The Best Healthy Snacks Of 2017 (So Far)

2017 has been a banner year for healthy foods, with innovations in snacks, oils, desserts, and more. Whether you want chocolate that helps with weight loss or chips that heal your gut, this list of the best of the year so far has you covered.

Eating Evolved Keto Cups

Whether you're dabbling with a keto diet or you just want to embrace healthier dessert options, these cups are a deceptively healthy delight. Eating Evolved is committed to embracing the motto "Chocolate: It's Food, Not Candy," and these cups do just that, with only four simple ingredients (organic cacao, organic coconut butter, MCT oil, and vanilla extract). Keep a stash in your freezer for whenever a chocolate craving strikes, and you'll never reach for the too-sweet stuff again.

The Coconut Cult Coconut Yogurt

The yogurt that's taken Instagram by storm. Each of these dairy-free quarts contains over 800 billion human-strain probiotics. Meant to be consumed more as a supplement than as straight yogurt, it's delightfully tangy (almost effervescently so) and pretty damn addictive. It also completely changed my digestion (read more about that here).

Bonafide Provisions Drinkable Veggies

These bone-broth-spiked beverages provide the perfect antidotes to the sometime cloying sweetness of many bottled juice products, instead embracing the savory side of ingredients like spring peas, butternut squash, beets, red pepper, and more. The collagen in the bone broth will help heal your gut lining, but more, you'll have any midafternoon cravings quelled by the amazing umami flavor. You can consume hot or cold.

Farmhouse Culture Kraut Krisps

If there's a better way to get your probiotics than a savory, crunchy chip, I haven't yet found it. The first ingredient in these chips is dried sauerkraut, which may sound strange but adds just the right amount of tang to each bite. Each gluten-free serving contains 1 billion CFUs of probiotics, and the flavors, which mimic the Farmhouse Culture sauerkraut types, are out of this world. Try the Dill Pickle or the Zesty Garden Veggie—you won't be disappointed.

Vital Proteins Collagen Beauty Water

My obsession with collagen runs deep (I started drinking it to heal my gut, and it's since worked wonders on my hair, skin, and nails), and this new beauty water line is a genius way to incorporate it into any routine. It contains collagen, probiotics, and hyaluronic acid, which helps skin retain moisture. The flavors of the line are fabulously spa-worthy, with Lavender Lemon, Melon Mint, and Cucumber Aloe. They can be added to smoothies or simply dissolved in water and drunk on their own, preferably while you're wrapped in a fluffy robe.

Simple Mills Chocolate Chip Crunchy Cookies

These ready-made chocolate chip cookies have one of the simplest, healthiest ingredient lists around, based around a prebiotic-rich tigernut, coconut, and almond flour blend. There's no refined sugar, no gluten, and no artificial flavor or preservatives (they use only a bit of rosemary extract to keep these cookies fresh). The flavor, though, is pure delight, with a snappy crunch and sweetly childhood-inducing bite.

Bare Chia Coconut Bites

These chia-studded crispy bites are the perfect yogurt or smoothie topper, although they're also amazing to eat on their own when you want a crunchy snack. They're sweet, salty, and crunchy, making them oh-so-satisfying for any craving. The chia adds extra fiber and good fat to the coconut's already solid profile, while the flavors (including vanilla and pineapple) add additional interest.

Siete Nacho Chips

These chips are essentially the healthy Doritos of your dreams, with a satisfying crunch and a powdery, finger-coating cheesy flavor. They're made from high-fiber, gluten-free cassava flour and cooked in high-heat-safe, anti-inflammatory avocado oil, and that cheesiness you taste? That's from B-vitamin-rich, totally vegan nutritional yeast. The only problem with these chips is how addictive they are—once you open a bag, you might not be able to stop yourself.

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/best-healthy-snacks-2017

Diet Mistakes Wrecking Your Fat Loss Results Part 2

Dieting Mistake #4: You’re Too Worried About Your Actual Weight

Unfortunately, too many people are concerned more so with their actual weight, rather than changes in body composition or fat loss – which is the goal 99% of the time, right?

The truth is, apart from your initial weigh in, the actual amount you weigh is fairly meaningless if you use advanced workout techniques such as those in the 90 Day Bikini plan.

Of course decreasing your actual weight can be a measure of progress if you weigh 200 or 250lb and have a large amount of excess body fat, but if you just have 10-20lb to lose it can often deceive you into believing that your diet isn’t successful.

For example, muscle is much more dense than fat, meaning it weighs more. If you’re just beginning an exercise plan, there is a distinct possibility you are increasing muscle mass, while decreasing fat mass, all while giving you the perception that your weight isn’t changing much or is even increasing.

As you can see, focusing on the weight would give you the perception that your diet and exercise is doing the opposite of what you hoped. For example, losing 10lb of fat and adding 10lb of muscle would show as no weight loss on the scales, but you would look visually very different.

Additionally for females, hormonal changes and the menstrual cycle fluctuations can lead to water retention at the worst times, giving you the perception of weight gain, when it’s really just water.

Rather than specifically focusing on your scale weight alone, take bi-weekly photos and tape measurements as we teach people in our transformation plans.

Dieting Mistake #5: You’re Consuming The Wrong Foods

While the amount of calories you are consuming is the number one factor determining your diet success, the types of food you are consuming can make or break your attempts.

Simply eating the amount of calories you need won’t cut it if doing so means you feel miserable and hungry all the time.

Additionally, consuming beverages such as fruit juice and peanut butter can significantly thwart your weight loss attempts as they are extremely calorie dense.

Unfortunately, mainstream media has often confused people into thinking that these foods are healthy, but really they are easy ways to accidentally consume far too many calories with little actual benefit. Fruit juice for example, is often touted as healthy but the truth is fruit juices provide all of the sugar, with none of the beneficial fiber.

While consuming fructose from fruit isn’t inherently bad, it can contribute to a large amount of calories, without affecting your appetite, leaving you hungry and dissatisfied, despite a large calorie intake.

As a result, you’re consuming an incomplete protein source with a very high calorie density, in a food source that is very easy to over consume. Foods like this are a recipe for a failed diet.

I suggest ensuring that you are consuming whole, natural and nutrient dense foods such as protein and vegetables while avoiding or limiting intake of highly processed, calorie dense foods that provide little benefit.

Dieting Mistake #6: You’re Avoiding Healthy Fatty Foods

Fat has been demonized for years and is also the most calorie dense of the three macronutrients. Unfortunately, this has led many people to believe that it is the reason behind obesity and so it is often avoided altogether.

This results in people opting for low fat, carbohydrate and specially sugar-laden foods, which inadvertently increase the amount of calories that are being consumed.

By consuming low fat foods, it’s very likely that you’re consuming far more processed carbohydrates than your body requires, which can lead excess calorie consumption and, of course, weight gain.

Additionally, studies have shown that increasing your fat intake, while maintaining a caloric deficit can be quite beneficial due to hormonal optimization, reduced hunger and increased calories burned from fat.

Additionally, research indicates that for women, specifically, consuming a diet high in fat may be more beneficial than other types (6, 7, 8). This is why so many females shred body fat quickly on my higher fat, lower carb Metabolic Advantage Diet

I suggest that rather than fearing fat intake, consider increasing the amount of fat you consume, while maintaining a caloric deficit to optimize hormones and continue losing body fat.

There Are Your 6 Common Dieting Mistakes

If you feel like you’re making the right strides to weight loss but aren’t seeing results, there is a good chance there is something diet-related sabotaging your results.

Remember, the key points are always:

– Total daily calorie intake

– Focusing on healthy but also LOW calorie dense foods

– Remove or closely monitor healthy but HIGH calorie dense foods such as nuts, fatty meats, butter, oils etc.

– Focus on body fat loss, photos and measurements and NOT the scale weight alone

– Being consistent over the long term

By using the above tips and tricks, it’s possible that you can rapidly increase fat loss progress and overcome any plateaus.

 References

1. Spiegelman, B. M., & Flier, J. S. (2001). Obesity and the regulation of energy balance. Cell, 104(4), 531-543.
2. Veldhorst, M., Smeets, A. J. P. G., Soenen, S., Hochstenbach-Waelen, A., Hursel, R., Diepvens, K., … & Westerterp-Plantenga, M. (2008). Protein-induced satiety: effects and mechanisms of different proteins. Physiology & behavior, 94(2), 300-307.
3. Westerterp, K. R. (2004). Diet induced thermogenesis. Nutrition & metabolism, 1(1), 5.
4. Cho, S. S., Case, I. L., & Nishi, S. (2009). Fiber and Satiety. Weight Control and Slimming Ingredients in Food Technology, 227.
5. Lefranc-Millot, C., Macioce, V., Guérin-Deremaux, L., Lee, A. W., & Cho, S. S. (2012). Fiber and Satiety. Dietary Fiber and Health, 83.
6. Venables, M. C., Achten, J., & Jeukendrup, A. E. (2005). Determinants of fat oxidation during exercise in healthy men and women: a cross-sectional study. Journal of applied physiology, 98(1), 160-167.
7. Phelain, J. F., Reinke, E., Harris, M. A., & Melby, C. L. (1997). Postexercise energy expenditure and substrate oxidation in young women resulting from exercise bouts of different intensity. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 16(2), 140-146.
8. Tarnopolsky, M. A., Atkinson, S. A., Phillips, S. M., & MacDougall, J. D. (1995). Carbohydrate loading and metabolism during exercise in men and women. Journal of applied Physiology, 78(4), 1360-1368.

https://www.rudymawer.com/blog/6-common-diet-mistakes-wrecking-fat-loss-results/

Diet Mistakes Wrecking Your Fat Loss Results Part 1

Common Diet Mistakes Wrecking Your Fat Loss Results

Have you spent the last few months diligently watching what you eat, yet you’re not seeing amazing results?

If this describes your weight loss attempt, you’re not alone and I’m here to help by providing 6 common dieting mistakes

Here’s a review of 6 Common Diet Mistakes Wrecking Your Fat Loss Results (and how to fix them!).

Dieting Mistake #1: You’re Not
Effectively Reducing Calories
Consistently

 Without a doubt, the number one way to begin losing weight is to reduce calories.

The reason for this is the idea of energy balance. This theory postulates that in order for you to lose weight, you’ll need to expend more calories than you consume, creating a negative energy balance (1).

 If you end up eating more calories than you expend via daily metabolism and exercise, it’s extremely likely that you’ll actually gain weight.

In order to begin having a negative energy balance, you’ll need to first find your maintenance calorie intake, or the amount of calories you can consume to neither lose nor gain weight.

In order to do this, you’ll need to track your food intake for a couple days. If after the couple days of tracking, you haven’t gained or lost weight, you can average the total amount of calories and assume that’s your maintenance.

Afterwards, you can have a strong idea of how much or how little food you’ll need to consume in order to effectively lose weight.

The big problem is a yo-yo calorie intake. So, you may get it right Monday-Friday, or even for a few weeks but, a few days off or a few blowout weekends can mess up your progress.

There are 2 key points you need to action: the first one is you need to accurately monitor and assess calories, the next is you need to stay in a calorie deficit consistently for weeks and months, not a few days…

Dieting Mistake #2: You’re Not Eating Enough Protein

Despite all the benefits of protein being well known these days, many people still fail to reach the optimal amount on a daily basis.

Protein is unique in that it not only helps you maintain and build muscle but it also provides an appetite suppression effect and boosts fat loss even when calories are matched (2).

Interestingly, the way that proteins are structured actually makes them quite difficult to digest. In order for them to actually increase muscle, they need to be broken down into individual amino acids, which can take some time to accomplish.

Additionally, research has indicated that because of this difficulty in breaking them down, consuming large amounts of protein actually directly increases the amount of calories you are expending (3).

Since breaking down protein requires energy, having larger amounts of protein will increase the amount of energy needed.

If you find yourself in the situation of not consuming enough protein, I suggest attempting to add it into each meal and even consider using a supplement such as whey protein in between meals. Aim for 30-40g of protein per meal from sources such as meat, fish, eggs etc.

If you track your daily intake, aim for around 1g of protein per 1 pound bodyweight. For example, 120LB individual would consume 120g or more per day, split into 3-5 meals.

Dieting Mistake #3: You’re Not Eating Enough Vegetables

Do you get your 5 a day in? Truth is you probably don’t on a consistent basis and, if you are trying to shred body fat, you definitely need to eat more.

Vegetables are one of the best foods that you can eat as they are basically ‘free food’. They also offer some unique properties that many other foods do not:

1. They have a very large volume to calorie ratio
2. They have a lot of fiber
3. They are very high in water, further filling you up
4. Extremely high in antioxidants and micronutrients

Remember, for weight loss fiber is really important because it slows down the digestion of food and can significantly decrease feelings of hunger (4, 5).

Aim for 2-3 portions of vegetables per meal when dieting, as this will reduce hunger and keep you satiated between meals.

https://www.rudymawer.com/blog/6-common-diet-mistakes-wrecking-fat-loss-results/