Archive for July, 2009
Protected: New Coaching Posts
July 23rd, 2009
Cook a Perfect Steak
July 21st, 2009Check doneness by pressing a steak in the center, says Steven Raichlen, [author of The Barbecue! Bible]. Then use your thumb, fingers, and the varying firmness of the base of your thumb as your guide.
What is your steak type?
RARE
INDEX FINGER: RARE
Internal temp: 125ºF
Soft and squishy, like a pink sponge
MEDIUM RARE
MIDDLE FINGER: MEDIUM RARE
Internal temp: 145ºF
Firm but yielding, like a Nerf football
MEDIUM
RING FINGER: MEDIUM
Internal temp: 160ºF
Barely yielding, like a racquetball
WELL
PINKY FINGER: WELL
Internal temp: 170ºF
Hard yet springy, like a tennis ball
This is sooo simple and so accurate it will amaze you. I have been going by feel for years and it works.
Me I like it more on the medium rare side of things.
Protected: Extended Substitution Charts
July 20th, 2009Eat Less, Live Longer
July 15th, 2009A recent article from the BBC showed a few shocking pictures of monkeys in a calorie restriction study (in other words one group of monkeys just ate less food)
The study is simple, one group of monkeys just ate about 30% less calories than the other group. The results speak for themselves. Just have a look at these pictures. The monkey on the right was eating less total calories than the monkey on the left.
As far as I can tell the one on the right looks like he’s got a lot more life left in him than the one on the left.
This is the latest study in a growing pile of research that shows that eating slightly less food is not only good for things like cardiovascular health, blood sugar regulation, obesity prevention and just about any other western disease you can think of, but it also might help you live longer, and more importantly live HEALTHY a lot longer too.
I never want to grow up, at least I don’t want my body to. The longer I can stay looking and feeling like I am twenty something or thirty something, the better. And this research is providing some pretty good evidence that eating less food, but good nutritious foods might just be the way to do it.
In today’s grocery store there is probably more foods that work against you than with you. And that’s where I think our meal plans can really help you avoid the junk and help you choose the best foods and guide you to eat slightly less and still love the process.
I don’t know about you, but I would definitely rather be the monkey on the right than the left! I think we all want to live as long and healthy as possible, and a simple well thought out nutrition plan is a good way to do it.
John
P.S. If eating less calories is really this powerful, how could you justify not doing it?
P.P.S. If staying on a meal plan proves challenging you should see what Brad Pilon has to say about that with his Eat STOP Eat theory. In fact its impressive.
How Do I Measure My Body Fat %
July 9th, 2009When it comes to measuring your body fat % you have to consider two things.
1) The tool you are using to measure your body fat
2) The reason you are measuring your body fat
Let’s look at #2 first. If you’re measuring your body fat because you want to decrease it then your absolute body fat % number isn’t as important as your relative number from one measurement time to the next.
This all comes down to the tool you use, and making sure you use the same tool each time you measure. There are many body fat % calculators you can find online as well as mechanical tools like calipers and bio impedance scales.
Each one of these tools has some degree of variance, as none of them can be 100% accurate (unless you have access to body composition lab which is usually only found in a university laboratory setting and not accessible to the general public)
The virtual calculators online are relatively accurate, and the more measurements they ask you to input the more accurate they are.
The key to charting real changes in your body fat % is to use the same measurement tool each time you measure. This way you can be sure you are getting the same degree of variance each time you do a measurement.
So if you use our calculator we know there is about a 4% variance…but each time you measure you’re always within that 4% variance. So you can get a pretty accurate indication of how much your fat % has changed from one measurement to the next as long as yo stick with the same calculator each time you measure.
If you did your first measurement with our calculator then did your second measurement 4 weeks later with a different calculator you will have no idea if the measurements are comparable.
Stick with one calculator tool for all of your measurements, that way you can be sure the RELATIVE change is accurate.
John and the empowered team
Refreshing our site – update
July 8th, 2009We apologize if this looks a little empty and confusing as the theory of relativity at this exact time in the time/space continuum, but we are refreshing our look and feel with the launch of several new products to better support you.
Come back later this week [July 6-12, 2009] and all will be live and running including our open blog and coaching blog.
Thanks for your interest. John and I (and our team of course) look forward to seeing your fat loss success story.
Patrick McGuire
President – Empowered Nutrition
www.empowerednutrition.com
www.empowerednutritionmealplans.com
www.empowerednutritionsystems.com
