Highlights from Just Geens Funday

Just Geens Brown Fried Rice

Ingredients

 1/2 cup prawns
 1 chicken breast (diced)
 2 cups cooked brown rice
 1 small onion
 1/2 cup of green peas
 1 tsp white pepper
 3 tablespoon coconut oil
 1 tsp garlic
 1 tbsp soy sauce (low sodium)

Directions:

-Heat 1 teaspoon of coconut oil in a large wok or skillet over medium-high heat.
-Add seasoned chicken then stir fry until cooked through and remove to a plate. (If using pre-cooked chicken, skip this step.)
-Repeat this method with the prawns.
-Heat remaining teaspoon oil in the wok then add peas and green onions.
-Stir fry until tender, about 2 minutes, then add garlic and cook for 30 more seconds.
-Add cooked chicken, prawns, rice, and soy sauce to wok then toss well to combine.
-Season to taste.

Plantain Lasagna

Plantain Lasagna

Ingredients:

-5 ripe plantains

-4 egg whites

-1 onion, chopped

-3-4 garlic cloves

-1 ½ sweet pepper (green, red, yellow)

-500g lean turkey mince

-1 ½ can of chopped tomatoes 

-4-6 tablespoons coconut oil (maybe more)

-Cottage cheese

-Season to taste  

Method

-Peel your plantains and slice them lengthwise into long strips, about a half inch thick which is usually 4 slices per plantain.  

-Heat 2-3 tablespoons of coconut oil in your non-stick pan to about medium low temperature.  Add the plantain strips and cook for 3-4 minutes per side; they will need to be lightly browned and soft. Drain them on paper towels.

-Lightly fry the peppers, onions, garlic and the turkey mince together until they are soft and then add the tomato sauce and your choice of seasoning.  

-Let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes.

- Place a layer of cooked plantain slices into your casserole dish.

-Spoon the meat sauce over the plantains and add a layer of cottage cheese on top

- Apply another layer of plantains and repeat the process.

-Beat the four egg whites and pour it over the casserole.  

-Let the eggs soak in for a few minutes and then bake in the oven for 30-45 minutes.  

Topshop x Adidas Originals Collection

If you're anything like me and you spend a lot of money on training gear, then this is music to the ears.

Topshop and Adidas Originals have announced their first collaboration.

This is definitely an example of where fitness meets fashion. The full collection has 20 pieces and items range between £25 and £90-which is quite reasonable.

From the looks of things, Topshop have given Adidas originals an urban makeover which blurs the line between fitness and fashion, meaning you can wear the clothing for either purposes.

The collection will be released on March 20th 2014 online and in store. I know I will definitely be purchasing a few things, will you?

G

Can you increase your breasts through exercise?

Recently, I’ve had a few comments from several people about how small my boobs have gone ...and on reflection…its true eccckkkkkk

I blame the cardio to be honest, because when I first started working out, I was a 32DD and now I’m a ...never mind! But anyway, I’ve done my research and I have good news and bad news. I’ll start with the bad news first…

Unfortunately, breasts do not have a lot of muscle tissue in them, so they are not like your glutes, where if you were to go crazy on the squats and lunges, you bum would get bigger. Your breasts are pretty much made up of fatty tissues and the size of your breasts depends on how much fat your body stores in certain places. This is based on things like your genetics, weight, health and age. So, in my case, my fat stores in my stomach, legs and bum. However, although breasts have limited muscle tissues in them, the muscles that lie underneath your breasts (your pecs), are responsible for the ‘perkiness’ of your breasts.

The good news is you can make your breasts more predominate and “perky” by increasing the size of your pecs, which in most cases, should make them appear bigger.

How can you do this? Simply by doing the exercises and eating the specific foods I mention below.

Exercises

Dumbbell Chest Press

Using two hand weights, lie on a mat or stability ball or incline bench. Your knees should be bent at a 90-degree angle. Hold dumbbells next to your arm pits with knuckles facing forward. Count to three as you push the weights up away from your chest, until your arms are almost straight above you. Slowly lower back to starting position using the same number of counts.

*At an incline, the chest press builds the top of the chest directly underneath the collarbone. This pulls skin upwards, causing the breasts to be lifted.
  

 

*At a decline angle, the lower part of the pectoral muscle is worked, which is directly under the fullest part of the breast tissue. The extra muscle depth provides structure underneath the fatty tissue, pushing it both forward and slightly upwards.

Dumbbell Flys

Lay in the same position as you would for a bench press. Instead this time, place both hands above your chest with arms straight, elbows slightly bent and knuckles facing out to the side. Open arms out wide and lower your arms until your elbows are in line with your shoulders, taking three or four counts. Bring back to starting position using the same amount of counts.

The dumbbell fly works the centreline of your chest, which will give you the appearance of more cleavage.

Isometric Chest Contractions

Stand straight with your knees slightly bent. Grab each end of a towel and hold it straight out in front of you at shoulder level. Now pull the towel at opposite ends at the same time, using small pulsing motions. Try to keep the towel taut in between pulses. Continue for one minute, repeat three times.

Push Up

Lie stomach-down on the floor with your arms bent at your sides and your palms flat against the floor. Push up with your arms to raise your torso, keeping your knees straight and your toes on the floor. Continue pushing up until your arms are straight. Lower yourself slowly back to the floor, then repeat.

This provides almost the exact same benefit as the flat chest press, except many more muscle groups are engaged when you do this bodyweight exercise. Your abdominals, hip flexors, lower back, quads, triceps, calves and obliques all have to pitch in to complete this motion.

Food

Estrogen is the main hormone responsible for breast growth and development. This hormone helps females to get right body curves and also plays an important role in breast growth. By eating foods higher in Estrogen, you will boost your natural Estrogen production, which should help your breasts grow.

The recommended foods are:

• Apples
• Plums
• Peppers
• Cucumber
• Beets
• Rice
• Barley
• Wheat
• Sunflower
• Parsley
• Clover flax seed
• Soybeans
• Kidney beans
• Peas


Please remember, like any other fitness goal you are trying to achieve, results are not gained overnight. It will take hard work and consistency, but if you stick at it, you will get there in the end.

G

Fitness Myths

Since it’s the beginning of the year, and a lot of people have taken their first steps to a healthy lifestyle, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the exercise myths; I first faced when I began working out.












Myth 1: Women who lift weights become masculine




Fact: In regards to muscle size, testosterone is a key ingredient. Men have 20 to 30 times more testosterone than women, which is why they bulk up so easily. However, for a woman to reach a masculine physique, she would need to do far more weight-lifting than the average woman, and also have some sort of hormone imbalance (either genetic or induced with steroids). To be honest, weight training helps burn fat and tones the muscles, so it should be incorporated in your routine.










Myth 2: Only doing ab workouts will give you abs




Fact: The truth is you can do as many crunches as you like, but unless you get rid of the fat on top of your abs, your abs will never show through. The more reps you do, just increases muscle memory, rather than burning fat. For your abs to be visible, you would need to reduce your overall body fat because unfortunately you cannot spot- train and pick and choose areas where you’d like to burn fat. By doing cardio eating clean, and accompanying this with core workouts, your body fat should decrease, allowing your abs to eventually show.












Myth 3: You're not working hard enough if you are not sweating




Fact: Sweating does not necessarily mean you are working hard. Some people, like me, have high sweat glands so they sweat easily. I mean I get sweaty just by walking from my house to the station. Sweating does not mean you are actually burning fat. Sweating is a way of your body cooling itself whilst you’re working out. You initially loose water weight after an intense workout, but as soon as you drink fluids, you will replenish the water weight lost.












Myth 4: More hours spent in the gym leads to better results




Fact: Overtraining stops muscle growth. Instead of your body rebuilding its muscle tissues, it'll continue to break it down, which means you'll actually start to lose muscle. The key is to train smarter and not harder.












Myth 5: If you're not sore or in pain, you're not working out hard enough




Soreness can come from many different factors that have nothing to do with the quality of your workout. For example, the type of workout you're doing, what you eat before and after your workouts or whether you stretched after your workouts. A good way to judge the quality of your workout is by wearing a heart rate monitor and working at 60 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate.












Myth 6: Muscle turns into fat




Fact: You can’t turn muscle into fat, the same way you can’t turn fat into muscle. Building muscle and losing body fat are two completely different processes and while this can be done at the same time, it is very rare. Most of the time, you need to focus on one objective before you can focus on another. This is because, in order to gain muscle, you must consume more calories than you burn and, in order to lose body fat, you must burn more calories than you consume so your body will find it difficult to do both at the same time. 












There are too many myths to mention, but these are the most common 'myths' I hear when I'm in the gym, so with that said I will leave it here for now.




I hope this helps.




G

GYMS KITCHEN

Gyms Kitchen – the UK’s first protein based restaurant.

They're definitely not lying; this restaurant is every gym go-ers heaven. Since it opened in 2012, I’ve heard nothing but good things. But word of mouth isn’t always gospel, so I decided to take a trip down there and try it out for myself.

My experience was nothing short of amazing. With fitness quotes on the wall such as “eat clean, train dirty”, pictures of the ‘fitness evolution’ and the weightlifting toilet signs, the restaurant's decor was impressive and it won me over, before I had even tasted the food. You can tell that a lot of thought went into creating the perfect atmosphere.

The menu was overwhelming, with so many options to choose from. Porridge, eggs, protein pancakes, wraps, sea food, smoothies anything healthy you can think of; it was all there. What I really liked about their menu was, not only did it provide you with the amount of calories per dish, it also listed the nutritional value contained in each dish, such as the fat content, the grams of protein and grams of carbs, which is pretty handy for a gym go-er, like myself.

As this trip was after a workout, myself and @bigboatstrainingroom were keen to fuel our muscles with as much protein as possible. For starters, we were served carrots and celery with homemade hummus. If you’re a hummus fan, then you’ll appreciate the authentic taste, in comparison to the store bought ones from places like Tesco and Asda.

For our mains, we decided to share the mixed grill platter. The platter was protein heaven and contained 268g of protein, split between both of us. The feast included Chicken Wings, Lamb Cubes, Chicken Cubes, Butterfly Chicken and, of course Lamb Chops, which we washed down with a Banana and Peanut Butter protein shake. The portions were generous and accompanied by a garnish salad and Gym’s Kitchen sauces. I wasn’t too fond of their chicken, but I would highly recommend the lamb. The lamb did not disappoint, they were perfect, succulent yet crispy and rightly seasoned.

To seal off the occasion, we decided to share their Protein Pancake Tower combo. The tower consisted of three different types of pancakes; Apple Crunch Protein, Banana & Chocolate Protein and Blueberry Protein. They were topped with fresh fruit and served with honey drizzle and peanut butter. The pancakes were a perfect way to end my experience and are a good alternative for those with a sweet tooth.

Overall, my experience at gyms kitchen was 10/10. The restaurant is a prime example that you can eat out and enjoy a healthy meal without having to restrict to a salad. Their nutritional balanced menu doesn’t hold back on taste and I would highly recommend this to anyone.

They currently have two locations:

Restaurant 1- 388-392 High Road, Leyton, E10 6QE

Restaurant 2- 376 – 378 Cranbrook Road, Gants Hill, Essex, IG2 6HW

For any non-east Londoners, I suggest you give either branch a visit. Trust me; it is definitely worth the journey.

G

How to stay motivated to exercise during the winter

The clocks have been pushed back, the days are shorter, the temperatures are colder and motivation is hard to find. This can only mean one thing- winter is officially upon us *welcomes with open arms*.

Unfortunately, winter can even discourage the most motivated exercisers and it can become really easy to pack away your lycra leggings and dri-fit clothing for some extra moments with your hot water bottle and duvet. Most people dread winter training but strangely enough, I really enjoy it.

I actually prefer winter training to summer training. Why? Well “hot bodies are made in cold conditions”, that’s why.

From past experience, I've found that my body responds to exercise much faster during the winter than in the summer. I haven’t figured out why this is, but knowing that this is the case, I’m making sure that my winter training doesn't go in vain.

I’ll be completely honest though, I do have the odd occasional days where I can’t be bothered and would rather stay at home, but there are certain things I do to stop this from happening which I will list below:

1.    Going to work out straight from work

If you’re like me, then you know that once you get into your house and it’s warm, you’re not going to leave again. So, plan to workout straight after work. This should allow you to avoid the temptation of staying at home. Plus, I always see it as; I didn’t carry my heavy gym bag around me all day to not make use of it.

2.    Dressing appropriately

When you think about it, once you start working out, you actually can’t feel the cold, so the weather shouldn’t really be an excuse. However, you should invest in some thermal clothing, socks and gloves to keep those key areas warm. Also, wear layers that can easily be removed once you start to sweat. You don’t want that chilly feeling once you’re dry and your clothes are still wet because that way you’ll catch a cold.

3.    Home workouts

Why not exercise in the comfort of your own home. If you don’t own any fitness DVD’s YouTube is your best friend. There are tons of fitness workouts online that you could try, which don’t require any equipment. Im currently doing the ‘500 Core Ab Circuit’ at home, which I will upload in a separate post.

4.    Revisiting goals

I use this time to reflect on my progress over the last few months and decide what I want to accomplish before the seasons over. For example, one of my new short term goals, before the end of the year, is to be able to do full chin ups from a dead hang position, because I currently can only do them from a 90 degree angle. By re-evaluating your goals you can analyse how far away from them you are. It may be the case that you realise your short term goals have changed and you want to accomplish something new within the next few months. This should keep you on your toes and see the new season as a new challenge.

5.    Rewards

So once I’ve reached my goal, I plan to treat myself. I haven’t decided on the treat yet but I know the treat will not undermine my efforts. So no, I will not be treating myself to a trip to Hagen Daz lol but you get the idea...

6.    Try something new

I want to take my training to another level so I’m going to join a CrossFit gym and I’ve also started pole. Trying something new doesn’t have to be life changing; it can be as little as changing your fitness regime or trying a new piece of gym equipment. Either way, adding something new might be another way to stay motivated to exercise in winter.

7.    Buddy up

I currently work out with different people. For example, I work out with specific people when I’m doing legs, when I’m doing arms, and when I’m doing cardio. Just make sure whoever you’re working out with, has the same goals as you. Working out with someone else will give you a reason to keep going and to stay motivated as you won’t want to let them down as well as yourself.

There are probably loads more other things you could do, but these are the main ones that have and are currently working for me.

Why not try incorporating a few or all of these into your current regime and see if they help you stay motivated this winter.

G

The Number Game

Ever stepped on a scale and freaked out because the number has increased by half a pound? Or do you weigh yourself everyday or multiple times a week to ‘keep an eye’ on weight gain? Well this post is definitely for you …

This happened to me this week. I’ve gained three pounds within the last four weeks.  But Im not upset about it *shrugs*, I’m actually quite happy. Why? Because I don’t let the scales define me and neither should you.

I think sometimes as females, we place too much emphasis on how much we weigh, to determine how healthy we are. We get so caught up on what the scales tell us but to be fair, the scales don’t really tell you anything other than your relationship with gravity.

If you starved yourself for 24 hours or went from a full head of braids to natural hair, you would definitively weigh less, but this doesn’t mean you’ve ACTUALLY made any progress. You could step on a scale and see a weight loss of several pounds, but this may not even be from fat and could be from water.

I used to chase an ideal weight I thought I would be happy with once I reached it. But to be honest, I was just chasing a magical number. Once I reached my ideal weight I still wasn’t happy and I just found other things that I wanted to fix or improve-so it just became a never ending cycle.

However, my mindset has completely changed. I’ve stopped focusing on how much the scale tells me I weigh and I’ve started to measure my progress in other ways. For example, I’m currently tracking my progress by monitoring my body fat percentage. 

Body fat percentage is the amount of stored fatty tissue compared to the amount of lean tissue in/on/and around your body. This number can be high or low; regardless of whether your skinny, fat, or in between. Remember, not all 5’5 women who weigh 10 look the same or have the same body type.

As you can see, she weighs the same in both pictures, but due to her dropping body fat and increasing muscle mass, she appears slimmer and more toned in the picture on the right.

I’m currently going through a shredding phase and the aim is to MAINTAIN and BUILD as much muscle as possible and focus on fat loss. I’m one month into my phase and within these four weeks I've managed to drop my body fat by 1% but I've gained three pounds. The extra three pounds doesn't bother me at all because it just means I've managed to lose body fat and build muscle-which means I’m on the right track to reaching my goals J.  As my aim is to get leaner, tracking my body fat percentage is the most accurate way for me to do this, but this may not necessarily be the case for everyone.

There are many other ways to track your progress such as progress pictures, how you fit in your clothes, how you’re feeling or even taking measurements. These methods will give you more of an accurate picture and won’t fluctuate as much as your body weight will on a scale.

So let’s stop obsessing over the scales and how much we weigh and focus on the bigger picture. If you feel good and are happy with how you look then playing the number game is pointless as numbers should not define you.

G