Ozark Living

Eats By Erin Rowe As we begin the New Year, it's always a perfunctory plan to lose weight and take off those holiday pounds. We all want to make better choices with how we treat ourselves, add to that reading list, work out more, and watch TV less. But in the end, it's hard to make a resolution and stick to it. Unless it's something realistic and sustainable. Unless it's a lifestyle change with commitment that works. For this reason, New Year's plans and resolutions oen fail a month in. So I've put together a realistic idea list with applications that just might work for you. Maybe at least one or two concepts will spark a fire during these times of change. Many of them are food related, but others are holistic-health in bent. In the end, we all can constantly improve ourselves through making choices that stick around past February. Let's have a little more resolve and see how we do! 1 Try New Foods: So many times, modern diets and fads suggest eating more vegetables and salads in the New Year or to slim down. As a chef, I wholeheartedly agree - however, there's more to it than the garden. For a sustainable lifestyle change, it's imperative we don't just relegate our foods to super healthy veggies that we will dri away from over time. Learn to enjoy ai, Vietnamese and Japanese cuisines. Even shopping in the Asian groceries can be a fun adventure, and we have many in NWA. Many island cuisines, particularly ai, do not use the oen heavily-laden creams and dairy rich ingredients of the western diet. ese are the common culprits for those extra holiday pounds you might have put on over November and December. Because coconut milk and oils are oen used in ai food, as well as nam pla (fish sauce) and soy products versus salt, their recipes can oen be healthier in bent than American recipes. I find great balance in ai menus, particularly, with a feeling of lightness aer indulging in a ai meal, versus a heaviness requiring me to take a nap, such as aer that juicy cheeseburger. I've included a recipe worth trying out at home that's simple and easy, just 20 minutes. 2 Exercising Can be Fun: It's not all running if that's not your thing. And even though many folks around NWA embrace Cross Fit you're not required to go to those extremes. Working out in home can be as simple as stairs or a stationary bike; perhaps even yoga in your living room might be a good option for strength and flexibility. Chopping wood in the winter is a great activity you may have to do anyways, as well as weeding and gardening and planting bulbs for spring. Really any sort of yard work, including gutter cleaning and sweeping counts as exercise if you're breaking a sweat. I love playing music like e Twist & dancing while cooking, an excellent way to enjoy music and strengthen your abs. 3 Cut the Soda: Highschool days consisted of daily trips to the vending machine for Coco-Cola, so I get it! And then one day I realized you can also clean a car engine battery with the stuff, so I stopped. In my years before chefdom, I worked a lot of jobs, including managing a bar. I've tended and made every drink under the tequila sunrise. I can honestly say the overweight or unhealthy orderers always had at least this commonality: soda. ey'd order it daily. ere's a connection between what we drink and the health of our body. If you want to lose weight and feel better with an immediate result, that's a huge step – so stop or at the least lessen your soda intake. 4 Embrace Pro-Biotics & Antioxidants: ere's a lot of hype around items that make for a healthy gut. But if you think about the way your body processes all it intakes, it is important to make it as smooth and efficient as possible at keeping you healthy. Introducing pro-biotics (or healthy gut bacteria) into your diet is as simple as including Kefir, natural yogurt, and kambucha tea into your daily regimen. Good bacteria help you stay naturally healthy to fight infections, viruses and just feel better in New Types of Continued on page 17 Resolutions OZarK LIVInG • January 2022 • 15

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