For those of you who know me, you know I love inspirational stories of people who don’t let their physical limitations get them down. I get so upset when I see able-bodied people wasting their life away by becoming inactive, overweight, and lazy. Sometimes I feel like they should give their bodies up to someone with physical limitations who would give anything to walk, run, jump or climb, since they seem to not want to use their own bodies.
I want to thank Fit Fun Bootcamper, Meagan for sharing this story that was on the Today Show. I would like to think that if life dealt me the hand that it dealt Patrick, I would be just as positive and determined to be the best I can be and not look at what I can’t do, but rather what I can do.
Warning: Only watch this in a place where it is appropiate to cry!
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Here are a few links to a couple more inspirational stories of people overcoming the odds. More on Patrick Ivison An Inspiration To Us All!
I wanted to thank my mom this week especially, for getting us a recipe. She had a couple funerals to go to and was at the bedside of a friend who died. Not only that, but she spends a couple hours a day with her 94 year old mom at the nursing home, and my dad stays home and takes care of his mom who is almost 95 and needs around the clock care! So thanks mom for getting this to me in the wee hours of the morning!
Here is her post!
I’m not feeling real healthy-creative tonight, so guess what we get for a weekend treat this week…..yeah, it’s cookies, heavy duty and chuck full of everything but tofu! We had them last summer at Dustin’s picnic, if you happened to be there. But I suppose we can see how healthy we can get them and and still be to-die-for, eh?!
SIERRA NUGGETS~COUNTRY STYLE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
1 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 c. white sugar
1 Tbls. milk
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. crumbled whole grain cereal flakes
3 c. quick oats
1 1/2 c. flour (combine some whole wheat with unbleached white)
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 c. shredded, unsweetened coconut
2 c. chocolate chips More on Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Many women and their view of push-ups frustrates me more than pretty much anything else in the fitness field. I don’t know where the mentality started, that women can’t do push-ups and need to do them on their knees. That is such a victims/low-expectation mentality. Within 3 months of training with me, most women are able to do at least 20 perfect push-ups on their toes. My philosophy, is that every woman should be able to do 20 push-ups. Many of the moms I train can do at least 40 perfect push-ups. Guys should shoot for at least 50.
Push-ups are such a great exercise, because they don’t require any equipment, are great for toning the chest, arms, and shoulders, and can be a great test to see improvements in upper body strength.
Once you are able to do more than 15, you need to come up with ways to make them harder. You can put your feet on a ball or a chair, like Jody did when she was on NBC with me. Another way to challenge you in the push-up is to do an explosive push-up. This type of training will stimulate the type 2 fast twitch muscle fibers. One variation is the clap push-up, which many of you are aware of. Not only are these great for the upper body, but put a tremendous amount of pressure on the core, so your abs will get stronger from it as well!
Today, John Hall and I are going to share with you another fun variation. I have been using it with my clients the past month and they love it!
Enjoy!
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More on Push-ups: They Aren’t Just For Men!
I have an incredible video I want to share with you, but before that, I wanted to introduce the topic of the video. Today we are talking about a training method called plyometrics. Plyometrics has been traditionally used mainly as a sports-specific exercise to get athletes to run faster, and jump higher. But, in the recent years, plyos have become more mainstream, and now research is showing the fat loss benefits of plyometrics.
I do plyometrics in both MamaTone and Fit Fun Bootcamps. Plyometrics usually involve some sort of jumping activity. The act of exploding up, will cause your fast-twitch type II muscle fibers to activate more. Fast-twitch type II muscle fibers, have been shown to be more metabolically active than type I slow-twitch muscle fibers which are used in most low intensity activities. More on Burn Fat By Jumping
With Easter coming up, I thought a recipe related to chocolate was appropriate. I personally enjoy chocolate, but have never had a strong NEED to eat it continuously, like my girlfriend seems to have. So, today my mom shares some alternative pie recipes using tofu. I have mixed opinions on tofu, but will leave that for a future blog post.
My mom sent this late to me last night because when writing it in the afternoon she decided she better try the recipes out, so she made both of them and had my dad and brother be the taste-testers.
Enjoy!
Wow, Easter already! And what beautiful weather we are enjoying; am expecting green grass any day now! Dustin’s younger brother, Chris, went home to Lancaster, Pa. yesterday with his girlfriend, and he just shot me some pictures of VERY green grass and flowers from their back yard~so, our turn soon!
Well, like I promised in the blog the other day, I am using Nancy’s desire for silken tofu chocolate pie for our feature this week! I told Dustin that with the big Easter Sunday dinner coming up, we can justify a healthy pie and maybe help out with desserts 
. Besides, it has chocolate in it, so what could be more Easter!
I found a couple that I liked online and will share both of them with you-I tried them both out, just making half recipes in case we didn’t like them .
SILKEN CHOCOLATE TOFU PIE #1:
12 oz. bag of Ghiradelli chocolate chips
2 pkgs. firm tofu
3 Tbls. maple syrup
1 baked graham cracker crust
Melt the chocolate chips, blend in the tofu, and add the maple syrup; pour into the graham cracker crust and chill in the fridge for several hours. Serve plain or with your favorite whipped topping.
Silken Chocolate Tofu Pie # 2: More on Silken Chocolate Tofu Pie
What woman doesn’t want a great butt and inner/outer thighs? Today, John and I wanted to share a great exercise that targets those areas, but also requires a lot of fine motor stability. Using an unstable surface, such as a bosu, will require the small stabilizers in the feet, calves, anterior tibialis (shin bone), quads, hamstrings, glutes, hips, and core, to engage in order for you to not fall off. This type of training improves proprioceptive awareness, meaning your body is more efficient at knowing where it is in space. If you consistently do this type of training, you will stand a much better chance of not falling when you lose your balance There have been so many times when I slip on ice, but don’t quite fall because my body is able to make those split second adjustments and save me from potentially hurting myself.
Enjoy!
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If you missed yesterdays big announcements, check them out here!
Today, my mom is sharing with you some ideas to get more veggies in you! This post is especially great for those of you who have kids and need some tricks to sneak veggies into them! Fortunately for me, there isn’t a vegetable I won’t eat, but pureed vegetables help me get in more servings since they can be used in many different forms.
So enjoy my moms post!
Well, I guess it is time to get back on track with some healthier eating, having done desserts the last 2 times! And then Easter may have given some of us a little blurp on the radar with extra calories, so let’s hit the veggies in yet another form today. If you’re like me, this wonderful warm, sunny weather has me jumping on my bike just for the thrill of feeling the sun on my face and being able to get the heart pumping all at the same time….yeah, I know Dustin, summer bootcamp does the same thing, right?! Anyway, veggies just seem to go along with the whole spring wake-up and living outdoors again .
The other week Cheri blogged about putting pureed veggies in their brownies, etc., which got me to checking out the web for recipes-Oprah’s site brought up some good info and recipe, taken from Jessica Seinfelds’s cookbook. But first I’ll share some of the stuff I have been doing for quite awhile with veggies-no rocket science needed, but sometimes we need a little duh moment to get us thinking in another direction. For example, sometimes I’ll come across a good buy on some organic produce and not get to using it right away; the quick fix is to steam it and puree it and have a ready ingredient for whatever. There is no rhyme or reason to doing this; I usually take my big Dutch oven and put my mesh steamer basket in it and several inches of water and start piling it up; the other day I had a head of cauliflower that I chunked up, including the stem that I sliced thinly for easier cooking. I might add here that when I don’t have organic veggies, I am trying to take the time to soak them a few seconds in some veggie wash…T.J.’s has a bottle of it that lasts forever and is a good investment. If you have a lot to do, like when roasting veggies, just fill the sink with water and a few squirts and do a bunch really fast. So then steam just ’til soft enough for pureeing. I like using my magic bullet, dumping in the veggies and some of the steaming water, depending on what I want it for. Or sometimes I’ll use some organic veg. broth or chicken broth for extra flavoring if I am making a quick hot soup, or just sprinkle on a little of your healthy salt. Using all hot liquids will have you good to go, without heating in the microwave like the bullet advertizes (yeah, am trying to keep all plastic out of the microwave-and using it minimally). I also added chopped up zucchini to the cauliflower, making a good tasting soup. When you have this puree around, you can toss in some leftover chicken, some of your roasted veggies, some black beans…the sky’s the limit. When I am cutting calories, the puree alone is filling and very low cal. Do the same with broccoli. Add some hummus to the puree for thickening and good flavor.
Make sure the blade is on tight!
Okay, moving onto another use of purees, DO NOT do what I did last evening! Coming home from church, I wanted to quick try the brownie recipe that has a whole cup of puree; so rather than checking the recipe online, I grabbed some broccoli puree I had in the fridge and used that, while wondering how thick the stuff should be~! Well, after cooling the finished product completely, my willing taste testers here gave an “they’re okay review”; I personally was WAAAYY UNimpressed! But, THEN I looked up how they pureed on Oprah’s site, and they call for only several teaspoons of liquid added to the vegetables, just enough to make it smooth! I used my soup-like stuff! Needless to say, I will be trying this one again with thicker puree. (Greg just told me that he poured chocolate syrup on his second piece last night….what does that tell you?!). More on Pureed Vegetables
Last week I showed you a video of Rita doing box jumps on the NBC morning show. This week I wanted to show another variation of that exercise that you can do. This one involves a little more upper-body. The drawback is that you won’t be able to jump quite as high since you will be holding additional weights.
We do this one in Fit Fun Bootcamp right now indoors and once we go outside to parks, we will use picnic tables, rocks, and playgrounds to use as our box to jump up to!
Enjoy!
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Keep moving,
When it comes to food, one of the most asked questions are about snacks and what are some quick healthy snacks that can be made and be transported easily. I gave my mom the task this week and she didn’t let us down!
Snacks are an important component of a well planned out day of eating and I encourage 1-3 snacks per day. Snacks help fill the void between meals. Eating small meals often will tell the body to burn calories rather than store them since it is getting a continual supply of food. Snacks also prevent you from overeating at the next meal because you aren’t overly hungry. Snacks are very handy and can be taken anywhere with you. Finally, snacks help psychologically, because if you are eating every few hours, you know you don’t need to eat as big of meals. As always, include a protein in each snack and combine it with a carb or fat. More on 21 Healthy Snacks
Today’s video is certainly entertaining and will provide you with some smiles watching me not only get dominated by John, but really experiencing some good pain along the way. (I have been told by many of you that you love watch me hurt, you sick individuals )
This is the second to last video I have for you with John and I. We had been going hard for about 45 minutes filming when we got to this one.
Before the video, I want to talk about pushing yourself past limitations. These limitations can be both mental and physical. In nearly every case, the most successful weight loss clients, and highest level athletes that I have worked with, all possess this trait. It is the can-do-attitude and belief that they can do anything, and if they can’t do it, they will try.
An excuse I hear a lot when clients don’t want to challenge themselves is that they are afraid they are going to get hurt. Being safe and staying healthy is one of my most important goals for my clients. I am not talking about doing anything stupid and foolish, but at some point you need to push your body past what it is use to. If you do it correctly it shouldn’t cause you any injuries, but some use that as a reason to not do it at all. Sure there is always a small chance of something happening, but the cost of not trying is much worse.
How do you think I learned how to do all that crazy stuff standing on a ball? It took some practice and a few very exciting falls!
I recently had a new bootcamper who came to class, she wasn’t too overweight, maybe could have lost 20 lbs or so, but mostly had NO muscle tone on her body. She struggled through the workout, but actually did quite well, I was very impressed. The next day I received an email that this person felt overwhelmed and was challenged too much and wanted to quit. After some back and forth conversation she decided she didn’t want to continue, but rather listen to a family member who was a trainer who told her to walk for 30 minutes on a treadmill and do some crunches and lunges. I truly wish this person the best of luck, but gladly refunded her the money and sent her on her way. She was obviously not ready for creating massive change in her life and wasn’t ready to work hard to get it. Anybody can walk for 30 minutes on a treadmill and do a few crunches, but what will that get them? Very little. More on Try Something Extreme!
