Recipes from TFL Clients

Submitted by Kim T:

Ingredients: 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes (not oil-packed) 1 cup prepare sun-dried tomato pasta sauce 1 cup fresh basil leaves 2/3 cup cold water 1 pound ground skinless chicken breast 1/3 cup seasoned dried bread crumbs 1/3 cup grated Parmesan 1 egg white 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions: 1. Combine the sun-dried tomatoes and enough boiling water to cover in a bowl. Let stand until softened, about 10 minutes; drain. 2. Put the sun-dried tomatoes, pasta sauce, basil and cold water in a blender and puree. 3. Combine the chicken, bread crumbs, cheese, egg white and pepper in a large bowl until well mixed. Shape the mixture into 20 meatballs. 4. Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the meatballs and cook, turning occasionally, until browned, about 4 minutes. Add the sun-dried tomato mixture and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the meatballs are cooked through, about 7 minutes.

Per serving (5 meatballs with 1/3 cup sauce): 347 cal, 12 g Fat, 4 g Sat Fat, 0 g Trans Fat, 75 mg Chol, 894 mg Sod, 27 g Carb, 33 g Prot, 190 mg Calc; WW Points - 7

Recipe taken from Weight Watchers Cookbook

Recipes from TFL Clients

Submitted by Nancy:

Filling: 1/2 cup of minced mushroom. I like to use fresh mushrooms but canned works fine 1/2 cup of thinly sliced kale. In a pan add 1/2 tsp of olive oil and cook the kale and mushrooms. For about 5 minutes or until mushrooms are cooked.

Chicken: I like to use cut thin chicken breasts. I season the chicken breasts and then add the kale and mushrooms mixture on top of it. Roll the chicken and add toothpicks to keep it from falling apart.

I cook the chicken in a pan with light coating of olive oil for about 1 minute on each side.

I remove the chicken and put in a baking dish.

Cook on 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until chicken is completely cooked.

I like a to make a sauce to go over the chicken.

I saute mushrooms in the same pan I used to lightly cook the chicken. Once the mushrooms are completely cooked, I add the liquid from the chicken that is in the baking dish. (Make sure that the chicken is fully cooked before adding the liquid from the dish) I then add some lemon juice. Cook for about a minute and then pour over your stuffed chicken.

I like to have this chicken recipe with a side salad.

Enjoy!!!!

Try Something New.. Kale Lasagna Diavolo!

1 tsp olive oil, plus more for oiling pan1 8-oz bunch kale, stems removed 1 15 oz pkg fat-free ricotta cheese 4 oz. chevre or soft goat cheese 2 cloves garlic, minced (2 tsp.) 2 cups prepared tomato puree 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes 6 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat 8-inch square baking pain with oil. 2. Cook kale in large pot of boiling salted water 2 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water until cool enough to handle. Throughly wring out kate, then chop. Season with salt and pepper, if desired. Set aside. 3. Mash together ricotta and chevre in bowl and set aside. 4. Heat 1 tsp oil in small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add garlic, and cook 15 seconds, or until fragrant. Add tomato puree and red pepper flakes; Simmer 5 minutes or until thickened. 5. Spread 1/4 cup sauce in prepared baking pan. Place 2 lasagna noodles on top of sauce. Top with half of cheese mixture, half of kale, and 1/3 cup sauce. Top with two more noodles, remaining lasagna noodles and cover with remaining sauce. Sprinkle Parmesan and bake 40 minutes, or until cheese has melted and lasagna is bubbly.

Per 1-cup serving - 183 calories 14 g Protein 5 g total Fat; 3 g Sat Fat 21 g Carb 13 mg Chol 450 mg Sodium 2 g Fiber 5 g Sugars

From the January/February 2011 issue of Vegetarian Times.

Snack Ideas - Protein Scones

I got the following recipe from Jen Comas (http://asp.elitefts.com/qa/training-logs.asp?qid=146203&tid=197) over at EliteFTS. I'll be whipping up a batch of these tomorrow. I'll post some pictures of the baking process and let you know how they taste! Maybe I'll even bring some in to Tuesday's class...

Get creative with these and add whatever you like - unsweetened cocoa powder & coconut shavings, or dried cranberries and walnuts, etc. I added 1/4 cup raisins and 1/2 Tablespoon of cinnamon, but any add-ins that you like will work. Dried fruit, nuts, chocolate chips, whatever. Add something though, or these will be really boring.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Ingredients: 1 cup plus 1/4 cup almond flour 1/2 cup vanilla protein powder (or chocolate. Whatev.) I used Vanilla Metabolic Drive 1/4 cup oats 1 Tablespoon of Stevia 4 egg whites 2 Tablespoons 0% fat Greek Yogurt, or pumpkin puree (your choice. I used pumpkin. Unsweetened applesauce will also work) 1/4 cup raisins 1/2 Tablespoon cinnamon

Mix all of the dry ingredients together first.

Then add the wet ingredients.

Drop 9 spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick spray or smeared with coconut oil, and slightly spread them out just a bit.

Bake until the peaks barely start to turn golden, about 12 minutes. They should still be slightly soft when you take them out.

WARNING: Watch these closely & don't overbake them, otherwise you will have rock-hard protein doggy biscuits for Fido.

Makes 9 scones. The following macros are for the basic mix, not including the raisins. Remember, any add-ins will change these numbers:

Protein: 8 grams Carb: 5 grams Fat: 9 grams Calories: 133

What They Never Told You About EGGS

This past weekend we held our first Grocery Store Tour at the Big Y in Wilbraham, MA and it was a success. There were a lot of great questions and everyone learned a lot about the choices they were making and changes that needed to be made. There were so many great questions that we were not able to make it around the whole store in the hour that we had. So as a result, I wanted to post this great article from Cassandra Forsyth-Pribanic about EGGS. I get asked a lot about eating too many eggs and it's affects on our cholesterol. Cassandra does an awesome job at debunking some of these thoughts and explains many of the health benefits of including eggs on a daily basis. Enjoy the article!

The Egg: this three letter word invokes almost as much fear into the hearts of Americans as our other favorite “deadly” three-letter word: F-A-T.

However, it’s finally time to crack the misconception that eggs are bad for our health, because they’re absolutely not. It’s unfortunate, but many people still think that you cannot eat more than one egg per day, or even more than 3 eggs per week because if you do, you’ll develop high blood cholesterol levels and fatty arteries. But, this could not be farther from the truth.

So, why do we think this way? Click below for the remainder of the article...

http://trainforlifema.getprograde.com/two-eggs-a-day.html

Track Your Way to Success

Keeping a food log is one of the most effective ways to manage your weight loss and performance goals. Whether you are struggling to change your poor eating habits or lose those last stubborn 10 pounds, you need to know what you're putting in your body on daily basis. Here are the top 3 reasons why you should be logging your food and training:

1. Accountability No one can help you but YOU! Having a great support system around you is very important, but no one is going to make the changes for you, not your trainer, not your doctor, not your kids, ONLY YOU. Only you can decide to make a change and follow through with it. By tracking what you are doing, you have a clear record of what is working and what is not. Your good and bad habits are staring you back in the face. Every time you eat something, log it! Look back on your logs on a daily and/or weekly basis to see how you've done. Who knew those mindless snacking habits at your desk was the problem? Or that one extra latte every morning is throwing your entire diet plan off by an extra 400-500 calories!

2. Motivation Ever hear of the snowball effect? The snowball effect is a figurative term for a process that starts from an initial state of small significance and builds upon itself, becoming larger and of more importance or significance. Well that's what can happen when you are tracking your progress regular. Small steps like eating a healthier breakfast or attending boot camp 3 days a week instead of 2, build upon one another. As you see yourself achieving each small goal, the bigger goals become easier and easier to achieve. 1 pound becomes 5 pounds of weight loss, a 1 mile run becomes 5 miles, etc. As you set goals for yourself, you can look at your logs and be sure that you are doing all the things necessary to achieve them.

3. Knowledge Knowledge is power. Many people have no idea what is healthy and what is not. With all of the resources out there for diets, exercise, supplements, and more it becomes very difficult to know what to follow and what will work. Using a tracking system can take a lot of the guess work out of your plan. As you log your food, you will learn how many calories are in certain foods, what's high in sugar, what a good source of protein is, etc. Knowing how many calories you should be eating per day and what you are doing now may be very different. Often times we fall into such a routine, we may be feeding ourselves way too much or way too little. It's rare that without proper knowledge of nutrition people are eating exactly the right amounts of healthy foods.

One of the best resources out there to help you with this is LIVESTRONG.COM. Click the link below and set up a FREE account with MYPLATE.

http://www.livestrong.com/

Why We Do What We Do

The following is a few research studies that Alwyn Cosgrove, one of my mentors in the fitness industry, distributed recently in his e-mail newsletter. The studies continue to prove that a combination of traditional strength training, metabolic resistance training and intervals are the keys to fat loss.

Special thanks to fellow geek :) Craig Ballantyne for letting me know about a couple of these: Knab et al. A 45-Minute Vigorous Exercise Bout Increases Metabolic Rate for 14 Hours. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011 Feb 8. These researchers had subjects undergo a bout of cycling at approx 73% of VO2 max (approximately 84% of max heart rate) for 45 mins. The subjects burned on average 520 calories in the 45 min training session. The following day their resting energy expenditure was increased an average of 190 cals compared to normal. Basically - the subjects burned an additional 37% MORE calories than the workout itself in the 14 hour post workout period -- meaning that a single high-intensity session, when including the post-workout metabolic boost could burn up to 710 cals in total. A second study Heden et al. One-set resistance training elevates energy expenditure for 72 h similar to three sets. European Journal of Applied Physiology. Volume 111, Number 3, 477-484, Mar 2011 The subjects were put on a very simple resistance training routine - full body training, either 1 or 3 sets per exercise of ten exercises. The researchers then examined the subjects resting energy expenditure at 24, 48 and 72 hours post workout. Both groups showed an elevated metabolism (afterburn effect) of around 100 cals per day. But there was no difference between groups. It seems that it's intensity that determines how many calories are burned post-workout, not volume (obviously a higher volume program would burn more calories during the session than a lower volume program. A third study confirmed this: Scott et al. Energy expenditure characteristics of weight lifting: 2 sets to fatigue. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2011 Feb;36(1):115-20. The researchers looked at the caloric expenditure of bench pressing using three different loads and concluded "As more work is completed (i.e., lower weight, more repetitions), aerobic and anaerobic exercise energy expenditures appear to increase accordingly, yet absolute EPOC remains essentially unchanged". In other words - the post workout caloric burn (in this case measured aerobically) One more: Astorino et al. Effect of acute caffeine ingestion on EPOC after intense resistance training.J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2011 Mar;51(1):11-7. This study showed a 15% increase in post-workout calories burned after the ingestion of caffeine as a pre-workout supplement. The total extra calories burned as a result of this only added up to around 27 cals in the hour after the workout. Not a lot but still something to consider. Plus I like iced coffee :)