These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things.

In the last couple of weeks, I've become really interested in expanding my food horizons.  There are so many foods and superfoods out there that are just waiting to be eaten.  Here are a couple of my new favorites...


The first superfood that I mentioned in my last entry are chia seeds. Chia seeds are a gelatinous food because of the gel like substance they become when they get wet.  This helps with the digestive process and clearing out the digestive tract.  They have 27 vitamins, minerals and amino acids as well as fatty acids. They also have 42% of our daily fiber intake.  A good place to check them out and get more information is Nutiva.com.  I'm sure after you read all of this, you have to be wondering how to incorporate these magical seeds into your diet.  Well, you can pretty much mix them into anything.  I usually mix it into my kefir or yogurt but I've also just put a serving into water and let them set a bit and just drank them down.  You can put them in your juice or smoothies too.  They are tasteless so the sky is the limit when it comes to consuming them.

I've had a bunch of people that have read my blog say to me that they haven't heard of many of the foods that I eat.  I'm going to go ahead and assume that Kefir is one of those. Kefir is a fermented probiotic milk product.  Probiotics are beneficial in helping with GI functions as well as pushing the bad bacteria out of the small intestines during the digestive process. I tend to just treat it like yogurt even though it's thinner and drinkable and mix in muesli (whole grain granola), chia seeds and hemp seeds.  I also try to avoid a lot of sugar so I buy the  plain and just add stevia or truvia to it.  Add it to your smoothies or I suppose you could mix it in your juices or simply drink it to reap the benefits of this fast absorbing food (faster than yogurt). Check out Lifeway.net for more information.

I'd like to switch gears a bit and get into a little fitness  talk because I feel like it's been a while.  I hope you have been incorporating stretching in your exercise routines like I mentioned a few entries ago.  The next thing I suggest adding into your workouts if you don't already do them are some functional exercises.  They are called functional because they are motions that are used in everyday life. It can be something as simple as walking up stairs or sitting down and getting up from a chair.  The two exercises I'm going to introduce today are both just using body weight.  To challenge yourself you can always add weight as long as you are using proper form. 

The squat incorporates all lower body muscle groups such as quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes.  When doing a squat, it's very important to protect your knees so technique is essential. 

Let me take a moment and preface the photos...first of all, I never, I repeat, never work out with my hair down.  I'd pass out of heat exhaustion or drown in my sweat.  I just couldn't find my ponytail holder.  Lastly, fitness photos where people are smiling are unrealistic and look pretty silly though for this photo of showing where your feet should start would be super awkward if I just mean mugged the camera hence the cheesy smile.  So here we go, let's squat.  Start with your feet shoulder width apart with both feet facing forward. Weight should be evenly distributed through toes to heels.

To perfrom the exercise, pretend you have a chair behind you...sit your butt back first as you start to bend your knees.  The weight should shift into your heels and you should be able to lift up your toes at the bottom of the exercise.  The reason for this is to make sure your knees are protected.  The rule of thumb is your knees should never cross the plane of your toes.  You can start by putting a chair behind you and lightly touching down just to get a feel for sitting back and allowing your weight to shift.  Lastly, always keep your chest up and shoulders back.  Good posture is alway key for any exercise you do.

The lunge is a little more complicated than the squat but also works the quads, glutes and hamstrings.  Start with your feet together and take an oversized step forward.  In this position you are going to keep good posture and instead of leaning into your front leg to perform the lunge, you are going to drop your back knee towards the ground.  This will ensure you are continuing to stand up tall and it will also protect those knee joints.  The same rule applies for lunges as they do squats...no knees should cross the plane of the toes.

So there you have it.  If you're a beginner just start out with body weight.  If you're a little more advanced feel free to hold onto some dumbbells to make the exercises more difficult. 

Go three sets of 15 repetitions for each exercise and you should start to feel the hurts so good burn.  You can always up your rep counts to challenge yourself.  Ask my clients, I'm not afraid to do sets of 50 reps with them...gosh they're lucky...maybe that will be the Memorial Day special.