Something positive that has come out of all the shows I’ve seen lately is one on the Food Network called Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of food. The show is basically a spin off of his other show Jamie’s School Dinners where he attempts to over haul a school’s cafeteria lunch program in Rotherham, England.

This time Jamie is attempting to change the eating habits of the entire town of Rotherham. The idea is fairly simple. Jamie will teach some “students” which are made up of regular people from the town and show them how to cook for themselves. He shows them the proper way to prepare great tasting food that everyone will want to eat, as well as giving them recipes.

The key to the success of the program is something called pass it on. Where once you have learned the recipe you share it with someone and show them how to make it. They could be your family, friend, co-workers etc.. it doesn’t matter who just pass the recipe and joy of cooking on so that everyone can eventually cook for themselves.

Making the Recipes

I have watched a lot of cooking shows before on the food network and made ZERO recipes, that is pretty sad. But there is something about Jamie’s honesty and passion for cooking that made me want to make his PARMESAN CHICKEN BREASTS WITH CRISPY POSH HAM recipe tonight.

My wife had picked up the ingredients this afternoon while shopping and we made it together for dinner.

The Verdict

Fantastic!! I honestly mean that, the chicken tasted so good and went perfectly with the salad and Asparagus as sides. Now the chicken wasn’t the healthiest with the bacon and parmesan but 10 times better than the pizza I would have most likely ordered coming home from a very busy day at work (seriously you don’t even know).

I’m actually excited about trying the Mini Shell Pasta recipe next. My kids loved it too. My 4 year that hates chicken, I mean hates it and never eats her chicken was stealing it off of my plate. That says it all.

Pass It On

Jamie’s idea of pass it on is great, I’m going to be showing my sister how to make the Chicken dish that I just made as well as a few friends.

You can get both the Chicken and Mini shell recipes plus a ton of other great recipes for free on itunes and on Jamie’s Ministry of Food recipe page.

Once you’ve enjoyed them please remember to pass it on!

Follow Me on Twitter

Twitter has been exploding recently and everyone is using it including myself. I mainly use it as a tool for social interaction to ask questions and to find interesting new sites and stories. Most of my tweets are about what I am doing in my daily life as well as my latest posts on weight loss weapons and some of the other sites I run.

I go under the name @steve_wlw and I invite you to follow me. If you are interested in deals and saving money I am just starting to tweet about these exclusively under @debtslaying you can follow that as well.

I look forward to chatting with you

That all changed on May 12th when I decided to play in a pick up basketball game after work with some friends. I played for literally 2 minutes before I got injured. 2 MINUTES!!!

Now I have a torn MCL and I have to go through 5 weeks of Physio Therapy just to be able to walk properly again. I’m also wearing a range of motion brace to keep my knee stable.

For the past week I have been sitting and laying down and more sitting and more laying. So this begs the question how do you lose weight while you are injured? Since I have a leg injury I can’t do my usual cardio workouts, running and jump training. So how am I suppose to burn calories? Weight training is very limited no leg workouts and other upper body exercises surprisingly depend heavily on your legs for stability Push ups, dips rows etc…

This has thrown my whole routine off and I need your advice.

What should I be doing exercise wise to keep up the weight loss or at least prevent any weight gain until I’m back to normal? How have you worked around your injuries in the past?

I don’t mean to come off as being a complainer, injuries happen I’m just frustrated and anxious to get moving again. Please leave your comments.

Thx
Steve

Tommy Europe is the trainer and star of the Last 10 pounds bootcamp and bulging brides. Two great shows that help people get back into shape. He is a former CFL football player and certified personal trainer from Canada.

I’ve read the book myself and It’s really good. There are 30 pages of high quality exercises that you can do either at the gym or home. The book includes a 4 week workout plan that will help you drop the weight quickly.

It’s not all about the workouts Tommy also has the diet aspect covered which includes a 7 day meal plan designed by the Maria Thomas the women that creates all the meal plans for the last 10 pounds bootcamp contestants.

How To Win

Winning should be fairly easy. You can enter 2 ways:

1. Leave a comment for one entry (I will be contacting the winners by email).

2. Write a post about this contest, the last 10 pounds bootcamp, or Tommy Europe and link back to weightlossweapons.com for 5 entries.

This will be a short contest with the winners being chosen on May 11th using random.org

Good Luck!!

ChaLEAN Extreme uses circuit training techniques and shifts the workout’s focus from cardio to weight training - lifting heavy weights in 3 phases. Tony Horton’s program is a super stacking technique using resistance bands. Stacking is combining fat-burning cardio, total-body toning/sculpting, and ab workouts into the same movements.

The main difference is obvious from the name: Tony Horton 10 Minute Trainer. It consists of 4 workouts - total body, lower body, cardio, and yoga flex. Each lasts 10 minutes. Plus you get a bonus abs routine as a free gift. Chalene extreme comes with 15 workouts on 6 DVD’s, including 2 starter workouts to teach you form, 3 burn circuit workouts, 3 push circuit workouts, 3 lean circuit workouts, and 2 ab routines. Each workout is 30-45 minutes in length.

Both programs come with tools and Beachbody offers 24hr/7day a week support. ChaLEAN Extreme includes a guide book, body fat tester, and thigh toner band. Weights and additional resistance bands need to be purchase separately. Tony Horton’s program includes a resistance band kit, customized workout calendar, guidebook and Tony Horton’s 10 Minute Meals.

Each program offer a 30 day money back guarantee, plus free gifts you keep even if you return the program. The gifts with Tony Horton’s program are a bonus abs routine, On-the-Go Workout cards, and the 10-day lean jean plan. With ChaLEAN Extreme, the gifts are Fat-Burning Food Guide, Extreme Motivation Audio CD, “Healthy Eats”, and a Kitchen Makeover DVD.

Customer reviews and success stories revealed more differences. Customers liked Chalene’s personality and appreciated reminders to keep proper form and to work at your own pace. They loved her encouragement and felt she made working out fun. One customer completed the workouts despite his arthritis because of the tips provided to protect your knees and back. No particular comments were given on Tony Horton’s personality.

Fit people and out of shape people found both programs challenging and experience success when they consistently worked out. In ChaLEAN Extreme, people generally noticed a difference in 2-3 weeks as they lost weight and increased their strength. On Tony Horton’s program, customers reported significant weight loss and a decrease pant size in just over a month.

One customer owns over 300 workout programs and declared ChaLEAN the best program. Never boring was another reoccurring comment regarding ChaLEAN Extreme. People felt they could stick with the program.

Customers of the 10 Minute Trainer were pleasantly surprised to be sweating by the end of the workout. One customer commented they were done with the workout before they could talk themselves out of it. Even fit users felt the burn and were sore in the beginning. Several customers felt they pushed themselves too hard or hurt themselves trying to stretch the resistance bands as far as the girl in the video. They cautioned others to build up to that level.

ChaLEAN Extreme’s price is 3 payments of $39.95 plus $19.95 in shipping for a total of $139.80. Tony Horton’s program is 2 payments of $39.95 plus $9.95 shipping for a total of $89.85.

AND THE WINNER IS … well, that depends on your goals and personality. The success pictures for ChaLEAN Extreme show more muscles and definition, but the workouts are longer and you provide your own weights. In my opinion, this program is better for people serious about weight loss and fitness. For people ready to put in time and money to achieve more muscular results. Tony Horton’s program is ideal for people with limited time, those unwilling to invest money into a program, or those wishing to lose weight without caring about muscle definition.

No matter which workout routine you choose, the most important step is taking action. Both programs will get you results if you follow them. So, choose one and get started!

Written by Healthy New Age, the natural health blog and website.

Disclaimer: Mio sent me this heart rate monitor to review, however I am under no obligation to do so nor to make the review positive. This review reflects my personal opinions about the Motiva watch.

Like I said, I was sent the Motiva Strapless Heart rate monitor to review from Mio back in November 08. I was ready to post my thoughts after a few weeks but decide that I wanted to give this heart rate monitor a more lengthy trial.

I have been using the Motiva for more than 3 months now, daily and here is what I think of it.

What I Liked About The Motiva

Before getting started you need to personalize your Motiva by enter some information into it. Things like your name, weight, birthday, activity level etc… Setup takes 5 minutes maybe 10 reading the users guide beginning to end. So it wasn’t too difficult to set it.

The big feature of the Mio Motiva is it’s ability to display your heart rate without using a chest strap. There are 2 silver senors on the front of the watch where you place your index and middle fingers. A “test” message appears and in about 5 seconds it displays your current heart rate.

As far as accuracy goes I did test it a few times against the old fingers to the neck method and it was pretty close, 5 beats was the most it was off by.

Along with your heart rate in BPM (beats per minute) it also displays the percent of your maximum heart rate that the BPM equals. For example, tonight when I got back from my run after about 10 minutes my heart rate showed as 99 BPM and it also displayed it as 52%. That is important for training within your targets (see more info on target heart rates from the American Heart Association)

5 Different Exercise Timers

This is a feature that I really liked. Instead your standard timer that goes from 0 until you stop it (which is also does) you get ability of using 4 other modes. It counts down to zero from whatever number you set the timer to, I used this when I was running around my neighborhood and was trying to get back to my house before the timer ran out.

I won’t go into all the other timer modes but I will say that I did manage to find a use for all of them.

Calories Burned

The Motiva also tracks the number of calories that you’ve burned during your workouts. This worked really well while doing steady state exercises like running but once I started doing HIIT the numbers seemed off by quite a bit.

Heart Rate Recovery Mode

Some experts say the faster your heart rate recovers the healthier your heart is. I think that’s true and I was able to track that using the heart rate recovery mode. You take your heart rate right after you stop exercising which gives you your “high” rate, then it counts down 60 seconds and asks to take your reading again which is your “low”. Then it displays the difference and gives you a rating. Either Poor, Fair, good, superb, mine has been fair for 2 months now.

What Didn’t I Liked About The Motiva?

One of the features of the Motiva is that it has the ability to track the number of calories that you consume everyday. It’s promoted as a major feature of the watch but I found no use for it. I did use the feature for a few weeks but stopped because I found it to be tedious. I would forget a meal or a snack and that would throw the whole thing off.

In general I have stopped counting calories so I really don’t have a need the calorie counting feature.

The whole package comes with a little book called Mio Sense and inside there is a lot of good information including the Mio Sense weight management system, a few simple workout plans and food tables that show you the calories, fat, carbs etc.. of a wide variety of foods. I really hate the size of the book, I think it’s made to fit in your pocket but it is way too small and is almost unreadable. That’s a shame because the content is great.

Recommendations

Overall I like the Mio Motiva and recommend that you pick one up either at one of the many dealers or directly online at Miowatch.com. It will help you keep your workouts focused and the timers are extremely useful. Many of you know that I am doing P90X and a heart rate monitor is recommended, this watch fits that role perfectly. It’s stylish and I honestly get asked about it once or twice a week when people see me taking my heart rate, which I do a lot.

There is definately more to this watch then I have mentioned here. Each one comes with access to the 3500 calorie club which I have yet to sign up for at miowatch.com but the descriptions of the program seem excellent and if it equals the quality of the watch it’s self then I’m sure it is great.

One finally note: Look for the first ever weightlossweapons.com contest where I will be giving away prizes including a MIO Motiva Petite Heart Rate Watch worth $100.

I did a little digging on prices and Walmart is the lowest by far. This is for the complete p90x set nutrition guide, calendar, workout logs, and DVD’s. They are offering it for $119.97 Canadian. I would imagine that it would be somewhere around the $99 mark in the states.

Amazon.com is selling it for $179 ($214 CAD) US. I’m not sure why they sell so many at this price???

Beachbody.com The creators of this product are selling it for 3 payments of $39.95 plus $19.95 shipping and handling. That’s a total of $139.80 US ($167 CAD)

Showcase (sells “as seen on TV” products) They have P90X displayed right when you walk in the front entrance of the store with a big $149.99 CAD (Canadian Dollars) price tag on it. I mentioned that Walmart had them beat on the price by $30 and the sales lady said they would be lower the price to compete. When I said “but you’re not going to match it are you?” she gave me a dirty look.

If you have ever been waiting for p90x to go on sale now would be the time to get it. I’ll be posting this deal on debtslaying.com as well. One final note, the price tags at Walmart do say limited quantity purchase while supplies last. So go get it already.

Edit - I have seen ads online offering P90X at $70 and under, please be aware that you are not getting the complete and proper P90X system. Those are usually copies and are made with very poor quality. Amazon.com uses third party vendors for their P90X supply and quite a few people have complained about the quality as well. Stick with either Walmart (great price and return policy) or Beachbody.com directly.

I was telling a co-worker of mine the other day a story about the time when my first daughter was born. I had been sleep deprived for weeks on end and I was practically falling a sleep at the wheel on my drive home from work. Most nights I had to pull over on a side street for a 15 minute power nap.

One night in particular freaked me out but now looking back I can see the importance of it. I got in my car at work like any other night and started to drive. Swiping my security pass was the last thing I remember until I opened the car door in my driveway!

I had driven 50 km and didn’t remember a single red light, left turn, right turn or any other cars on the road.

Your Body’s Auto Pilot System

I’m sure that all of us have had situations like this where you do something that you’ve done a million times before in the past but have no recollection of actually going through the motions.

I think this is your body’s auto pilot system. It engages when there is a problem or when you are out of balance. In the the incident above I was way over tired and my mind just couldn’t devote the energy needed to focus on every little detail of my drive home. In essence it tuned out everything around me.

It Happened Again

What triggered me to tell this story to my friend was something that happened a few weeks ago. It happened again . I was driving home from work but didn’t remember swiping out of the parking lot, just getting into my car and from there the very next thing I knew was that I was handing the debit pin pad back to the lady at the McDonald’s drive through.

I had driven 10 minutes, placed my order (which I always get), pulled out my wallet and entered my pin# for my debit card before coming out of my auto pilot mode. No word of a lie! The next words out of my mouth were WTF (the long version). I didn’t know weather to laugh or cry.

Formed From Habits

I am convinced that this subconscious auto pilot system is formed by our habits and gets triggered when you are doing something that your mind sees as a major problem or threat.

In the first incident I was extremely sleep deprived and since I had driven that same route day in and day out for so many years, my mind and body already knew what was expected of them without me even thinking about it.

The same thing goes for the “McDonald’s situation” as my wife calls it. I had done that drive through run so many times that once triggered my body and mind knew what they were to do. Instead of sleep deprivation this time it was excessive hunger. I had been trying a new way of eating and I was starving!!! Mcdonald’s is apparently my default choice for food.

This is something that I am going to work on changing over the next few months. I know it’s not an easy thing to change and it will take time to make it happen.

What are your thoughts? Please share your stories with me, tell me I’m not alone in this?

I have been dealing with my weight for 10 years now and I have tried a lot of different diet programs, read books and taken advice from trainers and other successful weight loss experts on and off line. So I think I have some pretty good knowledge when it comes to dieting and weight loss.

Right now there are 4 people in my life that are, what I consider to be fitness or dieting newbies and they are driving me crazy!!!

2 of them are having a lot of really great success 6 weeks into it as a result of a new years resolution. They are following a limited diet and working out 4-5 days a week. I am very proud of them and the effort they have put in. But….. I could do without the advice.

I guess they now consider themselves experts and are offering advice to me on what I am eating and how I’m exercising. I really do enjoy discussing stuff like that as I am passionate about it. But for me anyway it’s hard to take that advice because I have been there. I have been in that position where you are having a ton of success and feel like you are unstoppable. From my experience though it doesn’t last.

As much as I don’t want to see it happen I know they will plateau, they will get sick of eating the same foods everyday and spending 2 hours a day in the gym. Life will get in the way and they will have to adapt. Even though I’m struggling with my weight as well, I will be there to help however I can when it happens.

For now all I can do is nod my head and humor them, But if I hear “Do you know how many carbs are it that” one more time I might just lose it.

My Gravatar Image

3 guys with blogs that have heart are Andrew from Andrew is getting fit, Israel from Fat Man Unleashed and John from John is Fit. I aspire to be like them.

This past Fall and Winter have been rough personally for me. I have gained weight quickly and no it’s not muscle. I have a ton of reasons why I’ve gained but they honestly amount to nothing more than lame excuses.

Getting To Know Who Am I?

You know it’s funny, I get about 10,000 to 12,000 visitors a month and only a handful of them really know who I am. My “About Me” page is really nothing special and doesn’t let you know what I am all about.

This is the picture from my about page. (The sun was in my eyes, not trying to look cool) and I would love to post more except I don’t have that many. I am the guy taking the pictures, not in them.

It’s pretty close to what I look like right now and somewhere in between my heaviest and my peak.

My peak being my wedding day about 7 years ago. I worked really hard to get into shape and hit the 175lbs mark the day before. This is what I looked like, not bad eh?

Over the last 7 years I’ve gained and lost more than 40Lbs. In that time I’ve had 2 children (well my wife did) and settled into a nice cushy desk job. A very common lifestyle pattern that has contributed to the gains.

Here is a picture of me at my heaviest or pretty damn close to it.

Vital Stats

Here are some quick “stats” about me:

Age:31
Marital Status: Married
Weight: 198lbs depending on the Scale
Height: 5′9
Hobbies: Spending Time With the Family, Sports, Reading, Making Money Online.

Who I am Online

I am pretty active online and frequent a lot of other blogs and social networking sites. Here are some of my “Ids”

Twitter: Steve_WLW
Stumbleupon: mclintst
Digg: mclintst
Blogcatalog: mclintst

When I comment on other blogs I use the name Steve@weightlossweapons.com most of the time. Feel free to add me as a contact.

Sites I own

I am fairly new at building websites but I’m enjoying what I am learning and it provides some extra income, with the economy the way it is every little bit helps. One of my goals is to eventually earn a full-time income online. Here are some of the sites I own at the moment:

Weightlossweapons.com and Weightlossweapons.com/blog

These are my first self hosted sites that I created almost 2 years ago. They have come along way from the when I started them.

Debtslaying.com

I started this site about 8 months ago when I became debt free and have changed the focus so many times since then it is ridiculous. I’ve settled on it being a place where I can post about deals and discounts that I find online as well as hot topics, financial issues and other related things that I find interesting. I also make money with this site through the adsense ads and my affiliation with Amazon.com (basically if you follow the link and buy items from Amazon I get a commission).

The current Debtslaying theme was inspired by Garry Conn, for anyone looking to make an honest dollar online blogging Garry is definately someone you should be taking advice from. The guy knows his stuff and will even help you set up a free wordpress blog if you open a new hostgator account.

Sealingyourdriveway.com

This is a site I started to post about all things related to your driveway. I was a driveway sealer for a few years and did a lot of sealing, rebuilding and driveway repairing.

Bissell-Carpet-Cleaner.com

I actually bought this from a friend of mine. Since I own a few Bissell products I thought it would be fun to see what I can do with it. So more changes are coming soon.

Contacting Me

If you want to get in touch with me about any of my sites, questions about general stuff or even if you want to send me products to review (which I do from time to time) you can email me steve@weightlossweapons.com.

Now that you know more about me, who I am and what I do. Let me know who you are? Leave a comment and I’ll be sure to reply, going forward that will be my new comment policy.

Take Care,
Steve