That One Fitness Guy



Sugar Free Sundays: Simple Yet Delicious Honey Sriracha Tilapia Dinner For Two

Sugar Free Sundays: Simple Yet Delicious Honey Sriracha Tilapia Dinner For Two

If you’re into fitness and dieting at all, then you’re probably familiar with the amazing power of fish. High in both protein and taste, fish is a flexible option for meat or an otherwise unhealthy alternative. On this Sugar Free Sunday, we’re going to tell you how to turn one ugly fish into a great Sriracha Tilapia dinner for two!

For our side, let’s do a coleslaw! However, most coleslaw are heavily based around milk and mayo so here’s an alternative that is full of protein and flavor.

Mayo-Free Coleslaw (Asian Fusion)

Ingredients

  • 6 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
  • 5 Tablespoons Creamy Peanut Butter (Trust me)
  • 3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
  • 3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons Minced Fresh Ginger Root (Can use paste as well)
  • 1 And 1/2 Tablespoons Minced Garlic (Can use paste as well)
  • 6 Tablespoons Rice Wine Vinegar
  • 5 Cups Of thinly Sliced Green Cabbage
  • 2 Cups Of Thinly Sliced Red Cabbage
  • 2 Cups Of Shredded Napa Cabbage
  • 2 Thinly Sliced Red Bell Peppers
  • 6 Chopped Green Onions
  • 1/2 Of A Cup Chopped Fresh Cilantro
  • 2 Julienned Carrots

Instructions

  1. In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the rice vinegar, vegetable oil, peanut butter, soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic. Set this aside until later.
  2. In a larger bowl, mix and toss the different cabbage varieties, red bell peppers, carrots, green onions, and cilantro.
  3. Just before serving, add in the peanut butter mixture and toss liberally to make sure it’s spread around to every single vegetable.

Now for the main course, the easy to make semi-spicy Honey Sriracha Tilapia.

Ingredients

  • 1/4th Of A Teaspoon Powdered Garlic (Garlic Salt will also work)
  • 2 Tablespoons Of Lime Juice
  • 1 Tablespoon Of Soy Sauce
  • 3 Tablespoons Of Honey
  • 1 Tablespoon Of Soy Sauce
  • 1 And 1/2 Tabelspoons Of Sriracha
  • 1 Pound Tilapia Fillets

Instructions

  1. Preheat Oven To 450.
  2. As the oven heats, line an oven safe half sheet pan with 2 pieces of foil and divide the tilapia evenly between the two sides.
  3. Season the fish with the garlic, lime juice, and salt / pepper to taste. Leave this sitting away from the oven for around ten – 15 minutes to marinate.
  4. After the wait, mix the soy sauce, sriracha, and honey and pour equally over the fish.
  5. Carefully surround the fish with the foil loosely. Poke small slits into the foil to allow the steam to escape.
  6. Put the pan into the oven’s second rack and cook for 15 to 18 minutes or until the fish is noticeably flaky but still moist.
  7. ENJOY!

This dish takes roughly 40 minutes to make and, if you have a fitness buddy, you can make both parts of the dish at once. The flavor will make you second guess the nutrition but both components of the dinner give a large amount of protein without the diet crushing extra parts. Better yet, you’ll leave the table full but not bloated and your taste buds will be swimming in joy!

Just because it’s healthy doesn’t mean it has to taste horrible but until next time, think healthy, be healthy!



3 Tips To Greatly Improve Your Pushup Without Breaking Your Back

3 Tips To Greatly Improve Your Pushup Without Breaking Your Back

Pushups are the go to body weight exercise and for good reason. This exercise can increase strength as well as definition in the biceps, triceps, and shoulder regions. But what if I told you that you can actually improve this exercise further to include your abs, chest, or even your lats without killing them in the process? Here’s some tips to do all that and more to really improve your pushup game.

3 Tips To Greatly Improve Your Pushup Without Breaking Your Back

1. Tighten the stomach

While pushups are primarily for upper body improvement, tightening the stomach during a set of reps can actually help improve core strength. What tightening the stomach does to improve your pushups goes beyond just adding a planking type of addition but also helps from rounding your spine which reduces injury of trying to force your back to stay in place. Pretty great right?

2. Spread those fingers

A lot of people will do pushups close handed or where their fingers are all together pointing in the same direction. If you’ve ever seen those guys who do jumping pushups or anything similar, a good majority are using an open, spread hand. This adds more tension to the workout while making it a bit easier to transfer into diamond style after a while. It’s also great because it works your lats and adds yet another muscle group to the already great workout.

3. Push in and away

To improve your pushup further, try pushing inwards. If you’re utilizing the wide grip from tip four, then focus on pushing those thumbs towards each other each time you go down. This will engage the chest even further than it already has by giving the feeling of a chest press each time you perform a rep. In addition, most people consider pushups as lifting yourself off of the ground but if you try to instead, push the ground away from you, you’ll notice a change in the exercise that affects the whole body!

With these three steps in mind, you can begin to try different more difficult variations like diamond style, burpees, or even increase the amount of time per each rep for maximum muscle penetration. Pushups are wonderful and as long as you do them right, can sometimes replace a gym visit if you don’t have an hour to spend for the day.

Until next time, think healthy, be healthy!


Fitness Myth Busting: High Fructose Corn Syrup Is Less Healthy Than Sugar

Fitness Myth Busting: High Fructose Corn Syrup Is Less Healthy Than Sugar

High fructose corn syrup not being as healthy as sugar from a nutritional standpoint has been talked about in more ways than you can ever imagine. The food industry often gets attacked when the ingredient is found in items customers didn’t expect it in as well as the ones they did. The myth that high fructose corn syrup is less healthy than sugar mostly derives from its link to high consumption and diabetes / obesity. However, let’s see if we can’t clear up that myth once and for all.

Fitness Myth Busting: High Fructose Corn Syrup Is Less Healthy Than Sugar

While any amount of sugar in too high of a serving is bad for you, the major differences between HFC and regular table sugar is what type of sugar is being used. HFC, as its name would imply, is derived from fructose which is a sugar that can also be found in fruit. However, it differs from table sugar since it is derived from sucrose which is easier for the body to digest. But wait, let’s look a little at the production methods used on both of these.

According to Examine.com in a recent study, high fructose corn syrups contain around 42 – 55% fructose with the rest being other types of sugars. Table sugar, on the other hand, contains 50% fructose on average. That should be enough to convince just about anyone that there isn’t much of a difference but allow me to go further. Typically, when we hear that something is not “pure sugar”, we have an immediate gag reaction within our ears. It’s why some people shy away from artificial sweeteners and other products that deliver the sweet flavor without using sugar. However, when it comes down to it, High fructose corn syrup, although high in name, has around the same amount of fructose as regular table sugar.

So, in other words, the thought that high fructose corn syrup is less healthy than sugar can almost immediately get disproved. It’s not a matter of one being healthier than the other since it’s a margin of 5% difference, but rather you should avoid consuming too much of either as fructose is still proven to not be as easily digested and is instead converted into fatty acids.

Well, that’s another myth busted and hopefully we’ve come to understand that all sugars should be treated equally. Until next time, think healthy, be healthy!


A Few Easy Tricks To Greatly Improve Your Cardio Workouts

A Few Easy Tricks To Greatly Improve Your Cardio Workouts

Weight lifting is the core of all exercise. Whether you’re doing body weight push ups, weighted bench presses, or just calve extensions, they play an essential part in both heart rate as well as muscle gain. However, when looking to burn fat effectively, coupling them with great cardio workout days really make the results pop sooner than expected. Today, I wanted to share some ways to improve your cardio workouts that I’ve found particularly effective.

A few easy tricks to greatly improve your cardio workouts

Go for an extra ten minutes

When you first step on the machine or hit the pavement, your body immediately tells you to get back in the house if you haven’t done cardio in a while. From my experience, this seems to mostly come from increasing the level of physical exertion from what your body is used to. This isn’t a bad sign however as when you are able to will your legs to keep going for the first 10 or so minutes, eventually you hit a point where it feels amazing. Some call this “hitting the runner’s high” and I can understand why.

You feel great for the next 30 or so minutes and your legs are hardly registering any stress until you you realize your workout is just about over. The last ten minutes of the workout feel excruciating as you struggle to keep up your pace and think about giving up early. But you don’t and keep going instead. Now, instead of doing a cool down period as soon as that clock hits 60 minutes, why not try another ten minutes today? Sure your body is pretty ragged at this point but our physique’s are uniquely designed to adapt to situations such as this. After you finish your first 70 minute run, try doing it the day after next for a couple of weeks. In no time, hitting that 60 minutes will be a breeze and now the 70 minute mark will be your new “horrible time”. Then add another 10 minutes, until you feel like you’re getting the most out of your workout.  Remember to increase hydration as well as the extra stress on your body will dry you up quickly.

This will lead to improved breath control, more cardio work (since you’re sweating for an additional 10 minute intervals), and better conditioning. Conditioning helps all parts of working out as your willpower and endurance will help with weight lifting and terrible crunches. And to think, it just takes an extra ten minutes a day!

Don’t let it be too easy

If you’ve ever strength trained for a period of time, you’ve probably heard a personal trainer say “Did you just do 15? Okay, that’s too light, let’s increase the weight again.” Your first response is frustration since you feel like you could barely get those in but in reality, your body craves to be pushed and, again, adapts to the changes given to it. The same applies for cardio, especially when on a machine with variable speeds and inclines.

Let’s look at the typical exercise bike. While this machine is very easy to use, each one typically offers different degrees of resistance on the pedals to help improve muscle tone and cardio exertion. If you’ve ever gotten off the machine after an hour, barely coated in sweat, not feeling sore, and wake up the next morning with no new definition to show, “It’s too easy, let’s increase the resistance again.” Ideally, during your cardio sessions, you should struggle to match a certain speed. If your legs are racing like crazy and you get off feeling refreshed with no sweat, you probably didn’t burn nearly as much fat as you think you did. This is because, your heart never raced or struggled so your body didn’t have to compensate. You want your body to get swept up in the activity and leave the gym soaked after cardio. That’s right, you should always bring a towel to the gym in preparation of working out until you need a towel. Sweating after a cardio workout proves that your heart hit a good pace and if after that point you maintained the same work on it, you more than likely got a good hour of high intensity cardio.

So next time you’re at the gym, increase that incline, adjust the resistance, and get sweaty.

Changing it up

This is my personal favorite, especially on the elliptical. Regardless of your workout of choice, changing up the pacing of a cardio exercise will always show good results. To improve your cardio workout easily, try doing sprint intervals. What this means is if you’re on the treadmill, run at a regular pace for a while then increase the speed to where you’re sprinting for 30 seconds to a minute, then adjust it back down if you can. This is done a bit better on a bicycle or elliptical as you can change your pace and “Go all out” which then makes you burn more calories because of the irregularity of it. These intervals make you heave and ho and eventually increase endurance, speed,and from some reports, reduce belly fat.

Cardio workouts are essential and I hope these tips can help you improve your cardio workouts as much as they’ve helped my own. Until next time, think healthy, be healthy!


Sugar Free Sunday: How To Pick A Protein Bar That Is Right For You

Sugar Free Sunday: How To Pick A Protein Bar That Is Right For You

Protein Bars are actually extremely varied in both size and function. However, deciding on the perfect one for your diet regiment / workout is always tricky when looking through so many options. This Sugar Free Sunday, I wanted to look into exactly what the name brand protein bars have in them and try to identify the type of regiments that would benefit from their aid the most.

To begin, my criteria for choosing these is based on what you can find at a fitness store right as you walk in. Some may be a little tougher to find on the shelves but trust me, they will be there somewhere. This is by no means a top ten list or anything like that but rather just a resource you can reference as you continue your exercise routine.

 

Quest Bar Protein Bar

Quest Bars

Quest bars are some of the best to recommend as both meal replacement and weight loss bars. Within one cookies and cream bar, you’ll find: just 190 calories, 9g of good fat, a total of 4g of net carbs and a whopping 21g of protein. This bar will fill you up and personally, I think they taste quite good for a protein bar with most of the flavors being extremely delicious. Most of their bars also have 0g of sugar so for those looking to curb their appetites and keep the flavor; this is a great bar for that.

Clif Builder Protein Bar

Clif Builders

Clif Bars are typically energy bars that fuel you before beginning a workout. However, Clif builder bars typically average around 270 Calories, 9g of good fat, and a rather high 29g of carbs with 21g coming from sugar. Remember, carbs aren’t always bad especially when they come from fiber, however carbs that come from pure sugar are an issue and make these a little hard to find a perfect workout space in. However, like you’ll see with the Powerbar, these can be perfect for a post workout dinner replacement. Your body tears through carbs, Calories, and sugars during intense workouts. To keep your form, taking one of these as a post workout is not the worst idea to consider. There are better choices however since the added sugar is extremely high so be cautious on replacing too many meals with these bars.

Powerbar Protein Plus Protein Bar

PowerBar PROTEINPLUS BAR

PowerBars are usually what people reach for before and after a workout however, as you’ll see very soon, they may not be the best idea for a protein bar in the long run. Every bar typically contains peanut, almond, milk and soy which racks up quite a bit on the allergy count. Beyond that, nutrition wise, the bars average 210 Calories, 6g of fat, 25g of carbs, 100mg of potassium, and 20g of protein. From a nutrition only standpoint, this protein bar would serve a use as post major workout meal replacement. However, since so much of the carbs come from sugar, as a meal replacement, this does not do what it’s meant to since eating a regular meal would have a bit less sugar on average.

Combat Crunch Protein Bars

Combat Crunch Bars

Combat crunch bars boast the moniker of “The best triple layered “BAKED” protein bar on the market. When looking at their nutrition facts however, this may be a bit harder to discern. Similar to the Power-Bar and Clif builders, Combat Crunch Bars (at least the popular chocolate peanut butter cup flavor) also have 210 calories, 7g of fat, 28g of carbs, and 20g of protein. However, they separate themselves from the above by increasing the dietary fiber to 12g and reducing sugars to only 5g. It’s a great bar that I would recommend for both post AND pre workouts. The amount of fiber should not be underestimated as good carbs can really help during a workout. Recommended for runners right before a long race or just a jog on the treadmill.

So there you have it, a quick look at some of the more popular protein bars out there and what we think the best way to take them would be. The best thing to remember is that every bar boasts its high protein count but taking into consideration the amount of carbs, what you’re planning to use it for, and how often you’d like to replace a meal, only some will fit the criteria perfectly.

That’s it for today and until next time, think healthy, be healthy!


Have You Heard Of The 'Animal Flow' Fitness Trend?

Have You Heard Of The ‘Animal Flow’ Fitness Trend?

Well if you haven’t, here’s your quick briefer. Animal Flow is a new exercise program developed by Mike Fitch in partnership with Equinox. The tagline of the program is that Animal Flow “taps into your primal instincts to get you moving your body in ways you’ve never imagined before.” While there all kinds of ways to get fit nowadays, the reason this particular one caught my interest is its break dance / yoga fusion.

Have You Heard Of The 'Animal Flow' Fitness Trend?

Most of the positions, as you’ll see in the video linked below, are related to improving core strength while at the same time looking a tad silly when compared to traditional workouts. However, some of the movements the gentleman performs are inspired by focusing on primate walking patterns and also contracting muscles in a certain pattern. This clip is on the more advanced side of the workout as a lot of the positions require half hand stands or other break dancing maneuvers that can take years to master.

So what are the benefits of the routine then? From what I can discern, there is a lot of muscle confusion and core strengthening as well as a high level of cardio. However, as with any fad, it seems destined to disappear within a few months. While Animal Flow is certainly interesting to watch, the high levels of requirement to reach “advanced motion” outweigh anything that could be gained from actually working to reach there. Exercise and workouts that have stood the test of time require a minimum amount of mental effort to reach the point of the advanced versions. Not anyone can do a handstand push up but everyone can attempt a regular push up and within weeks (if not days) try a diamond style one.

It’s hard to talk bad about any way to stay fit and, believe me, I’m not actually saying Animal Flow is poor in anyway. The target demographic for people that will try this is just so small that recommending it to anyone who has just started training or heading down the road of losing weight would be foolish on my part. It is great to see yet another new way to get in shape out there!

That’s my time for today and remember, think healthy, be healthy!