Griffen Fitness - Newsletter

June newsletter

Greetings healthy people,

Griffen Fitness studio launch What gorgeous weather we’re having! It’s truly not been this warm since 2006. It’s fab to get out in this weather and enjoy the light levels – you can go running right up until 9pm. We’ve been busy on our allotment where the more basic things are, the more exercise there is. Half of my allotment workout has been scuppered now we have a hose and I don’t need to cart watering cans of water around. I prefer the old way, it saves water and I can practise my single arm dumbbell rows with the watering can (a diminishing dumbbell as you water).

June has been a hectic month, and the studio is well and truly launched. It was an energetic evening of music from The Banana Session at Griffen Fitness studio launch The Banana Sessions, limbo, skipping and lots of hooping. As you can see from the photos, much fun was had... When the studio is not being used for fitness on the weekend, it’s hosting some lovely workshops. The most recent weekends are botanical watercolour workshops run by artist Isik Guner, who is currently showing works at the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. Participants spend two and a half days perfecting how to capture the colour of a flower or the shine on a leaf. I was worried that there might be paint everywhere, but these workshops focus very much on detail. Phone Isik on 07780 295 513 for more information. Remaining dates are this weekend, July 9th to 11th and 16th to 18th, with only one space left on each course. See the Gumtree ad for more information on booking the studio. It suits workshops of up to 8 participants.

Other exciting news is that there will soon be in existence a fitness book especially for Edinburgh. The text has been collated from all 55 previous newsletters by the tireless work of a certain Miss Sophie Lockwood, thank you! Sophie is a whiz at anything admin and marketing related, so if you need a freelancer to come in and give you a hand, contact her at sophs73@hotmail.com. All the manuscript needs now it to get published in time for Christmas.

What’s in Season
Artichokes, asparagus, aubergine, broad beans, carrots, cauliflower, cherries, courgettes, elderflowers, gooseberries, lovage, mint, new carrots, new potatoes, parsley, peas, radishes, raspberries, rhubarb, rocket (easy to grow in a window box), tayberries, strawberries, sorrel, spinach, spring onions. The long days are good for growing sprouts. Alfalfa, mung beans, chick peas etc all make lovely and nutritious sprouts and are great for salads or sandwiches.

Easy Recipe: Simple Brown Rice Revisited
My investigations into eating meat have caused some ‘interesting’ internal interruptions (see article below) and so I found myself resorting to eating lots of brown rice to sort out my insides. Real Foods stock a very nice short grain brown rice, but keep an eye on the date, as rancid rice is minging (no other word for it). Once cooked, it’s good to mix in some other textures and flavours for an easy meal. Here’s a favourite:

Cook 2 cups of brown rice according to http://www.tracygriffen.com/news/news_2008-08.html , which is enough for four servings / plastic containers to take to work. Allow to cool slightly, then add 1 small tin of sweetcorn kernels, 1 cup cooked edamame beans (shelled soy beans), a handful of pumpkin or sunflower seeds, a couple tablespoons of sesame seeds, a spoon of coconut oil, a handful of your favourite chopped fresh herbs (I used parsley and chives from the allotment). Serve with a wedge of lime. You can divide the rice into various plastic containers and mix different vegetables and flavour combinations. After a period of indulgence, it’s good to give the system a break from strong flavours and heavy food. Have simple brown rice as two of your meals a day for a day or two and you’ll be regular as clockwork.

Fad or Fab: Reebok EasyTone Trainers
Shoes that can make you fitter? That’s the claim from Reebok and a growing number of shoe brands. I’ve tried on some goofy boots (MBT’s) before, but finally bit the bullet and invested in a pair of Reebok EasyTone trainers earlier this week. They were reduced from £80 to £65, so still a big investment, but as I’m cycling less I need to keep my legs working to compensate. I quite like the 80’s look of this pair, however I came up with the term of endearment ‘torture shoes’. As sceptical as I was, the ‘balance pod’ nature of the soles mean that legs work harder to keep you upright (especially when demonstrating leg strength exercises). Supposedly they workout your glutes (rear end) 28% more and calves 11% more than normal shoes. Imagine walking everywhere in cleated cycling shoes and you get the idea. Not recommended for running but an interesting addition to the wardrobe. They are sold out in many places, but try John Lewis or Intersport at the top of Leith Walk for a pair. A tentative Fab, but remember posture, posture posture.

Resisting Temptation: Set the Breakfast Table
Breakfast is the most important meal of your day, but sadly the mostly missed meal of the day. During busy periods I quite often finish work quite late at night and it takes awhile to relax. As part of my routine, I pretend I run a Bed and Breakfast and prepare my table for breakfast (those with children may joke that they do run a B and B). Lay out placemats, empty bowls, glasses and cutlery. Try artfully arranging the cereal boxes on the table if you’ve got a spare minute. In the morning when you wander into the kitchen, breakfast is already laid out ready to go. It also makes mornings feel more organised and you can start the day on top of the world.

Offer of the Month: Fresh Mex at Los Cardos
Most people don’t immediately think of Mexican food when looking for a healthier takeaway meal, but Los Cardos is changing that. The seemingly small menu is loaded with healthy options that can be mixed and matched to suit most dietary needs and please anyone’s palette.

Menu items include a choice of black or pinto beans, both of which are a great source of protein, fibre and other important nutrients that can reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and even diabetes. For the omnivores there’s a choice of grilled meats, including Red Tractor chicken that is subjected to a rigorous set of assurance standards, whilst also ensuring that the birds have been well cared for and can be traced back to the farm where they were raised.

On top, choose one of five different salsas ranging from mild to very hot. Low in both calories and fat, rich in vitamins and minerals, the choices include salsas with chilli peppers which have been shown to be beneficial in fighting cancer, ulcers and may be helpful for people with rheumatoid arthritis. Add a dollop of fresh guacamole to the mix and load up on potassium, folate, calcium, vitamin C and K, folic acid, copper, fibre and lots of antioxidants.

The best part about the food at Los Cardos is that not only can it be healthy, it’s very, very tasty too. Hungry yet?
Get £1 off your next burrito by presenting this newsletter to Los Cardos, 281 Leith Walk (opposite Balfour Street).

Article: An Experiment in Meat

I have been vegetarian for the majority of my life. That is, I was a strict vegetarian from when I was 14 to 32 years old, and swithering a bit since then. When a teenager my decision was ethical and because I preferred eating vegetables to meat. I continued my vegetarian habit into adulthood, where it became more a political and environment decision. The health benefits also were apparent. I’m not going to go into the full details of the advantages of vegetarianism, as I’m sure an avid vegetarian has already bent your ear at a dinner party over the matter. No, instead I am going to share with you my recent forays into becoming a meat eater.

My experiments in meat-eating have largely been due to the sheer amount of exercise that I happily engage in on a daily basis. After exercising and cycling around Edinburgh for sometimes twelve hours on the trot, I would get incredibly hungry. I was always eating, which, I told myself, was a good thing to keep my metabolism ticking over. Yes, my metabolism over the last few years has done the reverse of what is normal. As you get older, generally your metabolism slows down. As my business has boomed, so has my appetite to a frankly embarrassing amount. I found it difficult to last more than two hours without eating. I love eating, but sometimes having a weird hypoglycaemic experience just isn’t convenient. I always carry healthy nibbles around, but it was getting to the annoying stage. Add to this, it’s important for me to be a blood donor as a few years ago my blood was ‘rejected’ as my haemoglobin count was insufficient (i.e. not enough iron, but not impossible to rectify on a vegetarian diet). I knew that if I went again, given the amount of exercise I was doing, I would need to Iron supplement to the max to be able to donate blood.

It was purely for the nutrients that I came around to the idea of eating meat. Protein shakes taste disgusting and to get enough protein at athlete level I would need to be eating piles of soya, pulses, dairy products and eggs. Even with a knowledge of combining vegetarian foods for optimum protein, my body felt it needed more. A 150g serving of grilled salmon has 30g protein whilst the equivilent amount of lentils and chickpeas have less than half of that. So we instigated ‘fish Wednesday’ evenings in our house, where we cooked line caught fish from the fishmongers on Nicholson Street. Wednesdays was always a long day, where I cycled past the fishmongers anyway, but it felt weird to break my vegetarianism for one day of the week. Two or so years ago I shifted from full vegetarian to ‘predominantly vegetarian’, whatever that is.

Spring is always a good time for change, so I decided to do an experiment and became a fully blown meat eater to see how it effects my on a physiological as well as psychological level. My feelings towards other animals had not changed, I just started eating them.

vegetables are good for you

It’s difficult becoming a conscious meat eater. I was so in the habit of only looking at veggie meals on menus it took me a while to adjust. I realised that pretty much nowhere serves free-range chicken. If you want to embarrass a waiter, ask them if their chicken is free-range. I was shocked to discover that most places serve ‘cheap’ chicken. So, go ahead and ask your waiter and perhaps something will change. I also became of aware of the fact that meat can be contaminated with all sorts of stuff. Being vegetarian gave me virtual immunity to BSE and other scares.

I ate meat once or twice a day for a few weeks, the rules were to eat as ‘clean’ as possible (i.e. free range birds, fish, and unprocessed lean meat) and to only have a small amount at a time with vegetables and fluids. Whilst I was rarely hungry, in the end my guts couldn’t take it. After a fortnight, I resorted to the above brown rice simple eating to ‘get things moving’. So the conclusion? Whilst I felt liberated having more menu choices and liberated from hungry tummy, I was encumbered with the fact that what I was eating was in fact a cow, and that too much meat did not agree with me. My current stance? Meat only when I really need it, and make it ‘happy’ meat. Back to ‘predominantly vegetarian, whatever that is…

And Finally… Bored at work? Watch this brilliant YouTube Clip
Like hula hooping?Check out this guy…

Have a happy and healthy pre-festival month,
:)
Tracy

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June newsletter