YOU CAN DO THIS. |
Everybody can be healthy; sometimes people just need a little encouragement and someone to show them where to start. I am here to encourage you.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Motivational Thursday
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Spirulina- The Superfood
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Spirulina contains a high amount of protein, vitamins, and minerals. It is about 60-70% protein, which is greater gram for gram than both red meat and soy. It also contains all of the essential amino acids, which makes it a complete protein; this is not very common in plant foods. It contains a large amount of Vitamin B12, which is very difficult to find in other plant foods. That is one reason why Spirulina is such a great choice for vegetarians. Spirulina is very rich in iron, which is the most common mineral deficiency. Spirulina also contains calcium, magnesium, and Vitamins A, B, C, D and E. Due to its ability to withstand high temperatures, it is able to retain its nutritional value during processing and shelf storage. Many other plant foods will deteriorate at these temperatures. It only contains 3.9 calories per gram and still has all of these great benefits. It is a low calorie, nutrient dense food. diabetics to control their food cravings, which would result in decreased insulin intake. It also has been used to help with weight loss/treat obesity, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, hay fever, stress, anxiety, fatigue, depression, and premenstrual syndrome. It may also help with alcoholism, herpes, arthritis, and cancer. As little as 2-3 grams per day can have great health benefits. practitioner before adding Spirulina to their diet. Also, it should not be used by anyone who might have auto immune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), lupus, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and pemphigus vulgaris; because it may cause the immune system to become more active, it may increase the symptoms of these diseases. It should also be avoided by anyone who has Phenylketonuria, a metabolic disorder where the body cannot metabolize phenylalanine, since Spirulina contains phenylalanine and may make Phenylketonuria worse. You can also tap a little onto salads for a little protein boost. Enjoy! Monica |
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Friday, September 23, 2011
Giveaway #2!!
1. If you haven't found us on Facebook yet, do so. We are listed under "Healthy Happens By Choice".
2. "Like" our page.
3. Send all your friends over and have them "Like" our Facebook page as well.
4. Have your friends leave a post on our wall with YOUR name so we know who sent them. (Your friends can also enter by sending their friends too!)
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Motivational Thuraday
The only person to ever compete with in life is yourself. In your career, personal life, fitness goals, parenting techniques, etc. know what you are capable of, then push yourself to expand a little further. Step outside your comfort zone {if even for a short time} and allow yourself the opportunity to grow.
XOXO Aleisha
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Spa Day at Home for a Healthy Self
However, I am a fan of pampering and skin and hair that glows with health! So where do I find my common ground? With these DIY home spa recipes.....
Avacado Carrot Cream MaskThis mask combines avocados, which are rich in Vitamin E, with carrots, which are high in beta-carotene and antioxidants, and cream, which is high in calcium and protein. These ingredients will rebuild skin collagen, improve tone and texture, and fade age spots.
*it is rare that I have heavy cream on hand, so I improvise with plain organic yogurt* Deep Conditioner Blend up this simple recipe for a deep hair conditioning treatment that will leave your hair soft and silky. The fats in the avocado and heavy cream are rich in emollients that quickly penetrate the hair, while the honey keeps your scalp's moisture level at an optimum balance -- not too dry or too oily -- and acts as a natural antibacterial agent. 1 avocado, peeled and cut into chunks 2 tablespoons heavy cream1 tablespoon honey Mix ingredients in a blender. Comb mixture through freshly washed hair. Wrap head in plastic (a grocery bag will do), and cover with a towel. Let sit for 15 minutes, and rinse well. Banana Facial Recipe:
Beauty Benefit: The potassium and natural oils in the banana and the high fat and protein (plus vitamins A, D, and E) in avocado moisturizes and refreshes dry or sun-damaged skin. If you have a favorite DIY recipe you would like to share with the rest of us, please email me at aleishamartin@gmail.com! XOXO Aleisha |
Monday, September 19, 2011
Tomato Soup. Quick and With a Kick.
This is a great soup... it is fast and amazing and pairs well with grilled cheese sandwiches. If you're making it for the littles, you might want to cut back on the red pepper flakes. It is a little on the spicy side for them. Enjoy!
3 tbsp Olive Oil {i substitute in Coconut Oil}
2 Carrots, peeled and chopped
1 Small Onion, chopped
1 Clove Garlic, minced
1 26oz jar Marinara Sauce {i like to choose an organic sauce with basil in it}
2 14oz cans Chicken Broth
1 15oz can Cannellini Beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
1/2 C Pastina Pasta {or any small pasta}
1/2 tsp Freshly Ground Black Pepper
Warm the oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the carrots and onion, saute until soft, about 5 mins. Then add the garlic, saute for another minute. Add the jar of marinara sauce, chicken broth, cannellini beans, red pepper flakes, pasta, and black pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes.
Effortless Chicken Burritos
Chicken Burritos
4 frozen chicken breasts {frozen. you got that, right?}
15 oz corn {i choose to cook corn on the cob and then cut it off the ear}
15 oz can black beans
1 16oz jar of salsa {im slightly obsessed with Herdez medium salsa}
Place all four ingredients in the crock pot for 4-6 hours {until chicken is cooked enough to shred easily}. Shred chicken and stir all ingredients together. Place in soft tortillas, add spinach, a little bit of cheese, and more salsa {if you're a salsa freak like me}.
XOXO Aleisha
Protein Balls
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Motivational Thursday
Chances are, yesterday, you said "tomorrow". There is no better day to start than today.
xoxo Aleisha
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Legs
Monday, September 12, 2011
Tasty lil' Pistachios
Here's the scoop on pistachios... (Pun intended.) No really, pistachios are one of the lowest-fat, lowest-calorie and highest-fiber nuts. Plus, they offer the most nuts/kernels per serving (1 oz.) compared to any other snack nut – 49 to be exact. And... in that ounce, they provide 12% of your daily fiber, twice than an ounce of walnuts and about the same amount as in a serving of oatmeal. Snack on, my friends.
Enjoy!
Monica
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Sunday, September 11, 2011
How Are Your Gym Manners Stacking Up?
Oh my. That's what I was saying to myself at the gym the other day as I got on a treadmill and noticed the glistening puddles of sweat left behind from a previous exerciser. Sigh.
Anytime you smush groups of sweaty people together in small spaces, there are bound to be problems and, though there may not be rules posted around the gym for how to act, there are some unspoken rules that all of us should be familiar with, whether we're veteran exercisers or we're just starting out.
The Basics
While it's perfectly acceptable to sweat, grunt and make mean faces while working out, there are a few behaviors that aren't acceptable. Here are just a few rules for getting along with your fellow exercisers:
- Share. If you're doing multiple sets on a machine, it's common courtesy to let others work in during your rest periods. This may not always be practical, but offer to share whenever you can.
- Clean up After Yourself. My biggest pet peeve is someone who walks away from a machine, leaving a slimy pool of sweat behind. Thanks! Always bring a towel with you and wipe the machines down when you're finished. Most gyms offer wipes or sprays strategically located around the gym for this purpose.
- Leave no trace. My next biggest pet peeve is the person who leaves six million pounds on the leg press machine. I don't know, maybe I look stronger than I am. The point is, always put your weights back when you're finished.
- Don't hog the treadmill. Many gyms have time limits on cardio machines during busy hours. There's a reason for that, and you should obey it. And no, throwing your towel over the display doesn't fool me.
- Keep it down. Most gym-goers I know have seen That Guy. The one pumping away on the treadmill while screaming into a cell phone. Unless it's an emergency, save your chat-time for after your workouts.
- Cover it up. I respect the confidence that allows some people to walk around the locker room naked. Know what else I respect? Seeing you wearing a towel after your shower to keep the locker room a comfortable place for everyone.
How to Workout at the Gym
There are days when I cringe watching people workout. I see people flinging weights wildly, dropping heavy weights on the floor, hanging onto treadmills for dear life and just generally using bad form with their exercises. Here are a few tips for getting an effective workout without hurting yourself:
- Use good form. Good form is different depending on what exercise you're doing but, in general, good form includes the following:
- Don't swing your weights. Unless you're doing a sports specific workout, use slow and controlled movements. If you have to heave the weight up, it's too heavy.
- Don't drop or throw the weights down. That's a great way to break a toe--yours or someone else's. If you're using a heavy weight, have a spotter nearby to help you.
- Don't lock your joints. When you get to the end of a motion--like a squat--keep your joints soft to avoid hurting yourself.
- Don't slump. Keep your abs engaged during all of your exercises and stand up straight to avoid injury and get the most out of your exercises.
- Learn how to use the machines properly. I've seen people doing crunches on a leg press machine. If you don't know how a machine works, either look at the diagrams on the machine or ask someone to show you how it works. Most gym-goers are happy to help.
- Learn how to set up a good workout for your goals. Rather than just showing up at the gym and randomly picking machines, have a plan before you walk in the door. This might mean hiring a trainer or educating yourself about the basics of exercise.
- Learn how to monitor your intensity. Since I started training, I've seen more than a few people puke after working too hard on the cardio machines. Beginner's often aren't sure of how much they can handle and end up working too hard, exercising too soon after eating or exercising without having eaten at all, all of which can cause stomach problems. Educate yourself on how to monitor your intensity and the right way to begin a cardio program.
xoxo Aleisha
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Coconut Oil Amazingness
Skin Care:
Heart Diseases:
Weight Loss
Digestion
Immunity:
Healing and Infections
Other:
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Why Lifting Weights Is SO Important For Women
I got this article from womenshealthmag.com and it explains why lifting weights is just as important if not MORE important than cardio for women. Learn how to get rid of the flab:
The Best Strength Training For Women
LAUREN AARONSON
Tired of sweating all over every piece of cardio equipment at the gym and still getting zero love from the scale? You need more iron. Not in your diet—in your hands. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, a mere 21 percent of women strength train two or more times a week. What you don't know: When you skip the weight room, you lose out on the ultimate flab melter. Those two sessions a week can reduce overall body fat by about 3 percentage points in just 10 weeks, even if you don't cut a single calorie. That translates to as much as three inches total off your waist and hips. Even better, all that new muscle pays off in a long-term boost to your metabolism, which helps keep your body lean and sculpted. Suddenly, dumbbells sound like a smart idea. Need more convincing? Read on for more solid reasons why you should build flex time into your day.
Torch Calories 24/7
Though cardio burns more calories than strength training during those 30 sweaty minutes, pumping iron slashes more overall. A study in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that women who completed an hour-long workout burned an average of 100 more calories in the 24 hours afterward than they did when they hadn't lifted weights. At three sessions a week, that's 15,600 calories a year, or about four and a half pounds of fat—without having to move a muscle.
What's more, increasing that after burn is as easy as upping the weight on your bar. In a study in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, women burned nearly twice as many calories in the two hours after their workout when they lifted 85 percent of their max load for eight reps than when they did more reps (15) at a lower weight (45 percent of their max).
There's a longer-term benefit to all that lifting, too: Muscle accounts for about a third of the average woman's weight, so it has a profound effect on her metabolism, says Kenneth Walsh, director of Boston University School of Medicine's Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute. Specifically, that effect is to burn extra calories, because muscle, unlike fat, is metabolically active. In English: Muscle chews up calories even when you're not in the gym. Replace 10 pounds of fat with 10 pounds of lean muscle and you'll burn an additional 25 to 50 calories a day without even trying.
Target Your Trouble Spots
If you've ever tried to ditch the saddlebags and ended up a bra size smaller instead, you know that where you lose is as important as how much. As great as it might be to see the numbers on the scale go down, when you're on a strict cardio-only program your victory is likely to be empty. A recent study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham compared dieters who lifted three times a week with those who did aerobic exercise for the same amount of time. Both groups ate the same number of calories, and both lost the same amount—26 pounds—but the lifters lost pure chub, while about 8 percent of the aerobicizers' drop came from valuable muscle. Researchers have also found that lifting weights is better than cardio at whittling intra-abdominal fat—the Buddha-belly kind that's associated with diseases from diabetes to cancer.
Just don't rely exclusively on the scale to track your progress in the battle of the bulge. Because muscle is denser than fat, it squeezes the same amount of weight into less space. "Often, our clients' scales won't drop as fast, but they'll fit into smaller jeans," says Rachel Cosgrove, owner of Results Fitness in Santa Clarita, California. And it's the number on the tag inside your bootcuts you want to get lower, right?
Start Pumping
Begin with three weight-training sessions each week, recommends Joe Dowdell, founder and co-owner of the New York City gym Peak Performance. For the greatest calorie burn, aim for total-body workouts that target your arms, abs, legs, and back, and go for moves that will zap several different muscle groups at a time—for example, squats, which call on muscles in both the front and back of your legs, as opposed to leg extensions, which isolate the quads.
For each exercise you do, try to perform three sets of 10 to 12 reps with a weight heavy enough that by your last rep you can't eke out another one without compromising your form. To spark further muscle, William Kraemer, Ph.D., a professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut, suggests alternating moderate-intensity workouts of 8 to 10 reps with lighter-weight 12- to 15-rep sets and super-hard 3- to 5-rep sets. (For a more detailed fat-blasting workout, check out "Do This at Home," below.)
And remember to fuel your workout properly. Too many dieters make the fatal error of cutting back on crucial muscle-maintaining protein when they want to slash their overall calorie intake. The counterproductive result: They lose muscle along with any fat that might have melted away. Sports nutritionist Cassandra Forsythe, Ph.D., co-author of The New Rules of Lifting for Women, recommends that you eat one gram of protein for every pound of your body weight that does not come from fat. For instance, a 140-pound woman whose body fat is 25 percent would need 105 grams of high-quality protein. That's roughly four servings a day; the best sources are chicken or other lean meats, soy products, and eggs.
Ready to turn yourself into a lean, mean, calorie-torching machine? Then go get pumped!
Do This At Home
Get ripped with this WH exclusive
Personal trainer Rachel Cosgrove, owner of Results Fitness in Santa Clarita, California, created a built-to-burn strength-training routine exclusively for Women's Health readers that you can tap into online. Each move works multiple muscle groups, so you'll burn a ton of calories and rev your metabolism into high gear for 24 to 48 hours afterward. For best results, do 10 to 12 reps of each move, breaking just long enough to catch your breath in between; repeat for two to three sets. Get the workout.
Love,
Monica
This electronic mail (including any attachments) may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and/or otherwise protected from disclosure to anyone other than its intended recipient(s). Any dissemination or use of this electronic mail or its contents (including any attachments) by persons other than the intended recipient(s) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify us immediately by reply e-mail so that we may correct our internal records. Please then delete the original message (including any attachments) in its entirety. Thank you.