Video: Glute Strengthening Exercises For Hockey Players
June 28th, 2011Healthy Summertime Barbecuing
June 16th, 2011The weather has finally turned and Canadians are ready to get grilling! It’s a great way to get outdoors and enjoy time with family, but let’s make sure we’re doing it the healthy way. It’s also fun to marinate meats and enjoy new recipes on the barbecue, but here are a few food safety tips to keep your family healthy:
1. Rinse all fresh meats, fish, and poultry under cold water before marinating or cooking to be sure to remove any bacteria that may have accumulated in the packaging.
2. Plan meals ahead so that proper thawing time is allowed if you are using frozen meat. Allow meats to fully thaw in the refrigerator prior to cooking.
3. Marinate meat in the refrigerator and not on the counter. You can set meat out before cooking to allow it to warm to room temperature, but for no longer than one hour, according to Health Canada.
4. If you wish to make more marinade for dipping sauce with dinner, be sure that it has not come into contact with raw meat.
5. Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and warm water after handling raw meat.
6. When outside, keep food covered to ensure no contact with bacteria carrying insects and birds.
7. To prevent cross-contamination, use separate utensils on raw and cooked meat and never place cooked meat back on to a plate that held raw meat.
8. Bacteria such as salmonella and e.coli are killed by heat. Be sure to cook all meats, poultry, and fish to the proper internal temperature. You can’t tell by looking, so use a food thermometer to be safe.
9. Discard food that has been at room temperature for more than 2 hours to avoid eating bacterial contaminated food.
10. Don’ let summer be the time your red meat intake climbs to new highs! Think about grilling more veggies, poultry, and fish on the barbecue! See my recipe below.
Dr. Jen’s BBQ Skewers
Ingredients:
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
½ red onion
1 zucchini
2 chicken breasts
Marinade:
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp ground pepper
Pinch of ground sea salt
Cooking instructions
Soak 5-6 bamboo skewers in water for 20 minutes.
Chop vegetables into 3 inch chunks (appropriate for skewering). Add to bowl
Chop chicken breast into 1 inch cubes. Add to another bowl.
Combine marinade ingredients and stir to blend.
Toss half of marinade onto chopped veggies and other half onto chicken.
Bake marinated chicken in 325°F oven for 10 minutes.
Skewer vegetables and chicken onto soaked bamboo skewers (reserve veggie marinade to add at end).
Cook on barbecue at low eat until veggies are slightly browned and chicken juices run clear.
Toss leftover veggie marinade onto chicken and vegetables and serve!
How Music Can Help Your Workout
June 10th, 2011By: Marci Lall, Weight Loss & Body Sculpting Specialist
About two decades ago, Richard Simmons released a home video entitled SWEATING TO THE OLDIES which was a relatively simple concept: aerobic exercises were accompanied to classic rock and roll songs. The idea was that music would make a person more likely to get into a serious workout mood. The video was a huge hit for a good reason: Music can prove enormously helpful to those looking to shed a number of pounds.
Exercise is not just a physical activity. There is a huge psychological component to whether or not one succeeds with a particular weight loss plan. If you are sluggish or lacking in motivation, you will probably not want to perform even a low intensity workout much less a high intensity one. This is where something such as music comes into play. The psychological benefit of music is that it will hype a person up so that he/she will be more interested in performing the workouts.
Actually, music can do more than just lead the person to perform. It can aid in getting the person to work out harder if the tempo of the music is engaging enough. Also, if the duration of the music is lengthy, a person could work out for the entirety of a CD rather than just for a few minutes. And, of course, the longer a person works out the more calories the individual will burn. That is just the way the biology of the human body works.
There is also an experiential component to working out to music. We often select music because it puts us into a preferable state of mind. Often, music will work on the subconscious levels of the mind. This is what can lead to a person getting into a particular zone of consciousness. This zone can make the conscious mind less aware of the physical activities one takes part in. As a result, burnout, boredom, and fatigue do not play as much of a role as they sometimes do when a person want to work out. Once again, in order to get the most out of a workout, it needs to be fun and exciting. If it becomes mentally dull and dreary, the workout simply is not going to be something anyone wishes to stick with.
One thing that needs to be understood about people that may be new to exercise is that they need motivation. They may have motivation to start but their motivation to stick with things may end up being undermined by a host of factors. Music helps maintain this motivation due to the many positive components it brings to a workout session. That is why you will notice gyms and fitness centres playing CDs of current top 40 hits when you enter their doors. Music has significant benefit to those looking to stick with an exercise program. That is why so many personal trainers employ it in their sessions. And, of course, the other added benefit to integrating music into a workout session is that it aids in making the proceedings quite fun.