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Healthy Recipe: Peanut Butter Tofu

Gluten Free Vegan recipes

If you're gluten free like me, and you're trying to eat less meat, it can be tricky to find interesting recipes. This is one of my absolute favourites and even my friends who hate tofu love it! It's rich and beautifully creamy, perfect with fried rice for a hearty winter meal, or with an asian salad for summer.

Peanut Butter Tofu Recipe

Tip: Don’t forget to check your ingredients for gluten, as some peanut butters and sauces can have glucose or maltodextrin derived from wheat or barley. Look for maltodextrin or glucose derived from maize instead.

You’ll need:

• 500g packet of of white tofu

• 1/4 tamari or gluten free soy sauce

• 2 tbsp peanut butter

• chilli flakes

• 3 tbsp brown sugar

• 5 tsp sesame oil

1. Mix your ingredients together to form a sauce, apart from the tofu.

2. Cut the tofu into small squares the size of a teaspoon and sauté until brown (about 10 minutes)

3. Once you've cooked the tofu, pour your sauce over the tofu like a marinade (You can always add more if you want a saucier dish)

4. Let the mixture sit for 20 minutes

5. Once the tofu has taken on the colour of your mixture, add some olive oil to a pan and sauté the tofu again until the mixture turns a dark, honey brown.

6. After about 5 minutes in the pan, you're good to go!

The key to injury recovery

I've helped treat people of all ages for injuries of all kinds, and the same thing always seems to help them overcome their hurdles: Understanding.

Injury management made easy

While working at a private sports Physiotherapy clinic in Melbourne, a woman came to me with shoulder impingement and an x-ray report. She spoke with an Italian accent but had no problem understanding English. What she didn't understand was her doctors. They had told her she was getting surgery on her shoulder, but she wasn't exactly sure why. When she'd asked, they'd referred her to a nurse who said she didn't know as she'd walked quickly away to see another patient.

Bewildered and frustrated, she'd been referred to me, and our entire first 40 minute session was spent explaining her injury, explaining the x-ray report, and helping her understand her condition. I underlined words on the report and re-wrote them. Scapula became shoulder blade, clavicle became collar bone, acromium became hook of the shoulder (that's a terribly rough translation!) and bursa became little pillow.

Like any translation from one language to another, some accuracies get lost along the way, but the most important thing is to create understanding.

Injury recovery demystified

You don't have to be able to read an x-ray report to understand your injury, but you do need a support team. Recently I was honoured to be a guest on the popular US podcast Wellness Force by the charming Josh Trent, and we discussed the importance of a good health professional and community in injury recovery. A good Physiotherapist will explain your injury to you, and change what was a confusing, intimidating condition into a manageable issue. 

Many health-professionals, like stockbrokers, bank on the fact you don't understand what they're talking about. Take back control and speak up!

Join a community rehab program, sign up for a rehabilitation class at your gym, or even jump online and find an injury forum. The internet has brought everyone closer together, and there are likely so many people who have experienced what you're going through.

You don't have to live through your rehabilitation or injury alone. Find a good health professional, support forum and ask as many questions as you need to ask. Please though, don't Google your questions. You might end up scaring yourself senseless, thinking you have an injury that sounds just like yours but isn't quite the same. Ask a health professional in-person! It will make all the difference to your recovery, and help you gain solid understanding of your injury and your path to recovery.

The importance of patient education

For the health professionals out there, please don't forget patient education. Clever people like David Butler and Lorimer Moseley, the authors of Explain Pain, have found the overwhelming positive influence of patient education. Every patients wants to know what's really going on with them, and it's hard to remember they don't speak anatomy. Taking the time to educate your patients can help them recovery quicker, helping make you look like a star!

Have you experienced an injury? Share your story anonymously

Have you experienced an injury? Share your story anonymously

How to lose weight & the importance of mindset

It's so easy to get stuck thinking about your weight; how to lose it, how to keep it off, and even for some; how to gain it.  Whether you're a man, woman or teenager, we've all compared ourselves to billboards and fit-stagrammers. Our image-focused society focuses on appearance so much, it can seem inescapable. 

What actually works to help you lose weight?

Comparing yourself to others and shaming yourself every time you stray from your diet or workout regime is a bad habit, and leads to overeating, bad self-esteem, binging, trying crazy unrealistic diets and ensures a lifetime of fluctuating weight. But for some reason, we all do it.

Instead of focusing purely on weight loss though, it's been found that focusing on a positive outcome like better health is way more effective for long-term weightless. Now's the time to stop making yourself feel bad about your weight, and start focusing on the end goal: Living a happier, healthier life. 

Focus on healthy habits for long term weight loss

When you focus too much on any outcome, you get exhausted along the way. If you focus on day-to-day goals though, you'll find you reach the same outcome without all the worry. Let's be honest though, it's easy to say you want to lose weight, but harder to stick to your strategies. So instead of putting excessive pressure on yourself like banning yourself from eating cheese and saying you'll run 15 kms every day, make your day-to-day goals more achievable. 

Instead of these negative goals:

- I'll fit into my skinny jeans in 4 weeks

- I won't eat carbs for 2 months

Try these positive, achievable, measurable goals

- I'll try to eat 5 veggies everyday

- I'll get moving for 30 minutes 5 days a week, even if it's just a walk down the street and back.

- I'll find new healthy recipes and plan 3 meals each week (leaving less time to eat fast food)

- I'll eat vegetarian meals 5 out of 7 days

- I'll have 5 alcohol-free nights a week

The goals above are weight-loss strategies disguised as wellness strategies! By aiming to enhance your health, you approach weight loss in a positive way rather than from a negative, self-punishing angle.

Goal setting & Technology

One of the best things about technology is it's ability to change our behaviour with cool apps and programs and this works for weight loss and wellness too. My favourite for goals setting is WOOP: Where you set a wish, outcome, obstacle and a plan. 

Eg. Wish: To be lighter and healthier

Outcome: I'll feel more confident in my own skin & with my partner

Obstacle: I don't have enough time to shop and cook healthy food

Plan: (when I encounter my obstacle, I'll....)

eg. When I don't have enough time to cook and shop for healthy food I'll...

-Order a weeks' worth of veggies and groceries online, and prepare 3 quick, healthy meals to freeze for the week.

The Woop app is an evidence-based way to stick to your goals, and find actionable ways to make them happen. There are plenty of other fitness and goal-setting apps, but I think Woop seems more authentic. It works with you and your mindset rather than using financial motivation, like apps such as Pact. It's amazing how goals pop into your head when you're using the app - things you didn't even know were important to you. 

Goal setting doesn't have to be a mission

The term goal setting sounds like boring terminology used in stuffy conference rooms and tedious hour-long meetings; but it doesn't have to be. Change the word 'goal' to 'ways for me to be healthier,' and the focus and accountability comes back to you. 

Weight loss for health not looks

Another important weight loss mindset change: Remember being in a healthy weight range is better for your body, it's not about looking a certain way. Carrying extra weight around your tummy is directly linked to heart problems, while generally carrying extra weight is hard on your joints and can accelerate osteoarthritis and joint degeneration.

Check out another post about the importance of mindset in wellness here.

What do you think are important aspects of weight loss?

Your health as an asset

Drawing parallels between your house and your health may seem strange, but it can help change your attitudes towards your health and wellbeing.

1. Renovations

Knocking down crusty walls and replacing them with open space and modern design breathes new life and value into a property. The same goes for your health; trying new superfoods, workout trends like Soulcycle or Barre, and experiencing new, evidence-based wellness therapies help freshen up and rejuvenate your health and wellbeing.

By adding modern innovation to your diet and workouts, you’re adding value to your health - just like renovations add value to your house.

2. Garage Sales

Getting rid of crap you’ve accumulated in your garage feels liberating! You can do the same with your health by ditching bad habits you’ve accumulated with a once a year ‘garage sale.’ If you started taking up social smoking, why not ditch it before it becomes a real habit? if you have a glass or two of wine every night, try having three alcohol-free nights a week before drinking becomes ingrained in your daily routine.

Little habits add up, so reevaluating your habits and ditching the bad ones leaves you feeling free and fresh to start anew.

3. Regular cleaning

A clean house is every home owner’s dream, but unclogging drains is never fun. The same goes for your health; you want to keep your body clean, and healthy pipes are important. Nutrient absorption is a vital element of health, and this mostly occurs within digestion.

Keeping this system healthy can help fight disease, help combat autoimmune disorders and prevent weight gain.

Probiotics help maintain a healthy pH in your digestive system, and eating natural fibres like psyllium husks, chia seeds, and fresh fruit and veggies can help maintain the motility of your digestive system.

4. Insurance

Insurance always seems like an waste of money, until you desperately need to make a claim. When it comes to health, it often takes that moment of desperation to inspire people to start making ‘payments,’ but you can start before then.

Instead of waiting for a health scare or injury; eat healthy, get regular exercise, meditate and meet up with a counsellor now, instead of later.

Even though these practices won’t stop an injury or health scare from happening, healthy habits help you recover faster when problems do arise.

5. Mandatory taxes and mortgage repayments

We all accept our mortgages and taxes as mandatory payments, but when it comes to our health we still see spending money on wellness as optional.

Instead, consider your gym membership, weekly yoga class and monthly visit to your counsellor or nutritionist as mandatory payments to elevate your health.

This doesn’t mean you’ll never skip a yoga class, but it does help prioritise health in your mind, and inspire you to make better use of your memberships.

Do you consider your health an asset?

Why posture matters & how to improve yours

Good posture has so many important benefits. It’s not only better for your spinal health, it radiates confidence and power, and has been proven to improve the success of negotiations.

If you have a desk job, sitting in a chair for 8 hours leaves almost everyone slumping at 5pm. Then you’re expected to stand elegantly at after-work drinks or walk home, ridden with fatigue.

You can have better posture in just one week though. It all comes down to spinal stability and your core. As a Physio, I’ve had so many patients ask me how to get good posture, so I devised 4 simple steps:

4 ways to get perfect posture

1. Draw your chin back

Why

A pointed chin brings your neck forward, pulling on the muscles of the neck and shoulders. To compensate for the forward weight shift, your upper back slouches into a kyphosis when you sit. When you’re standing, the effects travel down to your pelvis, and your lower back sways to counterbalance the forward weight shift in your head. 

How

• Sit or stand tall with your hands together as though you’re praying. 
• Let your fingertips lightly tough the bottom of your chin
• Without lifting your chin off your fingertips, draw your chin back into yourself as through you’re making a double chin.
• Relax a little (because that’s not a good look) and find a point where you’re about to make a double chin but are just a millimetre off- that’s where you want your neck to be.

2. Draw your shoulder blades down and back

Why

The old ‘shoulders back’ mantra doesn’t work - so focus on drawing your shoulder blades gently down and back. The muscles that do this are slow twitch, meaning you only need to slowly and gently activate them, not pull them quickly like you would for a bicep curl.

How

• Sitting or standing, gently imagine you’re gripping an orange between your shoulder blades in the middle of your back - this is where you want your shoulder blades to sit.
• This movement is the same as the end of an upright row you might do at the gym

*If you get a burning pain in your mid back at work, try drawing your shoulder blades down and back, hold for 5 seconds, and relax. Repeat this 10 times every time you check your Instagram and your postural muscles will get stronger and your pain will disappear!

3. Lower your ribcage

Why

Puffing up your rib cage puts pressure on your mid back where your ribs join your spine, plus it looks pretty awkward. By lowering the rib cage flush against your tummy, your spine will be in a better position, and you’ll be sitting or standing taller.

How

• Sitting or standing, place your hand on your ribs, just underneath the underwire of your bra
• Add gentle pressure through your palm and feel your rib cage gently soften into your torso - this is the ideal position for your ribcage

4. Tuck your tailbone

Why

We’re all guilty of letting our back sway when we sit or stand, but this position can lead to lower back pain. When you gently tuck your tailbone under by using your deep abdominals, your spine sits in a nice, neutral position without stressing your lower back vertebrae and nerves.

How

• Sitting or standing tall, place one hand in the small of your back and one hand on your lower abs
• Now imagine a skewer through your pelvis - you’re going to rotate around the skewer
• Gently push with both hands, feel your lower abs tighten, and the sway in your back diminish

Common Questions about Posture

1. Should I sit on a swiss ball at my desk?

You can, but you can still have poor posture on these balls. Plus, when you’re tired there’s no support for your spine. If you really want to use one, I suggest alternating between a good, supportive desk chair and a fit ball every hour or two. Ditch the swiss ball around the 3pm slump.

2. Are heels bad for my posture?

No, but they can increase the sway in your lower back putting pressure on your spine if your core isn’t strong enough. If you can hold position 4 of the posture tips, you’ll be fine!

3. How should I sit at my desk?

A good desk chair is designed to support your spine. Sit with you butt all the way back in the chair, sit up tall so your entire spine is resting on the back rest, and push your chair in all the way under your desk until you’re comfortable. Sitting forward in a chair, or far away from your desk encourages bad posture and leads to back pain.

4. What’s the best workout to improve my posture?

Pilates, Barre and dance will help your posture improve. They emphasise good spinal stability and elongation of the spine, so you’ll be standing taller in no time.

Next time you're sitting at your desk, try these 4 postural tips to radiate more confidence and protect your spine. Good luck!

“A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind.” - Morihei Ueshiba