Skip to main content

How to improve your cooking - SIngapore Fitness Bootcamp Coach explains

Working as a fitness and weight loss bootcamp instructor and personal trainer in Singapore, I tell my clients that diet, even more than working out, affects their fat loss, fitness, weight loss and muscle gain.. A massive proportion of correct nutrition entails cooking at home, where you have complete control over the quality of ingredients as well as preparation techniques and quantity.

When teaching about cooking at home, I frequently hear, "But I don't know how to cook!", or get asked, "How do I learn how to cook better? I'm tired of my own cooking!"

It's not difficult! Let me share with you a little of my culinary journey and you'll see that it is not difficult, especially if you know the secret to improving your cooking!

Alright, when I was new to cooking, I was terrible. The first served I served a friend, no kidding you, consisted of frozen peas defrosted with the dorm kitchen faucet, chicken pink and bloody in the middle, and half-cooked, hard brown rice. He valiantly and very politely ate the whole mess. There are people who could eat uranium and still live, I guess.

Well, my friend lived, but I was ashamed. I had to change!

It took a while and quite a few disasters along the way (like when I poured water and rice into the rice cooker when the rice receptacle was NOT inside the rice cooker...) but I succeeded. I'm proud to say that I'm now capable to single-handedly preparing a Christmas feast for the entire family, make pizza, perfect empanadas, kangaroo stew etc.

How did that happen?

In truth, the secret to upping one's culinary skills is actually quite simple - all I did was to I SET SPECIFIC COOKING GOALS and work hard at them.

After all, goals are pretty important. Especially if you've put down a fair amount of dough on the match. I'm kidding - I meant the other kind of goal - the "goal" where a kid drops all his coins into his Batman-shaped piggybank so he can get another Batman-shaped piggybank. Or when a scrawny man disciplines himself to lift weights and eat a fearful amount of healthful foods so he starts to pack on muscle. Or when a girl attends a fitness bootcamp four days a week instead of going shopping, for maximal fat loss.

It's pretty clear that goals give purpose and direction. They keep you from just flopping and drifting through life.

Goal setting is essential to cooking. By setting goals, you map out clearly the kitchen skills you want to pick up, and create for yourself a structured plan to gain those skills. Your cooking WILL improve.

I'll give one example of a simple culinary goal:

DREAM: A perfect roast chicken DEFINATION: A perfect roast chicken is one cooked through but juicy throughout, even in the breast, with crisp, crackly skin. TIMEFRAME: by January 1st . RESOURCES: allrecipes.com's tip page + grandma's careful instruction

As you can see the goal is defined with clarity under "dream" and "definition", a precise deadline is specified, together with the resources that will make achieving that dream possible. You can create excel spreadsheets to write up your goals and track your improvements, use a simple notebook or just a Post-It on your fridge door.

Remember, SET THE GOAL HIGH (e.g. being capable of setting out a healthful meal in less than half an hour total time, perfect Szechuan chicken etc) . Culinary goals have to be inspirational and challenging. Otherwise, it's not going to put passion and drive into your kitchen sojourn.

In fact, we should all aim to cook so well that your own kids/nieces/nephews/grandkids etc would turn their noses up at MacDonalds. (Yeah, I guess it'll be hard to compete with the allure of those plastic Happy Meal toys though.)

My current "big" kitchen goal is developing the perfect ginseng-goji-cinnamon-maitake double boiled free-range chicken stew by Christmas.

I should share this recipe with my fitness and fat loss bootcamp participants when it is ready. It's a perfect muscle-gaining recipe too!

Coach Jonathan Wong, is a sought after Singapore personal trainer, Singapore fitness bootcamp coach, fitness author and performance expert who has helped hundreds of clients in Singapore achieve their fitness, fat loss and sports performance goals. He is also a member of Singapore Men's Health Advisory Panel. Visit his website and blog for a free 1500 page e-book and constant updates.


Coba Yahoo! Mail baru yang LEBIH CEPAT. Rasakan bedanya sekarang!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Successful Weight Loss Tips And Program

10 Strategies for permanent weight loss 1.   Exercise is essential for weight loss It's nothing new, but exercise is probably the most important predictor of whether you will succeed at long term weight loss and weight loss maintenance. In order for exercise to be helpful in weight loss, you should strive for a minimum of five 30 minute sessions per week. The good news is that recent research has shown that three 10 minute sessions in a day are as good as one 30 minute session. This helps many in combating the old "no time for exercise" excuse. Be certain to find something you enjoy. You'll be more apt to stick with it. Try walking with a friend, joining an intramural sports league, participating in outings with a group like The Sierra Club, or trying some classes at your local gym. Once you give exercise a chance, you will begin to enjoy its positive benefits on your psyche as well; you will literally become "hooked." 2.   Weight loss and weight trainin...
1 comment
Read more

5 Essential Questions Every Business Blogger Must Ask (And Do Not Start a Blog Until You Do!)

Are you thinking about starting a blog? Considering the various powerful permutations and profit potential that bringing one into your marketing mix can offer? Congratulations! It's a great decision, and one that I firmly believe is one of the brightest and most bodacious strategies you can use to exponentially explode, improve and amplify your business building efforts. (and fast) But in my view, one of the biggest mistakes people make when starting a blog are NOT things related to a lack of ideas, or technical specifics or any other lack of "know how". Instead, they tend to be problems that arise out of NOT asking the right questions before you begin. Let's take a look at a few of the ultra important ones, and the sort of stuff that can not only make or break your blog, but also are ultra important to your business, and LIFE overall. - Are you TRULY an Expert? (if you are blogging for business, especially as "service" related business where you are off...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pay per Click Management Services: Driving More Traffic to Your Website

Have you ever tried counting the number of websites existing in the World Wide Web? Just by running a search using a keyword in Google, it will give you an idea on the number of websites. Therefore getting noticed by web visitors is paramount to the success of any online venture. A better web presence can be achieved through a high ranking on search engines. But again, getting to page 1 of search engine result page is a daunting and time-taking task. For a new website, which needs an initial boost to make it mark on the web, it needs a quick and reliable method to get more clicks. This is where pay per click advertisement comes in handy. Pay per click advertisement is offered by leading search engines including Google. In such an advertisement, your site is advertised on the search engine result page and you pay for the advertisement only when your site gets clicked. As long as your site does not get clicked you do not pay to the search engine. And unlike the organic results on the le...
1 comment
Read more