My Arch Nemesis: Belly Fat

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Belly fat is stubborn, unsightly, and unwanted. We all want to be rid of it, but it’s always there, lurking, sagging, dragging us and our self-esteem down with it. Lucky for you, I have the knowledge, skills, and experience to eliminate your pouch and bring you out from beneath your belly fat’s shadow. Just take a look at these quick tips and be the person you always knew you could be:

Flaunt what you got!

One study suggests those who have a fruit bowl in their house weigh on average eight pounds less than those who don’t. While correlation may not mean causation, it does stand to reason those with more fruit on hand are more likely to snack on fruit as opposed to something unhealthy. Pro tip: keep two kinds of fruit on hand. That way, you don’t get sick of eating the same thing all the time!

Out of sight, out of mind.

The opposite of the above, hide unhealthy temptation. As they say, “out of sight, out of mind.” A separate study found individuals who had chips or cookies (junk food) immediately visible weighed about 10lbs more than those who didn’t. What’s even more surprising?

Those with cereal boxes visible generally weighed 21lbs more than those without such sugary snacks in eyesight. Soft drinks visible? Try 25lbs more!

Smaller plates.

Really, it’s honestly that simple. Use smaller plates and you’re bound to eat smaller portions, which means less food, and less food, as you can likely guess, means a smaller waistline. Clearly, food just being in front of us makes us far more likely to eat it. So with smaller plates, not only can we physically not serve larger portions, but we will be comfortable with the smaller meals in front of us.

9-10 inch plates are recommended. If you are currently using 12 inch plates, research suggests you will reduce portion size by an immense 22%. That’s nearly a quarter of your daily diet, just with plates! Take advantage.

Follow these tips and you’ll be strutting the along the sand in your newfound beach body in no time! Till next time!

Fat-Causing Condiments

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Sweet N’ Low. Trans Fats. MSG. They’re making you fat. Of course, they are on nearly anything and everything that’s edible, and so they can be difficult to get away from; not to mention, their nutritious value (or lack thereof) is largely neglected as a whole in the mainstream media, making them easy to neglect and forget. Yet, theses additives are there and are taking their toll, primarily in three different ways:

  1.  Two of these additives hinder the release of a hormone, leptin, which is responsible for telling your brain when you are full.
  2.  Other obesity additives actually increase your fat content by transforming how our bodies absorb and utilize calories. How do they do this? Insulin. When these additives increase insulin, a fat-storing insulin, your calories are converted to fat rather than as energy for you muscles.
  3. Additional additives, believe it or not, change chemicals in our brain known as “neurotransmitters” to make us addicted to them, just like a serious drug.

In light of the harm these additives can cause to your weight loss and fitness journey, I have elected to put together a list of the absolute worse additives that you should remove immediately from your diet:

–Stripped Carbohydrates: Basically sugar, flour, enriched white flour, white flour, glucose, high fructose corn syrup (aka HFCS), and sucrose among others.

–Artificial Sweeteners: NutraSweet (aspartame), Sunette (acesulfame K), & Sweet ‘N Low (saccharin)

–Added caffeine: Soda or energy drinks like Red Bull. Of course, a few cups of green tea or coffee are nothing to worry about.

–Trans Fats: As I’m sure you’ve heard, trans fats are not good for you. They should be cut immediately, and are generally listed “partially hydrogenated oils”

–MSG: MSG also falls under this umbrella of undesirable additives. It is often described as “monosodium glutamate”.

–Extra Alcohol: If you need to, limit it to one or two drinks a week.

–Extra Salt: Often found in chips, crackers, canned food, pickles, different cheeses, pretzels, condiments, and salted nuts, extra salt is a silent killer you should try to avoid at all costs.

Well, now that I’ve told you what you can’t eat, let me tell what you can eat:

Heinz Organic Tomato Ketchup is a great option over other more traditional ketchup options. Why? It doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup.
Curley’s Famous Hot and Spicy Barbecue Sauce is awesome because it doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup or MSG.
Newman’s Own is a fantastic salad dressing line since many of its options lack excess sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
Lucini’s Hearty Artichoke Tomato Sauce has a measly 230 mg of sodium in each serving and less than a gram of sugar, which is literally less than 1/10th that of the more popular Prego’s Italian Sauce Traditional.
McCormick’s Original Taco Seasoning is a great option for adding some flavor to those shelled pieces of deliciousness because it has no trans fats, otherwise know as hydrogenated oils.

These are just a few options you can use to better your diet, make the transformation you dream of, and lose the weight you want gone. For even more information, go to this article. That’s it for now. All the best!

Counting Calories Won’t Get Results

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If your goal is a flat stomach, you shouldn’t just be adding up the numbers on food labels. It may make you feel better by giving you some structure, but you won’t see those belly-shrinking results. The truth is, the number of calories in the food you eat is not as important as the type of food you’re eating. A 3 Musketeers bar has a little over 200 calories. That’s not an obscene number for a snack, but those 200 calories won’t be giving you much nutrition.

So, what should you be looking out for instead?

Don’t worry, you won’t have to give up counting. All you have to do is count something different. Namely, use the 1-100-½ method. What does this stand for? Basically, it all has comes down to how much you weigh. The 1 means you should consume one gram of protein for every one of your pounds. The 100 is the maximum amount of carbs you should eat in a day. Finally, the ½ indicates that you should only consume half a gram of fat for every pound of bodyweight you have.

What you’re doing with this method is counting out the nutrients in your food, rather than its overall calorie content. It is a much more accurate way to measure whether or not you should be putting a certain type of food in your body.

You may be wondering why this method is more effective for getting rid of belly fat than just counting calories. For one, it takes into account your body weight. Instead of ingesting a certain amount of calories as an estimate of what you should be eating, the 1-100-½ method caters specifically to you. Secondly, nutrition is key in changing your body. Protein helps boost your metabolism, so you need more of that than anything else. Carbohydrates are difficult to moderate if you’re not careful, and healthy fats are necessary to help your body heal. Overall, this plan looks out for everything you need.

Also, don’t be worried that you will be eating too many calories on this plan. You no longer need to calorie count, because the 1-100-½ method moderates your calorie intake automatically. So, you’re eating a moderate amount of calories and optimizing your intake to ensure your body is getting the nutrients it needs to slim down.

I encourage you to give this method a shot. I guarantee you’ll be seeing a change in no time!

5 Foods To Eat After Your Workout

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What do you do after an intense sweat session? Post-workout, athletes tend to shower, change, then grab a bite to eat. This is a good thing, since it is beneficial to eat 30-60 minutes after a workout in order to efficiently recover. However, not every food optimizes recovery. Grabbing a candy bar after a lifting session, for example, will not do much to help your body.

So what should you be eating after a workout? The fact is, recovery all comes down to protein and carbohydrates. Both give your body helpful nutrients to absorb, and replace all that was broken down during exercise. Here are five examples of food you should be eating as post-workout snacks:

Pineapple

Pineapple

I know what you’re thinking. Pineapple? Really? The truth is, we do not normally think of fruit as being loaded with carbohydrates but they are carbohydrate-packed. They also have specific enzymes that help the body transfer nutrients from food to muscles. Pineapple in particular is a good post-workout snack because it has all the benefits of fruit with the addition of anti-inflammatory effects to help your muscles recover more quickly.

Eggs

eggs

This may go without saying, but eggs are packed with protein. Hard-boiled or in omelette or scrambled form, they are a perfect way to help your muscles recover. If you want to go the extra mile for your body, consider eating the eggs with vegetables. You will not only get a necessary protein kick, you’ll also introduce extra vitamins into your recovering body.

Greek Yogurt

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Greek yogurt is a perfect post-workout snack because it has both protein and carbohydrates. It is superior to regular yogurt in that it contains twice the protein that your muscles need. For some extra nutrients, and a taste kick, add some fruit to your yogurt for a double-whammy recovery snack.

Whole Grain Cereal

bowlcereal

Can you say carbohydrates? Whole grain cereal and milk after a workout will give you a little bit of protein and a lot of necessary carbohydrates. Try to eat a type of cereal without a lot of sugar, because the sugar will delay your progress. Your muscles will thank you.

Quinoa

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A more unconventional grain, quinoa contains a ton of vitamins and nutrients, and also a fair amount of protein. It will give you the carbohydrate and protein kick your body needs, and only takes a few minutes to prepare. Remember to add in some vegetables for extra vitamins!

This One Food Combo Is Catastrophic For Weight Loss

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Josh BezoniIf you have done your due diligence, you are likely well aware that carbohydrates can be bad news for a fitness regimen. However, avoiding carbs completely does not automatically equate to fat loss. Of course, there can be many benefits to adopting a low-carb lifestyle, but never forget that unprocessed and fibrous carbohydrates can be an excellent source of energy for your body. As such, feel free to incorporate the right variety into your healthy lifestyle.

As always, however, knowledge is power. Beyond just what you are eating, you need to know the value (or detriment) inherent to how you are eating it. Think about what your current diet entails. What sorts of foods do you typically consume that are carbohydrates? How do you eat them? With what foods are they usually pair? You may be shocked to discover that something as simple as the dish you choose to eat alongside the carb of your choice can completely make or break your voyage to a fitter future.

There is just one simple rule that you can never forget when doing so. Never combine fats and carbohydrates. Limiting your fat consumption when eating carbs is absolutely critical. The way these two foods interact wreaks havoc on your body’s ability to burn fat and actually encourage it to do just the opposite.

When you eat fat, your body digests the food and releases fatty acids into the bloodstream. On the other hand, when you eat carbohydrates, your body digests that food and releases the storage hormone insulin into the bloodstream. This combination is exactly what you need to avoid. Fatty acids combined with insulin means your body will choose to start storing the fats. Insulin even activates fatty acid “transporters” in your body’s fat cells, which facilitates even more efficient fat storage.

Always avoid consuming large amounts of fatty acids and foods the will release a high level of insulin (such as all higher glycemic carbohydrates) into the body simultaneously. When you eat carbs, do not eat it with fats and vice versa. Best practices generally include limiting carb intake to less than 10 grams in a meal where you will be eating fat. Similarly, cap your fat consumption at 10 grams in a meal where you will be eating a large amount of fat. But just cutting out the dangers of eating carbs and fats by consuming them separately, you will optimized your body’s fat-blasting hormonal environment and being seeing much faster results.

What You Should Be Counting Instead of Calories

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calorie-countingWhile counting calories in, calories out can be a great way to help manage your meal choices, the results you achieve are much more related to the types of foods you choose than the calories alone. To this end, I’ve developed a better “counting” method for accurately determining the amount of food you should eat each day to support your body transformation goals.

It’s called the 1-100-1/2 method:

 

  • 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight
  • Less than 100 grams of carbs per day (less than 60 grams for women)
  • 1/2 gram of fat per pound of body weight

 

This is a much simpler and alarmingly more effective way of keeping track of your day to day food intake, and it’s a heck of a lot easier than writing down and adding up every ingredient you eat in a day and subtracting calories burned. This is called macronutrient counting, and it works for just about anyone looking to lose weight.

Why is it so effective? Because it’s relative to your body size, it ensures that you’re getting enough metabolism-boosting protein each day, it keeps your carbohydrate intake moderate, and it doesn’t discount healthy fats (which actually promote weight loss and muscle gain.)

By using this method, you’ll end up controlling your calorie intake simultaneously, but with a more balanced, nutrient-rich diet. A calorie from a Philly cheesesteak and a calorie from a greek salad are measured the same when you’re counting calories alone, but you’re getting very different nutritional make ups from these two meals, so you’re not getting the full picture. When you look at calories alone, your diet can actually end up really imbalanced.

If you’re looking at this and thinking.. but I’ll miss my carbs too much! Don’t worry. I still advocate a “cheat” day where you can lax on the counting for a day after you’ve put in your weeks worth of hard work, just make sure not to go overboard. Everything in moderation, including moderation.

4 Foods You Can Eat Before Bed

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late_night_snackMost people have heard that eating before bed isn’t a great idea if you’re looking to lose weight. This fact has broken a few hearts, especially for those of us who love a tasty late night snack. Well, here’s some good news: hope is not lost.

Not every food that you eat past 7 PM will go straight to your hips. In fact, there are certain foods when eaten late at night that can actually help you lose weight. So what are these magical tasty treats, and how exactly does all this work?

First, let’s talk about what you shouldn’t eat. And that’s carbs. Carbohydrate consumption causes a significant rise in insulin (i.e. the storage hormone), which stops fat burning. In the late evening hours your metabolism is winding down, so an insulin spike is the last thing your body needs if you are looking to lose weight.

So what should you reach for instead? Slow-digesting, high-quality protein.

Slow-digesting proteins don’t cause an insulin spike, plus they provide your body with a steady flow of amino acids as they breakdown slowly throughout the night. Amino acids help you recover from exercise and maintain your calorie-burning lean muscle as you lose fat.

Now, ready for some prime snack options?

1. White Meat Protein (not red meat) – Chicken and turkey are great pre-bed meal choices because they digest slowly and have a very low insulin release. They also promote the release of another hormone, glucagon, that helps the body break down carbs and fat to be burned for energy. DO NOT have red meat. Red meat has a significantly higher insulin response.

2. Cottage Cheese – Cottage cheese is slow digesting and stimulates glucagon release. Just make sure you’re eating plain cottage cheese. Flavored varieties come with a lot of added sugars, which aren’t what you want at any time, but especially before bed.

3. Green Vegetables – Technically not a protein, but they contain virtually no calories, are high in fiber, and very filling. You can’t go wrong with a nice plate of fresh veggies.

4. A Protein Shake – Protein in a pretty pure form. If you’re having this before bed, make sure it’s slow-digesting protein and low in carbs. Many people even make having one of these before bed a nightly ritual. Just make sure you’re not having whey protein. Research has shown that it causes more of an insulin release than even white bread! Opt instead for a a time-released blend that includes a blend of slow-digesting, high-quality proteins.

Anyone else hungry, now?

Demystify Your Diet

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Josh BezoniIt is now more or less common knowledge that watching your carbohydrate and gluten intake can be extremely helpful when in the process of losing weight, but not many people totally understand the logic behind such a conclusion. As with many other aspects of living a sustainably fit and healthy lifestyle, knowledge is key. Any consumer working hard to improve his or her body composition needs to be armed with the right tools to make the best decisions. Staying up to date with more than just the general trends, but the real evidence to support the suggestions you do find, is critical. So, is something like gluten even all that bad? Read the data and take the time to not just understand that it can be damaging to your weight loss efforts, but also why you should believe so.

A large body of literature already exists exploring the correlation between gluten and obesity. Researchers working out of Brazil have recently seemed to cement the scientific community’s suspicion of a link between the two. Their findings support previous studies’ findings. Scientists found that rats subsisting off a gluten-free diet enjoyed a reduction in body fat percentage, tissue inflammation, and insulin resistance. They concluded that excluding gluten absolutely warrants consideration as a dietary solution to resolving obesity and other metabolic challenges.

Also important, of course, are serving size and the number of both calories and carbohydrates in the foods you eat. The average bagel, for instance, is surprisingly destructive to most people looking to reduce their weight. Even “low-fat” bagel alternatives usually pack a considerable 300 calories per bagel, on top of an additional 60 grams of high-glycemic carbohydrates. Bagels should certainly not be a go-to as a healthy snack.

This holds especially true when you factor in toppings like cream cheese or highly processed fruit spreads. All these parts add up to equal one terrible, fat-storing situation. The blood sugar and insulin crash which will undoubtedly follow after consuming such a significant source of highly refined carbohydrates will most likely lead to a faster return of your hunger. This can lead right back to eating more high glycemic index carbohydrates, in an effort to get a “quick fix.”