Soup!

It's soup season!  Okay, every season for me is soup season.  I love soup, especially homemade soup!  What's so great about soup you ask?  Let me detail the amazingness of this versatile meal for you:

1. It can be hot or cold
2. It can be heavy or light
3. It can be rich or bland
4. It can be made to fit any and every season
5. You can throw just about anything into a pot (including 6-day old leftovers and whatever else is stuck in the back of the fridge), add stock, and it's suddenly soup
6. It can be made quickly
7. It's a one-pot meal (this in itself should sell the idea of soup to you)
8. Anyone, even those with food allergies like myself, can eat a huge variety of soup
9. You don't have to measure anything
10. You don't have to chop anything too perfectly
11. You can add any spices to make it tasty yet healthy
12. Lots of fabulous leftovers

A few years back, my mom and I took a trip up to Door County and ate at The Summer Kitchen.  I scoffed a little at this restaurant going in but then I saw the soup bar.  I was instantly sold!  You sit down and say, "I'll have iced tea and the soup bar" and the waiter will bring you four to six sturdy little teacups.  You take these and get as many different types of soup that you want at the soup bar.  The best part is that they will keep giving you more and more cups and they don't judge you for your soup consumption.  My mom is all about their chicken and dumpling soup.  I, on the other hand, typically stick to the creamy mushroom and tomato dill.  Both are rich and decadent and I could sit there all day refilling those little cups.

Unfortunately, I can't eat like that everyday.  To top it off, I had to cut gluten out of my diet last summer.  So what was this soup lover to do other than develop my own recipes? 

Now, to be a little less than modest, I make a mean minestrone, a splendid split pea, a superb chicken and potato, a tremendous turkey sausage and kale, a perfect pumpkin and black bean.  For a lot of years, I ate strictly vegetarian and I still don't love cooking with meat so the perfect solution for me is a veggie soup.  Plus, how much healthier can you get than a vegetable soup?  I am still working on the mushroom soup but have perfected the tomato dill.  It's less rich than the soup at The Summer Kitchen but probably much healthier and I know I can eat it without getting sick. 

I specifically save this soup for summer because it makes me think of being in Door County with my mom.  I made my first batch this past weekend and have been living off of it for days.  The leftovers taste just as good as when it was first made.  I like to make this with my dad's canned tomatoes but when I'm out of those, I'll use canned from the store.  I highly recommend spending the extra dollar and buying the San Marzano tomatoes, they are so much sweeter and really add to the soup.  I hope to post photos in the near future when my camera is working again.  So, I conclude my wordiness with the recipe below.  I hope you enjoy!


Tomato Dill Soup
Serves 4
Ingredients:
2 tsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 cloves garlic, crushed or chopped
1 28 oz. can of whole, peeled tomatoes -or- crushed tomatoes
3 cups chicken -or- vegetable stock
2 Tbsp. fresh dill -or- 1 tbsp dried dill
Salt and pepper to taste

Add oil, onion, carrots, celery, and garlic into a medium sized pot and cook on medium-low heat for 6-8 minutes or until the onions are translucent.  Add the stock, tomatoes, dill, and salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes.  Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth.  A regular blender can be used to puree but make sure to allow the soup to cool first so that it doesn't end up on your ceiling instead of in your stomach.  Enjoy!

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Back to Life is an old Soul II Soul song that I woke up with stuck in my head.  The lyrics "back to life, back to reality" are also what I need to direct my mind to after every weight loss show that I see or hear about.  Yesterday, I was talking to a student that I taught during my first semester at my current position.  She asked me how much weight I had lost and how long it had taken me.  When I told her, she asked, "That's it?"

While, yes, she put her foot in her mouth a little there, it also made me realize how distorted people's ideas of weight loss have become since shows like The Biggest Loser have started airing.  I've been doing a little reading and here's the deal with the contestants on The Biggest Loser:

1. They workout for 4-6 hours a day, six days a week
2. They are constantly being monitored by doctors
3. They have personal trainers who not only do one-on-one training but also develop additional workouts and personalized nutrition for each contestant
4. They have nothing else to do, they are stuck on a ranch and aren't allowed to leave

Now, I have nothing but respect for the contestants, they are working hard and getting healthy.  However, is this something that I could do at home safely?  No!  I'm doing this by myself.  I work.  There is no way I could exercise 4-6 hours a day and still effectively teach concepts like Coriolis, climate change, and the formation of glacial landforms for another 4-6 hours a day. 

The truth is, I am happy with what I have accomplished.  I may not have lost as much as other people who are doing this on their own but I am doing something that a lot of people wish they could.  It hasn't always been easy, I have given in to plenty of cravings and missed plenty of workouts. 

Slow and steady weight loss is working for me.  Can I see myself living like this for the rest of my life?  Yes!  Can I see myself working out 4 hours a day, 6 days a week for the rest of my life?  No!  I have a life and goals and I can do this without going to such an extreme.

My response to my former student was to ignore her disdain and reply with a very cheerful, "Yep!  Isn't it great?  I feel fantastic!"  The next time the scale is stuck or when I watch The Biggest Loser finale next week I am going to be reminding myself what I have accomplished with both my body and my career and the relationships I have built with my family and friends.  All these things together have resulted in the great life that I am currently living.

Motivations

Do you ever have one of those days in which you really can't get yourself to do anything, much less workout? I have those days...all the time!  The key for me is to keep some motivators in my back pocket.  Here are a few tips that I have found exceptionally helpful:

1.  If there is a particular time of day that you are more likely to workout, try to schedule time to workout then.  For me, this is anywhere between 9:30am to 1:30pm.  After that, I'm useless.  Unfortunately for me, I am usually teaching or have other obligations during that time.  Thus, I move on to the rest of my motivational list.

2.  Find a buddy.  When I'm at my parent's house, I walk with my parent's dog and my mom.  Today, I had a running buddy.  Working out when you really don't want to isn't as bad when you can focus on your buddy instead of how hard you are breathing.

3.  Do something you love.  Don't workout just because it's good for you.  For me, I hate, hate, hate being a mouse on a wheel (which is what treadmills feel like to me).  I think it's boring and I hate that I'm not going anywhere.  In the long run, you are more likely to stick with something you like and thus be healthier than if you did two weeks in the gym, got sick of it, and gave up.

4.  Find someone or something that is inspirational to you.  It could be those pants you are hoping to wear or someone who has accomplished what you are working for.  I like Ali Vincent a lot (first female winner of the Biggest Loser).  She doesn't play games, she works hard, and I see a lot of myself in her.  If you haven't yet, read Believe It, Be It, written by Vincent.  I think I've read that book three or four times.  It helps to know that I'm not the only one who thinks this stuff is hard sometimes.



5.  When everything above fails, you have come down to the final two options.  If you know your body needs a workout and just don't feel like it, give yourself a 10 minute workout.  This tip comes from the book The Go-Girl Guide: Surviving Your 20s with Savvy, Soul, and Style by Julia Borland.  My sister gave me this book when I turned 20 and, sadly, it looks like I will need to hand it off in 10 months.

The theory is that if you workout for 10 minutes, you will likely feel better and you'll finish out the workout.  The truth is, this works!  I love Jillian Michaels' workouts.  My current obsession is Jillian's Ripped in 30.  It's literally a total body workout in 34 minutes (and it's a great workout!).  After 10 minutes in front of Jillian, I always finish.

The second of the final options is to take a rest day.  A cop out?  Maybe.  It can also be exactly what you need.  If I have worked out 4 days or more in a row, especially if they are intense workouts, sometimes I just need a day off to let my muscles rest and rebuild.  I can pick up where I left off the next day.

What are your motivations?

Challenge Update

I really did not want to go for a run today!  My muscles were tired and sore.  Luckily, I had planned to run with a good friend and did not want to cancel on her.  We did not run all that far (just under 1.5 miles) and we walked the rest of the way but it was a good workout none-the-less and it was way better for me than sitting on the couch.

Welcome!

After several friends suggested I start a blog on my journey to be healthy by 30, I am finally succumbing to the pressure.  :)  Please join me on this journey while I work to eat healthfully and exercise consistently to meet my goal and focus on being healthy for life. 

This all came about a year ago when:
A)  A bridesmaids dress I had ordered came in and wasn't even close to zipping.
B)  I could no longer keep up with my students when I was hiking on a class field trip.

This is not the person that I wanted to be and I felt sluggish and tired all the time.  I felt my confidence waning on a daily basis, something that is not okay in my job.  I need to be able to stand in front of a classroom and be a confident, excited, and outgoing person on a daily basis.  I promised myself that I would enter my 30's healthier than I entered my 20's.  In the past year, I have lost 43 pounds and gained so much knowledge about myself and what does and does not work for my body.  Oh, I not only ended up fitting into the dress by the wedding, I had to have it taken in (and even then, the dress wouldn't stay up!).

Current Challenge:
If you know me, you know that I like to challenge myself and to see where my limits lie.  This is my current focus.  I just finished with another semester and have nearly a month before starting to teach my summer class.  In this time, I need to prep of course, and I will be moving.  But, more than that, I am focusing on pushing myself physically. 

Pushing myself right now means running.  Running was always something that I hated and I never even finished the mile in school when I was a kid.  So why did I choose this as my challenge?  Because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.  I've been working on this for about a month and...yesterday, I ran 2.75 miles!  My next run is planned for tomorrow and I'll let you know how it goes!