http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

From Apartment Therapy → How Much Did Your Marble Countertops Really Cost, and Was it Worth It?

READ MORE »

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

Open Baking Lesson

Naan is an Indian yeast-leavened bread, traditionally baked in a clay oven called a tandoori. You’ve probably eaten it alongside curry at your favorite restaurant, grabbed it from the bakery, or maybe you’ve already made it at home. While we often associate naan with Indian food, it can be a staple of the everyday dinner routine, as this is one of the fastest, most versatile breads you can make at home.

READ MORE »

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

It’s cocktail party season, so it’s time to stock up on the most delicious one- and two-bite morsels you can find. From classic gougères to delicious cheddar olives, we’ve got you covered. We even endorse a secret cheat, if time is lacking.

READ MORE »

Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

read more

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

How To Make Naan Bread at Home

(Image credit: Christine Han)

When it comes to bread, we’re with Oprah (we love bread!) and our admiration isn’t restricted to tangy sourdough loaves or crusty baguettes. Nearly every culture has strong opinions about bread products (see: Why the English Muffin Is Vastly Superior to the Bagel), and India is no exception.

Flatbreads, in particular, are an important staple in South Asian cuisine, especially in the wheat-growing states of Northern India. There is a plethora of flatbreads, many of which are rarely found outside of home kitchens like bhatoora, deep-fried leavened bread from Punjab; khakhra, cracker-thin flatbreads from Gujarat; and puran poli, flatbread stuffed with jaggery-sweetened lentils from Maharashtra, to name a few.

But there are others that you are probably familiar with. The four highlighted here are some of the more commonplace and, if you’re feeling adventurous, also relatively easy to make.

READ MORE »

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

(Image credit: Ashley Poskin)

From Apartment Therapy → The 10 Natural Cleaning Recipes Everyone Should Know By Heart

READ MORE »

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

I woke up the morning of the ceremony with butterflies in my stomach. I’d done the necessary prep. I’d abstained from carbs the past week and food the past 24 hours. I’d performed four consecutive full-body circuit workouts to deplete muscle glycogen, and undergone a liver biopsy to confirm full depletion of liver glycogen. I wasn’t taking any chances. Although I had extensive experience generating endogenous ketones and subsisting on my own body fat, exogenous ketones were another matter entirely. You don’t want to mess around with a holy sacrament without doing due diligence.

Holy sacrament? Yes.

According to ethnographic accounts from early Arctic explorers who encountered the sacred compound, the exogenous ketone was developed by traditional peoples of the wintry north. No one’s quite sure where it arose first—Siberia, Greenland, Alaska, Lapland. What they do know is that these societies revered the type 1 diabetic, a rare find in the pre-contact Arctic. Using an admittedly grisly and cruel process, these groups would starve the tribe’s diabetic to induce ketoacidosis, harvest the ketone-rich urine, and reduce it slowly to a ketone-rich tar over a wood fire. Tribe shamans would dissolve the tar in pine needle tea and distribute it to members exclusively before hunting trips, warfare, and any other activity requiring optimal physical and mental function to boost energy and improve performance. As Mark Twain famously quipped, “The strongest coffee I ever had was a Laplander’s piss.”

So when I showed up to the small building on the edge of town on a rainy evening, I was anxious. What was I in for? The solemn countenances worn by my two guides for the day—Dr. Peter Attia, wearing dark robes and swinging a thurible loaded with burning MCT oil, and Gary Taubes, face smeared with bacon grease, body adorned with wreaths of stevia leaf—impressed upon me the import of the approaching ceremony.

Detractors are scoffing already. “Sisson, you’re degrading yourself taking the shortcut to ketones with a pill. Instead, spend years sweeping the ashram, maintaining a low-carb, high-fat diet, and doing low-level aerobic activity just shy of the anaerobic threshold to boost mitochondrial fat-burning capacity and generate ketones on command. There are Sami gurus who can produce so many ketones in their saliva that a single French kiss from one will boost your IQ one standard deviation for a day. That’s true power—freedom from reliance on a ketone powder.”

Maybe so. But as I said, I’ve been there already. I’ve lived that life for more than a decade. I’ve long been convinced of the merits of a fat-based metabolism, and now I wanted to push the boundaries. To build on the existing scaffolding.

So I took the ketones, Jimmy Moore effigy made of coconut husks and pork rinds looking on.

All the universe unfolded before me. I was discovering solutions to long-standing problems—business disputes, moral quandaries, plans for the future—before consciously considering them. I’d think about a problem and discover my ketone-enhanced brain had already solved it. If I closed my eyes, I could actually hear the whirr of my mitochondria churning through all the additional ketone bodies. I flung open the temple door and practically sprinted through the hills, covering five miles at 4:15 per without breaking the anaerobic threshold and returning only to purge through both ends.

“All part of the process,” Attia said, handing me a bucket and washcloth.

Jokes aside, I have been playing with ketones. Over the past couple years, I’ve tried a lot of ketone supplements, from KetoCaNa, Pruvit, Kegenix, to a few others. I’ve even accepted and tried a one-off from a person trying to break into the market who I failed to thoroughly vet; that time, I felt like I might die. No joke.

What have I noticed?

There is usually some GI discomfort, occasionally outright distress that’s only relieved once there’s nothing left to give. So you have to plan for that.

About half the time I’ll take ketones right before Sunday Ultimate Frisbee matches. It provides a discernible extra burst of speed during the game, more overall energy (I just feel like “going” more), and less soreness the next day. I speculate that my ability to hit higher performance levels without dipping as deep into anaerobic territory is less stressful overall on my body, so I recover more quickly and with less pain.

There’s also the potential for ketones being anti-inflammatory. Sure enough, exogenous ketones seem to have an anti-inflammatory effect, suppressing expression of an inflammasome involved in various disease states. Some research shows that blocking the inflammasome by deleting the gene responsible for it protects against arthritis in rodents. If the same is true for humans using ketones, that—along with my increased intake of collagen—might explain why I’ve made a strong recovery from serious Achilles’ tendinosis.

I recently did another long fast of over two days. Prior to ketone usage, two days was really rough. I could do it, but I wasn’t happy. This time using a small dose of ketones throughout the first day really helped me through the rough patches. In fact, those rough patches never came. 48 hours was a relative breeze.

I don’t know how much these supplements would help someone on a standard higher-carb diet. It’s clearly a good performance booster on its own, but I think this stuff should be complemented by a foundation of fat and keto-adapted eating which provides a robust infrastructure set up to handle ketones. Longer-term fat-adaptation is the powerful trigger for mitochondrial biogenesis—so you have the extra mitochondria necessary to wring every last drop out of those ketones. You need to look at the long picture here.

Anyway, after the busy holiday I wanted to have a little fun and provide some real actionable information for this post. Hope you all dug it. I’m truly excited about this ketone stuff, and I’m actually feverishly working on a breakthrough new book about keto-adapted eating, living and performing that should come out around Fall 2017. Details TBA.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Have you tried ketone salts or esters? What do you think? What have you noticed?

Take care!

The post My Experience with Exogenous Ketones: Tale and Truth appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

(Image credit: Leela Cyd)

When it comes to food for a New Year’s Eve celebration, you can either go for the full dinner or opt for bites and nibbles to power you all night long. Now, the nice thing about the bites and nibbles option is you get to nosh on those bites and nibbles all night long. And no food lends itself to such a notion like a well-made samosa.

These samosas were one of the first items Atlanta-based chef Asha Gomez created for her daytime dining spot, Spice To Table, and the first thing that appears on our South Indian New Year’s Eve menu. Unlike traditional samosas, they’re made with puff pastry for a buttery, flaky crunch, although the filling is very much full of South Indian ingredients and flavors. As Asha likes to say, “This is about an evolution of flavor, not a fusion.”

READ MORE »

https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/

Mothers are the lifeblood of most families. Whether you’re a work-at-home or work-away-from-home mom, you’re busy! To say that fitting in some exercise between doctor appointments, runny noses, homework, soccer practice and 15 loads of laundry is challenging would be a massive understatement.

After eight years as a parent I’ve finally figured out that I need to schedule my workouts into my day, the same way that I schedule every other work and family commitment. Deciding to prioritize my workout has represented a huge shift in how I think about my self-care. Through these years of parenting my own kids and training clients who have babies, toddlers and school-aged big kids, I’ve picked up some strategies to optimize the limited time we moms have for our workouts.

Training Hard?
Not Getting Results?

This week we’re giving away a FREE handbook explaining why you’re probably not getting the results you want, and what to do about it. (It’s simpler than you think!)

Click to get it now!

Have your Exercise Playlist Ready

Of course, the right music playlist is sure to get you moving, but I’m talking about having a set of go-to exercises to structure your workouts. Focus on four to six compound movements that incorporate multiple muscle groups to make the most out of your limited time. Squat and deadlift variations, glute bridges, side planks, weighted walks and carries, presses, and inverted rows are my favourites. Decide what you’ll do in your workout the night before and save it on your phone—focus on your body’s needs and keep it simple.

Set up Your Workout Space

Many of my clients set up their “gym space” beside or within their kiddo’s playroom. Sometimes the kids join in for a bit, then wander off to play with their toys. To get a great workout, all you need is a space that’s roughly the size of a yoga mat and some basic equipment. Making use of what’s available to you. For example: rear foot elevated SLDs with a kid’s step stool, surrounded by toys and early literacy tools!

Prep for Nap Time

This is great for you new moms to keep in mind for days when you’re feeling a little more rested and ready for a quick workout. Babies settle into more predictable nap schedules, somewhere around four months, so before you put your little one down for their nap make sure you’re already dressed in your workout clothes. You’ll be more likely to actually exercise than just fall asleep along with them! If you do fall asleep with your baby, don’t stress the missed workout. There will be plenty of opportunities to exercise.

Pay attention to your body’s cues. Rest when your body is telling you that you need rest more than you need a workout.

When your babe transitions to a toddler you can anticipate longer, more predictable naps, giving you time for a longer workout. By then you’ll also have caught up on your sleep and won’t need as many of your own naps!

Squat and Walk

In a newborn’s first few months, they love anything that mimics their time in utero—your heartbeat, the vibration of your voice, and constantly moving with you. Similar to the weighted walks we love to do in the gym, pacing up and down a hallway with a baby in your arms provides a great opportunity to consider your posture: ribs down, shoulders back, bum untucked. I love having my clients add eccentric (or super slow) squats into the laps they walk up and down their hallways trying to calm their babies. Start with 10 squats, then walk another lap, then perform nine squats, then walk again. Continue until you get down to one squat. At four years old my daughter still loved the backpack carrier. Instead of an afternoon nap, I would strap her on and head for the trails! With her on my back, I’d walk hills and run park stairs.

Run The Streets

I firmly believe that most grumpy kid (and mama!) problems can be fixed with a good walk. With a baby in the stroller or carrier set yourself to a steady pace, find a hill, and add in some lunges, step-ups, or incline planks along the way.

You can get a little more conditioning work in your day by adding circuits to your walk. When my littles were really little they would hold hands and race Mama down the sidewalk. Encourage your toddler to join in as much as possible with mini-races. Run to the street sign and do 10 squats. Side shuffle to the next landmark and do 10 incline push-ups. Make it up as you go, and encourage your little one to come up with exercises too.

Include Them

Show your little one how to do bodyweight exercises, or hold them instead of weights. Shoulder carry squats and lunges? Yes, please! Weighted glute bridges? My fav! Turn that kid into a little human kettlebell! Just remember to maintain good form throughout each exercise. Over the years, I’ve also purchased kid versions of my equipment. They love being included and feeling as though they’re doing big kid stuff! My boy planks with so much style!

Park Obstacle Courses

When we visit the park I see a playground for my kids and for me! We play tag and make up obstacle courses through the structures and trees so that we can crawl, climb, and run. You’ll surprise yourself with how much strength work and cardio you add into your day. Bonus: you’ll be helping your little one develop their gross motor skills. It’s a parenting win!

Their Lesson, Your Workout Time

When both of my kids finally started going to school full-time I thought that life would feel less busy. Wrong. Evenings are busy with gymnastics, and dance, and piano practice. Weekends are busy with birthday parties and swimming lessons. Full evenings and busy weekends require a whole new strategy. That one-hour gymnastics lesson is the perfect time to go for a 40-minute run. If their lessons are close to a gym, you can pop in for some conditioning circuits.

Family Work-out Challenges

For a while I was consistently missing my weekend workouts and feeling pretty grumpy as a result, so I introduced family workout challenges. It started inside with stair workouts. We would take turns running the stairs and doing elevated push-ups, hip raises, and lunges. Then I took our workouts to the lane way behind our garage, and I invited my neighbours to join in. We start every Sunday with a sweaty 30-minute workout, then get on with our day. You’d better believe that I take this strategy on the road when we travel. Last New Year’s Day, after a sweaty playground workout, I convinced all generations of the family to join me for a New Jacks finisher!

Bring Them Along

Ask your gym if you can bring your kids along, even if they don’t have a designated childcare space. My kids are old enough now to hang out in a corner of the gym with their colouring books, a puzzle, or a DVD. Their treat for listening and keeping put during my workout is to put on the boxing gloves and have a few rounds with the heavy bag! In fact, Friday Night Boxing has become a new family ritual and my kids are developing some impressive skill!

These strategies are all great ways to include a little fitness in your busy life as a mom, but the most important lesson we can learn is acceptance. Before I had my kids I was able to dedicate as much time to the gym as I wanted. When my son was born, I had to accept that two-hour workouts just weren’t going to happen for a while. I definitely recognized that I needed some amount of exercise to maintain a semblance of myself, as well as for my mental health, but I needed to find ways to make the workouts fit into this new lifestyle. Along the way I’ve learned how to still make time for myself and for the activities I enjoy, while also breathing new life into my workouts.

Life as a mom to two very active children has certainly presented me with new challenges. I’ve grown more as a woman in the past eight years than I could have ever imagined possible. I’ve missed plenty of workouts to make sure I don’t miss dance recitals, soccer games, and doctor appointments. There have been countless sick days and sleepless nights that nullify my workout time. We love family snuggles, and I’ll always choose an afternoon nap with my kids over treadmill intervals.

My relationship to exercise is a long-term commitment—I’m less concerned with missing a workout today than I am with making sure I’m still in the gym 20 years from now.

My workouts are focused on making me feel strong without leaving me feeling depleted. They are infused with play and curiosity for what my body can accomplish.

As moms, let’s make sure our workouts are energizing our bodies and minds—not only so that we are always up to the tasks of the busiest job we’ll ever have, but also simply, because we deserve it.

If you’ve been training harder and harder, only to realize that you’re not getting the results you’re looking for, and you want some more guidance, we can help.
There’s nothing more heartbreaking than watching women exhaust themselves in the gym, desperate for results, only to end up spinning their wheels and not making the progress they want to make. That’s why we created our FREE handbook, Why You’re Training Hard And Not Seeing Results.

Get your FREE handbook now!

The post How to Fit in Your Workout as a Busy Mom appeared first on Girls Gone Strong.

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

January is hunker-down month, when all the razzmatazz and glitter of December gets packed away and we snuggle in for our long winter’s nap. Fittingly, we also need some hunker-down food to keep us full and warm — hearty, abundant, nourishing, comforting food. Is there anything more hunker-down and hearty than a casserole?

For breakfast and dinner and even if you’re vegetarian, we have 15 deeply comforting, toasty-warm casseroles for your January hibernation.

READ MORE »