Lowcarb Brownies YUM !!!!!! Follow @CoachFabs

Lower-Carb Pasta Recipe, It Actually Tastes like Pasta Follow @CoachFabs

A few weeks ago my wife said she wanted some pasta, we have been working on lowering our carbs on a daily basis so I looked this as a challenge.

If you look out there, you have a few options, most people will make noodles out of Zucchinis or even cook Spaghetti squash, we love those, but some times you just want a nice fresh pasta.

Looking online I quickly realized that most recipes would use a mix between Almond Flour and Coconut Flour. I tried making one of these recipes and it was rather ... unpleasant, the aftermath was a gooey, super white, un appealing noodle, that tasted sweet (because of the coconut).

So I was on a mission deciding to come up with my own mix/recipe and trying to keep the carbs (Net carbs) as low as possible, hopefully 1/3 of what traditional pasta would have.

Below you find my recipe, this is by far the best mix I have to date, serving size is good, so if you are on a low carb diet or want to cycle your carbs, this is a great alternative. The result is 16 grams of NET carbs. You can just drizzle a little olive oil or a low carb marinara sauce and enjoy.

Why use an Activity Tacker? Follow @CoachFabs

As I was talking with a customer I wanted about Activity trackers I thought about writing a small blog post as to why I consider the information provided by these devices fairly important to give you a better idea into why they might be a great tool in your arsenal as you plan and execute your fitness plans.

After doing research for a few months I decided to purchase the Polar Loop from Amazon. Every tracker seemed to have benefits and drawbacks, but for my needs this one seemed to be the best option.

Some of the reasons where

- Chest Strap Integration

- My Fitness Pal Integration

- iOS and Android Compatible

I also added the H7 Heart rate Monitor which is a bluetooth device that allows you to accurately track your heart rate as you workout, there are many people that dislike wearing the chest strap, but from all the reviews and blogs I read it seemed to be the most accurate reading over that done on your wrist.

The integration to My Fitness Pal is a fairly new thing, and it has been done with many other activity trackers in the market. 

My Fitness pal allows you to set a fitness goal (Gain Muscle, Reduce body Fat), allowing you to set your percentages of Carbs, Protein and Fats. 

It also has a very easy search function to find foods and their nutritional content so you can enter meals in no time.

This Free application allows you to track your food daily, showing you how many calories you should take in order to reach your goals, now the beauty of the integration with the fitness trackers is that it will update the number of calories based on your exercise as well, if you look at the image below it has automatically updated the number of calories I need to consume based on my exercise. In my case I am trying to add mass so it is telling me I burned 423 calories which I need to consume to be able to still put on mass.

Activity Tracking 24/7

Another great thing about activity trackers is they can give you insight into what your day looks like and how good of a night sleep you got. There are so many other graphics that show your weekly, monthly and daily goals and how you are tracking towards success.

Tracking Training Output

Whenever talking with one of my clients the question always comes up, how are your workouts going? Different workout Types have different goals, I believe we should all be training with a variety of workouts to be able to target different areas of our fitness ability.

Below are three samples of my workouts, three very distinct target zones, this gives me great insight as well into what I can be doing better on my workouts, am I hitting the right target zone ? Am I working hard enough ?

Weight Training

The goal of this type of workouts is to build muscle, the majority of time should be spent on target zone 2, the pace I set for it on my workout was ok, but I can slow it down a little and make sure I contract more on each set.

Cardiovascular Training (Cardio)

The goal of this type of exercise is to burn more calories, helping your body to go into your fat stores and burn fat reserves, the desired target zone for this type of workout is between 3 and 4. From the target zone training information I see I spent way too much time on zone 2, that is not the goal, so I can definitely step it up there.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) 

The goal of this type of workout is to, among other things, increase your anaerobic threshold, get you fit and go it fast, average workout is between 20-30 minutes long and your goal is to go at a very high intensity, we are talking between zone 4 and 5, but trying to push zone 5 at a higher rate. So you can see from the graph I did hit the goal, but there is still room for improvement in hitting the zone 5.

Why am I gaining weight while working out? Follow @CoachFabs

Nothing taps your panic button quite like gaining weight, especially when you're on a weight loss program. Unfortunately, it's an inevitable fact of life. Luckily, you've got me here to tell you that, as long as you're following a solid program, results will come. It's a physiological certainty (unless you have an underlying issue, like hypothyroidism).

Let's look at five of the most common weight loss problems:

I'm following the program perfectly. Why isn't it working?! 

Cortisol is a word you should become familiar with, as it's a key factor here. Cortisol is actually a performance-enhancing stress hormone that serves an important function in survival situations. Unfortunately, when we force too much daily stress on our bodies, we shift into a state of chronic cortisol release. This can cause us to store excess fat as a survival instinct. While it sounds pretty dire, it's generally only a serious problem in those with poor lifestyle habits. 

The beginning of a diet and/or exercise program, however, is a survival situation. In a very simplistic sense, your body releases cortisol, which, in turn, causes excess water retention to help you rebuild broken down muscle tissue. While this is cortisol functioning properly, it does lead to a period of water weight gain as you adjust to a new program. It's nothing to worry about. By following a solid plan, your body will adapt by repairing this muscle tissue. This results in an increase in your metabolism and leads to weight loss if that's your goal. 

The trick is that there is no hard line on how long this adaptation takes. It's based on your individual parameters. Just rest easy in the fact that it will happen, unless you force it not to.

I'm barely eating.

Severe undereating causes cortisol release, as it's the definition of a bodily emergency.  A short period of strategic undereating with proper hydration will help your body dispense of unneeded food (most of us chronically overeat) and regulate bodily functions. Go too long, however, and chronic cortisol release is the result. 

I've been doing hard workouts for weeks. 

On the performance theme, you need to continually improve, which is why workouts get harder as you move through any of Beachbody's programs. It's also why we add resistance (via added weight or gravity, as is the case with jumping) to workouts. If you're doing the same workouts at the same intensity constantly, you are not forcing adaptations that lead to changes in your metabolism. This is called a plateau. 

A plateau, technically, isn't gaining weight—it's remaining the same—but a proper diet and exercise program should continually force improvements (in the form of adaptations). Otherwise, your metabolism won't continue to increase, which is the goal of most weight loss programs.

My friend and I are doing the exact same thing and he/she's losing. 

Back to adaptation. We all react differently. The only absolute is that our bodies will change over time with a healthy program. A fitness rule called the Specificity of Adaptation states that it takes the body between 3 and 12 weeks to adapt to new stimuli, which is a very broad range. This is why it's vital that you stick to your program and not change it repeatedly based on your daily results! 

I lost weight for a while but now it's stopped. 

You eat less to lose weight. Things are going great, but suddenly you plateau—or start gaining. Odds are, your metabolism has slowed down in order to deal with the decreased calories. You're starving your now fit body, so it's doing what it needs to do to survive. The answer to this problem is pretty simple: eat more. 

Monster Oatmeal Follow @CoachFabs

 A tasty and filling high-protein oatmeal flavored with almond milk and cinnamon.

2 1/4 cups of water
1 pinch himalayan salt
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 scoop protein shake
2 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon slivered almonds
1 tablespoon dried cranberries

1. Heat the water, add the salt and bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low and add the oats, cooking the oats should take about 5 minutes.

2. Add the protein shake, if it becomes too thick then add almond milk to it.

3. Sprinkle with cinnamon and top with almonds and cranberries.

Calories: 500

Fat: 11 g

Carbs: 72 g

Protein: 31 g

Almond butter and blueberry oatmeal Follow @CoachFabs

1 1/4 cup water
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
4 teaspoons of all natural almond butter
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

1. Bring water to a boil

2. Add oats and cook for about 4 minutes, remove from heat

3. Combine the oatmeal and almond butter in a medium serving bowl, top with blueberries

Calories: 308

Fat: 14 g

Carbs: 38 g

Protein: 11 g

Tips: Depending on your goals you might want to add some more protein to this meal, you can do that by adding a scoop of protein, if you do that, make sure to do it after you cook the oatmeal, while mixing the almond butter, if it becomes too thick you can add a little almond milk. You can also replace the almond butter with all-natural peanut butter.

Tempeh Scramble Follow @CoachFabs

1/2 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil
5 ounces of tempeh, diced, a pack normally is 8 ounces
1/2 medium red bell pepper, diced
1/4 medium red onion, diced
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
Himalayan salt and black pepper (to taste)

1. Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium heat

2. Add the tempeh, bell pepper, onion and thyme, cook, stirring frequently for 4 minutes

3. Season with salt and pepper

Calories: 309

Fat: 12 g

Carbs: 22 g

Protein: 29 g