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Well I am not only a coeliac but also vegetarian so finding hearty foods can be difficult.  I love scotch broth (being Scottish!) but I can’t eat the barley that goes into that soup to make it delicious! So I made my own version of it sans meat and barley!

Ingredients:

1 x Onion (antiviral, antibacterial, anticancer, lower cholesterol, calming)

1 x Chopped up leek (as for onion)

2 x Carrots (antioxidant, anticancer, artery protecting, antibacterial)

2 x Potatoes (protein, Vit A, C, niacin, thiamin & riboflavin, iron, calcium)

1/2 Savoy Cabbage (anticancer, speeds estrogen metabolism, antibacterial, antiviral)

2 Parsnips (six types of anticancer agents)

1/2 cup of brown rice (Vitamin B, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron)

1 x drained and rinsed can of Adzuki Beans (Vitamin B, fibre, magnesium, potassium, iron, zinc copper, manganese)

Gluten free and vegetarian stock powder (you will need about 1.5 litres but adjust to taste).

Essentially all you need to do is chop up everything, put it all in to a really big pot, just bring to the boil the turn it down to a simmer for around one hour.  All the flavours blend together really well and it’s all ready to go.  I usually put the cooled soup into a few containers and freeze in portions for lunch meals.

Delicious and enjoy!!

If you have any recipes that you think us vegiacs might like, please feel free to post a comment!

Angie :o)

If you’re a fan of The Biggest Loser then you may have recently watched Lara’s emotional confessions about gobbling up a packet of biscuits and feeling powerless to stop; a feeling that many of us know all too well.

Lara’s story highlights why effectively tackling weight issues often involves more than addressing diet and exercise alone – sometimes we need to dig a little deeper. For many of us, the tendency to overeat is often emotionally driven, as we turn to food in order to suppress or soothe negative feelings such as stress, sadness, or loneliness. This pattern can become so habitual that snacking becomes an automatic and unconscious response to uncomfortable feelings. But whatever the emotions that drive us to overeat, the end result is usually the same. The feelings return with a side order of guilt over losing control, which can lead to a self perpetuating cycle. If this sounds like you, there are some steps you can take to regain control over your eating patterns:

• Take a hunger check: before snacking, consider whether your hunger is physical or emotional.
• Keep a food diary: keep a record of what you eat and when, as well as how you’re feeling at the time. You may see a pattern emerge showing a connection between mood and food.
• Manage boredom: if you tend to snack when you’re bored, try distraction techniques – take a walk or phone a friend.
•  Seek therapy:  if self help just isn’t working, then it’s not a bad idea to consider therapy with a qualified psychologist. Therapy can help you identify factors driving you to overeat and develop healthier ways to deal with emotions.

For some people, seeking therapy for a dietary issue may seem like a last resort when in fact, therapy really should be one of your first appointments when seeking a change in lifestyle.  Remember that therapy doesn’t need to be “taboo” or “serious” just another thing in your “I’m going to have a healthy life  toolbox!”.

How many times does your head rule whether or not you eat that muffin or you talk yourself out of doing exercise for every reason under the sun and you can justify every bit of it?!

At Create Health & Fitness we are partnered with Lisa Harris, Clinical Psychologist from PACT Psychology.  We do recommend that along with your exercise and nutritional programmes that you do seek advice from a Clinical Psychologist to help you achieve your goals, you may even achieve them faster by putting some tactics in place right at the start!  Medicare and Health Provider rebates do apply.

We do offer packages to incorporate Clinical Psychology as part of your programme.

For further information on this topic, please contact us.

Chocolate!

It is Easter Sunday and 3 weeks away from the competition. I am not aware of any girl who does not like chocolate so today is going to be a huge challenge. Definitely testing my will power today!

In the last few weeks my glute injury has healed quite well but I do not want to risk heavy training as injuries need to be taken care of. This has left me in a bit of a dilemma as my goal was to compete in the Fitness category of the competition which involves, posing in a not so comfortable swimsuit and a 90 second routine showcasing strength, flexibility and stamina. I know if I do this my injury will take a longer time to heal and a substantial amount of money spent at the physio! I have decided instead to compete in the Sports Model section of the competition. It will be great experience for my first comp, my injury will also heal completely and I will be able to compete in the October competition in the Fitness category.

The problem is no matter which category I enter, I still have to abstain from chocolate! One won’t hurt but can I stop myself from eating more….

My current eating program is not far from my usual program, which is everything in moderation, moderate meal sizes and no take away (I’m talking McDonalds etc not Sushi). I have cut down on my carbohydrates (rice and bread) in the last week and increased protein. I have also given up my daily dose of dark chocolate. Hence the struggle today!

I will keep you all posted in the next few days on how I went. Wish me luck!  Want to ask me a question? Just Contact Me!

Liv x

What is High Intensity Interval Training? Well it is a great way to burn off fat by raising your heart rate extremely quickly so you don’t need to exercise for a long time to get results.  We keep our HIIT to 30 mins plus a warm up/cool down/stretching session. This type of training will get you fit quickly with the added bonus of burning fat, fast! Sound good? Well it’s not for the beginner exerciser or the faint hearted, so if you are currently exercising and looking for something a bit more exhausting, then come along to one of our HIIT classes.

What will you have to do? You will get a series of bodyweight exercises to do in a minimal amount of time, so rounds of squat jumps, push ups, lunges for 4 minutes with a 10 sec rest in between, then jogging/walk recovery period for 2 mins, this really increases your heart rate and fatigues muscle quickly that it takes you to an extremely high intensity.  Fat burning, muscle increasing and sweating!  That sums up H.I.I.T!

Check out our group fitness time table for classes.  Try your first class for free!

Need a snack, eat an apple, or why not have 2!

So what’s so good about apples anyway?

• They fight bacteria and viruses
• Help out with cholesterol reduction
• They are an inflammatory food
• Contain valuable fibre
• Assist in stabilising blood sugar
• And assist with cardiovascular system.

What’s not to love about apples, they are a fab, fit, fruit!  Eat one before your Personal Training session or one before any meal does wonders for staving off the dreaded food binge!

The Fat Burning Zone

A popular myth is that there is a specific range of heart rates in which you must exercise to burn fat. Even many cardio machines display a “fat-burning zone” on their panels, encouraging people to exercise in a specific heart rate range. Have you ever wondered if you really have to exercise in a specific heart rate zone to lose fat? And what happens if you venture out of that zone? Jason R. Karp, PhD, a nationally recognized speaker, writer and exercise physiologist who coaches recreational runners to Olympic hopefuls through his company, RunCoachJason.com, sheds light on this issue.

Fuel Use During Exercise

You use both fat and carbohydrates for energy during exercise, with these two fuels providing that energy on a sliding scale. During exercise at a very low intensity (e.g., walking), fat accounts for most of the energy expenditure. As exercise intensity increases up to the lactate threshold (the exercise intensity that marks the transition between exercise that is almost purely aerobic and exercise that includes a significant anaerobic contribution; also considered the highest sustainable aerobic intensity), the contribution from fat decreases while the contribution from carbohydrates increases. When exercising just below the lactate threshold, you are using mostly carbohydrates. Once the intensity of exercise has risen above the lactate threshold, carbohydrates become the only fuel source.

If you exercise long enough (1.5–2 hours), your muscle carbohydrate (glycogen) content and blood glucose concentration become low. This metabolic state presents a threat to the muscles’ survival, since carbohydrates are muscles’ preferred fuel. When carbohydrates are not available, the muscles are forced to rely on fat as fuel.

Since more fat is used at low exercise intensities, people often assume that low-intensity exercise is best for burning fat, an idea that has given birth to the “fat-burning zone.” However, while only a small amount of fat is used when exercising just below the lactate threshold, the rate of caloric expenditure and the total number of calories expended are much greater than they are when exercising at a lower intensity, so the total amount of fat used is also greater.

The Bottom Line

For fat and weight loss, what matters most is the difference between the number of calories you expend and the number of calories you consume. Fat and weight loss is about burning lots of calories and cutting back on the number of calories consumed. For the purpose of losing weight, it matters little whether the calories burned during exercise come from fat or carbohydrates.

Sidebar: Workouts For Fat Loss

To maximize your fat loss, try these workouts. For assistance in designing effective, safe workouts, consult with a Create Health & Fitness personal trainer.

Go Hard

A great way to perform high-intensity exercise and decrease your body fat percentage is through interval training, which breaks up the work with periods of rest. Not only does interval training allow you to improve your fitness quickly; it is also more effective than continuous exercise for burning lots of calories during exercise and increasing your postworkout metabolic rate. Try one or two of these workouts each week:

• 5–6 x 3 minutes at 95%–100% maximum (max) heart rate (HR) with 2-minute active recovery periods
• 4 x 4 minutes at 95%–100% max HR with 3-minute active recovery periods
• 8–12 x 30 seconds fast with 1-minute active recovery periods

Each of these interval workouts should include a warm-up and a cool-down.

Go Very Long

Long runs or bike rides (? 1.5–2 hours at 65%–70% max HR) that stimulate mitochondrial synthesis and promote the depletion of glycogen threaten the muscles’ survival, since carbohydrates are muscles’ preferred fuel. In response to this threat, muscles “learn” how to use fat more effectively and over time become better fat-burning machines.

This article is courtesy of Idea Fitness.  For more information on this topic or an appropriate programme, please contact us www.createhealthfitness.com.au