Spicy Fitness Meatballs Recipe

This morning I whipped up my version of meatballs. My tester was my colleague as usual and she gave it a thumbs up. Passed the taste test and good for your diet.



- 500g (1.25 lb) extra lean ground beef
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 2 tbsp dried oregano
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 mini tin of tomato paste
- 2 tbsp harissa paste (spicy Arabic paste)
- 1/2 minced medium onion
- 1/3 cup oats

Set the oven to 350f or 180c. In a pan, sauté the onions with a little water instead of oil until translucent. Combine all other ingredients in a separate bowl, including the onions.

In a shallow oven pan, make 10 meatballs out of the meat and pop in to the oven for 20 minutes.

-- Post From My iPhone

5 Weeks out til the MuscleMania European Championships

Progress pic this morning. Stepped on the scale and happy to see the weight is continuing to move... a tight exercise, diet plan, and new supplementation mix based on feedback from my sponsor 247FitBody and WBFF Pro Rob Riches are really helping me out.

I will be competing in the Ms. Bikini and Model categories at the MuscleMania European Championships in Milan, then 6 weeks later I will go to Vegas for the Fitness America Pageant.

Christophe Willem - Song du Jour

The Metabolic Effect Blog

I first connected with Jill Coleman on Twitter and learned about her wonderfully intelligent blog called the Metabolic Effect (ME).

Jill Coleman BS, ACSM-CPT, ME-MGT is also a contributor to ME. Jill is a triple threat in the fitness world in that she has a bachelors degree in exercise, advanced certifications from ACSM, is a masters candidate in holistic nutrition and is a professional fitness model. She is also the Director of Instructor Training for Metabolic Effect and has been instrumental in developing our training curriculum. She brings a wealth of knowledge, expertise, and credibility to the blog. She writes and appears frequently in many fitness publications. She is a contributing writer to Onfitness magazine and is currently finishing up the highly anticipated exercise book series, My Gym Trainer, with co-author LeAura Alderson. You can learn more about Jill at her website www.jillfit.com or follow her on Twitter www.twitter.com/JillFit

I highly recommend you to check out her blog http://metaboliceffect.wordpress.com/ if you want to become educated on the science of fat loss.

Common EU Language!

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as 'Euro-English'.

In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped infavour of 'k'. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.


There will begrowing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced with 'f'. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kanbe expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent 'e' in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with'v'.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter zefifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Shrimp and Scallops with Eggplant

I found this recipe on on Epicurious.com and slightly modified it to meet my needs by removing oil and sugar.

• 2 scallions
• 1/2 lb large shrimp (about 12), shelled and deveined
• 1/2 lb sea scallops, tough muscles removed
• 1 (1/2-lb) Asian eggplant or small Italian eggplant, halved lengthwise and cut diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 to 2 teaspoons artificial sweetener (I used Stevia)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon Asian chile paste
• 3 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro leaves
• 1 tablespoon small fresh basil leaves

Preparation

Cut scallion greens into 1-inch lengths, reserving white parts for another use.

Pat shellfish dry and season with salt and pepper.

Heat a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then stir-fry eggplant with salt and pepper until golden brown on both sides and cooked through (add 1/4 cup of water gradually if eggplant is sticking to skillet). Transfer eggplant to a plate as cooked and keep warm, covered.

Add 2 tablespoons oil to skillet and sear shrimp and scallops in batches, without crowding, until just cooked through, about 4 minutes. Transfer to plate and keep warm, covered.

Add water, soy sauce, sweetener, and chile paste to skillet and simmer, stirring, until reduced by half. Stir in lime juice.

Serve shellfish and eggplant with sauce, scallion greens, cilantro, and basil.

My Photography Influences

After returning from Monaco and back to the reality working in my Finance job, my mind can't help but daydream about the beautiful sights that I have seen and sensed. Each time I have such an adventure I try to capture all of these moments on camera. But it's more than just snapping shots for me. I want to tell a story that the viewer could follow along, sense every detail with me, and see the world through my eyes. Pictures for me are about capturing an emotion, a fleeting moment that you also have experienced and are often triggered back into your memory because of a familiar sound or smell. Moments like this give me goosebumps and pause my day with a smile on my face.

Photography is a difficult skill and it's a challenge for me to continue to hone my style. There's a few artists out there who expertly weld the camera that I look to in order to develop my own eye. I'd like to share my favorites.

Errikos Andreou. http://www.errikosandreou.com/ Erriko's work is haunting, spirited, and inspiring.

Michael Thompson. http://www.jedroot.com/photogr/mt/thompson-fashion.php.

Michael is a fashion photographer whose work I first observed in W Magazine. I find his work inspiring since for me as a model, I usually did swimsuit/lingerie/fitness and his avant garde fashion photography was the type of modeling that I didn't do. Thus as a photographer, it's a challenge for me to see the world through through the fashion veil.

Luke Duval. http://www.lukeduval.com/ Luke is a Vietnamese pharmacist turned fashion photographer who began his new career based on a dream (I can relate!). Self trained, his artistry caught my eye years ago when I stumbled upon his MySpace profile.