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. |
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