Back in action

It has been a LONG time since I've posted here and I apologize. I've been staying busy teaching fitness classes and trying to develop my personal training clientele. I've also been doing some planning for a program that will be starting the end of August. More details will come, but just to preview it, the program will be 12 weeks long and the goal will be improving one's functioning and real fitness. This program will be a lot of fun in that you will see measurable improvements in your fitness. It won't simply be, "I feel fitter" or "I think I am more fit now." No, we will have hard data showing not only that you did improve your fitness, but by how much. It'll be a blast and I'm excited about it.

But, to get my more regular posting kicked off again, I thought I'd do a food post about my breakfast this morning. The recipe comes from the blog Eat the Cookie and is a pancake recipe that you can feel good about. Totally gluten free and pretty low in carbs but quite tasty. The main ingredients are eggs, almond meal, and coconut flour. They have a nutty texture and taste similar to a whole grain pancake or buckwheat pancake which comes from the combination of the almond and coconut flour. Here's the recipe:

"Classy Pancakes"

3 whole eggs

1 tsp agave nectar (maple syrup or honey would probably work as well)

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp oil (I used coconut but olive oil might work better because the coolness of the eggs caused the coconut oil to solidify, making stirring a challenge)

2 tbsp coconut flour

4 tbsp almond meal

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet ingredients, then combine the two and whisk together, trying to get a little air into the batter. Then simply cook on a hot, oiled skillet. The batter will seem kind of thin, but don't worry, they turn out just fine. I had some liquid heavy cream that I whipped up and added just a touch more of agave nectar for a little sweetness that made for a nice whipped cream to top the pancakes with. Add some blueberries on top and you've got yourself a satisfying, low-carb, high fiber breakfast that you won't feel guilty about. And if you're wondering about the taste, my dad, who is sometimes skeptical of my "alternative" cooking methods said they were quite good. Approved!

Fitness applied

I'll continue with my previous post about using your fitness. Ultimately we need to start by asking the question, "Why are you working out?" That question will very likely have a different response for each person responding. Maybe you've lost some of your capacity to simply do the activities that you enjoy doing and you would like to regain that. Maybe you are a weekend warrior and would like to be a little faster, stronger, or less injury-prone for your softball, basketball, soccer, etc. games. Possibly you've got a few (or a lot of) pounds to lose.

All of these are valid reasons to work out. If any of you know me, I'm of the school of thought that says that your fitness should increase your quality of life, that is, allow you to continue to do what you need/enjoy doing or improve your ability to do those things. If your workouts don't help you accomplish this, why are you doing it? What if you just want to lose a few pounds now that swimsuit season is here? There is nothing wrong with having some aesthetically driven motivations (if we're honest with ourselves, we all do to a certain extent), but the problem I see if that is your sole goal, is that once you get there, what do you do next? Fitness and health should be a life-long pursuit, not something with a starting and ending date.

I would also make this contention: if you workout to significantly improve your body's function and increase your capacity to do work (as in physical activity, not work like a job, though they might be related), you will favorably change how you body looks. But I have seen people change how they look (usually speaking in terms of losing weight) that don't necessarily improve their work capacity and really aren't much healthier or fitter.

Don't get me wrong, some people will increase their work capacity simply by losing weight. I get that and maybe that's where you need to start. Then do that. Lose your 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 pounds or whatever it is. But you will eventually get to a point where continuing to turn that elliptical ceases to really do anything for your fitness. Don't burn calories just for the sake of burning calories. Make sure you know how to move as well.

I could go on with this, but I'll end it here. Let me know if you've got questions or disagreements.

Using your fitness

If you haven't seen him yet, Damien Walters is on a whole other world, probably a world without gravity.

This is a great display of coordination, agility, flexibility, speed, strength, power, balance, and accuracy. The

only ones out of our 10 general physical skills that are missing? Cardiorespiratory endurance and muscular

endurance. And those may be two of the simpler qualities to develop. Anyway, this is a great example of

using your fitness. Now I know, he is in set up situations most of the time and not everything that he is doing

may be the most "practical." Regardless, a high level of general fitness allows him to do what he does, and

do it quite well I may add. Look at your fitness program. Does the fitness you are developing transfer to

settings and situations outside of the gym? If not, maybe its time to evaluate how your approach to fitness

is actually benefitting you and applying to your everyday life. More on this to come later.

Welcome to Abundant Fitness

This is the first of what I hope to be many more posts about health, fitness, nutrition, wellness, and simply living a full, abundant life. Please feel free to check out my links and blog roll to get some additional information. And feel free to contact me if you would like consulting or personal training and you are in the Madison area.

Also, this weekend I will be at BratFest at the Hybrid Fitness booth. Please introduce yourself. I'd love to talk about your fitness goals and experiences with you. On Saturday at 9AM we will be holding what we hope will be the world's largest one-hour bootcamp! It'll be a blast and a great opportunity to get a great workout and earn all those brats you'll want to eat! If you decide you want to attend, please register here. Oh, all the money that we collect this weekend for either the bootcamp, the group fitness classes, and personal training sessions we're offering will be donated to the American Family Children's Hospital. That's right. ALL of the money. So come out, have some fun, get a great workout in, and support a worthy cause.