Wellness Habits with Yelle and Saucin with Austin

Welcome back everyone to another great Wednesday with Yelle and Frizz! We can not thank you enough for all the feedback, reactions, and responses on last week’s post. It is truly amazing seeing the support. We love hearing your thoughts, so keep them coming!

Wherever you are reading this post, we hope you are having a great day!

To get this week’s newsletter started… here is what you will be expecting to read:

Chapter 1: Yelle’s Benefits of running with a group.

Chapter 2: Saucin the Austin!

Now Let’s get into it!

Chapter 1:

I have been running for most of my life. I have always enjoyed it, and have been relatively good at it. In middle school, I competed in cross country. At the end of the year there was a meet for all the top middle school Illinois runners. My 7th grade year, I placed first amongst all the top runners.

However, after 8th grade I stopped running cross country due to hockey. Though I stopped competitively, I sure did not stop lacing up my shoes and running leisurely.

Since, I have been running for both leisure and a way to stay in shape. Most of the times I run alone… until recent. Last summer, the guys and I signed up to run in Grandma’s marathon in Duluth, Minnesota. The marathon is this June… so we all have been ramping up our training.

Specifically, over the last month, we have been doing these group runs for content creation. This has really been my first time consistently running in a group setting… and I have noticed, learned, and felt a lot.

This week I wanted to write about the benefits I have noticed of running with a group.

It does not take much self examining to notice that running makes you feel good and positively effects a lot of functions in your body - ultimately aiding your life.

For years I would run alone, and here are some of the countless benefits I experienced from that. To start, running helped relieve my stress and anxiety. This occurs, from the increased release of dopamine in the brain while running. With this rise of dopamine in the brain experienced while running - other psychological effects are attained. Some of the more prominent ones I felt include, a heightened sense of achievement, satisfaction, confidence, mood increased, and much more. Side note, running is a great exercise to safeguard the brain. Running has been linked to helping protect nerve cells from being damage.

All these benefits I experienced while running alone were great. However, often it gets boring after running further distances. More so, whenever I ran alone I was not as motivated, or accountable to my running regime or pace… often I would just go whenever I felt like it.

That said, recently I have been running in a group setting. Shortly thereafter, I noticed that running in a group setting was a lot more fun, more rewarding, engaging, motivating, and encouraging while simultaneously possessing the same benefits and psychological effects listed above.

What I have noticed when running with a group is that I am more happy before, during, and after the run. Research shows that people are happier while they are experiencing social connections. When you marry running and social connections together - it breeds happiness. I also noticed, that you feel much more motivated to push yourself and keep up with the pack. Often, when I would run alone I would either get bored or slowly start to slip my pace. However, running in a group plays a huge effect on motivation.

Since the group I have been running/training for this upcoming marathon happens to be my friends/co-workers… it has made us that much closer since we are all working towards completing the race.

One of the more low key reasons that I have thoroughly enjoyed running with a group, is that it has given me more opportunities to run in different locations. Often, when I would run alone I would run the same, or similar routes every time. Now, it has been cool to run with people through different locations. The exploring factor has brought an unknown element to where we will be running next.

Lastly, running helps foster creativity through chemical activations in the brain. When you run with other people creative conversations begin to be unlocked. Since we have been running with our ‘’office’’ a lot of cool ideas, creative directions, and roadblock fixes have been fostered out of these runs.

You can learn a lot about yourself, mind, body, limits, beliefs, and barriers while running.

I encourage to grab some friends and go out in the stillness of nature and exploring new places.

Chapter 2:

Welcome back to this week Saucin With Austin! This week’s recipe is a spicy grilled chicken avocado taco!

These recipes range from snacks, appetizers, or main courses from all cooking styles. I will keep them basic and straightforward to avoid confusion. Most of these recipes are for single or double portions. If cooking for a larger group, double the ingredients. Now let’s get cooking!

This recipe came to me after coming back from NYC. I hadn’t had time to hit the grocery store yet, so I dug around the freezer and found some chicken thighs. Then into the pantry, for some corn tortillas that were still fresh. Fast forward one day of thawing the chicken, and here we are, ready to get to work!

For this recipe, you will need chicken thighs, taco sized tortillas, fresh lime or juice, avocado, white onion, pickled jalapeños, plain yogurt, pantry spices and cheese!

We will start this Tacoerfic dish by marinading the chicken. I like to do this minimum one hour before cooking, but the longer the better. In a mixing bowl, add 3 tablespoons of the plain yogurt, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, one tablespoon of lime juice, two tablespoons of the jalapeños juice from the jar, could use a taco seasoning packet or a mix of garlic powder, cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper, generous amount of salt. Mix well and pour over the chicken thighs making sure every area is covered. Store in the fridge until ready to cook.

Either on a grill or a pan with light oil. Get the temperature of the cooking surface very hot. Place the chicken thighs straight out of the marinade on to the cooking surface. Let them cook for a few minutes. Giving them a chance to char up a little bit, then flip. Once those are cooked, set aside to rest.

It’s topping time! Dice up about a quarter or half a white onion into small pieces. As well, the avocado. Smash the avocado into a bowl. Add lime juice, Tblsp of sourcream, garlic powder, lots of salt&pep and the onion. Im not quite calling it a guacamole, but its pretty close!

Right before building your taco. Place the tortillas on the same cooking surface as the chicken to heat them up. Next you will slice the chicken into smaller strips and place onto the tortilla. Add the avocado (bootleg guac) mixture, cheese, jalapeños over the top. If you want to really up your presentation game. Add drops of siracha to the top of the Jalapeños. Now it is finally time to take that snapchat/ Instagram story to show off your hard work! Oh and of course, dive into the food 🤣

I hope you enjoyed this week’s recipe! Feel free to reach out to my Instagram @austinfriesen if you have any questions or recipes you’d like to see!

Stay Saucy everyone 👊🏼