Posts tagged health

It’s summer, Christmas was yesterday, and it’s time to get back into healthy eating. Do you know what that means? Salad! Now contrary to popular belief, I have found that you DO make friends with salad; for once The Simpsons were wrong. Everyone loves a salad. You’re body loves a salad. What more could you want? Every lunch I eat salad. Salad, salad, salad. I feel healthier, lighter, happier, and I am still able to fuel myself for the rest of the day and for training. Here’s how I do it:

1. Portion control: measure and weigh all your food
2. Party with variety: have different salad/veggies, dressings every day. This way you’re getting a variety of nutrients and you don’t get bored.
3. Protein: have protein with every meal. For lunch I aim for 100grams of protein.
4. Plan ahead: prepare all your meals in advance. Don’t leave anything to chance.
5. Pot of tea: wash it down with a herbal tea. It will help you feel full and aid digestion. Try green tea, peppermint tea, chamomile tea, lemongrass and ginger etc.

My set salad veg, avocado, carrot (absent: 2 hard-boiled eggs. They were boiling away.)

I always base my salads around a set salad veg. This makes it easier when my sister, Steph and I do our shopping for the week, we always know what to get…

Le Salade Base:

• Handful of baby spinach / handful of baby spinach + rocket / handful of mixed lettuce
• ½ tomato diced
• 6 slices of cucumber, halved 

Then decide what kind of salad it will become (dun, dun, dunnn) Add: 100grams of protein, extra veggies + salad dressing. Here are some ideas…

Le Salade Varieties: 

Chicken, mushrooms, capsicum, + seeded mustard + white vinegar

Tuna, cottage cheese, olives + drizzle balsamic vinegar

Chicken, avocado, Cajun seasoning, coriander + drizzle lemon/lime juice

Tuna, kiwi fruit + drizzle orange juice

Tuna, low-cal fetta, beetroot + salt ‘n pepper

Low-cal fetta, beetroot, walnuts + drizzle extra virgin olive oil

2 hard-boiled eggs, avocado, carrot + salt ‘n pepper

2 hard-boiled eggs, asparagus, green beans + balsamic vinegar

Pumpkin, chickpeas, coriander + olive oil + salt ‘n pepper

5 bean mix, avocado, Cajun seasoning, coriander + drizzle lemon/lime juice

Kangaroo fillet, snow peas, capsicum + ketjap manis + soy sauce + rice wine vinegar + chilli

Kangaroo fillet, carrot + dijon mustard + white vinegar

Lamb, low-calorie fetta + salt ‘n pepper

Chicken, capsicum, carrot, snow pea sprouts + teriyaki sauce + chilli

Chicken, red kidney beans, corn, salsa + cumin + turmeric + paprika + salt ‘n pepper

Tuna, potato, olives + oregano + lemon juice + extra virgin olive oil

Kangaroo, green beans, carrot + teriyaki sauce + rice wine vinegar + chilli

Tuna, carrot + salt ‘n pepper + white vinegar

So now get out there. Go make friends with salad… and you get to receive these comments that will make you smile…

“Oh you’re having salad again?”, “what is that, is that lettuce?”, “are you eating…an egg?”

Embrace le salade

A healthy dessert creation and review

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa was generous and kind and didn’t tempt you with too many sugary treats!

Today’s blog post is going to be a family Christmas affair. it is Christmas and I am going to involve my family; whether they like it or not! I’m so caring. For Christmas this year one of the awesome presents I received was a popsicle mould. Mum was a little sneaky and knew I had been searching for one for myself whilst Christmas shopping, and had managed to find me the coolest one of all; popsicle moulds shaped like little one eyed monsters!

So today’s blog is me taking my new popsicle moulds out for their first spin! But what flavours do I put in them? You can freeze anything! So which flavours are going to be the best kind of flavours both for health wise and taste reasons. As it is Christmas and I am spending time with my beautiful family, I am employing them to taste test my popsicles! It’s a tought job, but someones gotta do it.

I have divided them up into two categories: milky kinda popsicles and non-milky kinda popsicles. Sounds technical doesn’t it. Each popsicle is about 100ml so I have worked out the calorie count of each icy treat to that.

First there are the non-milky kinda popsicles:

1. Pepsi Max-icle (1cal)
2. Fizzy lemon, lime and bitters-icle (2cals)
3. Organic orange juice-icle (40cals)
4. Green tea-ice (0cal)

Then, there were the milky kinda popsicles:

1. Chocolate protein-icle (1 scoop BSC hydroxycut protein. 77cals)
2. Vanilla protein-icle (1 scoop BSC Womens protein. 82cals)
3. Homemade no-fat natural yoghurt with banana-icle (100cals)
4. Homemade no-fat natural yoghurt with almonds and honey-icle (216cals)

So please welcome to the Beautiful Fighta blog stage my Dad, Bob, my Mum, Lesley, and my sister, Steph.

Taste test time! Yew! Non-milky popsicles:

                                      Bob       Lesley       Steph       Me       PLACING

Pepsi Max-icle                        4              2               4              2                3

Lemon Lime, Bitters-icle    3.5            4.5            3              4.5             2

Orange Juice-icle                   4.5          4               4               4               1

Green tea-icle                          2             1               2               1               4

Final Result: our very scientific findings (haha) found that we all liked the OJ-icles the best, for texture and taste as it was almost like a sorbet. At only 40 calories they are not too much of a dint, but if you’re worried about you’re calorie count then the lemon, lime and bitters came a very close second as it was very refreshing and had a touch of nice sweetness. The pepsi max had good flavour but you need to like cola and the flavour disappears quite quickly. The green tea lost all it’s flavour when it froze.

Now for the Milky-kinda Popsicles:

                                     Bob      Lesley      Steph      Me     PLACING

Chocolate Protein-icle             3.5             1                3            3              3    

Vanilla Protein-icle                  3.5             1                3            2              4

Yoghurt and Banana-icle         4              2                3            3.5            2

Yoghurt, Almond, Honey-icle  5              4                4            4              1

Final result: hands-down the whole family enjoyed the Natural Yoghurt with Almond and honey the best but all were conscious of the calorie count. We all decided that if we were to do it again we would combine the recipe of the almond and banana popsicles by adding honey or sweetener (eg. Stevia) to the Yoghurt, Banana-icle. By adding honey to the Now-Fat Natural Yoghurt and Banana-icle it brings the calorie count to about 140cals, by adding just stevia it would stay around 100cals. Mum and Dad don’t eat protein powder and Mum hated it (hehe), she found it powdery and felt it tasted like raw flour, blah.

So I actually found these “scientific” results quite different to what I thought. I’m looking forward to making a batch at home and when I’m craving a cold, summery, sweet treat really bad I will pull out my OJ or Lemon, Lime and Bitters popsicle! Nom. What flavours can you create?

Kat x

It’s Christmas Eve!! Santa comes tonight!! However, I ain’t leaving Santa no milk and cookies, I’m leaving him celery and natural peanut butter. Protein and greens Santa, protein and greeeens.

This is one of the best times of the year. It’s hot, and sunny and we get to spend awesome times with family and friends. My family is a very close family and I don’t think we have ever spent a Christmas apart. However, because we love each other’s company so much we do tend to get a little over excited when we see each other; and when I say over excited I mean we eat and drink way too much. Does laughing too hard cancel either of those out? No? Oh well, we try anyway…

I love my family but sometimes when I’m training a lot or working towards a fight I do find these times so hard. To train hard I have to make sure I am putting the right fuels into my body, and putting in the wrong thing even if it’s miniscule, you do feel it. There have been times around family birthdays, but I’m trying to drop weight for a fight; oh man that sucks so bad! It’s hard to be around the people you love and they are all having a wonderful time enjoying each other’s company, drinking, eating platefuls of food, and chocolate. I used to get a little bit of pressure from them, but now they are incredibly supportive of my goals, and my choices. They worry if my training, life balance is a bit out of whack, but that’s just because they love me.

Luckily this Christmas I don’t have to be incredibly careful watching what I eat, but I don’t want to be too silly, as I am fighting at the end of January and February. My last fight was two weeks ago, and I’m just coming back into training now after two weeks of rest, and when I say rest I mean NO training, more sleeping, and a few more carbs! It was nice, good times, good times. Now, these ‘good times resting’ did result in me putting on a kilo, dammit. Overall, that’s not too bad really. There are a lot of fighters that put on 5-10kg and I’m nowhere near that. Yay. I do want to stay small as I’m fighting at 54kilos at the end of February and my trainer suggested fighting smaller. That. Will be. Tough.

So, to get through this holiday season, enjoy my time with my family, and keep working towards my fitness goals, I am going to set myself Christmas goals. JINGLE GOALS! I am going to be proud of myself on Christmas day, and after it. No matter what…

My Christmas goals:

• I will drink my normal 2-3 litres of water per day
• I will train every day
• I will still eat my normal 5 small meals per day in the Christmas lead up and post Christmas wind down and prepare things in advance (eg. To have my silent snack assassin almond stash in my bag)
• I will still eat clean; whole foods, fruit, vegies, protein, avoid the things I don’t eat anyway like sugar! And on Christmas Day, to NOT overindulge on sugar. (It gives me heart palpatations. Does it stop me from eating it? Ummm no)
• I will serve myself small servings, no more than I normally eat.
• When I’m full I will push my plate away.
• I will be proud of myself, my eating and my training after Christmas day
• I will still be focused and disciplined with my training and the fuel I put into my body
• I will enjoy my time with my family, not be over-obsessive about my food and training, and have an nice even balance around Christmas time
• I will train hard leading right up to Christmas day. Every second counts.
• I will get up early and train Christmas morning, and enjoy the beautiful Christmas morning outside. Have you ever been out Christmas morning? It’s so quiet!
• I will have a Christmas Day afternoon siesta. It has to be done. Therefore it gets a goal.

So take that, Santa! Have a face full of these instead…

I’ve got abs to look after…