Know How Much You're Eating with a Food Scale!

8.6oz of rotisserie chicken which has around ~450-550 calories

First things first guys, for the average, everyday client I normally don't advocate using food scales and measuring your food and knowing all of your macros that you're eating down to a T! A lot of the time it's just too much for first time clients to take in and do right away. In reality it isn't necessary for many, not all, people to measure their food precisely, and you can still achieve amazing results and look great in the mirror.

What if you're looking to take your fitness goals to the next level though? Then you should get a food scale! When I say take your fitness goals to the next level I'm talking about getting super lean, getting ready for a bikini or physique show and so on, or I can be talking about someone who wants to build strength and muscle while minimizing fat gain. With all of these goals the bar is set higher and harder to achieve; you really have to zero in on your diet to see spectacular results. Now most of the foods we eat today all have nutrition labels, with the helpful information like serving size, calories, fats, carbs, proteins and so on, but when you're strict diet most of those foods with labels become obsolete. You'll find that you're eating mostly meats, none of which are created equal in size or calories, veggies, and healthy fats. None of these things have nutrition labels and if they do they usually go by ounces or grams, how the hell are you supposed to know how many calories you just ate? I don't know about you but I sure as hell didn't know what 8oz of chicken looked like, or 3 grams of almonds looked like when I first started. That's why having a good food scale really helps, preferably one that can measure in pounds, ounces, and grams. You weigh your food and you either google the calorie information or you can download one of the many apps for your smartphone, my favorite is "myfitnesspal" and search on there, and viola now you know how many calories you have in front of you.

In the case of these almonds you could either use a measuring cup or weigh out 30 grams worth, which I had no idea what 30 grams of almonds looked like, but now I do! 1 serving of almonds, or 30 grams has approximately 27 individual almonds and has about 170 calories, and now I'll remember that forever! This is why having a food scale is beneficial; after a while you start to get familiar on your own with portion sizes, and how many calories certain sizes of foods have, to the point where you won't even need the scale anymore!

Great Video on the Health Benefits That You Can Expect to Receive from Even Very Minimal Amounts of Exercise, Check it Out!

PB2 - Low Fat Powdered Peanut Butter

Peanuts are loaded with energy, protein, and they keep you feeling full; the only thing is they are loaded with fat! Even though its considered a healthy fat it doesn't mean you should eat mad servings of peanuts throughout the day; a lot of people have this misconception that because raw (uncooked, unsalted) peanuts are healthy, that they can just snack on them all the time throughout the day. Same goes for peanut butter; a lot of my clients when I ask what they're eating they're having peanut butter with almost every meal! Peanut butter with their toast at breakfast, peanut butter for a snack, pb&j for lunch, peanut butter in their protein shakes and so on...  That's fine, you can do that if you want more trouble getting your weight off.

So how do you get all the benefits of peanuts without all of the fat? You get PB2. PB2 is a powdered form of peanut butter with 85% less fat then regular peanut butter. So for example 2 tbsp. of the powder mixed with one tbsp. of water to make peanut butter only has 1.5 grams of fat, only 5g of carbs, 2g of fiber, and 5g of plant protein!

 I never use it to make peanut butter I just throw it in my protein shakes from time to time for some added protein and energy. If you decide to use it in your shakes make sure you either have a shaker cup, or you're using a blender as it won't break down from just stirring it in a glass alone. It tastes great and adds a nice consistency and richness to your shake! So if you use a lot of peanut butter try PB2 instead!