Food
Remember those strange chia pets that everyone used to have? Well the things growing from their heads are actually really nutritious! About a year ago I read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. First off, this book is amazing! It’s very easy to read and made me contemplate running an ultra marathon (don’t worry mom, there’s no way I actually would go through with this). The book talks about the Tarahumara tribe, who run heavy mileage all of the time. The book listed some recipes that kept the Tarahumara energized during their runs, and they involved the use of chia seeds. Chia seeds are extremely high in essential omega-3 fatty acid, vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, have more antioxidants than blueberries, and more calcium than milk. Chia seeds are also gluten and cholesterol free. They are hydrophilic, meaning they can absorb up to 10 times their weight in water! Unlike flax seeds, you do not need to grind them to get all of these benefits. Yesterday morning I decided I had to eat, or should I say drink, chia seeds! That’s right, drink! I made a Chia Fresca, a glass of water with about a tablespoon of chia seeds and a teaspoon of lemon juice (you could do lime juice instead).
Next to my lunch: kale salad with cottage cheese, leftover avocado tuna, and crunchy asian noodles.
Some people also add a sweetener, but I didn’t. If you let the chia sit in the water for at least 5-10 minutes, it will start to get a gel like texture. If you’re like my sister and have a huge issue with food textures, this probably isn’t for you. Everything sinks to the bottom, so you’ll have to give it a nice stir before drinking. This tasted pretty good though! I did feel like I had a lot of energy the whole day too.
They kind of look like little bugs, but it is refreshing!
I wasn’t creative for my dinner, just sautéing a spicy chicken and turkey sausage with green pepper and some cannellini and red kidney beans on the side.
This sausage is really good though.
I did get adventurous for dessert though. I decided to do my first experimentation of substituting ingredients into a recipe. I tried making a cheesecake. Why I say tried:
- Halfway into preparing, I realized I didn’t have a cupcake pan. I have a too shallow muffin pan or too deep pan where the bottoms come out, which is nice, but I didn’t make enough filling.
- I didn’t have any kind of vanilla wafers or crumbs to make for a base, so I just used a little bit of almond meal/flour (ground up almonds).
- I ran out of vanilla extract.
The final product didn’t turn out that bad though, just strange looking. I substituted pureed cottage cheese for the cream cheese.
Pureed Cottage Cheese (aka put in the blender)
I also added plain greek yogurt, which ended up making them too tart and you could definitely taste the yogurt. In the future I might try using vanilla flavored yogurt (or just not running out of vanilla extract).
See how strange they ended up looking!
Overall it was a fun experiment to use almond flour, coconut flour, raw honey, and agave nectar for the first time.
Workout
At the beginning of the summer, my roommate and I had planned on doing Monday Night Abs (abs every monday night). That lasted about twice, I believe. I convinced her to try again with me, except now on a Wednesday. We used to do the P90X Ab Ripper X workout, which is not a bad workout for a short amount of time. This time, a recommendation from my friend, we did Jillian Michael’s Six-Pack in Six Weeks. If you have never done HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) this video is a good example of that! It was really hard and so tiring, but I loved it! Hopefully we’ll keep up the tradition of Roomie Abs on MWF.
Would my mother eat (drink) this: No way. She would think it looked like bugs and not put it near her lips.
Have any good recipes with chia or workout video recommendations? Let me know!
Things My Mother Will Not Eat 