Hi all,

I’m back from a week’s hol­i­day at the cot­tage and what a won­der­ful time we had! I think we expe­ri­enced the very best week of weather this sum­mer. Every morn­ing, we awoke to blue, sunny skies and warm tem­per­a­tures. Cycling, run­ning and swim­ming were on the menu but of course, lots of deli­cious, healthy meals too!

Lately, I’ve been mov­ing away from my daily animal-​based pro­tein meals and more towards plant based meals, such as beans and legumes. My energy level is through the roof, per­haps due to the increased car­bo­hy­drate intake.

Last night, I made oven-​baked falafel with tahini sauce and a sum­mer fresh Israeli salad. Every­one gave the meal two thumbs up! It’s dead sim­ple but requires a bit of plan­ning as you’ll need to soak your dried chick­peas overnight. Canned beans are not an option here.

Check out the link below for the recipe. I did make a few tweaks.…I added 2 Tbsp olive oil, ¹⁄₂ cup fresh pars­ley, the zest of ¹⁄₂ lemon, and chick­pea flour instead of white.

http://​tori​avey​.com/​t​o​r​i​s​-​k​i​t​c​h​e​n​/​2​0​1​1​/​0​1​/​f​a​l​a​f​e​l​/

Hi there!

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post but I was away for a few weeks enjoy­ing the beau­ti­ful coun­try of Spain and spend­ing time at our lovely lit­tle cot­tage in the Kawarthas.

If you have a chance to visit the cities of Barcelona and Madrid, I urge you to do so. They’re both so beau­ti­ful and elec­tric, and the food and wine is out­stand­ing. It took a few days to adjust to the Span­ish lifestyle — eat­ing din­ner at 11 o’clock, for exam­ple, but when we did, we really embraced it. The peo­ple are so hos­pitable and proud of all that their coun­try has to offer. One of my favourite after­noon tapas was their gaz­pa­cho, a gaz­pa­cho unlike any­thing I’ve ever made before. It was delicious…healthy and refreshing.

When I returned home, I searched the web for an authen­tic Andalu­sian gaz­pa­cho and thank­fully, I was able to repro­duce the soup exactly, with a few minor changes. See below for the link.

On another note, I hope you’ve all been train­ing out­doors, on the bike, on the trails, on the road.…I’ve been doing some great rid­ing, run­ning and a bit of swim­ming. I’m con­tem­plat­ing doing a half iron­man in Sep­tem­ber, so long as I stay healthy and injury free. I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s the link for the gaz­pa­cho; it’s really yummy. In Spain, they serve it ice cold in chiled glasses. No spoon required.

I promise to blog again soon but please be sure to check out my face­book page and fol­low me on insta­gram at bethrichiefitness.

http://​myk​itchenin​spain​.blogspot​.ca/​2​0​1​3​/​0​8​/​t​h​e​-​g​a​z​p​a​c​h​o​-​d​i​a​r​i​e​s​-​d​a​y​s​-​1 – 7.html

My changes to the recipe are as follows:

I used 1 slice of bread (french or ital­ian) and just enough water to soften

omit­ted the cumin (not authentic)

4 Tbsp good qual­ity Span­ish olive oil (this is when it pays to pur­case the good stuff!)

¹⁄₄ onion (I used Vidalia)

Hi there,

The warm(er) weather has finally arrived and I for one, am so excited to finally enjoy run­ning and cycling out­doors. I must admit, I haven’t yet been on my bike; I’m a fair weather cyclist so I’m still wait­ing for the tem­per­a­ture to rise. I’m hop­ing it’ll hap­pen soon because I’m doing 200k the first week­end in June, for the Ride to Con­quer Can­cer. Although I’ve logged many miles on my trainer and spin classes, out­door cycling is a com­pletely dif­fer­ent ball game.

My runs how­ever, have been just won­der­ful! There’s noth­ing bet­ter than a nice long run in the morn­ing sun­shine. Instant mood booster (except when impa­tient, stu­pid peo­ple flip me the bird for run­ning on the road). Get a life.

The other night, I made a really yummy Asian inspired din­ner for the fam­ily. I think you’re gonna enjoy all of these easy-​to-​prepare dishes.

I really like this site.…authentic, beau­ti­ful photography…good stuff.

http://​the​wok​soflife​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​0​3​/​m​a​-​p​o​-​t​o​f​u​-​r​e​a​l​-​d​e​a​l​/

Instead of ground pork, I used lean ground chicken.

http://​the​wok​soflife​.com/​2​0​1​3​/​0​6​/​e​v​e​r​y​d​a​y​-​v​e​g​e​t​a​b​l​e​-​s​t​i​r​-​f​r​y​/

Use what­ever veg­eta­bles you have on hand.

I fre­quent T&T Gro­cery store on a reg­u­lar basis because I love their selec­tion of chile sauces, Asian greens and their sea­weed salad. It’s a great store and def­i­nitely worth the trip to the suburbs!

Have a good one,

Hi everybody,

Hope your week­end was good to you!

I was up bright and early yes­ter­day morn­ing to enjoy my long run in the warm (well, maybe not that warm!) sun­shine. I’ve been much smarter with both my long rides and runs, nutri­tion­ally speak­ing. Boy oh boy, has it ever made a huge dif­fer­ence in my per­for­mance. Yes­ter­day, I began tak­ing in a half a gel 30 min­utes into the run and con­tin­ued every 15 min­utes therefter, until the end of the run, at the 2 hour mark. With all that fuel (and water every 15 min­utes), I could have con­tin­ued fur­ther, no prob­lem. Even my left hip which can get achy after about an hour, was happy and quiet through­out the entire run. I’m think­ing the con­tin­u­ous carb, sodium and potas­sium intake had alot to do with it. Oh, and did I men­tion that I also ate an eng­lish muf­fin with almond but­ter 1 hour prior to head­ing out? Yep, fuelling and hydrat­ing is the key to suc­cess­ful endurance training.

Funny enough, the Life sec­tion of the Globe and Mail today, has an arti­cle about this very topic. Check it out here.

http://​www​.the​globe​and​mail​.com/​l​i​f​e​/​h​e​a​l​t​h​-​a​n​d​-​f​i​t​n​e​s​s​/​f​i​t​n​e​s​s​/​t​r​a​s​h​e​d​-​n​o​-​m​o​r​e​-​f​i​g​h​t​i​n​g​-​r​u​n​n​e​r​s​-​f​a​t​i​g​u​e​-​w​i​t​h​-​f​o​o​d​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​1​8​2​3​1​1​3​4​/

On another note, I have a few new favourites in my fridge these days that I’d like to share with you.

#1 — Silk Almond Coconut Blend

In one word, DELI­CIOUS!!! I love it in my shakes and oat bran.

#2 — Earth Bal­ance Coconut & Peanut Spread

This stuff is scary.…do not attempt to eat just one spoonful.…

#3 — cele­riac or cel­ery root

I can’t remem­ber the last time I bought this funny look­ing root veg­gie but is it ever yummy. I made a fab­u­lous soup with it last night. All I did was sweat some onion and gar­lic in olive oil until soft and fra­grant, added chopped cau­li­flower and cele­riac, chicken broth to cover and a few sprigs of fresh thyme and pars­ley, salt and pep­per. Sim­mered the soup for about 30 min­utes or until the veg­gies were nice and ten­der, and then pureed it up in the blender until silky smooth and vel­vety. So so good.

Nutri­tion­ally speak­ing, cele­riac is less starchy than pota­toes and lower in calo­ries so go ahead and eat up!

http://​low​carb​di​ets​.about​.com/​o​d​/​c​a​r​b​c​o​u​n​t​s​/​a​/​c​e​l​e​r​i​a​c​.​h​t​m

Have a great day!

Hello there,

Today I wanted to share with you some infor­ma­tion about sport nutri­tion from an indi­vid­ual who def­i­nitely knows a thing or two about the ben­e­fits of fuel­ing your body prop­erly. His name is Bren­dan Bra­zier and he is a for­mer pro­fes­sional Iron­man triath­lete and two-​time Cana­dian 50km Ultra Marathon Cham­pion. He is now a suc­cess­ful per­for­mance nutri­tion con­sul­tant and for­mu­la­tor of the award-​winning line of plant-​based Vega nutri­tional products.

Although I don’t pre­scribe to a vegan diet, I do rec­og­nize and sup­port the impor­tance of includ­ing a large por­tion of plant based foods into my daily diet. His web­site is a fan­tas­tic resource for train­ing and nutri­tion, not only for endurance ath­letes but for any­one inter­ested in fit­ness and health. This link below pro­vides an excel­lent overview of the com­plex world of proper sports nutri­tion, which I still find, is the most dif­fi­cult piece of the train­ing puzzle.

http://​thrive​for​ward​.com/​l​e​s​s​o​n​/​i​n​t​r​o​-​t​o​-​t​h​e​-​g​u​i​d​i​n​g​-​p​r​i​n​c​i​p​l​e​s​-​o​f​-​s​p​o​r​t​-​n​u​t​r​i​t​i​o​n​/​#​.​U​y​t​B​R​S​i​5​J​U​Q

His recipes are also really good, even if you’re not a strict vegan. I espe­cially like his energy bar recipes which are easy to pre­pare and made with whole­some, good qual­ity car­bo­hy­drates. These two in par­tic­u­lar, are really good and they freeze well too!

Happy training!

http://​thrive​for​ward​.com/​r​e​c​i​p​e​-​c​e​n​t​e​r​/​m​a​n​g​o​-​c​o​c​o​n​u​t​-​e​n​e​r​g​y​-​b​a​r​s​/​#​.​U​y​s​0​m​i​i​5​J​U​Q

http://​thrive​for​ward​.com/​r​e​c​i​p​e​-​c​e​n​t​e​r​/​o​n​-​t​h​e​-​g​o​-​c​o​c​o​n​u​t​-​b​a​r​s​/​#​.​U​y​s​1​b​C​i​5​J​U​Q