Tuesday 10 August 2010

A Weird Way to "Sneak" More Nutrition into Dinner

I just started doing this recently, and it's been a great way to "sneak" more nutrition into certain types of dinners. This can also help you get leaner, because higher nutrient density in your meals means lower appetite and controlled cravings for you later.


Here's what I've been trying out...

As you've probably heard a dozen times before, specific greens such as kale, mustard greens, bok choy, swiss chard, etc are the absolute most nutrient dense vegetables on earth.


However, even though I've always known what superstars these are in the nutrition world, I never really thought of ways to use them in cooking meals. Sure, I always get plenty of lettuce and spinach in salads, but the greens like kale, bok choy, mustard greens, and swiss chard are WAY more nutrient-dense than lettuce and spinach.

So I finally figured out how to sneak these into my meals (and this works even if you don't like the taste of those greens separately)...

There are probably other recipes you can use this for, but I've used it for soups and italian tomato sauces so far, and it works great.


What I do is take a good amount of bok choy, kale, mustard greens, and/or swiss chard and throw them whole (not chopped up) into my tomato sauce or my large batch of soup broth. I'll also throw some large chunks of onion and maybe a zucchini into the simmering pot also.


Then, after they've simmered for a while and have softened up, I'll take out the whole portions of the greens and the onion/zucchini and throw everything into a big blender. Then I blend the greens smooth with the onion and pour the mixture back into the simmering tomato sauce or soup. Of course, my tomato sauce meals usually involve some grass-fed bison sausage, but that's just one of my personal favorites for an actual healthy meat.

I'm not a huge fan of the taste of these types of greens separately (kale, bok choy, mustard greens, etc)... however, pureed and blended into the sauce or soup actually makes a pretty delicious mixture and also adds TONS of nutrient density to your meals to satisfy your appetite and help you get leaner.

Another benefit is that since the greens are pureed in the blender after being softened, you actually absorb more vitamins and minerals, as the pureed greens are easier for your body to fully digest compared to just chewing them normally.


And this idea is a home run if you have kids... as this is truly a way for you to "sneak" more greens into your kids meals without them even knowing you added them to the soup or sauce (as long as you did a good job with seasonings and recipe).

I hope you enjoyed this little tip today to help you and your family eat healthier and get leaner this year!

Mike Geary


Certified Nutrition Specialist

Certified Personal Trainer

Founder - http://truthaboutabs.com/

Friday 6 August 2010

3 Random Fitness and Nutrition Tips

I just had some random workout and nutrition tips for you on my mind today, so here they are:

onions are a superfood1. Onions = Amazing Superfood... Eat onions daily if possible.

Not only do I love onions, but I recently read a longevity study that surveyed a large amount of people who had lived over 100 years of age. One of the common threads they noticed from the survey of these amazing people that lived to ages exceeding 100 was that they ate a lot of onions.

Kind of weird huh... but not a surprise to me. In fact, onions are definitely an important super-food as they contain unique organosulphur compounds and potent antioxidants that are rare in other foods.

I've also read dozens of studies that correlated onions (and garlic too) with pretty impressive reductions in cancer risk.

I like to add onions to almost any meals I can think of... slices on sandwiches, added to salads, in my morning eggs, in veggie mixtures with lunch or dinner, and more.

2. Mix up your workouts with "5-minute bodyweight exercise challenges"

This is a unique way to add some variety to your workouts and maybe even get a friend in a little competition with you.

You can throw one of these in at the end of a workout as a high intensity finish, or even just do at home on non-gym days.

Basically, all you do is choose 1 specific bodyweight exercise such as bodyweight squats, pushups, lunges, etc and try to do as many reps of that exercise as you can in exactly 5 minutes (timed).  I've also used 1-arm dbell swings for these 5 min drills and they work great.

This works best by trying to do 20 or 30 reps at a time and then taking short breathers of about 10 seconds before continuing on your next round of reps.

We've even made this a little competition between a couple people at my gym in the past where we all line up and get timed for 5 minutes and see who can do the most squats or pushups or whatever it may be in that 5 minute time period.

From what I've seen, if you can do 100 or more pushups in 5 minutes, or 200 or more bodyweight squats in 5 minutes, those are pretty impressive numbers. I think my record was somewhere around 225 bw squats in 5 minutes.


watermelons - GI is a useless measure3. Example of the Glycemic Index (GI) being useless


In several of my newsletters in the past, I've given examples of how choosing your foods based on the glycemic index can be misleading and useless in many cases.
Case in point...

Watermelon has one of the highest measured GI's of all foods (much higher than even cake and ice cream).  However, a normal serving of cake and ice cream may give you a whopping 700 or 800 calories, whereas a typical serving of watermelon may give you 50 or 60 calories max!

Trust me... watermelon isn't making anyone fat!

The lesson... GI is almost useless when you're not considering "Glycemic Load", which also factors in the quantity of carbohydrates ingested in a typical serving.

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com

Wednesday 4 August 2010

2 New "Food Tricks" To Control Calories and Cravings

I have a couple new "food tricks" today to help you control calories, cravings, and appetite...

 #1. About 20 minutes before every meal, eat one handful of nuts such as almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc...preferably raw nuts (as this reduces the oxidation of polyunsaturated fats), but any nuts will still do the trick.





This is a trick I've used myself and I've used with many of my clients in the past that ALWAYS helps people to control their appetite and get lean FAST!

The reason it works is because the healthy fats, fiber, protein, and density of micronutrients (antioxidants, vitamins, minerals) in nuts help to satisfy a lot of the nutrition needs of your body, thereby greatly reducing your appetite before eating full meals.

We add the handful of nuts about 20 minutes before each meal because this allows enough time for your body to signal to the brain that it received this nutrition and thereby reduce your appetite.

Also, this basically substitutes a healthy super nutrient-dense source of calories into your diet multiple times per day, and increasing your % of your calorie intake from nuts as opposed to other types of foods aids your body in decreasing body fat.


 #2.  The 2nd "food trick" comes from my good friend and nutrition author Jon Benson of http://FavoriteFoodsDiet.com

This is a trick I didn't know about until recently, and it involves food scent.

Smelling food can trick your brain into thinking you've eaten.

A recent study found that those who inhaled peppermint in scent form every 2 hours ate (get this) 2700 calories LESS per week than they normally did.

Let me put that in perspective:  That's a fat loss of more than half a pound a week... from sniffing peppermint!

Vanilla also works. You can keep vanilla-scented drops or even candles around the office and take a whiff every few hours.

How easy is that?

Thanks to Jon for finding that pretty cool study!  You can check out Jon's site at: http://FavoriteFoodsDiet.com




Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com

Monday 2 August 2010

13 Healthy (and Delicious) FAT-BURNING Mid-Meal Ideas for Between Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner


I receive a lot of questions from my readers where they have been doing much better at choosing healthy breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, but they are still struggling to find good ideas for healthy and quick "mid-meals"... especially a quick small meal or snack that can be brought to the office or on road trips (so you can avoid the fast food junk!).

Some people may call these "healthy snacks", but I prefer to consider them meals because they should be similar in size to your breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, if you want to spread your calorie intake out over the full day to "graze" so to speak.

After all, I'm sure it's no secret by now that eating 5-6 small meals per day is a much better strategy for getting lean compared to the traditional "3 squares" a day (which for most people, turns into only 2 big meals/day as many skip breakfast).

The problem that I see most people having is being prepared enough to bring healthy mid-meals with them to work for the day. If you don't plan ahead,  and bring something healthy and balanced with you when you're out and about for the day, or at work, you're going to end up choosing the junk food at the vending machine or corner store.

So here are some of my favorite natural foods based mid-meals that I've used for years with great success and that lots of my clients love too. I want to keep things simple here, so I'm just gonna give a couple of my easiest, quickest, and healthiest...

Quick, healthy mid-meal ideas to keep you lean:
  • Apple or other fruit with almond butter
  • Hummus with carrot sticks or sliced red/yellow/orange peppers
  • Guacamole with carrot sticks or sliced red/yellow/orange peppers  
  • Ricotta cheese (grass-fed if possible) mixed with cocoa powder, stevia, and vanilla extract (delicious high protein, low carb snack!) 
  • Cottage cheese mixed with yogurt, berries, and walnuts or pecans
  • A couple hard boiled eggs with carrot and celery sticks and hummus (roasted red pepper hummus is my favorite)
  • Celery sticks with organic peanut butter or almond butter (a classic quick snack)
  • My famous healthy chocolate FUDGE recipe
  •  Avocado slices wrapped in deli turkey breast (one of my favorite quick snacks)
  • A piece of sprouted grain toast (sprouted grain preferred nutritionally over "whole grain") with nut butter and berries
  • Fresh sliced pineapple with a handful of macadamia nuts
  • a bowl of blueberries mixed with raw almonds
  • my quick and healthy fat-burning chocolate pudding recipe
  • Cottage cheese with cinnamon, apple slices, and walnuts (mmm, mmm good)
That should give you some ideas to start working with.  Now you have ZERO EXCUSES for resorting to junk food snacks on the road or at the office, when you have all of the delicious and healthy fat-burning snack ideas right here!

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com