Keep Moving Forward!

Among the many changes you'll see in the next few weeks at Healthy Writer blog we've discontinued Inspiration Sundays. However, I hope you’ll agree that this simple quote still deserves a post:

Keep Moving Forward

I’m always inspired by Walt Disney and his words. A man who started with only a creative vision and a talent for drawing began an empire. Growing up near Walt Disney World, it was easy to see the awe inspiring buildings, theme parks, and man-made lakes, but sometimes hard to remember that it all on the same shaky ground as my own writing career.

You probably didn’t know it, but Walt struggled in his early years. He did any work he could including a series of Army education films that would be considered very politically incorrect these days. Like many writers and artists he suffered setbacks: the first studio he founded went bankrupt, he lost the rights to one of his creations (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit), and he couldn’t find a distributor for either of the first two Mickey Mouse films.

Through it all, Walt kept moving forward. He tried new things and refused to look backwards for too long. His philosophy is as useful to writers as it is to people who strive to be healthy. If you’ve missed a work out, eaten an unhealthy meal, skipped a deadline, or failed horribly on a pitch, don’t dwell on it, move forward, and do better next time. As we work hard to reach our goals it’s easy to get sidetracked by the things we should have done instead planning the things we’ll do next. Don’t. Instead, give yourself a little time to look backward, then get back to work. Who knows, maybe someday you’ll be a household name just like Walt.

(This is the first in a series of posts that focus on Walt Disney World, the location of the next Romance Writers of America Conference. I’m not just a rabid Disney fan, I’m also a former employee. I’ve had the honor and the thrill of working in the Disney Reservation Center where we booked all restaurant and hotel reservations. If you have any Disney questions, please post them in the comments.)

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Prey animals

My harshest editor weighs only 4.2 pounds. He waits for me each morning, eager to read over my shoulder. Occasionally he stomps the delete key, erasing whole paragraphs and forcing me to rethink a scene. A grumpy old man trapped in the body of a cuddly bunny, he always thinks I could do better, start earlier, and write more. Except for this Monday, when he wasn’t waiting, already annoyed at my lateness. Instead he sat on his litter box, lethargic and unwilling to move. I raced to the call the vet, frantic at what could happen.

For those of you that don’t know a rabbit intimately, here are a few common aliments and their outcomes:

Illness	Outcome
Pink eye	death
Diarrhea	death
Nose cold	death
Stomach upset	death
Torn Toe Nail	death

I’m exaggerating but only a little. Rabbits are prey animals. They make wonderful pets and great writing companions, but veterinary medicine can only do so much to extend their fragile lives.

Is your writing a prey animal? If you hit a stopping point in the middle of a new manuscript does the whole piece die? What if you turn out a clunky, poorly worded sentence, is that a cause for certain death?

Is your health a prey animal? If you find that running isn’t for you, does that mean you give up on all your plans to start exercising? If you can’t find a healthy breakfast do you kill the rest of the day by eating bad-for-you-food?

I can only do so much to keep my furry editor alive. Healthy food in the right amounts, a clean living environment, and lots of love will extend his natural lifetime from one year to ten times that amount. Thankfully, healthy writing doesn’t have short lifespan.

Writing can be made stronger, through classes and workshops, or just plain writing more. You can resurrect works that have lain nearly dead for years by getting a fresh pair of eyes to make suggestions. You may need to amputate bad scenes or even cut away everything but the healthy subplots, but there’s always something you can do.

You can do the same for your health by not letting yourself be stopped by little problems. It’s fun to daydream about how much weight you’ll lose and how fit you’ll look when you join a new gym, but don’t let those dreams go because the membership is too expensive. Don’t stop yourself from seeking out ways to get enough sleep, relax at the end of the day, or eat a healthy meal. Find ways around problems instead of giving into them.

As of Monday afternoon, my editor was waiting for our usual after-work rereading session. The tummy trouble brought on by indulging in sweets cleared up before his vet could work him into the schedule. I don’t know how many more mornings I’ll have with him, but I know I’ll work hard to make as many of them happen as I can, the same way I’ll work hard to keep my writing and my health.

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Remember: You're in charge.

The characters in my latest work in progress are behaving badly. They started out just fine: two tough as nails cops, one from homicide, one from robbery. They loved each other but it turned to hate, and now the death of her partner means they had to work together. They fight a lot, snipping at each other over crime scenes, each feeling a romantic and sexual tension but refusing to acknowledge it. But some how they were holding hands, and she was crying, then he was remembering how it used to be and suddenly, after work, they went to the zoo.

The zoo?

Yes, that’s right, my two tough characters ended up eating ice cream cones and laughing at the elephants. I sat down to read what I’d written the day before and realized things had spiraled desperately out of control. Thankfully, as a writer we're in charge. We can always hit the most important key on the keyboard: delete. I deleted line after line: no more zoo, crying, or holding hands. No more mushy stuff, I edited it back to tough cops and heady tension. That tension will be resolved but not with my characters turning into two zoo going softies. That’s not who they are.

The same thing happened in my own life recently. An opportunity came up that I’d long hoped for. I’d daydreamed about how it would be and here it was, all coming true. Except… Not exactly how I wanted it, more than a few significant details were wrong. Yesterday’s daydream was about to become tomorrow’s nightmare. Unfortunately, there was nothing to do but to delete the opportunity from my life.

In your life, as in your writing, it’s important to remember you’re in charge. You’re the one with the pencil, and more importantly, the one with the eraser. You can ask for an opportunity, but then decide it isn’t for you. You can order the chocolate cake but then throw it away. You can write whole chapters and then decide they don’t work.

It’s hard deleting, tough to remove big chunks that represent hours, especially when they still hold a perfect gem of a phrase or the shining glimmer of possibility. Hard, but not impossible, and it's so important; good writing requires good editing. Healthy living needs it too, you can’t be everyone’s friend, take every job, or do everything all at once. So when you’re adding in a healthy diet or healthy exercise, remember to edit out the things that don’t work. Even if you wanted them once, if you thought they were everything you needed, sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is delete.

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Falling down

I’m a runner. I’m not fast, nor graceful. I am not a thing of beauty and strength on two legs. I’m a runner who sometimes falls down. I have plenty of very good excuses why I fall, but that doesn’t stop it from happening.

You would think running is easy: left foot, right foot, repeat as necessary. But thanks to a stroke, my left foot often responds to the call to go forward by saying “Who me? Sure, yeah, I’ll get right on that…” And down I go.

The beauty of falling down often is that you learn it’s not something to be afraid of. It hurts, yes. You end up bloody and bruised, but the first steps up are the hardest. After that you’re mostly just embarrassed and a little ashamed you did something so silly. I learned that falls on concrete take longer to heal than falls on dirt, so I run in the woods.

There’s a tree along my route in the woods, one I used to hate but now I love. The tree stood as a marker. My first goal was running to the tree, then past the tree, and then to the tree, past the tree, and back to the tree. The tree talked trash to me in the beginning, long taunts of “You really think you’re going to make it? You’re already panting. I’ve stood here longer than you’ve been alive little girl. I’ve seen would-be runners come and go, and you’ll go. Trust me.” I cursed that tree for standing just ten feet away from where my breath ran out, just steps from where I had nothing left but acid in my veins and two collapsed lungs.

But after weeks that turned into months, a magical thing happened: I did run to the tree, past the tree, and back to the tree. Suddenly my tree was a symbol of what I had accomplished, a sentry standing firm over the spot where I proved I could do it. After that, the tree only told me good things, and when I fell it told me to get back up and try again.

My tree often repeats a Japanese proverb to me “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” When it thinks I need it, it quotes Batman Begins “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” When the winter ice makes it dangerous to visit my tree, I think about it missing me. As a writer I can be forgiven that flight of fantasy and I’ve often walked out to see that tree in snow and icy conditions when running is a very dumb idea, just to wrap my arms around it and remember how it felt to run to the tree, past the tree, and back.

Maybe you don’t fall down in the woods. Maybe it isn’t a tree that taunts you but a Big Mac. Maybe the voice inside your head belongs to someone who loved you but hurt you a little too. It doesn’t matter, falling down works the same way for everyone: it hurts but you get back up, brush yourself off, and start going again. You’ll probably limp for a few days. People will see your bruises and cringe. None of that matters. Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

In the mood to share? I’m always happy to hear about how someone picked themselves up from a spectacular fall.

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Letting Go

At our blog we talk about being healthy and often focus on categories like healthy eating and healthy exercise. Today the most important categories for me are physical and mental health. Mentally, I’ve taken a beating this spring. On the one year anniversary of my mother-in-law’s death I buried my best friend from college. A few weeks later my grandmother passed away. Now, as if that stress weren’t enough, I’ve started a new day job and in another month I’ll be moving.

My physical health is better than it has been in some time. Healthy eating is suddenly a habit to me. I remember my vitamins on more days than I forget and I regularly get enough sleep. Thanks to Trish’s challenge I’ve had a streak of running every other day going since late March.

That streak ends tonight. Tonight, I’m choosing mental health over physical health. I made the same choice this morning when I put caffeine in my body. I normally avoid caffeine and high fructose corn syrup. I consider both of them to be about the same as alcohol and cigarettes. Still, today, dealing with all that stress, I know they’re the lesser of the evils in front of me.

There comes a time when you realize some transition, some battle is so hard you can let the other things go. You have a moment when you pray for strength to get through something or ask yourself if you really can do it. At that moment, when the darkness is so deep that you think dawn will never come, I urge you to focus on one promise, to focus yourself, and let the others go.

I’m not telling you that every torn-stocking-missed-the-bus-forgot-your-lunch bad day justifies going off your diet. I’m not giving you license to skip your writing goal for the day because your car broke down. I’m asking you to look at your circumstances and decide if this is a truly stressful time where doing things, even healthy things, will just make the situation worse. I’m giving you permission to take stock of the situation, evaluate your priorities, and say no to some things. Free yourself from guilt, set a date to come back to the habits you set aside, and move forward, focusing on what matters most. Sometimes you have to let go, let yourself drift, so you can come back stronger and better.

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Do Emergencies Matter?

The rain wept down, not hard enough to justify an umbrella, but somehow hard enough that after the brief walk from my car to my door every inch of my clothes held a frosting of wet. Inside I shook off, wiped my face on a towel, and immediately advanced on the kitchen. The smell of spicy-sweet bar-be-queue, one of my favorite foods, came out of the crock-pot, and while the insides needed a stir or two, dinner was well on its way to ready. Deep in consultation with my kitchen scale and a bag of tator tots, I heard something. Unsure, I asked my husband what it was, someone at the door maybe? Not the door, he confirmed, but then it came again, a quiet tapping, hesitating.

We made it to the door at the same time. Neither of us thinking to push aside the heavy coats, umbrellas, and caps that hung over the peephole. We don’t have many visitors and in a building where someone has to be buzzed in the weak tapping raised an alarm. Opening the door we found our neighbor, a frail Asian man, stooped and wrapped in a worn blue bathrobe.

“Need,” he began, but then ran out of breath. “Help,” he exhaled. In his hand, wedged awkwardly between the steel walker and his palm a cordless phone shook. His whole body shook and he repeated his phrase, “Need…. Help.”

Panicked, with visions of dead bodies and EMS, we rushed out of our apartment and into his. We’d never been inside but quickly passed the polished dark wood, the stunning purple orchards, and the clean white carpet. Asian character newspapers scattered on an ottoman were the only thing out of place. After our quick sweep we returned to the man who pointed the phone at the television and repeated his plea for help. Thinking he meant the room behind the TV, I swallowed my fear and checked: no body in the kitchen, no body in the dining room. Back in the living room the nature of the emergency became clear.

“Twenty-four,” the old man insisted, pointing at the TV. He then pressed the buttons on the phone with a violence borne of frustration. My husband, a man with patience I will never muster, calmly reached over and replaced the phone in the man’s hand with the television remote. While my heart rate returned slowly to normal a long debate took place about how to get to channel twenty-four.

An emergency had forced my elderly neighbor into the hallway, to knock on the door of someone he didn’t know. That emergency was not knowing how to change the channel on his TV.
Back home, I wondered about the nature of emergencies. I’m still wondering about it now. By nature, I’m a private person, I wouldn’t knock on one of my neighbors’ doors unless there was a grave injury, blood spilling, or some catastrophe. But the rules that make something an emergency are a little less clear. I miss a call from my agent, clearly that’s an emergency. Skip an evening’s work out, stop making a healthy snack, and get to that call. A friend calls in crisis, maybe not an emergency, certainly not enough to make me delay dinner, but maybe enough to keep me up too late, on the phone talking until I know I won’t get up in time the next morning to meet my writing goals.

Some emergencies send people into a spiral of unhealthy eating, skipping exercise, and isolating themselves. Other emergencies just elevate stress levels, breaking down the body’s natural defenses and leaving it vulnerable to illness and injury. But are they worth it? Are they really emergencies? What makes an emergency in your world? Can you separate the real emergencies from the not so important ones? When you do, can you find a way to diffuse the situation before it causes more problems?

I’ll be preparing for emergencies by putting a ready to go healthy meal in the freezer for nights when I lose my cooking time. I’m going to plan a few quick work outs for when phone calls eat up my exercise time. I think a few low impact, easy to do half-asleep routines will come in handy for the mornings after an emergency. As for writing, editing and organizing means I’m still accomplishing things on days when I’m too wiped out to be creative. I can’t stop emergencies from happening, but I can change how I handle them.


~~~

When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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Green beans with garlic

Spring brings with it an explosion of flavor in fresh produce. Farmers’ markets stock a dizzying array in nearly every color in the rainbow. Suddenly, eating your vegetables doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. One of my favorite veggies is the lovely green bean, or if you’re a little bit Southern you know them as snap beans. Low in calories and packed with vitamins and nutrients, green beans add a satisfying crunch to your salad. But you can only eat so many raw green beans before you crave a bit more flavor.

In my kitchen that flavor comes from oil, and growing up in an Italian household means there’s only one kind of oil on my shelf: extra virgin olive oil. I used it to sauté garlic and onions before turning them into marinara sauce, with a dash of lemon zest to create shrimp scampi, and as a dip for fresh bread. Thankfully, extra virgin olive oil is one of the good guys in the world of fats. This flavorful way to increase your good cholesterol is available in most supermarkets. Because oil standards are not heavily regulated look for the words “extra virgin” or “first cold press” on the label, avoid the words “light” and “mild”.

There are lots of ways to enjoy the heart-healthy benefits of extra virgin olive oil and the vitamin powerhouse green beans. You can dunk the green beans raw in just a little oil. You can combine the oil with a few other staples as a dressing for a lightly steamed green bean salad. One of my favorite ways is the recipe below, which blends the extra virgin olive oil with garlic. While this recipe is for green beans, you can substitute chickpeas, broccoli, or your favorite Spring vegetable.

Green beans tossed with extra virgin olive oil and garlic

2 cups fresh green beans
1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves (1½ teaspoons) chopped garlic

Wash green beans and prepare for cooking by snapping off the ends. Steam lightly using a steamer or blanch briefly in boiling water. If blanching, use a pot of ice water to stop the cooking process so the green beans remain crisp.

Place the green beans into the bottom of a large serving bowl. Add the next two ingredients, tossing to coat. Serve promptly or encourage diners to re-toss as the garlic and oil will collect on the bottom of the bowl.

(I love the strong flavor of garlic so when there’s no company coming to dinner, I use two tablespoons of garlic. Feel free to adjust the amount based on your own personal tastes.)

What are you finding in your farmers’ market? Got any new twists on the old favorites? Or any new finds that we all have to check out?
~~~

When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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The Idiot Box

Earlier this week I sat at a wide boardroom table making small talk with a woman I didn’t know. She’s going to become a co-worker, and maybe a friend, but in those first getting-to-know-you minutes I didn’t have anything to say. She bravely took up the conversational mantel and asked if I watched Lost. No, I replied, I don’t watch much TV. Silence covered us for a few seconds, until someone else at the table volunteered that they watched Lost. As the conversation moved ahead without me, I stopped to think about my TV habits.

I don’t watch much TV. Really. I think. My husband lived without a television for four years. My own disdain for the idiot box surely keeps my tube time in check. I only watch my two hour long mysteries, a pair of half an hour comedies, my addictive hour of British Science Fiction, and that one reality show I just can’t shake. Oh, and there’s that new thing they labeled Gothic Horror I’ve been catching lately. That couldn’t be all that much…. Except that it adds up to six hours.

Imagine yourself in my place, in the conference room meeting someone new, strained smiles and self-conscious glances all around. When the stranger asks you say, “I work out for six hours a week.” Wow! You’re quite the gym rat. You must really care about your health! If you said, “I pray for six hours a week” shock would fill the room at your devotion to your faith. Volunteer six hours a week and you’ll be praised. Spend six hours a week studying something – a language, math, or science, and you must be smart. But watch six hours a week of television and all you have is six hours less in your week.

If someone offered you an extra six hours a week, in one hour increments what do you think you could accomplish? Would you fill those magical six hours with writing? Research? Exercise? Several well deserved naps? But what if it was more than that, what if someone offered to give you back 153 hours this month? That’s the average amount of time an American watches television at home in a month. Even if you watch half of that average you’ve spent the equivalent of 3 days solid in front of the TV. If you spent that same amount of time on your writing, polishing your manuscripts, contacting agents, writing and rewriting that dread synopsis, how much better off would your career be?

Personally, spending that much time in front of the tube frightens me. I don’t think television improves my writing or my health. I don’t think it adds enough joy to my life to justify the time I give it. Starting now I’ll be cutting my TV time down a lot. I suspect you’ll still be able to find me curled up on the couch watching a movie on Friday or Saturday night, but the mindless “if it’s Monday, it must be Castle” has to stop. (But not with Castle, I like him and he’s a writer.)

How much time have you spent watching TV in the last week? Did it make you happy? Happier than you could have been doing something else with that time? Anyone want to try a TV-free week with me?

Curious about my statistics? They come from the Nielsen foundation, that tracks TV watching and statics. Read the study.

~~~

When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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It won’t kill you.

My father’s feet turned to clay when I was ten years old. Before then, he stood as a giant who protected me from everything. At 6’3” and 250 pounds, Dad held us up so we could reach the stars. But the year I turned ten Dad was diagnosed with diabetes. My invincible hero turned into a man with cautions attached to his life. The strongest caution accompanied food. I learned early in my Dad’s diagnosis that if he didn’t eat he would die. Being hungry would kill him. I internalized this message a bit too well, and never let myself go more than a few hours without food.

A funny thing happened when I was 29. I spent 24 hours without eating. It wasn’t by choice, there were other things on my mind at the time, not to mention doctors and nurses who ordered me to take only water. Not a single bite or drop of juice for 24 hours and somehow I survived. Since then I’ve disproven the lesson from my childhood over and over again. I’ve actually come to appreciate being a little hungry. It makes me savor my food, helps me look forward to it. Surprisingly, if I push away from the table still slightly hungry, I can go three or four hours before I need to eat again. I will admit to getting “hangry,” a word a friend made up meaning so hungry you’re angry at everyone, but I haven’t died yet.

Another unspoken family rule taught me that exercise wasn’t to be trusted. Exercise hurt. If you did too much, you would have a heart attack and die. If you escaped that fate you were sure to end up with injuries: torn ligaments, pulled muscles, and surely, broken bones. My Aunt who biked regularly had to have knee surgery. She became an example of why it was best to just avoid all of that danger.

I started running in my early twenties. I was (and am) super slow. In addition to surely dying, according to family and friends I risk a number of maladies every time I put on my sneakers: joint degeneration, back pain, knee problems, and (a personal favorite) any minute now my uterus is going to fall out. And yet, like being hungry, running hasn’t killed me. I’ve come to believe it won’t. I even own a t-shirt that says “Running won’t kill you. You’ll pass out first.”

Exercise makes me feel better. It clears up migraines before they really start. It soothes my moods and helps me form strong friendships with other runners. It teaches me that I can pick a goal and stick to it, no matter what. At the end of March Trish challenged us to set a goal and stick with it. I chose running every other day in preparation for a local 5K. In the month since then my grandmother died, I’ve dealt with job issues, and I had to revisit some old fears. Still I ran. Every other day, despite weather, exhaustion, and just plain lack of any desire to, I got out there. My 5K was the day after my grandmother’s burial. I ran. …and it didn’t kill me.

What lessons hold you back? If you took them out and looked at them, would they still be true? Are you willing to give up the security of those lessons to be healthy?

~~~

When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food, Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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Sometimes Size Does Matter

Take a quick look at these two plates. Which plate has around 450 calories?

Surprise! Both plates have exactly the same amount of food. Okay, maybe it’s not a surprise, maybe you’re well aware that plate size influences how much we eat, but did you know that plate sizes are slowly increasing? The two plates above are my ‘good china.’ The plate on the left is a salad plate, something that used to be called a luncheon plate back when people thought you should eat less at lunch. It measures eight inches across, about the same size as my grandmother’s dinner plates. Today’s dinner plates are between eleven and twelve inches. As plate size slowly creeps up, so do portion sizes.

As writers we know the actual size of something doesn’t matter much compared to how it is perceived. An object can loom large or shrink into nothing when our hero fears it or needs to find it respectively. Unfortunately, your dinner plate uses the same magic trick on your feeling of fullness after a meal. Visual cues help us to gauge how full we are; if you eat off a larger plate you’ll eat more before you feel full.

A study published in Obesity Research asked subjects to rate how satisfied they were and estimate how much they had eaten after consuming a bowl of soup. However, some subjects were given ‘bottomless’ soup bowls that refilled via a pump hidden under the table. It turned out that if a subject’s bowl never emptied they ate 73% more soup. More importantly, after eating they didn’t rate themselves as more satisfied nor did they believe they had eaten more than subjects with a normal bowl.

How can a healthy writer cope? First, try eating off of smaller plates and bowls. You’re likely to eat less without even realizing it. I’ve found using bowls and serving dishes marked with the size to be helpful as well. I know I’ve eaten half a cup when half of the one cup container is empty, instead of just guessing. I have cheap Ziploc containers and durable Pyrex, both do a great job.
Second, stop and look at your food. When all the right words are flowing from my finger tips, I often eat with my eyes on the monitor and one hand typing. It’s great for my daily word count but it means I’m not visually processing how much I’m eating. Similarly, take your food out of its bag or package. It’s a lot easier to know you’ve had ten M&Ms if you counted them out and put them in glass dish instead of snatching a handful or two from the bag as you stand over the sink.

How big are your plates? Do you think plate size matters? Do you eat while typing too? Let me know in the comments below.

Curious to read that study? It’s here: Bottomless Bowls: Why Visual Cues of Portion Size May Influence Intake

Want to make the dish you see pictured above? It’s here: Balsamic Glazed Pork Chops with Red Pepper Grits

~~~

When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food, Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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Tofu Shirataki Noodles in Beef Lo Mein

I’m a firm believer in real food. Thanks to a medical condition I can’t have artificial sweeteners, and I tend to avoid other artificial things like flavor or color. That eliminates a lot of dieting staples from my life: no sugar free soda, no sugar free pudding snacks, and almost no diet versions of regular foods. From time to time I’ll find a substitution that works for me, like swapping creamed cauliflower for mashed potatoes, but usually swaps don’t work for me.

Tofu Shirataki noodles are a swap that does work for me in a lot of ways. With only 20 calories per 4 ounce serving (that’s zero Weight Watchers points) these noodles satisfy a craving for pasta without the calories and carbs. Although a staple in Japan, at one point the Atkins diet made them easy find here in the US. They were stocked by Safeway and Costco. Now you’ll have to check with an Asian supermarket to find their guilt free goodness.

Because Tofu Shirataki noodles are made from tofu and yam flour they come packaged in water. The water tends to have a slightly unpleasant smell. To begin cooking, rinse the noodles thoroughly, then microwave in fresh water for two minutes. (If you don’t have a microwave, parboil in boiling water on the stove.) Drain and dry before cooking. They taste best when cooked in a flavorful sauce such as the recipe below.

Beef Lo Mein with Tofu Shirataki noodles

4 ounces per person of very lean Beef (in these photos I used top round beef)
1 bag (8 oz.) Tofu Shirataki, rinsed, parboiled, and dried
1 cup snow peas
1 cup green peas

Marinade for the beef:
3 tablespoons orange juice
3 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Mirin (Japanese Rice Wine)
1 tablespoon Japanese Rice Wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Sesame seeds
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

Slice the beef thin, on the bias. Combine the first 9 ingredients for the marinade, altering to your taste. When it’s perfect, add the beef and refrigerate for at least two hours.

In a hot nonstick pan begin to cook the beef, pouring the marinade into a pot for later use. Steam or microwave the vegetables.

Place the marinade over medium heat. When it reaches a boil add the rinsed, microwaved, and dried Shirataki noodles. After five minutes remove the noodles from the sauce and arrange on the plate. Add the cornstarch to the remaining marinade, whisking to combine.

Arrange the beef and vegetables on the plates. When the marinade has thickened pour over the plates and serve immediately.

A complex recipe, but well worth it for the calorie savings. While Shirataki noodles have a bit of a strange mouth-feel, they taste like whatever you cooked them in. I’ll take a slightly rubbery or slippery bite to save roughly 160 calories per serving. What about you? Fake foods or no? Would you rather go without than try a substitute?


~~~

When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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The Skinny Girl in the Elevator

Last year at DragonCon I stepped onto the crowded elevator to a scent worth drooling for: bar-be-queue sauce sweet and tangy followed by a hint of fresh French Fries. My mind filled in the rest of the meal hiding in the Styrofoam container: crumbly, buttery cornbread and cool, creamy coleslaw. Having just come from a not-nearly-as-enticing grilled chicken salad, I sighed and announced how jealous I was. A woman not far from me reminded me to think of the calories. I replied that you couldn’t always count calories. And then she said…

“Skinny girls always say things like that.”

After I picked my jaw up from the elevator floor I told her my weight and thanked her for calling me a skinny girl. She told me I wore it well and walked out of my life. That would be the first, and only, time I’ve ever been the skinny girl.

There are a few lessons here: that we’re all the skinny girl compared to someone else, that it only takes a minute to make someone’s day, and that good bar-be-que is worth a taste or two. But the most important one is this: it’s not about how other people see you, it’s about how you see you.

The girl riding the elevator with me saw skinny. Great! But I can’t take that compliment and use it to ignore the facts: my BMI registers as obese, given my family medical history sugary meals and simple carbs are dangerous, and someone with my health background needs to be better. It’s not about getting compliments, it’s not about fitting into a size 10, it’s about staying alive and being healthy.

I want to be able to live without a daily injection of insulin. I want to be able to enjoy my old age without taking several daily prescriptions. I want to walk along the beach without worrying about how far it is. I want know the only thing stopping me is good sense, not poor health.

It’s hard when you get close to your goals and other people begin to see you as skinny. Friends will say you’re doing so well, skip tonight’s run and come have a beer. Partners will pick up sugary treats, offering them to you as a reward. It’s harder still when it isn’t going well, when nothing seems to work or you just don’t want to think about it anymore. People will tell you you’re being silly, you look great. The world will make excuses for you: you’ve had a bad day, there’s some reason to celebrate, or it’s too cold or hot to be healthy.

But you’re worth the work. Your health is worth fighting this battle. Having a set back or reaching a milestone isn’t a reason to stop. You have to remain vigilant, even when it feels like you’re almost finished or feel you never will be. So bask in the glow of compliments (I still think about being the skinny girl in the elevator) but remember to stay on course. Appreciate the intentions behind the excuses, but ignore their siren’s song. Stay in control and don’t let anyone make your choices for you.

What compliments have you gotten lately? Where have you been derailed? Can you use one to fight the other? Let me know if you think I’m crazy in the comments below.

~~~

When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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Sock it to me cake

Not every day can be a good day. Some days you get rejected and it hurts. Someone criticizes your work and it’s like they’re criticizing you. While I don’t condone emotional eating, I’ve never objected to comfort food. My comfort foods are exactly the ones I try to avoid on a day to day basis: baked goods, cakes, and cookies.

This cake is perfect for a night when you want to curl and cry a little. If you’re smarting from a failure, whether it’s writing related or not, rest assured that you don’t suffer alone. We all have stories of times when everything we did felt wrong, when nothing went our way, and then things got really tough. Part of being healthy is dealing with those hard times in ways that don’t hurt you like a favorite movie, a reasonable amount of comfort food, and the laughter of good friends. Keeping the amount of comfort food reasonable is easier when you share it with someone. So make your cake, but then invite a friend or two over to enjoy it, packing up the leftovers for them to take home or let yourself have one slice and then give the rest away to your neighbor.

An old favorite from the 70s, Sock-it-to-me Cake appears in my memories at thousand bake sales. It’s perfect for writers’ group get togethers and goes great with a cup of coffee. To make it just a little bit healthier, I make it with less than usual amount of eggs and omit the usual glaze. Even then it comes out decadent and rich. It’s one of only two things that I make from a box (Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, another great comfort food, is the other).

Sock-it-to-me Cake

(Based on the Duncan Hines recipe)

1 box butter recipe yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/3 cup oil
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon. brown sugar

Preparation:
Combine the 2 tablespoons of the cake mix with the cinnamon and brown sugar; set aside. (If you’re a chocoholic, or you just want to get rid of that left over chocolate bunny, you can replace the cinnamon filling layer with chocolate shavings.)

In large bowl, blend the remaining cake mix, eggs, sour cream, oil, water, and sugar. Beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Pour 2/3 of batter into greased and floured Bundt or tube pan. Cover the batter with the cinnamon sugar, then pour in the remaining batter, being sure to seal the edges.

Bake at 375° for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Feeling really decadent? Add a glaze. Blend ½ cup powdered sugar and ½ to 1 tablespoon milk.

What comfort foods do you indulge in? How do you stop yourself from going overboard with them? How can you make your comfort foods healthier?

~~~

When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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Let’s talk about Stress, Baby

Let’s talk about you and me
Let’s talk about all the good things
and the bad things that may be
Let's talk about it
-- Salt-n-Pepa, “Let’s talk about Sex”, 1991, London Records

On sunshiny spring days when you get enough sleep, you don’t have a deadline to worry about, and nothing disturbs your routine, being healthy is easy. You can exercise with no trouble. You have enough time to prepare a healthy meal. You get a chance to unwind with yoga before going to bed. Those steady bread-and-butter days help you meet your weekly writing goal, keep your calories in check, and let you conquer the world.

But stress happens. Good and bad events tax your body causing a physical reaction to emotional events. Good friends die in car accidents or the taxman tells you to prepare for an audit. You move to a new house or get a new puppy. What do you do then?

I’m going to ask you to do something a little uncomfortable and think about the stressful events that are coming up in your life. The plotters will have it easier than the pantsers, but everyone should be able to see the good and bad things that could happen in their future. Maybe your child will graduate from high school soon; maybe your car is making a noise that means a big repair bill. How will you deal with the stress those events bring?

Say you finally get the Call, the one that means you’re going to be published (or published again). Would you call up friends and immediately celebrate with a bottle or two of wine? When your editor sends back revisions that rip your heart to pieces do you dive for the chocolate? Is a favorable review the reason for a night out with a few clandestine cigarettes and dancing until dawn?

The ways you handle stress can help keep you healthy or they can tear you down. You can celebrate with a day at the spa or a bottle of wine. You can console yourself with a pedicure or an entire galloon of ice cream. Think about it and come up with a healthy stress relief plan. Remember, this isn’t an all or nothing decision. Maybe you’ll handle stress with a glass of wine instead of the whole bottle. When my agent offered to represent me I indulged in a pint of strawberries and a few hours at a nightclub, a good balance of healthy and indulgent.

What are the healthy ways you can handle stress? What do you already do to alleviate stress in your life? What do you need to stop doing when life stresses you out?

~~~

When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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Broccoli & White Bean soup

The calendar reads March and the stores are filled with bunnies both chocolate and plush, but the view out my window is cold, gray rain. Dreary days are tough days for healthy eating. When the sky looks like slate and you need to turn on a lamp to see what you’re typing all I want is cake, muffins, and warm bread. Sadly, I’ve learned that carbohydrates are the devil for me. To stay healthy, I need to eat more protein and healthy fats, staying away from ‘white’ carbohydrates like flour, potatoes, rice, and pasta.

All of those are included in the soups I crave in bad weather. While diet plans encourage vegetable soups in light broth, for me a soup needs to be thick and hearty. Most cream soups are thickened with the flour I avoid. Other recipes get their creaminess came from pureed potatoes, usually the Yukon gold variety. Again, they taste great but they aren’t right for me.

After some experimenting I developed the recipe below that using cannellini beans to provide a creamy texture and lots of broccoli for a cheerful St. Patrick’s day green. With a little bit of a nutty flavor, lots of fiber, and lots of protein cannellini beans make this soup filling, smooth, and healthy. It’s easy to sip from a mug while I’m curled up under a blanket watching the rain and plotting how my hero will save the day.

Broccoli & White Bean soup

4 cups broccoli spears (including the stems, roughly chopped)
3 cups of water
1 14 ounce can of cannellini beans, rinsed
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion
Dash of salt and pepper

Bring water to a boil. Add broccoli and cook until tender. Stir in beans and seasonings. Simmer for one minute. Puree mixture in a blender, one cup at a time. Serve warm, with a garnish of cheddar cheese or tomatoes.

What are your favorite rainy day foods? Are they healthy? Could you make them that way? Don’t be afraid to experiment with your favorite recipes!

~~~

When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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Slow Cooker Red Beans and Rice

By Rachel Kleinsorge

One of the things I do to be a healthy writer is attend dance class twice a week. I love the way dancing makes me feel glamorous and strong, the way it lets me step outside of myself for an hour. However, I don’t love the way I have to squeeze in dinner between leaving my day job at five and arriving at the dance studio at six-thirty. With drive time, I have about 45 minutes to eat and dress for class. At first I would grab something quick on the way, a burger or a wrap, but I quickly realized my not-healthy meals were undoing all of the work I did on the dance floor. I’ve solved the problem by bringing out an old favorite in the kitchen: the slow cooker.

This recipe is for red beans and rice. Traditional New Orleans style red beans and rice is a meal served on Mondays with women setting the beans out to soak on Sunday while they do the laundry. That recipe usually includes sausage or ham. This recipe has a Caribbean twist that replaces the meat with tomatoes, and thanks to canned beans, you don’t have to wait for anything to soak. You can have this modern version Wednesday, Friday, or any day of the week when you’d like a hot, healthy, meatless meal waiting for you. You can even prepare it the night before and use a kitchen timer when you’re in a real rush.

A few words about why this recipe is healthy. It’s low in fat, but still packed with fiber and protein from the beans. The tomatoes give the dish a high amount of lycopene, vitamin C, vitamin A, and potassium.

Slow Cooker Red Beans and Rice

1 can (15 oz.) kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can (15 oz.) diced tomatoes
¾ cup water
1 small onion, diced (approximately 1 ½ cups)
¼ cup diced green pepper
1 tablespoon garlic
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon red pepper
½ teaspoon paprika
1 bay leaf
Dash pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small to medium slow cooker. Stir well. Cook on low for four to six hours, until hot throughout. While the beans are cooking, make your favorite rice in the usual manner. Serve the beans over brown rice for health’s sake or white rice for tradition’s sake.

You may not have noticed it yet, but I hate spicy food. I’ll cheerfully eat whole cloves of garlic or sautéed onions while picking out any chili peppers or bell peppers that might sneak into a meal. The recipe above is made to my taste, with the ingredients in italics for all of you who like your food with a little kick. I find slow-cookers bring out even mild flavors. What are your slow cooker favorites? Will your red beans and rice be super spicy or just rich and wonderful?


When she’s not cooking, buying, or dreaming about food, Rachel Kleinsorge writes steamy paranormal mystery romances. She is currently waiting for the call from her agent, the amazing Carolyn Grayson, while working on her next novel.

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