Spice Balance » Lean Muscle

Fat Burning Tips – When to Eat

Greg — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:13:00 +0000

With a new season upon us this is a good time to evaluate where you are in your efforts to get leaner. Evaluating where you are from a fitness standpoint shouldn’t occur only as part of your New Year’s resolutions. Have you been following a consistent lifting and cardio program but are stalled in your efforts to get leaner?

It might be time to look at your diet in a bit more detail. It took me more than 10 years of working out before I really began to understand that diet is the single most important part of the fitness equation. Once I discovered this I was able to more easily pack on lean muscle or reduce body fat while getting leaner (depending on what my goals were at the time).

Try eating more frequently.

If you have been focused on losing weight this might even seem counter intuitive to you. You’re thinking that you have to create a caloric deficit to burn off fat, right? Well actually the only thing worse than skipping meals is leaving long gaps in between meals. Both of these bad habits slow your metabolism, create muscle loss and signal you body’s starvation responses to kick in.

It really isn’t a secret but by consuming smaller meals more frequently you are supercharging your metabolic rate. I have found that eating 5-6 small meals a day produced better results than just eating 3 or 4 larger meals each day. If you’re a guy your goal should be 6 meals a day, a women should be 5.

It takes 2-3 hours for your body to digest the previous meal so be sure not to overlap more than that for best results. As with anything related to fitness you will need to experiment to find what works best for you.

Frequent meals also help to control cravings and eliminate the likely hood of unwanted binging. Eating more often will also increase your energy levels by leveling your blood sugar levels and this also tends to keep you from over-consuming calories. When you consume more calories than your body can handle in a 2-3 hour period the excess calories get converted to body fat.

Smaller meals are more efficiently absorbed into the cells with the most immediate energy needs and the result is less wasted calories.

And don’t forget to be sure that you are drinking plenty of water both between and during your meals.

In Search of the Best Grilled Chicken Spices and Seasonings

Penny — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:45:00 +0000

We get asked all the time – “what are the best spices or seasonings for grilled chicken”? This is typically asked from those that are trying to eat healthier and leaner as chicken is often the cornerstone of these types of meal routines. When you consume a good deal of chicken in your regular meal rotation it can get awful boring.

So we wanted to break it down for you that you are armed with what are the best spices, seasonings and rubs for your chicken. From our experience these spices and herbs (from the first list) work well whether you prefer baked or grilled chicken. This list is perfect for an experienced or adventurous home chef who isn’t afraid of experimenting a little bit with their own combination’’s. You can pick several of these are try them in tandem but we do recommend using small amounts at first to see what works best without overpowering a dish.

Now we did not list any chiles but for those that like some heat you can certainly add those for some zest as well. These spices, herbs and seasonings are just for the grill either you can certainly use them to add a change of pace to any chicken meal even if you cook in the oven or on your trusty Foreman grill!

List of Spices and Herbs to Use on Grilled Chicken

Now if you are looking for added convenience, tremendous flavor and you don’t want to be guessing on the best combination to use then these chicken seasonings are the way to go. Here you can find salt free selections, regional flavors from across the US, some south of the border influenced seasonings and some loaded with heat. Most of these have at least 5 or 6 ingredients and others up to 12-15 but all have been thoroughly tested and you will find them all loaded with flavor and they will make it impossible to get bored with your chicken.

Out of This World Grilled Chicken Seasonings and Rubs

We are constantly testing out new chicken seasonings and rubs for the backyard grill, the smoker, the oven and even the Foreman grill.

The Importance of Lean Protein

Penny — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:12:00 +0000

One of the reasons for this blog – besides the opportunity to talk about foods and seasonings that I love – is to try to help those struggling to get in better shape. Over the years I have done a ton of research to get a better understanding of what the fittest athletes in the world do to both get in shape and to maintain once they are there.

At the top of all of the various workouts, supplements, protein powders and creatine research it really comes back to the most basic aspect of all. Your body ultimately becomes what you put into it.

At the top of my personal general rules is — eat. And eat frequently (every 2-3 hours) throughout the day. Yes that means 5-7 times. But you also need to make sure that these are moderately sized meals. Don’t eat like a bird and don’t pig out. Your body can’t absorb more than a set amount of calories at any one time (this will depend on your body type).

Now equally important is that each time you eat you need to eat lean protein and good carbohydrates. Now for carbs generally stick with vegetables and some fruits. I am not going to go into great length on starchy carbs (rice, potatoes, quinoa, or bread) but it is better to consume these after working out.

For lean protein this is not bacon or burgers from your favorite fast food joint. Your body needs the good stuff.

Your body is constantly burning calories and all sorts of activities do this — breathing, exercising, even just sleeping and eating is no different. It actually takes quite a bit of energy for your body to digest and absorb the food that you eat. Some respected experts in fat burning call this the thermic effect. This thermic effect hits it highest point at about an hour after eating and then begins to drop about three hours later.

So you can see by eating smaller meals frequently you are able to keep this thermic effect in high gear of constantly burning calories.

Many people can understand the concept of good protein and certainly some sources are better than others but if you work from this general list you can find good variety that also fits your budget.

Extra Lean Sirloin

Flank Steak Stir Fry

Keep a couple pounds on hand at all times and go for the leanest amount you can get – 97% is better than 93% which is better than 90% and so on. Of course the better the quality of the meat the more expensive it is. If you can afford it grass-fed beef is a much higher quality and a leaner source of protein than grain fed.

Grilled Chicken Breast w Veggies

Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts

Again buy free range if you can afford it but if not just be sure to remove as much of the fat as you can prior to cooking.

Salmon Steaks with Chard

Fish

Salmon is considered the best. It doesn’t taste “fishy” but as with the beef and the chicken you want the best quality if you can afford it and this means wild caught as opposed to farm raised. Wild tends to be higher in valuable omega-3 fats while farm raised has a lower quality fatty acid. Tilapia is a good economical second choice.

Spinach & Mushroom Omlette

Eggs

This is one of the absolute best sources of pure protein to can get but not all eggs are created equal. Just like with the protein packed foods listed so far an Omega-3 Egg is at the top of egg food chain. These eggs come from chickens that have been raised on an omega-3 rich diet (generally at least 10% ground flaxseed).

I also like to toss in extra egg whites in any of my egg meals (you can buy the more expensive boxes of them where they are already separated from the yolks or you can separate yourself). These are a staple of fitness athletes.

Some other good choices that are not as common include:

Turkey Kielbasa, Ostrich (your local butcher may even have free-range raised), Bison, Venison and Elk also score quite high on the nutrient scale.

I know that this is a long post but this is really important stuff especially for those looking to get leaner and in better shape.

Boost Your Metabolism and Bounce Past Plateaus

Greg — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:19:00 +0000

No matter what your health and fitness goals are we all hit plateaus that frustrate us and if we let them, they can play major havoc on our all important mindset. I have found that the more highly trained my body becomes the more in tune I have become on knowing what to look for as I hit one of these dreaded plateaus.

If you goal is burning fat and getting leaner you have certainly worked on cleaning up your diet, you’re already lifting free weights (with primarily compound exercises – hello squats and deadlifts) and adding in the correct level of cardio. Now while you may have made some good progress you will inevitably find yourself flattening out as you hit that flat line area of no progress.

I am constantly adjusting my various cycles (weights, cardio and fuel) and have found that for weight lifting I need to change up my cycles – exercises, body part order, rep range, heavy/ light weights, etc every four weeks. For cardio I like to do a variety of intervals (especially inclines) for short bursts. For cardio no two workouts are ever the same. With my current cardio cycle I am at just under two hours per week spread out over 5 days.

But the area where I have found the biggest single benefit is in bouncing around my calories. Now depending on if you are just working on being in the best shape possible or you are a crazy Type A personality…. (do you notice a theme here) you can either have a rough idea or keep a detailed record of your calories consumed.

A little background – as I have gotten older and can no longer compete athletically like I was once able to (my passion was basketball – playing in multiple leagues and/ or highly competitive pick up games 3 to 4 days per week) I have had to find a way to still compete but now that competition is against myself. So now I lift and run.

My score board is in getting as lean as possible while maintaining a good level of lean muscle. So while I always ate fairly clean it was purely instinctive and then about the time that I started SpicesInc.com I got even more into seeing how far I could take this.

I keep very specific records of what I fuel my body with and I am continuously playing around with my calories. My average for the last six months or so is 3500 – 3800 calories a day (I have worked on having a highly tuned metabolism) then I pick one day a week where I go crazy low (for me), one day crazy high, one day medium high and then the other four days are somewhere around the middle.

Here is my rough calorie count with a comparison to another week from early last year.

	Mar ”09	Jan ”10
Sunday	2481	2850
Monday	4021	3798
Tuesday	4031	4797
Wednesday	2923	3107
Thursday	4023	5196
Friday	2942	3400
Saturday	4193	3817
Daily Average	3516	3852

Now don’t mistake this post on a big push towards counting calories but more to make you think about manipulating your current calories and shocking your body into boosting your metabolism.

As you can see in my comparisons my daily average this year is actually up more than 300 calories per day and I am certainly leaner than last year. But instead of the spread between my low days and my high days being 1700 or so calories they are now a little more than 2300.

I have found that by doing this calorie cycling through each week has allowed me to eat more while spending less (but much more productive) time in the gym.

I started testing this theory after some research showed that by having high calorie and low calorie days within the same week your body has a harder time adjusting to the starvation mode (from continuous low calorie days) and the high calorie days actually boost your metabolism because the body feels that is has plenty of fuel coming in. I also use the high calorie day for my cheat meal so I receive a double reward in my brain on that day (more food and something you are really craving).

This has been one of the most profound discoveries that I have found that works for me. So while you may be faithfully working out and really watching what you eat you are probably subconsciously eating roughly the same calories each day. Your body will adapt quickly and your metabolism will natural slow and settle into a less efficient grove.

Give this approach a shot – I would bet that it will blow your mind and super charge your metabolism the same way that it did for me.