Protein is the new dessert

Yummy Protein shake!

A while back, I was on SparkPeople.com logging my food intake and was surprised to see that my necessary protein intake was far below the recommended amount for my goals. In fact my "Pie Graph" was heavy in the carb department and slim in protein. I actually thought I was doing really well. I'm not a meat eater so I supplement with legumes and nuts. I am currently trying to build muscle so I decided to really get my protein consumption up. One of the most fun ways to add protein is a shake. My favorite protein powder is BSN Lean Dessert. LEAN DESSERT PROTEIN™ ideal for weight management and calorie-restricted/low-carb diets, producing thick, delicious shakes that will help to satiate you for hours unlike most meal replacements. Your body can't digest more than 25 grams of protein at a time and with 20 grams per serving, Lean Dessert fits perfectly into my meal plan. It has only 2-3 grams of sugar and zero aspartame! I enjoy a shake for my mid morning snack/meal or if I'm starving, before I go to bed. The thing that I really love about Lean Dessert is the flavors. It comes in Whipped Vanilla Cream Banana Pudding Chocolate Fudge Pudding Fresh Cinnamon Roll Banana Nut Bread Chocolate Coconut Candy I've tried them all and love them. I mix mine with almond milk and ice but you can add other ingredients like fruit. Someone twittered that she mixes a scoop of Chocolate Fudge Pudding with a little water and one tablespoon of organic peanut butter to make cookie dough. How great is that?! I recently tried the Chocolate Coconut Candy Bar flavor and it's really good. Even the Rockstar, who doesn't like coconut thinks it's good. The coconut flavor is not over powering. It's very creamy and if you feel festive, you can moisten the rim of your shake glass and dip it in unsweetened coconut. I purchase all my supplements at Vitacost.com because they are so much cheaper than other retail sources. Vitacost has so many fitness products and supplements for you, kids and even pets. It's my favorite e-tailer. The Retail price of Lean Dessert is $27.99 for 1.39 Pounds. Vitacost sells the same item for $14.99 a savings of 46%! Let's save you even more money though.. Before you go to VitaCost, sign up for a free Ebates account. Ebates is a site that pays you cash back on your internet purchases. Currently, Vitacost is giving 5 percent cash back. 1. Click here to go to Ebates. 2. After you sign up and are logged in, search for 'vitacost' in the search box at the top of the page. Ebates will give you a link to the Vitacost site and you can then shop away and get your cash back! Another plus is that Vitacost ships very quickly. I had my order in 3 days. Here's my favorite fitness model/guru Jennifer Nicole Lee talking about Lean Dessert and how she uses it to stay looking so great! Lean Dessert is also available at Amazon.com :)

The Body Beautiful Formula for Permanent Weight Loss!

Picture yourself with the last 'diet book' you'll ever need.

Have you ever wondered "What should I eat to lose weight?" If you have, then you are like almost every one of my personal training clients. It's very confusing when you start an exercise/weight loss/ training program . You are working on so many different new things, you'd like the eating part to be simple, right? I have found that my clients do best when the eating program is not too restrictive, too tedious, too difficult, has too many calculations.. you get the idea. It has to be liveable!! Also, as a trainer, one thing I never want is to see my clients lose weight then regain it. It's important that the eating plan be based in sound nutrition as well as something fits into day to day life. It has to transcend the weight loss phase and become a lifestyle. This is it!!! I recommend The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged: Lasting Fat Loss That's Better than Ever to my clients and to anyone who will listen. Clean eating IS the way to get the body you want, not only aesthetically speaking but also for health. What is Clean eating? Author, Tosca Reno defines clean eating as eating six small meals of good food. Yes.. six small meals.not just snacks or tidbits. Eating clean means you are fueling your body every 3-4 hours with healthy, non- processed food. You already know how I feel about processed foods!!! Let's think about how Sumo Wrestlers become so big. They starve themselves all day then gorge with huge meals before going to bed. Not eating all day slows the metabolism down so your huge meals are stored as fat! When you feed/fuel your body with healthy food, it boosts your metabolism so you are an efficient fat-burning machine. The clean eating formula is borrowed from the Physique Industry where it's practiced by 1000's of followers. The Body Beautiful Formula is as follows. 10 % training + 10 %genetics + 80 Pecent nutrition! You really are what you eat! I'm a huge fan of clean eating and on this blog you'll see that using tools like Michi's ladder and the Eat Clean diet are my favorites because they work. In Tosca Reno's book, you'll not only get all the menus, you'll get the shopping lists you need as well as recipes. It's very easy to read and understand. It is full of big, beautiful pictures and motivating success stories. One of my clients used the "Cooler plan 1" and lost 10 pounds in his first week. One thing you may not be used to is not being hungry. Eating clean keeps your insulin levels steady so you aren't overwhelmed by hunger. Nice!! If you are really ready for permanent weight loss and want the step by step program I and many trainers use for our clients, get this book! You can pick it up at Target or Amazon.com. At Amazon.com you can preview it. Let me know how you are doing with your clean eating!!

Day 59 Kick it,Baby!

Max Interval Circuit! Day 59

We are on the end of INSANITY. Lots of changes! This is the last time we had MAX INTERVAL CIRCUIT for this go round and I actually thought I would be able to finish it very easily. Not true at all. I still feel like it's day one! I think that's most likely the way it's supposed to be. Even if I started the program over again at day one, I feel like despite my all my gains, I'd still feel like it was incredibly difficult. I see benefit to this because your body is never really used to what you are doing. It doesn't have time to adapt to a specfic workout and hit plateaus. This past weekend was pretty busy. I ended up eating more carbs this weekend than I have for the last 6 weeks and I felt it today. I haven't cheated once on this program but I did have buckwheat pancakes late one night. I know.. but it's a journey AND they were buckwheat!

Is Kim and Khloe's diet healthy???

Is Kim and Khloe Kardashian's diet healthy? The Kardashian girls are never ones to shy away from publicity and in this week's Life & Style they dish on their weight loss secrets. Khloe says she's lost 25 pounds and gone from a size 10 to a size 6. Kim has lost a solid 10 pounds and gone from a size 6 to a size 2. Way to go!!! My questions are "How did they do it?" and "Is it healthy?" According to the sisters, they ate a variety of protein packed meals with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. According to the sample menus shown, the program looks very balanced and processed foods are missing from the meals. Both girls say they removed cookies and candy from their purses and their diet while on this program. Kim starts her day with a protein shake made with bananas and peanut butter- and excellent sourse of protein. Khloe starts her day off with a protein packed breakfast of oatmeal or eggs, turkey bacon and fruit. Overall, I think this eating plan is solid and very healthy. It doesn't require ordering special food and the menus look easy to prepare. How can you do it at home? What I like about this eating plan is that it is very close to Michi's ladder. It involves eating quality foods to fuel the body. A few changes I might make, based on the pictures/menus shown: Khloe's breakfast shows white toast. I would swap that for Ezekial whole grain bread. White bread raises insulin while whole grains give you the fiber you need and keep you from being hungry. For the lunch menu, I would swap the spanish rice for whole grain brown rice, Quinoa, or even legumes like lentils. Again.. kick that white rice to the curb!! Kim starts her day with a great shake from Body Factory LA. If you don't live near one..try Shakeology. It comes in Greenberry and Chocolate and actually contains more nutrition than the shake listed on the Body Factory website.   The sisters also added suplements to their program to give them energy, detox benefits and flush the body. I love this as well. Check out Beachbody's supplements here! Both Kim and Khloe added workouts to their program and it shows! They both look healthy and toned. Overall, I give this program 5 stars. I think it hits the mark based on healthy meals, sound nutrition, exercise and realistic results! I won't deduct for the white bread and white rice since that could have been added by the magazine in the recreation of the meals. Kim and Khloe, I'll give you an extra High Five if you elminate the bacon/meat products :) click here to see the large image with menus