City Wide Home Services

By admin 　http://www.citywidehomeservices.com/sears-home-services-chat/

How I Learned To Cook

Cooking for yourself is hands down the the most empowering thing you can do for your longevity. If you don’t know how, cookbooks can seem a little intimidating. May my journey from cooking ineptitude to culinary mastery inspire you to begin firing up that stove. Enjoy!
By Coach Michael Ezell

The year was 2005: The economy was relatively stable (or so we thought), the oceans were free of BP oil, and Tiger woods was known more for his golf swing than his swinging ways. On the home front, I was relatively happy. I mean, my kids were healthy and doing well in school, puberty had not yet transformed my teenager into an alien from the TV show “V”, and I got to eat dinner every night without cooking a thing. No, really. In fact, in over thirty years I had never created a meal my self that hadn’t involved a can opener, a bowl or a spoon (Can you say Chunky Soup?). And what was the big deal anyway? My wife Sonja seemed to be a Super Woman, able to work all day, go to night school a few days a week, study, cook and do dishes all without so much as a grumble, rolled eye or even a smirk.

Then, one day, all that changed… and fast.

There were no signs of the pending doom that was to completely change our household forever. No thunderclaps in the distance. No bolts of lightning upon the horizon. Nothing. One day Sonja simply stopped cooking. She pretended that she had never cooked for us in her life and that she wasn’t about to begin now. It was amazing! A complete shift in behavior. I thought I would wait her out. We went one day, then two then three…then a week without dinner. Each night, Sonja would peacefully sit in front of her laptop to study, seemingly oblivious to the starvation occurring all around her. She’d sit there, eat her sandwich that she’d make for herself and no one else. How could I convince her that she was wrong? I mean I didn’t have a leg to stand on. It wasn’t as if there was some valid argument that I could conjure up to convince her that she needed to march her hips back into that kitchen and make my lazy ass a meal. There was Possibly the fact that I had zero cooking experience and that the children could, in a matter of weeks begin to resemble a Feed The children commercial and I would resemble Tom Hanks in Castaway, but instead of talking to Wilson, I’d have him impaled on a spit preparing to chew him to death. I was afraid, however that Sonja was in a place where none of this would sway her from starving us out of complacency.

The Paradigm Shift

I began to hear the clarion call of martyrdom as the cold, frightening reality settled upon me: If the household were ever to eat again, I would have to sacrifice my precious time, energy and will in service of the greater good-my starving family.
I hadn’t a clue as to where on earth I would begin my culinary journey. Cook books seemed way too intimidating. The authors all seemed to want to make me into a four star chef-or even worse, Martha Stewart. I didn’t have time for that crap! As I established earlier, I was sacrificing my time here. Oh sure it was time that I spent surfing the web for clips of astronauts doing MJ’s Moon Walk on the actual moon or petting the dog, or looking in the mirror trying to determine if that was in fact a gray hair in my beard or just the way that the light hit the follicle, but it was time none the less.
No, I needed real-world, 21st century solutions to my dilemma.

Enter Men’s Health.

I’d been buying or subscribing to Men’s Health Magazine since the beginning of my adult life. More often than not I’d never read an issue from cover to cover. Usually after no more than 2 articles and a handful of health tips that mag would end up in the rack or under the bed or stacked in my closet of archives. But this time was different. This time, I actually read the issues and I was shocked by all of the healthy recipes they had in each one. Not only did they have recipes, but the recipes were ultra healthy, simple to do and varied in scope. They had recipes for every meal of the day. I soon began cooking the meals in strict accordance with the recipe instructions. My family was pleasantly surprised and delighted by my efforts. My wife in particular really seemed to enjoy the meals. I mean, she would actually get excited at mealtime! Well, as a guy, when your woman gets excited about something that you’re doing, you’re going to do it repeatedly… at least until she says, “Enough already!!”.

Soon I would begin to augment the recipes, deviating from them in order to change things up a bit. I quickly discovered that I had a knack for creating in the kitchen and before I knew it, I was creating meals and writing down my own recipes!

Today I absolutely dazzle my whole house with my cooking. Really. My youngest girl often dons her “Daddy’s little Sous Chef” apron to help me out in the kitchen. It’s a wonderful bonding experience. When I get home from work, the first thing that I do is hit the kitchen. It’s a meditation: the chopping of the zucchini. The crushing of garlic. The searing of meat. Brainstorming yet another way of enhancing a particular sauce for the salmon. It focuses you. Relaxes you. You go into your head and glean for ideas while you’re centered by all the chopping, shredding and the like.

Reasons to Cook

But, by far, the best part about cooking for yourself is that when you feed yourself, corporations are not feeding you. Not to label all corporations as uncaring, because there are many good ones, but our current obesity epidemic is proof that allowing corporations to feed you instead of farmers, fishermen and/or gardeners, will make you fat and unhealthy. We’re talking produce verses products here people. Whole food in stead of fast food.
When a company’s payoff is to make you, the consumer, full and healthy, you can trust them. but, when they’re payoff is solely to get your money in order to appease shareholders, you cannot trust what they put in your mouth. The ideal free market is one in which the primary relationships are between a company and it’s customers. In the current corporate climate, it’s about the company and it’s shareholders, leaving you as the third wheel. All of us can change that when we take back control of our nutrition. If all of us cooked more, and cooked healthily, corporations would begin to mimic what we’re making in the kitchen in order to appease market demand, not solely the bottom line. Oh, for sure, stocks may initially decline as a result of the change, but it would be a reflection of something good, for not all profit is profitable.
Cooking for yourself empowers you. You get to decide how healthy you want to be. It’s about taking ownership of your life, being responsible for both the good and the bad. It’s also a hell of a lot cheaper than eating out when done right.
The result of my daily meals is that my household is a relatively thin and healthy one. These results are far more important to me than anything else I would have to do at home after work. I am so grateful to my wife for her wise actions. Cooking healthy doesn’t have to be time consuming. I usually spend no more than an hour in the kitchen. But looking at my meals, you would swear that I spend more time in preparation and cooking. Today I believe (with tongue firmly lodged in cheek) that behind every great male cook, there’s a wise woman who likely refused to do it. ~Coach Mike

Why Club Membership is better than a Men’s Health Subscription

Had I known back in ’05 what I know now, I could’ve canceled my Men’s Health subscription altogether for a club membership with Team Beachbody. The Meal Plan tool that we offer at Team Beachbody takes all of the work out of planning your meals. I used to have to tear out magazine pages and cut and paste the recipes neatly into a little card and place the card in a card holder, then place them in order. And if the recipes didn’t fit on the 4X6 card, I’d have to write them out on the cards. With the Team Beachbody meal planning tool, you just type in what workout program that you’re using if any, along with a few other stats and Voila! The system gives you a shopping list for you to print out and shop with. It also provides you with recipes which correspond to the food you just purchased for you to refer to throughout the week. With the meal planning tool you can also scale the recipes to accommodate your family and customize them if there are meals you either don’t like or are allergic to! The scalability means that you don’t need to make a meal for your family and then another for yourself. I used to have to figure out how to scale the meals myself, sometimes being off in my measurements.

Here are all the benefits of club membership:

•10% discount on fitness programs, gear, and supplements.

•Full access to Beachbody TV, including exclusive Trainer Tips, Healthy Eating Tips, Style Tips, and Lifestyle Tips.

•VIP access to our celebrity Trainers. Watch their videos, ask them questions, and read their motivational articles.
Chat live with your favorite Trainers in the exclusive VIP Chat Room.

•Personalized meal plans and delicious recipes that make it easy to lose weight.

•Your own personal blog to journal your progress and share your ideas and opinions.

•Access to fitness articles and tips to help you maximize your workouts.

•Access to nutrition articles and tips to make healthy eating simple and satisfying.

Visit gethealthfit.com for more information.

About the Author

Michael Ezell is an independent Team Beachbody health and fitness consultant and director of The Get Health Network (TGHN). Team Beachbody is the leader in in-home health and fitness programs. As the creators of P90X, the #1 in-home workout program in the US, Beachbody is dedicated to reversing the trend of obesity in the US. TGHN supports this mission through education, training and customer support.

Consumer Intentions for Holiday 2009