Fast Food - Quick, Easy, Healthy Corn Tacos!

I don't know what it is about Tacos, but I feel like they are getting a revival in the food arena.  Luckily, they are simple to make and usually pretty healthy too.  My favorite thing about Tacos is once you have learned how to make a good one, you have an easy meal for life.  Below I feature a simple Taco recipe I came across from the people over at Adams Fairacre Farms.

Follow along with the video below and you will feel like you are bringing a Mexican Cantina into your kitchen!


.

Need a drink to help detox from the stresses of the day.  Enjoy this simple Mojito recipe with your new Shrimp Taco Recipe!  Thanks to Fitbrit.com for this recipe!





Now that the nine to five grind is over, start to enjoy the time you have left in the day!

Cheers,


The 925 Athlete

Don't forget to find us on twitter @925Athlete

The Make Shift Movie Night

I have been a parent for 7 years now and while there are a lot of sacrifices made, the hardest one to get over is the time spent together with my wife.  Parenting is difficult and wonderful at the same time.  You are lying to yourself if you do not admit to craving the long philosophical conversations you used to be able to have with your significant other about random stuff.

My wife and I used to go to a movie every single Sunday.  In fact, it was one of the most cherished traditions in our week.  We even continued the tradition for the first 8 months of my son's life having him join us in his car seat.  The realities of being a parent really start to set in and before you realize it even happened you enter into a Brave New World that only vaguely resembles your pre-parenting life.

It is safe to say that I have only been to about 20 movies in the theater over the last 7 years and I am okay with that.   When we do get the opportunity to make it to the movie theater it is something we take very seriously.  Besides Pitch Perfect 2, we have seen very few duds in the theater.  In fact, it isn't even the movies that I miss.  It is the tradition of going with my wife that I lament.

In order to find an adequate solution a few months ago we decided to really try to focus on finding some more us time.  My first solution was to create a Make Shift Movie Night.  The plan was simple, every Saturday Night we will put the kids to bed at 8:00 and by 8:15 we will be on the couch ready to watch.  I am a stickler for the previews so we have to sit through each one and decide with a thumbs up/thumbs down vote on whether or not they are Queue worthy.

While this Make Shift Movie Night has only succeeded about 2 times a month it has really been successful on giving us a true focus to hang out together again.  We restarted our DVD Netflix (I know who does that right) and this has been the real magic.  We have to decide on the next movie by the end of Sunday Night.  The new movie arrives on Wednesday and we have 3 nights to plan.  Some weeks it works and some weeks it does not (usually due to the strange amount of exhaustion still caused by having a 7 and 5 year old).
Regardless of whether or not we make the movie night happen is a mute point.  It really has become a significant life change for us.  It was a commitment to try and create time for the two of us again.  While that may sound a little strange I have a feeling many of you reading this know exactly what I am talking about.  One of the quietest things that get lost in the mix of parenting is the relationship you have with you spouse.  In the midst of all the scheduling, school, work, bills, sports, etc, it is easy to find yourselves living parallel lives with one another.

My wife and I's thing just happened to be movies.  You might have something else that was an important tradition in your relationship.  I recommend you find it again and make time to remember how precious that time can be again!

Thanks for reading and don't forget to follow us on twitter at @925Athlete.

Run Smarter not Harder....

I was not always a runner.  In fact, you couldn't have convinced me to run more than 100 yards at a time while I was in high school.  However, as I have gotten older I have found a place for running in my routine.  By place, I went from never running at all to running 3-4 days a week for about an hour at a time.  At first this was just a way for me to get the exercise in and lose some weight.  Once it became part of my routine it really started to shift to something different.  It was during that transition that I first came across Chi Running.

I started my venture into Chi Running while I was vacationing in Maui.  A fellow tourist was out running in Vibram 5 Finger shoes and I thought they looked interesting.  I went and bought a pair the next day.  My first run in them was amazing.  Granted I had the ocean to my right and a tropical environment to my left.  It felt as if I had discovered some new secret about running that no one had told me yet.

Of course I did what any tech savvy person would do.  I started to Google and read all I could about Bare Foot Running.  During this quest for information I came across an article on Chi Running and the connection was made.  I instantly went out and bought the Chi Running Book (If you are interested just type Chi Running into the Amazon Search Bar and help support the blog).  What surprised me more than anything was not the ease of running but the connection I started to make about my body and the process running.

If you are getting ready to start a more active lifestyle then Chi Running has to be part of your Book Library.  I won't guarantee you faster times by reading Chi Running, but I will promise you better endurance.   I literally went from 4 mile jogs/35 minute runs to 8 mile runs/60 minutes within a week.  It really is a game changer from the endurance stand point and for me it really pushed me into the love of Running!

Check out the Video below for a quick introduction into Chi Running!




Thanks for the read and good luck on your journey to rediscovering your inner athlete!  Find us on twitter @925athlete.  Tell your friends about the blog and spread the word!  www.925athlete.com

24 hour day/40 hour work week

I have long wondered why we follow the religion of the 40 hour work week when we only have 24 hours in a day. Technically, we only have about 16 hours of real wake time. However, we are excepted to spend basically 3 full days of our wake cycle in the office doing our jobs. Yes, I understand the economic impacts and financial strategies behind the production advantages of the American Worker. However, sometimes I just want to feel like I am in control of my own time.

 Therefore, I have a radical solution to this simple problem. Let's flip our schedules to reflect different values. Let's change our days to 40 hour long. Granted this would take some getting use too. For example, you would wake up and go to sleep when it is light out. Of course, a napping schedule would have to be put into place as well. It would also dramatically change our calendar. Instead of 7 days a week we would only have 4 and 1/5 days a week. This would cause many scheduling conflicts at first and also probably some Birthday and Anniversary snafus. However, we could continue to call those days Thursday-Sunday. That way we would always feel like it was the weekend or we were getting closer to the weekend.

 Once we have the 40 hour day scheduled we would implement the 24 hour work week. I know it seems like we are really cutting the hours of production. However, I think it would be a good time for our companies to really look at the efficiency of the work day. If we only had 24 hours a week in the office it would most likely fall into 2, 12 hour shifts. While that may seem like a long shift imagine how much work you could actually get done if you were forced to live inside that level of production. Now imagine the amount of time you would have left over to spend with family, friends, hobbies, etc. It would be pretty powerful.

 I understand this is a pipe dream and logistically it would be near impossible to achieve. However, it seems just as illogical to continually ask us all to give up the best waking hours of our lives every week to the office. The two income trap's implications are really starting to be felt by the American family. Parents are over stressed, over worked, and as a result they fell guilty because they have little left to give to their kids when they do arrive home (or furry animals if you are kidless). The fact of the matter is that we are under valuing the worth of physical, emotional, and human capital. While at the same time over valuing the value of the dollar.

 I don't have the solution to the problem and I am pretty sure there really is no solution. However, I am hopeful, with the work of companies like Amazon, Facebook, and now Netflix, that more American Companies are going to focus on improving the LIVING BENEFITS of their workers. I am hopeful that in the near future an employees quality life at home is just as important to the bottom line as the quantity of work they can achieve!

 Check back often for more 925 Athlete content.