Running

Long Distance Running: Great for your body, soul, endurance, and overall health and happiness? Or unnatural, knee destroying waste of time? This topic is hugely debated but let me throw in what is sure to be first installment of many on my two cents.

I haven’t run more than 3 full miles at one time since I hobbled past the finish line at a half-marathon in China, back in May. After 13.1 miles, a few of which were downhill stone steps, my knee completely blew out and I have yet to recover. While I didn’t initially swear off running, I was unable to run more than 100 meters for at least a month after the race, and now continue feel pain once I hit mile 2.5. Over the past 5 months my brain decided that long distance running is, in fact, completely unnatural  and only contributes to major joint problems down the line, but today I read an article that contested that thought.

Read me!

Hmmm…Maybe I should go back to why I started running in the first place: camaraderie, exploring new areas, an activity with friends that doesn’t involve eating out/drinking, etc., instead of focusing on the exercise aspect.

ALSO: watch out for the tidbit on why, yes, humans SHOULD eat meat (hormone free, grass fed, vegetarian fed, free range, non-commercial, etc.). Our ancestors ate meat millions of years ago and it is what helped us to become strong and powerful and super brainy. People who are vegetarian solely based on the fact that meat is unhealthy and contributes to diseases are looking at the issue entirely wrong (IMO). I’m not talking about people who are morally against killing animals for food, btw, totally different. Our ancestors didn’t eat industrialized and super processed meat, they ate what they hunted! Of course weirdo meat is going to do weirdo things to your body and the environment. But good, healthy, humanely raised and not to mention WAY more delicious meat deserves an A+.

Process This

It’s an incredibly frightening truth that the majority of what Americans eat these days are highly processed. Below is a cool excerpt of an article posted on Marion Nestle’s blog calling attention to the fact that eating processed food is terrible for one’s health and is a leading factor in obesity and disease.

Next time you sit down for a meal try to think about how much of what you’re eating is REAL food, and how much has been messed with beyond all recognition. It could change your life.

The food movement’s new frontier: “ultra-processing”

I love this part: The editorial argues that nutritionists’ focus on nutrients, rather than foods, has led to the assumption that if foods contain the same nutrients, they are the same—even though it is never possible to replicate the nutritional content of foods because too much about their chemical composition is still unknown.

Food created to resemble food is not what we should be living on! I know it’s difficult to eat what we should be eating considering how f’d up our access to proper food is, but with a little effort it’s possible and sosososososo worth it.

Matilda

Not so good iPhone shot Part I

Cleanse: after a weekend, er, months of debauchery, today calls for some massive juice flushing (gross?). This stuff is divine and Liquiteria owns a little piece of my heart.

Mr. Green: carrot, apple, beet, ginger, green superfood (spirulina, blue-green algae, chlorella, oat/barley/wheat grass) & liver-kidney detox (burdock, yellow dock and oregon grape roots, dandelion, red clover blossom, nettles, red root & ginger). Delish!

Wait, what? I’m TORN: http://gawker.com/5675624/juice-cleanses-the-truth-is-out-there

Ok so maybe the juice is just a placebo, but hey, it made me feel good and clean and revitalized so $15.00 later in juice, I’m a happy camper…….PLUS I followed it up with this wholesome goodness which I highly reccomend:

Hummus and cucumbers from Sahadi’s in Brooklyn. Heaven on Earth and a great place to buy nuts in bulk (thanks Laura!).

OH yeah, reason for the juicing in the first place, I made this cake weekend (as well as lemon bars and chocolate chip cookies from Ad Hoc At Home). I’m calling it the Matilda cake….

 

Not so good iPhone shot part II

The recipe is adapted from Smitten Kitchen and by adapted I mean I didn’t have enough sugar so I used 3 cups white sugar and half a cup brown sugar, AND I didn’t have enough buttermilk so i added a few extra tablespoons of oil. Good thing cakes, unlike cookies, aren’t so sensitive to the ebbs and flows of molecular gastronomy. Turned out great and HUGE (and all organic!!). The frosting is a simple ganache (not the one from Smitten Kitchen) made with organic heavy cream and dark chocolate disks from Jacques Torres: Put cream over medium-low heat until it begins to simmer. Before it boils, pour it over 16 oz of chocolate (any kind depending on how sweet you want it). Let chocolate and cream sit for 1-2 minutes, and then stir until it looks like gooey ganache.

what up.

 

Happy National Oatmeal Day (yesterday!).

Steel Cut Oat's Cousin, Rolled Oats.

Um, when did so many random foods start getting their own days, and who exactly brought them into existence? Whatevs, let’s celebrate:

Whipped Banana Sucanat Oatmeal (2-4 servings)

1 C Steel Cut Oats

3 C water

1 Large Ripe Banana

1 Generous Pinch Sea Salt

2 Tablespoons Sucanat

Put oats and water in a pot and cook on low heat for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. When oats look about ready, add banana slices and whip furiously until banana dissapears. Mix in salt, top with sucanat, add any additions/toppings, enjoy!…or make a huge batch and keep in the fridge for easy oat access.

Veggie Additions: Whip in some pumpkin puree OR use a hand blender to incorporate shredded carrots/zucchini (a la carrot cake/zucchini bread)
Topping Suggestions: Chopped Walnuts/Pecans/Almonds, Butter

Why Steel Cut Oats? They are (most often) a grain that is left intact. Intact grains pack a way bigger nutritional punch then their processed counterparts and maintain the fiber, nutrients and vitamins (E!) that they were created with. As soon as you start grinding grains and milling them to pieces, you start to lose tiny amounts of wonderfulness that will make you strong and healthy.

Why Sucanat? Sucanat, or sugar cane natural, is pure dried cane juice and is not processed or refined. Woo!

Sneaky and Brilliant

It’s all about presentation, yo.

Woah, that was a while

Ok. Hi. I’m back.

Reason for abandonment: 5 month love affair with everything and everyone in New York/CA.

Television and Wandering

People who pick up and move to a foreign country experience many of the same culture shocks. New language, new food, new customs, etc. Dealing with these culture shocks can be extremely difficult and coping methods can often fail, but there is one tried and true system that works time and time again. LOADS OF TV SHOWS.

Literally everyone I know who has lived abroad has gotten addicted to countless TV shows. Maybe it’s all the free time? The need to be transported somewhere else for a few hours? All I know is that I somehow and somewhat scarily went through all of the following:

Dexter seasons (1-4), Californication (1-3), How I Met Your Mother (1-5), Prison Break (1-4), Gossip Girl (1-3), True Blood (1-2), United States of Tara (1-2), stayed up to date on The Office and 30 Rock, and watched tons of Seinfeld/Curb Your Enthusiasm. I’m sure I’m forgetting something here.

I mean I only work 10-12 hours a week I can’t be reading books and doing productive things ALL the time. =)

All this TV nonsense, Insanity + weight training, cooking, trying to eat more protein and wandering aimlessly has really kept me sane/happy and funnily enough is exactly what I do at home. Culture shock coping mechanisms to the rescue. As much as I really want to immerse myself in Chinese culture, as humans we ARE tribal beings, and sometimes I just miss my tribe ok??

Today’s protein conquest:

Egg White Pumpkin Banana Cinnamon Oats with a side of egg whites

+ Insanity and upper body weight training

+ New show = The Tudors….amazingly spicy scenes goin on…have I mentioned that China is holding my sex drive hostage?

+ Wandering (the result of my wandering was documenting different common Chinese snacks that I had to stop eating months ago because they were making me gain massive amounts of depression inducing weight….more on that tomorrow).

Miles of Tofu

Yikes…spicy as hell =) but loaded with MSG

Steam Shack

What you get at the Steam Shack

Chinese bread is really sweet! The most common of these is the “bao zi” on the top left. Filled with meat. Damn I used to love these things. One Chinese slang i learned recently is saying “ni shi bao zi.” Ni shi = you are, bao zi = steamed stuff bun, ni shi bao zi = you are fat. Ha! True story.

Limitless options at the Drink Shop

You can get ANY sort of drink you could ever imagine here. Any fruit flavored drink, coffee, tea, topped with red beans, tapioca balls, jello, ice cream, you name it. An old favorite:

Taro Shake with Red Beans

This actually isn’t so bad for you considering its 80% ice and has beans on top! And on a hot China summer day, these frappacino like “sha bings” (which literally translates to sand ice) are LIFESAVERS because holy hell, China gets HOTTTTTTTTTTT.

Spicy Chinese Pancake

This snackage right here was probably the most offensive thing I’ve ever done to my body. This is basic dough, flattened, covered in spices and MSG (I saw the dude pouring it on) and practically deep fried.

Frying Contraption

People really love this stuff here and I completely understand why—it’s delicious and SO addicting. Dangerous territory since the MSG keeps you wanting more and more and more and more……

And then there is salvation:

Fruit Stand

These fruit stands are EVERYWHERE in China. I hit this place up multiple times a day. Wo xi huan shui guo = I like fruit.

Anyway, enough of this rainy day off randomness…time for me to go out and wander/explore the streets of China yet again. I only have 4 days left (4 days!!) so I’m sure that I’ll be doing lots of reflections on health/depression/exercise/fun Chinese things so stay tuned!

Killing Time

Well, turns out that time does NOT fly when you’re waiting to pack and go back to your home country after being in the strangest of lands for 11 months. I’m driving myself nuts with nothing to do and with planning everything that I want to do when I get back! I’d reproduce my list here, but that would just ruin any and all surprises now wouldn’t it? =)

Very excited though, my new Nikes arrived safe and sound at my mom’s house in Northern CA…..funny that they were made and shipped not too far from me in China…GOOD thing they’re ready for me because the things that I’ve been wearing on my feet for Insanity the past two weeks barely resemble shoes anymore.

So instead of rambling on about going here, or here, or making some of these, I’ll post an AWESOME dish that I made tonight. A while back I made Pad Thai, which was loosely based on this version from NYTimes (it had to be China-fied) and inspired by my trip to Thailand. I still have tons of leftover ingredients that I need to use up! The Pad Thai sauce seemed like it would be excellent as a marinade/glaze, so I threw it on some tofu, cooked up some bok choy and was very very pleased with the Thailand meets China outcome.

Pad Thai, China Style

Pad Thai Style Tofu (makes 4 servings):

1/4 cup oyster or fish sauce (I used oyster)

2 tablespoons vinegar (I used apple cider, but rice vinegar would be better)

2 heaping tablespoons brown sugar (honey also works here…about 1/3 C)

8 quarter inch blocks of firm and pressed tofu

1 tablespoon red pepper flakes

1/2 cup chopped peanuts

1/4 cup Chinese chives or scallions

8 heads of baby Bok Choy

1. Add oyster/fish sauce, vinegar and brown sugar or honey to a small sauce pan and stir over low heat until it thickens slightly and sugar has melted.

2. In a sprayed or oiled pan on medium heat, add the tofu blocks 2 at a time and cook on each side for 1 minute, then spoon or brush sauce  over tofu (1 tbsp per side) and cook on each side for another 1-2 minutes.

4. Serve over steamed bok choy or any leafy green, and garnish with red pepper flakes, chopped peanuts and chopped chives/scallions.

Delish!!!

Days until CA: 7

Chinese Food and Anatomy Lessons

So the other day I came up with a strategy to not over eat and feel too full at Chinese restaurants. Well, last night my friends and I had a huge last dinner/karaoke outing together (since some people are heading back to the US soon) and instead of sticking to my plan like I should have, I ate my ass off. DAMN you MSG. Anyway, here’s a look at some authentic Chinese food!

Bucket o' Rice

Some of my favorite Chinese dishes:

Eggplant and Green Beans

Steamed Pumpkin

Bowl of Perfection

Glass Noodles and Cabbage (with fried eggs hiding on the bottom)

Cauliflower

Random Green Stuff

Here’s some of the meaty-ness that I skipped over:

Pork and Peppers

Since everything in China is cooked in animal fat anyway, I DID eat some of the peppers out of here which were INSANELY hot. It didn’t hit me until after a few mouthfuls and my mouth was seriously on fire. HOLY HELL. I don’t think I mentioned that Hunan Province (where I live) is famous for super super spicy food. mMMm.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Fish and Tofu

Beef Dish (somewhat fajita like), Fish and S&S Chicken

Empty Rice

I’m somewhat pleased that I was able to get over my fear of Chinese food for one night and just not care. Felt kind of nice to not stress out about it. I’m also glad I’m getting the chance to show you some authentic Chinese food!

One of the highlights of dinner was our discussion of the English language and balls. Yeah, those kinda balls. It started with us saying “it’s hot as balls in here,” which led to us talking about how English is crazy interesting since you can really make up anything you want and native speakers will probably understand you (i.e. adding -y to the end of words, adding sky as in napsky, making up ridiculous curse words, etc.), which THEN back to us talking about balls and trying to get the Chinese people to tell us how to say it in Chinese. We’re 12 =).

My friend trying to describe balls to the Chinese people:

Anatomy Lesson

Our Chinese friends were beyond embarrassed. Mostly because where I live in China, people aren’t very open about sex and or/sexuality. Which made seeing this at the karaoke place super random:

What?

Ha I was completely amazed (and I promise we WERE at a karaoke place)! I have no idea why this was at a karaoke bar…Hmmm…China can be so random sometimes =).

Massive Private Karaoke Room!

Amazing selection of songs…

I think I need to be better about actually being in pictures. I never have any pictures of myself!

Protein-errific Day

After my inspiration to eat a lot more protein struck yesterday, I’ve started meal planning off with: What kind of protein will I eat and how can I eat a lot of it? This question reminds me of my meat loving days, but I guess it works for non-meat eaters as well! Funny to think that before I came to China my favorite meal was a bloody steak with eggs on top.

To start off the day I made an oat pancake but made a half batch (which was still huge), added hemp protein, added some half-way made PB and then ate 3 eggstra egg whites on the side….sorry about that horrible corniness.

AWESOME breakfast

Pancake: 1/4 c oats, 1 egg white, lots of cinnamon, 1 tbsp hemp protein, kabocha blob. Mixed and made normal pancake style!  Topped with chopped frozen banana and halfway made PB –> NORMALLY this would be banana soft serve and finished PB….but my blender officially broke this morning. I didn’t realize until smoke was filling my kitchen…sad!!! That’s three blenders I’ve been through this year…..dreaming of the day when I can buy myself a Vita-Mix. UGH!

I supplemented this awesome pancake with a side of 3 egg whites and more cinnamon dusted kabocha (needed to finish it). I deem this a perfect breakfast…protein success!

Baisc nutritional stats (approx) : Calories (400) Protein (24.5) Fiber (7.5) Fat (8-9)

Breakfast was followed by some weight training (all supersets with 10 lbs):

3 sets of tricep kickbacks (15), 3 sets of overhead tricep pulls (10)

3 sets of chest press (15), 3 sets of chest fly (10)

3 sets of bent over rows (15), 3 sets of bicep curls (15)

3 sets of bicep crossovers (10), 3 sets of shoulder presses (15)

50 basic crunches, 10 reverse crunches, 10 leg lifts, 30 bicycles, and 20 of something I have no idea how to describe (x2).

YAY! I’m hoping that I’m nice and sore tomorrow. The only problem is I’m not totally sure what to eat these days after working out since my options are kind of limited. I had an apple after my workout but I feel like I should have something better (would love to have a fantastic shake!). Might have to wait until I get home to figure that out….10 days!

Wow, I had a seriously stressful morning =)….breakfast, work out….post-work out hair wash/massage/blowout….awesome lunch:

Bean Town

Protein base was beans, made into kabocha curry bean burgers (the last of my kabocha).

1 c beans (mixture of kidney and black eyed peas), 1 T bread crumbs, 1/2 cup steamed kabocha, 1 T curry powder, S&P. Mashed up and cooked on a pan for 3 mins each side. With steamed broccoli!

In a perfect world I would have added: sliced avocado, maybe some nutritional yeast flakes, and/or some sort of awesome yogurty dressing. Just some thoughts =)

Basic nutritional stats (approx): Calories (275) Protein (16.4) Fiber (14.6) Fat (2)

I guess this could use more protein…but I didn’t want to overdo it on tofu and egg whites since I already had egg whites and plan on tofu for dinner. Ayyyyy can’t wait for American grocery store heaven!

Plus an awesomely humongous iced green tea:

Iced Green tea

I guess I should teach a few classes now……