GoodFitFam

PRs, PB and the fun pursuit

Best Home AB Workout

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Best Home AB Workout 

Eggnog season is upon us.  If you don’t like Eggnog please try this, chill and get back to us.

  • 1 dozen yolks
  • 1 pound powdered sugar
  • 1 quart half&half
  • 1 quart whipping cream
  • 1 750ml bourbon
  • 1/2 750ml brandy
  • Nutmeg to taste

Soon after you discover you really love eggnog, you’re going to search for a good ab recipe.

This is our new favorite ab workout. It’s something you don’t need to hit the gym to do.  It has a million+ views, so we’re not the only ones. It’s a channel worth subscribing.

 

Here are the exercises if you’re keen on trying them.

Best Home AB Workout

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Jurassic World : The Exhibition

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We spent Thanksgiving week in the Philadelphia area. During that week we toured the Franklin Institute twice. We went early in the week when there were no crowds and so the kids had the opportunity to play with everything minus the lines.

We then visited Saturday after Thanksgiving and the day after their newest exhibition, Jurassic World opened. Every child on the east coast was in the museum that day, but they did an excellent job ensuring the crowds were spaced nice evenly and the only thing that may overwhelm a child would be the monstrous lifelike T-Rex.

In total, I’d highly recommend the exhibit. Our kids were two weeks away from turning five and were much more awed than afraid. To start, you wait in a large darkened room intended to simulate a ferry heading for the mysterious island of Isla Nublar, where they a video explains, due to familiar science breakthroughs, dinosaurs again walk the earth.

Shortly after the doors open the journey begins. Once I saw the stegosaurus mother with cub (not sure if that’s the right word) we were impressed. These were not the robotic animatronics we’ve been accustomed to that used the same technology as the animated Santa on a lawn. With these, the skin looked great, the expressions real and the movement was smooth.

In each room, they not only had a dinosaur to ogle but plenty of displays demonstrating what life was like on earth the first time they roamed. There was even an opportunity to touch dino poop. A highlight for the kids.

While, the stegosaurus was didn’t walk, there was a frighteningly realistic T-Rex who marched to a parked jeep containing the sounds of fearful goats.

While, I believe T-Rex was designed to be the highlight of the exhibition and it was, there was also human puppeted raptor and a room kids can design their own dinos using touch-screen computers that were immediately emailed to you.

A video posted by j christopher (@forever_lucky) on

The scariest display was actually the one with the dinosaurs mostly hidden from view. It comes at the end and it’s one were you walk through a tunnel in a hollowed out log. What you can’t see are a group of dinosaurs in battle with the park’s keepers.It doesn’t sound like it goes well for the humans. There are small holes kids can peer through to see the dinosaurs. It was the only thing either of our kids noped.

We feared the gift shop.The kids freshly from the emotional high of the wondering if dinosaurs walked amongst them, came down with a case of the gimmies. Eventually, cooler heads prevailed and we made it though.

It’s worthwhile to check out the entire museum. It’s been our favorite since we were kids ourselves. It takes multiple trips to see it all and there is currently a robot exhibit that was equally fascinating.

Two blocks from Franklin Institute is the Museum of Natural History. We visited last year and they have plenty more for your budding paleontologists to browse. It’s worth hitting both on a weekend if you can.

 

 

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8 Lo-Cal Snacks for your Netflix and Chill Nights

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Healthy Home Snacks: The temperature may not be single digits where you live but the sun goes down early this time of year. Netflix and football tend to rule everybody’s viewing habits, especially on those cold days.  Everyone tells you to not drink your calories or eat in front of the tv, but if there are 40 inches of snow outside and ten episodes of Narcos waiting, you need a plan.

Unless your trainer has you on an offseason bulking plan (lucky you) or putting on weight for a film role, you’re less active in winter and so you’ll need to choose your snacks wisely.

      1. Plain Popcorn. Skip the butter and try a mixture of seasonings and spices or even a hot sauce. If you want to get even more out of it, add some nutritional yeast, flax seed or spring on some PB2. You’ll burn many calories flossing later as well.
      2. Fruit – Berries, Grapes.  In the summer frozen grapes are refreshing as well small pieces of frozen mangos.
      3. Veggies – Carrots and broccoli.  Yawner, I know, try adding some greek yogurt to a ranch dressing mix to up the protein so you feel full longer.
      4. Roasted Chic Peas.  Add everything you would to french fries – olive oil, pepper, Old Bay or salt and put them in the oven at 400 for about 45 minutes and it’s ready by episode 2.
      5. Nori – Hard to find a snack with as many nutrients than Nori and with fewer calories per sheet. Big plus, you can also wrap everything else on this list in it

      6. Sunflower seeds. Eat them plain or roast them;  just season them as you would popcorn.
      7. Edamame – Not my favorite but they sell them in every store so someone must be eating them.  There are a ton or recipes to help you get the taste right.

      8. Apples and PB – Not the lowest calorie choice, but not invented in a lab either.  It helps to get those protein numbers up at the end of a long day. I’m sure they’ll genetically engineer a peanut apple in the future but until then we soldier on.

You heard some of our favorite low-calorie snacks. Do you have any can add to the list?

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Shoulder Workout for Anyone – 3 Supersets for Bigger delts

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So we’re now post holiday and back in the swing of the 5 am  workout routine again at Energy here by the beach.  It was good to see the early-bird gym regulars again. Shoulders are great way of keeping that waistline appearing small, while building some crazy delts. I went with heavier weights today to focus on building some muscle.

As hard as I try to keep it in a 30-minute window, adding 10 more minutes for a smart workout prevents injury and is well worth the extra time.
I always start my shoulders routine with a good warm up, I use PNF Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation. They help to activate the muscles to prevent injury.

I wanted to keep the volume up but with limited timeHere’s the complete workout:

Superset 1
Smith Machine Shrugs 12-15 reps 4 sets +
Seated Dumbbell Press 4 sets ascending weight 15, 12, 10, 8 reps

Then over to the cables to address those hard to reach but easy to spot, rear delts.

Superset 2
Standing Isolated Rear Delt Cable Fly  (See Video) +

Military Press 4 Sets ascending weight

Superset 3
Side lateral Cable Raises+
Front Raises with Weight Plate,

Dana Linn Bailey

With each set, go to failure with ascending weights.  Ideally, 12,10, 8 reps.

Good luck putting your coat on! Great shoulders make everything else look great, Go Strong Mama’s!!!!

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Why Picky Eaters LOVE McDonalds

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Okay put your guards down fellow Mom’s. I’m not about to knock down McDonald’s or make you feel guilty about feeding your kids from McDonald’s. I’m only trying to drive home a HUGE point that is always overlooked and often poorly fostered; the RELATIONSHIP you and your family has with food.

McDonald’s spends a huge amount of money and dedication focusing on your relationship with their food. First, they make it extremely stress free and convenient. You don’t even have to get out of your car AND if you do, there’s typically a wonderful indoor playground for your kids to enjoy. Your kids get to see pictures of their food before they eat it. The food looks exactly like the picture, you’re kids are getting what they expect. No surprises, except for the toy that comes with the meal.

The meal itself, whether it is a burger or chicken nuggets is comprised of the easiest oral motor task for your child. Everything that is offered in a McDonald’s kids meal is already processed and super easy for your child’s mouth to break down. The healthy addition of the apples come peeled, no skin to break down and all one color. From a sensory perspective, McDonald’s is a picky eaters dream come true.

Visually, there are no surprises.
Olfactory, everything smells the same.
Tactile, everything is super easy to chew and doesn’t change as you chew it.

YES, McDonald’s has done their research and has a super fun, relaxed, trusting relationship with your child and your family. You’re relaxed, your child is eating and everyone is happy at McDonald’s.

Now, compare your eating at McDonald’s relationship with your eating at home relationship.

You come home from work (tired and stressed) have to make dinner, entertain your kids, acknowledge your pets and FINALLY try and vaguely communicate with your better half ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!! Impossible not to be stressed. Kids may be snacking because they just can’t wait and you just need to get dinner on the table. Once you get to the table there could be a variety of scenarios that families fall into just to get a civilized meal. Some families make totally separate dinners for their kids, some appease them with Ipad or TV just to get them to stay at the table, some have their kids stay at a “kids table” or even eat separately and at different times. Most of the time, parents are stressed because their kids either want to play with the food, comment on how “yucky” it is, outright refuse, or play with it, anything BUT eating. Grrrrrr

See the difference? VAST isn’t it.

Now, I hope I have your attention on the importance of your families RELATIONSHIP with food.
Don’t worry, the answer isn’t trying to replicate McDonald’s at home BUT you do have to work on making it fun and relaxed. Here are some tips on how to do that:

1. Have your children participate with the preparation. You can do this at any age and with more than one child at a time. They will be engaged and first hand preparing their sensory system for what’s to come.

2. Create an ambiance, lighting and music do set the mood. The more relaxed and happy you are the more engaged your child/children are at the table, so pour that glass of wine!

3. Serve family style, let them be an active participant on what goes onto their plate. They’ll surprise you.

4. Don’t sweat it if they refuse. Acknowledge what they’ve eaten already and know that every child everywhere eats dinner only about 1/2 the time. They can always have something afterwards…this is okay. Remember you’re fostering a positive relationship. Keep it relaxed and positive.

5. Let them get up when their finished or just not eating. Avoid the battle, keep it positive.

6. Forget about table manners, let your kids have fun and go hog wild some times. I mean it, food fights and all. These are kids, not adults. Table manners come much later. Yes, we let our kids pour and throw and wear their food. It’s messy so be prepared but your kids relationship with food will be positive and confident. As always, remember that your child has to go through the STEPS of eating and getting messy and playing with their food is how they get to the final step of eating. See previous post for reference of the all important and critical STEPS of eating.

Did you Know?  There are more libraries than McDonalds.  So forgo the golden arches and make a weekly trip to the library instead.

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