Great Results E-Course

One of my upline coaches with Team Beachbody, Kevin Kane has put together a great e-course loaded with information on how to get the best out of your workout program. It is an 8 week course with one lesson per week and completely FREE! If you want to receive the weekly lessons, just email me and let me know and you’ll start receiving one per week for the next 8 weeks. Oh, and don’t worry, there’s no grading or anything like that involved! You will need to be a member of the Team Beachbody community (also free) or a Club Member (minimal cost) so once you have emailed me at coachsueann@yahoo.com to notify me of your interest in the course, click here to join the free community or here to become a Club Member. Then be prepared to start seeing some Great Results!

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I meant to post this recipe when we were in the midst of our homeschool apple “studies” but forgot to. So here it is! One of my family’s favorites!

½ cup apple sauce (natural, unsweetened)

2 Tbsp. coconut oil

1/3 cup brown sugar or organic cane sugar

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. salt

1 apple, chopped (I leave the peelings on)

Preheat oven to 375º. Blend applesauce, sugar and oil. Beat in eggs. Stir in milk and vanilla. Add all dry ingredients. Blend until barely mixed. Gently stir in chopped apples. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 2/3 full. Sprinkle tops with additional cinnamon if desired. Bake 20-25 minutes until set and browned. Makes 12 muffins.

• Make extra and freeze. Then when you need a quick breakfast on the go, grab one of these to take along. A lot healthier than grabbing a pastry or not-so-healthy muffin at the local bakery or coffee shop!

The Team Beachbody Message Boards

Everyone needs a little extra push from time to time with their workouts and healthy eating habits. One of the biggest motivators for me with keeping on track with working out and eating right has been the Team Beachbody Message Boards. If you’ve never used the Message Boards, I urge you to check them out. It’s a great place to meet others who are working toward the same goals and get that daily motivation you need. I find I am the most committed and get the best results when I find a good group and check in daily for accountability. I’ve also built some lasting friendships through the boards. I still keep in contact with a friend I made on the boards from my very first round of Slim in 6 back in 2004! This week I started a new thread on the Message Boards, specifically for those I coach, their friends, my friends, and anyone who wants to join in for accountability and motivation. It is in the Beachbody Support Team area of the boards rather than under a specific program so it doesn’t matter what workout program you are doing right now, come and join us there. All are welcome, whether I coach them or not so feel free to invite others to join us as well! It’s a great place to meet for accountability, report on our current workouts, share exercise and eating tips, and just have fun. If you’re not currently a member of the Team Beachbody Community, it’s FREE to join! Just click on this link here to join and I will automatically become your coach, and you will also have access to the Message Boards. The link to my thread is SueAnn's New Thread. Hope to see you there!

Exercises to Avoid 2nd Trimester and On

I have to admit, for a bit there, life got a little overwhelming. So I haven’t been on to blog in over a week! But here I am, ready to go again!

Now that I’m nearly 5 months into this pregnancy, I’m finding I have to modify my workouts more and more. I wanted to mention a few exercise moves that may be great when not pregnant, but are definitely taboo from the 2nd trimester on.

• Exercises while lying flat on the back.
• Upside-down “bicycles” or shoulder-stands
• Deep knee bends or deep lunges
• Exercises that involve jumping and bouncing

I especially recommend that you really watch your knees during this time as the added weight of pregnancy can really put a lot of stress on the knees. Meanwhile, find exercises that you enjoy and that are not too difficult to do with the ever-expanding pregnant belly. Have fun and get moving!

Getting Creative!

Living on a little island in the South Pacific definitely has its ups and downs. While we can't ever have access to all the "wonderful" groceries available in the US, we rarely have to go without. However, this is one of those times when we're all anxiously awaiting the next ship! We've heard through the "coconut vine" that there's one supposed to be here this Thursday! Meanwhile, we're having to get creative with our meal plans. Yesterday I threw together some odds and ends and made a soup. The kids were convinced it was cheese soup! I tried to explain it didn't even remotely have anything closely resembling cheese in it, but finally decided to just let them enjoy their "cheese" soup, thinking it was whatever they wanted it to be. This morning as breakfast time loomed nearer I began racking my brain to figure out what to feed the family. There hasn't been eggs available for several weeks! Well, that ruled out any egg dish plus pancakes, french toast (oh yeah, we're out of bread too!), muffins, well, a lot of things. They were getting tired of oatmeal and cold cereal (then again, we're out of that too) as that's all we've had for breakfast the past week. Time to get creative again! Flour is one thing I did have - the last shipment I stocked up and froze it. So I mixed up a dough with whole wheat flour, warm water, yeast and a little oil and sugar. Rolled in little balls and flattened and cooked them on the griddle, then put a little butter on each "pancake" and sprinkled with a little cinnamon, brown sugar, nutmeg and ground cloves. I told the kids they were mini breakfast pizzas! They loved them! Even my husband loved them!

Most of you probably don't have to wait for the next ship to bring your groceries. But what are you doing to get creative in the kitchen? Are you fixing the same things over and over or relying on pre-packaged meals for your family? Try something a little different for your next meal to spice things up and see what your family thinks!


Now on to figure out lunch for today!

Slow Cooker Apple Sauce

We're enjoying our Apple Adventures here at our house. Yesterday, we made homemade applesauce. The kids really enjoyed this! So we're sharing the recipe here with you all.

Slow Cooker Apple Sauce

10-12 medium size apples, cored and cut in chunks

1/2 cup water

Cinnamon

Place the apples and water in the slow cooker and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cook on LOW about 8 hours. Once apples are soft, place in a mixing bowl and mix with mixer till smooth consistency. For smoother apple sauce, puree in a blender. Enjoy!

We chose to leave the skins on the apples. Why? Because the skin is the healthiest part of the apple! After cooking all day and then mixed with the mixer, you couldn't even tell they were there.

We got the apples ready and in the slow cooker after breakfast and the kids enjoyed checking on it throughout the day between each subject. Next time though, I think we'll make a double recipe. My kids had this polished off in one sitting! They loved it!

17 Weeks and Counting!

I’m now in my 17th week of pregnancy and I do believe I’ve seen the end of the nausea!!! Unfortunately, the end of the nausea brought the beginning of utter exhaustion! Most days I feel like I just ran a marathon! But then again, I have four very active kids already, three of whom I homeschool, plus am busy growing a new little person, so in a way I guess I am running a marathon! That’s why it’s especially important during pregnancy to take care of myself and make sure I get in some form of exercise and eat right. Just a little reminder to myself and everyone, no matter what stage of life we are at or what our daily responsibilities involve, if we don’t take care of ourselves, we won’t be any good to anyone! Take the time to fit in some daily exercise and plan out those meals so you don’t end up relying on processed junk food or fast food.

Have a healthy day!

An Apple A Day...

I homeschool my three oldest children and this year we divided the school year into 2-4 week segments with a theme for each division. We will be researching and studying the topic in addition to the regular academic work we have. Our current theme is apples! So I decided to post here some of what we find in our research. Hope that you enjoy our "findings"!

(Information from www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis)

10 Health Benefits of Apples

We're told that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but what exactly are the health benefits of apples? Here are ten reasons to heed the advice of that old proverb.

Bone Protection. French researchers found that a flavanoid called phloridzin that is found only in apples may protect post-menopausal women from osteoporosis and may also increase bone density. Boron, another ingredient in apples, also strengthens bones.
Asthma Help. One recent study shows that children with asthma who drank apple juice on a daily basis suffered from less wheezing than children who drank apple juice only once per month. Another study showed that children born to women who eat a lot of apples during pregnancy have lower rates of asthma than children whose mothers ate few apples.
Alzheimer's Prevention. A study on mice at Cornell University found that the quercetin in apples may protect brain cells from the kind of free radical damage that may lead to Alzheimer's disease.
Lower Cholesterol. The pectin in apples lowers LDL ("bad") cholesterol. People who eat two apples per day may lower their cholesterol by as much as 16 percent.
Lung Cancer Prevention. According to a study of 10,000 people, those who ate the most apples had a 50 percent lower risk of developing lung cancer. Researchers believe this is due to the high levels of the flavonoids quercetin and naringin in apples.
Breast Cancer Prevention. A Cornell University study found that rats who ate one apple per day reduced their risk of breast cancer by 17 percent. Rats fed three apples per day reduced their risk by 39 percent and those fed six apples per day reduced their risk by 44 percent.
Colon Cancer Prevention. One study found that rats fed an extract from apple skins had a 43 percent lower risk of colon cancer. Other research shows that the pectin in apples reduces the risk of colon cancer and helps maintain a healthy digestive tract.
Liver Cancer Prevention. Research found that rats fed an extract from apple skins had a 57 percent lower risk of liver cancer.
Diabetes Management. The pectin in apples supplies galacturonic acid to the body which lowers the body's need for insulin and may help in the management of diabetes.
Weight Loss. A Brazilian study found that women who ate three apples or pears per day lost more weight while dieting than women who did not eat fruit while dieting.

Love Handles

This is an article by Dr. Jordan Rubin, published in his recent Extraordinary Health newsletter. I found it to be informative and so wanted to share here.

Love Handles Are Nothing To Laugh At

Since we live in a nation where two of every three American adults and more than one in six children and adolescents are overweight, we certainly see our fair share of fat. It goes by many pet names, too, including beer bellies, love handles, pot bellies, thunder thighs or too much junk in the trunk.
No matter what we call it or how much fun we poke at it, the truth is that fat may just have the last laugh on us if we don’t do something about it. It’s really not that funny at all and may even contribute to some serious health implications.
You may be familiar with one form of fat known as subcutaneous fat. It’s the fat that's right under your skin and is the kind of fat measured with body fat calipers to give an estimate of total body fat.
But not all fat is only skin deep. Visceral fat, on the other hand, is buried beneath the muscles and surrounds the vital organs.
These two types of body fat act differently in the body, too, according to experts. Tim Church, medical director of the Cooper Institute in Dallas, Texas says, "If you put visceral fat in a Petri dish and you put subcutaneous fat in a Petri dish and stimulate them, the visceral fat will produce a lot more inflammatory molecules that can raise a person's risk of heart disease and diabetes."
A major contributor to this threatening visceral fat is found in the omentum. It’s a fatty layer of tissue located inside the belly that hangs underneath the muscles in your stomach and drapes over the stomach.
Excess fat and inflammatory chemicals stored in the omentum are harbored as a “beer belly” and can go directly into the liver via the portal vein—causing a toxic dump in the body.
Additionally, a fat-padded omentum may cause bad cholesterol and triglyceride levels to increase and also take insulin out of circulation in the body, contributing to blood sugar imbalances. Since the omentum is near the internal organs, it can subject them to damage, too.
But wait…there’s more. As you store fat, fat cells usually increase in size, not number—at least for most folks. The exceptions may be those who gain a lot of weight and those who have liposuction.
Trim adults have about 40 billion fat cells, but an overweight person may have two to three times that amount. Here’s why: if a person continues to overeat, fat cells continue to grow. When they reach their expansion limit, they don’t divide. Instead, they signal nearby immature cells to start dividing to create more fat cells.
As fat cells get larger, they also produce cytokines, which increase the body’s inflammation levels. If those fat cells increase in size to the point at which they burst open, then even more cytokines are released, causing more inflammation.
In short, excess fat and fat cells are chemical factories that secrete toxic hormones and other harmful substances straight into the bloodstream. This can cause adverse effects on metabolism, weight and overall health—which certainly is no laughing matter.

Workout And Win!

Did you know you can actually win money just from working out? Sounds like a pretty good motivation to me to get moving! WOWY (WorkOut With You) is a virtual online gym on TeamBeachbody.com where you can log in your daily workouts, plan ahead for future workouts, track your progress, meet online buddies to work out with, and much more. And every day that you log in a workout, you are entered in the daily drawing, usually a prize of $300 though once a week the prize is $1000!!! And the best thing, it’s free! You don’t have to be a paying member to use WOWY; anyone can join and enter in the daily drawing. Also, if you are not currently doing a Beachbody workout program, you can still log on your workouts, as there are options for aerobics, running, walking, strength training, and more. So, start logging in your workouts today! If you’re not already a member of the Beachbody community, click HERE to join for free. Once you’ve signed up and are in your profile page, click on Get Fit and then the WOWY Supergym to log in your workout or schedule future workouts.