Workout

So I was sitting in my hotel room the other night trying to think of ways to spice up my hotel room workouts. So I decided on a tabata workout.  Tabata training lasts four minutes and has eight intervals, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off.  I did the same exercise for the entire four minutes, but you could also do one exercise for intervals 1,3,5,7 and a different one for 2,4,6,8.  Here's what I did:

1. Push ups
2. Burpees
3. Squat press
4. Plank Row
5. DB curls
6. Bicycles
7. Walking Lunges
8. Jump Squats

With a minute rest in between each four minutes you end up at about a 40 minute workout with 8 different exercises.  You should be very, very tired when you are done.

Shape Magazine tabata workouts

Tunes

I'm working on a new playlist right now.  It's probably going to include a lot of Alkaline Trio, Rise Against, Gaslight Anthem, Green Day, you get the picture.  Like I said before. No Justin Bieber or Katy Perry.  But the song on my playlist in progress that got me the most pumped up today as I ran my 7.25 miles was one from Awolnation called Burn it Down.  It's fast paced and makes you want to run faster.

Burn it Down Official Video

Food and Nutrition

As I've been reading these nutrition books and watching documentaries such as Vegucated, Forks over Knives, and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, I've been realizing that even though I try to eat healthy, I should probably consume a little bit more of my fruits and vegetables.  Especially green, leafy veggies.  Last night I made swiss chard, and it was better than I thought it was going to be!  As a raw vegetable, chard has only 7 calories per cup, has a glycemic index of 1, has a TON of vitamin K, and also is a good source of vitamin's A and C.  Here's what you need:

1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch swiss chard - stems chopped separately from leaves
1-2 tbsp olive oil and butter
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil and butter in a large saute pan.  Add onion and garlic and cook about a minute.  Add the wine and the swiss chard stems and simmer 5 minutes.  Add the leaves and saute until wilted.  Add the lemon juice and parm and salt and pepper to taste.  Try to use sea salt.  The table salt that you buy at the store has all the minerals stripped out of it.  It's actually pretty good.  You could substitute any leafy green in this recipe too!

Food and Nutrition

Once I begin school I will probably have a lot more health tips to throw out there.  I always try to eat healthy.  I try to make sure i'm getting fruits and veggies into my diet, lean proteins and whole grains.  Last night for dinner I made fish with a bread crumb topping.  It was yummy. Fish has heart healthy omega 3 fatty acids in them.  Make sure when you pick your fish out that it does not smell.  That means it isn't fresh.

6 fillets white fish - I used tilapia, but you could use any other white fish such as cod, or even salmon
1 cup panko bread crumbs
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp lemon peel
3 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
sea salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400.  Combine bread crumbs in a bowl with oil, lemon peel, parsley and salt and pepper and mix.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil and spray with cooking spray.  Lay the fish out and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Spoon bread crumb mix onto fish and press it down a little bit.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 10 - 12 minutes.  General rule of thumb is for every 1" of fish you need to bake it approximately 10 minutes.  The lemon that I used to grate the peel, I quartered up and used that to squeeze ove rtop of the fish after it was done baking.  I served this with brown rice and a salad.

Mayo Clinic - Benefits of fish