Kevin's Kitchen: Spaghetti

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

I was sitting in a business meeting one day. Waiting for the meeting to start, everyone was telling their favorite meals to make. One guy said "I make spaghetti". I said "You mean... you open a jar?" And he said "Yep".

We know we need to eat differently... healthier. But we don't all have time to make a home made sauce. Sometimes a jar of Prego is just as good as anything else. And what could be easier to make than spaghetti?

Get water boiling in a pot and dump in your favorite pasta. A pro tip? Put a small amount of cooking oil in the water before adding the pasta to help avoid the pasta from sticking together. For a healthy alternative, use whole wheat pasta. Stir the pasta often. When it turns white, fish one out and try it to make sure it has the consistency you want. Then drain off the water. To make draining the water easy? I use a pot that has a strainer built into the cover!

Next, warm up a jar of sauce in a second pot. Just be careful: hot sauce can be hotter than lava. Don't get burned by a splatter.

I kicked it up a notch with some frozen meatballs cooked in the oven. Make sure you read the instructions - some frozen meatball brands will tell you the meatballs need to be cooked to a certain temperature. If the instructions say that? You need to poke them with a meat thermometer to make sure they are done.

Add grated cheese, shredded mozzarella, and I used Penne instead of Spaghetti and you have a quick and easy Italian meal. 

Kevin's Kitchen: Boiling Water

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

It can take forever for water to boil on a stove. And boiling water in a microwave can be dangerous because the water can explode if it can't form bubbles. So here is an easy way to speed up the process: run the water through your Keurig (with no k-cup).

Kevin's Kitchen: Pork Spiedies

Your slow cooker is a quick road to dinner heaven!

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

Remember when I made Chicken Spiedies? This is a twist on that favorite meal - this time using pork! Click on the video below to watch.

Vegetables for lunch: Beed Margot

Today we are going to try Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers Beef Merlot. These lunches are supposed to be veggie lunches and this one mostly is. There is very little beef in this dish compared to veggies.

Included in the meal is beef, potatoes, carrots, and green beans in a merlot sauce for 180 calories. It takes 4.5 minutes to microwave.

My dish has an ample amount of free means. My definition of ample amount is anything more than one because green beans aren't my favorite. I can usually choke them down, but not my favorite. This dish actually has a dozen green beans. The cooking process steams them, and then you mix in the sauce.

I never have problems eating carrots or potatoes and those were a delight. The meat was OK.

Would I eat this again?  YES

Celebrity Workouts: Zac Efron

Why can't we all look like a celebrity? You've probably seen a celebrity and was impressed with their physique. When that happens, I like to look at that actor or actress's workout routine. I always say, if you want to look like an athlete? You need to work out like one. The same is true for celebrities.

The 5'9" Zac Efron rose to fame in Disney's High School musical. After shedding his high school roles, Zac focused more on his physic and then ramp up his work outs to appear in the 2017 movie Bay Watch. 

Zac was lean in Baywatch with only 5% body fat. To get ready for the movie Zac worked with personal trainer Patrick Murphy. For diet, Murphy focuses on foods that are nutritionally beneficial. That includes things like tuna, egg whites, salmon fillet, and chicken breasts for protein. Fruits include apples, pears, cranberries, strawberries, and blueberries. Whole grains focus on brown rice, oats and quinoa. For vegetables, focus on dark green leafy choices such as kale and spinach. The diet included healthy fats from nuts, seed, and Avocados.

Murphy then uses intermittent fasting which means you eat all your calories for the day during an 8 hour period of time.

Murphy uses fruit to beat sugar cravings, and green tea to beat beverage cravings. Efron drank 100 ounes of water daily and supplemented his diet with whey protein. Just like muscle confusion is important, Murphy uses diet confusion - changing caloric intake every two weeks along with changing the mix of protein, carbs, and fat. 

For exercise, Murphy makes sure the form is perfect with the aim of exhaustion within the first couple of sets. Instead of doing crunches to get abs, Murphy involves the abs throughout the workout. He changed Efron's workouts, constantly evolving them to get the most benefit. "The main feature of the workouts is supersetting - doing two exercises back-to-back with no rest in between," Murphy explained. 

Week 1 Fall 2018 Results

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nutritionist, nor personal trainer. Never take medical advice over the internet. Seek the advice of your doctor before following any of the recommendations made during this series.

Support Group: Sound Sensitivity

I scour the support groups for some of the best questions and answers. Everyone's names are removed for privacy. Answers may be summarized and/or edited.

QUESTION: has anyone had sensitivity to sound accompanied with mild ear pain.

ANSWERS:

• Sound sensitivity (and light) is associated w/ some autoimmune issues. Graves disease causes both
• when I am extra exhausted or anxious, it can become worse (late night mostly)
• Noise sensitivity is also associated with adrenal/cortisol issues

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nutritionist, nor personal trainer. Never take medical advice over the internet. Seek the advice of your doctor before following any of the recommendations made during this series.

Kevin's Kitchen: Steak Salad

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

Are you a guy? Got a guy in your life? Guys need to eat healthy, but most men want meals they can rip into with a fork and knife. And the easier? The better! 

Here, I have some peppercorn marinated grilled steak surrounding a quarter head of lettuce drowned in a low calorie Italian dressing. The trick is in the head of lettuce. Don't tare it or shred it! Just rinse it and then cut it into quarters. You'll find it to be a fun new experience to eat salad with a fork and knife.

Vegatables for lunch: Sweet Sesame Chicken

I do not enjoy eating vegetables, but I know I need to get more vegetables into my diet. It can't all be salad, I need to find new and creative solutions. I am exploring a bunch of different options and I'll bring you along with me.

Today it is Heathy Choice Steamers Sweet Sessme Chicken. This was 300 calories and took 4.5 minutes to microwave.

Was it good? Well... it was more than half rice, so, yep - it was good! But it didn’t really meet my goal of eating more vegetables for lunch.

Celebrity Workouts: Jennifer Aniston

Why can't we all look like a celebrity? You've probably seen a celebrity and was impressed with their physique. When that happens, I like to look at that actor or actress's workout routine. I always say, if you want to look like an athlete? You need to work out like one. The same is true for celebrities.

At age 49, Jennifer Aniston looks as hot as she did while staring on the 1990's Friends TV Show.

Her diet is simple. Warm lemon water, toast, eggs, and avocado for breakfast. Lunch and dinner are vegetables or salad with a lean protein.  She adds grains to her salads such as quinoa, bulgar, and tabouleh. She snacks on frozen grapes, side of nuts, or an apple with almond butter. Sometimes she replaces a meal with a protein shake filled with fruits and vegetables. On her cheat days she goes for Mexican food or pasta.

She drinks two liters of water every day.

For exercise, she does a fifteen minute spin classes and a fifteen minute cardio sessions with a trainer, followed by a fifteen minute run. She does intervals when doing cardio to keep her body engaged with the muscle confusion intensity. 

She doesn't hit the weights for resistance training. Instead she uses her own body weight for resistance using a dance exercise that combines ballet, yoga, and pilates. Her workouts also include yoga.

She exercises five days a week and takes Sundays off. 

Where did I go?

I just get back into the swing of things and then life turns upside down. I had created an awesome plan to get life back on schedule. If you read this blog in the Spring of 2018, it looked very promising.

Then... I found out my oldest son was failing his second semester at college. As a result, in addition to working full time I went back to college full time to help him out. Either I was at work, or I was doing college work, or I was helping my youngest with his high school homework or I was sleeping. And I didn't get very much sleep!

Good news: my oldest passed all of his second semester college classes. And my youngest passed all of his high school classes.

I am going to attempt this again! I am putting together the plan and hope to share more in the coming weeks. In the meanwhile, I hope you have enjoyed all of the Kevin's Kitchen blog entries.