Primal Jambalaya

I found this recipe on marksdailyapple.com, a wonderful resource for tips and information on why primal living is the best way to go. This recipe is PACKED with protein and does a very good job of replacing a common comfort food with a healthier, lower glycemic option. Traditional Jambalaya is loaded with rice, and therefore full of tons of unnecessary carbs that leave you with an insulin spike and a confused metabolism. This recipe replaces the rice with cauliflower and,
seriously, you will not even notice the difference. Cauliflower is a cooling food with a good portion of Vitamin C, and it stimulates the liver out of stagnancy. Cauliflower is also a complete protein, with all of the essential amino acids, although you would have to eat A LOT to get a
significant amount.

*Special note: The first time I made this, it was delicious but a bit too “soupy”- so the second time I added one tablespoon of arrowroot powder at the very end to thicken it up. Arrowroot is a thickening agent and is a much better option than cornstarch or flour. Simply sprinkle in one
tablespoon toward the end of cooking and stir, you will notice it thickening up right away.

Ingredients:
2 large chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1 lb andouille sausage, cut into ¼ inch thick slices
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup onion, chopped
1 large bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced crushed
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained
1.5 cups chicken stock
1/2 tsp dried leaf thyme
1 tbsp parsley (fresh is preferable, but dried will do
in a pinch!)
1 tsp chili powder
1 large head of cauliflower
2 cups shelled, deveined and cleaned shrimp
1 tbsp arrowroot powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and lightly cook the sausage and chicken over medium heat. Once golden, add onion, bell pepper and garlic and sauté until onion becomes translucent. Transfer items from the frying pan into a large pot. Add diced tomatoes, chicken broth, thyme, parsley and chili powder and bring to a simmer. While the mixture is simmering (you’ll want to let it go for about 20 minutes, uncovered, stirring occasionally), place the cauliflower in a food processor and shred or chop finely until it becomes the consistency of rice. Add the cauliflower “rice” to the mixture and simmer for another 15 minutes until tender. Add shrimp and simmer for another 5 minutes. Add arrowroot powder and stir until thickened. Add salt and pepper to taste and adjust other spices as needed. Serve piping hot. Serves 6.

Nutrition Analysis:
Calories: 590 calories
Fat: 36.7 grams (56% calories from fat)
Carbs: 16.1 grams (10% calories from carbs)
~L

Almond Maple Brownies

This brownie recipe is a go-to whenever we have a craving for something sweet and rich. Made with almond butter instead of flour, these brownies are higher in healthy fats and lower in refined carbs, which make them a healthier option than your traditional brownies. Plus, they are the best tasting brownies we have EVER had, and many people we've made them for say the same thing!

The original recipe is from Elana Amsterdam at www.elanaspantry.com. Her Almond Butter Brownies are made with with 1 1/4 cup of agave nectar, a little too sweet for our taste, plus we can’t get enough maple syrup, so we changed that part of the recipe and decreased the amount. If you love brownies, give this recipe a try, you will never look at regular brownies the same way!

Almond Maple Brownies

Ingredients:

1 16 oz jar of almond butter (Trader Joe's creamy with sea salt is the best)

1 scant cup real maple syrup

2 eggs

1/2 cup good quality cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sea salt

3/4 cup dark chocolate chips or chopped up chocolate bar

oil or butter for greasing the pan

Method:

· Preheat oven to 325 degrees

· Empty the jar of almond butter (including the oil that may have separated!) into a large mixing bowl

· Using a handheld mixer, mix almond butter until creamy

· Add the eggs and mix

· Add the maple syrup and mix

· Add the cocoa powder, baking soda, and sea salt, and mix

· Using a spoon, mix in about 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips

· Grease an 8x11 cake pan

· Pour brownie mix into pan (the batter will be very thick and heavy)

· Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips (about 1/4 cup) on top

· Bake at 325 degrees, on the middle rack, for 30-40 minutes, check at about 25 minutes to make sure the edges aren't burning

· Check the middle with a toothpick or knife

· Cool, cut, and serve!

· Makes about 15 brownies

~L

Carob Apricot Trail Mix

This month’s recipe is a great go-to snack. I learned the method for making trail mix on MarksDailyApple.com, he has some great recipes on there; this one is inspired by his ‘Sweet and Salty Primal Trail Mix’. Once you start making trail mix, you’ll want to mix and match the ingredients you use to get different flavors.

Carob Apricot Trail Mix

Ingredients:

2 cups walnuts (chopped or whole)

2 cups pecans (chopped or whole)

½ cup carob chips

½ cup dried apricots, chopped into small chunks

2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

2-3 tbsp honey

Sea Salt for sprinkling

Method:

· Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

· Mix the nuts with the coconut oil and honey

· Spread nuts onto a large cookie sheet and

sprinkle with sea salt

· Toast in the oven for 5-7 minutes, watching

carefully so the nuts don’t burn, stir at

least once

· Remove from oven and let cool

· When cool, add carob chips and apricots,

sprinkle with a little more salt if needed

· Mix and ENJOY!

~L

Listening to Your Body

What is the difference between being sore and being injured? How do you know when to push through pain and when to stop? What is pain compared to discomfort? The answers to these kinds of questions come in time, once you start to reconnect with your body through movement. Sometimes it is hard to tell when a certain movement is causing damage or doing good, for the novice boot camper as well as the experienced athlete. In fact, often the novice can have a better gauge for when to stop than the competitively programmed athlete. On the other hand, for someone with experience, pushing past your threshold during training can become second nature whereas for someone who is just getting back into exercise it may difficult to recognize the difference between muscle fatigue and damage.

This is where "listening to your body" comes in. The ability to tell the difference between true pain and "discomfort" or "soreness" is very important to your success. It's a fine balance: we don't want you to hurt yourself, but in order to give your body enough stimulus to change for the better, you will need to approach the workouts with a certain degree of intensity. Intensity cannot be measured in absolute terms. It is something subjective and relative to the individual. Thus we can see that learning how to listen to your body is also a process of being honest with yourself.
Whether you are just beginning to get back into shape or you are a weathered fitness veteran, one thing applies to everyone: If it doesn’t feel hard, it’s not hard enough. Now, your 80 year old grandma’s ‘hard’ is most likely going to be quite different from your 20 year old brother’s ‘hard’, but one thing that you learn as you set out on your movement journey is how to modify any and every workout and exercise. For example, if a workout has a total of 50 push-ups involved, some people might have to do them from their knees or with an assistance band, while others might need to strap on a 20-pound weight vest to make it more challenging. To each his or her own. Just because Joey is slamming the workout with a weight vest on the entire time, doesn’t discredit Tom’s slower, modified movements. The important thing is that each person is working at an intensity that is fitting to where they themselves are in their quest for optimum fitness.
A lot of people ask us the ‘heart rate’ question, “What should my heart rate be during exercise?” Our answer is always this: (unless you have some sort of heart condition which needs close monitoring) If you use a heart rate monitor, stop. For the love of all things sacred, don’t base how you FEEL during a workout on some digital reading on your wrist (or on the godforsaken screen of the machine you are riding). Exercise and movement is something that should be and ultimately is intuitive. All of these fancy doo-hickeys like heart rate monitors and the corresponding charts that tell you what “Zone” you should be in based on your age, are taking us further away from being connected with our bodies. So, forget about your heart rate and ask yourself how you feel while you are training. Take your heart rate to all different levels during your workout; push yourself to YOUR threshold (not the person’s next to you in class) and then back off and rest. Then do it again. Get to know your own body at all different levels of intensity. It will take some time, but it makes training a lot more fun when you aren’t dependent on some technological gismo to tell you how hard to work.

We have trained hundreds of people from 9 years old to 90, overweight and underweight, with various illnesses and without, and the same rule applies to all of them, if it doesn’t feel challenging, you need to make it harder. We do ourselves absolutely zero favors when we go easy on ourselves, whether it is in learning a language, practicing a skill for sport or art, or in physical training. Simply going through the motions will not heed progress.

In anything.
~R

The BEST soup EVER

Welcome fall! We love the change in seasons because with them we get to change our food. And we love the kind of food that warms your soul, like this Thai Chicken Coconut Soup from Elana Amsterdam at www.elanaspantry.com. I have changed just a few things about her original recipe to make it more to my liking. This soup is a go-to for the cold rainy days when you need something to warm you up from the inside out. Not to mention that when you eat it, you can practically feel the nutrients enter your body!


Thai Chicken Coconut Soup

Ingredients:
1 tbsp grapeseed oil
3 shallots, chopped
4 cups chicken stock
28 ounces coconut milk
1 tbsp agave nectar
1/2 pound crimini mushrooms
1 head broccoli
1 pound chicken breasts, skinless, boneless, chopped
3 tbsp fresh lime juice
2 tsp Thai red curry paste (I use Thai Kitchen)
3 tbsp fish sauce (also Thai Kitchen)

Method:
Warm oil in pan large pot over medium heat
Add shallots and chicken stirring until chicken is partially cooked
Stir in stock and coconut milk and bring to a simmer
Add mushrooms and broccoli and cook until tender (about 2-3 minutes)
Combine lime juice, agave, curry paste, and fish sauce in a small bowl and then stir into soup
Remove from heat and serve in your favorite soup bowl!

*Some optional garnishments are: cilantro, serrano chiles, lime wedges, and scallions.
**Fish sauce is the key ingredient!!

ENJOY!
~L

FALL SCHEDULE

(Kristi Lahusen cranking out some pull ups)

It's October Already! We had a blast with our summer sessions of Primordial P.E. Now it's time to settle down a bit as we change seasons. Here is our Fall Schedule:

MONDAY & THURSDAY
7-8pm
Wilshire Park (meet under the pavilion)
NE 33rd and Skidmore
$75 per month
*In November we may move inside, depending on the weather.

Contact us at ripcityfitness@gmail.com if you have any questions.

HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!

Getting you off the Machine and into Real World Fitness

Summer Classes in the Park

Come join us for a workout, Monday through Thursday evenings 8-9pm at Wilshire Park on NE 33rd and Skidmore!

Price is $99 per month for unlimited workouts. We are also currently offering 5 session private training packages for a low cost of $200.

Come find out how fun optimal fitness can be!

Nature and Your Health

Living in the Pacific Northwest has many benefits. The towering mountains all around us, the abundance of rivers and lakes, the weekend get-aways at the coast, the amazing hikes, and the green! GREEN IS EVERYWHERE. Beautiful flowers and delicious berries greet us each spring and summer, and rich colors ease us into winter in the fall. Sometimes I think we take these things for granted, knowing that they are there, but not always appreciating them; not standing in awe as often as we should. We certainly don't EXPERIENCE LIFE outdoors enough; the way we are meant to.

We live in a culture where a whole day can go by and we won't even notice that we haven't breathed fresh air, or gazed up at the sky. We can go a full week without ever setting foot outside. Sometimes I catch myself staying inside until 4 in the afternoon without even realizing it! Most people go from house to garage, to car, to garage to office to car, well, you get the picture. This is alarming, and quite telling of what has become of our health and wellness as a society. Some people even claim that they hate being outside, or that they despise nature; instead of noticing its magesty, we regard it as some sort of annoyance- all the bugs, rain, wind, sun, humidity, etc. Camping has gone from backpacking a few miles and pitching a tent to driving the RV to a KOA right next to the interstate and plugging in the generator. How did we reach this pathetic state and how can we get back to being the primal humans that we are meant to be?

I have worked in a various gyms for 5 years now and I am still amazed at how many people come in to work out on gorgeously sunny days. It's one thing for me to have to be there because I have a scheduled shift on what just so happens to be the first nice day in a month, but to be there, inside, under glaring flourescent lights, running on a treadmill in front of a window, which they aren't looking out of because they're too busy watching TV...? What has gone wrong?

One simple thing we can do to improve our health and boost our happiness is to JUST GO OUTSIDE. Professor Jules Pretty of Essex University says that although people with mental health issues such as depression will benefit most from spending more time outside, it can lift anyone’s mood. Walking, gardening, cycling, fishing, boating, horseback-riding and farming can all have a direct positive impact on the stress hormone cortisol. He adds that exercise in the open air near water is even better for you. The professor came to his conclusions after in-depth analysis of 10 UK studies involving 1,252 people. These studies revealed further that the perfect combination for a feel-good fix is a “green and blue” option – a walk or bike ride by the sea or a lake, going fishing or sailing, and also swimming outside. Professor Pretty claims, “Every green environment improved self-esteem and mood; the presence of water generated greater effects". I don't know about you, but going for a walk in the sand and a dip in the ocean sounds blissful to me!

(I'm happier just looking at this picture!)

Some beneficial effects of exercising outdoors are:

• Increased Vitamin D from exposure to sunlight helps prevent cancer, bone disease, depression, and helps lower and control insulin levels.


• Being outdoors for part of the day helps reset circadian rhythms and balances hormones, which can help promote weight loss.


• Exercising on a natural surface imparts tremendous benefit to your musculoskeletal system- uneven or natural terrain like grass fields, trails, hills, and other obstacles help to strengthen stabilizing muscles and improve balance.


• People with special needs such as the elderly, those with an illness, or those with physical or mental disabilities often gain therapeutic benefits from activities conducted in natural environments.


• Stress relief (measured through muscle tension, blood pressure and electrical brain activity) can be demonstrated within minutes of exposure to a green environment.


• Done in a group, outdoor activity can provide beneficial social interaction.

If you think about it, humans spent hundreds of thousands of years outside. We were hunter-gatherers; wild humans constantly having to adapt to living among predators, building our own shelter, and harvesting and hunting our food. We had lean, fit, healthy, fast, agile, and able bodies. We didn't have ellipticals, ab machines, or diet shakes to help keep us *looking* fit (*because that's about all they do). Now, we have DEvolved into what one of our favorite fitness entities (Wild Fitness) likes to call "Zoo Humans", meaning we are living in an environment that is much different than the one we are meant to be in. With our natural environment changing into an artificial, closed-in, unstimulating one, our health - mental, physical, emotional and spiritual - has also suffered to a tremendous degree.

You have the power to change your life. You wake up every day and make choices that will impact your life in different ways, negatively and positively. Choose to treat yourself like the awe-inspiring, marvelous being that you are; reconnect with yourself, reconnect with nature, do the things that bring you joy and exhileration. Make yourself feel GOOD, like REALLY and TRULY good. Feel happy to your core.

Go outside and play.

Like him:

Mother Earth has had ENOUGH

Ramman made this slide show in response to the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: