Going Green...

Good morning. What a beautiful Sunny Day we're having. I'm trying to cherish every last one before the fall officially arrives. So today's topic is all about going green. I'm not referring to recycling, composting, or reusing. What we're touching on today is the glorious, wonderful, mind blowing goodness of green drinks! It can take awhile to get your head around chugging back something that looks like this...

Even the rose doesn't help to make it look all that more appealing:) I promise though, once you start experimenting with green drinks, you'll grow to adore the beautiful hue!  

Here are a few reasons why you should consider adding some green drinks to your diet...

1.  Increased fiber. Because your blending your fruits and veggies instead of juicing them, you get all that good for you fiber that is easy to miss out on. Read: Weight Loss Aid!

2. Energy in a glass. Blending your food will make the minerals and nutrients more readily available to your body. Smoothies are easy to digest and much quicker than sitting down and eating a salad.

3. Drinking your greens instead of eating them  greatly reduces the high amounts of added unhealthy fats and sodium found in salad dressings and condiments.

4.  A SUPER EASY way to dramatically increase your consumption of fruits and veggies. The more you consume green drinks, the more your body will start to crave good for you fruits and vegetables.

5. Improved skin and hair. Not that vanity is why you'll do this, but because your increasing the amount of produce in your diet, your skin and hair will start to look great from the inside out. Much better than expensive face creams:)

6.  Green smoothies are FAST. Only minutes to make and you'll be sipping back delicious, nutritious, veggies and fruits all day.

I honestly could go on and on about the multitude of benefits to green smoothies but there are a ton of sites that can expand on them much better than I. Here's a great one with a ton of different recipes to get you started.

While there are a ton of different ways to make your smoothies, here's how I do mine.

Step 1. Add your fruits and veggies into a blender with about a 50/50 ratio to begin with. As your taste buds adjust, you can decrease the amount of fruit. I suggest starting with spinach as it's flavor is easily masked by pretty much any fruit. For this particular smoothie, I used 1 banana, 1 large nectarine, and 1 small bunch of kale.

Step 2. Add anywhere from 3-4 cups of water and 1 cup of ice. I usually aim to make about 1.5 liters of smoothie for each recipe, so I just top up my water to around that mark. I also add 1 tbsp of a good quality omega 3 oil. I really find that this cuts down on the foam that can occur.

Step 3. Blend away! I know not everyone can afford an awesome blender like a vitamix or a blendtec but if you can, I HIGHLY recommend them. If your using a basic blender, just make sure your adding your fruit and veggies in stages so you don't jam up your machine.

Step 4. Drink Up! I make a big batch, drink a glass, share with the kids and then pour the rest into a wide mouthed drink bottle to enjoy for the rest of the day.

Cade guzzled his back in about 60 seconds flat!

Despite how these look, they are really good. So give one a try and let me know what you think!

Happy Sipping,

Sarah

Fit Fast Schedule Change...

Happy Friday everyone! Just wanted to let everyone know that effective immediately,due to poor participation,  the Saturday 8am Fit Fast class will be ending.  If for some reason you feel that you really would like to join me on the weekends, drop me a line and I'll get back at it. It can be pretty lonely all by myself though on a Saturday morning:)

See you all on Monday!
Sarah

The cheapest massage ever...

Good morning! If you've been coming to the absolute abs week at Fit Fast this week then your muscles are surely starting to ache by now:) In light of this I wanted to highlight a great little tool to add to your home gym arsenal. Foam rollers are a perfect solution to sore muscles. This article does a good job of explaining the basics of using this product.

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/flexibilityandstretching/ss/FoamRoller.htm

Remember, we're not talking pool noodles here, make sure you look for a high density foam roller. Speaking from experience, this can be quite painful at first if you have a lot of knots and sore muscles.  Rolling regularly can really pay off long term so it's well worth the temporary agony discomfort:)

Happy Rolling!
Sarah

Challenge #2

So how did the squats go for everyone? I'll admit, I was squatting away beside Isaac's hospital bed trying to be as quiet as possible and praying that no nurses would walk in! So for today, I want you to set a timer for 10 minutes and try to complete as many rounds of the following exercises as possible...

20 jumping jacks
10 push-ups (modify as needed...wall push-ups, from knees, from toes etc...)
20 mountain climbers
10 dips off a chair

This will be quite challenging. You really want to go as quickly as possible while still having good form. Be sure to let me know how you did!

Sarah

Time to get back to blogging!

While it might have appeared that I've fallen off the face of the earth, I can assure you I'm still around and kicking:) This summer has been busy so with teaching classes, other work, spending time with family and now a hospital stay for my oldest boy. No time like sitting in a hospital room to update my blog. As a small thanks to all my clients who are missing out on classes this week, I thought I'd post some fitness challenges to keep you all busy. So here's the challenge for today.  Set your timer and complete 300 squats.  Don't freak out, I'll do it with you! You have a choice, you can break them up into sets of 10,20, 30,... take as much rest in between each set but make it your goal to complete all 300. Feel free to post how you did even if it takes all day:)

Have a great night!

Sarah

Kids in the Kitchen

So over the past few weeks I've been venturing into the world of cooking with my kids. I've baked with them in the past from time to time and let them help with dinners occasionally but there hasn't been any concerted effort to get them into the kitchen. Usually despite my best attempts, our cooking adventures have left me feeling beyond frazzled and the kids not getting nearly as much out of it as they could. So now that I'm a professional I thought I'd pass along a few helpful tips and some of the many benefits of bringing your youngest family members into the kitchen...

1. Divide and conquer.   In the past I'd have both the kids in the kitchen with me and it was beyond annoying. The kids are fighting over who gets to do what, dumping things over when I'm helping the other. In one word, CHAOS. So now I only allow one kid in the kitchen with me at a time.

But how does this happen?

2. Each child has a night that is there territory. Tuesday is Sydney's night to cook, and Thursday is Cade's. This helps twofold. It helps to prepare both the kids and me mentally for what to expect. There's no more whining that Cade wants to help when it's Sydney's night and vice versa. I'm not left pulling my hair out because I can concentrate all my attention on Syd. Now it's still messy don't get me wrong but it's different when you know all week that Tuesday and Thursday will be a bit of a gong show.

3. I let the kids menu plan. Instead of me deciding what we're going to eat and having the kids do the tasks, they decide early in the week what they'd like to make and we plan from there. I have to say I LOVE this. It's such a great tool to teach your kids proper nutrition. For example: Sydney wanted to make this vegetable soup for dinner on her first night. That's wonderful and nutritious but I don't know about you, but 50 calories isn't going to fill this girl up! So we talked about needing to have a few food groups represented and rounded out the menu with some homemade cheese toast. Cade on the other hand wanted to make grill cheese sandwiches and that was it. We then talked about it and decided broccoli would make a nice addition. So in this way you can educate your kids on what a proper meal looks like. 

4. Really let the kids go at it. It's so hard (at least for me) to let others into my kitchen! Especially when it involves messing up, but it's important for the kids to really take an active role in the preparation. Cade made pancakes the other day and the cracking of the eggs (and subsequent scooping out of eggshells) took soooooooo much longer than necessary but he loved every minute of it. Which brings me to the last point...

5. Allow for extra time! Enough said.

So here's a few of the many benefits of getting your kids in the kitchen.

1. It builds self-esteem. It's amazing to see how proud the kids are of their creations.
2. It promotes creativity. We focus on presentation at the table too, and the kids love putting their personal touches on it.
3. It makes picky eaters eat better. Even if the dinner hasn't been the best, boy do the kids gobble it up.
4. It grows appreciation for the effort that putting meals together takes. From the grocery shopping to the cooking, and cleaning. The kids have fun but work hard on their nights.
5. It will make them killer spouses down the road. (Hopefully!)

In the midst of all our cooking I've been looking for a few good websites that really promote healthy meal planning with the younger set in mind and I'll be posting that in the coming weeks. 

Have a great day!
Sarah

It's a Party in the Park!

Okay well maybe not so much of a party but there will be fun to be had! It's been a long time coming but the wait is over! What dear friends am I talking about? Why the FIT FAST classes are starting up! One week from today, Monday the 23rd at 7pm will be the first class! I'm so super pumped and hope that many will attend! To make it even better, the first week of classes are completely free. You just need to let me know that you're coming. (It's fine if you can't make all of them, just let me know which ones you'll be attending!)

So here are the details!!!
When: Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm and Saturday mornings at 8am
Where : Watson Glen Park (beside the twin rinks parking lot)
Class Description: These classes are intended to whip you into shape in a short amount of time. These are aptly named Fit Fast because they're only 30 minutes long! We'll be using a mix of bootcamp style exercises, interval training, tabata, and circuits. These classes will blow by and you'll lose fat and gain muscle like never before. Fit Fast classes are open to all levels of fitness participants. Please ensure that you come to class 5 minutes early so that we're ready to get started at 7pm sharp (or 8am!)
Cost: Free the first week! And after that these are drop in classes so for an individual class the cost is $6 or only $40 for a ten punch card. 

Please note, the classes will be run rain or shine! Can't wait to see you there! If you're attending please let me know via facebook, here or on my cell 604-378-7430:)

Have an awesome day!