(Did I spell that right? Oh well...) My name is Kelly and I am a California student. No, I am not a culinary or dietitian-to-be student. Just a good ol' student. I can imagine your reaction. Why am I taking health and cooking advice from a teenager? If the idea is just insurmountably horrible to you, please take a deep breath. Ready? Good. Now you can keep reading.
In grade school, I was always known as the "fat girl." For any of you who don't know what it's like to be the fat kid, I'm just going to say it's unpleasant and leave it at that. I'm sure you're all lovely people and so I'm sparing you the details. So when I was twelve years old, I said enough is enough, and went to lose the weight. Before this, I ate pretty much anything and everything I wanted (which was anything that was not green) like every other kid my age. That was not good.
After I decided to lose the weight, my initial mindset was to take the weight off as quickly as possible, so I tried to eat as little as I possibly could. That was not good either.
When I got kinda close to my ideal weight, I began to gradually ease my way into an acceptable amount of food. But what I was eating was still horribly unnatural.
So eventually, I went pretty clean. Somewhere through this whole process, I fell head over heels in love with cooking. And that's why you're reading this today.
I cooked with all the (healthy) foods and kitchen gadgets I could get my hands on and loved every minute of it. But unfortunately, some time after I found my love of cooking, my mom was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. I was crushed by my mom's condition, but her prognosis was good and our wonderful community really banded together to help us. So even though the food was flooding in for us, I still took it upon myself to cook for the family.
My poor mom, as if she didn't have enough to worry about, was appointed my official catastrophe taster. But being the amazing person and mom she is, she handled all of my dishes with grace, telling me how wonderful everything was (when even the dog wouldn't touch it.) My mom's faith in me has inspired me my whole life, so I think this was just the inspiration I needed to finally get this blog underway.
Through my journey so far I have developed my theory, "Food for the heart and soul." It basically means that eating healthfully can be delicious and fulfilling, and one of my goals in life is to impart that to the general populace, health-seeking people closer to my age and adults alike.
So If you need help to realize this, need a foodie buddy, or just want a good laugh when you read about my culinary fiascoes soon to come, you have come to the right place.
My Eating and Exercise Styles
I am not a vegan. I don't eat a gluten free diet, and most days I'm not even a vegetarian. I still hope my blog can bring enjoyment and help to people with these dietary guidelines, though. I will do my best to try to mark recipes that fall under theses categories, along with trying to mark recipes with other allergens (i.e. nuts.)
For my exercise regimen, I used to do Wii Wit. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's that white thing called a "balance board" that you use with the Wii game console. It has games such as soccer heading (soccer balls flying at your head), hula hooping, and yoga poses. It also had this fantastic game called "Free Step," which was like step aerobics on the balance board, and you could do it for 10, 20, or 30 minutes. To amuse yourself, you could change the channel and watch TV while still doing the Free Step.
I did this for thirty minutes or more everyday for months. I do accredit the Wii Fit with some of my shed pounds (42 lbs. lost total!) but I finally realized that there's only such much workout you can get from stepping up and down in front of the TV on a plastic board. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but sometimes you need some more vigorous variety.
So now I hula hoop. When I was really little, I was terrible at it, but one day I discovered a water-filled hoop, and I had it made. I was really not half bad. I would enter contests and come in something like second. I could keep the hoop up, but it was the tricks they wanted us to do that got me. Now that I'm not seven, I can do somewhat decent amount of tricks, and I can still keep the hoop up for a pretty long time.
Now a days, my workout is to hula hoop for about an hour day. I either read, watch TV, or do my homework while doing so. (I bet that's interesting to watch. :) Pictures to come!) It's really not overly difficult, but the main problem is actually finding the time. It's pretty hard to do it after I get home from school, but on weekends and during the summer, it's a no brainer.
I know I should switch up my routine because I'm no longer "challenging" my body because it has developed muscle memory. I do move my arms around a little bit (mostly doing the macarena dance,) but I really do need to get creative. More on that to come...
Thanks again for reading, so let's go enjoy our "Food for the heart and soul!" :)
Enjoy!
-Kelly M.
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