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8 “Diet” Foods That Can Make You Fat

Articles, Fitness News, Nutrition No Responses »

Jul 012011

By Justine Holberg

A veggie wrap for lunch. A night out for sushi. And you’re working out . . . but you’re still not losing weight. What gives?

Sushi

Some “diet” foods may be your worst enemy. That’s because they’re tricking you into eating too many calories. So what are some of the worst offenders?

Sushi: Fish wrapped in rice and seaweed. Not a diet food? Yep, that’s right. It’s not always as “light” as it seems. Some sushi has calorie levels so high it might just shock you.Diet Shocker: One eight-piece serving of Philadelphia sushi roll is the caloric equivalent of 1 medium bagel with plain cream cheese—close to 500 calories. It’s the cream cheese that gets you. And what about spicy tuna and other mayo-based rolls? They can contain as many as 450 calories and 11 grams of artery-clogging fat per serving. Eat too many of the “wrong” rolls and you’re in Big Mac® calorie territory.
Wraps: You order the whole wheat veggie wrap thinking it’ll put you on the skinny track. But is it actually the fat track? For some reason, wraps have been viewed as a healthy upgrade from a sandwich, but this isn’t always the case.Diet Shocker: The tortilla holding your wrap together can easily contain the same number of calories as four slices of bread, not to mention more carbs and twice as much fat. Many kinds of wraps you get at a deli have at least 300 calories. And that’s just the tortilla, not the contents. You also have to factor in the fillings—and keep in mind that a wrap has more surface space to spread these calorie-boosting culprits:
- Dressing
- Cheese
- Mayo
All told, one healthy-seeming wrap can easily trick you into eating hundreds more calories than you planned.
Granola: When you’re having granola, you might think, “It’s healthy. The fiber and all those little pieces of dried fruit are so good for me.” Truth is, although it’s got good stuff in it, it also packs in the calories.Diet Shocker: A half-cup serving is what’s often listed on the nutrition label of prepared granola. But who eats just half a cup? For most brands, there are more than 400 calories in a one-cup serving of granola. And when’s the last time you actually measured? If you keep filling your cereal bowl with this stuff, it’s no wonder you’re not losing!
Bran Muffins: The kinds sold at many bakeries today aren’t the little 3-inch muffins Grandma used to bake. They’re much, much bigger. And just because they’re made with “healthy” bran doesn’t mean they’re a diet food, either.Diet Shocker: The average bakery muffin can contain as many as 630 calories. You might be slightly better off with a bran muffin than, say, a banana or blueberry one because of bran’s extra fiber, but most of them are still packed with sugar and butter. Eat one bran muffin from Dunkin’ Donuts® and you’ll be consuming 480 calories, 13 grams of fat, and 46 grams of sugar. OMG.
Dried Fruit: The more fruit you eat the better, right? Not when it comes to the dried stuff.Diet Shocker: You could boost your calorie count as much as four times (!) by choosing to eat the dried version of a fruit rather than its fresh counterpart. Check out these calorie comparisons based on a 100-gram (about 1 cup) serving:

Fruit (about 1 cup)	Fresh	Dried
Grapes	70 calories	(Raisins) 300 calories
Apricots	50 calories	240 calories
Bananas	90 calories	(Banana chips) 350 calories
Plums	45 calories	(Prunes) 230 calories

Pumpkin-Flavored Baked Goods: Pumpkin is nutritious, but these baked goods can be a dieting disaster. Like bran, pumpkin has lots of stuff that’s good for you. So if you see pumpkin on a baked-goods label, it’s easy to think you’re eating something that’s lower in calories. Not the case, though: Pumpkin doesn’t mean diet food.Diet Shocker: Dunkin’ Donuts strikes again. Their pumpkin muffin has 630 calories and 28 grams of fat. OMG again! Want to switch bakeries? It won’t help much. A pumpkin muffin from Panera Bread® has 530 calories and 20 grams of fat, and the pumpkin scone at Starbucks® has 470 calories and lots of fat too—22 grams’ worth. You might as well be eating pie with whipped cream!
Olive Oil: It’s a good fat and helps you burn fat. However, you don’t need a lot of it to get the benefits. Two tablespoons a day can do the trick. And overdoing it can backfire.Diet Shocker: Olive oil served with bread at a restaurant is heart-healthy, but high in calories. You can easily sop up a quarter of a cup. That’s 478 calories, not including the bread. Or the rest of the meal you’ve ordered.
“Healthy” Salads: That’s what some restaurants want you to believe in their “lite” section of the menu. It must be diet-friendly, right? Not always.Diet Shocker: Listed under “Healthy Options” on the T.G.I. Friday’s® menu, their pecan-crusted chicken salad, which contains mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, and celery, has 1,360 calories. Meanwhile, their cheeseburger and fries combo weighs in at 1,290 calories. Say it ain’t so.

So what’s a dieter to do in a world filled with “diet” traps?

Ask about nutrition and read food labels. After a while, you’ll be a pro at it and enjoy the weight loss that comes with it. You won’t even have to give up the foods you like. That’s because you’ll know how to work them into your food plan the right way.

This “Lady” Looks P90X Great (and She’s the First Lady)

Articles, Fitness News, Products, Tips for African-American Men and Women, Women's Health & Fitness No Responses »

Jul 012011

Yes, that is our very own First Lady Michelle Obama with those gorgeous arms and that beautiful figure. They must have some super gym in the White House and a staff of personal trainers, right? Wrong. On no better authority than President Obama, he said that she is doing our very own P90X!

Carl Daikeler said in his blog today that when he and Jon Cogdon and Michael Niemand met President Obama at a dinner recently, the scene unfolded something like this: “At once the door swung open, and in walked Obama. He gave a quick hello and a hug to Mark and then he walked straight up to Jon who said “Hello Mr. President we’re the co-founders of Beachbody – This is Carl Daikeler. You might know our products like P90X.”

With that Obama moves in and grabs my hand in a handshake and says “P90X! My wife does that. Man, I can hardly keep up with her!”

She’ll be a P90X graduate like many of the rest of us soon!

Texas Beachbody Grows Exponentially Thanks To Network Marketing

Business Building, Independent Beachbody Coach Products No Responses »

May 242011

By: Darren Rovell, CNBC Sports Business Reporter

There are not many companies these days that can do $400 million in sales and remain relatively anonymous.

Yet Beachbody, a private company, grossed nearly as much as Groupon did last year and very few people talk about the robust engine that is behind exercise workout programs like P90X^®, INSANITY^® and Turbo Jam^®.

Under the leadership of co-founder Jon Congdon and Carl Daikeler, the company has developed a business model that seems to be Teflon, turning successful converts of its programs into network marketers who ensure that the brands flourish.

Many multi-level marketing companies are based on building a network of sellers and distributors getting rewarded based on the size of their network.

Most often, the people who have gotten in on the ground floor reap the greatest benefits while those late to the game struggle to make money.

What makes Beachbody’s network of distributors, called coaches, so successful is that these people have done the programs and are often in incredible shape. Their testimonial and therefore their business relies on how good they look, not whether they tell friends that a certain superfruit drink helps them have more energy or cures their stomach problems.

It seems like, more often than not, network marketing thrives on results which can’t be verified, but if my fat friend shows up with a six-pack, I’ll be more likely to believe he was doing an intense workout program.

Since starting the network marketing program three and half years ago, Beachbody now has 51,000 coaches who take a cut of videos and nutritional products they sell. Beachbody coaches sell $1 million worth of nutritional shakes under the brand’s Shakeology^® name a week. And it’s not cheap at around $120 for a month worth of servings.

“We could have built this company’s sales a lot faster at retail by selling at Walmart and Target,” Daikeler said. “But selling it through direct television (infomercials) and through our network works better for us.”

Daikeler says that his coaches serve as walking billboards and salespeople who want to help their family and friends by helping them lose weight through the company’s exercise programs. This is unlike many other multi-level marketing companies that solely rely on building a network to make more money.

And Daikeler doesn’t have to pay for testimonials, a common practice in the infomercial business space he plays in.

“The standard network marketing doesn’t work with our model,” Daikeler said. “This is not a ponzi scheme where if you’re the last one in, you don’t have a chance to do well.”

While the average lifespan of a multi-level marketer is three months, Daikeler says his coaches remain in the system an average of 18 months. It’s why he’s confident that by the end of 2011, there will be 150,000 coaches.

We don’t promise it will replace your every day job,” Daikeler said. “That has been the case with about 1,000 of our coaches. But what it does for others is it keeps them in shape. In order to continue to have credibility selling, you need to continue to keep up. And so, it allows the people who want to fight obesity, to be motivated by the fact that they have skin in the game.”

By continuing to have more and more videos – P90X led to a harder workout, INSANITY, and that program is leading to The Asylum, which will come out in a few weeks – I don’t see Beachbody slowing down any time soon. And the non-traditional, more patient route of using those converted to the brand by reallyusing it is a smart approach that I think will pay off nicely down the road.

What’s the P90x Workout Plan Everyone is Doing?

Fitness News, Independent Beachbody Coach Products, Products 2 Responses »

Oct 042010

Overview

Regular participation in a fitness program can improve your health and enhance your sense of well-being. Team Beachbody has been around since 1998, creating countless products to help people lose weight, feel better and improve their fitness level. You may know Team Beachbody from products such as P90, Hip Hop Abs, Turbo Jam, Slim in 6 and ChaLEAN Extreme. The most recent fitness program from Team Beachbody to create buzz is the P90X workout system.

NEW! P90X^® Now Comes with 2 FREE Workouts!

The Facts

P90X is a home-fitness system created by Team Beachbody. The program consists of 12 DVD workouts, targeting different muscle groups, that can be done at home with minimal equipment. Also included in the P90X package are a three-phase nutrition plan, fitness guide and DVD that provides an overview of how the P90X workout plan works.

History

Team Beachbody released the P90X workout program in 2004. The P90X program began with a popular program known as Power 90. The Power 90 program is a 90-day transformation program similar to P90X that’s less intense. After participants completed the Power 90 program, they sought something to help take their fitness to the next level. The answer was Power 90 Extreme, or P90X.

NEW! P90X^® Now Comes with 2 FREE Workouts!

Features

The 12 DVD workouts that come with the P90X program provide an intense and varied home workout. The DVD workouts provide different muscle group combinations as well as cardio workouts, flexibility routines and exercises to enhance athletic ability. The nutrition plan takes participants through different phases of nutrition every 30 days to ensure optimal nutrition intake as fitness intensity increases. The P90X calendar helps track workouts, and the online support tools provide access to fitness experts and other exercisers on the P90X workout plan.

Expert Insight

The P90X workout plan utilizes the concept of muscle confusion. The program changes every 30 days to ensure that muscles never get used to the workout and plateau. According to Coach Allura, National Institute of Preventive Medicine certified personal trainer, muscle confusion is a great way to train and help you achieve your fitness goals.

Considerations

Plyometric exercises stress muscles and tendons and therefore should be added gradually to a fitness program. Because of the plyometric workouts included in the P90X program, special care should be taken to warm up and execute exercises correctly to prevent injury. Plyometric workouts require skill and proper execution to prevent injury. Persons new to exercise should complete the P90X fit test to ensure readiness for the P90X workout plan.

Shakeology®: A Shake Too Good to Be True?

Fitness News, Independent Beachbody Coach Products, Nutrition No Responses »

May 232010

By Dr. Mark Cheng, PhD

This is an article from a professional who teaches for one the most respected kettlebell training communities in the country. It was written by Dr. Mark Cheng in response to some of his students and peers who were questioning his vocal support of Shakeology. Dr. Cheng gave us permission to reprint it here.

Lately, I’ve made mention about my use of the nutritional product Shakeology, and some folks have been questioning if I’ve abandoned the RKC ranks and gone “P90X” on them. So let me set the record straight . . . definitively . . . once and for all.

I heard about Shakeology before there WAS a Shakeology, directly from the mouth of its inventor—Isabelle Brousseau. The wife of Beachbody CEO Carl Daikeler, Ms. Brousseau is a singularly talented coach and highly educated researcher. She’s spent years studying the advanced principles of elite human performance from authorities around the world, and I was honored to have the chance to share Pavel Tsatsouline’s Hardstyle RKC kettlebell training method privately with her. As an adept student, she was on the fast track to preparing for her RKC instructor certification when she decided to take time off upon learning she was expecting her first child.

During the times I spent training her, Isabelle and I spoke about Chinese herbal medicine, and she mentioned she was researching ways of combining all-natural foods with the highest possible nutrient values into a meal-replacement shake designed for athletes and people-on-the-go. When she mentioned wanting to put in high quality ayurvedic herbs, Chinese herbs, antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables, prebiotics, and a host of other vitamins and minerals, my initial reaction was, “Yeah, right!”

My doubts were not unfounded. Having spent years studying (and consuming) Chinese herbal medicines, I had a familiarity with a good deal of what Brousseau was talking about. The ingredients she’d mentioned sounded like a wish list that only insiders would know of and only the filthy rich and well-connected could afford. On top of that, the taste of such a mixture, I surmised, would probably make even the least sensitive tasters wretch with disgust. To make a mixture that would contain the type of ingredients she mentioned, be stable enough to ship and store, and not taste like the bottom skim of a Los Angeles sewer was a pipe dream as far as I was concerned. So I filed the conversation away in my mental round file. A couple of years later, when I met with Carl to discuss a project idea, I saw the finished product on his shelf. Eager to see how far from the initial ideal the finished product had to compromise, I was in for a shock.

Not only did Shakeology have EXACTLY the type of ingredients that Isabelle had mentioned during our training sessions, but it had MORE!

Some notables:

Astragalus: widely used in Chinese medicine as an immune system regulator
MSM: one of the most popular supplements for joint health
Chia: the Mayan super-seed with more calcium than whole milk, more omega-3 and -6 than salmon, and more protein than kidney beans
THREE different proprietary blends and some vitamins and minerals that actually exceeded the U.S. RDA.

This stuff looked like it was fit for a king for sure. So I was curious to put it to the final 2 tests: taste and performance. I wanted to know if it smelled or tasted anything like what I thought it would and was curious if it’d make a difference for my high-velocity, high-output, high-mileage lifestyle.

A little background: I’m a caffeine junkie by virtue of workaholism. Ever since discovering the “joy” of all-nighter homework sessions in high school, I became keenly aware of the value of being able to work harder and sacrifice sleep. So when the NoDoz, Vivarin, and Mountain Dew lifestyle needed an adult turn after I’d graduated and started writing, teaching, treating patients, travelling, training, and trying to spend time with my family, I dove hip deep into energy drinks like Red Bull, Monster, and caffeinated energy bars like Pit Bull. When I speak well about a nutritional product, it’s for one reason: it helps me get my work done while keeping me healthy. Another bit of background: I’m a glutton. I love food, especially food that tastes good. I never met a filet mignon that I didn’t like, and never met one that I didn’t like better wrapped in bacon, with a side of bacon-wrapped scallops, and mashed potatoes—topped with bacon. If it doesn’t taste good, I don’t care how good it is for me. I’ll STILL probably not like it well enough to be disciplined about taking it.

The Greenberry Shakeology bag that Carl gave me turned my ball of preconceived notions and stood it on its ear. From the moment I opened the bag, the scent was wonderful, like a dessert that you’re eager to tear into. So I dumped some ice and water into the blender and dropped a scoop of the bright green powder in with it. I didn’t add juice or other fruits because I wanted to know exactly how this tasted by itself, unadulterated. The next sound I heard after taking my first sip was, “Yum!” It passed the taste test.

Next was the travel test. I wanted to see how it kept me going while traveling, so instead of my usual chain-drinking habit of Monster or Red Bull, I tried a shake or two during the day, usually with one in the morning. I brought Shakeology with me to New York, New Mexico, and most recently to Australia to see how I’d do with it, and the results were remarkable. I had sustained, stable energy, but without the jitters, aggression, and hard drops afterwards. When I travel, I travel to teach, and I have to be up, energetic, strong, and focused. My days here in LA revolve around teaching, training, treating patients, and trying to steal moments with my family. So if something doesn’t give me the energy to do what I need, I can’t waste my precious time or hard-earned money with it.

Shakeology has proven itself to be able to give me all of that on multiple occasions, both while traveling and here in Los Angeles. You can draw your own conclusions about any product you want, but I’m sharing my experiences with Shakeology here openly. And if you think I’m endorsing it only for financial gain, you couldn’t be more wrong. I signed up as a “Coach” so I could buy the product for myself! If you want to try it, you know where to find it, and get ready to be surprised how little such high-quality nutrition costs!

“Lose weight for summer! A Shakeology Home Direct order gets you free shipping, free workout program & shaker cup and more. Check it out!”

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Coach Allura's Website Blog, Fitness Tips, Mentoring & Info

8 “Diet” Foods That Can Make You Fat

This “Lady” Looks P90X Great (and She’s the First Lady)

Texas Beachbody Grows Exponentially Thanks To Network Marketing