Author Archives: Katie Robles

Cook It At Home

My mom sent me a link to this cool video on the benefits of cooking the food you eat at home (as opposed to letting a corporation cook it for you). I hope you check it out HERE; it’s short and good.

Mom, you should have shown me this video when I was three and THEN cooked me homemade meals for twenty years straight; I might have grumbled less about all the vegetables. You got it backwards, but that’s okay: I’m truly appreciating it now! 😉

For the Turkey Curry recipe shown in this picture, click here.

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Putting It All Together. Tags: healthy living, homemade meals, maintaining a healthy weight, nutrition, turkey curry. 1 Comment

Jul. ’14

Two Fisted Blueberry Recipes

During blueberry season each summer, my family eats about a pound of berries a day. I’d like to share a couple of my favorite blueberry recipes with you. They can be prepared in under a minute, are chock full of antioxidants, and have no added sugar or preservatives. As a bonus feature, if you try all three recipes in the next 24 hours, you get a free gentle colon cleanse.

Two Fisted Blueberries

1. Wash blueberries.

2. Grab two fistfuls of blueberries (don’t squeeze too hard unless your fists are hovering over toast and you’re looking to make Instant Jam).

3. Empty your fists into your mouth at a non-choking rate of speed and say “Mmm-mm-mm-mm-mmmmm”.

Blueberry Cereal

1. Fill bowl with blueberries. (Sometimes I add some Cheerios.)

2. Add milk and eat with a spoon.

3. When your children ask you what you’re eating, say “Blue Sugar Bombs, but you can’t have any”.

Two Fisted To Go Cup

1. Fill plastic cup with blueberries.

2. Carry it around with you and periodically shake berries into your mouth. This is great for car rides. Nothing draws stares at a red light like chewing your beverage.

“Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.” Genesis 1:11

And I’m so glad He did!

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Interesting Tidbits. Tags: blueberries, blueberry recipe, humor, maintaining a healthy weight. 3 Comments

Jul. ’14

Diet Dictionary: Hiking In The Woods

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Cartoons. Tags: exercise ideas, humor, maintaining a healthy weight, personal trainer, Weight loss. 1 Comment

Jul. ’14

Inside Out Victory

High cholesterol runs in my family. It also runs high in me. I first got my levels checked eight years ago; the good (HDL) and the bad (LDL) cholesterol were both way high. I wish doctors would let the good and bad cholesterol cancel each other out, but they’re sticklers for things like scientific research, so every year we’ve had the “It’s too high, we should consider drugs” conversation.

I avoided drugs for the first five years by having children, because you can’t take cholesterol lowering medication while pregnant or breastfeeding. While I did NOT have children for the sole purpose of keeping my cholesterol high, I had four babies in less than six years, so I think I maxed out on that excuse. When my youngest was weaned, I had to make a decision.

I didn’t like the idea of drugs; I wanted to have a go at lowering my cholesterol with diet and exercise. Two years ago I started losing weight and my bad cholesterol went down about 20 points that first year. Still way too high. “But doctor,” I said, “It went down! Give me another year.” I just got my levels checked a few weeks ago and it went down 20 points again. I am now within ten points of “normal”! One more year of this healthy lifestyle stuff and I will be able to sit in my doctor’s office with an smug little smile that says, “I dare you to find anything wrong with me!”

But here’s the coolest part. (Sort of.)

My weight hasn’t changed at all this year. I weigh now what I weighed a year ago. (GASP! I know, I know, I’m not exactly happy about it either, but don’t give up on me until you finish the paragraph.) While this weight plateau is a bummer, the encouraging part is that I’ve been changing for the better on the inside this past year: I have visible muscles in my arms and legs, my clothes fit better than they did last year, and my blood vessels have less lipoproteins in them. The point is that I’m making progress. If your scale numbers haven’t changed, be encouraged that every healthy thing you do for your body (sleep, exercise, good food, and lots of water) ARE making a difference, whether you see the results yet or not.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s physical: victory is mine!

“It was not by their sword that they won the land,
nor did their arm bring them victory;
it was your right hand, your arm,
and the light of your face, for you loved them.” Psalm 44:3

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Putting It All Together. Tags: cholesterol, cholesterol lowering medication, healthy living, maintaining a healthy weight, Weight loss. 2 Comments

Jun. ’14

Ode To The Sugar Snap Pea

Sugar Snap Peas are the best vegetable in the world, hands down. (Mouths open?) I love them so much, I composed a poem of pea celebration while picking them in the garden. You may comment and disagree with me, but you must do so in rhyme. 🙂

Eat the pea and eat the pod.

Please my palate and feed my bod.

Crunchy, sweet; the taste is groovin’.

Fiber keeps my insides movin’!

Vitamin C for healthy joints.

In Weight Watchers, you’re zero points!

Vitamins K and A galore;

A hit with kids; they all want more!

Had I the space and cash to spare,

I’d build a giant greenhouse where

I’d plant and pick and sing this song

and eat my snap peas all year long!

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Interesting Tidbits. Tags: Sugar Snap Peas. 4 Comments

Jun. ’14

Happy Junesgiving!

Happy Junesgiving, everyone!

The sun is shining, the kids are sweating…must be time to bake a turkey! Last week I baked the turkey I bought on sale last fall and experimented with Zucchini Mushroom Stuffing. The result? Delicious! Celery and onion sauteed in butter makes ANYTHING you add to it taste good.

I used a classic Betty Crocker cookbook recipe for stuffing; I simply replaced the cubed white bread with quartered mushrooms and zucchini. I also used fresh thyme and sage instead of dried. You get a good amount of liquid from this stuffing, but the turkey seemed more moist than usual, so maybe there’s a connection there.

I encourage you to keep experimenting with your vegetables! Eggplant slices instead of noodles in lasagna, wraps wrapped in big green chard or lettuce leaves instead of a tortilla. Even little changes can make a big difference in the long run.

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden” Genesis 2:16b

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: SOUP: Water and Vegetables. Tags: healthy living, maintaining a healthy weight, SOUP: Water and Vegetables, turkey, Vegetable, Weight loss. Leave a comment

Jun. ’14

Why I Love Swimming At The YMCA

There are many excellent forms of exercise to choose from, but swimming laps is my favorite by far. Let me tell you why swimming at my local YMCA is so great.

1. No sweat! I like to hike, walk, bike, and so forth, but I don’t like to sweat. Ever. I avoid it whenever I can. When I swim, I feel cool and fresh the whole time. I’m going to invent a bike bubble that allows you to pedal down the street surrounded by cold water up to your waist.

2. Feel young and slender! I go to the Y mid-morning when the building is frequented by young moms and retirees. 95% of the young moms are on the elliptical machines or in the aerobics classes, which means that most days I can boast of having the sexiest body in the swimming pool!

3. Hope for the future! There are some days when the best body in the pool award goes to a swimmer in his or her seventies or eighties. While this is humbling, it proves to me that swimming is something I can keep doing for the rest of my life.

4. Full body workout! I love that I swim and then I’m done. Swimming laps works my arms, legs, heart, and lungs.

5. Safer snorkeling! On a planet that’s 70% water, swimming is a life saving skill and it doesn’t hurt to be good at it. After I’d been swimming for six months, my husband and I had the opportunity to snorkel in the ocean off the coast of Mexico. We were fighting waves and currents as we swam and I was so proud of being able to handle myself well in that water.

I realize that not everyone likes to swim. A good friend of mine came swimming with me once, but she didn’t like it. She likes to sweat. She likes to work each part of her body separately and feel the burn. She’s crazy.

If you don’t like your current exercise, try something new and find something you enjoy. Roller skating, biking, hiking, cross country skiing, zumba, kick boxing, square dancing…find a way to move your body and love it!

“What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

You made them rulers over the works of your hands; the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (excerpts from Psalm 8)

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: SEX: Sleep and Exercise. Tags: exercise ideas, God, healthy living, humor, maintaining a healthy weight, Physical exercise, YMCA. 2 Comments

May. ’14

Weight Loss On Pinterest

If you’re looking for some extra motivation or creative ideas for weight loss, take a look at Pinterest. There are inspiring quotes, information on the benefits of vegetables, recipes for smoothies, cartoons about dieting, and work out ideas (depending on the time of day, I tend to skip those…just reading about all those planks and lunges makes me tired).

I’ve made a Pinterest board for Sex, Soup, and Two Fisted Eating where I’m gathering some of my favorite pins. Feel free to check it out HERE.

My favorite pin of the day is “I don’t need a personal trainer so much as I need someone to follow me around and slap unhealthy foods out of my hand.” Hee hee, gotta love it!

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:41

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: Putting It All Together. Tags: Diet, healthy living, maintaining a healthy weight, Pinterest, Weight loss. 1 Comment

May. ’14

Mouth Shoveling

I’ve been shoveling a lot lately. No, no, this is not another gardening post. I’ve been shoveling food into my mouth.

The change from savoring each bite to racing through my plate has been gradual, but at this point I feel like one of those guys in the bowels of a ship shoveling coal into the furnace as fast as I can go, but without the well earned bulging biceps.

Now that I’m aware of it, I’m returning to square one: slow down and savor my food. No more Eating AND: Eating AND watching TV, Eating AND cooking, Eating AND reading the Bible over breakfast. If I’m eating, that’s all I’m doing; it’s a form of entertainment. I love food that tastes good, so I need to pay attention and truly taste it…or eat plain lettuce, a shovel-approved food if there ever was one.

Why is it so important for me to slow down and savor? Because I eat less when I eat slow and I enjoy my food more.

If you’ve gotten off track over the winter like I have, don’t despair. Get your wheels back on track and let your bicep boys – not your fork – shovel you to victory! Who are your bicep boys in this analogy? Um…I don’t know. How about we end this post before I lose you completely?

Today I wish you booooon aaaappeeetiiiiite! Slow motion. Get it? That was so corny, you can taste it.

May your every bite be satisfying and a blessing to your body!

“Taste and see that the Lord is good;

blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” Psalm34:8