Today was another awesome team workout! The workout was as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes.  Here we're 5 stations with one being a pacesetter.  The stations were
 
Power wheel walk 1 lap (pacesetter)
Med ball kicks
Push ups
Lunge jumps
2 hand kettlebell swings
 
Everyone had a station and worked until the pace setter finished.  We kept track of how many push ups and swings were done through the whole workout for each team to determine te team score.  
 
Team 1 was Cheryl, Joe, Beth, Kelly, Tyler
Team 1 was Lisa, Mike G, Beth, Karen, Mike O
 
Team 1 won he day with 978 to Team 2 with 959 .
 
Everyone did an awesome job and worked really hard!   

I just wanted to let you know that I'll be starting a new Beginner Class on Tuesday March 20 at a new time next week.  The class will be on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 8:45 AM to 9:45 AM.  The class will run for 4 weeks ending on April 12 and then it will become part of the regular schedule.  If you'd like to take part or know someone that would like to take part in this class then send me an email and let me know. 

This isn't going to be a sciency or logical argument to get you to try to eat your vegetables, it's just something that stood out to me today as I was cleaning up from dinner. 

Eat your vegetables! I used to be pretty adamant about NOT eating vegetables when I was a kid.  I got punished plenty because I would fight as hard as I could not to have to eat whatever it was that my mom had cooked that day.  The worst were brussel sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus and spinach, I used to dread dinners when mom was making any of those.  Tonight I cooked a pretty cool stir fry that had broccoli, asparagus and onions and it was AWESOME (Kate even said so!)  Now the veggies I used to despise are my staple vegetables, and I'm always looking for new ways to make them tasty.

When I got older and didn't have to eat vegetables if I didn't want to, well I pretty much stopped eating vegetables, unless we were at a family gathering or something like that, where it would have been rude not to eat whatever was served.  Fast forward a few years and I was carrying around 230 pounds, a 36-38 inch waist (from a 32 that I was in high school), a whole bunch of joint problems and I'm sure, a metabolic mess.  Enter Paleo nutrition, I started eating a lot of vegetables that I never thought I would have again (at the time if I never saw a brussel sprout again it would have been too soon).  I also made sure I found ways to make a vegetable tasty, once I could make a veggie taste awesome, it became a matter of creativity and what can I try next.  Since I started eating Paleo, my weight seems to have settled around 190 and I wear a 32-33 inch waist size.  Now go eat your veggies!

_I was watching the playoff games and something dawned on me.  It's obvious the players are in excellent shape. Why do these guys train the way they do?  The main purpose of their training is to be better athletes: run faster jump higher, play longer. Another huge reason is to be able to handle the rigors of the game; these guys hit each other HARD!  While no amount of training can prevent all accidental injuries, I know I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one of those hits. But these guys do it over and over again for four 15 minute quarters. 

How does this apply to what we do?  Well, even though we're probably not going to be heading to the NFL, we have our own hits that we take: work, kids, obnoxious boss, finances, etc.  One of the reasons we train the way we do is to be able to handle the shots that come at us--to handle them and keep moving forward. 

_Today was a wicked fun Team Workout!  Everyone did an awesome job this morning. 

Today was a partner workout
20 Push up
10/10 Med ball passes
(M) 3200k from ground to overhead
(W) 1600k from ground to overhead
10/10 Med ball passes
20 Push ups

Only one person could work at a  time, each person had to do their push ups then for the med ball passes we were about 12 feet apart, the guys used a 16# med ball and the ladies used an 8# med ball.  We had to do a full squat and throw the med ball to our partner, if the ball dropped the rep didn't count.  For the ground to overhead, the guys all used 2 16k kettlebells and the ladies used 2 8k kettlebells, the object was to lift the bells until we got the respective amount done (32k x 100 reps = 3200k) then back to med ball passes and we finished with some more push ups.  It was a great challenge! 

We did this workout for time and here are the teams and their results:

Mike G and Hunter 11:01
Joe and Tyler 9:07
Lisa and Forrest 9:05
Beth and Cheryl 8:54
Dana and Dan 7:39

Granite State Kettlebells is mentioned in the Keene Sentinel!

Warming up, Staying Strong Can Help Minimize Injuries

_My friend Sarah Canney wrote a great blog post about eating clean, as you go through the 30 day challenge, you'll probably see some similarities with yourself and what Sarah has written about.

Check out her blog The Runner-Mom Chronicles here:

How NOT to be a Bloated Ball of Crap: How eating Paleo changed the way I think of food

_ 30 DAY NUTRITION CHALLENGE!!

To help start off 2012 on a healthy note Granite State Kettlebells is going to have a 30 Day Nutrition Challenge.  Nutrition is truly the heart of fitness, without proper nutrition there are only marginal benefits from working out.  

To be part of this challenge you need to commit to eating only 'Paleo' foods for 30 days.  The more people that do this the easier it will be to stick to it.  I will use the Granite State Kettlebells blog to post tips, recipes and answer questions during the 30 Day Challenge.  If you have any recipes, strategies that are helping you, let me know so I can post it on the blog to help everyone participating!

The Challenge will start on Monday, January 2 and finish on Wednesday February 1.

During this 30 days, don’t worry about portion size, eat until your satisfied.  The goal is changing what foods your eating for 30 days not the amount, portion size can be tweaked later if necessary.

If you’d like to, but by no means is this necessary, you can take a before and after picture.  If you do and you like what you see and you’d like to share it then I’ll post it to the website.

I’d like to have an “After Challenge” party. The location and time are TBD! (any volunteers?)

If you want to take part in this then send me an email letting me know you want to take part so I can have an idea of how many of us will be doing it.

Now for all of you that are accepting the 30 Day Paleo Challenge (especially if this is the first time), welcome to an awesome month of helping yourself perform, feel and look better!  I’d like to help you get started with a couple of helpful tips to help keep you going for the full 30 days.  A lot of what is below is taken from Robb Wolf’s Quick Start guide.

Clean out your cupboards of anything non-paleo (sugars, grains, pasta etc).  Unfortunately, as human beings we really don’t have that much self control, so removing temptation is the best way to help you keep going for the 30 days.  

Go.Shopping.Now. It’s time to fill your cupboards with food worth eating.

Protein - ideally these items are grass fed or wild caught, but if you can’t get them that way should you eat a bagel - NO!  Getting them from a supermarket will work just fine.  Beans and rice don’t count.
Land - beef, lamb, pork
Sea - salmon, cod, haddock - fishy stuff - we’re in New England it shouldn’t be too hard to get this!
Air - Turkey, Chicken, Duck, Ostrich(even though ostriches are flightless, they’re tasty!)
Round things out with some nitrate free bacon, omega 3 enriched eggs, chicken sausage for some awesome breakfasts!

Veggies
Ideally these are locally grown and organic. If you can’t get them that way should you eat a bagel - NO!  The supermarket will have what you need.  Be sure to mix up the colors.

Fruits
If fat loss is your main goal then limit your fruit intake, to 1 or 2 servings per day.  If you go bonkers with the fruit all the excess fruit sugars (albeit natural) will cause an insulin spike and keep the fat on.  In order of preference: Berries, melons, citrus, apples, pears. Bananas, papayas and mangoes are great for athletes post workout but dodgy for folks who want to lose weight.

Fats
Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Avocado (oil and whole), coconut, macadamia (oil and whole), almonds, cashews, walnuts.  Because of the types of fats that nuts have limit the amount of nuts you have if fat loss is your main goal, a handful or two is good, the whole can or bag isn’t!

 

Odds and Ends
Marinara sauce, herbs, spices-curry powder, garlic, ginger, cilantro, garam massala, chili powder, black pepper, lemon zest, allspice, cinnamon, cumin, oregano, and basil. Get at least 20 herbs and spices to keep your cooking lively. Stock up on espresso, teas and mineral water as these are your beverages of choice.

 

COOK!!!

The majority of your meals should include something like this:

One of the proteins listed above

Several servings of vegetables - steamed or lightly cooked (don’t boil the veggies!)

Finally, round out the meal with good fats from Avocado, olive oil or a handful of un-salted nuts such as almonds, pecans, macadamias or walnuts.

 

SLEEP!!!

This one seems a little out of place for a nutrition challenge, but if you’ll do everything in your power to get a solid 8+ hours of sleep your results will tons better than just changing what you eat!  Being a new Dad, I definitely know the challenge of getting a solid 4 hours of sleep but do your best!

Black out your room. No, REALLY black out your room. No LED lights from alarm clocks, fire alarms, TV’s etc. Do not watch TV or check email for at least 1 hour before bed. Go to bed early, get at least 8- 9 hrs of sleep. You should wake up without an alarm, feeling refreshed.

 

 

Question: Isn’t eating Paleo boring?   There’s not too many categories of foods to choose from.

Answer: NO, if you find eating Paleo boring then you’re probably being a bit on the lazy side.  Below is a version of Robb Wolf’s Food Matrix to dispel the notion that you are bored (and to show you how easy it is to make fantastic meals quickly AND with few ingredients) we will consider a few items we can get from virtually any supermarket. Perhaps a few items are exotic, DO NOT split hairs. If your local supermarket is missing a few of these items it does not invalidate the concept. Ok, let’s consider our food options and after the introduction of the food matrix we can consider how to customize this for your specific needs.

 

Protiens
Chicken thigh
Turkey Breast
Cod
Rib eye steak
Pork Chops
Salmon
New York steak
Pork ribs

Vegetables
Asparagus
Brussel sprouts
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Spinach
Zucchini
Summer squash
Peppers of any color

Fats
Olive oil
Macadamia oil
Avocado oil
Lard
Coconut oil

Herbs and Spices
All spice
Basil
Cinnamon
Curry
Garlic
Oregano
Nutmeg
Paprika

So that leaves us with 8 Proteins, 8 Veggies, 5 fats, 8 herbs and spices.  If we take one item from each column we get 8x8x5x8=2560 different meals with the extremely limited list above.  If you were to have 3 meals a day with just those ingredients you’d have a different meal each time you ate for over 2 years.  Now I know you can think of a whole bunch more things to put on that list so you’ve got lots of meals to choose from!

Most of those meals can be made in the following easy manner:

Put oil in a pan
Brown some meat in the oil
Add your spice (depending on the spice either before or after you brown the meat)
Add veggies
Stir it a few times then cover it for 5-10 minutes
If it’s done eat it, if not leave it on for a few more minutes

This process is how I cook a lot of my meals, and they turn out GREAT.What this all boils down to is “boredom” does NOT exist. Laziness might, boredom, absolutely not. We are not even considering combo meals, with multiple spices, veggies etc. There is, in fact a nearly infinite number of meal combinations, just in this matrix. We are not even considering ethnic foods, fusion cooking or considerations of cooking techniques like braising vs. baking vs. broiling.

 

GIDDY UP BUTTERCUP! NOW THAT YOU’RE EXCUSES ARE DONE...GO COOK!

 

Below is taken from this blog post by Melissa Hartwig co-founder of Whole 9 Life

Tough Love

Here comes the tough love. This is for those of you who are taking on this life-changing month, but aren’t sure you can actually pull it off, cheat free, for a full 30 days. This is for the people who have tried this before, but who “slipped” or “fell off the wagon” or “just HAD to eat (fill in food here) because of this (fill in event here)”. This is for you.

It’s not that effing hard. (Yes, I wanted to throw an f-bomb in there.) Don’t you dare tell me this is hard. Giving up heroin is hard. Drinking your coffee black is. Not. Hard. Substituting Sunday morning French toast in favor of a giant omelet and side of crispy bacon is not hard. Eating fresh, delicious fruits and vegetables every day is not hard.  You won’t get much coddling from me on this one, you won’t get much sympathy for your “struggles”. It’s thirty days, and it’s for the most important cause on earth – the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime. So shut up and do it.

Don’t tell me you “slipped”. Unless you physically tripped and your face landed in a box of Krispy Kremes, you DID NOT SLIP.You made a choice to eat something of poor quality. It’s always a choice, so do not phrase it as if you had an accident. Commit here, 100%, for the full 30 days.

Don’t lie to me. Don’t even try.

You never, ever, ever HAVE to eat anything you don’t want to eat. You’re all big boys and girls. Toughen up. Learn to say no. Learn to stick up for yourself. Just because it’s your Mom’s birthday, or your best friend’s wedding, or your company outing does not mean you “have” to eat crappy food. It’s always a choice, and I would hope that you stopped succumbing to peer pressure in 7th grade.

This does require a bit of effort, people. If you’re cutting grains and dairy for the first time, you have to replace those calories with something. You have to make sure you’re eating enough, that your vitamins and nutrients are balanced, that you’re getting enough protein, fat and carbohydrates. Don’t expect me to fill in the blanks for you.Figure it out. There are a ton of good resources out there.  But take responsibility for your own plan. Improved health, fitness and performance doesn’t happen just because you’re now taking a pass on chocolate milk.

Post questions to comments so I can answer them for everyone. Post your commitment, if you’re up for it. Just make sure you re-read the Tough Love portion again before you sign up. And don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

 

_ Cholesterol isn't the killer some make it out to be...
http://www.drbriffa.com/2011/12/02/questions-raised-over-the-role-of-hdl-cholesterol-in-cardiovascular-disease/

Eating meat is good!
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/why-eating-animals-makes-everything-easier/ 

Be careful of the prescriptions!
http://wakeup-world.com/2011/10/07/after-27-years-no-deaths-from-vitamins-3-million-from-prescription-drugs/

Get it Done in Time

New round every 2 minutes, 10 rounds total

7/7 rotating sandbag lunges
10 push ups
15 box jumps