Happy Halloween

Thank you all for working so hard this week. Happy Halloween and be safe at whatever you are doing. Have a great weekend!

Peppered Swordfish with Cardamom-Carrot Sauce
Serves 4
1 teaspoon cardamom pods
3/4 cup carrot juice
1 1/2 teaspoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon sugar
salt, to taste
1 pound boned, skinned swordfish or halibut
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
1 tablespoon minced fresh chives (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 400° F.
2. Crush cardamom pods; remove seeds.
3. In a l-to-1 l/2-quart pan, mix cardamom, carrot juice, rice vinegar, cornstarch,and sugar until well blended. Stir over high heat until mixture boils; reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced to 1/2 cup, 7 to 9 minutes.Cover pan and remove from heat; let stand 5 to 10 minutes. Taste, and add salt and more vinegar if desired. Pour sauce through a fine strainer into a bowl.
4. Meanwhile rinse fish, pat dry, and cut into 4 equal portions. Rub fish with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt. Set a 10-to-12-inch nonstick frying pan (with oven proof handle) over high heat. When pan is hot, add fish and turn as needed to brown on both sides, 2 to 3 minutes total. Sprinkle black pepper evenly over fish.
5. Put pan in oven; bake until fish is opaque but still moist-looking in the center of the thickest part (cut to test), 5 to 7 minutes.
6. Transfer fish to rimmed plates. Spoon sauce evenly around fish, and sprinkle with chives.

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 171 FAT 5.7 g (saturated 1.4 g) PROTEIN 23 g SODIUM 116 mg FIBER 1 g CARBOHYDRATE 5.5 g

Telling It Like It Is

Getting in shape is all about setting goals. Losing weight, building muscle, and ditching those unhealthy eating habits can be hard. You're dealing with some major lifestyle changes here. When you decide what you want, make it specific and concrete. For example, don't just say that you want to "lose weight." Ask yourself some questions. How much weight? Is weight loss really the most important thing? Is it more important that you climb your front steps with ease or lower your body-fat ratio? Think hard about what you want, and use a journal to keep track of your goals.

Knowledge Is Power

Identifying the issues that cause you to overeat is the first step, one of the most crucial. This information will empower you to find healthy, affirming behaviors to replace those self-defeating habits. Whatever your downfalls might have been in the past, there is a way to deal with them in the present. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but you have to hang in there.

Exorcise

What kind of emotional demons are lurking in your or refrigerator? Well, it's time to find out and exorcise them once and for all. To succeed where you have failed, sometimes you have to take a step back, in terms of reaching your goal weight, "stepping back" means reviewing past and current self-defeating behaviors to identify where you got stuck, discouraged, or overwhelmed.

Here are several of the most common causes of overeating. These may be the excuses that are familiar to you.

1. EMOTION Do you overeat as a coping mechanism, to numb suffering, allay fears, combat loneliness.

2. REWARD Do you eat to reward yourself whenever you've done a good job on something?

3. SEEKING ACCEPTANCE Do you overeat because you're seeking social acceptance? Do you eat fattening foods at parties in order not to offend the host?

Be Proud Now

Don't wait until you reach your ultimate goal to pat yourself on the back, be proud now. Just taking the first step, working as hard as you are and reaching out for help is something to be proud of. And every achievement along the way should be rewarded. You deserve it!

Pacific Rim Chicken and Pork
Serves 10 (serving size is about 1/2 cup)

cooking spray (olive or canola oil preferred)
1 (1-pound) pork tenderloin, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 (12-ounce) bottle rice vinegar
7 ounces fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth
7 garlic cloves, crushed1 bay leaf

1. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add pork pieces; cook 4 minutes, browning all sides.
2. Add soy sauce, water, peppercorns, chicken, vinegar, broth, garlic, and bay leaf; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour.
3. Uncover and increase heat to medium-high; simmer 20 minutes or until liquid is slightly syrupy. Discard bay leaf.

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 104 FAT 4.2 g PROTEIN 23.7 g SODIUM 328 mg FIBER .3 g CARBOHYDRATE 1.7 g

Creature of Habit Pt. 3

If you tend to blow off your workouts until your vacation rolls around, or there's some other event, like a wedding, my best advise is to ease yourself back into your daily workouts. Without commitment, you won't be able to achieve the goals you truly desire. Put your life in perspective. Everything is a choice, from how you feel when you wake up in the morning to whether or not you floss your teeth at night. To make the right choices, you need to ask the right questions: What is my true goal, and how are the choices I'm making going to help me achieve that goal?

Creature of Habit Pt. 2

If you judge yourself every time you're in front of a mirror, try focusing on the things you love about yourself. When was the last time you looked in the mirror and told yourself how great your features are and how beautiful you look?

If you're constantly looking to the media for celebrity fitness trends, try finding more realistic role models, real people who've lost weight or achieved other goals similar to yours. They will be the most inspiring. Start paying attention to people you know.

Creature of Habit

Don't lose hope or beat yourself up over it if you're having trouble breaking bad habits. It's not that easy to change your ways. Just keep trying.
Start by replacing old habits with new ones. The key is to learn how to take care of and pamper yourself in ways that are life affirming, not self-destructive. Learn how to deal with sabotaging emotions by establishing some healthy patterns of behavior and investing in your physical and emotional well-being.

Fill Up on Fiber Pt.2

So fiber can help keep you regular and make you feel full. The FDA also considers it to be a powerful fighter against cancer, diabetes, and heart disease as well as digestive disorders and obesity.
As a general rule, you should eat as many veggies and as much salad as you possibly can (dressing is on the side) because this will make you feel full and keep you from overeating other, more fattening foods. Fill up.

Shrimp, Broccoli, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes with Pasta
Serves 4 (serving size is 2 cups)
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, packed without oil
1/2 cup boiling water
3 cups uncooked farfalle (bow-tie pasta)
11/2 cups chopped broccoli
cooking spray
1 garlic clove, minced
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined1/2 cup fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth1/2 cup (4 ounces) fat-free cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 cup reduced-fat Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1. Place tomatoes and boiling water in a bowl. Cover and let stand 30 minutes or until tender; drain and chop.
2. Meanwhile cook pasta according to package directions, omitting any added salt or fat. Drain.
3. Steam broccoli, covered, 4 minutes or until crisp-tender. Set aside.
4. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cookingspray. Add garlic to pan; sauté 30 seconds. Add shrimp; cook 4 minutes. Addbroth and cream cheese, stirring to combine; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, andsimmer 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, broccoli, and basil; stir well. Cook 2 minutesor until thoroughly heated, stirring frequently. Remove from heat. Stir in pasta,Parmesan, and lemon juice. Serve immediately.

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 427 FAT 3 g PROTEIN 39.8 g SODIUM 862 mg FIBER 5.6 g CARBOHYDRATE 58.7g

I've never known a man worth his salt who, in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline.-- Vince Lombardi

Fill Up on Fiber

How do you know if you're getting enough fiber in your diet? There are a couple of pretty obvious symptoms if you're not:

You should be having at least three bowel movements a week. If not, chin up and try adding more fiber-filled foods, like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, to your diet.

You're hungry a lot. Well, you could be hungry for a number of reasons, including emotional ones, but fiber is also a legitimate suspect. Fiber helps you feel full, and if you're not getting that warm, fuzzy feeling of fullness, it may be because you need to eat more fruits, veggies, and whole grains.

The Right Exercises

Now that you know how your upper- and lower-leg muscles function, it's time to find exercises that will work them properly. To train the quads, choose any squat variation as you know there are tons. Hamstrings get a great workout with pelvic thrust exercises and on leg curl machines. Want to hit both the quads and the hamstrings with one exercise? Do any lunge variation.

Calorie Countdown Pt. 3

Checking the information on the label can be frustrating and confusing at first, but now that you know to do it, you will never miscount calories again. You'll also be able to make changes and adjustments so that you stay within the guidelines of your personal caloric intake. Don't let misleading packaging screw with your diet. Fight back by educating yourself and actually reading the labels.

Calorie Countdown Pt. 2

Remember that calories are usually listed per serving, NOT per container. Be sure to read the fine print because those marketing people can really be tricky. For instance, on the label of a pint of ice cream, you might discover that there are roughly 300 calories per serving and 4 servings per container, meaning that this pint contains a whopping total of 1,200 calories while the front of the container trumpets that it has fewer calories that its competitor.

Happy Friday!!!

Here is a quick treat that will keep your tummy from rumbling. Have a great weekend and stay active.

Low-Fat Low-Carb Turkey Wrap
Serves 1

1 large leaf green lettuce1/4 teaspoon mustard
2 slices low-sodium oven-roasted turkey breast2 slices tomato
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Lay the lettuce leaf flat, and evenly spread mustard on it. Lay down the turkey and tomato. Season with pepper to taste. Tightly roll up the lettuce leaf and enjoy.

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 32 FAT 1 g PROTEIN 6.2g SODIUM 103 mg FIBER .4g CARBOHYDRATE 2.8 g

Calorie Countdown

Reading food labels can help you make smart food choices that'll contribute to your healthy diet, but are you sure you know how to calculate the calories of the food you're eating?
Start by checking the serving size and the number of servings in a package. Serving sizes are standardized and measured into units such as cups (and sometimes "pieces"), which makes it easier to assess the information, so you don't have to squint at labels for hours on end.

Out of Sight, Out of Mouth

Usually we're so wrapped up in our problems that we can't see how simple it is to solve them. Some one who drives to work every day past a doughnut shop, sure enough, they would find themselves stopping there constantly. By simply taking another route to work, just to eliminate the temptation would give the result of weight loss, maybe two pounds in a week just from this simple change in a daily routine.

Be Prepared

Now that you've decided to lose weight, think of yourself as being on a mission. The key to success is having a game plan for every situation that might throw you off course. This stuff isn't brain surgery, it's common sense. If you take the time to think ahead, you can come up with ways to combat every situation. Here are a few surefire strategies:
Go through your kitchen and throw out all the junk food and processed garbage immediately. Don't buy these foods anymore, just eliminate them from your kitchen entirely. You are better off not eating that stuff. Reacquaint yourself with your local supermarket, find the healthy sections, and try to avoid foods that make you feel powerless.
If food in the office is your downfall, steer clear of it entirely. Take a different route and avoid the vending machines, or the frightfully fattening foods in the cafeteria. Bring healthy snacks and meals from home to stash in your desk. Do whatever you can to stay away from anything that might throw you off course and hamper your success.

Setting Daily Goals

You can't achieve success if you are not moving toward something, so before you do anything else, you have to establish both short- and long-term goals. Need some motivation? Here are examples of what you can accomplish today:
Make NO EXCUSES!
Stay on track
To work harder than yesterday...I was a little easy on myself yesterday
NO BAD SNACKS TODAY!
PUSH it on the elliptical
No cheating — chocolate is a killer when it's sitting right in front of you
Check out a martial arts course, Krav Maga, tonight
Plan dinner (because it's a busy night and when it gets busy what is not thought of is...dinner)
Not to procrastinate with my circuit exercises
Drink water instead of soda
What short-term goal can you commit to right now that will help you reach your larger goals?

Why Buy Fresh? Pt.3

Local farmers often feature more varieties of individual types of produce than the supermarket. You'll probably find more kinds of greens rarer types of fruits and vegetables, as well as some other things you don't usually see in the mass-produced aisles of the supermarket, like homemade cheeses, honeys, and granolas.

Why Buy Fresh? Pt.2

At the farmers' market fruits and veggies that are seasonal, this means that the farmers are harvesting them at the peak of their natural season and the height of their taste. Another benefit to shopping for produce by seasonality is that you get variety built into your shopping list because you're not choosing the same old thing available to you at the supermarket all the time.