I need the Maytag Man!

Here is my counter top! It's filled with dirty dishes, why? My dishwasher is not working... what do I do now?
Yep, I have to wash by hand... how long has it been since anyone has done this? I feel like I should have on a maids uniform...
Down to the last cup, I have no idea what I'm doing-- I've always loaded them in and pressed start!
That wasn't bad... I wonder how many calories I burned doing these dishes? I think I'll google search this...

Hey! It turns out I've burned 73 calories-- I think I'll eat something that ends in an O!

Great Shot!

Yep, that's me with my mouth wide open!!! Your aerobic instructor extraordinaire..

So most, if not all, of us have been to the Japanese steak houses where they cook in front of you while making jokes around the table.

It was my niece's birthday and she wanted to go to the "fire dude"-- that's what she calls the chef. We all went and had a wonderful time.

For those of you who have never been, at the end of the meal the chef (aka fire dude) takes turns around the table tossing shrimp into the mouths of his victims... Yep, it's my turn and as you can see my mouth is wide open and if you look closely you can see the shrimp in mid air on its way to me, BUT...... The reason I posted this lovely photo of myself is because if you look to my left you will see my youngest child Sydney and I'm not sure WHY she is making that face but I think it's the funniest thing I've seen in a while and I just HAD to share it with all of you! In fact, I am laughing right now as I am typing this and tears are coming out of my eyes!

I would love to hear some captions for this photo!

Breast Cancer

I wanted to post these SUPER cute canned tomatoes. These were given to me by a client at the gym. She is canning them to raise money for Breast Cancer. Here is the site to go if you would like to order: http://www.mynicetomatoes.com/. Please feel free to contact me as well if you would like to donate.

Here is some information I found on the web about canned tomatoes, I would LOVE to hear some of your healthy recipe's:

How to Cook With Canned Tomatoes

Tomatoes are one of the few foods that can actually benefit from being canned. The canning process seals in their flavor at the peak of ripeness and amps up their lycopene content, a powerful antioxidant. Canned tomatoes are perfect for making sauces and soups when fresh tomatoes aren’t available.

Step1: Choose the type of canned tomatoo that’s appropriate for your purpose. Whole or chopped tomatoes are ideal for soups, while petite diced make great quick sauces. Tomato puree and paste add flavor to sauces and soups while keeping the texture smooth.

Step2: Consider the quality and flavor of your canned tomatoes. Read the labels and choose the tomatoes with the most natural ingredients—tomatoes, water and salt. Many canned tomatoes come already seasoned with garlic or herbs. This makes cooking easy, but for the most control, use plain tomatoes and season them yourself.

Step3: Make a quick pasta sauce. In a frying pan, saute 2 cloves of garlic and 1 large shallot in extra virgin olive oil. Add salt, pepper, 1 tsp. of Italian seasoning and ¼ cup of white wine. Stir in a 14-oz. can of petite diced tomatoes. Cook on medium heat for 4 to 6 minutes until slightly thickened. Serve over al dente pasta.

Step4: Make an easy soup. In a small soup pot, cook until softened 2 cloves of garlic and 1 large shallot in extra virgin olive oil. Add a 14-oz. can of chopped tomatoes, a 14-oz. can of white beans (rinsed and drained) and 1 tsp. of Italian seasoning. Stir in a 14-oz. can of chicken broth or 1 ½ cups of water, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Step5Make a quick side dish. In a sauce pan, combine a 14-oz. can of chopped tomatoes with 1 ½ cups of a chopped fresh vegetable like zucchini or okra. Cook over medium heat until the fresh vegetable is tender. Season with salt, pepper and garlic powder.

If you would like to post a comment on someone you may know that has been touched by breast cancer, I would love to hear that too.

POLAR

I recieved this email from the Polar and I wanted to pass the information on to all of you. I plan to check out the new stuff-- and if you do, let me know what you think!

Hi Tiff,

I work for Polar’s PR agency in the U.S., and just wanted to send you a quick note to say ‘thanks’ for mentioning them on The Spin Chick earlier this week.

You might be aware of this but just in case you aren’t, there’s lots going on at Polar these days, including a new website and YouTube channel as well as a whole new line of fitness watches introduced this month, including the FA20, FT40, FT60, and FT80 that are all designed for a broader audience of consumers.

You’ve got a really cool blog going. Keep up the great work!

Best regards,

Roberto E. Lebron
CooperKatz for Polar
205 Lexington Avenue, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Tel. 917-595-3035
Fax. 917-386-2435

rlebron@cooperkatz.com
www.cooperkatz.com

If you don't workout with a heart rate monitor, you should... Here are some reasons why:

Why Use a Heart Rate Monitor?

Heart monitors are devices that are designed for wear during strenuous exercise, and serve the purpose of measuring and recording your heart rate, while giving you instant feedback about the work level of your heart. The fitness of the heart is the key to one's aerobic endurance - sometimes called 'cardiovascular respiratory endurance'. Both for health and racing reasons, aerobic endurance is a point of focus for almost any runner. Heart monitors are one of the most effective aids for tracking and developing your progress on the path to increased aerobic endurance.

1) Accuracy And Ease: Heart monitors are the only effective way to track and record your heart rate over the course of an entire workout. Not only do heart monitors provide you with a complete record of your heart rate for the duration of your workout, but they are also more accurate than manual methods. Stopping during a run to count your pulse disrupts both your workout and your heart rate, and even the application of pressure to the carotid artery - perhaps the most common point for manual pulse detection - slows down the pulse.

2) Monitor Your Fitness: Cardiovascular fitness is the single most significant factor in your speed as a runner. Consequently, being able to track your cardiovascular fitness - not to mention tailoring your workouts to meet cardiovascular goals - is an extremely useful training tool. Measuring the work-rate of the heart is the most accurate method of determining how much benefit you are deriving from your workout (a discussion on how to gauge results can be seen in section III). Other methods, such as how hard one is breathing, or how tired one feels, can reflect other factors and give imprecise impressions of the effectiveness of your workout.

3) Prevent Over-Training: For many competitive runners, every week's workout regimen is essentially a seven-day dance along the fine line between optimal training and over-training. Using a heart monitor to avoid stressing your body too much means that you will maximize the efficiency of your training, while minimizing the opportunity for injury. Injuries are much less likely to occur when you are not over-taxing your body, and avoiding injuries is tantamount to avoiding setbacks in your training. While opinions differ on how much running is too much (we will discuss this more later), once you determine the desired intensity of your weekly workouts, you can use the monitor as a gauge. Are your recovery days really allowing your body to recover? The surprising answer, in many cases, is that runners' easy days are simply not easy enough. Use your monitor to stay below a certain ceiling, and you will avoid depleting your body's glycogen stores, ensuring that you will have the energy to perform your intense workouts with vigor and that you will not have to take unexpected days off from fatigue.

4) Prevent Under-Training: Though perhaps less common than over-training, some runners simply do not run hard enough, often enough. In this case, the monitor can function as a sort of coach, telling you when your body can handle more, and consequently, when you should pick up the pace. Set a minimum heart-rate goal for your run, and the monitor will sound an alarm when you have dropped below your target, telling you to work harder.

5) Pacing During Training: Perhaps the most obvious use for a heart monitor is to pace your training runs. Sometimes your time is not the best measure of how hard you are working. Different terrain, different energy levels, inconsistent distance measurements, and any number of factors can mislead you into thinking that you have performed well or poorly when the opposite may be true. Your cardiovascular performance is best measured by the work-rate of your heart, so pacing your training runs according to your heart rate is the best method of targeting your cardiovascular fitness as you do your workout.

6) Pacing During A Race: Some runners not only train with a heart monitor, but race with one as well. The monitor is a better tool for gauging effort during a race than mile markers, as the appropriate speed of each mile during a race can vary. Also, the monitor is indifferent to the wind, the paces of the other runners, the cheering of the crowds, the silence of lonely stretches that occur towards the end of some races, and any hills and curves; it is an objective observer than can help you maintain a consistent work rate, both over varied terrain and in areas where external factors affect your motivation and speed. Within a racing context, a monitor is perhaps most useful in preventing you from going out too fast or working too hard early in the race.

7) Enjoyment: While many runners enjoy their long runs, using a heart monitor adds a twist to running, whether it is being worn for a race or for training, for one mile or for twenty. Monitors can give you an accurate and fun way to quantify your progress, and if for no other reason, contribute some variety to the activity.

Don't Bug Me

Many of you heard about this already, but for those of you that missed it; here's the story:

I had my plants outside getting sun and fresh air, I heard it was going to get super cold, so I brought my plants in for the night. The next morning I find this praying mantis in my bathroom on the shower door-- I assume he/she came in on my plants. Anyway, I take a picture of it with my camera and text it to my dad. He texts me back "you know it's illegal to kill them". My first thought was WHAT? How would they know if I killed it? Are they tagged? Than I text him back and said "He was trespassing! Is it OK to kill him than?".

Now-- this is how my mind works.... I guess its OK to kill them as long as you don't record it and put it on YouTube. However, IF someone killed one AND got caught I would pay money to be in that court room to see that trial-- I mean, really? This has to be a joke, right?

What do you think?

It was a BIG salad!

I saw this napkin and I just had to capture a picture of it. My first thought was how funny it was because, as you all know, I like my food! Pizza, ribs, steaks, cheeseburgers, and subs.
Than I started thinking about the places I like to eat salad. Much like Kendra from "The Girls Next Door", I love Olive Garden. Soup, Salad, and Bread sticks... That could be a meal.

Of course I enjoy any salad that has hot and juicy steak or chicken on top, like the ones you get from the Original Steak House (USDA Prime Steak Salad crisp iceberg and Romaine, julienned carrots, red cabbage, cheddar, tomatoes, cucumbers, homemade croutons and applewood smoked bacon)-- That could be a meal!

Many of you know that I almost always order the taco salad at my favorite Mexican place in Prince Frederick-- That could be a meal!
So yeah, I eat salad (most of the time it's on top of a cheeseburger). We just might have more in common than I thought.

I would love to hear where you find your favorite salads...

Happy Eating!

A Pound A Week!

Sometimes I think that because I know something that you all know it as well. Just as we've heard the saying "breakfast is the most important meal of the day", we fitness freaks know that loosing a pound a week is the healthy way to loose weight.

There are 3500 calories in a pound, so in order to loose a pound a week you need to cut out 500 calories a day. In order to do this you will need to work off 500 calories by exercising and still eating all your healthy meals and snacks, or you will need to cut out 500 calories of food a day.

Since I'm not one for counting calories, I like to wear my heart rate monitor to see how many calories I've burned during exercise-- this way once you've burned your 500 for the day you can eat your normal diet for the day or even a few more healthy calories!!! On the days you don't work out, try to find something that has close to 500 calories that you would normally eat and just cut that out-- for example, if you hit the McDonalds for lunch, try to have a small salad or fruit instead of the fries and you've instantly cut those out!

Want more information on this, just let me know-- got other fun ways to cut out or count 500 calories? Share with us!