Monthly Archives: April 2016

My First Home-Baked Bread

For the longest time, I’ve wanted to bake my own bread from scratch. It seemed like a wild and hard thing to do. Spoiler alert: it’s not. This project is also part of my goal to use cookbooks to try new recipes. This one comes from A Feast of Ice and Fire yet again. You’ve seen me cook for King’s Landing, dine in the South, and bake for The Wall. We are at The Wall yet again, cooking for the Night’s Watch.  And yes, we’re making crusted white bread, just like they would eat. Two dreams coming true! All it took was a little bit of yeast. I would say the hardest part is kneading it out and keeping it non-sticky. Otherwise, it’s pretty simple: mix the ingredients, knead it out, let it rise, and bake!

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A True Lifestyle Supplement: ON Amino Energy

The supplement industry can be a huge, intimidating monster for many. Think along the lines of that dark and scary maze at the end of the Triwizard tournament in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Yes, it can be that bad for millions of people who are overwhelmed by the flashy labels, crazy names, and exhaustive ingredient lists of thousands of brands. Thousands of powders, hundreds of flavors, and yet, they only aim to accomplish a few things. Mostly, they help you get ready for your workout, assist you in getting through your workout, or benefit you in recovering after your workout. Some companies like to put them in separate products that you buy and combine while some combine them into one proprietary blend for you, but what if you’re perfectly content working out without supplements? 

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Easy Healthy Shrimp Pasta

Since both Hungry and I are eating healthy, we’ve been doing a lot of home cooking. I’m lucky enough to have a partner who cooks food beautifully. He will even come home from a long day at work and cook for me, and it makes us both happy! Cooking at home is usually healthier (depends what restaurants you frequent), so we’ve been stocking up the fridge and pulling out the pans. These meals are especially special when we use wild caught seafood (a protein I will eat since it’s wild-caught). We have a great Bristol Farms in walking distance of us so we often go there and pick out some decent wild seafood. This time, it was shrimp. Mmm, mmm good! This recipe is simple and light–you will absolutely not feel heavy afterward. It packs a punch of flavor and will have you looking for more. 

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Chocolate Chip Protein Cookies

I have tried recipe after recipe to find the perfect protein cookies. They often come out too dry, too cakey, or downright rubbery. We can’t have any of that! I have finally found a recipe that comes out well! Hoorah! These aren’t the healthiest, but they have significantly more protein than other cookies and less sugar and fat than other cookies. We’ll say it’s healthierThese puppies have 7g of protein a piece–pretty awesome for a cookie! It’ll be a crowd pleaser and they won’t even know that it’s healthier than normal. Careful of how long you keep in the oven, I left mine in a minute too long (as you may be able to see). 

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Crustless Kale Quiche

It’s one of those mornings…when you’re still eating quite healthy, feeling a little lazy, and want to have something yummy. You also need to clean out your fridge. What to do….quiche! We keep it crustless to keep the unneeded carbs and bad fats out and we throw in whatever may go bad in the following week. For our fridge, we had a whole lot of kale that I wanted to go through. Kale is a wonderful green and gives a nice texture to a quiche. You can follow my recipe, or you can use it as a base and throw what you want into it! Grab some eggs and here we go…

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Grip Strength Workout

Whether you’re having a hard time opening a jar of pickles or can’t lockout that 600+ lb deadlift, your grip is an essential component to your overall strength. Instead of buying a pair of straps or the most technologically advanced chalk, the best practice is to develop a grip that can crush apples and tear phone books. These exercises will help you develop stronger hands and have a direct practical application to competitions such as powerlifting and strongman since you’re simulating the same technique. Even if you’re a martial artist who grapples or throws, being able to hold onto a gi is key and no matter what your goal, this routine will push your mind (and forearms) to the limit every set.

It’s important to note that in between every set, I will stretch the muscles that are being contracted for such a long amount of time. For example, I might use a thick rubber band (like the one from broccoli at the grocery) to expand my hands so they and my forearms are not in a state of constant flexion. I train many lab workers, nurses, and bakers who have developed the equivalent of a shin splint in their forearms because they’ve created such an extreme muscular imbalance. We want to avoid that in our effort to strengthen our grip. We don’t want to cause injury when trying to squeeze that level 3 Captain of Crush. 

(I will mention that you’ll notice Captain of Crush work is not included in this workout. I generally superset every exercise in my bodybuilding upper day with my CoC so I avoid using them in this workout.)

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April and the Twisted World (2015)

It seems as if everyone in Los Angeles came or stayed in the area because of their dream to be in the industry. One of my colleagues at the gym is an actor and screenwriter, but when I told him that I was going to see April and the Twisted World, he claimed that animated films aren’t really his thing. Well, Hungry & Fit are fascinated with animated films, but our fascination rocketed to a whole new level with this somewhat dark and comical animated treasure. 

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Blueberry Cashew Topping

We’re still eating clean for the most part over here at Hungry & Fit headquarters and that means getting creative when we have sweet tooths (teeth…). Hungry recently came up with this divine topping (or sauce) to put on breakfast or “desserts.” I was absolutely blown away when he served it to me atop a stack of Kodiak pancakes (healthy pancakes). I was like, well someone got carried away, is this still healthy? And guess what–it was! I was shocked when I learned the ingredients for this beautiful, delicious topping: blueberries and cashews were the main components. Each bite was like a slice of heaven–the cashews were just soft enough to ease into your mouth and melt while the blueberries soothed everything out. Okay, enough dreaming, let’s get to the real stuff!

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Blueberry Cashew Topping
Serves 2
A healthy, divine topping to put on breakfasts or desserts
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Cook Time
5 min
Total Time
5 min
Cook Time
5 min
Total Time
5 min
Ingredients
  1. 2/3 cup blueberries
  2. 2/3 cup cashews
  3. 1/4 cup applesauce
  4. 1 tbsp brown sugar
  5. 1 tsp honey
  6. 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
Instructions
  1. Roast the cashews with the honey
  2. Throw rest of ingredients in and simmer for 5 minutes
hungry and fit https://hungryandfit.com/
Yeah, 5 minutes is accurate! As you are frying up those pancakes, heating up those waffles, scooping that froyo, heat this up in a pan! You and your family will be thanking me this weekend. It’s an easy way to trick the kids into liking something healthy! It’s a perfect weekend breakfast addition. It’s easy and anyone with a heat source and a pot can make it. It also isn’t too sweet. I’m not a fan of most pancake toppings because there’s way too much sugar. This balance is absolutely wonderful. Make this recipe to stay hungry and fit!

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The Steady Rise of Diabetes and What We Can Do About It

I’m willing to bet that most people know someone or have someone in their lives that has diabetes. There’s Diabetes Type I and Type II, but I’m focusing on Type II today. It affects so many people and their lives, even those who don’t have it, but have a close relative who does. BBC just came out with this article this morning:

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The world is facing an “unrelenting march” of diabetes which now affects nearly one in 11 adults, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

In a major report it warned cases had nearly quadrupled to 422 million in 2014 from 108 million in 1980.

High blood sugar levels are a major killer – linked to 3.7 million deaths around the world each year, it says.

How diabetes has taken its toll

422 million

adults were living with diabetes in 2014 – that’s

314 million

more than there were in 1980

  • 8.5% of adults worldwide has diabetes
  • 1.5 million people died as a result of diabetes in 2012
  • 2.2 million additional deaths were caused by higher-than-optimal blood glucose
  • 43% of these 3.7m people died before they were 70 years old
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