8 Ways To Eat Fresh

1. Plant your own backyard garden or patio garden. Do you have a green thumb? Tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, herbs, lettuces, and many more veggies and fruits can be as easy to pick as going to your own backyard. Not much of a green thumb? Small patio containers will supplement your family’s dinner nicely.

2. Free Food is always wonderful. Raspberries and blueberries can be found many times while walking along your favorite trail or next to the road. Please be sure to ask the landowner first. There are many logging areas near us and before the trees take over often wild berries thrive. Along a stream we’ve often found grapes in September.

3. Visit a Farmer’s Market or Farm Stand. These farmers grow and raise everything. If your garden didn’t do too well or if you would like a vegetable that you didn’t plant, visit a farm stand near you. The Farmer’s Market in Concord, which operates each Saturday morning, sells veggies, fruit, free range meats, eggs, and many other items you remember from your grandmother’s kitchen.

4. Welcome Localvores! Nothing is more local than buying New Hampshire raised meats. Miles Smith Farm in Loudon raise Scottish Highlander and Angus beef . You can visit their store to select beef that is naturally raised without hormones or antibiotics.

Please call 603 783 5159 or visit http://www.milessmithfarm.net for more information.

5. PYO- Pick Your Own Farms are plentiful in New England. How about strawberries from Rossview Farm? Deb and Adam from Concord always pick there and the proceeds this year are going to New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Rossview is located at 84 District 5 Rd  Concord. You can call for hours of picking 228-4872.

It won’t be long before apples picking is here. I love Appleview in Loudon.  http://www.applevieworchard.com

You can find many other fruits, veggies, and even Christmas tress at local farms. Check out this site for more information. http://www.pickyourown.org/NH.htm

6. Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)-  have summer and winter shares of crops. They grow them and you pick them up. You can have fresh all year round and not have to get your fingers dirty.

7. The Seacoast is close  enough we can almost smell the salt air.  Our favorite market is Durham Market Place http://www.durhammarketplace.com. The drive is worth the time. They have so many varieties of seafood fresh from our shores. It’s the only place I go for fresh tuna steaks. Every Monday they host a Farmer’s Market so you can take advantage of fresh produce as well.

8. Support restaurants and food vendors that buy locally produced food. The Celery Stick Café found in The Concord Food Coop prepares foods from seasonal local produce. http://www.concordfoodcoop.coop/

Don’t Drool, Its Bad for Your Keyboard!

Move over pasta, bread and rice, I have better things to add to my plate.

The amazing Jenn H. from 5:00am Concord created this recipe in order to fill her plate with more veggies. It looks great and taste even better! Keep on filling your plate with veggies.

• 2 cups Zucchini sliced thin
• 1 cup mushrooms, chopped
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3/4 cup cottage cheese
• 1/8 cup fresh Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Slice the zucchini with a mandolin and place on the bottom of a pan sprayed with peanut oil. Top with chopped mushrooms and cherry tomatoes. Sprinkle cottage cheese and Parmesan cheese on top. Season however you like, I like to add basil stirred into the cottage cheese. Bake it at 350 for 30 minutes. I have also done this with 4oz of browned ground turkey. I usually have a container of it (made up ahead) in the fridge ready to go at all times. 🙂

Enjoy!

Avocado Pick Up

Food does not have to be boring and it doesn’t have to look boring. Dress up any plate with one of these tasty sides.

These tasty nuggets are easy to make and filled with a variety of toppings that will accent your main course.

1. Half an avocado filled with plain yogurt and sprinkled with sunflower or your favorite seed. (top of the circle).
2. Dress up your snack with an avocado filled with one tablespoon olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt and pepper and drizzled with fresh squeezed lemon juice. Fantastic!
3. Serving Salmon or grilled chicken? Spruce it up with an avocado filled with mango salsa and garnished with parsley.
4. Mexican food just isn’t finished until you serve avocado, salsa, topped with green onions.

Ever wonder how to cut an avocado to serve? I learned this by reading the label so hold onto your hat, its just as easy as it sounds. Use a sharp knife slice all the way around the avocado. Hold the avocado in two hands and twist.  To pop out the seed, press a knife or a spoon on one side and loosen the seed until it comes out.

Voila’!

Now you have two half to serve up with your favorite filling. If you want the avocado out of the skin, use a large spoon and slowly go between the avocado  and the skin. Now you can slice it up for salads, or add to an omelet, or use to make guacamole.

Enjoy the foods you eat,

Coach Nancy

S3 Habit 5: Eat Healthy Fats Daily

I suppose the words “Healthy” and “Fats” are not used together all that often, because we have been led to believe that FAT is a four letter word.

But you can’t fool me, I can count better than that! 🙂

There are actually 4 primary types of fat.

3 healthy, 1 seriously unhealthy.

I will remind you again of what our friend Ryan Andrews over at Precision Nutrition has to say about fat.

Why are healthy fats so important?

Fats exert powerful effects within the body and healthy fats have been shown to offer the following benefits.

Strong evidence
Cardiovascular protection (though there is less evidence for protecting against heart failure)
Improve body composition
Alleviate depression

Average evidence
Prevent cancers
Preserve memory
Preserve eye health
Reduce incidence of aggressive behaviour
Reduce ADHD and ADD symptoms

When it comes to healthy fat, intake amount is important. People are often concerned about excess dietary fat, but not getting enough fat may also cause health problems.

We need adequate fat to support metabolism, cell signaling, the health of various body tissues, immunity, hormone production, and the absorption of many nutrients (such as vitamins A and D). Having enough fat will also help keep you feeling full between meals.

In other words, you NEED healthy fats if you want to be, well, healthy!

(Read Ryan’s Complete Article – “All About Healthy Fats”)

The first kind of fat is saturated fat, and if you eat animal protein, you usually have no problem getting that one in, maybe even a bit too much.

The other two are unsaturated fats – poly and mono. These include the Omega-3s which are found in fish such as salmon, as well as nuts, seeds and vegetable oils. Far from being unhealthy, all of these types of fats are crucial for optimal health.

It is also important to balance out the ratio of the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. The reason Omega-3 supplements are necessary for most people is that the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids has been dumped on it’s head by the way our food is raised and processed. What used to be a 1:1 ratio of 6 to 3 is now more like 16:1, and this does not allow proper cell functioning and integrity. That’s why we recommend a good Omega-3 supplement for everybody. 3-6 grams of EPA/DHA per day is the recommendation. Find more about Super Omega-3 here: Fish Oil and Why You Are Getting Ripped Off

Want to know for sure if you are getting enough Omega-3? Do what Nancy and I had done and get your blood tested. We just sent our Index Assay kit in and we will let you know the results when we get them. You can find out more about that here (we can get you the kits at a better price): http://www.sfh.com/products/omega_3-oil/omega-3_index_assay

So let’s get the bottom line

Starting next week we want you to consciously add healthy fats to your diet. Mix it up by eating nuts, seeds, fish, grass fed animals/eggs, olives, avocado, and coconut.

Supplement with 3-6 grams of quality fish oil a day.

That sound pretty good, eh? 🙂

Caution: If you are taking blood thinners, have heart issues, or have a bleeding disorder you absolutely need to check with your physician before supplementing with Omega-3 fatty acids (Fish/Algae Oils).  Just do it!

S3 Habit 5: Eat Healthy Fats Daily

To earn your daily point starting Monday May 13th:

1. Eat 4-5 meals daily
2. Eat complete lean protein every time you eat
3. Eat veggies every time you eat
4. Eat “other carbs” only immediately after training
5. Eat healty fats daily

Questions? Let’s here them!

P.S. – Who can tell me what kind of fats we should avoid at all costs? Share your answer below.

S3 Habit 4: What Is An “Other” Carbohydrate?

Today we are going to tackle what is probably the most confusion and controversial part of ANY nutrition plan.

You know what I am talking about.

Carbohydrates.

The word “carb” is ingrained into our minds, and usually when we think of it in the term of nutrition we think of all the “Low Carb” diets out there – Not so much fun.

Carbohydrate is not a dirty word. Your body functions best when you eat carbohydrates, that’s not really the question.

Let’s put it this way. If I ask most people what they think about when they hear the words “Carb” or “Carbohydrate” this is the answers I get:

• Bread
• Muffins
• Cookies
• Doughnuts
• Pasta
• Cake
• Potatoes
• French Fries
• Rolls

and they are right, those all contain a lot of carbohydrate.

But here’s another list:

• Apples
• Oranges
• Kiwi
• Asparagus
• Beets
• Spinach
• Green Beans
• Peppers
• Carrots
• Peas
• Squash
• Cucumber
• Whole Grains (not pretend whole grains, I mean “whole” whole grains) 🙂

These are all carbohydrates too!

The big difference is the way your body handles these carbohydrates.

The first list is made up of simple carbs. Simple carbs are made up of one or two sugar molecules and break down very quickly and easily.

The second list are what we call complex carbs. These are compromised of more than two sugar groups, and these take much longer to break down in your system.

Both of these, simple and complex carbs, are digested into simple sugars before the body uses them.

But there is a big difference in the speed of digestion between a cinnamon roll and a string bean, or even a bowl of oatmeal for that matter.

This speed of digestion is also a factor in how much insulin is released into our bloodstream.

High speed carb, more insulin. Low speed carb, less insulin.

(I am getting to the point, I promise.)

Insulin is a storage hormone, and it has very powerful effects on the body. It is responsible for shuttling nutrients (glucose, amino acids, fats) into our bodies cells. It is necessary for life, which is why diabetics need to have insulin shots. Their pancreas isn’t working anymore, so they need outside intervention.

Now I am really going to simplify here, but think about it.

When is the best time to have insulin released? When does our body have the most nutritional requirements, for instance repair and growth? (That was kind of a big hint)

Right after you train!

When you have hit the weights hard and left it all on the floor, this is when your body is ready, willing and able to use those simple sugars and amino acids (broken down protein) and get the repair process started. Insulin is now doing great things, it is shuttling nutrients into willing cells and making you better – sweet!

In fact it is a terrible idea to neglect post-training nutrition. You must provide the body the mortar to build the bricks, and the most convenient way to get that done is a post-training shake (partially pre-digested and fast acting) immediately after training. This is Prime Time. But you also need to follow that up with a meal within a couple hours, and this is where you want to have the majority of your non-fruit and vegetable carbohydrates (other carbs) for the day, even if you train in the afternoon or evening. If you want a few great ideas for post-training carbohydrates, ThePPWKitchen will hook you up.

A look at the other side

Insulin has a “dark side” as well. This important hormone, you remember, is really good at storing things.

Like all those ho-ho’s you ate, right on your hips.

You see when you overload your body with too much food, especially easy to digest food like the simple carbs we talked about, your body needs to do something with it. If it doesn’t need to burn it, it does the next logical thing.

It stores it. (You know, the ho-ho thing)

That is why in general it is best to avoid simple carbohydrates during periods of low activity (like the pint of Ben and Jerry’s right before bed).

The Take Home

Carbs are not your enemy. However we can be smarter about when we eat our simple carbs. It’s not a matter of never eating starch and sugar, just save them for the meal you eat directly after you train.

That’s not so bad!

Sizzlin’ Summer Slimdown Habit 4

Here’s how you score your point starting Monday May 6th.

1. Eat a minimum of 4 meals (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Recovery Drink)
2. Eat Lean Protein every team you eat
3. Eat Veggies every time you eat
4. Eat “Other Carbs” only after training

Here are two more terrific articles (with picture, charts, animations and everything) to catch you up on all things carbohydrate.

All About Carbohydrates

All About Insulin

Keep this in mind as well. We all handle carbohydrates a little differently. You may get away with a little more “other carbs” than your neighbor. Don’t get cranked up about never eating your favorite foods again. Just embrace the opportunity to discover different foods and different flavors. Nobody said change was easy, but I am proud of anyone who makes an effort.

Keep Making It Happen!

You Download We Donate, and a New PPW Kitchen Seminar

Breakfast was served at 9:00 last Saturday in Concord for 20 awesome Get Fit NH clients!

What did the rest of you eat? I missed seeing you! 🙂

For those of you who weren’t able to make it I going to take care of you, hang on just a minute!

Sizzlin’ Summer Slimdown Week 2 Update.

I’ve heard how so many of you succeeded with the challenge of eating 4-5 times each day – well done!

But hold onto your hat, because now we are refining how those 4-5 meals will look.

How?

Well this week we are adding lean protein to each meal, get all the details on in this article.

And to help you out even more with menu planning and prepping, The PPW Kitchen will soon make another appearance, so mark your calendar!

Meal Management To the Rescue

On Saturday, May 4th at Get Fit NH Epsom you’ll learn how to easily pull mealtime together for your family. Join us from 9:00am to 10:30 and you’ll walk away with:

• A week’s worth of dinner meal plans plus the ability to expand that to a whole month
• A cheat sheet for meal preparation
• 14 ways to make snacks easy.

How cool is that?

We are going to do something really special for this workshop. This workshop we normally charge for, but this time we are going to slash the cost and donate all proceeds to “The Hike for Mike” and help cure Cystic Fibrosis.

This is one of our most fun workshops, so get some more great knowledge bombs from Coach Nancy and support one of our own!

Meal Management To The Rescue
Get Fit NH Bootcamp Epsom
Saturday May 4th, 2013
9:00am to 10:30am
Cost: Minimum $5 donation at the door – Now THAT is a steal! 🙂

Bonus! Download “The PPW Breakfast Kitchen” Recipe Book, which was featured in last weekends seminar, and for every copy downloaded we will donate $1 to “The Hike for Mike” and CFF.

Make It Happen!

S3 2013 Habit 3: Eat Vegetable With Each Eating Opportunity

Why Vegetables?

“Eating higher levels of veggies and fruits are associated with a lower incidence of:

• Cardiovascular disease
• Colon, prostate, cervical, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, thyroid, and breast cancer
• High blood cholesterol
• High blood pressure
• Type 2 diabetes
• Obesity
• Stroke
• Osteoporosis
• and a lot more that aren’t on this list…” – Dr. John Berardi
  

There is no magic pill, potion, or lotion that is going to do all that, PLUS you get to try an amazing variety of incredible tastes from all over the world – right from your very own kitchen!

Did You Know? Vegetables (and fruits) provide an alkaline load to the blood. Both proteins and grains present acid loads. Too much acid can cause loss of bone strength and muscle mass – not cool. Osteoporosis is not just about calcium. Stay balanced by getting enough veggies.

The Habit

Our goal in week 3 is to get at least 2 servings of vegetables every time we eat. 1 counts, but at least 2 is way gooder! 🙂

What’s a serving?

• 1/2 cup raw chopped veggies
• 1 cup raw leafy vegetables

Here’s are some other (non-measuring cup) examples:

• 5 broccoli florets
• 10 baby carrots
• 1 tomato
• 4 slices of onion
• 1 cup of leafy greens (spring mix)
• 15 cherry tomatoes
• 0.5 bell pepper
• 1 cup of spinach

“But” you whine “I don’t like any of those!”

Lucky for you there are hundreds of vegetables in this great big wide world. Check out this list.

A Big Bonus

And there is even more good news.

Filling up on those cancer fighting, free radical busting, vitamin and fiber packed veggies help you stay full longer.

Check this cool PN knowledge bomb out:

Did you catch that?

Eating high calorie foods actually makes you hungrier, sooner. And what do you grab? More high calorie foods. Getting those veggies in helps stop the cravings and the binges. Win-Win!

How to keep your score chart in week 3

Every time you eat a meal that contains a protein and a veggie, you get a check. Do that at least 4x in one day and you score your daily point. Simple as that!

Let us know if you have any questions, then keep on Making It Happen!

Fish Oil, EFA and Why You Are Getting Ripped Off

The benefits of Essential Fatty Acids, specifically omega-3 fatty acids is well researched and documented.

Clinical research suggests that Omega-3 fatty acids can help lower the risk of heart disease, cancer, MS, depression, chronic pain and more.

You can read all about EFA’s from our partners at Precision Nutrition here: All About Fish Oil

Their summary recommendation is 3-6 grams of the “good stuff” (EPA+DHA) per day.

Now you could go ahead and eat a boatload of fish like sardines, more power to you!

More realistically though you are going to need to supplement.

I have taken fish oil on and off for a long time, and frankly taking enough (3 grams +) per day has not been easy.

In fact I have a leftover bottle of the stuff I used to take sitting in front of me right now.

It says that each softgel has 600 mg of “Fish Oil Concentrate”, so I would need to take 5 a day to reach 3 grams, right?

Not so fast!

If you look further, you will see there is 162mg of EPA and 108mg of DHA, for a total of 300mg of total omega-3 fatty acids.

That means I actually have to take 10 pills a day to 3 grams.

That bottle doesn’t look so cheap, now does it?

The Solution

It’s simple.

SFH Omega-3 Natural Fish Oil

1 teaspoon per day give you 3.1 grams of that EFA goodness.

And the bonus?

It’s less expensive than any other quality fish oil out there, and even less when you buy it from Get Fit NH.

Why?

Because it is our goal to put the best quality supplements in your hands, end of story.

Check out the retail prices in the link above, and you will see what I mean.

We currently have 2oz bottles in the gyms for you to try out, and we are ordering 6oz bottles, which will last over a month.

Guys you can’t even buy a small cup of coffee for what this product costs per day.

Basically you are spending couch money for what I believe is one of the big 3 supplements:

1. A Whole Food Multivitamin (Prograde VGF+)
2. An Omega-3 Supplement (SFH Omega-3)
3. A Protein Supplement (UMP or Pure Whey)

We are not married to any one company. We don’t recommend all of Prograde or Beverly’s supplements for instance. We want to get the best stuff into your hands from companies we trust and personally use at the best prices we can.

To get the complete lowdown on SFH Omega-3 Click Here (be patient 🙂

N’uff Said!

Coach Dean

P.S. 2 pound bags of Pure Whey are now in!

S3 2013 – Let’s Get In The Habit

We are gearing up for Sizzlin’ Summer Slimdown 2013 and we are wicked excited about seeing all the great things you are going to do.

If you have been training at Get Fit NH or a reader of our “stuff”, you know that we are all about building nutrition habits that will enable us to achieve and maintain a lean, high performance body – for a lifetime.

We base a large part of our work on Dr. John Berardi and his team over at Precision Nutrition. There are two (at least) reasons we do that. The first is that these are the same exact principles that allowed me (Coach Dean) to lose over 80 pounds and keep it off for many years. The second is because of my success and the success I saw in others using the system that I sought what is recognized within the industry as the best (and I might add hardest to earn) Nutrition Coaching credential for fitness professionals. I believe it is the best, and the PN team is always on the cutting edge of nutritional science and getting better.

So let’s get started!

Habit 1 is very straightforward.

Eat 4-5 meals per day.

At this point it doesn’t matter what, when, how or why.

Every time you eat, mark an “X” on your success checklist. If at the end of the day you have eaten at least 4 times, give yourself a point.

Pretty simple, eh?

You see we know how busy life is, and we know that it can be a real struggle to eat consistently. Skipping meals on a consistent rate is not cool for many reasons. You don’t get enough nutrients, your blood sugar can go wild, your metabolic rate is thought to slow down – all sorts of things that make achieving and maintaining a lean and healthy body nigh near impossible.

Look I have absolutely no objections if you want to start implementing some or all of the other habits too.

But don’t complicate things.

• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner
• Recovery Drink

That’s four feeding opportunities – check!

Just eat.

Here’s an example

40 Days of Fitness. Did You Complete The Challenge?

If so I want to congratulate you on a job well done; that is a lot of X-Body Mountain Climbers and Get Ups!

A special thank-you to the (in) famous Richard Patterson of 4:15 fame, who is the official “Challenge-Meister” of Get Fit NH, for not only keeping us on our toes with some great challenge suggestions, but this time around he very generously contributed to the prize kitty.

In talking with Richard about a challenge award this time around, we thought it would be a good idea to come up with something different. Here’s what we decided:

If you completed the challenge you are entitled to your choice of post-recovery nutrition available in our coolers for the next training week (4 days). So for the next 4 days you come into train, pick up a Myoplex or your favorite flavor of Dale’s Raw Protein Bar to have on your way out the door. Please only take 1 days worth at a time so everyone gets a fair shot at trying something new. If we run out of something, please just pick something else – we will do our best to make you happy!

Great work everybody – Keep on Making It Happen!

Epsom Challenge Winners

Concord Challenge Winners