On Saturday August 9th in Couer de’ Laine , Idaho, Shannon Van Oppen completed her first triathlon, Olympic distance, in 4hours and 1minute! Shannon has been training at The Exercise Space for just over a year now and has made amazing gains in transforming herself back into the athlete she once knew herself to be. Wanting to keep Shannon company through this journey I joined her in the triathlon. We rose at 4:30am Saturday morning to make sure we had enough time to pour ourselves into our so small wet suits…double checked our transition area, and headed to the water’s edge for our 7am start time. Just before entering the clouds let loose and the biggest rain drops I have ever seen bounced off of us. Then in we went - what a surreal experience with the rain splattering the waters surface and swimming with 1400 other bathing cap clad people. A kick in the face, or a head in the side is very common when sharing water space… all heading to the same buoy. No worries, the swim was over before we knew it, in 33 minutes! We dizzily trekked back to transition to peel off our wet suits, grab our sneakers, and onto our bikes we were for the very hilly 25 mile bike ride. Luckily we were often distracted from the hills by the generous views of the lake along the way.  Shannon made it up every hill, and did not stop or walk once.  2 hours later we were back in transition ditching our bikes and heading out for the 6.2 mile run. Although Shannon’s knee was not cooperating she still managed to finish the run and complete her first triathlon ever! An amazing experience for me to watch her accomplish this goal, as words cannot describe how proud of her I am. Shannon, you rock!

Are you getting bored with your routine, feeling yourself losing motivation for your workouts? Then sign up for a unique class that is both interesting and physically challenging. I recently joined two of my clients for a Trapeze aerial dance class through the South Seattle Community College. See for yourself from the photos, they had a lot of fun and it was quite the shoulder and core workout! Seriously. A trapeze workout will build you up physically and mentally as well as develop your balance and timing…not to mention lots of laughs and letting lose to the music! So, go ahead and try something new - like belly dancing, martial arts, kickball, dodge ball, BodyWalk, or trapeze!

For more info on taking this class go to : trapeze class info

You’ve heard it a million times before…what we feed our body reflects in how our body behaves. If we eat fast food and drink soda all day, chances are we will feel a little sluggish. If we eat fresh fruits and veggies and lean organic meats, we will most likely have more energy. Often one might think they eat ‘good’, but when really forced to look at each meal and dissect it, there are many ways it could get better. Read More »

Recently I was hiking with a friend, we were chatting and taking in the beauty of the woods. All of a sudden I stopped dead in my tracks. I turned back to look at my friend…she heard it too. We kept quite for a moment to see if what we heard would happen again. A couple seconds later, it happened again. It was a whistle, loud and clear. We froze and listened keenly. Again. It was definitely a whistle we concluded, couldn’t be a bird. I got my whistle out and kept it handy. Then we heard another tone of whistle. Maybe two separate parties were lost and trying to find each other we thought. We kept climbing hoping we were not being warned away from danger and actually walking into it. We wanted to help if someone was in need. As we climbed and climbed we ket hearing these whistles back and forth. As time went on I realized the whistles kept moving, and seemed almost too regulated to be someone in distress. My friend and I both know a whistle is a call of danger or need. Finally as we acended the mountain and no sign of anyone in need, we decided it must have been birds. How silly we felt. However that incident is what promted me to write this for all of you. A whistle is a very useful tool to ward off danger in our everyday lives even in the city - it alerts others to possible danger. And in the wilderness it has saved many lives. You don’t need a fancy whistle any old one will do. Be safe!

Stephanie Rush just accomplished the most physically challenging thing of her life - an Olympic distance triathlon. That is a 1 mile swim, 25 mile bike ride, then a 6 mile run! This is huge for a self professed non-athlete. Having trained Stephanie over the past year, I am so proud of her - she finished in 5:08.

In addition to her weekly strength workouts at The Exercise Space, Stephanie joined Team in Training to help raise raise funds for leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma research and patient services… and to keep her motivated to do her Saturday 7am swims!

Congrats Steph!!!

Not only will you put far less pesticides into your body, but organic food tastes better!

I know prices of everything are going up and up everyday, even food. As an organic junkie myself, I did some research for us and came up with some good information on which items are most important to spend a little extra on and buy organic.
Conventional, or “non-organic” farmers, spray all kinds of toxic poisons onto the food we put into your bodies. When we work so hard at exercising, getting enough sleep, hydration, and eating our 8-10 servings of produce a day (yes I said 8-10 a day!) shouldn’t our fuel be good for us, not hurting us? Conventional farmers utilize human sludge as fertilizer, irradiate their crops, and plant genetically-modified seeds that the human body has never encountered.

Organic farmers rely on natural pest control, nurtured and maintained rich soils, complimentary plant groupings, lunar cycles, etc. They do not use toxic pesticides and do not use seedlings or seeds that have been DNA-altered. Organic farmers use the riches that Nature gives us. It is good for the crops, for the water we drink and the water stills in the ground, for the ocean, for the rain, and for the air we breathe.

Here I comprised a list of the produce that we should consume organic: Read More »

I love cheese, you love cheese, we all love cheese. So which ones fit best into our healthy choices??

There are hundreds of types of cheese, but the 3 most common types are:

Soft cheese - ex. Mozzarella

Semi soft cheese - ex. Blue cheese

Hard cheese - ex. Cheddar and Swiss cheese

Cheese is a great replacement for meat, and if you want a light snack at any time, a 1 oz wedge of cheese supplies you the same amount of nutrients as a 12 oz glass of milk. The casein of cheese contains all the essential amino acids, and cheese contains a high amount of vitamin A and D, as well as calcium.

The downside of cheese is… Read More »

Deep down you thought the ‘healthy choice’ tasted too good to be so low in fat and calories according to the menu promise…turns out you were probably right. Check out this article in the Seattle P. I. about the investigation into some popular chains. Restaurant Menu Promises

Restaurant menu promises buried in calories, fat