Hi everyone,

Love chocolate cake, but hate eating animal products?  Try this delicious recipe for vegan chocolate cake.

Yummy treats like this can be part of a healthy diet – just have it once in awhile

To your health,

Kimberly

Vegan Chocolate Cake

by Rachel O’neil

From: http://www.selfsufficientish.com/vegancake.htm

Ingredients

300g self raising flour
3 level tsp baking powder
50g cocoa powder
250g caster sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
9 tbsp sunflower oil
250 ml orange juice
100ml water
1 orange zested

8” loose bottomed tin (greased)

ICING

250g icing sugar
1tbsp Cocoa
50g sunflower marg
3tbsp boiling water

Method/Procedure

preheat oven to 190°C

Sift the flour with the cocoa powder, baking powder and the sugar.

Mix with the rest of the ingredients
Whisk to a batter like consistency
Pour in tin, cook for 40 mins, until knife comes out of centre clean
icing: whizz altogether, spread over top and chill

I tried a new restaurant last weekend – a vegetarian restaurant called Woody’s Cafe near Hemel Hempstead in the UK.  It is a quaint restaurant with a nice patio area overlooking a little marina and the Grand Union Canal.

The menu is pretty overwhelming when you first look at it…especially after you see all the specials as well!  But, the staff are very helpful with questions about the different dishes.  The main options are pizzas and crepes (both savoury and sweet).   For both of those, you then have a few choices when it comes to the flour used for the dough.  There are gluten free options and vegan options.

Some of the specials on the day I was there were Parmigiana, Bean Burgers, Nut Burgers, and many others.  With the specials, though, they do run out so when you get there order quickly!

Food

At our table we tried a pita bread and dip platter to start with.  It was really tasty, but I thought it was pricey for what you got at £7.50.  It was enough for 2 people to share.

For our main meals we had two different pizzas, a nut burger and the Mexican Hat crepe (which was a spicy bean filling.)  The crepe was by far the best, but I think everyone enjoyed their dishes.

There are also plenty of yummy desserts and again, there are gluten free and vegan options.  We tried a dark chocolate and banana crepe and a vegan chocolate cake – both delicious!  I wouldn’t have thought the cake could be moist, but it was really lovely.

Booze

The two men with us tried two of the beers, one vegan and one not.  The vegan one – Suma Elphin Brook bitter – was the favorite.

I had a nice glass of organic Sauvignon Blanc and the other friend with us had a tall glass of Pimm’s.  We all enjoyed the drinks.

Would I go back?

As I enjoyed the atmosphere, sitting watching the boats on the canal, enjoyed the friendly service, and enjoyed the food, I will certainly go back.  There are definitely a few other dishes I would like to try.  And I might even just go for dessert and a glass of wine sometime!

If you’ve tried any vegetarian restaurants that you liked or didn’t like, I would love to hear what they were!

To your health,

Kimberly

With all of the supplement choices out there, how are you supposed to know what to choose?  Do you go for the most expensive?  Least expensive?

Do you choose a brand you are familiar with?  Or something your doctor recommends?

Do you buy them from the grocery store?  Or a specialty health store?  Organic?  Natural?  Etc.

You may have all these questions and a lot more.  So, how do you know what the answers are?  How do you know what the best supplements are?  There isn’t any one answer to this, but here is my favorite brand.

Nutrilite

About 5 years ago, I was introduced to the Nutrilite brand of supplements.  They are a premium, high quality supplement company that has been around since1934.  The founder is Carl Rehnborg, who first became curious about the connection between health and foods in the 1920′s when he was living in China.  The rest is history, as they say.  The Nutrilite site has a wealth of information about the history and other aspects of the business.

Nutrilite Farming

What I love about Nutrilite is the way that the supplements are made.  Nutrilite actually have their own chemical-free farms, where they grow and harvest plants from which they produce supplements.  This means that the amount of time between when the plants are harvested and when they are dehydrated and turned into the final product is very short, showing us the freshness of what goes in to the final product.  No other supplements are grown, harvested, processed, and shipped in the way that Nutrilite does it.

Here is an excerpt from their website:

Nutrilite – We Never Compromise on Quality

At the NUTRILITE™ manufacturing facility, our standards of quality in manufacturing are as much a part of our company culture as our natural farming practices. Clean rooms and well-cared-for equipment are one measure of excellence; another is the level of expertise demonstrated by Nutrilite staff throughout the manufacturing process.

• Plants are harvested at their nutritional peak and transported as quickly as possible to our dehydration facility.
• The concentration process uses specialized equipment in a state-of-the-art facility to dehydrate, mill, and extract nature’s richest nutrients from the plants – creating the world’s finest nutritional concentrates.
• Each batch of concentrate powder is tested to ensure it is free of contaminants and of proper potency.
• Computer-controlled scales measure the exact weight and amount of each concentrate powder.
• The various powders are then blended into a single, uniform mixture.
• The powder blend is compressed into tablets, coated with a special solution for easier swallowing, and inspected closely for cracks or chips.
• Finished tablets are sealed in specially-designed containers to maintain freshness.

Another unique thing about Nutrilite is the use of Acerola cherries.   These cherries are one of the richest sources of vitamin C and I doubt many other supplement companies can boast the use of this fruit in their products.

Now, Nutrilite is definitely not the cheapest supplement brand, but I have stayed loyal since being introduced to it because of the quality.  I love the fact that the products are made from FOOD rather than chemicals.  That is awesome!  And while lots of other supplement brands fail consumer quality checks (to make sure the products contain the levels of nutrients that they claim to contain – see www.consumerlab.com), Nutrilite stands strong.  So, you are getting what they tell you you’re getting.

I could say a hundred more great things about Nutrilite, but I’ll leave it at that.   If you’re ready to give them a try, click here for prices and ordering information.

To your health,

Kimberly

This is the quickest post I’ve ever done – I just wanted to tell everyone that Precision Nutrition is doing another promotion.  They love giving away money and helping you get in better shape, which is awesome.

This time the competition is based on the “Scrawny to Brawny Coaching Program” so if that sounds good to you, definitely check it out here and search on “scrawny to brawny”.

General registration begins on Tuesday, June 2nd, with the program itself beginning on Monday, June 7th.  These competitions are only available to a limited number of people and they usually sell out, so act fast if you’re interested.

If you do end up participating, I would LOVE to hear about it.

To your health

Kimberly

According to an article in The Times newspaper on 18 May 2010, these are the detox diets that celebrities use:

Naomi Campbell:  Master Cleanse Diet, which is a drink made up of maple syrup, lemon juice, hot water and cayenne pepper.  This is all she drinks for 10-14 days.  No solid food!  She claims to do this three times a year.

Gwyneth Paltrow:  Two liquid meals a day and one solid one in between for three weeks.  An example daily menu is a breakfast smoothie, carrot and ginger salad, and then broccoli soup.  Gwyneth says she does this twice a year.

Katie Price (Jordan): A seven day plan in which breakfast and lunch consists of vegetable and fruit juices.  Supplement those with wheatgrass and spirulina.  Dinner is then fish or meat with vegetables.

Kate Moss:  A diet based on drinking white tea and honey.  Essentially she eats small, healthy meals (example – oatmeal, sushi, and a balanced dinner) and each one is followed by white tea with honey.

Jennifer Aniston – A baby food diet.  (Yup – baby food!)  She eats mashed up food throughout the day (up to 14 servings) and then eats a normal dinner.

Are they any good?

Of all of the detox diets listed above, I would only try Kate Moss’ and Jennifer Aniston’s.  To be honest, I think they all sound a bit wacky, but with these two, at least you can still get a somewhat balanced level of nutrients.  You can still get plenty of vitamins, minerals, some healthy carbs, and then you’d have to get some healthy fats and protein in your one “normal” meal each day.

All of the diets sound very calorie restrictive.  I guess the idea is to lose weight quickly and cleanse the system, but these are all pretty extreme.  If you feel the need to try any type of really restrictive detox, just don’t do it for more than 5-7 days.

If you want to do a healthier detox and lose weight naturally and feel great, I suggest cutting out all refined carbs, sugar, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and any processed foods.  This will kick start you to creating a healthier lifestyle for you and your family.

One other Important Point!

In the article, each of the women commented on using these detoxes to get ready for either a red carpet appearance, a new film, a photo shoot, or some other media event.   What does this tell us?

Clearly even these women don’t always feel “red carpet ready.”  They are real people who have to go through serious preparation to look the way they do in the pictures we see of them.  So, if you’re one of those people that strives to look like these women, keep this in mind.  Are you ready to eat baby food?  Or maple syrup concoctions?

Good thing you don’t have to!

To your health,

Kimberly

I was given a gift of workout pants as a birthday present.  Seems like an okay present, right?  Well, it was an awesome present!

The pants are made by Lululemon, a Canadian company.   They have a couple of special things about them that make them the perfect workout pant.

Firstly, the gusset.  It is a diamond shaped piece right in the crotch of the pants, which is designed to give you the ultimate comfort while you’re working out.  There is even a special page dedicated to the gusset on their website!!  They are serious about comfort.

Secondly, the fabric of the pants has a four way stretch.  It is a stretch that no other pants have.  Lululemon have their own synthetic fabric called Luon.  It is a combination of nylon and Lycra, which feels much like cotton.  It is SO comfortable.  And it is great at absorbing moisture (perfect for people that sweat all over like me!)  And you know what the best thing is?  It makes your butt and thighs looks great!  Cellulite? Pretty much gone.  Incredible.

Lululemon have a whole range of workout wear and other casual attire, so check it out now.  It is pretty expensive, but so worth it.  I’ve bought a second pair of pants already!

To your health

Kimberly

That was the title of a seminar I attended while I was on my recent cruise vacation.  Eat More to Weigh Less.  I like the sound of it, so I was curious to see what the speaker had to say (I had a hunch already, but it’s still great to hear a new person’s perspective.)

The speaker was a personal trainer who had quite a bit of nutrition training under his belt too.  Here are a few of the key messages that I got out of it:

1. People these days are eating too little of the right things and too much of the wrong things.

The “wrong things” were explained using the acronym CRAP.  (Sorry if that word offends anyone – I’m just repeating what I heard – it does fit the topic though.)

C – Caffeine

R – Refined Sugar

A – Artificial Sweeteners

P – Preservatives

So, these are the things that many people are having too much of.   This will include all packaged foods, carbonated beverages, desserts, coffee etc.  Essentially, the message here is eat natural foods and watch your caffeine intake!  Natural foods are things that can be pulled out of the ground, plucked off a tree, or were at one time living (if you’re a meat eater.)  I totally agree with this message.  I think eating naturally as much as possible is always a good choice, hence I encourage people to follow a “natural” weight loss plan or diet rather than any other plan.

2. Eat Balanced Meals

The speaker went through the main categories of nutrients that we get from food (i.e. carbs, protein, and fat) and what his opinion was about the best ratio.  He truly believes that 40/30/30 ratio is the best.  This is the ratio that the Zone Diet promotes, if you’ve ever heard of that.  So, 40% of your calories come from carbs and 30% from each of protein and fat.

The Zone Diet is actually a pretty strict way of eating if you follow it correctly.  Whether or not that is really necessary is for each person to decide, but I think it is too hard to follow for the average person.  Not that eating right, losing weight naturally, and being a healthy person should be a breeze, but I think in our modern day, busy lives, we can’t/won’t be able to plan for every meal.  So, we need some flexibility in whatever nutritional regime we are following.

I think it is fine to take something like the Zone Diet as a basis for how you eat, but add some flexibility to it. For example, you don’t need to make every single meal fit the 40/30/30, but just aim to have your full day’s calories split roughly down to that.  And if your typical diet is a little bit off the 40/30/30, don’t stress about it.  I think my diet is more like 50/25/25 and I do okay.  Unless you’re training for a big event or are a professional athlete, you don’t need to follow things so closely – you can still lose weight and be a healthy person.

3. Eat the Right Carbs, Protein, and Fats

Finally, the above nutrients were broken down into “favorable” and “unfavorable” items.  If you eat favorable things within each category, you can eat more at each meal.

Carbs – Favorable items were things with lower GI carbs or complex carbohydrates.  Essentially, these are things that are slower to hit the blood stream, so release energy more slowly to your body.  Unfavorable items were the opposite – so things that give you a quick energy hit (e.g. banana.)  The exception to this is if you are about to do something very physical (gym, football game, physical labor).  In this case, you might want the quick energy from a banana rather than a slow release of energy from something else, maybe an apple.

Protein – Favorable sources of protein were things that walk on two legs or less (chicken, turkey, fish) and plant based protein sources like tofu and lentils.  Unfavorable sources were things that walk on four legs (beef, pork, lamb, etc.)  If you choose an unfavorable source of protein to have with your meal, you should only have a portion the size of the palm of your hand (in diameter and thickness.)  With a favorable source you can have almost double that.

Fats - Favorable fats are plant based, so this includes nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil, or other vegetable oils, among other things.  Unfavorable fats are foods high in saturated fat; basically this is man-made fats.  Butter, cheese, and anything with trans fats certainly fall in this category.

Overall, I really enjoyed the seminar and thought there some great bits of wisdom in there.  Even if you already “know” all of these things, it helps to have a reminder and a kick in the butt once in awhile.   You can Eat More to Weigh Less if you’re eating the right things.  Eat natural foods.   Make sure you’re getting carbs, protein and fat in your diet.  Eating right and losing weight doesn’t have to be rocket science, but you’ve got to be sensible and treat your body right.  It will work for you better if you do.

To your health,

Kimberly

Quinoa has come to be one of my favorite foods.  I was introduced to it by my grandma about 3 years ago.  I had never heard of it previously, but since then I have enjoyed it many times.  And it has become a super popular food for many people…you can tell because the prices have gone up!  It’s still affordable, though, and worth the money.

Why should you eat Quinoa (keen-wah)?

Quinoa is called a grain, but is actually a member of the same family as spinach. It grows in South America.  It has become well known because of its unique protein content.  Unlike other grains or similar foods, it has all of the essential amino acids to form a complete protein – i.e. it is a good quality source of protein.

Quinoa is also a good source of fiber, has plenty of vitamins and minerals, and is naturally gluten free.

What do you do with it?

Quinoa is cooked in a similar way to rice and ends up with a consistency similar to cous cous.

Try this delicious recipe or create your own variety – anything goes with quinoa!  And it certainly fits with a natural weight loss plan or anybody just wanting to be healthy.

To your health,

Kimberly

Well, this is one site’s take on the top 5 worst foods you can eat:

1. Eggs Benedict – the site states that because of the high fat and calories, this is a bad food choice.  If this is a favorite food of yours, just ease off on the hollandaise sauce and either get rid of the bacon, or use a turkey substitute.

2. Cheeseburger – the “bad for you” status of this comes from the high saturated fat, high calories, high sodium, and white bread.  To make it more heart and waistline friendly try a bean burger or vegetable burger instead of the beef burger.  Also, choose a whole wheat bun and only have half.  Or skip the bread altogether!

3. Duck Confit – this has tons of salt, fat, and calories.  I’ve never tried it…I just don’t think it sounds good.  I have no alternatives to offer!

4. Fondue – as this is essentially cheese, you can probably figure out why it’s on this list.  If this is a favorite (I certainly love it!), I can only say to enjoy this once in awhile and try not to eat just this for a meal!  Make a fondue and share it with others and then have a big salad and other healthy side dishes to make the meal complete.

5. Fettuccine Alfredo -Again, this is laden with calories, fat and usually refined starch (white pasta.)  Choose a tomato based sauce and whole wheat pasta to make your meal healthier.

Read here for the full article.

There are hundreds of other items that could be on this list, but most can be modified to be healthier options.  If I had to add anything to the above list, it would be desserts!  The reason I say this is because desserts also have tons of refined sugar – which is not only completely un-nutritious, but also depletes the nutrients from your body. It is a double whammy.

If you’re following a natural weight loss plan, you should be able to enjoy most things in moderation.  Just try to make about 80% of your choices natural food products.

To your health,

Kimberly

My new Body Media gadget

I recently purchased a new fitness “gadget” which I’ll shortly be doing a review on.   It is a Body Media product, called Ki Performance/Ki Fit in the UK and called Go Wear in the US.

Without going into too much detail, it is an advanced sensor system that can track the steps you’ve taken, calories burned, sleep patterns and more.  You wear it on an armband and then sync the sensor with your computer.  All the data uploads into the a computer program and voila – you’ve got some interesting information!  It also has the function to give you great information about your nutrition.  You just input things you’ve eaten/drank throughout the day and the software does the rest for you.

The point of this article is that over the course of the last two weeks, I’ve been able to analyse my caloric intake each day, along with looking at fat, carb, protein, and sugar intake.

It’s the little things that count

One of the things I’ve noticed is that on the days where I had a calorie surplus overall, rather than a calorie deficit, the only difference was a few small things I’d eaten or had to drink during the day.  It was always that “little” snack or couple of small glasses of wine that took me into a surplus.  (Yes, you can drink wine and lose weight.)

Now, this probably sounds like a pretty basic concept, but it’s easy to forget.  When you actually look at where your calories are coming from, it is the little things that make a difference between losing, gaining, or maintaining weight.

It isn’t just calories that matter, but if you’re following a weight loss plan, or just trying to eat a healthier diet, calories are one of the things you look at.  And by adding even a small “treat” during the day, that can make a difference to whether or not you are moving towards achieving your weight loss goals.

For example, if you have a bag of potato chips with your lunch or as an afternoon snack, that can be anywhere between 115 and 300 calories.  I think for most of us, a bag of potato chips doesn’t actually fill us up or keep us from getting hungry, but is just a snack that we enjoy.  So, if we just cut that out, we wouldn’t be any hungrier at the end of the day, but it might be the difference between being in a calorie surplus or calorie deficit for that day.

There are plenty of other examples out there of similar things (and I’m sure you can come up with something better than potato chips, as most people already know that they aren’t very “healthy.”)

Overall, just be conscious of what you’re eating.  If you really are hungry, it’s fine to eat…and you should eat, but if you’re mindlessly snacking, even on something small, it does make a difference!!

To your health,

Kimberly