Are you scrambling around in the mornings like eggs in a pan trying to fix a quick and nutritious breakfast?

If so, then give this jacked up French Toast recipe a try to feed those hungry muscles before you head out there door.

High Protein Feel Good French Toast

2 slices of 100% Multi-Grain Bread
3 Omega 3 enriched Eggs
1/4 cup of milk
1 scoop of vanilla protein powder
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of vanilla extract

-Take the eggs, milk,  protein powder, cinnamon, and vanilla and whisk them together in a bowl.

-Spray a non stick pan with cooking spray and turn to medium heat.

-Soak each piece of bread for at least 1 minute in the mixture pressing down as to make the toast absorb as much as possible.

-Fry each piece 2-4 minutes each side until golden brown.

Top with fresh fruit or berries…Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you liked the documentary Food Inc., (which I highly recommend if you haven’t seen it yet) you will also like Killer at Large.

This film provides a strong wake up call about the dangerous rise of obesity, especially in our kids as well as the importance of local organic farming.

I remember meeting with world-renown strength and conditioning expert Charles Poliquin a few years back and we talked about the alarming rate of childhood obesity. With his informative wit he said “When I was growing up, the fat kids in school were made fun of because they were the minority, now childhood obesity has gotten so bad it’s the skinny kids in school that are being made fun of”

Sad but true. ..Unfortunately, this is not a laughing matter and I believe it all starts at home in teaching our kids the value in preparing and eating REAL food. Then the schools need to step up and give health education the same importance as math and science. How smart are you really when you are destroying your health?

Now I also don’t agree with being a food Nazi and raising our kids on some strict diets. We let our daughter Matea enjoy being a kid by having the typical treats that we all enjoy from time to time. But like I stress in my Dad Fitness Cookbook, Fast Food For Fit Families, you can strike the perfect balance between food and fitness if you prepare healthy meals at home. Matea’s favorite is my Tasty Turkey Meatloaf!

So I hope you take the time to watch this film this weekend so you don’t have to be watching your kids weight…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Do you eat breakfast?…I hope so. But do you eat a HEALTHY breakfast?

Unlike this belly buster breakfast in a box that weighs in with over 1000 calories, 2000mg in sodium and 64 grams of artery-clogging FAT!

I know some mornings as a busy dad just seem too crazy to prepare a healthy breakfast, like this morning when I was trying to get my daughter Matea ready to go to the sitter’s…

When I finally pulled her away from playing Dora Candyland and got her in the car…nothing…not a gig…the car wouldn’t start!

Luckily I had some booster cables in my truck and boosted the car, but took the truck anyway just in case.

I am EXCITED!

…because first I have a NEW exercise video to share with you that builds strong legs, with a cool new twist on an exercise that I bet you haven’t tried;-)

…and second I am OFFICIALLY on vacation!

My wife and I both finished up work today and we are packing up the Murano with Matea and all her “stuffed” friends and hittin’ the road on Sunday to the beautiful East Coast of New Brunswick here in Canada.

We will be gone for a couple weeks, spending some time at Kathy’s sisters as well as taking Matea to Magic Mountain waterpark and Crystal Palace amusement park.

I am also looking forward to hitting the most beautiful beaches North of Virginia as we have a cottage booked for 3 nights in Shediac during the Lobster Festival.

I hope we have better luck in New Brunswick this time around than we did when we bought the car 2 years ago there and got rear ended at a stop sign by some guy on a motorcycle…

Luckily our accident wasn't this bad!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I hope you had a good Father’s Day weekend!

Mine started off at 6:30am when our 2 year old daughter Matea jumped in the bed with her Barbie and starts combing the dolls hair.

…Now this particular Barbie has some hair missing, thanks to my my sister’s new cat!

So Matea then climbs on top of me in the bed and begins to comb my “hair” or what’s left of it anyway;-)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chunky Chicken Salad Sandwich

Ingredients:

1/2 Avocado, mashed
1 cup chopped Chicken
1/4 cup Celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup Green Onion, finely Chopped
1/4 red bell peper, finely chopped
2-3 tbsp plain Yogurt
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp Paprika
1 tsp Cumin

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.  Serve on some 100% multigrain bread with some baby spinach instead of plain sad looking wilted lettuce and you got a quick and healthy meal in minutes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hope you enjoy my personal story and I would love to hear yours in the comments below!

Thanks Dad

by Sean Barker, CPT

Wabush, Labrador, Canada. A small mining town nestled in the cold and desolate woodland of northern Canada. 7 months of the year this isolated town in the middle of nowhere is covered in a deep and cold blanket of snow. Darkness comes early and temperatures with the wind-chill can reach –70 degrees Celsius. But there is a place where I go where the temperature is a lot warmer.

Tucked away in the basement of the local recreation center is a little room I like to call The Dungeon. Some people call it “The Weight Room,” others call it a gym, but to me it’s a dungeon.

It was originally built back in the early 80’s by old veteran power lifters. One in particular went on to win a gold medal in international competition. Almost every piece of exercise equipment was made by hand in the nearby iron ore mines. Welded and made of cold steel, almost every piece of equipment you see in this “gym” was built from scratch.

Chalk filled barbells, dumbbells, squat racks and lifting platforms are what fill this gym. No chrome, no fancy machines, and one broken exercise bike tucked away in the corner. As for music, there is no surround sound system here playing Ryan Seacrest’s Top 40 Countdown, just an old stereo that mostly caters to heavy metal music… perfect.

Entering the Rec. Center, I reach the bottom of the stairs. As I enter through the old squeaky door, I drop down a little ramp onto the floor, which is concrete with rubber matting. Even the rubber matting covering the floor are old conveyor belts salvaged from the local mines. The low ceiling with condensation dripping from overhead pipes and bad lighting would give anyone the feeling of claustrophobia. The horrifying screams, the sound of cold steel, and the smell of sweat momentarily give me a chill like a cold winters day.

But at the same time a fire begins to burn inside that is making my blood boil in anticipation of wrapping my hands around hundreds of pounds of cold steel. Your heart immediately begins to race, knowing before you leave you will endure a physical torture familiar with any dungeon.

The homemade paint chipped dumbbells don’t all go up in 5lb increments. After your 60’s you have 67’s, 73’s, 80’s, 82’s, 97’s, and 100 pounders. Unfortunately, this is where the rack ends. But you have to be creative, and there are still plenty of plates to make any bar bend.

I have trained in gyms all over the world, and I wouldn’t trade this gym for a Gold’s in Venice. I practically grew up in this gym. I have been training there for over 15 years.

I was first introduced to lifting weights at 12 years old. My father who was in his late thirties at the time started training at our local weight-room. No it was not a “gym” it was a weight room in the basement of our small town’s recreation centre.

I started to train consistently at age 16. As time went by the veteran lifters at the local gym really noticed that I stood out above any one my age, not just for my physique but also for my sincere dedication and love for training.

I would get up bright and early while on summer vacation to be at the gym to train with my father (who had trained for over 20 years), and loved the challenge of pumping iron and the camaraderie that existed between the regular lifters at the gym. I loved learning from the old school lifters such as a former Mr. Barbados, and an international gold medal winner in powerlifting. It was like our own version of Pumping Iron, the bodybuilding documentary that made Arnold famous.

I will always cherish those memories of getting up early in the morning when all my friends were sleeping or at hockey practice, and spending that time in the gym with my father. As for all the guys I knew who grew up playing hockey and listening to their hockey dads scream at them for an hour, hardly any continue to play today.

The time together in the gym taught me life long lessons of work ethic, goal setting, failure, and many more. I only hope that I can instill the same values in my children and show them the vital importance that exercise plays in living a long and healthy life. I sincerely hope that Dad Fitness will inspire you to do the same…

Check out the video tour of The Dungeon and the stories behind the old equipment!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Where do YOU workout? Do your gym have a story behind it?

Let me know in the comments below…

You are going to love this!

Every Christmas my mother makes these Coconut Snowball Cookies…and they are so good they disappear faster than real snowballs in July…

But they are still full of sugar and fat which is not good if you want to look lean and mean for summer.

Here is a super quick smoothie recipe that is great anytime of the day as either a meal replacement or a healthy snack. Well, the only time it’s not great is when trying to use the blender really early in the morning when your family is still sleeping…trust me on that one!

This super smoothie is packed full of cancer fighting antioxidants, muscle building protein, complex carbs, filling fiber and heart-healthy fats to give you lots of energy to get through work AND your Dad Fitness workouts.

It is also cheap to make and you know it only includes the healthy ingredients YOU add, unlike Joe bodybuilder behind the counter with all the powders and potions making smoothies at your local gym…

Click here to view the embedded video.

DISCLAIMER: This smoothie has a secret muscle building ingredient that will give you huge arms like Popeye!

The anchor tattoos on the other hand is your decision…

Give this one a try and let me know how you like it by posting a comment below!

Even at a really young age I would rather watch a cooking show on TV than watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… But I do share the turtles love for pizza!

Basic cooking and learning what REAL food is should be a skill that EVERY kid is taught in school, right up there with math and science.

Now that I am a father I realize even more, how important it is to not only play a part in preparing healthy food for myself but also for my daughter.

Even at 20 months old her favorite snack is fresh fruit and berries and at dinner last night she asked for more broccoli!

Don’t get me wrong, I am no food Nazi!  I think it’s one of the greatest pleasures of life.  But I think most people live to eat instead of eating to live…

We still let her enjoy being a kid and let her eat some of the treats and sweets that we all have on occasion.  Mostly when she is out visiting family and friends we loosen up on the food rules but when she is home most of the time we try and feed her the healthy meals that we prepare as a family.

After stumbling onto Jamie Oliver on the Food Network a few years back I watched as this guy with the funny accent not only cooked quick great tasting food but also started a food revolution to combat the skyrocketing child obesity rates in the world today.

Plus Jamie is also a busy dad so he knows what works and what’s practical when it comes to feeding kids healthy meals.

It made me realize that as parents teaching kids about healthy eating can be the biggest contribution we can make to the next generation.

If you are a parent, I highly recommend you take a few minutes out of your day to watch this powerful video!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I REALLY want to hear what you think!

Let me know by leaving a comment below…