Archive for July, 2009
Is this the Healthiest Drink in the World?
by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Did you know that there's a drink with 10 times the Vitamin C of orange juice with 1/4 the sugar and calories? And it's all naturally occurring, not with added vitamin C! I'll explain... More Vitamin C than 10 Glasses of Orange Juice!
Well, I've done it again... After my famous "healthiest cheese-steak in the world" (tons of people LOVED that recipe), and my healthy chocolate fudge recipe (which was a big hit too)... now I've come up with a drink so healthy, it might be a record-breaker...
Here's my newest concoction for a drink that has one of the highest antioxidant levels possible and also more naturally occurring Vitamin C than 7-10 glasses of orange juice (but with 1/4 the sugar and calories of gut-fattening OJ)...
If you remember from my Truth About Abs Program, one of my favorite drinks (since I avoid all sodas, fruit juices, and any sugary drinks), is to simply drink these unsweetened iced tea mixtures that I make where I use a blend of green tea, white tea, rooibos tea, oolong tea, black tea, mate, etc (in different combos each week, usually 3-4 types -- big variety of antioxidants).
I usually make a big pitcher of this type of iced tea blend each week just very lightly sweetened with the natural non-caloric sweetener stevia.
Now here's where the 10x the vitamin C content of Orange Juice comes in...
Acerola cherry super-food I found out about a fruit called an Amazon Cherry (acerola cherry), and I buy the frozen smoothie packs of pureed acerola cherry at this website:
Each individual serving pack of the frozen pureed acerola cherry contains a massive 1,400% of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin C (all naturally occurring in this little super-food). A super-food boost addition to your abs-diet.
So what I do is thaw the acerola cherry puree/juice, and use 1/2 of a packet in a full glass of my unsweetened iced tea blend.
Since I use half the packet, this comes out to only 9 gms of sugar per glass of the mixture (about 1/4 the sugar content of about 10 oz of OJ), but a whopping 700% recommended daily intake of Vitamin C.
Essentially this is a drink with 1/4 the calories of OJ, and more than 10x the nutritional punch, factoring in the antioxidants from the teas and the natural Vitamin C from the acerola cherry.
Move over OJ... there's a new breakfast beverage winner in town! And it'll keep you leaner than sugary OJ!
You'll also see that this site has organic acai berry for smoothies too...
Buy organic Acai from Sambazon.
My favorite use of the acai berry is to mix it with a banana, some organic cocoa powder, and raw milk... makes a delicious healthy smoothie (acai, cocoa, and banana is an incredible combo)!
Note that this is real acai berry, instead of all of the "miracle pill" acai berry scams that you see all over the internet these days... most of which are produced by shady companies where you don't even know if they put any real acai extract in their pills. Acai from Sambazon is the second real boost of super-food for you abs diet.
Enjoy!
Feel free to post a link to this page on your facebook, twitter, myspace, or blog pages and share this super healthy drink idea with your friends and family.
To your superior health and a lean body,
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Author - The Truth about Six Pack Abs
by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
I've been known to come up with ways to make typical junk foods extremely healthy. Unique recipes for healthier pizza versions, healthy burgers, healthy chocolate peanut butter fudge, and so on, have all been featured in my newsletters in the past. Tasty foods help when trying to stay on an abs diet.
Today, I wanted to tell you about my "world's healthiest cheese-steak".
Growing up in the Philly area, I'm sure you're aware we're known for our famous cheese-steaks. However, health and fitness have NEVER been associated with our cheese-steaks... until Geary stepped in.
So here's how I made the world's healthiest cheese-steak:
First, I used Ezekial sprouted grain rolls, which are a mix of about 10 different sprouted grains with no refined flour. I'm still not a huge fan of eating too much grain in your abs diet, but if you're going to do it, sprouted grain bread (or rolls) is the best option.
Then, I used a good quality grass-fed beef and sliced it thin. Grass fed beef contains larger quantities of CLA - conjugated linoleic acid, which (in its natural form) is shown in some studies to promote fat loss and muscle building. Also, grass fed beef contains a much better ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids compared with typical grain-fed beef sold at most stores.
Then, I used a raw longhorn cheese from grass-fed cows as well. Grass-fed dairy is also a great source of beneficial CLA.
Finally, I topped it all off with some sautéed Vidalia onions and baby portabella mushrooms...
And voila... the healthiest cheese-steak on the freakin planet! And it was most delicious too and keeps you going strong on your abs diet!
Enjoy!
Feel free to share this page with your friends and family... put a link to this page on your facebook, twitter, myspace, or blog pages... your friends will love this idea.
To your good health and lean body,
Mike Geary
Certified Personal Trainer
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author - The Truth about Six Pack Abs
3 Tips to Eat a Healthier Diet to Lose Weight Faster
by Mike Geary
If you want to lose weight, we all know that eating a healthy diet should be your first priority. Sure, exercise is important, but diet is king when it comes to lifelong weight management. I hope this article gives you some simple, yet effective ways for you to make healthy changes in the way you eat on a daily basis.
1. Make sure to eat at least some healthy fats in most of your meals. Eating enough healthy fats is very important for maintaining proper fat burning and muscle building hormone levels in your body. Adequate healthy fats in your diet also helps in keeping your appetite under control.
The healthiest sources of dietary fats are raw nuts, seeds, egg yolks (from organic free range eggs), avocados, extra virgin olive oil (highest antioxidant content of olive oils), coconut oil (a great source of healthy saturated fats in the form of medium chain triglycerides), and grass-fed meats (a great source of the healthy fat, conjugated linoleic acid, which can help burn body fat and build muscle).
Try this tip -- eat a handful of raw nuts (pecans, walnuts, almonds are great healthy choices) 3 times a day about 30 minutes prior to meals. This can help to quell your appetite and give your body some protein, fiber, and healthy fats so that you eat less calories overall at your meals and get more nutrition at the same time due to the high nutrient density of most nuts.
2. Try to eat a high quality protein source with each meal and snack that you eat. Quality proteins from grass-fed meats, grass-fed raw dairy, and even from plant sources such as nuts and beans provides good appetite suppression so you can control your calorie intake easier.
Getting ample quality proteins also helps you to build lean muscle (if you're working out hard regularly) so that your metabolism can run at a higher rate from the increased lean muscle on your body.
Eating sufficient protein at most of your meals also aids your body in controlling blood sugar and insulin levels by helping to slow the breakdown of ingested carbohydrates.
3. Although I do not fully agree with extremely low-carb diets, I do believe that one of the main reasons that so many individuals struggle to lose weight for most of their lives is due to eating excessive processed carbohydrates such as refined grain-based starches and refined sugars on a daily basis.
The natural sugars in whole fruits and berries are ok because the fiber in fruits helps to slow the blood sugar response in your body. Just make sure to avoid fruit juices, which are mostly sugar and have the fiber removed in processing the juice.
In my experience as a nutrition specialist, when people start to minimize their grain consumption (from cereals, bagels, breads, pasta, etc), they start to lose body fat much easier. What I usually recommend is for people to minimize eating grains and focus their carbohydrate intake on fruits and vegetables solely. This simple step alone usually helps people to start managing their weight more easily.
Try to implement these 3 tips for eating a smarter, healthier diet and I'm willing to bet that you'll start to see a leaner body and more energy in no time.
If you want some ideas for reduced-sugar desserts that are healthy but also delicious, check out these lower calorie desserts.
If you find it hard to make the healthiest food choices at the grocery store, here is a good article on choosing healthy foods.
I hope you enjoyed this article and it helps you to start eating healthier and enjoying better health!
Enjoy, and good luck with your fitness endeavors!
Mike Geary
Author - The Truth about Six Pack Abs