How to lose fat fast

Health Food Can Also Make You Fat

2015-07-07T07:24:00.002-07:00

My client Jackie was a “health nut.” She shopped only in the health food store and bought organic foods. She ate a vegetarian diet, took loads of vitamins, and preached (to anyone who would listen) about the virtues of eating “pure and healthy.” Yet, at thirty-four years old she was 55 pounds overweight. Jackie ate plenty of “health foods.”
The problem was that she ate them to excess. Many foods give the appearance of being healthy, but actually pack in quite a few calories, fats, and carbohydrates— just stroll down the aisle at Whole Foods or Wild Oats, and really examine some of the food labels. You may be a little surprised by what you discover. For Jackie, the calories added up, and the pounds followed. When she came to me, she didn’t want to hear about any of that “mumbo-jumbo behavior stuff.” She was a perfect example of someone who had detached herself emotionally from her eating problems. Looking at her behavior was still too painful! Instead, she insisted that weight control was only about food and blamed her extra pounds on a slow metabolism and 12-hour shifts at the hospital where she worked. Jackie constantly citied studies from the latest news headlines: “nuts are healthy”; “a recent study shows that eating a slice of pizza once per day can lower your risk of certain cancers”; “chocolate may ward off heart disease”— and the list goes on. In reality, however, she was simply eating too much of the “right” foods, and some of the “wrong” foods as well. She used olive oil to stir-fry her foods, but the food was swimming in oil. Yes, there have been studies to show that some of the foods she was eating have health benefits, but they still have calories. To Jackie, however, reading that a slice of pizza once a day can lower the risk of certain cancers affirmed her desire to have a slice— and not once in a while, but every day.
We solved Jackie’s eating problem by making her aware that eating natural or healthy foods doesn’t necessarily help you lose weight. People often confuse eating “health foods”— foods”— with eating healthily in order to lose weight and be healthy. When I showed Jackie the following information about some of the “healthy” foods she was eating excessively, she was finally able to understand that she was eating well— but eating too well.

Health Food Can Also Make You Fat

Rice Cakes
Believe it or not, these are still very popular among dieters. Their taste has improved over the years, but to me rice cakes are still the closest thing to flavored cardboard with calories. The food label of Hain’s Honey Nut Rice Cakes says that 1 cake is 50 calories, 0g fat, and 11g carbs— but how many of them do we really eat? Don’t get me wrong— if you compare rice cakes to a bag of potato chips, they’re definitely better. The problem is that rice cakes are not nutrient dense, which means you don’t get a lot, nutritionally-speaking, for your consumption, and you will most likely remain hungry.

Quaker Nacho Cheese Crispy Mini’s (9 mini cakes): 70 calories, 2.5g fat, 11g carbs
Quaker Chocolate Crunch Rice Cakes (1 cake): 60 calories, 1g fat, 12g carbs
Lundberg Nutra-Farmed Brown Rice Cake (1 cake): 70 calories, 0g fat, 15g carbs
Lundberg Nutra-Farmed Buttery Caramel Rice Cake (1 cake): 80 calories, 0.5g fat, 18g carbs

Frozen Yogurt
Yogurt has gained a reputation for being a healthy food for a variety of reasons, including improved digestion, prevention of intestinal infection, and reinforcement of immune function. But, regardless of the truth of these claims, we can’t ignore the fact that frozen yogurt still contains calories and quite a lot of sugar. And since many of us eat way too many calories as it is, any potential benefits from eating too much yogurt may be negated by the increased health risk of being overweight. In fact, frozen yogurt, which is typically on a dieter’s shopping list, may not have the same health benefits as regular yogurt, and in terms of calories, it is often closer to ice cream than yogurt. Nonfat frozen yogurt might seem like a blessing, but just because it doesn’t have fat doesn’t mean it’s calorie-free. Nonfat frozen yogurt can still contain plenty of calories and carbohydrates. When manufacturers cut fat in a product, they need to come up with some way to keep the flavor, which often means adding additional sugar. Check the labels on low fat products in your supermarket, and you’ll notice the trend.

Haagen-Dazs Strawberry Cheesecake Frozen Yogurt (1 cup): 460 calories, 12g fat, 72g carbs
Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked Frozen Yogurt (1 cup): 420 calories, 7g fat, 78g carbs (a bit better than their Half Baked Ice Cream counterpart which has 560 calories, 28g fat, 68g carbs per cup)
Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie Low Fat Frozen Yogurt (1 cup): 380 calories, 5g fat, 72g carbs
Edy’s Heath Toffee Crunch Frozen Yogurt (1 cup): 240 calories, 8g fat, 36g carbs Also, keep an eye on yogurt-covered snacks; some varieties are more like candies in disguise!
1 cup yogurt peanuts: 921 calories, 63g fat, 72g carbs • 1 cup yogurt covered raisins: 750 calories, 22 g fat, 139g carbs
1 cup yogurt covered pretzels: 391 calories, 14 g fat, 61g carbs

Veggie Chips
Amazingly, some of these snacks taste great— even better than the some of the so-called fattening ones— but there’s a reason why. Most of the time you may save a few calories or fat grams, but in the long run, you may end up eating foods you would never normally eat at all. For instance, I really like Stacy’s Simply Naked Baked Pita Chips, which are just slightly lower in calories and fat than potato chips. However, I would never eat potato chips in the first place, and with these, I find myself eating at least half the bag— about 390 calories, 12g fat, and 54g carbs. That’s the equivalent of eating 3 bananas or 5 apples— but at least with the fruit, you get some real health benefits, and also feel more satisfied. Then there are those Terra Chips. They look so healthy, packaged beautifully, and again, they are lower in calories than potato chips, but are they REALLY good for you? Just 1 ounce contains 140 calories, 7g fat, and 18g carbs— but have you ever heard that advertisement, “Bet you can’t eat just one? “ It may not be for Terra Chips, but the advertisement still hits the nail on the head.

Good Health Veggie Stix (3 oz): 420 calories, 21g fat, 54g carbs
Pirate’s Booty (3 oz): 384 calories, 15g fat, 54g carbs
Kettle Five Grain Yellow Corn Tortilla Chips (3 oz): 420 calories, 18g fat, 54g carbs
Kettle Organic Sweet Brown Rice & Black Bean Tortilla Chips (3 oz): 360 calories, 18g fat, 48g carbs

The Food Audit: A Three-Day Challenge

2015-06-28T15:23:00.002-07:00

The Food Audit: A Three-Day Challenge
Simply by eating one extra tablespoon of mayonnaise each day you will end up gaining about 10 pounds in a year— and the reverse is also true. Just by cutting out one tablespoon of mayonnaise, you can lose 10 pounds in a year.

Even your smallest food choices matter more than you might ever have thought.
Therefore, the first thing you need to do to create a livable diet is to accept my Three-Day Food Challenge. I challenge you to take a good hard look at what you eat every day for three full days. The goal: to audit your food choices by keeping track of what you normally eat. Doing that is how you will discover the clues that will allow you to start creating a diet that works. I highly recommend that you write everything down in the notebook I’ve asked you to get, but if you’re not willing to do that (or you don’t have your notebook with you) just write on a scrap of paper, or even on the palm of your hand if you have to. Just write it down. I suspect you’ve probably been asked to keep a food diary before, and the very idea of it may be a real turn-off, but this is just for three days, and the pay-off will be worth any inconvenience, I assure you.

The Food Audit A Three-Day Challenge

I realize, however, that not everyone will be willing to do that. So if you’re really opposed to doing my Three-Day Challenge, writing everything down, either because you want to start implementing changes right now, or because you simply don’t think you need to, well that’s okay (at least for now). In that case, do the Alternative Three-Day Challenge: Try writing down everything you ate in the past three days from memory. (Keep in mind, however, that people typically underreport what they eat by about 50%, so overestimate your portions sizes by about that amount; more on this later.) Either way, you can use the sample food diary and instructions in Appendix A to help you get started.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
The New York Times has reported that a writer named Tucker Shaw has been photographing every single thing that he eats. He labels the photos with the date, time, place, and food. He’s doing it to create an historical record, but what a great idea as a way to keep a three-day food diary. If you don’t want to write it down, use a small digital camera (or even a disposable camera) to take photos of every single thing you eat for three days. Make sure to put down the date, time, place, food, and mood.

The problem with trying to keep a mental list is that your mind can play tricks on you, and you might just “forget” the little snacks you grabbed on the run, the candy you took off your office mate’s desk, or whatever else it might be that you really didn’t want to remember. And writing things down will also give you a permanent record to consult when you begin the negotiating process.
Also, keep in mind that while you’re taking either Challenge, you don’t change your eating habits just yet; all you should be doing is becoming aware and keeping track of them. If you start to change what you eat just because you’re “noticing” it, you won’t be creating a realistic starting point.

Creating A Livable Eating Program

2015-06-25T08:12:00.000-07:00

The most important factor to consider when you begin to think about creating a livable diet is accommodating your own individual food preferences and your personality when it comes to food. If you don’t do that, you’ll be feeling deprived, you’ll be suffering, and you won’t stick to the diet you’ve chosen because it won’t be satisfying. In fact, the Journal of Nutrition reports that taste is the single most important reason people choose the foods they do, and that this is also an important factor for regulating “hunger, satiety, and voluntary food intake.” That finding is supported by the work of Lisa Sanders, M.D., a researcher from Yale University who has determined that finding your own food preference is a key factor in satisfying hunger and the diet’s success.

Creating A Livable Eating Program

As we’ve previously discussed, most diet programs are prescriptive; they ask you to follow their program, which works great in the short term. But once you get tired of their program, you go back to your program. And your program of choosing what, when, and how much to eat doesn’t work. So what you’re going to do is come up with food choices that are acceptable to you, that you think you can live with. It’s going to be a negotiation process, but unlike most bargaining situations, you will not be negotiating with another person but with yourself.

Here’s an illustration of how you’ll be negotiating with yourself and still remain within your comfort zone.

Confidence and self-esteem

2015-06-20T07:49:00.001-07:00

Self-esteem is a key indicator of psychological wellbeing. People with high self-esteem tend to have high life satisfaction, resilience and greater achievement in education and work. On the other hand low self-esteem tends to be associated with mental illness, anxiety and hopelessness. Self-esteem can be defined as the sum of a person’s perceptions of their competence in several areas of their life; for example, academic, emotional, social and physical. Of these areas the physical aspect of self-esteem (i.e. one’s competence regarding stamina, strength, sport ability and body attractiveness) has been shown to have a strong influence on overall self-esteem.

Physical activity is a behaviour which has a strong influence on physical self-esteem and a smaller but significant influence on overall self-esteem. Studies have found that people who participate in physical activity typically have greater physical and overall self-esteem. This relationship has been found in children, adolescents, young adults, adults and older people, and across both males and females.
A review of 113 physical activity studies found three factors that influenced how much impact physical activity interventions have on a person’s self-esteem. The greatest gains in self-esteem occurred for people who initially had low self-esteem, those whose fitness increased during the intervention, and those who were active on more days per week. All types of physical activity were equally effective at increasing self-esteem. Overall the researchers concluded from their review that physical activity interventions which aim to increase self-esteem should include physical activity that is moderately demanding and lasts for 12 weeks or more.

As all types of physical activity have been found to be equally effective, people should choose a type of physical activity based on what they enjoy doing. Another important factor to consider when using physical activity to enhance self-esteem is that physical activity should provide opportunities to experience feelings of accomplishment. Physical activity goals should be set so that they are achievable and result in feelings of success. For this to be achieved the duration, type, intensity and frequency of physical activity in any programme should be set in relation to an individual’s physical fitness and previous physical activity experience.

Confidence and self-esteem

Dementia and cognitive decline in older people:
Increasing life expectancy and a growing population of people aged over 65 has led to an increase in the number of people living with dementia and cognitive decline. Dementia affects some 800,000 people in the UK, and the number of people with the condition is steadily increasing because people are living longer. It is estimated that by 2020, the number of people with dementia in the UK will have increased to around one million. With no known cure, ways to improve the lives of those living with the condition are vital.
The main symptom of dementia is memory loss; it is a progressive disease which results in people becoming more impaired over time. Decline in cognitive functions such as attention and concentration also occurs in older people, including those who do not go on to develop dementia.
Physical activity can protect people against developing dementia and for people who have already developed the disease can delay further declines in functioning.
Studies show that adults participating in daily physical activity have a 20-30% lower risk for dementia. Physical activity also seems to reduce the likelihood of experiencing cognitive decline in people who do not go on to develop dementia.

Exercise throughout a person’s life plays a significant role in reducing the risk of developing dementia, a study spanning 35 years has found. The Cardiff University study, which began with 2,235 men from Caerphilly in 1979, found factors including diet and not smoking had an impact on preventing illnesses developing in older age. However, exercise had the single biggest influence on dementia levels. People in the study who fulfilled four of these factors had a 60% decrease in dementia and cognitive decline rates, with exercise named as the strongest mitigating factor. The study was funded by the Medical Research Council, the Alzheimer’s Society and the British Heart Foundation.

What is Anxiety?

2015-06-20T07:28:00.004-07:00

Anxiety
As with depression, anxiety symptoms can vary from mild to severe. Feeling anxious is sometimes perfectly normal. However, people with generalised anxiety disorder find it hard to control their worries; their feelings of anxiety are more constant and often affect their daily life. Generalised anxiety disorder affects at least 5% of adults in the UK. Other conditions where anxiety is the main symptom include panic disorder, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder. Anxiety often occurs alongside depression, i.e. people often experience both problems at the same time. Treatments for anxiety include anxiolytic medication and psychological therapy. Limitations to the use of medication and psychological therapy in the treatment of anxiety are similar to the limitations to their use to treat depression.

Also similar to the treatment of depression, there is mounting evidence that physical activity is beneficial as a treatment for people with both mild and severe (clinical) anxiety. A review of 19 studies, which had investigated the effect of physical activity on healthy adults, found that increasing physical activity in this group resulted in reduced anxiety. Further analyses of these studies revealed that interventions were most effective when: participants engaged in moderate or high-intensity physical activity; physical activity was supervised; the intervention was delivered to individuals (rather than group-based); and when participants were encouraged to continue exercising at a fitness centre following the intervention (rather than at home).

What is Anxiety?

Less is known about the effect of exercise on specific severe types of anxiety, such as panic attacks, social anxiety disorder, generalised anxiety disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder. However, data do show there are lower rates of clinical anxiety amongst people who are active than people who are not and intervention studies have shown exercise holds promise for reducing symptoms of clinical anxiety. For example, one study compared patients with various types of clinical anxiety who were randomly assigned to CBT plus home-based walking, or CBT plus additional education sessions. Patients in the home-based walking group reported significantly greater reductions in anxiety, depression and stress following treatment compared to those receiving CBT without exercise. Several other small-scale studies have focused on a particular type of anxiety (e.g. panic disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder) and shown positive effects for exercise in reducing anxiety symptoms in these groups of patients.

Effects on brain chemistry

2015-06-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

We all know that exercise is good for us and can improve our health and make us feel better, yet most of us don’t actually know why. The main reason is that exercise makes our brain function at its best. Physical activity is crucial to the way we think and feel, and plays a significant role in regulating and improving our neurotransmitters and bolstering our brain’s infrastructure. The brain responds like most muscles do by growing with use and withering with inactivity. The neurons in the brain connect to each other like leaves on branches, and exercise causes those branches to grow and bloom with new buds, thus enhancing and improving our brain function.
The brain is, of course, very complex and much of what goes on is still not really understood. However, it is know that many of our thoughts, behaviours and emotions are controlled by chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters and four key neurotransmitters are:
Serotonin – is responsible for mood, anxiousness, self-esteem and impulsive and compulsive behaviour.

Beta-endorphin – is responsible for modulating emotional and physical pain. It contributes to feelings of self-esteem, euphoria and emotional confidence.

Norepinephrine – affects arousal, alertness, attention and mood.

Dopamine – is vital to movement, attention, cognition, motivation and pleasure (and addiction).

Effects on brain chemistry

Ideally, we would all have regulated and optimal levels of these neurotransmitters so we feel happy, well balanced and confident, and our thoughts, behaviours and emotions are how we would like them to be and regarded as ‘normal’. However, for many people this is not the case and their neurotransmitters are lower than optimal and poorly regulated, leading to a range of emotional and mental health issues which also affect physical health.
Exercise and physical activity is a fantastic way of helping to elevate and regulate these chemicals and make us happier, more alert, less stressed, less anxious, more balanced, less reactive, etc. Our brain will respond very quickly to exercise and positive results and outcomes can be seen immediately, as well as continued and sustained benefits. Our brain is so important and should be given the respect and attention that is necessary, and the good news is that exercise can be incredibly effective for our brain and therefore for our overall health and wellbeing. Do not underestimate what exercise can do for your brain!
‘Exercise is a wonder drug that hasn’t been bottled.’
Improved learning, memory and cognitive behaviour
Exercise increases the level of brain chemicals called growth factors, which help make new brain cells and establish new connections between brain cells to help us learn and improve our memory. Interestingly, complicated activities like playing tennis or taking a dance class provide the biggest brain boost, as you are challenging your brain even more when you have to think about coordination. Like muscles, you have to stress your brain cells to get them to be more active and to grow.

Complicated activities also improve our capacity to learn by enhancing our attention and concentration skills, according to German researchers who found that high-school students scored better on high-attention tasks after doing 10 minutes of a complicated fitness routine compared to those doing 10 minutes of regular activity, and those who hadn’t exercised at all scored the worst.

The benefits of exercise come directly from its ability to reduce insulin resistance, reduce inflammation, and stimulate the release of the growth factors mentioned, which are chemicals in the brain that affect the health of brain cells, the growth of new blood vessels in the brain, and even the abundance and survival of new brain cells. Researchers also found that regular aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart and your sweat glands pumping, appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning.

Exercise helps memory and thinking through indirect means, too, as physical activity can improve mood and sleep, and reduce stress and anxiety; problems in these areas frequently cause or contribute to cognitive impairment. So if you want to improve your alertness, learning ability and memory and reduce your risk of cognitive decline and potentially associated conditions like dementia then be more active, because this exercises the brain as well as the body.

Create a “Livable” Diet “

2015-06-19T08:42:00.003-07:00

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” —Vincent Van Gogh If you’re like most of my clients you’re ready for some hard-core, practical advice on what you can do right now to start dropping pounds. Or, if you’ve already lost the weight, you want information and strategies that will keep you in the game for the rest of your life. Not every one of the tools I’ll be offering will work for every one of you, but you don’t need all of them. You need to find the ones that do work for you because, as I’ve been saying, this will be your own personalized livable diet, not a prescription to be followed blindly, whether it makes sense to you or not. Some of what I’m about to show you may also seem obvious or sound like nothing more than common sense– and to some it may be both. But I’ve found that, for almost all my clients, understanding how to create a Livable Diet is not common sense— it may make sense, but it’s not common sense. There is a world of difference.

Create a “Livable” Diet “

So what is a Livable Diet? Simply put, it’s a diet you can live with for the rest of your life. Still not sure? Let me ask you a quick question: How long can you hold your breath? If you’re good, maybe 30 or 40 seconds. So, yes, you can do it, but only for a very short period of time. Well, that’s how most people diet— they can do it for a bit, but they can’t keep holding their breath forever. What they can do, however, is create their own, individual, automatic, livable diet— and so can you. In fact, it’s the only thing that can work long term. It worked for me, it’s worked for thousands of my clients, and it’s supported by countless scientific studies.

In the Independent, a London-based newspaper, Dr. Jane Ogden, a professor of health psychology at King’s College London, identified three reasons why most diets are not successful: “confusion about what ‘cutting down’ actually means for everyday eating; the fact that the minute you deny yourself something you become fixated on that object; and the fact that most diets equal eating boring, ‘untasty food.’” Therefore, you need to find out what it means to “cut down” and discover “tasty foods” that are low in calories. If you can do those two simple things, you’ll be on the road to creating a livable diet, and I’m going to show you how. Then, if you can gear up your physical activity (Step 6) even a small degree in order to speed up your metabolism and increase your calorie spending, you’ll have acquired many of the “food and fitness” tools you need to lose and/ or maintain your weight without changing everything else in your life.

Obesity becoming normalised in society

2015-06-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, the number of people who are overweight and obese continues to increase, with the latest figures showing that approximately two-thirds of people in the UK are overweight and approximately a quarter are considered to be obese. Every year more people will become heavier than their ‘healthy’ weight and the gap between the ‘healthy’ weight and the average weight continues to grow wider. Apart from all the issues associated with being overweight, another factor that contributes to people being overweight is that it becomes more ‘normal’ and is seen more commonly. This has an impact because many will see being overweight as nothing unusual, and as a consequence they will often see it as less of an issue.

Obesity becoming normalised in society

There is no question that if you go out into any town centre on any day of the week you will see far more ‘overweight’ and ‘obese’ people than you would have done say twenty years ago. If more and more people are overweight then it becomes more accepted in society and effectively normalised, and there is little incentive to manage your weight and make the effort to be at a healthy weight. And as long as the rates continue to grow and more people are overweight then the likelihood is that this will only help to increase these rates further.

Of course, there are many factors as to why people are overweight and in order to try and reduce these numbers and stop the growing trend there needs to be plenty of help. However, in a society where people naturally compare themselves to others it becomes even harder to reduce rates when so many people are visibly overweight. People are more likely to make an effort and reduce their weight if they are encouraged, motivated, incentivised and educated on the wide range of health benefits, but if they see all around them a growing trend of people being overweight and obesity rates growing then it becomes much harder.

The Muscle Cook’s Top 10 Most Anabolicious Recipes

2015-06-12T09:13:00.002-07:00

Want more info about Anabolic Cooking?
DAVE’S ANABOLIC BLUEBERR Y OATMEAL
Makes 1 serving
Ingredients

• ¾ cup oatmeal
• 8 egg whites
• ½ scoop chocolate protein powder
• 2 tsp pure cocoa powder
• ½ tsp stevia
• 1 tbsp flax oil
• 1 cup frozen blueberries
• ¼ cup water

Directions

1. In a big bowl, mix all the ingredients (except for the frozen blueberries)
2. Cook in a microwave for about 3-4 minutes (cooking time vary from one microwave to another) - stir the mix 2 minutes after cooking has started (so the mix doesn’t stick or create chunks)
3. Once the mix is cooked, add the frozen blueberries, mix everything and enjoy!

APPLE & CINN A MON MUFFINS

Makes 1 serving - 3 big muffins
Ingredients

¾ cup oatmeal
¼ cup oat bran
1 tbsp whole wheat flour
6 egg whites
½ scoop vanilla protein powder
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp stevia
1 tbsp flax oil
1 diced apple
2 tbsp unsweetened apple sauce
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a blender, mix all the ingredients (except for the diced apple). Blend until the mix gets thick.
2. Add the diced apple and stir (with a spoon or a spatula)
3. Pour the mix into a muffin cooking pan, and cook at 350°F. until cooked (about 30 minutes).

Quick Tip:
You can cook a big batch and freeze the muffins.Then just microwave the muffins when needed...

DAVE’S FAMOUS TURKEY M EAT LOAF
Makes 6 servings
Ingredients

2 lbs ground turkey
1 tsp olive oil
1 diced onion
1 tsp garlic (optional)
⅓ cup dried tomatoes
1 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
1 whole egg
½ cup parsley
¼ cup low fat parmesan
¼ cup skim milk
Salt and pepper
1 tsp oregano

Directions
1. Cook the onion with olive oil separately
2. Mix everything together in a big bowl, add the cooked onions
3. Put the mix in a big baking pan
4. Bake at 375-400°F for about 30 minutes

BAKED CRISPY CHICKEN N UGGETS
Makes 6 servings
Ingredients

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts weighing about 6oz. each
¼ cup/60ml oat bran
¼ cup/60ml wheat germ
1 tbsp/15ml coarsely ground flaxseed
¼ cup/60ml coarsely ground almonds
½ tsp/2½ml sea salt
½ tsp/2½ml white pepper
Pinch garlic powder
½ cup/120ml water or low-sodium chicken broth
1 large egg white, lightly beaten

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Prepare baking sheet by lining with parchment paper or coating lightly with best-quality olive oil.
2. Cut chicken breasts into nugget-sized pieces, about 1.5 inches square. Set aside.
3. Next, combine all dry ingredients in a large container with a tightly fitting lid. Shake well. This is your coating mixture.
4. Combine water and egg in a medium bowl. Dip each piece in the water/egg-white mixture. Then dip each piece in the coating mixture. Make sure each piece is well coated.
5. Place on the baking sheet. When all of your chicken has been coated and your baking sheet is full, place in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden.

THE MUSCLE C OOK’S CHILI
Makes 9 cups
Ingredients

1.5 lbs ground buffalo (Bison) or extra Lean ground beef
1 diced onion
1 diced green pepper
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp Turmeric
1 tsp oregano
2 cans (15oz/can) black beans
2 cans (15oz/can) diced tomatoes (with juice)
1 can (14oz) low sodium Beef broth
¼ tsp salt/1 tsp pepper

Directions
1. In a pan, cook the Buffalo, green pepper, onion, garlic for 5-6 minutes, until it is almost cooked
2. Transfer everything in a big casserole. Add chili powder, turmeric, oregano, beans, tomatoes, broth, salt and pepper
3. Make it boil
4. Reduce intensity and stir for 20 minutes until it reaches wanted thickness for 2 additional minutes.

Muscle Cook’s

INTRODUCING ANABOLIC COOKING:THE COOKBOOK

More than 200 “Anabolicious” recipes: All full of flavour, designed to promote muscle building and fat loss, and that you can prepare in minutes - in fact recipes so easy to make even a 10 year old can do it!

“Done-For-You” meal plans: I will tell you what to eat, when to eat, and how to prepare all your meals, with the complete shopping list and full stepby- step directions. All supported by my Best Nutrient Timing Strategies.

Anabolic Cooking and Nutrition Fundamentals: Everything that a person involved in bodybuilding or fitness MUST know about nutrition. You will know exactly what’s in the food you are eating!

A Virtual Cooking Class: Learn how to read a recipe, the different cutting techniques and cooking methods, completed with the Anabolic Cooking Glossary. All you need to know to get started cooking will be covered from A to Z!

How to prepare ALL your meals for the week in less than 3 hours

My Best Post-Workout nutrition secrets and tactics: Optimize your results as well as my best Post-Workout Shake recipes!

Money Saving Tips: Stop wasting your money! Learn all my tips and tricks about smart grocery shopping. I’m going to show you how to fit the food you need into your budget, and demonstrate that eating the right food is in reality way cheaper than pre-packaged meals and take out.

How to build your Anabolic Cooking Kitchen on a budget: All the tools you will need to prepare your meals and become the best cook in the family!

How to manage your cheat meals: My action plan for when you are eating out.

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Diets – fads and fiction

2015-06-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

Each year millions of people will attempt a ‘diet’ with the aim of losing weight and more often than not this is not successful, especially in the longer term. Why do diets not work? And if they do work for the short term, why do so many people

then end up putting the weight back on over a longer period? There are three main reasons why, typically, diets do not work. Firstly, in terms of nutritional value and health balance the diets are often not very good for sustained weight loss. Secondly, the underlying reasons for being overweight and poor eating habits are not addressed and thirdly, the motivation to stick to a disciplined diet does not continue for long.
Crash dieting, in which you hugely cut down how much you eat, is popular because it’s seen as a quick fix, but sadly there’s no such thing. Crash diets might help you to lose a few pounds at first, but they won’t help you to stay a healthy weight in the long run. Usually as soon as you stop restricting your calorie intake, you will put the weight straight back on again.
This happens because if you lose weight too quickly, you tend to lose a lot of lean body tissue – muscle – as well as fat. When this happens, your body starts to work more slowly, meaning that it needs fewer calories to function day to day. That’s why the weight piles back on so quickly once you go back to your usual eating habits; your body has adjusted to a lower calorie intake, so the extra calories are stored as fat. If you’re overweight and want to lose some, the trick is to set realistic goals. Aim to lose weight at a rate of about 0.5kg (1lb) per week.

Diets – fads and fiction

I’m not a fan of fad diets like the ‘cabbage soup diet’, the ‘maple syrup diet’, the ‘blood group diet’ – no sooner does one fad diet lose popularity than another one comes along, promising to help you lose weight through one method or another. A healthy, balanced diet is essential for good health and cutting out entire food groups, as stipulated in some diets, can be dangerous. No single food contains all the nutrients and fibre you need to stay healthy, so it’s important to eat a range of foods from the five main food groups.
If you’re trying to lose weight, rather than cut something out completely, try to eat less fat and sugar and replace them with more of other food groups, such as fruit and vegetables. Weight for weight, fat has more than twice the calories of carbohydrates and protein. Try to find low-fat alternatives to creamy sauces and buttery toppings, and choose cooking methods that keep the overall fat content low.
Also watch out for ‘reduced-fat’ foods. These may not be low in fat at all – a ‘reduced-fat’ product must just have a third less fat than the standard product, so it may still be high in fat (‘ 75 percent fat-free’ still means the food is a quarter fat). Alternatively, the product may contain lots of salt and sugar. Although diets such as the Atkins diet advocate cutting out fruit and vegetables, it’s important to aim to include at least five portions of these in your daily diet. Not only are fruit and vegetables rich in essential vitamins, minerals and fibre, but steamed, boiled or raw, they are both filling and low in calories.

Why are so many people overweight?

2015-06-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

It’s important to try and understand why so many people are overweight and why this is increasing in our society. There are of course many factors and some are more relevant than others but to tackle the issue, both individuals and society have to explore all the possible factors and see how best to address them in order to make a positive difference. The many factors include the following:

We eat too much
A very obvious reason why people are overweight is that they eat too much. There are many reasons as to why people eat too much, which really need to be looked at and understood.
In a very primitive way humans are wired to eat when they can and effectively store food in case of emergencies – mainly being whether we need energy available for certain physical activities or we may not have food available to us for some time. For hundreds of thousands of years this was very necessary for survival as humans developed and evolved. Our distant ancestors wouldn’t always have food sources available to them and could go days without eating much, so needed the reserves. Additionally they may have come under threat by animals or other humans and needed to have reserves of energy to run or fight for their survival or to go out and hunt animals for more food.

Why are so many people overweight?

So in this respect it makes a lot of sense that when food became available humans would look to take advantage and indulge themselves in as much food as possible, basically for their own survival. And this behaviour is pretty hard-wired into our brains and physiology since we don’t evolve as quickly as the developments we make as a human race in many forms.
In the modern, developed world it is very unlikely that we would not have access to food all the time if needed. How often have you been in a position in which you really didn’t know where your next meal might come from, or not have any access to food? Our lives are completely different now and we generally have 24-hour access to food sources, so we are never in a position where we could go one, two or more days without food. Additionally, we are no longer put in positions of danger where we need energy reserves in order to run away or fight for our survival. Energy reserves nowadays are really for optional physical activities we may choose to participate in.

So when we eat now we don’t need to indulge and eat more than necessary to build up reserves, yet our brain is still telling us to eat more just in case! It is important to understand this and to try to manage the brain’s instinctive nature. We have access to food at any time so we do not need to overeat and we should really be looking to eat just what is necessary for our modern lives, not our distant past ‘survival’ lives.

Now you could use this ‘brain wired’ reason for overeating as an excuse and think that this means it is not your fault and you can’t help it if your brain tells you to eat more than is needed. Well yes, you could go with that mentality but it will not benefit you! It is important to be in control of your food intake and you can manage your eating behaviours in this respect.

We eat the wrong food types
Another big reason why people are overweight is because of the type of foods they eat. In a similar way to the general notion that the brain is wired to eat more than it needs to, as explained in the previous section, our brain also craves more of the food types that are best for energy and energy reserve storage. These food types are more of the carbohydrates that generally contain the most calories and provide the most energy. So on the basis that we need energy and energy reserves to survive, our brain often targets and craves these far more than other food types.
Food types such as breads, cakes, sweets, chocolate, crisps, cereals, etc., are more likely to have that ‘pull’ effect on us as they provide the most calories and energy. However, we very rarely need this energy either in the present or as storage for the future so inevitably if we eat these foods we put on weight. So eating the wrong type of food can have a big effect on our weight as we don’t need to eat these food types, and combined with eating too much it is no real surprise that so many people are overweight nowadays.
If we are using the energy and burning the calories straight away, perhaps from doing an exhausting physical challenge, then those food types can be very beneficial as they provide an instant energy source and will be burnt off and not stored by the body. So it is wrong to say that these food types are necessarily bad or wrong for us, just that more often than not we do not burn the calories off. Additionally, they only really provide one key benefit, which is energy, and have very little other nutritional value or benefit to our .

10 Paleo Dinner Recipes

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Avocado Cucumber Salad Dressing
Ingredients

⅓ C olive oil
1 clove of minced garlic
¾ C fresh cilantro, chopped

Dressing:

2 avocados, cubed and pitted and peeled
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
¼ C lemon juice
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Directions
Blend olive oil and garlic together in a blender until completely pureed. Add the avocado, cilantro, lemon juice and cucumber and puree until smooth then season with salt and pepper to taste.

Greek Chicken Recipe
Ingredients

4 chicken thighs, skinless
4 cups water
2 bay leaves
1 ½ tbsp sweet paprika
3 tbsp olive oil
20 prunes, pitted
3 red onions, large, halved then sliced thin
1 tbsp salt
Ground pepper to taste

Directions
Add chicken to water and boil water to high heat. Reduce heat, simmer for 10 to 15 minutes then take out any foam that gathers on surface. Next, heat olive oil in a skillet over low heat. Add onions and cook until soft for ten minutes but do not let onions brown. Add chicken to onions along with 3 cup of cooking liquid then add prunes, paprika, salt, bay leaves and pepper. Let simmer until prunes are tender for 10 to 15 minutes.

10 Paleo Dinner Recipes

Grilled Shrimp
Ingredients

1 1/ 2lbs medium shrimp, deveined, peeled
1 tbsp garlic, minced
¼ c lemon juice
¼ c olive oil
Ground black pepper to taste
Crushed red pepper flakes to taste
3 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

Directions
In a large non-reactive bowl, mix garlic, olive oil and black pepper together. Add shrimp and toss the ingredients to coat it while adding the desired amount of red pepper flakes then put it in a bowl. Put bowl in fridge for 30 minutes to marinate. Preheat the grill to high heat and add shrimp to skewers. Lightly oil grill, grill shrimp for two minutes on each side until opaque.

Spicy Roasted Chicken
Ingredients

1 3 lb whole chicken
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp basil
¼ tsp oregano
¼ tsp ground black pepper
¼ tsp paprika
⅛ tsp cayenne pepper

Directions
Rinse the chicken thoroughly under cold water taking care to remove the access fat. Pat dry chicken with a paper towel.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Add chicken to a small pan then rub with olive oil. Add basil, oregano, salt, black pepper, paprika and cayenne pepper over chicken. Roast chicken for 20 minutes then lower heat to 400 degrees. Keep roasting until internal temperature is 165 F or 40 minutes longer. Let cool for 10-15 minutes.

Meatloaf
Ingredients

1 ½ lb beef
1 tbsp garlic seasoning
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 ½ tbsp chili powder
2 eggs 1 tbsp garlic salt
1 tbsp garlic pepper seasoning
1 can (4 oz) tomato sauce
⅓ c fried pork skins

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a larger bowl, mix ground beef and Worcestershire sauce, eggs, crushed pork skins and tomato sauce together. Then add garlic powder, chili powder and garlic seasoning. Blend evening and form a loaf, place on pan. Bake for 35-40, uncovered. Let stand ten minutes.

Grilled Fish
Ingredients

1 clove garlic, minced
6 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp chopped parsley
2 (6 oz) halibut fillets

Directions
In glass or stainless steel bowl, mix garlic, olive oil, salt, salt, pepper, parsley, lemon juice and basil. Put halibuts in resealable bag or glass bowel, pour mixture over fish, cover, place in fridge for one hour. Preheat grill on high, lightly oil grate and set it 4 inches from heat. Place fillets on grill for 5 minutes on each side or until easily flaked with fork.

Mushroom Salad
Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
4 leaves Boston Lettuce
1 lb white button mushrooms, halved or quartered
¾ finely chopped red bell pepper
½ fresh basil or mint
1 tsp lemon juice
¼ C pine nuts

Dressing:
2 tbsp olive oil Salt to taste 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar or lemon juice 1 crushed garlic clove
Directions
Preheat over at 400 degrees. In 1 pound olive oil and 1 tsp lemon juice, add mushroom then spread on baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Darin liquid, cool and then add mushrooms, pine nuts, basil or mint and red bell pepper. Mix dressing ingredients together, add to mushrooms mix. Place lettuce on 4 plates, serve mushroom over top of leaves.

Flat Iron Steak
ngredients

2 flat iron steaks, 8 oz
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp lemon pepper seasoning

Directions
Season steaks on both sides with lemon pepper, garlic and onion powder, wrap in plastic and marinate in fridge for one hour. Let steaks reduce to room temperature and preheat grill to medium heat.

Collard Greens
Ingredients

1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp pepper
3 slices bacon
3 c chicken broth
1 onion, chopped
1 pinch red pepper flakes
2 minced garlic cloves
1 tsp salt
1 lb collard greens, cut in 2 inches

Directions
On medium heat, cook bacon until crisp, remove bacon and set aside. Add onion and garlic, cook tender and fragrant. Add collards until cooked down. Pour chicken broth, season with salt, red pepper and pepper and simmer until green or for 45 minutes.

Grilled Zucchini
Ingredients

2 zucchinis, quartered
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 pinch salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1/ 2 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Directions
Preheat grill medium heat. Brush zucchini with oil, add garlic and Italian seasoning. Cook on preheat until brown then brush on vinegar then cook for an additional minute.

Paleo Chocolate Frosting
Ingredients

2 avocados, peeled, halved
2 tbsp coconut oil
½ tsp salt
½ C honey
½ C cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
Blend avocados, cocoa, honey, coconut oil, vanilla and salt in a food processor until smooth.

10 Paleo Lunch Recipes

2015-06-03T09:37:00.002-07:00

10 Paleo Lunch Recipes

A Paleo diet can be creative and delicious. Breaking out of the sandwich habit at lunch might seem difficult to maneuver. Truly, with a little creativity you'll find it not only easy, but you'll be inspired to be inventive and produce your own original lunch delights. Here are some lunch recipes to get you inspired.
For lunch salads, it's easy to make your own Paleo mayo.
Paleo Mayo
Instructions

2 eggs
2 cups light olive oil or walnut oil
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp yellow mustard
1 tsp sea salt
⅓ tsp cayenne pepper

Directions
Mix eggs, vinegar, and mustard in a blender or with a hand held mixer. While the blender/ mixer is running SLOWLY drizzle in the oil It will begin to thicken or emulsify. As it emulsifies, continue to add oil while continuing to mix.
Once the mayo has thickened to your desired consistency, add salt and cayenne pepper to taste. Mix again for another few seconds.
Variations
This one is perfect to vary to your tastes. Add fresh or dry dill, basil, cilantro, garlic, hot sauce, curry, and so on to enhance the flavor profile of any given dish.

10 Paleo Lunch Recipes

Fall Chicken Salad
Instructions

2 chopped fully cooked chicken breasts
2 chopped celery stalks
½ cup chopped pecans
½ cup dried cranberries
⅓ cup Paleo Mayo
1 tsp. poppy seeds
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp honey

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix.

Caper and Lemon Salmon Salad
Instructions

1 lb. salmon fillet Juice and zest from
1/ 2 lemon
2 T capers (drained and rinsed)
1 stalk chopped celery
1 tsp. fresh dill
Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Season salmon with salt and pepper and bake at 350 until opaque (5-10 minutes). Let cool and flake salmon. (It should flake easily)
Add remaining ingredients.

Thai Chicken Wraps
Instructions
Filling:

1 lb. grilled chicken breast (boneless skinless) - dice into ½ " cubes
4 thinly chopped Napa cabbages leaves
1 shredded carrot
1 cup chopped raw broccoli
3 thinly sliced green onions
12 Bibb or Romaine lettuce leaves Cilantro
¼ cup water
Thai Sauce
¼ cup almond butter
2 tbsp. coconut aminos (gives soy sauce flavor)
2 garlic cloves minced
2 tbsp lime juice

Directions
Once the chicken is grilled and cut up combine the remaining ingredients except for the lettuce leaves. Spoon into chicken mixture into the lettuce leaves and drizzle Thai sauce over it. Chicken mixture and Thai sauce can be made ahead. Leave in refrigerator and spoon into the romaine or Bibb lettuce l
eaf for an easy lunch or healthy Paleo snack

Paleo Nicoise Salad
Instructions

4 hard-boiled eggs
2 cans of tuna drained (Oil or water packed)
1 handful green beans
½ cup pitted black olives
1 cup cherry tomatoes
1 large head of butter lettuce
2 tbsp. capers
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
Juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Cut the hard boiled eggs into quarters. Wash and chop lettuce, green beans, and tomatoes. Whisk the lemon juice, mustard, olive oil into a dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Combine all other ingredients and separate into two bowls. Drizzle dressing on top. Now let's add some hot lunch recipes for those cold winter days or just when you feel like a nice healthy warm meal.

Bell Pepper Stuffed with Baked Eggs
Instructions

4 yellow or red bell peppers
1 cup each diced zucchini, yellow onion, and mushrooms (Portobello)
6 oz. pancetta cubed
2 minced garlic cloves
8 eggs Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Note: Choose the cooking fat you prefer. For added flavor, consider duck fat or bacon fat. Fresh basil and halved Cherry tomatoes make a beautiful garnish.
Preheat the oven to 375
Cut bell peppers in half and roast in oven for approximately 20 minutes. Sauté the onions and pancetta in fat till the onions become translucent and soft and the pancetta starts to get crispy.

Add the mushrooms, zucchini and minced garlic to the pan and sauté till zucchini are fork tender but not too soft. Remove peppers from the oven and drain out any moisture
Place a big scoop of the pancetta/ veggie mixture inside each pepper. Crack one or two eggs (depends on how large the peppers are) inside each pepper half. Place all the peppers in a casserole dish and use foil to cover it. Bake until the egg whites are set (approximately 40 minutes). You can add the optional halved cherry tomato and torn basil before serving.

Quick and Easy Roasted Cauliflower Soup
Instructions

1 large head cauliflower
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. sea salt
1 large onion diced
4 cups water or Paleo stock

Directions
Roast cauliflower by placing in 9x13 baking dish. Rub cauliflower with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and sea salt.
Add 1/ 2 cup water to the dish. Bake uncovered at 350 for about 1 1/ 2 hours or until you can easily cut through the core. Allow to cool and coarsely chop. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook till soft and translucent (about 15 minutes)
Add cooled cauliflower and water/ stock. Simmer until cauliflower is very soft. Once soft, puree in Vitamix or blender in small batches. You can also use an immersion blender. Put the mixture back in the pot and simmer till ready to serve.

Basic Chicken Vegetable Soup
Instructions

3 cups chicken stock
6 ounces left over chicken
2 cups of your favorite vegetables chopped, sliced, or julienned

Directions
Bring stock then reduce and simmer for five minutes Stir in chicken and vegetables of choice. To create Asian flavors add 1 cup of coconut milk, fresh ginger, and 2 tablespoons of the fish sauce. To create Italian flavor profile and add one cup fresh chopped tomato and fresh basil.
To incorporate Spanish flavors add some heat with fresh jalapeno or Serrano peppers.

Easy Wraps
Take any kind of leftover meat and wrap in Bibb or romaine lettuce leaves. Top with any preferred variety of sliced or pickled vegetables, Paleo mayo, or dressing.
For those who earnestly miss sandwiches, try making your own Paleo bread.

Instructions

1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
¾ cup arrowroot powder
¼ cup golden flax meal
½ tsp. sea salt
½ tsp. baking soda
4 eggs 1 tsp. agave nectar or honey
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

Directions
Combine first five ingredients in a medium bowl. Then in a separate larger bowl whip the eggs for at least 5 minutes until they become light in color and frothy. Stir the sweetener (agave or honey) into the eggs. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ones

Spoon the batter into a well greased loaf pan (7 1/ 2" x 3 1/ 2"). Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool and slice when needed.

10 Paleo Breakfast Recipes

2015-06-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

Bacon, Egg, Avocado Bake
Ingredients

1 ripe avocado cut in half with pit removed
2 eggs
4 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
⅛ tsp salt
⅛ tsp pepper

Directions
Place the avocado halves onto a baking sheet. Crack one egg into each avocado half. Sprinkle each egg with salt and pepper. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until eggs are set. Top with crumbled bacon pieces.

Breakfast Salad
Ingredients

2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
3 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped
¼ avocado, chopped
¼ red onion, chopped
¼ green pepper, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
⅛ tsp salt
⅛ tsp pepper

Directions
Combine the hard-boiled eggs, bacon, avocado, red onion, and green pepper in a medium bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Pour the dressing over the eggs, bacon, and vegetables.

Open-Faced Breakfast Sandwiches
Ingredients

1 sweet potato, sliced into
1/ 2 inch slices
4 eggs, cooked over easy
8 slices of bacon, cooked
1 c spinach
1 c mushrooms
2 tbsp coconut oil
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper

10 Paleo Breakfast Recipes

Directions
Place four sweet potato slices onto a baking sheet. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and sprinkle 1/ 4 teaspoon of salt and 1/ 4 teaspoon of pepper over the slices. Bake in a 425 degree preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until the slices are golden brown and soft. Sauté the spinach, mushrooms, and remaining salt and pepper in 1 tablespoon of coconut oil for five minutes or until softened. To assemble the sandwiches, place two slices of sweet potato onto a serving plate. Top each slice with two slices of bacon, one egg, and a quarter of the vegetable mixture.

Peanut Butter Banana Pancakes
Ingredients

2 ripe bananas
2 tbsp of peanut butter
3 eggs
Coconut oil for cooking

Directions
In a large bowl, mash the bananas together with the peanut butter. Whisk the eggs into the mixture until completely combined. In a large skillet, heat the coconut oil over medium heat. Pour 1/ 4 cup of the batter onto the pan and cook three minutes per side, or until golden brown and cooked through completely. Repeat until all of the batter has been used. Serve with a small amount of real maple syrup if desired.

Breakfast Scramble
Ingredients

3 eggs, whisked
½ c mushrooms, sliced
½ green pepper, diced
¼ c red onion, diced
½ c cooked chicken, diced
1 tsp coconut oil

Directions
In a medium skillet, saute mushrooms, pepper, and onion in the coconut oil for five minutes. Add in the cooked chicken and cook another minute. Stir in the eggs and cook until the eggs are set, approximately five minutes. Place the mixture onto a serving plate.

Berry-Nut Bowl
Ingredients

¼ c strawberries, sliced
¼ c blueberries
¼ c raspberries
⅛ c almonds, toasted
⅛ c cashews, toasted
⅛ c pecans, toasted
¼ c freshly squeezed orange juice

Directions
In a large bowl, toss all of the ingredients together with the orange juice.

Banana Berry Smoothie
Ingredients

1 ripe banana, sliced
¼ c strawberries, sliced
¼ c blueberries
¼-½ c coconut milk

Directions
In a blender, whisk together the banana, berries, and coconut milk until smooth and thick. Add more coconut milk until the desired consistency is achieved.

Breakfast Spaghetti Squash
Ingredients

1 spaghetti squash, cut in half, seeds removed
½ lb ground turkey
2 eggs, cooked over easy
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper

Directions
Bake the spaghetti squash in a preheated 400 degree oven for 40 minutes or until softened. In a medium skillet, brown the ground turkey with the garlic powder, salt, and pepper until cooked thoroughly. Divide the spaghetti squash onto two serving plates. Top each serving with half of the cooked turkey and one egg.

Fried Eggs with Prosciutto-Wrapped Asparagus
Ingredients

4 eggs, cooked over easy
10 asparagus spears
4 slices of prosciutto
1 tsp olive oil
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper

Directions
Wrap five asparagus spears with two slices of prosciutto. Repeat with the other asparagus spears. Place on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Bake in a 425 degree preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until prosciutto is crispy and asparagus is soft. Place one asparagus bundle on a serving plate and top with two eggs.

Breakfast Applesauce
Ingredients

2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
3 tbsp almond butter
1 tbsp coconut milk
½ tsp apple pie spice

Directions
Place all ingredients in a small sauce pot. Cook over low heat for fifteen minutes, or until apples are softened and start to break apart; top with a handful of toasted almonds if desired.

It’s not all about your weight and weight loss!

2015-06-02T09:47:00.003-07:00

It’s not all about your weight and weight loss!

This section of the book has focused on weight loss and the issues around being overweight and obese as that is generally where there are many more problems relating to health, and it is a growing and worsening issue. However, it isn’t always about your weight and there are many healthy people who would be classed as overweight and many unhealthy people who are underweight or indeed at what would be called a good weight. When it comes to health – physical, mental and emotional – there are a wide range of relevant factors and your weight, although important, is usually just one of these. So make sure you consider your overall health and wellbeing and how your weight may affect this.

You can be ‘overweight’ and healthy
Some people who would be classed as overweight and have a high BMI score are actually very healthy, so be careful not to base assessments of health on just weight. For example, nearly all professional rugby players would be deemed ‘overweight’ if they took the conventional BMI tests, yet they would score very highly on most aspects of their health. Muscle does weigh more than fat, so the actual make-up of your body tissues and the percentage of muscle versus fat is a factor.

Also, you may be someone who is overweight but you don’t smoke or drink alcohol and you do some level of exercise. In this case it is likely that you are generally ‘healthier’ than someone of a good weight who smokes, drinks alcohol and does very little physical activity. There are many measures of health, many aspects of health and many contributing factors, so be careful not to focus everything on your weight if you want to be healthier and happier.

Risks of being ‘underweight’
There are also health dangers with being underweight and this must not be ignored. Although the levels are much lower, there are still significant numbers of people who have ‘underweight’ issues, usually caused by not eating enough and not eating the right types of food. Often there is pressure from the media, peer groups and society in general to look a certain way and this can also be very damaging to your physical, mental and emotional health if as a result you become underweight.

Many eating disorders exist for both men and woman that can lead to being underweight, for example bulimia and anorexia. If your body is not getting the nutrients, minerals, proteins, fats, glucose and other ingredients it needs then this will damage your health. If you have issues in this respect then please consult your doctor and seek advice, and try to understand the causes and also the risks to your health of being underweight.

How to put on weight
Some people may be underweight and wish to put weight on and there are health risks in doing this. Similarly to losing weight the advice is to be as knowledgeable as possible, take a sensible, steady approach and do not try to gain weight too quickly. Rapid weight gain can be very unhealthy, especially as your body will not be used to the high calorie intake and it is likely that many of the foods will be high in sugar, fat and salt.

How to lose fat fast

As muscle weighs more than fat and is generally much healthier, then it would be advised that in order to gain weight more protein needs to be consumed, because this is the main fuel needed to grow and rebuild muscle tissue. Using free weights or gym equipment can be effective in building muscle mass combined with additional protein and calorie intake. However, if you feel the need to put on weight it is advisable to consult with your doctor, do more research and potentially discuss it with both a nutritionist and fitness advisor.

How to Shop Paleo

2015-06-02T00:28:00.000-07:00

There are many things that people try to do in order to keep themselves in shape and to be healthy. One of the main things that a person can do to be healthy is to reexamine what they eat, and to eat in a way that promotes good health for them and for their families. For that reason many people have chosen to go with the Paleo diet. Like no other way of eating out there the Paleo lifestyle promotes optimum health and it is one of the best eating plans around in order for a person to feel good and to eat healthy.

How to Shop Paleo
It is really not that difficult to shop the Paleo way, a person will just have to change the areas that they go to in their local market. Basically all of the middle aisle will be eliminated. Anything that is canned, boxed, or bagged is out. All of the outer aisles of the store will become a Paleo shopper’s best friend. It is important to shop only in the aisles with fresh food, because basically that is all that you will be eating on this whole food and meat based plan.

How to Shop Paleo

Why Paleo Works
The Paleo way of eating works because it actually helps a person to feel whole again. There are so many additives, preservatives, and toxins in food. Many people are living off of diets that only deplete them of nutrients, but their eating habits do nothing for their overall health. With the Paleo lifestyle a person will not only see the benefits physically to their health, but they will also feel the difference in their sleep habits, their physical stamina, and their overall mental health. It may take some radical changes to change to the Paleo way of eating, but when a person's life and health are at stake, sometimes drastic changes are exactly what are needed. Eating food that is healthy and whole is the best thing to do not only for a person's shape and look, but for a person's whole health, that is the reason that they Paleo eating plan has benefited thousands of people around the world.

How can I lower my risk of health problems related to being overweight?

2015-06-01T15:01:00.002-07:00

If you are considered to be overweight, losing as little as 5 percent of your body weight may lower your risk for several diseases, including heart disease and type 2 diabetes. If you weigh 200 pounds, this means losing 10 pounds. Slow and steady weight loss of ½ to 2 pounds per week, and not more than 3 pounds per week, is the safest way to lose weight.

Guidelines on physical activity recommend that you get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity (like biking or brisk walking). To lose weight, or to maintain weight loss, you may need to be active for up to 300 minutes per week. You also need to do activities to strengthen muscles (like push-ups or sit-ups) at least twice a week.

Read through the ‘How to lose weight’ and ‘Healthy eating’ sections to gain greater knowledge and understanding so you will be better placed to lose weight if that is needed. Also, look to increase your physical activity and exercise levels.

Emotional health
The above section outlined many areas of physical health that can be at risk due to being overweight, but there are also many emotional health issues that can affect people, often on a daily basis. There is the saying ‘you are what you eat’, but also it is often true to say that ‘you feel what you eat’, as being overweight can affect you in a variety of other ways that impact on your life and happiness.

How to lose fat fast

Confidence and self-esteem
For many people who are overweight their confidence and self-esteem can be affected in a negative way. Lower confidence and lower self-esteem result directly from being overweight and also indirectly from a range of factors that being overweight can affect. Confidence and self-esteem play a huge role in how happy we are in our lives and can be both the cause and effect of a number of issues. The more confident we are the more likely we are to try new things, go to new places, meet new people, achieve and accomplish more, believe we can succeed in something and generally live a more fulfilling, successful and satisfying life. If we don’t achieve what we want, if we don’t look how we would like to, if we get criticised and judged negatively by others and are not who we want to be, then our confidence decreases. The same can apply to self-esteem.

If we are overweight and do not want to be then there is a good chance that it will lower our confidence and self-esteem in these ways and will continue to have an effect as long as we are in that position. You may be very happy and content with many other aspects of your life, but those will also be affected as a consequence, so the effect of being overweight is compounded far more than the actual issue itself. On the positive side, if you are overweight and do things that help reduce your weight, and you see and feel the difference, then your confidence and self-esteem are likely to increase quite quickly, hopefully motivating you to continue with the weight loss Another book in this series focuses on confidence and may be helpful to read. It is called Understanding & Building Confidence.

Why the Paleo Way of Eating

2015-06-01T11:45:00.001-07:00

Many people have chosen the Paleo diet for a variety of reasons. Remember that the Paleo diet mostly focuses on eating like the caveman used to. It means focusing on eating plenty of meats and vegetables. Things such as sugars, legumes, and grains are either lowered by a significant amount or eliminated completely.

Many people began the Paleo diet just as a fad, but after they see the health benefits to the diets they began to implement the Paleo lifestyle in their everyday. Since there is nothing that affects our health more than the way that we eat it only makes sense that if we drastically change our diets we will not only feel a lot better, but we will look better as well. The wonderful thing about the Paleo diet is that it also focuses on eating the healthiest types of food. That means eating mostly organic and whole foods.
So many people have found that a lot of their health problems were either completely eliminated or greatly improved by choosing to switch to the Paleo diet. Since the Paleo eating plan eliminates grains and legumes many people have found that their digestive system has greatly improved as well. For all of the reasons that were mentioned previously there are many followers of the Paleo eating plan and they have found a lot of success implementing this regiment and their family life style.

Why the Paleo Way of Eating

How to Eat the Paleo Way
Many people may wonder where they should go if they want to shop and only eat the Paleo way. In reality it is possible to eat the Paleo way by shopping at any grocery store. Since the Paleo diet focuses on meats and vegetables it is very important to try to get the highest quality vegetables and meat possible. At the majority of grocery stores they have a section for vegetables and meats. Even though the best thing would be to get only organic vegetables and organic meats, if that is not affordable there are some other things that can be done.

The first thing that should be done when it comes to meat is to try to get the highest quality lean cut meat available. Once again if organically grown meat is at all available that would be the best way to go. If that is not possible it is a good idea to get high quality meats and then remove the skin when at home. Even though the skin contains a lot of nutrients, if the meat is not organic and naturally fed, many toxins can be found in the skin. That is the reason why it is best to remove it if the meat was not raised naturally.

As far as vegetables go the best thing to do is get fresh whole vegetables. Canned vegetables are to be strictly avoided because they usually have a lot of preservatives, additives, and salts. Frozen vegetables are not bad, there are many different companies that sell organically grown frozen vegetables, and usually they are not that expensive. The best choice would be to get vegetables that are completely organic and fresh. In this way you are getting vegetables with the highest amount of vitamins and nutrients. Since it can be expensive to buy organic all of the time if it becomes a burden financially, a family can choose to only by certain vegetables organically.

Fruits are also a very important part of the Paleo diet. It is best to minimize the fruits that contain a lot of fructose, or try to get those fruits down to only once a day. There are many amazing fruits that are low in fructose, but are very high in antioxidants and vitamins. Berries are wonderful fruits to eat, they have some of the highest antioxidants around, they are low in fructose and they are delicious. It is a great idea to try to eat some type of berry daily with the Paleo diet. Once again if it is possible to eat and buy only fresh organic berries that would be preferred, but if it is too expensive then it is best to try to at least by organic fruits a couple times a month.

It is not really necessary to go to any special store to each on the Paleo diet. Although it would be most beneficial to eat organically it is not completely necessary in the eating plan. By making different choices at the local grocery store a family can eat the Paleo way and in reality it really won't change the budget by that much. Even if it is a little bit more expensive to eat organically it is important to think about the savings that a family will have in health care cost in the long run.

Forbidden Cravings and Other Mental Stumbling Blocks

2015-06-01T08:15:00.002-07:00

In addition to the biological stumbling blocks that are genetic and metabolic, there’s an important psychological component to the failure of quick-weight-loss diets. If “diet” is simply another word for deprivation, it makes sense that any time we deny ourselves food we will want to eat more than ever. We tend to want things we can’t have, so why would we think food was any different?
Because of this craving for the forbidden, our ability to lose weight through deprivation can be limited, which is yet another reason— in addition to preventing your body from thinking it’s starving— for losing weight gradually by compromising rather than conforming. By doing that, you’ll be able to keep those cravings under control. I call these cravings, along with the other psychological factors we’ve already discussed, a

Diet Ambush

Post-Deprivation Elation: As soon as the diet is over, the first thing post-dieters may do is gorge on all the foods (good and bad) the diet made off limits. They believe the diet has protected them against weight gain and that they can eat anything.

Diet-Failure Despair: If you’ve been on a diet and haven’t lost as much weight as you’d wanted to, you’ll be demoralized and won’t even have the desire to try again.

The Energy Zap: Diets are exhausting. They take time, effort, and often don’t provide enough calories for sustained energy.

The Craving Crazies: In addition to a slowed metabolism, deprivation creates exaggerated cravings, so that a piece of chocolate seems a million times more desirable than it really is. When people are on a diet, they tend to focus on deprivation, incessantly thinking about the foods they can’t have. Of course, they become obsessed and respond with diet induced overeating. And they never focus on what really matters— changing their behavior and how they think about food in relation to themselves.

How to lose fat fast

So What Does All This Mean?

As we have seen, and scientists have long known, weight gain and obesity are the result of a multitude of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors. But by reviewing, understanding, and learning to control how we react to these perceived obstacles, including a genetic predisposition to obesity, we can succeed in losing weight and keeping it off. In other words, controlling your weight really means learning to control the availability, composition, and portion size of the food in your personal environment, and monitoring your psycho-social behaviors with regard to food so that you will be able to intervene and modify those behaviors in real world situations.

One British study, published in Obesity Research, stated the problem (and the solution) this way:
Food intake (eating) is a form of behavior that is subject to conscious control. In practice, many obese and weight-gaining individuals claim that their eating is out of (their) control. Mechanistic models describe the interplay of biological and environmental forces that control food intake. However, because human food intake is characterized by individuals intervening to adjust their own patterns of behavior, food intake should reflect interactions among biology, environment, and attempted self-imposed control of behavior. [emphasis added.] If you think having confidence in yourself might not be particularly important for losing weight forever— think again. A study, conducted by Jacinda B. Roach, Phd, RD, and colleagues, and published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association reports that when various methods for increasing confidence in their ability to control their weight and create their own outcome (e.g., reading empowering books, reviewing family history, nutrition education, and identifying their reasons for wanting to lose weight)

participants’ eating habits improved and their weight loss was greater. The process I’ll be taking you through in this book is designed to give you the kind of self-knowledge and skills that will evoke that very same confidence you need to make it happen.
To begin with, it ought to be obvious that once you lose weight, you need to keep the weight off by eating the same types of foods that helped shed the pounds— not by going back to consuming whole boxes of cookies in front of the TV. But it was never obvious to me. And, apparently, I’m not the only one who thought I’d become a member of the “eat-whatever-you-want” club.
I really believed that something had changed, and that I wouldn’t have to worry any more. That was my dream, but I now understand and accept that my dream simply needed to be altered slightly. I have found a place where I’m comfortable and happy— and able to control my weight— and so can you.

Why Do We Not Exercise?

2015-05-31T12:08:00.003-07:00

There are many reasons and factors as to why we don’t exercise or why the levels of physical activity have fallen so much in recent decades. Below are some of the factors that may apply:
We don’t need to any more – choices
Most of us who live in a modern developed country like the UK do not have to exercise or be active if we choose not to. We can choose to stay at home the whole time and order in food or have groceries and other shopping delivered to us. If we do leave the house we can use our car to drive to wherever we are going, be that work, shopping, to see family and friends, etc. Exercise or physical activity is not compulsory in modern life. It has become an option that we can choose if we wish, but it is no longer something we have to do or need to do and therefore it is a choice.

Many people, if they have a choice between driving to work or walking to work, will choose the car option. If they had a choice between going to the gym for a workout or sitting at home watching a film they would choose the film option.
If they had the choice between using an elevator or walking up three flights of stairs they would use the lift option. In the past, these options would not exist or wouldn’t be so prevalent, so people would naturally do more exercise and be more physically active. Additionally, as the younger generations do less and less exercise and spend more hours playing computer games than physical games, it becomes more the norm and accepted that exercise is a choice rather than a necessity.

Why Do We Not Exercise

Too busy – not enough time
Our modern lives are often very busy and hectic with lots of pressures, expectations and responsibilities. It can often feel we are chasing our own tail at times and we just don’t have enough time to do everything we need to do, let alone additional activities like exercising. Because most people now see exercise as an option and an additional extra that isn’t a necessity, we tend to put it lower down on our priority list. Going to work, cleaning the house, doing the shopping, taking the kids to school, seeing family and friends, etc.,
all too often become a much higher priority than exercising, and most of us feel tired much of the time, so then to try and exercise as well becomes even more difficult.

‘I don’t find the time to exercise... I make the time to exercise.’
Too tired It seems that most of us often feel tired for much of the time, and exercise has even less appeal when we don’t have the energy. Feeling tired can be the result of many factors, which generally tend to be more modern-day lifestyle reasons such as increased stress, higher depression rates, being overweight, obesity issues, lack of sleep or poor-quality sleep, poor nutrition, alcohol consumption, drug-related issues and other factors that can make us lethargic.
Even though exercise is very likely to provide you with more energy, help you sleep better, reduce stress and depression, help you lose weight, encourage you to drink less and eat more healthily, etc., it becomes very difficult to choose to do exercise when you are feeling tired.
Sleep is a big issue for many people, and the average amount of sleep people now get is only 6 hours and 35 minutes each night. Without sufficient sleep people will be more tired and lethargic, lacking the energy and motivation to do exercise, and will more often resort to the easier choice of not exercising. In addition, what people eat and drink plays a major role in how they feel and their energy levels, or lack of energy.

What are the Benefits of the Paleo Diet?

2015-05-30T02:45:00.005-07:00

When looking for a good diet to achieve better overall health, the Paleo diet will often pop up in conversation. This is because there are many people who have noticed lots of healthy changes in addition to weight loss when eating in the fashion promoted by the Paleo diet. Consider some of the following ways you may benefit.
Briefly, What Is the Paleo Diet?
As mentioned in chapter one, the Paleo diet is one that promotes ‘eating like a caveman.’ This means cutting out sugar, processed foods, dyes, and minimalizing dairy and grains. Instead, dieters are recommended to eat grass-fed beef or free-range poultry, eggs from free-range animals and veggies.
Benefits of the Diet Are:
When you first start on your Paleo diet journey you’ll discover some quick changes for the better. Within a short, few days you’ll likely notice an upswing in energy and reduction in bloating. After a couple of weeks you’ll start to see a weight loss. Some benefits you’ll be happy to note while on the Paleo diet are:

Healthy brain
Healthy cells
Better digestion
Fat cell shrinkage
Risk of disease reduced
Insulin sensitivity increased for the better
Increased energy
Decreased allergies
Weight loss
Inflammation reduction
Increase in vitamins and minerals
Decrease in fructose
Balanced eating

Benefits of the Paleo Diet

Healthy Brain
The Paleo diet suggests you get the majority of your protein from cold water fish such as wild-caught salmon. They have the best sources of ideal fat and protein. These fish have tons of fatty acids, in particular Omega 3s, which most people in America are severely lacking in their diet. These fatty acids have DHA which is very important for healthy brain development in addition to healthy heart and eyes.

Healthy Cells
Cells depend on a balance of healthy fats in order to function properly. With the Paleo diet, emphasis is on foods that have a healthy balance of Omega 3s and 6s. This means that your body is getting better nutrition, even at the cellular level.

Better Digestion
Because the foods that are recommended for the Paleo diet are less processed and based on what humans have evolved to eat for centuries you’ll notice that your body digests the food much easier.

Fat Cell Shrinkage
A common misconception is that a slim person has less fat cells than a chunky person. In truth, there are smaller fat cells, but just as many in a slim person as there is in the chunkier person. To keep these cells smaller, a person’s diet must have fewer carbs and healthier fat intake.

Risk of Disease Reduced
The main concept of the Paleo diet is to avoid foods that can be bad for your health. With its simple ‘eat like a caveman’ concept, eating healthier becomes far less complicated. Whole foods are the corner stone of the diet and you’ll soon see a difference when eating in this manner.

Insulin Sensitivity
When your body is on a consistent diet of processed, sugar and carb-rich food, it becomes desensitized to it. This means that your insulin will begin to quit functioning appropriately. Basically, with insulin not working correctly your body becomes unable to recognize ‘full’ cells. Get the balance of your diet switched to lean; healthy protein and green veggies and you’ll see blood sugar stabilization.

Increased Energy
Typically the majority of people start their day out with a sugary drink and a carb rich snack such as a bagel or muffin. This diet can lead to health problems in the long run and energy shortages in the short term. With Paleo diet, you dine on rich protein and fresh foods that are nutrient dense.

Decreased Allergies
Many food allergies start with grains and dairy.The Paleo diet suggests
removing or drastically minimizing these foods. When this happens you’ll soon notice less symptoms associated with food allergies.

Weight Loss
When your diet is full of processed foods that break down to sugar when you digest it you’re going to store it as fat. The majority of Americans have a diet that is full of simple carbs and missing nutrients. When a person starts to eat food that is more useful; healthy proteins, leafy greens and nuts, you’ll start to see weight peel off with ease.

Inflammation Reduction
There is research that suggests the leading factor in many cases of cardiovascular disease is inflammation. The Paleo diet leads relies on many foods that are anti-inflammatory. Omega 3 fatty acids are one of primary factors the diet focuses on. Emphasis on meat that is pasture-raised as well as other foods that have a healthy ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 helps to encourage the reduction of inflammation.

Increase in Vitamins and Minerals
With a diet that emphasizes eating whole foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals your body will soon start to absorb more nutrition. When you’re digesting higher amounts of good nutrients you’ll see a wide range of benefits from healthy hair and skin to improved circulation.

Decrease in Fructose
Because fructose is digested differently than other carbs and the Paleo diet takes this into account. It is the largest reason the diet suggests eating the right amounts and the right kinds of fruit. With suggestions of enjoying a kiwi instead of a banana, the amount of fructose your body will be forced to digest will be drastically decreased. It’s generally suggested to enjoy two or three pieces only per day.

Balanced Eating
One of the cornerstones of the Paleo diet is to eat pasture-raised eggs and meat. This will mean the animals have had a chance to live naturally and therefore they will have the best chance of true nutrition. Not only will this lifestyle benefit the animal’s well-being it will also provide a more balanced nutrition which will naturally be passed on to you when you dine on their meat. Any major diet changes need to be discussed with your doctor to make sure you don’t end up with any negative side effects. When followed correctly, the Paleo diet achieves many beneficial results for your health.

Human evolution – born to be active

2015-05-29T13:23:00.002-07:00

‘Your body can stand almost anything; it’s your mind that you have to convince.’
There is so much evidence in many different forms to indicate that we are healthier and happier if we exercise; exercise can come in so many ways and just about everyone can find some activity they can do and hopefully enjoy. However, often people associate exercise with running, and most people in modern times unfortunately don’t run and are horrified at the thought! They are too unfit, overweight, not used to running, don’t find it appealing, can’t get motivated, can’t run very far or very fast and it is simply easier not to bother. And why should we bother when we have cars, trains, buses, bikes, etc. for transport? We no longer have to go hunting for food so we just drive or occasionally walk to the shops. We are very rarely put in positions of danger where we have to run from something or towards something for our safety. There just isn’t the need to run, so why bother?

Well, another way to look at this apart from everything that will be said on the benefits is to show how humans are natural athletes and we are literally born to run. Unlike any other animal on the planet we have evolved into the most intelligent, superior species. That has happened for a number of reasons including the very important ability to run like no other creature.
There are so many features and unique qualities to the human body that seem to show clearly that we were born to run. For example, we have an Achilles tendon that is only needed for running. Why do we have this unless we were designed to run, and why do we have arches on our feet with small toes to allow us to run whereas chimps and monkeys don’t have Achilles tendons or arches, just flat feet with very long toes designed for walking and climbing? We have a nuchal ligament in the back of our neck to support our head and balance it, which is only needed for running. Dogs, cats and horses have a nuchal ligament to help them run but again chimps and monkeys do not. Humans also have big bottoms, which are very helpful for running yet have no benefit for walking. Next time you see a chimp look at how small their bottoms are compared to humans.

Benefits of Exercise

A further unique feature of humans is our lack of a tail. No other running animal or two-legged creature has no tail. The way we balance while at speed is the added combination of the nuchal ligament in the neck and the fact that our head is heavy compared to other animals. This heavy weight on the top of our upright position provides support and balance, allowing us to move at speed for long distances without wasting too much energy.
We are upright creatures with features that are otherwise only found on our four-legged animal friends renowned for their running and speed. Yet, unlike horses, dogs, cats, deer, etc., the rhythm of our breathing is not directly related to our movement. Watch a leopard run across the African plains and its breathing is directly related to its strides; as its legs stretch out its lungs open and when the legs close together with the stride the lungs contract like bellows. So while the leopard’s breathing is matched with its running stride, humans’ breathing is different, as we will typically do at least two strides to one breath.
Another very important feature and strong advantage is the number of sweat glands we have. No other creature has as many and can sweat so much. This ability to sweat helps us to keep cool for much longer. So although many animals can run faster than us, they cannot sustain it for very long before they overheat and have to stop or slow down significantly. If you take a dog out on a hot day and they run and run, they will eventually just stop, much earlier than a fit and healthy human would do.
There is an annual horse versus man race over a 50-mile distance. Most people would never dream that a human could beat a horse in a running race, yet most years the humans come out victorious. Animals just don’t have the endurance that humans have because they cannot sweat and keep cool for long periods. Humans have the best air-cooled engine of any animal and are able to run for hours at a time if necessary. Something else that might surprise you is that humans have a longer running stride than a horse. If you record and slow down the footage of a running horse then you will see that each leg has a relatively small stride, and the energy required to run fast with all four legs like that is significantly more than for a human. So whereas a horse can go at a much faster rate for about 10 minutes, it soon slows down to a slower pace than a strong long-distance human runner.

Unlike most sports and activities running is age-friendly. What I mean by that is that humans can go on running until they would be considered very old, without losing much of their ability compared to their younger years. A large study was made of marathon runners and it was shown that if you take the average best times for someone at 19 years of age and compare those across the age range then humans reach their peak in terms of running ability after 8 years, at the age of 27. The subsequent decline in ability is significantly slower than the time it took to reach the peak. Not until age 64 does a human’s ability fall back to their ability at age 19. So 8 years of improving and 37 years of gradual decline. In many ways this shows that ‘you don’t stop running because you get old – you get old because you stop running’!
Something else to consider and observe at the opposite end of thye scale is how young children are so naturally active. The can seemingly go for hours playing, running, jumping and being active and it looks so normal and natural. The reason is that it is natural and normal for children to be active and enjoy being active, and this should be encouraged for as long as possibl

Start Your Day with Yoga

2015-05-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wake up in the morning feeling stiff and sore? Regularly stretching can help you loosen up. If you do yoga, you’ll even kick-start your metabolism for the day and burn extra calories.
To start, stretch your neck, shoulders, arms, and legs. You can do this before you even get out of bed. (If you’re not exactly a morning person, stretching can help you wake up faster.)
A good early morning yoga routine might start with a few Cat Pose and Child Pose stretches to relax your spine. Then move to Downward Facing Dog before lunging forward into Runner’s Pose. Then do the series in reverse.
Hold each pose for 8 to 10 breaths, and focus on breathing deeply the whole time. You’ll soon be stretched, relaxed, and ready to tackle your day!

Using Muscle Confusion to Burn Maximum Calories
If you work the same muscle group over and over, you start to get diminishing rewards. Your body grows accustomed to the exercises, and stops working as hard as it should. You can avoid this by using muscle confusion to get in shape fast.
Muscle confusion involves working different muscle groups on different days. You might work your core on Monday, your arms on Wednesday, and your legs on Friday. In between, you can do cardio sessions to burn more calories while you give your muscles time to repair.
Switching up your workout routine will help your body develop muscle tissue faster. The more muscle you have, the faster you’ll burn calories – even when you’re relaxing. Put muscle confusion to the test, and you’ll see results fast!

Start Your Day with Yoga

The Best Exercises for Arms
Working your arms will give you more than just sexy sculpted biceps: it will help you burn more calories, too!
The effect is two-fold. First, you’ll actively burn calories while you do the strength-building exercises. Then, you’ll passively burn more calories after you build more muscle tissue.
For stronger, leaner arms, try these classic exercises: Push-ups, starting with wall push-ups or knee push-ups if you can’t do a traditional one; Pull-ups; Bicep Curls; Tricep Kickbacks; and Arm Rows.
You can find illustrated guides online to walk you through these effective exercises. Do them every other day to firm up fast and burn extra calories.

The Best Exercises for Legs
When you’re not giving your arms a workout, you can focus on building stronger legs. Like the arms, the legs can benefit from a host of classic exercises that don’t require any special equipment to do.
Try these favorites: Squats; Wall-sits; and Walking Lunges. They will firm up your legs and give you more muscle mass, which increases the amount of calories you burn each day.
Those are examples of exercises you can do anywhere. If you prefer to work your legs at the gym, try Leg Presses; Leg Curls; and the Stair-Climber. Machines that target the adductor and abductor muscles are also a good choice to round out your total leg workout.

what are your main reasons for doing it? Why do you exercise?

2015-05-28T06:15:00.001-07:00

When you do exercise what are your main reasons for doing it? Why do you exercise?

Every day I do something. Hotpod Yoga at least 3 times a week and Bootcamp type exercises at home based on a Bootcamp I used to attend (that no longer runs).

Walks with other people and weekends with groups away are great.

I do it all as it makes me feel fitter, stronger and more confident than ever before.

I exercise mostly in lunch breaks, but do also exercise three evenings a week. Exercise makes me feel good.It makes me feel healthy and happy. Depending on the type of exercise, it can help me forget about all the stresses I may be having at the time. On the other hand if I’m out running, it allows me time to reflect on what I am doing at the time. I often find answers to work-related problems whilst out running.

I actually enjoy the classes – Body Pump, Step, Zumba, etc.

If I feel I need to tone up and it makes me feel good.

When I’ve set a goal such as a 10k race and then need to train.

To keep active, to maintain healthy weight, to get fresh air. As I get older I am very much aware of how important it is to keep supple and flexible, and practise yoga regularly with a personal yoga teacher who makes the work fun and jolly hard!

Walking is my main method of exercise and I do this to take the dogs out.

To keep in shape, to feel healthy, to look good, enjoy the challenge, knowing it’s good for you, meeting different people.

Why do you exercise

What do you enjoy about doing exercise/ activities?

The large number of new friends I have made in the last year since being more active. I feel fitter, stronger and more confident than ever before. Having gained this through the physical activity and this new support network has enabled me to resolve my self-esteem issues to such an extent that the life challenges I now face e.g. a recent romantic ‘failure’, means I am able to deal with this is in a very pragmatic and much stronger manner.

I love the way it makes me feel. Like I said before, depending on the type of exercise it can give me time out to reflect on things but on the other hand it can also help block things out and gives me something to focus on.

I like the social side that comes with it too; with all my exercise I am part of a group. This helps encourage you to continue the exercise but you also get to meet people with similar interests as you.

That once the class starts I know I will see it through – I wouldn’t walk out early.

I know I am terribly unfit – I don’t like that feeling, if I attend a class the challenge getting through it and the feeling of improving class on class is a great sense of achievement... i.e. after a few classes I can raise the step to the higher level or cope with greater weights etc.

The ‘Me’ time it gives me.

I can think more clearly, it clears my head. It makes me feel happy.

Psychologically, it makes me feel better physically and mentally. Not being one to sit in front of a screen, I much prefer, and enjoy, being outdoors.

Seeing the wildlife; birds, plants/ flowers opening up etc. etc.

The feel-good factor, looking good, challenging myself and achieving goals.

Rationale behind the Paleo Diet

2015-05-28T01:12:00.001-07:00

During the Paleolithic time period, there was believed to be a great deal of natural selection. The natural selection resulted in humans largely evolving in favor of a hunter-gatherer type of diet to suit their nomadic lifestyle. When humans began settling and engaging in agriculture, natural selection became less common and this resulted in a slowing of human evolution. Because of this, human genetics and gastrointestinal function has changed very little since the end of the Paleolithic period.
For a healthy lifestyle, humans should thus still be eating a similar diet to the Paleolithic people. Dairy and grain products have become stables since humans began farming. Both dairy and grain are believed to have been consumed not at all or very little by hunter-gatherers. Following the Industrial Revolution, processed foods also became a staple of contemporary society's diet. All of these modern foods have a strong correlation with chronic "Diseases of Civilization." This is a term referring to various metabolic and physiological mal-adaptations that have come into existence during contemporary times. The Paleo Diet combats these conditions. The average diet of western civilization today is seventy percent dairy, processed foods, refined sugars and refined oils. These food products are all associated with obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even cancer. These conditions are much more common in western society.

Rationale behind the Paleo Diet

Support for the Paleo Diet
Research into the Paleo Diet has shown that most modern humans respond very well to food consumption similar to that of hunter-gatherers. Modern hunter-gatherers are also, in general, substantially more healthy and free of chronic diseases than their "civilized" counterparts in the western world. When these hunter-gatherers switch to contemporary diets, studies have found a rapid decline in their health.

The Paleo Diet is an excellent diet for people suffering from Type 2 Diabetes as well as Celiac Disease. The carbohydrate intake also promotes weight loss and then maintaining a healthy weight if the diet is continued. If food is consumed thoughtfully and includes the proper proportions of animal and plant products, all daily recommended nutritional intake goals are easily met. Processed and refined foods often have little nutritional value, so consuming them serves little purpose other than convenience. Some proponents of the diet also limited dairy consumption to easily meet the recommended amount of calcium.

How to lose fat fast

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The Food Audit: A Three-Day Challenge

Creating A Livable Eating Program

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What is Anxiety?

Effects on brain chemistry

Create a “Livable” Diet “

Obesity becoming normalised in society

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Why Do We Not Exercise?

What are the Benefits of the Paleo Diet?

Human evolution – born to be active

Start Your Day with Yoga

what are your main reasons for doing it? Why do you exercise?

Rationale behind the Paleo Diet

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