Is Your Kitchen making You Fat? 2 Ways To Get better Results With LESS Effort
May 19, 2010 by admin
Filed under Uncategorized
“If the glove doesn’t fit, then you have to acquit.”
-Johnny Cochran
In my experience, the single best test of accuracy is “Does it rhyme?” If the answer is yes, then it describes the situation best.
With that in mind, and that logic firmly established, there are two important rhyming truisms that I was reminded of this past week:
#1. In the trash, or on your ass.
Little bit more trash, a little bit less ass
#2. If its in the house, it goes in your mouth.
Josef Screws Up
Here I am putting the second idea – In The Trash or on Your Ass – into action in the wrong way.
My sister is getting married! My wife threw here a shower at our condo this weekend. When the guests left we were left with a big old bowl of delicious potato chips. (Not that I would know that they tasted good.)
Freegan, not homeless
I wanted to throw them out when we were cleaning up, but never got around to it. A couple hours later I found myself stuffing my face with chips. Handful after handful went into the pie hole… before I knew it I had punished half the bowl.
At this point I finally put them in the trash.
A lot of people get hung up on throwing out food that they just shouldn’t be eating. It seems wasteful, and it probably is. BUT, the question is what do you value more? Is it more important to you that you “save” $2 worth of potato chips, or is it more important to you to look and feel the way you want to?
(And what the hell are you saving the chips for? To eat them later? Is that actually a good idea? Who needs to eat more deep fried starch?)
You can only have on answer to that question, and the correct behavior has to follow. Can’t have both at the same time.
My Client Screws Up
Here’s a client falling into the trap of #2. I have a client who said they were starting my Green Faces program last Thursday.
They overlooked the “get rid of the junk in your house” step, and Saturday morning they decided to polish off a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. Green Faces is about shifting your body from running on sugar to running on fat (as you would like to consume more of your own stored fat). Dumping a bowl full of sugar into your body pretty much defeats the purpose.
BTW, It takes a VERY clever marketing department to call that health food. How is a box of refined carbohydrates with added sugar good for you? ‘Cuz somebody waved “whole grains” near the box? Is there even any evidence that whole grains are good for you?
A normal cereal bowl will easily hold 2-3cups of cereal (we’ll go with the low number), plus a cup of skim milk. That is a little over 36g of sugar in this “healthy” breakfast – that’s a 10z glass of Pepsi.
If you keep it in your house, it’s almost certainly going to end up in your mouth.
Sure, we all need treats now and again. That’s fine. Just don’t keep it in your house. It’s TOO easy and TOO tempting to have it sitting so close to you, so easy to access. If the only place you can get junk is outside you home, that automatically decreases how often you eat crap. And it does it without discipline.
We each only have so much discipline. Best not to waste it something easily preventable, so you can spend it on something like working out regularly. Make your home a place where it’s easy to make good choices.
Oh, and check out this video on a cool, fun, very effective and FREE piece of home interval training equipment you can get.
Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, The DC Fitness Advisor and the Fitness Expert for the PCOS Challenge TV Show. 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.
Look Good & Taste Good – Cut Back On The Carbs, But Not On The Taste
For the record, the title is about your food tasting good. I don’t know where your mind happens to be right now.
A big problem for most people is that when trying to clean up their diets, they aren’t really sure how to do that and still like what they eat. Especially when going low carb. Most people’s diet’s are based on refined carbs (that’s the problem in the first place), and changing this seems daunting. “What am I going to eat? I eat everything on a bun, or a crust…?”
(Side note: Yep. Low carb out performs low fat. I’ve done a bunch of posts on that like this one and this one. Also, on the idea that all calories are created equal – they are not. And, on “research” to the contrary. And, finally, on the “negative” health problems that people think associated with eating steak, or simply with increasing animal fat consumption – here and here.)
Kim (thank you!) brought in this article by South beach author Arthur Agatston from The Wash Post’s Express.
A bunch of other clients saw the piece that Kim brought me and asked me to Xerox it for them. I thought the article had a lot of good ideas for “Cut The Carbs, Not The Flavor,” but I also thought a few of them could use some improvement, so here’s my spin:
#1. Mashed Potatoes
Mashed potatoes are good, however, they aren’t necessarily all that helpful for most people’s waist line, health, or energy levels. But, it’s very easy to make a cauliflower alternative in just a few minutes.
Mashed potatoes go from pure starch to starch-free.
#2. Lasagna
With pretty much any lasagna recipe you can swap the noodles for thinly slices strips of zucchini. Use a mandolin to slice it length-wise. You can do it with a knife too, but it requires attention to how thick the slices are. (It also requires more dexterity than I seem to possess.) About ¼” seems to work best.
The article has you pre-cook them on a stove top.
I hate doing anything that adds extra time to a recipe, so, if I can cut a step, I cut it. I don’t pre-cook, ‘cause stove top cooking the slices from 5 zucchini would take forever (20+min in my world).
I stick the zuchini into the lasagna raw and into oven raw. It may need to bake a little longer, but, whatever, I don’t need to be there for the oven to bake it (about 45min at 425). I can go read a book, write a program or watch an episode of House on DVD (only 42min without the commercials).
Note: if you do cook it raw, you’ll end up with a little extra water in the finished batch. Use some pot holders to pour it off into your sink. That takes about 60sec of active time.
This is my favorite new thing. I can make a huge batch of this on Sunday and eat it ‘till Friday. All I have to do is heat and eat.
#4. Spaghetti
Spaghetti squash makes a pretty decent sub for regular pasta. It’s really easy to make in the microwave.
You can put all the normal stuff on it – sauce, cheese, meatballs, chicken, etc.
The article says it has the same consistency as regular pasta. I don’t think so. It’s good and it handles the cravings but, it’s not the same.
#5. Pancakes
The article tells you to make them with oatmeal and cottage cheese… I don’t know, for most people who have body fat to lose, that is probably going to be too much starch. Personally, I would not eat that as a “healthy” meal, and I damn sure wouldn’t waste a cheat meal on oatmeal; so I don’t really see anywhere in my life I’d use that idea.
However, you don’t need the oatmeal after all. You can make these crepes for a similar themed breakfast treat. And, if you want something thicker, and more pancake-y you can try this version made with almond flour. (By the way almond flour is much, much cheaper at Trader Joe’s vs. Whole Foods – like 50% less the last time I checked.)
Low Carb Pancakes
2 eggs
¼ cup water
1 tbsp vanilla
½ cup almond flour
¼ cup flax meal
¼ cup sugar alternative**
½ tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
Cinnamon to taste
**You can use Splenda. If you don’t like the idea of Splenda here are a few ideas:
#1. Leave the sweetener out altogether, and remove the cinnamon, and make a savory pancake and roll it up around mushrooms and cheese. Maybe you would like that would be better with the crepes.
#2. Check out Just Like Sugar (nothing artificial and NO fructose whatsoever) – a very decent substitute.
#3. Try liquid sucralose – the biggest problem that I have with Splenda (sucralose) is that the powder form has to be carried in maltodextrin – a refined carb, so, the powder form, in quantities big enough for cooking kinda defeats the purpose (kinda, but not completely).
Sucralose is so sweet that the quantity that you need for a cup of coffee would leave you nothing to put in the packet. So, they use maltodextrin as a bulking agent. In liquid form, you don’t need the maltodextrin. It’s carried in water and fiber.
Directions
1. Mix it all up
2. Heat up a skillet with some sort of fat to keep it from cooking. I think you’re better off with butter, as vegetable oil (unsaturated fatty acids) are not particularly heat stable, but saturated fat is.
3. Pour batter into pan, and cook for 3-4min on side 1, and then 1min on the other side. Makes 10-ish cakes. (I never know how many it actually makes ‘cause I eat them as soon as I make them, so I am always guessing the total number.)
4. Top with berries and maybe Greek yogurt, or something else creamy.
#6. Pizza Crust
Their suggestion is to sub out the crust for a Portobello mushroom cap with the gills removed.
I tried this once a year or two ago, and it was OK. I think there’s a reason I haven’t done it since – it’s a lot of work, for a relatively mediocre dish. It turns out very watery no matter how long you cook it.
The Last 2
There were two more ideas in the article that I’ve never tried – using squash instead of potatoes fro hash browns. Sounds interesting, but I have no idea how this works out.
The other was using tempeh (a fermented soy product) instead of potatoes for making scalloped potatoes. Never tried this one either. Their recipe is in the article. I don’t think I’ll ever try this one. I avoid soy as much as I can. I spent far too many years eating 100+g of soy protein a day, and I will be paying for that mistake for the rest of my life.
If you try something, post your experience here.
Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, The DC Fitness Advisor and the Fitness Expert for the PCOS Challenge TV Show. 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.
Super Bowl Party for a Super Body
February 5, 2010 by admin
Filed under Uncategorized
Conventional Super Bowl food and football look like this:
Coach, I can't find my belt!
But the people in the Super Bowl look like this:
or like this:
Here’s a menu and recipes to help you have a great time while you avoid heart burn, weight gain and feeling like crap.
Chips and dip
There are a lot of dips you can choose from: salsa, baba ganoush, and guacamole, are my favorite. I just go with the better store bought stuff because I rarely have the time to make it myself.
Baba ganoush - like hummus, but less starch and better IMO
#1. Baked Rutabega Chips
These don’t come out all that crispy, but they are still very good and you can spoon pretty much anything on top of them.
Ingredients
1 Rutabaga, peeled and sliced into thin “chips” (a food processor makes this quick and easy)
1 TBS olive oil + 1 TBS to coat your baking sheet
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
Directions
Preheat your oven to 425 F. Mix all the ingredients except 1 TBS of olive oil that should be left over for the baking hseet.
Coat a baking sheet with the remaining olive oil, and then spread the seasoned chips out in a single layer.
Bake for about 30 minutes, turn them once or twice.
#2. 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.
For best results and crisp leave the unbaked cheese out overnight.
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)
#3. Raw veggies
I know. This is very anticlimactic, but it’s also probably the easiest one to do.
Pizza
Low-Carb Pizza Green
1 La Banderita (there are other brands too) low-carb tortilla (you can get them at Safeway, Harris Teeter and probably other places) 5g net carb
2-3 tbsp pesto (fresh is better, watch for added sugar) 1g net carb
1 handful spinach .5g net carb
½ cup cooked chicken 1g net carb
½ cup mozzarella cheese 1.5 g net carbs
Pinch parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Low-Carb Pizza Red
1 La Banderita (there are other brands too) low-carb tortilla (you can get them at Safeway, Harris Teeter and probably other places) 5g net carb
2 tbsp no sugar added pizza sauce 2.5g net carb
4 slice tomato 2g net carb
½ cup cooked chicken 1g net carb
1 small handful fresh basil leaves
½ cup mozzarella cheese 1.5g net carb
Pinch parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions – Same for both (ingredients are listed in ascending order: tortilla first, next thing on top, etc.)
1. Pre-heat over to 400 F and lightly spray large baking sheet.
2. Place tortillas on sheet and add ingredients (Ascending order – so tortilla 1st, then pesto, then spinach, and so on)
3. Bake for 8min, cut up and enjoy!
Nutrition
Green = 9g net carb per pizza
Red = 12g net carb per pizza
Quesadillas
Main ingredient - rock star goodness!
Ingredients
2 x 6” La Tortilla Factory low-carb tortillas
1/4 cup plain, cooked chicken breast (optional – you can put anything else inside or nothing except cheese)
1/2 cup Salsa
cooking spray
Instructions
1. Heat skillet with cooking pray
2. Place cheese and chicken between the tortillas, and cook until brown on both sides and cheese is melted.
3. Eat with salsa, and a side of raw veggies like peppers, cucumbers, celery or carrots.
Jalapeño Poppers (not deep fried)
This one is all new and from a client. It turns out that you don’t have to batter and deep fry a jalapeño to make it taste good.
Ingredients:
- jalapenos
- cream cheese
- bacon (you can also use turkey bacon, and I guess some sort of veggie “bacon” would work too)
- toothpicks
Preheat oven to 350.
Cut jalapenos in half and de-seed with a spoon.
Fill jalapeno halves with cream cheese.
Wrap 1/2 slice of bacon around each filled jalapeno, then secure with a toothpick.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until the bacon starts to squeeze the cream cheese a bit (I use a baking drip tray to let the grease drip off).
Eat. They are addictive.
And for dessert Pineapple & Cream Crepes
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 2010, Washington, DC Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, The DC Fitness Advisor and the Fitness Expert for the PCOS Challenge TV Show. 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.
