Cohen Diet Recipe: Steamed Lemon Lapu Lapu With Spinach & Roasted Vegetables

Steamed Lemon Lapu Lapu with  Spinach & Roast Vegetables

For those into the Cohen Lifestyle Diet Im sure by now youre running out of recipes.. and like me, a fellow food lover, with all the restrictions.. this is just not right..

For those already in Cohen Lifestyle Diet, kindly base your allowance as written in your personal program and you should know the restrictions. The main weight of the protein and vegetables is omitted but do base it on your program. To know more on the Cohen lifestyle diet. Visit http://www.cohenlifestyle.com.ph

A note on this dish. Lapu Lapu is best steamed as a whole fish, but due to weight allowance restrictions I already have our fish suki cut and fillet it. Fresh fish is best, there is no way around cooking good food if to begin with your primary ingredient (fish) is not fresh. Look for the freshest fish you can find given your budget.  Frozen fish any longer than 3 days from the time you bought it at the market is not going to taste as prime. This recipe I’ll be elaborating is not 100% cohen lifestyle diet friendly. Its cooked to appeal to “normal” diners or those in transition to low salt diet yet still maintaining a good and appetizing taste.

To make this dish 100% cohen lifestyle diet friendly, REMOVE from the ingredients the following:
No Sesame Oil
No Soy Sauce

Based on http://www.myfitnesspal.com this dish contains only the following:

430 Calories 25 Carbs 1 Fat 13 Protein

The following are the ingredients and instructions in preparing the Steamed Lapu Lapu & Spinach with Roasted Vegetables.
INGREDIENTS

Lapu Lapu Fillet

Lemon

Spinach

Half Large White Onion

Tomato

1/2 cup Bell Pepper

2 Teaspoon Minced Garlic

1 Tablesoon Olive Oil

2 Teaspoon Kikoman Light Soy Sauce

3 Teaspoon Sesame oil

Salt, Pepper,

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Wash Fish and drain water. Place fish on approx 8″ x  8″ aluminum foil.  Season with Pepper (no salt yet). Squeeze 1/2 lemon on top. Expect juices to drain but still should be inside the foil. Pour 1 teaspoon sesame oil. Slice lemon to have 2 thin slices. Place lemon slices on top. Wrap foil and entirely enclose fish.

You can actually just steam the fish directly without the foil, I choose to steam the fish with foil to retain lemon juice.

2) Steam at low heat 15 minutes. In the same steamer place spinach and steam for not more than 8 minutes

4) Slice onion in half. Do not peel. Slice Bell pepper. Slice tomatoes. Place in ceramic or oven capable plate. Pour in 1 teastpoon olive oil on Tomato, bell pepper. Place inside oven and roast it at 200 degrees 20 minutes

5) Steam spinach add salt and pepper to taste.

5) Prepare pan in low heat. Pour 2 teaspoon of olive oil. Place 2 teaspoon of minced garlic . Careful in unwrapping the steamed fish as it is hot and careful not to spill those precious delicious juice Pour in juices from the steamed fish. Pour in 2 teastpoon of sesame oil. Pour in 2 teaspoon of Kikoman Light soy sauce.  (optional to taste.. add 2 tablespoon of water, add 1 packet of splenda)

6) Plate the fish and pour in pan sauce on top of the fish. Plate the spinach and roast vegetables.

Why I like roasted vegetables.. if kaya ng ihaw much better. Tomato and onions gets to share its sweetness best when roasted or broiled. It just complements the light dish.

Try it and hit me up on how it tastes. You can replace lapu lapu fillet with Dory (not cohen friendly), tilapia fillet, and sea bass.

Fitness Journey: My best 100m swim in recent years

 

Thanks to Toni Infante Gancia for the photo! Taken summer 2012 my stroke form improved. My lead arm stroke on sweet spot is now at a more comfortable effortless angle below my head which helps raise my hips

After getting to swim with my students I noticed that they have been getting fitter and faster! My greatest swim teaching achievement is improving Coach Cris “supremo” Dela Cruz of ANR Ortigas / Hunyango / CB..  in roughly a month from not being able to swim 1km straight, he could swim a decent 23 minutes for 1km swim. Another achievement for me is Without Limits Race Director and former national team athlete Ian Alacar. In our recent swims I could not keep up with his sub-2min 100m. For me, swimming is a lifeskill that everyone should learn. Its fun, good exercise and one way or the other you will go to the beach or a pool at some point in your life. Teaching Ian’s Mom or mommy alacar (who happens to be one of the best cooks ever!) is also one of my achievements, for now she couldnt do freestyle strokes with breathing but her sweet spot and switch drills are pretty decent enough to reach multiples of 25m laps. And that is why Without Limits started calling me Coach Boy… its not really in running but in swimming.

For those beginner to intermediate swimmers who havent been swimming and would like to get into a swim program for a multisport event. This is a sample Base 1 program

Warm up 500m jog around pool / park area

Loosening exercises as inspired by Coach Joseph Pagulayan of KinetIQ fitness and Athletics. In one of our conversations, I was struck by the concept of  “linkages” and “functional exercises”. Some exercises can be sport or activity specific, what is important is you warm up / loosen / stretch and prepare different muscle groups that will be involved in the sporting activity. So I came up with the following for this program:

Neck rotations.

Shoulder rotations (large)

Huggers

Arm swings (Large and farce) forward and back

Hip rotations

Trunk Twists

Jumping jacks

ankle rotations

calf stretches

knee rotations

leg swings

lounges

worlds greatest stretch

leg swings

on a bench .. leg kicks simulating kicking on water, activating abs

on a bench .. nakadapa kicks simulating kicking on water activating abs and lower back

========

On to the swim workout BASE 1

2 x 100m warm-up (2:33 / 2:35 im posting my personal time for logging and recording purposes for my personal training). Purpose of this exercise is to warm up and loosen in the water, followed by checking ones form. 30 secs rest in between. Exrtemely relax Effort 4/ 10

2 x 100m sweet   spot and form drills (3:03 / 3:10 ). lead arm at sweet spot as well. kick w/fins. Purpose of this excercise is to focus on balance in water. Using the chest as bouy, head tipping and balancing to raise hips on water. Focus on keeping proper head alignment on water and not looking up (dipping lower body) to breathe. Relax effort4- 5/10  1 minute rest in between

1 x 100m leg kicks  drills w / fins. form is sweet spot with leading arm. Focus on kick form and lower body conditioning. Lower ab activation, concerted whipping motion from hips to knees to ankles. Moderate effort 6-7 /10  1 minute rest in between

1 x 100m leg kicks drills w/ o fins  form is sweet spot with leading arm. Moderate effort 6-7 /10  1 minute rest in between

2 x 100m switch drills. Focus on over-all form, balance, head alignment when breathing, stroke frequency.Moderate effort 7-8 /10 1 minute rest in between

2 x 100m arms only strokes.  (2:22 / 2:23 ) Feet w/ pull bouy or fins (slight kick to elevate lower body).  Focus on arm stroke, high catch, power follow thru and upper body conditioning. Moderate effort 7-8 /10 1 minute rest in between

rest till fresh ( 3 to 5 minutes) loosen up, hydrate  then proceed

2 x 100m sprint  swim (1:45 / 1:48) focus on form and power.  rest till fresh ( 3 to 5 minutes) loosen up in between. Intense effort 10/10

6 x 50m regular swim. focus on form, conditioning. rest 1 minute in between

2 x 100 cool down swim.  relax effor 4/10

body weight pool lifts at side of the pool. half body in the water, try to pull yourself up, 20 reps. focus on triceps and shoulders

Really happy over the fact that I was able to pull off a 1:45 which i havent done in recent years.. last I think was when I was in prime shape for 2005 in my first Tri in Subit.

Now my next challenge is if only I could keep it at sub-2mins x 15. Im thinking my current cruising  strokes would give a time of 2:18 at 7-8/10 above average effort which I could sustain for a 1.5km to 2km swim.

Ill be sharing swim technique specifics next time. So far Im just happy I can keep up with my students

Fitness Journey: Now and Forever

(photo credit to SnailShot photography for the photo)

My Fitness journey now and forever. With that Id like to segue to one of my favorite quotes “the past was once the future”. The elemenf of a time line in my fitness journey has been in limbo for the past couple of years. I started getting serious  in losingweight and getting fit way back in 2005.

In my eternal search for a sport that would fit and challenged me I thought getting into Triathlon would be the best way. I mean with swimming biking and running i suppose papayat na siguro ako niyan. ive done a couple of olympic standard distances.. though triathlon training made me always hungry. I would justify my binge eating with the swim bike run workouts I would do. Unfortunately even for non workout days and evev off season days i retained my”tri” diet as well.

It was just fairly recent when i got to spend some time with Coach Chinggay (andarada). Though not a fan of Fad diets She elaborated that eating sensibly is a huge part if the equation.. and by that eating quality, nutritious non processed food.

As far as diets are concerned, i didnt want to go that route as i did try it before. I tried the South Beach diet.. i did lose like 15lbs infortunately i lost around 15 friends in the process as well. The South Beach diet left me craving, moody, no, make that extremely moody and cranky.. inaway ko na talaga lahat.. buong mundo!

I did try the No rice diet and I did lose 10lbs only to gain 20lbs a couple of weeks after. Thats what deprivation does to me. Buffet restaurants become my haven.

More articles on my fitness journey to follow. Hopefully this will inspire some of you my fellow fluffies and hopefully get tips from my fit friends as well. Join me in my journey. This is going to be fun. Lets do this!