NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS FOR 2011
Nicola Gildersleeve – Ultramarathon Runner

No matter what, whenever a new year is about to begin, we feel the need to make some resolutions. Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually did everything we told ourselves to do throughout the year and never had any resolutions to make? Unfortunately for most (this includes me), this is not a reality and there are ALWAYS things we can do to make ourselves a little bit happier and healthier.

One of my own resolutions is to cook more at home. I really try hard to cook as much as possible but as athletes, we often find ourselves doing workouts that run late into the day. I am not always as prepared as I would like to be and I want to make an effort to have things premade so by the time we get home, we can be eating within 30 minutes. Of course, this takes a lot of planning and I just need to sit down at the beginning of the week and do it.

If your resolution in 2011 is to eat better, here are a few tips that can go a long way

1. Sit down at the beginning of the week and plan out your meals. By doing this, you can do one big grocery shop at the start of the week and have everything on hand. Then your not rushing to the store last minute (like everyone else), waiting in lines, and not eating dinner until 8-9 pm, or ordering something in.

2. On a weekend day, after you have done all your activities, cook some meals that you can leave in the freezer. Pull them out on weekdays when you know you are going to be tied up late at work or with training after hours.

3. Cook in mass quantities. I used to half all my recipes because there were only 2 of us at the table. I finally smartened up and now I keep all the extras for leftovers. There’s one meal I don’t even have to think about!

4. Make your lunch and snacks the night before. I always find myself rushing in the morning before work. Often, I don’t leave enough time to make my lunch and will grab something out. If it’s ready the night before, all I have to do is grab it out of the fridge and I am good to go. You can also try packing it while you are making dinner. If we have a salad with dinner, I just make it big and throw the rest of it in a container for lunch (with some left over chicken)!

5. Keep extra snacks in your purse, car, desk drawer and anywhere else you find yourself starving in the afternoon. This prevents you from hitting up the vending machine or the corner store for something that will not be as nutritious. Elevate Me bars have saved me on more than a few handfuls of occasions!

Here is to a happy and healthy 2011.

Nicola Gildersleeve

My boyfriend has been climbing for almost 17 years and naturally he has taken me out a few times. I have to admit, I have a fear of falling and this used to be a real problem in the beginning. To take this admittance even further, I found myself in a state of panic on the rock a few times. But then I learned a valuable lesson, a lesson that holds true in all facets of life. I learned to trust- the rope that is. I eventually realized through trial and error that when I let go of the rock (or fall), I didn’t go anywhere.

This break from training has allowed me the freedom to spend time climbing and I AM LOVING IT! It’s so different than running and works a completely whole new set of muscles in an entirely different way. I am starting to get pipes! I am feeling stronger than ever because when you run long distances like I do, you lose muscle in the process.

I can remember being a child and my dad would frequently take us camping and hiking in Squamish. Whenever we drove by the Chief, he would always point out the little people climbing on the rock. They looked so small on that giant piece of granite. Now I am one of them. It’s crazy! This summer, climbing has taken me to the Rockies, Revelstoke, Squamish, and even in my own backyard in the Lynn Valley Headwaters.

I will never stop running and I am the first to admit that. However, sometimes it’s nice to break away from the everyday routine of training and try something new. You learn more about yourself doing something new than you do doing the same thing over and over.

On that note, get out there and make it your goal to try something new in the remaining months left we have in 2010.

Note: All of my climbing endeavours have been powered by Elevate Me energy bars! When your climbing, you need to pack light! These high protein bars are as light as they come!

Nicola Gildersleeve
Athlete/Ambassador

We just signed on with Canadian Sports Centre Pacific so we will be working closely with hundreds of professional and Olympic caliber athletes to fuel their incredibly arduous training, with the Olympics here in a few months the timing is perfect. We’ve already sold tons of bars to the snowboarders, speedskaters, lugers, ski jumpers etc., Now we just need to share our bars with all the pro sports teams out there, once they try them they’re hooked, so that helps.

We’re offering some guerrilla freebies away so let’s start now: the first 3 people to email me at info@prosnack.com and mention the codephrase “Flumoxed by Calamity” will get a free mix box sent in the mail, no strings…offer good now until Aug 7th 2009….keep on enjoying the ridiculous summer heat.

in GOOD health,
Earl Ellingson
Chief ELEVATE ME! Officer

We didn’t want to be just another bar so we chopped each one into 3 bite size chunks. We’d make a batch, drive them in our 1979 Toyota Corona to the wrong side of town to package, then cold-call the stores.

After a few months we had like 20 stores and we were ready to rock so we got a business plan together, borrowed some cash from the bank and once that check cleared we promptly quit our corporate jobs to focus on the biz.

So we basically had enough money to last 6 months. That’s pressure but it worked and we had almost 100 stores by mid 2003 and it slowly grew and evolved from there: Apartment to nightly rental of catering kitchen to tiny garage factory to 1 employee to 2 employees to 5 employees to second leased space to 10 employees and now we make about a million Elevate Me’s a year in 7 flavors.

Are we rich? No.

Do we work our own hours? No. We work whenever the company needs us to get something done. Such as now, it’s 9pm on a Thursday and I’m sitting on the patio typing under the moon.

Is it worth it? Hell yes, so far so good.

I’m Earl the co-owner and co-founder with my wife Trish who wants nothing to do with writing about herself, so you’re stuck with me.

Since this is blog 1 I guess I’ll talk about the genesis of our little protein/energy bar project. We started this little company as all good little companies start, either in someone’s parent’s garage, basement or studio apartment. Since we moved around back in the early 2000’s all of those apply. As college students we were living off student loans and my mom would occasionally fire us some of her little creations, called Power Balls (disclaimer: nothing to do with Powerbar). They were ugly little things wrapped in saran wrap but did they ever fill the gut in a hurry and keep the flow going for dubious studying, so we inhaled them.

Fast forward to 2002 through school, a couple corporate gigs in the real 9-5 world and we sit down for a heart to heart about what the hell we’re really going to do to make a living. Our memories tweak back to those powerballs and we start thinking of health foods as a career: They are nutritious, portable and travel well, how can it lose?

And wouldn’t it be fun to own our own company, be our own bosses and work only when we feel like it? Yeah!