Instant Low Carb Ice Cream

Every two months we have this event called the For Clients Only Pot-Luck. Its just like a regular party – fun times, fun people, and great food, BUT you don’t have to worry about if what you will be eating is going to mess up your physique. Everything is both delicious and physique friendly. All of the fun, and none of the excess body-fat later on.

This month I went to Robert’s Oxygen and got 10 liters of liquid nitrogen to make instant low-carb ice cream. Normally ice cream will take 2-4hrs to make correctly: first a few minutes to make the soup, then 30-60 in the ice cream maker, then 1-3hrs in the freezer for it to cure.

Liquid nitrogen is -321 F, so it is very cold – cold enough to make ice cream in 10min. Everything is the same as on this Blog post (super low-carb ice cream), except you want everything in a steel bowl (others would crack).  No ice cream maker required.  Then you pour in the liquid nitrogen and stir with a wooden spoon (a metal spoon would freeze your hand – literally). Pour and stir, and repeat until you’ve got a bowl full of low-carb ice cream.

Oh, and NO, your ice cream will not have “nitrogen contamination.” The liquid nitrogen is so cold that it boils away and completely evaporates on contact with anything else – that’s what the smoke/steam is. After the liquid nitrogen boils away you are only left with cold ice cream.

Final note: xylitol makes better low-carb ice cream than erythritol.  Erythritol gives you this weird tickle in the back of your throat, and xylitol does not.

Then when you are done with making the low-carb ice cream, you can do stuff like freeze balloons, and whatever else you want to freeze.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

My New Favorite Meal – Five Guys Burgers, No Fries

I love Five Guys. But I also love having energy and fitting into my pants, so I thought that Five Guys was going to be a once in a blue moon treat. I’m embarrassed that it took me 3 years to think of this, but I can now eat Five Guys every single day with just one minor adjustment – take off the bun.

Step 1 – buy 2 (if you have my appetite) double burgers, hold the fries. I like mine with lettuce, tomato, hot sauce, grilled onions and mushrooms.

Step 2 – remove bun

Step 3 – devour

Its still really, really good without the bun. What makes it even better is that I can eat at Five Guys without having to take a 2 hour nap afterwards, and without the incredible mucous storm that happens after eating a bunch of wheat and potatoes. Oh, and if I eat Five Guys without the bun three or four times in a week I look better with my shirt off, not worse!

Writing this blog post made me hungry, but they don’t open for 20min:-(.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

Q & A: Better Results In 93% LESS Time

A friend of mine left me a voicemail message last night with this question about her workout, and since I hate giving free advice (people value it at $0 and do nothing with it) I decided to answer it on my Blog;-).

Q:  Last night I did a Tabata [explained in my reply] workout, do you think that 4min is enough for a workout?

A:  As always the answer depends.

BUT, before I get into that, let me make sure that everyone on the Blog know what a Tabata is.

Better Results In 93% LESS Time

In 1996 a Japanese researcher named Izumi Tabata discovered that you could do MORE to improve your fitness in 4min of very intense interval training than you could in an entire HOUR of regular old steady state aerobic training (such as jogging). (1)

The key word to take out of that previous paragraph is “FITNESS”, as in you will have better aerobic and anaerobic fitness with a Tabata vs. a one hour jog.  That is really cool IF your goal is to be better conditioned.

By the way, that is NO ONE’S goal.  Everybody comes in to me and gives me the politically correct answers up front, BUT what people really want is to look better naked.  And there is nothing wrong with that because you’ll do the health and fitness thing as a by-product of what it takes to look better naked.

The answer to my friend’s question is: “YES and NO.”  Yes, 2 to 3 Tabata’s will make a great fat-burning interval workout.  BUT, the hierarchy of fat-loss goes like this:

#1.  Eat better (did not say fewer calories)

#2.  Do metabolic resistance training (not bicep curls or leg extensions)

#3.  Do high intensity interval training (mush less important than #2)

I don’t think that most people will notice any difference from stuff like walking and jogging, so its pretty much just these 3.

So, if it was your interval day, then YES!  Good job.  If it was your lifting day, then NO.  A structured and long-term metabolic resistance training program will give you the biggest bang for your time invested.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 personal trainer for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.  You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

REFERENCES

1.  Tabata, I. Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and ?VO2max. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise: Volume 28(10)October 1996pp 1327-1330

Is Your Body Ready For The Beach? Washington, DC Personal Trainer Reveals 5 Secrets To Do It Fast

This is from a 4-22-09 press release:

Memorial Day is America’s “Great Unveiling” at the beach or the pool – all of the excuses are gone, and there’s just you, your swimwear, and other people’s opinions.  For many people this is a time of apprehension and fear instead of fun and joy.  Lots of people are already panicking because they don’t feel “beach ready.”

We asked Washington, DC personal trainer Josef Brandenburg how people can get ready ASAP for Memorial Day.

#1.  Ditch the junk training: “Most of what most people think they should be doing to burn fat – like jogging – makes essentially NO difference whatsoever in randomized, controlled studies or the real world… y ou can check out the rest of the release right here.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 personal trainer for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.  You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

10 Free Gifts For The First 10 People

Thank you for for reading my blog!  I just recorded a new CD called “Why ‘Eat Less and Exercise More’ Is The Worst Advice Ever”, and I want to go ahead and give away 10 copies (wait, there are only 9 left!) to the first 10 people to fill out this form right here.

Everyone who lives within 15miles of 1070 Thomas jefferson St., NW (20007) is elligeble.

The CD is exactly what it sounds like – why the advice “eat less and exercise more” sucks, and is really only a short term plan for long-term failure.

CLIENTS: don’t fill out the form, you all are special and will all be getting a free copy in the mail anyway.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 personal trainer for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.  You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

Super Low-Carb Ice Cream – Josef’s Cooking Show

I’m back on camera!  (So is the certified pug.)  And this time I’ve my my Easter favorite (filmed at my Grandmother’s house) – low carb ice cream.  Commercially available “carb controlled” ice cream has 4 net carbs per 1/2 cup serving.  I don’t know if you’ve ever tried, but 1/2 cup of ice cream is NOT very much!

I find myself eating 2 cups at a time which is counterproductive (16 net!).  Out of necessity I figured out how to get that down to like to like 4 for a real serving.

So, I was wrong in the video with my math – its 16 for the batch, not 6.  At Easter there was enough for 5 people + a second helping for me (it was good), so it makes a pretty decent sized batch – way bigger than the 1/2 cup with the store bought stuff.

Ingredients

2 cups cream (16 net)

2 egg yolks (.6 net)

1/2-3/4 cup xylitol (erythritol is actually a better choice) (0 net)

1 tbsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

Directions

1.  Pour cream into a microwave safe bowl and nuke for 2min (should be steaming hot).

2.  While the cream is heating, separate yolks and mix with sugar alcohol.

3.  Add egg yolk mixture to the hot cream and mix well.  Heat in microwave for 1-2 min more (just shy of boiling).

4.  Follow the directions on your ice cream maker to turn into ice cream.  (I got mine on Amazon.com, you could also go to Target or Walmart or Ebay, or any place else to get one.)

Nutrition

4 Servings with 4net carbs per serving (this serving should be about 1.5-2 cups, so this is a HUGE reduction from the commercially available stuff).

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 personal trainer for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.

Are Dieticians Trying To Turn You Into A Sumo Wrestler?

A funny thing about Sumo Wrestlers is that they do NOT accept fat boys into training because they don’t think that they have the discipline to stick with the rigorous training that it takes to become a Sumo.  In other words they have a specific system to take normal weight and/or thin boys and turn them into morbidly obese adults.

The best Sumo (the upper group) eat a diet that looks like this:
*57% carbs
*16% fat (1)

The purpose of this diet is to become a Sumo wrestler (very, very fat).

The ACSM, and The ADA (American Dietetic Association) recommend the following for athletes:
*no less than 60% carbs
*15-25% fat (2)

If the purpose of this diet is to improve athletic performance, then why does it look just like the diet that the Sumo eat to get crazy fat?

The only criticism a dietician could make was that the upper group Sumo was only at 57% carbs.  Maybe if we just had them eat more carbs then they wouldn’t be so fat.

Well, lets see.

The lower group of Sumo wrestlers eat a diet that looks like this:
*80% carbs
*9% fat (1)

They are the “lower group” because they weigh the same, but have even more fat, and less muscle.  So, it would seem that even more carbs means even more body-fat.

The Japanese figured out that the best way to make fat people was with a high carb, low-fat diet.  This was long before anyone had figured out what insulin was, or had done a controlled diet study to confirm their results.  Today we have 100 years of research saying that high carb, low fat diets make fat people fatter and make normal weight people fat too, but the ADA and ACSM still promote them.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 personal trainer for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.

References
1.  Nishiwaza, T. I., et al. Some factors related to obesity in the Japanese sumo wrestler. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Oct: 29(10):1167-74
2. http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/ViewMiscArticle.aspx?TabId=436&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en&mid=603&ItemId=520
(I normally think web sites make poor references, but USA Swimming references everything they put on their site, and the notion that the ACSM and ADA recommend low-fat, high carb diets to athletes is not really controversial in the slightest.)

Brown Fat & Weight Loss – What Does This Mean For You?

This will NOT just be a re-hashing of what you’ve heard on the radio, or read in the newspaper. It’ll be worth your while to read the whole 500 words (3-4min).

This week’s latest piece of weight loss news is about brown fat, or brown adipose tissue (BAT).  In lean people it burns up extra calories, and BAT activity can be stimulated by being cold (so far,  this doesn’t sound very fun).  Lots of scientists and reporters are hoping that BAT will provide a new target for a drug to ramp up its activity and increase energy expenditure in the obese.

The hope is that making BAT more active will create a calorie deficit and thereby end the obesity epidemic.

Why This Is Probably a Stupid Idea

The problem with this idea is that it assumes that there is no physiological relationship between calories in and calories out – that hunger is all in our heads.  Its just a matter of mind over hunger for the rest of your life.  (Why didn’t I think about being hungry when I was obese?  Oh right, I did, and I was!  And no matter how many motivational seminars I went to hunger always won!)

The problem is that EVERYTHING that we know about metabolism says that energy in affects energy out and vice-versa.

You know, when you are on a very low calorie diet you unconsciously stop moving, your sex drive disappears and you don’t have the energy to do much of anything.  Also, long bouts of strenuous activity make you want to eat more.

So, my point is that, if you were able to successfully stimulate BAT to burn up extra calories, it would not matter.  Burning extra calories would probably just make the person hungry, and those calories would get replaced by increased eating, or by the person moving a whole lot less.  Yes, the person could use will power to move more and restrict their intake for a while, but eventually the hunger will catch-up and the fat will come back – usually with interest.

The body is not some dumb machine where you can just change one important thing without there being consequences somewhere else.  This is why “eat less and exercise more” fails 98% of the time over the long haul.  Most people can’t be hungry forever.

What Gary Taubes Has To Say – The REAL Question For Your Body Fat

If you ever been impressed or learned something from anything I’ve said or written, it’s probably because I got it from somebody smarter than me.  Because he is WAY smarter than me, I asked Gary Taubes about BAT today.  Here’s what Gary had to say:

“I doubt it [BAT activity] means much because ultimately you’re concerned with the regulation of the white adipose tissue, which is the problem — not the total energy expended, but the regulation of the fat tissue. Why does the fat tissue take up too much fat? Not, why does the body expend too little energy?”

It seems like we’ve missed the point again.  The problem is that the overweight and obese accumulate too much white fat.  What regulates white fat?  Insulin, and pretty much nothing else does.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 personal trainer for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.

Josef’s Cooking Show: Low Carb Pineapple & Cream Crepes

When I was on vacation Prague a few weeks ago me and my fiance discovered this really amazing, relatively healthy dessert that is popular over there.  So, when I got home I had to figure out how they did it.  I did, and its actually very simple and easy.  The real time video is only 90sec!

Ingredients
1-2 oz mascarpone                                                 125-250 kcal (.5-1g carb)
2 oz super thin slices of pineapple                     27 kcal (5g carb)

Instructions

1. Cut off top and bottom and sides of pineapple, and place in freezer for 10-15min.  With a very sharp knife and careful technique, or preferably a mandolin (you can find one for a good price online), slice 2oz of pineapple.  This should yield 3-4 thin slices.

2.  Take half the mascarpone and put into center of pineapple, and roll around.  Enjoy!

Nutrition Facts

Makes 1 serving @ 152-277 kcal , and 5.5-6g net carb per serving

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 personal trainer for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.

What Happens When You Go on A Diet? – Why Calories Don’t Count – part II

Everywhere you look for weight loss advice you hear “eat less and exercise more” and “a calorie is a calorie is a calorie – just eat fewer of them.”  The REAL question is if there is any evidence to back that up?

Let’s put 3 groups of people on 1,000 calorie per day diets:

Group 1:   90% fat

Group 2:  90% protein

Group 3:  90% carbs

Results

Group 1:  dropped .9lbs/day

Group 2:  dropped .6lbs/day

Group 3:  GAINED .1lbs/day (1)

Kekwick, A., Pawan, G. L. S. (1957) Metabolic study in human obesity with isocaloric diets high in fat, protein or carbohydrate. Metabolism 6: 447–460.

The Problem With “Sensible” Advice

“Sensible” weight loss advice goes something like this, “if you would just shave 200 calories per day from your diet, then you would drop 20 pounds in a year.  You won’t even notice 200 calories per day.”

We’ve all heard it and we’ve all thought, “Hmm, that doesn’t seem so hard, I’d love to drop 20 pounds.”  But, the important question is whether that advice is based on any kind of evidence or not?

The short answer is NO!

The more complete answer is this study:  The Women’s Health Initiative gave 20,000 women this advice: “go on a low-fat, reduced calorie diet – cut 360 calories from your diet. [I’m paraphrasing and summarizing]”

If you just go by arithmetic, a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, so:

360 x 365days/year = 37.5 pounds lost per year.

What actually happened

After 8 years these women got FATTER.  They lost 2 pounds on the scale, but gained inches on their waist!  So they both gained fat and lost muscle.

Howard, B. V. et al. Low-fat dietary pattern and weight change over 7 years: the women’s health initiative dietary modification trial. JAMA. Jan 2006 4; 295(1):39-49

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 personal trainer for busy people.  He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.

Next Page »