Chop any large spinach leaves; add the lime juice and spinach to the curry and stir until the spinach leaves have just begun to wilt; serve on a bed of rice, topped with a dollop of yoghurt and mint leaves.

Lastly substitute pumpkin for banana in banana bread and add a little to sugar to taste as it is less sweet if you like. I add some to pancake batter with some cinnamon.


Monday, February 27, 2012

Do something every day

It is so easy to get caught up in the day and then it's late and you haven't exercised at all. Best plan is to workout in the morning. I try to get up by 6 and get to the gym for about 20 minutes of weights. I sometimes will put in more weight time but even just 20 minutes really feels great. You can get a body part of two like chest and back in 20 minutes if you speed up you reps and don't rest much between sets. It doesn't feel like cardio but you get a great pump.
If I can't get to the gym I will jump on the Life Cycle or bike at home; two great investments I have made that give me no excuse when I I don't want to go to the gym
Tonight I had some computer work to do and stayed focused for a bit and felt like I deserved some ice cream. I had alot of support from the family but instead I worked out with youngest son who is battling a weight problem and then played ping pong with my other son.
What a great choice! I feel euphoric and have no guilt. I like this feeling much better.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Are you wasting time? Stop googling and start living.

I waste a lot of time. I google trivial things. I read google news. I know a lot of stuff. Useless stuff. . Time is so precious and yet I just squander it away. It didn't matter that much when I was young because time just didn't fly by like it does now. Weeks feel like days now.
I figure now that I am 50 if I am lucky I could make it to 75-80 based on my family tree. I have longevity on my moms side but my mother has Alzheimer at 73 so her quality of life has dropped significantly. My dad's side all live into the late 70's or early 80's. My math says I have used up about two thirds of the quality years. Hey the facts are friendly!
I feel pretty healthy and I am more active than most people half my age. I work out and I love to hike on weekends. Funny thing; when I hike on weekends I see a ton of people much older than me hiking so I know I can hike for a long time as long as my knees hold out.
It is easy to blow several hours a day watching TV and surfing the web. When I do that I feel like I have to catch on business stuff and I end up doing that on weekends which then blows my weekend. Instead I am going to get my work done during the week so that I can do more on the weekend. No more wasting time. I want to write a book and yet I never write. Instead I google!
No more wasting time! I can do that when I'm dead.