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Are You a Healthy Person or Do You Just Do Healthy Things?

10/27/2016

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This might sound like a strange question to ask.  One would think if you do healthy things you would be a healthy person.  If you eat a lot of veggies, workout regularly and drink your water, all healthy things, chances are you will be healthy physically.  

We want to dive deeper into this question though and talk about the mental side of being a healthy person.  We believe the ball game really changes when a person get's healthy mentally and begins to identify themselves as being a healthy person.  

Let's start with talking about why the person doing healthy things is different that a healthy person.  


Do Healthy Things Person - This person likely has some goals to lose weight, change their body composition, get off medications, etc.  All great goals!  They also likely have been given a prescription to achieve those goals from a doctor, personal trainer, or nutritionist.  They are told things like eat less processed foods, eat more fruits and veggies, follow an exercise routine or drink more water.   

All of those things will likely make a person healthier!  So why are we making this distinction between doing healthy things and being a healthy person?  This person has a measurable and attainable goal.  What happens when they reach their goal? Game over... now what?  Their motivation was in achieving their goal, what is going to keep them motivated?  They were committed to those healthy things to achieve a goal.  No goal, No commitment.

Do you see where I'm going with this?  Doing healthy things can help you make progress and even reach some pretty amazing goals but I believe to sustain that change there has to be a mental shift.  So let's take a look at the healthy person.

Healthy Person -  This person's identity revolves around improving his health.  They are a student of health, always learning and striving to better themselves.  The healthy person's goals are constantly changing and evolving.  

A healthy person can still indulge from time to time but there is no guilt in it.  There aren't rules laid out for a healthy person that they HAVE TO do certain things to be healthy.  Their decisions come naturally, there isn't stress in decision making.  Exercise isn't a thing to burn calories.  It is something that they do to feel better or to be social.  

One thing that has helped us stay in the "Healthy Person" category has been our commitment to become health coaches ourselves.  As health coaches we are looked upon to be examples and leaders.  It doesn't mean we have it all figured it out.  It just means that we consistently do all those healthy things as a way to inspire others to switch from doing healthy things to becoming a healthy person.  Part of my identity is being a healthy person.  Yeah I get ridiculed at times but seriously like making fun of someone because they are ridiculously good looking.  I take it as a compliment!  

How would you identify yourself?  Have you not stepped into the world of doing healthy things yet?  Are you doing healthy things?  Or are you a healthy person?  
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Adjusting My Goals

10/21/2016

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A couple weeks ago I set some goals for our business....did a vision board and everything. I realized this morning I failed to put the MOST important goal of my life. 

To please Him. To seek him daily. To love Him regardless of what He gives me or takes away....

I want to be a woman who is strengthened by His power. Not mine. To become a prayer warrior. To show grace to others no matter what. To
 love fully, be present in every moment, have intentionality and give thanks for everything! I want to be a woman who surrenders and doesn't try to control anything. 

The goal of my life isn't to make a lot of money (even though there's nothing wrong with asking Him to bless you)......It's to make a life that means something and I can't do that without first seeking Him 
❤️
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August Travels (Kentucky, W. Virginia, Pittsburgh, Niagara, and More)

10/21/2016

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It was a strange feeling after our Beachbody Coach Summit in Nashville.  In years past that event comes to an end and we go back to Minnesota and go back to our normal lives.  So it was strange when this year we just packed up the RV and moved on to our next location.  Slowly this full time traveling thing is starting to feel like the norm.  

One place that was definitely on our radar that we wanted to check out was Niagara Falls.  From Nashville we plotted our course to get there and it took us through Kentucky.  We did just an overnight stay at a little park in Renfro Valley.  It was actually a cute park that hosts a bunch of country music concerts.  
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A mid-walk dance party
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This little hill kept him busy for a solid 10 minutes
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Woke up to some serious fog
After Kentucky we had heard great things about West Virginia and how beautiful it was.  Our original plan was to stay at a state park or Army Corps of Engineers park called Bulltown Campground for 4 days.  It was up in the mountains and right on a lake, everything looked fantastic.  Well... we didn't think about cell phone coverage.  We didn't have any on our ATT phones or our Verizon hotspot.  Had we known that we could have planned for us to be unplugged but unfortunately we had some business commitments that we needed to be a part of which meant we needed to find some service.  So our 4 day stay turned into 1 night.  
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Not a bad view from our campground in WV
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Our only communication to the outside world! Who knew payphones still existed?
It actually didn't turn out to be so bad that we left West Virginia.  Our plan was to drive up to Pittsburgh for a quarterly Beachbody event anyways that Saturday so it did save us some mileage and time in the car.  The spot we moved to was a fun little park with a lot of full-timers a little southeast of Pittsburgh.  We spent a decent amount of time at the playground in the park and met some pretty cool people, even some fellow Beachbody coaches.  
We spent a great day in Pittsburgh.  Our morning was filled with our Beachbody event where we got to hear some amazing stories from fellow coaches.  Laura and Eli got to meet Autumn Calabrese, the trainer behind 21 Day Fix and Country Heat.  After our event we walked around downtown a bit.  It happened to be Regatta weekend and we were in the neighborhood so we checked out some of the boat races.  
After our 4 day stay in the Pittsburgh area we made our way up to Niagara area.  We stayed at a great campground literally right Lake Ontario.  Our view was looking out at that lake.  Here's one at sunset, pretty incredible!
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I was a little worried Niagara Falls was going to be underwhelming.  Let's just say it wasn't.  Such a cool spot and awe inspiring to see that kind of power in nature.  We only walked around on the US side of the falls but walked all way from the horseshoe falls down to the US falls and up on the observation deck that hangs out over the river.  

We did drive the road that runs parallel to the river and falls on the Canadian side.  It definitely looked like you would get better views of all the falls from that side!  Now we know!  

Our travels went international at this point too.  We decided to make a day trip up to Toronto.  We had heard great things about the city.  We wish we would have done a bit more homework ahead of time and it would have been fun to spend more time there.  We spent most of our time in the distillery district.  It had some fun restaurants, coffee shops, and boutique style shops.   
One mistake we made due to poor planning was walking to Cherry Beach Park.  Let's just say Canadian beaches don't really compare to others we have visited.  We wish we would have went and checked out some market areas of town instead.  I wish we had more time but we tried to get out of downtown before rush hour.  We left downtown around 3:00 and our 2 hour drive turned into 3.  Who knows how bad it would have been had we stayed another hour or two.  
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Canadian Beach on Lake Ontario
We did all of that in just over a week!  Are you tired just reading about all of that?  Yeah it was pretty exhausting moving that fast and doing as much as we were doing.   We had one more stop in central upstate New York before we would settle into a campground in southern Massachusetts for 2 weeks.  We did pretty well in keeping the whirlwind going.  We spent some time in Rome, NY, a petting zoo, washed the RV, and spent an afternoon checking out a local lake town.  I almost forgot we also celebrated Eli's 2nd birthday!  
We had such a good time during this part of our trip.  This is really why we wanted to go on this adventure.  To be together as a family, see places that are popular spots and quite a few that are off the beaten path.  
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Crispy Baked Sweet Potatoes

10/19/2016

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I've tried a couple dozen different ways to make baked sweet potato fries and most of them haven't turned out until now!  The two things that have typically happened are either horribly burnt fries or soft squishy fries.  Been there?  

I wish I could remember where I saw this trick but it made all the difference.  I know I saw it on some Facebook cooking school type page.  They talked about the differences in sweet potatoes vs regular white potatoes.  The thing that separates the two is the starch to sugar ratios.  White potatoes are higher starch less sugar and sweet potatoes are just the opposite.  If you are somewhat experienced cook you know that sugar burns.  It's because of this and this balance that makes sweet potato fries harder to get that nice crispy texture without burning.  


You could approach this problem a few ways.  Cook them incredibly fast so they don't have time to burn, aka fry them.  Not the worst thing in the world if you are using a quality oil like coconut oil, but that becomes a pretty expensive batch of fries if you are using a whole jar of coconut oil to make them.  The next option is to reduce the sugar content, that's not really an option as far as I know.  The last one would be to up the starch content.  That can be done! 

The process of adding starch is pretty simple.  You could use a number of different starches to do this but I would recommend tapioca, arrowroot or corn starch/flour, I used tapioca.  You create a slurry of the starch plus a little water and toss the potatoes in the slurry while they are warm and slightly softened from boiling.  That way the starch mixture gets absorbed into the potato.  

I'm going to continue to experiment with this process and hopefully fine tune it a bit more.  For now, we hope you enjoy this little tip.  I would also love to find the perfect fry seasoning to add to these.  If you have any suggestions drop them in the comments.  
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Boiled potatoes covered in tapioca starch slurry

Ingredients

  • 2 medium sweet potatoes cut into wedges
  • 2 tbsp tapioca starch
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Get a pot of water boiling and preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
  2. Peel and cut your sweet potatoes into wedges.
  3. Add potatoes to salted, boiling water for 6 minutes.
  4. While potatoes are in water add tapioca starch and water to a large bowl and whisk until fairly smooth.
  5. After potatoes cook for 6 minutes add them directly to the bowl with starch slurry in it.  Toss in the slurry until all wedges are fairly well coated.  Try to be fairly gentle during this process in order to not create mashed potatoes.  
  6. Place potatoes onto a parchment lined baking sheet.  
  7. Bake for 40 minutes, or until some brown spots start to show.  Rotate halfway through the baking.
  8. Once they are finished baking, season with salt and pepper or whatever seasoning you wish.
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Focus On What You Can Control

10/12/2016

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We've worked with hundreds of people in an effort to improve their health and lose weight.  I think most people strive to be healthy and live life at a reasonable weight.  I will say though a lot of people put an emphasis on weight.  They think that is the driving force to better health.  

When I lost most of my weight I was doing a program called The Ultimate Reset.  This program is a 21 day whole food cleanse/reset.  The great thing about this and getting started was it laid everything out for me.  I didn't have to think.  The process was laid out in black and white.  Eat this, take these supplements and you'll see results.  I wasn't thinking about whether or not I was losing weight, I just knew what my next meal or snack was  supposed to be.  For more on my journey check out this post, Change Your Mind, Change Your Body.  


We have made the comments before that it is more about progress and not perfection.  I would take that one step further back and say that it is more about committing to the process first.  You control the process!  You don't necessarily control the progress.   I think that is why I saw results with the program I did.  I committed to actions and those actions led to weight loss  and health.  

If you you are looking to lose weight and get healthy, what process are you going to commit too?  Some things that I believe are vital both losing weight and getting healthy would be:
  • Consuming a minimum of 5 servings of non-starchy veggies per day
  • Drinking 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water
  • Getting a minimum of 6 hours of quality sleep per night, preferably 7-8.  
  • Doing some sort of activity that causes you to fatigue muscles and lose your breath 4 times per week for at least 20 minutes.  Basically do some intense exercise!  
If you are a beginner and you want to know how to lose weight, do those things!  Once you've mastered those things, then you we can talk fancier things like calorie counting, marconutrient ratios, carb-cycling, fasting, etc.  I think so many people think they need to do something fancy to see results.  The things you need to do are easy!  Because they are easy to do, they are also easy not to do!   That's where you committing to the process makes all the difference.  

We've put together a simple tracker that you can use to track your progress with these simple steps.  Just click the button below and follow the directions.  
Download Our Core Activities Tracker
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Chicken Tortilla Soup

10/10/2016

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I don't know why I don't always have a batch of this soup in our fridge.  So good!!!  Five years ago I would have laughed at you if you would tell me that soup can be an entire meal. I guess I was used to terrible canned soups or the tiny cup of soup that you get at restaurants.  Oh how the times of changed.  

Now my view of soup is basically it is liquid salad!  Seriously though if you make a good soup it should resemble a salad.  So if you don't like to eat salad, I suggest you try soup instead.  This version of chicken tortilla soup is loaded up with veggies, quality protein, and of course some amazing chicken stock.  

When I make soup I love to make a huge batch because it tastes better the next day!  Feel free to scale this recipe up or down but it makes about 6 large bowls of soup.  Also as a little bonus here is a how I like to make my chicken stock at home which is super simple.  

Homemade Chicken Stock

Ingredients

  • 5-6 pound whole chicken
  • 1/2 pound chicken feet (optional but not really but this is where you get all that amazing gelatenous goodness!)
  • 2 large carrots, chopped
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 3 celery stalks, chopped
  • 4-5 garlic cloves, smashed
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 tsp dry thyme
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • Water

Directions

  1. We use our pressure cooker if you don't have one you could do this in a stock pot or even in a slow cooker.  It will just take longer.  
  2. Put your chicken and all your vegetables in your cooking vessel along with 2 cups of water.  If you using a pressure cooker you will need to cook for approximately 45-60 minutes depending on how big your chicken is.  Similar on a stove top and multiple hours in a slow cooker.  
  3. After the chicken is cooked, remove it from your pot.  You can let it cool or if you are tough feel free to dig right in and start removing the meat from all the bones.  Add the bones back into the pot that still has the vegetables in it.  
  4. Set your meat aside for later and discard the skin and gristle.  
  5. Add the remaining seasonings and ingredients and fill up your pot with water.  We have a 6 quart stockpot and this amount of vegetables and spices works well with that amount of liquid.  
  6. Pressure cook for 2-3 hours depending on how much time you have.  If you are using a stovetop or slow cooker you are looking at more like 24-48 hours.  
  7. After cooking, strain it so you are just left with the liquid, store in the fridge for up to a week.  

Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 lb of shredded cooked chicken meat
  • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 medium onion
  • 1 green bell pepper
  • 1 yellow bell pepper
  • 0-3 jalepenos, seeds removed
  • 2 tbsp of minced garlic
  • 4 cups of pureed tomatoes
  • 4 cups chicken stock
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tbsp chili powder
  • 2 tsp smoked paprika
  • Cayenne pepper to taste
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Garnishes/Toppings
  • Green Onion
  • Cilantro
  • Corn Tortilla Chips
  • Shredded Cheese
  • Sour Cream or Greek Yogurt
  • Hot sauce

Directions

  1. In a large pot add the oil, then add the onion, peppers and garlic and cook over medium heat for 8 minutes or until softened.  
  2. Add tomatoes and stock to the pot along with spices and bring to a boil.
  3. Reduce to a low, add the chicken and simmer for minimum of 15 minutes or up to an hour.  
  4. Your done, add with some of your favorite toppings and enjoy!
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    The Cook & The Coach

    Healthy is a LIFESTYLE.
    Not a destination. 

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About Us

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Dan and Laura Suedbeck have embraced an entrepreneurial lifestyle.  They are constantly challenging the status quo and challenge others to do so too.  They believe that you don't always have to change your situation, sometimes you just need to change the lens you view the world through.  Their focus is helping people  find purpose and passion with their lives all while getting healthy.   Click here to find out more about them.  

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