Links to Healthy Weekend Archives | Page 4 of 7

Links to a Healthy Weekend

July 19, 2009

It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon here; bright blue skies and plenty of sunshine. I’ve had another culturally filled weekend, but it came after an already awesome week. I finally ran a 10K! On Wednesday I’m not sure what got into me, but I just felt like I could go and I pushed through.

I didn’t think I’d ever get here and quite honestly I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do it again, but after training since the beginning of January. I finally made it! I’ve taken on running basically because it is something I’ve never been able to do successfully. I had run a 5K or two, but nothing spectacular. I’d run a few months and give up because it was so hard for me. By hard I mean, when I start training I can typically go about one minute before stopping. Seriously, I have never been a runner.

So I’m definitely celebrating this accomplishment. In addition to all that, there were all kinds of good reads this week. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

California calorie law alters chains’ fare was an article from The Sacramento Bee which reported on how restaurants are revamping their recipes since they will soon have to put calories on their menus. Honestly I think this is one of the biggest positives that could come from these kinds of laws. There are always going to be people who don’t care about what they order, but if it motivates restaurants to switch up a few things to make dishes a little lighter and portions smaller, that is a great thing.

Popcorn & Pretzels. I loved this little piece of healthy information from Cooking Light. Popcorn has become my favorite snack and I have it almost every day. Lower calories, fiber, a whole grain – all reasons why I love it. I’ve never really been a pretzel person. Well, unless it is a soft one.

So You Think You’re a Foodie was a post this week on Gourmet Girl Magazine’s blog, Kitchen Rap. I’ve often thought about the ideas presented here. There are so many different types of foodies and food blogs. It also includes one of those interesting food lists. I love seeing how many I’ve tried before. I scored about a 54 on this one.

Eating healthy can cost more, but doesn’t have to, experts say was a great article from USA Today this week. There is a lot of truth here. Basically you have to be a little less exotic, but you don’t have to eliminate healthy foods when you are low on funds.

And finally, just to tease your taste buds, Mindy’s Mouthful did a roundup of a recent fest she attended in Germany. All that sausage and beer! German cuisine is truly one of my favorites.

Photo of two dogs that like to hang out near the cathedral. Saturday afternoon they had taken over the front steps to enjoy the overcast day.

Links to a Healthy Weekend

July 12, 2009

Has this weekend already come to an end? It is Sunday evening around here and pretty hard to believe. I had a weekend full of culture which I plan to share with you more throughout the next week.

As I kept up with my reading throughout the week I came across a few fun things that I couldn’t pass up sharing, even if this weekend is almost over.

Night Owls May Benefit from Evening Strength was an article on CNN this week reporting on a study about night owls and early birds. I am happy to have found some scientific support for my inability to be an early riser and exerciser. I have much more energy in the afternoon and evening.

On a similar note, Living Healthy in the Real World had a post about Sleep vs. Exercise. Which would you choose?

Tokyo Terrace, a great food-inspired blog written by a US ex-pat living in Japan, shared a beautiful spread for an easy, elegant brunch. As an ex-pat myself, brunch is one thing I miss dearly. I didn’t have it often, but there is something about the combination of breakfast and lunch in a relaxing atmosphere with friends that I really enjoy.

My Food and Life Encounters posted a recipe for Feijoada. I believe I’ve posted a recipe from her lately, but I couldn’t pass up sharing this one as well. Everyone asks me in one way or another about feijoada when they find out I live in Brazil. The two seem to be inseparable.

Photo of Gidget born in June with mom Marylin. The horses of my dear friend, Jackie.

July 4th Links to a Healthy Weekend

July 4, 2009

Well, I still didn’t get many posts up this week, but I couldn’t bear to leave you without any links for two weekends in a row. Although, I expect many of you are out enjoying summer fun on this 4th of July.

Last night we went to an English school in the small town where my husband works and helped host a bingo party. Last year we did a 4th of July party so it was fun to do something a little different.

We had hotdogs (cachorro quente) which around here means tomatoes and onions cooked down into a thick stew and sliced hotdogs mixed in. Another option you can find is the whole hotdog with this stew on top. It is then served on a bun (much bigger and sweeter than buns in the US) and topped with batata palha, or matchstick potatoes, as we used to call them. Not exactly health on a bun, but there were some veggies in there somewhere.

Here are a few great recipes, ideas and reads from the week.

Kahakai Kitchen featured a recipe for Thai-Flavored Ratatouille. Tasty veggies in a sauce made with almond butter! You know I love peanut sauces and I’m excited to branch out to almond butter sauces as well.

Meringue Bake Shop celebrates the 4th with the cutest cupcake creation ever – Cupcake Kabobs! What a creative idea!

A new position stand on the health benefits of a vegetarian diet was released by the American Dietetic Association this week. I found the recap interesting because it seems they’ve taken a closer look at the details of this type of diet. I’m looking forward to reading the entire position stand.

I think most of us would agree that we already knew vegetarian diets can be healthy, but I appreciated the fact that they emphasized the term well-planned. I met way too many girls in high school and college who would eat boxed macaroni and cheese while the rest of us ate meat and made it a point to announce themselves as a vegetarian.

In my opinion, just because it is vegetarian doesn’t mean it is healthy. Similarly just because it has meat doesn’t mean it is unhealthy. Both eating lifestyles can promote health and wellness if food source, nutrients and portions are taken into consideration.

Links to a Healthy Weekend

June 20, 2009

I hope you are enjoying a lovely summer (or winter) weekend wherever you may be. Happy Father’s Day to any dads out there and if you have the fortunate opportunity to be near yours this weekend enjoy every second of it. I hear the garden is going wild back home – green beans, potatoes, peas, squash, raspberries and blackberries – so I’m sure my dad will be spending his weekend outside.

There was a lot of great reading (and watching) out there about real, nourishing foods. It was one of those weeks that I really felt inspired and confident that as a healthy society, we are making changes in the right direction.

I feel I should give a shout out to Food Renegade and Find Your Balance today because they always give me such great links through Twitter. A couple of today’s links I found through their informative re-tweets.

Campaign for Real Health spills the butter in the post Fat 3.0. This will then lead you to an article in Ode Magazine all about how fat is back in the limelight regarding health and this time it has nothing to do with cutting it out.

Agave: A Triumph of Marketing over Truth from Mercola.com shares more information about the agave craze and whether or not it is better, or no better, for you than sugar. I found this to be very informative and went along with much of the information I found when I was researching for my post.

Beware of hypes. Açaí as an example. from the Juice Herald takes on a similar theme. Why, oh why must we, in the US, always turn healthy, real foods into miracle cures, pills and extracts?

Taco Calzones with Avocado Cream was shared by food for living. I was so happy to find the Homemade Taco Seasoning Blend at the end of the post. I want to get away from using the packets, but I’m never quite sure what to put together to add the right flavor. Now I’ve got it.

Make your life more like travel by Gadling was an inspiring post I think most of us can relate to. It definitely gives you something to think about regarding enjoying where you are, positive attitude and everyday life.

Photo of a summery snail at the Botanical Gardens in the Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas

Links to a Healthy Weekend

June 14, 2009

Wow, this week blew by without many new posts from me. Sorry about that. I guess I’ll chalk it up to getting settled back in. Between work, laundry and catching up on sleep I didn’t do much cooking (of anything new) or research for my own blogs. I’m hoping the ideas start flowing again next week though.

I did have time to do a little reading this week. I also did a recap today about the Corpus Christi holiday here in Maringá on my expat blog if anyone is interested.

Now on to a few great recipes from the past week!

No Meat Athlete’s Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry sounded so good when I came across it this week. It has been a long time since I’ve had some good curry so I may whip this up soon. I completely agree with him that coconut milk is essential in a great curry.

Whisk: a food blog had some fantastic looking bagels. They are Montreal-style and I have to say that this post did as much to educate me as it did to get my bagel craving going. I’ve never made my own bagels, but these sound great!

The Reluctant Vegetarian’s Sweet Potato and Black Bean Wrap looks wonderful. I love how she shredded the sweet potatoes. Such a great idea!

And this, well it is just plain funny. If you love animals, check it out. It is hilarious how the dog acts only mildly interested in the whole thing.

Links to a Healthy Weekend

June 6, 2009

Hello, friends!

Even though I had been collecting links all week, I thought I was going to have to skip this installment of links due to my travel. However, here I sit in the airport during an incredibly long layover and I find myself with time to post them.

I hope you are well this weekend. As with most of my comings and goings between the US and Brazil, the feelings are bittersweet. I miss what I am leaving, but excited for what lies ahead (especially my husband!).

I arrive in Brazil in the morning and in our town tomorrow night. I have only four months left of this abroad experience and I have vowed to cook up a storm incorporating all the local ingredients I can so it should be exciting around here in the near future.

Enjoy these great reads and I’ll see you next week!

The Reuben Bread from Food and Life Encounters impressed me greatly. This is actually from last week, but it was just too wonderful to skip over when I found it this week. A Reuben is probably my favorite sandwich variety and this is an incredibly interesting twist.

Creating a Healthier Food Culture for Less Money on Care 2 Make a Difference was a thought provoking post with lots of great tips for how to take the steps to start making your foods from scratch. This one is from last month, but I just discovered it this week and thought it was well worth sharing.

Wheat Berry Salad with Cranberries, Feta and Mint from Not Derby Pie was a recipe and blog I discovered this week when searching out some ideas for how to use my wheat berries.

Eat Local. Die Trying? from Zompaa presents an important question we all have to answer when it comes to where we buy our produce and how it is grown.

Peanut Butter Boy is hosting The Great Peanut Butter Exhibition #6. The theme this time? Barbeque! The deadline is Monday.

Coconut & Lime is hosting a 5 year Blogiversary contest! You need to make one of her recipes or create one using coconut and lime to enter.

Photo of my pug, Macy Mae, taken just a few days ago. One of the things I will miss greatly the next few months.

Links to a Healthy Weekend

May 30, 2009

Happy Saturday! I hope you have some fun plans this weekend to close out the last days of May. I’ve got some meals planned with extended family to celebrate my last week here in the States and I hope to catch up with a few more friends.

The best news is that I’m finally done with my portion of the first draft for the book I’m coauthoring! It’s about planning charity fitness events and in conjunction with my work for Charity Mile. It feels so great to be at a breaking point! There is sure to be more revision ahead, but knowing I have so much already completed is a relief.

In the midst of my work this week I was able to read my way through some great stuff.

Speaking of Charity Mile I was able to do an interview with Healthy Ashley about her involvement in charity fitness events. She is so inspiring! You’ll be ready to lace up your shoes and get in a workout after you read what she has to say.

The school lunchroom grows green was an article on The Christian Science Monitor this week. It talks about lots of wonderful changes schools are making from organic gardening to reducing waste. It is so great to see some positive news in this area!

With the post Every little love adds up, Michelle at Find Your Balance offers some great advice for positive thinking. This post really hit home for me. This is an area I’m always trying to improve with myself.

If you haven’t heard about the Food, Inc. Movie, get ready. I cannot wait until it opens! I was hoping so much that I would get the chance to see it while in the States, but it looks like I’ll have to wait until the fall.

Three Cheers for Beans was a post by Kitchen Courage this week. Check it out for three tasty bean salad recipes perfect for warmer weather. I especially like the one with maple syrup. Sweet beans are a big joke between us and our Brazilian friends. Rice and beans are so common there, but the idea of sweet beans horrifies most of the people we know. Too funny!

Photo of a super cool wine glass that belongs to a good friend of mine.

Links to a Healthy Weekend

May 23, 2009

Hi all! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. Is it summer yet in your neck of the woods? It is getting quite toasty here in southern Indiana and Kentucky. I had a wonderful week in Lexington visiting with friends, working from coffee shops and browsing through local supermarkets to find some of these great foods you all post about!

Thank you to everyone who entered the Mango Challenge! The recap and winner will be posted on Monday afternoon! To those of you in the US – Happy Memorial Day and enjoy your holiday weekend!

Here’s what caught my eye this week:

Lemon Basil shared a new way to use quinoa in a Shitake Quinoa Salad. It looks delicious and I am always looking for unique ways to use quinoa!

Ria’s Collection is hosting a Let’s Celebrate event in honor of her birthday! Stop by and see if you have a recipe to contribute to the round-up.

Eat to Live had an interesting post called Staying Slim is Good for the Environment discussing some research comparing the environmental impact of slim versus obese populations.

The NYTimes.com Well Blog posted an interview with Kara Goucher about first marathons. Interested in running your first marathon or enjoy running in general? Head over and take a look.

The Washington Post MisFits had an article called Mile for Mile, a Dog Is a Man’s (or a Woman’s) Best Workout Partner. I, of course, love this and I know I have a lot of dog loving readers out there. Enjoy, and if you are considering getting a dog, do it!

Photo of my parent’s donkey, Divinity. The newest member of the family.

Links to a Healthy Weekend

May 9, 2009

I hope you are having an enjoyable weekend so far! It is a rainy day here and the air has a bit of a chill, but I am loving every minute of it. One thing I greatly miss when I’m in Brazil is the four seasons. This springtime I am experiencing in the US hits the spot.

With travel and catching up on work it has been a hectic week. Aside from seeing my family and my dog, the highlight has been my new camera! I’m having so much fun playing with it and I can’t wait to use it for my food pictures.

I’ve got several great posts for you this week! There were so many good recipes it was hard to narrow it down.

Chef Wanabe shared some delicious Apricot and Nuts cookies. Coconut, apricots, cranberries, pistachios and macadamia nuts all in one cookie! I can’t wait to give them a try.

Good Things Catered had a recipe for Spicy Yogurt Chicken. I had never heard of marinating chicken in yogurt and was immediately intrigued. The results sound amazing!

Bonne Nutrition shared two Chickpea Salads. My favorite is the breakfast version. It includes a combination of ingredients that would be really different from my typical breakfast.

The Economix Blog at NYTimes.com had a post about Obesity and the Fastness of Food. It takes a quick look at the minutes per day spent eating in relation to obesity rates for many countries across the world. Of course I think that most of us associate fast, convenience with unhealthy foods and obesity, but it is interesting to see how this differs from country to country.

I’m on the road again. I’m headed to DC with my parents and brother for a visit. I am very excited because I absolutely love the DC area! This will be my parent’s first visit so it is going to be a lot of fun to show them around. Hopefully I’ll come back with a few good food pics for you. See you late next week!

Photo from one of my Mom’s many rose bushes

Links to a Healthy Weekend!

May 2, 2009

Happy Derby Day!

I’m not in Kentucky to celebrate this year, but I can feel the excitement of this day all the way down in Brazil. I’m not a big gambler and I’m only a moderate horse race fan (I close my eyes during the start because I don’t want to see any horses get hurt), but there is something about the history and excitement that goes along with the Kentucky Derby that I love.

Maybe it has something to do with the Mint Juleps made of simple syrup, fresh mint and Kentucky bourbon, or perhaps the Derby pies with pecans, chocolate chips and more Kentucky bourbon. Around the Bluegrass there is a thrill in the air on this day that makes you want to celebrate with local foods and flavors.

My links for the weekend are a bit of a hodgepodge of things I’ve collected over the past two weeks. My reading has been limited with my travel, but I’m finally starting to get around to all your great blogs again.

These are my recent favorites. I hope you enjoy them!

Eating Well Anywhere had a recipe for making your own pork sausage. I really enjoy sausage, but I dislike overly fatty varieties. I’m so glad to have this recipe and an idea of what kind of spices to use to create my own, lean version.

Discover the World of Artisan Beef had a helpful post if you are confused about grass-fed versus grass-finished beef. The more I have been reading about the topic the more confusing I have found the information so this post and the provided links really help to clear things up.

Our Best Bites had a great recipe for a healthier, baked version of Chicken Taquitos. I can’t wait to try these as soon as I get my hands on some tortillas.

Keeping with the Mexican food theme, Mexico: Food, Drinks & More provided a culturally rich post about the different varieties of bread common in Mexico. I’ve really enjoyed learning about breads in Brazil so all this info quickly caught my attention.

This yoga resource from Women’s Health came to my attention via Twitter last week. It is so helpful! It lists several varieties of yoga, what they are, who they are ideal for and things you should know before trying them out. If you find the world of yoga a bit overwhelming like I do you have to check it out!

Hot dogs and spaghetti? Here’s a little freaky food fun from a link my BIL sent me last week. You have to give them credit for creativity for sure.

Photo taken at a morning exercise session, Keeneland Race Course, Lexington, KY