Super Easy Low-Carb Appetizer for Your New Year’s Eve Party

In case you have been living under a rock, or taking nutrition classes at a University, then you know that when it comes to fat-loss and health low-carb wins hands down.  I’ve written about that here, here, here, here, here, here and a whole lot of other places.

Your New Year’s Eve party is right around the corner, so I wanted to give you something easy that you could make that would be both tasty and helpful with getting a head start on your New Year’s Resolutions.

When you go low-carb one of the things that you miss the mot is crunchy stuff like crackers.  Here is a great alternative that I love with Baba Ganoush (a great, lower carb alternative to hummus).

Low-Carb Cheese Crackers

Ingredients

4 slices (approx 1 oz each) cheddar cheese (pre-sliced from a grocery store – I’ve used several brands and they all seem to work fine.)

Parchment paper

Directions

1.  Take cheese and fold into quarters (you end up with 4 pieces of cheese that are about ¼ the size of the original slice) and place on baking sheet that has been covered with a sheet of parchment paper.

2.  Preheat oven to 400 F, and put cheese in oven when the oven heats to 400.
3.  Bake for 8min

For a crisper cracker – leave the cheese on the parchment paper for an hour or more to help it dry out.  The longer it sits out the dryer it gets and the crisper your cracker.

Nutrition

Makes 4 servings of 4 crackers

Regular cheese crackers – 18g net carb per 1oz serving
These cheese crackers – .5g net carb per 1 oz serving (4 crackers)

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”. 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 FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

Merry Christmas – Josef Doing The Sprinkler

I don’t know why I decided to break out into the sprinkler, but I did and it’s in this video of how to do the face pull.

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”. 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 FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

How To Get The Body You Deserve

There is a very good reason that I did not name my business “the body you deserve” – I would have nothing to sell.  Everyone already has EXACTLY the body they deserve.  You’ve already earned that.  If what you have isn’t what you want, then there is only one thing that needs to change – you.

You look and feel exactly the way you deserve to feel based on the choices you have made up until this point.  This is one of those things that nobody really likes to hear, but inside everyone knows is true.

It’s like when a client comes in a says, “I’m doing everything right, but the scale  Read more

The 2009 Fit Gift Giving Guide – 5 Cool Fitness Things That You Need For The Body You Want

So far I have only bought one entirely inappropriate gift for the holidays, so I figured that I would continue procrastinating on shopping by writing this blog post about what other people should get for other people.

These are the 5 coolest gifts ideas that I have seen and bought this year:

#1.  Fitness Ropes – Men’s Health called these “The Best New Cardio of 2009”.  I call them the most fun piece of cardio equipment of 2009.  Anthony Duliglio calls them “Ropes Gone Wild” (hilarious).

These give you an absolutely fantastic,  NO IMPACT interval workout that gets your entire body involved, and is WAY more interesting than slogging away on the treadmill for 20min.  The nice thing is that anyone can pick up how to do these on day one – no matter how weak, poorly coordinated or poorly conditioned they happen to be.

Oh, and they’re way cheaper than other pieces of cardio equipment – a good treadmill will set you back at least $2,000.  But you can only do one thing on it – and it’s not too good for your knees to run on a treadmill.

Perform better has them on sale right now.  Shipping is free too.

(Charlie, you will notice that the video has music this time!)

#2.  A Kettle Bell – A weight with a handle on it, what will they think of next?  All you need is this + your body to get a killer interval workout in the warmth and comfort and convenience of your living room.

One of my personal favorites is the kettlebell swing and goblet squat ladder:

Do 10 swings, then 10 Goblet squats

Rest 30 sec

Do 9 swings, then 9 Goblet squats

Rest 30 sec

Do 8 swings, then 8 Goblet squats

Rest 30 sec

Do 7 swings, then 7 Goblet squats

Rest 30 sec

Do 6 swings, then 6 Goblet squats

Rest 30 sec

Do 5 swings, then 5 Goblet squats

NO Rest

Do 4 swings, then 4 Goblet squats

NO Rest

Do 3 swings, then 3 Goblet squats

NO Rest

Do 2 swings, then 2 Goblet squats

NO Rest

Do 1 swings, then 1 Goblet squats

Rest 2min and repeat

This is a lot like the workout in this video right here. (Same workout structure, but one of the movements is different.)

Kettlebells are on sale right now at Perform Better. Free shipping which is a big deal for something that is supposed to be heavy.

#3.  The Magic Stick – this one of the greatest tools for managing joint and muscle pain.  If you’ve got a tight neck or shoulders, this will help a lot.  If you’ve got knee pain, this will be incredibly helpful.

Most of my clients start out with some kind of joint pain.  For those with knee pain it’s usually bad enough that on day one they can’t actually work out hard enough to get any results.  BUT, with a whole lot of stick work they can usually complete the workout PAIN-FREE by the end of their first workout even if it has literally been years since they’ve been able to go up and down the stairs without pain.  These are magic sticks.

#4.  The Client Success Manual – if you know someone who lives outside of the DC area who has tried and failed to lose weight before, this might the gift that turns their life around and fast.  There’s no reason why you can’t drop 30-40 pounds of body fat (WAY different than scale weight) in just 16 weeks.

#5.  BPA-Free Water Bottle – All of us should be drinking more water, BUT you don’t want to be drinking that water out of a bottle that can make you fat, give you cancer, or damage your unborn child.

Apparently Bisphenol A (BPA) is found in most plastic bottles and is really nasty stuff – it does all of the above, plus it seems to disrupt thyroid function.

For the holidays this year I got all of my clients BPA-free bottles and bags.

The bottles are $7.00 and the bags are $35.00, if you’d like to order one send an email to my assistant Natillie (thebodyyouwant@yahoo.com).

For more fitness gift ideas, check out my 2008 gift guide right here.

Happy Holidays no matter what you celebrate!

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC based Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”.  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.

I’m So Sorry For Missing ALL Of Last Week

To everyone who reads my blog, I am sorry for zoning out and missing all of last week – not one single post.  Bad Josef!

I’m inclined to offer some kind of reason (a.k.a. BS excuse) about why I missed last week’s blog, but that would  be just like me telling my body “oh, I just didn’t have the time to eat right and exercise last week – I was really busy.  Do you think you could let me off the hook, give me a lot of energy and keep me looking good anyway?”

Excuses don’t matter, it’s not a result.

See you all this Thursday.

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC based Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”.  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.

Could You Use Some Inspiration?

I have a confession: I skipped my workout today. I told myself, “oh, I’ve been working so many hours. I worked out yesterday. I couldn’t sleep last night. I REALLY don’t feel like it at all, I can just skip it today…”

I really was just going to let it go, but I came across these inspiring words. So, I made a date with myself to hit my intervals at 10:30pm tonight.

I hope this helps you as much as it helped me today.

What Is A Workout? Read more