Dustin Maher Fitness

Hi everyone! It’s Crystal, again!

This week, I cooked several items for Dustin and I am sharing a few recipes that I hope you will enjoy preparing for yourself and/or your family.  They are so simple and make use of easy to find meat, veggies, herbs and spices!

Below, I will share a recipe for Stuffed Peppers, Sauteed Squash, and Roasted Butternut Squash (definitely a sweet treat but with NO ADDED SUGAR!)

Stuffed Peppers (adapted from Sarah Fragoso’s cookbook)

Stuff 'em good!

• 2lbs of grass fed ground beef
• 3 carrots
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 medium onion
• 16oz can of tomato sauce
• Chopped fresh basil
• 2T  of oregano
• 1T garlic powder
• Sea Salt and Black Pepper to taste
• 1-2T Coconut Oil

Preheat oven to 350. Place one big soup pot filled with water and turn on high to bring to a boil.  While you are waiting for the water to boil, cover the bottom of another big soup pot with coconut oil and over medium heat toss in the the onion, celery, and carrots.  Crumble in ground beef and add the seasonings to the meat BEFORE it’s entirely cooked.  Mix well and let the meat and veggies cook over medium low heat stirring occasionally.  In the meantime, remove just the tops of the bell peppers, and rinse well to remove all the seeds.  By now your water should be boiling.  Place the bell peppers gently in the boiling water and submerge them for 5-6 minutes or until the bell peppers are just a little soft but NOT falling apart.  While the bell peppers are boiling, add the tomato sauce to the meat mixture and bring to a simmer.  Pull the bell peppers out of the water with tongs and arrange in a large baking dish.  Fill each bell pepper with the meat mixture (don’t be shy, stuff em’ good!) and bake in your pre-heated oven for 20 minutes.  Serving size is one stuffed pepper.

Sauteed Squash

Sauteed Yellow and Zucchini Squash
(This is so simple and takes under ten minutes!)

• 2 yellow squash
• 2 zucchini squash
• 2T coconut oil
• Your favorite herbs

Wash squash.  Cut squash into thin rounds. Saute squash in coconut oil.  Season with your favorite herbs.

Roasted Butternut Squash

Another simple one that is delicious! Be careful with the serving size on this one, though!

• 1 butternut squash
• 2TB Butter
• 2TB Agave Nectar
• 1 t of cinnamon (more to suit your taste)

Preheat over to 350.  Peel, cut, and scoop out seeds from squash.  Cut into cubes.  Melt butter and mix with agave nectar and cinnamon.  Toss butternut squash in butter mixture.  Bake in oven until squash is soft and tender and butter mixture is caramelized.

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This was week one of having my meals prepared and cooked for me.  Each of the recipes that you see below were awesome.  I especially loved the meat loaf, it was AMAZING.  The turkey roll-ups were something that I have never had before and were tasty little treats.  I am looking forward to expanding the amount and types of vegetables that I am eating on a regular basis.  I must say both of these vegetable dishes were awesome.  The bacon really added some nice flavor to the brussel sprouts.

Lemon Pepper Chicken

Ingredients

Lemon Pepper seasoning to taste

6-7 chicken breasts

Directions

Clean and trim excess fat from chicken breast.

Season with lemon pepper seasoning to taste.

Bake in 350 degree oven until chicken is no longer pink.

Sauteed Swiss Chard

1 red bell pepper

¼ medium red onion

1 bunch of swiss chard

2 strips nitrate/nitrite free bacon

Directions

Continue Reading →

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Click image to learn more about the book and to get a copy for yourself.

Aimee started Mamatone 2 years ago with a poor attitude towards exercising and a self proclaimed lazy bone in her body. But over the past years not only has she shed more then 70 lbs off her body, she has changed the way she lives and the friends she spends time with. Luckily for everyone, she hasn’t lost her sarcastic personality. You can read more about Aimee’s story in page 157 of the Fit Moms For Life book.

Here is the transcription of Aimee’s talk:

My name is Aimee and I drank the Kool Aid.  Well maybe not Kool Aid… more like green tea with coconut oil and a little prograde mixed in.  But you know what I mean.  Dustin asked me to say a little bit about my weight loss journey.  Though I don’t exactly know why.   You aren’t going to get any kind of inspirational platitude from me.  I am lazy.  I mean really, really lazy.  You will still find me getting off the stair climber as soon as Dustin walks away.  Or picking the lightest weight in class, pushing even newbies out of the way. Those of you who have taken Mama Tone with me can attest to the fact that I can spend a long time tying and retying my shoes.  And my ponytail always needs adjusting.  Weird how often that happens during mountain climbers and wall sits.

If I could have had surgery to lose weight, I would have done it.  If I could have done anything other than exercise and changing my diet– I would have done it. Have you heard of pro-ana?  It’s a website dedicated to anorexia as a lifestyle choice.  If I had the willpower, I would have just followed all the advice I found there. You may have read a blog post I wrote after I lost my first 25 pounds.  If so, then you know that besides surgery, I either tried or seriously considered – amphetamines, tape worms, nicotine gum and diet pills.  I am big on short cuts.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any short-cut to lose weight, and was left with diet and exercise.

My history with exercise is not a pretty one.  The last time I participated in a team sport was in junior high school.   Shot put, I was eleven.  In college I thought that I would take up running.  I even found a running partner.  Maybe she was too much like me.  After our first run,  — which was probably less than a mile – we shared a pint of Haagen Daaz Bailey’s and Cream, while watching TV.  That was also our last run.

I also gave Zumba a try- once.  Given my lack of coordination I banished myself to the back of the class.  I was sandwiched between two nice elderly ladies.  By the end of class I had knocked into both of them with enough force that each had spent some quality time on the floor.

Given that I am a lazy quitter, it surprises me that I have made it through two years in Mamatone.  My journey here started when I saw my friend Cailin at Target.  We had been in a mom and baby class together. Our daughters were about a year and half old.  I hadn’t seen her in a couple of months and she looked terrific. I still looked pregnant. Her secret was Mamatone.  If only it had been a new diet pill. So with indignant resignation I tried Mamatone.

Many of you know my inauspicious beginning.  For some reason I get perverse joy in telling people, sometimes complete strangers, about my first few classes. My attitude was poor and I felt soul crushing hatred for Dustin and everyone else in the class. And then of course, there was the vomiting.  But for some reason I stuck with it and made exercise part of my routine.  I offer this anecdote to show how much it has become a part of my daily life:  My husband was recently hospitalized.  He is fine, but I’ll take your pity.  On the way to the emergency room Isaid that I would drop him off and be back in an hour or so after Mamatone.  Regrettably, I said this in my out-loud voice. Needless to say, it didn’t go over very well.

Exercise was one thing. It took me a lot longer to change my eating habits.  What people don’t tell you is that exercise makes you hungry. So hungry.  So for the first few months after I started Mamatone I would reward my hard work with a post-class muffin.  I mean, really, I earned it – right?  And well, I may have also eaten my daughter’s barely touched muffin. I mean, I couldn’t waste it.  Maybe I should have picked a flavor she liked.

So then it must seem shocking to you that I wasn’t losing weight even if I was exercising. It was shocking to me.  But I figured out that I had to do it.  I had to get my diet under control.  Dustin had been badgering me since I started, to keep a food journal.  The first twelve hours of seeing what I was eating in print was horrifying.   What I was eating bordered on the pornographic, however delicious it was.  I slowly changed my ways and over the past two years I’ve found a way of eating that works for me.  I have never given up the food that I love – think whatever comes out of a deep fat fryer.  However, now I eat it one day a week rather than every day.

So now I had the exercise down and was learning to be more vigilant about what I was eating.  But nothing seemed to change.  My body seemed stagnant in its heft.   I was feeling down and frustrated.  Who cares if I can do a pushup if I don’t see any physical changes.

Then one day I saw the light.  I was actually sitting in a chair with my legs together and I looked down and couldn’t quite figure out what I was seeing.  And no, I don’t need an anatomy lesson.  What I saw was floor.  Just a teeny tiny sliver of it.  But it was the floor.  And that was just the beginning.  I actually started seeing ankles forming, there was now something
between my calf and my foot, and not something that starts with a “ca”.   I could now stop cutting the elastic from the tops of my athletic socks. And my arms didn’t have funny looking growths on them.  I was getting elbows.

From ankles and elbows and that first sliver of light – I saw my body change. Shoulders! My long-lost waist! And perhaps the biggest change is this: when I weigh myself, I do it with my clothes on. I don’t strip down to naked while someone holds my hair.

And now here I am. After two years, I have lost about 70 pounds.  And I would like to say that I now enjoy exercise.  That I enjoy the challenge and the pain.  But the truth is that I don’t.  I still struggle both physically and emotionally with exercise.  So why do I come?  Is it because I am a masochist?  Is it because I get an adolescent thrill and giggle when I hear Dustin say that I have a great snatch?  (I do, by the way.)   I come because of you.  Because all the women in the class support and inspire me.  And some of you have become my best friends.  I am lucky to be surrounded four times a week by people who are there for me, helping me reach my goals and creating new ones.  Thank you for enriching my life.  I can’t wait to see you Monday.

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Awesome and yummy avocado dip with veggies!

Hey there! This is Crystal, Dustin’s personal chef [☺ I still chuckle a bit when I say/write that!]

Have you ever heard of that show, Chopped! on the Food Network? If you haven’t, it’s a food competition show where the contestants are given a picnic basket full of random ingredients for each course: appetizer, main course, and dessert. Based on what they are given, they have to develop creative recipes within specific time frames. Sometimes they are given items as random as duck eggs, arrowroot powder, and peanut butter in the same basket! Their task is to wow the judges so that they can progress to the next course! Well, this week’s share of the Jordandal Farms CSA had me feeling like I was on a episode of Chopped! We received so many random items in the CSA—I put my best foot forward and hopefully the judge (Dustin) won’t chop me from the game! LOL Just kidding! Continue Reading →

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My friend, Samantha Taylor had a very intense personal experience with sugar, one that almost cost her career…. she got totally busted! Actually, she tells it better, meet my friend Samantha…..

Hello! Yes, I am way too familiar with sugar and what it can do to the body. I am actually a health and fitness professional, a personal trainer who struggled with sugar for over 30 years. The bizarre thing was that before I started to research it, I didn’t even think or know I had a sugar addiction….I just knew I loved sugar!

Yes, I loved the flavor and the experience of sugar but I never put the word addiction with sugar, I mean come on, it’s sugar…. not a drug. Little did I know that when I started to study what sugar really was and how it functioned in the body and then I started to look at my own life, I realized I was addicted!

One time I was at a buffet and had eaten a few thousand calories in food only to go the dessert part of the buffet next and gorged on a few more things.  The server came over to me and looked at my plates and what I ate and said, “Aren’t you that health expert that writes articles in the paper?!”  I looked back at her totally embarrassed, “Oh this, this is a cheat meal.  You didn’t read that article in the paper?”  She said, “Whatever,” and walked away.  I was devastated, I was totally busted!  With my head hung low, I realized that I was living a ‘cheat life’ not eating a ‘cheat meal.’

After being busted and looking at it more closely, I realized I ate it daily, many times more than once a day. I would have highs, then crashes in energy only looking for that next ‘fix’. I would get a thought in my head about a ‘sugar experience’ and I was off and running to fulfill it no matter what time of day. I would eat 3 or 4 pieces of cheesecake in the break room at the gym where I was a personal trainer during a Customer Appreciation Party, hoping no one would see me. I couldn’t go a day without some kind of sugar and then I finally realized I had a sugar addiction….

I couldn’t believe it! My sugar cravings were urging me to continue to eat sugar….

The more I looked into it the more real it became but I have to say there was some hope in admitting that I might have a sugar addiction. Now you may or may not have one, only you really know and only you can admit to it, if you do. There is great freedom in admitting the possibility of it and at least exploring the option of seeing how to fix it.

It all started to make sense: why I always wanted something sweet after dinner, why I couldn’t shed that extra fat, why I was so moody and cranky sometimes, why I had a ferocious appetite being hungry all the time and why I was so distracted and I just couldn’t focus very well.

The great news is, there is a solution and after 30 years of being addicted to sugar, about 6 years ago I started trying to break the addiction and I started to find the cure. Before then I found myself hiding in the break room at the gym I worked at, shoving my mouth full of cake hoping none of the Staff walked in since I was a the #1 producing Personal Trainer out of 2000 trainers in that company!

That started to give me a clue that not only did I eat a lot of sugar but I was also hiding it. Little to my surprise, quitting sugar was harder than I expected because I didn’t really know what I was doing and I didn’t fully realize I was dealing with an actual addiction. I would go on and off, sometimes back eating it worse than before. Left frustrated with chocolate on my face and cookies baking in the oven wondering how I got back here, once again.

But then something happened 2 years ago. I finally figured it out! I finally figured out how to overcome my sugar addiction and not go back to it. I discovered how to have sugar and NOT have it turn into another addiction. I didn’t want to live my life without ever having sugar again and the way I tried to stop eating it the first time didn’t work, it made it worse thinking I could never have sugar again.

So I came up with a new way, a new system that I discovered of not only how to break the addiction but to also still be able to have sugar sometimes and not let it ‘have you’. The great thing is I have made this step-by-step system easier and even simpler to follow.

It’s all about balance and knowing how to not let this white substance control your life anymore.

So if you are wondering if you might be addicted to sugar, click this link.

If you really like sugar but don’t think you are addicted to it, click this link.

If you know you are addicted to sugar and are interested to learn more about the discovery Samantha has found, click this link.

P.S. There is a big difference between having sugar every once in a while and having it so much that it’s affecting your life and your health. How much longer are you going to struggle with this? Are you ready to be free from sugar cravings.  Click this link to find out the cure Samantha has discovered.

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Click image to learn more about the book and to get a copy for yourself.

Is your Kleenex box handy?  Watch this video as Michelle shares her amazing story of how a tragic event was the catalyst to helping her transform her body and life.  Please share this video with anyone who you know would be touched by it.  The selfless act that Michelle displays is exactly what the Fit Moms For Life book and mission is all about.  After watching this, I hope you realize that any excuse we have been letting ourselves get away with is just a justification for us being lazy.  You are capable of anything, so long as you have a big enough WHY.

After Michelle’s talk I share with you a powerful story that happen to me in 10 grade involving a girl and prom.  The lessons learned are universal.

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Well, studies have shown that sugar can be very addictive and, just like with drugs or alcohol, it’s only addictive in certain people. Some people can have one donut and it’s no big deal whereas someone who struggles with sensitivity to sugar, that donut can turn into 4 more, then cake or cookies later or some kind of other chocolate.  My friend Samantha Taylor, who was a sugar addict for 30 years and is known as the Sugar Addiction Specialist says, “For a sugar addict, eating sugar turns into eating more and more sugar and it doesn’t stop!”

Have you ever just been sitting there at work or home and a thought pops into your head about a dessert you like? You start to see yourself eating it and then all of a sudden your brain kicks into gear of how you are going to fulfill that vision? That dream…that fantasy….yes, you get whisked off into the sunset with you and your sugar and all is great until….the ‘come down’, the sugar crash. Dah, dah, daaaaahhhhh…..

The ride up is great, sure tastes good but boy, when it’s over and the high of the sugar wears off and the joy of the flavor is long gone, you are left with plummeting blood sugar levels that totally whack out your body from your mood to how clear you can think, to your energy level, to hot flashes, to snapping at the kids, or to needing to take naps. Yes, that is the life of how some people addicted to sugar live.

It’s like this unhealthy, dysfunctional relationship where the person is fun to be with for a little while, then something happens, they just turn on you and it gets weird!  Do you know what that is like with sugar?

Many people who are addicted to sugar have been for many, many years.  Samantha (my expert sugar addiction specialist) has seen that the average person addicted to sugar was since childhood or at least for the last 10 to 20 years and many of them didn’t think they were addicted until they actually heard about a sugar addiction from Samantha.   They also found that once they learned how to overcome the addiction, they were shocked that they did NOT crave it anymore.

“That is the main fear people have,” Samantha says, “when they think of overcoming their sugar addiction.  They think they will always crave it but what they find out is they actually don’t crave it when it’s out of their system.  It really is an amazing thing to experience when it has messed with your life for so long!”

There is a big difference between someone who eats sugar every once in a while and it’s no big deal compared to someone who eats it constantly, craves it like all get out, over consumes it when you do eat it and its beginning to negatively affect your health….how you feel physically and emotionally. You may or may not be addicted to sugar – take ‘The Quiz’ to decide for yourself….see link at the end of this email.

Sugar seems so innocent. How can you actually be addicted to it and how can it be that bad for you? Keep reading to hear answers to both of those questions….

Samantha says, “When you look up the word ‘addiction’ in the dictionary and study the characteristics of what an addiction is, people that struggle with eating too much sugar totally fit the criteria of having an addiction. You decide for yourself by checking this out….”

The word addiction means the condition of being abnormally dependent on some habit…

Huh, have you ever felt abnormally dependent on sugar?  Always wanting it?  Eating it emotionally when you had a bad day, eating it daily or just down right gorging on it?

Look at the definition of a drug: Something and often an illicit substance that causes addiction or habituation…

Yes, excess sugar can definitely cause addiction and habituation where you do it out of habit.

Samantha has studied sugar for many years and she says, “Research shows that sugar in excess can be very toxic to the body. It has been linked to the three main killers in this country: heart disease, cancer and diabetes. It also is highly linked to osteoporosis, fatigue, headaches, joint pain, weakened immune system, mental fogginess, PMS symptoms, moodiness, hot flashes, depression, ADD-like symptoms, excess wrinkles and the list goes on and on.”

Considering these are many of the main health issues our country deals with, it’s not surprising that the average American consumes 155 pounds of sugar EVERY YEAR!

My goal in writing this email to you is to help shed some light on the reality of this sugar addiction and hopefully inspire you to think about overcoming it.  Now wouldn’t it be good for you to know if you are addicted to sugar?  How can you tell?  The best thing to do is take this short quiz so you can self-diagnose yourself.  Who knows yourself better then you?  No one….that is why YOU get to decide if you are addicted to sugar or not.  No one else can you tell you, so take a minute to take ‘The Quiz’ and find out if you really are addicted sugar.  You? How do you really know until you take ‘The Quiz’.  Click here to take ‘The Quiz’

P.S. This quiz can really help shed some light on this for you and see if you really are addicted to sugar or not.  Take a few minutes to just take the quiz, you will be glad you did!

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Click on the image to get more info about the book that contains the information that Carrie followed to achieve her results

In order to make sure that you keep your resolutions you need to figure out what your big why is.  Why is it important for you to lose weight, or get healthy?  If you say it is to look good in your daughter’s wedding, I can promise you that any weight you lose, you will put right back on after the wedding.  You need to find the deeper meaning, the deeper reason you want to be healthy.

In my book Fit Moms For Life, I spend most of a chapter helping you figure out your goals and why they are important to you.  If you are one of the few who still haven’t received a copy of the book, click here now or click on the book image to learn more.

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