Nowadays, allergies or sensitivities to foods such as dairy and grains are forcing many people to give them up for good. But, many people don’t realize is that by removing these two foods from your diet is also a way in which you can drastically improve your fat loss results. Find out why in Isabel De Los Rios‘  interview excerpt from last day.

Today, Isabel is going to talk a bit about vegetarian nutrition and the one common food mistake she frequently sees vegetarians make when trying to lose weight.

*********************

Craig Ballantyne: Good Stuff. Let’s talk about vegetarian eating just for a second. Let’s say you get a client coming to you and they are a vegetarian, what is your advice for them?

Isabel De Los Rios: The same foods, obviously we’re just eliminating the meat products, and always depends on what kind of vegetarian they are. But, those people are depending more on beans and different legumes for their protein options.  Like raw nuts and raw nut butters as a protein option.

Cottage cheese for dairy, and of course it is organic cottage cheese.  Some vegetarians will eat eggs and fish. Primarily all the same healthy foods, high quality fats, lots of fruits and vegetables, but they really should be depending more on beans and raw nuts.

Now, what I see a lot with vegetarians is they depend on bread and pasta and potatoes…

…they end up making that the MAJORITY of their meals and I think they forget that they NEED a protein component. Usually just adjusting that and getting them off of so much bread and pasta and they are able to see good transformation in their bodies pretty quickly.

Craig Ballantyne: Okay, very good. And what do you think about eggs in general?

Isabel De Los Rios: I think eggs are GREAT as long as they are organic.

So, the difference between an organic egg is that an organic egg the yolk is filled with good Omega 3’s, phenomenal food. I even feed my son organic egg yolks, because it is so great for children’s brain development.

But, a conventional egg, the way it is raised is full of Omega 6’s and the LAST THING people need is more Omega 6 fats.

If you can get organic eggs, pasture raised eggs, free roaming eggs, get those, they’re great food. You don’t have to worry about the cholesterol. Cholesterol is not what causes people to have high cholesterol, and I could go on and on about this. It really is just bad food, low quality grains, processed food, sugar, things like that.

If you only have access to conventional eggs then you know you’re BETTER OFF not having them.

Craig Ballantyne: So it’s not just organic, but its organic free range is what you want to go for, right?

Isabel De Los Rios: Yes, and usually if they are organic they are going to be free ranged.

Craig Ballantyne: Oh, okay.

Isabel De Los Rios: Chances are if you can just find the organic ones and all the other qualities you are looking for will be there.

Craig Ballantyne: Now, I know they are popular up here but do you guys have the Omega 3 enhanced eggs down there?

Isabel De Los Rios: Yes, we do. But, I look more for the organic ones only because you don’t know if maybe those chickens are still caged. So, what if all 300 of them are in one cage, but they are fed flax seed? That is usually how they supplement the chicken so that their egg yolks have more Omega 3. Basically, what happens is when you CAGE ANIMALS like that they GET SICK, and they lay low quality eggs. The same thing with cattle.

So, look for the organic than the Omega 3 enriched, because you still don’t know what they are doing to those chickens.

In the last year I’ve read over a dozen books that will help you make the transition from meat to vegetarian, and even from vegetarian to vegan.

Last night I finished up the latest, and probably the best book of the bunch. Even though it was written almost 10 years ago, “The Food Revolution” has been the book that connected with me the most.

That’s the #1 book you need to read if you’re “thinking” about going vegetarian, or if you want data to back up your decision when your “friends” start hassling you about not eating hamburgers.

Scary, scary stuff in there if you live in the United States.

On a brighter note, and for more practical help in creating your vegetarian lifestyle, I highly recommend Brendan Brazier’s “Thrive Diet”. In addition to opening your eyes up to the incredible variety among plant foods, Brendan also provides some great vegan recipes.

And he’s living proof you can perform at a high-performance level without animal products because he is a world-class triathlete.

To be honest, I was skeptical of this book but it is a MUST read for everyone interested in a plant based diet.

Other books of note:

The China Study – It was okay, but the nutrition chapter (12) is also mandatory reading for someone looking to eat healthier.

Mad Cowboy – Most of the info here is covered in The Food Revolution, but it digs pretty deep into the sad tale of how farmers get trapped in methods that they abhor but are also the only way (that the know of) to make a living.

Food Rules – While this isn’t a vegetarian book per se, Food Rules contains my favorite 7-word diet system:

“Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

I’ve tried and tried, and I can’t make it any simpler than that.

Not only will you help yourself, but you’ll help the world avoid wasting water, energy, and precious land. The facts about soil loss, rain forest devastation, and wasted food and energy are alarming and depressing.

As John Robbins points out in The Food Revolution, you’ll save more water by eating one less pound of meat than you would by not showing for 6 months!

When it comes to livestock production, the numbers are mind-boggling.

Grab that book for your summer reading and share it with a friend.

To your health,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, “The Lazy Man’s Guide to Vegetarian Eating”

These days all we ever hear about is “protein, protein, protein”, but the truth is that protein is not the #1 ingredient in a fat loss diet.

In reality, a protein shake contains NONE of the most important nutrient for weight loss…

…and that’s FIBER.

In fact, simply adding an extra 6g of fiber per day to your diet will be enough to help you start losing weight again.

(I read that in Woman’s World magazine of all places while visiting my mom for Mother’s Day – SERIOUSLY!)

Obviously any plant based foods have fiber (unless they are processed), but these three specific fiber-rich foods have been shown in research to help you lose weight and are easy to add to your diet.

#1 – Black Beans

A half-can of black beans gives you over 15 grams of protein, and Men’s Fitness rated black beans as the CHEAPEST source of protein available. Combine protein plus fiber, and you’ll be full all afternoon if you have black beans for lunch.

#2 – Nuts

Nuts get a bad rap, but a recent study in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that eating 2.4 ounces of nuts per day helps you lower your cholesterol – without gaining weight. And other studies have found that replace carbs with almonds helps you LOSE weight.

Nuts are the perfect snack.

#3 – Fruits and vegetables of all kinds

In a study I stumbled across in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (85: 1465-1477, 2007) found that subjects who ate more fruits and veggies while on a low-fat diet were able to lose more weight than other subjects.

By the way, check out these amazing properties of your favorite fruits:

Kiwis – one of the best sources of vitamin C
Cherries – decrease inflammation and may help alleviate arthritis
Grapefruit – reduces cholesterol
Strawberries – fights cancer
Blueberries, spinach, walnuts – increase memory

You can make an amazing spring salad from spinach, walnuts, blueberries, and strawberries, OR you can take those, add almond milk and a banana and make a refreshing smoothie.

Your friend,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, The Lazy Man’s Guide to Vegetarian Eating

You’re heading into part 2 of my interview with Jersey’s finest, and leading authority on hardcore, underground strength and fitness, Jason Ferruggia.

As I mentioned in part 1 of the call excerpt (maybe one of my best ever!), Ferruggia covers a WIDE range of topics, such as  3 vs. 4-day programs, optimal sets & reps, the type of workouts he gives his clients at his gym, post-workout nutrition, the Warrior diet, female training, and skinny guy training…whew, that’s A LOT!

And so today, Ferruggia and I are going to address a variety of nutrition questions, including a look at both fat loss and muscle gaining diets (a meat-eating diet AND a vegetarian diet), along with what to eat if you’re a skinny guy.  Loads of really useful information in this one, so read on…

***************

Craig Ballantyne: When I got into the rest of the nutrition part of that book that we were reading, the Triple Threat book that you’ve got coming out, you mention in there that you actually like the WARRIOR DIET way of eating, which I actually didn’t even know.

You never mentioned this before. You held this back from me.

Jason Ferruggia: I do like it. For fat loss I do like it. It’s pretty SIMPLE.

I find that people don’t always have a great, as much as you and I know about nutrition, people don’t always study it like you and I do.

When I try to explain fat loss diets to people a lot of times they get very confused and they want something simple. If I say, “Eat this, this, and this six times a day,” there’s a lot of confusion. Whereas if I just tell them, “All right. You have ONE main meal a day.”

It’s very simple, there’s not a lot of thinking. What are you going to eat the rest of the day? Just a couple pieces of fruit.

It’s very, very easy. You can’t have a pizza every night on that, but as long as you’re eating well you can kind of feel fulfilled and satisfied with that big meal at night. You kind of get to cheat, you get to eat your fill at night, but obviously, like I said, don’t eat pizza and whatnot.

It’s a very EASY diet.

You will find that on it you do have a lot of energy, because when you’re eating all day it does take a lot of energy to digest and uses up a lot of enzymes. I know personally when I’m eating to gain size I’m tired all the time from eating so much. BUT…

…eating very minimally throughout the day you will find that your mental focus and your energy is great, unlike what people would think.

That’s really the main reason I like it, just because it’s so easy.

Craig Ballantyne: Yes. I don’t want to spend too much time on this, but my friend Brad Pilon, he talks about the fasting stuff.

We find that some people if they force themselves to eat breakfast they actually become more tired after they eat breakfast than if they hadn’t forced that breakfast on themselves in the first place. Right?

Jason Ferruggia: Yes, absolutely.

Craig Ballantyne: So, when you eat on that schedule are you also having a shake in the morning?

Jason Ferruggia: Yes. I have a shake in the morning and then I’ll just have fruit all day. Then at night I would start with vegetables and hummus, a huge salad.

I don’t eat meat or anything, but if you do you could obviously have a piece of meat, a big salad, some brown rice, whatever you would want. I just have beans and rice or, like I said, a big salad, vegetables, stuff like that.

Craig Ballantyne: I’ve had dinner at your place when Jen has made it for you. Everybody listening to this call, don’t think that Jason is involved at all in the food preparation here, but he does eat very well at dinner. Jen does an amazing job.

So, switching that up, that’s a fat loss thing. What about people listening to this call that are like, “What do I want to eat if I want to gain muscle?”

Don’t be afraid to throw in your PLANT-BASED recommendations, because a lot of people on Facebook were asking about how that’s working, does that work, will it work long term?

So, just general guidelines. You can’t get into too specific here, but how to do that.

Jason Ferruggia: I think it works, definitely. I’ve had no problem regaining size after my injury with a plant-based diet. I found a lot of people doing the same. I had clients make the switch.

NO ONE is having any trouble maintaining size or strength or gaining.

It’s a little difficult. The only time it becomes difficult is if you have trouble staying lean, BECAUSE then as they say vegetarians have to kind of go through your carbs to get to their proteins. So, you do have to eat a decent amount of carbs to gain size on a vegan diet.

That’s the only issue.

If that is an ISSUE for you, you’re going to have to add in MORE conditioning and MORE cardio, but it can be done. You’re going to have to take MORE protein shakes, which I don’t always recommend for people, but it becomes a necessary evil on this kind of diet.

For most people, if you want to eat meat that’s entirely your decision, but just understand if through evolution we didn’t eat meat six times a day like a typical bodybuilding diet, we ate when we got a kill, which was once every few days.

So, you might eat meat six times a month versus six times a day.

If you eat animal products I have no problem with that, but I would kind of LESSEN it a bit. Cut it down to maybe once or twice a day. Really limit the red meat and the pork consumption, stick more with chicken and fish, organic, and eggs. Just rotate. You want to make sure that you ROTATE your food sources as often as possible.

If you’re trying to gain size, I mean calories are the most important thing. For SKINNY guys carbs are the most important thing, so just load up on the brown rice, the oats, quinoa, barley, things like that, whole grain breads. Nuts are HUGE. Any skinny guy just carry nuts everywhere, just load up on nuts all day. They’re a ton of calories and easy to eat.

Craig Ballantyne: Awesome.
We’re getting some really good information here, but let’s take a closer look at Ferruggia’s workouts.  In part 3 we go into the Renegade Gym and discover some unusual, yet very effective exercise for toning up.

The abs expert, Scott Colby has been asking me all kinds of fat loss questions over the past week, and today is no different.  But first, if you find you’re constantly short on time but still want to transform your body, then you’ll definitely want to go back to part 6 of my interview excerpt and learn how to get maximum results in minimum time.

For today, however, we’re swinging the pendulum back to nutrition, specifically vegetarianism.  It seems there are still quite a few people out there with the misconception that a vegetarian diet will hinder your body transformation results – faulty thinking – and I’ll explain why below…

*************************

Scott Colby: Donna in Atlanta says, “I know you’ve been switching to a vegetarian lifestyle.…

• How difficult is it to know what foods to blend to get the proper amount of protein per day?
• How easy is it to have variety and keep it exciting?
• Does following a vegetarian lifestyle alter your workout at all?  More energy? Does it affect your stamina, etc.?”

Now I know you talked some about the different kinds of grains and pastas you’ve been eating, Craig, but maybe you can shed some light on proper amounts of protein and if it affects your workouts at all.

Craig Ballantyne: Yeah.  It certainly HASN’T AFFECTED the workouts at all.

I was very healthy eater before; it just included more animal products, and now it doesn’t include that many.  And people are often disappointed when I say there’s been really no difference.

But if you take a look at what I was eating before, I was still eating 15 to 20 servings of fruits and vegetables before I went on the vegetarian diet, towards a vegetarian diet.  And so it hasn’t really been that much of a change, and again, I wasn’t eating fried foods or anything.

So I think it’s MORE IMPORTANT  if you cut out sugar and you cut out fried foods and you cut out poor quality foods, than changing whether or not you eat meat in your diet.

Often vegetarians aren’t really excited when I say that it’s not really that important, but that’s what I’ve found.  I just haven’t really noticed any physical differences.

As for the variety and the protein, if you are really still concerned about protein there’s still plenty of Vegan-type protein powders.  There’s Sun Warrior protein powder, which I just started trying out, and there’s also Vega, which is another very popular one.  They’re a little more expensive than the cheapest whey protein that you can get, but you can also use whey protein if you’re simply just concerned about cutting out meat and you don’t mind other types of animal products.

If you’re still consuming milk, cheese, and eggs, you’re gonna have NO PROBLEM at all getting enough protein.

But if you’re NOT CONSUMING ANY ANIMAL PRODUCTS at all, then you may need to go to the Vega or Sun Warrior protein, or any type of rice protein or pea protein.  There’s soy protein, which I don’t use, but there’s also I think hemp and I think there might also be rice, if I haven’t mentioned that one already.  But there’s certainly plenty of non-animal product-based protein powders that you can get at a health food store.  So if you’re concerned about not getting enough protein.

But me personally…

…I will get first thing in the morning probably 10 to 15 grams of protein in the first thing that I consume.  Actually I’ll probably get close to 20, because most people don’t realize that there is a lot of protein in stuff like oatmeal, bread, the pasta that I talked about.  Most of it comes in the form of that gluten, which personally I have no problem – I could eat that stuff all day – but I have no insensitivity to it.  But some people are sensitive to it – sorry, have no sensitivity to it and no problems with it, so I don’t have any problem with gluten. 

But if somebody has a problem with gluten, then they’re gonna have to be a little more particular about what they consume for protein.

They won’t be able to get protein from bread and from some of the pastas that I may consume.  But beans – one can of beans is probably gonna be 30 grams of protein, if you eat half a can of that, which I usually eat half a can of that on a salad.  You’re gonna get a lot of fiber, so that’s another issue with some people is it’s too much fiber for the trade-off.

Again, you may have to go the protein powder route where you’re getting protein without the fiber.  But again, depends on your level of vegetarianism.  If you’re going Vegan, probably gonna have to go protein powder if you wanna get over 120 grams of protein per day.

But if you’re still consuming some animal products, such as eggs or cheese or milk or whey protein, you’re not gonna have any problem at all getting enough protein.

And then VARIETY.  It will take you a little while to kind of – I recommend getting some nutrition books or going online. First two or three weeks when I was doing it I was kind of like, “I gotta find something else to do.”  Which eventually you just go and you spend a little more time in the health food store or in certain areas of the grocery store.  I mean if you’ve got a Whole Foods you’re not gonna have any problem at all.  Again, it’s gonna be a little more expensive.

But even if you go around and look in there, and then maybe you can go for cost savings to a cheaper grocery store and find some similar alternatives.  Then you’re gonna be able to consume a larger variety of vegetarian-type foods without the cost of going to a Whole Foods, obviously.  But I think just a little experience, like anything else, and eventually you find out.

First time someone goes from eating fast food all the time to trying to eat healthy, they probably are there thinking, “Okay, chicken and broccoli four days in a row – there’s gotta be something else,” and eventually you find that there’s plenty of alternatives.

And the fact that there’s raw food restaurants – which I’ve actually been to a couple of them – and they serve all their food raw.  The fact that those exist, and they actually make pretty impressive meals, it just shows you that there is a lot of variety out there.  You just do have to put some effort into finding it.