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Cake Heaven!

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If you click on the link below and scroll through it, you will definitely crave dessert! These 17 tasty sweet treats are incredibly decadent! I have added images of a few of the desserts featured on this link. Somebody had better hurry up and have a birthday, and not when anyone is in the middle of show prep!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/sarahdigregorio/17-reasons-not-to-despair?utm_term=.cvXoqP4rB#.uv1JaeA7Q

S’mores Cake (YUM):

S'mores Cake

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate-Chip Buttercream and Chocolate Ganache:

Chocolate cake with buttercream and chocolate ganache

I am including the donut cake because it is so ridiculous. Thankfully, I don’t like donuts, so this one isn’t torture for me at all:

Donut Cake

This Is What $54 Worth Of Good Cat Food Looks Like…

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For the past several weeks, I have been re-training my European Burmese cat Kazu to eat moist cat food so that she will lose weight. She is a very fussy eater, and it has been a guessing game, trying to determine which foods she will eat. My conclusion is that Kazu will only eat food which has had little to no processing, and is considered “human grade”. This little lady is insisting on a whole food diet, which is fine with me, but the kind of food she likes is expensive!

Today I decided to stock up, so I went to C&C Pet Foods (great place for discounted pet food in Burbank) and purchased 32 three ounce cans, 6 three ounce pouches and 1 six ounce can, which came to a total of $54. That’s pretty pricey if you ask me! However, Kazu has refused other brands of foods, so I have to stick with a small handful of brands (Tiki Cat, Weruva, and B.F.F.) which are not available at stores like Petco or PetSmart.

If you have a finicky pet, I would HIGHLY recommend these brands of pet food, because they are high quality and quite palatable to most pets.

Why Cheat Meals Are Good

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If you ask a competitor about favorite cheat meals, you had better expect the person’s eyes to glaze over as he or she lovingly describes his or her most beloved foods. You may wonder if cheat meals are only incorporated into the lives of fitness people, but they actually serve a purpose for anyone who is committed to healthy eating. Perhaps you have just embarked on a healthy food regimen and are struggling a bit with it. When you incorporate one or two cheat meals into your plan each week you will boost your metabolism and foster a more balanced relationship with food.

Let’s face it. We are only human, and we carry our emotional relationship with food with us throughout our lives. If we were to practice a rigid adherence to a healthy meal plan without any fun meals, we would feel guilty if we were to ever indulge in a bad food in a moment of weakness. If we know that we are allowed such a fun meal (I prefer this terminology over “cheat” meal), we can rest in the comfort that it is acceptable and that there is no reason to feel guilty about consuming it. This also works nicely if you tend to go to events on the weekends and don’t want to be the stick-in-the-mud who can’t eat anything that is being served.

When you eat a more calorie controlled meal plan during the rest of the week, a fun meal will speed up your metabolism and satisfy cravings that have been accumulating during the week. I believe it is important to eat something you truly crave instead of doing a small cheat like a dinner roll with a chicken spinach salad. Have the two slices of pizza or the burger! Just make sure to eat an acceptable amount of food and don’t gorge yourself.

I am often asked by weight management patients if a cheat day or a cheat weekend is acceptable. My response is no, for the simple reason that this creates a slippery slope which causes many individuals to lose self-control and spiral into a guilt-ridden “I messed up so why stop now?” mentality. If it is too difficult to do one fun meal per week, incorporate two fun meals spaced by at least one day so that your body can recover.

Wine Tasting In Paso Robles

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Paso Robles wine country

I have always enjoyed wine tasting and make a point of visiting nearby wine regions a few times each year. Usually I go to Temecula since it is less than a hundred miles away from where I live, but since I know that area so well, I have been itching to visit other places. While I love Napa and Sonoma, I avoid those destinations for two reasons: 1) both treks are a bit too far for me to make an easy drive, and 2) the wine tasting fees, wines, and lodging out there are outrageously expensive. Yes, the wines up there are phenomenal, but I am not about to go into the poorhouse for the sake of wine tasting up there.

Last week we visited Paso Robles for a three day getaway, and were determined to explore the central portion of the wine tasting region there. I hadn’t been to Paso Robles for close to ten years, so the experience felt relatively new to me. On Friday we visited one winery (Falcon Nest) which we knew stayed open later than the others, and ended up having a lovely conversation with the winemaker there. After our evening wine tasting, we drove into town and had a quick bite to eat, then headed back to the very comfortable and charming bed and breakfast inn where we were staying (Union Road Guesthouse).

We had planned to visit as many wineries as we possibly could the following day, but since the wineries we wanted to visit were only open from 11-5, we didn’t have much time to do wine tastings. We started our wine tour at Glunz Family Winery without any expectations, so we certainly didn’t expect their Bernese Mountain Dog Jenga to literally run towards our car as we pulled up to the winery! With such a great beginning to our visit to Glunz, we knew we were in for a great experience. I was so impressed with Glunz wines that I not only bought a bottle of Grenache Blanc and a bottle of Zin, I also became a member of their wine club, which is something I typically avoid.
wine-tasting
We spent about an hour at Glunz, then continued our wine tasting by heading to Hug Cellars/Bodega De Edgar, not realizing that there were two other wine tasting rooms right next door (Paydirt and Brochelle). We met the second dog of the day at Paydirt, a funny little dog named Max. We also tasted a nice zin there which we ended up purchasing. By the time we left the three winery cluster, we were starving so we got something to eat, then resumed our wine tasting tour, visiting Barr, Clautierre, Pear Valley, Steinbeck (and our third dog of the day, Lola), and PasoPort. We paid another visit to Falcon Nest before heading back to the inn, then had dinner at a steakhouse in town.

By Sunday, we had pretty much had our fill of wine, but I just couldn’t resist going for one more tasting at Glunz, since the wines were so fantastic there. Our second visit there resulted in the purchase of their Mission Angelica Port, which is rich with butterscotch and caramel flavors. Seriously WOW.

Overall, I would HIGHLY recommend visiting the Paso Robles area for wine tasting. The quality of the wines there is exceptional, the area is filled with charm, and there are plenty of great restaurants and bed and breakfast inns there (though we highly recommend Union Road Guesthouse).

Evil Goldfish

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Goldfish

Last weekend I went out of town on a much-needed weekend getaway, and I decided to go off the grid with everything from my daily life and wing it. I didn’t pack any whole food, gym clothes, or my computer, and I had no plans to do any work. Since I was in wine country, my main objective was to visit wineries, enjoy the scenery, and to allow myself to consume whatever struck my palate. One winery featured wine and cheese pairings, which is something I would ordinarily refuse. Thank goodness I didn’t deprive myself, because the cheese selections were even more delicious than the wines at that particular winery!

Though I could feel my gut rebelling somewhat against the drastic change in diet, I enjoyed the freedom I had. I still looked for more protein dense food selections while we were exploring the region, and I wolfed down a couple of B-Up Bars for a boost in protein. However, I pretty much gave up on getting my usual 25+ grams of protein with my morning meal while at the bed and breakfast inn where I stayed. The only protein dense food selection at the inn was Greek yogurt, so I had that on Saturday morning with some fresh fruit.

By the end of the day on Saturday, we had visited some wonderful wineries. We made sure to hydrate well the entire time and we also had a big lunch, but I was hungry when we returned to the inn, and since the food selection was so limited (the fruit and yogurt were no longer available at 5 pm), I grabbed a snack sized bag of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers and began munching on them while chatting with the innkeepers. BIG MISTAKE. About five minutes after consuming the cute little crackers, a feeling of malaise washed over me, and my head began to pound. I excused myself from the table and went to my room, whereupon I crashed onto the bed and held my sore head. The room was blazing hot, even with the ceiling fan whizzing at high speed, and I floated in and out of sleep for about an hour.

We had dinner reservations at a fancy restaurant, so I peeled myself off the bed and got ready even though I felt like I had gotten hit by a truck. And NO, it was NOT the wine which had me feeling this way. Once we were at the restaurant, I ordered an entree which sounded appealing, but by the time the entree arrived, I could not even eat as a result of severe nausea and a splitting headache. That delicious lamb shank I ordered sat on my plate like a forgotten masterpiece.

Now that I realize what got me so sick, I figured I would review the ingredients found in these evil Goldfish crackers. How could something I so gleefully consumed as a child wreak so much havoc on my body as an adult?

→ Ingredients are listed in order of importance (quantity).
Ingredients list : MADE WITH SMILES AND UNBLEACHED ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR (FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON. THIAMINE MONONITRATE (VITAMIN B1), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), FOLIC ACID), CHEDDAR CHEESE (CULTURED MILK, SALT, ENZYMES, ANNATTO), VEGETABLE OILS (CANOLA, SUNFLOWER AND/OR SOYBEAN), CONTAINS 2 PERCENT OR LESS OF: SALT, YEAST, SUGAR, AUTOLYZED YEAST, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, AMMONIUM BICARBONATE), PAPRIKA, SPICES (CONTAINS CELERY) AND DEHYDRATED ONIONS.

Well, for one thing, these crackers are loaded with gluten (from the unbleached enriched wheat flour), and the canola or soybean oil lurking in the crackers also did a number on me. Back in January, I discovered (through ALCAT Testing https://www.alcat.com/) that I had an intolerance to gluten, canola oil, and soybean oil. No wonder I felt so ill! My habit of reading labels and of avoiding any foods which have ingredients of which I am intolerant is something I need to do ALL THE TIME. Just one slip and I had to pay the price!

New B-Up Bar Flavor: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

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There’s a new flavor in the B-Up Bar lineup! Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough has lots of tasty chunks of chocolate, and tastes just like chocolate chip cookie dough! These bars have ZERO artificial sweeteners, are gluten free, are loaded with fiber, and deliver 20 grams of protein.

Go to Yupbrands.com to order any of the amazing flavors of B-Up Bars or B-Jammin Bars.

When ordering single boxes (no bundle packs or samples), you can use my discount code amstacey29 to get 12% off your order!

Please Check Out My Profile at Sports Nutrition Supplement Guide Website!

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I have had the good fortune to be one of the Authoritative Experts on Sportsnutritionsupplementguide.com for the past year. Please check out their site, which is chock-full of information and inspiration! The link below will take you to my profile on the site:

http://www.sportsnutritionsupplementguide.com/get-certified/brand-specific/itemlist/user/486-drstaceynaito

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What Happens When You Skip Meals

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You might be under the impression that skipping meals benefits you since you aren’t taking in calories constantly. Well, I’ve got news for you. By skipping meals, you are putting the brakes on your metabolism. Think of it this way. When a fire is burning in a fireplace, the intensity of the fire dies down dramatically when there are only embers and no logs on the pile. Skipping meals has the same effect. What makes it even worse is that, since the metabolism is now extremely sluggish, when you finally DO eat something, your body can’t break down the food as efficiently, and more of it ends up being stored as fat.

If you skip meals, you probably suffer to some extent from malnutrition, since you aren’t consuming sufficient nutrients throughout the course of the day. Chronic malnutrition can trigger the development and progression of a multitude of diseases. The sharp drops in blood sugar which occur as a result of skipped meals cause an increase in insulin resistance, which can result in the development of diabetes.

When you consider how much of a negative health impact skipping meals has, why would you ever do it?

Question On My Fan Page About Food Additives

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Some guy wrote in on my Facebook Fan Page on June 14 at 1:13am with the following question:

“Why is their Xanthan Gum and Sucralose in Whey 100 Ultra Clean when that will make it harmfull to the body how can you loose weight and build lean muscle with those types of harmfull ingredients put in whey?”

I hadn’t seen the question until now, so I wanted to make sure I posted a response. Here it is:

Xanthan gum is a plant based thickening agent which may cause some digestive issues in those who already suffer from digestive maladies, in which case they probably wouldn’t be ingesting whey in the first place. As for the sucralose, there is a huge controversy regarding potential harm from consuming it, yet nothing conclusive. I am personally not a huge fan of sucralose, but truth be told, it is in many food items. In addition, it can be very difficult to make a palatable whey protein formula without sucralose, since stevia can be very bitter. Please be aware that I am not in any way involved with the manufacture of Royal Sport Ltd. products but I definitely consider them to be some of the best in the industry. Bear in mind that the vast majority of sports supplement products are full of additives, so in this case I think we are talking about choosing products which are on the less offensive end of the spectrum when it comes to flavorings and additives.