Food review : Chicken teriyaki subway

Hi folks! So it is blog revival time after many many months and I wanted to put this review online.

I had Subway Chicken Teriyaki today with Diet Coke. And I found it disappointing. The teriyaki sauce tasted awful and was strangely sweet. Only saving grace was the veggies and southwest-mint sauce combination added on. The chicken bits were totally nightmarish and looked and tasted stale.

Subway people, if you are listening, be informed that it is the worst variety ever of Subway and you guys can do away with it!! I am writing this review by confirming with one of my friends who had the same experience with this chicken teriyaki subway. I would choose Veggie Delight over it any day or even grilled chicken breast! To make it worse, teriyaki is costlier than the other subs!!

One of my suggestions to Subway -- try serving grilled chicken with greens. It will be a hit!!

In pursuit of healthy recipes

Exercise is important, no doubt about it! But it goes hand in hand with its friend called Diet! And by diet I mean sustainable healthy food intake. Weight loss is more than 50 % dependent on a healthy and balanced diet without unnecessary calories.


I have looked for healthy foods and recipes everywhere from restaurants to book stores to grocery stores to internet. And I have been disappointed many a times with the lack of complete information on health foods and choices.

Over time I have built up some know-how about health food recipes and am increasing my knowledge day by day. In addition to the how to cook, there are other aspects to understand like the ingredients to use and cooking medium.

I have come up with some tasty recipes and will share it here in the weeks to come by. My first favorite recipe is

"Tossed Capsicum Salad"-

Ingredients:

1. Capsicum
2. Tomatoes
3. Onion
4. Olives
5. Cucumber
6. Lemon
7. Salt 
8. Pepper
9. Olive Oil

Cooking time: 10 minutes

 Method:

1. Pour very little olive oil (half spoon) into a wok
2.  Toss medium cut capsicum and onion into the wok.
3. After few minutes when capsicum and onion are little softened, put diced tomatoes, olive and cucumber into the wok.
4. Put salt and pepper.
5. After 2 minutes on low heat turn off the gas and pour lemon juice into the salad.
6. Refrigerate the salad for 1 hour
7. Toss before serving.

 Accompaniments - This salad is very tangy and can spice up bland porridges, whole grain noodles or brown rice.

Record your weight

The first step towards maintaining your weight is to keep a weight record. Start by weighing yourself every week or fortnight and make an excel sheet putting up the date, weight, kg gained/lost and number of days since last reading. I made such a record during my pregnancy and postnatal period. This table helped me to keep myself motivated and keep a track of my progress. After all its important to know the hard facts! :-)

I am grateful!

Thank you God for everything I have! Life is not so difficult after all. I may complain everyday about the small things in my life, but I want to acknowledge the good big things that really matter in the end. I may not have the best job or the best house or the best car, but I have the best husband, the best in-laws and I am lucky to have such a good-natured baby. She is turning 9 months on 20th September. :-)

I am thankful for all these things and also for some more to come my way.

Weight loss after delivery - When to start

After piling on pregnancy pounds many new mothers are anxious to lose all the extra weight they are carrying as fast as possible. Some may think of working out or watching their diets as soon as the day they deliver. But trust me, weight loss should be the last thing on your mind during the first few months after delivery. Here are a few pointers -

1. Check with your doc before resuming any exercise
2. Take care of your diet and don't cut back calories. At the same time don't over-indulge
3. Generally after your 6 weeks post partum checkup, you can resume mild physical exercises in case of normal delivery.
4. In case of C-section delivery, general advise is to wait for 3 months before resuming exercise.
5. Easy paced walks can be resumed as long as it feels comfortable.
6. It is more important to eat well and have some sleep as the demands of new-born and breast-feeding can be very tiring.
7. Some weight also starts coming off as you breast-feed your baby, but this is gradual and may take 2-3 months to see visible changes.
8. Take your doc's approval or wait for 4-5 months before resuming crunches and weight training exercises for C-section cases.
9. Go easy on your work-out routine as you resume it after delivery. Build momentum gradually.
10. Have faith that you will lose all the extra weight. Belief is very important to see results, even though it seems like a herculean task. You put on all this weight in 9 months, give yourself that much time at least to regain your former figure.

Quick tips for must have foods after delivery

It's important to take care of your diet in pregnancy, but post-pregnancy diet is also very important for mom's recovery and baby's nutrition. Here are the super foods a mom must have during 3 months after delivery-

1. Milk - for calcium, can't be ignored as breast feeding sucks calcium out of your body
2. Almonds, walnuts - for healthy fats and milk production
3. Raisins - for iron 
4. Lemon - for Vitamin C
5. Lots of water - to keep you hydrated during demanding breast feeding sessions
6. Carbs - cereals to give you energy
7. Eggs - to repair damaged and sore muscles which went through the rigors of delivery
8. Fruits - to add vitamins and fibers

Staying fit is a way of life

"Staying fit is a way of life." This cannot be emphasized enough. Leave aside flat abs, good looks and fitting into clothes, getting fit is much more than that. When we are fit, our body is in harmony. We feel energetic and have stamina to be active throughout the day. And we feel great and powerful. We feel quite capable to do all the things we want to do. We feel confident and sure.

Looking good comes as a perk of taking care of our body and health.

I woke up to exercise and health quite early as I watched my elder brother spend time at home working out with dumb-bells.I got the message that being fit and powerful is important. And slowly I started to incorporate a small workout plan in my day while I was still in school. This small workout plan had general stretching, jogging and crunches. Later on I started going to the office gym as I started my professional life as a software developer.

This habit continued on and off towards my life and it has become a part of my routine now. I lost considerable amount of weight after my wedding, owing to working out really hard. This not only changed my looks but gave me confidence about my body and control over it.

This belief that I can stay fit and maintain my figure helped me to lose my pregnancy weight and come back to somewhat near my pre-pregnancy weight.

Believing in yourself is one of the most important things if you want to lose weight and change your body. And embracing fitness as a part of your life is essential to stay fit.