The Santa Hotel

I have been to Sakhalin Island five times in the last two years and stayed in four different hotels. This time around it is the Santa Resort Hotel. What does a resort hotel look like? Well, I'll show you.

 

For breakfast I ordered room service the first day I was here.  I nice lady brought me a glass of tomato juice, half a cup of muesli, a cup of warm ultra-pasteurized milk, a cup of chopped fruit (that tasted like onions by the way), two cheese croissants, a mint roll and a quarter cup of raw honey. Yum.

As you can see, the hotel is clean and not too unusual (besides the Japanese toilet that will wash your backside if you push the right button and a center console between the two beds that acts as an all-in-one clock, radio and light switch.) This hotel has won my heart because it is in the forest. The air is clean and all is quiet. Most importantly, right outside my door is the most beautiful running trail you could imagine. I love it here.

A few more pictures from Minnesota

Chrissy's greatest catch

The new '47 Ford. Wow.

                 

 

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America - Land of the Free

After three magical weeks in the USA, I am sitting in the Narita Airport ... layover for the quickest path to Eastern Russia. I have already had a cup of authentic miso soup and six pieces of sushi, but who's counting?

Over the last three weeks I have done what every person on this planet should dream of:  played with my nephew James in Minnesota!

Happy

Made a video for you. Hope it inspires you to come visit.

I love Texas

There are so many reasons I love Texas. Today I went on a fantastic bike ride with my good friend Katherine Thom. We had a great ride through Sam Houston National Forest. Along the way we ran into a large group of bikers training for the MS150 (an annual bike ride from Houston to Austin held each May.) We were headed in the opposite direction and had a great time "good-morning" and "howdy"-ing everyone we passed. Spring has fallen upon us. Beautiful flowers and green fields. A great morning!

I finally captured a picture of my new bike. Isn't it beautiful? It is so much faster than my other little bike. I love it. (Plus it means that I can finally keep up with Katherine :)

Another reason I love Texas so much is the fun camping I get to do here. Last weekend I went to Enchanted Rock with a fun group of friends. Thanks to my good friend Katy Talyor, I have fun pictures to share of our adventures. We had a great time bouldering, crawling through caves and simply enjoying one another's company.

Finally, I have a really great job that I enjoy. On Friday I participated in sea survival and helicopter underwater egress training. This summer I will be spending a significant amount of time on construction vessels on the Sea of Okhotsk, so I took good notes. Basically I learned that if I were to fall into the cold water I would go into cold water shock for 2-4 minutes. My heart would start racing and I would have no use of my arms of legs. My body would then calm down and I would have around 45 minutes to get out of the water before I die from hypothermia. Sounds encouraging, doesn't it. I learned to keep my legs crossed and close to my chest while waiting for rescue. Turns out you are not suppose to swim unless you are absolutely certain you can make it to your destination. Apparently cold water cools you off 35 times faster than cold air and swimming significantly increases your chances of drowning. Biggest take away? Do whatever it takes to never get in the water!

After 4 hours in the classroom, we changed into our swimming suits and coveralls for a little hands on training in the pool. First we practiced floating and using random objects like hard hats and 5 gal buckets as floatation devices. We climbed into and out of a big orange life raft; and learned out to swim together as a long line, legs wrapped around each other and arms acting like paddles. Turns out you can get a lot of momentum and speed that way. It was fun.

The last portion was the helicopter underwater egress training. We learned how to punch out the windows of a helicopter after it has crashed into the ocean (assuming you survive.) After loading us into the cabin (showed in the pictures below) they lowered us into the water and flipped us upside down. We then had to knock out the window, unharness and escape to safety, repeated 5 times. It doesn't take much imagination to get to how much fun I had doing this! Even the water up my nose wasn't so bad after a while. Now I have a little card with my picture on it stating that I'm certified to fly in helicopters out to platforms, if needed.

There are so many reasons to love Texas! Come visit :)

Sound Science

I have been studying nutrition lately and really appreciate authors who explain the science behind their theories. I recently read this article and want to share it. This author is always a little silly, but she has some great ideas.

Enjoy.


Fat, fat, fat…I don’t care how you say this word…sing it, cheer it, say it with a French accent…whenever people hear the word FAT they flinch and go running in the opposite direction. It’s pretty unfortunate because today we’re going to see how wonderful fat can really be. And, no, I’m not talking about the kind that sits on your belly and never goes away. I’m talking about the kind that you eat and supercharges your health and your fat burning efforts.

In my last newsletter, we began the discussion of healthy fats vs. unhealthy fats and which were the best to choose for eating, cooking and enjoying in your healthy weight loss meal plans. I sent you a wonderful article by my friend Mike Geary, where he explained the difference between different types of fat and which were the best choices for cooking. If you missed that informative article, you can read it here:

Your cooking oils – Healthy vs. Unhealthy

Mike does a great job of telling you the differences between each type of fat and which ones are the best and worst choices for eating and for cooking. I wanted to continue on that same note and dive into each type of healthy (and unhealthy) fat in greater detail.

Today I am going to start with Polyunsaturated fats, which seem to be a hot and very heavily discussed topic right now. Now bear with me for just 1 second as I give you a very brief organic chemistry lesson and I promise to keep it short and simple.

Fats are classified into 3 different categories:

· Polyunsaturated
· Monounsaturated
· Saturated

The classification comes from how “saturated” the carbon bonds are with hydrogen atoms in the actual fatty acid molecule (say what?). Ok, that is a very simplistic way of looking at it and any organic chemist will tell you that there is much more to it than just that, but for our healthy eating purposes, it’s important for us to know the qualities of each type of fat and how to use each one in our eating plan (not to be able to pass the organic chem final, right?)

Saturated fats have all carbon atom linkages filled (saturated) with hydrogen atoms making them highly stable, even when heated at high temperatures. This is what makes most saturated fats, like coconut oil and butter so ideal for cooking…they do not go rancid under high temperatures and are great for almost all cooking and baking purposes. Saturated fats also tend to be solid at room temperature.

Monounsaturated fats lack 2 hydrogen atoms making them less stable than saturated fats and tend to be liquid at room temperatures, as in olive oil and oils from different types of nuts. They also tend to be relatively stable and can be used for some cooking purposes. Even though this is the case, my personal choice is to NOT use these oils for cooking or heating purposes as they do still have some instability and some ability to go rancid under certain heating conditions. I much prefer to use extra virgin olive oil and nut oils raw and find them to be a great option for salad dressing and on raw or cooked veggies.

Polyunsaturated fats lack four or more hydrogen atoms making them extremely unstable under heating conditions and will go rancid very easily if not used and stored the right way. Polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) are the only essential fats that our body cannot produce on its own, making it quite “essential” that we get the PUFAs from the foods we eat.

The topic of debate surrounding PUFA fats is that with their great instability comes a greater likelihood that they will be rancid and hazardous to our health when consumed. There is a lot of truth to this, but I think if the correct precautions are taken and the right fats are chosen and treated and used in the correct way, our bodies can greatly benefit from these essential fatty acids.

Foods containing PUFA fats range from vegetable oils, such as corn, canola and soybean oil) to omega 3 fish oils and many different types of nuts. It has become more widespread knowledge how dangerous cooking with vegetable oil really is and cooking with any oil that is primarily PUFA is a big NO NO when it comes to health and losing weight. But probably the food products in greatest debate now, as far as PUFA go, are all types of nuts and nut butters.

Most nuts are primarily comprised of essential PUFA (with the exception of macadamia nuts and pecans which are mostly monounsaturated) and it is IMPERATIVE that any of these nuts are not heated or roasted in any way, shape or form to benefit from their healthy fat content. It is the heating and/or roasting of any PUFA that makes them hazardous to our health, contributing to inflammation in the body and conditions such as different types of cancers, heart disease and diabetes.

So, just to make it clear….all types of PUFAs cannot be put in the same category. The ones we should be avoiding at all costs are corn, canola, sunflower, safflower oil and any nuts that are roasted and heated. The ones that are safe and quite healthy to consume are fish oils and a variety of raw nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds). But, as I mentioned earlier, good care and precaution should be taken when choosing these healthy forms of PUFA.

Here are a few tips I adhere to when choosing my healthy PUFA food choices:

1. Buy your raw nuts from sources you have researched and know are fresh. I like the ones I get from True Foods Market. Also, once you get home, store them in an opaque container and store them in the refrigerator. I also like to soak my raw nuts overnight in filtered water to increase their digestibility and their naturally occurring enzymes. I also store soaked nuts in the refrigerator.

2. I make my own nut butters. Once I soak my nuts overnight (almonds, walnuts, and/or pecans), I use them the next day to make homemade nut butter. I put the nuts and a bit of coconut oil in the food processor and process until it makes a creamy “butter”. I find this to be tastier than any store bought brand and I know the nuts are fresh and have been soaked. If you don’t have time to make your own, True Foods Market also has great almond butter.

3. I avoid all foods that have been made with or contain oils like canola, corn, and soybean oil. Many of these foods are actually not very difficult to avoid because they are processed foods, but every once in a while I will read a label and BAM…canola oil…agghh! This happens a lot at healthy food markets that provide their own prepared foods (like cooked vegetables, chicken, and fish). Unfortunately these “healthy” places often use quite a bit of canola oil in their cooking so you must read the ingredients list carefully (but you should always be reading the ingredients list of all the foods you eat carefully right?)

4. When using flaxseeds, I always grind my flaxseeds in a coffee grinder right before I am going to use them. I sprinkle ground flaxseeds on my oatmeal, fruits and/or veggies. I don’t ever buy the already ground varieties as they go rancid very quickly in the packaging. These pre-ground flaxseed mixtures are not a healthy choice and if you’re going to use flaxseeds, always grind them fresh yourself.

5. I do my best to obtain most of my Omega 3 fatty acids from fresh food like salmon and sardines. I also make my own home made walnut butter and eat plenty of organic eggs (yes, with the yolk) to include a variety of omega 3 sources in my meals. If you are not getting plenty of these foods into your daily diet, then you may want to consider taking an Omega 3 supplement in the form of a fish oil. I highly recommend only consuming a fish oil supplement from a company you trust and have researched. My company of choice is Prograde and they make the only Omega 3 supplement (Prograde EFA) I am comfortable recommending. I would also keep this supplement in the refrigerator to help avoid any exposure to heat.

Remember, not all polyunsaturated fats are created equal and we can continue to benefit from their healthy properties by just making the right choices (but isn’t that the case with just about everything???)

Stay tuned for more on FAT to come…


In health and happiness,



Isabel De Los Rios
Certified Nutritionist
Certified Exercise Specialist
Author of TheDietSolutionProgram.com

February Russia

I selected a few pictures from my trip to Russia. The first three are of the Vostochny dry dock. 

Here I am in reflective clothing standing in front of the gravity based structure (GBS). Genuine smile.

I was taken on a tour of the full facilities. We climbed up to the top of the GBS and walked around the perimeter to get a good look at the steel reinforcement. That's a lot of steel! In fact, I was told it is the entire supply for the region, plus some.

 

According to my guide's recollection, the final dimensions of the base of the GBS will be 120x155x35 meters (so it will be about the same size and height as shown in the picture below.) Four legs will then rise up from the center to a final height of 55 meters (a height about level or above the cranes.) You can see the earthen rock dam holding back Vostochny bay in the background of the picture below. Notice the very large boat in ice. They will begin flooding the dry dock and removing the dam late this year. Then the GBS will then be floated/towed out to sea and over to Sakhalin. Wow!

Each morning I was in Yuzhno I walked to work. I found it a good start to my day. Thanks to my new coat I never felt cold.

The pictures below were taken in the park next to my hotel. It is hard to see, but there is a bridge in the background with big red letters on it saying "No Swimming." A reasonable request.

This other bridge (pictured below) had several romantic locks on it. Hearts, engraved love notes, etc. When I got to the other side I saw a man jogging in a hat, boots and a speedo. His body was bright pink. Not sure where he was going. I tried to get a picture of him, but was unsuccessful. Seeing him put a smile on my face for days. I remember this morning was particularly chilly, around -14 C. I hope he wasn't planning on swimming under that other bridge.

In the center of the park was a bright, colorful amusement park boldly protruding from the snow. A welcomed sight.

Russians love ice cream. They eat it year round. It is never too hot or too cold for ice cream. This cute little sign was in front of an ice cream stand. It reads, Ice cream the whole world loves!