Sarah Walls 8/22/11 Sarah Walls 8/22/11

11: Pancakes, Crawls, Squatmageddon

1. For the past 2-3 years I've been enjoying better pancakes than anyone else on the planet. It's about time I share them with you, no? They are buckwheat pancakes, and, even thought they look like poop, they taste incredible and are extremely versatile. Buckwheat is impressive for many reasons: it's a complete protein, high in fiber, has a low impact on blood sugar, and is gluten-free. As such, you don't have to feel quite as guilty if you consume buckwheat pancakes compared to your usual buttermilk cakes.

To give you an idea of how excellent these things are, I first began eating them with a good buddy of mine in college. Due to our schedules, the best time to do this was at 6:30AM on Friday mornings. As more of our friends discovered this, our little duo on Friday mornings quickly morphed into an event that we (oh-so-cleverly) dubbed "Pancake Friday." On the average, we'd have 7-10 guys in attendance, with an upwards of 15-20 as it grew in popularity. We always ate outside (yes, even in December...I didn't say we were the smartest of human beings), on a large wooden picnic table we had in the yard.

The fact that 8-20 college guys would wake up before 6:30AM on Friday mornings to partake in the awesomeness of these pancakes is, I believe, quite a case for how good these things are.

My two favorite fillings to use are chocolate chips (Ghirardelli is where it's at), and blueberries. While chocolate chips are obviously the less-healthy option, I've found them perfect for a weekend treat, especially after lower body training on Sundays.

I particularly love them with a thin coat of Organic Valley pasture butter, along with peanut butter and Agave Nectar on top. If you're a "skinny-guy" looking to gain some weight, be very liberal with your use of peanut butter and number of pancakes you consume. If fat-loss is your goal, I'd stick with blueberries for the filling and eat just a few of the pancakes with a side of eggs and/or veggies. Either way they're freakin' amazing.

Oh. It's a MUST that you use the Bob's Red Mill Buckwheat mix. I've tried nearly every buckwheat mix on the block and I can say that Bob's Red Mill takes the cake on this one (pun intended).

2. I recently received an email from a female reader of our blog, Juliet. She keeps an GREAT blog over at HeyJoob, and I encourage everyone to check it out; especially the females in the audience.

Anyway, she wrote me to let me know that she was reading our website and stumbled across a post I wrote (Animal Crawl Variations), and was inspired to give them a shot for herself. She filmed the session and I thought it was incredible:

She was training outside, and I've written about the superb benefits of training outside HERE.
She has absolutely no shame in posting a video of herself doing something "abnormal."
It's always refreshing to see a female that "gets it" and tries something besides the elliptical for a change. It was cool to see Juliet getting in an aerobic training session utilizing a slightly unconventional modality. And trust me, these things are way harder than they look.

You can see the video below:

3.Squatmageddon. Tony Gentilcore recently wrote an incredible (and entertaining) response to the fact that some gyms (that shall remain unnamed) up in NYC have BANNED squat racks in their facilities!! WHAT?!?!?!

It's a HUGE shame to see this, and is, unfortunately, an indicator of the current state and mindset a shockingly-large percent of the fitness industry. I highly encourage you to check it out, as I'm sure you'll find it entertaining as well.

You can read about it HERE.

Sarah Walls 8/15/11 Sarah Walls 8/15/11

An Oatmeal Recipe You'll Thank Me For

An oldie but a goodie. This is a recipe that nearly rivals my addiction to caffeine. It's awesome to make for breakfast or lunch, tastes a-m-a-z-i-n-g, is filling, and easy to take to work and/or on the road. I've been eating this on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis for the past two years. Many of my friends and family members are still making this after I showed it to them over a year ago. Let's get to it:

Crack Peanut Butter Oatmeal

Ingredients:

1/2-1 Cup Steel Cut Oats (preferred) or Old Fashioned Rolled Oats. Adjust amount depending on current activity level.
About 1 Cup Milk (amount depends on how many oats used). If milk isn't your thing, you could use water or *coconut milk.
1 scoop Whey Protein Powder
1-3 Tbsp Xylitol (a magical plant sugar)
Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder, about 1-2 Tbsp (measure to consistency...Trader Joe's Dark and Hershey's 100% tastes pretty darn good)
1-3 Tbsp All-Natural Peanut Butter (adjust amount depending on activity level/goals)
½ Banana, sliced (optional...I don't always put this in).

Directions

Combine everything in a bowl, stirring as you add ingredients. Place in microwave for 2-4 minutes (depending on strength of microwave), stirring about halfway through to ensure thorough heating. You can add Splenda as the sweetener, but I don't think it tastes nearly as good as xylitol (even though it's must cheaper). You may also use Agave Nectar (a low-glycemic sweetener extracted from a plant...found in most grocery stores). If using Agave Nectar as the sweetener, I prefer to add it after nuking. It will take a couple attempts to figure out the proportions you personally like to add to make it taste just right, but once you get it, you'll never go back to pre-packed flavored oatmeal that's nutrient-poor and loaded with sugar.

Notes:

You can also add some fruit on the side, such as some sliced strawberries or grapefruit
I prefer to get my steel cut and/or rolled oats from a natural foods store, as you can by loads of em for very cheap. If you don't have access to such a market, then plain Quaker oats are a good second choice.
If going for fat-loss, go light on the peanut butter (measure it, you'd be surprised at how much you use), and light on the sugar.
If looking for weight gain/muscle building, you can increase the oats and peanut butter used.
May also add some eggs on the side if you're really hungry or simply need a higher calorie/protein intake.

Note that it's not the most attractive-looking dish (due to the cocoa powder). Many of the athletes at SAPT have questioned my sanity when catching a glimpse of this on my lunch break. Not to fear, as it literally tastes like a peanut butter brownie! Their loss, not mine.

*A great tip I picked up is to boil the steel cut oats IN the coconut milk. Delicious!

Guest Post 8/10/11 Guest Post 8/10/11

Get Your Kale On: A Quick and Easy Recipe

Over the past year, I've been attacked by more illnesses (and lost the battle) than I have in the past four years combined. As such, my fiancee has made it a point to ensure that more vegetables enter my life. More specifically, she's ensuring that more kale enters my life. Given that she has one of the most intense immune systems I know of - and the fact that she's a Precision Nutrition Certified Coach - I'm all ears.You see, Kale is a rockstar vegetable. Not only does it provide cardiovascular support, detox the body, regulate our anti-inflammatory processes, fight cancer, and provide a whopping dose of Vitamin A, C, and K, but it also tops the charts with its antioxident capacity. Seriously, it's number one among the vegetables, at least according to the best known ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) rating. What this all boils down to is this: when enemy ships (disease, cancer-imposing agents, free-radicals, etc.) enter your body, all of the antioxidants and phytochemicals you've ingested from kale act as homing missiles to completely destroy the incoming enemy ships.

I actually can't take credit for that analogy, as Kelsey is the one that gave it to me (I wasn't going to acquiesce to her request of eating more kale until she told me the kale would give me internal homing missiles....then I was all ears, obviously).

Anyway, now to point. This past Sunday, we made a DELICIOUS kale dish that I wanted to share with you all. It's super easy, actually tastes good, and will provide you with the aforementioned homing missiles to fight off not-so-friendly organisms trying to attack your body. Here's how to do it:

Peanut-Butter Kale

(^^^Yes, you read that right^^^)

Ingredients: Garlic, Red Onions, Peanut Butter (the magic maker), Kale, and Oil (we used coconut).

Directions:

Heat coconut oil in a frying pan.
Add garlic (minced) and red onions (chopped) and let simmer for a few minutes.
Throw in a ton of kale leaves.
Toss in ten a few tablespoons of peanut butter
Stir around until the peanut butter melts over the kale and everything is thoroughly mixed.
Give a high five to your cooking partner (preferably a member of the opposite sex).

Seriously, this tasted amazing and makes for a perfect side dish (or a dish all on its own, depending on how hungry you are). Not to mention, your immune system is now armed with the best defense system in the world.

Sarah Walls 7/27/11 Sarah Walls 7/27/11

A Little of This, A Little of That

For anyone wondering, Steve is okay, but still pretty sick. So, it looks like he won't be making his next blog post until Monday at the earliest. In the meantime, I'm taking the path of least resistance and offering up some great reads from other sources:McDonald's Happy Meals get a makeover. I, personally, have an enormous problem with McDonald's and feel guilty anytime I stop there to get a black coffee (the ONLY thing I ever allow myself to consume from them). So, I don't know if this effort makes me feel better or worse about them... probably worse, when you consider "Take Home Point" #3. Here's another article from NY Times.

Wost Call Ever? I don't know about all that, but it's definitely a bad call:

Great article on how calorie counting is ineffective and outdated. Weight loss depends a great deal on QUALITY of food consumed - if you eat nothing but unprocessed, nutrient-dense food you can eat as much as you want and will look great - that's the approach I took to losing my "baby weight." But, on the other side, we currently have a client who has lost 38lbs by monitoring caloric intake. Alexander Ovechkin being himself, I suppose:

Sarah Walls 7/22/11 Sarah Walls 7/22/11

A Couple Reads and a Food Chart

Well, everything this week was coming along beautifully until I was ninja'd by a flu on Wednesday. The pesky fever hasn't left me yet (I think it's due to the recent lack of vegetables and deadlifts in my life), so needless to say, I don't trust my brain with putting anything remotely close to intelligent or informative on paper today. As such, I've allowed a few other people to do the writing for me today:

What Women Should Never (but often) Do While Trying to Get in Shape: Part 2 - Dieting by Juliet Deane this one's a bit of an oldie but I thought it would be of great benefit to the women (even the men, too) in the crowd that seem to never make progress in the "dieting" realm.

Top 20 Bodyweight Exercises for Building Muscle & Strength by Jason Ferruggia Jason recently wrote this article on bodyweight training and, given that I've increasingly fallen in love with bodyweight exercises, and have been doing them more and more in my own training, most of what he said resonated home with me.

Lastly, here's a pretty funny diagram on how to make wise food choices at the supermarket. It was tweeted by us yesterday. It's actually scary how true this picture is and many would be smart to pay attention to the first box on there ('Does it have a label?').

Sarah Walls 6/8/11 Sarah Walls 6/8/11

The Ron Reed Project

It's been awesome to see the number of adults training at SAPT consistently growing. I tip my hat to all those who work all day, drive their kids to every nook and cranny of NOVA, keep their kids from killing themselves on a regular basis, and still make time arrive at SAPT ready to get after it! It's very inspiring to see, and I'm excited to see more and more adults making vast improvements with us. One of our clients, Ron, recently went through an incredible body transformation that I wanted to share with you. Ron had been training with us for a little while already, but he told us that he wanted to enter a focused fat-loss plan as his health was beginning to suffer due to some weight he had put on.

We gave him an individualized nutrition plan, and tweaked his workouts so they would be a bit more "fat loss" oriented in nature. His results were nothing short of fantastic! See the video below.

I'd like to point out a few things that may be helpful to those of you reading:

Ron works full-time, both in the business world and at home as a dedicated father and husband. So, a transformation like this is certainly possible if you consider yourself a busy person (and I don't know anyone that doesn't).
Ron FREQUENTLY has to travel for work - often for 5-7 days at a time. So, even for those you that travel, you can definitely make worlds of progress with a schedule that demands regular travel. Ron would tell me what equipment he had available at the hotel (sometimes the hotels didn't even have a gym), so I would give him some "hotel room workouts" in which he could still get in some training with just his bodyweight, a chair, and a bed as his gym equipment. Your improvements in the physique realm will never depend on what fancy gym equipment you do or do not have available. It's the mindset that is going to be the difference maker.
Honestly, most of Ron's success was due to his consistency in the kitchen. I've said it before and I'll say it again: You can't out train a bad diet. Ron was constantly emailing me to make sure something was "approved" before he picked it up at the grocery store or added it to his meal. When he was on the road, he was sure to pick items on the restaurant menus that were going to help his progress, not hinder it.
He did not count calories, eliminate carbs from his diet, or partake in anything extremely complicated. It's important to note that nutrition plans really don't have to be as complicated or tedious as many may make it seem.
We did not do any carb cycling or sodium depletion leading up to his "After" picture (or at any point in his program).
Ron did not do a single crunch or sit-up throughout his program. Proof that you don't need to (in fact, you can't) sit-up your way to a lean midsection. It won't happen.
He performed zero steady state running throughout his program. Again, it is unwise (and unnecessary) to prescribe long distance running for someone in need of weight loss. Considering that all of Ron's blood levels returned to healthy levels during his program, this also goes to show you don't need long distance running to improve the health of your heart. Can it help? Absolutely. But I wouldn't recommend it as a modality of choice for a weight loss client.
He not only maintained, but increased his strength during this phase. I can't tell you how many times I talk to people (primarily males) that are frightened they're going to "lose all their muscle" if they enter a fat loss program. It's not going to happen if you design the program appropriately. As shown in the video, Ron hit a 40lb PR on his weighted chinup, a 30lb PR on his front squat, a 15lb PR on his close-grip bench press, and a 20lb PR on his trap bar deadlift. Note that these personal records occurred during this particular 16-week program (not throughout the few years he's been training with us).
Ron just turned 51 years old. 'Nuff said.