Recipe/Dinner inspiration, Wagamama inspired Teriyaki Chicken with Spring Onion and Sesame Seeds

Japanese food is easily one of my favourite kinds of food. Not only is it very rich, simple and tasty, but I always feel really good after eating it, mainly because of the multiple vitamins and omega 3 available through the dishes. Therefore, I would like to share with you a recipe I have that is nutritious and delicious, but won't have you endlessly snacking or reaching for the junk food because you're still hungry.

 

You will need:
~ coconut oil
~ one chicken breast, sliced or diced
~ baby spinach
~ one spring onion
~ half a carrot, grated
~ rice, any kind will do )although obviously brown rice is a healthier option)
~ handful of sesame seeds
~ Wagamama teriyaki sauce, available at most supermarkets


1. Melt some coconut oil in a pan/wok (N.B you can use any oil you like, I use coconut oil because it adds a sweet flavour to the chicken and is packed with healthy fats and the health benefits of replacing regular olive oil with coconut are numerous), and brown the chicken until cooked. You will know chicken is cooked as the liquid will run clear from the meat when it is no longer raw.

2. Make rice the Thai way! Instead of boiling rice Western style, instead, wash the rice twice in the pan before cooking until the water is clear and not cloudy. Drain the water from the rice and refill the pan until it reaches the second finger joint above your fingernail. Put on full heat until it boils, and immediately put the heat down to the lowest available to you. Put a lid on it, and leave to steam for just over or under ten minutes depending on how much rice you are cooking.

2. Whilst you are waiting for the rice to steam, grate the carrot and chop up the spring onion finely. Wash the spinach leaves before you eat them, even if they are organic.

4. Finally, add the Teriyaki sauce to the chicken, along with a handful of sesame seeds and stir fry until the sauce is hot. Make a bed of rice, place your veggies around it and add the chicken and spring onion.

5. Bon appetit!

RE: Your thigh gap isn't good enough

Hello blog readers, merry Christmas to you all - I can't believe I'm blogging about this on Christmas eve (which incidentally is the day I celebrate Christmas because I am Swedish) but  this had to be addressed immediately as this landed in my inbox from Cassie.

You may or may not know that I'm an avid reader of health and fitness blogs, and one of the perfect bloggers I am pretty much obsessed with is Cassie Ho of blogilates from Youtube. Combining the internet and fitness was pretty much a godsend for me as I would probably never have been inspired to do anything about my health or fitness had I not stumbled across fitspo blogs. HOWEVER. This email basically was sent by Cassie to all of her followers following comments made on her instagram about her thigh gap.

The thigh gap is such an exhausted topic that I won't go into my personal opinion on it, apart from to say that I majorly sit on the fence regarding such matters. I will however say, I understand the fascination with the thigh gap. I am from the magical and mysterious place of Tumblr, and I am ready to admit one of the first things I look at when passing other girls is often the thighs. It's instinct to me. As somebody who strove incredibly hard to achieve the thigh gap, and partially succeeded, it did not surprise me that such a debate has arisen surrounding it.

What people, especially young girls, need to understand, is that the thigh gap will not be as easily achieved if you work out like crazy and starve yourself. You are building up your muscles, not losing fat if you are doing resistance training and toning etc. You will achieve that thigh gap if your body is suited towards that body type, which includes your stature and your muscle build as well as your hip placement.

But I also want to point out that achieving the thigh gap is not an achievement at all. I "achieved" the thigh gap through months of misery and incredibly unhappy times limiting myself to less than a quarter of the recommended calorie intake spending the majority of my time miserable. I wasn't happier when I was thin as I didn't see I'd lost weight until someone said something about it negatively i.e friends and family who told me I looked "worse". That hurt. But they were right.
A friend at the time sat beside me and said "You don't look thin. You look ill." And that is not what I wanted to hear. I felt ugly and ashamed of myself, but she was right. I did look unwell. There was nothing beautiful about my grey pudgy skin or my over announced bones, and there was definitely nothing beautiful about the floods of tears that occurred every day at 3am when I felt overwhelmed by it all.

The meaning of this post isn't to be preachy, it's not to say I'm 100% right but from my own experience - the thigh gap shouldn't have a place on your fitness journey. Your hipbones, collarbones, ribs etc are not measurements of your beauty. The undeniable fact is that the picture you have in your head about how you should look is probably the most evil image you will encounter. It is that "should be" that eats away at you bit by bit. The "image" me was photoshopped and more tanned and fitter and happier, but reality me wasn't the same girl in the photos. "Anna's lost a lot of weight" and my friends telling me about things boys had said about me - compliments - merely encouraged me to continue with my struggle.

It scares me that past me probably would have thought the same as these girls - but my message to these girls who posted those comments on Instagram to Cassie is - don't let the thigh gap define you. It won't change your life drastically. You won't feel any more beautiful. Your body is not something that needs drastically changing merely for appearances. Be healthy for the body that you deserve, not the one you want to look like. What matters is that your body functions healthily and well, not that other people appreciate it for image wise.