Jamie Oliver on Fighting Child Obesity at TED

Honestly, in the past I've skipped over some of Jamie Oliver's programmes in the past because I've found him a bit preachy.

I feel a little bit humbled now.

In his TED talk he shows drive and passion by the swimming-pool-load on the subject of fighting child (and adult) obesity. He also makes some really interesting points on the subject, laying out his stall for some of the education initiatives he's kicked off. Hat off to the man. This is well worth watching, especially if you've got kids.

Video - Building Core Strength: Safely Performing Planks

I'm getting stitches every time I run and one possible cause of this, I gather, is that my core muscles ain't up to scratch. You core basically consists of your stomach muscles, back muscles and your ass and you use it for pretty much everything. There are a few ways to strengthen the muscles, like yoga and pilates, but one method that doesn't involve classes or equipment (don't know about you, but I'm on a budget here) is doing planks. And I'm not going to explain them, because I dug up this video for that exact reason. If you could ignore the cheesy American voice over, that'd be awesome.

Video: Chris McDougall Talking Barefoot Running and the Tarahumara

I just finished reading Christopher McDougall's book on the Tarahumara and barefoot running, Born to Run, and it's massively important to runners and probably everyone else. Full review's coming, but in the meantime I highly recommend you watch McDougall's Ted talk. REALLY.

Chinese Takeaway Smoothie (Pineapple and Ginger)

I mentioned the other day that I was off to make some smoothie. I did it. It went well. It was inspired by my mate's favourite meal from the Chinese takeaway: pineapple and ginger. I left out the chicken he normally has with it. The smoothie was like this:

Ingredients:

Half a pineapple

Fresh chopped ginger x 1tsp (crushed will do)

Apple x 1

Banana x 2

Apple Juice x 300ml(ish)

Honey x 1tbsp

Low fat natural yogurt x 3 or 4 dollops

Oats x some (optional)

Method:

BLEND.

As with the apple and cinnamon recipe, the measurements are really rough guidelines. Go easy on the ginger to start with. If you over-do it your smoothie can end up too bitter. You can always add more after the first blend. I know half a pineapple sounds expensive, but I got a massive one for £1.25 from the market, and I chopped up the rest to use for breakfast. You should get around 1,500ml of smoothie, depending on the size of your pineapple. I reckon, having got the fruit from the market and used the rest of the natural yogurt for other stuff, the whole lot probably cost about £1.30.

You might have noticed that the ingredients are nearly the same as for the apple and cinnamon. That's because banana, apple, yogurt, fruit juice and oats (if you like them) are your basic smoothie building blocks. The juice will change, depending on what you're making. Freezing some banana or buying frozen fruit from the supermarket freezer section will make your smoothie more... well, frozen. Personally, I like having something a bit icy in there but I don't think it's necessary and I'm not a big fan of blending in crushed ice.

If you've got any suggestions for awesome smoothies, hit us up in the comments or on twitter!

Smoothie Fun: Apple vs Cinnamon

I really, deeply, truly love smoothies. They're tasty as all hell, super-nutritious and slip one or two of your five a day down your neck before you've even noticed what's happened. And they're particularly good if you've got some exercising to be getting on with.

I've been told second-hand by someone Swedish that if it doesn't have yogurt in, it's just fruit juice, and I'm happy to go with that. Slopping some natural yogurt in there throws some protein into the mix, which is useful stuff for repairing damage post-workout. Fruit's good for you for all the reasons fruit's good for you. I like to chuck some oats in there, too, to bulk my smoothie up and add some extra carbs. Below's a rough recipe for apple and cinnamon smoothie. Apparently cinnamon raises your metabolism, so that's something, eh?

Ingredients:

Apple x 2

Banana x 1 or 2

Apple juice x 200ml(ish)

Low fat natural yogurt x 5 or 6 big dollops

Oats x some

Cinnamon x 1tsp (or to taste)

Method:

Blend ingredients together like a maniac. I like to put some more oats in once everything else is blended, since I like the texture.

All the quantities I stuck on the ingredients list are very rough guidelines. One of the beauties of smoothies is the fact that because there's no actual cooking involved you can keep adding to them until they're spot on. They're also dead easy to make and experiment with, as the flavours you're putting together make sense even if your cooking abilities extend to microwaving Chicago Town mini-pizzas.

Right, I'm off to try making pineapple and ginger smoothie, based on the fact that's a sauce used in Chinese takeaways. I'll let you know how it goes...

Barefoot Running: A Right Quick Tutorial

Learn to Run Barefoot with Lee Saxby and Terra Plana from GTB Goodtruebeautiful GmbH on Vimeo.

So, this is quite interesting. Yes, it's a promotion for a product so yes, take it with a wee pinch of salt. Still, I'm looking forward to giving this stuff a go and seeing how it feels.

PS: I'm reading Born to Run right now, which is about a remote tribe of ultra runners who've been going barefoot for centuries. So far, so awesome.

Man Vs Gut vs National Pie Week and Millies

So, National Pie Week came along. Unhelpfully, it came along at the same time as pancake day in a manner that's not staggeringly helpful to a man who's trying to lose weight. But, I'm from Yorkshire and I'm not likely to back down from a national pie event, am I? So I made bloody well sure that I got a good run in on Saturday morning and took on a light breakfast to ready myself. For my one trip back to the world of pie, I selected Millies. I'd been tempted by Calls Landing (where I had a very good Cowboy Stew a couple of weeks back), but as Calls Landing was serving pies from Wilsons, which is a five minute walk away from my house in Morley, I thought I ought to try something that wouldn't necessarily be on offer the rest of the year round. Plus, Millies (evilly) tweeted the picture you see above at me earlier in the week.

Millies, if you're not familiar with it, is an organic food shop on Vicar Lane with a small cafe nestled at the back. It won me over when I went in looking for a healthy snack earlier in the year and came out with some very awesome soup containing blue cheese and chickpeas. The chap who made it was even kind enough to pass on the recipe over the phone. You can't moan about that kind of service.

The seating area at the back's a little no-frills, but I think there's more seating at the front and the emphasis does seem to be more on good quality takeaway than sit-down service. Anyway, I got there and was a little bit disappointed to find there was only one slice of pie left (Kirsty, my girlfriend, was with me and also in need of grub) but it was a hefty slice so we shared it and Kirsty got some banana cake.

Because the chap who made it (Sam?) was out there was a bit of confusion about what came with the pie, so I wound up with a portion of roast veg, heated along with the pie and served up in an environment-friendly card carton. The thick shortcrust top was perhaps a little tough and I managed to break one of Millies' wooden forks on an unidentified root vegetable that was in with the roast veg, but it was all undeniably tasty. The pie filling was rich and obviously made from good quality beef, and the whole thing was about eight cuts above the sort of pie-ish fare you can expect from a lot of places in Leeds on the go (Greggs, I do love you, but I'm looking at YOU). At £3:50, it certainly kicked the arse of a Boots meal deal.

Millies didn't do loads to help me get thinner this weekend, but I'm not going to moan at them about it. I figure: if you're going to have pie, you might as well have pie made with fresh ingredients and a minimum of additives and whatnot. It might not have been the lowest-fat lunch in the world, but it was still damn good food. I also reckon that (for me, at least) full on deprivation is going to result in a tumble off the wagon, and the pie came after a run and super-healthy breakfast and was later followed by a super-lean tea.