I’m sure by now you’ve heard all about the amazing health benefits of antioxidant rich foods in your diet. Not only do these free-radical fighting antioxidants help you look and feel younger by slowing down the aging process, but they also help to prevent cancer, heart disease, and loads of other degenerative diseases. But that’s not all. Antioxidants also help you to recover better from exercise…and that means more muscle and less fat on your body in the long run!

Antioxidants - Add a Lean, Muscular Body

The function that antioxidants play in aiding your recovery from exercise is the inhibition of free radicals produced during exercise. Any time you workout, free radicals are produced in the body that damage muscle tissue. Having an adequate supply of antioxidants about an hour or so before your workout can greatly reduce the muscle damage caused by free radicals, hence, improving your muscular recovery from exercise.

Some of the most potent sources of whole food antioxidants are berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cranberries), cherries, acai fruit, various teas (green tea, oolong tea, white tea, black tea, and red tea – a.k.a. rooibos tea), nuts, seeds, red and black beans, purple potatoes, grapes, red wine, cinnamon, and dark chocolate or cocoa. Don’t be fooled by all of the intense marketing for expensive antioxidant supplement pills…remember whole foods are always better for you (and cheaper) than a pill.

My favorite pre-workout antioxidant-loaded snack is a piece of whole grain toast with almond butter, a small amount of blackberry jam, and topped with a pile of fresh blueberries or sliced strawberries. I wash it down with a glass of iced green tea or rooibos tea sweetened with just a small bit (about a teaspoon) of raw honey. This is literally a quintuple-whammy of potent anti-oxidants! The almond butter, blackberry, blueberries, raw honey, and the green or rooibos tea are all loaded with different varieties of muscle protecting, youth promoting antioxidants. I throw down this snack about an hour before my training. Give it a try for yourself, or be creative and come up with your own antioxidant-rich pre-workout snack based on your tastes.

Remember, your body is continually bombarded every day by free radicals (creating oxidative stress) from exercise, air pollution, smoke, sun exposure, junk food, exposure to chemicals, etc. To reap the full benefits of antioxidants, try to make sure that every meal and snack you eat has at least one or two sources of antioxidant rich foods. This will give you a continuous supply of antioxidants throughout every day to prevent damage from the free radicals you are constantly exposed to.

Antioxidants are just one piece to the puzzle of a healthy diet that will give you the lean, muscular, youthful, and disease-free body that everyone wants. To discover the secrets behind all of the other pieces to the diet puzzle that create a lean body (macronutrient profile, glycemic response, hormonal response, glycogen storage, muscle protein synthesis, the role of leptin, the insulin process, etc.), visit http://truthaboutabs.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Geary

Take our quiz about maqui – the newest berry touted by its U.S. distributor as the “highest antioxidant fruit in the world.”

Acai Super Food

1. From which region does the maqui berry hail?

a) The Philippines Moist Forests

b) The Patagonia region of Chile

c) The Amazon rain forest in Guyana

d) The Finger Lakes of upstate New York

2. Lore has it that the Mapuche Indians have harvested the berry for centuries, mostly as an herbal treatment for which ailment?

a) Fever

b) Ulcers

c) Diarrhea

d) All of the above

3. According to the USDA’s “oxygen radical absorbance capacity” scale of antioxidants, how much higher did maqui berries score than acai berries (measured by “micromole of trolox equivalents per ounce”)?

a) 64

b) 164

c) 645

d) 6,045

4. In predicting the next “super fruit,” oddsmakers are closely looking at the gogi berry, a Chinese fruit that goes by what name in the United States?

a) Wolfberry

b) Mooseberry

c) Ratberry

d) Wolverineberry

Sources: www.ars.usda.gov; www.my-antioxidants-guide.com; maquisuperberry.org

ANSWERS: 1: b; 2: d; 3: c; 4: a

– Sam McManis/ smcmanis@sacbee.com

Foods rich in these substances, which can help prevent premature aging and some chronic diseases, also may help boost your immune system this flu season:

More Antioxidants

* Load up on fresh fruit. Good sources include berries, red grapes, prunes and pomegranates, or for a more exotic fruit, the acai berry.

* Go for spinach. Substitute this darker green for lettuce in salads and sandwiches. Other colorful vegetables such as broccoli, carrots and red and yellow bell peppers also are antioxidant-rich.

* Don’t overcook veggies. The best way to eat them is raw, followed by lightly steamed. Cook them at the lowest possible temperature for the shortest amount of time.

* Use the right oils and flavors. Cooking with fresh extra virgin olive oil and using spices such as sage, marjoram, rosemary and thyme will boost antioxidant content of meals.

* Snack on nuts. Almonds, pecans and peanuts are good choices and also contain heart-healthy fats. Just go easy on portion sizes, as most nuts are high in calories.

* Eat more beans. Red and kidney beans are antioxidant-rich and high in protein. They’re great swaps for meat in many dishes.

* Switch to whole grains. Eat whole-grain versions of “white” foods such as bread, cereal, rice and pasta.

* Have some tea. Make a cup of green or black tea when you need a pick-me-up. Bagged and loose teas are particularly high in antioxidants.

reprinted from The Bizmarck Tribune

In most of my Lean-Body Secrets Newsletters, I like to provide a healthy snack or meal recipe that not only is delicious and healthy, but also helps to get you closer to that hard-body appearance that everyone is looking for, while also more importantly, improving your health for life. In this article, I’d like to give you healthy food ideas in a different way. This time, I figured I’d just give you some ideas of what I stock my fridge and cabinets with.

Lean Body Foods

Remember, if you don’t have junk around the house, you’re less likely to eat junk. If all you have is healthy food around the house, you’re forced to make smart choices. Basically, it all starts with making smart choices and avoiding temptations when you make your grocery store trip. Now these are just some of my personal preferences, but perhaps they will give you some good ideas that you’ll enjoy.

Alright, so let’s start with the fridge. Each week, I try to make sure I’m loaded up with lots of varieties of fresh vegetables. During the growing season, I only get local produce, but obviously in winter, I have to resort to the produce at the grocery store. Most of the time, I make sure I have plenty of vegetables like onions, zucchini,  spinach, fresh mushrooms, red peppers, broccoli, etc. to use in my morning eggs.  I also like to dice up some lean chicken or turkey sausage into the eggs, along with some swiss, jack, or goat cheeses (preferably raw grass-fed cheeses when I can find them).

By the way I’m talking about whole eggs, NOT egg whites.  Always remember that the yolk is the most nutritious and nutrient dense part of the egg, so only eating egg whites is like throwing away the best part… and no, it’s NOT bad for you because of the cholesterol… eggs actually raise your GOOD cholesterol.  Try to get free range organic eggs for the best quality. Here’s an entire article I did on the topic of whole eggs vs egg whites.

Coconut milk is another staple in my fridge. I like to use it to mix in with smoothies, oatmeal, or yogurt for a rich, creamy taste. Not only does coconut milk add a rich, creamy taste to lots of dishes, but it’s also full of healthy saturated fats. Yeah, you heard me…I said healthy saturated fats! Healthy saturated fats like medium chain triglycerides, specifically an MCT called lauric acid. If the idea of healthy saturated fats is foreign to you, check out my healthy fats article

Back to the fridge, some other staples:

• Chopped walnuts, pecans, almonds – delicious and great sources of healthy fats.
• Cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, and yogurt – I like to mix cottage or ricotta cheese and yogurt together with chopped nuts and berries for a great mid-morning or mid-afternoon meal.
• Whole flax seeds or chia seeds - I grind these in a mini coffee grinder and add to yogurt or salads. Always grind them fresh because the omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are highly unstable and prone to oxidation, creating high levels of free radicals in pre-ground flax.
• Whole eggs – one of natures richest sources of nutrients (and remember, they increase your GOOD cholesterol so stop fearing them).
• Salsa – I try to get creative and try some of the exotic varieties of salsas.
• Avocados – love them…plus a great source of healthy fats, fiber, and other nutrients. Try adding them to wraps, salads, or sandwiches.
• Butter – don’t believe the naysayers; butter adds great flavor to anything and can be part of a healthy diet (just keep the quantity small because it is calorie dense…and NEVER use margarine, unless you want to assure yourself a heart attack).
• Nut butters – Plain old peanut butter has gotten a little old for me, so I get creative and mix together almond butter with sesame seed butter, or even cashew butter with macadamia butter…delicious and unbeatable nutrition!
• Leaf lettuce and spinach along with shredded carrots – for salads with dinner.
• Home-made salad dressing – using balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and Udo’s Choice oil blend. This is much better than store bought salad dressing which mostly use highly refined soybean oil (full of inflammation-causing free radicals).
• Whole grain wraps and whole grain bread (look for wraps and bread with at least 3-4 grams of fiber per 20 grams of total carbs).
• Rice bran and wheat germ – these may sound way too healthy for some, but they actually add a nice little nutty, crunchy taste to yogurt or smoothies, or can be added when baking muffins or breads to add nutrients and fiber.

Some of the staples in the freezer:

• Frozen berries – during the local growing season, I only get fresh berries, but during the other 10 months of the year, I always keep a supply of frozen blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cherries, etc. to add to high fiber cereal, oatmeal, cottage cheese, yogurt, or smoothies
• Frozen fish – I like to try a couple different kinds of fish each week. There are so many varieties out there, you never have to get bored.
• Frozen chicken breasts – very convenient for a quick addition to wraps or chicken sandwiches for quick meals.
• Grass-fed steaks, burgers, and ground beef – Grassfed meats have been shown to have as high as, or even higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids than salmon (without the mercury). Also, grass-fed meats have much higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) compared to typical grain-fed beef.  I recently found an excellent on-line store where I buy all of my grass-fed meats now (they even deliver right to your door in a sealed cooler) – www.healthygrassfed.2ya.com
• Frozen buffalo, ostrich, venison, and other “exotic” lean meats – Yeah, I know…I’m weird, but I can tell you that these are some of the healthiest meats around, and if you’re serious about a lean healthy body, these types of meats are much better for you than the mass produced, hormone-pumped beef and pork that’s sold at most grocery stores.
• Frozen veggies – again, when the growing season is over and I can no longer get local fresh produce, frozen veggies are the best option, since they often have higher nutrient contents compared to the fresh produce that has been shipped thousands of miles, sitting around for weeks before making it to your dinner table.

Alright, now the staples in my cabinets:

• Various antioxidant rich teas – green, oolong, white, rooibos are some of the best.
• Whole wheat or whole grain spelt pasta – much higher fiber than normal pastas
• Oat bran and steel cut oats – higher fiber than those little packs of instant oats.
• Cans of coconut milk – to be transferred to a container in the fridge after opening.
• Brown rice and other higher fiber rice – NEVER white rice
• Tomato sauces – delicious, and as I’m sure you’ve heard a million times, they are a great source of lycopene. Just watch out for the brands that are loaded with nasty high fructose corn syrup.
• Stevia – a natural non-caloric sweetener, which is an excellent alternative to the nasty chemical-laden artificial sweeteners like aspartame, saccharine, and sucralose.
• Raw honey – better than processed honey… higher quantities of beneficial nutrients and enzymes. Honey has even been proven in studies to improve glucose metabolism (how you process carbs). I use a teaspoon or so every morning in my teas. Yes, it is pure sugar, but at least it has some nutritional benefits… and let’s be real, a teaspoon of healthier raw honey is only 5 grams of carbs… certainly nothing to worry about.
• Organic maple syrup – none of that high fructose corn syrup Aunt Jemima crap…only real maple syrup can be considered real food. The only time I really use this (because of the high sugar load) is added to my post-workout smoothies to sweeten things up and also elicit an insulin surge to push nutrients into your muscles.
• Organic unsweetened cocoa powder – I like to mix this into my smoothies for an extra jolt of antioxidants or make my own low-sugar hot cocoa by mixing cocoa powder into hot milk with stevia and a couple melted dark chocolate chunks.
• Cans of black or kidney beans – I like to add a couple scoops to my Mexican wraps for the fiber and high nutrition content. Also, beans are surprisingly one of the best sources of youth promoting antioxidants!
• Dark chocolate (as dark as possible) – This is one of my treats that satisfies my sweet tooth, plus provides loads of antioxidants at the same time. It’s still calorie dense, so I keep it to just a couple squares; but that is enough to do the trick, so I don’t feel like I need to go out and get cake and ice cream to satisfy my dessert urges.

Lastly, another thing that’s hard to go wrong with is a good variety of fresh fruits and berries. The staples such as bananas, apples, oranges, pears, peaches are good, but I like to also be a little more adventurous and include things like yellow (aka – mexican or champagne) mangoes, pomegranates, kumquats, papaya, star fruit, pineapples, and others. Also, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and cherries are some of the most nutrient and antioxidant-dense fruits you can eat.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this special look into my favorite lean body meals and how I stock my cabinets and fridge. Your tastes are probably quite different than mine, but hopefully this gave you some good ideas you can use next time you’re at the grocery store looking to stock up a healthy and delicious pile of groceries.

Be sure to pick up a copy of my book The Truth about Six Pack Abs, which introduces you to the entire comprehensive training and nutritional program that will turn your body into a lean, sexy specimen that others will envy!

I was on a weekend trip with some friends recently and one of my friends was cooking breakfast for the whole group. I went over to see what he was cooking and saw he was getting ready to make a big batch of eggs.

Egg Whites

Well, to my shock and horror, I noticed that he was cracking the eggs open and screening the egg whites into a bowl and throwing out the egg yolks. I asked him why the heck he was throwing out the egg yolks, and he replied something like this…

“because I thought the egg yolks were terrible for you…that’s where all the nasty fat and cholesterol is”.

And I replied, “you mean that’s where all the nutrition is!”

This is a perfect example of how confused most people are about nutrition. In a world full of misinformation, somehow most people now mistakenly think that the egg yolk is the worst part of the egg, when in fact, the YOLK IS THE HEALTHIEST PART OF THE EGG!

By throwing out the yolk and only eating egg whites, you’re essentially throwing out the most nutrient dense, antioxidant-rich, vitamin and mineral loaded portion of the egg. The yolks contain so many B-vitamins, trace minerals, vitamin A, folate, choline, lutein, and other powerful nutrients… it’s not even worth trying to list them all.

In fact, the egg whites are almost devoid of nutrition compared to the yolks.

Even the protein in egg whites isn’t as powerful without the yolks to balance out the amino acid profile and make the protein more bio-available. Not to even mention that the egg yolks from free range chickens are loaded with omega-3 fatty acids.

Yolks contain more than 90% of the calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc, thiamin, B6, folate, and B12, and panthothenic acid of the egg. In addition, the yolks contain ALL of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K in the egg, as well as ALL of the essential fatty acids.

And now the common objection I get all the time when I say that the yolks are the most nutritious part of the egg…

“But I heard that whole eggs will skyrocket my cholesterol through the roof”

No, this is FALSE!

First of all, when you eat a food that contains a high amount of dietary cholesterol such as eggs, your body down-regulates it’s internal production of cholesterol to balance things out.

On the other hand, if you don’t eat enough cholesterol, your body simply produces more since cholesterol has tons of important functions in the body.

And here’s where it gets even more interesting…

There are indications that eating whole eggs actually raises your good HDL cholesterol to a higher degree than LDL cholesterol, thereby improving your overall cholesterol ratio and blood chemistry.

And 3rd… high cholesterol is NOT a disease!  Heart disease is a disease…but high cholesterol is NOT.  Cholesterol is actually a VERY important substance in your body and has vitally important functions… it is DEAD WRONG to try to “lower your cholesterol” just because of pharmaceutical companies propaganda that everyone on the planet should be on deadly statins.

You can read the following article about why trying to attack cholesterol is a mistake, and what the REAL deadly risk factors actually are… Cholesterol Myths

In addition, the yolks contain the antioxidant lutein as well as other antioxidants which can help protect you from inflammation within your body (the REAL culprit in heart disease, not dietary cholesterol!), giving yet another reason why the yolks are actually GOOD for you, and not detrimental.

To help bring even more proof that whole eggs are better for you than egg whites, I recently read a University of Connecticut study that showed that a group of men in the study that ate 3 eggs per day for 12 weeks while on a reduced carb, higher fat diet increased their HDL good cholesterol by 20%, while their LDL bad cholesterol stayed the same during the study.  However, the group that ate egg substitutes (egg whites) saw no change in either and did not see the improvement in good cholesterol (remember that higher HDL levels are associated with lower risk of heart disease) that the whole egg eaters did.

So I hope we’ve established that whole eggs are not some evil food that will wreck your body… instead whole eggs are FAR superior to egg whites.

Also, your normal supermarket eggs coming from mass factory farming just don’t compare nutritionally with organic free range eggs from healthy chickens that are allowed to roam freely and eat a more natural diet.  Your typical cheap grocery store eggs will have lower nutrient levels and a higher omega-6 level and lower omega-3 level.  On the other hand, the cage-free organic eggs from healthier chickens allowed to eat more natural feed and roam freely will have much higher vitamin and mineral levels and a more balanced healthier omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio.

I recently compared eggs I bought at the grocery store with a batch of eggs I got at a farm stand where the chickens were free roaming and healthy.

Most people don’t realize that there’s a major difference because they’ve never bought real eggs from healthy chickens… The eggs from the grocery store had pale yellow yolks and thin weak shells. On the other hand, the healthier free range eggs from the local farm had strong thick shells and deep orange colored yolks indicating much higher nutrition levels and carotenoids… and just a healthier egg in general.

So next time a health or fitness professional tells you that egg whites are superior, you can quietly ignore their advice knowing that you understand the REAL deal about egg yolks.

And can we all please STOP with this sillyness about eating an omelete with 4-5 egg whites and only 1 egg yolk… If you want real taste and real health benefits, we’d all be better off eating ALL of our eggs with the yolks.

Another interesting thing about eggs…

I read a study recently that compared groups of people that ate egg breakfasts vs groups of people that ate cereal or bagel based breakfasts.  The results of the study showed that the egg eaters lost or maintained a healthier bodyweight, while the cereal/bagel eaters gained weight.

It was hypothesized that the egg eaters actually ate less calories during the remainder of the day because their appetite was more satisfied compared to the cereal/bagel eaters who would have been more prone to wild blood sugar swings and food cravings.

Enjoy your eggs and get a leaner body!

Click here to find out the best methods to lose your stomach fat

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder – TruthAboutAbs.com & Busy Man Fitness .com

I’m sure by now you’ve heard all about the amazing health benefits of antioxidant rich foods in your diet. Not only do these free-radical fighting antioxidants help you look and feel younger by slowing down the aging process, but they can also help to prevent cancer, heart disease, and loads of other degenerative diseases.

Antioxidants and Anti Aging

But that’s not all. Antioxidants also help you to recover better from exercise… and that means you can build more muscle and burn more body fat in the long term!

And although we all want to be healthy and feel youthful… most of us also want to look good!

The function that antioxidants play in aiding your recovery from exercise is the inhibition of free radicals produced during exercise.  Any time you workout, free radicals are produced in the body that can create inflammation.  Having an adequate supply of antioxidants about an hour or so before your workout can greatly reduce the damage caused by free radicals, hence, improving your muscular recovery from exercise.

Some of the most potent sources of whole food antioxidants are berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cranberries), cherries, acai fruit, various teas (green tea, white tea, black tea, yerba mate, oolong tea, chammomile tea, red tea – a.k.a. rooibos tea), nuts, seeds, red and black beans, purple potatoes, grapes, red wine, cinnamon, nuts and seeds, coffee, dark chocolate or cocoa, and tons of other fruits and vegetables.

My favorite pre-workout antioxidant-loaded snack is a piece of whole grain toast with almond butter, a small amount of blackberry jam, and topped with a pile of fresh blueberries or sliced strawberries.  I wash it down with a glass of iced green tea or rooibos tea sweetened with just a small bit (about a teaspoon) of raw honey.  This is literally a quintuple-whammy of potent anti-oxidants!

The almond butter, blackberries, blueberries, raw honey, and the green or rooibos tea are all loaded with different varieties of muscle protecting, youth promoting antioxidants.  I throw down this snack about an hour before my training. Give it a try for yourself, or be creative and come up with your own antioxidant-rich pre-workout snack based on your tastes.

Remember, your body is continually bombarded every day by free radicals (creating oxidative stress) from exercise, air pollution, smoke, sun exposure, junk food, exposure to chemicals, etc. To reap the full benefits of antioxidants, try to make sure that every meal and snack you eat has at least one or two sources of antioxidant rich foods. This will give you a continuous supply of antioxidants throughout every day to prevent the damage and aging that result from the free radicals you are constantly exposed to.

I recently helped design a very powerful and synergistic antioxidant blend supplement. Although I typically don’t recommend many supplements (because 95% of them are usually bogus), the 2 supplements I do recommend are a good antioxidant blend and a Krill oil (which is even more powerful than fish oil).

This antioxidant blend (called Longevity) contains a powerful blend of some of the most potent antioxidants on the planet such as:

• pomegranate
• acai berry
• coffeeberry
• green tea
• wolfberry
• and biovin grape (same antioxidants as red wine)

You can try this potent antioxidant blend for yourself at this site:  http://natural.getprograde.com/longevity

Antioxidants are just one piece to the puzzle of a healthy diet that will give you the lean, muscular, youthful (can help slow aging markers), and disease free body that everyone wants.

To discover the secrets behind all of the other pieces to the diet puzzle that help to create a lean strong healthy body (macronutrients, glycemic response, hormonal response, glycogen storage, muscle protein synthesis, the role of the hormone leptin in your fat loss, blood sugar proesses, the insulin process, etc.), don’t forget to get your copy of my world-wide best selling fat loss program for lean abs - The Truth about Six Pack Abs

The (Newport News, Va.) Daily Press

Foods rich in antioxidants, which can help prevent premature aging and some chronic diseases, also may help boost your immune system this flu season. Here’s how to make them part of your daily diet:

Antioxidants For You

Load up on fresh fruit. Good sources include berries, red grapes, prunes and pomegranates. A more exotic choice is the acai berry, found in juices and powders. Note: Fresh fruit has more antioxidants than cooked.

Go for spinach. Substitute this darker green for lettuce in salads and sandwiches. Also antioxidant-rich: broccoli, carrots and red and yellow bell peppers.

Don’t overcook veggies. The best way to eat them is raw, followed by lightly steamed. Cook them at the lowest possible temperature for the shortest amount of time.

Use the right oils and flavors. Cooking with fresh extra-virgin olive oil and using spices such as sage, marjoram, rosemary and thyme will boost the antioxidant content of meals. Two more tasty sources are garlic and fresh ginger.

Snack on nuts. Almonds, pecans and peanuts are good choices and contain heart-healthy fats. Just go easy on portion sizes, because most nuts are high in calories.

Eat more beans. Red and kidney beans are antioxidant-rich and high in protein. They’re great swaps for meat in many dishes.

Switch to whole grains. Eat whole-grain versions of “white” foods, such as bread, cereal, rice and pasta.

Have some tea. Make a cup of green or black tea when you need a pick-me-up.

Article Source: Star Telegram