Fantasy Healthball: The Recipes

Go to your local bookstore and check out the diet/health books and you will find a million and one recipes to blindly follow.  At Fantasy Healthball, we are lovers of food so we use recipes all the time.  But people who frequent our site, people like you, like to think about what you put in your mouth.  You want to know what you are eating.  Is it loaded with saturated fat and sodium?  Is it loaded with sugar, or worse yet, artificial sweeteners?  Is it going to put a bulge in your belly or in your muscles? 

Food can do wondrous things.  It can build up a defense against cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses.  It can help your eyesight, give you more energy, flatten your stomach.  The wrong foods can clog your arteries, raise your cholesterol, slow you down, and generally make you look like the Pillsbury dough boy after a few too many sweet rolls. 

Oo oo Poppin' Fresh!

Here is what is different about our recipes.  We are going to give you a recipe, but also talk about what is in it.  How many calories, what types of vitamins and minerals, what substitutions you might make to make it healthier or avoid a food you are allergic to, whether it is best for tailgating or watching the game on TV with friends, those sorts of things.  We also prefer foods that are simple, fresh, letting the wonderful tastes present themselves without a lot of extra foo foo (a technical culinary term meaning glop glop). 

Ooops, now I’ve gone on too long to present our first recipe in this post.  You will have to stay tuned.  Meanwhile, to whet your appetite, take a look at the recipes from one of our own, a Fantasy Healthball player (Cinzia) with her own food site.  We will be posting special Fantasy Healthball recipes from Cinzia, an original Fantasy Healthball player Jen (in features called “Jen’s Fantasy Kitchen”), and others.  In fact, got an idea for a recipe and some thoughts on the healthfulness?  Send it our way and you may be featured as well!  My stomach is growling already.  – Jim Ballard

T.O or T.J. or Torry in ‘09?

When considering the fantasy impact from off-season player movement around the NFL, there are several top-flight wide receivers who jump off the page.  Terrell Owens is now in Buffalo, T.J. Houshmandzadeh has moved to Seattle, and Torry Holt is now catching passes in Jacksonville.  Each of these three will make a case for the Hall of Fame in Canton one day.  But before then, they still have plenty in the tank to offer fantasy teams this Fall.  But which is the most promising to choose when we are on the draft clock?

Terrell Owens is one of the most visible, media-darling players in the NFL.  The only thing that surpasses his ability to gab is perhaps his formidable talents on the field.  Owens averaged 12 TD’s per season while in Dallas and had a terrific supporting cast around him.  This will not be the case in Buffalo.  With Marshawn Lynch’s off-field troubles landing him an early season suspension, and with still-unproven QB Trent Edwards, T.O. will not be the fantasy ‘lock’ for superstar performance as he has been.  T.O. is extremely durable and rarely misses a game, so he will show up.  Unfortunately, it’s with new teammates and our prediction is it will take some time for this offense to gel. 

Torry Holt was one of the key members of the famed ‘Greatest Show on Turf’ during his tenure in St. Louis.  Now moving on to Jacksonville, Holt will look to build on his already impressive resume.  He has a quarterback in David Garrard that is capable of finding Holt again and again with short to medium range passes where Holt can excel.  However, Holt’s production dipped noticeably last year, and it is clear he does not have top-end speed anymore.  He does, however, still possess great hands and will be the #1 receiving option in Jacksonville.  We predict Holt’s numbers may take a modest boost from last year’s results, but don’t expect any more huge fantasy outings.  He is at best a #2 receiver this year on your team.

The biggest winner in our opinion is T.J Houshmandzadeh arriving in Seattle.  While there is decent WR talent on the Seahawks (Nate Burleson / Deion Branch), none can compare to the durable, reliable Housh.  We predict T.J. will make his presence felt immediately in Seattle and expect this offense to really take off this season.  QB Matt Hasselbeck is not nearly washed up yet, and is excellent in the mid-range passes where Houshmandzadeh excels.   Expect T.J. to get 8-10 TD’s  and minimum 1,200 yds receiving this year.  Seahawks fans are going to love this guy.  And so will you, if you take a chance on him during your draft. — Jeff Hagen

Fans headed wrong way

Psssst, hey fantasy footballers, hey NFL fans, hey America , we are going the wrong direction.  Our American athletes are getting stronger and stronger.  World records are falling right and left.  Athletes are bigger, stronger, faster, and leaner than they used to be, but wait, what about us fans?  Us fans, we are getting weaker, slower, and fatter than cheering crowds of old.  Oh, you want proof?  I have indisputable, scientific proof, but, as they say, a picture is worth 1,000 bits of indisputable, scientific proof.

Exhibit A. Sports fans of yore

 

Exhibit B: Sports fans of today

If that doesn’t say it all, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month reported that Americans are getting heavier and heavier and now 26% of us are now fully obese.  That is not the “overweight or obese” stat but the fully obese, 26%, wow. 

 That means you get any two American couples together, let’s say Bob and Cathy stop by Ken and Lisa’s house, one of those people, let’s say Bob, is obese.  The overweight OR obese stat also rose and is about two-thirds.  That means, Cathy and Lisa are most likely overweight.  That just leaves Ken.  In this little scenario, you want to be Ken. 

Bob, and to a lesser extent Cathy and Lisa, have higher risks for chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes. 

If you want to find out where you fit in all this, you can calculate your body mass index at lots of websites like this one.  Or, you can take just look at the photos above.  Whether you identify more with the first or second photo, we encourage you to check out our nutrition info. and our exercise info. and we welcome you to the Fantasy Healthball family.  If you love football, we can help you turn this around and get back going the right direction.  – Jim Ballard

OUCH!

“Hey, have a safe 4th.”  “Hey, have a safe one.”  What is it about the 4th of July that compels people to always tell you to be safe?  Do they really think without their helpful reminder, that you might accidentally set off some bottle rockets in your shorts?  Or perhaps they are talking about that other 4th of July staple – BBQ grilling.  Are they telling you to make sure you grill the burger thoroughly on both sides so you can avoid the nasty E Coli or even this mad cow?

Really Mad Cow

 Whatever it is, I was told by several people to have a safe 4th.  And you know what?  I should have listened.  But more on that later.

At Fantasy Healthball, we are all about good health and the well-being of our Fantasy Healthball community (which you are one of since you are reading this blog!).  As you can read on our website, we think good health leads to happiness in all parts of life.  We care about our readers, the readers of our site, our blog, the Fantasy Healthball devotees who play our game, and the whole Fantasy Healthball community.  A few posts back, we reminded you to figure out ways to decrease stress in your life during these difficult economic times.  In this post, we have a quick word about safety. 

There is a reason NFL players wear pads.  Think of the meanest, nastiest, current NFL player you know and I can guarantee he wears big pads just like everyone else.  Safety doesn’t mean wimpy, safety means thinking about what you intend to accomplish and then putting some things in place that will help you get there.  Couple things happened this week that made me dwell on safety.  First, I bought my first great pair of running shoes ever.  For running shoes, I typically go down to the big box mart and buy whatever is on the best sale.  I usually wear them until they fall off me in shreds and long past when it feels like I have no foot protection left in them.   This week, as I turn 41 years old, I realized it was time to get smarter.  I went to our local specialty shoe store and had the crackerjack owner dissect my feet and running style until I walked out with the perfect running shoes for me.  If you have one of these places within 100 miles of where you live, it is worth it.  You can find a shoe basically made for your specific foot and running mechanics.  I hope my knees and joints thank me and continue to perform for many decades to come.  I make a Fantasy Healthball pledge to replace them once a year and show some respect to this aging machine I live in (my body). 

Okay, second safety episode this week.  While mountain biking near my house, I tried for the first time an extremely steep section of trail full of long ruts and covered in slippery gravel and rock.  I made it up with a series of small bursts like a blue painted Mel Gibson screaming “freeeedooom!!” while charging the opposing army.  On the way down, I did a “full on endo” which is an over-the-handle-bars- end-over-end-flying-flip where my bike landed on me and ultimately stopped 10 yards further down slope.  It looked exactly like:

  

So here is the point.  We care about your body, you should too.  If you are injured, your ability to exercise and burn calories is greatly reduced.  Today, I have a wrist injury, bruised ribs, and a pretty shoulder rash that looks like someone ran out of red ink on their Spirograph.  I won’t have a decent exercise anytime really soon.  So I’m going to pay even more attention to what I put in my mouth, keep control of my calorie intake, and go for some non-body-jarring walks.  A public service announcement from Fantasy Healthball:  exercise, eat right, and take good care of your body, it is aging and deserves it.  Oh, and one more thing, “have a safe one!”  — Jim Ballard