UMP is by far my favorite protein powder. While I don’t rely on protein powders (real foods are always the best choice) I do use them on occasion. Beverly International recently released their newest flavor of UMP (Ultimate Muscle Protein). Graham Cracker is now a hot ticket item at Get Fit NH. Wow, is it delicious!

Coach Dean did an excellent job of proclaiming all the virtues and wonderfulness of UMP right here. Check it out.

I want to give you a few recipes for you to try with the newest flavor.

Check out this first recipe from Coach Dean himself, Graham Cracker Chocolate Peanut Butter Pudding.

Dan's Dynamic Shake

• 1 scoop graham cracker protein
• ½ scoop vanilla protein
• ½ scoop chocolate protein
• 1½ teaspoon peanut butter
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 fistful spinach
• About 10 ounces of water

Blend until smooth in a blender. If you use a fresh banana add in a few ice cubes to chill it. Enjoy!

Marquita’s Marvelous Shake

• 1 scoop graham cracker protein powder
• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
• 1 tablespoon shredded coconut
• 10 ounces of water
• Ice

Blend until smooth.

Homemade Granola Bar

• 4 scoops graham cracker protein powder
• 2 cups oats
• ½ cup crushed walnuts
• ½ cup raisins
• 2 tablespoons ground flax seed
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon of coconut oil
• About ½ cup of water​

In a large bowl, combine all the oats, protein powder, walnuts, flax seed, sunflower seeds, salt, and raisins. Add in the vanilla, coconut oil, and then the water a little at a time. At first it will seem very dry but be patient it will blend up. Coat an 8x8 pan with coconut oil. Press the mixture on the bottom of the pan. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Cut into bars or squares.

I figured I could hide the flax seed and no one would know. I was going to add shredded coconut but after I got them in the pan I noticed the coconut still on the counter unopened. Maybe next time. I also thought cacao chips would be nice too. That is the great thing about these bars, they are flexible. Experiment with different protein powder flavors for a different taste too.

I am a fan of having options that are quick, easy, and healthy in my kitchen and in my life. UMP helps me do that.

To your best health,
Coach Nancy

Next Scheduled Recovery Week: Sept 4 - Sept 9, 2017

I have to admit, this is my least favorite recovery week. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, as I absolutely love autumn, but still, is summer almost really over? 

Truth be told this may be our most important recovery week of the year. The next one is not until the end of December, which means this training block is the longest of the year. My body needs that focused recovery week, physically and emotionally.​

It bears repeating - recovery weeks are not haphazard or just vacation times for your coaches. They are a purposefully planned part of the training cycle, and critical for long term development and injury prevention.

You may have noticed that as we get closer to recovery week the daily and weekly training intensity has increased.

That is purposeful.

Because we are working toward a week of MacroRecovery, we are intentionally working at a higher level.

Then we will take a scheduled, purposeful rest.​

Because whether you think so or not, you cannot and should not train really hard, all the time.

In fact one of our training program design principles is what is referred to as MED.

Minimum Effective Dose.

In other words, what is the MINIMUM stimulus we need to get better - stronger, leaner, better conditioned, etc.?

What? The minimum you say? That is NOT my style. Go hard or go home!

That WILL work, at least for a short time. Until your training overwhelms your ability to recover, and you start breaking down.

How can you tell that is happening? That you're not recovering fast enough from your training? Here's a few warning signs:

Altered Heart Rate and Blood Pressure

You are having a hard time getting your heart rate up, or it's beating like a racehorse when you feel like you aren't really doing much.​

Poor Sleep Patterns

​An increasing pattern of the inability to sleep restfully.

Decreased Performance

Your training loads have stagnated or even decreased.​

Mood Swings

Mr. Crank-Pants, anyone?

Eating Habits Disrupted or Compromised

It's not just a matter of will power. Overreaching and overtraining can cause physical cravings if our bodies are missing crucial nutrients because of too much physiological or psychological stress.​

Decreased Immunity

If you are getting sick frequently (eg. more than one cold a year) your immune system is probably compromised.​

Increase In Injury

This could be not recovering from the normal microtrauma caused by training, for example you are sore for 2 or 3 days after training, or you are getting strains, sprains, aches and pains that you normally do not.​

Lack of Progress (Plateau)

This could be either in body composition (not losing bodyfat/gaining muscle) or not making gains in the gym.​

Enter Recovery Weeks

Recovery weeks are designed to give you rest; physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

You see stress is not just a "mental" thing. Do you realize when you train you are stressing yourself out, on purpose? That gets added on top of all the other stress in your life, whether it be work, home, or the jerk who cut you off in traffic. Your central nervous system doesn't care, it just knows when you have too much of it, and it doesn't like it!

​And while you can't stop the knucklehead from driving like an idiot, there are things you can do to avoid excess systemic stress, and taking recovery weeks is one of them.

Here's My Top 5 Things To Do On Recovery Week

1. Catch up on my reading
2. Get some extra sleep
3. Spend more time with my family
4. Eat at a more leisurely pace
5. Figure out more things to torture you with. (Just seeing if you are paying attention)

​What about you?

You see you don't have to "not move" for a week. There is nothing wrong with getting outdoors, taking a walk, hitting the rock climbing gym, spending some time on the foam roller and stretching, getting a massage, and/or taking some long showers or baths.

Those things will aid your recovery and help you relax; running 2 or 3 or 5 miles every day (or every other day), or going to spin class, will not. 

I train hard, but more importantly I train and recover appropriately. 

I am in it for the long game. When I am sick, or excessively tired, or injured I cannot train.

THAT is what sets me back.

Recovery is what drives me forward. On a daily, weekly, and quarterly basis.

​You ready to get better with me?

MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Coach Dean

PS. Below is the "Science Stuff" I promised - Enjoy!

All About Recovery Weeks

Our recovery weeks are what I would call Macro-Recovery. In other words we take a planned week off every training phase in order to let the body rest up from hard training and get ready for the next phase.

But did you know you can do even better than that? We have a number of athletes in the Get Fit NH family who participate in our Bioforce HRV monitoring program, which measures your systemic stress load on a daily basis, which allows us to fine-tune the recovery process on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. You can catch up on that by clicking here

Read on why properly planned and adequate recovery is important for you!

The Recovery Curve

I saw the recovery curve for the first time during my time with Australian physical preparation coach Ian King. His principles laid the foundation for the way we program, train and especially recover here at Get Fit NH. The principles that work with professional athletes apply to us too!

The following illustrates a “good” recovery curve:

The green line represents what we are all looking for – continual, never ending progress over time. We are getting stronger, faster, thinner, better looking (ok at least that’s what I wish for).

Reality Check – ain’t gonna happen. The process of changing your body is not linear, in fact what we are looking at in an optimal training environment is more of a “One step back brings me Two steps forward”.

A closer look at the chart will help explain what I mean.

The red line represents Equilibrium. This is where your body wants to stay, no matter if your goal is losing fat, gaining lean, or both. As you have no doubt found out, forcing your body to change is hard work – really hard work. When you walk into Get Fit NH, our training is designed to elicit that change. But it’s not as simple as “working out” day after day after day. In fact as I am about to illustrate, training without proper recovery is actually hurting you, not making you better.

The blue line represents the “recovery curve”. Starting at the left hand of the chart all the lines intersect. For this illustration that point is where your first training occurred – you “worked out”.

But what’s going on?

Instead of performance going up, that line is actually heading down – this is what is called Depletion. If you think about it makes sense – you have worked hard, you are fatigued, your body is depleted of nutrients – you are spent!

Don’t worry, your body will get over it, if you treat it right! This is what we call Adaptation. Your body wants to be able to handle the increased demand that was placed on it, and starts the process of getting better.

You are in charge of if and how fast that happens. A few of the factors that influence this adaptation include recovery nutrition, stress levels, sleep habits, supportive nutrition, age, and training history.

The recovery curve continues with Supercompensation. Here is how Coach King describes this process:

“It is only when recovery is allowed that we see the super-compensation effect, the unique phenomenon where the bodies physical capacity is elevated in response to training, in anticipation of another exposure to the same stimulus.” – King, I, 1999/2000, Foundations of Physical Preparation

In other words your body has gotten better in response to your training, a new Equilibrium is established and this state is when we will ideally train again. Our programming at Get Fit NH is carefully designed to give this the best chance of occurring, but as I hope you are discovering, you have a lot to do with this with how you treat your recovery!

As you can see, when things are clicking, this process when repeated over and over means you are getting better and better, the blue line is headed up – pretty cool!

The flip side to all this is what happens when the recovery process isn’t working so well.

This chart represents recovery gone “bad”:

When we continue to train in a state of “Depletion”, regardless of the reason, the adaptation to super-compensation effect doesn’t occur, and instead of getting better, we find ourselves in a downward cycle. This can happen when we train the same muscle groups too soon, when we haven’t taken the steps described above to recover optimally (sleep and nutrition for instance) regardless of time between training, when we train too hard coming off an illness, etc. The last thing we want to happen is new equilibrium to be established in a downward pattern – not good.

The long and short of it is your body absolutely needs to recover from hard training. Consistently training in a fatigued state results in injury and illness. Your body is an amazing machine designed to put up with a lot, but it was also designed to need rest.

Which leads us to:

Recovery Weeks!

Face it – you can get beat up anywhere. Our responsibility at Get Fit NH is to help you get better!

That includes recovery weeks. We have found that somewhere between 8 and 12 weeks of training is just about right to take a full week off and let your body recover.

That doesn’t mean that you spend your training time on the couch eating bon-bons, but if you insist on going down to PF and hitting the weights or running 10 miles every morning, your body will suffer in the long run, and perhaps even in the short term.

If you find yourself fighting this concept, ask yourself this – Is your unwillingness to take a week off a well reasoned decision based on what you know to be true, or is it that your attachment to training is so strong emotionally that makes it so hard? You will not lose all you have gained by taking the week off, I assure you! Again to quote Coach King, “…if you don’t (take time off)…most of you are going to lose it anyway!”

So now that we have established you are ready, willing and able to embrace recovery week, what do you do?

Glad you asked!

Three Steps for Successful Recovery

1.) Physical Rest and Regeneration

– Our bodies must rest and recover to prevent over-training (or under-recovering) issues so that we can come back 100% healthy and energized for the next phase of the program

– Focus on maintaining and/or increasing flexibility and tissue health by stretching and foam rolling daily. 15-30 minutes is fantastic!

– Daily restorative walks are beneficial during this week. 30-60 minutes briskly walking (not jogging/running) will keep your body refreshed and active, without negating the purpose of this week. Don’t overdo it!

2.) Physiological and Psychological Rest and Regeneration

– We must normalize key anabolic hormones, refill muscle glycogen, increase caloric intake, and prevent any diet induced catabolism (losses of lean body mass) so that we can enjoy greater fat loss for the next phase of the program

– We have taken the road less traveled by being flexible eaters with a long-term approach to success and thus we will take a break from our aggressive fat loss nutrition plans. This is not a free for all, so stay away from your “trigger foods” (junk foods and sweets) that open the door to excessive calorie intake.

– Instead plan (key word) and enjoy 2 or 3 controlled free meals to reward yourself for all of your hard work, but do not overdo it!

– Caveat: If your nutrition habits have been less than optimal, more than likely none of this applies to you. Instead now is the time to plan and prepare to make the changes necessary to see the results you want. Spend some time with a coach and your Jumpstart Nutrition Guide if you need help.

3.) Celebrate the Fruits of Your Labor

– Take some time to reflect on how far you have come since you joined Get Fit NH in terms of improving your overall health, body composition, and performance

– Enjoy your results!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

We would just like to take the time to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of your hard work and dedication to improving your health and fitness… keep Making It Happen!

​Coach Dean

P.S. If you are serious about maximizing your training/recovery cycle, you owe it to yourself to invest in this! Look further into our Bioforce HRV monitoring program, which measures your systemic stress load on a daily basis, which allows us to fine-tune the recovery process on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. You can catch up on that by clicking here.

This is the one many of you have been waiting for - high potency Omega-3 supplementation in Capsule form. 

SFH Super-Omega 3 Fish Oil Capsules

120 Capsules (30 servings)

Same high potency Omega-3 supplement, now in capsule form!

If you aren't a big fan of taking supplements in liquid form, this is for you. SFH has taken all the benefits of their Super Omega-3 liquid supplement and put it in capsule form. I dare you to compare to the fish oil capsules you are taking now.

4 capsules provides over 3000mg of EPA + DHA, the "good stuff" in omega-3 supplements.

Soy free, gluten free, sugar free, and as always third party tested for safety.

Caution: Do not take if you are using blood thinners such as Coumadin without consulting your physician. This product is harvested from the sea and may contain small amounts of shellfish. If you are allergic to shellfish, you should avoid this product.

---

In the discovery phase of my plant-based eating experiment, one of the things I was most curious about (and still am) is protein. 

I was especially curious about looking into some of the more commonly cited sources of plant-based protein.  Ever heard "Quinoa is a great source of plant protein"? I've heard that a bunch of times, but never really dug in deep on it. 

Until now.

Below is a chart I made that outlines how much protein is in a variety of plant-based foods. I tend to view the quality not only by the amino acid profile, but also on the protein to carbohydrate ratio. In other words, how many carbs am I am eating in relation to how much protein I am getting? For me, like for many, it matters in terms of blood sugar control and a tendency to gain fat when I eat more carbs.

Do any of these surprise you like they surprised me? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

P.S. You can also download your own .pdf copy by clicking here.

There is a reason that often I am so acute at picking it up when someone is all up in their own head, when they put themselves down, when they think they aren’t good enough, not strong enough… just overall disappointed and negative towards themselves. That, ladies and gentleman, is because I am the biggest head case you will ever meet. I constantly have those thoughts and it can cause major damage, which is why I can see it in others. I say that to tell you this story about how that ruined something I may never see again in my lifetime.

For all of you that watched the Super Bowl this past year, let me tell you how it went down on my end. Patriots trail 28-3 and the only reason I haven’t thrown the remote at the TV is because I am at a friend’s house and it’s not my TV. Next play is a long pass down the sidelines completed to Julio Jones. That’s it, I’m done, so angry, so upset that I get up, leave and go home to go to bed. I’m woken up by a call saying they are coming back and I should turn on the game. I refuse because:

#1. I don’t believe that they will come back
#2. I think that because I’m not watching it is part of the reason they are coming back, like I am not allowed to see it if they do well (convinced I’m a head case yet?)
#3. I’m stubborn, I made the decision to leave and not watch so I wasn’t getting up

How’d that turn out for me? Just missed maybe the greatest Super Bowl ever. Putting yourself in that headspace has real consequences. You never know what amazing thing you may miss out on. It could be a vacation you didn’t go on, a friend you didn’t make the time to see when they were in town, or some junk you ate because you were so mad at yourself you figured why bother?

Don’t let it come to that. At the time, you may think you aren’t missing out on something. However, once you miss it, you can’t go back. I can never really see that game, never feel the emotion, the excitement. I can watch the replay but I will never be able to feel the connection the way all of you who watched the game did. I know to some of you it’s just football, but it could have just as easily been any number of other things I missed out on. Don’t let it happen to you.

-Coach Adam

Join us as Athlete Academy presents a parent seminar to help their children improve their athletic abilities on Wednesday, September 20th, from 7:30 to 8:30pm.

During this hour, we will be looking at strategies to increase your child's performance.

We will address common misconceptions that may actually be hindering your athlete's ability.

That's not all! Our Athlete Academy program will also be on display before the start of the seminar, from 6:00 to 7:15pm, so you can see for yourself how we roll many of these factors into our program.

That's still not all! This training session will be open to allow your kids to try out the program for themselves prior to the seminar.

So join us at Get Fit NH and find out how to help your son or daughter reach their full athletic potential!

Location: Get Fit NH Concord, 287 S. Main St, Concord, NH 03301
Date: Wednesday, September 20
Time: Training Session 6:00-7:15pm, Parent Seminar 7:30-8:30pm

If you have any questions, contact Coach Adam by email at adam@getfitnh.com or by phone at 603-340-7281.

This post originally appeared on the Get Fit NH Family Facebook page. 

So apparently I have caused a bit of a hullabaloo with my experiment into Plant-Based eating. If it gets all of us thinking, then that is an awesome thing!

For those of who know me well, this adventure probably seems WAY out of character for an avowed meat eater. But it's really not that strange. I have been on a decade and a half vision quest for better health and fitness AND to do what it takes to help others on their quest. During that time I have experimented with all sorts of different ways of eating.

That being said, I have been an avowed skeptic of plant-based eating for a number of reasons. Chief among them was the fact that most people I talked to ate as much junk food as the rest of the population. Highly processed fake burgers, carbohydrates and sugar out the wazoo, and little regard for adequate protein.

But more and more I am getting questions about plant-based, and since I have no experience ever eating that way, I could not relate to the struggles. So I am setting out to change that. I have my blood work done every three months, the last time on Friday August 4th. So this will be a three month experiment into primarily plant-based eating. At the end I will have my blood tested again and evaluate the results.

Briefly here are the "rules" I have set for myself:

No animal based protein save 2 eggs a day. No dairy, no meat, no fish. Stay on exactly the same eating pattern and calorie level as I was on my previous plan, and adjust according to what happens to my body comp as measured by the Fit3D.

My body comp goals are the same. Increase lean mass and stay around 10% bodyfat. Eat no highly processed foods, limit sugar, etc. Get a minimum of 100 grams of protein per day. I am allowing myself 1 plant-based protein supplement a day, as my routine has been to have 1 whey protein shake a day.

This is not meant to be any kind of "statement". While I respect those who eat plant-based for ethical and environmental reasons, that is not my purpose.

What I want to find out is this:

What will be the measurable results of eating a whole food plant-based diet?

Is it possible to get enough protein to maintain and build muscle mass while still keeping carbohydrate levels to a manageable level?

What will it do to my blood sugars to up my carbohydrate load?

How about my cholesterol, etc?

I have invested countless hours of research into investigating the science (and psuedo-science) around plant-based eating. I have come up with a list of higher protein choices, and foods I am choosing to stay away from, for instance Tofu. I have purchased 3 cookbooks and already modifying the recipes in order to lower or eliminate the added sugars (just because it's plant based doesn't mean it's good for you).

I am still in the process of adapting to this new way of eating, as I am only 10 days in. I am experiencing more hunger than I was before; I suspect that is because the amount of fat I am eating has needed to decrease as the carbs increase. This is all information and part of the data collection process. And I am just one guy, my results may not be typical. But I promise to keep this an honest experiment.

The best case is that I find out there IS a "right way" to eat plant-based, get enough nutrients, and positively effect both blood work and body composition. That would make it one more arrow in my nutrition coaching quiver. Questions? Ask Coach Nancy (that seems to be what you are doing now, as I am big and scary) 🙂 (and yes, that was a joke)

Alex spent a couple months training with us in our Athlete Academy program. During those months, he made tremendous strides in his strength, mobility, and flexibility. He went from deadlifting barely the bar, to being able to lift over 150 lbs in his deadlift from the floor, an amount of weight that is well above his bodyweight. Alex worked extremely hard and it showed in the incredible progress he made. I asked him a few questions about his experience and he provided me some short sweet answers about his time in our Athlete Academy program.

"What changes have you noticed since starting Athlete Academy?

Not only am I becoming more physically enabled, I'm also progressing on pushing myself and being responsible.

What outside of Academy has gotten easier?

Playing sports and doing other competitive activities.

What have you accomplished since joining Athlete Academy?

I'm able to lift weights that I never thought I could and do things I never though I would be able to do. And I'm also learning new things.

What is your favorite part of Athlete Academy?

Going in and becoming familiar with routine and then I am able to push myself in a environment where I know I can.

How has Athlete Academy affected your performance?

I feel a lot stronger and more solid and have an easier time keeping up."

Great job, Alex! Keep up the hard work and you will keep on getting stronger!

-Coach Adam

For those of you getting ready to have a baby and/or those of you who had a baby in the past year or so, this blog is for you! If you have no intensions of having a baby or you are squeamish then please X out before I make you uncomfortable 🙂

This topic came by request and I am happy to share my thoughts here as I am a mom of (almost) Irish twins and trained right up until the day of delivery and the same day I was cleared by my doctor postpartum!

Let’s talk about training first…

Training feels different after having a baby, doesn’t it? Your doctor will generally clear you to train 6-8 weeks after having a baby. If you have ever returned to training that quickly after having a baby, then you are about to nod your head to everything I write about today. If you are getting ready to have a baby, then here are some things that will be different (at least for a little while) when you return.

• Core work. Planks, push-ups, mountain climbers, in and outs…all of those exercises are going to feel very different for the first few weeks. It can take your body up to a year to recover after delivery so these exercises may cause some strange and sharp pulls in the lower abdomen. Modification is recommended as you may feel a quick and sharp pain. That is a sign that you need to back off and let your body continue to recover.
• Jumping. Yes, the rumors are true. Jump rope, wide-outs, ladders, squat jumps, etc will never be the same. It is not a coincidence that you see a bunch of ladies scurry to the restroom after jumping jacks. Bladder control is compromised after delivery.

In my personal experience, these things have improved with consistent training and proper modifications. If you experienced a more traumatic delivery, there may be repercussions which will mean more extreme modifications. In my coaching experience, I have had students with severe hip displacement as well as lingering back issues which have required modification for over 2 years. The point is that when your doctor clears you to train, it is not advised to dive into the performance level on the board for all of the exercises. I know you are motivated to drop the extra weight and tighten back up, but you need to remind your body what it feels like to train especially after baby put your body through the ringer.

Training while pregnant - yes! If you have been training, then it is highly recommended that you stay after it. Here’s my personal 2 cents…I absolutely do not want to know what labor and delivery feels like as an unfit person. That is a serious and powerful workout. Imagine how much “easier” you will make it on yourself if you are STRONG!

Postpartum nutrition is up next. You just had a baby. The past 9 months you have been caving into cravings (or maybe you haven’t) and your body is a little more “jiggly” than it was before. You are determined to get this weight off and tighten back up. Postpartum nutrition should be no different than our nutrition program geared toward fat loss. Just eat real food! This is a safe way to eat all the time. It is healthy for nursing mom’s and babies and non-nursing mom’s and babies. If you want to drop fat, then drop the processed nonsense and just eat real food. The rules don’t change when it comes to nutrition and fat loss.

I hope this helps answer some questions about how you may be feeling post-baby and for those of you wondering what happens once baby comes. We are here to help along the way!

Coach Meagan

Sarah Kazakis is shining bright this week and it is well deserved! My absolute FAVORITE part of coaching is watching someone change their body and witness them get stronger on so many levels. Sarah is a perfect example. Every time she walks through the door she has her game face on. She trains hard and she is so coachable! After S3 this year I could see a clear difference in Sarah not only physically, but in her performance. I cannot wait to continue watching Sarah progress and get stronger. I bet she will be on the pull up bar before she knows it! Here is what Sarah has to say...

"I chose Get Fit NH because I needed a serious push from people who knew what they were doing. I used to be very active, doing mostly cardio. I had started to fall into bad habits, bad diet and less movement. I needed help getting back into a routine and I wanted to feel good again. A friend had started at Get Fit NH and raved about it. She convinced me to do the two week free trial and I never left.

What results have you earned since starting?

Healthier habits all around. I eat healthier, drink more water, and am regularly working out. I was taught and now can do things correctly with weights that I never thought I could do without hurting myself. I am SO much stronger than I was when I started and that makes me really happy. Oh, and I have also lost almost 20 pounds since I have started and I think that is really awesome also.

What has become easier since starting a training program?

Overall, everything. I just generally feel better which makes day to day easier. I've noticed little things from time to time that have gotten easier like lifting and playing with my nephews has gotten easier and they've only gotten bigger, which means I'm just getting stronger. Lifting my boat or kayaks onto my truck and not struggling.

What keeps you coming back?

The knowledgeable coaches. The encouragement that you get from the coaches and also everyone else who trains next to you. I love that I am getting stronger and that keeps me coming back. But one thing that I have told others is that Get Fit is a family. I've seen things that the gym has done for it's members and what members have done for each other. Whether it's a hard time or a time to celebrate, and that means something.

What would you want to share with someone who is on the fence about joining?

If you are on the fence, just do it. You will always find an excuse not to if you find one now. You just have to do it. What's there to lose, besides a few pounds or inches (cheesy but true)."

We are so proud of you, Sarah! Keep up the hard work and thank you for sharing your story! 

Coach Meagan