CONTEST TIME: Who wants an awesome cookbook?

During this entire week, I will be taking submissions from my readers, (all 3 of you), to be entered into a drawing to win the cookbook "75 Ways to Love Your Oatmeal" by Jenny Grothe (and she signed it for us too!)

All you need to do is reply here in my blog or in my FB post of this blog and tell me what your fitness/health resolutions are for 2011. Each person that responds will have their name put into a drawing to win this lovely cookbook. Winner will be announced on 1/3/11. I have already had the opportunity to read my copy and there is some good stuff in there.

Sample menu and routine

I'd love to say I actually did this workout this morning but I am a little under the weather so today was a stay in bed kind of day.

It was requested of me to provide a sample of my workouts. As I mentioned to the requester, I am in a building phase right now and I am doing 1 body part per day which is extremely intense and I wouldn't recommend this for a beginner. Also, in a building phase, I am eating a lot, especially protein, aiming for 160 grams per day in order to build. This training program will only last 8 weeks before I change things up again. I am thinking supersets for 4 weeks afterwards.

I will post a beginner workout sometime next week, just in time to get you ready for your resolutions, but in the meantime, here is what my day might look like in terms of workout and diet;


Alarm goes off at 4:30

4:45 dressed and headed to the gym. On my way I drink a glass of NO Explode. With me I bring a 45g protein shot.

5:00am: Biceps today (I rest one minute between each set and 3 minutes between each exercise):

1 warm up set of 15 curls using 12 pounds
3 sets of 15 @ 20 lbs

Assisted chin up:
1 warm up set of 15 with my weight offset by 50 pounds
3 sets of 15 with my weight offset by 20 pounds (Hope to not need an offset in a few more weeks)

wide grip bar curls on the cable machine
1 warm up set of 15 at 25 pounds
2 sets of 12 at 50 pounds

Narrow grip bar curls on the cable machine
same pattern as wide grip above

Preacher curls
no more warm up sets needed at this point
3 sets of 15 on preacher curl bench

standing side bicep curls on double cable machine
(set the weight height just above hip level, keep arms out to side at 90 degrees curl forearms in)
2 sets of 15, 7.5 pounds

At this point, my biceps are FRIED and feel like rubber. After this workout I take the protein shot.

Next up is cardio. I may do 20 minute running intervals. In order to understand what running intervals are, google RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) and follow this plan. To let you know what I am at for my intervals, I have also included the treadmill MPH.

Minute 1 (5-RPE) 4 MPH
Minute 2 (5-RPE) 4 MPH
Minute 3 (6-RPE) 5.5 MPH
Minute 4 (7-RPE) 6.5 MPH
Minute 5 (8-RPE) 7.5 MPH
Minute 6 (9-RPE) 8.5 MPH
Minute 7 (6-RPE) 5.5 MPH
Minute 8 (7-RPE) 6.5 MPH
Minute 9 (8-RPE) 7.5 MPH
Minute 10 (9-RPE) 8.5 MPH
Minute 11 (6-RPE) 5.5 MPH
Minute 12 (7-RPE) 6.5 MPH
Minute 13 (8-RPE) 7.5 MPH
Minute 14 (9-RPE) 8.5 MPH
Minute 15 (6-RPE) 5.5 MPH
Minute 16 (7-RPE) 6.5 MPH
Minute 17 (8-RPE) 7.5 MPH
Minute 18 (9-RPE) 8.5 MPH
Minute 19 (10-RPE) 9 MPH
Minute 20 (5-RPE) 4.5 MPH

I will then walk for about 5 minutes for a cool down at 3.5 or so MPH.

When I get home I would eat 6 egg whites in corn tortillas with fresh jalepeno and s peppers, spinach and some cheese made with 2% milk.

About 2 hours later I am eating 4 turkey "muffins", recipe found on my blog with a side arugula salad with olive oil and lemon juice

2 hours after that it is time for an apple, almond butter and greek yogurt

2 hours after that I am drinking an isopure (40g of protein) and having some whole grain crackers

and another 2 hours, I am having a flat out filled with veggies and grilled chicken

2 hours later, a muscle milk light

2 hours later, dinner, fish and some grilled veggies

right before bed would be a casien protein shake blended with fresh fruit.

Hope this helps! I will post some more next week. The nice thing about interval training is that it burns calories AFTER your workout rather than just during because of the level of intensity and how your glycogen stores are used. You can tailor this program using RPEs for beginners THROUGH advanced. This type of workout can be done on a treadmill, outdoors, on an elliptical, bike, swimming, etc. Very versatile workout and is the premise of Body for Life cardio.

Feel free to ask me questions.

Holiday maintenance

So far, so good! I weighed in today at 138 and body fat was down! I have been hitting it hard in the gym and it has been paying off. My routine has been to focus on one body part per day. Spending 1 hour on a body part is HARD! And that body part is sore for days!! I am only doing this for 8 weeks to change things up. So far I have hit each body part three times in this rotation and have increased my one rep max each time! I have also been consuming 160 g of protein daily to help recover my muscles.

How is everyone else doing!? These next few days will be the biggest challenge for me. Damn cookies.

January contest!!

In January, I will be giving away a copy of the much anticipated cookbook "75 Ways to Love Your Oatmeal" by Jenny Grothe. Her story kept me inspired on my own personal journey and I want to share her with you! More details to follow.

Check her out on Facebook HERE

A response from Freshii

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Freshii review

One thing (and quite possibly the only thing) I miss about my old job was being close enough to walk to the Protein Bar. The Protein Bar was tasty, clean fast food that gave me tons of energy. There has to be another place like the Protein Bar in the Gold Coast, right???

I set out to Water Tower Place to try Freshii. Freshii is a chain that you might be familiar with. The bar was set high for Freshii after enjoying the Protein Bar a couple times a week for the last 6 months.

I first scoped them out on-line. I love their nutritional content page as it allows you customize your order to get nutritional specifics.

My first trip, I tried one of their menu items, vs. a custom order. I had the Buffalo Chicken Wrap. Quite bland in my opinion, nothing spicy about it. The size of it is equivalent to the Protein Bar's Barrito, but it was lacking in flavor and, well, protein. The serving of protein was small in comparision to the veggies. You do have the option to order double protein, which I decided to do on my next trip.
The cost was fair, a little over $6.00, similar to the Protein Bar again, but, when you are getting mostly veggies, I am sure their profit was much more substantial.

My second trip, I customized a rice noodle bowl with the following:

Rice Bowl base ($5.99)
Double natural chicken ($4.00)
carrots, cucumbers, cilantro & broccoli (all free)
Spicy Peanut sauce

According to the website, I should have received over 34 grams of protein for this dish. Sadly, when I got back to my office, I had to dig and dig around the rice noodles to find the chicken. I am ASSUMING that they got my order wrong and only put in one order of chicken. Otherwise, this was pretty pathetic. For over $11.00 I got a bowl of rice noodles and a very flavorless sauce over tons of cucumbers, carrots, cilantro, and about 9 chunks of chicken the size of my thumbnail.

Freshii fails miserably.

To all of my healthy friends in the Chi....where or where can a girl get some good, clean, healthy, and tasty takeout???

And to Matt, the owner of the Protein Bar, we need you in the Gold Coast. Badly.

Halp!

Nice Version of a Naughty Pizza

I was craving a naughty pizza last night. A crispy crust pizza with a rich basil pesto, hunks of melty bubbly fresh mozzarella cheese, garnished with tomatoes and fresh basil. And I could have eaten a whole pizza, all to myself!

In an effort to clean it up, I headed out to the grocery store and picked up my favorite thin crispy pizza crust (a flatout flatbread) and I found Buittoni reduced fat, au naturale, pesto sauce! There isn't nearly as much oil or cheese in the lighter version but it still worked well for my pizza.

The key to the pesto sauce is that a little goes a LONG LONG way. I think I used 2 tbs tops of this sauce.

I keep logs of fresh mozz. on hand as we buy in bulk from Costco. Fresh mozzarella is higher in protein and lower in fat than a lot of cheeses, making it an excellent staple in my house.

I preheated the oven to 350 and baked this guy for about 10 minutes and then topped with fresh basil. Despite forgetting the tomatoes, it was perfection. The perfect portion and taste to satisfy my craving.

Food Rut

Some of you have asked me what and if I have been cooking lately.....



And I am feeling bad about it.....

I am finding myself in somewhat of a clean eating rut these days. I haven't been experimenting with receipes like I did over the summer and I haven't been cooking nearly enough. Thankfully, there are many clean eating options near my office, however, my wallet is certainly getting a workout.

I took some turkey meat out of the freezer today to make a big batch of Jamie Eason's Turkey Muffins, but I get bored with these pretty quickly.

Today, I am setting a small goal to do a week's worth of cooking on Sunday, like I used to. Time to find some fun, clean recipes! I look forward to sharing them with all of you!

Lex.