Happy September, everyone!
Continue believing in yourselves, working hard and being the best version of you!
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Join our very own Atlanta Personal Trainer, Brad Kolowich Jr on the Weather Channel for tips on how to exercise in this hot summer heat. (Click on the image below for a link to the video.)
For a link to the video, click on the image above.
5 Reasons Couples Should Work Toward Their Goals Together
Just a few months ago on New Year’s Day, we resolved to actually keep our resolutions…for real this time. We all do this. We start strong out the gate, but then willpower withers as we approach the late winter months and nearing of spring.
Why is this?
Is it because those ubiquitous and delicious Cadbury Eggs are just too tempting? Maybe.
But more likely it’s because we try to reach our goals alone, when really we should be recruiting our significant others to join us on our journey towards health and wellness!
Emotional support is vital for reaching your goals.
One of the keys to long-term behavior change is making your goals as attainable as possible, so having the support of your significant other is an important factor in successfully reaching those goals. It’s no surprise that couples who commit to changing together are oftentimes more successful than those who don’t work towards goals together.
Here are five reasons you and your partner should go for your goals together:
1. Partnership – By working together as a team to reach a common goal, your relationship is instantly strengthened. Stronger teamwork = stronger foundation.
2. Support – Committing to change of any kind includes both struggles and obstacles. Having a partner to help you face and overcome each challenge is a huge advantage.
3. Soundboard – As you embark on this journey together, you will continue to learn together. Sharing ideas and tips for what works and what doesn’t will help you stimulate each other’s minds.
4. Accountability – Having someone in your corner will hold you responsible for staying on track. They’ll also have your back, which is simply the best feeling there is.
5. Celebration – You know what’s better than celebrating your accomplishments? Both of you celebrating both of your accomplishments—together!
*There is no better person to coach you through this than one of Atlanta’s Top Personal Trainers at Brad Kolowich Jr. Personal Training! If you don’t have a significant other to join in your mission, find a colleague, relative or close friend to recruit and get started! Brad and his team of trainers will guide you on this journey and help you see the results you’ve been desiring.
Adapted from: http://www.acefitness.org/acefit/healthy-living-article/60/5291/5-reasons-couples-should-work-toward-their/
Candy, candy, candy! Tis the season! Don’t let Halloween kickoff the holiday season by adding inches to your waistline. Below are some healthy recipes that will help you feel as though you are cheating but will continue to help you focus on bettering your fitness and health!
Candy Corn Popsicles
Turn yogurt and juice into a seasonal treat. Serve these on Halloween morning for a fun & healthy breakfast treat OR eat after your halloween workout!
Ingredients:
1 scoop vanilla whey protein mixed with 6 oz water or unsweetened almond milk
1 cup orange juice
1 cup pineapple juice
Popsicle molds
To make these dairy-free, use coconut milk and veggie based protein powder.
If you don’t have popsicle molds, use paper cups and craft sticks.
Carefully pour two tablespoons of protein mix into the bottom of your molds. Freeze for 20 minutes.
Pour the orange juice evenly into all the molds. Freeze for another 20 minutes.
Pour the pineapple juice on top of the orange juice.
Freeze until set.
Serving Size: Makes 6 popsicles
Pumpkin Shaped Vegetable Tray
If you’ll be going to a Halloween (or any holiday) gathering, make sure to bring an appetizer or food option that will help encourage you (and others) to fuel up with the healthiest alternatives to typically snacking foods.
Ingredients:
large shallow bowl
2 small ramekins
1 cup low-fat ranch dip or dressing (or another variety)
3-4 (1-pound) bags baby carrots
1/2 cup sliced cucumber, each slice cut into triangles
Dip:
16 oz Greek Yogurt
Ranch dressing mix
For garnish:
Pepper strips, olives, nasturtium leaves, etc.
Directions:
Pour the carrots into the dish.
Pour the dressing/dip into the ramekins and nestle them into the carrots where the jack-o-lantern’s “eyes” should go.
Arrange the cucumbers on top of the carrots as “teeth,” and place two pepper strips above the “eyes.”
Add the nasturtium (a type of edible flower) leaves as the pumpkin stem, or use a wedge of cucumber, cut side down.
Just before serving, place half an olive on top of each ramekin of dip.
Serving Size: 1 tablespoon dip, about 1/2 cup carrots
Number of Servings: 20
Banana Yogurt Ghosts
These fun frozen bananas are as simple as they are healthy. You’ll need just three ingredients.
Ingredients
1 banana, sliced in half
2 popsicle sticks or wooden skewers
1/4 cup low-fat Greek yogurt
1/2 scoop vanilla whey protein OR 1/2 pouch sugar free vanilla pudding mix
4 mini chocolate chips
Tips
Greek yogurt sticks to the bananas better than regular yogurt.
Directions
Carefully poke the banana onto the skewer.
Mix the yogurt and whey protein or vanilla pudding together.
Spread the yogurt mixture over the bananas.
Gently place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment or waxed paper.
Adorn with two mini chocolate chips as eyes.
Freeze until firm and serve.
Serving Size: 2 banana “ghosts”
Pumpkin Protein Cake Balls
Satisfy that chocolate craving with a high-protein, low carb healthy treat.
Ingredients:
1/3 cup protein powder (vanilla)
1/8 cup agave
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 cup pure pumpkin
1/8 cup almond butter
2 tbsp sugar free vanilla pudding mix
Lily’s chocolate chips sweetened with stevia (or sugar free chocolate)
Mix all ingredients together. Add little bits of water if needed. Dough should be thick like cookie dough. Form 1 inch balls and place on parchment paper. Freeze. Once frozen, melt chocolate chips and coat balls with a thin layer of chocolate. Freeze again and serve frozen or at room temperature. They stay fresh in the fridge for 5 days and in the freezer for 5 months.
Tip: For an even healthier option, roll the cake balls in cocoa powder or cinnamon in lieu of the chocolate coating.
Makes approximately 6-8 balls.
Recipes adapted from Spark People
Eating fresh produce is the best way to obtain the nutrients that support optimum health, but the pesticides used on many crops remain a major health concern. This is the primary reason why at Fit Chow we use produce that has never been treated with pesticides. By choosing organic foods, you can reap the health benefits of fruits and vegetables without exposing yourself and your family to potentially harmful chemicals. Pesticides present real health risks, particularly to children and those with health concerns. The toxicity most commonly associated with pesticides in animal studies include disruptions in the normal functioning of the nervous and endocrine system, and increased risks of cancer (http://www.drweil.com).
You may be familiar with the term “Dirty Dozen”. This is a list of produce (fruits and vegetables) used to identify the produce with pesticide residue found in them. If you don’t want to eat bug and weed killers, when shopping on your own you most definitely want to purchase organic or pesticide free versions of the produce listed on the the Dirty Dozen. However, rest assure, at Fit Chow you will only be served organic and/or local pesticide free fruits and vegetables.
The Dirty Dozen
Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen™ list of produce includes apples, strawberries, grapes, celery, peaches, spinach, sweet bell peppers, imported nectarines, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, imported snap peas and potatoes. Each of these foods contained a number of different pesticide residues and showed high concentrations of pesticides relative to other produce items.
In particular:
Every sample of imported nectarines and 99 percent of apple samples tested positive for at least one pesticide residue.
The average potato had more pesticides by weight than any other food.
A single grape sample contained 15 pesticides. Single samples of celery, cherry tomatoes, imported snap peas and strawberries showed 13 different pesticides a piece.
The Clean Fifteen
Environmental Working Group’s Clean Fifteen for 2014 – the produce least likely to hold pesticide residues – are avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage, frozen sweet peas, onions, asparagus, mangoes, papayas, kiwis, eggplant, grapefruit, cantaloupe, cauliflower and sweet potatoes. Relatively few pesticides were detected on these foods, and tests found low total concentrations of pesticides. So when shopping, if cost and saving a some money is a concern for your family, you may choose to use the conventional versions of these produce items.
Notable findings:
Avocados were the cleanest: only 1 percent of avocado samples showed any detectable pesticides.
Some 89 percent of pineapples, 82 percent of kiwi, 80 percent of papayas, 88 percent of mango and 61 percent of cantaloupe had no residues.
No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen™ tested positive for more than 4 types of pesticides.
Detecting multiple pesticide residues is extremely rare on Clean Fifteen™ vegetables. Only 5.5 percent of Clean Fifteen samples had two or more pesticides.
Source:
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
This week marked two years since opening the doors to the Brad Kolowich Jr Personal Training Studio! Since the grand opening in 2012, the luxury private personal training studio has added two trainers, expanded the workout space, added multiple pieces of new equipment and continues to add special touches that rank it among the top fitness studio’s in Atlanta. The picture below features the six trainers who currently train in Brad Kolowich Jr’s Fitness Studio.
(Jonathan, Madeleine, Mandy, Brad, Tisch, Andy and Rocky a.k.a. the “Ruffer-ree”)
In celebration of the second birthday of Brad’s fitness studio, we sent our clients off with a HEALTHY post-workout protein cake ball! Below is my secret recipe for an easy and healthy post-workout treat.
1/3 cup chocolate whey protein
1/4 cup dry milk
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp peanut butter
sugar free chocolate (or dark chocolate)
(water as needed)
Mix all ingredients together and add water slowly, until it forms a cookie dough consistency. Scoop dough out using a tablespoon. Form balls and place on wax paper sprayed with olive oil cooking spray. Freeze for 30+ minutes. Eat as is for a healthy, high-protein, low carb snack OR dip coat in melted chocolate for a post-workout treat.
-Mandy
Live Life Fit
Client of the Month
Nicole Hogan
January/February 2014
We have a first ever three month streak for Client of the Month at Brad Kolowich Jr’s personal training studio. Nicole Hogan, 28, a full-time nurse at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and an O.R. Nurse at Atlanta Plastic Surgery Specialist has been working non-stop in pursuit of competing in her first ever NPC Bikini Competition. Through the holiday’s, Valentines, snow storms (and being stranded at the hospital), her birthday, illness and other special events, Nicole has let nothing be an excuse for reaching her goals she has set in place. Nicole stays consistent with her workouts in the studio and on her own. Since the start of the year, she has learned to take her nutrition to another level—prepping meals, counting her macronutrients more diligently, weighing and measuring everything to meet her ideal macronutrient make-up, and she even completed a trial run through of the dietary process to get stage ready! This vigorous two week process involves sodium loading, then sodium depleting, water loading and then water depleting, and finally carb depleting and carb loading—and Nicole tackled it flawlessly! A year after beginning her fitness journey, Nicole is in the best shape of her adult life. In the picture above she has photographed her abs in March 2013 and again in February 2014. She is a true testament to Richard G. Scott’s quote about consistency, “We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day.” Nicole will be competing March 21-22 in Pensacola, FL in the Panhandle Showdown Championships National Qualifier in hopes of receiving her national qualification to compete in other future National NPC Bikini events. We wish you the best of luck Nicole!
Client of the Month: Madeleine Conti
October 2013
This time of year it is easy to let busy schedules, the cooler weather, sporting events, work commitments and ailing bodies get in the way of their training schedules. The client of the month for October however lets nothing get in the way of making her training a priority. Madeleine Conti, 22, is a Percussion Instructor at Woodward Academy. She also occupies her time as an entrepreneur running her own business of teaching private in-home music lessons. She makes the commute to Brad Kolowich Jr Personal Training Studio from Peachtree City and she is preparing for her first NPC Bikini Competition. Though Madeleine only trains with Brad once a week, she gets her daily workouts in on her own and follows a strict diet (prescribed by Brad) catered to helping her reach her specific goals. In September, Madeleine had what could have been a devastating injury, but she was determined to continue to push toward reaching her goals. While rushing into work one morning Madi clumsily made “friends” with a nasty curb. She was diagnosed at Urgent care with swelling of soft tissue in her ankle OR a severely sprained ankle. Most would take some time to let healing occur; however, Madeleine instead texted Brad from the ER with a message informing him of her injury and stating “We may need to shift my focus in my workout from legs tomorrow, but I will see you in the morning.” This is just a little glimpse into the motivation, determination and dedication Madi brings to reaching her fitness goals. Madeleline is the current female record holder in push-ups and dips and holds the overall sit-up and plank record with a 13:32 minute plank! Madi brings a positive attitude and smile to every workout! We thank you Madi for being a inspiration to us and the Brad Kolowich Jr Fitness studio! Congratulations and continue to reach for the stars!
-Mandy
Thanksgiving is generally a time when we all worry about unwanted weight gain. However, this Thanksgiving (as described in my Mom’s story below) our family was faced with a whole other challenge: How to keep our hard earned muscle mass while sick with the stomach bug. As personal trainer and nutritionist (and Brad a fitness model) our lively hood revolves around maintaining a lean and muscular physique. Getting a gut wrenching stomach virus has the possibility to hinder the hard work we put in on a daily basis and set us back in our physical gains. However, by following these five simple steps, we kept ourselves from falling into a huge setback.
In order to best prevent the loss of muscle during times of illness try theses remedies:
1. Believe it or not, when you are sick your metabolism speeds up (even if you aren’t moving) in order to help repair your body. So, adequate nutrition is a MUST. Start with a bland diet (bananas, rice, apples, toast) and add protein as you can stomach it.
2. DRINK plenty of water and try pedialyte or gatorade to get vitamins, minerals and electrolytes back in your system. Also, while your caloric intake is low, try drinking 5-10g of BCAA’s every 2-4 hours and 1-2g of buffered creatine (Kre Alkalyn) up to two times a day.
3. Take a probiotic. (IF you’ve had a run with the stomach virus, though you’ve cleared out all the bad bacteria in your system, you also cleared out all the good bacteria. Take a probiotic to reintroduce those vital good bacteria to your system.)
4. Eat or drink adequate protein. Try a vegan based protein powder, Greek yogurt, and bland chicken (when you are able to stomach it).
5. REST and get plenty of sleep. As mentioned above, your body is in overdrive working to overcome your illness and thus is going to need plenty of rest for your quickest recovery.
The story below was written by my Mother and Aunt, two other victims (of the 11) to our Thanksgiving fiasco, who also fought the good fight back to HEALTH and preserved muscle mass along the way by following these simple steps to recovery.
Script and pictures by Nancy Blue (Nana) and Kathy Blue (Aunt Kathy)
You are now hearing the voice of Rod Serling…..
You unlock this door with the Key of imagination….
Beyond it is another dimension.
A dimension of sound…
A dimension of sight….
A dimension of mind….
You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance…..
Of things and ideas…
You have just crossed over into ….
It was an ordinary day in Brevard North Carolina, much like any other day just before Thanksgiving…..
The weather was exceptionally nice for a late November day and the Blue family was busily preparing for a joyous holiday weekend of fun and feasting.
As the guests began to trickle in from Dacula, Atlanta, and Cashiers, all were happy to be reunited and to share in the joy of the new baby Graham.
Festivities were enthusiastically underway as pies, cookies, casseroles and a grand Turkey were lovingly prepared, and a beautiful table was set to perfection.
Yes….it was a picture perfect setting….you could say, just like a Norman Rockwell painting…until……IT HIT !!!
The HORRIBLE, HORRENDOUS… the HORRIFIC…. HEBERLING 2-0-1-2 VIRUS….
Now officially documented by the CDC as THE H 2-0-1-2 … a sinister, insidious virus with NO KNOWN CURE !!
First to fall was Nana… hardly finished with her Thanksgiving meal….she was hit hard…..
Followed shortly by Big Mike….it wasn’t a pretty sight!
Next to go were Aunt Mandy and Aunt Taylor, forced to huddle together on the bathroom floor, shivering in the night.
And FINALLY…… the last to go…. Brad and Aunt Kathy. We thought they were in the clear, but NOTHING escapes the deadly grip of
THE H 2-0-1-2 VIRUS !!!!! Yes….it was a ghastly sight…..
And there were many casualties…….
Then,as swiftly and unassumingly as the Heberling family came, they disappeared down the misty mountain road back home taking with them, their
secret biological weapon…..
Leaving only some “Sick Supplies”…….
And a note which read…… ”We came…We infected… We ate… and… We left….We Love You!”
Well, it is said that Love can be expressed in many different ways…..so next year….
the family will be ready for whatever expressions of “Love” may come their way !!!
And so…..until then….. “Village Under Quarantine For 30 Days” !!!
And so, my friends, goes another Thanksgiving in…..
Happy Thanksgiving!
P.S.
We decided we better give Santa fair warning…
…
“ Well, here I am at the Heberling’s……good kid, that Graham, but germy…..”
Home for the Holidays
In home workout for beginners, intermediate and advanced. Just grab a pair of dumbbells and get started.
Don’t let your fitness commitments go out the door as your friends, family and holiday parties begin to flood in. Between decorating, cooking, wrapping and shuffling from here to there remember to make room to squeeze you fitness routine in. By continuing with your regular workouts, you will have a jump start on reaching your New Year goals. This workout makes use of compound movements–exercises that use multiple muscle groups for maximum results–and its is designed for speed so you can finish it in 30 minutes without compromising your time invested in holiday festivities OR most importantly your results.
All you need is a dumbbell (10-15 llbs.) or medicine ball. Do as many reps as you can in 20 seconds. Rest for 10 seconds before moving on to the next exercise. Repeat the circuit 4-8 times.
1. Jump squat
2. Dumbbell single leg dead lift with a row (20 seconds each side)
3. Mountain climber
4. Walking lunge with torso twist
5. Alternating lunge jump
6. Dumbbell squat/front raise/press/curl
7. Jumping jack
8. Explosive pushups
9. Overhead Dumbbell crunch
10. Burpee
**As you become more proficient at this workout, you can bump up your interval to a 30 seconds on/15 seconds rest and after that 40/20 intervals.
Written by,
Mandy Malool ISSA-CFT, SFN