Teaching you how to achieve superior health, leanness and performance.
October 18th, 2011 Milan
Healthy tasty snacks will keep you energized, strong, mentally alert and happy throughout your day. There is nothing better for your body, when it’s in need of some energy, than healthy tasty snack. You should always have them handy and ready. Healthy tasty snacks are natural unprocessed foods, rich in protein, fiber, vitamins, healthy fats and some naturally occurring carbohydrate.
Healthy tasty snacks and performance
If your nature of work is like mine, that requires you to be in high mental and physical energy state all the time, you can’t survive without healthy tasty snacks. They are crucial for your performance.
For example, when I have 5 personal training sessions in one day and go surfing for 3 hours before I have them, it becomes critically important what snacks I carry in my bag and than eat. My body is burning energy at an incredible fast rate and I have to snack often between sessions.
Now, let’s say, I have a little bag of chips and a candy bar, like snickers bar after my second session to fuel my energy levels. And maybe I have a sip of sprite with it. This is a very common practice at work places. People go to a vending machine and get snacks for themselves there if they are hungry or bored.
Now, after I had my snickerschipsprite snack I start my 3rd personal training session. I feel great. But 30 minutes into the workout with a client, I am starting to feel tired, sleepy and very hungry. At this moment, I am thinking that I would rather be home lying on my sofa, instead of enjoying a fun training session, that I usually enjoy so much.
Finishing my day packed with training sessions suddenly feels like an incredible chore. I am yawning, hurting and tired. I have all kinds of negative thoughts. I feel terrible. And I can tell, that even my client that is training with me can see, that there is something wrong with me. At this point, it’s hard to fake it. My body is over drugged by sugar and empty processed calories snack.
I just made a terrible snack decision and for next few hours I am going to pay for it. And my client will probably call a different trainer next time. Who wants to train with walking zombie? Yes, that’s what bad snacks, loaded with sugar and empty calories will do to you. You become a zombie for next few hours.
Now, let’s say, I have a healthy tasty snack like apple with peanut butter and some water with it after my second session.
Into my 3rd, 4th and 5th session I feel as good as I felt in the beginning. Sessions seem fun and enjoyable. I have a lot of energy. I am able to encourage my client to push herself harder and she seems to be very happy too.
I consider this as nothing special anymore, because I feel like this all the time. I feel great, energized, I am never sleepy or tired.
Healthy tasty snacks will make your day go better
I made lots of mistakes with eating junk food before, but these days I don’t let them to ruin my day. I got pretty good over time, at what I put into my mouth.
And I want you to do the same. If you want to feel great all the time, watch very carefully what you snack on.
Your snacks can really make or brake your day. Bad but very tasty snacks can really ruin it. And healthy tasty snacks can make your day an amazing experience, when all your senses, brain and muscles work at their best. So make sure, you choose the healthy tasty snacks.
Healthy tasty snacks
Apple and peanut butter (my favorite)
Any fresh fruit with some peanut butter
Washed can of beans with first cold pressed olive oil and some fruit with it
Fresh fruit and nuts – almonds, cashews, walnuts and others
Plain white whole yogurt with fresh berries
Can of sardines and almonds – maybe not that tasty for you, but when you get used to it, you will not be able to survive without this one (my personal experience)
Cottage cheese and some peaches
Sunflower seeds and fresh figs
Hard boiled egg with avocado and some greens with it
Almond butter and some fresh fruit
Cup of buttered milk
2 slices of turkey bacon and piece of fruit
Raw tofu with olive oil and spices + apple
Banana, peanut butter, ground flax seeds and milk mixed together (no sugar added, but very tasty snack)
Washed frozen peas mixed with fresh kale, first cold pressed olive oil and lots of black pepper – top it of with hard boiled egg
The key in finding that perfect healthy tasty snack is in that snack to have some protein, healthy fat and natural unprocessed carbohydrate with it. The above healthy tasty snack choices are a perfect example of such foods.
As you can see, I am big fan of peanut butter and almond butter. Why? Peanut and almond butter is loaded with protein and fiber. It is low in carbohydrate. The fat it contains is a good fat. It’s high in good energy. The kind of energy, you don’t have to be afraid of. You will not get fat from it.
But, you have to watch what kind of peanut butter you eat. I want you to eat the right peanut butter, which is made from unbleached peanuts, with no salt added.
The wast majority of peanut butter out there is bad for your health. But, it is really worth your time to find the right one.
Healthy tasty snacks always with you
Carry some cans of tuna, sardines, beans, bag of nuts, jars of peanut and almond butter, fresh fruit, even dried ones in your car all the time.
And don’t get confused by labels, that say energy bars and drinks. For most part all energy sport bars and drinks are just like any other junk food – loaded with sugar, conservatives. They are just another candy bar or sweetened water you want to avoid.They too, will make you feel miserable.
There is nothing better for your body and your energy than plain natural products that didn’t have to be processed, so they would taste better and be sweeter. The once on the list are like that. They are a perfect natural foods with naturally occurring protein, fat and carbohydrate.
Healthy tasty snacks are your perfect tool to more enjoyable, energized, happier and productive days. So make sure that whenever you feel hungry between your main meals, or you just want to snack on something, you choose healthy tasty snacks.
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September 9th, 2011 Milan
Is peanut butter good for you? It really depends on what kind of peanut butter you are eating. But if you choose the right one, it is good for you.
I personally consider peanut butter as a number 1 super food in the world. I can’t live without it. It is the perfect performance food for me and most probably for you too. I eat it every day and I eat it very often. My breakfast on most of the days is simply peanut butter and 2 apples. Feel free to copy it. I tested my breakfast choices for a long time now, but I haven’t found better choice for myself.
When I eat it, I never experience the sugar crush, typical from eating pastries, bagels, breads and other fashionable breakfast choices. I even think that having a coffee and cigarette is better for your health than having a sweet pastry with some sweet drink for breakfast.
The right peanut butter, that is good for you
It is very important to choose the right peanut butter. Majority of peanut butter that is sold is simply a garbage food. You have to find the kind of peanut butter that contains only roasted peanuts. This is very important. The ingredient list should say: roasted peanuts. And nothing else. Creamy is fine, but I prefer crunchy peanut butter.
Another important thing to watch is: Is the peanut butter salted and made from bleached peanuts? You want the one unsalted and unbleached.
I don’t think, that there is a much of a difference between organic and regular peanut butter. And it is safe to eat non organic. It’s much cheaper and tastes the same. If you wan’t to use organic, fine. But make sure, you also check the ingredients list.
Regular plain peanut butter will still be much better for you than organic peanut butter with some hydrogenated oils in it.
Is peanut butter good for you even of you don’t like it?
If you are not allergic to peanuts, than the answer to this question is yes. You can and should get used to eating peanut butter. It’s just the matter of getting used to it.
I remember, when I came to America, I couldn’t stand peanut butter. They didn’t sell peanut butter in Slovakia, so it tasted pretty disgusting to me. Some of my friends from Europe still can’t stand peanut butter.
But over time, I got used to it.
The reason you don’t like peanut butter is, that you eat tasty garbage foods instead. Ok, peanut butter doesn’t taste as good as pizza, but it is 100 times better for you than pizza.
By introducing right peanut butter to your diet, you will avoid a lot of bad foods, and that’s a huge benefit.
Peanut butter is very filling, it contains huge amount of protein, fiber and vitamins. It is a natural stabilizer of sugar levels in your blood stream and that makes you energized, strong, mentally alert and generally healthy.
Is peanut butter good for you in large amounts?
Yes. There is really not a limit to how much peanut butter you can eat. As long as the peanut butter you eat is the right peanut butter and you get enough of fruits and vegetables in your day. I usually recommend 10 servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
I thing you could easily live just to eat peanut butter, fruits and vegetables for the rest of your life. And you would even get supper healthy doing that.
Is peanut butter good for you if you are overweight?
Yes. I wrote about this before. People are scared to eat peanut butter, because it is high in calories. But they would easily eat hamburgers, fries and pizzas to fill themselves. They don’t realize, that by having 2 tablespoons of peanut butter with 2 pieces of fruit will keep them more energized with less calories consumed, for longer than having a slice of pizza.
Peanut butter contains a lot of fat. A lot of good fat. But this kind of fat is not going to stick to your reserves and make you fatter. Quite opposite. It will slowly distribute the sugar to your blood stream and it will keep you full of energy for longer, while your body can naturally get rid of the extra energy stored around your waist.
Is peanut butter good for you if you are an athlete?
Peanut butter is and excellent choice for athletes. It’s slow sugar distributing to bloodstream nature will prevent athletes to experience bonking or hitting the wall. This terms widely used between athletes simply mean uneven sugar levels in blood stream. They are very common for athletes on high carbohydrate diet. It is a very unpleasant feeling, that massively decreases performance and is caused by unstable sugar levels in your blood.
I still remember experiencing these negative feelings quite often when I was in the performance, competitive rowing. I used to hit the wall or get sudden low sugar levels caused by high sugar levels and subsequent overproduction of insulin (called bonking in athletic terminology) several times per week.
These conditions could have been simply avoided by having some peanut butter before the workout. The lack of knowledge of our trainers about right performance nutrition was also the reason.
I can clearly tell today, that if I discovered peanut butter earlier, when I was in competitive rowing, I would collect much more medals on the peak of my rowing career.
Peanut butter is a gluten free food. Gluten free foods are very popular these days. If you fallow competitive tennis you have certainly heard about the number one player Novak Dokovic. He just made few headlines about changing his diet to a gluten free diet. Subsequently he become number one.
I am not a big fan of strictly gluten free diet. Quite opposite. As an athlete, you can only benefit from eating some gluten in your diet. But I am quite certain that peanut butter is part of Novaks daily diet.
Is peanut butter good for you? Without any doubts, I can tell it is. As long as you are not allergic to peanuts and you will choose the right peanut butter, you can only benefit from it. I wish I discovered these super food earlier in my life.
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August 31st, 2011 Milan
The healthiest drinking choices for us usually don’t claim any benefits at all. They are cheap, readily available and maybe a little bit boring. But boring in this case is exactly what you want. They will keep you healthy, happy and beautiful.
In the world of so many drinking choices on the market that claim are good for your health, it is easy to get confused.
Juices like Pom – pomegranate juice, cranberry juice, energy drinks that are loaded with vitamins and sugar or sport drinks that claim have the same PH as your body does and that’s why they are so good for you.
Their bottle says, that they are natural and healthy. Of course this is a big marketing scam. These amazingly beneficial drinks are loaded with preservatives, chemical flavors and huge amount of sugar. If you value your health at least a little bit, stay away from them.
The more boring the beverage you drink is, the better it is for you. Water is the most boring beverage in the world and that’s why, it’s best for your health.
Water
Plain Water is without question the single healthiest drinking choice we have. Yes the boring, plain, with no taste water is the winner. It really gives your body without polluting it with other unwanted chemicals that taste so good – like all kinds of flavors and sweeteners, what it really needs – plain water.
Drinking plenty of water throughout your day is crucial for your health, performance and leanness. Our bodies main component is water, about 70%. Every process in our body happens in water and we can’t exist without it.
Drinking plenty of water (about 8 glazes per day) is linked with weight lose. The theory behind it is, that drinking water increases our metabolism. Increase in metabolism happens when our body has to warm and process that water we just drunk. So make sure you drink enough of this healthiest drinking choice – water.
Fresh fruits and vegetables
Fruits and vegetables contain a lot of water and you can be certain that this water is clean and without chemicals. Nature filters water in fruits naturally. Eating 10 servings of fruits and vegetables daily helps substantially hydrate your body. On days when I eat huge amount of fruits and vegetables I won’t drink any water for entire day. I am not thirsty, but at the end of the day I force myself to drink some clean water just to be sure I had enough fluids in my day.
Eating huge amount of fruits and vegetables doesn’t only help to hydrate you, but also provides your body with vitamins and fiber. So make sure to cover part of your body fluid needs by eating huge amount of fruits and vegetables daily.
Hot teas and cold teas
Other excellent healthy drinking choice are teas. And with that I mean just plain teas without any additional sweeteners and flavors. That is a very important thing to remember. Once you add sugar or honey to your tea, it becomes a pollutant to your body. Your body needs plain fluid. As soon as you put extra sugar in it, it will need even more plain fluid.
A lot of people are coughed in this vicious cycle, when after drinking something sweet, they get thirsty again and than they drink something sweet again. And so on.
Their body will never get enough fluid. Their brain is asking for more, because fluid with sugar in it is considered as a candy by your body, not a fluid. And to process that candy, your body needs plain unsweetened fluid like water or unsweetened tea. And if you don’t give it to it, it will suffer. This way, body never really gets what it needs. Instead it gets a lot of empty calories that will store as fat.
The best choices are herbal teas like chamomile, mint, fruit teas, green tea, black teas like earl grey tea, Irish breakfast and many others. Majority of teas contain caffeine. If you are highly sensitive to caffeine, limit drinking teas to 3 cups per day.
Coffee
There is a lot of different opinions about coffee. The good and the bad. But I am convinced, that if you don’t abuse it, you can only benefit from drinking several cups of coffee per day. With that, I mean just a plain coffee without any sweetener and maybe a little bit of milk or cream in it.
The countless studies show that coffee can decrease risks of certain kinds of cancers (pancreatic cancer, liver cancer and others) and other diseases like diabetes by as much as 50 % if drinked regularly.
Find out what is your caffeine sensitivity and enjoy as much coffee as you want in your day, as long as you can still sleep well throughout the night. My rule is to drink all my coffee before 11 am.
Because coffee is a diuretic, always drink full glass of water with each cup of coffee.
The healthiest drinking choices may not be the tastiest beverage choices out there, but they are certainly the best for your health. They are the right fluids for our bodies. They will keep you healthy, beautiful, strong and energized in your days.
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May 10th, 2011 Milan
When 2 PM comes at job sites many people reach for aether more coffee or some kind of energy drink like for example Red Bull. While doing this is generally fine as long as you’re not hypersensitive to caffeine there lies a question which one is actually better for your health and better for increase in your energy.
The answer is without doubt – coffee.
8 oz of drip coffee without sugar contains about 150 milligrams of caffeine. That is usually enough to increase energy in every person substantially higher than Red Bull that has only 80 milligrams of caffeine.
Coffee in it’s natural form is rich in antioxidants and is generally considered good for your health. It is the N# 1 source of antioxidants for Americans, since many didn’t discover better one, like fruits and vegetables and imagining mornings without coffee is impossible.
There is some evidence that coffee drinkers are more intelligent people and those who drink coffee have less probability of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and diabetes.
I don’t know how much true this evidences hold, but considering, that coffee is a natural product coming straight from nature and it is not abused, I agree that it is good for human health.
How about Red Bull and other energy drinks?
With only 80 mg of caffeine and loaded with 27 grams of sugar (diet one doesn’t have any sugar but contains artificial sweetener aspartame, which is a dangerous chemical in my world) and 1000 mg of taurine the chemical, that is actually prohibited in some countries like France or Norway and a whole bunch of color and taste enhancing chemicals, these Austrian made energy drink and others are among the worst things you could pollute your body with.
Yes taurine as well as glucuronolactone (also in red bull and other energy drinks) helps to improve firing between nerve synapses so you’re more alert, improves memory and concentration, but caffeine does the same thing. And there are some unanswered questions about high levels of taurine in human body and health dangers.
So when you need a energy boost and you’re deciding which one to go with - energy drink like Red Bull or coffee, go for coffee. Skip that shiny can of energy drink that says it will give you more energy , because in the long run it will probably take some of your life energy away.
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May 2nd, 2011 Milan
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April 25th, 2011 Milan
What is the best medicine in the world? If you expect me to tell you that it is a certain pill or powder, you are wrong. It is much more difficult than just taking a pill to stay healthy. The pills are just one of the last options before everything falls apart. So what is it than? It is a calorie restriction, or better said - eating less and better. And it is closely fallowed by regular exercise – cardiovascular and strength.
People who eat good diet less food, are generally healthy. But the healthiest ones are those who are actually sometimes hungry and starve because they don’t have enough food.
I am not saying that you should be hungry and starve for days. What I am trying to say is that not having enough to eat could be a great thing for your health.
Calorie restriction works as a certain defensive mechanism. When your body senses that it is not having plenty of food, it fires up the immunity system in your body to maximum levels. That’s why certain very skinny people who eat very little get rarely sick on flu season. Cancer risks drop exponentially in people who take less calories, the most in people who literally starve.
But you also need to be careful about this. You don’t want to deprive your body for everything. There is certainly a borderline of how far to go and some people go too far and than danger can outweigh the benefits. Before you really try this, you have to make sure, that your body is getting enough of minimum it needs like its protein requirement, vitamins, minerals like calcium and magnesium. Having enough protein in your diet adding 7 – 10 servings of fruits and vegetables and adding some, not too much of nuts and olive oil will do it. And of course drinking plenty of plain clean water. And nothing else if you are brave enough and you are up for a challenge.
It’s so easy to say, but very hard to do. There are a lot of traps out there and you know it. However the fantastic benefit of this kind of eating is huge and really worth doing it. Would you like to be a person in your sixties and not needing to visit a doctor at all for 10 years except for just the general check up, when he is blown away of the fantastic results you are showing?
When your diet is clean from processed foods like sweets, deserts, white flour products, processed meats, bad oils and sweetened drinks and others, as I said your immunity system, is fired to the maximum.
Remember this: Whenever you are putting processed, sweetened stuff into your mouth, you are decreasing this immunity system, exposing your body to outside and certain inside dangerous forces. Do it for a long enough and some serious health condition emerge. Than you visit your doctor, who diagnoses your disease and prescribes some poisonous pills that fight the disease, but also are damaging your body at the same time. Do you really want that? I don’t think so.
By avoiding these calorie dense foods, mainly sugar and flour, you are keeping your immunity system alert and ready to fight whatever comes effectively and you rarely get sick.
Of course there is more to do than just to eat perfectly little. Adding regular exercise increases this magical medicine to the next level. Keeping you skeletal system strong and resistant helps to avoid injuries and than you can really and certainly live without doctor and all pharmaceutical companies.
Don’t become a human living zombie that is alive only because some chemical is keeping you alive. Prevent that disease with calorie restriction, perfect simple diet and regular exercise and enjoy long, healthy and happy life.
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March 26th, 2011 Milan
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