Author: Chris Brown (Page 33 of 41)

Improving Flexibility in Tendons and Ligaments with Yin Yoga

March 2, 2019 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

I used to only focus on muscles and strength, but as I get older I am finding that being strong and improving flexible in tendons and ligaments has become more important to me.

One way I am working on improving my tendons and ligaments with through yoga. I am very much a beginner and am still have so much to learn. Perhaps you’ve been in a yoga practice for a long time. If so, please let me know what works best for you.

I used to really enjoy the constant moving workout type of yoga that burns a lot of calories and works the muscles, but as I have gotten older, I’m finding that flexibility and releasing tension to be more of my goal with my yoga practice.

Only recently I have discovered yin yoga.

Yin yoga is a slow hold yoga that allows the connective tissues, ligaments and tendons to slowly release. It helps with stiffness. As we age, our bodies get stiffer and less supple. I guess that is obvious. If you think of a little baby and how flexible they are, with joints, muscles and even skin, that’s the other extreme.

Yin yoga helps to release tension in the body that comes from bracing and clenching. Dealing with difficult people, situations and problems will cause the body to stiffen and hold tension. It holds tension not just in the muscles, but also in the ligaments, tendons and joints that get very stiff.

I know that the hours of sitting still in front of the computer, working my “day job”, have made my neck, shoulders and parts of my spine become tight. Too often I end up hunched over the computer all day. It’s a bad position for the body! Of course the hip flexor tendon, the ones that connect my front thighs to my abdomen, get shortened and the rear tendons tend to get stretched. (I believe its the part that attaches the psoas and iliacus muscles to the upper thigh and the lower spine and pelvis.)

Whatever you call it, I know I can feel it! It’s especially noticeable when I stand up from sitting too long – either a 2-hour car ride or a 2-hour intense computer session! I feel the stiffness that has tightened in my body. Even when getting out of bed in the morning, I definitely move slower in order to let my whole body wake up.

Doing repetitive motion workouts like cycling and running also effects my body. I want to make sure that my ligaments and tendons don’t get over worked, stretched or too weak from not working out.

Yin yoga has helped. I enjoy holding the poses while I feel the benefits. This type of yoga has improved my posture, flexibility and strength. Although I have not measured myself lately, I feel like I have grown half an inch with a longer spine.

I do it slowly and progressively over the days, weeks, and months. It’s not the type of thing you force your way into, but rather relax your way into it. It’s not about stretching but rather about relaxing… if that makes sense.

Improving Flexibility in Tendons and Ligaments
It takes a while to warm up and get comfortable in these positions. I recommend taking a class with a certified yoga instructor or view a trusted site for a yoga class.

You’ve got to make sure your body is warmed up before going into these poses. I’ve been focusing on one or two classes a week at my gym and supplementing with online videos. The classes at the gym have been gentle Hatha yoga and restorative yoga. Both those classes employ yin yoga moves that I am finding very beneficial to adding to my work outs of cycling and run/walking.

Yin Yoga is not about doing the flowing type of yoga that people often think about. It is more about getting into a position and holding it for tension release. Holding for 45 seconds or two minutes allows other parts of your body to release. It’s difficult to relax enough to get your tendons and ligaments to let go. In some positions, being supported with a block, bolster or foam roller allows me to more easily relax for up to 5 minutes in a pose.

Here are 3 positions I find particularly beneficial to me for improving flexibility with tendons and ligaments.

Butterfly pose where you sit on your yoga mat with the bottoms of the feet touching each other. Right now I’m working on zippering my toes together. It’s difficult for me and I seem to only get a couple toes to cooperate. I’m in the very beginning stage of this! The tendons and ligaments in my toes are very tight.
Cobra pose with your feet, legs and hips on the matte with the arms supporting your front. Keep elbows bent and support the spine. It is difficult to relax my tendons that attach the hips to the abdomen but I can feel lengthening the front. This is a back bend pose. I am still working on sphinx and baby cobra but eventually will work on cobra and eventually upward facing dog where the legs, knees are off the matte and the elbows are straight.
Bridge pose where you lay on your back with your knees bent. Raise your hips. This pose off sets some of my sitting. This seems easy for the first 30 seconds but if I am holding longer, I like to use a prop to allow my body to relax to get the full benefit. It feels like the opposite of the spinx, baby cobra and cobra up dog poses.

Perhaps you know all about yin yoga, but maybe this is the first time you’ve heard of it. If you enjoy yoga, what type do you use? Are you working on flexibility and balance? Which are your favorite yin yoga poses for keeping your tendons and ligaments flexible and strong?

Fried Riced Cauliflower – Veggie of the Week

February 25, 2019 / Chris Brown / 1 Comment

I prepared my cauliflower in a way I never tried before. I know I tried riced cauliflower last week, but I it was from a package rice and I tried it with a warm riced cauliflower salad. Pretty good!

However this week is special because I riced it myself to make “fried rice” which is actually “fried riced cauliflower.” All I can say is WOW, this is a WINNER!

Start with a beautiful head of cauliflower. It’s still messy to rice cauliflower using a grater, but that’s okay, it’s easy enough to clean up and worth it for the delicious taste.

I even grate the core of the cauliflower to use the whole thing. Usually I throw that part away, but since it is riced so small, it doesn’t need to be discarded.

Chop up other veggies into a small size too. Use what is in your refrigerator, but make the cauliflower the star. By that I mean, don’t use a whole stalk of celery or a whole onion.

Ingredients:

Olive oil
Onions
Green pepper
Red pepper
Celery
Carrots
Riced Cauliflower
Salt & Pepper
Soy Sauce (if desired)

Heat a little olive oil in a large skillet. Add onions. After they get a little translucent, add the other veggies. Toss or flip with spatula. Add the rice, cover for a minute and flip again.

Wisk one egg to scramble it. Drizzle over the mixture. Stir, turn and blend into the veggie mixture while it cooks. The cauliflower cooks pretty quickly since it is riced so small.

Add soy sauce if you need to, but I like it plain.

Serve with stir fry chicken or inside out egg rolls.

3 Tips for Motivation using Little Rewards

February 23, 2019 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Keeping focused on healthy eating, working out and being fit is very important to me. It’s both a long term and a short term goal. I know that staying focused and motivated will lead to bigger successes and reaching my goals.

Some days however, I’m just not feeling it, so I have some mental tricks I use. One of the tricks is something I call “Little Rewards” that use tools to finish something to get on to the next thing. It’s like playing a little game with myself.

Maybe everyone does this and it is nothing new or earth shaking. But if not, I thought I’d share what goes in my head when I’m trying to motivate myself. These Little Rewards flip some switch in my brain.

1) Baby Steps: I find it easier to tackle something I don’t want to do by breaking it down into steps. Then after each one of the steps, providing myself a little reward.

Rewards need to match the step. If it’s a big project with lots of steps I don’t particularly enjoy (let’s say doing taxes), I give myself a little reward for each little step. Gathering papers. Printing out reports. Finding a file. Gathering the forms. Making an appointment. I guess it all depends on the task you are doing.

Here are some of the little rewards I might use are: have a cup of coffee after I complete the step, or put on lavender hand cream. or take a 20 minute walk and listen to a podcast, or call a friend to chat. Sometimes the reward is taking a selfie photo of myself after a run or bike ride. Sometimes listening to a favorite song does the trick.

2) Timer: I will set the timer at the kitchen stove or on my phone so that I can reward myself after I complete 20 minutes of something I have been putting off. It’s funny how much I can actually accomplish if take 20 minutes and just focus on that one thing. Procrastination often blows the project into a big thing in my mind, I find that if I set a timer and promise myself that I can stop when the timer goes off, I will get it done!

For the timer to work for me, I have to concentrate on the thing I don’t want to do. Maybe it is cutting up all the vegetables for food prep for the day. It’s not that I don’t like cutting vegetables… I do! But I also tend to procrastinate because I don’t need them right now. Then when I do need them, I’m in a rush and wish I had them ready. Setting a timer helps! Twenty minutes of vegetable chopping goes pretty quickly. I put them into containers in the bottom of the fridge and it’s amazing how much more often vegetables get added to something I’m cooking. Or I find I turn to them when I’m looking for a snack.

3) Gold Star: Although I don’t have the little stickers, I make a star on the pocket calendar that I use to track my various workouts. Two stars is an especially good workout. It’s funny that at my age, the stars still have a little power over me and acts as an incentive.

It must be a hold over from childhood and getting a star on a school paper, because now just a little hand drawn star, somehow feels like a great little reward. (I also remember getting pins with little gold star in Girl Scouts to represent each year of scouting – but I think those were considered awards, not rewards!

Either way, a gold sticker or a hand drawn star — it provides an Atta Girl and there is some switch in my brain that gives me the little oomph that I need to get something done.

Having the timer go off or coveting a little star may seem silly or pointless, but I’m still motivated by it. Looking back at old photos of biking or running activities is definitely motivational for me. Big rewards like a medal after a race are certainly motivating, but it’s the tiny things each day that helps me to make up a daily healthy and fit life.

What tools do you use to get yourself going? Please share below or send me an email at Chris@becomingelli.com. Or leave a voicemail at 330-970-6662.

Riced Cauliflower – Weekly Veggie Challenge

February 19, 2019 / Chris Brown / 1 Comment

Riced cauliflower has the advantage of looking like a grain and taking on the flavors of spices and other ingredients. It’s a lovely way to “veggie up” a meal without realizing that you added a whole lot of fiber and nutrients without adding tons of calorie dense pasta or rice.

The downside of riced cauliflower is the mess. When I used my grater to rice the cauliflower, it was all over the place. I’m going to try again with a different, more careful plan and will post photos then. A head of cauliflower here in Ohio in the winter is around $2.50 or $3.00 depending on the size and the store.

Easy Short Cut: Meanwhile, you can take the easy way out, by buying frozen riced cauliflower. Seasons Choice brand from Aldi, for around $2 for twelve ounces. This version had some garlic and parsley added to it, but they offer a plain version too. The parsley adds a nice color balance, because when served plain, it’s kinda drab.

Here I added some riced cauliflower to a warm veggie salad. (chopped onions, peppers, celery with about 6 olives thrown in for flavor) and it tasted great! Next time I may add some tomatoes or other color for more visual appeal.

I will definitely add riced cauliflower to my on-going veggie list.

Building Endurance by Working Out in the Fat Burning Zone

February 16, 2019 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been experimenting with lower heart rate training than I usually do in my workouts. Some people call it the “Fat Burn Zone”, although I’m still not convinced that it is burning “my” fat. I do know, however that it is easy to keep going with exercise. I am not watching the clock. Exercising in this zone, I don’t feel tired or worn out in the least.

The idea is to work out at the level of exertion where your heart rate stays at the aerobic level called the fat burning level. If you exercise just a little harder, you begin to breathe harder, your heart pumps harder and you’ll enter the cardio level. Really push it and you’ll go into the peak level.

Cardio Vs Fat Burn

The vast majority of my running and group exercise workouts over the years have been at cardio/peak levels, which burn a greater percentage of carbs/sugar and less of a percentage of fat. These type of workouts also burn a ton of calories – both carbs/sugar and fat -there is no doubt about that.

While doing workout in the fat burning level feels like I’m not doing enough to be considered working out, I find that I can keep going a very long time and not get at all tired.

The idea of building a strong base by focusing on endurance and working out at the fat burning level is supposed to increase your ability to do more work while still keeping your heart rate at the lower level. Over time, the heart gets stronger and you can do more with your rate in the low level and your speed increases.

If you’re interested in learning more about this type of endurance training, you may want to listen to some of Dr. Phil Maffetone’s work. He has a lot of information about it – videos, podcasts and articles. Besides improving endurance and performance, it has other benefits. More time in the fat burning zone aids recovery from high impact exercise, helps reduce stress and provides protection from metabolic syndrome. I really like this method of exercising because I’m looking for increased endurance.

While doing my indoor cycling classes, I’ve been using my FitBit watch to monitor my heart rate. During most of the classes I find I easily enter into the cardio mode when the fast music comes on. I have to focus and slow down to stay in the fat burn mode. It’s hard to keep it steady, but I’m getting better.

The MAF (Maximum Aerobic Function) formula is 180 minus age. Because I’m 61, my goal heart rate number is to workout at around 120 beats per minute. (Dr. Maffetone has you add and subtract numbers based on exercise history and health as well.)

I have found that it is very hard to hold a steady heart number when you’re working out! Good music especially makes me want to go faster and harder, plus going harder is habit. It is what I’ve been doing for years!

Staying in The Fat Burning Zone

Here are some of the ways of thinking that have helped me to stay in the Fat Burn Zone:

Focus on my breathing
Try to keep two counts in and five counts out
When I have to open my mouth to breathe out, slow down
If the music speeds up, keep focus on the breathing
When walking up a hill, slow down
If indoor biking, take off some resistance
Last week I put my phone on the bike so I could monitor the phone instead of my watch and I was able to hold it more steady.

It is not about “no pain, no gain.” On the other hand, it’s not too often that I find my heart rate has dipped too low and I have to speed up, but sometimes that happens when I daydream.

Although it’s only been six weeks, I’ve also found that I am enjoying doing more exercise than I used to at a time. In fact, I am liking two hours rather than 45 minutes or an hour. I feel stronger and am noticing that I can go harder with less effort. I’m interested to see when I get back to biking outside if this experiment has made a difference.

Have you experimented with heart rate training? What has been your experience? Which heart rate monitor do you use? Do you feel like this is all just too analytical for getting exercise? Let me know your thoughts.

How to Crave Healthy Foods & Stop Dieting – Melanie Jatsek

February 12, 2019 / Chris Brown / 1 Comment

Fit Strong Women Over 50 Podcast Episode #27

In Podcast # 27, Jill McCauslin and Chris Brown interview Melanie Jatsek, a registered dietitian nutritionist who broke free from the dieting trap.

Melanie holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Dietetics from the University of Akron and is the author of three books, including Missing Peace – Eleven Secrets to Restore Inner Harmony with Your Food, Body, and Health. She also created the Healthy YOU program. Melanie is passionate about helping people transform their relationship with food.

During this podcast we discuss:

How she was able to break free from dieting after years to stop struggling with food.
Why many women struggle with diets and their relationship to food
Dealing with emotional eating and how she overcame three years of struggling with a binge eating disorder
How the food pyramid guidelines (with grains on the bottom and fat on the top) did a disservice to women over 50 with misinformation. “We know better now.”
Why counting calories is not the way to go
Why she switched from her 20 year vegetarian-based diet to more of a Mediterranean-based diet

Melanie reveals some secrets for helping your body to crave healthy foods like:

• “Your body gets full off of nutrients, not calories.”
• “The body craves what you’re feeding it the most.”
• “The bacteria in your gut is what is craving food.” Bad bacteria crave sweets and highly processed foods. Good bacteria crave whole foods.
• “Low Fat and Fat Free – when we restrict fat we are always hungry.”
• “Good dietary fat actually helps you to burn fat.”

During this podcast you will learn why she roasts her veggies with avocado oil instead of olive oil, how she trained her body to crave raw vegetables, and how she avoids hidden sugars in food like peanut butter and chocolate.

She helps people develop a healthy relationship with food and talks about:

• The balance of good-for-you foods with a sprinkle of fun foods (ie. chocolate.)
• The outdated guidelines of 12 servings of grains and pasta a day.
• The effect of heavy servings of carbohydrates makes on your body (easier to produce insulin, gain weight and store fat.)

Melanie feels that no food is forbidden and believes that you will crave what you feed your body.

To connect with Melanie, visit her website: www.melaniejatsek.com or her Facebook Page: Healthy You.

Jicama for Lunch – Veggie Challenge

February 11, 2019 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

How to Peel and Prepare a Jicama
Jicama is pronounced “Hick – ah – mah” and has the texture of a sweet (not spicy) radish or a potato. Raw, it tastes almost like an apple. Its crunchy texture makes it perfect for slicing into strips to dip into hummus or guacamole.

Most recipes for jicama call for you to “julienne” slice it, which is cutting it into tiny slivers like matchsticks. You cut it half, then half again, slicing it into 2″ long and thin (about 1/4 to 1/8th”) strips.

The skin had to be taken off with a vegetable peeler, which was a bit awkward for me. It’s a tough skin but not too difficult to remove. Underneath it looks like a potato, but it has about half of the calories and also fewer carbohydrates. One cup of jicama has 49 calories and 11 grams of carbohydrates. One cup of potato has 116 calories and 26 grams of carbohydrate. I would dub the jicama a healthy vegetable.

I ate some of the jicama raw — like you would munch on slices of carrots or celery. I liked it a lot, especially the texture and slight sweet flavor. Most of the recipes I saw online talked about substituting jicama for potato to make fries. Then I prepared the rest of it by sauteing the jicama on medium heat on the stove in a little olive oil and lightly salted it. Delicious! I would give this one 5 stars. Low in calories. High in Flavor.

Before serving to guests, I need to perfect my julienne knife skills. My julienne slices are more like finger widths, not matchsticks. I should have sliced all of these again to get the slim stick-like size.

This one was grown in Mexico. It is in season during the fall, winter and spring. I bought it at Giant Eagle (which is a Pittsburgh-based large chain grocery store.) It’s a root vegetable, so no wonder I find it similar to a radish or a potato texture.

Next time I cut it, I’m going to cube it and mix with red, yellow, green peppers, along with carrots and celery to make a salad. A little lime juice and cayenne pepper sound like the perfect dressing!

Five Strength Building Body Weight Exercises for Women Over 50

February 9, 2019 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

I have been trying to focus on building a strength exercises in my workout routine.

We know that as we get older, the body naturally loses muscle tone, so my strength routine is an attempt to keep my muscles toned and functioning correctly. For whatever reason, I find it much easier to go to walking, running and cycling which are more cardio based.

I like strength exercises that use weights, but sometimes just using body weight is enough of a challenge. Because I am looking for more endurance and resiliency, I tend to really love strength work outs.

Keep Good Form with Bodyweight Exercise
As with all exercises, form is critical to making it work your body and not to injure yourself. When learning these, it’s good to use a mirror to check and make sure form is good. (Always check with your doctor if you are new to exercise or aren’t sure these are good for your body’s situation, like if you’ve had a previous injury.)

Sometimes I like to do variations to mix it up. It helps me from feeling bored. But other times I prefer to time myself to hold the position for a longer time before moving on to the next exercise. If some of these seem too easy to you, try a different one. If you find you can only do them for just a few seconds, over time, as your strength builds up, you will find you can hold the position for a longer time.

Here are five exercises that seem simple because they are holding your body weight. Each one has modifications to make it less or more challenging.

Bridge – One Leg Bridge – Marching Bridge
Plank – Elbow Plank – Straight Arm Plank – Up Down Plank – Side Plank – Toe Touch Side Plank
Cat/Cow – Bird Dog on Knees – Bird Dog on Toes – Bird Dog with Elbow Crunch
Wall Sit – One Leg Wall Sit
Calf Raise – Single Leg Calf Raise – Calf Raise and Hold – Single Leg Calf Raise and Hold

Most of these body weight strength exercises listed above are isometric, meaning you hold your body in a position.

Advantages of Isometric Strength Exercises
Isometric strength exercise helps build stamina. Another advantage is that these types of exercises are easier if you have arthritis or ligament injury. And you don’t need any equipment. You can do them almost anywhere when you have a few minutes.

Although these exercises won’t help you build speed, they really do help with strength and endurance. It is so important to add strength to an exercise routine for women over 50 to keep fit and active.

Do you have a routine of body weight exercises that you do regularly? Which one are your favorites? Which exercises would you rather skip? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Three Ways to Get Motivation in Winter

February 3, 2019 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

The first weekend in February in Ohio is about halfway through the winter. This is the time of year have to I look for ways to find more motivation to stay with my intentions of being fit, strong and healthy throughout the winter.

I guess I blame the weather.

Winter in Northeast Ohio usually means grey, overcast skies that blend into white and grey half melted snow. Most of the winter, my instincts are to get cozy on the couch with a good book/movie, a warm blanket and eat something with high calories, lots of rich food. When I fight that “instinct” and get out in the fresh air, get some exercise and engage some endorphins, I always feel tons better.

If there are warm air and sunny, blue skies, I just feel like getting up and moving. Motivation is not a problem, but I know I can’t wait for blue skies to take care of myself! For most of the winter, I look for ways to psych myself out and get myself motivated.

Here are three ways I am motivating myself this winter to exercise and eat healthy:

1) Exercise Buddy – If I try to go it alone, it’s easy to skip a workout. Finding a partner to work out with gives me accountability. Even if my friend isn’t working out with me, we send emails and texts back and forth for work out motivation. Having a friend in person, either at the gym or going for a walk really helps. Setting an appointment with a personal trainer definitely helps. My gym has a buddy program that started a couple of weeks ago and I am getting to know someone new at my gym while making a point to show up. The last few weeks have really upped my exercise totals for the week and I attribute this to having a buddy.

2) Food Challenge – I’m finding ways to eat more food that is nutrient dense (not calorie dense.) Luckily, I’m in the early stages of a weekly vegetable challenges. Maybe you are too? If not, it’s not to late to join in the fun! The Becoming Elli community veggie challenge is to find one new vegetable a week — or at least prepare a vegetable in a new way — and it challenges me to look more closely at the produce. I had several eggplants in my hands this past week, but didn’t buy one. Here is my “new” way of cooking cabbage with turmeric and thyme.

Turmeric, Thyme, Salt and Pepper. Cabbage cut into slices. Underneath: Mushrooms slices. baby Carrots, coarse chopped Celery, sliced Green Peppers. Cup of water. Pork roast – outside seared before going into the crockpot.

I forgot to take a photo of the final product. Basically it was a mushy stew kind of meal and not especially photogenic, if you know what I mean.

3) Helping others – My personality type is more motivated to help someone else, than to help myself by exercising. I don’t know why. Getting involved in the MS bike ride each summer has really helped to get and keep me in shape. Now I have found another way to contribute called “Charity Miles” which is an app you can download. It tracks your mileage for walking, running or biking (you need your phone with you when you do the activity.) Various corporate donors have pledged to contribute money to the charity of my choice (in this case the MS Society) based on the number of miles I complete. I’m not exactly sure how much they donate for each mile because Charity Miles divides the money between all the charities at the end of every term. I think the corporations are counting on people sharing the images via social media. But my motivation is to help others and I find that doing this helps me to do more miles than I would have otherwise. So its a win/win/win.

How do you motivate yourself? Do you have ways that you struggle with winter workouts? What tricks to you use when you don’t feel like eating right?

Embracing Vegetables with a Delicious Vegetable Soup

January 26, 2019 / Chris Brown / 3 Comments

Vegetables are primarily carbohydrates (not a lot of fat or protein), but the fiber, flavor and undeniable vitamins in vegetables make them a “go-to” food choice for most people wanting a healthy diet.

In 2019, we kicked off the Vegetable Challenge at the Becoming Elli Community with Jill’s blog post and also talked about it in this week’s podcast. We realize that trying one new vegetable a week – 52 new vegetables in 2019 – may be difficult for those who have been working on increasing vegetables intake for years, so we modified it a bit.

Jill has found some vegetables that she has never tried before with purple Brussel sprouts. That is saying something, because she’s adventuresome when it comes to trying new things!

I’m planning on trying to cook my vegetables in a new way. So far I’ve been falling back to my favorite ways of eating vegetables – chopping them up into a salad with olive oil, cider vinegar and lemon juice… or tossing them in olive oil and roasting in the oven. These two ways are very ingrained in meal prep for me now.

I was thinking about my vegetables when when I had the V9 soup for lunch at my favorite Mediterranean restaurant. It has nine vegetables in it. Although the menu suggests adding feta, I just stayed with the soup.

Each time I try to recreate it at home, I usually end up using different vegetables.

While I was I was counting points (or points plus) with the WW program during my 2007-2012 Weight Watchers phase, I would make something I called Zero Point Soup. It was filled with vegetables and I’d enjoy a large bowl of it before dinner.

It has a tomato broth and is chock full of vegetables with parsley on top.

Here’s a similar version of the V9 soup recipe from the Wine and Anarchy< website. They also love this soup.

Here is my version of this Delicious Vegetable Soup

4 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups chopped onions
2 cups celery, peeled and chopped (approximately 2 medium)
— saute and then add to a large soup pot
2 quarts water
2 cups cabbage (green or red)
1/2 cup broccoli (I feel it takes over the soup if there is too much broccoli)
2 cups carrots, peeled and chopped into rounds (approximately 2 medium)
2 cups zucchini, chopped (approximately 2 medium)
2 cups summer squash (approximately 2 medium)
1 cup peeled and diced sweet potatoes
2 cups chopped fresh green beans
2 large cans diced tomatoes
1 cup frozen corn or one can corn

Optional – serve with chopped fresh parsley leaves

My version is very heavy on the vegetables and looks more like a stew! Sometimes I when I make this I will add quinoa to put some protein into the soup without adding meat.

With the incredibly low temperatures expected next week, I think this weekend is a great time to make a big pot of soup! I just hope that next August/September I think about making a lot of this soup and canning it. It would be great to buy vegetables when they are in season!!

If this post inspires you to make some vegetable soup, consider posting a photo with your recipe on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BecomingElli/