Better Is Better

Gazpacho - A Healthy Summer Meal

Gazpacho is a raw vegetable "soup" that's great for hot summer days. It originates in the hot climes of Spain and Portugal. Generally, the star ingredient is tomatoes. And traditional recipes also included stale bread, but we'll skip that for our purposes. You can put all kinds of fresh veggies in a gazpacho. The sky is the limit really.

The one I threw together tonight was a concoction of what we had in the fridge and what was available in the garden. My daughter and I went out with a bowl and pair of scissors and just started smelling and tasting different herbs to figure out what we wanted in our soup.

Here's a list of what we came up with.

From the garden:

• Basil
• Lemon thyme
• Parsley

From the fridge:

• 3 large tomatoes
• 1 red pepper
• 1/2 small red onion
• 1/4 English cucumber
• wedge of lemon

From the cupboard:

• 1/2 clove garlic
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• Celtic sea salt
• fresh ground black pepper
• a touch of stevia

Once you decide what you want in your gazpacho, the rest is pretty easy. Roughly chop your veggies and herbs (except the cukes - put them aside). Then throw them all in the food processor with a couple good glugs of olive oil, a few splashes of balsamic vinegar, a pinch or two of sea salt, a few turns from the pepper grinder, the juice from your lemon wedge and your touch of stevia. Keep a few sprigs of parsley aside for garnish.

Let the processor go until the gazpacho takes on a smooth soupy consistency. Then you can give it a taste and season to your liking with sea salt and pepper. Once you get it how you want it, take it off the food processor base, cover it, and put it in the fridge for anywhere from a half hour to a couple hours.

When you are about ready to serve, finely dice your cucumber. Take your gazpacho out of the fridge and give it a quick whiz. Pour it into bowls and garnish with a sprig of parsley and a handful of your finely diced cucumber.

Enjoy!

If you've experimented with your own gazpacho recipes, I'd love to hear what you've come up with. I've heard avocado is also a great addition. Let me know in the comments.

Will You Achieve Your Health & Fitness Goals?

How likely are you to succeed?

Before you read this post, you need to complete a little task. Don’t worry, it’s not complicated (but it may be hard). Pick one goal that’s been ruminating in your mind for a while. It should be something that you really want to achieve. Now, rate your level of motivation to execute on that goal. Your rating should be a number on a scale of 1-10 where a 10 is utter commitment.

Don’t read on until the task is done…

OK, have you picked your goal and rated your motivation? If it was a 10, congratulations. Your chances of success are extremely good! In fact, you’re wasting your time if you continue to read this post. If it was less than a 10, what would it take to bring you up to a 10?

We all have dreams. Whether we allow them to manifest themselves as conscious thought - not to mention verbalize them - or leave them buried in our subconscious, each of us has goals and aspirations. What makes the difference between those that seem to consistently reach those aspirations and those who simply dream?

Why do some people lose the weight and keep it off? How do some people manage to transform their lifestyles and pursue more healthy habits when others languish in energy draining habits that sap their health and vitality? Why do some people soar to great professional heights while equally or more talented or intelligent people stay stuck in the mail room? What’s the difference?

Well, some people wish they could achieve their goals or hope that they’ll be able to make the grade. Other people simple decide that they're going to reach new heights. And that's the number one difference between those that achieve great things and those that don’t. There is no magic secret.

Success is the constant drip of small actions towards something magical. And the only way to stay the course and maintain that constant drip is to believe 100% that you will achieve your goal - that you will become the person you have decided to become.

This cumulative effect of small things is something that may be easier to understand with a physical example. If I took you through one session of Intu-Flow joint health & mobility, you may be tempted to think it’s just an odd collection of interesting looking movements. Some people will immediately feel benefit from that one session, but more often than not it’s the cumulative effect over a week or two that gets people’s attention. And after consistently practicing for months or years the true magic in the system is discovered.

But what if you didn’t believe after that first session? Would you have the staying power to continue your Intu-Flow practice? If your motivation for improving your joint health was a 7 out of 10 (which sounds pretty good), you might stick it out for another session or two, but chances are you’d give up on it before you really started to see results. However, if you were a 10 out of 10, you’d probably have the gumption to stick it out and reap the rewards of that constant drip of personal practice.

And that simple principle holds true for any goal. If your motivation is high enough, you’ll start to believe that your goal will come to fruition. And it’s that belief and drive that will allow you to do the daily personal practice that brings the goal to life. The secret isn’t something mystical. In fact it’s very practical. It’s the accumulation of daily effort.

But only those who start with the belief, have the motivation, and focus on the process will end up with the staying power to make it all the way to the finish line. They’re the only ones who will have the perseverance to make the tough little decisions on a daily basis. Because when it comes to short term comfort or long term happiness, consistently opting for the latter is only possible when you have a vision for the future.

So if you didn’t give your goal a 10 out of 10 on the motivation scale. Your homework is to figure out how to fill in the gap. Where are you going to go get those other 2 or 3 points to bring you up to a 10? Once you figure that out, your chances of success are through the roof.

As a society we’re obsessed with wellness but we keep getting sicker. The information we need is out there. But our ability to embrace it seems to lack zeal. Do you have any advice for achieving big things? What has worked for you? Please share your thoughts in the comments. We’ll all benefit.

Delicious spur of the moment sautéd scallops

Sometimes the best recipes are impromptu creations. Yesterday I found myself with a nice bag of frozen scallops, but without a plan. I looked around at what we had at hand and came up with what turned out to be a delicious dish.

If you want to make a great whole food, healthy and delicious meal quickly, give this one a try. Below is for one person (guy with a healthy appetite). You can adjust the portions up or down depending on your needs. You don't really have to be exact with any of it.

• 200 grams small scallops (I got a bag of frozen)
• 1 cup green beans (fresh or frozen)
• 1 tsp organic butter
• 1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
• Splash of good quality balsamic vinegar
• 1 ripe organic tomato
• 1 tbs homemade pesto (optional - recipe in future post)

Grab your steamer and put the green beans on to steam. Keep checking them until a fork passes through them, but with resistance. You don't want soggy beans.

While the beans are cooking, pat the scallops dry with some paper towel or a clean dish towel. Heat a frying pan over high heat and then add your butter and olive oil. Throw in your scallops and sauté them until they turn from translucent to opaque.

Quickly dice your tomato in large chunks while the scallops cook.

Put the scallops aside while leaving juices and oils in the pan. Put the pan back on the heat and throw in your diced tomato. Sauté until they start to soften. This won't take long. Add your balsamic vinegar and continue to cook over high heat until the sauce thickens.

Take your pan off the heat. Add your scallops back in along with your green beans. Toss everything together and add Celtic sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Serve it up in a pasta dish and voila...

Bon appetit!

You Can't Reap What You Don't Sow

Many cultures around the world measure mastery in decades. Ancient professions and arts require patience as a fact of life. In the west, we pay lip service to patience as a virtue, but it is far from a revered and required element of our daily lives.

We live in the land of the mail-order black belt and the instant ab machine. We expect the 10 Minute Trainer to change our lives. We believe in the power of the $15,000 Range of Motion Machine to deliver our dream body on only 4 minutes of exercise per day.

Don't get me wrong. It doesn't require hours per day of incessant repetitions on the bench press and interminable miles on the treadmill. That's not efficient or effective. But at the same time, getting fit and healthy takes time and it takes commitment.

We're coming from an evolutionary past where our forebears were constantly on the move. They walked up to 12 miles per day. And that's when they weren't running away from something, running after something, lifting something heavy or throwing something really hard. And what do we do all day...?

So we don't live in caves anymore, and that's great. I don't think we'd want it any other way. But we have to somehow supplement for that. Just like we judiciously supplement our nutrition to make up for any insufficiency in our food supply. We need to supplement our movement in the same way.

But that means putting in some work. You can't make up for a day's worth of activity in four minutes. You need to sow some seeds if you want to reap lasting benefits. It CAN be done in 30 to 45 minutes a day of focused and efficient training. But you should also pepper your day with as much movement as you can muster outside of your training.

Walk down the hall to talk to your colleague instead of sending an email. Walk or bike to work if you can. Take a stroll after supper. Take the stairs instead of the escalator. Instead of circling for the closest parking spot, take the the furthest one and walk.

Do a few rounds of FlowFit on your lunch hour and some Intu-Flow periodically throughout your day.

Not only does this stuff add up, it mimics the way our bodies evolved to move. Start methodically sowing some seeds. Spend a bit of time tending them each and every day. Before you know it you will be reaping a harvest that you could never have imagined.

Vegetarian - To be or not to be...

Most of you who've been around for a while will know that I'm about as far from the vegetarian mindset as you can get. I firmly believe that we're at our best when thriving off a diet based on quality organic animal products and on tons of fresh veggies. I think that is how we evolved as humans, and if we want to ensure optimal expression of our genes we should try to follow those evolutionary patterns in the way we eat and move.

But I don't live in a cave and I gladly accept that others will want to follow different paths towards wellness according to their own values. In fact, in interacting with this community I've discovered that many of you have indeed chosen the vegan or vegetarian lifestyle.

That's cool. But as a coach I also worry about helping you optimize whatever lifestyle you choose in order to bring you the greatest level of health, vitality and also performance. So I've had my eye on various "veggie" resources for a while now, trying to find something that I can put my weight behind.

To be honest, I was getting a bit discouraged about finding someone who "gets it." But recently I stumbled across a vegetarian nutrition and fitness expert by the name of Kardena Pauza. I haven't been able to do a full review of her stuff-it won't be done for a couple weeks still-but I did get a bit of an inside scoop and like what I see so far.

However, if you are a vegetarian (or if you are thinking of going that route) I'd really like your help. Kardena is offering free 7 day meal plans this week – it's part of her promotional efforts for her upcoming product – and I'd like you to review them for me.

There's a plan for men and a plan for women. Try them out and post your impressions here. I'd especially like to know about the "qualitative" experience. I'm fine with most of what I see as far as the technical aspects of the plans, but I'm hoping for you to tell me what it's like to actually live the plan.

I usually like to test stuff out on myself. But this time I'm just not willing to give up my carnivorous ways...!

http://tinyurl.com/veggiemeals <= Get the mean plans here

Don't forget to come back in a week and post your thoughts!

Cheers,
Adam

Delicious Sweet-Hot Chipotle Bison Burgers

I'm a big fan of bison meat. It's lean. The fatty acid profile is significantly better than conventionally raised beef (with a more natural balance between Omega 6 and 3). And it's got the delicious taste of wild "game" even though it's farm raised.

The only downfall of bison, and other very lean meats, is how easily they can dry out. It's not really a problem. It just means you have to learn suitable cooking techniques.

One of my favorite ways to prepare ground bison is my famous Delicious Sweet-Hot Chipotle Bison Burgers (OK-they're not really famous-but I really like them).

Here's what you'll need:

• 2 lbs ground bison
• handful fresh parsley
• 1/2 small onion
• 1 or two packets stevia (to taste)
• 1 or 2 chipotle peppers (with a couple tbs of sauce)

Roughly chop your parsley and onion and then throw them into a food processor. Whiz them until they're almost a pulp.

Put your chipotles in a bowl with their sauce and dice them up finely with a fork and a sharp knife. Mix in the stevia then add the rest of the ingredients and start mashing. Get your hands in there and squeeze everything through your fingers until it is thoroughly mixed together.

Form the mixture into patties according to your taste. I like to make fairly large patties and I find making them relatively thin works better. They end up cooking faster without drying out.

Heat your BBQ as hot as you can get it. Put the burgers on and leave the heat high to sear one side. Keep an eye on them. This can take as little as 45 seconds. Flip them and turn your flame almost all the way down. The residual heat will sear the other side but then the grill will cool so the inside can keep cooking without burning the outside. Leave them for a couple minutes and then flip one more time (yes-my timing is very scientific-just keep an eye on them).

I like to cook mine medium rare. I know and trust the origin and handling of my meat, so sometimes I'll even cook it rare. Anything more than medium and bison is ruined though.

Here's a trick to check your doneness. Press your thumb together with your middle finger (the one you use to flip the "bird"). Now press the pad of flesh below your thumb in your palm. Then press your burger. If it feels similar, it's medium rare. For rare, press the thumb to the index finger and use the same method.

Here's an illustration of what I'm talking about from Simply Recipes. They also have the corresponding finger tests for all the other levels of doneness.

What keeps the burgers moist?

The pulped parsley and onion isn't just there for taste (although there IS that), they also add a ton of moisture to the mix and make for super juicy burgers. Especially if you get the searing step right, as this traps the moisture inside the burger. The juice from the chipotles serves the same purpose.

A final tip for juiciness is to let your burgers sit for a couple of minutes once you take them off the grill. This somehow seems to allow the juices to settle into the meat (again-I realize my explanations lack scientific rigor-I just do it...).

I often eat mine on their own with a bit of dijon mustard on the side. But if you want the conventional burger experience you can throw it in an Ezekiel sprouted grain bun with your favorite fixin's.

I'll follow this up at some point with some tips for getting bison steak right on the barbie and also for cooking a mean pot roast in no time using a pressure cooker. Let us know if you have your own favorite bison recipes.

Enjoy!

The Relentless Sabertooth - How to combat the stress of modern life

30 seconds...

That's how long stress is "supposed" to last.

Either the Sabertooth eats you or you get away. Then you shake it off and life continues on.

But modern life brings with it the specter of The Relentless Sabertooth. Nowadays, the pursuit of the predator is endless. A bad boss, a negative friend, a looming deadline, a deteriorating marriage, a financial tight spot, and any number of other sources of stress mean we've always got a tiger staring us down.

Did you notice my use of the term "shake it off"? It's no accident of etymology. If you watch an animal who has been startled into great attentiveness and then decides there's no threat after all, you'll see them shake off the tension before they return to whatever it is they were doing.

We were meant to do the same thing. But as with so many other natural gifts of movement we were given, for the most part we've abandoned this practice to societal convention.

After all, it would look weird if we actually shook off the tension after being reamed out by our boss, right? Sure. Except by not doing it, we're holding onto that tension - storing it up to cause trouble for us down the road.

What are the negative consequences of chronic stress?

Among other things, if you ignore your daily stress you'll be able to look forward to:

• Disrupted learning - Chronic stress affects your ability to think and learn. Children from emotionally stable homes have better success rates at school. Stress-unchecked-even affects your memory.
• Weakened immune function - If you don't deal with your stress, you'll get sick more often. A great book to learn more about this is Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
• Increased disease risk - Chronic stress also sets in motion a series of physiological processes which predispose you to many of the diseases of civilization-heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, etc.

Two things you can do about it, today...

• Shake it off - Everyone I introduce to Scott Sonnon's vibration drills feels silly when they first try it. But then they get addicted. The most comprehensive guide to CST vibration drills is the RESET dvd. The concepts are presented mainly as they relate to sports performance, but the techniques are brilliant for sloughing off your daily stress.
• Find balance - Practice Prasara Yoga. It helps to realign your structure. Stress is accompanied by superfluous muscle tension. If left unchecked, this leads to pairings of short & tight muscle and connective tissue pitted against lengthened and loose tissues.

Sample Vibration Drills

(from my buddy John Sifferman)
 

Follow-Along Prasara Yoga Sequence

Little Red Feast - Lobster is a healthy indulgence and a heap of fun

I’m sitting under the green round sign that brings a sigh of relief to any traveling coffee lover. My Westjet flight back to La Belle Province boards shortly. This trip has been a short and unexpected one.  I’m “down home” to Nova Scotia to see my grandmother, who isn’t doing so well. It was great to see her and to catch up with all the extended family.

The other fringe benefit of being back east is conning my Mom into cooking me a lobster dinner. Few things scream down east like a home cooked lobster feed. It just doesn’t taste the same after a few days of transit as it does fresh off the boat.

And if you are looking for the occasional healthy indulgence, this is it. I guess not everyone loves lobster -- can’t see why not though -- but for those who do, who could ask for a more guilt free feast?

Omega 3 - Lobsters are a great source of Omega 3 fatty acids. If you aren’t familiar with the health benefits of Omega 3 (like if you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few years) a quick Google search will unearth a wealth of information on the subject.

Protein - Lobster packs a hefty 30 grams of quality protein for a measly 5oz portion. That makes it a great choice for those seeking to limit their carb intake.

Fun, Friends & Family - Eating lobster is an experience. There’s cracking, squirting, flying parts and lots of fun times. That makes it great for reducing stress and boosting your immune system.

Other goodies - You’ll also get some choline, vitamin A, E, B6, K, B12 and folate, niacin, sodium, potassium, phosphorus,calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, manganese and selenium.

So if you haven’t tried the little red feast, perhaps its time. What's YOUR favorite guilt-free feast?

Domino Fitness

I'm starting to think that Seth Godin should go ahead and start a health and fitness blog! In case you don't know, Seth is probably the most popular blogger in the world.  Nominally, his blog deals with marketing, but his insights apply so universally that anyone could benefit from reading it.

Recently, he posted about what companies can learn from dominoes (the game). To often, businesses go for the big score and the game winning deal.  Instead, they need to line up one domino at a time, starting with the one that's easiest to topple.  Once they get that first one past the tipping point, the resultant show of toppling dominoes will be an impressive and monumental sight.

What Can Dominoes Teach Us About Our Fitness Goals?

Have you ever tried to lose ALL those ten pounds in a week?  Have you ever gone so hard on your first workout or your return to the gym that you couldn't walk the next day?  Have you ever gone to a big family gathering, not touched a morsel of the delicious spread, and regretted it a week later when you're back to eating everything in sight? If any of that sounds familiar - I'm guilty of all of it at one time or another - then you know what Seth is talking about when he refers to going for the big score.

Sometimes Less Is More (but Better is always Better)

It's great, even essential, to have a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).  But you have to break it into steps and compenents that allow you to steadily creep towards your objective while staying under the radar of any negative adaptations. Circular Strength Training provides us with a number of tools to help us make the most progress possible without the resultant breakdown that often comes with typical quick results.

Pairing the principle of Incremental Progression with the monumental Training Hierarchy Pyramid tool, you can plan out a program that will get you to where you are going one small step at a time.  But the funny thing is, you'll get there more quickly than by trying to race to the finish line.  Hmm - Isn't there a popular kids tale about that...

6 Tips For Creating The Domino Effect

1. Define your goal - Imagine exactly what the end result will be.
2. Dissect your goal into pieces - Slice that end result into as many little pieces as you can. When you become that person... What are you eating? How are you sleeping? What training are you doing? What recovery work are you doing? What skills do you possess? What attributes do you have? Now take all those things and slice them up even more. For example, what training will you need to do to support the training you'll be doing when you reach your goal?
3. Line up your "dominoes" - Now, take all your slices and put them in order. Which ones need to come first to support the rest.  Those early slices are part of your General Preparedness (from the THP model).
4. Make a macro plan - Take all those lined up slices and build yourself a macro plan.  This is a large scale plan that allows you to visualize all the steps it's going to take to get you where you are going. This can be a mind-map, a pyramid, a list, an essay or whatever format most speaks to you.
5. Make weekly micro plans - Every Sunday night, spend some time mapping out the next 7 days. Use your macro plan as a guide. Assess which dominoes have tipped and which are next in line.
6. Adjust the macro plan as needed - It's essential to have a big picture plan, but fatal to assume that it is immutable. You will need to adjust it constantly as you go in order to reflect the realities of your life and your progress.

Look Back & Admire The Results

What I've learned about the THP and Incremental Progression over the last few years is that anything is possible. Not only that, REAL results will come faster than you could imagine. But you have to get those dominoes tipping in the right order and with the right timing. Then the magic starts happening.

[image courtesy of  Mirko Macari on Flickr]

Happy Father's Day

"Papa"

Of all the words in the world, that's the one that gets me the most.  It can mean so many things. 

• I need you
• Look what I've accomplished
• Where are you
• I hurt myself
• I'm happy
• I'm sad
• I wanna play
• Protect me
• Fix what's wrong
• And so much more...

It's amazing how much power one little word can have over a man.  It encapsulates the entire array of responsibilities you take on with Fatherhood.  I'm not sure I'll ever have a more important role in life than husband and father.

I'm not perfect, but I have my role models who continually inspire me to do better.  My "Pop" and other men from a bygone age were icons of sacrifice, integrity and steadfastness.  When they gave their word, they meant it - no matter the cost.

We seem to live in a more relative world now, where gray has overtaken black & white.  And I'm not immune.  But the imprint of the men from those golden years of Fatherhood still spark my imagination and spur me to action.

Take a second to honor our fathers and grandfathers today.  And a very special Father's Day wish to all of you Dads, Papas, Daddies, Pops and Old Men out there. 

Also, congrats to the father's who won themselves a copy of Bodyweight Exercise Revolution over at the Fit For Fatherhood Giveaway.  All the entries conveyed great stories of how fitness and fatherhood intermingle and interact.

Finally, my buddy Ryan sent me a link to this video which captures some of the essence of being a Papa.

Enjoy.