STAY STRONG

words Sarah Richards photos Jesse Brown Nelson

It’s that time of year again where we create our list of goals — eat more vegetables, lose 20 pounds, go for a run once a week. At the beginning we are pretty good at them, but as the year goes by we all start to slip. It’s okay if I eat that cookie; I don’t really feel like getting up early to run today… we all know the drill.

A WIFE, MOM, NUTRITION ENTHUSIAST AND FITNESS COACH SHARES TIPS ON TEACHING KIDS HEALTHY HABITS FOR THE NEW YEAR.

The purpose of a New Year’s resolution is to spark a positive change in the coming year, and there are a few common themes year after year; these revolve around health and fitness, finances, and learning new things for personal and/or professional development. Do any of these apply to you?

> Exercise more

> Lose weight

> Get organized

> Learn a new skill/hobby

> Spend less money on fill-in-the-blank: some common items here are coffee, take-out, online, video gaming

> Read more

> Travel more

> Spend less time on the phone

> Drink more water

> Eat out less

Teresa Gonzalez is a mother of four, wife, nutrition enthusiast, and fitness coach at The Studio & Drop Juice Bar in Rapid City. After baby number four, nutrition became really important to Teresa. Struggling to lose the weight she wanted to, she began paying attention to what she was eating.

“Hormones and metabolism were all over the place, and executing proper nutrition brought things back into balance and took off the last 20 pounds,” Teresa says.

Fitness is important, but nutrition is almost equally as important when trying to meet your weight goals. It becomes a challenge for most families not because of the balance, but because doing so requires better prioritizing. If your goal this year is to maintain a healthy lifestyle or lose weight, more than 80% of the results come from monitoring your diet and better nutrition. At her studio, Teresa teaches micro workouts, dynamic 30-minute workouts based on HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training), only four times a week.

SWITCHING UP GOALS AND STARTING NOW

Why wait to start your goals? What is stopping you from dropping all those high-calorie sodas, cutting back on the extra sugary coffees, working out a few times a week, and working toward your weight goal? Start now rather than waiting for a new year.

Once you start picking up good habits, they’re a lot easier to maintain. “Delaying the decision or action is choosing your current situation over and over instead of changing it day by day. Every day, every meal is an opportunity to choose a better lifestyle,” Teresa encourages.

Keeping your kids involved and on board can be tricky. Anything you do, they tend to mimic. Your habits will become their habits, good or bad. Instead of compromising your health for your kids, Teresa coaches that you should be healthy for your kids.

Determine a list of foods and varieties to start using by answering a few questions first. What is on your plate? How do you order at a restaurant? Are you cooking at home? Based on your answers, start replacing unhealthy items with organic or healthier options. “If your kids will only eat three foods, try introducing healthy options of the foods they like. In the end, children are better than adults at getting what they need,” she shares. Don't be afraid to indulge your cravings once in a while, either. They don’t always have to be sweets; some recipes serve as healthy treats!

When it comes to working out with your children, don’t worry about being too hard. It really isn’t about the deliberate exercise, but making sure that the family isn’t living a sedentary lifestyle. Don’t sit around and watch too many TV shows. Go outside for a family walk or hike. With the Black Hills in our backyard, it’s really easy to incorporate effective exercise into our lives while keeping the activities simple.

Make it a routine on Sundays to go for a walk before church or hike in the hills after a hearty, healthy breakfast. For the Gonzalezes, Sundays are slow, with brunch and PJs or “low-key adventuring through the hills.”

Protein and Supplements

At The Studio & Drop Juice Bar, Top Notch Nutrition is the familiar popular brand. One of the best things about Top Notch is that it’s local!

After struggling with their own individual health concerns, Johnny and Bethany Gonzalez decided to take their health into their own hands. “We searched for products that we could stand behind, and realized we needed to come up with our own,” they share. After years of research and testing, Top Notch Nutrition was born.

There are a number of products available for different purposes: sleeping better, hydrate better, seek allergy relief or burn off those extra calories. The collagen protein mixes are great for improving health all around and are offered in chocolate, vanilla, or unflavored. Try some of the chocolate collagen powder as a family in your hot chocolate or use in your coffee for a little flavor boost!

Enjoy the warm, gooey, chocolatey flavor of Keto Chocolate Chip Collagen Cookies without worrying about messing up the nutritional benefits you’ve been working on!

The ingredients are:

3 eggs,

1 / 3 cup monkfruit sweetener,

1 / 2 cup cashew butter,

1 / 2 cup coconut butter (melted down),

1 / 3 cup almond flour,

2 scoops Vanilla Super Collagen Protein,

1 / 2 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt,

1 / 4 cup Lily’s Chocolate Chips.

Directions: Mix eggs and monkfruit sweetener until combined. Add both of the butters and stir until combined. Fold in the flour, vanilla super collagen, and salt. Fold in the chocolate chips and place the dough in the refrigerator. This helps the dough become a little more firm, preventing flat cookies. After you’re satisfied with the firmness of the dough, spoon it into 24 cookies. Bake each batch for 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees or until the edges are golden brown. The taste improves as they cool, so be patient and serve them completely cool!

The recipe makes about 24 cookies, and each cookie contains less than 100 calories.