Be yourself. Be free!

Be yourself. Be free!

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Mittwoch, 14. Juni 2017

60 000 Kcal in 60 Stunden

...wenn der Cheatday-Trend eskaliert.


Hallo meine Lieben und willkommen zurück. Als kleine Information direkt zu Anfang möchte ich erwähnen dass ich mich nicht zu den Personen zähle, welche sich (noch dazu im Imternet) über alles und jeden aufregen muss doch nach "Probleme mit der Fitness Industrie" muss ich nun dennoch wieder etwas loswerden.

Teilweise frage ich mich ja ob einfach wieder ein Trend an mir vorbei gezogen ist oder ob ich nicht doch auch ein wenig richtig liege wenn ich nicht so recht verstehe woher die 'Epic Cheatmeal' Idee tatsächlich kommt und DENNOCH lande ich immer wieder auf den Videos. Liegt es nun daran dass ich in unglaublicher Langeweile versinke oder das Internet einfach überflutet ist von den Videos? Zugegeben, manchmal ist es eine Mischung aus Beidem. Dennoch die Frage; Woher kommt der Trend und was macht es so begehrenswert?

Auf diese Frage habe ich tatsächlich keine Antwort. Immer häufiger schaue ich mir solche Versionen an in denen ausschließlich Vegan, unverarbeitet oder clean gegessen wird, die Liste der Variationen ist unendlich. Tatsächlich finde ich es sehr interessant zu sehen wie unterschiedlich 10 000 kcal aussehen können aber ist es nun ein Erlebnis für mich einer Youtuberin dabei zuzusehen wie sie versucht ein Kilo getrockneter Datteln zu verzehren ohne sich hierbei zu übergeben? Sicherlich nicht. Hat das ganze noch mit dem 'gesunden Thema' des Channels zu tun? Sicherlich nicht. Macht es einfach Spaß? Zumindest am Ende des Tages: Sicherlich nicht!

Wozu also das ganze? Heute habe ich ein Video gesehen indem die Challenge auf 60 000(!!!) Kalorien ausgeweitet wurde. Hat man so überhaupt noch Spaß am 'Cheaten'? Vermutlich kaum, denn der Stress eine gewisse Kalorienzahl zu erreichen ist mindestens so zwanghaft wie eine Diät einzuhalten. 

Natürlich lässt sich hier nun leicht sagen; 'Jana, sei doch mal nicht so es geht doch um den Spaß, um das gute Essen und nicht um einen Lebensstil' und Recht habt ihr. Wie gesagt auch ich lande immer wieder auf diesen doch irgendwie reizvollen Videos und wundere mich jedes Mal aufs neue. Nachdem ich noch nie einen Kandidaten habe glücklich aus der Geschichte gehen sehen ist es immer noch ein Sagenumwogener Trend im weiten Netz.

Das Thema 'Cheatday' spielt auch aktuell für mich eine Rolle. Nachdem ich nun seit ca.7 Wochen faste freue ich mich herrlich darauf am Samstag das Fasten zu brechen. Auch dies werde ich feierlich mit einigen kleinen 'Cheats' bzw. 'Treats' auskosten. Muss dies nun direkt auf 10 000 Kalorien eskalieren? Ich antworte mit einem Wort: nein . Nach einem kleinen Minicut und wenigen Alltagsversüßungen freue ich mich nun einfach mal zu schlemmen worauf ich Lust habe, ganz und gar ohne die Kalorien zu Zählen, seien es nun 1500 oder 10 000 die zur Verfügung stehen.


Wie steht ihr zum Thema? Supercool oder doch eher eine dumme Idee unserer kleinen privilegierten Welt? 


Schreibt eure Meinung und gönnt euch euer Ben & Jerries aber bleibt gesund und vor Allem glücklich meine Lieben!




.     .     .     you can not be sad while holding a cupcake     .     .     .




Dienstag, 13. Juni 2017

Fierlefanz und Freudentraumel...

... warum ich nun doch noch anfange auf Deutsch zu bloggen.


Hallihaloo Ihr Lieben und ein herzliches Willkommen an alle neuen Leser die ihren Weg zu meinem Blog gefunden haben. Ohne Umschweife möchte ich zum Thema des Tages kommen. Meine liebe gute Bloggerfreundin, wieso schreibst du nun eigentlich doch in deutscher Sprache? Tja das frage ich mich schon fast auch, denn um ehrlich zu sein kam das ganz natürlich. Erst als ich mir aktiv Gedanken über das Geschehen gemacht habe fiel mir eine Begründung ein die dann sogar für mich schlüssig war.

Seit ich meinen Blog eröffnet habe gab es für mich nie die Frage auf welcher Sprache gebloggt wird. Englisch, das ist doch klar, denn Englisch kann ich am Besten. So hat es mir meine Deutschlehrerin schon gesagt und Recht hatte sie allemal! Seit meiner Auslandserfahrung in den USA weiß ich dass ich mich in der Englischen Sprache deutlich besser artikulieren kann und ein viel gewählteres Vokabular nutze.

Dennoch muss ich sagen habe nicht nur ich, sondern auch mein Blog sich verändert. Was sich damals so natürlich angefühlt hatte war auf einmal ganz fremd. Ich habe gemerkt wie sehr ich es genieße euch zu zeigen welche Produkte mir gerade so richtig gut gefallen, was superlecker ist und was Ihr auch unbedingt probieren müsst. Da es sich hauptsächlich um deutsche Produkte handelt lag es auf der Hand diese auch deutsch zu bewerben. 

Mein Blog hat sich verändert und das habe auch ich.

Aktive Leser haben bemerkt dass ich eine lange Zeit von der Bildfläche verschwunden war. Das war mal nötig, denn in meinem Leben ging es drunter und drüber. Gerne möchte ich mich nun wieder meiner online-community zuwenden und aktiver werden. In deutscher Sprache im deutschen Netz, denn da mangelt es an leckeren und vor allem gesunden Rezepten! An guten Produktempfehlungen und an basiswissen über die gesunde Ernährung.

Ich möchte in diesem Blog meine Erfahrungen und Ideen festhalten, euch auf dem Laufenden halten wie es um mein Ernährungsprogramm steht und weiterhin viele tolle Tipps zum Reisen, Lesen, Leben geben!

Freut euch auf etwas großes!

Bleibt glücklich 





           
.     .     .     Es ist nie zu spät für einen Neuanfang     .     .     . 
  



Mittwoch, 15. März 2017

Let's call it 'Problems with the fitness industry'



After a long discussion with myself I cannot hold it back no more. I need to release my version of the newly often discussed topic 'Problems I have with the fitness industry'.

As most of these Youtube videos, blogposts and whatever else our social media world proviedes us like to start with when rembeling about health - I would also like to start this post with the phrase I am not a professional in health and nutrition ...


... YET.

That's right, here is the point where I like to draw the line between my post and every other rumor that is floating around there. Every Youtuber likes to back her or himself up with the lillte phase that basicially they do not know what they talk about but they will continue talking for the next 20-50 minutes about it. Please don't get me wrong I do not want to bitch about anyone and me myself and I used to get all of my nutritional information off the internet for YEARS. That is why I think it is so important to finally clear up that topic and really make a point. 

I am in schooling and will hopefully be a certified nutritionist by the end of summer this year. If you scroll down my blog you will find a number of low carb recipies, the more protein the better. Ditch the carbs, the fat and calories over all. As I told you I used to get my knowledge off the internet and I will not tell you my old recipies are any bad nor am I going to tell you how to live your life I will just share my knowledge and hope that at some place someone will hear and finally make a change for good.

Am I  living a perfectly healthy life? Heck no. Do I want to live a perfectly healthy life? Well tell me how, Noumerous health associations have problems to even match up their recommends. For example You should be eating 3 Portions of dairyproducts on a daily basis, 2 times a week an additional serving of meat or fish and two servings of fats like plant oil or butter. Adding all of these portions together let me know how would a human being like me not be over the amount of 70g of fat on a daily basis? But that's not the topic I was up and about to ramble because you know what? If I was to start this discussion I would be typing without an ending. Feel free to contact me if you would like to know more about that but for now let me clear a couple of things:


#1 PROTEIN

Oh my favorite. The protein the protein... ever watched a youtube video of any 'fitness guru' telling you how much Protein you should be consuming for muscle growth?

Let me tell you: a good 2.0g per kg bodyweight or up to 50% of the daily caloric intake.

Whoa. 50%?! What do you think should be the percentage of your protein intake - do you know? It's only a 10-15% recommendation according to the German community for nutrition as well as the American Heart Association.

DGE-Ernährungskreis
But why is that? Isn't Protein just a great source of Aminos and whatsonot that helps my body grow? Isn't it true that if I just eat enough Protein my body is going to refresh itself so much faster and what is not needed will be burned off as energy (because I am replacing my carbs with protein?!)???

Guess what. NO. Protein is a very important Macronutrient to our body. If we don't have it we will be having big time trouble. BUT we shall only be consuming the amount that our body needs in order to work proplerly. Why is that you may ask? Good question! Because our bodies are not able to store protein correctly. Yes we are able to use additional protein as a source of energy when we lack carbs but it sure takes the body a lot of extra work to turn protein into energy sources. So why would we not skip that work for our body by consuming carbs and therefore easily accesable energy right away? Also, what happens to those still too many proteins that we did not need for either recovery and growh nor energy? They have to be thrown out of the body somehow. Is our body even capable of doing that? It sure is, still it does take an extra amount of energy to do so. Too much protein can badly damage the liver and kidney in long-term by putting extra stress onto their work.

What is the right amount of Protein though? Well we learned that 2.0g per kg bodyweight is by far too much. Most health instituions give a range between 0.8g - 1.2g (If you are very active and working out) per Kg bodyweight. This also applies if you are into bodybuilding!!! More Protein does not equal up to more muscle!!! So please do not overdo it on the protein.

Before I keep going with the next point I would also like to clear the fact that you should also be consuming as much plant protein as possible. I would never tell anyone to live fully plantbased I just want to make clear that eating a lot of animal preotein ( which by the way is the more easily provited protein to the human body ) can lead to an overconsumption of animal fats. Especially too much meat can be consumed by trying to meet high protein levels. Try to not outgo the range of 1-2 portions of lean meat a week plus 1-2 portions of cold cuts plus 1-2 portions of either fatty or non fatty lean fish.

#2 Carbs

Talking about overdoing on the protein brings me to my second favorite subject: Not giving enough on the carbs! Low carb seems to be more and more of a great choice for our community to loose weight. Furthermore we even called the carbs the enemy! Why not having someone to blame it on? We sort of believed that we've been told fat is not the enemy no more so now we ought to blame carbs for weightloss. This is not perfectly correct that way if not to say complete bullsht...

Carbs, like any other food group as well can vary on a humongous range of qualities. There is this one rule everybody knows: Choose dark bread and whole wheat over white. And that's all about it you should know. Eat the better-for-you-carbs instead of eating no carbs at all. The healthy human should be eating four portions of Carbs daily - no matter what age. Four portions. What was the last time you reached that goal, huh? Try it out. Have yourself a nice portion of bread, unsugared cereal like rolled oats, potatos and rice and all of that in one day. This will not cause you to gain weight neither to feel bloated, all that's going to happen is that you are fully energized and able to power throughout the day.

Carbs are the best source of energy while can be a great source of fiber an vitamines as well. How much you should be consuming in total you can see on the nutrition cirle already shown above. 

Please do not decide to call whatever food an 'enemy'. Let me just tell you from my perspective that getting rid of 'fearfoods' is hard work and takes patience and lots of self love. I lived on a low carb basis tending to almost no carbs at all before and this was probably the worst time of my personal energy level. This would show in basic overall energy, physical as well as psychological, looks and feelings. I do not want anyone to feel the way I did and therefore try to make a point in this post. Please, eat your carbs, eat the rainbow, do not leave off any foodgroup and most important: ENJOY what you eat!



#3 Fat meltes the Fat

As told before: Fat seems not to be the enemy no more. That's great because we should actually be consuming 30% of our daily energy intake by great fatty sources. 

But what are these good sources? Doesn't all fat do the same? And once again: No! An Avocado is not the same as butter, duh! We all know that but what excactly should we be consuming.

First and foremost: be aware that at least 20% of your daily fat intake is already hidden in foods where you would not look for it. Bread, Pizza, Cookies. All that is somehow produced mostly contains fat. On top of that you should be careful with trans fats - we all know that - but do you actually turn around the chocolate cream jar and read the label weather it contains hardened or part-hardened fats? You'd rather do in order to provide yourself a longer arterial health!

When it comes to choosing your fats for cooking make sure that you only use high quality products, like cold pressed plant oil for cold usage and mechanical pressed oils for cooking. Be aware that it is not only important to consume this very good source of energy and vitamines but also how important it is to choose the right quality and also to not overdo it on the animal products as already mentioned in the first section.





All in all you see nutrition is not that complicated. It just looks complicated by all the different perspectives we get trhough social media. Please do yourself a favor and don't believe in everything you hear out there. Do your research on various sources and never stop questioning. Once again I do not try to point out anyone for bad knowledge I just want to share my thoughts on this sort of 'online education' gone wrong and I want to stop certain rumors out there. 

So if you know anyone who feeps up a fight with her-/himself to reach giant numbers of protein daily send them the link to this article and if only I get one person thinking about this I would be more than glad! Let me know in the comments below what you think of the online community and what your nutrition looked like before and if you are going to change something!



     .     .     .     Lots of love to all of you!     .     .     .











Here are my sources:



http://www.vzhh.de/ernaehrung/492012/nutella-das-steckt-drin.aspx



Freitag, 6. Januar 2017

24 hours in Mexico City

24 hours in Mecico City

... exploring the 20 million people giant!


Back in the times when I went to school I had some -not many- but defenitly some favorite subjects. I gotta admit most of them featured the funniest, craziest or simply most attractive teachers at my school which made the subject more interesting itself. Geography was defenitly one of the 'attractive-teacher' ones! Anyhow he really did catch my attention - not only with his sexappeal, also with what he was telling us. I fell in love with the variaty on our beutiful earth. We got to know a lot about many countries, their food and people. 

Today I am still very concicous about the many cultures I am able to visit throughout my job. I am one of the lucky people that gets to travel around a lot and therefore I finally get to see all the coultres I knew on the paper in real life. Mexico City has actually been one of the most exciting places for me to see. The city is not known for any huge building or special places in first hand - but it feautres so so so sooooo many people living around the city center. When you get the chance to visit the city by plane - or even just take a taxi a little out of town - you get to see a ginormeous field of colorful housing. It seems to be an endless field of houses giving shelter to all these people who try to be as close to the city center as possible. 

What many people do not know is that Mexico City itself is way more industrialised than any area around. While many of the less developed countries show a huge difference in city-country-areas, Mecico City is seriously putting it all to the next level! Some of the capitals laws don't reach the outer countries within even two years. The case of gay marriage and pornographic cinemas, both more than legal in the center, are still not always allowed ot of town.

While Mexicans seem to be very conservative they are also holding on to many traditional habits such as traditional festives. Fun fact over here: the Mexicans themselves do not celebrate cinco de Mayo! It defenitly is an american holiday moresoever.

What the Mexicans do like to celebrate is Independence Day - September 16th. That usually was the day when the Mexican independence war started. There is a whole lot more to talk about starting with the mexican history but I seriously suggest you go ahead and go on the free walking tour! But let me start at the beinning of all events, aka. beginning of the day, aka. breakfast! 


As you may or may not follow my instagram you should've noticed that while I am travelling around I seriously loooove love love hotel breakfast. I love breakfast foods in general but hotels usually always have it all. It's heaven as a buffet. The hotel breakfast at Mexico City brings it all to a whole new level - Like when I hear I will be going to Mexico that month the first thing I can think of is BREAKFAST BUFFET! I am not kidding you guys you need to take the chance to try mexican breakfast foods! They are very originel, a little different yet very simple - just amazing!

With our stomachs all filled up my colleagues and I were finally off to the city center which can easily be reached by the subway. This not only may be an easy but also very affordable way to get to places. However it is defenitly not the safest way of traveling. If you are around with females only take advantage of the womens' part and don't use the underground when it got dark out already. While the underground travels only costed us around $ 0.20 per route the same way using a taxi might be around $5 if you split the check - so not too bad either.

As mentioned before we took part in a free walking tour. The tour gets off daily at around 11 (Mexican timing) in the morning and should take around 1.5 to 2 hours. After all we almost reached the three hour mark. Sounds pretty boring you think walking around for hours talking about history? Not at all I am telling you! Our guidance Diana did a great job! She was telling us all about history, Mexican people back than and today, problems, hopes and economics. Diana is a really smart girl giving a lot of detailed information about random stuff in perfect english within seconds. The tour was also offered in spanish. Plenty of times our guide tried to give us suggestions where to go, what to do, eat and drink while being in the city. This is why I would suggest you doing the tour at the beginning of your stay to have many more inspirations what to do afterwards.

If you do the free walking tour be so kind and not only leave a tip but as well a comment on their tripadvisor page.

One of the great suggestions Diana gave us was the Cafe Tacuba. After she was done with the tour we had to run straight over there to take a break and overthink all the informtion we just recieved AND relax our feet from all the walking and standing.

Cafe Tacuba is a traditional mexican reataurant cafe style on Tacuba road in the middle of the center. I would very recomment the place for a quick snack or even to go out to dinner. The food looked very amazing and was tastefully made with love.  The whole restaurant is very lovely, the servants are dressed up in a white nurse-like uniform wearing ginormeous hair bows. 





The second day breakfast was not as local as the one we had on the first day but not less good! We went to the cafe Toscano where you get freshly squeezed juice, as well as cut up fruit and continental breakfast options for little money. This place also offers a great variaty of coffe and hot drinks. 








   


My last advice for mexico city is to get your nails and eyebrows done. 
The place where I went was really
percised about doing my brows and
I have to tell I was never as satisfied
getting them done as back then - also you still do not pay a lot.






What are your favorite things to do in Mexico city? What do you like most about the town and outside the town? Let me know about your experiences!




.     .     .     Pequenos momentos, grandes recuerdos!     .     .     .


Dienstag, 13. September 2016

Birthday Boy Pancakes!

After a not so full month of work I decited to come home for a little - plus - it is my dads' birthday toay! I am more than glad I got off work today for being home to celebrate with my family. After numerous tragic events lately, it was a good vacation being surrounded by my loved ones those!

Anyways we got to make great memories again at my aunties birtday last week and are fully in for all the preparations to celebrate daddy's tonight! What's inertnationally the best way to celebrate anthing? Right. Food!

Currently we prepared numerous salads, garlic butter and bread to have with our BBQ goods tonight! So most of the preperations were done already early in the morning. 

Talking about the early morning we need to talk about them pancakes! As I am a well known foodie at my house of course I was in charge to create something special, tasty and by the way healthy to have for breakfast. Well ... no problem ;)

Luckily I already wanted to try a new pancake recipe - do you see how I am slowly overcoming my anxiety towards pancakes? Aaaaaaaand it turned out to be amazing! Perfect consistancy, perfect sweetness and look at them macros girl! 

This recipe I am showing you I found at Kais' Instagram - he does an amazing job at cooking and baking, I simply love his recipes!




Pancakes (feed around 3-4):

  • 3 eggs , 2 eggwhites
  • 150g quark
  • 180g oats
  • 60g protein
  • 3 bananas
  • 1 pck baking powder which I forgot and it still tasted great
  1. Blend together all ingredients, add some liquid if you feel like you have to and bake them out in a slightly greased pan.
  2. Enjoy a stack of pure deliciousnes! <3


.    .    .    it's always someone's birthday   .    .    .

Mittwoch, 7. September 2016

Blastyourmacroswiththesepancakes

I am not often impressed. Even less often by Pancakes. To be honest I literally gave up o that topic... After trying it over and over to find -not even a perfect- maybe just a well working pancake recipe, that could also be halfway healthy, macrofriendly and with most protein possible - I JUST GAVE UP. Over and over I ended up with some sort of sad looking doughball in my pan - which I still wanted to eat - because I thought 'c'mon just 'cause it's ugly it's not going to taste shitty...'

Well... it did taste shitty. And the topic pancakes was well done for me - never again. I satteled for Waffles. These needed a lot less attention, you just pour in the freggin dough and wait for the pan to do it's job! Anyways waffles are just pancakes with abs, so that defenitly worked for me!

Just until last night happened. I literally have no idea what it is that remotivates me to try and have some pancakes. Well this time I was probably just craving them reeeeeally bad. Unfortunaty I was also short on my protein that day, having eaten a large percentage of carbs all over...

Thanks to the internet I scrolled around and found something that I would defenitly call 'The Unreal Recipe'. After all them fails I had to account I was a hundred percent sure this would never - ever - work. So I had to give it a try. 

Don't you dare judging me on my logic! It got me where I am today!

You might be guessing it - this giant single serve pancake which I got by deviding the ingredients by two was perfect! Perfectly well tasting ( allthough I gotta admit it defenitly does not taste like the sweet and sugary original - but for latenight cravings that will fit your macros it will do ;) , perfect consistancy and great size! It baked more than well and I almost had no work with it. The only con was that it turned dark very fast but that - I gotta admit - was my fault anyways.

You might have not been getting around noticing that I am mentioning the macros a shit ton of times. Well, attentively you! Are you ready for these? Well I'm gonna throw them at you anyways:

1 serving: 185cal 5.5 carbs 0.3 fat 33.2 protein!!

So if you - just like me almost every night- are a little short on your proteins by nighttime, you should defnitly try this! the great thing about pancaks is that you can top them with whatever you desire. This way hitting your fat or carb goals on the midnight snack isn't going to be hard either. I myself topped this little friend with some PB2 and crunshy homemade chocolate-nut muesli!



So enough of the talkig I am going to finally hit you up with the recipe for these beauties:



Single Serve Pancake:


  • 50g greek jogurt
  • 2 eggwhites
  • half  a scoop protein of your choice
  1. Heat up your pan while you are whisking up all ingredients.
  2. Bake your pancakes to the desired - or even undesired- golden brown color
  3. Enjoy your treat <3






.    .    .    Free yourself    .    .    .

Freitag, 2. September 2016

Fresh and tropical summer salat

Well hello fitfam!

Summer has finally reached us over here at Germany so we might as well use them two days to make a lot of nicecream, cold berry refreshers and what would summer be without salads? I seriously don't eat anything else at all around summertime because to be honest - it's so damn hot I don't even want to think about warm food! So as soon as I came back from my last trip I decited to make a not-so-boring-salad. Apparently this actually-very-simple-salat turned out to be a damn-this-tastes-so-good-salad! So here I am - the nice person you know, sharing my new favorite salat recipe!

I actually wanted to go for pineapple instead of mango but all the pineaplles at the store just looked to unripe for the little sweet tooth girl I am. I defnetly think this was a great idea, still if you would prefer pinapple go ahead, try it and come back to leave me a comment on how it was!

... sorry for semi-very-bad-quality...

Tropical Summer Salat (Serves 2-3):

  •  1 small can (160g) Corn
  •  1 bound spring onion
  •  1 salat heart (or any other salat you prefer)
  •  1 mango 
  •  4 celery sticks
  •  200g peas ( I was using frozen ones)
  •  8 slices chicken breast
  •  1-2 Tbsp greek jogurt
  •  1 Tsp mustard
  •  a splash of apple cider vinegar and one picklewater
  •  seasonnings to taste

  1. Chop up all your ingredients as finly as possible. The key to this salad is that everything is very small, that way you catch a lot of flavor in one bite!
  2. Drain your corn and mix it in with all the other ingredients.
  3. Mix the ingredients for the dressing seperatly. I was using salt, pepper, red onion, garlic powder and salat greens to bring in a little spice. Also I added a splash of lemon.
  4. Bring everything together and have yourself a delicious meal!



.    .    .    enjoy the sun, have fun    .    .    .