Top Ten for Fitness “DO’S”

1. NEVER let yourself get starved. Starved takes away all fitness- sense.
2. Set your workout days at the beginning of the week and schedule around them, not the other way around.
3. Prepare your food in advance. Don’t wait until you’re hungry or there’s a good chance you’ll grab what you shouldn’t grab.
4. Know what you’ll snack on and keep food with you always. Keep it in your purse, at your desk, and in your car. See commandment #1.
5. Stay off the scale (as much as possible). It can be a motivation buster. As you gain muscle and lose layer, your weight may stay the same or even go up. Don’t let numbers throw you off your game.
6. Eat breakfast. It’s true what they say – breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It gets the metabolism moving, and gets the brain and body rolling for the day. When you skip breakfast, you usually make up the calories later in the day anyway.
7. Have a treat meal. The key word is “meal”. Don’t have a treat day or worse a treat weekend. One over-done meal can set you back days which means you never move forward.
8. Find supportive friends. That means one or two. Don’t tell Aunt Mary who loves to cook and makes you eat. You need close friends to cheer you on, not the friends who are jealous they because they can’t do it themself (yet).
9. Drive past the drive-through. No more fast food. Not only is it just bad for you, it’s high in fat, salt, calories and chemicals, and can actually alter your mood and trigger other not-so-good cravings.
10. Your fitness is an everyday-thing, not just a weekday-thing. You should absolutely take rest days and absolutely have some food-joy, but plan it into your week, don’t cram it all into one weekend.

ROSEMARY CHICKEN

Ingredients:

1 small onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, cut into pieces
4 chicken breasts
1 t. dry rosemary or 1 T. fresh
1/2 head cabbage, cut into wedges
1/2 t. salt and pepper (or salt substitute)
1 c. tomato juice (or blend fresh in food processer)

Mix the chopped onion and celery, put 1/2 in bottom of roasting pan. Sprinkle rosemary on the chicken and place on top of the onion/celery. Place other veggies around the chicken. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and pour tomato juice over all.

Cover roasting pan and bake at 350 for 1 hour. (uncover last 10 to 15 min)

CURB YOUR STRESS –

5 tips that really work
1. Keep a tiny to-do list — every morning write down the top 3-5 tasks to accomplish that day. And then — put down your pen until the next day. Be realistic about how much you can get done and always leave a block of time for yourself.
2. Don’t go it alone — enlist others to help you complete tasks and learn how to accept offers of assistance from friends and co-workers. When you don’t try to do everything yourself, the quality of your work will go up, while your stress level will drop.
3. Feel the burn — take time every day to exercise or to do something physical. Even light exercise helps “burn off” stress hormones and stimulates important brain chemicals. It also increases the activity of key “feel-good” neurotransmitters.
4. Put away your magic wand — multitasking is not a genuine solution to anything, regardless of how much you have to do. Yes, you may need to work on several tasks throughout the day, but you aren’t a magician. Trying to “do it all” at the same time is impossible, and creates lots of stress.
Let laughter into your life — smiling more and enjoying a giggle here and there can mellow out your autonomic nervous system and provide a boost to the immune system. It also helps reduce stress hormones like cortisol. And — it’s really fun!

Sesame marinade for Tilapia

1 lb Tilapia
1 T olive oil
1 T rice vinegar
1 T lite soy sauce
1/2 tsp chopped garlic
1 T sesame seeds

Mix all ingredients and pour over talapia. Marinade for about 15 min. Broil for about 20 min. or until fish is flakes. You can also use the marinade for chicken.

Stress Got Your Metabolism Down?

I’m sure you’ve heard of the fight-or-flight response, and you probably know that it’s the way your body reacts to danger or stress. But do you know what the fight-or-flight response is? You guessed it: It has to do with hormones.
When you’re faced with a danger, your adrenal glands release three hormones: norepinephrine, epinephrine (also known as adrenaline), and cortisol. Norepinephrine and epinephrine cause several changes to help you survive the danger, including a pause in insulin release so you have lots of blood sugar available for energy, an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and a suspension of your appetite. After the danger has passed, cortisol tells the body to stop producing norepinephrine and epinephrine and stimulates your appetite again.
This response evolved to help people deal with short-term survival situations, like an attack by a predator. The trouble is, it occurs in response to all stressors, including the deadlines pummeling you at work and the traffic that drives you crazy. When stress is always present, your body can’t get rid of the excess cortisol built up in the blood. That cortisol just hangs around, causing lots of trouble: It turns young fat cells into mature fat cells that stick with you forever, and increases your cravings for high-fat, high-carb foods.
When you give in to those cravings, your body releases a cascade of rewarding brain chemicals that can set up an addictive relationship with food — you stress, you eat. If you don’t consciously control the pattern, you can become physically and psychologically dependent on that release to manage stress. In fact, people who self-medicate with food tend have hair-trigger epinephrine reactions and chronic high levels of cortisol.
You can help yourself keep cortisol in check by limiting caffeine intake to 200 milligrams a day; avoiding simple carbs, processed foods, and refined grains; and getting plenty of high-quality protein. It’s also crucial that you find stress-relief techniques that work for you. If you can tame your stress response and lower cortisol levels, you’ll have a much easier time losing weight.

Baked Kale Chips

1 bunch (about 6 ounces) kale
1 tablespoon olive oil (I use about 2 tsp.)
Sea salt, to taste
Preheat oven to 350°F. Rinse and dry the kale, then remove the stems and tough center ribs. Cut into large pieces, toss with olive oil in a bowl then sprinkle with salt. Arrange leaves in a single layer on a large baking sheet (I needed two because mine are tiny; I also lined mine with parchment for easy clean-up but there’s no reason that you must). Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until crisp 9 edges are brown but not burnt. Place baking sheet on a rack to cool.

Taming the Cookie Monster

Cookies are as American as apple pie at McDonalds, but if the cookie monster has got you, it can sabotage a healthy lifestyle. Most supermarket cookies contain at least 4 of the big no-no’s: refined white flour, white sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oils, and a long list of perservatives and additives. But there is a way to have you cookies and eat them too! If you have kids, your cookie needs will probably differ from that of adult only households. Most adults can get along fine with cookies as an occasional treat, but kids seem to require them, along with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hamburgers with ketchup. You can satisfy your kids’ cookie cravings with healthy cookies-just don’t tell them they’re healthy!
Hear’s what to look for in a healthy cookie: Whole grain flour,non-hodrogenated vegetable oils, and fruit juice as a sweetener. They are free of refined sugar, and don’t have artificial preservatives or food dyes. Look for cookies made with eggs, butter, milk, oats, raisins and other dried fruit, and spices such as cinnamon.
My personal approach to cookies is this: don’t eat them as a regular snack food. It’s much healthier to snack on things like fruit, raw veggies, nuts, or popcorn.

Chicken Fiesta

I cook this in a crock pot, but I am sure it could be cooked in the oven also, just adjust the cooking time.
4 small chicken breasts or 2 cut in half
1 tomatoes cut diced
1 bag fiesta style frozen vegetables (From Kroger) you can use 2 bags for more veggies
½ cup white wine can substitute low sodium chicken broth
1 clove minced garlic
½ tsp. oregano
½ tsp. basil – You can add different spices depending on your taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Place chicken in crock pot, top with tomatoes
Add liquid top with veggies (take out the broccoli to add later it will over cook)
Sprinkle on spices
Cook about 5 hours at high – add broccoli turn down to low and add broccoli

Healthy Recipes

PROTEIN SMOOTHIE (vegan)

1/2 cup vanilla almond milk
1/2 cup prepared Arbonne Go 3 lemon fizzing energy beverage
1 1/2 scoops Arbonne vanilla protein powder (vegan)
1/2 scoop Arbonne fiber booster
1/3 banana
1/2 cup frozen mixed fruit (smoothie blend from Kroger-strawberries,mangos,pineapple
1/2 cup ice with a splash of water

Put all of the above in blender or magic bullet until blended
Calories 275
Protein 15
Fiber 7
Carbs 32

10 Weight Loss Tips

1. To lose 10 pounds of body fat a year, you need to eat 100 calories less per day. Cutting too many calories from your daily intake will sap your energy level and increase your hunger, making you more susceptible to splurging on high-calorie foods.

2. Don’t skip breakfast. Eat within two hours of waking.

3. In fact, eat more breakfast than you think you should. Trade in some of your dinner calories for more calories at breakfast.

4. Don’t allow yourself to get hungry. Eat at least every four hours, and split a meal in half to make sure you properly fuel up pre- and post exercise. For example, eat part of your breakfast before your morning exercise (a banana) and the rest of your breakfast afterward (a bagel with peanut butter).

5. Eat at least three kinds of food each meal from these four categories: breads, cereals, and grains; fruits and vegetables; low-fat dairy and soy; and lean meats, fish, and nuts. Breads, cereals, and grains should be the foundation of each meal, with protein as an accompaniment.

6. Shoot for a gradual loss of body fat. You’re more likely to put the weight back on (and more) if you drop weight too quickly.

7. Liquid calories add up fast and can lead to weight gain. Minimize the amount of sodas, juices, store-bought smoothies, sports drinks, coffee drinks, and alcohol you consume.

8. Eat closer to the earth, enjoying fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Minimize the amount of processed foods you eat; they tend to offer less fiber and are less satiating.

9. If you can’t resist fast food, ask for nutritional information before you make your choices (or check in advance via restaurant Web sites). Avoid any menu items with the words “fried,” “crispy,” and “special sauce,” which are guaranteed to be high calorie.

10. Remember that the calories in the energy bars, sports drinks, and gels you consume during a run add up, even though you’re running. Consume them only as needed.

Next Page »