Move Your Body

For those of you in the Chicago area, I would like to extend my personal training services to you.   For the month of August, I am offering 30 minute sessions for only $30 and 60 minute sessions for $55!!  If you live in a building that has a gym, or if your fitness center allows outside PTs, that will work, or I can train you at a park/on the lakefront.  I have plenty of equipment so a gym is not necessary!  I am willing to work around your schedule and am available early mornings and evenings, as well as on the weekends.  I also offer package deals which would knock off anywhere from $5-$10 each session and duo training which allows you to workout with your husband, wife, or a friend!

If you’d like to learn more about my background and areas of expertise, please check out my bio here.

Contact me at Huttco@gmail.com and let’s get started!

I get the “Active Insider” newsletter delivered to my inbox every so often.  I can’t remember when I signed up, but the newsletter is created by active.com, and usually has some pretty cool fitness tips and advice.  Active.com is a great site with tons of fitness, nutrition and sport-specific information.  It even has a section for families and tips and information on helping your children be healthy and active.  This month’s newsletter had an article that I found particularly helpful, so I thought I’d share it with you.

The article is titled, “Pre- and Post- Workout Meals in 15 Minutes.“  It’s written by an author from Runner’s World, so it’s written with runners in mind, but a healthy recipe is a healthy recipe – whether you’re a runner or not.   We had a request recently for some more healthy eating tips – so this article is a start.

The recipes are supposed to be fast, easy and give you the energy you need for a workout.  I skimmed these recipes, and hopefully I will have some time to try them in the near future.  But I actually found the very end of the article the most helpful to me.  The last part lists staples to have on hand to make healthy dishes, fast.

The key to preparing fast meals is to stock your kitchen with nearly ready-to-use foods, such as frozen produce, which is just as healthy as fresh.

Checkout Express

A list of staples for making healthy, tasty dishes-fast.

Frozen Fruit
Blueberries (or mixed berries, cherries, or peaches)

Frozen Vegetables
Broccoli florets, bell peppers

Fresh Produce
Prewashed and precut romaine hearts, preshredded cabbage,limes, scallions

Dairy
Plain yogurt, feta cheese

Nuts and Seeds
Walnuts, peanuts, almonds,cashews, sunflower and sesame seeds

Dried Fruit
Dates, raisins, coconut

Oils
Olive, sesame

Herbs
Basil, parsley, and mint

Grains
Fresh or dried pasta, part whole-grain pancake mix, oats, whole-wheat pita chips

Meat
Precooked chicken sausages, precooked flank steak or roast beef cold cuts

Seasonings and Condiments
Soy sauce, red-pepper flakes, tahini, natural peanut butter

Sweeteners
Maple syrup, honey, vanilla

I always find it frustrating when I find a great recipe only to find that I don’t have any of the ingredients on hand.  This list will help you know what basic things to have in your house if you want to start eating healthier.

I’m usually starving when I get home from work.  I have skipped many workouts because although I finally have free time after work to head to the gym or go for a run, I’m too hungry to go.  Sometimes I scarf down some oreos or lunchmeat that I might scrounge up from the fridge, but I don’t like the idea of eating on the fly just to have enough energy to workout.  I’ve been looking for some ideas for quick things to eat that might boost energy and help tide me over for a workout before dinner.

This article had some ideas!

• Handful of low-fiber cereal
• A bagel with honey or jelly
• A few graham crackers with a teaspoon of honey
• Banana and a few nuts or teaspoon of peanut butter
• Cup of fat-free yogurt

Apparently the idea is to go for about 150 calories of low-fiber, low-fat foods that will boost energy fast and won’t upset your stomach.  Try one of these out when you’re feeling hungry before a workout – it should do the trick.

If you’re interested in learning some tips on proper form for lunges and squats, or you want to try the latest sports drink, or just learn more on healthy eating and nutrition stop by your local Lucy Activewear store.  Fitness Friday is a monthly store event that is designed to help women connect with their local fitness community.  They often have local pros available for one-on-one consultations, classes and even fitness freebies (yay!!).  For a Fitness Friday in your area, click here.

Also, I can’t forget to mention Lucy Pro.  Recently, I was told about this amazing program for any certified Personal Trainer, Yoga or Pilates Instructor, etc.  All you have to do is go into your local store, fill out  a short application and show them a copy of your certification and they’ll give you a Lucy Pro Card that is good for a year.  With the card you’ll receive an exclusive discount of 30% off!!!

It’s been beautiful weather in Chicago lately, which makes it extra hard to get into the gym.  I really do like going to the gym, but after working in an office all day, it’s difficult for me to go back inside to work out.  So I’ve been spending more time running outside.

Friday I went for a long run and loved it!  Weather was perfect.  After getting back, I wanted to figure out how far I had gone.  I checked out a new site online at the suggestion of a friend who is an avid runner – MapMyRun.com.  Basically this is Google maps with a bunch of tools that you can overlay onto the maps.  You can mark where you start your run and map each twist and turn until you reach your endpoint.  This is a pretty cool tool for map geeks (like myself) who want to know how far they’ve run in the neighborhood.  I thought I had gone three miles on Friday, but after using the site was surprised to find I had only gone two.  So this site helps ground you in reality, too.    I imagine this would be a useful site to use before you head out for a run, too.  If you want to try running a mile in your neighborhood, for example, you can figure out what streets and route you’d have to take to complete it.

My only complaint is that the site is a little overwhelming and the interface is very busy.  When you get to the home page, you can click “Start mapping” in the center if you want to get straight to the map.  Once you do, you will be greeted by a lot of information and ads.   There was an ad blocking the map when I first began using the site, and I had a hard time figuring out how to move it off to the side so I could calculate my mileage.  There are also pop-ups encouraging you to sign up.  No problems with signing up, but pop ups annoy me.

Overall, the site seems useful, and I’m sure there are a lot more cool features that I haven’t experimented with  yet.  Please feel free to share any tips if you are a user of the tool.  Happy summer running!

We LOVES us some bloody marys on a nice weekend morning.  Especially with friends, at summer barbecues, well….anytime really!  It’s a good thing that bloody marys fall into the “Drink It” category in Prevention magazine’s list of “Best and Worst Summer Cocktails.”

On the list of summer cocktails to avoid?  Mudslides, Strawberry Daiquiris (darn!) and Long Island Iced Teas.   Here is a picture of our shock and embarrassment after realizing that we should be avoiding Long Islands – as opposed to drinking them by the bucketful at Howl at the Moon.

Check the article out - you can read through it quickly to find out approximate calories in your favorite summer drinks, and which ones to drink in place of some of the heavier ones.  The article also shares some healthy summer drink recipes.

We try to keep this blog less about us and our lives and more about fitness and health tips for YOU as much as possible.  But sometimes things happen to us personally that seem to beg for a blog entry.

On Father’s Day as I was about to head to the suburbs to visit my family, I got a call that my cousin had been admitted to the hospital.  She had gone into the ER on Saturday with stomach pains and was admitted that afternoon.  When I went to visit, her skin and eyes were yellow – a tell tale sign of jaundice.  We quickly found out that her liver wasn’t functioning as a result of a rare genetic disorder that prevents your body from filtering copper properly.  Copper?!  You may be thinking, as we all were.  Well, turns out a small amount of copper in your body is healthy and necessary, and the mineral can be found in certain foods like avocados and other things.  But too much copper can be toxic, as was the case with my cousin and this genetic disorder.

When my cuz went into the hospital we weren’t quite sure how bad things were.  But we quickly realized how serious the situation was when we learned that she needed a liver transplant.  Her liver wasn’t functioning at all, and a day after she was admitted through the ER, she was in intensive care and on a dialysis machine.  My cuz was at the top of the transplant list for a number of reasons, and it sunk in quickly that if she was on the TOP of the list….well, she must be in pretty dire health.

It was an extremely emotional few days and every hour seemed to crawl by as we waited for a donor, and my cousin’s health got  worse.  The docs did the best they could to filter her blood and keep her in good condition as we waited for a match.  During this time she was coherent and cracking jokes as usual, but we could tell that she was in pain.

The drama reached its all time peak when the doctors informed us that it was possible that a donor may not be found in time.  Therefore someone in the family could be tested to see if they were a match.  My aunt volunteered immediately; what mother wouldn’t?  After all of the tests, we learned she was a perfect match.  Although relieved, we were all grappling with the fact that two important members of our family could potentially be undergoing major transplant surgery at the same time!

Just as my aunt was about to check in for surgery, a different donor was found.  This was the preferred method to go, and after air lifting the liver from Milwaukee to Chicago, my cousin underwent a 13 hour liver transplant surgery.  I’m happy to say that  the surgery was successful, and she is recovering quite well.  It’s amazing to see someone who was in the ICU hooked up to a hundred machines able to walk, talk and laugh like normal.  Only a few days after having major surgery, she is in good health and good spirits.

So how does all of this relate to this blog?  Well, this is about health and fitness.  We write about making your tummy flatter, and how to look better in your clothes, and working out.  Our goal is to open up a conversation with our readers about fitness.  After going through all of this with my cousin, who is like a little sister to me, I found it difficult to write.  She is 20 years old.  She’s in college, works out regularly and loves to dance.  She has a rockin bod and looks great in her clothes.  But she wasn’t healthy.  And for a second there, things got very very scary.

After spending day after day with her and my family in the hospital, and walking past all of the different people in the ICU, I had a totally different perspective on what being healthy and fit means.  Instead of looking in the mirror and wishing my stomach was tighter, or that my arms were toner, or that I could run 5 miles instead of 3…I should be happy, ecstatic even, that I am healthy.  That aside from the normal aches and pains, I have a healthy, functioning body.  Exercise is very important, of course, to maintain that health.  But after this ordeal I was able to take a step back and realize that it’s not all about being the sexiest one at the gym.   And sometimes it can feel that way.

My cuz got sick in the middle of a beautiful summer week.  Her hospital room overlooked the beach near Navy Pier.  We could see people swimming and laying out and running and biking.  But she was stuck.  It made me realize that every day that you get to walk or run or work out or dance….every day you get to enjoy your health, should be considered a gift.