Hey there fitfam!  This is our first Body Transformation Series post and we’re excited to get the education, info & how-to out to you!

In this post you’ll find our:

Recipe of the Week: slow-cooked orange chicken recipe, including 5 example recipes to use with the chicken.

Workout of the Week: total body fat burning circuit for both males (performed by Julian) and females (performed by Vanessa) at three different experience levels:  beginner through advanced.

Let’s dive in check out the food and FUNctional exercises for this week!

Recipe of the Week: Slow-Cooked Orange Chicken

This recipe is one of my favorites to meal prep for the week to give you real “fast food” to keep your healthy lifestyle on track!  It’s the worst when you’re about to take off for work and there’s no food in the fridge, right?  Make this recipe and you’ll have a solid protein you can use in your meals throughout the week!

Ingredients:

Pastured Chicken – I did 8 breasts, but you can do as much as you need

1-2 cup chicken stock

Orange Brine:

2 oranges, quartered

1 onion, quartered

1 big cinnamon stick

1/2 cup sea salt

1/4 cup to 1/2 cup coconut sugar (optional)

fresh herbs: I used a nice handful of rosemary, oregano and 3 bay leaves, but you can throw other fresh herbs in there as well that you would normally use on your chicken.

See pic below for a visual of the ingredients…

Your brine is important.  This is what keeps your meats nice and juicy, especially since we’ll be slow cooking these chicken breast for 12 hours.  Traditionally a brine is 50/50 ratio of kosher salt to sugar.  For this one, I did sea salt and I squeezed the juice of two big oranges and threw the skins in as well.

Directions:

Add all of your chicken and brine ingredients to a big oven safe pot, cover it with water (not an exact science, just get everything covered), and let it sit for at least 4 hours.

After the minimum 4 hours, you want to drain your liquid and you can rinse the brine off each chicken breast if you want.  

Next add your chicken stock so chicken is just covered (1 -2 cups).  Get everything sort of mixed around and situated with the chicken stock, add your lid and then place in your oven.

In a 185 F degree oven we’re going to slow-cook this pot for 12 hours.  I do one of two things. I usually either put this in the oven at night around 7pm so that I can take it out the next morning at 7am before I go about my day.. or i’ll put it in the oven at 6 or 7am, then when I get home from the day, the chicken is all nice and ready at 6 or 7pm at night.

NOTE: To maximize time and flavor with the brine + cooking:  What I’ve done before is started my brine at 9 or 9:30 PM then i’m usually lights out by 10 PM.  I let the brine go overnight and then i’m up each morning around 5 – 5:30 AM, so i’ll rinse the brine and put the chicken in the oven all day.  You can do this brine + cook combo any way you see fit for your schedule.  

After 12 hours, take out your chicken and you should get something that looks like the picture above.

Next what you want to do is remove the chicken with some kitchen tongs.  Then remove the oranges, cinnamon stick, onions, herbs, etc.  Anything that is chunky.  What you want is a big pot of liquid awesome…all those great juices, flavors, etc.

Put your chicken back into the juices and shred it all up with fork and voila!  Shredded slow-cooked orange chicken is served!  Leaving it in the liquid like this is going to keep it nice and juicy for when you want to use it.

Optional step:  Chicken breast is pretty lean, so i’ll amp up the healthy fats and stir in a big tablespoon of organic red palm oil (from a sustainable source) as well as a big heaping tablespoon or two of grass fed pastured ghee.  Beefs up the fat soluble vitamin content of the entire pot.  Maybe 30-40 grams of added high quality sourced fats in the entire pot, so broken down to a portion size its minimal if you’re counting your fat calories. It gives the dish overall a rich, juicy taste.  

Final product above with high quality fats mixed in.  Really tastes good my friends, its a winner to meal prep for the week, make for a party, great for tacos, and so much more.

Here’s a few examples below of recipes & meals you can use with your orange chicken:

Above:  Rainbow carrot “pasta” ribbons with added orange chicken  

Super simple to make.. just take 2 big carrots and use your carrot peeler to peel ribbons. On a low-medium heat, let them saute in a 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil & 1/2 tablespoon of pastured grass fed ghee with your favorite spices.  For this pictured above, I used pinch of pink salt, 1/2 teaspoon garlic pepper and a 1/2 teaspoon of dill.  Let it saute for about 8-10 minutes, or until ribbons start to get a little soft.  Add your chicken at the last minute to let it incorporate and come to temperature. Serve!

Awesome low-carb pasta alternative meal in 10 minutes or less since your chicken is already prepped.

Above:  Orange Chicken Lettuce Wraps w/ Sprouted Quinoa

This wrap took me less than 5 minutes to put together and it’s a beautiful, healthy real food meal. Take a spoonful of your slow cooked pastured chicken and add it to a bowl.  I added a nice big spoonful of sprouted quinoa I also had prepped (I like TruRoots brand). Chopped a couple cherry tomatoes, a little avocado, few sprigs of cilantro.. that’s it. Mix it up in the bowl, a little pink salt and pepper if you fancy, and add to some iceberg lettuce. You could also use long leaf romaine lettuce, dino kale or collards as a wrap as well (I actually prefer these, more nutrition than iceberg lettuce).

Overall super simple, fast and awesome real food meal!  

Above:  Stuffed Sweet Potato

Another quick one to do if you’ve got a few sweet potatoes meal prepped and kept in the fridge.  Note:  What I like to do is buy 2 or 3 nice size ones, poke some holes in them with a fork, wrap in tin foil, throw them in the over on 400 F for 45 minutes as part of my meal prep I do on Sundays.  That way they’re done and I can reach for one in the fridge conveniently like I did for this recipe.

All I did was take two big handfuls of spinach and added to a pan on medium heat with 1/4 cup water in it.  Added the lid.  It will wilt and reduce pretty quick. Drain the liquid.  Add your chicken to the pan to let it come to temperature real quick, along with some high quality raw organic goat cheese to get it semi melted.  Stir everything and add the entire mixture to your sweet potato. Sprinkle a little pink salt & pepper to taste if you like. Piece of cake.

Above:  Basic Chicken Salad

I use the chicken cold from the fridge and put a big spoonful on my salads.  Takes me a few minutes to put this real food meal together. This one above is just basic baby romaine, some cherry tomatoes, chicken and a cilantro-jalapeno sprouted hummus dressing (I buy Majestic brand).

But Jon, hummus is thick?  Add water to it to get it to the “dressing consistency” you want.. it’s awesome, super fast ready-made trick salad dressing when I’m on the go!

Above:  Chicken Rice Bowl

Your basic rice bowl is a great idea to use with your orange chicken.  Above I have wild sprouted rice, chicken and broccoli.  The wild rice I like to use TruRoots brand and I turn it into my “golden rice”.  Super simple, cook the sprouted rice per the directions. At the end when it’s done, add a nice tablespoon or two of pastured organic ghee to the rice with some high quality pink salt. Make’s it all nice and sticky good.  I actually added some red palm oil to the rice picture above as well.. play around with it.  Coconut oil would be great too!  But in general, rice and ghee goes great together.

Workout of the Week: Total Body Fat Burning Circuit

Julian will take it away from here: Hey there everyone! I’m really excited to bring you this first workout of the week. For this first post, I wanted to focus on a full body fat burning circuit you can use, effectively hitting all body parts, and then down the road we’ll get into more body specific routines! The traditional approach to resistance training, which usually consists of doing one exercise or movement and resting in between each set, is impractical for most people. Not all of us are bodybuilders who have the time to hit the gym 6-7 times per week and spend over an hour training! For those of you who are busy, or simply want to get more bang for your buck when you hit the gym, incorporating tri-sets, quad-sets, and circuits into your routine is ideal. The following videos are great examples of total body quad-sets that can be used to maximize quality work and caloric expenditure. Doing more total work and using more muscle groups, as well as keeping the rest intervals relatively short, means burning a lot more calories and ultimately seeing faster results. Although one workout is demonstrated by a female and the other by a male, both can be performed by males and females. Quick note too, by giving these workout ideas a try, we are assuming that you have proper exercise technique and have been medically cleared for exercise if you have a medical condition or other limitation.

Beginner 1

Perform each exercise for 25 seconds, without resting in between exercises.  Rest 90 seconds in between each circuit. Do a total of 4 circuits!

Beginner 2

Perform each exercise for 25 seconds, without resting in between exercises.  Rest 90 seconds in between each circuit. Do a total of 4 circuits!

Intermediate 1

Perform each exercise for 25 seconds, without resting in between exercises.  Rest 75 seconds in between each circuit. Do a total of 5 circuits!

Intermediate 2

Perform each exercise for 25 seconds, without resting in between exercises.  Rest 75 seconds in between each circuit. Do a total of 5 circuits!

Advanced 1

Perform each exercise for 25 seconds, without resting in between exercises.  Rest 60 seconds in between each circuit. Do a total of 6 circuits!

Advanced 2

Perform each exercise for 25 seconds, without resting in between exercises.  Rest 60 seconds in between each circuit. Do a total of 6 circuits!