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.

What Your Workout Is Missing and Why You Will Continue To Be Disappointed Without This

Most people start working out, get frustrated with their lack of results and quit, only to get into worse shape and end up even more frustrated and fat.  Most people fail to get results because 99% of people are missing THE base ingredient for success in fitness.

Last week I go a really good question emailed to me by a Blog reader:

“What is your view on periodization? I always assumed that periodization should be used more for athletes or for folks with a deadline (sport, race, wedding etc.). Does an “everyday” client looking to lose body fat or general fitness need to do sets of 4-6 reps for a few weeks in order to reach their goals? (Weight loss, conditioning).

“I know the body adapts to the same workouts,
Read more

A Weight Loss Road Block You’re Not Even Aware Of: Maybe This is Why You Don’t Like To Workout

Everyone who reads my stuff knows that you need to do some kind of smart exercise to be healthy and look better naked.  However, a whole lot of the people who read my stuff don’t actually do smart exercise on a regular basis.

Are they just lazy?  Do they just lack time management skills?  Is their commitment sub par?

If you had asked me 3 years ago I probably would have said “yes.”  (Yes, assuming they were educated.  Meaning that they weren’t thinking that the key to long lasting fat-loss is “eat less and exercise more.”  ‘Cause it’s not.)

Research from one of my industry’s top trade associations shows that pain not time is one of the most frequently cited reasons for quitting a workout program.  I don’t mean that someone blows their ACL.  I just mean that people get sick of their knees, back and shoulders killing them.

Read more

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.

Larry’s Merry Christmas – Part I

Between my friends, family, clients and my awesome readers I was able to collect $340 for Larry’s Christmas fund.  Keep in mind that this was a totally spur of the moment, last minute thing.  You all gave that much between 9am and 5pm EST with no warning whatsoever.  That is really cool, you all deserve an applause.

Here’s what Larry got:

• $310 Gift Certificate to Target – he’ll be able to get far more than just socks
• $25 Gift Certificate to Barnes and Nobles – once the feet are good, we have to take care of the mind
• A copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad for Teens – in addition to giving fish I wanted to do at least a little something to teach Larry to fish as he is pretty much on his own

My friend and client Steve brought Larry over to my house last night and we gave him the gifts. The look on his face was the greatest gift I could get.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE.  You rock!

Oh, and just a few cool things about the collection process:

#1.  The VERY first person to send money via PayPal was my mentor Alwyn Cosgrove who lives in LA.  What a class act.  A lot of people think that you get to the top (he’s got a very successful gym, 2 mainstream books, dozens of other info products, and a whole lot of other businesses) by being mean to people or being selfish.  Alwyn is living proof that you do well by doing well.

#2.  A lot of times when I ask single people with full time jobs and no kids in their early 30’s for donations to various charities they say stuff like, “oh, let me see… No, I don’t have the money to help out.”

But when I ask my buddy Jon, who is a full time law student he ALWAYS says “yes” and puts his money where his mouth and heart are.  By the way, Law School is Expensive and tough!  Its not something you can do while you work full time.

To all my readers, thank you again.  Have a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, or non-holiday.  I’ll write to you soon.

P.S. We actually got a lot more money after the fact.  Mike Robertson gave a bunch himself and put it up on his blog, and decided to give out free hats and t-shirt to anyone who donated ANY amount of money via his blog.  What a guy!  I’ll talk to Steve to see how we can best put this to good use for Larry.

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and a Washington, DC based nominee for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine. Click here to find out more.