Waiting for the weather to clear up a bit before I head out on my morning walk. I’m using my time reviewing videos from Low Carb Down Under’s conference in Colorado from earlier this year. Learning the latest science on the LCHF/ketogenic diet is a great way to tweak or try different things in the quest to be and stay healthy.
Roasted salsa verde…so easy to make…so delicious. This 3 cup recipe lasts for a week. Seems like a lot for so little time but I promise you, you’ll want to add it to everything — casseroles, omelets, salads, pork, chicken and fish dishes. Or you can go the traditional route and use it as a dip with your vegetable crudités. Trust me you’ll forget about those unhealthy corn chips.
Bonus Recipe! Salsa Roja
Turns out the day I’m posting my roasted salsa verde recipe, The Domestic Man, posts his Salsa Roja. It looks so tasty that I’m making a batch this weekend. Normally my red salsa is raw — no roasting. But if I’m roasting my salsa verde why not try it with the red salsa too!
Plus he goes the extra mile and uses a mortar to better grind the salsa. Now that is a true chef! Not to fear. A food processor or blender works just as well.
Check out the recipe and his blog. The recipes are healthy and mouth-watering!
A round-up of health news I discovered this week. Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhoto.net and Stuart Miles.
I read a lot on health, fitness and diet. Here are some articles you might want to take a look at if, like me, are focused healthy living.
First up, two pieces this week from the man himself, Gary Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat?
First up: Are You A Carbaholic?There is science behind why giving up carbs is difficult for people.
The second is an article about sugar and nutrition research that he wrote for the New York Times in January (how did I miss this?). I’m reading his The Case Against Sugar now and hope to have a review up soon. Read More
While most people like to sleep in a little Sunday mornings I’m up at 5:00 am. Why? Turkey. Yep, I’m roasting a 22-pound bird this morning. Tomorrow I start on the real cooking: LCHF versions of curry turkey, turkey pot pies and a turkey & bacon casserole.
While I enjoyed some coffee this morning, I am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed without the black nectar of the gods. It’s looking like my new-found energy isn’t a fluke.
Part of this new energy is a serious effort at cutting back on my caffeine intake. I tried giving coffee up cold turkey, but the headache that hit me was insane.
Giving Up Coffee…For Real This Time
Okay, I’ve written about attempts to give up coffee before, but this time I’m seeing tangible benefits. As my coffee intake goes down so does my anxiety and stress levels. Read More
I’ve been caught up in a whirlwind of chores, home repairs and working out that blogging has taken a back seat (unfortunately). But the good news is that my energy level is up. I don’t know if it’s due to changes in my supplements, the mindfulness is kicking in, my increased workout schedule or a combo of the three.
Just a couple of big projects to wrap up and then regularly scheduled blogging and cooking videos can commence. Whew!
An interesting read was making the rounds this weekend in the twitterverse. It was a perfect take down of the latest variation of the Mediterranean diet. According to this version, the people of the Mediterranean don’t eat red meat or butter so neither should you. Wow!
Just one tiny problem. The article’s writer, Joanna Blythman, is an investigative food journalist and someone who has actually traveled around the Mediterranean. She’s learned about their most popular foods. Turns out, dishes aren’t so free of red meat and butter. You can read the article yourself.
Sorry, but there isn’t a mythical foreign diet. The best way to get healthy and stay that way is to eat real food and avoid processed foods (a.k.a., fake food) rather than healthy fats.
This video is actually two recipes in one. The first is for my lemon herb chicken. The chicken comes out so tender, juicy and delicious. Normally I use chicken thighs with skin. But the second recipe — a creamy chicken casserole — calls for no skin.
The casserole recipe is from The Ketogenic Cookbook and is wonderful. You can use any leftover chicken for the dish, but my lemon herb chicken a nice flavor.
30-Day Challenges are a great way to create new habits, change how you do things and build confidence. And they are available online for free. Just make sure you pick one that’s realistic.
I love this article from Business Insider on the importance of 30-Day Challenges in changing behavior. I’ve become a big believer in these challenges. I’ve used them to:
Drink more water
Cut back on alcohol
Build strength
Run a 5k
Improve my sleep habits
I always try to pick something that:
Isn’t part of my wheelhouse;
Provides opportunity for self-improvement;
Realistic and measurable.
It’s important to pick a challenge where you not only want to make a change, but decided that you mustchange. Big difference.
Making a meaningful, lasting change means committing to it. Read More
My 3 month sabbatical from stepping on the scale is over. Thanks to a lot of self-pity and too many sugary desserts, I’m up 10 pounds. Time to kick my LCHF way of eating into high gear.
Sometime during the last few months I made the decision to cut myself some slack and not worry about stepping on the scale. Since I was dealing with my cancer diagnosis, giving up on the idea of getting pregnant, surgery, radiation treatment and recovery, the last thing I needed to focus on was stepping on the scale every week.
Of course that meant I probably wasn’t as diligent with my diet as I should have been. Oh, sure, I always cooked low carb, high fat foods. But we ate out a lot and I wasn’t my diligent self. And more often than not I’d order desserts — something I never do.
I fell into the old habit of rewarding myself with food.
But I wasn’t really rewarding myself. I was feeling sorry for my lot in life. I justified those tasty sweets with the idea that it was “OK to live a little … I have cancer, after all.”
Ugh!
I really felt the wrath of my bad eating decisions. And I don’t mean the 10 pounds I put on. Read More
For 50 years the sugar industry quietly funded nutrition research to shift the blame of our health ills on saturated fat.
This must read article shows how nutrition science is corrupt. For the last 50 years, the sugar industry funded a lot of nutrition studies that shaped the US dietary guidelines. And what a surprise, those studies shifted the blame for heart disease and obesity on dietary fat and continue to push the myth of eat less, move more.
Thanks to that very flawed research, as well as the stupidity of politicians and bureaucrats, the US government set us on a course in the 1970s where sugar and added sugars became a staple in our diet and healthy fats were drastically reduced.
