A Friendly Nudge
...because we all could use a little encouragement!
I want to hear how your week went.
Did you manage to spend some time outside?
Did you spatchcock and roast a chicken?
I love it when you see the light come on for someone. I have a good friend who has listened to me go on and on about how important food is and what a huge role it can play in people’s lives. He was incredibly tolerant--not particularly persuaded, but politely patient.
With young kids,he and his wife had busy careers and the idea of making bone broth seemed almost comical to him. But every once in a while, I’d see a glimmer of hope. He’d tell me about a meal he made and I could tell that it was something that he was proud of (although he was also throwing me a bone by letting me know that all of my food and health evangelism wasn’t completely lost on him).
He told me recently that he hadn’t ordered take out in over a month and that he was loving cooking and that he’d bought a freezer so that it would make cooking easier. He even told me that people were asking him for his bone broth recipe.
I’m kind of a softy and it choked me up a little.
That’s because I know about how lives can change when people discover their love of cooking real food and especially if they’re cooking for a family. That’s a big piece of why food and cooking is an essential part of my coaching program. I want to help people take some of the hassle out of cooking incredible tasting food.
We’re going to explore different cooking approaches to different foods over the coming weeks but the goal of this week is to take a look at some different proteins and start thinking about how some proteins need very little time to turn them into something delicious and how some of them will beg us to cook them low and slow to highlight their tenderness and incredible flavor.
Your balance is going to improve. I should rephrase that. Looking at these exercises won’t improve your balance, but if you do them every week, your balance will get better. And with today’s exercise if you’re just getting started I’d suggest doing it where you can use a wall or something similar for support. I now have my wobble cushion on the floor in my office so that I can do them multiple times a day.
A strong core just makes life easier. It’s essential for balance, it helps protect our back and it gives us a solid foundation. I love counter planks because they’re one of the more approachable ways to start building that strong base. You’ll want to make sure that you have a way to keep your feet from sliding, you’ll want to tighten your abs and feel like you’re squeezing a pencil between your shoulder blades. Don’t over do it in the beginning. The goal isn’t to see how sore you can get. This is a good one to work in throughout the day.
I wish I had paid more attention to my rotator cuffs sooner. I have pretty gnarly arthritis in my left shoulder and I always wonder how much of that could have been reduced or eliminated if my rotator cuffs had been healthier. I’m using a theraband and a door anchor, but you could use a different type of resistance band or the cable station at the gym. I’d suggest hitting these a couple of times a week. I usually do 2-3 sets of 20 because I use light resistance or weight.
Just like a strong core makes navigating life a little easier, I think the same thing could be said about a strong back. Bent over rows help us build strong shoulders and a strong back. I’m using a weight bench, but I’ve done them using a chair for my hand support.
I’ll keep coming back to the suggestion that you play with your food or, at a minimum, that you start paying more attention to it. In the first week we talked about how salt and acid can help bring out the flavors in our food. I’d invite you to have some cut up lemons in the kitchen this week and squeeze just a little lemon juice on some of the veggies that you cook this week or maybe on a piece of fish and notice how it brightens the flavor. Don’t go nuts, just a little bit and see what you think.
And as usual, see if you can get outside and enjoy some fresh air.
Until next week – have a wonderful week!
Jim