Tag Archives: eat

Food Prep – The Road to Getting Lean!

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Good Food  Food Prep

We all want washboard Abs, great chest and arm muscles and if you’re a lady a nice tight butt and slim hips. You may be prepared to put in the hard physical work necessary and hit the Gym, train or workout 5 times a week, but that’s only half the battle. What food you buy, what food you eat and how you eat,to my mind at least, is the hardest part of the battle. Most of us are prepared to shift the weights , hit the treadmill and wear the Lycra to get fit, it’s the healthy eating and laying off the booze that leads us astray.

I’ve written before about the need for consistency and firmly believe that if you eat and train well 80%+ of the time then you can allow yourself the odd bad night or weekend. However there is no getting around it, the food that you eat is critical if you want to shed those pounds, reduce body fat and finally show those long hidden abs.

One of the biggest issues and regular excuses that people make is the time and effort it takes to prepare healthy food compared to so called “convenience” food. Yes it may well take a bit of extra effort when shopping and preparing your food but it is worth it. The key is to BE PREPARED! When you go shopping you need to know what to buy and what you are going to do with it. I’d also suggest that you prepare at least some of your meals in advance. I often spend 45 minutes on a Sunday or Monday and knock up 4 or 5 meals that I can have for lunch every day the rest of the week. It may be slightly boring but it will be healthy, good for my waistline and contain lots of protein to help me build muscle and shed fat. With Summer coming fast and not much time to get into swimsuit shape why not try this for the next month and see what happens.

Below is a brief shopping list of some of the things to buy weekly or put in your store cupboard that will help you eat clean, healthy and become lean. Below that is a simple recipe that I use that will make your 4 meals that you can stick in the fridge and just microwave as needed.

Shopping List:

Steak, Chicken Breasts, Turkey breasts, Turkey Mince, Lean Pork, Lamb cutlets, Fish – Pretty much any and all types of fish are fine. Vegetables – Brocolli, Cauliflower, Avocado, Greens, Salad leaves, Green beans, Onions, Asparagus, Red Peppers, mushrooms, Spring Onion, Carrots, Beans & Lentils, Sweet Potato, Brown rice. Fresh Ginger, Chilli’s, Garlic. Fresh herbs like Coriander, Basil, Tarragon, Mint. Lemons, Blueberries, Strawberries, Banana’s, Apples, Pineapple, Melon. Dried spices such as Turmeric, Cinnamon, Paprika, Black pepper. Coconut oil ,Olive Oil and some light soy sauce for cooking and dressings. Bags of mixed nuts for snacking. Greek (Not greek “style”) Yoghurt or Skyr Yoghurt. Pure peanut butter or nut butter. The final thing would be a good Whey Protein powder. That’s pretty much it. If you cook and eat exclusively from that list of ingredients above you will a) be eating very healthily and b) in combination with regular exercise be almost guaranteed to become leaner and more muscular.

Foods to try to avoid would be: Bread, Pasta, Potatoes, Sweets, Crisps, Chocolate bars, cakes (all pretty obvious). Almost all packaged and processed foods (wherever possible, it’s very difficult to completely eradicate these). Sweetened drinks, fizzy drinks and booze (again a couple of beers or glasses of wine at the weekend won’t hurt much).

So now you’ve bought all the right things….what to cook. Here is a simple recipe that you can knock up on a Sunday, stick in the fridge or freezer and will give you a healthy, muscle building lunch or dinner for the next 4 days or so. Other than the ingredients above the only thing you’ll need is a good stack of smallish Tupperware boxes with lids.

Right, lets kick off. Firstly. Get a large bowl of water on the boil. Add in enough brown rice to make 4 small/medium sized portions. Add a dash of salt and leave to simmer away for approximately 25 minutes (Brown rice takes longer to cook than normal rice and retains a firmer texture even when cooked).

Then in a large frying pan or preferably a wok do the following. Add two tablespoons of Coconut oil and heat. Then add one large diced onion, a couple of carrots cut into small round slices, one red pepper diced, a handful of mushrooms diced, 2 cloves of Garlic finely chopped and a large thumb sized piece of ginger sliced or chopped. Depending on if you like your food spicy or not you could also add anything from half to a whole chilli chopped. Fry this off for a couple of minutes until everything starts to soften. Then add in one large Turkey breast cut into smallish cubes (one large turkey breast is normally equivalent in size to around 3 chicken breasts). Continue to fry this for around 4 to 5 minutes. Then as the Turkey starts to brown off add the following. 2 large teaspoons of Turmeric powder, 1 teaspoon of paprika and half a teaspoon of Cinnamon. Continue to cook and stir for around 3 more minutes. If it starts to dry out add a bit more oil as needed. Also grind in a good heap of fresh black pepper. Once you know the Turkey is cooked turn out the heat.

When the rice is cooked, drain any remaining water and also then pour a kettle of boiling water over the rice and drain again to remove excess starch. Then once the water is gone tip the rice into the Turkey and veg mix and stir until it is thoroughly mixed through. Then add in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil and a couple of teaspoons of soy sauce and stir thoroughly again. At this point you want all the rice to darken slightly to show the soy is mixed right through. If you want you can also finely chop a couple of spring onions and stir those in. Allow everything to cool down, split equally into about 4 Tupperware boxes, put the lid on and either freeze or refrigerate. When you want to eat it just microwave for a couple of minutes and away you go. The whole dish including chopping the veg and turkey takes a max of 30/35 minutes and that’s 4 meals done.

There are a whole load of variations of this type of thing that you can do and I’ll do more recipe’s as time goes on. In fact if anyone would like to see videos of recipes such as this please let me know.

I hope you found this helpful, your comments are welcome.

Take Care,

John

8 Easy ways to start losing Weight NOW!!

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Lose weight text with measure tape and fruits

You’ve tried every weight loss trick and diet out there from the Atkins to the Paleo and it just doesn’t work. You can’t stick to it for long and no matter how hard you try after a while the weight just creeps back on.

I could be wrong but you are probably just over complicating things and making your life too damn hard. Below is a list of 8 quick tips that if you follow, or even adopt just some of them you WILL lose weight. I’m not saying they are easy but they are simple. Follow them for a couple of months and watch the inches fall away just in time for Summer.

  1. Cut Out Sugar as much as possible: Sugar is a killer both in health terms and from a calorie and weight gain perspective. Stop putting sugar in your tea and coffee, stop eating cakes, sweets and chocolate and watch the rapid change in your body.
  2. Stop Drinking Fizzy or Sweetened Drinks: We all love a nice refreshing coke now and then but it is loaded with sugar and loaded with calories. In fact almost ALL artificial drinks and even many fruit juices are packed with calories. Wherever possible stick to water, black coffee, green tea’s or other completely natural drinks. Even be careful with fruit juice which is often full of sugar.
  3. Cut Out White Carbohydrates: What are white carbs? Well most  breads, pasta, potatoes, white rice. Believe me, if you can cut back heavily on these ingredients, especially the bread, then you will notice a rapid difference. Stick to sweet potato, brown rice, beans (all types) and veg for your carb sources.
  4. Cut back on Alcohol consumption: Yep unfortunately folks booze contains loads of calories. Beer, wine, mixers, even spirits are a) not great for you and b) pile on the pounds. You don’t have to stop completely but cut back as much as you can.
  5. Ditch processed and packaged foods: Generally speaking if it comes in a packet, has pictures and a label with ingredients on it, it won’t be good for you. Almost ALL processed food contains chemicals, preservatives, hidden sweeteners and processed fats. Just avoid them. Buy  fresh fish, meat, poultry and vegetables. You may need to spend a bit more time (not much) but if you cook it yourself and don’t eat from packets i GUARANTEE you will lose weight.
  6. Fill your house with healthy snacks: We ALL get the munchies from time to time and you are lying to yourself if you think you can be good 100% of the time. So when you want a snack you grab a choccy bar and worry later. However if you have bags of nuts, banana’s, apples, a small bar of high cocoa dark chocolate within easy reach then you can satisfy your short term craving and not feel too guilty about it.
  7. DON’T skimp on food or miss meals: I know this sounds strange but cutting back on food and missing meals will not help. If you cut calories too drastically and too quickly your body will start to store fat…and you don’t want that. Eat regularly and eat well BUT make sure it is healthy. Fresh fish or meat/poultry and LOADS of veg, salads, beans.
  8. Move it, Move it: It’s pretty obvious really but the more exercise and activity you do the more calories you burn. Of course working out is important but actually it’s the small things that add up over a period of a lifetime. Always take the stairs, not the lift or escalator. Walk the 10 minutes home instead of jumping on the bus. If you are going somewhere walk quickly don’t stroll. Carry stuff from the DIY store don’t get a trolley. It’s an attitude of mind really. Always try to use your body and take the harder option, it really really pays off.

That’s it. 8 simple things that you can start to implement in your life that WILL make you lose weight. Now I am a realist and this is a blog for Ordinary people. I can visualise the large “GULP” you are all taking at the thought of all those things you need to give up. However this is a long term plan and the odd blip or weekend break out is not going to harm you. Read this previous post here which explains why if you are consistent in your approach you can allow yourself the odd naughty moment. If you can regularly adopt 5 or 6 of the points above and use them 80% of the time then you will be well on the road to a slimmer, lighter, healthier and better version of yourself.

Take Care,

John