Matt Young, Radioman, Voiceover Artist and Podcaster
Matt is a professional voiceover artist. If you have any need of voiceover work, for your podcast, radio spot, or whatever, you can reach Matt by a variety of methods. He is on LinkedIn. On Twitter. And Google+. You can also read his really nice, contemplative blog.
One of Matt’s early jobs was working for Pizza Express a chain go restaurants across the UK, as well as across Europe, Hong Kong, India and the Middle East. That is where he developed his love of pizza and Peroni beer.
Matt enjoys autobiographies, most recently that of Lee Evans’ “Life of Lee”:
Matt tells us that Lee Evans was in 1998’s “There Something About Mary” but personally, I found his role in the black comedy “Mousehunt” (1997, with Nathan Lane) to be brilliant!
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Music composed and performed by Jason Shaw, courtesy of Audionautix.com
Voiceover courtesy of Matt Young.
Links within these show notes may be Affiliate links, meaning that I may receive a small commission when readers click on them and then purchase something. This does not increase your cost at all, but it does help me cover some of the cost associated with this podcast. Thanks!
“Yesterday’s home run don’t win today’s games!” Babe Ruth
Today is a new day. You woke up. That is your first reason to celebrate!
What you ate yesterday does not matter anymore. It is gone. You logged it. And in logging it, you accepted responsibility for your actions. That is a second reason to celebrate, because you are making conscious changes to your habits.
What you are going to do tomorrow does not matter. It has not happened yet. But you are already making plans for what you want to accomplish, which is yet another cause for celebration. You are learning to take control of your situation rather than simply react to what happens around you.
You can only control what you do today. You will log your food, you will make good choices. You will move more that you used to. You will stay positive, confident in the belief that you CAN succeed!
You will take one more step toward success. Today. Right now.
Success is inevitable if you treat every day as another day to make good choices. You have the power! Even though I have not met anyone here, I believe in all of you, because you are here, reading my words. You are dedicating your day to yourself, to reaching for success. You are important and you deserve success!
I am honored to be surrounded by such friends. I receive comments from readers who say that I help them, but it goes both ways. Being accountable to you helps me stay focused on on track.
It’s football season. That means it’s time for junk food, eaten out of hand. But we need something other than the usual burgers, sandwiches and pizzas (although all those are good!)
Try making Burger Bombs!
I’ll give you the nutritional data for what I made. If you do something different, obviously the numbers will change.
Ingredients: Prepare biscuits (Pillsbury Buttermilk work very well) Raw ground meat Slices of cheese, cut in half
Make meatballs from the ground beef (or ground pork, or anything else). Each meatball is 1 ounce.
Flatten the biscuit dough and stretch it to about double the original size.
Wrap the meat with a strip of cheese.
Place in dough and seal it shut by pinching the dough together.
You can make many of these ahead of the game and refrigerate until needed.
Preheat your fryer or a kettle on the stove to 375F.
Place enough in the oil so that they are able to float around a bit. Don’t pack them too tightly.
Fry until they are golden brown as in the picture (about 4-5 minutes).
Serve hot. (But I’ll bet they’d get eaten even if cold!)
Nutritional data (per bomb):
Calories: 140
Fat: 6.5g
Sat fat: 3g
Chol: 30mg
Sodium: 233.8mg
Carbs: 11g
Fiber: 0.5g
Protein: 11g
Variations:
Cut sausages into 1 inch lengths instead of ground meat.
What if you could do one small, almost invisible thing, and that simple act would help reduce your calorie intake by up to 359 calories a meal?
Would that help you get healthy?
Would it help the people you live with?
What would you pay to prevent gaining 38 pounds a year?
Would you make the decision to act?
Many current sets of dinnerware feature dinner plates that are 10-11 inches. I’ve seen one with 12″ plates. The set of Corel plates that we formerly used had 11″ dinner plates and 8.5″ salad plates.
These are much larger that our vintage plates from the 1950s, when dinner plates were 9″ and salad plates were 7.5″. That doesn’t sound like much, until you calculate the area that each plate holds.
My wife and I use the 9″ plates, but we leave a thumb-width around the edge. That reduces the available area to 8″. Why don’t we just use the 7.5″ plate? Because by always leaving a thumb width on every plate, we train ourselves for those days when we eat at someone’s home. We’ve done it long enough that we know how much empty space to keep all around the plate.
We only fill it one time, and we don’t pile food on top of each other, so we are careful to only choose the foods we love.
What a difference an inch makes!
Plate Diameter Square Inches Ratio to 8” plate
12” 113.1 2.25
11” 95.03 1.89
10” 78.54 1.56
9” 63.62 1.27
8” 50.27 1.0
So what does all that mean?
When I used the 11″ plates and filled them to the edges–not an uncommon practice in my previous life–I was able to put 1.89 times more food on that plate than I can now. If my old way of eating allowed me to load 1000 calories (imagine a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and all the rest of my most favorite meal), my new plating habit now only allows 529 calories. Changing that eating habit saved me up to 471 calories, and since I routinely ate second and third helpings, my other new habit of only one serving saves many more calories.
If you just switch from a 10″ to 9″ plate, you will save a lot of calories. That 10″ plate holds 1.23 times the food a 9″ plate will hold. Again, comparing a potential 1000 calories piled on the 10″ plate, that will be reduced to 813 calories (edge to edge) or only 641 if you use my thumb-room method.
That is potentially 359 calories saved. In ONE meal! Over the course of a year, that would be almost 131,000 calories eaten. Eating off your old plates could add almost 38 pounds–or using the new plates may help you lose the same amount.
In every case, we will see a full plate. Our minds will think that we are getting a LOT of food, but we will be limiting how much we eat.
The difference in how much food a plate can hold, based on comparison of square inches.
The equation is area = πr2(where pi = 3.141592654)
Crispy, crunchy, breaded chicken is easy. Simply deep fry it.
But if you are looking for a healthier version, that requires baking it, and sometimes the results are not as crisp or crunchy as desired. I tried several versions, and found that the secret ingredient is Panko Bread crumbs. (My preferred brand is Kikkoman.)
Panko Crumbs adds an excellent and light crunch to everything!
In both versions, I used a buttermilk wash and seasoned flour. I baked the chicken on a cooking rack to allow airflow around the chicken, but the pieces that were given a second coating with panko turned out demonstrably crisper and crunchier.
These pieces had a crisp and satisfying crunch and that contributed to the excellent flavor.
This was very flavorful, but lacked the crunch.
The specific details:
I used chicken legs (thighs and drumstick.) I left the skin on (because sometimes I just want all the flavor possible.) I think this technique would work with skinless chicken, and I will run that test soon.
I seasoned 1 cup whole wheat flour with
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 tablespoon rubbed sage.
My wash was buttermilk.
The flour-only version was dipped in buttermilk and rolled in flour. The panko version was rolled in the seasoned flour first, then dipped in buttermilk and coated in panko.
Bake on a cooking rack in another shallow pan (I used a 10x15in jelly roll pan) at 425F/225C for 15 minutes, then 375/190C for 30-35 minutes or until the internal temp is 165F/74C.
Don’t bake solely based on time. If you remove the chicken at 165F/74C, you will have perfectly cooked chicken that isn’t dry. However, the downside of this is you don’t get the beautiful golden-brown color of deep-fried chicken. (I can live without the color!)
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This recipe was requested from Tosha, one of the listeners of my podcast, Make Your Someday Today. In MYST 53, Tosha left a message on my voicemail system (Speakpipe) which you can find on my home page. If you have a question, please give me a call!
Running toward a goal is great–it’s fun and sometimes easy–when you are making progress. Especially when you are making “Relentless Forward Progress” to use Tom Leddy’s phrase, our most recent guest on MYST 52. But what happens when you hit a pothole in the road and stumble? What happens when you stop making progress and maybe even begin to lose ground?
When I was losing weight, I used LoseIt. (You can here more about LoseIt in several previous episodes: MYST 20 with Scott Wilson, MYST 8 with Steve Grant, MYST 26 with Jon Turnbull, MYST 6 with Cathy Aster, and MYST 12 with Whitney Klinkner.) A weight loss journey, like most goals, are not linear. That means they never travel in a straighline, with unbroken successes.
You may need to pivot toward a new goal. That doesn’t mean you don’t necessarily need to quit your goal (although that is always an option) but maybe to you need to consider focusing on an interim goal for a while. Maybe you need to pause where you are current stuck and address other life issues. It may be that you need a completely new goal.
My personal suggestion for the simplest (not necessarily easy, but definitely simple) is LoseIt Premium. Get Lose It! Premium
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This week’s SpeakPipe message is from Tosha, and she wants to know my secret for crispy baked chicken. She knows that in addition to being a registered nurse, health coach and motivational speaker, I am also a chef and I have a food blog related to this podcast.
Crispy breaded chicken is easy. Simply bread it and deep fry it.
But Tosha is looking for a healthier version, which requires baking it. I tried several versions, and found that the secret ingredient is Panko Bread crumbs.
In both versions, I used a buttermilk wash and seasoned flour. I baked the chicken on a cooking rack to allow airflow around the chicken, but the pieces that were given a second coating with panko turned out demonstrably crisper and crunchier.
Panko Crusted Baked Chicken
These pieces had a crisp and satisfying crunch and that contributed to the excellent flavor.
Coated with seasoned flour
This was very flavorful, but lacked the crunch.
The specific details:
I seasoned the flour with onion and garlic powder, black pepper and sage. My wash was buttermilk. The flour-only version was dipped in buttermilk and rolled in flour. The panko version was rolled in flour first, then dipped in buttermilk and coated in panko.
Bake on a cooking rack in another shallow pan (I used a 10x15in jelly roll pan) at 425F/225C for 15 minutes, then 375/190C for 30-35 minutes or until the internal temp is 165F/74C.
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Music composed and performed by Jason Shaw, courtesy of Audionautix.com
Voiceover courtesy of Matt Young. Matt is a professional voiceover artist. If you have any need of voiceover work, for your podcast, radio spot, or whatever, you can reach Matt by a variety of methods. He is on LinkedIn. On Twitter. And Google+. And you can read his really nice, contemplative blog.
Links within these show notes may be Affiliate links, meaning that I may receive a small commission when readers click on them and then purchase something. This does not increase your cost at all, but it does help me cover some of the cost associated with this podcast. Thanks!
Today we have a guest post by Scott Wilson. An author and engineer, Scott finds problems and then designs the solutions. With his blog, Designed2Succeed, he helps his readers design their most important project: their own lives.
After you read his post, please leave him a comment here, and then check out his thoughts on his blog.
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Everyone wants to be happy, right? I mean as far as goals go this one seems to be right up there on most people’s list. The United States constitution even guarantees the right to pursue happiness. So much of the modern advertising industry is built upon the premise of selling the elements that deliver happiness. It is safe to say that trying to be happy is definitely a common priority within our society.
People do many things in their unending efforts to become and remain happy. They seek friendship, love, romance, marriage, children, fame, fortune, spirituality, god and so much more all hoping that these will lead to lasting happiness. It is my observation that all of these things have at best fleeting success in attaining happiness.
Every single one of the ideals that I have mentioned above is mixed with joy and pain, happiness and sorrow. The best friendships will still occasionally disappoint. Romance waxes and wanes. Marriage and families are filled with great joys and heart-crushing events. Even religion and spirituality do not grant immunity to the trials and pains of life.
And yet mankind spends an amazing amount of time and effort chasing the dream of happiness. In this powerful pursuit we demonize sadness and depression. North America is an abundant and rich country where we enjoy a standard of living that far exceeds that of over 60 percent of the world. Still Americans currently spend an estimated $11.3 billion dollars annually on anti-depressants, consuming more per capita than any other nation. American use of anti-depressants skyrocketed 400% from 1988 to 1994. We go to great pains to avoid being unhappy in any way and in the process we treat almost all sadness as an illness.
So what is wrong? Why can’t we seem to lay hold of this ultimate prize despite our herculean efforts? We have material wealth and security like no other nations but we are failing at the very pursuit that our predecessors nobly guaranteed for us. It actually seems that the harder we try obtain happiness the more difficult it becomes to obtain. I actually believe that this principle holds true, and so I propose that it is truthfully our very quest for happiness that causes the problem.
We live in an impermanent world. All things that live will die and everything that is created eventually decays and fails. Why then do we expect our happiness to be permanent? In Zen Buddhism it is believed that our attachment to objects in this ever-changing world that leads to sadness and frustration. There is much truth to this belief, however even detachment will not guarantee happiness just as an absence of pain does not guarantee pleasure. So the problem of happiness remains.
I propose that we release our iron grip on the pursuit of happiness and instead focus our pursuit on joy. No, I am not just playing with semantics. Joy is defined as the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires (from Merriam-Webster). I believe that it is the last part of this definition that is telling: ‘emotion evoked by… the prospect of possessing.’ There can be joy in the pursuit even if the item pursued is not obtained. I would go so far as to say that we can actually enjoy pursuing happiness even if we fail in that pursuit!
I further submit that joy supersedes happiness. As my father lay in pain dying of bone cancer in I enjoyed our much of our time together and so did he. Despite all that my father was experiencing he still enjoyed the simple pleasure of a cappuccino from a local coffee shop. Were we happy? No, not at all. That did not stop joy. In my life and in others I have seen joy in the midst of sorrow, pain and even death.
We need to allow ourselves the ability to experience joy. This often involves slowing down and actually paying attention to and experiencing our lives. We can have goals and quests for worthy ideals but we need to expect that there will be bumps on those journeys. Let not our pursuits rob us of our joy. I have observed people in pain struggling to be happy at Christmas, the supposedly happiest time of the year. In their struggle, these poor souls not only fail to obtain happiness but they deprive themselves of their joy.
Can we still pursue happiness? Yes, but don’t expect to catch it and keep it. Happiness will come and go, and that is alright. Do not run from sorrow especially when the seasons of life call for it. Hold fast to joys, especially the simple ones. Joys can be our greatest treasures in times of tribulation. At all times take pleasure in kindness, smiles and love. In this challenging life, when happiness seems so far off, remember that there can still be great joy in the journey.
Tom Leddy works for a beer company (I’m not going to specify, since he didn’t in the show) as a “problem-solver.” But he had his own problem. He couldn’t bend over to tie his shoes. In high school, he was an athlete. But college taught him the joys–and side effects–of excessive living, and his athletic past was erased.
He knew he needed to change. And he started running.
He has a goal of running a marathon in every state, and on every continent. Follow his progress and reads his thoughtful posts on his blog Runs and Places.
This was after his first marathon in Tanzania:
Tom recommends this book:
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Music composed and performed by Jason Shaw, courtesy of Audionautix.com
Voiceover courtesy of Matt Young. Matt is a professional voiceover artist. If you have any need of voiceover work, for your podcast, radio spot, or whatever, you can reach Matt by a variety of methods. He is on LinkedIn. On Twitter. And Google+. And you can read his really nice, contemplative blog.
Links within these show notes may be Affiliate links, meaning that I may receive a small commission when readers click on them and then purchase something. This does not increase your cost at all, but it does help me cover some of the cost associated with this podcast. Thanks!
You can’t hold it. You can’t take a picture of it. You can get an award for achieving it, but “it” is vague. Success is a state of mind. It is an idea, a goal, a movement. It is growth. And none of those are physical things.
Kara at play
But Kara Counard also suggests that we need to change how we view success. We ALL achieve success, every day, but what Kara calls a success, others might consider a failure, and still others may think it to be an unachievable dream.
So, what do we need to change so that we can all earn our success, and still be happy when we see others who have more, and others who have less? How can everyone be successful when definite boundaries and strata exist in life? Kara suggests and idea and I expand on it.
Kara was our guest in MYST 30, published on July 14, 2014. If you want to hear here complete interview (and her asolutely fascinating life story, you can listen here. That show is the most-listened to show in the past 14 weeks!
Then, Paul from Whitelaw, Wisconsin, sent a message on my Speakpipe message system that everyone can completely understand: “How do you get back on track to your goal, when you experience a complete breakdown, related to poor choices?” Paul is refering to a weightloss goal, and a weekend of excessive consumption, but my answer goes beyond dietary changes and will help everyone regain their footing.
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Music composed and performed by Jason Shaw, courtesy of Audionautix.com
Voiceover courtesy of Matt Young. Matt is a professional voiceover artist. If you have any need of voiceover work, for your podcast, radio spot, or whatever, you can reach Matt by a variety of methods.
Links within these show notes may be Affiliate links, meaning that I may receive a small commission when readers click on them and then purchase something. This does not increase your cost at all, but it does help me cover some of the cost associated with this podcast. Thanks!
