Soy Protein Bars - A Life Changer

By Jonathan Octavius Bell

Soy protein bars are life changes for several reasons, but there are two that stand out; their ability to help people lose weight and their benefits to people trying to gain muscle. People usually alter their diets for one of those two reasons, and soy protein bars are added as aids to help achieve both goals.

As anyone who's tried to lose weight will tell you, losing weight isn't easy by any measure. Losing weight in theory is very simple, you just have to have a greater calorie loss than gain. But knowing the theory and then implementing it are two very different things. One of the main mistakes overweight people make when seriously trying to lose weight is when they attempt a 'starvation' diet. 

They realize that they need to be losing more calories than they're taking in but then go far to over the top and eat perhaps just a thousand or so calories of food a day. Losing more calories than you're taking in is important but if you drop too many calories too quickly then your metabolism drops. This is what you definitely need to be avoiding because if your metabolism drops then the amount of calories you need to have in deficit to lose weight will increase meaning you need to eat even less food.

What you need to do is to embrace a calorie loss of 100-300 which is far less likely to affect your metabolism. Maintaining your metabolism is as easy as retaining the feeling of fullness in your stomach so that your body thinks it has a constant food supply and has no need to drop the metabolic rate to preserve energy.

Eating soy protein bars once or twice a day act as snacks that both maintain your metabolism as well as making you less likely to feel the need to snack and hence break your diet.

Staying Healthy - Picking the Leanest Cuts of Meat

By Mira Burton 

As a rule, if you're looking to cut down on the calories without making the jump to vegetarianism you're going to be eating poultry and fish. Chicken is remarkably healthy, and as long as you through away the skin a nice breast cut will serve you fine. Fish has just about no fat at all if you have the sense not to buy it from the chip shop, but the taste isn't for everyone.

The fact is, sometimes you just need your red meat. In the interests of promoting healthy options though, you can look below for a few tips on getting the leanest cuts around.

Officially, to qualify as lean a cut needs to have about 10% fat content, with less than 4.5% of which being saturates. Moving into extra lean cuts they can't have more than 5% fat content, with the 'of which saturated' limitations dropping down to a measly 2%. Remember, as a baseline for choosing meat darker means better. While everyone likes to see that pretty marbling effect in their steak, those white streaks in red steaks are just rivers of fat. In mince the pinker the appearance the more white fat is mixed in, ideally ground meat should be as dark as possible.

Now, when you're picking out beef and veal it's always best to go for the round cuts. A six-ounce eye of round beef steak will treat you to about 7g of fag, 2.4g of which is saturated. The 50g of protein on top of this makes it an EXCELLENT steak for protein, though the sirloin tip side steak is leaner still.

There is a catch to lean beef, since it tends to be less flavourful and considerably tougher. This isn't to say it's bad quality, especially if you're a decent chef, but you'll likely need to marinade a lot of them. The top round steak comes highly recommended, however. It's the second leanest out there, while also being substantially more tender than other cuts from the round and sirloin.

Moving beyond the realm of beef, there's a few other things to consider. Lamb is pretty in demand, and leans towards being incredibly tender to boot. Head to the butcher and ask for a cut from the shank of the leg. With a little trimming to cut down on fat these cuts qualify as lean while having a pleasantly strong flavour.

As ever, you should always be aware of what you're eating. Lean cuts are nice, but sometimes you just want to indulge in a tender Rib-eye or T-bone. In general it's best to just look out for marbling and stay healthy. Trying to cut down on fat doesn't mean missing out on red meat.

Healthy Pizza, Low Carb, Low Fat, High Protein

By J. Atkinson 

Healthy Pizza! Low carb, low fat, high protein

Most people like to get stuck into a pizza with extra toppings once in a while. But what if you are on a weight loss (Fat loss diet)?

Do you cut out your favorite foods all together? Or do you find an alternative?

Here is a healthy alternative to greasy pizza that you can eat on more than the odd occasion during your diet.

What You Will Need 

Chicken breast 

Tomato puree 

Peppers 

Olives 

Spinach 

Onion 

Cheese 

Mushroom 

Sweetcorn 

Oregano or mixed Italian herbs 

Garlic powder or crushed garlic

You can add other favorite ingredients also, but be aware of this if you are dieting as all those extras can add up.

Putting Your Healthy Pizza Together

First off, wash and flatten the chicken breast. Place the chicken breast on a flat surface and cover with cling film.Grab something heavy, a chair leg, bible, shoe... But a rolling pin would be ideal! Gently tap the chicken until it is about 1 cm thick all over. Take care not to damage the chicken breast too much as this will serve as our pizza base.

Put a good helping of tomato puree into a bowl and mix in the garlic powder or crushed garlic to taste. (If you are not a garlic lover, you may want to skip the garlic, it is not essential but will really add to the taste)

Go back to the chicken breast. I find that this method works better if you use the "underside" of the chicken breast i.e. not the smooth side. With the chicken breast flat on a surface, (Smooth side down), spread the tomato puree evenly over the full surface and put into a fridge while you prep the rest of the toppings. By doing this it gives the chicken breast chance to absorb some of the flavor.

Slice the peppers, olives, onions and mushrooms and tear the spinach up into small pieces

Take the chicken breast that you prepared earlier out of the fridge and sprinkle with oregano or Italian seasoning (This gives it a "Pizza" flavor)

layer on the toppings. I find it best to layer on the spinach then peppers first. Then the rest of the topping on in any order.

sprinkle with low fat grated cheese, this will bind the topping together. (You can put a small layer of cheese after the spinach and peppers but be aware of the amount of cheese you put on if you are on a fat loss diet.

Cook in the oven on 180c for 30-35 mins or until the chicken is cooked thoroughly ( make sure that the chicken breast is cooked thoroughly before serving).

I would serve this with a Jacket potato if I was not being "Carb conscious" but served on its own, this is low fat, low carb and high protein!

Enjoy!

As always, I'm happy to get feedback on how these recipes worked out for you. Let me know how you got on.