“Most of you are too young to remember an America with awful food. An America where every strawberry was like cotton, where every salad was made with iceberg lettuce and had a sweet orange dressing called “French,” an America where good coffee was unknown, bread was white, and cheese was imported from France.  So you don’t also have the joy of remembering the little moments when it changed.  I want to tell you about what those moments were for me.” [Read more]

Follow me on Pinterest. I pin recipes, books, & other things. It’s a GREAT place to share recipes, books, home & style inspiration & even workouts :)

To make the long story short, your body stores carbohydrates in the form of glycogen. Glycogen is the most accessible type of energy your body uses for any sort of activity. When your body does not have enough glycogen, it will use protein for energy. Your body uses protein to build tissues, like muscles. Therefore, when you don’t eat carbohydrates, your body will eat your muscle tissue.  Very counterproductive if you work out a lot. Read more about protein here.

That, however, does not mean eating a bag of Cheetos before a workout.

Photo from Firefly64 on Flickr

Being the foodie that I am & having tried more kinds and types of food than most people I know, here are my favorite alternatives to popular carbs:

1. Steel Cut Oatmeal – A great alternative to regular breakfast staples like cereal or instant oatmeal or McMuffins. When I have time to cook, I get Trader Joe’s Quick Cook Steel Cut Oats. There are about 17 servings in each container & each serving has 150 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 4 grams of fiber & 5 grams of protein. Make enough for a few days, pack them in little pouches or containers & freeze for later consumption.  When I’m super lazy or short on time, I make the microwaveable version of Trader Joe’s Steel Cut Oatmeal. This version is sweetened with brown sugar & maple syrup, so it contains about 6 more grams of sugar. Otherwise nutrition info is the same. Top with fresh or frozen fruit, almonds, granola, etc. & enjoy! There are options :)
2. Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Tortillas – Great alternative to bread, regular corn & flour tortillas, & tortilla chips. Okay, I know what you’re thinking. “Sprouted Grain Tortillas? How can that even taste good?” These tortillas are awesome! And if you like chewy stuff, like me, then you will love these.  The ingredients include: “Organic Sprouted Whole Wheat, Filtered Water, Organic Unhulled Sesame Seeds, Organic Sprouted Whole Soybeans, Organic Sprouted Whole Barley, Organic Sprouted Whole Millet, Organic Sprouted Whole Lentils, Organic Sprouted Whole Spelt, Sea Salt.” Yea, I know. Too much awesomeness rolled into one tortilla. Imagine all the things you can make to eat, like:
   • Tortilla Chips – Cut a tortilla up into eight pieces, sprinkle with salt, pepper, whatever other seasoning you want, maybe drizzle some olive oil over the tortillas (for extra crunchiness) & bake. Delicious with some homemade guacamole.  See my recipe for 2-minute guacamole here.
   • Breakfast Burritos – Chicken seasoned with your favorite Mexican seasonings, fluffy egg whites, guacamole, sprinkled w/reduced fat four cheese blend. Making breakfast burritos can be time-consuming, so I like to make enough for a few days, wrap them in aluminum foil & stick them in the fridge. In the morning, you can unwrap & heat (not in the aluminum!), & enjoy with your favorite hot sauce. Breakfast burritos make for awesome lunches too.  Yes, I’m part of the “I Can Eat Breakfast for All Meals of the Day” club.
3. Trader Joe’s Rice Medley – An alternative to regular white rice.  Also more interesting than brown rice, even though brown rice is also a staple in my healthstyle. TJ’s rice medley is a blend of brown rice, red rice and black barley & makes a great side dish for chicken, fish, or other meaty foods.  One serving has 160 calories, 1/2 gram of fat, 5 grams of fiber & 6 grams of protein. This is great when you’re short on time & don’t have time to cook rice. You just pop a pouch in the microwave for 3 minutes & it’s done! For me, one pouch is enough for three meals, but I think there are two servings per pouch.

Other awesome carb alternatives include:

• Quinoa – which I haven’t quite figured out how to prepare yet, so I can’t write about it.
• Squash – butternut squash (obsessed!), spaghetti squash (alternative to regular spaghetti or other pastas), pumpkin, etc. Butternut squash soup is one of my favorite things to make. I’ll post the recipe in another post.
• Peas & Legumes – all types of beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, chickpeas (hummus), edamame. Most are high in fiber & protein.

I didn’t mention regular veggies & fruits, because they’re not really alternatives. Hopefully, most people are eating enough fruits & veggies every day.

What are your favorite healthy carbs to eat? And how do you prepare/cook them?

Photo from Stiletto Chef

I stopped making New Year’s resolutions, because I figured if I wanted to do something, I’ll just go do it and not wait until a new year to “resolve” to do it.  However, if you’re like most people, you probably resolved to eat healthier & exercise more this year.  That’s awesome! I like people that are proactive in managing their health.  If you’re like me, however, you probably don’t want to spend too much time in the kitchen. I’m kind of lazy when it comes to cooking, so I try to limit those domestic duties to two nights a week. That leaves more time for other things, like yoga or pilates.

Eating is essential to, well, life. Thus I present to you, 12 quick & easy snacks for lazy asses that still want to eat healthy:

1. Greek Yogurt – Nonfat Greek yogurt with just about everything. Take 1/2 a cup or one cup of Greek yogurt & top it off with strawberries & almonds, blueberries & almonds, granola, mangoes, and honey (don’t get too crazy there). I typically buy the Trader Joe’s brand or FAGE. Want more? Here are 10 Ways to Get Totally Obsessed with Greek Yogurt (Stiletto Chef).
2. Persian Cucumbers & Hummus – Get a bunch of Persian cucumbers, slice them up & pack them into little containers.  Add a bit of hummus on the side. My personal favorite is tomato basil hummus. Fresh, crunchy, and delicious.
3. Kale Chips – I’ve recently become addicted to kale. So much that I get it every week & was completely depressed one week when they ran out of it at the store–the same week they ran out of Persian cucumbers…that was a bad week.  Here’s a great recipe for cracked pepper, sour cream & onion kale chips from Noveau Raw.
4. Whole Wheat Tortilla Chips & Guacamole –  Any brand of tortilla is fine. I like to find the one with at least 5 grams of fiber per serving. Cut up eat tortilla into eight pieces (or however many pieces you want) & bake them in your oven for maybe 10 minutes at 400 degrees (this might vary depending on your oven). Guacamole is super easy to make too: just combine a tiny bit of chopped onion, chopped garlic, salt, lime juice & avocado.  And voila! You’ve got guacamole. How much of each thing to use is up to you. You can also add other things like cayenne pepper, if you want a bit of spice, or cilantro, if you like cilantro (I don’t).
5. Rice Cakes & Guacamole – It sounds gross, but it’s super delicious.  See my recipe for 2-minute guacamole above & spread some over unsalted rice cakes.
6. Rice Cakes & Peanut Butter – Unsalted rice cakes + unsalted creamy (or chunky) peanut butter.  Sometimes, I like to add a few slices of banana on top.
7. Celery & Peanut Butter – Exactly what it sounds like. You can add a few raisins for “ants on a log.”
8. Sliced Apples & Peanut Butter – Yep, that’s it.
9. Hard Boiled Eggs – Great before/after a workout, but also a great anytime snack. Just toss out the egg yolk. If you need the iron, take an iron supplement.
10. Edamame – You can get the shelled or un-shelled kind at Trader Joe’s. I believe they are the same price, so go with the un-shelled kind (for more edamame & less peeling).
11. Cut Fruit & Almonds – I always like to combine my carbs with some sort of protein and/or fat. Cut veggies make for great snacks too, but you guys knew that already!
12. KIND Bars - one of my new obsessions.  I always grab a few at the grocery store near my office. My favorites are the almond & apricots in yogurt, macadamia & apricot, apple cinnamon & pecan. Great snack before a cardio workout.

There are plenty more quick, easy & health snacks out there in this world, but I typically stick to a few guidelines when it comes to food:

• Eat food close to its original form, or as close as possible (e.g. lots of raw stuff, great for the lazies like me)
• Avoid most processed foods.  If the food you’re eating is not in its original form, then it’s probably gone through some sort of processing, despite how “healthy” you may think it is.
• Avoid most dairy like milk & cheese. Despite what the USDA or FDA or whoever wants us to believe, dairy IS NOT an essential food group. I’m lactose intolerant so I don’t eat stuff like cheese (it’s all saturated fat anyway) or drink regular milk (130 calories & 12 grams of sugar in one cup of 2% fat milk? + upset stomach? Uh, no thanks). Unsweetened almond milk, one of my other food obsessions, has 40 calories & 0 grams of sugar per cup. See? So much better. You can even make your own (Hello Brit).
• Eat mostly gluten free – click here for more info (Mayo Clinic). Because I just feel better when I do.

Interested in learning more about food?  Here are a few books to add to your reading list:

• Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food
• Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma
• Gary Taube’s Good Calories, Bad Calories - I haven’t had the chance to read this one yet, but it has been recommended by many people. It’s also a whopping 600+ pages, so if you’re a little strapped on time, read the next book on the list by the same author.
• Gary Taube’s Why We Get Fat & What to Do About It
• And finally, something less scientific & intellectual, but fun to read: Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. Because, let’s face it, what girl doesn’t want to be a skinny bitch?

What are your favorite healthy snacks? Please add your favs in the comments. Thanks :)

The real reason we went to the farmer’s market was to get some green onions for our sushi  & poke (which we ultimately did not end up using). Anyhow, the greatest discovery of that weekend was these candy striped figs, which I’ve posted a picture of here on top of a tub of kale salad. These candy striped figs are super sweet and have crunchy seeds.  And they are so awesome that I felt obligated to blog about them.  Candy striped figs are only in season for a few short weeks–apparently only three in LA–so go get some while you can!

If you would like to learn more, here are a couple of articles/blogs about these odd little striped figs:

The New York Times: A Fig Reveals Its Inner Raspberry

Beverly Hill Patch: Candy Stripe Figs, Peppers and Tomatoes

A word so easy to understand, and yet, so difficult to achieve in practice.

Today, the New York legislature voted to legalize gay marriage, a big victory in the road to marriage equality.  A small victory on the road to achieving equality for all.

In 1776, the United States declared independence from Great Britain.  In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  The “truths” he refers to are our natural and legal rights, our human rights (defined as “basic rights and freedoms that all people are entitled to regardless of nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, race, religion, language”).

Maybe he should have written, “all those in the human race are created equal.” Maybe he shouldn’t have left so much up to interpretation.  Maybe, just maybe, we would be living in a different world today.

That was 1776.

In the last 235 years of American history when was there ever a period where we WEREN’T fighting for equality?

• In 1864, we added the 13th Amendment to the Bill of Rights and abolished slavery.
• In 1868, we added the 14th Amendment and declared every “man” born in the United States a citizen.
• In 1870, we added the 15th Amendment to extend voting rights to all “citizens.” One man = one vote.
• In 1920, 144 years after Thomas Jefferson wrote those infamous words, we added the 19th Amendment to the Bill of Rights, allowing women the right to vote.
• In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that separate schools for blacks and whites were inherently unequal (Brown vs. Board of Education)
• In 1967, the Supreme Court overturned the “Racial Integrity Act”, legalizing marriage for interracial couples.

One day, I would like to get married.  And one day, I would like to have children.  I don’t ever want to have that difficult conversation with my children on why, because of some inherent difference, they don’t have the same rights or opportunities as other children.  I don’t want them to grow up in that kind of a world.

Will there ever be a day where we won’t need to fight for quality anymore?

I came across Sheryl Sandberg’s 2011 commencement speech at Barnard College.  If you’ve seen her Ted talk, Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders, it’s mostly a rehash of that talk.  Nevertheless, this is an inspiring speech, and I’m glad I live in a world where there are more women leaders.  Girls need more role models like Sheryl Sandberg–not the Kardashians or the “real housewives” of xyz city or the bachelorettes (or whatever is out there on television these days, since I don’t watch television).

My parents come from a culture where boys are valued more than girls.  They really emphasized the importance of getting a good education.  Yet, they also made clear that I should know “my place” in the home and in society. They told me that if I ever chose to have children, I would be the one to take time off from work to take care of the kids. They also told me that I should never make more money than my husband. “Um, what the heck did I work so hard for my entire life?” I would think to myself.

I interpreted their advice to mean that I should never get married or have children.  Just kidding.

In all sincerity, however, I too believe that a world where we have more women leaders and more women making important decisions, would be a better world.  Ladies, live up to your full potential.  Don’t let anything hold you back. Dare to dream big. REALLY big. Sit at the table. Keep your hand up. And most importantly, don’t leave before you leave.

• plain nonfat greek yogurt (I’m so obsessed)
• berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, etc.)
• whatever fruits/veggies are in season ( @ the farmer’s market)
• plain almond milk
• whey protein
• chicken or turkey
• egg whites (sometimes up to 8 a day!)
• whole wheat  or whole grain tortillas
• trader joe’s vanilla almond granola
• brown rice
• rice cakes & all natural unsalted peanut butter
• and lots of green tea!

Sometimes I’ll mix it up & get other forms of protein like salmon or tuna, but for the most part this is it. Very simple.  I do indulge occasionally, like I did over the weekend in Monterey Bay, but then my body punishes me for it with heart burn and stomach aches.  I have found that I cannot digest greasy food anymore =/ I suppose this is a good thing.

Eating clean & healthy has helped me a lot with my training.  For example, you’re supposed to eat carbs right before you work out, for energy. After you work out, if you completed a strength training session, you need to eat a meal with a 1:1 protein/carb ratio.  If you completed a cardio session, you need to eat a meal with a 1:3 protein/carb ratio.  I had no idea!

A few months ago I resurrected my yoga practice and I finally joined a studio (Core Power Yoga in Sherman Oaks).  Last week, I successfully completed the crow pose (aka crane pose) for 10 seconds.  I felt so proud of myself in a way that I haven’t felt in years.  The last time I felt this proud was probably when I performed my first flute concerto back in high school…maybe. I couldn’t do this pose for the life of me back in college, but my core strength has vastly improved over the past year thanks to bar method & pilates.  Especially pilates.

Anyway, I’m excited to master a few more poses, including:

Kevin took these:

A school of fish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was magical!

Me, near Sea Lion Cove.

A couple of my pics (taken on my iPhone, so obviously not as great as Kevin’s):

Moon Jellies!

Kevin snapping away

After winter quarter, I decided to take spring quarter off from taking classes–I was a half-time student for a year, after all–and focus on my personal goals.  One of them included resurrecting my yoga practice after a 2 year hiatus (I practiced for a couple of years in college).  After trying yoga at a couple of studios, including YogaWorks in Tarzana and Bikram Yoga in Encino, I decided to get a membership at Core Power Yoga in Sherman Oaks.  It’s a hot yoga studio, meaning yoga done in 100 degree heated room. And if your classes is crowded, that means it could get hotter.  Anyhow, I’m completely obsessed with hot yoga now, and I try to go almost every day.

I’m very upfront about my professional goals, but my personal ones, I tend to keep to myself.  Becoming a yoga instructor is one of my personal goals.  I want to become a yoga instructor in the next few years, but right now, I’m just focusing on my practice.

In addition to yoga, I’ve really been mixing up my workout classes.  They now include a couple of boxing classes a week, 1-2 Cardio Barre or Bar Method classes per week and pilates.  I started taking pilates after purchasing a 5-class pass from LivingSocial to Pilates Plus in Encino–and loved it!–but I’m now a member of SPN Pilates in Calabasas, because it’s right across the street from my work, there’s always availability for classes, the instructors really kick your ass, and it’s just a beautiful studio.  I took 14 classes in between the end of April to the end of May.  I’ve kicked up my workout routine a notch to two workouts a day, a few times a week (that’s up to 8-10 hours/week of working out).  Since classes are fun, it doesn’t really feel like I’m working out.

I started training for a half marathon a while ago, but I had some numbness in my foot after I came back from travelling, so it’s probably a good idea to stick to the low impact workouts =/

Anyhow, I log my workouts in this handy tool called dailymile & here are my stats for the year (from January 1st – June 1st):

Miles ran: 65

Boxing classes: 30

Pilates classes: 23

Bar Method classes: 20

Cardio Barre classes: 9

Yoga classes: 12

Spin: 1

(that’s 95 hours, just of classes, if you’re too lazy to do the math)

I’ve only really lost a few pounds, but I’ve gotten several comments from co-workers, one of my bar method instructors, and even my sister that I look thinner.  Awesome!  The only problem now is that I can’t decide which studio to do an unlimited membership at.  Ideally, I can do unlimited Pilates ($200/month) and hot yoga ($135/month), but I already have a gym membership ($40/month) in addition to class packages at Bar Method & Cardio Barre. I don’t really want to spend $400/month on fitness classes, so I’ll probably do the Pilates membership & do class packages everywhere else.  It’s probably the most effective workout for me.

If you don’t understand why I pay so much money for fitness classes, here’s my rationale: My parents spent thousands of dollars on music lessons growing up, and collectively, we spent tens of thousands of dollars on my education. I get so much more value from my fitness classes in terms of personal & spiritual growth that the money isn’t even an issue.  I’m stronger and healthier and that, to me, is priceless. Plus, I don’t go out and party or spend a ton of money on alcohol or entertainment, so this is my splurge every month :)

I was a lot thinner (think 20 pounds lighter in college), but I had no muscle mass.  And I can’t believe that a year and a half ago, I could barely last through an hour of boxing without feeling like I was going to die (not to mention I had terrible form), and now I’m doing pilates & boxing back-to-back.  My instructors have taught me proper form, discipline and so much more.

I can’t wait to see where I’ll be at the end of 2011!