the nerds are getting schooled.

do you smell that?

***awkward silence***

anyway....what we're talking about is the scent of newly sharpened pencils & fresh paper. well, actually no one uses wooden pencils anymore, so it might just be our imaginations, but do you know what this means?! it's back-to-school-time, nerds! while the little kiddies are buying new plastic backpacks, picking out their favorite character's lunch boxes & convincing their parents that they just have to buy that 1-Direction glitter pencil case with matching eraser, TheFitnessNerds aren't just sitting back anymore. no no...it's quite the opposite! the nerds are getting schooled :)

it's finally official & while we can't quit our day job (just yet), we've decided to do what we can & take a course to help move our dreams along & in the meantime, it helps out all of our readers! (that's you!) we signed up for a human nutrition course & as we learn more about what we need to sustain a healthful living, we'll be helping you learn too! we know you all have busy lives & can't even imagine taking more time out of your schedules to learn the ins & outs of nutrition, so that's why we're here! we'll bring you some important (tofu) knuggets of knowledge (yes...knuggets) that will help you make more informed decisions about what fills your plates.

but don't worry! this class won't take away our special bonding time. in fact, we're so excited about this course that you can expect more frequent posts. i know...that makes you pretty darn excited ;)

thanks for joining us in our elation & we'll be posting soon! class started yesterday & we can't wait to share some of what we've learned so far! wish us luck :D

keep studying & we will too!
xx TFNHQ

game-time granola.

do you get nervous the day before you’re going to a sporting event because you’re already having nightmares of the calories that are seeping out of those cheese-covered nachos or the french fries topped with buffalo wings (yes. that is a real thing…)? but if that’s what you’re nervous about, fear no more! (unless you're worried about getting hit with a flying ball or puck. sorry. can't help you there...) we recently went to a baseball game (goooo pirates!) & made sure to stock up on healthy, yet filling, snacks to get us through! the big hit was our homemade granola, which can be adjusted so it’s just the way you like it! there’s minimal prep work & it makes enough to last the whole game, even with extra innings!! this recipe came courtesy of the daring gourmet! she gave us all the details & left out any vegetable oils & refined sugars ;) check it out below!

Healthy Homemade Granola
Makes 6 cups

Ingredients

•   4 cups raw oats (not quick or instant)

•   ¾ cup unsweetened dried flaked coconut

•   ⅓ cup chopped or sliced almonds

•   3 tablespoons sunflower seeds (unsalted)

•   1 tablespoon flax seeds

•   1 tablespoon sesame seeds

•   ⅓ cup raw honey

•   3 tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil

•   ½ teaspoon almond extract (optional)

•   1 cup assorted dried fruit, like apricots, raisins, cranberries, cherries, pineapple, dates, etc.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

2. Place the oats in a large mixing bowl. Add the coconut flakes, nuts and seeds and stir to combine.

3. Place the honey and coconut oil in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil for one minute and remove from heat. Stir in almond extract if using.

4. Pour honey mixture over the oat mixture and stir until coated.

5. Spread the granola out on a large baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly toasted, stirring every few minutes to prevent burning.

6. Let the granola cool completely then add the dried fruits and stir to combine.

Store in an airtight container. Keeps for about a week. Serve with milk and fresh berries if desired.

well…that’s it! you can pick whichever dried fruits you want, but if you’re choosing store-bought, be sure to make choices with minimal added/refined sugar!

we hope you enjoy this recipe & we promise you’ll need to keep making more, since it’ll go faster than you can say “raise the jolly roger!!!”

stay tuned for the recipe for our tailgating chickpea salad we made for the pregame! it's a gorgeous dish & again, super easy to make!

keep studying :)
xx TFNHQ

motivate your mornings.

it’s 6:01 in the morning & you’re awoken from your dream-evoking slumber by a noise that you can’t quite place. it rattles your brain & shakes any remaining ocean views from your thoughts. your beach towel turns into a smooth pillow & the sun on your back is replaced by your hello kitty comforter. i mean, your more grownup-styled comforter… :-\ anywho… that sound persists & you still can’t figure out why no one else has stopped it until you roll over & realize it’s your very own alarm blaring in your ear. what day is it? & why did you ever, in your right mind, set that to go off? & so early? you reach over & without thinking, press the snooze button. this happens again & again & before you know it, you’re jumping out of bed & into your clothes in order to make it out the door on time! another day starts exactly the same as every other morning. your “intentions’ to wake up & workout are long forgotten & you’re neck-deep in work troubles at only 10am.

does this sound familiar? we swear this could’ve been our journal entry every morning for the past year! but you know what? one day we decided that this wasn’t good enough for us & wasn’t what we wanted out of life. if we started out the morning already running around & stressed, how would we possibly calm down throughout the rest of the day? but easier said than done, isn’t it? that’s why we were determined to make our mornings motivational!

-- but how can you do this? is this real, or are you just forcing us into another alliteration?

while we are fans of a properly placed alliteration, this is more than just that! if you make your mornings motivational, your day will become exponentially more productive & enjoyable. so what does this mean to us at TFNHQ? for me, i decided to switch my phone’s lock screen to a motivational picture that i'll see every time i go to press that snooze button. if i can read that quote & still go back to sleep, i'll know i'm not serious yet about changing my life. if you’re one of those who wouldn’t even see the screen because you press snooze with closed eyes, then choose a song as your alarm that gets your heart pumping & your mind thinking about all the possibilities you have ahead of you that can only occur if you get your behind out of that bed!! if that STILL doesn’t work for you, then take the most brutal approach & put that bloody phone on the opposite side of the room so you need to get out of bed in order to press snooze! & if you’re already out of bed, why not stay up?

the moral of this post is: get up & get going! from my personal experience, i know i'm 99.9% more likely to get something done (whether it’s a workout, packing, reading or responding to emails) if i set aside some time in the morning to get it done. if i just wake up & say “i'll fit it in later”, i get busy, tired & put it off to the next morning, where it’s likely to get pushed off again for another day! so why have that hanging over your head all day? i'd rather spend the rest of my day thinking back on how i kicked butt in my morning run or how the chapter of the book i read that morning can help me reach my dreams. i feel so much better after actually accomplishing something so early in the day & those post-workout endorphins don’t hurt either ;) so now we’re asking: how can YOU motivate YOUR mornings? will you dance your way to the kitchen to make your breakfast? write yourself a note on the mirror to get you ready to bring on the day? or will you one day be so committed that you wake up on your own to get those tasks done? whichever way you choose, keep it consistent & don’t let yourself get bored with it! mix up those mornings & you’ll be surprised at how much you get done throughout your day :)

keep studying, nerds! we’ve missed you!
xx TFNHQ

take the challenge!

what if we told you that you only need 25 minutes a day to completely CHANGE your life? commit to our JULY 15 Beachbody Challenge group & you'll finally see results you've always wanted :) email us at FitnessNerds@gmail.com for complete details!! we can't wait to help you make the commitment!! :)

keep studying & see you in class!!

xx TFNHQ

the food addiction.

years ago i heard that m&m’s contain a certain ingredient that made you addicted to them. i searched far & wide through the depths of google, bing, wikipedia & i even asked jeeves! alas, i searched & searched to no avail. i therefore decided to end the wild goose chase & move on with my life. however, fast forward to the present & it turns out that i may have heard right!

a recent study sent to us by a study-abroad fitness nerd has shown that it is possible to become addicted to unhealthy foods & this addiction may be responsible for the global obesity epidemic. to sum up the findings, it’s been shown that high-fructose corn syrup can cause behavioral reactions in rats similar to those produced by drugs of abuse such as cocaine. this “food addiction” hypothesis was shown at the 2013 canadian neuroscience meeting by dr. francesco leri & suggests that someone could be addicted to food just as one is addicted to drugs of abuse. while the increased availability of highly-palatable foods worldwide could partly explain the high incidence of obesity, this is not the entire reason. how do you explain why some people are obese & others are not while they’re given the same amount of available food? dr. leri & others suggest that one important factor could be individual differences in vulnerability to addiction. surveys show that in the consumption of cocaine, only a small percentage of individuals who try the drug actually become addicted. dr. leri wanted to know if he same could be true of “addictive foods” & his data produces evidence that laboratory animals show a shared vulnerability to develop preferences for sweet foods & for cocaine.

while this research may lead to novel pharmacological interventions for obese individuals, it may also help increase the public’s understanding of the effects of unhealthy food choices. public education regarding nutrition & fitness is one of the goals of The Fitness Nerds, so we are very interested in what these studies result in!

if you’re interested in reading the full story, follow this link! sadly, my university does not have access to the journal “addiction biology”, so we cannot read the entire paper, but we’ll work on getting that for you asap!!

now, this doesn't mean you can blame your "addictive behavior" for overindulging in sweets! it's quite the opposite. it's scary to think that our bodies could be addicted to food in the same way it's addicted to a dangerous drug. because of this, it's best try to stay away from foods with high amounts of high-fructose corn syrup to begin with, so your body doesn't even know it exists! there's a lot more to the corn syrup ingredient that most people know, so look out for an upcoming post that explains a little more about this scary ingredient & how it’s popping up in places you wouldn’t expect!!

keep studying, nerds! we love your enthusiasm (:
xx TFNHQ

*DISCLAIMER: all of the data from this post is from the provided link. we did not personally deal with these mice. let's just say, we'll leave it to the professionals.

commit yourself.

to our fellow nerds:

our deepest apologies for slacking with our posts over the past month! i know you’ve been waking up every morning to see if we’ve posted & i can only imagine the despair that comes over you when you see we still haven’t posted. but be in despair no more! the nerds are gearing up for an intense summer school that includes each & every one of you! so sit up straight, get those number 2's out & let’s get schooled!!

our first lesson today deals with: commitment.

[k uh – mit –m uh nt]

1. confinement to a mental institution or hospital.

wait…that may not be the definition we’re going for. let's try that again…

2. what most men are afraid of.

shoot. that doesn’t sound right… one more try?

3. the act of committing, pledging, or engaging oneself.

that's more like it!! we love this definition because it shows how making a “commitment” is not a passive decision, but rather you’re actively making a promise to engage yourself every day in order to achieve a certain goal. a fellow fitness nerd shared a picture that really hit home with me. the accompanying quote was: “it’s not about how bad you want it. it’s about how hard you’re willing to work for it.” merely wanting something is a passive activity. “i want to travel the world. i want financial freedom. i want to have the abs of a victoria secret model (or calvin klein model, for all those fitness fellas out there).” well that’s great! those are amazing things to want! but what are you actually DOING to make those desires happen? all the want in the world won’t get you anything unless you’re willing to WORK toward those desires.

- but what if i don’t want to work?

believe me, i love the idea of not working!! but sadly, unless you’re the heir to a family fortune or the little old lady from florida who won the power ball lottery, there must be at least a little work involved to get what you really want out of life. so i'm asking you to ask yourselves: what do you want most in life at this very moment? & what do you have to do to get there? it doesn’t even have to be fitness related! Just make the commitment NOW to do something small every single day to get you closer to that final goal. write down a reminder that you actively & willingly made this commitment & have it somewhere you can see it every day. make the commitment & never look back.

we'll be checking up on you! so go on & get studying!!

xx TFNHQ

mid terms!

okay, nerds. let's lay it out for you. i know it's summer, but that doesn't mean it's time to slack off! in fact, all of your spare time should be spent doing everything you complain about not having enough time for in the fall/winter/spring! for TheFitnessNerds, we're preparing for mid terms!

--- wait, what? we have mid terms? i never signed up for that!
--- sorry to break it to you, but we do!! & our first one is coming up quickly!

on june 9, TFN & some other cool cats will be running the color me rad 5K & we're making sure we're fully prepared so we can pass with flying colors!! lololol... okay i know. bad joke.... but anyway! fitness is something you can't "cram" for. you have to study your behind off (literally) & make sure you're not falling behind in the weeks/days leading up to your main event. whether it's a 5K, 10K, marathon, or just being fit in general, there's no last-minute cheat sheet that'll give you those final results you want. to be honest, we've never been huge fans of running, but with the weather being absolutely phenomenal, we can't think of a better way to get outside & enjoy it! that's why we're dusting off our running shoes & hitting the track, trails, sidewalks, escalators, alleyways, or any runnable surface, trying to get our legs in shape for this 3.10686 mile race.

now, what's the point of these mid terms? besides the fact that color me rad is going to be freaking AWESOME (who doesn't want to run around with friends & strangers whilst being hit with colored corn starch, thus staining your bright white shirt that you'll never wash in hopes of never losing that victorious rainbow of a souvenir?), it's also a way to make sure we're staying on track for finals.

--- hold up... i already graduated college & you're telling me we not only have mid terms...but there's a final too?!

that's right! in less than 3 very short months, TFN will be running in the mother of all tests of physical fitness...TOUGH MUDDER!!! & while 3 months seems far away, it seemed even further away 3 months ago when we registered & now we're halfway closer to the main event.

so that's it! there's no way to cram for these exams (unless you enjoy the thought of multiple pulled muscles or drowning in a pool of mud due to exhaustion...) so that's why we're strapping on our iphones, turning on our running apps & hitting the streets (as opposed to the usual corners...) to get our butts into gear for our first-ever mid term!! who's joining us?

follow our progress on instagram, twitter & this blog to see how our preparation is going.
as for you...keep studying!!
xx TFNHQ