Hi every­one,

Hope you are all doing well and have missed my blogs over the last few days! I had the plea­sure of spend­ing some one-​on-​one time with my 16 yr. old daugh­ter in the crazy yet fab­u­lous city of Vegas and sunny Palm Desert where my dad resides over the cold win­ter months. What a joy it was to run out­side and feel the warm sun on my face! Unfor­tu­nately, I didn’t have an oppor­tu­nity to ride but the out­door runs more than made up for it.

Yikes! Was it ever chilly out­side today! I’m so glad to be home, nice and warm in my sweats and slip­pers! Yep, that’s pretty much my go-​to uni­form after a long, hard day.

So now that we’re smack dab in the mid­dle of Jan­u­ary, I’m hop­ing every­one is back to their fit­ness rou­tine and healthy eat­ing plan. Once you’re back on track, it’s smooth sail­ing from here on in!

After about a month off of run­ning due to a pesky foot injury, I’m back on the tread­mill and feel­ing great. I’ve got­ten alot smarter in my more “mature” years, and under­stand now how impor­tant it is to take it slowly after com­ing back from an injury. So, for the next lit­tle while, I’m just run­ning some fast 5k’s (about 3 times a week) and set­ting aside any dis­tance run­ning for now. The foot feels pretty good but it’s still not com­pletely healed and I don’t want to risk it. For those of you who are also bat­tling injuries (yep, it sure does suck get­ting older!), please try and heed my warn­ing and come back slowly, even if you think it’s all better!

Ok, enough about that…Let’s move on to another topic, food. I had a bunch of broc­coli on hand and wasn’t really in the mood for a soup so I decided to fire up the oven to 425 degrees and roast it along­side tomato and onion wedges and a few gar­lic cloves. In a small bowl, I mixed 1 Tbsp olive oil with 1 tsp each of Dijon mus­tard, chili gar­lic sauce, tamari and bal­samic vine­gar. I driz­zled it over the veg­gies and popped it in the oven for about 30 min­utes. So del­ish! In fact, I ate the whole thing!!

Of course, I needed some pro­tein to add to the meal so I whipped up my favourite egg white dish. Now I know you’re going to think I’m really strange when I tell you what it is but trust me on this; it’s so yummy! Kinda like a crepe but guilt –free and good-​for-​you. It’s basi­cally an egg white omelet with a peanut but­ter and jam fill­ing. I used ¹⁄₂ cup liq­uid egg whites, 1 Tbsp PB2 mixed with about 1 Tbsp water and my home­made straw­berry chia jam. (I’ll post that recipe later). You can use any jam you’d like or fresh sliced berries would work too.

It ain’t pretty but it sure is tasty!

I had to take a bite.…

Hi again!

It’s been really nice get­ting back to my reg­u­lar teach­ing sched­ule once again. Although hol­i­days are nice, com­ing back can often be tough and some­times painful. Just remem­ber though, that in a a few short work­outs (I always say 3 – 4), you’ll soon be feel­ing back to your ole’ self again. Tough it out, work through the dis­com­fort and know that it’s just tem­po­rary. I guar­an­tee you that your fit­ness and strength will soon return in full force, in no time.

When I came home today, I was starv­ing and needed some­thing fast.…I quickly grabbed my big stain­less steel mix­ing bowl and began to fill it with just a few of my favourite things:

Hi every­one,

Can’t believe the hol­i­days are now behind us. Time sure flies when you’re hav­ing fun!

I don’t know about you but I’m so sick of hear­ing every so-​called diet expert pro­mot­ing their books, exer­cise pro­grams and gen­eral BS. Sorry if I sound a wee bit per­turbed but I wish peo­ple would just quit promis­ing the moon when it comes to weight loss and fit­ness. You and I both know that the only way we lose weight is to reduce our caloric intake and increase our activ­ity level. Period, end of story. There is no quick fix, magic pill, cleanse, shake, cookie..whatever. The real­ity is that los­ing and main­tain­ing weight loss is dif­fi­cult and takes com­mit­ment, self-​control and dis­ci­pline. Same goes for exer­cise. Nobody can lift those weights for you or run 10k; that’s up to you to do and no one else.

So, wth the new year upon us, I decided to exper­i­ment a lit­tle with some gluten-​free ingre­di­ents. Not because I have a wheat intol­er­ance but because I’m always curi­ous about learn­ing to cook/​bake with unfa­mil­iar ingre­di­ents. Plus, I have a few clients who swear by their gluten free diets, so I fig­ured I could help them out with a few tasty and easy recipes.

My first recipe really isn’t a recipe at all. I just decided to replace my morn­ing oat­meal with gluten-​free mil­let. I pre­pared it exactly the same way as my oat­meal and boy, was I ever sur­prised at how deli­cious it was. I added a driz­zle of pure maple syrup over top but you could cer­tainly use honey, agave, splenda, brown sugar.…whatever you fancy. I also added a pinch of cin­na­mon to the water as the mil­let was sim­mer­ing. If you’re fol­low­ing a gluten-​free diet and miss your big bowl of morn­ing oat­meal, then you should def­i­nitely give mil­let a try.

Here’s how I made it:

¹⁄₃ cup millet

1 ¹⁄₂ cups water

pinch cin­na­mon, sea salt

In a small pot, bring water to boil. Add mil­let and cin­na­mon; reduce heat to sim­mer. Cover.

Cook for approx­i­mately 15 min­utes or until water is com­pletely absorbed and mil­let is tender.

Remove from heat and let steam for 5 min­utes, covered.

Enjoy with your favourite sweetener.