Category Archives: Columns

Motivational Monday: healthy recipe and sweaty cardio circuit

By Blake Dykes

I know today is Monday, and it’s hard to do anything to get yourself to do anything, much less workout, so I have a quote for all the people that are considering skipping today’s exercise:

“You can’t get much done if you only workout on the days when you feel good.” – Jerry West.

With this being said, I hope you all were able to successfully complete the weekend challenge. If not, no worries, there are plenty of other weekends to come.

Today I want to give you guys one of my most favorite recipes. For all you health freaks that have tons of bananas, this one’s for you. Every once in awhile we forget that our bananas are ripe, and then when you go to eat one you realize they’re brown and overly ripe. DON’T  throw them away. Make some low calorie banana bread.

This weekend I was really craving some, so I threw some ingredients together to create this masterpiece:

– three overly ripe bananas

– one cup self-rising flour

– one cup whole wheat flour

– one tsp. baking powder

– ½ tsp. baking soda

– one tsp. cinnamon

– one tsp. ginger

– ¼ cup of Stevia or honey

– four tbs. peanut butter powder

– six tbs. almond milk

-½ cup pecans

one tbs. raw sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, or flax seeds

Preheat oven to 320 degrees. Combine dry ingredients, mix well. Mash up the bananas in a plastic bag and pour in a bowl. Add the almond milk and honey (if you use that sweetener), and mix together. Add pecans.  Mix the wet ingredients with the dry and pour into an olive oil-coated  pan lightly floured. Then sprinkle your choice of seeds on top. Bake for 1 hour. It will be very dense, but you will know when it’s done because the inside should not be too gooey, and the outside should be crunchy. Let the banana bread cool and sweeten before eating it, and remember to not cook it until the entire inside is set because it will set and get firm as it cools, if you cook it too long it will be crunchy bread and no one wants that.

Homemade healthy banana bread.
Homemade healthy banana bread.

Don’t forget to workout today, whether it’s a run, bike ride, or one of the workouts you have, just make sure you get it done.

Sweaty Cardio Circuit

  • two- minute high knees

  • two- minute plank

  • two- minute jump rope

  • two- minute wall sit

  • two-minute mountain climbers

  • two-minute wall pushups

  • two-minute jog in place

  • two- minute squats

After that, do round two with the same exercises, except only for one minute. Then, once you complete that, do the same exercise for 30 seconds.

Tips:

  • Go at your own pace, if you can’t do two- minute mountain climbers at a fast pace, slow it down, but do it for the full amount of time.

  • This is one of those workouts that you don’t get to have a few second break between, you need to go right from one exercise to the next. It’s completely doable, I designed the workout to where after each vigorous cardio exercise there is a more muscle specific exercise.

Be sure to let me know how you liked the banana bread, any suggestions you may have to make it better, and give me a rating from one to 10 on how hard the workout was.

Personal Trainer Maddie Richards shows readers how to get fit in five

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At2CESybKXk]

Bagpiper: How did you become interested in fitness?

Maddie Richards: My parents met in the gym. My mom’s a P.E. teacher and my dad is a bodybuilder so I was always in the gym from when I was little and playing sports. Basically from birth I’ve been into fitness.

BP: What’s your favorite workout or move?

MR: I like circuit training the best. In between functional training like boxing and kettlebells, I like a lot of variety. But my favorite exercise is probably a pull-up.

BP: What do you recommend for beginner’s starting out?

MR: I would recommend them trying all kinds of different things. There are so many different aspects now that the fitness world has to offer, you can kind of find a niche in something that you like. Not everyone likes to run, not everyone likes to lift weights, but there’s things that you can do now recreationally and just to get you moving and started. There’s so many options. I would suggest trying as many different things in the beginning as possible and then finding something you like and go with that.

BP: What’s the key to staying motivated?

MR: I think everybody’s key is different, but definitely goal setting. If you’re trying to reach a certain point, you’re going to stay more goal orientated and along the way you might find something else that you become interested in and you just keep setting goals and trying to go towards those. That’s probably the biggest motivation I’ve found personally.

Fitness Friday: Eating tips and weekend challange

By Blake Dykes

Instead of giving you a list of recipes and workouts to do, to begin your journey towards a fit lifestyle, I am just going to give you some simple tips you can use to change for the better.

Tips:

  • Know your serving size. Seems self explanatory right? Wrong. For instance, don’t think that because you’re eating Wheat Thins doesn’t mean you’re consuming a low amount of  calories. When you just reach out of the box, which you should NEVER do, you consume on average around four times the recommended serving size. For the reduced fat Wheat Thins the serving size is 14 crackers adding up to be 140 calories. I’m not at all saying these are a bad snack choice, I am just trying to stress that you are probably taking in way more calories than you thought. Portion size is key.
  • Let’s face it, we all have those days where going on a run or doing a hour workout sounds absolutely dreadful. Well, I hate to tell you this, but it’s still not alright to skip on these days; however, I do have a suggestion. Make a list of five to seven exercises that you hate (what I mean by that is exercises that are extremely hard for you and leave you completely out of breath). An example of this list could be:
  • 50 jumping jacks

  • 15 push ups

  • 25 jumping squats

  • 45 crunches

  • One minute running in place

Post this list somewhere that you will see frequently throughout the day, such as in your room, bathroom door, or fridge (maybe that will make you think twice about that midnight snack). Every time you see the list complete the workout. The one I provided burns around 80-100 calories, if you see that eight times a day that’s quite a workout.

  • One thing that always makes me mad is when someone tells me, “You know peanut butter is really high in fat.” Obviously peanut butter is high in fat, but it also fuels your body and contains the right fats. Don’t let some ignorant person persuade you out of eating it. With this being said, most peanut butters contain a little ingredient that has a BIG impact on your body. Hydrogenated oils. There are tons of varieties of hydrogenated oils, but the ones most prevalent in peanut butter are: vegetable, rapeseed, and soybean. These hydrogenated oils thicken your blood, cause  higher cholesterol, and dramatically increases your chance of heart disease. Some other things you should be cautious of when picking out peanut butter is the sugar content. Peanut butter is not made to be sweet, so there should be no added sugar, yet companies continue to slip around 2-6 grams of sugar in per serving (two Tbsp). Not to mention that you should be not taking in no more than 15 grams of sugar daily. With this being said, peanut butter is a simpler item that should be kept with simple ingredients, here are a few brands that keep everything natural with strictly nuts and a hint of salt: KREMA, SMUCKER’S, Naturally More, and my favorite, simple truth organic.

I think that’s just enough amount of things to consider for today, but instead of a workout I am giving you a different assignment.

What I have decided to do is give you a weekend challenge, so from now on every Friday I will be including it in each Fitness Friday column I post, and you can give me feedback on how you do.

Challenge: Don’t eat past 8:30 this weekend. I know weekends exist so that we can stay up until the crack of dawn, but late night cravings are the downfall to healthy eating habits. As tempting as watching TV and munching down a whole bag of chips is, it completely ruins that “flat morning stomach.” You probably aren’t aware that on these late night binges you more than likely consume 500-1000 calories if not more. Besides just the high amount of calories, snacking late at night is hardly ever driven by true hunger, just cravings. If you must eat past 8:30 make it as light as possible, such as some fruit, greek yogurts, or a small handful of sunflower seeds. This sounds a lot easier than it is, but it is a great habit to get into.

#SPEAKOUT: Looking at both sides of the mirror

By Danielle Sheally

Why as a society do we judge people?  Maybe we judge because we’re so insecure. Think about it for a minute. Maybe we won’t wear a certain shirt that we love because we’ll get made fun of. Or possibly, we won’t hang out with a group of people because staring eyes know what that group’s values are. Better yet, the insecurity takes such a hold on the way we act we won’t stand up for what is right. We don’t want to stand alone against millions with a different view from ours.

I believe that judging others is at its worst point among high school students. We think this because when we are walking down the hallway and we see someone with really expensive clothes or inexpensive clothes, we either think that they’re either really wealthy or a very frugal person. The same can also be said about someone who is very good academically and someone who struggles in school. We assume that one is very knowledgeable while the other person is not.

It’s evident that we all judge, but what are we going to do to change it?

#SPEAKOUT: Columnist overcomes the hurdles of every day life

By Danielle Shealy

So, imagine a life where your feet hardly ever touch the floor.

Imagine a life where all others have to do is pull a switch to walk. That’s something that a lot of people don’t go through, but I do. This is the life that I have to deal with every day. Now, I know people may see me zooming around the hallway, but can students and staff identify what my face looks like?  Do I wear glasses?  What color is my hair?  What does my laugh sound like?  Many people don’t realize that I am more than just struggles. One may think that my life is just having other people do things for me, but it is much more. I am able to advocate for those people like me who can’t speak up for themselves.

My biggest point of writing this is for others to watch how they judge me by just my appearance alone. People need to be aware that it’s fine to talk to me even though I am different from them.  Please just embrace me as an individual like everyone else. Sometimes people try to do too much for me and it upsets me because I know I can do more than they are letting me do.

Something to know about me is that I enjoy writing.  I stay home a lot on the weekends and make up super amazing stories.  I enjoy getting sucked into reality television.  I don’t like scary movies but I love comedies and “little kid” movies.  I am very sarcastic and I like to joke around all of the time.

So, as one can tell, just because I’m in a wheelchair doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the same things as other teenagers do.  I enjoy the good life.

What I have told you about is something that affects me every day.  It is my life, and I wanted to share it with others.