Monthly Archives: April 2013

Working Out

5 Rejuvenating Ways to Spend Your Lunch Hour

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It doesn’t seem quite fair that in the mix of the eight-eight-eight breakdown of a day —eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep (ideally) and eight hours of downtime — we have to spend one of those precious downtime hours at the office. Yet your lunch hour, properly spent, can go a long way toward rejuvenating you, making you happier and more productive for the rest of the day and even propel you along towards your weight loss goal.

Check out these tips for ways to spend your lunch hour that will help you to continue losing weight and getting healthier:

1. Get moving! Taking a walk during your lunch hour is probably the best way to recharge yourself. Walking helps you relax, burns calories, and releases energy in your body that makes it hard to sit still during the workday. Better yet, snap on a pedometer and track your steps throughout the day. Challenge yourself to get at least 10,000 steps a day.

2. Go to the park. If there’s a park near your office, spending some time in nature can be amazingly rejuvenating. Watching the squirrels and birds is relaxing, and breathing in the natural scents helps you breathe more deeply and melts away stress.

3. Do yoga. Find an empty conference room — or better yet, head to that park —and pull out your yoga mat. Yoga helps you relax and refocus your brain so that you can make it through the afternoon.

4. Plan ahead. With everything we have to get done on a daily basis, meal preparation can seem next to impossible – especially a healthy meal. Rather than checking Facebook or reading the latest celeb gossip during your lunch hour, write out the meals you will prepare throughout the week. Better yet, write out your grocery list as well so that you can hit the market on the way home – and so that you won’t be sidetracked by junk food.

5. Make a call and hit the road. Make a pact with a friend or family member that you’ll have walking calls over lunch. Use this time constructively: talk through work, family or personal issues – but be sure to discuss solutions, too. Doing so will nip stress in the bud, and will leave you with a game plan for moving forward. By walking while you talk, you’ll burn calories and knock out at least 30 minutes of exercise. Now that’s what you call a “Power Lunch”!

Whether your office feels oppressive or it’s the best thing in your life, we all need an escape from time to time. Take that escape daily during your lunch hour, and you’ll enjoy your job more. As an added benefit, shifting attention away from work in the middle of the day frees your brain to come up with creative solutions to problems that have been bugging you, so when you come back to work, you’ll be refreshed and ready to tackle what’s left of the day. Not to mention – you’ll burn some calories, too!

About the Author:

Tina Daniels writes about self-improvement for Vape World.

High Protein Recipes

Crock Pot Whole Chicken Recipe

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Summer time is coming up and that means one of my favorite seasonal high protein foods barbecue smoked chicken! The big problem with barbecue is in order to make it right you have to slow cook it, and most of us don’t have a smoker or slow cooker in our back yards. This handy dandy recipe give you the sweet sweet taste of juicy slow cooked smoked chicken all with the help of a crock pot instead of a back yard smoker. Best of all, it’s high in protein and contains no added sugar or carbs!

What You’ll Need:

  • 1 whole chicken, 4 – 5 pounds
  • 1 onion – quartered
  • 1/4 cup bottled smoke
  • aluminum foil

For DRY RUB:

  • 1/4 cup Chili Powder
  • 2 tablespoons kosher salt
  • 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon cumin

Mix the dry rub ingredients together in a small bowl. Alternatively you can use a store bought seasoning. I prefer to make my own so I’ve given you my recipe. Make sure your chicken is cleaned and any excess fat or feathers have been removed. Line your crock pot with aluminum foil leaving enough extra foil hanging outside the pot to fold over and wrap your chicken after the next step. The foil is what allows the chicken to cook slowly but not turn into a soggy mess when it’s done.

Place the chicken in the crock pot and cover every inch of it in the dry rub, including inside the cavity. Place the quartered onion inside the chicken’s cavity, pour in the bottled smoke and wrap the aluminum foil around the chicken to completely enclosing it. Cover with the crock pot lid and turn that bad boy on.

Let the chicken cook on low for 5 – 6 hours or on high for 3 – 4  hours. Make sure the internal temperature of the chicken reaches at least 175 degrees. When the chicken is done, pull it out of the pot and let it sit for 10 minutes before carving. If all goes according to plan you should have a beautiful golden well seasoned “SMOKED” bird. and remember with crock pots and slow cookers, leave the lid on until you’re almost done, if you looking you ain’t cooking. This recipe can be used with pork loin or brisket also.

Max Saffron is a blogger out of Dallas, Texas. He writes for Dallas Accident Recovery a site dedicated to information on legal, financial and medical issues surrounding automobiles and auto accidents.