Cooking with Bo: 5 Favorite Kitchen Tools

Happy Friday! I don’t know about you guys but I am certainly ready for the weekend. Bad weather along with Bo’s recovery from surgery means that we have no plans. I could not be happier with this as a little bit of casual relaxation is just what I’m craving. I have 17 solo miles on the plan tomorrow morning and after that you will most likely find me relaxing on the couch watching Robin Williams’ best movies including Good Morning Vietnam, Good Will Hunting, Mrs. Doubtfire and Dead Poets Society.

Today’s post is another great one from Bo. As you all know, he is the expert in our kitchen unless it has to do with smoothies or baking. While he’s teaching me little by little, he has far more experience cooking than I do. We thought it would be fun for him to share our top 5 kitchen tools. Many of these we received as part of our wedding registry and they have been part of our home for almost 5 years!

5 Favorite Kitchen Tools 

Wusthof Knife Sharpener One of the most annoying things in the kitchen is doing prep work with a dull knife. It is less efficient, you end up crushing things rather than cutting them, and it is actually more dangerous. Even if you don’t want to spend $1,000 on a full set of high-end knives, spend around $20 on a simple sharpener and keep your knives sharp.

Lodge Cast Iron Skillet I will readily admit that I likely wouldn’t have one of these if it weren’t for Ashley.  My mother never had one and I originally saw them as old-fashion and unnecessary.  However, I now know that this is one of the most useful pans in the kitchen.  It’s high specific heat means that it takes longer to bring up to temperature but it also looses heat slower than copper or steal.  It is perfect when you need to brown meat, its great when making an integrated sauce and goes perfectly into the oven. I even use it rather than a roasting pan when I make roasted chicken as I like the way that it radiates and helps brown the skin.

Microplane Classic Zester/Grater This is an incredibly useful kitchen tool.  Use it to grate ginger, Parmesan and nutmeg as well as to zest citrus.  The texture is unlike anything you get with any other tool.

Bodum 8 Cup French Press Coffee Maker I have always loved strong coffee and I think that the flavor that is produced by a French press cannot be replicated by any other means.  I would also love to own a really nice espresso machine but I can never seem to bring myself to spend the money.

Cuisinart Popcorn Maker This is a bit of a silly one but I LOVE popcorn. I also love having the ability to make it fresh, hot, and to control the amount of oil used.  I remember trying Healthy Choice popcorn once and thinking that it was the most disgusting thing that I had ever put in my mouth.  The stuff that comes out of here is just as healthy but tastes great!

Your turn – What is your favorite kitchen tool?

 

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Intuitive Eating Tips for Work and Travel

Greetings from snowy Geneva where we received almost a foot of snow in the past 24 hours!  

Genevasnow

I had no idea that due to the geography  heavy snow is quite rare here and therefore has put the city into a tailspin. My run outside turned into an awesome 30 minute Strong Arm & Back workout followed by a long day in our Geneva office. It’s incredible to spend time in this office as it is truly a global office where people speak Italian, French, German, and English just to name a few! I knew that I wouldn’t have time to post today based on my workload and therefore reached out to one of my New York City friends for help. Jamie and I are going to work together during the month of March as I continue to make headway on my intuitive eating  In advance of that partnership, we thought it would be fun to share her journey and knowledge with you all along with new of her next challenge! 

Enjoy and catch you guys tomorrow!

Hi there! My name is Jamie and I blog over at StudioEats. I have my own Health Coaching business and specialize in working with people on becoming more Intuitive Eaters- ditching the diets and learning to listen to their own bodies.

studioeats

I’ve been running a 21 Day Intuitive Eating Challenge with 45 people during the month of February and am going to be running the program again in March. More details on that at the end!

I am so excited to be posting on Ashley’s blog today. I’ve been reading it for a long time now, and was SO excited when I read her post a couple weeks ago titled “Turning Point”. This quote that she wrote literally made me grin from ear to ear:

I decided that I was tired of trying and figured that I’d take some time post marathon just to see what my body wanted to do naturally.  I’ve been eating what I crave, enjoying wine, and working out consistently. The trick is all about intuitive eating and drinking. When I’m craving something, I eat it but in a small portion.”  -Ashley

Ahhh… music to my ears! A little about my story… After trying every single diet in the book during college, I finally began my own Intuitive Eating journey a few years ago. I was desperate, I was at an all time low in terms of my body image and weight, and I knew that diets just weren’t working. There had to be a better way. I ended up finding a Health Coach who changed my life—she helped me look inward instead of outward, get back in touch with my body, and learn how to deal with emotional eating. I was finally able to shed the college weight but more importantly, find the freedom and liberation I was so desperate for in terms of my relationship to food.

Ashley asked me to talk to you guys about how to become more Intuitive Eaters while working crazy hours and living busy lives. Before leaving my job to start my Health Coaching business, I worked full time in Finance for 3.5 years. For 2.5 of those years, I traveled almost every week all over the Southeast. So I know how challenging these environments can be and am excited to give you a few of my top tips that I learned over the years. So here goes!

 salad

My Top Three Tips for Being a More Intuitive Eater While You’re at the Office:

  1. Ditch the notion that you have to stick to meal times: Part of becoming an Intuitive Eater is eating when you’re actually hungry. I’ve noticed that a lot of people are really stuck on eating their breakfast/lunch at a certain time each day at the office. Play around with meal times and focus on eating your meals when you’re actually hungry. The more in sync you are with your hunger and your body, the more satisfied you will feel when you actually eat. Try pushing your lunch back an hour, or up an hour. It’s all about experimenting!
  2. Rethink your lunch: If you bring your lunch to work, it is slightly harder to be Intuitive about your lunch choice because you already packed your lunch that morning or the night before, but my suggestion here is to bring some options for yourself, and make those options varied. This way, you can give yourself something you’re actually craving at lunchtime. Bring some cut up veggies or a salad, something more carb-heavy like a sandwich, maybe some yogurt/granola in case you’re in the mood for that, some chocolate or other sweet options, a piece of fruit or two, etc. When it comes to be lunchtime, choose from your options. Anything leftover can just be used the next day or brought home. If you buy lunch at work, take a minute before you go to lunch to REALLY ask yourself what you’re in the mood for. Get exactly that, enjoy every bite of it, and try as hard as you can to stop eating when you’re full
  3. Take some time for yourself: I focus on finding pleasure in the day-to-day with my clients. Take a lunch break- even if it just for 5 minutes. Focus on your food, not your computer screen. If you can, get out and walk around with your ipod or a friend. Every now and then, take yourself down the street to a cute café if you can. Treat yourself—you deserve it. The more pleasure we have in our lives, the less we need to use food to fill that pleasure void.

My Top Three Tips for Being a More Intuitive Eater While Traveling:

1.     Give up control: I know, this is SO hard for most of us. I coach a few clients who travel frequently for work and I just tell them to go with the flow and ENJOY IT. Just like Ashley gave up control while she was recently traveling, try to do the same. Don’t plan out your meals, fight the fear that there won’t be enough “healthy” food available, just use it as a time to practice giving up control. Flow through your days eating exactly what looks good when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full. If you follow this guideline, it will help you survive your travels without gaining an ounce.

2.     Bring whatever snacks you can: Intuitive Eating means honing in on your actual cravings and hunger. Since traveling is so unpredictable, have snacks on you so that you can eat when you’re hungry and also so that you don’t feel the need to load up/stuff yourself at a certain meal because you’re not sure when you’re going to see food again. I ALWAYS have almonds and dark chocolate bars on me when I travel, and I also used to bring cut up raw veggies for my plane rides there.

3.     Self Care and Comfort are SO important: When we travel, we are out of our element. We are in a world of unknown, in strange cities and airports, we don’t have the right clothes, our flights get cancelled, we don’t know our food options, etc. When we are in situations like this, it’s important to up our self-care BIG TIME. Give yourself any comforts that you can. When I traveled every week for work, I used to make sure all of my work clothes were as comfortable as possible, that I always had flats on me to change into, that I had tea bags with me because I was constantly cold, that I had my own snacks with me, that I took a few minutes to myself whenever I could, that I had interesting magazines and books to read, etc. Self-care is so crucial to our health AND our weight because when we are uncomfortable for any reason, we often times try to stuff down/eliminate that feeling with food. The more comfortable and relaxed we can make ourselves, the less we will turn to food.

 I hope you find these tips helpful! Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions.

And now for the March challenge:

21 day intuitive eating

During the Intuitive Eating Challenge, you will learn how to break free from the Diet Mentality, listen to your body and your actual cravings, give yourself permission to eat exactly what you want, tune back in to your hunger and fullness, and re-learn what makes you satisfied. I’m telling you… working toward becoming a more Intuitive Eater was the smartest thing I ever did in my life. It made me WAY more in touch with not only my body and what it needed, but what I needed in every single area of my life. Not to mention it helped me easily shed the college weight in a way that worked with my body instead of against it.

You can read two additional posts that I did about Intuitive Eating and how much it has impacted me:

Intuitive Eating: What Does This Mean, Anyway?

The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

I will be your guide and your coach during the 21 days of the challenge and will be devoted to helping you grasp the concepts and implement them into your personal life. This is what the challenge entails:

–          Two 15 minute one-on-one coaching calls with me. One is at the beginning of the challenge to help me understand your current situation and help you formulate goals for the challenge and one call is at the end to recap with you and answer any remaining questions specific to you. 

–          Daily newsletters in your inbox at 6am, each with a different topic related to Intuitive Eating and a “task” for you to try out that day going forward

–          Unlimited email one-on-one email coaching with me during the 21 days

–          Access to the Private Intuitive Eating Facebook Group (the Feb group has been super active! They post pics of their food, questions, “ah-ha” moments, and successes)

For additional information about the challenge, head over to my main Intuitive Eating Challenge page.

The cost of the program is $49 but I am happy to offer it for the price of $39 to any of Ashley’s readers because I know you guys are serious about learning. In order to get signed up and the $39 rate, simply email me at jamiemendell@gmail.com and put “IE Challenge- Ashley” in the subject line. I’ll then get your payment information and we’ll be on our way.

I can’t wait to have you be a part of it and to have the honor of guiding you toward something that I am so passionate about.

And I’d like to just leave you with a little tid-bit from an email I got this morning from one of the people participating in the February Intuitive Eating Challenge. She wrote me this in an email:

“Just some quick feedback to let you know how much I look forward to “chatting/connecting with a dear friend” (you) everyday!  For the first time in my life I am paying attention to MY well-being and not thinking it’s self-centered.” – Kathy Skinner

 

 

 

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Give Yoga A Shot

Hello Healthy, Happier Bear readers!

I’m Danielle, one of Ashley’s fellow Greatist Ambassadors and I blog over at Live, Run, Grow!  In sticking with the Marathons and Moderation theme I thought I’d talk a little bit today about my recent marathon training and how scaling back a bit on the actual running and incorporating yoga into my training really helped me!

I ran my first marathon a little over a year ago.  Being a relatively new runner at the time (I began running in May of 2011 and the marathon was January 2012) I didn’t know much about running, training or incorporating cross training into my program.  I basically downloaded the recommended training plan, put on some sneakers and ran.

My training went great…up to 16 miles.  That’s when everything would start to fall apart.  As soon as I got over 16 miles it felt like someone was stabbing me in the butt (which I later learned was because of a muscle called the piriformis) and the arches of my feet killed!  Every step I took felt like I was stepping on broken glass.  I even called my husband towards the end of my 20 mile run crying telling him I didn’t think I could do this and I didn’t even want to go to the race, I was in too much pain and I’d rather not go than not finish.

Well, I DID go, and I DID finish.  My feet hurt and I was sore for days, but I knew the second I crossed the finish line that it wasn’t my last marathon.

Marathon Finish

Fast forward to the fall of 2012, I was beginning to up my training for my second marathon, but this time I was going for the Walt Disney World Goofy Race and a Half Challenge – that is the half marathon on Saturday and the full marathon on Sunday (and just for good measure I threw in the 5k on Friday!).  I was worried about the long runs after what I had experienced last year and especially worried about having to train with back-to-back long runs to be ready to run a half and full back to back.  On top of that I was starting Yoga Teacher Training and the program ran October through December…exactly the timeframe that I’d be doing my marathon training!

I was really concerned about the effect that 3-4 vinyassa yoga classes a week would have on my running…would my legs be too tired? Would they be sore after a hard class?  Would I have the time to fit in the yoga AND my runs??

The beginning of my training was similar to the previous year, but I was still dreading getting up to those 18 and 20 mile runs.  I really mentally prepared myself for them…I knew what was coming and I was ready this time, pain or not I was determined to tackle those runs without any tears this year!

Well, my 18 miler came (following a 9 miler the day before) and around mile 16 I turned my game face on and waited for the pain to come…but it didn’t!  I was amazed, but didn’t want to get too excited, it was probably just a fluke.  A few weeks later I did 10 miles on a Saturday and then headed out for 20 the next day…NO PAIN!  I got to my house at 20 miles, paused for a minute…and then kept going!

As I ran those extra few miles I began to think about my training this time around and realized that I really hadn’t been experiencing the same aches, pains and soreness I had the last time around.  My foam roller wasn’t getting used quite as much (although it still did get a lot of love!), I didn’t carry around a golf ball to roll the arches of my feet on, and my body didn’t need as many rest days after my long runs.  The difference?  All the yoga I had been doing!

I finished the Goofy Race and a Half Challenge a few weeks ago feeling great and not experiencing any soreness at all!

Goofy Medal Pic Danielle

I even stopped and did some pushups with the green army guys at mile 21!

Marathon Pushups

Because of my experience, I am a true believer of the benefits of yoga for runners and love to be able to share them with others now that I am a certified yoga instructor (I even feature yoga poses for runners on my blog!).

When I began running and started doing some research on training I was surprised to learn that stretching was such a controversial topic!  Many believe that stretching before a run can lead to an injury…and I’m sure for a lot of people this is true.  If you don’t stretch often and your muscles are cold and tight it’s easy to push too far and hurt yourself.  But, if done correctly, incorporating yoga into your regular routine can actually stretch and strengthen the major running muscle groups and help to prevent injury!

Triangle Forward Bend

This past weekend I even took a workshop with Sage Rountree who is an internationally recognized authority on yoga for athletes.  She’s written several great books on the topic and regularly contributes to Yoga Journal and Runner’s World (keep an eye out for a great pre-run routine from her in February’s Runner’s World!).

One of the interesting things I learned from Sage is that a lot of athlete’s have a type A personalities (of course they do, that’s why they’re so competitive!) and it’s hard for them to take a step back from their usual full speed ahead training and do something like yoga, but in the long run (no pun intended!) it’s often that step back that gives your body the time to recover so that you can continue to move forward!

So, that’s my Marathons + Moderation tip for you – give yoga a shot!  You just may be surprised at the results!

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