by Cori Lefkowith | Jul 7, 2017 | Blog, Recipes
I love healthy snacks that don’t taste “healthy” aka like crap. I like snacks that you can have around that taste delicious, satisfy your cravings while also helping you hit your macros.
And it’s even better if they are easy to make so you don’t add on to your meal prep and can even squeeze in making them during a busy, stressful week. (I love snacks you can make and even freeze for a few weeks so you always have something on hand!)
Because let’s face it…When you’re stressed and tired and bored…and simply want to eat, you’ll reach for whatever is around. Which most often ISN’T healthy. Because most of the time the healthy food we keep around when we are “on a diet” is well…not satisfying.
But if you can have something TASTY AND HEALTHY easily available, you’ll not only satisfy your cravings but also keep yourself on track.
That is why I love these Cinnamon Vanilla Protein Balls.
They are basically a one-bowl recipe. AKA you put all of the ingredients in one bowl, mix, roll into balls and eat! You can freeze them for a few weeks so you always have something around and they are easy to take with you to work or out and about if you’ve got errands to run.
So if you need a quick and healthy treat to satisfy those cravings, you’ll love these protein balls from my Macro Cycling Shred Book!
Cinnamon Vanilla Protein Balls
Servings 16 (1 ball per serving)
INGREDIENTS:
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
3/4 cup Gluten-Free Oat Flour (take oatmeal in a food processor to grind up)
1/4 cup All-Natural Nut Butter of choice
1/4 cup Almond Meal/Flour
2 tbsp Raw Local Honey
2 scoops Vanilla Whey Protein Powder
1 tbsp Cinnamon
***Note you may need to slowly add tbsp of water depending on the whey, oats and almond meal you use to reach the desired consistency.
First make sure to grind up oats in a food processor or buy oat flour.
Then add oat flour, almond meal, whey, cinnamon and nut butter to a bowl. Stir all of the ingredients together.
Then add honey and vanilla extract. Mix well again with hands until dough comes together,
If needed, slowly add a tbsp of water at a time until dough complete comes together.
Then roll into 1-1.5 inch balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. You can choose to roll in additional cinnamon and even vanilla whey if desired.
Freeze for 20-30 minutes then transfer to a ziplock bag. You can freeze them for up to 6 weeks!
MACRO BREAKDOWN:
1 ball
Calories: 108
Protein: 7 grams
Carbs: 12 grams
Fat: 4 grams
Looking to dial in your diet? Love the idea of a diet where no foods are off limits? Curious about Macro Cycling and how you can get the lean, strong body you want with a diet that fits your lifestyle?
Here’s more information on Macro Cycling –>
by Cori Lefkowith | May 2, 2017 | Blog, Diet
I love and hate social media all at the same time.
And one of the things I hate about it is the fact that so many people are persuaded to do crazy diets because they see some popular fitness competitor looking extra, super lean on Instagram.
Let me tell you one thing here and now….fitness competitor diets are unrealistic and, frankly, generally unhealthy long-term.
They are meant to get people down to extremely unmaintainable low levels of body fat for COMPETITION. They are extreme diets done for a specific reason – to COMPETE.
They aren’t meant to be super healthy OR maintainable long-term.
And most of the people that do them either keep doing them because they do them as part of their JOB or they end up yo-yoing back up and messing up their hormone levels in the process.
Yet all too often when people are trying to lose weight, to get that ELUSIVE 6-pack and look lean, they turn to these fitness competitor diets.
UNREALISTIC, UNMAINTAINABLE DIETS that lead to nothing but yo-yo dieting, starvation, misery and horribleness.
And no…I’m not being overly dramatic.
These images we see often present unrealistic lifestyles. I know. I’ve tried.
I did the extreme diet. I ended up hangry. Super hangry!
And I never…NEVER achieved the leanness I wanted. I ended up skinny. And hungry. And low energy. And every time I would rebound.
They also present ONLY ONE SIDE – ONE PERFECT ANGLE OR VIEW. They are a highlight reel…and that person POSED to get that shot.
And I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that. We all like certain angles of ourselves and tend to take photos from it. I know I do.
Heck, I share with you all my glamour shots from photoshoots. But I now share these because I’ve found a way to MAINTAIN the look I want. To be lean. To have a lifestyle.
But the point is…You can’t base YOUR DIET on some Instagram picture!
You can’t go for something extreme and unmaintainable! Dieting shouldn’t mean cutting out the foods you love because this just leads to binging.
GETTING RESULTS ISN’T ABOUT PERFECTION, IT’S ABOUT CONSISTENCY.
And starvation, aka cutting your calories, and deprivation, cutting out all of the foods you love, doesn’t lead to consistency. And often it not only leads to binging but you messing up your metabolism and your hormones so you gain back even more fat each time you rebound.
So stop going for the extreme. Don’t fall for some fitness competitor diet.
Keep things simple and still enjoy the foods you love.
Use My Macro Hacks to get long-term, LASTING results with a diet that doesn’t cut out the foods you love or leave you feeling HANGRY and starved!
by Cori Lefkowith | Jan 26, 2017 | Blog, Diet
There are a bazillion things pulling at us every day, demanding our attention and creating stress. We all seem to be doing a million things at once.
And we all seem to be stressed to the max.
So the last thing we need to do is add more stress into our lives – stress over eating well and working out.
Now that doesn’t mean you should simply skip working out and eating well (because both can also REDUCE STRESS, make you FEEL BETTER and INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY), but it does mean you want to make some changes to your diet and exercise program so that you can stress less and get better results!
Below are 5 Reasons You May Be Struggling To Lose Weight. These things can not only hinder your progress but even add to your stress so that you eventually fall off your program and re-enter that horrible yo-yo dieting and exercising cycle!
1. You’re too focused on working out longer and doing MORE.
People think they need to go do an hour of steady state cardio to lose weight. But guess what!?! Your body adapts to that. So to keep losing weight, that means you either have to go for longer or go faster. And often both of those aren’t really an option…Or if we do manage to one or both, we end up injured, burnt out or even stressed out because it becomes hard to fit in the workouts.
But what if you didn’t need that whole hour to get even better results than you could doing cardio for an hour? What if you could get results even just occasionally squeezing in 5 minute intense bouts?
Workouts like that would not only fit into your busy life better, but it would help you workout more consistently.
AND THEY WOULD HELP YOU GET RESULTS!
So instead of thinking about working out longer and doing more, focus on efficiency and going hard when you are working out.
If you up your intensity and pick compound exercises, you can get better fat burning and weight loss results from 15 minutes of interval and strength training than you can out of an hour doing steady state cardio!
Steady state cardio really only burns calories DURING the workout while interval work and strength training can help raise your metabolic rate and increase your calorie and fat burning for up to 48 hours after your workout!
2. You’re not focusing on PROTEIN.
People all too often get stuck worrying about how many carbs or how much fat. They argue over low carb or low fat.
But they never focus on the macronutrient that really makes the biggest difference – PROTEIN!
Focus on protein and you are going to see great results.
You don’t have to cut out carbs…Heck if you workout intensely you NEED some carbs. And you don’t have to deprive yourself of fat. FAT ISN’T EVIL! Actually, if you cut your fat too low, you are going to mess with your hormone levels and really slow down or even completely stall and prevent yourself from getting results!
But if you make protein your focus, you’re not only going to build lean muscle mass, but actually burn more fat and feel FULLER. If you want to grow stronger and look leaner, you need to get enough protein to build, repair and even MAINTAIN your muscle tissue!
Plus, protein has a higher thermogenic effect than the other Macros, meaning you actually burn more calories to process protein, making it harder to gain fat when your diet is high in protein (studies have even shown it to have a thermogenic effect 5 times greater than carbs or fat!).
Studies of thermogenesis have also shown that one of the most important roles protein plays in body weight regulation is due to the fact that it increases feelings of satiety or feeling full!
So if you aren’t getting enough protein that may be why you aren’t losing weight!
3. You’re not tracking what you’re doing.
We all hate tracking. But this may be the single most important thing because if you don’t really know what you are eating, if you aren’t holding yourself ACCOUNTABLE, if you aren’t tracking what is working, you’re not going to see results!
Track what you eat and stick with a program. Then you can make changes as you go!
But if you don’t track, you don’t truly know. You can forget about things that are going on. You may not realize how low your protein is even when you feel like you are getting it at every meal.
Heck, you may even be surprised by the hidden calories and macro ratios in certain foods you eat…foods you can easily tweak if only you KNEW what was in them.
That is why you track. Try a fitness tracker like My Fitness Pal and log what you are eating. It will show you what is truly going on so you can make small changes and swaps instead of simply jumping from diet to diet!
4. You’re randomly adjusting your calories.
Often we think that losing weight means eating less. And yes…A calorie deficit is important.
But continuing to cut calories may not be the answer. If you cut out too many calories, your energy will drop. You can stall your metabolism. And your workouts will suffer, which will not only hinder your fitness progress, but potentially even your weight loss progress.
And on top of that, you may fall into HANGRY territory. Feeling hungry all the time doesn’t make anyone happier or less stressed.
Plus, if you constantly feel hungry at some point you’re going to run out of self control and end up binging. And binging leads to guilt. Which leads to more binging. Which leads to you ending up potentially worse off than where you started…And back in the yo-yo dieting cycle!
So while you need a calorie deficit, you don’t want to cut your calories too low! Stay energized. Stay feeling ready to tackle the day!
Because eating well should make you feel better NOT like you’re starving and constantly angry and tired!
5. You’re depriving yourself of the foods you enjoy.
I NEED dessert. Yes…I know this is an “excuse.” I will not literally die if I don’t have it.
But after dinner, if I don’t get a sweet treat, I just sit there thinking about how I want something. And I get bitter if I can’t have it.
And I end up binging on desserts the next chance I get.
So to avoid this, I have something sweet every night. I’ve found healthy swaps that fit my macros when I want. And other times, I indulge in that ice cream or those peanut butter cookies.
But I don’t DEPRIVE myself. Because that just isn’t realistic.
I was sick of “sprints.” And my clients were too. We were sick of going strict to only fall off and gain back some of what we’d lost. Only to have to “sprint” and go super clean again.
That is why I found macro cycling to be beneficial. You have ratios to hit, but you could still make room for the foods you love. You never had to cut out the things you love, which prevents binging.
And not feeling deprived helps make this a realistic lifestyle. You aren’t simply waiting for it to be over!
Take control of your diet without cutting out all of the foods you love! Get the lean, strong body you’ve always wanted with my Macro Hacks!
It’s kind of like when you train for your first race or you want to improve your race time.
And on top of that, you may fall into HANGRY territory. Feeling hungry all the time doesn’t make anyone happier or less stressed.
