Ladies and gents, check out Santa Barbara Family Chiropractic’s blog to follow Nick and I’s 30-day Paleo Challenge, for recipe and menu ideas! :)
I’ll get back on here soon and write you a good, PROPER, blog post…I swear 
xoxo,
Jen
Monthly Archives: October 2011
Reebok’s Crossfit Commercial
This year, I was fortunate enough to attend the entire weekend of the 2011 Crossfit Games which was hosted by Reebok.
Moments before the final workout of the weekend, Reebok aired for the first time their newest commercial…
…Reebok’s Crossfit commercial…
(I know I’m on the right path when I’m watching a commercial and get choked up…or I’m just way too emotional…could be a little bit of both :-p)
Enjoy!
Big FAT Scaredy CAT!
If I...were king...of the...
The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.
~ Robert Cushing
This has been a big growing week for me. On Monday, I agreed to give a talk on Wednesday (last night) about my story of health transformation to a room full of about 15 people.
Does that sound scary to you?
It sounded TERRIFYING to me.
I had planned on telling my story as part of a 8 week wellness transformation program, in the second week of November. I planned on giving myself a month to prepare.
I gave myself 2 days.
Last night, I sat in front of a group of about 15 people, and shared my story with them.
I grew.
I sweat bullets.
I stretched.
…and I not ONLY survived…but I did well, too.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m tired of sitting and waiting for the fear to pass to live my life. The fear will always be there. It is my job to let the fear run over me, look it in the face…
and tell it that I want to freakin’ PARTY!
After I graduated college, I had every intention of going back to school for my masters. I was just going to give myself one year.
One year turned into six.
I started having every excuse in the world as to why NOW was not the right time. I dont’ have the money right now. I’m worried that once I get my degree I’ll want to start a family and then I’ll have to stop working… What if I suck at it?
Seriously, I have single-handedly listed every single excuse known to man OUT THERE…
…and where has that left me? 28 years old, still helping other people reach their goals, and pushing mine off more and more.
This will get less depressing… promise
I am thankful for all the crazy ideas that I’ve had about what I think I want to be…counselor, midwife, real estate agent, and on and on and on. I let fear talk me out of all of those things…but I would like to think there was a reason for it.
Timing is key. Maybe before I wasn’t ready for my vocation, or “calling”, until now.
I was having a conversation with Nick about this recently (one of millions I feel…). He looked me straight in the face and said, “Jen, it’s time for you to woman up and do what you want to do.”
He’s right. It’s time. I’ve sat around waiting far too long…
December 3rd and 4th, in San Diego, CA I will be attending a Crossfit Level 1 Cert to become a Crossfit trainer.
Makes sense…doesn’t it?
Exercise: Quick and Dirty Style
Nick and I like making videos :-p
Here is a video we made for our office (Santa Barbara Family Chiropractic) of Nick and I teaching Tabata!
Tabata is a beautiful thing; it’s portable, and its quick and dirty. Who doesn’t like a good quicky? Sometimes, you just DON’T have time for anything else.
Tabata will get the job done….every single time.
Paleo Baked Goodies :)
One of my wonderful co-workers brought it to my attention that he could not find my Paleo Scone recipe on my blog…
…probably because I have not posted that recipe.
Whyyyy have I not posted that recipe???? It is only the tastiest thing I make..ever!!!
So, without further ado…here it is Paleo Scones
This was my one and only go at making the recipe with blueberries in it...which is why those "raisins" look so enormous..
Paleo Scones
2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour (I use the flour at Trader Joe’s)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup grape seed oil
1/4 cup real maple syrup
2 large eggs
1 dash of real vanilla
1 cup raisins
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Coat 2 large baking sheets with real (pastured) butter.
2. In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, salt and baking soda. In a medium bowl, whisk together the grape seed oil, maple syrup, vanilla and eggs.
3. Stir the wet ingredients into the almond flour mixture until thoroughly combined, then fold in the raisins. Drop the batter, in heaping tablespoon sized scoops, about 2 inches apart, on to the prepared baking sheets.
4. Bake for 12-17 minutes, until golden brown or a toothpick inserted into the center of a scone comes out clean. Let the scones cool for 30 minutes (if you can wait that long…I can’t), then serve
That’s it…easiest recipe on the planet. My recipe was modified from THIS RECIPE…gotta be street legal, just sayin’ :)
Have a great weekend everyone xoxo
Jen
Allow yourself to be amazed
“Gratitude can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~Unknown
Have you ever stopped, mid-{delicious}-sip of your morning coffee to wonder if the person next to you felt the same way mid-sip of their morning coffee? Do you ever wonder if a cup of coffee feels comforting and cozy to them, or is it just a direct shot of caffeine to the brain? What about coffee do they love? Is it the smell of the ground beans, the experience of the busy coffee shop before work? The sound of their Mr. Coffee percolating in the kitchen? What IS it that makes some people so grateful for that cup of coffee, and others, thinking it’s just another part of their day?
It is rather fascinating to me how two people can experience the exact same thing – and each of them perceive that same experience oh so differently.
This morning, around 4am, I slowly woke up to a strangely familiar sound…but one I had not heard in so long.
Next to me I heard a whisper, “Jen, it’s raining.”
I have never shot out of bed so fast, which was followed by (which was, shockingly, my voice)…
“Oh yay…ohhhh yaaayyyyy”
I’m not going to lie, my reaction surprised even me!
It felt like the best moment in my entire life… (not going to say that that thought was accurate exactly, but I tend to live very dramatically in the moment at times, hehe).
Months have gone by without a drop of rain…I was in a dark, chilly room; with a cozy, warm bed; with a cozy, warm man snuggled up next to me…and all of this played to the sound of rain falling on the pavement.
Holy jeeeezz…writing about it is making me all giddy again!
The best part? I had nowhere to be for at least another hour…and THAT is probably the best feeling of all. A sweet hour to savor every delicious drop of that moment.
How many other people in Santa Barbara do you think woke up this morning, looked out the window, and thought that very same thing?
What if we took these little, seemingly small joys, and blew them up real BIG? That cup of coffee could be a big good morning hug, or, it could just be a cup of joe…That morning rain could be a damper (maybe that pun was intended) on your day, or it could inspire you to light a candle, drink some hot tea and snuggle up with a book… (or at the very least, a whole lot easier to be stuck inside on a work day…righttttt?)
It’s your choice, really. What’s it going to be?
Three little letters…
How many times have we woke up January 1st, ready and roaring to go on our new resolutions? “Oh, this year I really WILL lose 10 pounds by March…I just know it!”
I, too, spent many years fantasizing about dropping weight and getting long, toned legs…but that is where it stayed…in my fantasies.
Why?
Exactly! Why?… (I’m sure you’re probably confused…hehe). WHY is the question we should all be asking ourselves when we step up to that resolution or goal. ‘Why’ is what creates traction…’WHY’ is what makes it stick.
I tried every diet under the sun between the ages of 14 and 26; raw food diet, weight watchers, drinking a gallon of water before each meal, even tried those crazy Hydroxycut pills (not a proud moment…I spent the entire day shaking like a leaf)… Some would work, for a hot minute…but then the weight would start to creep back up. I thought I was left to forever have “big bones” as one of my “friends” once told me…ouch.
June 24th, 2009, I fortunately stumbled across a nutrition workshop at Franson Family Chiropractic. I left that building a different person.
No one had ever told me WHY I feel sick when I eat grains and dairy; no one had ever told me WHY I should eat fat (FAT?! the horror….). No one had told me anything like it before, and for some reason, that was all it took for me. That was what made it stick for me; the WHY.
The other day Nick and I were having our tri-weekly workout with Andrew, Kristen and Casey in the gym, and he was feeling a little on the tired side. An old Simple Plan song came on, and a particular lyric made Nick think…
I’ve found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you
He told me on the car ride home that when he heard those lyrics, it made him think about WHY he is exercising, WHY he works his body hard…and it was for me and our future family. Super romantic huh? But seriously…how MOTIVATING is that?! He said thinking that one thing made him work twice as hard with twice as much ease.
How powerful is that one word…
Why.
WHY are you exercising? WHY are you NOT exercising (because that is just as much a choice)? WHY do you eat vegetables? WHY do you eat donuts?
WHY.
See how that changes things for you…
