Salads to Chili: Rollin' with the CO weather!

NEW RECIPES!

The weather has been STRANGE and I love it!  It's cool and crisp in the mornings, with a bright sunny promise.  It usually warms up to about 75-80 degrees, with a day or two of cool, rainy weather to break it up.  It has been a lovely pattern for fall!  So, that means that some days, I crave a summery salad and others, warm soups!  

This morning, I made up my pumpkin yogurt.  I just made this up this week, but didn't have much time to write about it!  Here is the recipe:

Pumpkin Yogurt:

-1 cup plain, nonfat greek yogurt (I'm partial to Fage or Chobani)

-1/2 cup pumpkin puree 

-1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder

-1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Mix and enjoy a protein filled yogurt that tastes like pumpkin pie filling!

For lunch, I enjoyed this salad with spinach, red bell pepper, poblano pepper, 2 tablespoon walnuts, and two hard-boiled eggs.  A splash of balsamic vinegar for dressing.  Yum!  (see the sunlight?)

But then it got rainy and dreary and I got hungry this afternoon, so I enjoyed a leftover cup of crockpot chili from last night.

Crockpot Sweet Potato Chili:
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1 can black beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can corn
1 lb ground turkey, cooked
2 shredded carrots
1 diced onion
1 small sweet potato, diced (it is my new favorite addition to chili!)
1 serrano pepper **if you like a little spice!
1 T. cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
salt/pepper to taste

Mix together in crock pot and enjoy about 8 hours later!  I love chili, but just to prove this recipe is delish, the people I had over last night LOVED it.  Enjoy!

Tonight might be chicken leftover.  I've been enjoying putting things in the crock pot so that I save time to do other things (like trail run and shop!), so earlier this week I put 4 chicken breasts in a crock with almost 1 jar of salsa, diced red onion, and a serrano pepper.  It turned out amazing!

Sorry I have been a little MIA these past few days and I have no excuse except for trail running and shopping with my mom!  Shopping is ok, but when you grew up with a SUPER HELPFUL mother to shop with, it can handicap you from doing anything on your own.  I feel like I bought the store, but I haven't really purchased things that I need for months years...yikes!

Enjoy the new recipe ideas!

**to update my diet adventures:
I've been on a roll with my mainly veggie and protein diet, although there have been a few slip ups.  Saturday is always a day off...and that day landed on a birthday party which was perfect.  However, I had leftover homemade brownie (from the party) lying around, which happens to be my absolute fave, so it might have been nibbled on.  Plus, there was ice cream at the dinner last night...
The funny thing is, I am sticking to eating no fruit and no granola VERY well, which was my main downfall.  Those are both fairly healthy foods, but I may have had granola and fruit over a veggie choice too often.  This simple swap is making my veggie intake skyrocket!  I feel great, less weighed down by too many sugars (natural or not)!

Aminos and Fat-burning Exercise!

Tuesday turned out to take a toll on my body!  I was feeling great IN class, but after 3 classes, Wednesday was tough.  I decided to try out Anabolic Amino Rush, which is an Apex product sold at 24 Hour Fitness (click here for $4 shipping or I can get it to you with a discount and free shipping!).  Here's what it does and why I decided to try it: 

In your body, amino acids that are either produced in your body (non-essential) or are needed in your diet (essential) to be used as the 'building blocks' or proteins and for metabolism.  Basically, they control every cellular process that goes on in your body.  What an important role!  Specifically in regard to exercise, your body needs those amino acids to help repair what you have 'broken down' in your workouts.  

This is where Amino Rush comes in to play.  This powder has a great ratio and just the right amount of aminos to help your body repair.  Leucine, Iso-leucine, and Valine, are all vital in that process (Leucine being the MOST important).  Leucine is essential and we can get it through our diet*, but it would take a lot of dietary leucine to do its job effectively.  As you work out, your body breaks down glucose in your muscle tissue and creates the byproducts pyruvic acid and NADH (electrons).  Leucine binds with pyruvic acid to reform properties in your muscle tissue.  So, instead of your body having to clear away that byproduct, leucine helps reuse it to repair the muscle damage faster.  What is even cooler, leucine is able to do this process in adipose and muscle tissue!  

Since I have been doing a lot of exercise through classes, I wanted to see if it would help reduce muscle fatigue and increase my strength over a prolonged period of time.  Basically, I don't want to feel like I got whiplash every Tuesday!  I'll keep you updated :)

*some dietary sources include:  fish, peanuts, wheat germ, soy beans, and beef 

On to another study related to exercise!  Have you seen this music video? 

 I love that they used treadmills :)  

Freemotion Fitness, a company that produces and sells great exercise equipment, has a research link that I have found interesting.  They are 'famous' for their incline trainer, which makes the average treadmill look lame.  Their trainer can take you on inclines as high as 30, where a normal treadmill goes to 15...

Here is a synopsis on their research: 

As a trainer, I take different energy systems into the equation when helping someone to their goals.  The most common goal is weight loss, so I often turn to High Intensity training to help them burn the most calories and gain muscle under a short period, but also tell them to use this tool to stress a different energy system.  Let me back up...

Here are your three energy systems, or rather, how our body uses energy in any activity:  ATP-CP, glycolysis, and oxidative.   Although all are used at any given time, one of them will be stressed and used more than another.  The oxidative process is what I want to look at here for fat burn.  

Oxidation takes a slow and steady rate of exercise and produces enough energy to keep you going through oxygen (hence the name!).  Walking is a great example.  

However, it takes a VERY long time to burn lots of calories.  And how do we burn calories?  We use as much muscle as possible.  This is where the incline trainer research is great!  They took the need for a slow oxidative exercise while increasing muscle being used and found that walking at a very steep incline reaches that need!  Their studies found that walking at an incline anywhere from 18-24% and at a speed of 2-3mph activated more muscle and utilized more fat as energy.  

If you want to use this in your fitness regime, walk more than 30 minutes at an incline of at least 18% at 2.4 mph and you will use 6 cals/min of fat versus a meek 2 cals/min of fat at a flat 6mph jog.  Have fun inclining!  

A Nutrition Experiment: Learn Through my New Plan!

*My last pear (from our tree)!  

Today, I started an experiment.  And when I say experiment, I really do mean a diet, although I am more interested in its effects on me to help with my clients.  I am perfectly content with my body and the way that it functions and looks and diets are not a part of my life motto, BUT... I want to see what I can do with small and healthy changes that will only support my holistic and healthy habits, not create a monstrous diet fiend.  The end goal should be some fat and weight loss...at least, that is what I am expecting!  My fitness routine will not change much (mainly for experimental purposes ;) ).

My new plan:

A la Tim Ferriss, my recent health and fitness fave, I am giving up a few foods and following Ferriss.  In his book, The Four Hour Body, he has 4 rules to live by:
#1 No white carbs(mainly flour and processed junk)
#2 Eat the same few meals over and over (proteins, legumes, veggies)
#3 Don't drink calories (just water and red wine!)
#4 Take one day off per week (this would take a lot of time to explain, but he thoroughly explains it in his book)

I am going to follow this and add a few rules of my own:
#5 Fermented foods are ok (although, I probably will not be adding cheese, since I'm not much of a fan anyway...)
#6 No Fruit: just to clarify, this is a part of Ferriss's rules, although I think I eat WAY more fruit than veggies, so I am going to adhere to that rule for the most part.  VEGGIE UP!

THANKFULLY, my birthday lands on Saturday this year, which means it is my day off and I get to enjoy whatever I want!

As I go through with this experiment, I plan to document how I feel, what I am eating and how my body is changing.

So far today, as my first day: I ate cottage cheese for breakfast and Chipotle chicken salad with guac for lunch!  No snacks are needed for now.  This diet has kept me full!

Fat Loss: Phil's Way to Success and a "It's Friday" Quiz!

Good Morning!

I have been reading more of Timothy Ferriss's book, The Four Hour Body.  It is just fascinating, although, not really doable for all people.  However, he has some key concepts I think I will take into my own routine, as well as extra resources that may help fat loss in different ways.  He has four principles to run with to keep on track.  I TOTALLY agree with these principles, and mostly use them with my clients.  Here they are:

1. Make it conscious.
2. Make it a game.
3. Make it competitive.
4. Make it small and temporary.

Within these guidelines, I will tell you some of his ideas and some of mine!

1.  The best way to make fat loss a conscious effort is through the art of seeing.  Sometimes you have to see things to believe it, it is the way we function best, I think.  I like using measurements to help my clients see.  So, not only may the scale change (or not!), but inches change.  Ferriss also suggests the "flash diet", studied by the University of Wisconsin, found that taking pictures of everything you consume, before you consume it, found that people consciously made better choices.  It makes sense: you know that the Hershey's bar isn't going to do your diet any good, and as you take that picture of it, it sinks in.  And maybe it gives you more confidence in your decision to throw it away.  Try it for a few days.  Take a picture of EVERYTHING and send it to an invaluable and non-critical friend :)

2.  Games are fun!  Pretend like it isn't work, it's play!

3.  Research states that the fear of loss is more valuable than getting a reward.  Take a friend who also has some weight loss/fat loss goals and make it competitive.  With a friend, give them a dollar for every time you DON'T hit your weight/fat loss goals and make them do it too!  Or find a challenge group online, there are lots out there.  Embrace peer pressure!

4.  Take baby steps.  Make small changes that will create a greater effect on your goals.  They don't have to be big, but if you take a few changes in, the result will be greater!

Ferriss took Phil's example in the book and I LOVED it.  Phil took his laziness and lack of desire to make a change and WATCHED the pounds drop.  I'm not saying this is for everyone, but with fat loss, there is something that makes everyone tick and turns a switch to produce better loss...for Phil, it took inactivity.  He made a chart of his current and ideal weight and added his maximum and minimum-allowable weight for each day.  He plugged in the numbers of his weight each day and watched where it hit on the chart.  Miraculously, it followed his guidelines without him trying to make any changes!  He decided that it was a subconscious thing; if he saw that he was close to the maximum-allowable line, he made decisions that day that guided him into loss.  They must have been minute discrepancies, but it worked.

Just for fun, download the chart and type in the numbers for yourself: www.fourhourbody.com/phil.  It's kind of fun :)

As I am reading this book, I have decided to take some of his ideas and put them in my own routine.  I will be charting my own weight on the chart above and seeing if some change makes a difference.  Like I said, doing everything he says is a lot.  So, will making some effort to follow his guidelines help?   What have you found to be helpful in reaching your goals?

On another note, take this quiz from SparkPeople to see if you can tell from these weight loss truths or myths!  Have a Happy Friday!