Monthly Archives

June 2014

Food

Healthy Dining Experience: Seasons 52

June 9, 2014

Yesterday I had dinner at Seasons 52 to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Apart from having a wonderful time I got to enjoy an incredible meal. I love the concept of the restaurant. Their menu features fresh, seasonal, and local ingredients whenever possible. And since everything on the menu is under 475 calories there’s no worrying whether the meal you’re eating constitutes three meals calorically.  I decided to try the Grilled Lamb Kefta which was a spiced ground lamb skewer served with greek salsa and a Baby kale and romaine caesar salad with garlic ciabatta croutons. I absolutely loved it!
They also claim to be the creators of the mini indulgences – basically like dessert shooters – so you can end your meal on a sweet note without feeling too guilty. With it being my friend’s birthday, they brought out a sampler of all of their different indulgences. I had the pecan pie and it blew me away. Another one of my friends had it too and we were sitting across from each other and both kind of looked up at the same time after we took our first bite and said wow! I also tried the raspberry chocolate chip canoli and it was extremely good as well. I highly recommend this place!

Phenomenal!

Have you ever been to Seasons 52? If you have, what’s been your favorite dish?

Fitness

Fitness Feature: Jessica Smith

June 5, 2014

Every couple of months I cruise Amazon looking for some new workout dvds. Well, I had the good fortune to stumble across some workouts by Jessica Smith. I have three of her workout dvds in my collection now, Cardio Abs, 10 Pounds Down Better Body Blast, and 10 Minute Solution Ultimate Bootcamp and I must say these are great workouts. While I love them all, Cardio Abs is my absolute favorite. It’s split into three separate workouts (cardio abs, total body abs transformer, and concentrated abs), and each one is about 26 minutes in length. It also includes a bonus 4-minute tabata workout.

10 Minute Solution Ultimate Bootcamp includes five 10-minute routines including: Fat Fighting Skills & Drills focusing on interval cardio training, Ultimate Upper Body Training with weights, Ultimate Lower Body Training, Ultimate Total Body Training, and Six Pack Ab Attack. I do all five to get a full workout and since it’s broken into five segments it makes the overall workout feel shorter.

Finally, there is 10 Pounds Down Better Body Blast. This workout is broken into three 20-minute segments that target arms, legs, and, abs. What I really like about this one is that she’ll often start off with a base move and then progressively make the move more challenging before you cycle back through it.

What makes her so awesome:

  1. Her workouts are actually enjoyable. I remember when I first did Cardio Abs and I was smiling during it. I loved it. My heart was racing, I was sweating, and the moves were tough but it was fun. I felt like I got a solid workout in but I wasn’t cursing the gods as I went through it.

  2. The moves are fresh. I’ve been working out for a while so I’ve seen all kinds of exercises and there were lots of new moves throughout these dvds which I really appreciated. Also, she keeps it as simple as possible. In the quest to be new and innovative, lots of instructors come up with these crazy, convoluted moves that are just really awkward. None of that here.

  3. Her personality is a winner. Nothing can ruin a potentially great workout for me faster than an instructor who is either barking orders at you like she has something to prove or instructors who are so perky with their permanent plastered smiles as they’re going through really challenging exercises. She’s very motivating and upbeat but not in an annoying or aggressive way.

  4. She also has a Youtube channel with tons of free workouts that run the gamut from cardio to barre to kickboxing to resistance training. You really can’t beat that. Check it out here.

Have you done any of her workouts before? If so tell me what you think!