No-Noodle Zucchini Lasagna

Welcome to our first Food for Thought Friday! Each week we will be providing our athletes with delicious and healthy alternatives to cook during the week to keep you on track for your nutrition goals. Either a video or a blog will be posted every Friday so you can easily follow along to cook a nutritious meal for the whole family. Guaranteed that they won’t even realize it’s healthy! 

For our first Food for Though Friday meal, we have chosen No-Noodle Zucchini Lasagna. This recipe was submitted by Jill Welch on www.allrecipes.com. This is what Jill had to say about this recipe: “Looking for a low-carb dinner to satisfy your Italian food craving? Look no further! This lasagna is perfect in the summer with your garden-fresh veggies and herbs, or in the winter when you need a comforting meal. You won’t even miss the noodles in this one!”

Ingredients:

• 2 large zucchini
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 1 small green bell pepper, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 cup tomato paste
• 1 (16 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1-1/4 cup red wine
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
• Hot water as needed
• 1 egg
• 1 (15 ounce) container low-fat ricotta cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1 (16 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
• 8 ounces grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease a deep 9×13 inch baking pan.
• Slice zucchini lengthwise into very think slices. Sprinkle slices lightly with salt; set aside to drain in a colander.
• To prepare the meat sauce, cook and stir ground beef and black pepper in a large skillet over medium high heat for 5 minutes. Add in green pepper and onion; cook and sir until meat is no longer pink. Stir in tomato paste, tomato sauce, wine, basil and oregano, adding a small amount of hot water if sauce is too thick. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer sauce for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently.
• Meanwhile, stir egg, ricotta and parsley together in a bowl until well combined.
• To assembly lasagna, spread 1/2 of the meat sauce into the bottom of prepared pan. Then layer 1/2 the zucchini slices, 1/2 of the ricotta mixture, all of the spinach, followed by all of the mushrooms, then 1/2 the mozzarella cheese. Repeat by layering the remaining meat sauce, zucchini slices, ricotta mixture and mozzarella. Spread Parmesan cheese evenly over the top; cover with foil.
• Bake for 45 minutes. Remove foil; raise over temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and bake an additional 15 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving. 

Hope you and your family enjoy this low-carb take on lasagna. Keep it even healthier by purchasing leaner choices of ground beef. Pair this meal with a side salad made with fresh veggies and a light dressing and you’ve got yourself a meal fit for a king! Give it a try and let us know what you think! Until next Friday, have a great weekend guys! 

You can find the whole recipe at https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/172958/no-noodle-zucchini-lasagna/. 

Strength:
Split Squats
4-4-4-4-4

Metcon:
For Time:
60 Partner Wall Balls (both work at the same time, standing next to each other, 30 each)
30 (total) Leapfrogs over partner (15 reps each)
15 Synchronized Pull-ups
*Scale to 30 Jumping Pull-ups.

Welcome to our first “Wisdom Wednesday” blog post! Every Wednesday we will be providing our readers with a little extra knowledge for the week. The topics will vary from fitness, nutrition, sleep and everything in between.  Our first topic of discussion is the dreaded “WARM UP”! It’s a question many of us have asked, “why do we have to warm up?” After all, everyone hates to warm up, right? “This is soooo boring!” “This is taking forever!” “I just want to workout already!” Sound familiar? Of course it does because those thoughts process through our minds on a daily basis during warm ups. Who doesn’t want to get to the meat of the workout and have some fun right away?? The workout is where the fun begins.

What most of us don’t understand is why we warm up and why it’s of the utmost importance.  So why do we? The purpose of a warm up is to get the body moving through a full range of motion, get some blood flowing and get us “warm”. During the warm up, the goal is to increase our body temperature, as well as our muscle temperature. By doing this, we are improving our muscle elasticity and the ease at which our muscles relax and contract. The chances of pulling or straining a muscle will decrease. We are drastically reducing the risk for injury. Think about it, have you ever tweaked a muscle in your back from a random quick movement in normal day life? Jumped away from something that scared you and felt a pull somewhere? Picked up an ice chest and strained your back? Often times, we hurt ourselves outside of the gym because our bodies aren’t properly prepped for the movement.

Warming up gives our body the tender, loving care that it deserves. Let’s face it, nobody gets younger, we only get older. The older the body, the more attention it needs. By warming up properly, we will reduce the stress on our joints and tendons because we have “loosened” the joints. Lubricated joints provide for safer, explosive power when performing lifts like the clean and jerk or the snatch. So essentially, the better the warm up, the better your lifts will be.

“But I’m already really warm and we still have a thousand warm up back squats before the actual back squats?” Ok, maybe not one thousand, but it feels like it some days. These are the times during our “WOD Prep” that we are prepping our bodies to handle the load and preparing us to reach our personal bests. Yes, our bodies are already warm and our temperature is on the rise, but we still have to psychologically and physically prepare our bodies to move a heavy load. Smaller increases in weight, with sufficient rest between sets, will ultimately lead to better technique and performance. So next time we’re lifting, try it. Don’t make a fifty pound increase, jump up ten pounds or maybe twenty each round. See how much better you’re feeling by the time you do get to those working sets.

On the other days that we don’t necessarily lift, this WOD Prep time is meant to focus on skill components. This is your time where you can get valuable learning and coaching. You can improve your pull ups and muscle ups. You can work on some double unders. Simply, go over proper technique on a movement as a class. Ask your coach for tips on technique or performance. That’s what we are here for. To coach you and to be sure that you never stop learning. You’re here for an hour so put in the work and don’t waste any second you’re here. Always remember, hard work pays off! Now, go enjoy your Wednesday people!

RED (RX):
21-15-9-6 for Time:
500-m Row
(1 MB Clean + 1 MB Front Squat) (20/14 lb.)
(1 KB Clean + 1 KB Lunge) (24/16 kg)

WHITE:
21-15-9-6 for Time:
350-m Row
(1 MB Clean + 1 MB Front Squat) (20/14 lb.)
(1 KB Clean + 1 KB Lunge) (16/12 kg)

BLUE:
18-12-6-3 for Time:
350-m Row
(1 MB Clean + 1 MB Front Squat)
(1 KB Clean + 1 KB Lunge)