Dream Night Abroad in Barcelona (Outfit, Food,...)

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." 

    - St. Augustine

I love to travel as I love to get to know new cultures and to get inspired by all the new impressions. Thus, I was really excited when Smartling - an online translation technology company  - asked me to be a part in their project "Dream Night Abroad" in which I tell how my dream night would look like, what I eat, wear and how I deal with the different language.

My destination for my dream night would be Barcelona. Barcelona is such a beautiful city combining beach and city, old buildings and new postmodern architecture and the Catalan flair. I would start my perfect day with visiting La Sagrada Familia, followed by a relaxed walk through the city and their parcs. Then I would stop at the Boqueria Market for a snack.
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In the evening, I would walk through the beautiful historical old town with its fantastic architecture. Then I will have a beautiful dinner at one of the lovely restaurants in El Born and will have a cocktail, or two, in a bar with good music at the beach. I would finish my day with taking a long and really relaxing walk along the beach with my best friend or beloved one. 

This would be my outfit for the night:

Blouse - Mango

Leather Biker trousers - Zara

High Heels - Buffalo

Bag - Mango

Leatherjacket - Esprit

The Spanish Mediterranean food tastes absolutely amazing, so to find something to eat would be no problem for me. I would love to have a fresh fruit juice and some empanadas in the Boqueria Market. At the restaurant I would go for a great paella with a good red wine from the region and a Crema Catalana for dessert.

I actually can't speak Spanish. However, the different languages wouldn't be a problem for me. I would learn basic sentences beforehand and also take a dictionary with me. The best thing is not be afraid of talking to native speakers. That's the best and easiest way to learn the language. If I would receive any longer texts that I need to understand, I would use a translation program, such as Smartling, in order to understand them. 

This would be my dream night in Barcelona. How would your dream night look like and where would you like to stay?

All the best,

Meine Woche 1 & 2 mit Size Zero

Hey meine Lieben,

ich habe die ersten zwei Wochen von Size Zero geschafft, daher wollte ich euch meine ersten Eindrücke und Erfahrungen zu dem Programm mitteilen.

Training:
Das Trainingsprogramm besteht aus Push und Pull Einheiten kombiniert mit Ausdauer, sowie einer Ausdauer Einheit. Ich war bisher eine sehr sportliche Person und war mindestens viermal in der Woche im Fitnessstudio und dennoch hatte ich den schlimmsten Muskelkater seit langem. Nach der ersten Push Einheit konnte ich mich nicht aus dem Bett bewegen :) Man muss also nach dem Programm fünfmal in der Woche Sport machen, aber es fällt mir nicht schwer, da die Einheiten an sich nicht länger als 45 Minuten dauern und sehr abwechslungsreich sind.

Ernährung:
Der Ernährungsplan ist exakt angegeben, dennoch hat man genug Freiheiten um individuelle Rezepte zu kreieren. Schaut mal bei meinem Instagram Account vorbei. Dort poste ich regelmäßig meine Ideen :) -> LINK

Es handelt sich hier um eine Low Carb Diet, wobei die Kohlenhydrate langsam reduziert werden. Mittags kann man noch seine Nudeln essen, aber abends fallen sie weg. Für mich als absoluter Reis und Nudel-Süchtiger war das eine enorme Umstellung. Und ich hatte erste Entzugserscheinungen. Nach dem Abendessen, ab ca. 21 Uhr hatte ich absolut keine Kraft mehr und konnte nur noch im Bett liegen. Auch hatte ich mit Übelkeit und Magenkrämpfen zu kämpfen. Aber ab Tag 5 hatte sich mein Körper an die Ernährungsumstellung gewöhnt. Ich hab jetzt absolut keine Beschwerden mehr :) Aber ich muss sagen, dass es einige Tage dauerte bis ich mich an die fehlenden Carbs am Abend gewöhnt hatte.

Ich bin beeindruckt wie tolle Gerichte man zaubern kann. Size Zero eröffnet mir jetzt schone eine ganz neue Rezeptwelt in der ich kreativ werden kann. Es war auch der Sonntag in Woche 2, als ich meinen ersten Kuchen ausprobiert habe:

Mein Lieblingsessen: Mittagessen, ich genieße meine Pasta :)
Meine Stimmung: Außer die anfänglichen "Entzugserscheinungen", sehr gut

Social Life:
Ich will den Punkt "Social Life" auch mit reinbringen. Durch die eingeschränkte Ernährung und den straffen Fitnessplan, wird oft erwähnt, dass man sein Sozialleben wie gemeinsame Treffen vernachlässigen muss. Ich muss sagen, dass es mir im Moment nicht schwer fällt. Ich treffe mich weiterhin mit Freunden. Entweder ich trinke mit meinen Freunden Size Zero konforme Getränke (light-Getränke, Tee, etc.) oder wenn ich weiß, dass ich abends Essen gehe, dann lege ich mir meine Carbs auf den Abend. Aber das hab ich jetzt die zwei Wochen jeweils einmal gemacht.

Zwischenfazit:
Das Size Zero Programm gefällt mir bis jetzt sehr gut. Durch die tolle Facebook Army wird man sehr motiviert weiterzumachen. Vielleicht ist es noch die Anfangseuphorie, aber ich bin sehr zufrieden mit dem Programm und hatte mir es erst schwerer vorgestellt.

Habt ihr schon Erfahrungen mit Size Zero?

Alles Liebe,

The MOST Effective Weight Loss Recipe!

Hey everybody!

Today I want to show you how you can do a super delicious Stir Fry with rice. This is not only very easy and fast, but also incredibly healthy and thus, also perfect for everyone who wants to get in shape for summer. This is such a basic recipe that I make almost every evening. I hope you enjoy it as I also lost quite a bit of blood while cutting the sweet onions :) 

Stir Fry with Rice (Vegan)

Ingredients (makes 2 large portions)

• 120g of rice in a cooking bag
• 1 onion
• 1 peperoni 
• handful of various veggies (here I used: sweet onion, sweet corn, broccoli, sugar snaps)
• soy sauce
• coriander
• ginger

Instruction

 1. Boil the water in a small pot with a bit of salt.

2. Once it starts boiling, put in the rice in the cooking bag. Cook it as long as the package tells you (here 10 min).

3. While the rice is cooking, cut all the vegetables.

4. Add a bit of olive oil in a pan and head it up.

5. Add all the veggies and fry them till they are slightly brown.

  

  6. Add the cooked rice. Mix it up and flavour it with salt, pepper, soy sauce, ginger and coriander.

And then you are done in about 15 minutes with an incredible delicious meal! For this recipe you can use so many different vegetables, you can add chicken or shrimps, so that it never gets boring.
It is really satisfying and still healthy. So please give it a try and tell me what you think about it!

Have a delicious food day! :)

Love,

How BenjimanTV saved my life

Hello everyone!

How are you? This blog post will be different from my other posts. This will be a personal message to Benji, also known as Benjimantv who is Judy's husband and also has his own youtube channel (Link) and uploads great food pictures on his Instagram account (Link). I am not silly, I know that he probably will never read this, but I really have to thank him. If you want to know why, then keep on reading.

Dear Benji,

firstly, congratulations on birth of your lovely girls Keira and Miya. Also with having your sweet daughter Julianna and the wonderful Judy, you are having such a beautiful family!
You are not only a great father and inspiring considering your regular workout routine, but also an amazing cook. And that's actually the point of this post. You are focusing on cooking healthy with lots of vegetables while keeping it tasty. Additionally, you are combining Japanese food with international recipes. I love the excitement that you put into buying groceries and preparing the recipes and in the end, sharing that all with us.

Because of you, I have rediscovered my passion for healthy cooking, enjoying cooking and actually carrying about what I put into my body.
The thing is that I have a rather hard relationship with food. 4 years ago I became anorexic. The cause were personal problems in school including bullying. It took me a long time to find a way out of this illness and only stopped therapy 1 1/2 years ago. Since then my relationship to food stayed pretty difficult as I swapped between an incredible healthy lifestyle to eating total crap.
It was never that bad that I only ate fast food because I always stayed an athletic person and never wanted to ruin my body totally. However, I stopped carrying about food, I didn't enjoy eating and didn't want to eat any veggies explicitly.
You not only pushed myself back into my old fitness level, but also revived the conscience of eating healthy and actually carrying about what I put into my body. I am also not talking about a temporary change as I already changed my whole eating habits for one month now and I am not even thinking about changing this any soon. As everyone says, fitness and health is made in the kitchen and I can totally confirm this.
So thank you so so much, Benji! By sharing your healthy and tasty recipes with the world, you have changed my life completely. You helped me to come back on track and to actually build up a healthy relationship to food.
Thank you very much for this!!!


All the best,

Marie

Exclusive Photos of Me on Instagram

Hey hey everyone!

How are you?

I want to make a huge announcement. Yes, you can also find me on Instagram now. I have been loving Instagram for quiet a while and I have been following a lot of people there. I think Instagram allows us to share a little bit of our private life with each other, thus, the person who uploads these pictures shows more personality and consequently, becomes more personal. Therefore, I hope that I become a bit more personal for you by sharing my photos with you.

On Instagram you can find exclusive photos of me that you have never seen before. I know that it took me in comparison with other people quiet a while, however, I have never been sure what I should upload. Now, I have found my niche and decided to share with you my meals that I prepare and in general, food that I love. Perhaps I will also include even more personal photos, so following me is worth it.

FIND ME ON INSTAGRAM HERE!

Let me know what you think about Instagram?

Wish you a wonderful day!
Love,

Chicken with Green Beans & Sweet Potato Wedges

Hello guys!

How are you?

I hope you are enjoying the day and you are conscience of your body, your health and how you can influence this by having a good diet and exercising. I will update you on my gym experience and how my fitness plan has changed, however, today we want to focus on our diet. Proteins are even for women essential. They are great for gaining muscles and also satisfy incredibly long. So here is an amazing recipe which is super healthy and really delicious. 

Recipe

1. Peel the sweet potato and cut it in wedges.

2. Spread them onto a baking sheet with baking paper. Add herbs, bell pepper powder, soya sauce and onion to the wedges. Bake them at 200°C for 25 min.

3. Then I used a lighter version of cottage cheese, called quark, and mixed it with herbs, salt, pepper and onion.

4. Boil the green beans for approx. 8 min.

5. Meanwhile fry the chicken with a bit of salt and pepper and when everything is ready, you're done!

I can tell you that this meal was incredibly satisfying. It is a really healthy meal that helps you to lose weight as well as gaining muscles. The chicken and the light cream delivers the required proteins, the sweet potatoes the healthy carbs and the green beans your daily portion of veggies. 

I hope you liked this little recipe and tell me if you want to have more fitness and health meals?

I wish you a wonderful day!

Lots of love,

14 Simple Healthy Decisions in Your Diet - Weight Loss Tips

Hey guys!

Some of you have asked me how you can lose weight and how you can easily cut out calories in your daily eating plan? Today I want to list 14 simple healthy decisions how you can easily cut out a lot of calories. However, this is not about how to eat healthy like eating kale, almonds, whole grain etc. which, of course, is really important. Please take these tips just as an addition to your diet when you want to lose weight or struggle to keep your weight.

My healthy decisions:

No. 1:  ✓  fresh fruits  X dry fruits

Fresh fruits contain a lot more water so that you not only can eat more for the same amount of calorie and thus, they'll fill you up faster but also you'll get more nutritions.

No. 2:  ✓  balsamico dressing  X yogurt/caesar dressing

No. 3:  ✓  stevia  X sugar

No. 4:  ✓  crisp bread  X white bread

No. 5:  ✓  tea  X juice

Of course, it is important that you drink a lot of water. However, if you want to have a bit of a taste then grab to tea or if you really want to drink juice then use 1/3 juice and 2/3 water.

No. 6:  ✓  almond milk  X regular milk

Here I am talking about huge milk drinkers (min. 250ml per day). Otherwise these 10 calories in your coffee or tea aren't a big thing.

No. 7:  ✓  frozen yogurt  X ice cream

I actually made my own "frozen yogurt" by putting a pot of yogurt in the freezer. It has a quiet hard consistency, but tastes like normal frozen yogurt.

No. 8:  ✓  pumpkin chips  X crisps/chips

Slice your pumpkin in thin slices. Put them on a baking sheet with salt, pepper and olive oil and bake them for 15min at 200°C. No fat, but tastier than crisps.

No. 9:  ✓  sliced apple, berries, grapes with cinnamon  X chocolate, sweets

No. 10:  ✓  vegetable sticks (cucumber, carrots etc)  X chips, salty snacks

No. 11:  ✓  soya cream  X normal cream

A lot of people are scared of using soya products, however, soya cream has 190cal per 100ml whereas normal cream has 288cal per 100ml and seriously, you can not taste a difference at all.

No. 12:  ✓  vegetable stock  X ready sauces

Vegetable stock can not only be used as a spice for anything but also can serve as a real sauce by adding water. It really taste great with vegetables and you don't need these ready sauces full of additives, glutamate, artificial colours AND a lot of calories.

all photos from pinterest

No. 13:  ✓  super dark chocolate  X white, milk chocolate

Dark chocolate prevents from heart attacks and the slightly bitter taste of the chocolate will make you eat less.

No. 14:  ✓  smashed tomatoes  X ready-made tomato sauces

Okay, this is more an addition to No. 12, however, a lot of people just open up one of these ready-made tomato sauces (e.g. Barilla) when they are eating pasta. However, you are just eating unnecessary extra-calories, because these sauces contain a lot of sugar. Just buy a tin of smashed tomatoes, add salt, pepper, garlic and some italian herbs and you are done.

These were my 14 really simple healthy decisions in my diet. Nevertheless, keep in mind that you can eat milk chocolate, normal sugar or dry fruits as long as you keep it in moderation. I am also human and I also drink juice or eat other unhealthy things, but I hope that these decisions might be helpful in your weight loss process.

Comment below what are your little healthy habits? 

Wish you a wonderful day!

Lots of love,

Book Review: Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossie

Portia de Rossi, actor and Ellen DeGeneres' wife, wrote a book about her memories concerning her eating disorder. Because of being touched by her story and being surprised about her writing skills, I thought it might be interesting for you hearing my thoughts about this book. Anorexia nervosa is a dangerous trend in our society because more and more people suffer from it in our society. So if you are interested in getting to know a realistic view of anorexia, then keep on reading.

How To Have Homemade Sorbets Within 30 Seconds!

Hello everyone!

Today I made a wonderful tasty black pepper beery sorbet consisting of raspberries, currant and black pepper topped with a squeeze of a lemon. This literally took me less than 30 minutes to do, tasted absolutely amazing and is a fast and healthy alternative to your ice cream or any other sweets. 

 

Serving: 3 ice cream scoops (1 portion)

Ingredients:

• 100 g fruits (in this case berries)
• 100 ml of cold water
• 2-4 tsp. of stevia, sweetener or sugar
• squeeze of lemon*
• black pepper*

* optional

Guide

Put everything into a higher plastic bowl and blend everything with an immersion blender. 

This is just a basic recipe. Of course, you can add any fruit or extra flavour to this sorbet. Because we make this sorbet that fast and it hasn't any change to freeze, the sorbet starts to melt quiet fast, so you have to eat it a bit faster. Enjoy your dessert without any guilt!

I hope you enjoyed this post & tell me whether you like sorbets?

Wish you a wonderful day! Lots of love,

Nespresso Variations 2012 Winter Limited Edition

Nespresso has released its new Variations for 2012! The Winter Limited Edition offers three coffees with three different flavors: Hazelnut, Coconut and Macadamia Nut. Quiet Nutty. You can see an overview of their new collection on their website here.

But firstly, let's talk about my coffee story:
I have to admit that I hated drinking coffee for years and only really enjoyed drinking a cup of coffee three weeks ago. I am still a total tea-drinker, let's say that I drink tea for 95%, and just drink a cup of coffee as a special treat. However, after years of making a disgusting face when thinking about coffee, I have to admit, yes, I like coffee with lots of milk. I still don't like the pure taste of it as I find it too bitter,  so the Nespresso Vanilla flavoured coffee was like heaven. Not as sweet as the vanilla latte from Starbucks, but with a less noticeable roasting. So I was really looking forward to this year's winter limited edition and wasn't disappointed of these capsules.

Hazelnut
Description: "The combination of the lightly roasted hazelnut notes with Livanto Grand Cru reveals praline flavours, giving it a well balance in the mouth."
Intensity: 6/10
Size of cup: Espresso - 40 ml

Macadamia Nut

Description: "The rich savours of the macadamia nut combined with the roundness of the Livanto Grand Cru, develop a sup rising freshness, revealing citrus notes."

Intensity: 6/10

Size of cup: Espresso - 40 ml 

Coconut

Description: "A perfect harmon between the coconut notes and the Livanto Gran Cru creates a gourmand experience reminiscent of coconut macaroons."

Intensity: 6/10
Size of cup: Espresso - 40 ml

One package consisting of 10 capsules costs 4,20€ or you can buy each capsule individually for 0,42€. They currently also offer a "Discovery Variations 2012" set which consist of 2 packages of hazelnut, 2 packages of macadamia nut and 1 package of coconut for 21€.
The capsules can be drunken as espresso, cappuccinos or regular lattes.
I am really looking forward to testing these out and will do a review of them as fast as I receive them. What do you think about Nespresso capsules?

Wish you a wonderful day! Lots of love,

Get Rid of Nausea Within Seconds

Today I felt incredible nauseous, probably because of the terrible changes of the temperature. However, I found a simple and easy way to get rid of nausea without any medicine within a few seconds. If you want to know what I have been using then keep on reading.

I made myself a ginger tea!

Ginger is known as a spice in the kitchen, however it is definitely underrated in its health benefits.

These benefits of the ginger root are:

anti-inflammatory, carminative, anti-flatulent, and anti-microbial properties

essential oils such as gingerol, zingerone, shogaol, farnesene and small amounts of β-phelladrene, cineol, and citral. Gingerols improve the intestinal motility and has anti-inflammatory, painkiller (analgesic), nerve soothing, anti-pyretic as well as anti-bacterial properties. Studies have shown that it may reduce nausea induced by motion sickness or pregnancy and may help relieve migraine headaches.

Zingerone, which gives pungent character to the ginger root, has been found to be effective against E.coli induced diarrhea, especially in children.

low in calories and contains no cholesterol, but is very rich source of many essential nutrients and essential vitamins such as pyridoxine (vitamin B-6), pantothenic acid (vit.B-5).

minerals like potassium, manganese, copper, and magnesium. Potassium is an important component of cell and body fluids that helps controlling heart rate and blood pressure.

by nutrition-and-you

So I found a piece of ginger in my fridge, chopped it in small slices, put it in a cup and brew it with hot water. You can drink right now or brew this tea for 10 minutes for better benefits. 

 

photos by pinterest

10 minutes after drinking the tea I noticed that my nausea was suddenly gone and I didn't feel nauseous for the whole day. I was so surprised about the effect because I haven't expected this at all. Thus, I can totally recommend drinking a ginger tea when you're feeling nauseous.

Please let me know whether this helped you too or whether you have other methods to get rid of nausea?

Wish you a wonderful day!

Lots of love,