Friday's Food

This Friday's Food is a fantastic, colorful and healthy recipe: tuna with pineapple salsa and apple-craisin salad. This recipe is fancy enough for a dinner party but easy enough to make on a weeknight. Best of all you'll reach all of your fruit and veggie serving needs for the day!


Servings: 4

Tuna
Ingredients
2 large tuna steaks (you can cut these in half to create 4 portions- tuna can be expensive so try to buy it on sale!)
sesame seeds
1 pineapple
4-5 plum tomatoes
red onion
cilantro
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1/2 lime
1/2 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

1. Season the tuna steaks with sesame seeds and place on the grill. Cook 3-4 minutes per side (for rarer tuna cook less, for more well done cook longer).
2. Chop the tomatoes into small pieces and place in a bowl.
3. Cut up pineapple into small chunks and place into bowl with tomatoes.
4. Add in chopped red onion, chopped cilantro, garlic, lime juice and olive oil. Stir to combine and place in refrigerator to cool.

Salad
Ingredients
Package of mixed greens
1 apple (any kind will work!), diced into cubes
1/2 cup of dried cranberries
1/2 cup of shredded carrots
low-fat feta
Dressing: 1 teaspoon olive oil and 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1. Combine the veggies and fruit in a salad bowl.
2. Top with the feta cheese.
3. For the dressing whisk the olive oil and vinegar together until combined.

ENJOY!

Sounds on Thursday

This week's Sounds on Thursday is Bulletproof by La Roux. This is a great song for strength training. If you stay on the beat you will be extremely challenged by the number of repetitions you perform!

As always, availabe on iTunes.

Wednesday's Workout

This Wednesday's Workout is a great *freebie*! Most of us love going to the beach so now use the beach for your workout! The beach offers so many versatile options for staying in shape. Grab a pair of running shoes and hit the sand. Running in the soft sand creates a lot of resistance meaning more calories, more toning for your legs and more results. If you are looking for something a little more relaxed and fun- try beach volleyball, frisbee, paddle ball or football. Just make sure to run after the ball!

If the water is more your style, bring along a kickboard and try swimming laps back and forth parallel to the shore or grab a boogie board or surfboard and fight the waves.

Cost to you-nothing. Results-priceless!

Tuesday's Trim Down

While many of us do not have the money to spend on pricey personal trainers, we still want to feel like we are being pushed along in our fitness goals and be kept on track. Solution? Enlist a friend! Working out with a friend is a great way to keep you on track and prevent you from slacking off, especially on those days where you just don't feel like working out. Beyond staying motivated, keep yourself on track by maintaining a fitness/activity log and food journal. Self Magazine offers a *free* log on their website which allows you to track your activity, calories burned and time. The site also offers some common activities so you can get an idea of calories burned per activity. You can also keep your own food journal, including the servings of water you drink a day. Don't forget to award yourself stars for staying on track!

Visit Self.com and go to Self-Challenge to find the food diary and workout log.

Monday's Retail Madness

This Monday's Retail Madness is a great way to stay fit for a low price! Many of you may have joined Netflix to see the latest releases but you may not know that Netflix is also a great way to keep your exercise routine spiced up. Netflix has hundreds of workout videos to choose from and the best part is you'll never get bored of the same old video. Best of all, you can get a one month free trial now at Netflix. If you like it, join for just $8.99 per month.

Wednesday's Workout

This Wednesday's Workout is an inexpensive and fun way to stay fit. An exercise ball, also knosn as a stability ball, offers a home-exerciser a variety of ways to stay in shape. You can purchase a ball for less than $20! Check out amazon.com to find one for your home gym!

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Abs
Stability balls are known for providing a great work for abdominals. Try these exercises:

Basic Crunch- Sit on the ball with feet flat on the ground. Walk your feet forward until your upper back is supported on the ball and your torso is parallel to the ground. Keep your feet flat on the floor and your knees bent. Bring you hands behind your head and use your ab muscles to lift you upper torso away from the ball. Lower and repeat. See how many you can do for one minute!

Oblique Crunch- From the same position, this time when you lift your upper torso off the ball, turn your torso to one side to target the oblique muscles. Release and repeat alternating sides for one minute.

Plank- This advanced move works abs and chest. Sit on the floor on your knees with the ball in front of you. Drape your body over the ball so your hands touch the floor. Lift your shins up onto the ball and begin to walk your hands forward until your entire body is parallel with the floor and you are in a push-up position with your shins resting on the ball. Hold this position for one minute. To make it ever harder, bend you knees drawing the ball and your knees into your chest, then release back out again. Repeat 15 times.

Lower Body

Squats- Stand with your back to a wall. Place the ball behind your back so the ball supports your body against the wall. Make sure your feet are parallel with your toes pointing forward about hip distance apart. Bend your knees into a squat while the ball rolls down the wall and your back. Rise up and repeat 20 times. On the last rep, stay in the squat and hold for 10 second. Work up to a minute! Another variation on this move is to perform the squats in a plie position with your feet wider than shoulder width apart and your feet turned out to the side. This works your inner thighs.

Lunges- Stand with feet together, holding the ball at chest height. Step the right foot out in front and lower into a lunge while simultaneously pushing the ball forward. Push off the right foot and return to start. Repeat on the left. Try to do as many as you can for one minute.

Upper Body

Push-up- From the plank position (see above), this time bend your elbows into a push-up then press up. Repeat 20 times.

Lifts- From a standing position hold the ball in two hands in front of your chest. Lift the ball straight overhead squeezing the ball with your hands to tone your arms. Lower and repeat for one minute. To also work the lower body, add a squat each time you lift the ball overhead.

For more ideas on exercises with the ball, pick up a book (try these for pilates or core workouts) or a DVD (this Turbo Jam Dvd is a great total body workout) or check out a favorite fitness magazine. Or check out the gaiam store for more great options.

Fit Tip: Not all exercise balls are created equal. You want to ensure that the ball is the right size for you. The average size is 65 cm. However, smaller women may want to opt for a 55 cm ball. If you are very tall, go for a larger size.

Tuesday's Trim Down

In addition to following Frugal Fitness on Twitter try signing up for a few of FitBritt's other favorite tweeters and get *free* fitness advice and ideas! People like DavidKirsch (Heidi Klum's trainer), Jillian Michaels, Lululemon, ExerciseTv, Self Magazine and Shape Magazine offer great tips and inspiration! Plus you can hear other people's stories. Its like one big workout buddy. Don't forget to share your story!

Monday's Retail Madness

This (late) retail madness is another great Groupon opportunity for our Boston residents. Get a three week pass to Healthworks including three burn sessions for $60 (regularly $284). A 79% discount!!

Quick only 10 hours left. Visit www.groupon.com/boston

Weekend Activity

This weekend try a *free* and fun activity! Hit your local park with a frisbee, a football or a soccer ball and some friends. Have fun throwing or kicking around. Don't worry if you are not any good, you'll burn more calories chasing after a wayward ball/frisbee!

Don't forget to pack some healthy snacks like veggies with hummus, fruit, low-fat crackers (Healthy Valley Garden Herb are great!), cheese-if its not too hot (Laughing Cow Light are only 35 cals per wedge!) and something sweet like Jello pudding or gelatin. Of course bring plenty of water!

Fit Tip: Make sure the park allows recreational activities and spread out away from others to avoid hitting an unsuspecting bystander.

Friday's Food

FitBritt often receives questions about whether sports drinks are beneficial and worth the money. Sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade can be helpful in replacing electrolytes, which are lost with heavy sweating after strenuous activity. However, most workouts do not rise to the activity level that would require you to replace electrolytes through a sport drink. Unless you doing an extremely physically demanding workout, a sports drink is not necessary. Furthermore, most sports drinks contain a lot of calories meaning you are drinking in all those calories you worked so hard to burn off! There are now zero calorie sports drinks on the market, like Powerade Zero- so if you do need a sports drink, consider choosing a zero calorie option.

The best bet? Water is *free* and the best way to hydrate!

Fit Tip: Room temperature or warmer water helps cool your system faster than cold water. And if you are concerned that your workout has been strenuous enough to cause electrolyte and nutrient loss, consider having water and a banana, a natural energy booster and much less expensive than a sports drink. Finally, cut down your water costs by investing in a stainless steel re-fillable water bottle (plastic ones can contain Bisphenol A or BPA which can have harmful side effects).

Sounds on Thursday

In a recent post FitBritt recommended gettin your groove on around your apartment and suggested a playlist of songs including Lady Gaga. Well for all you Lady Gaga fans out there check out Telephone the Kaskade extended remix. This is a great song to really get in some heart pumping cardio! Best yet its over 5 minutes meaning you can groove even longer!

As always available on iTunes.

Tweet

Check out Frugal Fitness on Twitter to find out what's happening in the world of fitness on the cheap! http://twitter.com/FrugalFitness

Wednesday's Workout

Our previous post on free yoga classes at lululemon is coming back! This summer Lululemon is offering free OUTDOOR yoga classes! Every Tuesday at 10am and Thursday at 6pm Lulu offers free one-hour outdoor classes in Bryant Park in NYC. Other locations also offer outdoor classes. Visit lululemon.com for more information. Get outside this summer!

Tuesday's Trim Down

This week's trim down is a great offshoot from our former post on cleaning the house. cLean Momma is a dvd offering tips on how to fit in exercise while cleaning! The dvd offers sneaky toning exercises you can do while cleaning the house such as plie squats while wiping down the counters, lunges while cleaning the mirrors and tricep dips while scrubbing the tub. The dvd is only $14.95 and available at cleanmommas.com. Visit the website to get a free sneak peek on some exercises you can do while cleaning! The website offers video clips as well as tips you can do at home. Pretty soon you'll have a clean house and a fit bod whether your a momma or not!