Monthly Archives: August 2015

Weight loss – what can I eat at night?

it’s not necessary to avoid eating in the evening hours to lose flab.  In fact, the right night-time meal can often positively affect your fat-burning results.  The trick, as always, is choosing the RIGHT foods before bed, and knowing which foods those are.  Here are some simple “rules” to creating the ultimate pre-bed meal:

1. Avoid carbs and insulin.  Because consuming carbohydrates will result in a significant insulin release (which will in turn put the breaks on fat-burning), carbs are ill-advised for a pre-bed meal.  Carbs are also much more easily stored as fat in the evening hours when metabolism is naturally slowing in preparation for sleep.  Besides, you have very little opportunity to burn off that energy when consuming carbs at night — sleep isn’t a very calorically expensive activity!

In addition to carbs, certain animal proteins have been shown to yield a significant insulin response as well, such as red meat and certain fish.  While these protein foods are OK for a pre-bed meal, there are better choices, like those mentioned below.

2. Choose slow digesting proteins.  Slow digesting proteins, like white meat proteins such as turkey and chicken, are great night-time meal choices as they digest slowly and fail to produce a significant insulin response.

Another great choice is the milk protein casein, found in our premium protein blend, BioTrust Low Carb, and also in cottage cheese.  Casein coats the stomach, digests slowly, and provides quality nutrition to your muscles over several hours…very ideal as a pre-bedtime protein source!

3. Add fat.  Quality, healthy fats such as nuts, oils, and nut butters are great additions to a pre-bedtime meal as they will help to further slow gastric emptying and digestion while increasing fullness and satiety so you don’t wind up snacking all night long.

Just follow these 3 simple rules for night-time snacking (slow digesting protein, low carb, add fat) and you’ll be snacking good while losing belly flab..

Superfood Chia – Many Ways to use Chia seeds

Superfood Chia – Many Ways to use Chia seeds 

Chia, pumpkin and flaxseeds, for example, all contain anti-inflammatory magnesium and healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Two tablespoons of chia seeds contain 18 percent of the DRI for calcium, 35 percent for phosphorus, 24 percent for magnesium and about 50 percent for manganese. (1 ounce of chia seeds has more calcium than half a glass of milk!)

Fiber is associated with reducing inflammation, lowering cholesterol and regulating bowel function. Chia seeds are an excellent source of fiber, with a whopping 10 grams in only 2 tablespoons. 

 

1. Substitute for eggs (1 ground tbs of Chia with 3 tbs water for one egg) in recipes

2. Thicken up Soups or Gravy – Add 1 ts of seed at a time until you reach the desired thickness. It needs a few minutes to thicken

3. Sprout Chia seeds for salads

4. Add them to  Brownies or truffles to increase protein and fiber

5. Add chia seed to coconut water, especially if you are an athlete for an energy mineral dring

6. Use in slow cooler to thicken sauce

7. Add chia seeds to beaten egg, soak for 10 min and make omelette.

8. Make Crackers – Make thin batter of chia seeds and milk and cook in slow oven or dehydrator to make crackers, you may want to add cinnamon, or vanilla stevia for sweet crakers or salt and herbs for salty crackers.

9. Make a Cinnamon Nut Butter – Add ground chia seeds to nut butters, or add to butter with some cinnamon,,

10. Make Healthy Pudding  – Add ½ cup of chia seeds to 11/2 cups of almond or milk of your choice. You can add cinnamon, stevia or any other natural stevia. Can be served with fresh fruit.

11. Add to smoothies – I love to add chia seeds to my smoothies, it makes them richer and thicker and the smoothie will keep me full longer.

Growth Hormone Release with Super Slow Weight training

Growth Hormone Release with Super Slow Weight training

By slowing your movements down, you’re actually turning them into high intensity exercise. The super-slow movement allows your muscle, at the microscopic level, to access the maximum number of cross-bridges between the protein filaments that produce movement in the muscle. You can perform the super-slow technique with many of the strength training exercises, such as hand weights, resistance machines, bodyweight exercises, or resistance bands.

You only need about 12 to 15 minutes of super-slow strength training once a week to achieve the same HGH production as you would from 20 minutes of sprints on the bike, treadmill, or bike.

The key to making this work for you is intensity, which needs to be high enough that you reach muscle fatigue. If you’ve selected the appropriate weight for your strength and fitness level, your goal is to have enough weight that you cannot do more than 12 reps but at least 6 repetitions.

As a guideline, when you start out, allow your body at least two days to rest, recover and repair between high-intensity sessions, and do not exercise the same muscle groups each time.

How to Perform the Super-Slow Technique

It is recommend using four or five basic compound movements for your super-slow (high intensity) exercise set. Compound movements are movements that require the coordination of several muscle groups—for example, squats, chest presses, pull downs, push press, and rows.

  1. Begin by lifting the weight as slowly and gradually as you can. One version is to do a four-second positive and a four-second negative, meaning it takes four seconds to bring the weight up, and another four seconds to lower it.
  2. Repeat until exhaustion, which should be around 6 to 12 reps. Once you reach exhaustion, don’t try to heave or jerk the weight to get one last repetition in. Instead, just keep trying to produce the movement, even if it’s not “going” anywhere, for another five seconds or so. If you’re using the appropriate amount of weight or resistance, you’ll be able to perform four to eight reps
  3. Immediately switch to the next exercise for the next target muscle group.