Happy Friday! Even better….a Friday before a 3-day weekend!!! Whoop whoop. Any fun plans for the 4th of July?
We have some soft plans, if you will, this weekend. We have things to do and places to go, but exact schedule that we have to follow. Kind of nice!
Well today’s Anything & Everything Friday has two different BBQ/cookout articles. One is healthy related and the other splurge related. Check them both out plus an awesome core workout and I am talking about heart rate below. Let’s do this!
Healthy Cookout:
Turns out BBQs are a big deal on the 4th of July. In fact, 65% of Americans will host or attend a BBQ on the 4th (I found that statistic when I was prepping for my radio show earlier this week)! How do you eat healthy while still enjoying a summer BBQ? Well here are some tips from Willa Tellekson-Flash with WellAndGood.com, Everything You Need To Know About Throwing A Perfect – And Healthy – Cookout. Plan to have a few splurges on a holiday weekend or at certain BBQs, but keep these tips in mind too! The article has some healthy drink recipes, dessert options and also burger and sides recipes. Check it out.
I also recommend my Grapefruit Vodka Soda recipe if you’re looking for a skinny cocktail recipe! It’s delicious!
Heart Rate:
I was just talking to some of the ladies in my bootcamp about this….. wearing a heart rate monitor. This article was written by Alexa Tucker and posted on Self.com and says that wearing a heart rate monitor can make you train harder and smarter. Boom. Yes.
Check out The 1 Thing That Will Make Every Workout More Effective to see why to wear a heart rate monitor. I have the Fitbit Charge HR and it doesn’t do a great job tracking my heart rate instantly. It does alright when I am sitting, but when I am doing HIIT on the treadmill it doesn’t always tell me exact numbers right away. I was telling the ladies at bootcamp that I really WANT to know my heart rate instantly to make sure I’m pushing myself to the right limit to make HIIT effective. You only need to do two to three days of HIIT (Hight Intensity Interval Training) for it to be effective, IF you are doing it correctly….aka hitting the right percentage of your maximum heart rate (MHR). You want to hit 85% of your MHR to that type of training work the way it is suppose to. Yes, work out harder for a shorter amount of time — that’s workout out SMARTER people! I dig it.
Core Training:
Want a stronger core without doing sit-ups for hours at a time? Check out Tony Bonvechio’s core workout at MyFitnessPal.com. It doesn’t involve crunches, but throwing a medicine ball around – sounds fun to me! He has actually taken nine different exercises and turned them into 3 little circuits that work your core and increase your heart rate at the same time. It involves ball slams, ball tosses, rotations, etc. It looks intense, but way better than continuous crunches, right?
Carbs in the PM:
It is after 6pm on a weeknight – do you dare eat a bowl of pasta?!?! Heaven forbid, you might gain a pound by doing so simply because it is after 6pm.
No. No, you will not.
So many people feel like they can’t eat carbs late at night because you won’t have time to “burn it off” before going to bed, therefore it will cause you to gain a pound of fat while you sleep. Lucky for us carb-lovers, it doesn’t really work that way. Yay!!! Zahra Barnes wrote this article for Self.com called How Bad Is It To Eat Carbs At Night If You’re Trying To Lose Weight and I am so glad she is addressing this. You need to pay more attention to what you’re eating, rather than at what time of day. It might actually be beneficial to eat carbs at night, for example if you exercise in the evening. It is important to get a good amount of complex carbohydrates after a workout to refuel, regardless of the time of day. Read this article to find out more and don’t be terrified of gaining weight because you ate carbs at dinner time!
Easy 4th of July Recipes:
One of the articles today was talking about healthy cookout options. Well, if you are going to splurge on the 4th of July (I do recommend splurging!) then make sure it counts! I don’t mean eat everything in site, but pick some awesome recipes and dig in. Delish.com compiled a list of 21 All-American Eats for 4th of July. Who doesn’t want to feel American on the 4th of July?! BBQ Chicken, Potato Salad with Scallions & Dill, Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad and Strawberry Shortcake No Churn Ice Cream…..I’m in. My favorite happens to be somewhat healthy, surprise, surprise. I LOVE grilled corn. The new thing these days seems to be different topping options to sprinkled on grilled corn. I like it. I like it a lot!
That is it for today! Have a great weekend celebrating the 4th of July! I am sure I’ll have pictures of food from the weekend in Instagram so check that out too.
