Category Archives: Recommendation

One Change at a Time

Posted on August 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

I attended a fitness conference last weekend and learned a vast array of great information for living a fit and healthy lifestyle. The most applicable take home piece for myself and clients is-Make one change at a time. When you are newly motivated to try something different, it is tempting to make many changes at once. However, making one change has a success rate of 85% and making two changes at once has a success rate of 15%. So clearly, if long term lifestyle change is the goal, then making one change at a time is most effective. We just have to fight our urges to overhaul everything at once. Challenging, but more effective in the long run.

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Recipe: Sauteed Callaloo

Posted on August 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

I developed a love for callaloo while I was in Jamaica. It has to be one of the tastiest green veggies around and it is so easy to eat a good volume of it. I have found it here in Toronto at Caribbean Corner in Kensington Market, so look for it at a Caribbean grocer near you.

There is some technique to handling this plant once you have it in your hands. Separate the leaves and the stems throughout. Use a paring knife to remove the fibrous outer coating from the stems.

Sauteed Callalloo

1 bunch of callaloo, stems and leaves separated

1 clove garlic, slivered

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper to your taste

Cut the stems and leaves of callaloo into small pieces. See below for a visual:

In a large pan, heat olive oil and garlic over medium heat. Add cut callaloo, saute for 2-3 minutes or until leaves start to wilt. Cover pan and continue to cook for 3-4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper or any other seasoning to your taste. Enjoy!

 

 

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Posted in antioxidant, Greens, Healthy food, healthy recipe, plant food, Recipe, Recommendation, Vegan, Veggies, Vivian Law

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Fat Loss Tip: Daily Water Intake Goal

Posted on August 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

Here is another fat loss tip that is also a general health recommendation. Our body is composed of nearly 75% water. That water in our body needs to be constantly refreshed, as water is needed for every physiological process that occurs every minute within our body. Here is a calculation that gives you a daily water intake goal that helps you reach optimal hydration and therefore optimal physiological function within your body. Being closer to optimal hydration and physiological function supports fat loss.

Your Body Weight in kilograms X 0.033= Daily Water intake Goal in litres

This number may sound like a lot to some people. That is alright. Being healthy is a daily process, so this is a lifelong health habit we can all work on daily. Even if you had only one glass of water yesterday, making an effort to an extra glass today and slowly building up to your water intake goal, day by day, week by week will make a difference to your health.

 

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Posted in fat loss, Healthy Beverage, Recommendation

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Eat Your Greens

Posted on June 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

Most of us would like to lose fat from our bodies in select areas (see hormone fat loss post). I generally find it far too difficult to deprive myself of any food or drink, so I look for other solutions, such as making small changes. The most positive and easy to accomplish is adding more variety of foods or drinks that I consume. One of our favourite fat loss tips that we suggest to our clients is to try eating at least one cup of cooked greens everyday. Cooked green vegetables such as broccoli, brussel sprouts, collard greens, kale, cabbage, spinach, rapini, swiss chard, asparagus, dandelion greens, watercress, callaloo, the list goes on.
Most of us including myself need to work at eating a variety of foods to obtain an adequate variety of nutrients. This point is very important especially with plant foods as they all have slightly different phytochemicals and antioxidants that are highly beneficial to our health. I have looked to professional chefs for inspiration with different ways to prepare and enjoy veggies, as they are the experts at making food taste and look good. I have shared a few sources of veggie inspiration in previous posts and I will continue to look for inspiration and encourage veggie consumption.
I was out for dinner twice this weekend and came across restaurants that had great tasting greens on their menu. I would not have eaten that amount of greens if I had not ordered these items. I was at Foxley (a perennial favourite Toronto restaurant) with a friend and we ordered both the green mango seaweed salad and the kale salad. Both were absolutely delicious and a substantial amount of greens. My friend and I both commented that we would not know how to prepare seaweed or kale in such a delicious way, but we were happy to eat it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was also surprised to find great greens at Lil Baci last night. Their tuscan kale salad is exceptionally seasoned and their fresh fava and greens were well prepared and tasty. Again, items I would not have made myself, but I certainly enjoyed eating once on a plate before me. Look on the menu the next time you are out for a meal and see if there is a veggie you are willing to try. You may be surprised that it tastes good and you’re willing to try it again.

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Posted in fat loss, Healthy food, plant food, Recommendation, Toronto, Vivian Law

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How Many Drinks? Count them…

Posted on June 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

My summer drink of the moment is the Grey Goose orange with lime and soda. It is absolutely delicious and it has been brought to my attention that it is hard to stop at just one. I can totally relate to that! Once you have one tasty alcoholic beverage, it is really easy to have more, possibly many more. There is one suggestion I have for everyone who drinks alcohol-count them for yourself.
I started this habit a few years ago and doing so has helped me to learn that there is an upper tolerable limit of drinks I can consume in a week. Beyond that limit, I have discovered through trial and error that my energy level suffers, I feel generally unwell and my exercise performance declines. I believe there is a balance of having fun and staying healthy. It’s a matter of listening to your body.
I encourage everyone to count how many drinks they consume in a week, write it down, monitor how your body and energy level in general feels. This a positive health habit that holds us all capable and accountable for our choices in fun, health and wellness.
If you have goals for fat loss, many programs will suggest you cut out all alcohol consumption. This may work for while, but long term, it is most likely unsustainable. My suggestion is to monitor your consumption weekly, as a lifestyle habit and find out what your upper tolerable limit is. Once you know your weekly maximum number of drinks is, make it your goal and general lifestyle habit to stick with having less than that maximal number.

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Veggie Inspiration: Callaloo

Posted on May 16, 2012 | 1 comment

Callaloo was a most delicious green veggie I tried while I was in Jamaica in March. I was told it was like spinach, but a bit milder. I first had it in a mixed vegetable curry, which I quite enjoyed. I had it again for breakfast in a dish of poached eggs and steamed callaloo.

Callaloo provides vitamin C, folic acid, iron and calcium. I found it to be delicious just steamed, so I highly recommend it as a green veggie to have regularly-it tastes good! Having more greens is a tried and true strategy for better health and fat loss. This concept gets much easier when there is a green that is this tasty.

A Jakes employee showed me callaloo growing wild by the side of the road. This is unlikely here in Canada, but be sure to try callaloo if you have the opportunity to do so in the Caribbean. Or at a West Indian restaurant in Toronto. Or try to buy some at a specialty market-I will do so and report back.

June 16, 2012

I got my hands on some callaloo at a Caribbean store in Kensington market. It was imported from Jamaica, but it was definitely a fresh cut plant. I cooked it with the help of a good friend yesterday and it was delicious!

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Posted in antioxidant, Greens, Healthy food, plant food, Recommendation, Vegan, Veggies

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Blue Hawaii Acai Cafe

Posted on April 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

I saw a few spots on Oahu, Hawaii last year that served ‘bowls’ of fruit, non dairy milk and granola that looked interesting, but I did not get around to trying out. I finally tried an acai bowl yesterday at Blue Hawaii in San Francisco. What I ordered was called the Blue Hawaii and it consists of frozen acai pulp blended with organic soy milk, topped with organic granola, sliced banana, strawberries, blueberries and honey. It was a delicious refreshing treat that was satisfying and great to have for some energy just before a run. I imagine it would be good to have after a workout as well. My Blue Hawaii acai bowl was so delicious that it qualifies as a healthy dessert, breakfast or snack in general. The antioxidant boost that the acai and berries provide is a great bonus!

Blue Hawaii Acai Cafe is in Honolulu, San Francisco and Shanghai so far. Look for an acai bowl at a juice bar near you. Otherwise, I will have to try and replicate the recipe myself and post it here.

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Posted in antioxidant, Healthy food, healthy treat, product review, Recommendation, Review

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Laurent Perrier Champagne

Posted on April 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

I purchased a two bottle package of Laurent Perrier last year at the London airport duty free shop. Buying and collecting duty free champagne is a ritual I have had for many years. There can be great prices, brands that are not ordinarily available in Toronto and the champagne becomes a travel memory to be enjoyed at a later date. I’ve been ‘aging’ the bottles of Laurent Perrier for about a year. My dear friend and pilates instructor Lisa Kojola and I shared a bottle last night. We loved it! It was exceptionally smooth and delicious with delicate bubbles for a non vintage bottle of champagne. Laurent Perrier is on par with my perennial favourites Pommery and Moet. Sharing and enjoying a bottle of champagne with strawberries definitely makes life good!

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Posted in product review, Recommendation, Vivian Law

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a2Zane

Posted on March 30, 2012 | Leave a comment
I finally went to check out a2Zane (753 Queen Street West www.a2Zane.com) two weekends ago. I was impressed with the well curated assortment of accessories and handbags. Zane’s selection of Cambridge satchel company bags and Vlieger and Vandam was what I liked most of the handbags. I liked the tight collection of accessories even more.  I fell in love with this Sook Ihn Kim bracelet in particular and pondered it for a week.
I went to buy it on Sunday. It is a definitely a statement piece that channels my rockstar style proclivity-I love it!! Everyone who saw it loved it too.

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Posted in Recommendation, Toronto, Vivian Law

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Coconut Dream

Posted on February 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

I have been trying to use a non-dairy milk for a couple years now. I started with soy milk, which I did not love the taste of and later found it did not agree with me. I used almond milk for a period of time, but developed an intolerance for almonds. Rice milk tastes like liquid cardboard to me. Hemp milk has a strange taste. Finally, I found So Delicious coconut milk beverage to be a great milk alternative, because of the taste. I suggested it to a client who is a real foodie and although he liked it he pointed out that it was a little too thick or viscous. That was a good point that he made. The product gets even thicker if you don’t finish the box either in the large carton or the 946ml tetrapak very quickly.

While on Oahu, I looked for So Delicious and found Coconut Dream instead. I used it on my granola while I was there and really enjoyed the taste and texture of Coconut Dream. I looked for it when I came back to Toronto and found it at Sobeys. I have yet to find the unsweetened version yet to give it a fair comparison, but so far, the Coconut Dream original is ahead of the So Delicious original in terms of taste and texture. Coconut Dream also comes in a chocolate flavour, which is nice to have after a tough workout. Another difference to note is So Delicious is an organic product, while Coconut Dream is not. Both contain medium chain fatty acids, the special type of saturated fat that is found in coconut, which is easy to digest and utilized quickly in the body. The saturated fat found in coconut is different, because it is from a plant source and its chemical structure of a medium chain fatty acid is different than the long chain fatty acid that comprises saturated fat from animal sources.
The concept of having a coconut milk beverage and working out is pictured in an ad for So Delicious featuring America’s toughest trainer Jillian Michaels. I saw the ad in Bon Appetit magazine this fall, long after I started using the product. I had no idea who Jillian Michaels was, because I do not watch much television. The ad was a good one, because it stuck out in my mind. America’s toughest trainer seems a real claim to fame. A few weeks later, I recognized Jillian Michaels on the cover of her book, Unlimited (which was on sale), so I purchased and read the book. I will happy to review the book at another time.
Why try a non dairy milk? From observation, it seems that many people become less able to digest milk and dairy products as time goes by and/or exposure increases. The symptoms of being intolerant to milk and dairy products include gas, bloating, cramps and even diarrhea. To prevent such symptoms, having an alternative to milk can lower your intake of dairy products and minimize the possibility of developing intolerance. Another reason to try is the health benefits of a vegan diet, which includes lower risk of heart disease and cancer. Having a non dairy milk with your morning cereal and fruit makes your breakfast a vegan one, which is a great healthy meal idea to try.

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Posted in Healthy food, product review, Recommendation, Trainer's pick

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