You arrive home after a grueling day at work. You kick-off your shoes, drop your briefcase and head for the refrigerator. As you grab the handle, thoughts of “what to eat” overwhelm your brain and as the fridge door swings open you hear a collection of voices yell out… SURPRISE!

[Anytime I stand in front of an open fridge for more then 10 seconds it usually leads to poor eating decisions...]

Not exactly the next Oscar nominee for best screen play, am I?

That’s OK – because what I really want to convey to you today is the surprising food choices you can make to lose weight faster and more effectively.

And don’t worry, I’m not going to get all exotic here and send you to some overpriced health food store looking for an African fruit berry. We’re keeping it simple and straight forward so pay close attention. (more…)

Protein shakes are everywhere – the gym juice bar, shopping malls, and even local supermarkets. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about drive-thru establishments that offer protein drinks like coffee shops. Seriously, has anyone heard of one yet?

However, a high-quality protein drink that is homemade and nutritious is little harder to find. Most protein drinks today are cheap sugar cocktails with protein sources that raise a spokian eyebrow. Throw in some outlandish claims and I wouldn’t be surprised if it flew off the shelf at every GNC store from here to Hong Kong.

[Doesn't get anymore organic then this, does it? Milk mustache ads, mooove over:)]

In today’s post I’d like to share with you a strategy to build your very own protein drink that is simple, economic, and healthy all in the same gulp. Four principles that will guide our protein drink are:

1. Go organic as much as possible;

2. Include plenty of healthy fats rather than cheap sugar substitutes to help control insulin and provide more satiety;

3. Be ‘raw’;

4. It must taste good!

So here’s a recipe complete with ingredients that will take less than two minutes to make and keep us full for 2-3 hours. (more…)

Regardless of your experience with dieting – or what I like to call eating consciously – one major problem that everyone complains about is hunger pains. The inability to deal with hunger while dieting is one of the biggest reasons why many people fail on their diets and can’t lose weight.

[I said PANGS not FANGS! Poor Edward Cullen from the ridiculously famous Twilight movie can't even get his fangs in place above. FYI: Get ready to see a lot of vampire and werewolf costumes this Halloween. How original...]

The hunger pangs – must eat something…

OK… I’ll admit it. I thought it was “hunger pains” but informally it’s referred to “hunger pangs” when you start feeling those intense stomach contractions normally in the 12-24 hour range after your last meal. I don’t know about you but “pangs” sounds silly so I’m going with hunger pains. (more…)

Intermittent Fasting is by far my most successful eating strategy for fat loss to date. I’ve detailed my initial experiences quite extensively in past articles but thought it deserved some more ink – errr pixels – with regards to its’ simplicity. While most other diet styles have multiple rules, lists of bad foods to avoid, and fancy spreadsheets, fasting takes you above the low-level details to the most basic question: To Eat or Not To Eat?

[Enough with the empy plate pictures. After a fast I have so much energy I feel like I can outrun this 2009 Dodge Challenger...bare foot!]

Who Does Fasting?

It seems fasting has been a part of almost every culture since man set foot on this planet. Many of the world’s religions have some form of fasting built into their traditions including Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Muslim, Judaism, and many others. As an example, A Jewish friend of mine recently celebrated Yom Kippur a couple of days ago and as part of the preparation for this holiday it involved a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer.

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Another week and a dozen more offers sitting in my email inbox for the amazing Acai Berry. I’ve put off the idea of analyzing this highly touted supplement primarily for these two reasons:

1. Anything that sounds to good to be true usually falls flat on it’s face, especially in the world of fat loss;

2. Oprah.

[A friend asked me what Acai supplement she should be using in her diet. This picture captures my reaction quite well.]

Now I enjoy most of Oprah’s segments and features but this particular episode from last year, which also included some hyped-up talk about Resveratrol, was a complete disaster.

OK, it was really Dr. Mehmet Oz who dropped the ball, but unknowingly or not, this episode contributed to a dramatic rise in Acai profit ($15 million last year, up from $500,000 per year in previous years) and junk email offers around the world.

Almost overnight, Oprah and other celebrities became walking endorsements with ad campaigns built entirely around them to be used in every corner of the internet. By filing a lawsuit earlier this month, it looks like Oprah may think twice about doing another episode about this “miracle” fat loss supplement.

With the rise of acai berry products, it’s virtually impossible to get any subjective and unbiased information on the topic because all the junk websites have risen to the top in most search engines.

What I’ll attempt to do here is save you the headache and give you an honest digestible (pardon the pun) version of the facts regarding this heavily publicized piece of fruit.

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Fat loss tip extraordinaire or some old-school reverse psychology? Don’t worry, I had the same reaction when I first discovered eating fat was necessary for losing weight.

Too often we hear confusing messages about dietary fats and what it really does to your body like:

1. Fats make you gain body fat.

2. Fats lead to heart attacks.

3. Fats are evil and should be avoided at all costs.

To put it bluntly, the three points above are FALSE .

We’ve been completely misled when it comes to fats.

Fats are essential for our body’s hormone production, skin health, absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, and even burning body fat.

Studies have been conducted to attempt to elevate cholesterol levels using high-fat diets. Most all of them have back fired terribly and in fact several studies lowered total cholesterol while raising the so-called “good” cholesterol (HDL). Imagine that?
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