This year my husband and I are cooking Thanksgiving for his family. As I perpetual planner, I needed to get the menu all straight in my head. This is the only way that I can relax and ease into the holiday.  I spent the weekend scouring my cookbooks and old Cooking Light magazines and this is what I’ve come up with.

We are going to deep fry a turkey, I know I said FRIED. Well surprisingly deep fried turkey has only 25 more calories in 3.5 ounces than traditional roasted turkey and only 4 more grams of fat. Instead on focusing on those small caloric difference, I focusing on how much it’s going to free up my oven and not make my house feel like a sauna.  (more…)

If you put one crab in a bucket without a top it will escape, but if you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket, they will not escape, they will claw away at each other so that not one crab can escape.

Are you surrounded by crabs, you know those people who know matter what new thing you try in life, they always have something usually negative to say about it’  The key to anything that you do, is to surround yourself with people who will support you and help you build on your strengths and not tear you down when you are trying to spread your wings and grow.

Have a story about a crab in your life’ I would love to hear it.

You have to believe in yourself when no one else does. That’s what makes you a winner. Venus Williams — tennis star

I have had a breast cancer scare in October 0f 2008.  Two months prior was the happiest time of my life, I had just got in engaged! Then my routine monthly breast exam, I discovered a lump.
I remember sitting down my fiance — now husband — and telling him of my discovery. To help make me laugh, he said you certainly know how to put the vow in sickness and health to the test. He went through the entire process with me holding my hand and telling everything was going to be okay.

Thankfully my lump turned out to me a calcium deposit, and I have a scar on my left breast as a reminder that I should continue to do regular self breast exams, because what if it wasn’t calcium deposit.  Below are 8 ways to help prevent breast cancer

1. Maintain a healthy weight — if you been looking to lose a little weight maybe this is the motivation you need to get started.
2. Exercise — get moving at least 30-40 minutes/day
3. Eat your Omegas 3/6/9 — this include nuts, seeds and oily fish.
4. Get a mammogram — I know it may be uncomfortable and maybe hard to fit into your schedule, but it could save your life.
5. Regular self exams — doing this could save your breast and your life.
6. Know your family history — if anyone in your family has had breast cancer, be sure to inform your doctor you maybe genetically predisposed to breast cancer. Once I discovered my lump within the 5 years both my mother and sister discovered calcium deposits. Again better safe than sorry.
7. Limit alcohol intake — its been found that alcohol may increase the toxins in body that contribute to breast and other cancers. Plus its hard to maintain a healthy weight if you are drinking all of your calories.
8. Eat fruits and veggies — they contain antioxidant vitamins and nutrients

This is too funny. I think I may have ESP. I have been reading this Elizabeth blog for almost a year and she always seems to read my mind. Today I was going to sit down and write a blog about stepping up and embracing your moment. Well Elizabeth PW did it so wonderfully, you deserve to read it.

My moment happened in December and I pushed it in the corner because I was to0 scared and thought that I wasn’t worthy okay let’s call it what it is SCARED SHITLESS of my moment. Could I be bigger than I am today, could everything I want really want come happen if I stood up to my fear’  Anyone have those thoughts’ Not sure about you but my negative thoughts SCREAM!

Well — I am no longer hiding. Next week I leave to attend a seminar with Alwyn and Rachel Cosgrove. Prior the event they sent a 3 page questionnaire that really helps you get you mind straight and ready to hit the ground running once you go there, but also want actions will you take once you get home.

Don’t let fear, money, time what have you get in the way of your moment.  Someone once told me — NOTHING WORTH HAVING COMES EASY!

Have you had your moment’

Here in Boston today is the first day of school for most kids. Every year at this time I feel like its time to reset the clock and refocus on my 2010 goals, with approximately 116 days left until January 1, 2011. I have plenty of time to make major headway. (more…)

For me September always signals change.
Change in your laid back summer attitude, kids going back to school, the return of traffic (at least here in Boston). So why not take this time to change your breakfast. What do you typically grab for breakfast’ It is highly CARB based — bagel, fat free or low fat muffin, just coffee or heaven forbid NOTHING!

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and by adding a few more grams of protein, it will keeps us from indulging in sugary snacks later in the day.  Here are some snack ideas:

• Scrambled egg whites with spinach and Ezekiel toast — don’t have time’ microwave eggs while in the shower and stick in the toast
• Add some egg whites — don’t judge eggs are in all baked goods, why not oatmeal or protein powder to your oatmeal
• Plain Greek yogurt or cottage cheese with some fresh or frozen (non-sugar added) fruit or wheat germ.
• Whole wheat waffles and egg whites or Greek Yogurt or cottage cheese.

If you have any more breakfast ideas, I would love to hear them just post them in the comments below.

I teach a number of group fitness classes that require 2 sets of weight. (1) heavy for your lower body and (1) lighter weight for your upper body. It never ceases to amaze me how many women under estimate their strength or better yet think that lifting heavy will cause them to BULK UP so they grab 3 pound dumbbells. Seriously ladies if I were to take your backpacks, laptop bags or purses and put it on a scale it would weigh more than 3 pounds.  In fact the average women’s purse weighs about the same as a sack of sugar. PS> Sugar comes in 5 pound sacks.

So the next time you reach for the 3 pound weight think about this: If you don’t have a regular strength training program in your 20s, you will lose appx 5 pounds of muscle every decade! That means that by the time you are 70 you will bearly be able to lift a sack of groceries, a gallon of milk or even your grandkids.

So come ladies reach for the big weights the benefits of strength training are amazing, sides would having Madonna arms really be that bad’ PS … She didn’t get them from just doing yoga.

I have worked in the Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood for a number of years and have always wanted to go to the Copley Square Farmers Market, but for some reason I never had the time.  Looking back it makes me laugh because the market is open Tuesdays and Fridays 11-6 so why couldn’t I sneak over and check out what they have to offer. Well I FINALLY made it over to the market and it was awesome. I picked up the best corn on the cob, the juiciest tomatoes and the best blueberries. I could go on and on and on.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve picked up some of the best and freshest produce I have gotten in years. The farmer’s market runs until November and according all the warm weather that we have been experiencing in New England has produced bumper crops this year.

The farmers market has had such an influence on me that I’m considering joining a CSA farm, community supported association. That means that each week during the main growing season and bi-weekly during the winter month I would receive local produce or meats.  Gotta go, it’s Friday and I want to make sure I get the best selection and a parking spot.

This has been the topic of discussion this week, with a number of my clients. Many are asking about making more improvements with their body composition. I know what their workouts look like, but I don’t know what they are doing in the kitchen. When we go through their food journals we realize that they are not getting enough protein in their diets. (more…)

So many people ask, how do you do it’ Here are a few easy weight loss tips. I TRACK EVERYTHING, I have been writing down my food and my workouts for years. Some may say really or I just don’t have the time. My response is how will you know what is going on when you don’t lose weight or you’re not increasing your weight in regular increments.  What is your track record’ I look at this as my fitness bank account. I wouldn’t just write checks without keeping track of the checks I wrote, and some how you have time to write that down. Think of this in the same way. (more…)

That’s right, drinking chocolate milk after a HARD work out will aid in helping your muscles recover. Now let me reiterate HARD workout, if you just went a did a light workout and didn’t break a sweat, you won’t need a post workout recovery.  But if you did come back from a long bike ride, run or hike chocolate milk will help you recover better than some of those other high beverages. Why”

• Plain water just replaces the water you sweat out during your workout
• Carbohydrate laden beverages just builds and replaces your glycogen (stored muscle carbs)
• Carbohydrates and Protein combination not only replaces the glycogen but studies have that you see a double % increase in glycogen, plus the protein also helps your muscles to recover and repair.

I am a big advocate of using whole foods, but for post workouts chocolate milk will do the trick.  Just remember you need to be in a hard workout to earn the chocolate. In honor of National Chocolate Milk Day go out for a hard workout and enjoy!!

I am once again running the Falmouth road race with my husband. Last year was our first year, now we’re thinking about making it an annual thing.  We are just a little behind in our running schedule, but we’re planning catch up this week. My first run was last Saturday night when the temperature was roughly 85 degrees. FUN.. Which is really funny given the last time I ran any long distance (January) we were looking to see when the warmest part of the day was going to be.

So the run we good but really hot, we ran again yesterday and the 3.5 miles felt much better. I am experiencing so side stitches, need to work getting my breathing in synch as well as my food timing. I think the last two times I had large meals that didn’t fully digest before I went for my run.

We’re suppose to run tonight to make up for our missed run on Sunday, but mother nature had another plan for us. It’s POURING, so we’ll be running both days this weekend to play catch up.

I’ll keep you posted on our progress.  Goal this year is to run 7.1 miles in less than 1 hour.