3 Philadelphia Style Weight Loss Recipes

Ricotta cheesecakes with fruit

Ingredients:

• ricotta cheese - 1 Cup
• 2 egg whites -  lightly whisked
• organic honey - 1 tablespoon
• 4 cups of fruit - mixed fruit you can use cherries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries.

Start this wonderful recipe by preheating your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. add your 1 cup of ricotta cheese to a large bowl and break it apart with a spoon. Next add your egg whites, vanilla Essence and organic honey and mix everything until it's smooth and totally combined. Next grease four ramekins with coconut oil and spoon  the Regatta cheese mixture into the room can and make sure that the tops are level. You can now bake this for about 20 minutes or until the Ricotta cakes are risen and golden.

Now to make the fruit sauce let's set aside about one-quarter of the fruit for just decoration purposes. Measure about 2 tablespoons of water and pour this into a pan and set this on top of a medium heat. Add the rest of the fruit to this pan and heat gently until everything is softened. Then take the pan off of the heat and set this on the side to cool slightly. Now we can try the fruit in a blender or NutriBullet or even a food processor and you can serve the sauce warm or cold over top of your cakes. and you can even cut the fruit that you have set on the side on top of the cake and if you like you can even use some mint leaves to add a little bit of green. This makes for cakes and each cake has approximately 11 grams of carbohydrates and 160 calories.

Fruit filled souffle omelette

Ingredients:

• strawberries - 3 quarter cup with the Green Top removed and cut in half.
• 3 eggs
• Stevia - 1 tablespoon
• heavy cream - 3 tablespoons
• vanilla extract - three or four drops
• Butter - 1 tablespoon

First we want to remove the green leafy top of the strawberries and slice them in half and then put them on the side.  none crack open your eggs and separate the white from the yolks and put the egg yolks and stevia enable and beat them until the mixture is fluffy and pale. Then add in the cream and vanilla extract. Then whisk the egg whites in a very large bowl and then add this into the yolk mixture. the next step is to melt your butter any pain and then pour in the egg mixture and let this cook until it's firm. After that spoon over top your strawberries and gently fold the egg on top of itself like you normally would with any type of omelet that you are making. Finally you get to put your omelet on a plate and cut the omelet in 3 pieces. take two of these pieces and put them on two other dishes and then enjoy. This makes 3 servings each having about 280 calories and 12 grams of carbohydrates.

Orange Avocado Smoothie

Ingredients:

• one small avocado
• a small handful of parsley
• 3 ounces of asparagus spears
• 2 large oranges
• Lemon juice that you squeeze from a fresh lemon
• ice cubes
• mineral water

Cut your avocado in half and remove the stone. Spoon out the flesh and put it into a blender and then add your parsley. Chop your asparagus spears and add this to the blender and blend everything until it's nice and smooth. Squeeze the juice from your oranges and the juice from your lemon and add these to the blender and blend everything once more until it’s super smooth. Pour this into two glasses but only about the glasses are 2/3rds full and then add the ice cubes and the mineral water. You should drinks this soon after you make it. You can add of few orange slices if you like.

Fitness - Weight Loss and a Ketogenic Diet

I am writing this article today because over the past several weeks I have had many patients coming to the office asking lots of questions about a low carbohydrate high-fat diet and most were concerned was that this would put them into ketosis. Now for some people, ketosis is something that they heard about and it may be something that they know when their friends who tried this type of weight loss diet usually lost quite a bit of weight.

But then some have heard some negative comments about ketosis. So in this post I'm just going to review the simplified version of what ketosis, how to get into ketosis and if it is safe. Going into a state of ketosis just means that your body is switching from burning sugars that are floating around in your bloodstream from all of the foods that you have eaten like; pasta, cakes, pastries, rice and drinks and even alcohol into a mode where your body is now burning it's own body fat for fuel instead of the sugar that has been floating around in your bloodstream. This is very simple and straight to the point and still it may be a little bit confusing for some people in understanding how your body really goes into ketosis.

Now this basic knowledge of ketosis will help you finally understand why people lose weight on low carbohydrate diets. You may think that this type of diet is new but it’s been around since the 1800’s but it was not called a ketosis or low carb diet. It had a variety of names and just as many versions of what to eat and what not to eat. I bet you didn’t know that doctors would recommend this type of diet to their patients in the early days of medicine.

Yes, this type of diet has been around for a long time.

In the early years of medicine many physicians would actually have their patients going on a diet that excluded starchy carbohydrates and sugars. And astonishing proved to help a multitude of people with variety of different health issues.

Now, back to explaining what ketosis is. Your body goes into a ketogenic state when there is not enough carbohydrates and sugar in your bloodstream to replenish the amount of sugar type of compounds that are stored in your lover. And this sugar type of compound that is stored in your liver is called glycogen and this is just simply a super fast source of fuel for your body. 

But when you have too much sugar in your bloodstream into much sugar in your liver you develop what is commonly known as a fatty liver and this is not healthy. So too much sugar in your body too much sugar in your liver causes a variety of issues such as diabetes and we all know that when people have diabetes sometime down the line if they do not get everything under control they will eventually have a heart attack or stroke. 

So in order for your body to go into a ketogenic state the only way for this to happen is when there is a lack of sugar floating around in your bloodstream and this will decrease her insulin levels and this will cause your body to start using its own body fat for fuel and energy. Your body specifically your liver will break down all the facts into compounds known as ketones. And when your body starts using this instead of sugar for fuel is call the state of ketosis.

So just to prove you when you eat foods that contain a lot of sugar my candies and sodas and cakes and pastries and when you also eat foods that are just starchy carbohydrates like your rice pasta and rice your body will break them down into sugar that sugar will float around in your bloodstream and this picture is on my bills and when you're in some levels are high in your bloodstream it will push all of the calories from everything that you were eating into your fat cells. This is what is giving you that big fat belly and the big hips the big thighs the big legs. So

This means when you were increasing your weight and body fat that your body is using the sugar that is floating around in your bloodstream for energy instead of using your body fat for fuel and energy. 

So in order for your body to burn fat you simply need to decrease the sugar types of food you were eating so that your body will eventually start burning your own body fat and you will lose weight, you will usually lose pounds and inches.

How do I get into ketosis?

You put your body into a state of ketosis I simply decreasing you mount of sugar loaded food and starchy carbohydrates that you were eating each and every day. As you do this the body will burn the sugar in your bloodstream very quickly and then it has no other choice but to start burning your body fat for fuel. Normally it takes anywhere from 48 and sometimes 72 hours to get your body into a state of ketosis.

Can I lose weight on a ketosis diet?

There seems to be a growing trend of many weight-loss specialist recommending to their patients to follow a key to see this type of diet or a lower carbohydrate diet. The sad thing is that most of the food that we eat during the course of our day during this present time consist mostly of processed foods and starchy sugar eluded carbohydrates. And we all know that most of eat too much bread, pasta, rice, sugar, bagels, muffins, cakes and pastries and let's not forget that nice glass of wine that we drink at the end of the day just to relax and unwind. 

If you limit these types of food on a daily basis this should automatically put your body into a fat burning mode and possibly make your body go into the ketogenic state. 

When used for weight loss people usually use quite a significant amount of weight on programs that lower the amount of carbohydrates that you were eating in a day. Such diets are the Atkins diet, the South Beach diet and even the Paleo diet. T

hey Count on the fact that when you stop eating certain type of foods your body will eventually start burning your own body fat for fuel and this will cause you to lose weight. These types of diets depend on this order to get your body losing weight quickly. And of course the low-carb diet has also been called the primal diet or even a caveman diet in these types of diet ultimately cycle periods of ketosis and periods of Maintaining normal sugar levels.

Is a Ketosis Diet Safe For Me?

So many people ask this question and quite honestly ketosis is usually safe for most people. In fact and caveman times and times much before what we called civilized society there were periods of feasting and periods of famine. 

So during the periods a feast our ancestors were eating everything that was available to them and they would gain weight and then when food was scarce they would slowly instead of the store dropping weight but as the amount of food decreased their body probably slowly entered state of ketosis in this enabled human beings to survive and prosper throughout the course of time. 

Maintaining key ptosis in definitely is not recommended. The one part or something that we should be careful of with his ketoacidosis and normally only people that are type one diabetics can enter ketoacidosis because their body does not produce any insulin at all. But in a normal person usually your insulin levels prevent your body from going into ketoacidosis. 

But if you are considering this type of diet in order to lose weight or improve your overall health I certainly recommend that you speak with the medical weight-loss doctor and have him guide you through this type of program so you will be as successful as possible.

There are even studies now where they are trying a ketosis type of diet in order to help people with all types of diseases including diabetes, hypothyroid and a multitude of other health problems. 

There are also some people who recommend the ketogenic diet program to assist people who are suffering from cancer. It is thought that the ketones help destroy cancer cells in the body. 

But this is new research and definitely needs to be looked into a bit more thoroughly. But like I always say before you start any type of nutrition program you always must discuss it with your family medical doctor to make sure that it is safe for you to do. 

I hope you enjoy this article and as always please come back to my blog next week for more healthy tips.

How Can Yoga Help With Weight Loss by Philadelphia's Top Weight Loss Trainer

It has been over social media, lately, that people are practicing different types of yoga for help with improving overall health and wellness, mental and psychological wellness but also for losing weight..

Now I don’t know about you but personally I have always thought that yoga is more for mental relaxation and it does help increase the body’s flexibility and also tone muscles off at the same time.

So in my opinion it’s an excellent form of exercise for improving overall health and wellness. But I never really thought of yoga being performed specifically for weight loss. However, after doing much research I discovered that studies have been done that prove that yoga is good for weight loss.

The reason is that performing yoga regularly helps decrease certain chemicals in your body that are produced and you are stressed out. And of course these stress chemicals also increase your body’s  sensitivity to insulin and will cause your body to store more calories as body fat. But when you perform yoga it helps lower the stress hormones and also increases your body’s sensitivity to insulin which is a good thing because this allows your body to burn its own fat for fuel, instead of storing everything that you eat as fat. Now the type of yoga is called Sarundah Yoga.

And this is basically a series of specific yoga poses that should be performed at least 3 times a week. I’m going to do some research for you and in one of my next posts I will list the poses here for you, for Sarundah Yoga otherwise known as Morning Salutations Poses.

For now I am going to give you a list of yoga poses that will help you tone your muscles and assist with burning extra calories and body fat.  I have several personal training clients doing these poses and they all love them. So give them a try and let me know what you think.

*But please Remember to talk with your medical doctor and get their approval before starting any type of exercise program.

Here are the yoga poses:

Crescent pose – this helps tighten your of dollar muscles, hips and your leg muscles. You start by standing with both feet together and your arms at your side. Take a deep breath and and slowly raise your arms over top of your head and reach towards the sky. Then below the air and out and slowly then forward from the hips wringing your hands to the floor. I personally have to bend my knees when I do this but  That’s fine. Take another deep breath and and then exhale and while you are breathing out technique a step back with her right leg putting you into a lunge position. So now you are in the lunge position with her arms pointing upwards your head towards the sky and take a deep breath in and just hold position. I try to hold this position for about 5 deep breaths and of course breathing nice and slowly. If I feel like giving myself a challenge I will actually try to extend my left back a little bit creating a little bit of an arch in my back. Depending on the morning and how I am feeling I am not always able to do this added addition of a back extension arch.

The next pose is called the Willow pose – in this cleans up the side of your stomach. As with most poses you’re going to stand with both of your feet together in your arms hanging loosely and relaxed at your sides. Mentally focus and relax and after a few breaths in the standing position you’re going to place the bottom of your foot let’s say the soul of your right foot on the inside of your right leg. Try to go up as high as you can  bringing your heel of your foot all the way into the upper thigh of the opposite leg. Then just bring your hands together, any prayer position and take a few breaths and tried to stabilize and stay balanced. When you are stabilized raise your arms upwards towards the ceiling take a few breaths in and out slowly and then bend to the side, laterally to your raised leg. Hold this position for 4 – 5 deep breaths and then switch sides. Perform this pose 5 – 6 times if you can.

Rocking boat pose – this tunes your stomach muscles in your back. We are going to sit on the floor with your feet on the floor, having your knees bent and just place your hands when your upper legs. Try to keep your upper body straight and slowly leaned back about 45° and raise your feet so that they are an inch or 2 off of the floor. Try to keep your toes pointing straight out. Breathe in and out a few times slowly and then stretch out your arms in front of your body and trying to keep your legs close together and trying to lift your  legs of a few more inches so that your body forms the V. Now try to hold this position and breathe in and out slowly. Try to hold this pose for 4 – 5 deep breaths in and of course you’re going to breathe out slowly.

Hover pose  – this poses great for turning your back, arms, stomach and shoulders all at the same time. Read going to start this pose by getting into the push-up position. You want to have your toes on the floor and your arms straight out with your hands below your shoulders and then lower yourself down until your upper  torso is a few inches off of the ground. And hold this position for 4 – 5 deep  breaths in while slowly exhaling each time.

Chair pose – this is great for toning your tush and legs. You know it, we’re going to start by standing with her feet together and arms nice and relaxed by our side. We will then inhale and slowly lift our arms over our head pointing towards the ceiling. We want to keep our hands facing each other when we do this. Slow you breathe out and lower your tush so that your lower legs and upper legs form approximately 45° angle. You should try to hold this position for 4 – 5 slow deep breaths in and of course exhaling slowly.

Give them a try and post your results here.