Calculate Your Carbs

The key to shedding flab is to adjust your carb intake to your activity level. Multiply your target body weight by 1 if you have a desk job, work out in a gym several times a week or less, and your main goal is fat loss.

Multiply by 2 if you're a recreational athlete who trains for more than an hour a day. Multiply by 3 if you're a competitive athlete who trains multiple hours a day, or if you're a guy with a mini-cooper body and a corvette metabolism who is struggling to gain weight.

The number you end up with indicates how many grams of carbs you should eat every day. If you're in category 1 and weigh 180 pounds, that's the equivalent of about two Chipotle burritos.


Source: Men's Health

The Deadline Diet

BIG DAY COMING UP? HERE ARE EATING AND EXERCISE STRATEGIES TO GET YOUR BODY TO ITS BEST
When it comes to weight loss and bodily overhauls, Day 1 sometimes starts with an epiphany—a too-tight pair of jeans, an is-that-me? look in the mirror, or an innocent “are you pregnant?” from a toddler. But for other folks, the inspiration to change may come from somewhere else: A deadline.

Whether your fast-approaching day comes in the form of a wedding, a reunion, a beach vacation, a race, or something else, the right nutrition and fitness tips at the right time can be exactly what you need to get you where you want to go. Depending on your deadline, check out these strategies to get your best body—just in the nick of time.

1 YEAR OUT: THE OVERHAUL

With this much time, you have a chance to change your body the right way. Ease into both your new eating and exercise routines to ensure you’ll stick to them, says Mark Beier, a National Academy of Sports Medicine certified personal trainer and owner and founder of Chicago Fit Clubs.

Start by incorporating one to two days of strength training per week and supplement with two or three days of light cardio activity, which can be as simple as a walk outside or a bike ride for 30 to 45 minutes. Each week try to add a bit more speed, resistance or time than the week before.

For diet, start by looking at what you drink, says David Buer, Atlanta fitness expert and celebrity personal trainer. Americans consumes more than a quarter of their calories via fluid, Buer says, so reducing or eliminating soda, juice and sweetened coffee can reduce your weekly calorie intake.

Make sure to populate your diet with protein and fat. Buer encourages incorporating lean quality proteins with each meal in order help stabilize blood sugar levels, accelerate fat metabolism, improve recovery after workout and increase energy throughout the day. These are vital to maintain good muscle balance while dropping unwanted fat pounds, he says. That means beans, turkey, chicken, fish, and pork.

To include more fat, eat raw, unsalted nuts, olive oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil and avocado. Fish also contains healthy fats, which have positive impact on our fat metabolism, overall cellular energy and function, and even brain function and appearance of hair, skin and nails, Buer says.

6 MONTHS OUT: DAMAGE CONTROL

So perhaps you have a short engagement or your cruise is only a half a year away. There are still plenty of changes you can make that will get you ready.

If you’re new to exercise or haven’t been regular about your routine, use strength training to complement cardiovascular activity. Start with one to two days of strength training per week, and do some light cardio activity on the other days (at least two days a week). You should challenge yourself weekly by adding more resistance, speed or time to your walk, run or bike ride. Write your goals on a paper or dry-erase board and cross them off when you achieve them. If you power-walked 45 minutes last week, try incorporating a jog (10 minutes or whatever you can handle) somewhere on your path.

To keep it fun, set rewards at specific intervals (every month, let’s say), and when you achieve a goal, treat yourself to a massage, pedicure or new exercise clothes. Just remember to keep your rewards calorie-free so you stay on track to your ultimate goal.

Once you’ve done some strength training for a few weeks, Beier suggests converting to a three-day full-body, upper-body and lower-body split, while also implementing high-intensity interval training. Buer recommends that two to three days include interval training – bursts of 20 to 120 seconds of intense activity followed by 20 to 120 seconds of rest for a period of 5 to 10 minutes. Eventually work your way to 20 minutes of this style workout. These types of workouts can supercharge your metabolism by revving your heart rate, which can burn off that extra fat.

Full-body days can include moves like pushups, pull-ups, and mountain climbers. Upper-body days should focus on chest, arms, shoulders, back and abdominals – chest press, lateral press, rows and core work. Lower-body days target legs, hips and obliques with lunges, squats and a host of others.

Beier advises a workout that consists of a dynamic warm-up, core work (such as planks, side planks, bridges), high-intensity interval training session that incorporates full-body movements and cardio. For example: Keep a set of dumbbells and a Bosu ball next to a treadmill and do four or five strength exercises (8-12 repetitions per exercise). Then jump on the treadmill and do interval speed work such as a minute sprint followed by a 30-second rest. Then return to your strength exercises.

Your diet should consist mostly of chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, dairy, low-sugar Greek yogurts, along with dark leafy green vegetables such as green beans, broccoli, spinach and asparagus, says Buer. Sticking with those types, which are high in nutrients, vitamins, minerals and fiber, will help the digestive process and balance blood sugar levels. If you can control sugar levels, you can help to control the expansion of fat cells, which can lead to weight loss.

3 MONTHS OUT: FINE-TUNING

While three months isn’t a long time for a body change, the right nutritional intake and exercise routine can make a significant difference—but you may need to amp up the intensity. Cardio activity should be a staple (at least three days a week) and Beier suggests implementing a four-day strength program – two days of full-body, one day of lower body and one day of upper body.

This breakdown allows the major muscle groups (legs) to engage in fat-burning one day, which can improve overall body composition. This pays off on upper-body and full-body days when your exercises will seek to define the smaller muscles that don’t burn as many calories.

Nutritional changes are critical at this stage, if you haven’t been watching your diet. Stick to lean meats, proteins and healthy fats and try to reduce any major carbohydrates after 3 p.m. when people typically are less active. Unused carbohydrates will convert into stored energy – also known as fat. Stick to a diet low in sugar and high in vegetables and protein and make sure you are eating every few hours to keep metabolism in check. While a three-month cram session can be tough, the key to success in training is setting tangible goals and making them part of your everyday ritual like brushing your teeth, says Lacey Stone, Hollywood fitness expert and personal trainer.

“Go to the gym with hot people, take a [group fitness] class with an attractive instructor. Go to a class and create some sort of community,” she says. “The bottom line is once you start to see results you get to the point of no return, you don’t want to go back to where you were. That momentum makes you want to live a healthy lifestyle.”

A FEW WEEKS OUT: LAST-MINUTE CHANGES

Perhaps you booked a last minute beach weekend or you’re in a hurry to get married. A few weeks out doesn’t give much time, but there is something you can do to look a little tighter.

Typically we look bloated or puffy when our body retains too much water, says Laurel House, a lifestyle author, personal trainer and editor of QuickieChick. So several days before the event, start drinking a lot of water and include a splash of lemon or lime to flush out toxins. Diuretic foods – celery, pure cranberry juice, Dandelion tea, green tea, fennel and parsley – also help with de-puffing as they minimize water retention.

High-water foods including asparagus, Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, tomatoes and watermelon also help eliminate excess water, and foods high in potassium – avocado, dates, papaya, bananas, spinach and salmon – will counterbalance puffiness caused by salt or alcohol.

Three days leading up to event, minimize carbohydrate (especially white rice, potatoes, pasta and bread) intake to allow the body to slim down and shed excess water. For every one gram of carbohydrate, your body retains 2.5 grams of water, causing you to bloat, she says. You still need carbohydrates for proper brain function and energy, so stick with green vegetables, kale and Brussels sprouts.

You can also include fat-burning foods a couple days before the event – House calls them “Bites with Benefits.” These de-puffing, fat-burning foods actually help to break down fats by liquefying them in your body. They include grapefruit and hot herbs – jalapeno, cinnamon and fresh ginger. Flush fats with foods high in pectin and lecithin such as soybeans, apples and berries.

As for exercise, cut down on resistance training four days prior to your event and focus strictly on cardio so that you are really just burning calories and slimming your body. Two days before, minimize cardio and the day before, House suggests no exercise. Muscles will relax and shrink and you’ll look leaner all over. Minimize water the day of the event to get that sculpted look.

If you’ll be showing off a particular body part (say, shoulders and arms in a strapless dress), House suggests doing 100 seconds of an exercise 20 minutes before the event (say, seated dips).

“Your arms will look nice and defined and tight. You will have that toned look – even if you are not toned,” she says.

But like any cleanse or strict diet, “this is not a healthy way to live long term,” House cautions. “You can do it for one day, you can do it for two days, but you cannot do for more than that.”

“People say it’s so hard, but in the end wouldn’t you rather feel amazing about yourself?” says House, referring to the big day. “Instead of the temporary pleasure of eating seconds, wouldn’t you want to feel amazing for an entire day?”

Author: WHITNEY SMITH

Tips to Get Ripped: Fat Loss Guide and Troubleshooting

Everyone wants to get ripped and peeled, but usually only a few ever make it. With the hot months on the horizon, everyone at the gym starts talking about their upcoming diet and how excited they are to get the ball rolling.

A common scene really, but it’s uncommon that someone’s efforts actually payoff the way they originally intended. Within a month most guys find themselves pretty frustrated. They are halfway done cutting at best, and feel like they are running through quicksand. As a competitive bodybuilder and contest coach, I get to hear my fair share of rants from these guys and it’s the same issues over and over. Landmines placed in the exact same spot as last year get stumbled upon the following year. In this article we will name a few of the most common traps that slow down, discourage, often leave cutting phases unfinished, and with results that leave so much more to be desired.

Bodyfat

“What’s your body fat dude?”, “What’s my body fat at?”, “So what bodyfat should I get to?” This has got to go!

Be it if you are trying to compete in a bodybuilding show, gain the notoriety from the opposite sex, or just look good for your upcoming vacation. Nobody is going to look at you, point and say “WOW! Check out his 5.62934% bodyfat!” Truth is you are either in shape or not, and aiming for bodyfat percentages is a waste of time, a distraction at best. When I start dieting for bodybuilding shows I will get that question quite a bit. “So what bodyfat are you going to cut down to?” Truth is I just keep losing weight until I have achieved the look I desire. While your goal might not be striated glutes, I am sure you have a look in mind.

What if you get callipered at the 8% you were aiming for, but don’t quite look the way you anticipated? Do you end your diet there? Which brings me to my next point: bodyfat testing in general is pretty hit or miss, at least all the affordable ways are. This is why I never have my clients send me bodyfat percentages in their weekly reports to me. I want weight (which tells us how many lbs. of bodyfat we have lost) and pictures which of course you can’t argue with. You are either ripped or not, and it’s that simple. Yes numbers are sexy, and being able to quantify things is something people just like to do in general, but “ripped” you either are or you aren’t.

Let the mirror decide, not some plastic calipers. Much like the judges don’t get on stage and caliper myself and the other competitors, neither will that young lady at the beach. Shredded doesn’t need a number, it just is.

Carbs

Fat loss and carbs just don’t go together in the eyes of most people looking to get into shape. Dieting is synonymous with low carb, and even no carb diets. While you will have to cut out some of your carbs when you start your mission towards getting lean, usually the amounts that are cut are too extreme. I will get asked often “so how man carbs should I take when dieting?” The answer is simple: as many as you can while still losing fat at the desired pace. Key words there being as many as YOU can!

Carb intakes can be one of the biggest variables when it comes to dieting.

Two guys with similar training programs, ages, and weights will often require two different approaches nutritionally. Some people might need to diet on 100 grams of carbs, others might require double or triple that amount. One thing is for sure, most folks low ball their carbohydrate threshold and diet on too little food. When you diet on less carbs than you require you will see the following occur: You will come out flying at the start, and then it will drastically slow down, and from there you will likely have to apply more aggressive protocols. Either dropping food lower or adding ungodly amounts of cardio will be required. You will then plateau to where nothing seems to work and progress will simply stall. This is where most guys end up a few weeks into their diet plan.

Use as many carbs as you can, as they will help power through your workouts in the gym, keep your metabolic rate healthy so you can lose fat longer and more efficiently and not just make progress the first month.

Second Approaches

Well if it worked for him than it should work for everyone else? If it were only that simple, how wonderful would it be. It would be great because I would no longer need weeks and weeks to get a feel for a client’s metabolic rate. Actually it would not be a good thing because there would be a “secret diet’ that would be applicable to everyone, and in turn I would be out of business. All joking aside, there is enough variation from individual to individual that one diet plan simply can’t fit all.

So while it’s cool, and I am always intrigued as to what other guys have done to get into magnificent shape, my interest has nothing to do with me wanting to mimic their approaches. I enjoy reading these protocols because it confirms the notion that we are each very unique and a wide array of approaches do work.

Some guys need to get in 3-4 hard cardio sessions a week, and others can count the number of cardio sessions they do during their whole diet on one hand. Varying protein intakes, caloric requirements, training guidelines etc. However as intriguing as these protocols are, what most likely makes these athletes successful is trial and error over the year, attention to detail, and being consistent. Good genetics usually help too, which in most cases these individuals happen to possess. For these guys almost anything will work, and let’s be blunt for a moment, if you were genetically predisposed to being muscular and lean you would likely not be reading this article.

Hard work and persistence is going to really make a big difference, the other half will come from using more sound physiological approaches, and not some copy and paste job.

Abs & Cardio

I am talking about the guys that go to the gym and spend 30-40 minutes working out abs. Not only is it a waste of time, but there could be better things you can spend fluff time at the gym on. For example prehab work, foam rolling, as in all the things that will help keep you healthy and progressing for a long time.

Quite often I will get curious inquiries from clients about dedicating a whole workout to abs in an effort to tighten up the mid-section. Which still leaves me in awe since we can’t spot target fat loss, and why would a bicep grow when you use it, but the torso muscle shrink and tighten up? Truth is a little goes a long way since abs are involved in some of the bigger movements we do in the gym, and also what works best for other muscles works best for your ab development. Weighted ab exercises in the 5-12 rep range, at about 3-4 sets twice a week is more than enough. Real definition and true sculpting is going to come via fat loss, but like any other muscle in your body it can be very well developed, but if you are not lean enough it won’t show.

As the old saying goes: “abs are made in the kitchen”, not on the 400th rep of some weird ab crunch variation that is synchronized to some horrible techno music.

Weight Training Gone Circuit Training

In the offseason I love to hit heavy squat sets. Most of my leg development has come from the 1-5 rep range. So come time to diet I like to squat in the 1-5 rep range. Yes you read that right, and I do keep about 90% of my strength when dieting. In reality, if you want to keep your hard earned muscle, you need to continue lifting heavy throughout your diet. If it’s getting harder to hit those heavy sets I would first abandon the higher rep work so that I can save my energy, and recovery for the heavier weights. Here is how I would adjust once I get into those nitty gritty portions of a diet. The last few weeks where things can get tough at times, as not only does the weight seem heavier, but energy can take a hit.

Offseason Chest Workout

DB Press (Flat)
• 145 X 5 (2 sets)
• 135 x 7 (2 sets)
• 125 x 10

On season/Dieting Phase Chest Workout

DB Press (Flat)
• 145 x 5(2 sets)
• 135 x 7

On the contrary what you will commonly see is guys abandon the lower rep work for the higher rep work. The main reasons behind this is one, they have a hard time holding on to strength because they attempt to keep volume at offseason levels. Next is the all too common they are trying to “condition” the muscles. The latter is still one of those bodybuilding fables that I wish would go away, but like fanny packs they are still a sight for sore eyes at gyms today.

Want your muscle to look its best when you diet? Then go with what got you there in the first place. Keep lifting heavy!

Too Much Diet Restriction

Everybody cheats on their diet, I have found this out first hand. I have had my share of slip-ups, but also from working with countless bodybuilders over the years. Yes even the most hardcore guys have their moments of weakness where they give in. However, so much of this can be avoided by not sweating the details that don’t matter and avoiding specific pitfalls.

Such as banning specific macronutrients (fat, carbs and protein) completely, as many popular diets have in recent years. Be it the 80’s with their extremely low fat approaches, or in recent years the ketogenic type diets. This is why I am a fan of moderate approaches, because if you swing the pendulum too hard one way, it’s going to push back just as hard.

For example the guy who decided to diet on 1,000 less calories than he required, and then binges out of control on the 3rd week of his diet. Or perhaps a diet were you must eat 8 meals a day to keep the metabolism fast (which is more fitness folklore) and one day misses a meal and loses his mind. You’ll have a hard time dieting in the real world where you can’t always eat every 90-120 minutes. Trying to do so is an unnecessary stressor.

When designing a diet for someone, I never hand them an envelope labeled “the diet” as for the numerous reasons discussed above it just doesn’t work that way. On the contrary, often we have to discuss what their real world looks like. If they have foods that lead to binges we get rid of those right away, if they have special occasions coming up were food will be eaten we adjust. If they are a busy mom and eating six times a day is too much, well then we will only eat three times a day.

Final Words

The most perfect diet will not work if the person cannot adhere to the details that actually matter. A diet has to make sense physiologically and psychologically. Diets that leave both variables unaccounted for are usually setting up people for failure, rather than helping them reach their full potential.

AUTHOR: ALBERTO NUNEZ

Low-Fat Homework Made Easy

Serving Size - Ask yourself whether you'll actually eat the amount shown on the label. If you will, then you don't need a calculator to figure out how much fat and how man calories you're getting. But if you're going to eat twice that much, remember to double everything.

Calories and Total Fat - This is where it's better to look at the absolute numbers rather than the percentages. If you know how many calories and how much fat you're allowing yourself every day, these numbers tell you instantly whether you're within your range for the meal or snack you're about to have.

Saturated Fat and Cholesterol - No more than 10 percent of your calories should come from saturate fat. As for cholesterol, the American Heart Association recommends no more than 300 milligrams a day.

Sodium - Although it's not a factor that directly affects your low-fat diet, high sodium can pose another health risk for some people by leading to high blood pressure.

Dietary Fiber - The more, the better. Foods that are high in fiber help keep your digestive system working smoothly. Since they make you feel full longer, high-fiber foods ultimately help you eat less food in general and there-fore less fat and fewer calories.


Source: Low-Fat Living

Carbs Curb Hunger

According to researchers, when dieters are taken off a low-carb diet and shifted them to an approach that includes generous amounts of fiber and Resistant Starch foods, something wonderful happens: Within two days, the dieters’ cravings go away. The fiber and Resistant Starch fills them up and satisfies them while allowing them to eat the foods they crave. These good-news carbs also raise levels of satiety hormones that tell the brain to flip a switch that stifles hunger and turns up metabolism.

Source: Health Magazine

Lose Your Love Handles

By John Romaniello

When it comes to losing fat, we’ve all experienced the dreaded plateau. You work hard and make good progress in the beginning, and then you hit a wall. Things are slow going from there, and you make on-and-off progress.

Why? Why isn’t fat loss a linear process?

When you get to the final stages of leanness, it’s not enough to just keep doing the same things you’re doing; it’s not enough to reduce calories and exercise more.

You’ve probably also noticed that when you hit a plateau, fat loss doesn’t just slow down all over; it begins to reveal other things. When you’ve lost the first several pounds — whether that means 20, 50 or even 100 pounds — you’ve lost the "easy" fat. As your fat loss slows, you’ll notice that you’re holding fat in some areas more than others. In fact, you may be holding all of your fat in one or two specific areas.

We tend to call these “trouble areas.” These vary from person to person, but generally, men will deal with trouble areas in the love handles and belly, while women will have them in the hips and thighs.

Why do we have these trouble areas and how do we fix them?

This has to do with your hormones. At the later stages, fat loss is not just about calories in vs. calories out. It’s not just about energy debt or cardio or even (to a lesser extent) diet, although all of those things do factor in quite a bit, obviously. Really, it’s about your hormonal environment and the way that affects fat storage and, thereby, fat loss.

When your fat loss has stalled and you’re trying to break through that wall, or when you’re trying to rid yourself of those last stubborn 5-10 pounds, it’s a hormonal battle.

Far and away, the most common incarnation of this issue in mean is sagging love handles.

My own battle, and that of many of my male clients, revolves around love handles and lower back fat. When I’m dieting or getting ready for a photoshoot, it can take me several weeks to get rid of the fat in this one area, even when I’m very lean everywhere else.
As mentioned above, the reason many men, myself included, tend to store fat is due to the effects of hormones on fat storage. The hormone responsible for love handles is insulin.

The degree to which you are able to process and respond to glucose (sugar) levels in your body is called "insulin sensitivity." The higher this is, the easier and more efficiently your body uses carbohydrates for energy and the less likely you are to store carbs as fat.

If you’re insulin resistant, on the other hand, you don’t deal well with carbs. And anything other than a low-carb diet pretty much means you’re going to be storing more fat overall, specifically in the love handles. If you’re insulin resistant and you still eat a lot of carbs, then your glucose clearance from the heavy carb load is going to be compromised and hormonal receptor sites in your love handles and lower back are going to be overloaded.

The good news is that insulin resistance (and the resulting cascade of regional fat) can be mitigated with certain types of diet and training.

Misconceptions

You can see in gyms across the world the rampant use of “site specific” spot training. This is a futile attempt to thrash the last bits of fat from the edges of your body and does little to help you understand why nothing has worked up to that point.

My friends, the time for side bends and ab-twister machines is over. In fact, it should never have ever begun.

The reality is that these “spot-reducing” exercises often carry an abysmal level of total-body taxation. That is, they are incredibly easy and contribute very little to improving your insulin sensitivity.

Sure, you may drop a bead of sweat and cringe at the burn through your midsection, but the reality is you are probably wasting your time.

Big, dynamic multi-joint movements strung together in a specific way will provide the results you crave and rid you of those horrible handles of love. By doing this, we play into the power that hormones have on the body and use them as weapons.

One hormone in particular plays a major role.

Insulin Resistance vs. IGF-1

Insulin resistance can be combated very nicely by a hormone called IGF-1, or insulin-like growth factor 1.

Producing extra IGF-1 through training will help you improve your insulin sensitivity and rid yourself of love handles and lower back fat.

We know that insulin resistance is very common, particularly in people who were previously overweight. So, if you have lost some fat and you’re now struggling to lose a bit more (and that fat happens to be in your love handles), I’m willing to bet you’re suffering from some degree of insulin resistance and an inability to efficiently clear glucose from your system.

In order to get rid of that fat, you need to do fat-burning workouts (obviously) and increase your insulin sensitivity to the greatest degree that you can. As a result, you need to employ metabolic resistant training (MRT).

MRT is the overarching theory that dictates how I design fat-loss training programs; it consists of using fast-paced, multi-joint movements to train the body to move more efficiently.

Because this style of training is extremely expensive in terms of energy (caloric) demand, MRT is excellent as a general fat-loss modality. However, perhaps more important is the fact that it's also an incredible way to produce IGF-1.


The Method

Using a combination of explosive exercises, speed drills and numerous varietals of traditional methods, train in a way that increases your agility, dexterity, and mobility.
Nearly all of your training sessions should be heavily dependent on variations of the best fat-loss exercises, which are compound, dynamic exercises that move your body through space.

My personal favorites are the lunge, overhead press, single-leg squat and bodyweight pulling. These exercises serve as the foundation for your fat-burning mission and can be built upon to provide variety to a number of different training protocols.

When setting up a workout, using a noncompeting order — like alternating lower body exercises with upper body exercises — is also a powerful variable. The extreme flow of blood from one side of the body to the next causes a great deal of systemic disturbance. Your heart is practically cracking your rib cage while it pounds to move enough blood from point A to point B.

Combine this with minimal rest, moderately high repetitions and adequate loads, and you've got one of the most effective fat-loss protocols known to man. As an added bonus, your cardiovascular efficiency will enjoy a nice boost.

Here’s a quick workout using the above concepts:

A1) Bulgarian split squat — 10 reps per leg
A2) Inverted row — 12 reps
A3) Push-up — 15 reps
A5) Reverse lunges — 8 reps per leg
A6) Pull-up — 6 reps
A7) Overhead press — 12 reps
A8) Plank — 60 seconds

Perform A1-A8 in a circuit fashion, moving form one exercise to the next with little to no rest. Perform a total of 6 rounds, resting 60-90 seconds between rounds.

Even though you’re only doing one abdominal exercise (the plank) and none for the actual area where you store your love-handle fat, this workout is far better for increasing insulin sensitivity — and therefore reducing love handles — than any workout with a bunch of side bends and twists.

Without the use of any spot-reducing movements, your love handles will melt before your eyes. However, a warning: This type of training takes effort — a ton of it.


If you’re not one to tolerate hard work, possess mental toughness or have a burning desire to break past the final stages of fat loss, this may not be for you. Sadly, sitting or lying in a machine while flexing the spine will not get you where you need to go, but it is a heck of a lot easier.

So, if you're plagued by love-handular fatitude, do yourself a favor and start incorporating some dynamic work and MRT into your programming in order to up-regulate every fat-burning mechanism your body has to offer.

Seeking the “burn” in your abdominals is a false altar when it comes to the final stages of fat loss, particularly when dealing with love handles.
By performing big, taxing exercises, a different type of deficit is created. Instead of starving yourself, the deficit comes from an increased metabolic rate and systemic up-regulation. Hormonal function is maintained, sanity restored and stubborn fat storage combated.

Armed with this knowledge, design yourself a program that combines each of the variables mentioned above. Stay committed to the mission, and in a few weeks' time, those love handles may not be such an impossible issue after all.


Source: Askmen.com

Carbs That Boost Fat-Making

Carobhydrates provide essential blood sugar - glucose - which is the fuel used for energy production in the brain and every cell of the body. Glucose also helps maintain body temperature, digestion, movement, breathing, tissue repaire and immune system functions - so it's one of the most important compounds coursing through your body.

There are three basic types of carbohydrates, labeled according to the complexity of their molecular structure: monosaccharides (simplest), disaccharides and polysaccharides (most complex). Polysaccharides consist of many sugar units, bonded together by nature to form complex carbohydrates (starches).

Starches either may be left unrefined or may be refined, as happens when we process them to make certain foods. Unrefined complex carbohydrates come associated with lots of fiber, vitamines, minerals and other nutrients. Most of us need to eat more foods like whole-wheat bread and brown rice in order to get enough of these unrefined complex carbs in our diets.

By contrast, foods like white bread and white rice are both less filling and less nutritious because they have refined carbs. In the process of refining, such as the milling of wheat to make white flour, the fiber and many vitamins and minerals are lost. In general, unrefined complex carbs are gisted slowly and efficiently, providing a steady source of energy without the biochemical roller-coaster effect of concentrated sugars. Eating foods with complex carbs helps stabilize your sugar levels.

Refined white sugar - sucrose - tops the list of "empty calories", alone with its counterparts corn syrup, brown sugar, dextrose, maltose and cane syrup. High intake of refined sugar has been linked to a variety of health problems, including elevated levels of cholesterol and other blood fats, a deficiency in chromium, a trace mineral associated with heart disease and diabetes, and development of breast cancer. The simple sugar molecules in sucrose require very little digestion, entering the bloodstream and quickly raising blood sugar levels far above normal. In response, the body's insulin secretion mechanism is activated to remove the excess glucose from the blood, causing a downswing in sugar levels.

Even "natural sugar alternatives" such as maple syrup, honey and fruit juice are no panacea. The fact is, no sweetener used excessively is healthful.

Source: Low-Fat Living by Robert K. Cooper

Carbs and Blood Sugar

The right mix of carbs is the best way to control blood sugar and keep diabetes at bay. In one study at the Beltsville Human Nutrition Center at the USDA, participants who consumed a diet rich in high Resistant Starch foods were able to lower their post-meal blood sugar and insulin response by up to 38%.

Eat the carbs you want, but you need to combine them so that they don’t cause a spike in your blood sugar. Instead of eating white rice, switch to brown and combine it with beans, corn, or other high Resistant Starch foods that keep your blood sugar more balanced than low-carb diets.

Source: Health Magazine

Fat Blast

 
Slenderizing pasta - Make a tasty pasta with some black olive tapenade—it’s got intense flavor, so you won’t need a lot, and the anthocyanins in dark olives will help slenderize your tummy. Toss with linguine for resistant starch, and throw in a few toasted pine nuts for crunch. (trio top left)


Good-for-you-dip - To create this tasty dip, (Bottom right) purée a can of white beans (loaded with fiber and resistant starch), with jarred artichokes (more fiber) and olive oil (to add some fat-fighting monounsaturated fatty acids, or MUFAs). Serve with crudités.

Source: Health Magazine

A Fitness Model... and a Diabetic

John Angelesco is a part-time model living with Type 1 Diabetes. Double majoring in Civil Engineering Technology and Construction Management at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, he still has time for mud runs. With nutrition and exercise constantly being a concern for people with unstable insulin levels, I jumped at the opportunity to get his perspective and any advice to others struggling with the same issue.

 "My exercise plan consists of a 5 or 6 day workout routine for about 2-3 hours. Usually comprising of 3 days on and 1 day off. What I do in the gym everyday is a rotation of muscle group training. That is (1) Back & Biceps, (2) Chest & Triceps, (3) Shoulders, and (4) Legs. Along with that, I do shorter abdominal exercises for around 20-30 minutes, then some type of cardio exercise burning 200 calories.

From a diabetic standpoint, before going to the gym I always make sure I eat any type of breakfast. I would eat enough so I wont feel empty stomached, but not too much to feel bloated. I bring a couple Gatorades every time to make sure I have something to drink if/when my blood sugar goes low. Also make sure I have enough strips and lancets in my meter and insulin in my pump to get me through my time at the gym. Next it depends on whether you take any muscle supplements (pre or intra workout) because some contain carbohydrates. For instance, I recently took an intra workout that contained 40g of carbohydrate in each serving, so before my workout I checked my blood and put in 40g to cover for carbohydrates. Same situation goes for your post workout protein if any contain carbohydrates or not.

When working out, I bring my meter with me to my workout area where I do free weight exercises, then to each machine I use. I usually check about 5 times average. Which are (1) at the beginning, (2) mid weight workout, (3) post weight workout, (4) pre cardio, (5) post cardio. Then of course, if I feel like my blood sugar is low or high I check more. When low I would feel shaky, sweating more than usual, and weak. When high, I usually feel more lethargic, sleepy eye feeling, and have to go to the bathroom.

 For my meals/snacks, I eat all foods that are healthy for you. I eat fruits, vegetables, nuts, then other things like peanut butter crackers and granola bars. Vegetables and chicken are popular dinners of mine that I frequently eat. Also some lunches I make are turkey clubs on whole wheat bread for healthy sandwiches. Leading up to bedtime, for snacks its good to eat peanut butter because it’s a good stabilizer for the blood sugar. So I would eat a banana or apple and slab some peanut butter on it for each bite. Then every night I drink my casein protein shake, which helps muscle recovery/growth for the slow acting proteins."

 There you have it. John recently created a modeling page on Facebook. Check him out, LIKE and SHARE!

 https://www.facebook.com/JaModeling

Worst Fast Food Breakfast

Worst Fast Food Breakfast
Burger King BK Ultimate Breakfast Platter
1,310 calories
72 g fat (26 g saturated, 1 g trans)
2,490 mg sodium

Platters are meant to feed groups, not individuals. But serving size isn't the King's only flagrant foul. He hacks away at your arteries with buttered eggs, fried potatoes, gristly sausage, and a trans fat-filled biscuit. (And we're not even talking about the diabetic debacle that is the pile of pancakes and syrup.) You'd better have run 12 miles before queuing up for this breakfast at BK. That's what it would take for the average person to burn through this platter's 1,300 calories.

Source: Eat This, Not That

Fat Loss Mistakes: Four Reasons You're Not Lean

I’ll be honest. I’m not a fat loss “expert.” I also don’t think most people need a fat loss expert. What they need is a straightforward, no-frills approach to fat loss. Check out the physiques of the folks inside your local Walmart or grocery store, even your gym. How many are so elite that they need strategies to get from 6% to 4% body fat? Compare that with the number that could benefit from simply dropping 20-30 pounds, or might be looking to get into single digit body fat for the first time in their life?

That’s what I thought.

This piece is about in the trenches, real world fat loss strategies. And while there’s nothing new about what I’m about to present, I’d implore you to focus on mastering these basic tools first, before worrying about the minutia.
To that end, here are the biggest reasons why you aren’t getting results from your current fat loss program, along with practical strategies you can use to start seeing a difference today!

A Quick Primer

When it comes to fat loss programs, I’m a huge advocate of alternating upper body and lower body exercises in a superset fashion. For example, do a set of squats (lower body), rest for an allotted period of time, and then do a set of chin-ups (upper body).

You can use any approach you like, but this example will be used throughout this article.

Reason #1 – Crappy exercise selection and lack of intensity

In the real world, great exercises are great exercises. Big exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, overhead presses, push-ups, pull-ups, rows, and single-leg work are great regardless of your goals. So why is it when people want to lose fat, they spend more time wussing out on the big exercises?Look, fat loss programs flat out suck. Try doing a heavy set of 8-12 squats, resting 60-90 seconds, and then following that up with a big compound press or pull. Rest 60-90 more seconds, and then repeat that sequence 2-3 more times.

Feel like throwing up yet?

If you aren’t really uncomfortable in your fat loss efforts, you’re not working hard enough. And beyond just crappy exercise selection, most people trying to drop lard don’t work hard, period. They assume that since their reps are higher they don’t need to use as much load. While you definitely won’t be using as much weight as you would on say a 5-rep max, many take this to a wussifying extreme.

Regardless of whether your goal is strength, hypertrophy, fat loss, etc., you have to push the weights. In fat loss programs, if you’re supposed to be doing sets of 10 reps and you could’ve done 15 or 20 reps, you need to get your ass in gear and pile on some poundage.
The Fix:

The first two supersets of your workout should make you cringe.

I like to start every fat loss session off with two big supersets, something like this:

1A) Squat Variation
1B) Horizontal Pull
2A) Posterior Chain or Single-Leg Work
2B) Horizontal Press
Another workout could look like this:
1A) Deadlift Variation
1B) Vertical Pull
2A) Posterior Chain or Single-Leg Work
2B) Vertical Press

So big exercises, and pushing the weights are critical. This leads me right into my next point…

 
Reason #2 – Your rest periods are out of whack

When it comes to fat loss, we know that rest periods are important. But again, there’s a big difference between knowing they’re important, and actually sticking to them. I see two issues frequently – men take too much time between sets, while women take too little time. Guys are notorious for taking their sweet time when training. They’re supposed to rest 60 seconds, but then they have to get some water, load the bar, ogle the hot chick on the stretching mats, or a host of other things. Next thing you know, it’s been 2-3 minutes and they still haven’t started the second exercise in their superset yet! Is it any wonder they’re still fat? Women, on the other hand, are notorious for chasing the “burn,” and they look like perpetual motion machines gone wrong.

Instead of taking 30, 60 or even 90 seconds in between their sets, they’ll bounce from exercise to exercise, taking as little rest as possible. I’m all for training density – doing more work in less time. It can be a powerful tool. But not if you use it exclusively, or while ignoring other valuable training methods. Think about what happens if you never rest. What you’re doing is trading exercise intensity for training density.

The Fix:

Time your rest periods! Put your headphones on, take a stopwatch to the gym, and become militant about your rest periods. Guys, get serious about your routine and stop dicking around. It’s time to dial it in and do the work! For fat loss, rest intervals are as important a training parameter as the weight on the bar, so respect it as such. Ladies, rest is important. If you want to maximize your results, there comes a time and place to increase your intensity. Take the allotted amount of rest and push the weights.

Reason #3 – Your Diet is Garbage

The basics of diet aren’t that complicated. We’re not going to talk about macronutrient splits, nutrient timing, or any other complicated stuff. We’re going to look at the basics, and why most people fail miserably in their efforts to shed body weight and/or body fat. I can’t tell you how many times people have come to me muttering something along these lines:

“My diet is great but I just can’t lose weight.”

“I eat so clean – I think I must have a hormonal imbalance.”

“My mom and dad are overweight. I just have bad genetics.”

Sure, there are legitimate reasons why some people can’t lose body weight and/or body fat. Unfortunately, most just like to make excuses and play the victim rather than put in the work necessary to achieve their goals.

My new strategy is to have any clients who want to use an excuse perform two exercises first. If they do both of the following and still aren’t losing body fat, then we can explore deeper-seeded issues.

TAKE A 7 DAY DIET HISTORY

If you’re not willing to write down everything you eat and drink for at least 7 days, I’m not willing to accept your excuse that you can’t lose weight. Period. About a year ago, a female came into the gym to start training. She told me that she was eating pretty clean, and yet was still unable to lose weight. I gave her the challenge – write down everything you eat and drink for the next 5 days (I was nicer and less annoyed back then). The result? She became immediately more conscious of what she was eating and as a result she lost six pounds over five days by simply understanding all the garbage she was inhaling!

A diet history is a powerful tool. Unfortunately, our grasp of serving sizes these days is totally skewed. So if they do the diet history and we still can’t find any glaring issues, we add another wrinkle. Take a 7-Day Diet History, Weighing and Measuring ALL Foods

Do you have any idea what three ounces of chicken really looks like? What about two tablespoons of ranch dressing or peanut butter? Or how much a serving of pasta is?

Most people don’t, and it’s absolutely impeding their fat and weight loss goals.

Another client was in the midst of a 200-pound weight loss when he came to us. (Yes, this guy went from 400+ to just a little over 200 pounds over a five year period!) When he was with us, one of the biggest changes he made was consistently making better food choices. Instead of snacking on chips or pretzels, he moved to a healthier alternative: almonds. The issue was that almonds are incredibly calorie dense, and he had no clue how many he was actually eating. Instead of eating one serving, he was eating three, four, even five servings as a snack!

Once he reined this in and focused on weighing and measuring his foods, he broke through a plateau and saw some great changes in his scale weight.


The Fix:

Weigh and measure all your foods for a month. “A month? What? Mike you just said 7 days!”

Seven days is a great start, and it can shed some light on where you’re going wrong. But if you’re serious about your fat loss efforts, I want you to know exactly what you’re putting in your body on a daily basis. Is this a massive pain in the ass? Sure. But if being lean was easy, every bro would be sporting a six-pack and every gal would have the figure of a Victoria’s Secret model.

The people that get the best results do the things that others aren’t willing to do. So get to work!

Reason #4 – Your recovery sucks

Let’s say your diet is on point, you’re training your ass off with the right exercises, set/rep schemes, and rest periods, and you’re still not losing fat.

What gives?

Tell me if any (or all) of the below describes you:

• You rely on caffeine to get you through the day.
• Sleeping 6 hours is a thing of beauty.
• Your job, spouse/significant other/children/life are incredibly stressful and cause you anxiety.

Regardless, this list could go on and on. People keep pushing and pushing and wonder why their body isn’t responding.
I try to describe it like this: Your body is like soil. You need to take care of it so it has the potential to grow your garden (or your physique).

But if your soil never gets any fertilizer, you never water it, and it’s baking in the scorching hot sun all day, do you really think it’s going to have the foundation to grow anything of substance? Your body is no different.

If you’re doing all the hard things right, why not do the easy things that help you get over the weight and fat loss hump?

The Fix:

Start prioritizing recovery. This can be daunting for some, but start with the basics.

You need to get 7-8 hours of sleep minimum. I know there’s going to be one guy piping in on the LiveSpill about how he sleeps four hours per day and is 4% body fat, squats 1000, and benches 700, raw.

Good for you. The rest of us need more sleep to expedite recovery. Sleep 7 hours. If you can’t get in seven continuous hours, try getting as much as you can at night and then work in a nap or two throughout the day. Seriously, if you need to go out to your car on your lunch break and take a nap, do so.

You’ll be shocked at how refreshed you feel and how much more intense your workouts will become once your batteries are fully charged.

Improve sleep quality. Beyond quantity of sleep is quality. To enhance the quality of my sleep, I’ve been using BIOTEST’S EliteproTM Minerals and Z-12TM before bed. I’m pushing my training and with a five month old at home, I’m going to do whatever I can to maximize whatever sleep I do get.

Manage stress. You need to find quality stress management techniques that work for you. First, worrying about things you have no control over is worthless and totally dumb. If you can’t control it, don’t worry about it. Whatever happens will happen. Focus on the things you do have some control over and start to take your life back.

Relax. Consider employing some progressive relaxation techniques before bed. Simple things like diaphragmatic breathing, contracting and relaxing individual muscle groups, and simply unwinding for 5-10 minutes can greatly expedite how quickly you fall asleep.

Meditate. You don’t have to center your chi and chant “Om” until the cows come home, but meditation definitely has benefits. If nothing else, meditation can help clear your head and get you focused on what’s important (as well as what’s not).

Summary

Getting lean isn’t anywhere near as confusing as some would lead you to believe. Trust me, far too many people are making insane amounts of money by keeping you confused and having an “angle” on fat loss.

If you’re serious about getting lean once and for all, apply the four simple techniques and fixes I outlined above. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results!

Author: MIKE ROBERTSON

Can You Eat Late and Still Lose?

Lately we've heard the only thing that matters to you waistline is how much you eat. But there's a growing body of research that says when you eat really does make a difference in how much you weigh. "Your body is more prone to burn fat at certain times of day and store fat at other times," says Satchin Panda, Ph.D, associate professor in the Regulatory Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA. New studies reveal that to burn the most fat, you need to go 12 hours without eating, like from 8p to 8a.

To keep pounds off, don't eat after dark. Before electricity and all-night dinners, we humans used to spend a long stretch every night without food passing our lips. Staying up and eating late is a very recent phenomenon in human history. Our metabolisms are hardwired to expect a nightly fast, which is a key time for your body to burn fat.

During the day, your brain and muscles use some of the calories you eat for fuel, and the rest gets stored in the liver in the form of glycogen. At night, your body converts that glycogen into glucose and releases it into your bloodstream to keep your blood-sugar levels steady while you sleep. Once the stored glycogen is gone, your livers starts burning fat cells for energy. You burn fat while you sleep!

It takes a few hours to use up the day's glycogen stores. So if you snack until midnight and sit down to breakfast at 7a.m., your body may never get the opportunity to burn any fat before you start reloading your glycogen stores again. It doesn't help that you're also likely to overeat when you're up late. Night owls consume an average of 248 calories more per day than those who got to bed earlier, and most of those calories rack up after 8p.m.

Using this time method may mean that you can snack more and weigh less. In a study just published in Cell Metabolism, Panda's research team for that mice that ate a high-fat diet spread out over the day and night became obese and diabetic, while mice eating the same diet but only over an eight-hour period didn't gain any weight and remained healthy. "Fasting at night can even override most of the negative effects of an unhealthy diet, including weight gain," Panda says.

Source: Health Magazine

Using Food Labels

Food labels are designed to help consumers make food choices based on the nutrients that are most important to good health. In addition to listing nutrient content by weight, the label puts the information in the context of a daily diet of 2000 calories that includes no more than 65 grams of fat (approximately 30% of total calories). For example, if a serving of a particular product has 13 grams of fat, the label will show that the serving represents 20% of the daily fat allowance. If your daily diet contains fewer or more than 2000 calories, you need to adjust these calculations accordingly.

Food labels contain uniform serving sizes. This means that if you look at different brands of salad dressing, for example, you can compare calories and fat content based on the serving amount. (Food label serving sizes may be larger or smaller than MyPyramid serving size equivalents, however.) Regulations also require that foods meet strict definitions if their packaging includes the terms light, low-fat, or high-fiber (see below). Health claims such as “good source of dietary fiber” or “low in saturated fat” on packages are signals that those products can wisely be included in your diet. Overall, the food label is an important tool to help you choose a diet that conforms to MyPyramid and the Dietary Guidelines.

Selected Nutrient Claims and What They Mean

Healthy A food that is low in fat, is low in saturated fat, has no more than 360–480 mg of sodium and 60 mg of cholesterol, and provides 10% or more of the Daily Value for vitamin A, vitamin C, protein, calcium, iron, or dietary fiber.
Light or lite One-third fewer calories or 50% less fat than a similar product.
Reduced or fewer At least 25% less of a nutrient than a similar product; can be applied to fat (“reduced fat”), saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, and calories.
Extra or added 10% or more of the Daily Value per serving when compared to what a similar product has.
Good source 10–19% of the Daily Value for a particular nutrient per serving.
High, rich in, or excellent source of 20% or more of the Daily Value for a particular nutrient per serving.
Low calorie 40 calories or less per serving.
High fiber 5 g or more of fiber per serving.
Good source of fiber 2.5–4.9 g of fiber per serving.
Fat-free Less than 0.5 g of fat per serving.
Low-fat 3 g of fat or less per serving.
Saturated fat-free Less than 0.5 g of saturated fat and 0.5 g of trans fatty acids per serving.
Low saturated fat 1 g or less of saturated fat per serving and no more than 15% of total calories.
Cholesterol-free Less than 2 mg of cholesterol and 2 g or less of saturated fat per serving.
Low cholesterol 20 mg or less of cholesterol and 2 g or less of saturated fat per serving.
Low sodium 140 mg or less of sodium per serving.
Very low sodium 35 mg or less of sodium per serving.
Lean Cooked seafood, meat, or poultry with less than 10 g of fat, 4.5 g or less of saturated fat, and less than 95 mg of cholesterol per serving.
Extra lean Cooked seafood, meat, or poultry with less than 5 g of fat, 2 g of saturated fat, and 95 mg of cholesterol per serving.
Note: The FDA has not yet defined nutrient claims relating to carbohydrates, so foods labeled low- or reduced-carbohydrate do not conform to any approved standard.

Banana and Quinoa Waffles

Yum! Do these banana waffles, which I found over on Babble, look good, or what? They're on my agenda for making this weekend--and freezing for the week ahead! "With a quiet banana flavor and a hint of spice, these waffles are delicious on their own and even better smothered in maple syrup," the Babble bloggers note. "The cornmeal and quinoa (Pronounced KIN-WAH) make them a little healthier than your average run-of-the-mill waffles and give them a crumbly, delicate texture."

And, don't be afraid of quinoa, gals. I know, it's sort of a healthy-nutty ingredient, but really and truly, it adds a nice nutty flavor, a dose of whole grains, and some extra protein to your breakfast. Try it!


Cook these up and enjoy some quiet time with your loved ones around the breakfast table.

Spiced Banana Quinoa Waffles

1/4 Stick butter
1 cup all-purpose whole grain wheat flour
1/2 cup fine cornmeal
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 ripe bananas (plus more for garnish)
3 eggs, separated
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup skim milk

Preheat your waffle iron. In a small saucepan, melt the stick of butter over medium-low heat and set aside.

Place the egg whites in the bowl of your mixer and beat on high, until the egg whites form stiff peaks. Gently scoop the egg whites out into another bowl. In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork, and then whisk in the sugar, eggs yolks, melted butter and milk. Set aside. Next, combine the remaining dry ingredients, flour, cornmeal, quinoa flour, baking powder, salt, and ginger in the bowl of your mixer. When the dry ingredients are combined, fold in the wet, mixing just until combined. Finally, gently fold in the egg whites with a spoon.

Heat the oven to 200 degrees and place a large platter inside. Spoon 1/3 cup per waffle onto your iron, and cook until the waffle is golden brown. Remove the finished waffles to  the oven to warm. Continue until all of the waffles are cooked.

Serve banana slices and warm sugar free syrup.

Walnuts

On Eat This, Not That's list of 8 Foods You Should Eat Everyday. Walnuts are richer in heart-healthy omega-3s than salmon, loaded with more anti-inflammatory polyphenols than red wine, and packing half as much muscle-building protein as chicken. Other nuts combine only one or two of these features, but not all three. A serving of walnuts is about one ounce or seven nuts is a good postworkout recovery snack.
Substitutes - Almonds, peanuts, pistachios, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts.
Fit it in - Sprinkle on top of salads, pancake batter, fish or chicken marinade topping.

Source: Eat This, Not That

Low-Carb May Cause Stress

Low-carb diets make you feel sad and stressed! Snapping at your husband and kids? Yelling at drivers? You might want to blame your carb deprivation. A recent study by Australian researchers, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, followed 106 dieters for a year. Half ate a carb-rich diet. The others followed a low-carb diet.

After a year, the carb eaters felt happier, calmer, and more focused than the carb-deprived group, who reported feeling stressed out. The reason for this? Carbs boost mood-regulating, stress-reducing chemicals in the brain, and high-protein, fatty foods may deplete them, says Grant Brinkworth, PhD, the lead researcher of the study.

Source: Health Magazine

Worst "Healthy" Sandwich

Worst "Healthy" Sandwich
Quizno's Veggie (large)

1,090 calories
61 g fat (19 g saturated)
2,540 mg sodium

In most people's minds, "veggie" is synonymous with "healthy," which is what makes this sandwich such a sly beast. You might think it's a welterweight, but topped as it is with the trio of mozzarella cheese, Cheddar cheese, and guacamole—which together provide a full day's worth of fat—this sub fights its way into the big boys' division. If it's vegetables you seek at Quizno's, it's either the Pan Asian Chopped Salad or a fistful of fat.

Source: Eat This, Not That

Carrots

One of Eat This, Not That's 8 Foods You Should Eat Everyday. Most red, yellow, or orange vegetables and fruits are spiked with carotenoids--fat soluble compounds that are associated with a reduction in a wide range of cancers, as well as reduced risk and severity of inflammatory conditions such as asthma and rheumatoid arthritis--but none are as easy to prepare or have as low a caloric density as carrots. Aim for 1/2 cup a day.
Substitutes: Sweet potato, pumpkin, butternut squash, yellow bell pepper, mango
Fit it in: Raw baby carrots, slice raw yellow pepper, butternut squash soup, pumpkin pie, carrot cake

Source: Eat This, Not That

100-Calorie Mexican Frittatas

These Tex-Mex Mini-Frittatas are amazing.  approximately 112 calories for 2 frittatas.  Served along side turkey sausage and a glass of orange juice or a bowl of berries and you have a fabulously healthy low-calorie breakfast.

I love these, they are fast and simple.  They reheat VERY well.  I make enough for several breakfasts and then heat them up in the morning. I have been feeding a hunkering for spicy Mexican food and this hit the spot, served on a bed of pico de gallo it is amazing (calorie count only includes mini-frittatas).  Buon Appetito!

Tex-Mex Mini-Frittatas (Low Calorie)
Olive Oil Spray
16 egg whites
2 ounces 2% Mexican cheese blend (I used Lucerne brand)
1/4 cup drained canned diced green chilis
salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350°.  Lightly mist 8 cups of a non-stick muffin pan with the olive oil spray. Put 2 egg whites in each muffin cup, sprinkle with pinch of salt and pepper.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until almost set.


In a small mixing bowl, mix the cheese and chiles.  Spoon the mixture evenly over the tops of the frittatas.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes longer, or until the egg is no longer runny and the cheese is melted.  Transfer the muffin tin to a cooling rack and allow the frittatas to rest for 2 minutes before serving.

Source: Slow Roasted Italian