DIY Protein Bar make your own:Video

Have you ever considered making your own protein bars? I used to buy them and eventually stopped because of the costs and because many of the ones I tried just didn’t taste very good. Then I started reading the labels and thought WOW that’s a lot of sugar! Then I saw this youtube video last year:

There are several advantages to making them yourself:

* No preservatives
* Lower in sugar
* You can add your favorite ingredients (protein powder, nuts, dried fruit, etc.)
* High fiber
* Lower in fat
* Costs much less than store brands

Looking for something to take with you on the road, or a snack to munch at your desk? Forget about those awful Powerbars and other various “healthy protein” bars. Granola bars are OK, but they don’t have much protein. High quality protein bars are available at the store, but for $5 a pop! We are looking for something cheap and easy, and here it is. Do-it-yourself, homemade protein bars.

Homemade Protein Bars
The Recipe

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 scoops protein powder

1 egg whites or 1 egg

2 tablespoon orange juice and water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup raisins, dried fruit (cranberries) or dieters trail mix (almonds,flax seed or sunflower seeds)

2 tablespoon wheat germ and fiber

Sugar free syrup (this gets the mix to a sticky consistency about 2-3 tablespoons)

Start by preheating the oven to 325 degrees. Line baking dish with non-stick butter flavored Pam spray. In a large metal bowl, mix all the ingredients until the oats are well coated (sticky). Spread the mix onto the pan and press down to make it flat so you can separate them into 10 protein bars later. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. While still warm, cut them apart and allow to cool before wrapping.

The bars can be stored airtight at room temperature for up to 2 weeks. Use these as a afternoon snack, they are a good protein/carb/fat balanced meal!

Need Even More Inspiration? NO MORE BUILT-IN EXCUSES?

Amanda “Bunny” Victoria

Ok, I’m going to get a lot of flack…maybe some criticism or outright abuse for having some white girl on a blog called BlackFitnessBlog. I found this story interesting enough to share, regardless of race. As a cancer survivor I found her to be no different than Lance Armstrong. As a public figure Lance as been able to give us a glimpse of what cancer might be to those of us who have never been diagnosed. And for those that been diagnosed, he has shown what a hard work, medical intervention and a little luck can do. Either way similar to his story Victoria could of gave up…but she didn’t.

She says in Bodybuilding.com how chemo left her feeling ugly inside and out. She was bald, overweight, out of shape and had lost control of her life. The remarkable thing is she later goes on to say “the experience was a blessing that changed my life forever”.  

The ability to turn a negative into a positive is a basic Law of Attraction. Fundamentally, not allowing yourself to be caged or trapped within yourself is a powerful tool even when things look bleak.

She took control of her life and got involved in fitness. Transformed her mind FIRST then her body come in a close second. So the question is, Can you make a physical change, without making a mental change?

Yes indeed its the same person, yeah she’s white, but her ability to become a fitness competitor and motivator should be an inspiration, no matter where or who you are. She goes on to say:

Fitness saved my life in every way. I would not be here today without it. This lifestyle was brought about by a terminal illness and I cannot forget where I came from or how far I’ve come, but I do not dwell on things that cannot be changed. My progress allows me to inspire and motivate others and that is an incredible feeling. You can heal your body by taking good care of it, treating your body with respect and giving it the proper fuel. The best part is I am healing myself from the inside – out, so what you see on the surface comes from within. I would not have figured that out if I didn’t CHOOSE to adapt a healthy mental, physical and spiritual lifestyle. Never give up on your passion in life. A right mind, a clear focus, strength of heart and good intentions will help you fulfill and conquer every goal you set. Life is a blessing, live it with a smile.

Black or white, green or brown, get your fitness on! You really don’t need to wait 4 years for the Olympics or every year to make a resolution to think about it. Make a decision! Get a partner, get rolling and get motivated!

How to Get Bruce Lee Like Strength Without Ever Going to a Gym

Here is an interesting article from one of my favorite sites ZenHabits, Jonathan Mead was the contributing editor from illuminatedmind.net. In the past I’ve experimented with the 300 workout and the Lebron James workout, I’ve also shown some others how to initiate P90X. Why? I was getting tired of the excuses i.e. no gym membership, the gym is too far or I can’t afford that right now. One of my all time favorite actors used his body weight with very little weights to achieve one of the best physiques of all time. He was bartendaz before there was bartendaz. He was Zen before there was ZenHabits. He was also one of the badest mother@#$s around!

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” – Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee was a paragon of cool and an icon of the ultimate bad-ass. Not only were his martial arts skills incredible, but he had such an impressive physique that even bodybuilders in the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger admired him.

What’s more impressive is that Bruce trained his body without ever stepping into a gym and with very little use of weights or machines.

Here are just a few of Lee’s physical feats:

• Performed one-hand push-ups using only the thumb and index finger.
• Could hold an elevated v-sit position for 30 minutes or longer.
• Could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks.
• Could break wooden boards 6 inches (15 cm) thick.
• Performed 50 reps of one-arm chin-ups.

While you may not get to Bruce Lee’s level overnight, you can start getting in shape without the use of a lot of fancy (and expensive) equipment. You can do it from the comfort of your own home, in a space as large as a bathroom.

Part of the reason I started training without a gym was because I began training in Jeet Kune Do (Bruce Lee’s method of martial arts). But I also got tired of paying monthly gym dues. At the time, I was looking for things I could cut out of my monthly budget to save a little extra money.

I thought about getting rid of my gym membership altogether, but I didn’t want to sacrifice my health or physical fitness. So I found another way. For months, I haven’t had a gym membership, yet I’m getting stronger and faster than I’ve ever been in my life.

You don’t have to buy lots of weights or machines, either. The most expensive equipment you’ll need (a simple doorway pull-up bar) will cost no more than $35.00.

Bruce Lee was a big proponent of holistic or total fitness. His workouts included strength, speed, endurance, and flexibility training.

Here’s just a few of the ways you can start getting stronger, faster and more toned without ever stepping into a gym:

1. Calisthenics. There are so many different bodyweight exercises out there, but we’ll start with the basics. For the lower body: lunges and squats are a good start. For upper body: pull-ups, push-ups, and shoulder press ups. For your core: crunches, chops, and reverse crunches will get you going. What’s great about bodyweight exercises is that they build functional strength. They’re natural movements you would use in real life situations like sports, self-defense, gardening, or doing chores. Plus when you do bodyweight exercises, you force your body to use more supporting and balancing muscles than you would on machines. For more bodyweight exercises check out these great resources: The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Training: 100 Killer Resources and for an awesome list of bodyweight exercises with illustrations check out Combat Fitness. Bonus: Top 10 Best Bodyweight Exercises for Advanced and Beginners.
2. Isometric exercises. These are basic bodyweight exercises, but where you hold your body in a static position. Examples of these are the frog sit, v-sit, horse stance, hanging from a pull-up bar, and the plank. Calisthenic exercises will improve muscle strength over a range of motion, but isometric exercises are great for joint and stabilizing strength.
3. Range of motion and flexibility. The best exercise I’ve found for range of motion and flexibility is yoga. The best thing about yoga is that no equipment is required and you can find tons of free resources online for yoga routines. Check out Anmol Mehta’s Yoga Illustrations to get you started.
4. Balance. Balance is the ability to keep your equilibrium when your center of gravity is thrown off-balance. There are many ways you can practice balance every day (we won’t get into tight rope walking here). When you’re putting on your shoes or getting dressed, do it on one foot. Walk on the curb and try to walk in a straight line without stumbling. Or if you’re really ambitious, there’s always pogo sticking and unicycling.
5. Dynamic exercise. Dynamic exercise is anything where you’re not performing routine after routine. Things are in flux and constantly changing. You’re moving in more natural movements, rather than continuous repetition of fixed patterns. I recently started doing Jeet Kune Do in the park every weekend. It’s a great way to get a good work out and learn self defense. Not to mention, practicing martial arts tends to make you inspired to further pursue and achieve higher levels of physical fitness. If you’re not into martial arts, you can always pick up a sport like tennis, handball, basketball, or take dance classes. Do whatever you’re naturally drawn to. Or if you struggle with seeing fitness as an enjoyable activity, you might consider getting a Wii Fit.

There’s a lot of other opportunities for exercise that don’t include a gym that I haven’t listed here. Hiking, jogging, skiing, yardwork… The list could go on. Just use your imagination. Make it fun and change it up. That’s the great thing about exercising without a gym, there’s so much to choose from.

On a side note, I will, however, say that for me, it took a lot more discipline to work out from home. It was easy for me to just go to the gym. Once I’m there, there’s not a lot else I can do other than work out. But at home, there’s always distraction, always other things you can do besides working out (like laying on the couch or surfing the internet). For me, practicing martial arts inspires me to be physically fit. While you might not have this problem, I thought it only fair to be upfront about this issue.

The other motivator for me to work out from home — besides saving money — was the variety of workouts. There’s just so many more options with bodyweight exercises than machines. You can always do something to further challenge yourself. If push-ups are a breeze, you can try doing them on your fingers or in a close grip (with a medicine ball). If pull-ups become too easy, train for a one arm pull-up (insanely difficult).

Attaining Bruce Lee like fitness isn’t just about doing the types workouts he did and eating the same diet. What made Bruce so great was his natural curiosity and drive to constantly explore and learn more about fitness and personal growth. (His personal library contained over 2,000 books!)

Tap into your own curiosity and make fitness enjoyable. Challenge yourself to new levels of fitness. Go beyond what you think you can do.

“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” – Bruce Lee

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Ernestine Shepherd 72 Years Young:Need Inspiration?

I am not going to even comment on this…You can read the article yourself. After your done you can decide if you really want to make a difference or be a victim. Be a victim or get your black fitness on?!

Trainer, 71, is inspiration to clients
By Ericka Blount Danois | Special to The Sun

On this rainy day, only the resolute are in Energy Fitness Center on Liberty Road in Randallstown , getting in their evening workout.

It would all seem pretty dreary — the rain, the routine of weightlifting — if it weren’t for the fact that Shepherd, at age 71, is so dazzling to watch. Wearing red sweat pants, a red-and-white sports bra and a baseball cap that reads, ‘Determined, dedicated, disciplined to be fit,’ she is a unique figure in the world of fitness.

Shepherd’s attitude lends credence to the adage ‘age ain’t nothing but a number.’ Five days a week, she trains women of all ages — three days at Energy gym and two days at her church, Union Memorial United Methodist Church , 2500 Harlem Ave. , where she has a class of 25.

ERNESTINE SHEPHERD

Training grub: She drinks 16 ounces of water and eats a light snack that includes a bagel with peanut butter or two hard-boiled eggs before starting her workout.

On the run: SusanG. Komen Breast Cancer, Turkey Trot, Women’s Classic in Baltimore, Resolution Run at Patterson Park, Race for the Kids, the Dreaded Druid Hills at Druid Hill Park, Baltimore Marathon.

Other acclaim: Has appeared in Essence (1991 and 2003); The Baltimore Times (2002); and the book Self Seduction, Ultimate Path to Inner and Outer Beauty (2003); has appeared on The View (2001); in a Carmax commercial (2004); and in the Miss America Senior Pageant (2004). She models for Nova Models in Baltimore.

Status: Married to Collin Shepherd, 77, for 52 years. They have a son and a grandson.

What her husband says: ‘She is a very determined person and she is not only in this for herself, she is interested in helping other people, including myself,’ he says. ‘We exercise at home. She is an inspiration tome; sometimes I get lazy, but she gets on me. I learned you are never too old to exercise.’
‘I usually start off with about 15 minutes of cardio, running in place, then we do floor exercises working on the abs, legs, upper and lower obliques, and then we proceed with the weights,’ she says about her training sessions that last about an hour. Wendy Barry, 38, started training with Shepherd six months ago. After her weight went up to 241 pounds, she started working with a nutritionist and lost 50 pounds.

When she started working with Shepherd, she lost another 20 pounds and traded her size 22 dress for a size 8. Some days she walks 10 miles with Shepherd before she goes to work at the Department of Social Services in Baltimore.

With 10 percent body fat, Shepherd is 5-foot-5 and about 130 pounds of inspiration to her clients, many of whom she includes in her routine of walking or running, which begins at 4 a.m. At Druid Hill Park.

Sharron Woods, 60, and her mother, 85-year-old Eva Miller, attend Shepherd’s Saturday class at the church. Both are former body builders who have successfully competed in weightlifting competitions.

When Miller was 70, at 5 feet 3 inches tall and 150 pounds, she could bench press 175 pounds. So she and her daughter were skeptical when they began Shepherd’s first class and were instructed to run in place.

‘I looked at my mother and said, ‘This is not going to get it; we are used to vigorous exercise,’ ‘ Woods says. ‘Well, then she pulled out some exercises I had never seen. Before we left, I was begging for more.’

Some of the exercises, Woods recalls, included trunk twists while holding a pole– right, and then left, before going down and doing squats still holding the pole.

Still, Woods wasn’t convinced. When Shepherd asked her to run with her in the morning, her first thought was, ‘She’s 70, I can keep up with her.’ ‘That woman was a road runner!’ remembers Woods. ‘I am really energized working out with her.’

Her mother was equally humbled: ‘She didn’t go easy on me because of my age,’ says Miller, who works part time as a teacher’s aide in the Baltimore school system. ‘She works me just like she works everybody else.’

In deed, she even works hard enough that her former trainer, Raymond Day, can’t keep up with her.

Though he runs with her some mornings, he is reluctant to take her up on offers to participate in the marathons she runs in. In addition to her regular workout routine and training others, Shepherd has participated in numerous 5K and 10K races and marathons.

But Shepherd hasn’t always had a focus on fitness in her life. In fact, in her younger days she was a ‘prissy’ girl, with little athletic interests.

It wasn’t until she turned 56 that she began to exercise with the aid of her sister.

They were both spurred on to join a gym after shopping for bathing suits and not liking what they saw in the mirror.

Day trained them both at a gym on U.S. 40 and remembers that Shepherd was in good shape, but had a lot of body fat and didn’t know how to lift weights. Her sister, a year older, acclimated her body quickly to the routines.

Then one day in 1992, her sister came into the gym complaining of a ringing in her ears. ‘A few days later, she passed away,’ remembers Day. ‘She had a brain aneurysm that burst in her head. They were really close, they did everything together.’ ‘When she died, I said I didn’t want to do anything,’ says Shepherd, a retired Baltimore schools secretary. ‘A friend of mine said, ‘You know your sister wouldn’t want you to do that.’ ‘

Day says that when she decided to come back to the gym, she came back with a new vigor and dedication. Before long, people would compliment her on how she looked. ‘She was the most dedicated person I have ever trained,’ says Day, who worked with her for 15 years.

Nowadays, she works with nutritionist Todd Swinney. She keeps busy by modeling in magazines and commercials and recently participated in the Senior Miss America a pageant in Baltimore .

But mostly she inspires others.

‘She is a people person,’ says Woods. ‘She is constantly asking, ‘How do you feel about this? Are you feeling OK?’ Most people just follow a routine and they don’t pay attention to how you feel. With Ernestine, every day is different.

‘So that means, it not only keeps you thinking, it keeps your body thinking and challenges your body,’ she says. Miller agrees.

‘She is amazing,’ she says. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever look like that, but I am working on it!’

Fat Propoganda : Video