Skip to main content

Beginning the journey as the Determined Chef

Hello Everyone!  Welcome to my new blog, the Determined Chef Chronicles. I am on a journey over this next year to lose 100 lbs and create 100 healthy new recipes that I will use to help me with my goal. I will chronicle my journey and share the ups and downs, as well as any books that I use to help guide me through this process of losing weight.
I will weigh myself once a month, maybe twice, to track my progress. I will also post photos showing my transformation. I started working out March 7th using the Easy Workouts app, which has me doing crunches, push-ups, leg-up crunches, squats, high knees, lunges, bicycle crunches, and plank with leg lifts. I should mention that I do the girl push-ups and I know I don't do the planks the way they do, but it still works my glutes, which is what matters to me. My hope is that as I get stronger I can graduate to getting to do those two exercises the way they show it. As much as possible I work out every other day. In addition to the fat burning exercises, I also ride a stationary recumbent bike for 15 minutes. It takes me about 40 minutes to complete the whole workout.
Okay, so down to the details that matter. Over a period of almost 6 years I have more than doubled my weight! I'm not happy about that. I recognize that the medications I take for Bipolar Disorder are the main culprit for the weight gain, but I also recognize that I eat too much at times and not always the healthiest foods. I weighed 310 lbs as of March 7th! SAD! However, what matters is what I'm doing about it now. I have a plan and I'm determined to stick to it.
Now for the fun part...100 recipes in 1 year! I am going to post photos of the food and tell you the basic ingredients to give you the chance to try it on your own, but I'll save the actual recipes for the cookbook. Yes, at the end of March 2020 I will put everything together as a cookbook including a fun journey to losing the weight. I will be researching different books on being healthy, eating healthy and treating the whole person. I will post suggestions based on what works for me, granted every person's body is different and may respond a bit differently, so I want to hear from you what is working and what is not.
A little background about me...I graduated as valedictorian of my class at the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute in 2007. I've always loved to cook. I trained at the Biltmore Estate for a year as part of my externship for culinary school. I worked part-time as the Chef/Assistant Innkeeper of a bed-n-breakfast near Asheville, NC. I also took several years off to raise my daughter and then to manage my illness and struggle with Bipolar Disorder. I returned to the field in 2016 and eventually worked my way up to a full-time job at a nursing home. My passion is to cook and create healthy, fun and tasty recipes for people to try and enjoy. I love teaching people how to cook. As part of this blog I may do some teaching videos...we'll see :)
For now, I'm determined to lose the weight and have some fun creating new recipes in the process. This is my goal and I hope you will join me on this journey. I'm interested in your input, questions, suggestions, etc. Let's make this a conversation that leads to some great outcomes, not just for me but for YOU as well.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Your Determined Chef - Loretta Fralin-Rapp

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Daniel Fast Days 19-21

Daniel Fast Meal Plan: Days 19‐21 Note: Many of the foods you’ve tasted have been combined in different ways that you may not have had before, and this time will be no different. You may realize that you’ve got little bits of this and that left over in your fridge, freezer and pantry and now is the time to pull those things together and create some new meals. There shouldn’t be much that you’ll have to spend this time. The words God gave me as I prepared this meal plan were “nothing wasted” and that this was to be a completion and final celebration of what is remaining. Often times as God works with us, we find that there has been some pain as He’s removed some things from us, pruning in order to shape our character and cause it to flourish. Well, this meal plan is a symbol of that experience, that even when God removes things, He doesn’t waste our experiences and He makes great things out of what is left over. So, as you use your leftovers, celebrate what God has done in this fast, th...

Daniel Fast Days 16-18

 Daniel Fast Meal Plan: Days 16‐18 Note: This set of meals is a celebration of the healing you’ve experienced thus far and as a sign of greater healing to come. As you prepare these meals and enjoy the vibrancy of flavors, let that encourage what is awakening inside of you. God has incredible things in store for His bride and He’s preparing her to be a bride without spot or blemish, much in the same way that Esther was prepared to be chosen by the King. The words I can use to describe this set of meals are light richness! As you enjoy these meals you will discover a light richness in the food that is a small reflection of the richness we experience with God as we commune with Him and that comes with a light burden. May you enjoy continual communion with Him as you allow the Messiah to become fully integrated into every facet of your being. AMEN and Happy Fasting! Breakfast for Days 16‐18: Cranberry, Nut and Dried Fruit Puree (3/4 cup) and 1 Banana Cranberry, Nut and Dried Fruit Pur...

Daniel Fast for Lent

 Hello my friends! Lent is quickly approaching February 17-April 1 and I got a great idea from my mom to go through my book, Confessions for the Narrow Road and do the Daniel Fast. My book is a 40 day devotional, so it works out perfectly to go through the book for Lent. I usually do the live, online book study every Saturday at 9 am CST, however I'm taking a break from that in order to go through the book within the 40 days. It is my hope that you will join me. Instead of using Facebook Live, I will set up the sessions on Zoom, so we can have a discussion "face to face". So please email me at confessionsandbeyond@gmail.com if you want to join in. It will more than likely be at 8 am CST every day from February 17-April 1. I will let you know for sure by 2/12. So, I created recipes for a Daniel Fast in 2012 and I will post them here, we will go through the set of 21 days of recipes twice. I created recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner that would repeat for 3 days and th...