Posts Tagged ‘nutrition’

Nutrition Tip: Eat Pasta Carefully

Friday, November 14th, 2008
Dr. John Berardi
Dr. John Berardi

I have been reading exercise and nutrition material written by a gentleman named Dr. John Berardi since the late 1990’s.

Since that time he has published 8 scientific abstracts; 15 scientific papers and textbook chapters; presented at nearly 50 scientific, exercise, and nutrition related conferences; and published countless articles online. The man is a nutrition guru.

Today’s Topic – Eating Pasta

Today we get to examine a nutritional strategy of eating pasta for maximal fat loss, strength gain, and health. I personally don’t mind pasta too much, at least whole wheat pasts, but let’s see what Dr. John Berardi has to say about it.

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Nutrition Tip: 100 Calories a Day Can Mean the Difference Between Weight Loss and Weight Gain

Friday, October 31st, 2008
Lean Man and Woman
Sexy Woman and Lean Man

When you think about losing or gaining weight, you think about strict calorie deficient diets with bland food to lose weight, and sugary flatulence-inducing weight gainer shakes to gain weight. These ideas are not reality.

The average American gains 2 pounds a year, which is 7000 total calories. Divided by 365 days, that’s about 19 or 20 calories a day. It makes sense then, if you want to gain weight over the course of your lifetime, possibly to put on a couple pounds of muscle each year in order to stay fit and healthy, just eat 20 calories a day over your maintenance level.

It also makes sense that if you want to stay lean and trim for the rest of your life, with no major weight fluctuations, just eat 20 calories under your maintenance level each day.

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Why Do Fat People Eat So Much?

Saturday, October 18th, 2008
Overeating
Overeating

Initially, you thought fat people eat so much food because it gives them pleasure. Well guess what? You were wrong! In fact just the opposite is true.

Dopamine

Dopamine, a substance that makes us feel good, is one of the best-known neural chemicals. Though it is often thought of primarily as a manufactured substance it is actually produced naturally in the body. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that activates dopamine receptors, which makes us feel a sense of euphoria.

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10 Healthy Food Breakfast Tips for You and Your Kids

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
Healthy Foods For Breakfast
Healthy Foods for Breakfast

Check this out: in recent Consumer Reports news, we find out that some cereals have more sugar than a glazed Dunkin donut. The worst offenders are the sticky sweet cereals like Golden Crisp and Honey Smacks, and I tend to think that my beloved Cocoa Pebbles really aren’t that great either. I’ve mentioned time and again to stay away from food in boxes, especially sugary breakfast cereal.

So what are we to do? You know your kids are going to want something sweet and tasty for breakfast, and in all likelihood you probably don’t want to eat eggs, egg whites, or eggbeaters every day either. Here are some tips to make breakfast both tasty and healthy. I’m happy that I can promote another of my favorite cereals, Frosted Mini-Wheats… good stuff!

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What is the Best Acai Product?

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Best Acai Supplements

The Project Swole Three Step Full Body Detox Plan is the most effective detox and weight loss plan ever. Combine the supplement plan with a full body fat loss exercise routine for record breaking fat loss results!

Step #1 Acai Berry Detox Get a Free Trial or Buy a Full Supply
Step #2 Colon Cleanse Get a Free Trial or Buy a Full Supply
Step #3 Fat Loss Routine: full body fat loss for men or full body fat loss for women

Argh! Everyone keeps asking me what the best acai product is.

There are a whole bunch of acai berry products on the market today so it is hard to know which one is the best. Today, I would like to clear up any questions you might have.

Acai Berry Lose Weight

I’ve been doing a bunch of research on the subject of acai berries because I am very interested in eating healthy foods. I feel at this point it will benefit the readers of Project Swole to publish my results.

Why Choose Acai in the First Place?

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So You Want to Eat Carbs with a Low Glycemic Index

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

What is the Glycemic Index?

Glycemic Index
Glycemic Index

All carbohydrates are not created equal. A food’s glycemic index, or GI, describes this difference in the way carbs act in your body, by ranking them according to their immediate effect on blood glucose (blood sugar) levels.

Carbohydrates that breakdown quickly during digestion, causing a rapid blood sugar response, have the highest GI.

Carbohydrates that breakdown slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the blood stream, have a lower GI.

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Nutrition Tip: Do Not Mix Carbs With Fat

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

DoughnutSo many of us are currently, or have tried to lose weight. There are so many fad diets out there, that no one really knows exactly what to do to lose weight. Fortunately there are some basic rules that we can follow to put together a great diet plan. Let me share some of them with you.

I have repeatedly found dieters who are unfamiliar with a basic nutrition rule that I learned long ago. It basically goes like this: do not eat any meals that are high in carbs and high in fat at the same time.

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10 Ways You Can Stop Dieting and Change Your Lifestyle Eating Habits

Friday, June 6th, 2008

Red AppleWhen you look into the mirror what do you see? Perhaps you see a cupcake. Perhaps you see a pear that can talk. An apple maybe? A watermelon? Or perhaps you see walking toothpick. No matter your aesthetic malady, if it can be fixed with diet and exercise.

So often I’ve seen folks try to diet by immersing themselves in fad diet strategies. They use Atkins, Weight Watchers, South Beach, The Zone, Hollywood diets, Low-Carb, Low-Fat, the list goes on and on. Read some reviews of a couple fad diets. The problem is that when dieters go off fad diets, 90% of them gain back whatever they lost and sometimes more! I want to address that issue and provide some tips on how you can generally eat healthier for the rest of your life, rather than abusing fad diet after fad diet.

Starting a new diet or exercise program should not be taken lightly. If you are severely overweight, severely underweight, and/or have any medical conditions, you should always consult your physician prior to drastically changing your eating habits and performing significant weight bearing tasks. Now I would like to outline a number of basic rules for building the foundation of your new dietary plan.

Rule #1 – Permanent Changes

I avoided using “The Diet” as a subtitle of this section for a reason; this is not a diet. I repeat, we are NOT starting a new diet here. These are the permanent changes that need to be made to your lifestyle eating habits. From now on when I use the word “diet” I am referring to your lifestyle eating habits. For example, right now you might say that your diet consists of Coca-Cola, donuts, cheeseburgers, and ice cream. In the future you will say that your diet consists of Crystal Lite, beef jerky, lean beef and chicken, and a protein bar.
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Why Dieting Makes You Fatter – Popular Diet Reviews

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Healthy living girlThere are so many fad diets out there these days. When you want to lose a quick pound, it’s hard to know where to turn. This is just a short review of popular fad diets, and a solution to the fad diet problem.

Fad Diet Principles

Many diets promote certain principles that will make you fatter. Super restricted calorie diets will only slow down your metabolism so that when you start eating again you will balloon right back up. Liquid or juice diets tend to follow this idea. High carbohydrate diets will just bulk you up with carbs and will negatively impact your insulin resistance over a long period of time, possibly leading to adult onset type II diabetes. Zero carbohydrate diets will leave you with no energy and nasty protein bi-products floating around in your system. Plus when you go back to eating normal, the increased carbs will be stored as fat right away and you will balloon back up again.

Proper Diet Principles

From now on your diet refers to the way you eat on a daily basis. Instead of going on a diet, you will change your daily eating habits. You will increase your protein consumption, decrease your fat and carbohydrate consumption, eat 5 small meals, and drink a gallon of water a day. These four actions will inherently function to both reduce your daily caloric intake, increase the calories burned by the metabolic processes in your body, and control your cholesterol. It is your responsibility to exercise 3-5 times per week for 45 minutes, and eat fewer calories than your body uses in a day.

Popular Fad Diets

Medifast – Read a great review of the Medifast Diet at DietsInReview.com

Low Carb Diet – The basic concept of a low fat diet is to replace the simple carbohydrates in sugary and starchy foods, with high protein, high fat, complex carbohydrate foods. Low carb dieting forms the basis for most successful personalized weight loss diet strategies. A-

Atkins Diet – An extreme version of the low carb diet that sets a limit on the amount of carbs in a day to 20 grams coming only from fibrous sources. This is generally considered to be a moderately dangerous diet, which should only be followed for a month at a time. C+

Low Fat Diet – Since fat has significantly more calories than carbohydrates and protein, this diet aims to keep calories low and eliminate harmful trans fats and saturated fats from the diet, opting to eat mostly carbohydrates instead. The low fat diet craze is single handedly responsible for the rise in Type II diabetes in Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers. F

Zone Diet(more…)

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Spruce Up Snack Time With Tasty Cottage Cheese Recipes

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Quick Tasty Cottage Cheese Recipes

Cottage Cheese is a great high protein snack that is often underestimated for its usefulness in a high-protein, low carb diet. Just one half cup serving of 2% cottage cheese has 16 grams of protein. For those of you who closely monitor their carb intake, you will be happy to know that a serving of cottage cheese contains only 4-5 grams of carbohydrates. This nutritional profile is perfect for those of us watching what we eat in order to lose fat, gain muscle, or just eat healthy food.

Cottage Cheese RecipesThe taste of chicken, tuna, protein shakes, and protein bars gets old after a while. Since we need these kind of high protein, low carb foods, we are forced to look around for any possible food alternatives. Enter our friend cottage cheese. By snacking every 3-4 hours on foods like cottage cheese, we are able to further our goals to look good naked, set personal records, or whatever your fitness goals might be.

Cottage cheese can be a tasty addition to your protein choices. If you’ve avoided cottage cheese because you’ve envisioned the only way of serving it was plopping it on a lonely lettuce leaf, here are a few flavor combinations for you to try with your next scoop.

Cottage Cheese and Tuna: A mixture you can take anywhere or eat with anything. I used to survive on this stuff. Just mix a half can of tuna with a half cup of cottage cheese and eat. Top salads with it, make a sandwich, eat it plain, experiment with various spices. See my spicy tuna cottage cheese recipe.

Pepper: Sprinkle cottage cheese with a few dashes of fresh crack pepper.

Pseudo Tapioca Pudding: If you like tapioca pudding, try this low-carb alternative. For each ½ cup serving, mix in ½ tsp vanilla flavoring and 1 packet artificial sweetener.

Fresh Fruit: A few blueberries, diced peaches, strawberries, chopped banana, or pineapple chunks sprinkled on top go a long way with cottage cheese. Stick with the berries if you prefer low-glycemic fruits. If the fructose is a concern, try using dash of tropical or strawberry-banana flavored sugar-free drink mix as an alternative fruity flavoring.

Jelly and Curds: Add 1 tbsp no-added-sugar jam or jelly per ½ cup cottage cheese.

Chocolate Delight: Add a ½ scoop of chocolate flavored protein (or 1 tsp of cocoa + 2 packets artificial sweetener), 1 tbsp sugar-free chocolate instant pudding mix and whip in blender (you may need to add a little water or milk to thin it a little bit). Top with diced walnuts or almonds if desired and chill until set or ready to eat.

Cottage Cheese Over Potatoes: Combine 1/2 cup cottage cheese, freshly chopped herbs (suggestion: oregano, basil, chives), a pinch of salt, and an optional splash of lemon juice in a blender. Serve over hot baked potatoes.

Fruit Dip: Combine 1 cup cottage cheese, 1 packet of sugar substitute (I like Splenda), 1 tsp cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract in a blender. Serve with fruit or use as a topping on other desserts like nut bread or banana bread.

Bean and Avocado Salad: Mix together 1 part chopped cooked green beans, 1 part cooked kidney beans, 1 part chopped avocado, 1 part cottage cheese, a splash of lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Serve cold. Leave out avocado if you don’t like it, the bean salad is still excellent.

Now go eat your curds and whey!

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Low Fat Bannana Pancakes

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again and again and again. You know you’ve always loved pancakes ever since you were a kid. Well you can eat them today AND you can stay on your diet.

The Recipe

Banana Pancakes
2 c. Bisquick Heart Smart baking mix
2 bananas, mashed
1/4 c. Eggbeaters
1 1/3 c. skim milk
2 Tbsp. granular Splenda (optional)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. banana extract
1 tsp. almond extract
water

Mix together all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, either with a spoon or with a whisk. Batter will be thick, so add water until the batter is to the consistency that you like. Thicker batter makes smaller thicker pancakes, while thinner batter cooks quicker and spreads out to make thin pancakes. Be sure to grease the pan with either fat free Pam Spray or with a Healthy Balance type of margarine spread. Pour batter by 1/4-cupfuls onto a hot griddle or frying pan.

Makes approximately 18 pancakes. 67 calories each.

Optional Upgrades

Protein Pancakes: Add a scoop of either banana or vanilla flavored protein powder. You’ll just have to add extra water to thin it out more.

Banana Jelly Cakes: Spread a thin layer of no sugar added jelly, I prefer strawberry, on the top of the pancake. Replaces high-sugar maple syrup as well as that grotesque low-calorie syrup that you find in the diet aisle.

Add Calcium: Just have a nice glass of skim or 1% milk with your pancakes.

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How Should I Eat?

Friday, April 27th, 2007

The first question you will ask yourself when you embark on a diet to either lose or gain weight is, “How should I eat?”. If you have ever asked that question, let me help to give you some guidance.

Diet is Responsible for 75% of Progress

Eating right is what fitness is all about. Did you ever think that daily trips to the fast food strip were good for you? Obviously they’re not. About 1-2% of the population has that natural metabolism that functions perfectly all of the time. They can eat whatever they want and still have a perfect physique. You know who I’m talking about out.

Unfortunately for you and me, we’re not those people. We have to make a strong conscience effort to eat correctly. Believe it or not, there are food companies out there trying to make a buck and they don’t care what they are feeding you.

It’s very tempting to just skip meals and head to the drive through because the food is so good, or you don’t have time to cook. Well, the majority of what we eat isn’t good for us.

Preservatives, high-fructose corn syrup, and other nonsense plagues the food Americans eat. Food that costs 29 cents and takes less than a minute to make is not good for you, no matter how or where you make it.

To make matters worse, everything you find in the supermarket comes in a box loaded with so many preservatives we could bury you alive today and you’ll look the same 10 years from now when we dig you up. Here’s a list of 20 foods that you think are healthy, but really aren’t.

One of the better quotes that I have heard in my times goes a little something like this:

“If it grows, or eats food that grows, then you can eat it.”

Basically we want to stick to the all natural whole foods like unprocessed whole grains, vegetables, fruit, eggs, meat, and the like. Keep away from foods in boxes or bags.

Important Meals

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Don’t skip it.

Lunch is also important, and it provides an excellent opportunity to eat a small high-protein meal to sustain you until dinner.

Dinner should be small and compact, and light on the carbs.

Finally, don’t forget your 2-3 high protein snacks throughout the day, and drink water like it’s your job. Be sure to research how much fat to eat, so you can keep yourself full of healthy fats.

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