Simone’s Chicken & Vegie Slow Cook Soup

Simone’s Chicken & Vegie Slow Cook Soup

Serves 10-12

 

Ingredients

500g chicken thigh or breast trimmed of all visible fat and diced.

1 large onion chopped

1 teaspoon crushed garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 x 1lt chicken stock

3 cups water

1/2 packet of soup mix (barley, lentils etc)

1 packet soup fresh vegies (found in Supermarket – carrots, swedes, turnips, celery etc) diced.

1 container of tomato paste (found in twin packs)

1/2 bunch chopped fresh continental parsley

pepper, salt, and mixed dried herbs to season to taste.

 

Cook onion, garlic and chicken in non-stick pan until onion soft and chicken browned. Add seasoning.

In  slow cooker rest of ingredients and then add chicken and onion. Season again.

Cook on low for 8 hours.

 

Breakfast Wraps

Breakfast Wraps – Only 233 cals per serve

Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 4 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup semi-dries tomatoes chopped
  • 3 cups English spinach
  • 4 wholegrain tortillas

In large bowl whisk the eggs, add the semi-dried tomatoes and spinach and season with cracked pepper and salt. Heat a non-stick frypan to medium, add egg mix and stir well to scramble until cooked. Meanwhile heat another pan to moderate heat. Cook each tortilla, turning once until warm and soft. Divide egg mixture between the tortillas and roll up to enclose.

Energy Fitness Big Weekend of Running 20th July 2014

It has been a HUGE weekend of running for the Energy Fitness crew!! I have been busy trying to keep up with you all!

Sunday was the Sutherland 2 Surf and also the Hunter Running Festival and Energy Fitness was extremely well represented at both events.

I’ll go through the Sutherland Shire’s local pet event first. Results are:

Fiona Kent 1:01:29, Nat O’Brien 46:39, Matt O’Brien 49:19, Tom Wright 54:36, Linda Knowles 58:26, Louise Dooley 59:46, Kim Grant 56:23, Kellie Ellis 57:27, Lisa Mottershead 59:39,  Bel Shoebridge 56:53, Colleen Redwin 50:23, Nicole Maguire 53:16, Karl Nusdorder 52:08, Kathy Hayward 56:53, Nadine Coady 55:21, Justine Catto 59:18.

Some brilliant runs in there and quite a few PB’s – very impressive!

My sincere apologies if I missed anyone from the Sutherland 2 Surf, please let me know if I did. It was hard as I was not there and there were a few last minute entries.

The Energy Fitness Walkers and Families were also on board with the Thomas’s, the Hummerstons, the Turnbulls, the Natoli’s, the Stephens, the Coles and the Telfers also making their way down the Kingsway, as well as Dundee Aguilar.

There were many great results on a very chilly day! Great work guys!

 

 

The next race on the agenda was the Hunter Running Festival. The course was very tough, much harder than your average Half and quite hilly, but spectacular! I was just so impressed with all their efforts. I was able to ride my bike alongside them all and they worked their backsides off I can assure you!

 

The results from the Hunter Running Festival are:

Jonothan Elcombe did his first (and last he says!) Marathon. He went into under prepared and injured but finished which was amazing in 5:07:42. Very impressive effort all things considered (injury, no training, and had been overseas for weeks).

The Half Marathoners were Fiona Ruxton 1:49:27, Joelle Lavender 1:49:58: (girls were very happy to slip in under 1:50), Liz Humphreys 1:57:39, Kathyrn Mayger 1:57:39, Barry Davidson 1:58:11, Shirlie Phillips 2:01:52, Paul Gallen 2:01:27, Kelly Newman 2:11:49, and  last but not least, Jo Williams 2:43:50 – amazing considering she has a heart condition and was told she could never run!

In the 10.3km we had Nicole Adamson in 55:33 and Phillip Filipou in 56:59. Quite a tough 10.3km! Well done!

 

 

This course and event was awesome and definitely going to appear on the Energy Fitness calendar again.

This whole weekend and your efforts has made me a very proud trainer.

 

 

 

 

 

Heart Rate Monitor & GPS Reviews on Various Brands

For all you Tech-Heads out there (and those that just like to know where they are at with their training), here is a great site that reviews all of the current brands of Heart Rate Monitors & GPS devices that are on the market. I reckon if you need it or want it – it is here! It reviews devices for running, triathlon, paddling cycling and multisport activities.

I personally recommend anyone over the age of 40 wear a Heart Rate Monitor whilst training. Firstly because it gives you a good indication of how you are training and feeling on a particular day. Secondly, it shows your recovery time after efforts which is a great indicator of fitness. Thirdly, it is an ideal tool to have if you are watching your weight and counting calories, and lastly, it gives you permission to slow down if you are working too hard, and also tells you (or your trainer) when you can work harder or give yourself a kick up the backside! It can also indicate when illness or over-training are imminent.

I’ve always been a Polar fan, but there are many new products on the market and it is worth looking into all of the brands and features available. Some are simple, and for some of you that’s all they need to be. Others offer many more technical features that can be used effectively to help you improve performance. It’s really a case of  ‘horses for courses’ as everybody has different needs and wants, and of course you need the technical know-how to be able to use the thing! For me, I am glad I have a teenager in the house!

 

Knock yourself out and have a look!

 

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/product-reviews

 

Sutherland Half Marathon

A great local event held on Lady Carrington Dr at Audley. This event has something for everyone – 1km, 2km, 3km, 5km, 10km, and 21.1km (Half).

Saturday 16th August. See event website for start times. https://eventdesq.imgstg.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main&EventDesqID=7947&OrgID=155

 

The North Face

This weekend saw the 7th edition of The North Face 100 & 50km in the Blue Mountains. The year brought a new start and finish line, a new course and lots of new challenges. The EF team took on all of these challenges head on and all crossed the line, which in a race with a 1 in 3 DNF rate, is an achievement in itself. Well done guys and rest well.

 

 

 

 

Mother’s Day Classic 2014

 

What a wonderful way to spend Mother’s Day!

This was the 6th year in a row that Energy Fitness has participated in the MDC, and each year it get’s bigger and better. Energy Fitness had two buses of participants from the Sutherland Shire with many other EF’er’s scattered over the other 6 buses,  so a great turnout from all of you. Bay Babes had a whopping 720 members on the day, and I think they need to rename the event the Bay Babes Classic! 🙂

Being a part of the amazing Bay Babes is a truly special experience, as all the Gymea Bay mums and their families get together to celebrate the day, their health and to raise money for a wonderful cause, Breast Cancer Research. And once again, the Gymea Bay Babes took out the award for the Biggest Community Group! Well done to the organiser Chris Callinan and her committee of volunteers.

Amongst us there were survivors, carers and of course those battling the illness right now, so it speaks volumes about how important this event is.

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The event consisted of 4km & 8km Walks, and 4km & 8km Runs. There were some that chose to walk with their families and others that took the event more seriously, and for those that ran the race in earnest, there were some fabulous results and massive improvements in times over last year.

Special mention goes to Natalie O’Brien and Linda Knowles of Gymea Bay that had great results in the 8km Run, with Natalie coming 2nd in her age (30-39) and 8th overall, and Linda coming 10th in her age (50-59) and a huge PB. She wasn’t the only one with a PB and there are too many to mention here, but I have to say as a trainer I am so proud of all of those that ran, as they all had a go and did their absolute best on the day. And that is all that matters!

I hope to see you all again next year and would love to see even more new faces at the event!

 

 

Calories in V’s Calories Out – Not So Simple…………

Weight loss is hard, yes? There wouldn’t be too many people out there that would disagree with me. Nearly all of us watch our weight, if not all of the time, at least at somestage in our life – and we should. It is part of living an healthy active life, and being mindful of our consumption (as overconsumption is so easy to do) and to be aware of what we eat, when we eat, and why we are eating.

I know I have mentioned to you all that watching your weight is a simple equation on calories in V’s Calories out, but I have also mentioned to you that everyone is different and everyone metabolises foods differently, due to your lean muscle mass composition, genetics, type of exercise you do, your hormones, stress levels just to name a few. Also, you all have different fitness levels that affect your ability to burn calories. You also know that I am a big believer of high intensity interval training, and that this is more beneficial than say, walking, for fat loss and increased fitness.

So, that said, here is an article written by the very clever Andy DuBois that may better explain why some of you are finding it easier than others to lose the weight. It also explains why I am so focused on you eating not a low calorie diet, but a HEALTHY diet. And why I also bang on about the obvious importance of exercising regularly, and at the right intensity for your desired outcome.

I have highlighted a few good points that I want to focus on and hopefully this will explain more about the differences in food (and why I hate white stuff!). It also mentions that there are inaccuracies with tools of measurement such as Heart Monitors and calories counters etc. While this is true, without the use of these tools many of us would have absolutely no idea of the calories in foods and how many calories you burn during exercise, so these tools are still invaluable even if they cannot be measured exactly. They allow you to take an element of control over your diet, but more importantly, your exercise and eating behaviour.

Happy Reading!

Simone

 

Fat loss is easy, all you have to do is eat fewer calories than you burn, or so many people would have you believe. If you aren’t losing weight then you are either eating too much or not exercising enough. Unfortunately the human body is a little bit more complicated than that and the calories in vs calories out model of fat loss has some serious flaws.   It’s all about balance yeah?

 

1. Food isn’t just calories.

One assumption calories in v’s calories out makes is that the all the food we eat is converted into calories. This assumes that whether you consume fat , protein or carbohydrate (macro-nutrients) it is all going to be used for energy and no other purpose. This is an incorrect assumption. Protein is used for muscle repair. It is also found in our hair , nails , skin and brain and it can be converted into a number of hormones essential for the body to function. Fat is used for insulation , it is used in cell membranes , it makes up part of the fatty sheath that surrounds nerve fibres, it helps with the absorption of some vitamins and is a key ingredient in hormones and other chemical substances that are vital for the body to function. Carbohydrates are almost solely used for energy. So depending on what you eat a certain amount of the macronutrients will be used for maintaining the cells in our body. A meal high in protein and fat will have a percentage of its potential calories used as building blocks for the body whereas a meal high in carbohydrates will be used solely for energy.

 

2. The numbers don’t add up.

According to the calories in v’s out argument if I ate 100 fewer calories per day for a whole year I would lose 36500 calories or approx 4 kilos of fat. That sounds great you may think. What if I then kept this up for 10 years. I would then have lost a total of 40 kilos of fat. I currently weigh 67 kilos so I would then weigh 37 kilos! Now 100 calories is approx 1 slice of bread . So I wouldn’t exactly be starving myself.   The good stuff There have been a number of studies that have shown that people eating the same amount of excess calories put on vastly different amounts of weight. If the calories in v’s calories out theory is correct then the amount of weight gain should be very predictable, instead it ranges enormously. Studies have also shown that it is possible to gain weight when eating fewer calories than your body supposedly needs to maintain weight.

 

3. It takes energy to store energy.

Energy is required to convert food into a form of energy that can be stored by the body. The amount of energy required depends on whether it is carbohydrate, protein and fat and which scientific paper you read! The macro nutrient composition of your meal will affect how many calories are burned in converting food into a storable energy source.

 

4. Different macro nutrients affect our bodies differently.

Hormones such as insulin and glucagon affect our fat storage or fat usage systems. Other hormones like leptin and ghrelin affect our feeling of hunger and satiety and all of these hormones are influenced by what we eat. The primary influence is not the amount of calories that we eat but the type of food we eat. If the calories in vs calories model out is correct then it shouldn’t matter if we obtain all of our calories from pure sugar or from lentils. If we eat fewer calories, then we should lose fat. But sugar has a vastly different hormonal effect on the body than lentils.

 

5. Inaccuracies measuring calories.

If the low-calorie theory is correct, then it is important to figure out how many calories we need to eat and how many we are burning per day. After all, 100 calories extra and you will put on 4 kilograms in a year! It is almost impossible to measure either the amount of calories you eat or the amount of calories you burn to anywhere near that degree of accuracy. Any watch or machine that tells you how many calories you burn is making some pretty big assumptions. The amount of fat and muscle you have will affect your calorie usage, your genetics will also affect it, as will the amount of sleep you had, the temperature, the time of day, your stress levels and numerous other factors. There are numerous calorie counters that will tell you how many calories are in a certain foods but the level of accuracy of these is very questionable. How many calories in an apple for example , a quick search on the net shows anything from 70-120 for the same size and type of apple. If you are measuring everything you eat, and using a state of the art watch to measure your calories burned you are still only going to have an estimate that is maybe several hundred calories out. Clearly this isn’t a good way to go about losing fat.

 

6. All exercise is not the same

The more calories we burn during exercise the better. Right? Well what about exercise that doesn’t burn as many calories during exercise but raises your metabolism after your workout? What about the hormonal response to exercise? Different exercise affects our hormones in different ways and our hormones affect fat storage , fat usage , muscle growth and numerous other bodily functions. High intensity cardio or weight training involving full body exercises will elicit a greater hormonal response than going for a walk. But if calories out is all that matters then whether we walk for 60 minutes or do weight training for 20 minutes as long as we burn the same amount of calories it shouldn’t make a difference. In the real world, weight training or high intensity interval training will have a far greater fat loss benefit than walking (comparing workouts burning the same amount of calories)

Why do some people lose weight when they count calories? The primary reason some people are successful is that when people calorie count they choose healthier foods as they are often lower in calories. It isn’t the fewer calories that promotes the weight loss it’s the healthier food choices.

So if counting calories doesn’t work what should you do? Whilst there is a raging argument going on between low carb, high carb, Atkins, Paleo, Dukan, South Beach or any of hundreds of other diets, I prefer to keep it simple. Eat a diet high in vegetables, a moderate amount of fruit, legumes, protein and good sources of fat, low in grains and cut out the processed stuff (it’s not really food).

Written by Andy DuBois, Mile 27

 

Love it, love it, love it! I hope you got something out of this. So, next time you head for that burger, fries, extra couple of slices of white bread or sweet biscuit, think of the response your body is going to have after digesting it.

 

 

Calories in Chocolate – Is it worth having that pig out?

So, Easter is around the corner and the stores are full of temping little morsels that you just can’t resist buying. Some for the kids, some for you?

Next weekend when the house is full of chocolate, how will you cope? Do you have the willpower to resist hooking in to the Bunny’s ears every hour? Or peeling one more piece of foil wrap off a ‘tiny weeny egg’ – after all – how bad can they be? Might as well have another one!

You have trained hard all year and have realised your New Year’s Resolutions, only to be confronted with the friggin’ Easter Bunny and all his wicked ways, depositing his loot in all the wrong places so they can’t be avoided (the fridge) and all just in time to settle into Winter and hibernate. Right? Lucky that you can pull on some baggy warm clothes and hide those Cream Eggs! But it doesn’t have to be this way!

With that in mind, I thought I’d arm you with some knowledge that will help you turn away from temptation, and if you can’t, let you know how much damage you can do over a few days, and more importantly how hard you have to work to get rid of it all. Once it’s past your lips, it generally lands on your hips!

So, exactly how many calories are in those tiny eggs hey? Let’s see.

 

Cadbury

Mini Eggs    36cals each

Deluxe Bunny 100g (purple)  800 cals

Creme Egg    172 cals

Cherry Ripe Mini   84 cals

Cherry Ripe standard bar  241 cals

Crunchie Mini    87 cals

Crunchie standard bar   243 cals

Flake Mini    75 cals

Flake standard bar   161 cals

 

Lindt

Lindt Gold Milk Bunny w/ Red Ribbon

200g large 1086 cals

100g small 543 cals

10g mini  53 cals

Gold Bunny Gift Box w/ 3 carrots 716 cals

Mini Eggs    97 cals

Lindt Balls (red)   64 cals

 

Red Tulip

Mini egg caramel   48 cals

Maltezer Mini Egg    34 cals

 

Now, how long to work it off??

This is just an average and will vary due to body composition and fitness levels, but it is a good guide on how much exercise is needed to burn off Easter calories. Remember that if you are lighter you burn less calories, and heavier you will burn more. Use the weight in kilos below to gauge an idea.

 

EXERCISE                                                 65KILOS             85 KILOS

30min Jog at 6.5km/hr                               195                        255

80min Soccer Match                                    607                       793

60min Brisk Walk                                         345                       451

Swimming 30 mins                                       189                        247

Circuit Training Vigorous 75min               650                        850

Mountain Bike Riding 90mins                   829                      1024

 

For less than a minute of pleasure on your tongue, you will need to perform at least 30mins of exercise to burn it off.

 

So by all means, enjoy an Easter treat, but be aware of what it will take to work it off. Think twice before going back for seconds!

 

Happy Easter!

 

 

 

 

 

 

BeachFit Wind Up April 2014

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Congratulations to all of the guys and girls that have completed another 10 week round of BeachFit. You have been a fantastic group to work with and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching you all go from strength to strength. This has undoubtedly been one of the toughest programs I have set, and you have all passed with flying colours!

This week I ran their Time Trial for the last time (we do one at the start and one at the end) and then compared them with their trials 10 weeks ago. I am very pleased to report that there have been significant improvements all round.

Weigh-in was Monday night, and again, there have been some great results, with everyone registering body fat loss when compared to the beginning of the 10 week program. Proof that High Intensity Training works! It has been a tough program, but well worth the effort when you see these results.

This program has also had the highest rate of 100% attendance out of all of my previous programs – although obviously I would prefer 100% attendance, 100% of the time, from 100% of people! It is a big commitment to say you will get out of bed before 5am two days a week, but that is what you do when you sign up – you commit to making a change – so only you can get those changes happening, and the first step is obviously to get your butt out of bed! So well done to the following people that toughed out every single sessions with no excuses!

Kathryn Mayger – 100% both days

Sarah Dixon – 100% both days

Nadine Coady – 100% both days

Ian Linton – 100% both days

Rich Williams – 100% one day

Liz Williams – 100% one day

Jeanette Goodwin – 100% one day

Donna Snudden – 100% one day plus many casuals

Matt O’Brien – casual participant due to work travel but almost completed all sessions.

 

I hope you all enjoy your well earned rest now, and then decide what your next challenge is! Don’t let all this hard work go to waste! I hope to see you at Gymea Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays as you continue this healthy lifestyle journey! Find a new goal and then go out and chase it!

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Thanks for being a part of BeachFit once again, I look forward to seeing you all at the next program when it starts in August/September.

 

Simone