Monday, 15 October 2012
Running for Beginners
After failing and getting back up many times, I decided to take my weightloss journey more serious. You know when you get to that point that you know you had to make changes.
September 9,2012 was my turning point, Thanks to 3 of my friends. 5 weeks later, I have lost approximately 21.6lbs (9.8kg) I am still far from my goal weight, (I have 15kg) to go. I know I can do it. It's not about how long it takes, but how well I can maintain it.
A friend of mine told me how Running helped her tone up and lose weight and I was so motivated with her pictures that I dusted my running shoes and hit the streets.
As a newbie to running, I found a plan that has been working so far, and hopefully in a few months, I will be Usain Bolt....lol
You can view the plan here
Does anyone run? Any pointers?
Rebirth
Tuesday, 9 October 2012
Breakfast Ideas
Healthy breakfast cereals and eggs can be tiring for breakfast and I always assumed there were no healthier options.
However I stumbled on A Blog and found a few healthy recipes to share with you.
Cream Cheese Pancakes
Recipe ingredients:
2 oz cream cheese
2 eggs
1 packet stevia (or any) sweetener
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Put all ingredients in a blender or magic bullet. Blend until smooth. Let rest for 2 minutes so the bubbles can settle. Pour 1/4 of the batter into a hot pan greased with butter or pam spray. Cook for 2 minutes until golden, flip and cook 1 minute on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the batter. Serve with sugar free syrup (or any syrup of your choice) and fresh berries. A surprisingly satisfying substitute for the real thing. Tastes like skinny fried cheesecakes! Even if you aren't watching your carbs these are a delicious departure from the traditional doughy stack of pancakes. And you won't have the sleepy feeling that usually comes afterwards!
Approximate nutrition info per batch: 344 calories, 29g fat, 2.5g net carbs, 17g protein
Low Carb Breakfast Lasagna
Ingredients:
8 eggs, scrambled
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
12 sausage links, fully cooked
12 cream cheese pancakes (unsweetened)
Cover the bottom of an 8 x 8 pan with 4 pancakes, it's ok if they overlap. Put down a layer of scrambled eggs, followed by a layer of cheese. Cover with another 4 pancakes. Add all of the sausage links. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Add last layer of pancakes, followed by scrambled eggs, and the remainder of the cheese. You can use more cheese if you like. Bake or microwave until the cheese is melted. 3 -4 minutes in the microwave or 8 - 10 in the oven at 350 degrees (F). Cut into squares and serve.
Spinach, Goat Cheese & Chorizo Omelette
Ingredients:
4 ounces chorizo sausage
1/2 Tbl butter
4 eggs
1 Tbl water
2 ounces crumbled fresh goat cheese
2 cups baby spinach leaves
sliced avocado (optional)
1/4 cup salsa verde (optional)
Remove chorizo from the casing and fry in a medium saute pan until fully cooked. Meanwhile beat the eggs and water in a small bowl. As a side note, I add the water because as the egg cooks the water turns to steam which helps the egg puff up and get fluffy. Some people like to add milk or cream and you could do that too - totally a matter of personal preference. Take the chorizo out of the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside. Wipe the pan of the remaining grease with a clean paper towel. Melt the
butter in the same pan over low heat. Add the beaten eggs to the pan, then put the Chorizo, spinach, and crumbled goat cheese on half the egg mixture. Cook on low heat for 3 minutes until slightly firm, then fold the empty side over the side with the filling on it. Cover the pan with foil or a pot cover and leave on low heat for another few minutes until the eggs are cooked through. If your bottom is browning too quickly, turn the stove off and leave the pan covered for up to 10 minutes and the residual heat should "bake" it until the center is fully cooked. Serve with avocado slices and salsa verde. So good you won't even miss the toast or hash browns!
Sweet Potato & Sausage Hash
Ingredients:
1 large sweet potato, chopped
3 medium russet or red potatoes, chopped
2 Tbl olive oil
1 tsp ground sage
1 tsp dried thyme
1 lb turkey breakfast sausage
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled & minced
1 Tbl fresh thyme leaves
Kosher salt & pepper to taste
Place the potatoes in a bowl and toss with olive oil, sage, dried thyme, salt and pepper. Spread out on a cookie sheet and roast in the oven for about 35 minutes at 375 degrees (f). Turn occasionally with a spatula while roasting. Meanwhile, put the turkey sausage and onions in a large saute pan and cook on medium heat for 5 - 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another few minutes, being careful not to scorch it. Remove from the heat and set aside. When your potatoes are done to your liking, remove them from the oven and add them to your saute pan. Turn the heat to medium high and cook the hash for several minutes - longer if you want it to get really brown and crispy. Remove from the heat and add the fresh thyme leaves. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if necessary. Eat alone or serve with eggs, toast, pancakes or any of your other favorite breakfast foods! And coffee....LOTS of coffee!
(Recipes from I Breathe, I'm Hungry)
Let me know if you try any.
Love and Light....xx
Rebirth!
Monday, 6 August 2012
Insanity Week 2, Juicing and Juicers
Hooray! Week 2 of Insanity is upon me. Minimal body aches and I have been doing the stretches religiously. We don't want a repeat of the last time, do we?
Today was Cardio Power and Resistance and as usual, it kicked my ass. My glutes are still burning as we speak.
I hate fruits and vegetables. A standing joke among my asian friends is that I don't eat grass. This means I never get my 5 a day nutrients.
However, that is all about to change. On Friday, Blogger Miss Jia posted a before/after picture on twitter which, if I must say was AMAZING! She lost so much weight and her skin was glowing. Her secret? She is on a juice fast and that was her Day 13. After reading about Juice Fast, I realised it was not for me.
1. I like food
2. I am currently on Insanity and I need all the energy I have
3. I need to be up and about, work, life etc and I can't do all my activities on a juice-only diet
4. I really like food and cooking.
However, I still need the benefits of consuming fruits and vegetables. I have decided to replace breakfast and dinner with Juice. Vegetable and Fruit Juices only for breakfast and dinner, and eat solid foods for lunch.
Hopefully, this will help clean out my system while still maintaining my energy level.
Bought my juicer yesterday and a lot of fruits and veggies.
After my Insanity work out this morning, I made Carrots, Spinach, Oranges and Lemon juice for breakfast. It tasted so nice. Looking forward to making grapes, broccoli, apple, lemon and spinach juice tonight.
I weighed last night and I realised I am down 1.4kg from last week. Happy with the progress, but I need to lose more :)
Oh one last thing, cleaning the juicer is a nightmare (well time-wise) if you don't have a dish washer like me.
I will be sharing my favourite juice recipes as I discover them. One tip though, consume juice as soon as you make it so you don't miss out on essential nutrients.
Have a good week.....
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Quick Dinner- Oven baked Salmon
Day 2 of Insanity was a bit tough, I took a few breaks but was still sweating like I got dunked in water. I had to send in my glasses for new lenses so right now, I am dealing with a bad migraine from the pits of hell. Can't wait to feel better so I can fully enjoy my workouts
So, in my new quest to eat right, I am back to home cooking. This means during the week, I have to find quick recipes that I can make easily after a long day at work, and that will also serve as my lunch the next day.
Mondays and Fridays are meatless days (a mini challenge Aquamarine and I got going on) so I had to either go vegetarian for dinner, or indulge in Fish.
Salmon won the coin toss
Recipe
(estimated calories per serving- 340 calories)
1 small lemon
1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 (6-ounce) salmon
1 medium yellow pepper
1 medium red pepper
1 medium white potato
1 medium onion
1/2 garlic clove
1 tsp Olive oil
1 tsp paprika (or any dried chilli mix)
Cooking spray
Cooking-
Preheat oven to medium/high heat
In a bowl, combine Salmon, seasoned salt, paprika and olive oil
Mix well and let marinate for 10 mins
Cut onions, garlic, potato, yellow and red peppers into strips
Coat oven tray with the cooking spray and place the cut onions, potatoes and garlic in it
Let cook in the oven for 10mins
Add the marinated salmon to the oven tray and leave to cook further for another 10 minutes
Add the yellow and red peppers
Continue to Cook till your desired degree of readiness
Dinner is served :)
Monday, 30 July 2012
Let's Try Again.....
Remember my last post? How I hurt myself by week 3 of Insanity?
Well Yea, I am fully recovered. I did the 30 days Jillian Michaels workout during my down time and I have to say, I missed Insanity.... *gasp* I really did. It was working for me and I noticed I looked better :)
Anyway, I have decided to give it a try again. So this morning was my Day 1.
The first day of Insanity is the Fit Test, which sets a baseline to track your progress as the weeks go on. The instructor, Shaun T, takes you through a warm-up, then a series of cardio moves that last 60 seconds each with a 60 second rest in between. The warm-up alone sent my heart rate through the roof, which got me excited. I must admit I felt woozy and tired mid way but still continued to the end.
Here are my stats for the main cardio moves
Move Fit Test Day 1- 30/07/2012
Switch Kicks 123
Power Jacks 30
Power Knees 74
Power Jumps 32
Globe Jumps 5
Suicide Jumps 8
Push up Jacks 13
Low Plank Obliques 41
All I need to improve on right now are my eating habits. Decided to eat better starting today (well I had 3 scoops of Ice cream yesterday....sigh) and so let's hope this works.
Have a good week guys.....
Monday, 18 June 2012
Consequences of Not Stretching
My last post was about starting Insanity workout. Yes I started and as hard as it is, I enjoyed it...for the 3 weeks I was on it. Why 3 weeks? Well, I was very stupid.
See, I work out in the mornings before work, and with Insanity, I need an average of 45minutes to complete a full workout including warm up and cool down. However I cut corners, I skipped the cool down/Stretching part because I always woke up late.
I underestimated the power of stretching.
Insanity is such a high intense workout and as such, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT to warm up and stretch after. On the last day of the 3rd week, I went grocery shopping and had to reach for something on the floor, at that moment, I felt a sharp pain in my waist/Lower back and it became so bad I could not move. I had to be taken to the hospital and treated.
That ended the Insanity journey as I am just coming out of recovery.
The doctor warned me to slowly ease into exercising so I took a one week break from any form of exercise.
Seeing that I am on a set plan, I can't do without working out for so long. I have started the Jillian Michael's 30 day shred. It is less intensive than Insanity but it is also kicking ass. Also it is a challenge between Aquamarine and I. We hope to do it for 30days non-stop.
Today is Day 2.....
Lesson of the day: NEVER TAKE STRETCHING FOR GRANTED.
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Back to Basics
I feel ashamed. It has been more than six months since any of us posted here. Well I went off the weight loss wagon and I feel so bad. However, failing is not trying again so I have decided not to be a failure. My goal by Christmas is to lose 30lbs. At an average of 1.5lbs a week, I need 20 weeks which is 5 months. This means by December, by God's grace and if I stay on track, I should achieve it. I know this is going to be hard but I am willing to do it.
So what do I need to do? Well I have learnt that Healthy eating is 75% and exercise the remaining 25%.
I started Insanity workout on Monday (I am currently on Day 3) and this should handle the exercise part.
Now for Healthy eating, (I refuse to use the word diet) I don't want a quick fix. I want something I can sustain and adapt into my lifestyle. Low calorie and healthy meals. That's where you all come in.... If you have meal ideas, quick breakfasts and Dinner especially, do send to me please
This blog will be an escape for when I get frustrated, tired, and need motivation.
I know I can do it, I just hope and pray I do it.
Any one want to join me?
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