Musings on eating & moving

What requires no shopping, cooking, driving, or special gear…is free if you can find it and widely agreed to be super good for you…yet is wicked difficult to get, a little personal to talk about and more than a little fleeting?

We did a Whole 30 challenge in my house and included our 3 girls in a modified/shorter version. Good stuff but holy cookfest! It’s one thing to eat differently yourself but getting the spouse and wee ones involved for the full family affair? That’s a whole other kettle bell.

Here are a few breakfast-focused tidbits from our travels that should be helpful for trying to tame the morning whether cooking for yourself or prepping for a crowd.

Time for another installment in our Power Profile series where folks from the local food/functional fitness community share their experiences, tips and takes.

The February addition features Erika Moburg-Jones, Director of Operations and Head Trainer at Patriot CrossFit. Loads of good info in here including ideas on where to start, a nod to the almighty pork shoulder (great cook at home item) and a perspective on eating Paleo for two during pregnancy. Thanks Erika!

There's so much goodness to be had from other folks' experience. So on these pages we're going to start sharing perspectives and tips from folks across the healthy eating and moving spectrum. Got a story you'd like to share or know someone we should chat with? Let us know.

CrossFit Coach Sarah Mills leads us off, sharing her nutrition story and some of her best tips. Check out the video or scroll down for the transcript. Paleo brownie? Nice.

Come this time of year when family (by that I mean that multi-generational, in-law/sibling/cousin/neighbor influx coming soon to a "holiday" near you) meal prep is on the rise, there's often an almost election-like revisiting of familiar kitchen policy debates. Like the rules for preparing poultry... how long to cook, how much to scrub yourself and the bird before cooking, etc. The home team has their take. The visiting team then pipes in with their theory. Before long benches are clearing and you're considering player suspensions.

We've covered tips for warming up your meals for max yum. Let's focus too on a few hints for ensuring max freshness on their way to the warm up.

• Anything I need to keep in mind for getting my meals from pickup location to home? As long as your gym commute is under an hour you should be fine. Keep your meals with you in air-conditioned comfort, not the trunk, out of the sun. And if for some reason you’ll be out and about for more than an hour, bring a cooler bag with you for pickup.

Ahh breakfast, for most of us traditionally a processed food carb-fest (sugary cereals, toast, bagels, donuts) that’s now one of the tougher nuts to crack on the eating-differently quest.

But fear not, even the breakfast beast can be tamed. Some tips/favorites…

1. For your cereal jones – Almond milk to the rescue. This wonder substance is super easy to make (only tool you may not have, a nut milk bag for straining) and makes a great milk replacement. I make a batch on the weekend, then pour over blueberries, strawberries, bananas and walnuts a few mornings a week for a delicious, cold, crunchy, cereal-memory-erasing breakfast bowl (thank you Christy Ross). For you safe starchers out there, the occasional add of brown rice or quinoa adds to the party.

We craft our meals to require as little work for you as possible. But still it’s food we’re talking here folks so a few extra moves in heating goes a long way to maxing out the yum in your meals. A few tips from our travels...

• Set a quick meal batting order – Certain things hold up in the fridge (or to your particular taste) better than others so when you get your delivery, scan the group and give a quick thought to what you want to eat first. Maybe that one with the leafy green salad leads off and a stew or cooked vegetable item bats in the later innings of the week.