Favorite Recipe Websites

I am always in search of new recipes.  My gym is starting another Paleo Challenge in March, and I need to be sure to have recipes in my repertoire.  I have recently started using Pinterest a lot more, even though I have been signed up for a while.  However, there are a few go-to websites I always browse because the recipes are always delicious. 

Here are 5 of my go-to recipe websites:

1. www.paleomg.com – Hilarious posts and wonderful recipes
2. http://www.health-bent.com/ - CF couple concerned with eating real food – mostly Paleo recipes
3. http://paleofood.com/ - Just recipes.  Everything from beverages to dehydrating.
4. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ - I read this more for the articles, but the recipes are good as well.  Every Saturday, there is a new recipe posted.
5. http://punchfork.com/paleo - Similar to Pinterest for recipes – And that is why the site is shutting down March 15, 2013 because they have been acquired by Pinterest. J

The one recipe I love is Roasted Garlic Red Pepper Pesto Tilapia from www.paleomg.com.  It is easy to make as long as you have a food processor.  There are always leftovers and if you do not mind stinking up the office, you can bring for lunch. Below is the recipe, although I did alter the steps a little bit.

Roasted Garlic Red Pepper Pesto Tilapia

Ingredients

1lb tilapia

½ cup blanched almonds (Check the baking aisle)

1 bundle cilantro, stems removed

½ 7oz jar of roasted red peppers

6-8 garlic cloves

2 zucchini, chopped (I usually use 2 really large zucchini to ensure I have lots of veggies)

1 red onion, chopped

1 orange pepper, chopped

1 teaspoon paprika

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons pepper

½ teaspoon onion powder

EVOO

Instructions

1. Season fish on both sides with 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper, and set aside.
2. Roast the garlic (try not to skip this step; it does give the dish a little bit of extra flavor).  If you are in a rush, just throw in some minced garlic out of the jar.
3. When your garlic cloves are done roasting, add the cloves along with your cilantro, roasted red peppers, and blanched almonds to a food processor. Once all the ingredients are incorporated, slowly start pouring in the salt, pepper, and onion powder.  You can add olive oil if you want, but there is usually enough liquid from the roasted red peppers, that I do not need to use any EVOO.
4. With the red pepper pesto done, add your veggies to a pan (I use my wok) with EVOO, toss with a bit of salt and pepper.  Allow the veggies to cook thoroughly.  Once they are cooked, add about half of the garlic red pepper pesto to the veggies. Cover, place on low heat, and let simmer for 7-9 minutes until veggies are soft.
5. While the veggies finish cooking, cook your fish. I always cook it on the grill, but you can bake it at 400° for about 15 minutes (or until it is flaky).  You also have the option to cook in a pan over medium-high heat for 3 minutes per side.
6. Once fish is done cooking, add veggies to a plate, top with your tilapia and add a bit more of the leftover garlic red pepper pesto on top of the fish.

In other news, I had grilled avocado for the 1^st time this weekend, absolutely delicious.  It was topped with a little bit of spicy salsa.  Excellent side dish!

~ Savannah FitNut aka Morgan McNeal

Bulletproof Coffee

I did it, I made the “Bulletproof Coffee.”  I used unsalted grass-fed butter, coconut oil, and added some cinnamon.  My initial thoughts were that it was okay, tasted creamy, but also tasted like coffee with yummy butter.  Well, I have had it for four straight mornings and I think I am enjoying it more now.  I do not love it, because I miss eating eggs in the morning.  However, it is a very quick breakfast.  It did keep me satiated in the morning.  I will continue to experiment with different spices to add, maybe some nutmeg, vanilla, etc.

In other news, I signed up for a 5K on February 23, 2013.  I ran the same race last year and I placed 1^st in my age group.  I am not sure that will happen this year as I have not been running nearly as much since recovering from the stress fracture.  It will be fun though to see what I can accomplish.

We are already 1.5 months into 2013, and here are the updates on my 2013 goals:

1. Read more books – Definitely reading at least 2 books per month – The nice thing about traveling, you read a lot on the plane
2. 2 Unassisted Pull-ups (No band assistance) – Consistently using purple band, would like to be using the pink band by the end of May (FYI in case you do not know - difference between purple and pink band is less assistance)
3. Prescribed weights on 90% of CF workouts – Judging from the workouts I completed in the last 1.5 months, only 55% of my workouts were prescribed – Room for improvement on this one
4. Cook 90% of meals at home (that equates to a maximum of 2 meals out per week) – Check! Hubby and I have been very diligent about making meals at home.
5. Maintain my blog – at least one post per week – I give myself a B+ on this one, I missed a week here and there

Overall, not too bad on the goals, still lots of 2013 left!

~ Savannah FitNut aka Morgan McNeal

168 Hours

Wow, I have been really busy lately, specifically with work. I had a huge event I led last week and then traveled to California this week. Not too much free time. However, as I write this, I just read an article on time management and it referenced the book “168 hours: You have more time than you think” by Laura Vanderkam.  It is a book about making time for the things we want to do, whether that's work, sleep, exercise, cooking, or iPhone surfing. I think I am going to put this book on my reading list. I will let you know the tips they give.

Along the same lines as time management, have you ever tried “bulletproof coffee?”  On my travels, I was in San Diego and was able to meet up with a cousin who told me about it.  It is organic coffee blended with grassfed butter and coconut oil.  He said he is not hungry until lunch.  It would definitely be a time saver for me in the morning.  No egg prep or trying to dig around the fridge to see what I can chow down 5 minutes before I have to leave for work.  I am going to try it this weekend.  Who knows, maybe I will have a new go-to breakfast?

~ Savannah FitNut aka Morgan McNeal

Staggering Statistics

Lately, I have been reading through some of the various Fitness magazines available at every grocery store checkout.  Some of the statistics they present are mind boggling.  Granted, I am not sure how accurate their sources are, but in most cases, if the data they are presenting is even half true, we, as humans, need to step back and evaluate what is going on with our health these days.  For example, one article I read stated “45 million Americans start a diet each year.”  But then I toggled over to a site I thought I could obtain some accurate data, the CDC and……  According to the CDC, over one-third of US adults (35.7%) are obese.  Factor in the % of overweight but not obese adults (33.3%) and you have a staggering 69% of the US population not at a normal weight.  Yet our grocery store aisles are overflowing with Healthy choice and lean cuisine meals.  Gym memberships are off the charts. Millions of people are starting diets every year!  So what is everyone doing wrong?

Honestly, I can only begin to guess.  First, I would fault all the “healthy food” we make available.  Lean cuisine is not healthy and either is “healthy choice.”  They have five days’ worth of sodium in one serving… okay, maybe not that bad, but close, haha.  We need to decide to stop eating out of cans and little plastic dishes with saran wrap.  Are we really that lazy these days that we cannot turn on the stove and steam some vegetables?  Also, one thing I learned from having a stress fracture is how important diet really is.  It is not beneficial to go to the gym for 2 hours and take a spinning class and some other high intensity cardio class, just to go home and eat three bowls of cereal.  You will not lose weight. 

Okay enough ranting about statistics, I need to figure out what I am making for dinner!

~ Savannah FitNut aka Morgan McNeal

New Christmas Presents in Action

Yummy Apples

Not sure about you, but I have certainly been enjoying all my Christmas presents.  My new Crossfit sneakers are amazing!  I love them and am kinda sad I have been going all this time without them.   Sometimes, they look like they are suited for a midget, but I still love them.  Also, I received a Himalayan salt block for cooking.  Amazing!  My husband grilled a steak on it and it was delicious, and not too salty.  I definitely recommend looking into it as a way to add variety to your cooking.  And lastly, we just tried our new dehydrator this weekend and made apple chips.   We sprinkled a little cinnamon on some of the slices and a little unsweetened cocoa powder on the others.  It did take a little while to dehydrate them (probably about 10 hours), but they were delicious.  We used 4 really large red delicious apples which made quite a few chips.   The process consisted of cutting up the apples into thin slices, putting them on the dehydrator trays and putting them in the dehydrator, easy as can be!  We are going to try banana chips next weekend.

Yummy Apple Chips with Cinnamon and Cocoa

In other news, now that I have had a full week in 2013, I have decided I am NOT adjusting my goals I set out in my previous post even though some of them may be very difficult.  I think the hardest ones are going to be to do 90% of Crossfit workouts at the prescribed weight and to do pull-ups.  I already read one book in the 1^st week and we only ate out one time last week (for a 95% rate of cooking meals in the home).

Pretty CF Shoes

I read an interesting article this weekend regarding what is the best diet to follow.  The article discussed all the diets we have out there, low carb, low fat, high carb, don’t eat this, eat a lot of that, drink lemon juice every day……bleh, bleh.  Research shows most of these fad diets DO NOT WORK…. Although you probably already know that.  What does work is incorporating the principles a lot of the diets have in common.

Here are the 5 guidelines I think are most prevalent in all the published diets out there and that I recommend (P.S.  I am not a doctor, although maybe someday J).

1. Drink water and lots of it.
2. Eat more vegetables.  Green, purple, red, just eat more of these.
3. Eat fruit, but not for every meal.
4. Eliminate (or drastically reduce) white anything.  White flour, white pasta, white sugar – throw it out of the house.
5. Eliminate (or drastically reduce) eating processed food.  It is not good for you.  A good rule of thumb is the 5-ingredient rule.  Read the ingredients and if it has more than 5 ingredients, reconsider eating it, especially if any of the ingredients are weird chemicals you cannot pronounce or have never heard of.

~ Savannah FitNut aka Morgan McNeal

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone!  I hope you enjoyed the holidays.  I certainly did.  My husband and I traveled up North to visit with our friends and family.  It was a long drive from GA to PA, but having our own car gave us the flexibility to visit lots of people and not have to bother anyone with our flight schedules.  We did get to see a bit more snow than I wanted.  It snowed on Christmas Eve, which was pretty, especially because I did not have to go outside.  However, it snowed a couple more days during our visit and we happened to be on the roads.  It just makes me quite grateful for the 60 degree Savannah winter days.  The vacation went by extremely fast and here we are already, it is 2013!

With the New Year, everyone seems to be in the “Resolution spirit.”  You are making plans for 2013, maybe revising the deadlines on some of those 2012 resolutions.  Everyone wants to be healthier and happier and overall better in the New Year.  There is nothing wrong with that!  I am not a resolutioner (that is not a real word, haha), however, I do like goal setting and what better time to write them down, then now.  Before I wrote down my goals, I wanted them to be specific and attainable.  In my opinion, many people do not achieve their goals, because they are too outlandish or not specific enough (i.e. I am going to eat healthier….. I am going to be stronger….).  My goals are very specific and attainable.  I will keep you posted on my progress and maybe add more goals as the year goes on.

Without further adieu, here are my 5 goals for 2013:

1. Read more books – at least 2 per month (whether it is on the Kindle, paperback, hardback, whatever, on whatever topic I choose)
2. 2 Unassisted Pull-ups (No band assistance)
3. Prescribed weights on 90% of CF workouts
4. Cook 90% of meals at home (that equates to a maximum of 2 meals out per week)
5. Maintain my blog – at least one post per week

What are your goals for 2013?  Fitness related, health related, family??

~ Savannah FitNut aka Morgan McNeal

A Book Review

First things first!!  Sorry I decided to take a blogging hiatus.  Work has been quite busy and now that my stress fracture is 98.435% healed, I have been back to Crossfit and life!  Lots of bike rides downtown to the farmer’s market and for holiday shopping.  It is amazing how I keep myself so busy when I do not have to wear a dumb boot shoe thing, haha.

On my blogging break, I did read a book which was free on Amazon prime (which was the only reason I decided to read it).  It is entitled “The Low Carb Revolution: Why the Secret to Losing Weight is to Fall Back in Love With Yourself!” by John McLean (I think that is his real name!).  I am not a huge proponent of low carb diets, because fruits and vegetables have carbs, and you should be eating those.  However, I must say the book was very well done and had great advice.  The first part of the book talks about food and nutrition, while the second half of the book talks about how to love thyself.  I almost skipped reading the 2^nd half of the book, because I do not really enjoy books that preach how much you should love yourself and your body, blah blah blah.  However, since I was traveling and it was the only book I had downloaded on my Kindle at the time that I had not read, I decided to read Part 2.  I am glad I did because it also had good advice.

My 5 takeaways from the book:

1. “JERF” – Just eat real food coined by Sean Croxton
2. “The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine, or the slowest form of poison.” – Dr. Ann Wigmore
3. “The Less we cook, the more we eat. – The more time people devote to food preparation at home, the lower their rate of obesity.”
4. “Eat all the junk food you want that you cook yourself.”
5. “As recently as the 1980’s, when the obesity level was 2.5%, Americans spent 15-25% of their income on food.  In 2010, that number is 9%.”

I can summarize by saying, cook more unprocessed whole foods in your house! J

If you have a bit of time over your holiday break, read this book.  It does not tell you that you never can eat carbs again, but gives key pieces of advice for making you a healthier person.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

~ Savannah FitNut aka Morgan McNeal