Season to Believe

December’s shirt focuses on the “Do Good” part of what we do each day. This moti­va­tional shirt is a reminder that each sin­gle act of kind­ness — no mat­ter how small — adds up to cre­ate a pow­er­ful pos­i­tive force in the world.

The front reads: CLEAR YOUR MIND OF CAN’T with BELIEVE and the num­ber 44 (which rep­re­sents the total amount we’ve donated as a team so far — Decem­ber brings our dona­tion total to $44,000!).

The back reads: NO ACT OF KINDNESS, HOWEVER SMALL, IS EVER WASTED.

Please post your results and improve­ments from today’s PT test — we want to hear your suc­cess stories!

Enjoy your hol­i­day this week and next. Find time to fit in a few work­outs between the eggnog and presents. See you next month — wait, next year! — on Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 3rd.

Tough Mudder Team

We’re try­ing to gauge inter­est in form­ing a BC4C Tough Mud­der team. Check out the info and let’s see if we can get a crew together!

SAT FEB 11 & SUN FEB 12, 2012
GEORGIA AT AONIA PASS MOTOCROSS PARK

Tough Mud­der events are hard­core 10–12 mile obsta­cle courses designed by British Spe­cial Forces to test your all around strength, sta­mina, men­tal grit, and cama­raderie. As the lead­ing com­pany in the boom­ing obsta­cle course indus­try, Tough Mud­der has already chal­lenged half a mil­lion inspir­ing par­tic­i­pants world­wide and raised more than $2 mil­lion dol­lars for the Wounded War­rior Project. But Tough Mud­der is more than an event, it’s a way of think­ing. By run­ning a Tough Mud­der chal­lenge, you’ll unlock a true sense of accom­plish­ment, have a great time, and dis­cover a cama­raderie with your fel­low par­tic­i­pants that’s expe­ri­enced all too rarely these days.

FACT #1 – Marathon run­ning is bor­ing.
And the only thing more bor­ing than doing a marathon is watch­ing a marathon. Road-running may give you a healthy set of lungs, but will leave you with as much upper body strength as Keira Knight­ley. At Tough Mud­der, we want to test your all-around met­tle, not just your abil­ity to run in a straight line, on your own, for hours on end, get­ting bored out of your mind. Our obsta­cle courses are designed by British Spe­cial Forces to test you in every way and are meant only for truly excep­tional all-around peo­ple, not for peo­ple who have enough time and money to train their knees to run 26 miles.

FACT #2 – Mud­ders do not take them­selves too seri­ously.
Triathlons, marathons, and other lame-ass mud runs are more stress­ful than fun. Not Tough Mud­der. As hard­core as our courses are, we meet you at the fin­ish line with a beer, a laugh, and a rockin’ live band. It’s pretty hard to take your­self seri­ously when you’re cov­ered in mud and have just fin­ished an obsta­cle called ‘Just The Tip’, so please don’t show up at a Tough Mud­der with­out a sense of humor. Just check out the ridicu­lous team cos­tumes in our event pho­tos to get a feel for the spirit of Tough Mudder.

FACT #3 – You can­not com­plete a Tough Mud­der course alone.
To get through mud, fire, ice-water, and 10,000 volts of elec­tric­ity you’ll need team­mates to pick you up when your spir­its dip. To get over 12 foot walls and through under­ground mud tun­nels, you’ll need team­mates to give you a boost and a push. Tough Mud­ders are team play­ers who make sure no one gets left behind. To that end, all Mud­ders are expected to uphold our ideals and exhibit team­work and cama­raderie both on the course and off it. All par­tic­i­pants are asked to join us in recit­ing the Tough Mud­der pledge before start­ing each event.

Learn more →

Season of Magic

For those of us won­der­ing about horses in Pied­mont Park…

Pied­mont Park Conservancy’s 1st Annual Sea­son of Magic in Pied­mont Park kicks off on Sun­day, Novem­ber 20th and runs through New Year’s Day.

For the first time in the Park, cou­ples and fam­i­lies can enjoy daily horse-drawn car­riage rides, mak­ing Pied­mont Park the only Atlanta park with car­riage rides. Vis­i­tors will be car­ried through the his­toric and newly expanded areas of the Park, enjoy­ing beau­ti­ful hol­i­day lights under the scenic Atlanta sky­line. Rides are avail­able every ten min­utes from 5:00pm to 10:00pm daily. Each ride is approx­i­mately 20 min­utes in length. Infants ride free.

Other Sea­son of Magic events include weekly fam­ily friendly arts and crafts and a carousel with the Legacy Foun­tain light show in the back­ground. Atlantans are also wel­come to stroll through the Park to enjoy the fes­tive lights for free. The Con­ser­vancy will also offer cor­po­rate cock­tail party pack­ages through­out the sea­son, hosted in Mag­no­lia Hall.

Recipe of the Week: Cheesecakes in Jars

From the author: I like the idea of serv­ing lit­tle indi­vid­ual desserts at get togeth­ers and these lit­tle cheese­cakes do the job. Peo­ple can just pick one up and go — no slic­ing and serv­ing required. These lit­tle cheese­cakes are in the smaller 4-ounce jelly jars. You can find them eas­ily at your gro­cery store. They are just about the per­fect serv­ing size for all those peo­ple who say, “Oh, I shouldn’t eat dessert. Well, maybe just a few bites.” The top­pings that you can use are endless.

Ingre­di­ents

• 2 cups gra­ham cracker crumbs (16 whole gra­ham crack­ers, ground)
• 2 table­spoons sugar
• 8 table­spoons but­ter, melted
• 4 8-ounce pack­ages of cream cheese, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 tea­spoon vanilla extract (I used 1/4 tea­spoon vanilla paste)
• zest of 1 lemon

Rasp­berry topping:

• 2 pints of fresh raspberries
• straw­berry or rasp­berry jelly

Other top­pings: I used mini choco­late chips. You can really do any­thing you like for the top­pings. All kinds of fruit would work, caramel sauce, meringue, etc.

Instruc­tions

1. Pre­heat your oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Spray the jelly jars with non-stick cook­ing spray, mak­ing sure to spray the bot­toms so the crust doesn’t stick. Blend the gra­ham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted but­ter in a bowl. Place about 1 heap­ing table­spoon of the crumbs into each jelly jar and tamp down to make the crust (I used a wine cork).
3. In a large mixer bowl, mix the room tem­per­a­ture cream cheese with the sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix well. Add the sour cream, vanilla and lemon zest and mix until well incor­po­rated. Fill each jelly jar with about 1/3 cup of the fill­ing, leav­ing room at the top for your topping.
4. Place the jars in a large roast­ing pan or two deep bak­ing dishes. Fill the pan with hot water halfway up the jelly jars. Place in the oven and bake for 30 min­utes. Remove jars with tongs and place on a wire rack to cool.
5. For the rasp­berry top­ping: pick over the rasp­ber­ries and dis­card any that are moldy or bruised. Place 7 rasp­ber­ries on top of each cheese­cake. Heat about 1/3 cup of the jelly in a microwave and stir so that the jelly is spread­able. Brush the tops of the rasp­ber­ries gen­tly with the jelly to glaze them.
6. Refrig­er­ate cheese­cakes until ready to serve. Can be made the day before.

25 Little Tips for Big Weight Loss, Part 1

1. Good things come in small pack­ages.
Here’s a trick for stay­ing sat­is­fied with­out con­sum­ing large por­tions: Chop high-calorie foods like cheese and choco­late into smaller pieces. It will seem like you’re get­ting more than you actu­ally are.

2. Get “water-wise.“
Make a habit of reach­ing for a glass of water instead of a high-fat snack. It will help your over­all health as well as your waist­line. So drink up! Add some zest to your six to eight glasses a day with a twist of lemon or lime.

3. Herb it up.
Stock up your spice rack, and start grow­ing a small herb gar­den in your kitchen win­dow. Spices and herbs add fan­tas­tic fla­vor to foods with­out adding fat or calories.

4. Slim down your soup.
Make a big batch of soup and refrig­er­ate it before you eat it. As it cools, the fat will rise to the top and can be skimmed off the surface.

5. Doggie-bag that din­ner.
At restau­rants that you know serve large por­tions, ask the waiter to put half of your main course in a take-home box before bring­ing it to your table. Putting the food away before you start your meal will help you prac­tice por­tion control.

6. Lis­ten to your crav­ings.
If you’re crav­ing some­thing sweet, eat some­thing sweet—just opt for a health­ier snack (like fruit) instead of a high-calorie one like ice cream. The same goes for crunchy cravings—for exam­ple, try air-popped pop­corn instead of high-fat chips. It’s just smart substitution!

7. Ease your way into pro­duce.
If you’re new to eat­ing lots of fruits and veg­eta­bles, start slowly. Just add them to the foods you already enjoy. Pile salad veg­gies into your sand­wiches, or add fruit to your cereal.

8. Look for high-fat hints.
Want an easy way to iden­tify high-calorie meals? Keep an eye out for these words: au gratin, parmi­giana, tem­pura, alfredo, creamy and car­bonara, and enjoy them in moderation.

9. Don’t multi-task while you eat.
If you’re work­ing, read­ing or watch­ing TV while you eat, you won’t be pay­ing atten­tion to what’s going into your mouth—and you won’t be enjoy­ing every bite. Today, every time you have a meal, sit down. Chew slowly and pay atten­tion to fla­vors and tex­tures. You’ll enjoy your food more and eat less.

10. Taste some­thing new.
Broaden your food repertoire—you may find you like more healthy foods than you knew. Try a new fruit or veg­etable (ever had plan­tain, pak choi, star­fruit or papaya?).