Low sugar peanut-butter chocolate fudge

From Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Truth about abs


It's my own special version of a healthy peanut-butter-fudge! If you don't like nuts or peanut butter, you can simply leave out those ingredients and make a chocolate-only version. Pay attention, because there are specific ingredients that make this a LOT healthier for you than typical fudge.

I will say that this dessert / snack is not low-calorie per se, but it is loaded with quality healthy fats, some protein, LOTS of antioxidants, and is relatively low in sugar, while also containing a decent dose of fiber. Overall, it's a great snack that helps curb your appetite, fuel your muscles, loads you up on protective antioxidants, and quells that sweet tooth that often makes you overeat on refined sweets.

Geary's Lean-Body Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Recipe:

• 3/4 cup organic coconut milk (not the watered down "light" version which just replaces some of the healthy coconut fat with water)
• 1 bar (3-5 oz. bar works well) of quality extra dark chocolate (look for at least 70-75% cocoa content on the label)
• 4-5 tablespoons of peanut butter or your favorite nut butter (almond butter, cashew butter, macadamia butter, etc)
• 3/4 cup raisins or dried cranberries (optional)
• 1/2 cup whole almonds (optional)
• 2 Tbsp raw wheat germ
• 2 Tbsp rice bran (usually only available at health food stores)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• A little stevia powder to sweeten

Start by adding the coconut milk (cans of organic coconut milk are available at most health food stores and possibly even your grocery store) and vanilla extract to a small saucepan on very low heat. Break up the extra dark chocolate bar into chunks and add into pot. Add the nut butter and the stevia, and continuously stir until it all melts together into a smooth mixture.

Then add the raisins, almonds, wheat germ, and rice bran and stir until fully blended. Spoon/pour the fudge mixture onto some waxed paper in a dish and place in the fridge until it cools and solidifies together. Place in a closed container or cover with foil in fridge to prevent it from drying out.

Enjoy small squares for dessert and for small snacks throughout the day. This is about as good as it gets for a healthy yet delicious treat! Even though this is a healthier dessert idea, keep in mind that it is still calorie dense, so keep your portions reasonable.

Do protein foods slow insulin level's rise?

Brad Pilon (Eat Stop Eat) wrote in his newsletter: "From the research conducted on sports supplements we know for sure that a protein/carb meal can have just as big an effect on insulin as a carb only meal. And, that as long as you are eating your insulin levels are going to spike up and then slowly go down..."

Brad explains it in his excellent mini-lecture:

For the Eat Stop Eat solution, visit Brad's site

How many calries should we eat to get all vital nutrients?

by Tanya Zilberter, PhD

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This article is sponsored by Burn the Fat

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A human being has a basic biological nature, but it's the only biological species to radically evolve and advance without changing its basic body structure. As a result, our bodies need the same nourishment that was good for our predecessors tens of thousands of years ago, but our current lifestyle doesn't give us a chance to get it. Yet, if you eat right and exercise right, you're healthy and no need to worry about, right?

Let's see. The Wellness Letter Berkeley from University of California-Berkeley, published a book of recipes for healthy foods with tables of vitamins, minerals, microelements, proteins, fats, carbohydrates and calories per serving.

I calculated the calorie intake from a diet based on these recipes and the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) values for 50 essential nutrients. The result was incredible: from 4,000 to 10,000 calories! That's a lot! Is there anybody who could burn them all?

This amount was about the same that was needed by our cave dwelling ancestors simply to survival. Theirs was a life spent on their feet; hunting prey; escaping predators; spending enormous amounts of energy to stay warm during winter or to cool during hot weather; fighting infections and parasites; losing blood; healing wounds; gathering edible plants; and women being either pregnant or nursing.

To gain some fat for the rainy days was bliss. Those 4,000 to 10,000 calories were spent as almost as soon as were gained. Since our ancestors most likely created so-called omnivorousness, or eating anything they could stomach, it mattered little where the calories were coming from: prey, plants or wild honey. Some people were lucky to have mostly prey, others could get more leaves or tubers, and very few could get honey in amounts that would lead us to believe there was any high-carbohydrate diet available.

Some cultures still live on mono diets. Take the Nordic population: its rations are mostly animal fat and protein. As long as they don't mess with "white deaths" (sugar and refined flour) and "fire water" (alcohol) they're caloric intake is irrelevant.

To Eat or Not To Eat?

As for the rest of us: rarely does anyone burn more than 2,500 calories. In fact, the average calorie intake for Americans is 2,000 to 2,500, and that is overeating for most people. We are faced with options:

Choice 1: If we eat enough to get all the necessary nutrients, we consume too many calories and become overweight.

Choice 2: If we limit our calorie intake to maintain the proper weight, we do no have enough nutrients to maintain good health.

Choice 3: We can limit calorie intake and substitute for the missing nutrients with supplements.

Choice 3 was the cause of the rise of multibillion-dollar supplement industry. Yet, Americans are getting bigger. So, as you can see, there's actually no choice but to do something radical. Here comes the general idea to eat not all you please, but only certain food while avoiding other foods.

What To Eat? What To Avoid?

Again, we are faced with basically three choices:

Choice 1: Reduce calories.
Choice 2: Reduce fat.
Choice 3: Reduce carbohydrates.

Any one of them can be good for someone, and worthless or bad for someone else. Lets look at the each choice a little more closely.

What if I reduce calories?

You'll be hungry. And hunger signals your body to get those calories as soon as it suspects you are starving.

Further, any low-calorie diet burns not only fat, but also muscle. Reduced muscle mass causes your metabolism to slow down and the calorie reduction escalates, leading to malnutrition or to regaining all the lost weight plus some.

What if I reduce fats?

Fat reduction can help if you don't have too many pounds to lose. The glitch is, while any low-fat diet prevents fat depositing, it also makes fat burning impossible.

I'd also like to mention here that there was a trend of using low-fat diets to improve blood cholesterol and decrease the risk of cardio-vascular diseases, but recent clinical data questioned this approach.

What if I reduce carbs?

This is my personal choice. This is why I believe that this is the best option for those who failed many times before.

First and most important is that low-carb diets preserve muscle while burning the body's fat for fuel. Second, low-carb diets don't make you hungry. There actually are many more benefits, and this entire site is about these benefits.

Chances are great that you'll like low-carbing so much, it will become part of your lifestyle. Add exercise, and there will be no problem with keeping the weight off for the rest of your life.

How to avoid Holiday cheating

The 6 things you need to succeed on a low carb diet

From Jim Stone
Stop Cheating on
Your Low Carb Diet


The warning about other low carb diet books.

You will not have a complete low carb solution until you have these six things. Most low carb diet books give you a good treatment of only the first two things.

1. You must understand how to do a low carb diet, and have some recipes to get you started.

2. You must understand how a low carb diet works in your body.

3. You must know how stress leads to carbohydrate cravings.

4. You must learn to develop an acute sensitivity to your own cheating behavior, and have the skills to analyze your behavior in a way that will lead to successful counter-measures. This is rarely given the attention it deserves in most low carb diet books.

5. You must understand the social dimension of your life, and how it affects what you eat. It is quite rare to see this in a low carb diet book.

6. You must have a solid understanding of human motivation. No other low carb diet book will give you this!


Chances are you already own a book that explains how to do a low carb diet -- complete with recipes. That's a good start. If you don't have one of those books, you should go get one. You won't find that information in Stop Cheating On Your Low Carb Diet!.

But clearly what those books cover is not enough to ensure success.


Do bit think about buying this book if you are looking for one of the following things:

If you are looking for yet another low carb diet plan with just a slightly new "tweak" on every other low carb diet plan, this book is not for you.

If you are looking for yet another low carb diet book that consists of 30% information and 70% recipes, this book is not for you.

Everyone should have a low carb diet book that has a diet plan.

For the record, my favorite low carb diet plan books are these:

• Dr. Wolfgang Lutz's Life Without Bread
• Dr. Loren Cordain's The Paleo Diet
• and Dr. Gregory Ellis's Ultimate Diet Secrets

I have benefited greatly from these books, and recommend them highly. These books serve quite well for a FIRST book on low carb dieting -- as would these books:

• Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution
• The South Beach Diet
• The Zone
• Sugar Busters
• The Carbohydrate Addicts Diet
• Some of Suzanne Sommers' books
• Neanderthin
• The Fat Flush Plan
• Protein Power
• And Many Others

However,

If you already have one of THOSE books, ...

...but you find yourself struggling to stay on your diet...

...and you want to own a manual that helps you understand yourself, and what motivates you...

...a manual dedicated to human motivation, and how it affects your attempts to stay on your low carb diet...

...and you are looking for a book that will finally help you stick to your low carb diet...

... this book is exactly what you need.