Posted By Dave Ruel
If you’re looking to pack on some quality lean mass, the chances are very high that you’re getting all the main stream protein sources that you must add to your regular meals.
You’ve got chicken, eggs, fish, lean red meat, and low-fat dairy products all covered and have evenly distributed these throughout your day.
But, one high quality source of protein that far too many people completely overlook is that of pork.
Not only is pork a great source of protein, but it’s good for your overall health as well.
Let’s have a quick look at a few of the important facts to know about pork.
Why People Avoid Pork
So why is it that pork is often forgotten about anyway? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Pork, Pork nutrition, protein from pork, source of protein
Posted in General Nutrition Tips | 29 Comments »
Posted By Dave Ruel
If you’re like most people out there, one thing that you definitely struggle with when it comes to sticking with your healthy meal plans is meal preparation.
Let’s face it, life is busy.
You have a million and one things that you have to try and get through and spending hours in the kitchen doesn’t exactly rank high on your priority list.
But, maintaining a lean and defined body does, so you have to find a way around this problem. Surely there’s some method that you can use to slash your meal prep time without having to sacrifice good nutrition? Fortunately there is and that’s the secret I’m going to share with you today.
The secret that I’m referring to is using a slow cooker. This one simple cooking tool can easily take away hours of work each week and get you out of the kitchen and going about your day.Let’s have a quick look at why slow cooking is such a great method to prepare your muscle building foods so you can get it clear in your mind why it’s a must-do for success.
Accommodates Any Skill Level Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: healthy meal plans, muscle building foods, slow cooker meals
Posted in Articles, General Nutrition Tips | 25 Comments »
Posted By Dave Ruel
We all know that we should eat the right kind of foods but what are these foods and how can they help our muscle building endeavors? I am going to explain how blueberries can help you to recover and build muscles after your workout and why they should be included in all healthy meal plans.
Blueberries are packed with antioxidants.
Antioxidants carry a large number of health benefits. After a workout, a period of stress or illness, your body goes through oxidative stress in which electrons are taken from substances during a chemical reaction. After this process has taken place, we are left with a nasty little thing known as a free radical. Free radicals are basically unstable oxygen atoms.
Free radicals don’t want to be unstable and they will try to find another electron in order to balance themselves out. Free radicals won’t even stop at stealing an electron from one of your body’s cells. In essence, free radicals therefore cause your body to rust on the inside. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: antioxidants, blueberries, healthy meal plans, muscle building foods
Posted in Articles, General Nutrition Tips, Muscle Building Nutrition Tips | 25 Comments »
Posted By Dave Ruel
As you go about your diet plan, one food that you must make sure not to leave out is lemons. Most people completely overlook lemons for the flavor they provide and never think to make use of it in their cooking preparation. I on the other hand use them ALL the time whether it’s for experimenting with a new recipe or using one from my trusty Anabolic Cooking cookbook 
But, when used correctly, lemons are not only a fantastic way to enhance the flavor of your meal, but they’re also going to offer numerous health benefits as well.
Let’s walk you through the main benefits you’ll get from adding lemons as well as provide you with three simple ideas to start incorporating into your diet plan today.
Health Benefits Of Lemons
Before showing you what you can do to add lemons to your diet, let’s have a look at the primary health benefits that lemons offer.
First, lemons are very rich in Vitamin C content, so they’ll help to keep your immune system strong and you feeling well on a day to day basis.
In addition to this, they’re also jam packed with antioxidants, so by eating just one lemon a day with your meals, you can help fend off disease and all the damage that free radicals can cause.
Finally, lemon will also act as a powerful antibacterial in the body, so this fact alone can ensure that you don’t become ill nearly as often and instead maintain proper health.
Meal Prep Ideas Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: benefits of lemons, lemons, recipe with lemons
Posted in Articles, General Nutrition Tips | 23 Comments »
Posted By Dave Ruel
With summer in full swing, one cooking method that you must make sure you’re making good use of is grilling. Grilling is one of the top health promoting ways to prepare your meals and even better, it offers plenty of flavour.
My favorite part of summer grilling? The gathering’s it brings and the fun that follows
When you cook on the grill you’ll help to reduce the total fat content in any meat that you prepare as the fat will drip right off and since you aren’t using any butter or other added fats in the cooking process, you’ll get a low calorie dish that’s high on nutrition but low on calories.
Cooking on the grill using propane or charcoal tends to bring out the flavour in foods to a larger extent, so you won’t need to add a lot of high calorie sauces or condiments either. Simply using some herbs or marinades will easily enhance the taste without destroying the nutritional value of the meal.
Let’s give you a brief run-down on how to make use of this terrific cooking technique.
What To Cook
There are many different options as to what you can prepare up using your grill. Vegetables are a classic favourite as they’ll come out juicy and crisp, really awakening your taste buds and allowing you to see just how satisfying eating healthy can be.
There are many different protein options for cooking on the grill as well including steaks, venison, buffalo burgers or lean ground beef burgers, fish, shrimp, and chicken. Each of these will be a high quality source of protein that’s already naturally lower in fat.
Pretty much all meats mentioned in Anabolic Cooking can be modified to be cooked on the grill. In fact some of the recipes will taste even better if you can get access to a BBQ.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: anabolic cooking, BBQ cooking, BBQ Recipes, Cook times for meat, Healthy Recipes, How to Grill
Posted in Articles, General Nutrition Tips | 4 Comments »
Posted By Dave Ruel
After putting in all the time and effort to make sure that you’ve got your workout in order, you have to ask yourself, are you doing everything possible to succeed with your diet?
If you’re like many people, you aren’t. The truth is that many people fail miserably with their attempt at a muscle building diet and largely it’s because they’re making a few key yet critical mistakes that cost them big time when it comes to their results.
How would I know? Well apart from having seen new clients experience these problems, I was also making them before I really got into bodybuilding and fine tuned the nutrition side of things
Fortunately, these mistakes are easily solved. With just a few simple changes to your cooking routine, you can make sticking with a good muscle building diet a breeze so that your hard work in the gym will really pay off.
Let’s have a quick look at what these mistakes are and what you need to do about them. Getting in sufficient calories for massive muscle growth can feel like a challenge, but not when you’re making good use of the following advice.
Mistake #1: Not Cooking In Bulk
First things first, unless you want it to feel like you’ve just taken up a second job as a chef, you need to learn to cook in bulk. In order to build muscle you must supply your body with a continuous stream of nutrients, which means eating every two to three hours.
Obviously most people don’t have time to get into the kitchen this often however, which is why cooking in bulk will save the day.
Prepare large batches of chicken, beef, fish, stir-fries, or protein based snacks and you’ll dramatically slash your total kitchen time requirements.
Mistake #2: Not Investing In Quality Tupperware Containers
After you’ve started preparing more food in bulk, the next step is to invest in some quality Tupperware containers. For those who are always on the go (which is most of you!) Tupperware will save the day. It’s a must to bring foods you’ve prepared yourself with you as you go about your day otherwise you’ll risk either dining at a fast food or restaurant location, or possibly worse, not eating at all.
Good Tupperware containers mean you’ll always have proper nutrition on hand, so there’s no excuse not to get in your designated meal.
If you can afford to spend a bit more, I would recommend investing in the pyrex or glass tupperware since it is safer to microwave in.
Mistake #3: Failing To Have Enough Recipes
Bored of your diet? When trying to build muscle and consuming thousands of calories a day, if you aren’t changing it up it’s only going to be a matter of time before you become incredibly bored.
Having a large number of healthy recipes on hand solves this problem instantly. This way you’ll actually be excited about having another meal, rather than feeling like you’re dreading it.
Recipes like these ones below makes things INTERESTING and not to mention TASTY! Just a small sample of the recipes in Anabolic Cooking of course 
Baked Crispy Chicken Nuggest Recipe – “an Anabolic Cooking inspired recipe”
Roasted Chicken Breast with Spinach and Walnuts Recipe – “an Anabolic Cooking inspired recipe”
Mistake #4: Not Multi-Tasking Kitchen Tasks
Another quick time saving tip is to make sure that you multi-task kitchen tasks. Many people focus on just doing one thing at once, when in reality many tasks could be completed at the same time.
While one food is cooking for instance, rather than sitting around waiting, prepare another dish to either go along with it or to save for another meal.
This again reduces your total kitchen time so will make sticking to your diet feel like less of a burden.
Mistake #5: Using Sugary Marinades Instead Of Herbs And Salt-Free Spices
Finally, the last big mistake you must watch out for is that you’re not using sugary marinades. Many people think that ‘fat free’ means it’s okay to eat, but that’s not the case. If you want to build quality lean muscle mass, you need to be feeding your body with quality ingredients.
Marinates prepared with sugar will just take away from the results you see and send you for an energy high followed by a crash. Instead, use marinades based around herbs and salt-free spices.
If you have the right recipe for these, they may even offer additional muscle building benefits.
So there you have five huge kitchen cooking mistakes that you must make sure you’re not making. Were you guilty of any of these?
You better not say your guilty of not in enough recipes right?
Tags: anabolic cooking, cooking tips, healthy food, Muscle Building Diet, recipes
Posted in Articles, General Nutrition Tips | 14 Comments »
Posted By Dave Ruel
If you’re a regular salad eater, it’s time that you started to take a good hard look at the different foods you’re putting in your salad to make sure that you’re getting nothing but top of the line nutrition.
One mistake some people make is always relying on the same old foods over and over again with their salads. Not only does this get incredibly boring incredibly fast, but it’s also going to put you at risk for nutritional deficiencies.
Getting a wide variety of fresh produce into your diet is essential because each vegetable offers a totally different combination of nutrients.
Now, one specific change-up that I want to talk to you about today is your lettuce. If you’re preparing the foundation of your salad with iceberg or romaine lettuce, it’s time to change that.
Spinach needs to be your new selection.
Let’s take a quick look at why spinach earns top marks as far as your salad is concerned.
The Calorie Counts
First things first, when assessing any food you want to put into your diet, you must think about the calories it contains. Since total calories consumed does play a big role in your muscle gains or body fat loss, you need to keep this under control.
Between these two options, the calorie count is fairly similar and will be so low that it’s not going to make a difference.
So rest assured that by swapping out your lettuce for spinach instead, it’s not going to alter the calorie count of your diet in any significant way.
The Iron Content Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: iron, lettuce, mucle building vegetables, multivitamin, spinach
Posted in Articles, General Nutrition Tips | 10 Comments »
Posted By Dave Ruel
When you work out, you do so in the hope of improving your body to make it either more toned, fitter or more muscular. In any instance, you need to help your body repair itself and this means giving it the necessary building materials.
Most of us are able to recognize that this means more protein; yet sources of protein are a little pricey to say the least and eating more than 100g per day can hit the wallet where it hurts.
Protein powder is an isolated form of protein and is much cheaper per gram of protein than meats tend to be. It is also very easy to add it to shakes and foods to increase your protein intake. However, can you cook with protein?
Many people worry about the effect of cooking and with protein powder. Cooking can slightly degrade protein although this has no effect upon its usefulness, many people allow this to put them off adding protein power to their meals.
Protein exists as a rather complicated chain of amino acids. Your body needs these amino acids to build muscle and repair its cells. It doesn’t matter it they reach your body in one lump or as several chains, as long as you eat them. Cooking will break up the complicated links and chains but you will still get the amino acids, whether the whole protein has been denatured or not. This means that it’s perfectly acceptable and possible to cook with protein powder. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: anabolic cooking, high protein recipe, Protein, Protein Powder
Posted in Articles, General Nutrition Tips | 45 Comments »
Posted By Dave Ruel
I have to be honest, I didn’t always shopped for high quality foods (from natural or organic sources for example). I used to be kind of care free about where my food was coming from and was never convinced of the true virtues of these healthy foods. Sincerely I think I was simply auto-convincing myself as I didn’t have access to better than average quality foods (I was raised in a small town).
That being said, things have changed, and we have now access to more good sources of natural and organic foods. Even though your typical super market will always have average quality foods, you now have health food stores that carry all kinds of great products.
The only problem I had when I started being more selective about my food sources is that instead of going to a “one-stop shop” to do your groceries, I have to go to multiple locations to find everything you need. Not convenient when you are super busy like I am…
As you probably know, I have great relationships with my local butcher and a local vegetables producer who both give me great deals on top quality meats and veggies.
For the rest, I turned to online grocery shopping. A few months ago, my buddy John Romaniello introduced me to to a guy named David Sinick. To my surprise, David was the owner of a natural and organic online shopping site…PERFECT! Exactly what I was looking for!
It’s easy, fast and convenient. The “store” is never closed, and I can shop from my office (or my couch, or bed, etc…ahah). That’s awesome..
Makes it easy to organize your purchases, you never “run out” of things, because can plan what you need to order (I usually order once a month). This way I don’t impulsively buy things I don’t need, which is usually the case at the grocery store…makes me save a lot of $$$ I have to say.
Another benefit: I’ve found that it’s easier to identify and compare cost per unit online and order totals are calculated as you go, helping you stick to a budget and avoid the embarrassment of asking the clerk to put items back in store. Plus online prices are pretty much always lower than “real life” prices.
So now, you will ask : “where is that cool store, Dave?”
Here it is: True Foods Market
They deliver just about anywhere in the world. If you’re trying to eat healthy natural products, but you live in a small town or just don’t have access to high quality foods, you can still have access to great qualityfood.
Anyway, no matter where you live, True Foods will hook you up. Plus, they have the one of the largest selections of healthy and organic food that I’ve seen.
Of course they don’t sell meat, fish,eggs or other delicate items that don’t ship well. Thankfully you can get organic eggs just about anywhere (including 7-11).
So, do I buy EVERYTHING online now? No, of course not. As I said earlier, I still deal with my local producers to buy fresh produce And I also run to the supermarket from times to times, but only about once or twice a month now…
Below you can download a copy of my True Foods usual grocery shopping list, I added all the links so you can go directly to the product pages without searching. Hope you’ll like it
Click on image to download my grocery shopping list
What do you think of this style of shopping? Is this something that can be useful to you? Just let me know be commenting below!
Posted in Articles, Diet / Meal Plans, General Nutrition Tips, Nutrition Tips for Men, Nutrition Tips for Women | 4 Comments »
Posted By Dave Ruel
- Guest blog by Belinda Benn
Whether you are gaining, maintaining or leaning – Christmas and New Year can throw a spanner in the works. Here’s a few tips to help you maintain the results of your hard work over the year – without feeling like you have to deprive yourself!
Stick to your Routine & Control your Portion Sizes
Your body is used to a routine, so to stick to it as much as possible. Try to keep your 5-6 meals a day around the same size. This is a huge factor in not over eating all the tempting extras full of sugar, salt and fat (pretzels, chocolate covered nuts, chips – you know the deal). And if you are thinking of skipping a meal to make up for over eating – don’t! Not only will it slow your metabolism but research shows we will tend to snack more prior to the next meal which leads to more over eating. Scientists call this the “dis-inhibition effect” which simply means, if you start hoeing into your Mum’s homemade dip and corn chips 1 hour before dinner (because you are starving) then restraint goes out the window and by the time you sit down to eat yes – aka a gorged Christmas belly.
The same goes for portion sizes – just because everyone is piling their plate high doesn’t mean you have to. Imagine if you ate everything you wanted to over the holidays but cut the portion sizes back by 1/3. The cumulative effect over a meal, a day and your whole holiday means a huge reduction in unhealthy calories!
Maintain your Protein Intake as a high % of your Overall Calories
Try to include some protein at every meal (you know why) but also keep an eye on your intake relative to your total calories. Don’t cut back on protein just because you had that extra piece of German Chocolate Cake last night
Avoid Mindless Eating
I use the traffic light technique to help me choose nutritionally dense foods when eating outside of my regular environment. Red light foods are those with hidden sugar, salt and fat like processed foods, sauces, dips and desserts. I stop and think, am I really hungry, do I really want it, what could I eat instead, and is it worth the calories? Yellow light foods are those that are maybe OK but I need to do a second take, just to make sure (baked goods and some “health foods” for example). And green light foods are fruits, vegetables, low fat dairy, unprocessed foods and lean protein.
Don’t Drink your Calories and Watch Out for Alcohol
It’s very easy to drink an extra 400 to 500 of nutritionally empty calories a day, especially over the holidays. If you cut back on liquid calories then you have more room to indulge a little with your favorite foods. We all know alcohol slows down our metabolism so we are more likely to store excess calories as fat. And it decreases our inhibitions so we tend to eat more. Not only that – working out the next day sucks. So, pace yourself and if possible choose red wine, preferably Australian
What if you are hung over?
Yes it happens to the best of us! Try my fresh juice remedy below. Alcohol, starchy carbohydrates, sugar and high fat diary all create acidity. This juice helps alkalinize your body and is a natural detoxifier. It contains vitamins A, C, B, potassium, iron, calcium and magnesium and is high in fiber.
Belinda’s Fresh Juice Remedy for Post Alcohol Mornings
Ingredients:
- Juice of 1 grapefruit
- Juice of 2 oranges
- 2 spinach leaves
- 1 cup chopped papaya, mango or red grapes
- 1 slice of pineapple, watermelon or melon
Instructions:
Place all ingredients in blender, liquefy and serve immediately. Drink first thing in the morning then make sure you have plenty of water during the day.
What to Cook!
If you’re the one doing the cooking during the holidays, you will have a lot more control over the ingredients and how meals are cooked. OK fine, but most of the holiday recipes are loaded with sugar, salt and fat. With a little effort your favorite traditional special-occasion recipes can be “cleaned up” just by swapping whole grains for refined ones, choosing low-fat dairy products, and Stevia instead of sugar. To make it easy, I have put together my Celebration Cookbook which contains over 100 recipes that are super healthy and loaded with flavor. I’ve also included full menus for all special occasions (including Christmas) and shopping lists – so all you have to do is cook and eat!
Now, Dave has asked me to do something extra special for you this for Christmas. So together we have put together an awesome package to help you stay on track with your physique goals through the holidays AND eat, drink and be merry!
Happy Holidays!
Posted in Articles, Fat Loss Nutrition Tips, General Nutrition Tips, Muscle Building Nutrition Tips, Nutrition Tips for Men, Nutrition Tips for Women | 3 Comments »
