Mint Chocolate Chip Nice Cream

Mint chocolate chip has always been one of my ice cream favourites so I was really happy when I realized that I could totally do a healthy take on this good old classic using bananananas instead of cream. Plus, ice cream making doesn't get any easier than this. Just chuck it all in the food processor and watch magic happen!

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream:

3-4 frozen bananas (~330g)

1/4 cup plant based milk

A few drops of peppermint oil or extract, adjust amount after strength

1 tsp matcha green tea powder

1/2 tsp wheatgrass (optional)

Chocolate sauce:

1 tsp liquid sweetener of choice

1 tsp cacao powder

1 tsp almond milk OR melted coconut oil

Optional:

Vegan chocolate chips/chopped dark chocolate/raw cacao nibs to serve as the chocolate chips

How to:

1. To make the ice cream, simply blend all ingredients in a food processor until completely smooth. I like to blitz everything until all the banana coins have been broken down by the blades before adding the milk. Do what works best for you though, and feel free to add more milk if it won't blend with 1/4 cup.

2. For the chocolate sauce, all you have to do is mix all the ingredients together with a fork. If you decide to use the coconut oil it will harden once you pour it onto the ice cream (provided it hasn't melted ofc) which is kind of cool. 

3. Spoon the nice cream up in a bowl or a tall glass, top with chocolate sauce and chocolate chips and serve immediately!

TRAIN SMARTER NOT HARDER

I like to make the most of my precious time and that means having a focused exercise program that fits into my schedule, and works best for my body.  I believe in quality not quantity, and using exercise movements that challenge me to change me, but do not hurt me.  It is not a fun place to be when exercise brings about injury and especially when that injury stops me from doing what I like to do.  I do not even like to feel a nagging pain that I know was caused from a certain move I should have avoided, but the push to want was greater than listening to what my body was telling me at the time. It is those types of constant and repetitive things that can bring about a chronic issue and I say no thank you to that. What it comes down to is training “smarter and not harder.”

I do not need to prove anything to anyone, and I do want to maintain a healthy body that not only looks good but feels good for the duration of my life. What that means is keeping my routine simple, smart, and effective to get the job done.  That is all that is required to keep my body healthy, happy, and feeling good overall.  Our bodies are fabulous machines that appreciate smart maintenance through movement and premium fuel for energy.  On the other side of that coin, a body that is in a constant state of extreme abuse will experience wear and tear, and eventual break down that does not feel good in the years to come. 

Smart training consists of challenging the anaerobic and aerobic systems, strength and endurance, stabilization and flexibility of our bodies. Simple programs can accomplish all of these goals and are necessary to create and maintain a healthy physique.  The challenge does not have to be gut wrenching, feel like death kind of stuff, but simply pushing our bodies above the physical limits of what is considered our “normal” status.  Standing would turn into brisk walking for 30 minutes for example, or WOGing (walk/jogging). Now combine that with body moves like squats, lunges, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups and stretch program and a smartly balanced program has been achieved. 

When physical training is looked at simply and smarter, it does not feel so overwhelming.  When the “hard” is taken out of the equation, a whole different mental game can be applied and a more positive outlook of “I can do this” now enters the picture. The beauty about training smart is an easier time creating programs that best fit our bodies and provide the results that make us healthy people.  No competitions, except with being our best healthy self and better than the day before because we are experiencing the benefits of smart training. 

 IT'S FREE! DON'T MISS OUT

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REEL IN THE REASONS

Let's get down to the business of reasons and how they fit into our daily life and overall health and fitness.  Reasons are often used to avoid a workout or eat healthy meals and I think we can all agree on that. Can I go as far as to say they parallel excuses and guess what, we all can have them and often do. What amazes me is how often we think and want to be healthy, want the hot body, the glowing skin and quality life without pain, but come up with every reason in the book to not do what it takes to obtain the goals.  I say it is time to "reel in the reasons" and ask why they keep getting in the way of the thing we most want.  

On top of the reasons that pull us in the opposite direction of our goals is almost a rebellious attitude of "I can eat and do what I want" and still reach my goals.  A negative attitude, excuses, and rebel behavior is definitely not going to achieve a healthy body or mind for that matter. I like that saying that goes "If it were easy, everyone would be doing it" because it really zeros in on what it takes: EFFORT.  Effort becomes the driving physical force that puts the end to the reasons, and sets on fire the mindset of "I can and I will."

Why is the effort involved to live a healthy life considered a burden, and why are reasons used to avoid it.  This perplexes me as it takes effort to do most everything in this life: careers, ministries, events, vacations, chores, etc., and those things are performed without a hitch, but bring up the "health or fitness" word and one would think you were talking about scaling the largest mountain peak in the world or the plague. Life is too short to let the "reasons" get in the way of being our best self, and to believe that it is acceptable to convince ourselves otherwise is absolutely crazy. 

All the time spent coming up with reasons why not, we all could have done what should have been done already.   That is the honest truth about how time is so mismanaged and our bodies are suffering the consequences.  It is important to not give up what our minds are thinking about for ourselves and I am referring to health, fitness, and goals.  The reasons need to be reeled in, caught in the net, and tossed back as not large enough to get in the way.  






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STAY HEALTHY FITNESS HAPPENINGS: Check out THE Herbal Face Food and review all the fabulous benefits this organic facial serum provides.  I was excited to give it a try for 10 days and what I noticed was improved skin hydration and overall improved tone. I am 50 years young and will have my smile line wrinkles around my eyes, but have to say that those did diminish some, and also a deep wrinkle I had on the left side of my lower face greatly reduced and barely visible now. The horizontal wrinkles across my forehead also diminished in depth which was very exciting. The fragrance is strong and does take some getting used to as most herbal remedies, but I believe the benefits are greater than not using it because of the scent. I am sponsoring THE Herbal Face Food as a product that I can stand behind, gimmick free, and agrees with my philosophy of health and fitness. Take a look at my results below for my 10-day trial period and if you have any questions, hit me up in the comment section below:

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PHOTO CREDIT: CHERI CHRISTINE PHOTOGRAPHY 2014

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Workouts

So, I've been working out again (on my own- no trainer), but I learned so much while working out with him and have continued to do the type of workouts we did.  Our workouts consisted of "active rests" which sounds like a contradiction, because you really aren't "resting" at all between exercises, unless it's just to catch your breath.  So, if I'm doing squats, in between sets, I might do 30 jumping jacks, jump squats, lunges, push-ups, etc.  Or, I just move quickly between exercises.  

I tracked my workouts on my iPhone in the Notes app so I could share them with you.  I didn't always write down the "rest" exercise I did, or I was just going from one exercise to the next with little rest. You can add in anything that keeps your heart rate up- a lap around the gym, step-ups, jumping jacks, burpees, etc.

CARDIO

I start my workout with 30 minutes of medium-hard cardio (typically the treadmill at intervals of  incline at 15-18 and speed 2.5-3.0) or the stair master (set at intervals of 60-80).  (Once a week, I'm running with a group of moms around our local park, 3 miles, and I don't do weights that day.) 

Then, I do as much weight workout as I can fit into 30-45 minutes, depending on my schedule.  Below is what my workouts looked like last week. I'm doing glute kickbacks several times a week to work on building my booty. 

LEGS

Squats- 65 lb x 15 reps (4 sets)

Walking lunges- 15 lb kettleballs each x 50 steps (each leg counts as one step) (2 sets)

     Push-ups- 15 (2 sets) 

Hip Adduction- 50 lbs x 20 reps (4 sets)

Hip Abduction- 50 lbs x 20 reps (4 sets)

     Go back and forth from adduction to abduction machine 

Seated leg curls- 45 lbs x 15 reps (4 sets)

Glute kickback- 70 lbs x 20 reps (3 sets) 

*1:15 minutes w/ cardio

SHOULDERS 

Shoulder press- 10 lb each x 20 reps (4 sets)

Lateral raise- 7.5 lb each x 10 reps (4 sets)

Punches- 7.5 lb each x 10 (4 sets) *my favorite

Rear delt fly- 30 lb total x 12 (3 sets)

Glute kickback- 70 lbs x 15 reps (3 sets) 

*1:15 minutes w/ cardio

ARMS

Curls- 10 lb each x 15 (4 sets)

Punches- 7.5 lb each x 15 (4 sets)

Dips (on floor bench)- body weight x 15 (4 sets)

21s- 20 lb barbell x (3 sets)

Dips (on machine)- 52 lb assist x 15 (4 sets)

Curtsies - 15 each leg 

*1:05 minutes w/ cardio

BACK

Pull-ups- 60 lb (assist) x 12 (4 sets)

Seated rows- 45 lb x 15 (3 sets)

Lat pulldown- 50 lb x 15 (4)

Glute kickback- 70 lbs x 15 reps (3 sets) 

*1:10 minutes w/ 36 min cardio (I went over)

via

It feels great to get back to working out!  There's a mom at my son's school who's become a good friend of mine and we encourage each other everyday with our workouts and eating.  We text each other after our workouts and it really helps to have that person to help keep you accountable.  Do you agree? 

CMS Succumbs to Disease Management Style Spin?

If, thanks to the medical home or disease management, you've witnessed the improvements in patients' care, you've also probably been frustrated by those silly skeptics' insistence on validation. But for traditional research designs, statistical significance, valid comparators and publication in obscure scientific journals, the face validity of nurse-led care management for high risk patients could have ushered in a new era in primary care.

Darn those academic-actuary-statistician-weenies! And double darn CMS for falling for them and not funding the medical home and disease management!

Which is why Population Health Blog readers may enjoy this bit of peer-review schadenfreude. It appears a recent CMS pronouncement that its own "Partnership for Patients Program" prevented early elective deliveries and reduced readmissions is highly suspect, thanks to "a weak design, a lack of valid metrics, and a lack of external peer review for its evaluation." 

Yikes.

It appears the amateurs at CMS used a pre-post design, selected start and stop evaluation points to gin up the outcomes, relied on imperfect administrative data and never bothered with having its outcomes validated by independent review. As a result, we really don't know if the billion of dollars that went into PPP did any good at all.

The PHB appreciates the point. Scientific discipline and peer review go a long way making sure that consumers are getting their money's worth. Now that CMS has gone from an agnostic payer to the centerpiece of health reform, there's a huge risk that its bureaucrats will succumb to shortcuts and spin.

Taxpayers deserve better.  And so do patients.

Image from Wikipedia

My Meals Calculated by My Fitness Pal

It's been 7 weeks since my bikini competition where I competed at 100 pounds and now I weigh 108!  Yes, that's over a pound a week! Yikes! I can tell that my body composition is still better than it was when I started training (more muscle and less fat), and I didn't plan to stay at 100 pounds, but I'd like to be at 104.  So, I find myself with 4 pounds to lose.  

I'm sure I put on weight because: 1) I was eating two pints of Haagen Dazs Gelato (Sea Salt Caramel) a week for about 5 weeks, and 2) I stopped training as intensely as I was (just running around the neighborhood for 30 minutes) and then took some time off working out at the end of the summer to just be with my son.  I don't regret it, but I know it's time to get back to work!  My son started school mid-August and I'm back to my routine of working out as soon as I drop him off at school.  I feel 100x better already.  It's amazing how quickly your body can change - for the better or worse. 

I've been tracking my workouts on my iPhone and plan to share them in detail with you this week, but for now, I'll just say that I start with 30 minutes of medium-hard cardio, then do 30-45 minutes of weight training with active rests (which keep my heart rate up) the whole time.  

When I was preparing for my bikini contest, my trainer gave me a meal plan to follow for  12 weeks.  I never counted calories or macros, but generally had an idea of what it was.  Last night, I finally plugged the five meals into My Fitness Pal and got the calculations below.  I think My Fitness Pal only allow for 4 meals a day, that's why I had to combines Meals 2 & 3.

So, for those of you who were interested in the breakdown, there it is.   I was surprised at how many calories I was eating, I thought it was been less, although I knew I was eating a lot of food- I was never hungry.  But, you need to eat consistently (about every 3 hours) and get enough protein at each meal to build and sustain muscle.   

Since I know I have weight to lose now, I need to be more strict with my food.  My weakness is dessert.  But, when I'm working out HARD, I'm much less likely to eat what isn't good for me.  I always think, "I didn't just work that hard to blow it by having a piece of cake."  

I like My Fitness Pal because it allows me to see how everything I put in my mouth mouth adds up and it makes me reconsider my gelato!  Of course, I will still eat it, just not as often! 

I hope this chart helps! Let me know! :) Do you use My Fitness Pal? 

The Impact and Effectiveness of Equity Focused Health Impact Assessment in Health Service Planning

This free ebook looks at the use of equity focused health impact assessment (EFHIA) on health service plans. It examines:

1. What are the direct and indirect impacts of EFHIAs conducted on health sector plans?
2. Does EFHIA improve the consideration of equity in the development and implementation of health sector plans?
3. How does EFHIA improve the consideration of equity in health planning?

Download PDF (3.5 Mb)

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Download EPUB (910Kb)

For iBooks and most e-readers

Download MOBI (1.2Mb)

For Kindles and Kindle apps

Download from Amazon

For Whispernet transfer N.B. Costs US $0.99

About the ebook

This ebook describes the use and evolution of health impact assessment (HIA) and EFHIA internationally and in Australia, how it has been used in relation to health service plans, examines its effectiveness and impacts on decision-making and implementation and examines several EFHIAs using case study and interpretive description methodologies.

This research shows that EFHIA has the potential to have both direct and indirect impacts on health service planning. These impacts are influenced by a broad range of factors however. The case studies in this ebook show that engagement with the EFHIA process and the extent to which EFHIA is regarded as a broader learning process are important factors that mediate the extent to which EFHIAs influence subsequent activities.

This research suggests that it is not possible to adequately describe the full range of impacts of EFHIA on decision-making and implementation without looking at perceptions about EFHIA’s effectiveness, in particular the perceptions of those involved in the EFHIA and those responsible for acting on its recommendations. These perceptions change over time, suggesting that future research on the effectiveness of HIA should look at the mechanisms by which this change occurs.

The ebook makes two theoretical contributions in the form of (i) a typology for HIAs and (ii) a conceptual framework for evaluating the impact and effectiveness of HIAs. This conceptual framework is tested for its applicability and refined.

The ebook and the accompanying publications were written to fulfil the requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health at the University of New South Wales.

Creamy Chocolate Overnight Oats

I love to cook my oats on the stove top, the taste and texture really is superior to those of microwaved porridge, but, let's be honest here. Cooking them the traditional way does take a bit more time. Most mornings, that extra time doesn't bother me at all. I'm an early bird (ok, maybe not, but I'd like to think that I am. However, I always set my alarm to the-whole-world's-still-fast-asleep-why-are-you-up o'clock, so what difference does it make?) and I don't mind spending some more time making my breakfasts taste good. But there comes a time in every 17-year-old's life when all you want to do is sleep. Well, several periods of time to be precise. When getting ready for school seems as impossible a task as climbing the highest mountains and when dozing off, sprawled out on the couch at 3 p.m., becomes a habit rather than an exception.  For me, one of those lazy sleep-cycles has just emerged and most days I just want to remain horizontal for as long as I can. What to do with the morning oats then? The oh-so-simple answer is; have them prepared the night before! Genius!

So why haven't you seen more of these über quick breakfasts on my Instagram then? Well to be honest, I've never really liked them, except for a recipe I tried a few months ago, for carrot cake overnight oats (from one of my best Instagram friends Meghan's blog! Thanks Meghs!) which I really liked. But yesterday, I decided to make a recipe of my own, just so that I could stay in bed for a few more (precious) minutes. Turns out that this recipe was actually so good that I have to share it with you guys! So here goes, Creamy Chocolate Overnight Oats!

Recipe:

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp. almond milk

1/4 cup plant-based yoghurt of choice

1 tbsp chia seeds

1-2 tbsp liquid sweetener of choice (I used about 2 tbsp of date purée)

1/2 tbsp cacao or unsweetened cocoa powder

A pinch of salt (optional, but I've found it really elevates the chocolate flavour)

How to:

1. Simply mix all of the ingredients in a bowl or a pretty jar, and stir until they're evenly combined. Put in the fridge for a few minutes, then take it out and stir again so that the chia seeds don't clump up. 

2. Let the oats sit in the fridge until they've thickened up, preferably overnight so you have your breakfast ready to go the next morning! Top with fresh fruit, nut butters or whatever you prefer. Eat, and relish the fact that you get to have chocolate for breakfast. Vegan, gluten-free, healthy and absolutely scrumptious chocolate oats.

MOVE IT for 30 MINUTES

Exercise does not have to be extreme to be effective.  When it comes to our health and fitness, it is not a competition, but a lifetime maintenance body program.  There may be those who have certain goals and need to perform above the maintenance requirement, but in general creating a healthy ROCKIN body can be accomplished by moving it for 30 minutes at least five days per week.  Most of us want to feel and look good in and out of clothes with a simple exercise routine that does not require leaping over tall buildings in single bounds and lifting hundreds of pounds of weight.  I am not knocking those doing the leaping, heavy lifting, or extreme sports with this Blog, but addressing the norm demographic of everyday people who just want to get healthy and look healthy.

Studies have shown that 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity such as brisk walking is sufficient to maintain a healthy body, and spread over time throughout the week.  It would be reduced to 75 hours per week if the exercise is vigorous like running or attending an aerobics class.  Also recommended is weight resistance training two days per week, and although the guidelines are not quite as thorough with duration on this one, I personally keep my weight training sessions to no more than 45 minutes including my warm up and stretch time.  What that means is if you move that body for 30 minutes five days per week while maintaining a healthy nutrition program, you will see results or maintain an already in shape physique.  Everyone has 30 minutes to give to their health regardless of any excuse thrown down on the table.  If health and fitness is a priority, the exercise will be a priority and that is the simple truth of it. 

The best part about getting our sweat on for 30 minutes is making it our own.  When we create physical activities that are enjoyable, that is what builds a lifestyle of physical activity.  If the outdoors suits your fancy, lace up the tennis shoes or hiking boots and find some fun trails, and if using cardio equipment while watching a show or listening to music floats your boat, that works just as well.  The heart muscle only understands the demands of exercise being placed on it, not what you are specifically doing if that is a question you are pondering.  Sweat is sweat, a mile is a mile, and 30 minutes is 30 minutes and what you do to increase the heart rate at a moderate level for that amount of time is up to you.  The point is to just MOVE IT!

It really comes down to getting back to the basics of exercise and keeping it simply fun, and a part of our everyday life.  The latest trend of extreme this or that, no pain means no gain, or work until you bleed program will never become the maintenance body program that will carry us from where we are now into our elder years. There is much controversy with these types of programs and some are used to fit specific athletic goals, but not what the laymen person is looking for to get healthy and overall improve quality of life.  I am trying to motivate everyone to just MOVE IT FOR 30 MINUTES as a start, and not get caught up in the hype of fad exercise movements that may look absolutely amazing, but are not the “only way” to achieve healthy results.  There lies the confusion of interpretation that the only way to achieve a smoking hot body is to do this type of new trend or fad workout.  Believing that there is only one way to achieve something creates a very boring world and variety is truly the “spice of life.”

Working in this industry for over 30 years, I have come to appreciate more and more the simplicity of health and fitness, and that it truly does not require as much time as one might think to be a healthy person.  I never exceed a one hour block of time in my workouts and often I am reduced to the “move-it for 30-minute” program because it fits with my work schedule.  As long as I challenge my body, it feels good, and I am focused on quality of movement, I am accomplished and start my day energized.  Getting caught up in the stress of what we think exercise is according to the media scares many off with feelings of intimidation and inadequacy, and stopping people before they even start.  Crap, some of the things I see scare me as well, but the thing to remember is not to believe everything you read or see, and stick to searching for what works for you.  Keep it simple, don’t stress or sweat the small stuff, and all of us do have the time to just MOVE IT for 30 MINUTES.

Thanks for stopping by my Blog, hope you enjoy the content, and if you have not become a follower yet, I would love to see your face on my friend's list.  If you are inspired, LIKE my entry, leave a comment and I look forward to responding!

Just What Is "Patient Engagement" in Health Care?

According to this paper by Barello et al in the Journal of Participatory Medicine, the muddled answer depends on when it was used as well as your professional background.

Using a densely written "lexicographic qualitative analysis" to dive into over 250 scientific papers, the authors found that the term has evolved and may still be in its infancy. When it first began to regularly appear about 15 years ago, the term "patient engagement" was used in behavioral and nursing contexts to describe a dimension of established one-on-one provider-patient care.  Since then, it's been used in a biomedical sense to portray a new relationship between a system and a patient.

The authors point out that how "engagement" is achieved depends on a spectrum of patient perspectives that range from unaware to really motivated.  The Population Health Blog suggests that one way to think about it may be the transtheoretical "readiness to change" model.

The one thing that has been missing in the scientific papers is the patients' perspective.  Ironically, no one has asked and cataloged their answers in any systemic manner.

Last but not least, it's unclear if real purpose of achieving patient "engagement" is greater autonomy, relationship-building, making health care more responsive, reducing costs, or improving public health.  As a result, it's a catchphrase has become all things to all people.

While this lacks the all-important input of folks like this and may also be an exercise in tautology, the Population Health Blog managed to extract something of a definition for the term: a span of cognitive processes that seeks participation, compliance, learning  and self-management in health care, including disease, prevention and health.

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Doubling Down on Accountable Care Organizations and Health Information Networks

Want to achieve effective health care, reduced costs, increased quality, population health, widespread prevention and seamless health information access? 

It's easy, says  this article in Population Health Management: mix one part PHO with one part HRB to create a HAPPI.

The Population Health Blog was confused too, but that's what's proposed by three smart academics from Johns Hopkins, Arizona State University and UC Berkeley.

As the PHB understands it, Population Health Organizations (PHOs) would be responsible for all medical, public health, community and social services in a defined geographic area and coordinate them with local education, housing and labor. Much of it would be paid for by a pooled risk-adjusted global or capitated payment (budget) from all insurers.

Each organization would be paired with a Health Record Bank (HRB), which would act as a huge data warehouse that not only stores all medical information, but any other publically available information on every individual enrolled in the PHO. The HRBs would be owned and operated by "trusted custodial organizations." Data access would be ultimately controlled by each patient.

The authors believe that patient payments would be a source of additional revenue for their PHOs. Examples include buying "apps" that are tailored to their individual health needs, or selling their personal health information, especially if it means helping physicians buy an electronic health record or access cutting edge research.

Combine a PHO and HRB and you have a Health and Prevention Promotion Initiative (HAPPI). Its size and scale would warrant contributions from community and provider organizations "without the need for additional reimbursement or outside funding." It would efficiently "align incentives" for insurers, hospitals and ACOs - with money left over for prevention, care coordination, decision support and a learning health system.

Breathtaking, isn't it?  If any PHB readers thought accountable care organizations (ACOs) and health information networks (HINs) weren't big enough, along comes Tyrannosaurus rex-sized PHOs, HRBs and HAPPIs. 

The PHB worries that while we'd want to see how pint-sized ACOs (not a slam dunk) and HINs (likewise not a slam dunk) perform before we apply the massive steroid doses, the opposite could happen: their messy failure could be just the justification for doubling down and going even bigger. 

As pointed out in a recent Wall Street Journal Notable and Quotable:

Economist Michael Munger writing in the Freeman, Aug. 11:

When I am discussing the state with my [academic] colleagues, it's not long before I realize that, for them, almost without exception, the State is a unicorn. I come from the Public Choice tradition, which tends to emphasize consequentialist arguments more than natural rights, and so the distinction is particularly important for me. My friends generally dislike politicians, find democracy messy and distasteful, and object to the brutality and coercive excesses of foreign wars, the war on drugs, and the spying of the NSA.

 

But their solution is, without exception, to expand the power of "the State." That seems literally insane to me—a non sequitur of such monstrous proportions that I had trouble taking it seriously.

 

Then I realized that they want a kind of unicorn, a State that has the properties, motivations, knowledge, and abilities that they can imagine for it. When I finally realized that we were talking past each other, I felt kind of dumb. Because essentially this very realization—that people who favor expansion of government imagine a State different from the one possible in the physical world—has been a core part of the argument made by classical liberals for at least three hundred years.

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Science of Nutrition Podcast

I recently did an interview with Seth Yoder, who has a master's degree in nutrition science and writes the blog The Science of Nutrition.  Seth caught my attention recently with his withering review of The Big Fat Surprise, the latest book to claim that ideological/incompetent scientists and public policy makers got the science of nutrition backward and we should all be eating low-carb, high-fat, high-meat diets.  I was impressed by how deeply Seth dug into the reference list, and how well he picked up on subtle but troubling misrepresentations of the evidence.

Last week, Seth and I got together at a local brewpub to do an interview.  We were joined by Carrie Dennett, an MPH/RDN who has a nutrition blog and writes for the Seattle Times.  I'd probably do a lot more interviews if I could ride my bike to them and have my interviewer buy me a drink.

Speaking of drinks, by the end of the interview I had a little buzz-- you might hear it in my voice if you listen closely.  As usual, I had plenty to say about body fat regulation, food reward, and other topics, with plenty of side trips to discuss particularly fascinating studies.  Also, the word of the day was 'compelling'.

Enjoy the interview!

THE FOOD JOURNAL DILEMMA

The dreaded food journal can be your best friend and accountability partner when it comes to implementing a healthy nutrition program.  I have heard it all when it comes to fitness and food journals and the love/hate relationship that keeping track of food intake can cause. The problem is really not the food journal, but it is the issue of not being honest with ourselves.  When life is going great and our program is on track, we gladly write down every healthy morsel placed in our face with a smile and will even share the exciting events that are producing the positive results.  

On the other side of that coin is the need to hide or even toss our journals to the curb as temptations to go “off plan” creep into the program.  It is almost as if we convince ourselves that being unhealthy is not happening if it is not written down in the journal.  Believe me, you can run but your body will not hide the consequences of unhealthy choices.  The fact is the food journal wants to know all the dirty little secrets whirling around in our heads: our thoughts, if we are having triggers, cycle approaching, crappy day, or anything else that may send us into an unhealthy eating pattern.  Often times using the food journal as an emotional outlet helps to resolve behaviors that may occur, and allows us to get back on track sooner than later.

Giving our food journal the stink eye for poor food choices is not where that stare should be placed.  Living a healthy lifestyle is a personal choice and responsibility that we all need to realize.  If our fitness programs are off track that is on each of us and we need to own the consequences of those choices.  Keeping secrets from our food journal does nothing to help in a positive way, and in fact will prevent us from reaching the goals of a healthy body.

We can come up with all kinds of reasons to not journal our food intake: pain in the ass, waste of time, it’s not working, controls me too much, refuse to feel micromanaged, and the list goes on.  The food journal needs to stop getting the bad rap for our poor food choices, and the fact that it is not working is about the dishonesty that is occurring when we cheat on the journals.  Studies have shown weight loss success and overall health improvement when food and fitness journals are in place.  It is our unwillingness to take our health seriously that prevents us from reaching our goals.  When we cheat on the food journal we only cheat ourselves and it is true “what we eat in private, we wear in public”. Also, we are walking bill boards of the type of life we live, healthy or unhealthy.

We have the choice to view the food journal as friend or foe, and that choice will determine how serious we want to reach our goals and live a healthy life.  If we view the food journal as a friend that will always be there and never let us down, the success rate of weight loss and overall health improvement would increase by a great margin.  I believe it is time to do what we can to be accountable to a healthy lifestyle and although it may be difficult to see the real stuff behind our choices when we journal, it is necessary to make the changes that will get us going in a healthy direction.  Friends should be able to offer constructive criticism and have it be accepted in a positive way without defensiveness.  The food journal is there to do that very thing: show you what has gone wrong, where you can improve, and ultimately help you make better choices for living a healthy lifestyle. 

Heather Agnew Photography

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Stay Healthy!

Darla

Mint Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Dry:

1/3 cup buckwheat flour

2 tbsp. coconut flour

1 tsp. baking powder

Wet:

1 chia egg (1 tbsp. ground or whole chia seeds + 3 tbsp. water)

1 small banana, mashed

1/3 cup almond milk

Mint:

1 tsp. matcha green tea powder

½ tsp. wheatgrass powder

A few drops of peppermint oil or extract (adjust amount according to strength and preference)

Chocolate Chip:

½ tbsp. cacao or carob powder

¼ Squarebar (optional) or ½ tbsp. cacao nibs

How to:
1. First, stir all the dry ingredients together with a fork, to make sure the baking powder is evenly incorporated into the batter. 
2. Prepare your chia egg by grinding your chia seeds either by hand or using a coffee grinder. You could leave them whole but then they’ll take longer to thicken so I prefer doing it this way. 
3. Mix the ground seeds with water, stir and leave to thicken.

4. Mash your (ripe!) banana, fold it into the flour mix along with the other wet ingredients and stir until no clumps remain. 
5. Transfer ½ of the mixture to another bowl, set that aside and mix the rest with the carob or cacao powder. If you want chocolate chips in your pancakes, fold in ¼ of a chopped Squarebar/ ½ tbsp. raw cacao nibs/ 1 tbsp. chopped dark chocolate.

6. In the other bowl, mix the other half of the batter with matcha powder, wheatgrass powder and peppermint extract. Now we have both our chocolate chip and our mint pancakes!

7. Fry the pancakes over medium to high heat for a couple of minutes on each side. Stack, drizzle with chocolate sauce (the one I used is just 1 tbsp chocolate peanut butter thinned out with a splash of almond milk) and add whatever toppings you want!

Minty-breath-kisses, Tilda ;)