Pear and Cranberry Crisp

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
Makes: 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients
Filling
1/3 cup dried cranberries
2 pounds firm pears (4 large or 5 small pears), peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch slices
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons rolled oats
Pinch ground nutmeg
Small pinch salt
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and softened

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the cranberries in a bowl and cover them with boiling water. Let soak until plump, about 15 minutes. Drain well.

2. Combine the almonds, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, oats, nutmeg, and salt in a food processor; pulse a few times. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles granola.

3. In a 10-inch glass pie plate or baking dish, combine the drained cranberries with the pears, maple syrup, flour, and vanilla. Toss well. Scatter the topping over the fruit.

4. Bake the crisp until the topping is well browned, about 1 hour. Serve warm.

Nutrition facts per serving: 260 calories, 3g protein, 49g carbohydrate, 7g fat (3.3g saturated), 6g fiber

Visit www.upwardmotionpt.com for your FREE personal training session!

How to Stay Fit this Holiday

For most of us, the holiday season=food and food=weight gain. So how can we keep those holiday pounds at bay and have fun with the whole family? Check out these creative, after dinner games we found.

-Spin the Bottle (not the kissing one)-
Grab an empty bottle and a box or bucket. Have everyone write down their exercise instructions and put them folded up into the box.
Ex. Run into the kitchen and find a spatula, a cup, and a pot in under a minute. If you fail you have to do 5 crunches.
Spin the bottle and whoever it lands on picks a paper from the box. Follow the instructions and remember to cheer them on!!
-Musical Chairs with a Twist-
Count how many people are playing, grab that many chairs minus one. Designate someone like grandma with the bad hip and have them control the music. Everyone circles around the chairs as the music is going, once the music stops, everyone grab a chair and quick! Whoever is left standing has to do 20 jumping jacks or some other exercise!

Remember to be creative and have fun! Think of different exercises to do for the games above or just incorporate exercises into a classic game! Everyone loves a challenge and a reason to get loud, why not get a little workout involved too?

Visit www.upwardmotionpt.com for your FREE personal training session!

Foam Rolling

Foam Roller on Steroids

I'm not one to plug the products that we sell, but this product I truly do believe in. Some of you already know the great benefits of massage, but imagine how amazing it would be to give yourself a massage. With the product line from Trigger Point Therapy you can do it! They offer several different products, but our favorite is The Grid. The Grid is a foam roller with varying densities and widths to allow you to take traditional foam rolling to the next level. Read our article below on how beneficial foam rolling is to the human body and if your interested, we sell them in the Upward Motion Personal Training studio, so you don't have to go very far!

For your FREE personal training session visit www.upwardmotionpt.com!

Self-Massage Made Easy

Once a luxury, massages are now necessity for athletes because of the wonderful benefits on the body such as reducing scar tissue which helps in the prevention of injuries. Massages shorten and flush out over worked muscles which makes tearing much less of a probability.
Now, massages are not just recommended for athletes but also for anyone who has a work out regimen, but that can become extremely expensive. That's why more and more people are turning to self-massage which is a huge fraction of the cost of professional massages. Foam rollers and massage balls are just some of the ways to relieve sore muscles and YouTube and store bought videos make knowing how easier.
If $25 for a foam roller is out of your budget, household objects are just as effective. Try using a tennis ball, baseball, or golf ball, even using your own hands can relieve and relax sore muscles.
Though self-massage is highly effective, getting a professional massage twice a year or so is still recommended. "You brush away some plaque yourself, but you still go to the dentist for a thorough cleaning," said Cassidy Phillips, founder of Trigger Point Performance Therapy, considering oral hygiene importance to massage therapy importance.
To many people muscle is not the only thing that benefits from massage, convenience of giving yourself a massage means less pain and less waiting around for appointments.


For more information on this subject, check out the original article in The New York Times. Click the link to go directly there!

Exercise and Brainpower

Who says jocks are stupid? Not the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study that showed a strong cardiovascular system in young adults may boost brainpower. If you've ever heard the saying, "a healthy mind lives in a healthy body" than you know this concept has been around a long time.
"We are aiming at politicians and educators who decide on academic curricula and budgets and how sport fits into the picture of academic success," says study senior author H. Georg Kuhn. The study also found that genetics has a lot less to do with exercise and weight-loss than was previously thought. In reality it's environment that has the biggest factor.
The study looked at 18 year old men and their previous academic performance, what socioeconomic class they came from, and the number of siblings they had. Better cardiovascular endurance was associated with higher intelligence, although muscle strength was not. Twin men were involved in the study which showed that environment counted for more than 80% and genetics were less than 15%.

"Any number of factors could explain why better cardiovascular fitness through exercising impacts brain function, including improved blood flow to the brain, diminished anxiety, enhanced mood and less fatigue." says Dr. Johnathan H. Whiteson, co-founder of a cardiopulmonary rehabilitation center.
Lesson of the day: Hit the gym before you hit the books!

Visit www.upwardmotionpt.com for you FREE consultation!

Simple "Caloric Math", as i like to call it, says that if we burn more calories than we eat, we should lose weight. Right? Of course that is right, but why is it so hard to lose weight?
There are a number of reasons why "Caloric Math" can get fudged up in the process. This is where research helps us discover why "Caloric Math" doesn't work.
One reason why "Caloric Math" can get fudged up is your appetite naturally begins to go up as you began a workout program. One research study supports this theory. A study published on September 2007 in the International Journal of Obesity looked at two groups of men that worked out 7 days a week and burned 500 kcal a workout. This equated to a 3500 caloric deficit a week or 1 pound of fat a week. They found that only one group of men lost weight during the 12 week study and one group did not.
Why? The answer is because the group that did lose weight did not compensate for the decreased amount of calories they burned during there exercise routine by eating those calories back. The study found that individuals appetites will naturally increase during exercise bouts in which calories are decreased.

Take Home Message:
BE AWARE or your appetite before and after you eat. Rate your hunger levels before you start eating: Your hunger levels should not be a "ravenous hunger." This will cause you to over eat.
When eating, the challenge is to stop eating at a rating of "satisfaction" rather than full or very full.

This will help your bodies natural appetite chemicals to become in sync.

Visit www.upwardmotionpt.com for your FREE personal training session!