What are some of the important upcoming fitness trends? What does the latest research indicate is the “best” way to get and stay healthy? Can someone really give you a cold or are you taking the cold from them? And what do menopause and HIIT have in common?

At the recent IDEA Personal Trainer Institute, which Kymberly and I attended (and spoke at), we covered a variety of topics relevant to you and your fitness goals. At past fitness conventions we’ve listened to speakers who are so cutting-edge that they are called quacks…until their information turns out to be accurate and helpful.

So put on your “duck” shoes and let’s waddle through some of the information and posts we gathered from a number of presenters and colleagues. Read the linked posts so that you can be fully ahead of the rest of the gaggle (is that what they call a group of ducks?).

From “Boosting Your Immunity” with Teri Mosey, PhD
* For every thought you have, you release a chemical that goes to the rest of your body. What do you think happens to your body with repeated thought?
* Ninety percent of your thoughts today are the same as yesterday’s.
* We have a second brain, called the “enteric” brain.
* We have more brain cells in our stomachs than in our neo-cortex.
* Every 7-10 years we are physically a new person.
* You are the age you think your body is (I’m 39. I’m 39. I’m 39. I think I can. I think I can.)
* Most of us are too acidic and need more alkaline. Cancer cells grow in acidic space.
* Habitual coffee drinkers are more prone to osteoporosis and have become too acidic.
* You know what the Standard American Diet is – S.A.D.!
* 3-minute or poached eggs are anti-inflammatory; once the yoke is hard, it’s pro-inflammatory.
* Our emotions are not from the brain, but produced at the cellular level.

Kymberly wrote a post about falling – fears and injuries – from a full-day session she attended, which has some very helpful information.
* Thirty-three percent of older adults fall every year.
* Women break arm bones; men break their heads.
* People use the A.S.H. strategies to maintain balance (you have to click the link to know what ASH stands for)
* You need more core work.

Getting brekkie with fitness colleague Pamela Hernandez at IDEA PTI West

Our FitFluential colleague Pamela Hernandez wrote an excellent post entitled Fit Tips from IDEA Personal Trainer Institute West about two philosophies she sees in the fitness industry – one is to stick to traditional, government-recommended standards, while the other emphasizes just getting people to move a little more. As a person who embraces technology, Hernandez welcomes its further blending with fitness. Oh, and she liked our session on social media. Twitter Shout Outs to her for that!

In the post Breaking the Barriers to Exercise, Jacquie Scarlett expounds on the need to make exercise more approachable to the average person. In one section she states, “The fitness industry is not designed to meet the needs of the sedentary population because the fitness industry’s idea of exercise is too high.”
Jacquie’s post really makes us wonder what it would take to get you to like exercise if you currently don’t.
* Is rolling a ball across the floor considered exercise?
* Do you think exercise is different than daily movement?

Hayley Hollander gave a workshop on programming for peri- and post-menopausal women.
* When our hormones are out of balance, we end up with excess cortisol.
* Excess cortisol causes us to eat more (among other not fun things).
* We need to do exercise that doesn’t exacerbate the amount of cortisol in our system.
* Meaning…High Intensity Interval Training
* High Intensity does not mean High Impact, so jumping until your uterus falls out is not necessary!

On an unrelated note, while you’re not jumping (unless it’s for joy), exercise your right to help me with a water awareness campaign I’m participating in please. BLANCO America is supporting a “Water for People” campaign via Pinterest. I believe water inequality is one of the most reprehensible and avoidable human conditions in the world today. Everyone deserves access to potable, pure water. Feel free to Like my pins while you’re there. That’s the spirit!
Oh, if you view this video before May 30, BLANCO will contribute a dollar for every view to “Water for People.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have a Clicky, Fit day!

Do you like organic, fresh ingredients? Do you like to bake or cook? And please say you like Thai food.

Fruits of Thailand

In March we spent 3 days at the Natural Products Expo West, then went to Thailand for 3 weeks. We should just rename March as “Delicious Food Month.” We want you to have a delicious April, so we have some pictures and recipes of a few of the sweet dishes.

Thai coconut pancakes w/ veggies on top

Coconut Pancakes (not the same as U.S. coconut pancakes)

2 cups coconut milk (we like Native Forest from Edward And Sons)
2 eggs (we can’t all shop at my son’s chicken coop, so we recommend Happy Egg Co. and Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs)
1 ½ cups rice flour
3 Tbsp. glutinous rice flour (available at Asian markets)
3 Tbsp. sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
½ cup corn or green onion

Mix the flours, salt and powder. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, coconut milk and sugar. Pour the batter into the dry ingredients and whisk together. Heat a poffertje pan (also known as abelskiver pan to medium high, then add just a drop of oil to each depression. Pour in batter and drop a pinch of the veggies on the top of each pancake. Unlike poffertjes, Thai coconut pancakes do not get flipped. When the center looks cooked (they should be a bit soft), remove the pancakes using a chopstick.

* If you don’t have this type of pan, you can use a crepe pan and make these crepe-style.

Fresh coconut pancakes

Sticky Rice with Mango and Coconut Milk

Fresh sticky rice with mango and coconut milk – 40 baht (less than $2)

1 cup sticky (glutinous) rice
1 cup coconut milk
1 mango cut into bite-size pieces

Don’t use a rice cooker, as the result won’t be quite right. You can use a steamer, but I’m going to share the quicker version using a microwave. Soak the rice in a glass bowl in warm water for 10 minutes. The water should come just over the rice. Cover and microwave for about 3 minutes. Stir fully and cook another 3 minutes. If it’s done, all the rice should be translucent. Pour ¾ cup of the milk over the rice and stir just to mix. Put the mango on top and pour the remaining ¼ cup over the top.

Coconut Crusted Peanuts with Kaffir Lime Leaves
We discovered this snack at a local market and became big fans. As we didn’t have a chance to get the recipe, we will turn you over to a wonderful version by chef Robert Danhi, a Beard nominee for his Asian cuisine cookbook.
 

Thai Iced Tea and Iced Coffee

Identical twins are NOT the same – Alexandra prefers vanilla; Kymberly, chocolate. And we both spent a lot of time taste-testing the Thai versions of iced tea (Kymberly) and iced coffee (Alexandra).
The tea is a combination of black spiced Thai tea, condensed milk, evaporated milk and sugar. We found out that the recipe changes as you travel around Thailand, but this is essentiallly it. As to the coffee, just switch out strong coffee for the tea, and eliminate the sugar! If you want to take the easy route, Taste Nirvana makes a bottled version of both, and they use coffee beans from Chiang Rai (we saw those for ourselves) and tea leaves from Chiang Mai (we went there too)!

We worked hard to find the best Thai iced tea and coffee

Thai food is enjoyable in many forms!

If we wrote about ALL the great food we found in Thailand or at the Natural Products Expo, this would be a book, not a blog post, so we’ll stop here for now.

Kob Kuhn Kah which means “thank you” in Thai (this is the female version, which we happen to be). Koh Hai Cha-roen Ar-harn – Enjoy your meal.

Show your good taste by subscribing to our YouTube channel and blog. Please also follow us on Twitter: AlexandraFunFit and KymberlyFunFit and Instagram: KymberlyFunFit and AlexandraFunFit. Or click now on the icons above. Then go have some salt fish or shrimp in a leaf or a blue sweetpea drink. 

“Get rid of carbage – those calories that go in the trash can, not your mouth,” advises today’s guest and fitness expert, Nicki Anderson. We can never get enough of Nicki, who is an award winner, all around smartypants, and wise woman. Once you read her, you’ll also want more. And you can get more in the radio interview we had with her on this critical subject. Yes, she’s that good!

The dieting world is a multi-billion dollar industry enticing you at every turn to invest in miracle weight loss program. Unfortunately for about 95% of the population these diets rarely work. This leaves dieters feeling frustrated, perhaps a bit betrayed, and most detrimental, like a failure.

To start on the road to a healthier you, discover the 5 nutrition mistakes you need to avoid in order to reclaim your health and body!  No more diets, just a healthier, happier you!

We can all agree that diets for the most part do not work. Typically they are short lived as few people can sustain the type of deprivation that many diets require. Or if results don’t happen as quickly as we’d like the diet ends.

Weight loss is not an enigma if approached correctly. Believe enough in your ability to make the right call when it comes to what you put in your mouth. You know what’s healthy and what isn’t. You know what enhances your health and what detracts from it.

Mistake #1: Jumping on a “Miracle” diet fad. Get back to basics.

If diets worked, obesity would be eliminated. Today with so many options, food is confusing. But if you think about the way our grandparents ate it was pretty simple. They didn’t have the abundance of junk food, fast food, and processed foods that we have today. So why not eat like your grandparents? Include more fruits and veggies. Get rid of snacks, especially processed ones. Make sure your grains are whole grains and your proteins are lean. Watching portions with all food groups is vital for your success!

Mistake #2: Skipping breakfast. Start the day by stoking your fire.

I’m still amazed with the number of people I meet who skip breakfast. In all my years of training, the clients who struggled the most with weight loss were the ones who didn’t eat a morning meal. I know you’ve heard this a million times, but it bears repeating: when you skip breakfast it wreaks havoc with your metabolism. When you eat breakfast, it’s like throwing wood in a fireplace; it ignites the fire (metabolism). Eating breakfast also keeps your body working efficiently, i.e. burning calories versus storing them. If you want to drop some weight, eat breakfast and skip the fancy latte.

Mistake #3: Thinking sugar free means healthy. Question sugar free foods.

Sugar-free products continue to grow and share space in Americans’ cupboards. Between soda pop, yogurts, cookies, etc. sugar free does not mean healthy. In fact, very often the calories can be higher in sugar free items because they have to kick up an ingredient like fat to make it taste better. The best thing you can do for your body and weight loss efforts is to review #1. The body doesn’t like processed foods which many of the sugar free products are. If you’re looking for sugar free, you’ll be able to find plenty of whole, fresh foods that are void of chemical flavors with a whole lot more nutrition.

Mistake #4: Believing a “free” lunch (or breakfast, or dinner) will do the trick.

No mistake! This healthy dish tastes even better than it looks!

Watch out for trends. Fat-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, carb-free and on and on. What’s a woman to do? Whenever there is a trend that promises to be the latest answer to weight loss, people jump all over it. Though there are certain people with pre-existing disease who need a special diet, most of us don’t need to go gluten-free or carb-free to get healthy. Again, trendy foods can be processed and full of things your body doesn’t need. So the next time a trend hits a magazine cover, remember it isn’t the answer to your weight loss woes.

Mistake #5: Setting unrealistic expectations. Make one small change at a time.

This is probably the most important part of the weight loss puzzle. Be realistic about what you want to attain. It’s unfortunate that so many women want desperately to lose weight yet just can’t seem to find what works. Lofty goals are frequently set and rarely met. Start off with eliminating one unhealthy food. Once you’ve mastered that, move on to the next. That’s realistic! The best thing you can do for yourself is to honor your body by giving it whole, fresh foods as often as possible. Giving up certain foods can be very hard, but once you start eating better the craving for less healthy foods dissipates. Trust me. As someone who lived on fast-food, the idea of giving it up was tough.

Solutions 1-5

As women we have everything we need to be a healthy weight and it starts with trust. Trust yourself enough to know that you have the ability to make the right choices for your body. Diets don’t know you or your lifestyle; only you do. Take it slow, make gradual changes and I can guarantee that a year from now you’ll be better off than you’d be if you had been through a series of diets. Take charge of your health and nutrition mistakes will be a thing of the past!

Nicki Anderson entered the fitness industry over 25 years ago after losing close to 50 pounds. Fast forward to 2008/2009 when she was named IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year, after succeeding as a business owner, fitness pro, and club customer service consultant.  Learn more from her about reaching your fitness goals via her books, the most recent of which is, Nicki Anderson’s Single Step Weight Loss; 101 No-Nonsense Tips for Healthy Living, Weight Loss and a Diet-Free Life. But why stop there when you can enjoy her blog, Thoughts on Health, Family, and Life After 50.  You can also find and friend her on Facebook. We warn you – she’s funny!

Make no mistake – subscribing to our YouTube channel and blog is a fulfilling move. Please also follow us on Twitter: AlexandraFunFit and KymberlyFunFit and Instagram: KymberlyFunFit and AlexandraFunFit. Or click now on the icons above.

Natural Products Expo West is the leading trade show in the natural, organic and healthy products industry. That means food, skin care, drinks, supplements, ingredients and way, way, way more. We were two of over 60,000 attendees visiting over 3,000 exhibitors.

We’ve only been home a few hours, but we wanted to share a few pictures from the event.

You know you’re in for a good experience when the first thing you see in the Press Room is a Gifting Suite!

Top Left: Alpina USA Greek Yogurt with Granola (We went to an Alpina test kitchen event. More on that in a future post)

Top Right: Debbie from Premium Gold Flax

Middle Right: Curtain at the Stonyfield Farm booth made from yogurt lids

Bottom Right & Bottom Left: Extremely unique chocolate from Lilie Belle Artisan Chocolates (yes, that really is bacon in the chocolate, and yes, you should NOT eat this bar unless you like super spicy)

Bottom Center: Daisy from Carmela’s Food Company (her marinara recipe comes straight from her Italian emigrant grandmother, Nana Carmela)

Left: Silk Soy Vanilla Iced Latte 

Center: Lotus Aroma is a French-Canadian company that makes skin care products that are devoid of crap (and the owner has a great sense of humor)

Right: Organic Valley has come out with even more yummy items in their grass-fed line (sisters not included). They put on a rockin’ 25th anniversary party too!

Left: Sandy Todd Webster is the editor in chief of IDEA Fitness Journal. She knows food and fitness, oh yes!

Top Right: We met our FitFluential friend Jody of Truth2BeingFit. She is super fit and super fun.

Bottom Right: That is my former UCSB student Will. He now works for CORE Foods. Buy their stuff.

Left: Artists from Hugo Naturals creating soap

Center: We like balance so that’s what we did with Chandra, founder of Drink Chia. We support woman-owned businesses like crazy.

Right: Someone has to win this beehive from Attune Foods, and Alexandra wants to be that someone.

Photo Credits: Alexandra and Kymberly’s Instagrams.

Please click to visit us at FunandFit.org, subscribe to our YouTube Channel, and follow us on twitter: @KymberlyFunFit and@AlexandraFunFit.  See our instagram pics at: @AlexandraFunFit and @KymberlyFunFit. We follow back!

Bonnie Raitt was right when she sang Have a Heart. You probably have a heart, but is it a strong one? And do you also have great circulation and flexible arteries?

Hard to make that sound sexy and exciting. However, having a strong circulatory system and being flexible should be on the top of your “gotta have” list if you want to live a full, healthy life. If you are a woman over 45 (keep those genetic predispositions in mind too) you will especially need to focus on circulating better than a politician at a fundraiser!

Circulation is the movement of fluid through the vessels of the body in a regular or circuitous course induced by the pumping action of the heart. Say what? When you have good circulation, blood can move to every cell in your body in less than 60 seconds.

Thinking of which, did you know that heart disease is the number one killer of women in the US? Or that the symptoms of a woman’s heart attack can differ drastically from men’s, so those signs often go unrecognized? We need to do better at spotting heart attacks in women AND take action to minimize heart disease in the first place. In other words, having good circulation not only can improve your life, but possibly also save it!

Notice how Bob Hoskins ends up at the ER in the Bonnie Raitt video clip? Did you notice what he was eating? Exactly!

The three main ways you can help your circulatory system are to:

Exercise
While many types of exercise help your overall awesomesauceness, walking is the single most effective form of exercise to achieve heart health, according to the American Heart Association. For every hour of walking, life expectancy may increase by two hours.

Achieve good flexibility
Researchers have established a correlation between flexible bodies and flexible arteries in people older than 40. Can you touch your toes? If so, you probably have flexible arteries. Arterial stiffness indicates an increased risk for heart disease and stroke. Being fit seems to delay the development of age-associated artery stiffening.

Intake healthy food and drink 
One of our favorite ways people can support their circulation is via cocoa flavanols. What can be better than finding out that a regular, small dose of dark chocolate helps your health. We’re all over that good news!

On this last day of Heart Health Month, we are headed to the IDEA Personal Trainer Institute on the east coast to partner up with CocoaVia® to help spread the word about taking care of your circulatory system all year long! They make four flavors of cocoa flavanol supplements (2 chocolate; 2 fruit). We’ve tried them all, and love the fruit flavors in our morning smoothies and water bottles. Check out more recipe ideas on CocoaVia’s site.

Traveling to conventions is also proven (completely non-scientifically) to help us circulate with our knowledgeable fitness colleagues, so we are looking forward to the trip. Please follow our adventure via our pictures and tweets.

While you’re at it, please have a heart and subscribe to our YouTube channel and blog. Please also follow us on Twitter: AlexandraFunFit and KymberlyFunFit and Instagram: KymberlyFunFit and AlexandraFunFit. Or click now on the icons above.

Photo credits: Heart collage:  qthomasbower; Circulatory system: Vivienne Balonwu