Meatballs

Buffalo Meatballs. They aren’t too spicy either–just enough! I’ve been using this recipe so long that I don’t know where I found it, so I apologize to whomever I’m unable to give credit to. Anyway, here’s what you’ll need to make these delicious, protein-filled….balls.

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup diced celery
• 1 sweet onion diced
• 4oz Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 package (16-20oz) ground meat (I used ground turkey, but you could easily use another ground meat variety)

Mix all ingredients together. Form into meatballs of desired size on a cookie tray. Bake 450 degrees for about 25 minutes.

Serving ideas:

• Meatballs + Rice
• Meatballs + Salad
• Meatballs + Celery and lite Ranch
• Meatballs in a baggy in your purse… I can’t be the only one =P

Let me know if you try ’em!

Muffintops

Well, to be more precise, this is the cardio element to get rid of them.

Parts of my fitness goals this year include losing fat and challenging my heart regularly, so in addition to my 4 day lifting split each week, I’ve started with 1 day of cardio every week. This way, if my results ever plateau or my body doesn’t feel challenged with this small amount of cardio, I can always add more.

While there are many ways to do cardio (i.e. exercise that gets your heart rate up for health and calorie burning), my favorite way is short, sweet, and takes only 20 minutes.

Zombie Sprints

This can be done in any cardio modality, but is best done in a way that doesn’t limit speed (not treadmill or step mill). I like sprints on flat ground, hill sprints, spin bike sprints, or elliptical sprints (as a last resort).

• Warmup: 5 minute (light to moderate intensity). You may want to incorporate dynamic stretches such as high knees, butt-kicks, lunges, etc to stretch out a bit.
• Sprints: 10 minutes
  1:40 at 50% effort
  20 seconds at 105% effort (life-or-death-speed sprints, like zombies are chasing you)
  Repeat 5 times.
  • If you feel like you can do another sprint after those 5, you didn’t push hard enough
• Cool down: 5 minutes (moderate to light intensity)
• You’re done! Go home (or stretch a bit)

This is a type of training known as HIIT, or high-intensity interval training. The benefit to this type of cardio is it improves your anaerobic and aerobic capacities, speeds up your metabolism for the next 12-24 hours (more calorie burn), and preserves muscle tissue which can be catabolized from long-duration cardio.