Q.E.D.

It’s great to exercise and eat good food.  It’s also important to take a break every so often and let loose.  Every culture has some sort of safety valve to let off steam – Mardi Gras, Carnival, Bacchanalia – and they have these things for a reason.  That reason is that you need to take it easy every once in a while.

I’m not saying you should down a fifth of Jack as a chaser for your McDonald’s french fry and bacon smoothie but everyone needs a little down time to recharge the batteries and get some new thoughts and experiences.

We at The Blog Diet celebrate the human and humans aren’t machines.  There’s more to life than living in your cube answering email.

Find the time to relax.  It’s a good tip.

But we have great news!

The Blog Diet Cafepress store is up and has two articles of clothing designed with Agent Merlot’s love affair with beets in mind.

You too can show your solidarity with tasty and nutritious beets and give Jessica Simpson a message at the same time!

Maybe Peta will get on board too! >wink wink<

Hell, if they link to us, we’ll donate half the profits to them.  That’s a pretty good deal.

Remember: Maybe girls eat meat, but real women eat beets!

Yesterday Martha Edwards posted the following on the “health and fitness blog” That’s Fit:

We often forget about soda’s equally harmful cousin, juice. Sure, juice contains nutrients that soda is missing, but they share a number one ingredient: sugar. It might even be fair to say that juice is merely a type of non-fizzy soda aimed at children. [link]

Um.  Soda comes from a factory.  Juice comes from trees (bushes too).  And I like juice so I’ve got juice’s back on this one.  Of course look to see that it is actually juice. (I call double shenanigans on Martha’s weak response that “Kool-aid counts as juice.”  I don’t think so.  And I think kids understand the difference between fruit juice and fruit drink.  Juice tastes like a fruit while drink tastes like a color. Remember those green foil capped containers of purple, green, red, and orange drinks?  I think they’re basically un-frozen freeze pops, myself.)

Juice bad for you?  I don’t think so. Make sure it’s juice and isn’t loaded with extra sweeteners and don’t drink a gallon a day and you’ll be fine.  But a glass here and there over the course of a day?  Tasty and nutritious.

Juice: Definitely a valued part of The Blog Diet.

Begin Message:  Rowing machine and Stair master.  Thirty minutes each.  Soaked in sweat.

It has to be a good workout.

End Message.

One of the tenants of the Blog Diet is doing a little more than you have to.  When presented with an escalator, elevator, or stairs you should opt to take the stairs.  If you just see stairs, take two at a time.  Will you break a sweat?  Well, unless you are climbing a Mayan temple or work on the 28th floor of an office building chances are you won’t be perspiring much.  But what you will be doing is setting a standard which you can unconsciously apply to your other activities.

Say you are on the treadmill.  You can set it for 45 minutes or if you follow the “take the stairs principle”  you might set it for 50 minutes.  By doing a little more you get a lot more out.  It’s not much but cumulatively you can see where I’m going with this.

And if you want to apply this tip to other aspects of your life you’ll benefit as well.  Do a bit more than you have to and you’ll eventually be pretty surprised at what you can accomplish.

Not too long ago I had a great lunch at La Mediterranée I decided to get Orrecchiette Al Torchio which translates roughly to “Torched Little Ears.”  Orrecchiette is a type of pasta.

Anyway, I really really enjoyed it.  So the other night I got home and remembered that the day before I saw a tin of anchovies in the pantry and BAM, I decided to see if I could replicate the tasty lunch I had.

I remembered that the dish had olives in it – though I forgot that it had onions – and I remembered that I had some kalamata olives in the fridge.  So I had everything I needed.  Except for the orrecchiette.  So I used some penne instead.  Here’s what I did:

1. Boil Water and add pasta.
2. Mince two cloves garlic.
3. Heat maybe 1 or 1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil.
4. Sauté garlic, anchovies, and olives.
5. Drain pasta and add to the pan  – to “torch” it I guess. A few minutes moving it around constantly.
6. Put in a bowl and throw on some grated parmesan cheese.
7. Eat.  Damn.  That was tasty and quick to make. Maybe 20 minutes.

And that’s it.  Another quick and easy and probably healthy Blog Diet recipe.

And if you’re in the neighbourhood you should totally check out La Mediterranée.

La Mediterranée French Bistro
947 2nd Ave
New York NY
10022
212-755-4155

If you were in the United States last Friday (Thursday night too) through Sunday you were probably made aware that July 4th is a holiday.  If all the flag waving and fireworks and parades and people mindlessly patriotically chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.!” didn’t clue you in, it was Independence Day. Despite the economy being in the suck and our reputation abroad being pretty much in the same place the United States is a pretty great place to be.

It’s a real great place to be during a national holiday  since you get to have the day off from work and get to hang out with your family and friends.  You also get to eat and drink, a lot, if you are so inclined.

I am so inclined.

The Blog Diet understands.  You don’t want to be miserable during a holiday and The Blog Diet doesn’t want you to be either.  It’s OK if you ate some hot dogs and hamburgers or something decadently tasty because it was fried and then fried some more.

But “cometh the Monday after a holiday, cometh the holiday hangover.*” You feel a little bloated.  Maybe averse to bright light or talking or people in general.  It’s okay.

But get over it.  Stiff upper lip and all that.  Enter Tuesday with a vengeance.  Cause now you’re back to grass fed beef, veggies, and other healthy treats.  And exercise.  Don’t skip it today.  Get back on your routine.

OK.  That is all.

Hope your holiday was fun.

________________________

* I made this quote up. Still true though.  You can quote me on that.

Looks like water, as everyone already knew, is good for you. Thank you scientists.

Water is vital for optimal brain function

via: That’s Fit

Ah, Subway.  The House that Jared Built.  When you just don’t know what to eat in my opinion you can’t veer too far off the Blog Diet Path if you choose to enter the hallowed halls of Subway.

For some reason the Subway Veggie Max / Garden Burger post is pretty popular.  I guess people are hungry for any info on that particular sandwich. (Hungry, get it.  Yeah, Lame.)

Lately though I’ve been eschewing the Veggie Max for the just as filling veggie delight.  Why?  Well, it’s less expensive.  It has fewer calories (525 vs. 780).  It tastes pretty OK.  And, since Agent Merlot brought it up, it conforms more or less to the Michael Pollan food philosophy of “eat what you can recognise.”

I have no idea what a veggie burger is other than a mash of vegetables and mushrooms with some sort of binder ingredient.  So, the Blog Diet Staple has gotten altered a bit.

Drop the burger from the veggie and add a “Delight.” What you’ve got is a salad in sandwich form.  You can’t go wrong with that.  (It’s pretty filling and it’s also a “$5.00 foot long.”)