Friday, November 18, 2011

Coconut Raspberry Protein Muffins - Post Yoga Delight!

This is my new all-time favourite recipe ... I claim I make these muffins for my daughter, but let's be honest - I eat a lot more of them than she does! The great news is you can indulge daily in these muffins if you choose, as they are gluten and sugar free and full of fabulous ingredients for post-Bikram delight.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

  • 2/3 cup sifted coconut flour
  • ¼ teaspoon pink or grey sea salt
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 washed and grated medium size zucchini
  • 3 eggs
  • ½ cup macadamia nut or extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence
  • 1 cup frozen raspberries
Method
  1. Mix coconut flour, zucchini salt and baking soda
  2. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, oil and vanilla and blend well. I use a stick blender Combine all ingredients and blend further
  3. Gently fold in frozen raspberries
  4. Distribute into muffin tray (makes 9 large muffins)
  5. Bake at 180° for 20-25 minutes
  6. Try not to eat them all at once as soon as they come out of the oven!

Did you know?

Coconut flour, in my opinion, is THE healthiest flour option for baking.

It's gluten free, MUCH lower in carbs than other (usually grain-based) flours, and is high in natural fibre. It's made from the meat of the coconut after most of the fat has been removed, so it's also low in fat! These muffins taste so good that kids and big kids alike will scoff them down - and unless you prefer to tell them, they won't even notice the zucchini!

Kat Eden is Australia’s Female Fat Loss Queen, and blogs at www.womanincredible.com. Subscribe now for free email updates and receive your free copy of Kat’s latest e-book “The Truth About Female Fat Loss”!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Foods To Make You Healthy, Lean, and Strong!

Do you ever get sick of the struggle to take control of your body and your health? Do you follow all the rules but it never quite seems to work? Are you struggling to have stable energy despite exercising regularly and eating well?

If you answered yes to any (or all!) of those questions, I can definitely relate. If you're new to this blog, let me introduce myself. My name is Kat Eden, and I’m a personal trainer and nutrition coach by trade. These days I’m known as Australia’s Female Fat Loss Queen, and my blog Woman Incredible offers driven women advice on fat loss, nutrition, and motivation. My clients and readers see the way I look and act and often assume that it’s always been easy for me to stay in shape; that I must be genetically lucky or perhaps I simply never indulge in so-called naughty foods!

The truth, of course, is that it’s not that simple. Firstly, I do indulge (how could a girl live without chocolate, cheese or wine I ask you?!), and secondly - I haven’t always looked this way. And I certainly haven’t always felt the way I do now, which is mostly very energised and passionate about life.

I learned the hard way that following conventional nutritional and health advice doesn’t work, and it was a lesson that affected me both personally and professionally. In 2005 I’d been a personal trainer for 5 years, and I was overweight and miserable. I wasn’t huge by any stretch of the imagination, but I certainly didn’t look the part. More importantly, I felt awful. I was eating really well as well! Or so I thought.

Fat-kat1
When I look back now I can barely believe that I used to think it healthy to live on a diet centred around whole-grains, lean proteins such as egg whites, chicken breast or tuna, low-fat dairy products (of course!), and minimally processed starches for energy. A typical day for me included bircher or untoasted muesli for breakfast, fruit and low-fat yoghurt for snacks, and tinned tuna with corn, kidney beans and avocado for lunch. Dinner was your fairly standard meat and veg with some kind of whole-grain starch.

These days I would never recommend that sort of diet to a fat loss client - and I wouldn’t recommend it to you either.


Time To Ditch The Conventional Nutrition Books

It was round the middle of 2005 that I noticed a colleague of mine start to noticeably become leaner. Not only that, but he was becoming annoyingly energised. To the point where he would - quite literally - bounce into morning meetings. Whatever he was doing, I sure wanted to know about it!

Of course as with anything that seems too good to be true, there was a catch. The method my colleague had taken to transform his body was one based on ‘paleo’ eating. It was all about getting back to basics with health and nutrition, and the results certainly spoke for themselves. The catch was that it was a little too back to basics for my liking! This guy was eating meat for breakfast for heavens sake! There was no WAY I was going to be walking down the street to work at 6am chowing on a lamb chop and nor did I want to have to explain weird eating habits to other trainers at work.

Besides - everything I’d been taught told me that the way I was eating was correct. Maybe there was just something wrong with how I was doing it? Perhaps I just needed to exercise more?

How To Eat For (True) Fat Loss

In the end, of course, I just couldn’t resist something that was clearly so effective. Another way to look at it was that my desire to lose weight and feel better eventually overrode my concerns about what people thought!

The best part was that within weeks - if not days - I noticed such a significant change in the way I looked and felt that I honestly stopped worrying about other’s opinions and may have even been guilty of preaching at them about my exciting new approach. My clients were somewhat bemused at first, but they trusted me and were willing to listen. I guess my results spoke for themselves as well :)


Some of the principles I now follow and teach my fat loss clients include:
  1. Meet your protein goal. If there’s one thing you can do to dramatically influence your body fat levels it’s to eat more (good quality) protein. You can determine your protein goal by multiplying your lean mass body weight (body weight minus your body fat) in pounds and then by 0.9-1.5g for women and approximately 2g for men. It’s important to include a variety of protein sources from animals as well as some plant protein. Wild meat in particular is excellent for fat loss as well as brain health.
  2. The carbohydrate conundrum. Let me cut to the chase: my clinical experience has shown (and the experts I respect teach) that 75% or more of the Western world is NOT tolerant to a moderate carb diet, let alone a high one. I definitely don’t advocate cutting carbs OUT, but most people can easily lose body fat and actually increase their energy by switching the starch for more protein and good fat. A good rule of thumb is to get 80-90% of your carbs from (mostly green) veg, and just the remainder from starch and fruits.
  3. Smart fats. One of the biggest myths still perpetuated by the health industry is that fat should be feared. Trans (processed) fats, of course, are definitely not your friend, but did you know that good quality organic saturated fats actually contribute to your cell and hormone development and even help you burn fat faster? That’s right - fat can make you lean! The way I now eat and coach my clients to eat is to include some ‘smart’ fats at each meal. Good examples include nuts and seeds, small oily fish, avocado, coconut oil/milk/cream, organic cream and butter, macadamia nut oil, and ghee. Those are just a few of my favourites!
  4. The traps of healthy snacking. This is an area close to my heart - when you enter the paleo lifestyle you’ll find a virtual plethora of healthy and incredibly delicious snack ideas. Raw chocolate/avocado cheesecake is one of my favourites. Just a word of warning - it’s all too easy to get carried away with healthy snacking and, as a result, not consume adequate protein and green veg for fat loss. Keep the snack-type foods to 5-10% maximum, and try ‘snacking’ on leftover real meals instead! Your belly will definitely thank you.


Of course all that being said, old habits do die hard. Sometimes I still feel like I have a special ‘chocolate-time’ alarm clock that goes off in my head after dinner, and the same applies with red wine! There’s even a small part of me that looks around a crowded restaurant now and then and wonders why I can’t just be one of the blessed ignorant working my way happily through the bread basket.

Until waking up the next morning and realising how yucky I feel when I do eat that way of course :)

Is This Really What It Takes To Be Lean?

You might say that in a perfect world we should be able to eat all things in moderation and naturally select what our body most desires in the moment of hunger. But it’s not a perfect world, is it? Food quality, food choice, environmental toxins, stress … these are all things which impact your ability to feel and function your best.

The reality is that if you want to live with exceptional health and energy, and yes even create an exceptional body to do that in, then you do have to live differently to the rest. The good news is that this doesn’t have to be overly noticeable to the rest of the world if you don’t want it to be, and it also doesn’t require long-term sacrifice from you. It might seem that way at first, but I promise the motivation definitely comes from within once that image in the mirror starts changing!

At the end of the day it’s fine for you to choose to keep following the conventional rules. There is no right or wrong here. But what you do have to recognise is that you have the power. And whether you like to look at it this way or not the truth is that choosing whole foods as close to their natural state as possible gives you the power to look incredible and feel even better.

Which means a heck of a lot more to me than getting to ‘fit in’ or even ‘eat all things in moderation’ just because I ‘should’ be able to. How about you?

Kat Eden is Australia’s Female Fat Loss Queen, and blogs at www.womanincredible.com. Subscribe now for free email updates and receive your free copy of Kat’s latest e-book “The Truth About Female Fat Loss”!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

The Best Foods To Speed Up Your Detox!



You've been hearing it your whole life, and I have to tell you - your Mum was right. If you want to be grow up to be healthy and strong then you have to eat all your veggies.

I don't know if you realise this, but eating more vegetables is one of the simplest and smartest things you can do to speed up fat loss. You think you're being so smart putting in the hard yards at the gym, saying no to breads and pasta and obediently scarfing down your protein breaky? Well, okay, you are being pretty smart with all of that, but is it possible that you're doing so many things right on your quest for health and vitality, and yet still neglecting this one very simple element?

Forgive me if I'm jumping too rapidly to conclusions, and I must admit I have met more than a few readers who eat truckloads of veg, but for the most part? Yes, yes it is possible. If not completely probable.

9 serves of vegetables per day?! is she crazy?

In The 9 Habits of Healthy People, respected nutritionist and doctor, 'Dr Jonny' says this of vegetables (and it's point #1!):

Eat your vegetables. No kidding. And I’m talking at least 9 servings a day.. Unless you’re following the most stringent first stage of the Atkins Diet, you should be able to consume 60-120 grams of carbs a day (depending on your weight and exercise level), and you’d have to eat a stockyard full of spinach to get to that amount. Every major study of long-lived, healthy people shows that they eat a ton of plant foods. Nothing delivers antioxidants, fiber, flavonoids, indoles, and the entire pharmacopia of disease fighting phytochemicals like stuff that grows.


As if that's not convincing enough for you, I've also heard Dr Jonny say that the most important supplement for fat loss is fiber. More veg = more fiber, yes? And this is the key to detoxification, because when you lose body fat it's actually toxins which are being dragged out of your fat cells and into your blood. Fiber is what swooshes those toxins out of the body, which I really think is a far better option than leaving them in there.

Don't you?

but it's too hard/i don't have time/i only like spinach/it costs too much!

It's pretty simple really. Either your love yourself and your desire to lose weight and be healthy or to lose the final 5 is strong enough to do what it takes, or you care more about your convenience or 'can't quite be bothered' eating.

And seeing as how you're a Bikram yoga kind of person, I'm guessing it's the former :)

the best veggies for fat loss and health

Here is a list of especially nutritious and yummy vegetables for speeding up detoxification both in and out of the sweat room. You'll notice they are mostly green - I'm a big believer in eating predominantly seasonal and local vegetables, and I think green is best. Add some colour now and then, but do remember that when we talk about vegetables I'm talking low-starch. This does not include pumpkin, potato, sweet potato, corn (that's a grain anyway), and most root vegetables.

Enjoy!
  • Cruciferous veggies are great for fat loss, especially as regards your lower body. These include cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and brussel sprouts

  • Zucchini

  • Squash

  • Green or yellow beans

  • Spinach (a great source of iron, and it really does make you strong!)

  • Any sort of lettuce or leaf (organic please as they are sprayed
    directly)

  • Cucumbers

  • Kale

  • Silverbeet (these two are great options in salads, and bitter vegetables such as Kale are great for digestion)

  • Spring onions

  • Any fresh herbs; fresh chilis

  • Celery (yummy snack with almond or cashew butter)

  • Green capsicums

  • Olives

  • Artichokes

  • Pickled foods like eggplant, green tomato (pickled stuff is great for
    lowering blood sugar response!)

  • Onion

  • Mushrooms; unless you have ever had fungal issues such as
    thrush or candida
If you feel so inclined, I'd love for you to comment and share either your favourite way to eat your veggies, or a question about what you struggle with most when it comes to getting all your greens.

Not just Food for Yoga - Food for Life!

Kat

If you enjoyed this post then please visit me over at my regular blog BodyIncredible.com or Woman Incredible (female specific!) for tips on nutrition, lifestyle, motivation.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Magnesium-Rich Foods For Recovery!

I don't know if you're like me, and you space out most of the time in between postures (especially in the recent super-humid temps!), but if you ever do stop and listen in you'll often hear the teachers mention magnesium as an important mineral for dealing with muscle cramps and spasms. The truth is that this is just the start of what this important mineral can do - in fact, every active person needs to make sure they have an adequate supply of magnesium. Given the fact that exercise can deplete you of it, it becomes all the more important as a Bikram-enthusiast to know how you can load up on the stuff!

What Magnesium Does

Magnesium is crucial to not only recovery and repair, but to the function of your cells and certain enzymes, and even plays a role in metabolism and fat loss. It is often used to improve sleep quality as well as to promote healthy muscles and cell tissue. Other things that magnesium can improve include:

  • Osteoperosis
  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Diabetes
  • High blood pressure
  • Insomnia and other sleep disorders (magnesium helped me overcome 3 years of insomnia)
A typical adult needs between 300 and 400 milligrams per day, and you can visit this link to learn more, as well as which foods are high in it. Or simply look at the following table:

Beans, black1 cup120
Broccoli, raw1 cup22
Halibut1/2 fillet170
Nuts, peanuts1 oz64
Okra, frozen1 cup94
Oysters3 oz49
Plantain, raw1 medium66
Rockfish1 fillet51
Scallop6 large55
Seeds, pumpkin and squash1 oz (142 seeds)151
Soy milk1 cup47
Spinach, cooked1 cup157
Tofu1/4 block37
Whole grain cereal, ready-to-eat3/4 cup24
Whole grain cereal, cooked1 cup56
Whole wheat bread1 slice24

If you think you may be lacking magnesium then consider trying to eat one of these foods each day, or discuss a magnesium supplement with your health care practitioner. You can also add a pinch or organic unbleached sea salt to your Bikram water. It's fantastic for hydration and for replacing minerals.

So - have you had your magnesium today?

Not just Food for Yoga - Food for Life!

Kat

If you enjoyed this post then please visit me over at my regular blog BodyIncredible.com for tips on nutrition, lifestyle, motivation.