Hello Friends;
I hope I didn't get you too excited with the title of this blog!
Have you ever said "I just don't have the time to exercise."? Probably, right? Well guess what? I'm here to tell you to stop using that as an excuse and to offer you this quick 10 minute workout that is guaranteed to get your heart pumping and muscles popping. This workout can be done indoors, outdoors, with dumbbells or without. It's flexible. However, before you begin any exercise program, please check with your doctor to make sure that it is safe for you to do so.
Now, on to the "Quickie"
10 minutes, 10 Reps, 10 second rest
Warm up:
10 Body Weight Squats - arms reaching out in front or resting at your hips, stick your butt out as you start to lower you body toward the ground. Knees should stay behind the toes and chest and shoulders are back, not leaning forward.
10 Pushups (preferably on your toes, but knees are acceptable if you are a beginner)
Do this Warm up for 2 minutes, resting for 10 seconds before starting the next set.
Strength:
Dumbbell Lunge - using a set of dumbbells that are manageable but challenging, step one foot back staying on the toes of that back foot. Chest and shoulders stay up and back. Begin to lower back knee to the ground, stopping before it touches the ground (if you have knee issues, shorten the range of motion).Repeat 10 times on the same leg before switching to the other side.
Dumbbell Chest Press - Using the same set of dumbbells, if manageable and challenging, lay on a flat surface. Press the weights straight up bringing them together at the top, then back to the starting position. Wrists should face out.
Do this strength portion for 3 minutes, taking a 10 second rest in between each set.
Cardio and Core:
Burpees - Standing tall, bend over placing hands on the floor, jump your feet out so that you are in a pushup position, jump your feet back in, stand up and if you are really up for a challenge jump your feet of the floor with hands in the air (plyometrics jump)
Plank with reach - Holding a prone plank position with hands on the floor, reach your right arm out in front of you while raising your left leg off the floor (very challenging). Alternate sides for a total of 10.
Do this cardio/core portion for 3 minutes.
Stretch:
Make sure to spend at least 2 minutes stretching quads, chest and shoulders.
There you have it my friends. As you are rushing around, preparing for a fun-filled Memorial Day weekend remember that Flexible Fitness took away your time excuse to not exercise. Hopefully you won't come up with any new excuses!
Sweat, smile, and shape up!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Gluten-Free Chocolate Cupcakes
Hello Friends;
I made these delicious cupcakes the other day for four of my favorite women. They were a hit. They are super easy to make and even my 14 year old son, who is usually annoyed by my "organic" recipes, devoured them! The recipe comes from Elana's Pantry (elanaspantry.com). She has alot of fantastic recipes on her site. Check it out when you have a spare moment.
Happy Mother's Day to all of the fabulous women that I am blessed to know!
Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes
¼ cup coconut flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
3 eggs
¼ cup grapeseed oil
½ cup agave nectar
In a medium bowl, combine coconut flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda
In a large bowl, blend together eggs, oil and agave
Blend dry ingredients into wet thoroughly
Line a cupcake tin with paper liners and scoop a scant 1/4 cup into each
Bake at 375° for 20-22 minutes
Cool and cover with vegan "buttercream" chocolate frosting
Serve
Makes 10 cupcakes
Vegan Chocolate Frosting
1 cup dark chocolate 73%
½ cup grapeseed oil
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
pinch celtic sea salt
In a small saucepan over very low heat, melt chocolate and grapeseed oil
Stir in agave, vanilla and salt
Place frosting in freezer for 15 minutes to chill and thicken
Remove from freezer and whip frosting with a hand blender until it is thick and fluffy
Frost over cake, chocolate or vanilla cupcakes or between cookies
ENJOY
I made these delicious cupcakes the other day for four of my favorite women. They were a hit. They are super easy to make and even my 14 year old son, who is usually annoyed by my "organic" recipes, devoured them! The recipe comes from Elana's Pantry (elanaspantry.com). She has alot of fantastic recipes on her site. Check it out when you have a spare moment.
Happy Mother's Day to all of the fabulous women that I am blessed to know!
Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes
¼ cup coconut flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
3 eggs
¼ cup grapeseed oil
½ cup agave nectar
In a medium bowl, combine coconut flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda
In a large bowl, blend together eggs, oil and agave
Blend dry ingredients into wet thoroughly
Line a cupcake tin with paper liners and scoop a scant 1/4 cup into each
Bake at 375° for 20-22 minutes
Cool and cover with vegan "buttercream" chocolate frosting
Serve
Makes 10 cupcakes
Vegan Chocolate Frosting
1 cup dark chocolate 73%
½ cup grapeseed oil
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
pinch celtic sea salt
In a small saucepan over very low heat, melt chocolate and grapeseed oil
Stir in agave, vanilla and salt
Place frosting in freezer for 15 minutes to chill and thicken
Remove from freezer and whip frosting with a hand blender until it is thick and fluffy
Frost over cake, chocolate or vanilla cupcakes or between cookies
ENJOY
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Are You Willing To Give This A Try?
Once again, my friend (well, he's not really my friend in the true sense of the word, but I wish he was) Leo Babauta has written another inspiring, thought-provoking blog. I hope that you will take a few minutes out of your hectic day to read it, ponder it, and give it a whirl.
Peace and blessings.
The Elements of Living Lightly
Breathe. Accept. Smile.
“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” ~Eckhart Tolle (via The Mindfulist)
Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.
Today I’m going to suggest a small change in mindset that could change your life.
I won’t keep you in suspense. Here it is: think of nothing that happens as either good or bad. Stop judging, and stop expecting.
It’s a tiny change — all you have to do is say, ‘That wasn’t good or bad, it just happened, it just is.’ It’s tiny, but it takes practice, and amazingly, it can knock you on your ass.
Why? Because with this little change, you will no longer be swayed up and down depending on whether good things or bad things happen to you, whether people (and their actions) are good or bad. You will learn to accept things as they are, and move within that landscape mindfully.
You will no longer expect good things to happen (or bad things), but will just take things as they come, and be content with whatever comes. This means you’ll no longer be disappointed, or unhappy.
“When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.”
~Lao Tzu
A Little Exercise
Think of something good that happened to you recently, and how it affected your mindset. Now think of something bad that happened, and what that did to your mindset.
Now imagine that neither event was good, and neither was bad. They simply happened, existed.
How does that change how you would have felt as a result of those events? How does it change your happiness, your mood? How does it change what you do in reaction?
When you stop judging things as good or bad, you are no longer
Nothing is good or bad
Hamlet said, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’
He was right. Without the human mind, things just happen, and they are not good or bad. It’s only when we apply the filter of our judgment that they become good or bad, beautiful or ugly.
A weed is only a weed when we don’t like it. Children are only naughty if we don’t like their actions. Life only sucks if you judge it as bad.
But what about truly horrible tragedies, like a plague or tsunami or the Holocaust? Surely those are bad? Sure, through the lens of the judgment we’ve been raised to make, they are terrible. But then again, remove the judgment, and then … they simply happened. Death and cruelty will probably always make us sad, but they’ve always happened and always will, whether we like them or hate them.
Holocaust survivor and author Victor Frankl wrote of a rich woman who went through the Holocaust, and who was grateful for the experience, as much as she suffered, because it opened her eyes. It transformed her. I’m not saying the Holocaust was good, but perhaps we can say that it happened. It serves as a lesson — one we should heed, by the way, in these days of politically charged hatred, of blaming our ills on immigrants and minorities.
There are other tragedies that happen that aren’t necessarily bad. They’re devastating losses, without a doubt, but in life there are always losses, and people will always die. It’s how we judge them that determines our reaction, and determines whether we’re capable of dealing with it sanely.
Great Expectations
The second half of this change is just as small, but just as important: dropping expectations. Not lowering expectations, but eliminating them.
Think about it: when we have expectations, and things don’t go the way we expect (which happens quite often, as we’re not good prognosticators), we are disappointed, frustrated. It’s our expectations that force us to judge whether something is good or bad.
When you expect something of a friend, co-worker, family member, spouse, and they don’t live up to that expectation, then you are upset with them, or disappointed. It causes anger. But what if you had no expectations — then their actions would be neither good nor bad, just actions. You could accept them without frustration, anger, sadness.
What if you went on vacation, to a place you had high expectations of, and it wasn’t what you thought it’d be? You’d be bitterly disappointed, even though it’s not the fault of that place — that’s just how the place is. It’s your expectations that are at fault.
When people disappoint you, it’s not their fault. They’re just being who they are. Your expectations are at fault.
The Why
But why make this change? Why should we stop judging? Why should we stop expecting?
Because judgments stop us from understanding, and can ruin our happiness. When we judge, we don’t seek to understand — we’ve already come to a conclusion. If we stop judging, we allow ourselves to try to understand, and then we can take a much smarter course of action, because we’re better informed by our understanding.
Judging makes us unhappy. So do expectations.
When we leave judgment behind, we can live in the moment, taking what comes as neither good or bad, but simply what is. We can stop ruining our happiness with our thinking, and start living instead.
The How
So how do we start doing this? In small steps, as always.
1 First, start by being more aware. Throughout the course of the day today, note when you make judgments, note when you have expectations, and when things don’t live up to them. Over time, you’ll notice this more and more, and be much more conscious of these types of thoughts.
2 Next, pause each time you notice a judgment or expectation. Take a breath. Then tell yourself, “No expectations, no good or bad.” Repeat this, letting go of the judgment or expectation.
3 Third, seek to see things as they are, and to understand. Be curious as to why things are the way they are, why people act the way they act. Investigate, empathize, try to put yourself in people’s shoes. See the landscape of your life as it actually is, without the filter of judgments or expectations.
4 Next, take what comes. Experience it, in the moment. React appropriately, without overreacting because it isn’t as you hoped or wanted. You can’t
control life, or others, but you can control how you react.
5 Then, accept. When things happen, understand why they do, without judgment, and accept them as they are. Accept people for who they are. Accept yourself, without judgment, as you are. This takes practice.
6 Finally, know that the present moment, being as it is, also contains infinite possibilities. And those possibilities are opened up once you see things as they are, without judgment or expectations.
—
Peace and blessings.
The Elements of Living Lightly
Breathe. Accept. Smile.
“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” ~Eckhart Tolle (via The Mindfulist)
Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.
Today I’m going to suggest a small change in mindset that could change your life.
I won’t keep you in suspense. Here it is: think of nothing that happens as either good or bad. Stop judging, and stop expecting.
It’s a tiny change — all you have to do is say, ‘That wasn’t good or bad, it just happened, it just is.’ It’s tiny, but it takes practice, and amazingly, it can knock you on your ass.
Why? Because with this little change, you will no longer be swayed up and down depending on whether good things or bad things happen to you, whether people (and their actions) are good or bad. You will learn to accept things as they are, and move within that landscape mindfully.
You will no longer expect good things to happen (or bad things), but will just take things as they come, and be content with whatever comes. This means you’ll no longer be disappointed, or unhappy.
“When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.”
~Lao Tzu
A Little Exercise
Think of something good that happened to you recently, and how it affected your mindset. Now think of something bad that happened, and what that did to your mindset.
Now imagine that neither event was good, and neither was bad. They simply happened, existed.
How does that change how you would have felt as a result of those events? How does it change your happiness, your mood? How does it change what you do in reaction?
When you stop judging things as good or bad, you are no longer
Nothing is good or bad
Hamlet said, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’
He was right. Without the human mind, things just happen, and they are not good or bad. It’s only when we apply the filter of our judgment that they become good or bad, beautiful or ugly.
A weed is only a weed when we don’t like it. Children are only naughty if we don’t like their actions. Life only sucks if you judge it as bad.
But what about truly horrible tragedies, like a plague or tsunami or the Holocaust? Surely those are bad? Sure, through the lens of the judgment we’ve been raised to make, they are terrible. But then again, remove the judgment, and then … they simply happened. Death and cruelty will probably always make us sad, but they’ve always happened and always will, whether we like them or hate them.
Holocaust survivor and author Victor Frankl wrote of a rich woman who went through the Holocaust, and who was grateful for the experience, as much as she suffered, because it opened her eyes. It transformed her. I’m not saying the Holocaust was good, but perhaps we can say that it happened. It serves as a lesson — one we should heed, by the way, in these days of politically charged hatred, of blaming our ills on immigrants and minorities.
There are other tragedies that happen that aren’t necessarily bad. They’re devastating losses, without a doubt, but in life there are always losses, and people will always die. It’s how we judge them that determines our reaction, and determines whether we’re capable of dealing with it sanely.
Great Expectations
The second half of this change is just as small, but just as important: dropping expectations. Not lowering expectations, but eliminating them.
Think about it: when we have expectations, and things don’t go the way we expect (which happens quite often, as we’re not good prognosticators), we are disappointed, frustrated. It’s our expectations that force us to judge whether something is good or bad.
When you expect something of a friend, co-worker, family member, spouse, and they don’t live up to that expectation, then you are upset with them, or disappointed. It causes anger. But what if you had no expectations — then their actions would be neither good nor bad, just actions. You could accept them without frustration, anger, sadness.
What if you went on vacation, to a place you had high expectations of, and it wasn’t what you thought it’d be? You’d be bitterly disappointed, even though it’s not the fault of that place — that’s just how the place is. It’s your expectations that are at fault.
When people disappoint you, it’s not their fault. They’re just being who they are. Your expectations are at fault.
The Why
But why make this change? Why should we stop judging? Why should we stop expecting?
Because judgments stop us from understanding, and can ruin our happiness. When we judge, we don’t seek to understand — we’ve already come to a conclusion. If we stop judging, we allow ourselves to try to understand, and then we can take a much smarter course of action, because we’re better informed by our understanding.
Judging makes us unhappy. So do expectations.
When we leave judgment behind, we can live in the moment, taking what comes as neither good or bad, but simply what is. We can stop ruining our happiness with our thinking, and start living instead.
The How
So how do we start doing this? In small steps, as always.
1 First, start by being more aware. Throughout the course of the day today, note when you make judgments, note when you have expectations, and when things don’t live up to them. Over time, you’ll notice this more and more, and be much more conscious of these types of thoughts.
2 Next, pause each time you notice a judgment or expectation. Take a breath. Then tell yourself, “No expectations, no good or bad.” Repeat this, letting go of the judgment or expectation.
3 Third, seek to see things as they are, and to understand. Be curious as to why things are the way they are, why people act the way they act. Investigate, empathize, try to put yourself in people’s shoes. See the landscape of your life as it actually is, without the filter of judgments or expectations.
4 Next, take what comes. Experience it, in the moment. React appropriately, without overreacting because it isn’t as you hoped or wanted. You can’t
control life, or others, but you can control how you react.
5 Then, accept. When things happen, understand why they do, without judgment, and accept them as they are. Accept people for who they are. Accept yourself, without judgment, as you are. This takes practice.
6 Finally, know that the present moment, being as it is, also contains infinite possibilities. And those possibilities are opened up once you see things as they are, without judgment or expectations.
—
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