Recipe of the Week – Caprese Salad in a Jar

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Prep one of these the night before and have an easy ready to eat salad tomorrow for lunch. Add some of left-over grilled chicken from last nights dinner and you a full meal.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups of arugula
  • 1/2 cup green basil (leaves only)
  • 1/2 cup purple basil (leaves only)
  • 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
  • mini bocconcini

For the dressing:

  • 2 tbsp. olive oil
  • 1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
  • a drop of honey
  • Maldon salt
  • cracked black pepper

Directions:

One ingredient at a time, layer first the arugula then the 2 basils, tomatoes, and bocconcini in 4 jars. Set open jars in the fridge to chill. Next, whisk all ingredients of the dressing together. When you’re ready to serve the salads, take the jars out of the fridge, drizzle the dressing on top of the salads, close the lids, and shake it up to mix everything together.

Recipe Source: http://chubbyvegetarian.blogspot.com/2011/06/caprese-salad-in-jar.html?m=1

 

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PNF Workout of the Week 2/27/17 – Kettlebell Carry Circuit

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Get your week started with this “Kettlebell Carry” workout. While the workout may sound simple, this may be one of the most challenging workouts you’ve done.

 

20yd Farmers Walk (single arm)

10 Goblet Squats

 

20yd Farmers Walk (opposite arm)

10 Swings

 

20yd Racked Farmers Walk (single arm)

10 Cleans

 

20yd Racked Farmers Walk (opposite arm)

10 Snatches

 

20yd Overhead Carry (single arm)

10 Overhead Presses

 

20yd Overhead Carry (opposite arm)

10 KB Windmills

Repeat for five rounds.

You can make this more challenging, by increasing the distance carried, carrying a bigger bell, or adding more rounds. But, no matter how you decide to do it you will get one heck of a total-body workout.

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https://pittsburghnorthfitness.leadpages.co/21-day-shape-up-challenge/

Fitness Over 50 Doesn’t Have To Be Chair Aerobics

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It is inevitable that as you age your body will change. Sure it would be great to go back to how you looked and felt in your 20’s, but that shouldn’t even be the goal. The goal should be to be the best version of what you can be today.

Getting older does not mean that you cannot ski, hike, workout, and be intimate with your partner well into your golden year. Fitness promotes all of those and more.

However, the way the fitness industry has approached fitness over 50 sucks! A Google search will turn up numerous articles about walking, some even with hand weights. Or worse yet, sitting in a chair lifting tiny vinyl coated dumbbells. This is 2017, not 1980.

Exercise doesn’t have to be some watered down, soft nonsense. In fact, it is stuff like this that is patronizing, rather than helpful. People can still exercise hard, lift heavy weight, and bang out push-ups and pull-ups well into their 80s. If trained to do so and not led to believe the B.S. that they can’t because they are “old”.

It is common for many of our members to bring their college and young adult aged kids with them to their workouts when they are home and have the parents who are 30-40 years older run circles around them. So much for the 20’s being the fittest years of life.

As the body ages it needs strength training more than ever and can still be trained hard. The biggest difference is in the frequency. While a 20-something maybe able to workout everyday, eat pizza, drink beer, and stay out late and not miss a beat in their workout, you just can’t recover quiet as fast when older. But, three challenging workouts per week based around strength will do wonders for the body.

Maintaining strength and mobility is the secret to aging well. Getting older is the only option we have, whether we like it or not. But, staying fit and strong with age is a choice. You can choose to look at age as only a number and challenge yourself in workouts to stay strong and mobile, or you can buy into the B.S. that someone this age shouldn’t be doing this.

Age is only a number, the way we train is a mindset.

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5 Strategies To Eating Healthy On The Road, Or In The Air

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Another cross-country flight and yet another day spent eating meals in an airport.

You know that planning your meals is an important part of staying lean and healthy. But, how do you plan when you have lay overs, flight delays, and need to be extra early just to waste time waiting in long lines to be searched by a grumpy TSA Agent.

Here are five strategies to make the most of eating healthy when your days in spent traveling through airports.

#1. Carry and emergency stash. Stock up on a bag of nuts, beef jerky, and a piece of fruit. Pack one of each in your carry-on and then restock in the airport when one or all are gone.

#2. Meat and veggies. In those rare times when you actually get the chance to sit down in an airport restaurant for a meal, skip the burger and fries and order a piece of grilled fish, steak, or chicken with extra veggies.

#3. Be calorie conscious. Most fast-food convenience stores and coffee houses now list their choices on the menus. Look for the lower calorie options and make your choices based around those.

#4. Go easy on the pre-flight, in-flight, and layover booze. Sure a drink may seem like just what is needed after a day of connecting flights, meetings, and yet one more flight home. But, all these extra drinks will wreck havoc on your fitness goals. If you know that your business meeting with customers will most likely result in drinks at some point, then skip the airport booze all together. If they don’t then a drink or two between a connection with your meal isn’t the worst thing.

#5. Drink lots of water. Flying will dehydrate your body and a busy schedule can make it easy to forget to drink some water throughout the day. If you always keep a bottle of water with you there is better chance that you will drink more water.

Keep the above strategies in mind on your next business trip and you won’t have to worry about losing the progress that you’ve worked so hard to gain.

If you’d like more information about fitness coaching click here:

https://pittsburghnorthfitness.leadpages.co/21-day-shape-up-challenge/

Regular Exercise Is Simpler Than You Think

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You do not have to spend hours in the gym everyday, or even go to gym at all to stay fit. The following are four simple ways to incorporate exercise into your life.

#1. Walk twenty minutes to thirty minutes most days. Done consistently walking will improve your cardiovascular fitness and help you shed a few pounds. Take it up a notch by carrying a 20-40 pound backpack.

#2. 50 minutes, twice a week. Hitting the gym twice a week for a good total-body workout will reward you will numerous benefits when done consistently ovetime. In a years time this is enough to see a completely different person staring back at you in the mirror.

#3. A daily bodyweight routine. Ten to twenty minutes of the following circuit will keep you fit to be able to tackle all of your daily activities.

  • Push Ups x 25
  • Squats x 25
  • Pull Ups x 5
  • Reverse Lunge x 15 each
  • Front Plank x 60s
  • Jumping Jacks – 25
  • Repeat for as many rounds as possible in 10-20 minutes. Rest as needed.

#4. Reps on the Minute. Some days you only have time for a quick 10-minute workout. That is where the “Reps on the Minute” strategy works great. Pick and exercise, start a timer, and perform a set number of reps. Then rest the remainder of the minute. Continue for 10 rounds.

Here are a few examples:

Kettlebell Swings x 25 reps

Squat and Press x 15 reps

KB Snatch x 10 each arm

Battling Ropes x 40 slams

Regular exercise doesn’t have to take a lot of time, it just has to be consistent

If you’d like more information about fitness coaching click here:

https://pittsburghnorthfitness.leadpages.co/21-day-shape-up-challenge/

Recipe of the Week – Chicken Taco Salad in a Jar

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Recipe of the Week – Chicken Taco Salad in a Jar

Prep this recipe in a mason jar and have lunch pre-made for the next day.

Ingredients:

( Serves 4 )

4 whole 12-ounce mason jars

2 whole chicken breasts (grilled or poached)

1 cup black beans (canned)

1 cup corn (canned)

1 cup tomatoes (diced)

1 cup romaine lettuce (chopped)

Creamy Avocado Dressing:

1/4 cup greek yogurt

2 ounce goat cheese (crumbled)

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

1 whole lime (juiced)

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 whole avocado

1/4 cup water

 

Directions:

  1. To make dressing: Combine greek yogurt, goat cheese, cilantro, lime juice, salt, avocado, and water in a food processor. Puree until mixture is smooth. Set aside.
  2. Using a fork, shred grilled chicken into small pieces.
  3. Assemble each mason jar in the following order:

– First (bottom) layer: 1/4 cup avocado dressing

– Second layer: 1/4 cup corn

– Third layer: 1/4 cup black beans

  • – Fourth layer: 1/4 cup diced tomatoes
  • – Fifth layer: 1/2 cup chicken
  • – Sixth (top) layer: 1/4 cup romaine lettuce
  1. Store in the refrigerator until ready to eat. When ready to serve, dump jar’s content into a bowl, toss, and enjoy!

Source: Recipe Corner original recipe, developed by editor Amanda Patton. http://www.recipecorner.com/chicken-side-salad-recipe_recipes/chicken-taco-salad-jar_recipe

 

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https://pittsburghnorthfitness.leadpages.co/21-day-shape-up-challenge/

One Awesome Workout You Can Do Anywhere

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Get your week started with this awesome bodyweight workout. No equipment necessary.

  1. Bodyweight Speed Squat
  2. Push-Up
  3. Reverse Lunge

*Reps = 10-1 (10 reps round one, nine reps round two, eight reps round three, and so on down                    to one.)

4. 15 Jumping Jacks after each round

 

Have a great week!

 

If you’d like more information about fitness coaching click here:

https://pittsburghnorthfitness.leadpages.co/21-day-shape-up-challenge/

Athletes Have Off-Seasons, Do You?

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Athletes have off-seasons, do you?

The off-season allows the body time to recover. No athlete would ever try to compete and perform at a high level year-round, because this would wear done their body.

While athletes’ have off-seasons, the regular exerciser never does. Instead he or she goes to the gym 3-4 times per week, pushes hard, and expects to see results without ever slowing doing. They then wonder why joints get achy, strength decreases, and body fat occasionally increases.

The body is tired. It has been pushed hard for months on end. Not to mention that this pace has continued through a stressful life event or two, and more weekend hangovers than proud to admit.

Occasionally taking a week or two off from exercise is good for the body. It allows the muscles to get fully rested and recovered and come back stronger. This is especially true when strength plateaus are hit or weight loss stalls. Give the body some time to rest and those plateaus can be then be broken through.

If you have been working out consistently for six months or more you could probably benefit from a week off. Then continue to take a recovery week once every 16-20 weeks. During this week still eat well, maybe get a message, take a few walks, but skip your regular workouts.

Recovery is part of training, but it is the most often neglected part.

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Recipe of the Week – Asian Noodle Jar

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Prep this recipe in a mason and have lunch pre-made for the next day.

Ingredients:

For the salad:

  • 4 ounces soba noodles
  • 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
  • 1 cup shelled edamame, cooked
  • 2 large carrots, peeled and shredded
  • 4 green onions, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 cup crunchy rice noodles

For the Spicy Peanut Dressing:

  • 2 tablespoons peanut butter
  • 4 teaspoons sambal oelek
  • 4 teaspoons rice vinegar
  • 4 teaspoons soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon black sesame seeds

Directions:

  1. In large pot of boiling water, cook noodles according to package instructions. Rinse under cold water and drain.
  2. Meanwhile, make Spicy Peanut Dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together peanut butter, sambal oelek, rice vinegar and soy sauce. While whisking, slowly drizzle in oil until all oil is incorporated. Stir in sesame seeds.
  3. Divide Spicy Peanut Dressing equally among 4 pint-sized mason jars. Divide soba noodles over dressing. Layer remaining ingredients, ending with rice noodles. Top with lids and refrigerate up to 5 days. To serve, pour onto plate or bowl, stir and enjoy.

Recipe Source: http://foxeslovelemons.com/asian-noodle-salad-jars/

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A Member’s Story…Angie D.

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