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weight loss

Friday Fare

Friday Fare – Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls

May 23, 2014

Well this is exciting! Not only do I get to share a lovely Thai recipe with you all, I get to show you a way to put a spin on this classic recipe. Rather proud of myself for thinking of this if I must say so myself. Get ready to make Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls!

Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls

Okay so for all of you who are unfamiliar with Thai cuisine, laab moo (ลาบหมู) is essentially a minced pork spicy salad containing shallots, lots of lime juice, cilantro, mint, chilli flakes and garlic. The herbs and lime juice make for a delicious and healthy recipe, and the minced pork means that it is a meal high in protein. In a traditional laab moo recipe, you will find that they add toasted sticky rice but I omitted that in this recipe to keep it lower carb and to keep the recipe easy as pie.

The addition of rice paper rolls is a great way to enjoy laab moo and a way to get some more veggies into you. I really don’t like lettuce all that much but hey, put it into a rice paper roll and I will eat it right up. Rice paper rolls have some magical properties to make things I don’t like edible I guess (no, it’s because then I can dip it in yummy peanut sauce … shh).

However, I added spinach to this recipe because I seriously have a love affair with spinach – it is high in antioxidants, fiber, protein (3g for 2 cups of raw spinach), and plenty of minerals including but not limited to vitamin A, C, K, calcium and so much more.

Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls

Alice Williams
Experience the taste of Thai with these refreshing yet tangy fresh rolls!
Print Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 2 rice paper rolls
  • 4 oz lean minced pork
  • 1 1/2-2 cups spinach
  • 1/4 cup vermicelli noodles not necessary but the rolls are a bit wet without them
  • 1 shallot diced
  • 2 garlic cloves mashed
  • 1 lime
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • 5-10 cilantro leaves
  • 5 mint leaves
  • 1/2 tsp-1tbsp chilli flakes please adjust to YOUR spice levels

Instructions
 

  • 1. Get your minced pork and squeeze the juice of 1/2 lime onto the meat and let it marinade for 30 mins to 1 hour. Prepare you vermicelli noodles while you wait according the directions.
  • 2. Get a frying pan/wok and put on high heat for 1 minute. Now, get 1tbsp of water and splash onto the pan. It should start sizzling and evaporating, and if so your pan is hot enough. Add the pork to the pan (be careful!!) and cook until the meat turns a grey color and there is no more pink. Once the pork is done put it into a bowl.
  • 3. Add the diced shallot, mashed garlic cloves, fish sauce, cilantro leaves, mint, chili flakes, and juice from the remaining 1/2 lime into the pork mixture.
  • 4. Get your rice paper rolls ready. If they are dry, then run them under hot water for 30 seconds - 1 minute until they soften. Lay the rice paper rolls out and put 1 cup of spinach on each roll followed evenly distribute the vermicelli noodles.
  • 5. Sieve the pork mixture (save the juice in a separate bowl) and now add the pork mixture on top of the spinach. Roll everything up.
  • 6. Enjoy and use the juice from the pork mixture as a tangy dipping sauce!
Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls

Yeah. not an expert at making rolls but I will be with practice!

Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls

I hope you enjoyed this meal as much as I did! I added way way WAY too much chilli flakes (being in America has weakened my ability to handle spice) but hey, apparently spicy foods boost your metabolism …

Honestly yours,
Alice

Fitness

Kayla Itsines Interview

May 17, 2014

Kayla Itsines Interview [Exclusive]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!! I am so so so excited to share with you all an interview with my ultimate fitness idol, Kayla Itsines!!

Kayla Itsines interview

Omg, I am fan girl-ing way too hard right now. Keep cool, Alice.

Kayla Itsines interview

Ahem, so you may or may not know, Kayla Itsines is a personal trainer who became an Instagram sensation due in part to her incredibly toned physique and because of her client transformations. All of her clients lost fat and started to take on the same look as Kayla, which she describes as a bikini body. You can see a snippet of her client transformations on her website and on her Instagram account. I have been doing Kayla’s bikini body guide and have loved the experience so much. I am in my final week and couldn’t be happier with my progress in terms of how my body looks, how much stronger I am, and how good I feel. My progress may not be as dramatic as some other girls, but I am so proud of how far I have come and will definitely continue to incorporate the workouts into my workout routine. Kayla was also my original inspiration to work towards doing unassisted pull ups and chin ups. Still far from my goal of doing 10 in a row, but I can do 3 now!

Kayla Itsines interview

I am so excited to introduce you to her!

Hi there Kayla! Tell us a little bit about yourself and your fitness philosophy

Hi, my name is Kayla and I am a twenty-three year old personal trainer from Australia. I specialize in training women and helping them achieve their goals whether they are appearance, health or confidence based. I love summer, the beach and travelling with my partner, Tobi, and hope to continue to grow as a person and be able to bring more information to women around the world.

My fitness site can be found here.

A typical day in the life of Kayla Itsines looks like this …

I’m not hugely different from the normal person I guess. I wake up at 6AM and go for a walk. I come home shower and have breakfast. I drive to work with my baby husky, Ace in the back. Open up my studio and train my clients from 8-11AM. I have a break for a few hours where I either workout or prepare content for all my followers and then head back to work. I finish with my evening clients 4PM-7:30PM and that’s it. I come home, have dinner with my boyfriend and relax. Oh and I have over 700,000 amazing followers online who I get to chat to every day 😛

Tell us a little about your boyfriend, Tobi. How did you both meet?

I’m sure this is a huge surprise, but we met in the gym. We didn’t talk or anything really, but I apparently came up in the “people he may know” section on Facebook and he added me a day later. A week went by and we were at coffee and a month after that we were at dinner. Two years later we are in our own house with a beautiful puppy and we couldn’t be happier.

Where did your passion for fitness come from?

I have always been healthy and fit. Whether it was basketball, other sport of just working out I am far too impatient to not do something with my time. Now my mission is what inspires me. I have a dream to end confusion within the health and fitness industry. Fads and scams in this industry have created so much distrust and insecurity around weight-loss programs.

I want all people to understand their body, have a place to learn about health and fitness and in turn feel confident & happy.

Did you always have such an amazing body?

NO! Not at all. I was always a little “too skinny” during my childhood and often got bullied for it. I put in years of training and research to try to get my body to where it is today. Now I am in a position where I can educate girls to gain OR lose weight to get their dream body. Everyone’s goal appearance is different, but the goal is still really confidence. This is what I bring to girls all over the world.

Okay, so although your body is out of this world, even fitness idols have their own fitness idols right? Who would you say yours is?

This is so true, I idolise Iza Goulart like there is no tomorrow. I also love Candice Swanepoel AND she followed me on Instagram a while back. Possibly one of the best days of my life!

I get a lot of questions from girls asking me about your Bikini Body Guide. What is so special about it?

I guess the biggest different is the goal. Rather than being a weight-loss of a muscle gaining program it is simply a plan to get you a particular look. It will help work both ways, to gain strength and to lose fat. The workouts aren’t easy but this is compensated by some amazing flexibility in my meal plan (and recipe books coming very soon). If you want to have a look at the results just visit my reviews or transformations page.

Cardio or strength training? Which do you think is more important?

Both. One training protocol will never supersede another purely because they all provide different benefits. I think the most important thing is to have balance between the two as well as recovery.

When girls workout, should they do heavy weights and low reps, or low weights and high reps?

Like I said above, I believe in a variety of rep ranges, weights and exercises. Try the free downloads on my website to get a guide of how I train.

What are your views on green juices and smoothies? Passing fad or here to stay?

I personally love a green smoothie/juice. I think they will be around to stay for a little while purely because they pack so many nutrients. But, like anything they are not a sole source of nutrition and sometimes girls only have smoothies for a whole day. This is not the right way to go about things.

Any advice for girls who can’t live without a certain ‘bad’ food?

Have it! The choice is always yours. If you can accommodate this into your meal plan with a cheat or flexi meal then do so. But the point still stands, if you “can’t live without it” every day of the week then don’t expect to live with your dream body.

Biggest pet peeve?

People who workout once and complain they don’t have an amazing body. It’s as simple as that.

Any tips for all the ladies out there looking to get bikini body ready?

Find a simple play and stick to it. Consistency is the biggest piece of advice that can ever be given to anyone. If you train 110% and eat 110% perfectly 10% of the time you’ll still only get 10% results.  I would rather eat and train well always and get 100% results.

What can we expect from you in the future?

Without giving away too much there will be recipe books and a Bikini Body Training Guide 2.0. Along with this there may be the opportunity for girls all over the world to never have to leave their home to train. Interactive programs and fitness equipment may be a thought here 🙂

Kayla Itsines interview

 

Kayla Itsines interview

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this interview! How many of you are doing Kayla’s bikini body guide?

If any of you want to buy Kayla’s guides, click on the photo below 🙂

Get a bikini body with Kayla Itsines BBG in 12 weeks

Honestly yours,
Alice xx

 

Friday Fare

Soba Noodle Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce

May 9, 2014

So once again, I was extremely busy this week plus kept forgetting to take photo’s of possible Friday Fare options (le sigh). So instead of disappointing you all and not posting a recipe, I decided to share a soba noodle salad rolls with peanut sauce recipe created by one of my favorite healthy food bloggers, Nutritionist in the Kitch!

Some of you may know that I am a huge fan of Christal, from Nutritionist in the Kitch, and regularly make her recipes and find inspiration from her. I thought her soba noodle salad rolls with peanut sauce recipe looked incredible and I wanted to share it with you all. I actually bought some fresh spring rolls the other day, so I will be experimenting with my own fresh roll creations.

Without further ado, here is the recipe and some of Christal’s photo’s of this yummy looking dish 🙂

Soba Noodle Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce

 

Ingredients

  • Rolls:
  • 10 sheets rice paper
  • 6.5 oz soba noodles
  • 1 carrot, peeled and julienned
  • 1 bell pepper, julienned
  • 2 green onions, cut into strips
  • small bunch cilantro
  • small bunch lettuce
  • 1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • Peanut Sauce:
  • ¼ cup creamy peanut butter
  • ½ lime, juice
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon pure honey
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 tablespoon fresh ginger (optional)
  • ¼ cup water (add more if you prefer a thinner consistency)
  Instructions
  1. For Rolls: In a large pot, heat 4 cups of water to boil and cook noodles according to package instructions. Run cooked noodles under cold water and drain. Mix in 1 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tsp sesame oil with noodles. Set noodles aside.
  2. Fill a shallow dish with warm water. Place one sheet of rice paper in dish until it is submerged, soak for 1 minute or so until it becomes soft, carefully set on a clean surface, such as a cutting board, and make sure the sheet does not bend or fold.
  3. Place about 2-3 tbsp of cooked soba noodles in the middle of the rice paper sheet, top with a few slices of carrot, pepper, onion, a few sprigs of cilantro, and a couple leafs of lettuce.
  4. Fold the top of the rice paper sheet over the filling, then fold in each side, then roll until the opposite end has closed the roll, put on a plate and repeat the process until you have ten salad rolls! (Learning this process may take a little patience, but after the first couple rolls you will get the hang of it! :) )
  5. For Sauce: Combine all ingredients in a food processor, or mix together by hand.
  6. Serve with cold rolls, enjoy!
Prep time

Cook time
5 mins

Total time
20 mins

Serves 5

Nutritional Information
Serving size: 2 Rolls & 2 Tbsp Peanut Sauce Calories: 323 kcal Fat: 8.7g Saturated fat: 1.6g Unsaturated fat: 6.5g Trans fat: 0 Carbohydrates: 56.7g Sugar: 6.2gFiber: 3.6g Protein: 9.5g
 

Soba Noodle Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Soba Noodle Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Mmmmm, cannot wait to make these and fresh rolls in general. You can pick up rice paper at any Asian supermarket, and they are usually pretty inexpensive … perfect for a student budget, woo hoo! Actually most things at Asian supermarkets are much cheaper in general, so you should definitely give them a visit the next time you need groceries. I picked up some sesame chili oil for only $3 or something like that. Normally sesame oil is something ridiculous like $5 … no thank youuuu!

Have any of you ever tried fresh rolls before? I first had them about a year ago at a Vietnamese restaurant in San Leandro and have never looked back!

Honestly yours,
Alice