Healthy Apricot Chicken recipe. Enjoy!

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Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons Canola Oil
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• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (4 breasts = 1 lb)

   
• 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning

• 1-1/3 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth

   
• 1/2 cup apricot preserve

• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

Nutrition Information*

Serving Size	4 servings (1 breast with about 1/4 cup sauce each)
Calories	305

Directions

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken with Italian seasoning. Add to skillet and cook 12 to 15 minutes or until no longer pink in centers (165°F), turning once.
2. Stir together all remaining ingredients in small bowl until well blended. Gradually add to chicken in skillet. Cook 3 to 4 minutes or until sauce is thickened, stirring constantly.

Cook's Tips

If dried Italian seasoning is not available, use 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano + 1/4 teaspoon dried basil + 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme. Serve chicken and sauce with hot cooked rice. Jasamine rice would be particularly good.

POWER PUMP

Sore abs from class!?  Good for us.  That building of muscle through weight training is so important for us to reach our goals or to maintain what we've already achieved. 

That said,  we have a few announcements concerning Power Pump.  Based on feedback from our current attendees, our Wednesday afternoon class will now meet at 3:00.  We'll have a great weight work out early in the day to get you home that much more quickly or you now have the option of double dipping by sticking around for Power Flo Yoga  (also a weight lifting class, trust me!) at the 4:15 time slot.  We also will hold Power Pump during our 8:15 Friday morning Instructor's Choice this week. 

We always have a great group of people at class but there are still some ladies that have an ingrained fear for weight training.  See below:

If dieting and cardio aren’t giving you the weight loss and fitness level you want, try lifting weights, advises Tyeese Gaines, M.D., of NBC News’s The Grio.
You may gain weight as you build muscle initially when you start lifting weights, but as your metabolism speeds up you’re likely to shed pounds and inches from your waistline.
“Women think that cardio is everything and that it makes you really skinny,” says Diane Williams, a New York personal trainer. “[But] if your goal is to lose weight, it’s always been weight training for me … The best women’s bodies I’ve seen, lift weights. [With cardio], you don’t have that firmness that you can get with weight training.”
Williams adds that many women wrongly believe that lifting weights will cause them to “bulk up.”
“Traditional lifting won’t bulk you up,” she says. “It’s hard for women to get bulky. Ninety-nine percent of us don’t have the testosterone needed for that.”
“Lifting” also should be broadly defined. Dumbell curls are great, but you can also do squats with or without added weights, and pushups are a type of weightlifting — only you are lifting your own body weight.

you catch more flies with honey...

The study below is specific to the workplace, but I see the potential for a broader spectrum.  It states that workers are more efficient when they receive praise.  Well of course!  You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  Maybe we can apply that to our exercise routine?  Instead of beating ourselves up for the meal we ate yesterday, and the lazy hours we spent chatting with loved ones, maybe we should be complementing ourselves on getting right back to our exercise routines today.  We might find greater success... 

Paying someone a compliment makes them happier and more inspired to perform well at their job, while receiving compliments does the same for you, the Daily Mail reported Nov. 11.
“To the brain, receiving a compliment is as much a social reward as being rewarded money,” says Norihiro Sadata, Ph.D., of the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Japan, who led the new study. All study participants saw an uptick in their performance after receiving praise compared to those who received no encouragement of any kind, the research shows.
“There seems to be scientific validity behind the message ‘praise to encourage improvement,” Sadata says.

Persoanl Trainer Available in Fitness Center

Hello Everyone,
This is Grace Kniep and I am a Wellness Specialist and Certified Personal Trainer working in the fitness center. I got my personal training certification from AFAA.  A benefit for members is that all members receive a free personal training session each month. In addition I would like to offer my training skills to those who want more than just one session a month.I work with all age groups and want to help people live healthier and longer lives. If you would like to work with me more than the one free session a month with your membership, the fee is $35 an hour, or $20 for 30 minutes. Please call the fitness center and set up a time to meet with me. 

Thanksgiving fitness class schedule

Hello everyone!!
Here is the line up for the classes we are offering Wednesday 21st-Friday 23rd.
Wednesday 11/21/12/
5:30am Spin
8:15am Power Pump
9:15am Yoga
Noon Spin
6:15pm Spin
Thursday 11/22/12
8:15am Turkey Trot Spin
(sign-up required)
Friday 11/23/12
8:15 Instructors Choice
9:15am Yoga
Noon Spin
5:15pm Spin
I hope everyone travels safe and has a great Thanksgiving!! GOBBLE GOBBLE!!

Thanksgiving Hours

Below are our special Thanksgiving hours:

We close Wed the 21st at 5 pm.  We will remain closed all of Thursday the 22nd and reopen at 7am on Friday the 23rd. 

Travel safely and enjoy your time with your loved ones. 

Mindfullness Meditation May Improve Brain Health

A half hour of daily mindfulness meditation during your work week might improve your mental well-being and self-control, a new study suggests.
Undergraduate students who took part in 10, 30-minute mindfulness meditation training sessions over the course of two weeks saw significant improvements in the white matter of their brain’s anterior cingulate cortex — a part of the brain involved in self-regulation, decision-making, and empathy — compared to students who did only relaxation-oriented meditation, researchers from the University of Oregon and Weill Cornell Medical College found.
White matter is a type of brain tissue that aids communication from one part of the nervous system to the other, and helps the brain adapt to change, HealthDay News reported June 12.
Previous studies have suggested big benefits from mindfulness meditation, ranging from helping you lose weight and manage pain, to aiding you in making better life choices. But skeptics say there’s not enough hard evidence of meditation’s advantages over traditional drug treatment.
This study, on the other hand, shows direct “evidence for changes in the structure of the brain and a dynamic process at work” with mindfulness meditation, says Nicholas Schiff, M.D., an associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.
The study appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Instructor's Choice

Friday morning's Instructor's Choice will be Step Pump.  A portion of the class will be spent doing a simple step aerobics work out.  We'll cap off our time with a weight routine.  Hope to see you there

Don't ya love it???

Don't ya love it when you have one of those moments when you realize all this working out stuff has paid off?  Many of you may know that my family and I (Jen) are redoing our kitchen cabinets.  (My Saturday yoga class does since, despite thoroughly bathing, I taught with multiple colors of paint all over me.)  It is, of course, really exciting but quite a bit of grunt work.  Think plenty of heavy lifting, lots of ladder climbing, amazing contortionist acts to clean hard to reach places, and probably a million and a half trips up and down the stairs.  Here's the great part:  I'm not sore.  I can think back to less active days where I probably just wouldn't have made it.  Personally, I'm thrilled to see the benefits of exercise in such a real way.  Gotta love it!