Introducing the podcast

Roland and I have been playing with recording a podcast - and it's been fun. I hope you enjoy it - to read all about it head over to the Fit Ink - my new home on the Internet :) Have a great weekend!

Sweet and Hot Brussels Sprouts

Originally from The Fit Ink - my new home on the net

The thought of cooking Brussels sprouts scares a lot of people. They tend to grow bitter if you overcook them, soggy if you boil them. Some swear by chopping them in tiny shreds and cooking them ever so slightly for no longer than 3 minutes so they stay deliciously cabbage-y without being too Brussels sprout-y.
Contrary to popular belief, Roland and I have found a few very tasty ways to enjoy them and today it's my pleasure to share the latest - Sweet and Hot Brussels Sprouts - by themselves or in a salad - your choice.

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To make 2 very generous servings of these Sweet and Hot Roasted Brussels Sprouts you need:

4 cups Brussels sprouts, cleaned and halved
1 tbsp olive oil or expeller pressed coconut oil (this is what we use)
sea salt to taste
1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
1 tsp cayenne or red hot pepper flakes

To prepare the sprouts simply preheat the oven to 350 F and toss the sprouts in a cast iron pan, drizzling the oil and salt over them for 15-20 minutes. While they are cooking mix the honey with the hot pepper. Take the pan out and pour the honey in - it will melt. Stir well to make sure all sprouts are coated and return to the oven for 10 minutes. Feel free to add bits of bacon at this time if you feel like an extra indulgence. Once ready you can serve these as a side or use them in a recipe like I did.

To make 2 servings of the delicious Hot Brussels sprouts and mushroom salad, you need:

the cooked Brussels sprouts from the recipe above
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1/2 tbsp butter
2 cups baby greens
2 oz Emental or other light cheese of your choice
olive oil and balsamic vinegar if you choose to dress the salad
 



Start by cooking the mushrooms and butter over medium heat for about 3 minutes. In a bowl, combine the baby greens, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms and cheese cut in small pieces. If you enjoy dressings, mix olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a 3:1 ratio and dress as you like.
Next time you are at the grocery store, grab some Brussels sprouts and let us know how your salad turned out!

What's up at the Fit Ink?

It's been a cool couple of weeks. I am adjusting to a new style of training, with a lot more movement and less weighted exercise (you will hear a lot about my Restorative Exercise paradigm shift in the next few months). Spent 4 cool days at Perform Better in Long Beach, where I got to catch up with the smartest and greatest in the fitness industry and met some very interesting new people (and ate some amazing Jamaican food, yum!).

I am getting ready to leave for Bulgaria, where Diana and I will hold our annual art vacation, with tons of cool stuff to do - movement, cooking, art, lectures, and this time all is happening at the beach so I am thinking it will be better than ever.

Roland and I are working hard on the FitInk, and over the last week released a free workout e-book for busy people, cooked some new and delicious recipes and are constantly on the lookout for projects, like our Gluten free beer review.

Our long awaited book, Man on top, is ready for publishing and we will be releasing it in early October, when I get back from Bulgaria. Our cover is so beautiful, I am seriously considering framing it and hanging it over the bed, taking the risk of being accused of bad taste for bedroom art.

What else? I bough over 20 books in the last month. I don't know when I will be able to read them, but I am working my way through the pile. I have the bad habit of reading 5 books at a time - last month I finished Deep Nutrition and one of Egoscue's books and while it's not going fast, I have started the Diabetes Solution, Wheat Belly, The Shangri-La Diet and When the Body Says No. My wishlist on Amazon is filling rapidly and I hope the 6 weeks in Bulgaria allow some time for reading. 

Hm, what else? I taught an epic spine health workshop with my friend and super star cervical chiropractor Dr Liz Hoeffer, and I am looking forward to teaching it again, as it is life changing for so many people.

Did I mention you can read my Restorative Exercise work in Bulgarian now? Check this out! 

I am probably forgetting something, so just ask me  what's up with X or Z and I will let you know :)

Tropical Traditions ships free - take action :)

In our cooking classes, we show you how to use coconut oil to make delicious omelets, pancakes, desserts and even slow roasted sweet glazed veggies! We have been recommending Tropical Traditions as our favorite source of coconut oil and we are glad to share that they have a free shipping coupon starting today and going through August 16.  Check your pantry and if you are running out this is a great time to stock up! You must enter the coupon number in your cart before checking out! Here it is: Coupon Code 682212 


To order, simply click on the link below and it will take you to the website.

 
Virgin Coconut Oil, Gold Label - 1 quart








note: If you have never bought from Tropical Traditions, know that a new customer purchase is going to give me a coupon, which is sweet, but not the reason why I recommend the product. We have been using Tropical Traditions for all our coconut needs: flakes, chips, flour, cream and oils, and we love them! It feels good to share the love!

A guest post from Roland

Some of you may know that Roland and I have had a few projects under construction - ''Man on top'', a new joint website, so maybe you want to know what's going on and why the @!#%$%^ are you not holding the book in your hands right now and where is that new website? Shhhhh, the website won't be announced till Monday, but in the meantime, read this guest post by Roland, who's done a great job of bringing all the news together :)

So, what's going on?

"What are you waiting for?" you might ask.

I've made all sorts of semi or pre-announcements, here and on JPFitness, yet we continue to hold off on actually putting our stuff "out there." Here are the excuses. Here's the backstory!

Man on Top

The book is as done as we (Galya and I) can make it without a little help.

The cover design is beautiful, and we are awaiting some final touches to it before publishing. For a sneak peak, take a look here.

I said we could only go so far without help, and suddenly we got a little extra help. A pre-reader finished the book and had some questions, which led to some suggestions, which convinced me to make a few small changes. It's all good stuff, and in the blessing-in-disguise department, it also gave our cover designer time to revamp a few things, and Galya time to take a break from the book process and go on an internship; learning some amazing stuff! More on that, later...

The book is coming soon, and I think you're going to love it. If you want more info, sign up for the book announcements on the upper right of this site, where it says "Sign up for upcoming news on the new book!"

The Fit Ink

The Fit Ink is a the name of our newest project. TheFitInk isn't just a place on the internet, nor are Galya and I merely, collectively, TheFitInk; I think it's going to be greater than the sum of its parts, plus many more awesome clichés! Gal and I will be writing there, together and individually, and we're really excited about this thing.

Galya and I have been looking forward to writing together more and more; after talking about it for years. We have another book in the works, along with many article and blog ideas. This new site isn't just a consolidation of our two sites, but a substantive change in voice (at least for me), which allows us to drop some old blog habits, practices, and inhibitions, leaving behind some of the past. For me, my diary-style blogging history tended to keep me from writing more about nutrition and fitness. My old blog started as a journal, before I knew much about nutrition and fitness, and was merely a place to practice writing.

Galya and I, along with our good friend Sean, worked long and hard to come up with a website that's nice to look at, easy to manage, and flexible for the future. Sean did a great job meeting our requirements, and we are very happy with it (and him).

So why the delay? Well, you want everything to be perfect before you spread the word, but we're not perfect people... I'm something of an irregular guy. I'm happy, for example, to shop in an outlet store, where they feature clothes that are also "irregular." Galya, who's more normal, would have likely been happy to "just start," back when the site was more or less ready. Oh well, now we're both ready.

The Fit Ink Team can be found at TheFitInk.com, starting now, even before the official launch. To get updates, you can subscribe there now, or just watch this blog, Galya's blog, and Facebook for updates. We have some fun things coming, including some giveaways, prizes, and contests.

The No-Time-To-Workout Workout

The number one reason I hear for not working out, is lack of time. Workouts take too long, the gym is too far away, home gym equipment is too expensive, ugly, or takes up too much room! Hey, I'm no different; when I get busy, I not only don't train, but I feel guilty about it, which spurs my desire to emotionally eat! Not good. Not good.

Well, finally, I decided to do something about it and write myself a program that would meet my current requirements. But, after a few chats with other busy guys and gals, I decided to take it a step further and actually write it down in a way that others could use, too. I've even tested this baby myself, so I know it's working.

Here's the gist of the program:

• Free
• Short and sweet
• 20-30 minutes per session, including warmups!
• Home or gym friendly.
• Photos and descriptions of all the exercises
• Train as little as twice a week, using short full body workouts
• Train in as little as 30 minutes, and get great results
• Requires just one adjustable dumbbell, although if you have a set  of dumbbells, that works great!
• Fits your schedule, since you can do these short 20-30 minute workouts from 2 to 5 days per week
• A lunch hour workout is now possible, even with a shower!

I could just paste the workout in and leave you to it, but instead, you'll get the system, with pictures, explanations, and tracking forms, plus tips and tricks to make the most of your valuable training time.

It's almost ready to go, so keep a lookout for it! Comment, email me, or let me know on facebook if you want the heads up when it's ready, okay?

How many hours a day do YOU work?

The Internet meets me with people that are probably not even remotely interested in movement and nutritious eating but what brings us together is the interest in health and quality of life. I was recently contacted by someone named Allison, who mentioned she read my blog post on managing diet in times of stress. Then she invited me to take a look at an infographic she has been working on, regarding the length of the work week in the US and inviting me to share it, which I will do in a couple of paragraphs.

Stress is an ugly monster, my dear friends, and we have the key to lock it in it's dungeon or let it loose and allow it to change the plot of the fairy tale that is our life. 

Do I think work can cause stress? Well, to begin with, stress is not something that happens TO you, as in '' this guy really stresses me out''. It's something that happens inside of you because you cannot appropriately react to a stimulus. There are countless of stimuli in your day, and it's individual what brings you to your tipping point.

For the sake of simplicity, let's look at work as your only stimulus. If you had only a limited number of work hours that you could appropriately process that allowed you to be creative, happy, fulfilled, but alas you were in a circumstance where you needed to work ''more'' than those hours, that could cause you to react with stress. Not necessarily because you don't enjoy your job, like some people have shared, but just because of the sheer number of hours, appointments, conversations, problems to be solved. I won't even get into the topic of work-life balance, because then we will have to look at relationships, health, sleep, finances, career, education and everything else that seems to take 1% instead of 90% of your day.

During my homecoming week at the Restorative Exercise Institute in Ventura, one of the business training topics we discussed was how to balance our health and personal priorities with the desire to work with others and help them on the road to physical health! We were all in agreement that more than 3 hours of work a day with clients/patients was all that was productive, and the rest of the day, like Katy Bowman advised us, would be dedicated to making sure people can find us and making sure we are the living example of the health people want to regain. Given that this means not more than 25 hours a week will be spent working, that would significantly reduce stress, and simplify your life, should you choose to go that way.

Is the 40 hour infographic a good start? I think it's a great wake up call for those who haven't thought about it, so please read on :) The infographic is way cooler than anything I am able to create and I am very glad that Allison shared it with me.



How many hours a week, do YOU work? And how many of those hours are dedicated to getting 80% of your work done?

Chickpea, arugula and pine nut salad

A week ago, I made some delicious almond butter hummus, arugula pesto, some bruschettes. The next day I was looking through the fridge and all the ingredients I had met beautifully in this 3 minute salad.

To make 1 serving you need:


1 cup chickpeas, drained
1 cup arugula
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
2 tbsp pine nuts
1 tbsp pesto

In a large bowl, toss the ingredients together till they are mixed well. Serve and enjoy! To make a family sized salad, double, triple, etc. the amounts. Enjoy on it's own or serve as a side to chicken, lamb or roasted eggplant.

Hint: this salad transports easily to work, and makes a very satisfying lunch.