Recipe Round-Up: December

This time of the year, dinners are heavy. Salads fade into distant memory as red meat takes center stage, usually flanked by starches.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. We’ve put together a simple, healthy alternative to the usual late-year fare. So if you’re looking to mix it up one night this holiday, look no further:

1. Roasted Salmon with Shallot Creme (via My Recipes)

Salmon on its own might not be as present as a slab of beef, but the shallot creme goes far in adding some heft while not breaking the caloric bank.

Nutritional info per 6 oz serving: 

347 calories 
15.8 grams fat
535 milligrams sodium
47 grams protein

2. Cauliflower with Brown Butter Crumbs (via Smitten Kitchen)

These steamed cauliflower are spiced up with a dose of buttered panko bread crumbs. Consider cutting the butter in half and subbing in 2 tbps olive oil to lighten the dish up further.

3. Beet, Orange and Arugula Salad with Grapefruit Vinaigrette (via The New York Times)

This bright and unusual fruit and veggie combo makes a case for having a salad around Christmas. Bonus: that grapefruit vinaigrette might just be our new favorite salad dressing.

Nutritional information per serving (serves four):

258 calories
19 grams fat
77 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste)
4 grams protein

Five fitness gifts for the holidays

Tis the season for gift shopping. Late in the season, really, but have no fear: If you’re still looking for the right present for the gym rat in your life, we’ve got you covered.

5. Yurbuds

Price: $39.99–99.99

For the musically inclined fitness enthusiast. Designed with athletes in mind, these earbuds sport features like tangle-proof cords, water-resistant casing and a special feature that ensures they won’t pop out during the intense parts of your workout.

4. Polar Loop 

Price: $109.95

Polar’s Loop fitness tracker is a wristband that helps you visualize your fitness goals for the day, week, month or (come on) even your year.

The feature that separates the Polar’s fitness band from the rest is its heart-rate monitor. Fitness trackers use accelerometers to gather data about how many steps you take and how many calories you burn. It’s usually enough for a rough estimate, but the technology has been known to give sketchy results depending on the type of exercise. The heart-rate monitor is an additional accessory to the Loop, but a crucial one if you want an accurate health assessment.

3. LFM Gift Certificate

Price: Varies

A gift certificate at LFM can be used towards any products sold in the gym, personal training sessions, or even massages. An open-ended gift for the local gym rat in your life.

2. Juicer 

Price: Varies

If you’ve seen the documentary “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead,” supplementing meals with juice has probably looked like a viable idea.  While some can run upwards of $500, we recommend the Omega J8000 series, which usually hovers around the $275 range. If you do give a juicer as a gift, just be sure the recipient gets enough fiber: most juicers cull this beneficial dietary material out.

1. Gym Membership

Price: Varies

For the loved one interested in upping their fitness but uninterested in footing the bill, a gym membership can be the perfect gift. As a bonus, many gyms offer price reductions on memberships this time of year, so be sure and ask if any specials are available.

Check out LFM’s six holiday specials below.

Nuts for nuts

(via The New York Times)

Nuts are nature’s snack food. They’re an ideal size, you can carry them around in your pocket without any squishing or leaking and they’re perfectly weighted for throwing and catching in your mouth .

Here’s the catch: nuts are notoriously fatty. An ounce of nuts is estimated to have 160- 200 calories, with almost 80% of them coming from fat.

Still, studies have shown that those who eat nuts tend to be leaner than those who don’t.  A recent Mediterranean study, for example, showed that people who ate nuts were less likely to gain weight than those who didn’t at all. One explanation is that fatty as they may be, nuts are a healthy alternative to other processed snacks, like potato chips and cheese balls.

Weight aside, nuts provide other many health benefits. A new study looking at ten years worth of participants’ diets has linked nut consumption with reduced risk of heart and respiratory disease and cancer. But perhaps the most most ear-perking stat is that participants who ate nuts seven or more times a week were 20% less likely to die from 1980 to 2010.

Among the reasons for these health benefits come from the chemicals found in nuts. Nuts contain folic acid, selenium and magnesium, chemicals which have been lauded for their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and/or anticancer abilities.

Even if you’ve only got peanut butter, you’re in luck: though they’re technically legumes, peanuts were also linked with reduced mortality rate and a lessened risk of chronic disease by the new study.

The Playlist, #5

Another month, another new work-out playlist care of LFM!

There’s no discernible genre rhyme or reason to this month’s playlist. Inside, you’ll find a mix of electronic (Sbtrkt, Crystal Castles, AlunaGeorge), rock (White Denim, TV On The Radio) and other hard-hitting songs to push you through your next exercise session.

Happy listening!

Aging Healthy

New research out of England shows not only that it’s never too late to get in shape, but the better shape you’re in as you get older, the higher your likelihood to age gracefully.

According to the study, which tracked the health of 3,454 volunteers with the average age of 64, physically active participants were more likely to be healthy agers. The study defines a “healthy ager” as “being free of major chronic ailments… [and] having good mental health, preserving cognitive abilities, and being able to maintain social connections or activities.” 

After eight years of observation, the study determined some definite correlations between exercise and healthy aging. Participants who reported consistent moderate activity, like speed walking or biking, were 3.1 times more likely to be a healthy ager; the group of vigorous exercisers, who performed activities like jogging and cross-country skiing, were 4.3 times more likely.

One of the takeaways from this study is that you don’t have to be Jack LaLanne to benefit from exercise in your golden years. All it takes is a few bike rides or brisk walks around the neighborhood a week and you’ll enjoy concrete health benefits.

Get To Know…Julia Coffey, Yoga Teacher (Pt. 2)

Here’s part two of our talk with Earthbond Yoga’s Julia Coffey.(You can read part one here.) In this interview, Julia talks with us about yoga that anyone—even paraplegics—can benefit from, the meaning of the word “yoga” and the three most beneficial poses in her practice.

Do you think pretty much anybody could benefit from yoga?

Yeah, everybody. Even people without limbs.

Really? How would that work?

Even though your physical body is gone, you still have energetic lines that exist as part of your energetic body. It sounds like magic and hocus pocus, but there’s a guy who had his whole lower body amputated, but he’s one of the best yoga teachers around because he talks about what it feels like to move your energy around. It’s a more intense, subtle energy work than [regular] yoga, where you can almost get distracted by your physical body and can’t focus in on what’s energetically going on inside.

So you can do yoga without arms—you just move the arm energy. You still have these meridians, these lines, even if your arm is gone. It’s complex and subtle and but there’s so many levels to yoga.

But yeah, anyone can do it. Yoga is not like, “you gotta be able to exhale through chaturanga and then inhale through up-dog and then exhale back to downward-facing dog.”  That’s not really yoga. Actually, yoga means “yolk” in Sanskrit. As in, “to unite.” The uniting is breath and movement.

Not body and mind?

Or body and mind. Or yourself and your breath. Purpose with breath, mindfulness with breath.  You can do restorative yoga, where you use bolsters and blankets, and you are relaxed and breathing or you can do power yoga where you’re bouncing all over the place. But [Yoga] doesn’t have that much to do with what your body is doing. It’s kind of just a creation somebody made. Patanjali, who we call the father of yoga, he maybe mentions like one asana and it’s a seated position. So it’s not about the movement; it’s about the mind space, the meditation.

What do you think are the three most beneficial poses in yoga?

I’d have to say that it totally depends on the person. I’ll give you three in general. But as a preface, it really depends on what the persons intentions are, what they are looking for, how they feel, any movement restrictions etc.

Pigeon, because it opens up there hips, where lots of people store so much stuff— old energy, old pain and old emotion—all kind of old stuff in the hips. So, pigeon pose is pretty intense for opening up the hips. The longer you stay in it, stuff just comes up. And I mean comes up from your hips into your emotional body and starts to express itself. So you’ll have people crying maybe or angry or sad or all kinds of stuff. It’s not attached to a remembered event; it just comes up—it’s incredibly therapeutic.

I’d also say forward fold, because it helps root your femurs into your hip sockets, which helps release the low back. It has this calming effect whenever you root your hips into the sockets. It’s actually like a little nervous system re-setter and relaxer. It calms and puts everything back into equilibrium. And not only are you rooting but also cleansing the nervous system, lengthening the leg muscles and low back muscles. Forward fold also keeps the spine long. It’s a gentle inversion, so you get fresh oxygenated blood to your torso, head and organs.

And third, I’d honestly say savasana, corpse pose. Savasana is where you’re laying on your back totally prone, palms facing up, legs apart, everything just totally relaxed. Your tongue? Relaxed. Your eyes, how they like to squint to stay closed? Let them go. No frowns no holding the mouth, keep your jaw loose, and those same kind of specific releases all over the body, wherever we hold. Hold nothing.

A lot of yogis say [corpse pose] is the most challenging pose because you are just laying there with your thoughts. It’s one of the reasons why asana exists in the first place: all those poses are to get your mind to a place where it as calm enough for you to be in savasana and soak in all the benefits of your mediation. You’re pretty much just being. Time goes by, you’re just totally relaxed. People don’t get that kind of relaxation in normal life.

Recipe Round-Up: November

And we’re back! With another trio of great fall recipes, no less.

This group is all about healthy and hearty food, meals that make you feel good about serving and keep you warm and full through any snow storms that may happen upon you. Hungry yet? Just you wait.

1) Angel Hair Soup, via Babble.

Not only is this soup tasty and healthy, but it’s blissfully simple to make. In fact, you might just have all the ingredients you need in your pantry right now: pasta, chicken broth, tomato sauce, basil and parmesan. Whole wheat pasta can be substituted for plain angel hair if you’re looking for a more complex carbohydrate.

2) Sautéed Flank Steak with Roasted Vegetables, via Epicurious

Contrary to popular belief, beef can be healthy. Aim for leaner cuts, typically with the word “round” or “loin” in them, or a flank steak, as is the centerpiece of this recipe. The flank steak is one of the leanest cuts of beef around, but this dish doesn’t sacrifice flavor for calories.

3) Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili, via All Recipes

I know, another soup. But this one comes recommended by Life Fitness Management’s president, Amy Owens! So how could we not give it a shot? It’s all-veggie, but as filling as any meat chili on the market—the perfect embodiment of a healthy, hearty meal.

A few funny takes on gym culture

Many of us are committed gym rats and yogis/yoginis, but it’s important to never take yourself too seriously. Like, if you sneeze on a treadmill and go flying off the side, just laugh it off. (That’s happened to all of us…right?)

If you get a second, take a break and check out these funny videos on gym characters:

The very intense gym guy (as played by Terry Crews, aka Old Spice Guy):

Flipping men and women’s gym stereotypes:

Sh*t Yogis Say:

Talking Your Way Through Exhaustion

(via the New York Times)

Your head is pulsing.
Your calves smolder with every heel strike.
You feel your lungs heaving in your chest, spasming for air.

And you’ve still got three miles left to go.

We’ve all been there. What’s unique is how we handle it. And as findings from a study published in last month’s Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise suggest, that’s the part that makes the difference.

In the study, 24 participants were asked to pedal a bike at 80% exertion to the point of exhaustion to establish a baseline. Then, they were split into two groups. The first group continued the exercise regiment as normal, while the second group was coached in “self-talk” techniques. “Self-talk” refers to self-targeted bits of encouragement, like telling yourself how great you’re doing or how good you feel during a workout (even if you really feel like a pile of rags).

The study found that the group that engaged in self-talk was able to pedal considerably longer and reported an easier time pedaling than they had in their initial baseline exercises. Electrodes measuring their facial expressions and heart rates confirmed that they were exerting themselves roughly the same as they had in their first trials.

These findings support what’s known as the psychobiological model of endurance performance, which essentially says the brain has more to do with feelings of exhaustion than the body’s actual lack of fuel. In layman’s terms, it means that even if you think you’re absolutely licked three miles from the finish line, keep your head up. Give yourself steady encouragement—you might just start to believe your hype.

(If you’re interested on learning more about exhaustion and the limits of the human body, check out Radiolab’s episode on human limits here.)

Motivation: The Hip-Hop Preacher

Eric Thomas is a preacher, but not the kind of preacher you’re used to. Religion has little to do with his weekly affirmations. Instead, Thomas believes in the power of the human spirit.

Thomas is an author and a motivational speaker, but most know him from his YouTube videos. He’s made an astounding amount of them—seven “seasons” with at least eight episodes each and then some—and gained a healthy following in the process. All of the episodes have Thomas talking about what it takes to be successful—”You have to want it like you want to breathe,” he says at one point—in his aggressive, take-no-prisoners style. Hence: the “Hip-Hop” Preacher.

He’s definitely not for everyone, but the video above is a good sample of the high-energy motivation Thomas deals.

Love or hate his style, he’s a firebrand—no denying that.  If you’re in the mood, he just might give you the nudge you need today.