Audrey and I had so much fun at the workshop this past weekend. We were so grateful for everyone who came. We loved to watch you all grow, laugh, and play…. and cry… a little.
Our Simply Live Your Life- 8 Weeks to Greatness program begins March 1st. Don’t wait to sign up!

Here are some comments from participants:

• Thanks so much for your workshop! It has gotten me energized and motivated to get myself back on track so that I can continue to help others in my own life and businesses. Plus with our baby steps, take it even further than I was able to do in the past during the times I really took care of myself! I love learning new things about myself, others and getting new tools to re-start me and this time, KEEP me going in the direction I want to go, thank you for helping me on that journey. =) Here is the quote I read so that you can pass it along to everyone.

• The day was exceptional. You two are an awesome empowering twosome. You compliment each other so well and I believe that you are reaching people who need this and also you are inspiring us all to stretch and grow and bloom. What an awesome spring we are all going to have. We are planting the seeds for all those beautiful flowers to spring forth. Thank you thank you for what you are doing. It is so necessary in this world of CNN (constant negative news) and most people are honestly flying by the seat of their pants.You change one person at a time and pretty soon you have a ripple effect that is out of control!!! Yea, and you did it, you started it.Fort Collins will never be the same.

Check out this Video montage from the weekend!

Too many of us move mindlessly through our meals, without being fully aware of the damage we are doing to our bodies.  In my endless hours of research on auto-immune and chronic disease, I learned that the number one way to reverse the symptoms and the disease itself is through nutrition.

A year ago, someone mentioned to me that they had given up all refined sugar and everything processed.  My thought was, “Oh, poor them…I’m SO glad not to have health issues that necessitate THAT kind of CRAZINESS.” Little did I know that I’d be in their boat a year later.

When my 20 month old son started to show scary proof of a number of food allergies and sensitivities 6 months ago, we began shaking processed food out of our cabinets.  In the last eight years, we had already eliminated all high fructose corn syrup, trans fats and other sinister food additives from our family diet, but now we were eliminating organic, whole grain cereals and snacks we kept stocked in our cabinets.  For the record, his food reactions included but were not limited to:  dairy, soy, gluten, corn, beans and eggs.  This meant we were feeding him a whole food diet already (minus a variety of fruit and veggies also on his ‘no’ list).  Forward four months:  after countless hours of research and meetings with our Naturopathic Doctor, we figured out that part of his issue was that he was getting an assortment of antibodies from me throughout pregnancy and nursing.  I had been experiencing an auto-immune reaction, for about 6 yrs, which we could now clearly link to gluten in my diet. 

My 6 yr old daughter was also experiencing some symptoms around gluten and dairy, primarily itchy skin and upset stomachs.  Around the time of this health discovery, I was beginning to return to my fitness quest, after having a baby whose disrupted sleep patterns of only about two hours at a time had tortured us for a year and a half.  I still had about 20 ‘pregnancy’ pounds to lose.  My husband has been a competitive cyclist for years, but also had some serious sugar addictions and issues with ‘hitting the wall’ daily, due to low blood sugar.  We were both seriously addicted to coffee, caffeine and sugar. In case you were wondering, I’m 36 and Gary is 43.

After reading a ton of information on the anti-inflammatory/auto-immune benefits of the Paleo Diet online, and reading both the Paleo Diet Book and the Paleo for Athletes Book, we decided to make some serious changes.  On New Year’s Eve (today is Feb 10th), we packed up all of our processed food from our cabinets, fridge and freezer, and replaced it all with veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds.  We found the local resource for grass fed beef, game meat, free range organic turkey and chicken and packed up our freezer. The hardest change for both of us has been giving up coffee…and our ‘off plan’ snacks twice or three times a week involve either tortilla chips with Paleo approved guacamole and salsa, or popcorn with butter and sea salt.  All in all, we are probably 90% Paleo, with a weekly latte and one of the snacks above.

In the last six weeks, we’ve noticed a ton of benefits to eating ‘Paleo’…before changing our diet, Gary had DAILY heartburn, but after a week realized it had disappeared…I’ve lost about 18 pounds, and Gary’s lost 7, going down 3-4% in his body fat measurement.  Neither of us have had our usual blood sugar crashes, and the days of waking up ‘starving’ have only happened when we’ve gone off plan the night before, which we don’t do often, because the reduced energy we experience is so dramatic.  We’ve both had more peace in the gastro-intestinal world, I have less negative menstrual related symptoms, and we have less cravings than before.  Our daughter is virtually free of food-related issues, and our little guy’s eczema is completely gone.

As some of what we’ve read online, we agree that the plan is socially prohibitive, but we either bring something we can eat, eat before we leave our house, and/or load up on a Paleo ‘allowed’ salad at an event. There’s always salad.  I’ve indulged in a couple of gluten free brownies at a party, but over all, we haven’t wanted to touch sugar, knowing we’d feel run down afterward.  Our daughter complains about all the broccoli and asparagus we’ve been making her eat, but don’t all 6 yr olds need something to complain about?  Her lunches for school are mostly Paleo, as well.  We all eat leftovers for breakfast, with some fruit, and everyone has more steady, sustained energy than when we’d eat other ‘breakfast foods’.  The kids get a few more grains than we do…usually a rice cake here and there.  I won’t make excuses.  It’s just really a challenge some days to feed two active, growing children 5-6 meals of freshly cooked protein, veggies and fruits…oh, yes, I didn’t mention that we stopped using our microwave at the same time we ‘went Paleo’.  It’s doable. It’s like any health related lifestyle change. 

If it’s important to you, you make time to do it.  We eat whole foods every meal, cooked the old fashioned way, we have two businesses, two young children, we both workout 5-7 days a week and have a family adventure at least once a week… we make conscious choices about our health, business and relationships.  This choice of nutrition has had numerous positive effects on our family, so the plan and preparation time has been worth it.  Too many of us move mindlessly through our meals, without being fully aware of the damage we are doing to our bodies.  In my endless hours of research on auto-immune and chronic disease, I learned that the number one way to reverse the symptoms and the disease itself is through nutrition.  Food has the power to heal, even if the anti-nutritional harm has been going on for some time…for us, this diet was a large part of healing our bodies from a long-lived thoughtless food spree.

Tiffany and Gary Blackden are going on 8 years of ‘living the dream’ as entrepreneurs.  They haven’t had cable TV for 7 years, never read the paper and have a pact to never buy their children a video game.  They moved their family to Northern Colorado 3 years ago, to escape the chronic stress of living in the sprawling metropolitan DC area and enjoy 300+ days of sunshine a year.

This inspire me monday speaks for itself. I came across this video of a 72 year old women doing FRAN, the mother of all crossfit workouts.  

Many people watch videos of a Crossfit WOD and think, "I can never do that… that’s awesome, but I can’t do it. Not for me." 

So here is my absolute proof that Crossfit is infinately Scaleable. Watch and be amazed. The link also provides a story from Barbara and how Crossfit has helped her live an independent and fun filled life at 72. 

If you aren’t inspired by this… then you must not be human. Click the image below to play the video.

It’s the first week of February. How are all your resolutions and intentions coming?

This week take some time to make sure you are on the right track. Go over what you wrote down at the beginning of January, or if you didn’t write it, now’s the time to get out some paper and pens and do it. Look at the things that went great and the things that went bad in January and use those to your advantage. Take more stock in your successes than your failure.

Lay out the month of February for yourself and set 1-5 intentions in all categories of your life. I like to use: Career, Fitness, Food, Personal Potential, and Fun.

So here we go for mine:

Career:

• Stay as present as possible with my current clients
• Create $2000 in long distance coaching clients to prepare for move
• Look for other trainers, options, etc for fitness clients before I move
• Have a FULL class at the Simply Live Workshop Feb 19-20
• Have a FULL group for the Live your Life 8 week program following Simply live

Fitness and Food:

• Practice Muscle ups at least once a week
• 3 workouts a week
• 80/20 clean eating ( 3 whatever I want meals a week)
• Be more conscious about vegetable variety

Personal Potential:

• Continue to read new books
• Banish my limit on my own self worth
• Morning Pages at least 4 times a week
• Yoga once a week

Fun:

• Plan a game night this month
• Plan one girls night
• See 2 movies I want to see
• Don’t take ANYTHING too seriously

Get the Idea? If you are having a hard time sticking to your intentions or finding time for yourself come to SIMPLY LIVE on Feb. 19-20. Give yourself the gift of time to focus on you and your goals for the year.

3-2-1 GO!

A funny sequence of events happened to me in the past few weeks. The clinic I work at gets a monthly addition of Sunset Magazine and every month I flip through looking for recipes I can modify. In December I saw they had a recipe for Hazelnut Butter Muffins made with Hazelnut flour in them. I was intrigued at hazelnut flour, but hadn’t really tried to find it knowing that the ingredients I would need to make a paleo muffin with hazelnut flour would require expensive ingredients like hazelnut oil.

So I was floored to find a package of hazelnut flour in a holiday package Diego and I received.I felt like this was my calling now, and I had to suck it up and buy the ingredients I needed to experiment with this flour.

What I planned to be Applesauce Hazelnut Butter muffins ended up being Chocolate Chip Hazelnut butter muffins and they turned out delicious!

These muffins have some weirdo ingredients like hazelnut oil and hazelnut butter. I made my own Hazelnut butter, which was super easy. I would suppose that using an oil that is less expensive but lacks a strong flavor like grapeseed oil would work just as well.

You Need:

1 Cup Blanched Almond Flour

1 Cup Hazelnut flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup Hazelnut butter

3 large eggs

1 cup unsweetened Applesauce ( I like 365 brand, it’s super smooth)

1 tbsp vanilla

3 tbsp agave nectar (can be omitted if you choose)

1/4 cup grape seed oil

2 tsp hazelnut oil

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.

In a small bowl, mix the dry ingredients well. In a large bowl mix the wet ingredients well. Leave the chocolate chips for later.

Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and then fold in the chocolate Chips.

Place batter in muffin cup lined muffin pan 3/4 full. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.