5 Things To Look For When Buying Food

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We had a great turn out this past Saturday for our Nutrition Seminar, taught by PNF Nutrition Coach Courtney Kirkwood. In case you missed it here are five take-aways from her presentation on things to look for when shopping for food.

  • When buying meat look for Certified USDA Organic. Certified USDA Organic is the cleanest meat on the market with no pesticides or hormones having been used, the animals are treated the most humanely, and it is the most environmentally friendly way of producing meat. Also, in the U.S. it is illegal to used hormones in pork. So pork that is marked hormone free is just a marketing ploy to get you to spend a little more money for the same product.
  • Artificial sweetners are masked under many different names. Check your labels for the following: Acesulfame Potassium, Aspartame, Neotame, Saccharin, Sucralose, Stevia, and Rebaudioside are just a few. Do your research on the ingredients in your food.
  • Prepare as much of you food at home as possible. This not only ensures that you eat less hidden calories, but it also helps you control what you are eating and what is in your food.
  • Watch for added sugars they are in just about everything that is packaged.
  • Don’t fall for Stevia’s “natural” claim. There is something like 42 or 43 molecules that make up the Stevia sweetners we buy in the store, of those only one molecule is natural the rest are all made in a lab or through processing. Stevia, also under the name Truvia and Stevia in the Raw, is just the latest hot sugar substitute and is really no better for you than Sweet N’ Low, Equal, or Splenda. When using sugar it is always better to use a true natural sweetner like plain sugar or honey. These are less processed and our bodies know how how to handle to them.

Eating clean can be very difficult, as there are many hidden ingredients in our food these days. The best rule of thumb is to look for items with the least amount of ingredients, look up the big “science class” words, and cook most of your meals at home.

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Recipe of the Week – Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

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Recipe of the Week – Almond Flour Chocoloate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Indulge guilt free with these delicious Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup blanched almond flour
  • 1 tablespoon coconut flour
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil (or grass-fed butter)
  • 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
  • 3 tablespoons raw honey or maple syrup
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon pumpkin spice, more to taste
  • 1/4 cup or more chocolate chips
  • Optional: 1/4 to 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
  • Optional: Additional pumpkin pie spice sprinkled over cookies (I recommend!)

 

Instructions:

  • Preheat oven to 350°F.
  • In a mixing bowl sift together almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt.
  • Add in pumpkin puree, egg, honey, oil, and vanilla. Mix to combine. Fold in chocolate chips.
  • Drop tablespoons of dough on a lined baking sheet (I cover mine with my slip at or parchment paper), and lightly flatten.
  • Bake for about 15 minutes, or until cooked through to your desired amount.
  • Let cool and serve.

 

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How To Effectively Use Your MyZone Heart Rate Monitor

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Weekend Warrior Workout

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Own your weekend with this fat torching Kettlebell and Battling Rope Workout!

What You’ll Need:

  • Battling Rope
  • Kettlebell (12-24 kilos)
  • Timer

The Workout:

  • 30 Seconds Battling Rope Slams
  • 20 Kettlebell Swings
  • 10 Kettlebell Goblet Squats
  • 5 Kettlebell Clean & Presses
  • Rest 60s, Repeat for 5 Rounds

 

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Recipe of the Week – Tasty Healthier Peanut Butter Cups

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This weeks recipe of the week comes from PNF Member Angie DeMaster. Thanks for sharing this great recipe for Peanut Butter Cups.

Give these a try for a healthier peanut butter and chocolate fix.

For the chocolate:

  • 1 cup dark chocolate, chopped (Endangered Species, 72%)
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the peanut butter:

  • 1/2 cup all natural peanut butter
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil

Muffin tin and muffin tin liners, needed

Preparation:

  • Line a muffin tin with muffin liners
  • In a bowl or measuring cup, add the dark chocolate and 1/4 cup coconut oil
  • Microwave for 30-second intervals until melted, stirring each time
  • Add vanilla extract
  • Pour half of the chocolate mixture into the liners – just enough to cover the bottom of the liner. Save the other half for the top layer.
  • Freeze for 15 minutes
  • In a bowl or measuring cup, add the peanut butter, honey, and 2 tablespoons of coconut oil.
  • Microwave 15 seconds or until slightly melted and easy to pour
  • Pour evenly into the muffin tin
  • Freeze for 5 minutes
  • Pour the remaining mixture on top of peanut butter layer
  • Freeze until firm, about 1 hour
  • Store in fridge or freezer until ready to serve.

Enjoy!

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Do Less, But Better

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Do less, but better.

Fitness is the result of quality, not quantity.

It seems like every time you turn on the TV and see something about fitness is a clip of someone punishing themselves in a grueling workout.

Scroll through Instagram and you will find a young 20-something doing some cool looking exercise. While these may look cool and even be appropriate for some clients, it typically isn’t right for the client over 50.

Then you have the promotion of all that matters is calorie burn and heart rate intensity.

None of this is what fitness is about and it is all this false info that is making the general population believe they have to work themselves to exhaustion to get into shape.

You don’t have to workout everyday to get results. Three times per week with an average heart rate in the 60-70s most of the time is perfect.

It is not the workouts intensity or kicking up the cardio that gets results. We see over and over that those who get the best results are those who focus on strength, resting between sets and allowing their heart rates to come back down get leaner and those who don’t lose muscle and gain body fat.

It doesn’t matter how high of a calorie burn you get. The higher the hungrier you get and the more you eat.

Fitness is not a competition. It is about giving you the ability to live your best life and having the energy to be activity and experience all that life has to offer.

Fitness is not a punishment for bad eating. It is a tool for a healthier more active life living on your terms.

In a world full of “experts” we have made fitness much more complicated than it has to be.

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Too High, Too Hard, Too Often

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Fitness is dose specific and you can get too much of a good thing.

More than 3-4 days a week of strength training doesn’t make you leaner or more muscular. In many cases more than the recommend 3-4 days will cause you to either gain body fat or lose muscle, or both.

Keeping your heart rate in the 80’s and 90’s for the entire workout and not letting it come back down to a resting rate in between sets doesn’t make you more fit. It makes you more hungry and causes you to overeat. Which is counterproductive for weight loss.

High intensity done all the time doesn’t make your body stronger. It causes damage to all of its tissues. There is even evidence beginning to come out that those who do a lot of high-intensity interval training for years on end damage their heart.

Fitness isn’t about burning a high number of calories. It’s about strengthening and improving your body.

Fitness is a lifelong journey where slow and steady wins the race. There can be periods of increased intensity, but they need followed by periods of decreased intensity. If this doesn’t happen the body breaks down, gets injured, and burns out.

Get in three workouts per week, give about 70% effort most of the time and you will see the best results.

 

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Never Diet Again

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8 Exercises For An AWESOME Core!!

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Give these 8 exercises a try to build a strong core.

 

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You Are Wonderful

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Fitness is not perfect. Fitness is wonderful.

To be perfect is not the goal of getting fit. You are already perfect the way you are. Perfection is unattainable. There will always be someone skinnier, stronger, with a nicer butt, better arms, and a perceived better life.

Chasing perfection is a no win game, because no one is perfect. We all have our imperfections and things about our bodies that we don’t like, but it’s those imperfections that make us unique and who we are.

Using fitness to try to build the perfect body shouldn’t even be the goal, but yet that is exactly what the magazines portrait that you should chase.

Instead fitness should be used to make you wonderful. It should make you feel wonderful. It should make you feel like you are a better parent because you are in shape and able to play with your kids without getting tired. Fitness will give you the ability to experience more in life and have wonderful moments. It is in these moments that life will feel perfect.

Nothing will ever make you perfect, but with fitness we are going to make you feel wonderful.

 

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