• Gym bag packed every night, ready to grab
• Favorite fitness tv show is on DVR
• Hiking shoes and socks in the trunk of the car, ready to go
• A variety of fitness DVDs to choose from
• Team or league member – can’t let them down
• Workout clothes laid out the night before
• Pre/post workout snack is in the gym bag
• Child care at the gym
• An exercise date with a friend

I was so excited to see Slumdog Millionaire get 10 Oscar nominations! I loved this movie – it moved right up to one of my top 3 movies of all time (along with The Godfather, Part 1 and Singin’ in the Rain).

Now you know what to do this weekend! See Slumdog Millionaire!

According to a 2002 study by David and Marcia Pimentel, researchers at Cornell University, it takes 20 times more energy to produce the protein in beef than it takes to produce a similar amount of protein from plants. In other words, we consume 95 percent less energy every time we choose to get our protein from plants instead of beef.

Go green! Eat plant protein!

Photo by Liz Carney

This is a great brown bag lunch – although it packs better in a plastic container, carried in an insulated lunch bag with a blue ice (or similar) pack. You can keep the ingredients on hand, and ready to use in a variety of recipes.

Salad Nicoise
Purple ~ serves 1

6 ounces grilled ahi tuna or 1 six-ounce can tuna packed in water
1 tomato, chopped
handful of green beans, raw or steamed
2 hard-boiled egg whites, optional
2 cups mixed salad greens

Dressing:
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar or white or red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

On a bed of mixed greens, place chopped tomatoes, green beans and hard-boiled egg whites.
Season tuna steak with a little bit of salt and pepper. Cook on hot, clean grill about 3 minutes per
side (inside should be bright pink) – or drain canned tuna. Place grilled tuna or canned tuna in center of salad. In a small bowl combine olive oil, vinegar, and mustard and mix well. Drizzle dressing over entire salad.

To pack for lunch:
Mix dressing in the container you’re using to pack the salad (plastic bowl with a lid that seals well). Add tomatoes, green beans, tuna, and egg whites. Toss gently with dressing. Top with salad greens. Put the lid on, make sure it’s sealed, and pack with “blue ice” type pack in an insulated cooler (hard or soft side). To eat, toss the salad ingredients with the greens. Keeping the dressing mostly separate helps keep the greens from wilting.

The struggle to maintain peace is immeasurably more difficult than any military operation.

~ Anne O’Hare McCormick, first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence

Given her job, I’m pretty sure Ms. McCormick was talking about actual military action, and geo-political conflict. Can you see that what she said also relates to your body?

Maintaining balance in your body and your life takes more focus and attention than attacking your weight problem by slashing your calories in half, or increasing your fitness by training for a marathon. Look at the overall picture of total health, and fine-tune your way to health. Small steps – like eating more whole foods, or adding 20 minutes of exercise a day – are more effective in achieving balance in your body and your life.

Keeping that balance requires constant adjusting and adapting. Each decade of life has its own challenges. Genetics can catch up to you. Environmental damage will add up over time. Stay vigilant, get regular physicals and appropriate diagnostic tests, and be aware of the changes in your body and mind. Know that you will always be fine-tuning how you treat your body.

There are just five days left of our FIRST January class. Members have been going strong with a menu plan (complete with recipes and vegan options), exercise goals and challenges, and daily assignments from Marilu.

Look for the BONUS January class starting Monday, January 26. Five days to help you prepare for the Super Bowl! C’mon – it’s practically a holiday, what with the food and the parties, so why not find ways to make the food healthier and the parties more fun? (And that’s without serving cubes of tofu on toothpicks – really – we like GOOD food here). Coach SusanMikYUM will provide recipes and more!

Sign up now – check out the current class – and enjoy the Super Bowl class! Join today.

… is when you’ll do it.

Morning, noon, evening, night.
Before work, after work, after dinner.
Right after you get up, right before you go to bed.
All at once, several shorter sessions through the day.

Whatever works for you is the very best time.

• Eating red meat stresses the liver, kidneys, and digestive system, depletes calcium, and leaves uric acid deposits in our joints.
• When comparing people who eat red meat regularly to people who rarely eat it, those who eat it are three times more likely to suffer from heart disease and breast cancer, and are four times more likely to develop colon and prostate cancer.
• The diet of our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, chimpanzees, is 97% vegetarian. (Would you feed the chimps at the zoo what you’ve eaten today?)
• The structure of our skin, teeth, stomach, bowels, and the length of our digestive system are all typical of vegetarian animals.
• Eating animal products significantly contributes to our number one killer: heart disease. It kills more people in the United States each year that the combined total of US combat deaths in WWI, WWII, Vietnam, and Korea.

… and a little bit rock-and-roll.

That’s right. Time to dance, to jump, to sweep your sweetie up off the couch, the floor, the chair – time to move!

Turn on your speakers, and press the green button.