Fitness Tip - Kettle Bells

For those who have not seen a this fitness too make a come back, these are called kettle bells.   They are a great way to add some resistance to an Aerobic Circuit.  Below I have added a pic as an example of a workout.  There are many various kettle bell exercises.  I recommend starting with 3 to 4 exercises with a littler kettle bell until you feel you have the form of each exercise down.  Do each exercise for 20 to 30 seconds with no rest in between. Then rest 1 minutes and repeat 3 to 4 times.  I promise a lung burning,  muscle screaming workout in just that  9 to 16 minutes.  If you can go the full 12 minutes increase the weight, time and/or number of circuits the next time.  Most of these exercises can be done with dumb bells as well.  Enjoy!  Check out You Tube and Google for additional moves.

Picture from A Paper Proposal

Inspired - Watching the daughter and Kona + Weekly Check In Aug 25

For the second week in a row the Davis family was up and out of the house before 7:00 in the morning on a Saturday!  The younger daughter did the Run for Relief 5K as the culmination of her Girls Rock and Run program.  It was awesome seeing her fight across the finish line (beating her goal of 12 min miles) despite the fact she was banged up from a scooter wreck earlier in the week! Way to go Baby Girl!!!

The Finish!

The Boo Boo!

The Ironman World Championships were this weekend. I watched on TV and am now ready for another ramped up week!  This week was good!  Lost another 2lbs and another notch on the belt.  My goal for the next two weeks is 6 out of 7 day eating clean.  No Fast food!  

Make sure you check out the new pages.  I will be reviewing a fitness product or sharing a tip I learned each Tuesday and sharing recipes on Fridays!  Share with me you tips and recipes and I will gladly pass them on or let you guest post!

Here is my week!

Foodie Fridays - Only this One is on Saturday - Brian's Simple Banana Pudding

Truth be told I like salty more than sweet!  But when you want something sweet you gotta have it.  My go to sweet is usually Ice Cream - Chocolate Almond Ice Cream to be exact,but at 150 calories for 1/2 cup it is easy to go overboard, quick. My second fav is Banana Pudding, and I have a very simple 5 ingredient Banana Pudding.  It use to be 4 ingredients until I went all Bill Nye and experimented with a new Ingredient.  I like the results.  FYI - I like to use the almost too ripe bananas for this recipe!

So here's what you need:

48 -              Reduce Fat Nilla Waffers

1 box            Sugar Free Vanilla Pudding Mix

2 -3 cups     Skim Milk (to make the Pudding)

2 med          Bananas

and the New Ingredient:

3-4 Scoops     Vanilla Protein Powder

Used all the Bananas and Milk on the batch!

Very quick and easy! In a 9 x 13 baking dish put a layer of Wafers the bottom of the dish.  Then peel and slice the bananas and layer on top of that.  Now make the pudding with the directions on the box, stir in the protein powder and a little more milk and pour over the bananas and wafers.  Set in the frig to chill and set up.  If you have any wafers left you can crush them on top.  

Makes about 12  -  1 cup servings

Final Run Down

163   Calories

22g    Carbs

2g       Fat

10g     Protein - Way better Ice Cream!

1g       Fiber -  May add some flax meal next time to see  

                        how that turns out!!!!

Enjoy!!!!!!

Strong Kids - Strong Families -- Weekly Check In Aug 17

Wow! and Wow again!  Yesterday was awesome.  I watched my younger daughter along with 130ish other kids do the Strong Kids Youth Triathlon in Owasso, OK.  The event was well organized and everyone was so supportive of all the kids.  Parent, volunteers and participants alike all cheered on each and every kid along the way as they swam 100 meters, biked 3 miles and then ran a mile.

 A big shout out to the Owasso YMCA and Bailey Medical Center for the great job they did hosting this event.  It was inspiring to watch all the kids (most with huge smiles on their faces) as they took on this feat.   This is why I love the sport of Triathlon.  Yes, I know people want to win, but the sport of triathlon is more introspective. It's about being a better self about competing against the distance. It's about perseverance. It's about supporting your fellow athlete.  One of my favorite things to do now is watch full circle videos produced by Ironman.  They tell inspirational stories of the athletes and then show segments of the race including the last hour or two of the race with Mike Reilly telling everyone you are an Ironman.  One of the coolest things I have ever  I witnessed in sports was in one of these videos. A triathlete gave his hard earned  finisher metal to a participant that missed the cut off time by just seconds.   It is awesome watching the intimate moments as those individual cross the finish line.  I got that same feeling watching the kids cross their finish yesterday.  Four miles or 140 the fact that they set a goal and achieved it.  That is the point.  I will now go for a swim!

My week was good.  Lost 3 lbs and felt strong all week.  I love my new schedule.  I was able to work out most mornings.  While still taking my daughter to school and picking her up.  It was awesome!

Weekly Check In Aug 10 and 50% More!

50% more.  That is how much I added to my Saturday swim.  I totes did it ya'll (the preteen is wearing off on me), I swam 50 laps = 2500 meters = 1.5 miles! I actually felt strong until the last 400 m.  I am feeling it this morning though! Lats and triceps are sore! But guess what? That my friends is longer than a half Ironman swim.

My Usual Saturday Morning Haunt!

This feat got me to thinking.  Where else in my life could I give 50% more.  50% more dad, 50% more teacher, 50% more husband 50% more christian.  If even for a day each week, if I gave 50% more to some aspect of my life how much richer would my life and the life of those around me be?  If everyone in the world did the same what kind of world would we live in?  So I challenge you this week to push yourself a little further than you thought you could go.  Be it exercise, be it work, be it family and friends. Find some aspect of your life and give 50% more!!!  See how it effects you and yours! Then come back and tell me what you did.   

My week was good.  I lowered my workout volume during the week to let me body recover some.  Based on how I feel now, well at least going into my Saturday swim,  I think it was a smart move.  This week, with the start of school I will probably kick the level up a little and then put the hammer down starting again next week.  I have also got to clean up my diet a some.  The schools and fast food places fed me too well this week.  It was a total lack of planning and morning laziness on my part.  How much I ate wasn't bad, but what I ate was horrible.  I will monitor and adjust.  I got to remember what I want most! Not what I want now!.    

So here's my week!

Weekly Check In Aug 3rd and Answering the Question: How are you losing weight?

Good Morning All! I have had a long couple of weeks.  For me school has started. Being a new teacher in my district I need to become familiar with the initiatives our district values in reaching our students in the 21st Century.  Therefore, I have had 8 days of training in the last ten "work days".  In addition to this I have been working to prepare my classroom, which involved a move of classrooms as well, but no complaints there.  I came out much better after the move!  I feel like I need to put goals up at each end of my new room and bring a whistle with me to class.  My new room, it's huge I tell ya!   Guess what?  During that time I did not miss one workout. This is also huge! This is usually, in the past, where I give up and fall back into old habits.  The bed seems better that the pool,  the recliner feel  a lot better that the asphalt, but not this time.  I got up early when needed or stayed up late to get a workout in, and I feel awesome for it!  The accountability here and people started to notice the hard work while out and about, especially friends who have not seem me in a while really help me to push through.  

I have had several ask me lately, "What are you doing exactly?" Well it has been nothing fancy folks.  I have been tracking calories in and calories out with Runkeeper and Myfitnesspal apps on my phone.  I use Runkeeper for my calories out because they seem more realistic estimates.  Runkeeper's calorie counts are about half to 2/3 of what Myfitnesspal allows.  When adding calories to off set exercise I still try to only replace half of the Runkeeper calories as well.  Myfitnesspal is awesome on the food logging however.  It has a huge, huge I tell ya, food bank, easy to use recipe and meal features and even has a barcode scanner that will upload a food's info without a search.  I am also able to link the to apps together and my Runkeeper info filters right into Myfitnesspal.  I love it!

Looking for the Apps here's what there logos look like!

I am also walking (not calling it running until I break 14 min. miles), biking and swimming as you can see below.  I have gone 160 miles in the last 7 weeks and lost 13.5 # during that span.  I try to workout twice a day 3 or 4 days within the work week.  I will swim in the morning, then bike in the evening.  Then the next day I will walk in the morning then bike in the evening.  Followed by a Swim/Walk day.  Then on the weekends I try to do at least one day of longer sustained work.  Yesterday I swam 800 meters , biked 6 miles and walked 2 miles back to back to back.  Some days I have a distance goal and don't worry about time.  Other days I will have a time goal.  So days I go shorter time and really up the intensity.  I also try to vary the location and or routes as much as possible.  The variety has really helped with motivation as well.   As school starts I will probably start adding in some weight work as well two days a week.  Power is important for an Ironman.

So there it is in a nutshell!  

and here's my week: