Surprising Foods to Flatten the Stomach

All good chefs and quite a few personal trainers will tell you abs are made in the kitchen. Yes, it does take muscle work and dedication, but it also takes a fair bit of healthy eating along the road to washboard abs. Just like there are foods to decrease bloating, there are foods to flatten the stomach. Sure, healthy foods like Greek yogurt, veggies, and water all help flatten the stomach, but there are also some pretty surprising treats that will do the same!

Oil and Vinegar

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Bring on the oil and vinegar salads! Both oil and vinegar are super helpers when it comes to achieving those flat tummy goals! The healthy monounsaturated fats in olive oil help burn calories and fat. This fat also reduces cholesterol and increases immunity. Vinegar has gone through some recent studies and came out glowing. New research showed that women who consumed 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar a day for 12 weeks had lower body weight and BMI than those who did not. This is because of the acedic acid that gives vinegar it's sharp taste and odor. The acedic acid increases the breakdown of visceral fat found around the belly.

Almonds

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Unsalted almonds with the skins still on can do wonders for slimming waistlines. Almonds are high in fiber, vitamin E, protein, and monounsaturated fats. Since almonds are so high in protein, fiber, and fat, they are a great mid-day snack that will help curve hunger and give a boost of energy.  

Eggs

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Eggs, what health food list will not have these little power house food on it? Eggs are filled with a fantastic combination of protein and fat. In fact, the amino acids found in eggs make it a complete, high quality protein. These little guys are great for a day-starter. They will keep you full for longer and give a high amount of energy to burn. Plus, they can taste pretty darn good!

To really kick your metabolism up in the morning, add some Tabasco sauce or cayenne pepper to your eggs. The spice will get your metabolism working a little bit faster.

Green Tea

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Fresh green tea is amazingly high in antioxidants including catechin, a natural phenol that helps increase fat loss. Catechins work to reduce fat in three main ways, the easiest is that they increase energy levels and boost metabolism. This phenol also increases fat loss in the abdomen and aids the liver in burning fat. Studies have shown that people who drink 3-5 cups of green tea a day saw more significant weight loss than those who did not.

Oatmeal

Oh how I love someone giving me a good reason to eat oatmeal. Oatmeal is one of my favorite breakfast foods, and now, research is showing it's good for more than our taste buds! There are a wide variety of oatmeal types. Like most instant foods, instant oatmeal is high in sugar and has been over-processed with smaller amount of fiber. Whole oats, like the kinds used in overnight oats, are much better for you and will keep you full for longer. Try some with cinnamon and agave nectar for breakfast or a few hours before a workout- it will keep you full throughout the day and give a good amount of energy to burn while you exercise; great for muscle growth and recovery. 

Fatty Fish

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Fish like salmon and tuna are high in monounsaturated fats. These increase our metabolism and fat loss. The high amount of protein found in these lean meats will also help increase muscle growth and recovery. Unfortunately, as good as these fish are for us, too much is not. Try to keep your weekly intake of predator fish down to 2-3 servings a week. Fish have something called bioaccumulation. This means that their bodies store the pollutants of everything they eat. Bioaccumulation is not so much for smaller fish, but the bigger the fish, the more bioaccumulation you will get. Keep the pollutants in your body low by keeping your intake of big fish low as well :)

Edamame

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Whoohoo, another food that I love and find is good for us to boot! Edamame is a great source of nearly whole protein along with vitamin K, folate, phosphorous, and magnesium. These little beans of goodness are almost completely balanced between carbohydrates, fats, and protein.

Vegan Restaurants in the Grand Rapids Area

We are currently in the Grand Rapids, MI area for the next few days and have had the opportunity to eat at some fantastic vegan or vegan friendly restaurants. Whether you are a vega, are not a vegan but love the food, or hate anything vegan related- if you are in the Grand Rapids area, try these restaurants. There is a pretty high chance you will like something from at least one of these places, if not all of them.

Bartertown Diner

This restaurant is the only one on the list that is 100% vegan. It is also 100% amazingly delicious! Bartertown is all about local and only buys from local, organic small farms that treat the farm workers fairly. This makes the food incredibly fresh since the ingredients are delivered fresh daily, but it also makes everything taste better. Everything is also way more satisfying since your body will become full from fewer whole foods compared to processed.

Bartertown is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The prices are super economical and the servings are huge. Menus change from season to season and depending on availability, so anytime you go, you are bound to have something new. I would also highly recommend trying some of their desserts. All desserts are fantastic and vegan. Seriously, I never knew vegan could taste so good.  

The Village Baker

The hubs and I came across this place after taking our scuba refresher course in Spring Lake Michigan. Needless to say we were hungry and wanted a hearty breakfast. I was quite surprised with all of the vegan options this place had, especially considering that is is a bakery. The vegan asparagus soup and baked fritata with vegan cheese were incredible. Next time we go, I am getting the baked french toast, no question.

One of the coolest things about The Village Baker is the people who work there. The entire staff is super nice and crazy into their food. The hubs was taking some pictures of the restaurant and the owner came by, saw what he was doing, and gave him an impromptu tour of the entire restaurant- kitchen and all. We were able to learn all about the place and the baker who trained in traditional bread baking in Germany. He takes his bread serious and has a special oven for traditional baking as well. If you, like me, love your breads, go here. You will definitely not regret dining here or taking one of there pretzels as a post meal snack.  

The Corner Bar

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If you are ever in Grand Rapids Michigan, I would completely recommend taking a 20-minute drive north to the town of Rockford. This town is situated on a gorgeous dam and is one of the most picturesque places I have ever been. The Corner Bar, located in the heart of downtown Rockford, has plenty of food and some pretty fantastic veggie hotdogs as well. There are about 20 different hotdog options and all of them can be ordered vegetarian. Hotdogs can be ordered in the dining room, on the outdoor patio, or at the to-go window at the corner.

After eating here, you can walk across the street to Rocky's for some good, old fashioned ice cream, soft serve, and Dole Whip. Yep, I just created the best afternoon ever!  

Health and Fitness Vocabulary Words

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There are a lot, and I mean a lot of vocab words in the health and fitness dictionary. If your head, like mine, has been spinning with things like Paleo, gluten, tabata, and the like- worry no more, below is a complete list of health and fitness vocab words along with their definition. So, let's take a walk down memory lane together and feel completely reminiscent of our grade school Language Arts Classes. The only difference: now we actually want to learn these.... 

Paleo Diet  

Paleo is short for Paleolithic. This type of diet focuses on whole foods similar to what would have been eaten during the Paleolithic era that ended about 10,000 years ago. This diet is also known as the caveman diet or hunter-gatherer diet.

Foods that are on the "eat" list include organic, locally indigenous meats, legumes, berries, whole wheats, roots, fermented cod liver oil (yum!), raw and grass fed dairy (no processing or pasteurization here), and fruits and vegetables that are locally grown. Refined sugars or processed foods will definitely not fit the bill in a Paleo Diet.

Tabata

A type of workout created in Japan that uses high intensity interval training. Like Bikram, Tabata was created by one man and so, named after him. An entire Tabata session lasts 4-minutes with 8 rounds of 20-seconds of intense training and 10-seconds of rest. Tabata researchers found that this sequence increased both aerobic (by 14%) and anaerobic (by 28%) results. Usually, the workouts completed change during intervals.

An example workout would be: 

• Sprinting for intervals 1, 3
  
• Medicine Ball Slams for intervals 2 , 4
• Squats for intervals 5, 7
  
• Side Lateral Raise for intervals 6, 8

HIIT or High Intensity Interval Training

HIIT lasts anywhere from 4-minutes (Tabata) to 30-minutes and include a warm-up time, followed by 3-10 reps of high intensity exercise, then mid-range intensity exercises, and a cool down. The High intensity rep should be a 100% effort, followed by 50% effort of the same activity. This high/mid intensity switch continues for all reps. Time for high verse mid intensity workouts should be a 2:1 ratio with the high intensity lasting twice as long as the mid.

An example workout would be: 

• Quick Warm-Up
  
• 30-seconds of sprinting followed by 15-seconds of walking. Repeat this ten times.  
• Cool Down and stretches

Another Example would be to complete these exercises for 30-seconds with 10-seconds of rest. Complete 8 reps, total.

• Jumping jacks
  
• Wall Sits
• Push-Ups
• Crunches
• Chair Squats
• Plank

Pescetarian

I am quite familiar with this term since I have been one for about five years. A Pescetarian diet is a form of a vegetarian diet where you do not eat meat or poultry but do consume fish. Pescetarians do not need to be quite as careful with where they get Omega-3 and 6 fatty acids or proteins compared to vegetarians or vegans. Since most fish have high contents of protein and healthy fats, the only main concern is fish availability, population and fishing control, and- of course- contaminants in food.

Everyone should be careful of what fish they buy, where they buy it, and how much they eat- especially pescetarians. Eating high quantities of predator fish could result in high levels of blood toxicity levels due to bioaccumulation. Read this to learn more about what you need to know when buying fish.

Gluten

Gluten is a protein composite used to thicken certain foods. There are many types of foods that have gluten in them, from breads that use it to increase moistness and that iconic springy texture, to gravy's that use it as a thickening agent. The protein composite, gluten, is formed during the processing of certain wheat plants including barley and rye. Foods do not naturally have gluten.

Some people (about 1% of the US population) either have a gluten sensitivity or Celiac disease. Gluten sensitivity has been on the rise over the past decade. This could be from an increase in knowledge with gluten-free being a trending diet, or because more foods are processed than were ten years ago. Those with gluten sensitivity are unable to eat it since ingesting it could lead to various reactions including upset stomach, bloating, vomiting, and more super fun things everyone wishes to have. Not.  

Foods with Lactose

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I have been slowly taking lactose out of my diet for the past few weeks. This process has not been the easiest since I love pizza and cheese, but the effects it has had on me make a lactose-free diet totally worth it. After researching and testing what foods I can eat, I have become quite surprised what foods have or do not have lactose. Of course, there is a broad spectrum of lactose intolerance- from those who cannot have any lactose product at all, to those that can have a few different lactose containing foods. I fall somewhere right in the middle. 

So, let's go over some things that have lactose in them, starting with the most and ending with the least lactastic of them all...  

High Lactose Products

Milk of course milk would be on this list, it's milk. This includes dehydrated milk and evaporated milk as well. No matter what you get, all milk has lactose and anyone with a lactose intolerance will have a hard time digesting it.

Creamers are a thicker form of milk. Flavored coffee creamers, half and half, and dairy shortenings tend to have high levels of lactose.

Meal Shakes  most meal shakes are made with milk, dehydrated milk, or evaporated milk. All of these are high in the sugar, lactose.  

Processed Cheese this form of cheese has the highest levels of lactose of any cheese types. Processed cheeses include cheese spreads, liquid cheeses (Velveta anyone?), and the cheeses most commonly associated with sandwich cheeses- especially those from fast food restaurants.

Ice Cream   desserts made with milk will have higher amounts of lactose. Ice cream, therefore, is one of the highest lactose desserts since it is almost completely made of milk. Even some soy ice creams have lactose in them; be sure to read the ingredients list.  

Soft Cheese  cheeses like ricotta are higher in lactose than other aged cheeses because of their liquid nature. This includes most cream cheese and sour cream as well.

Mid-Range Lactose Products

Aged Cheese  cheeses that have gone through higher fermentation will have less lactose since so much of it has been broken down. A good rule of thumb for hard cheeses is, the older the cheese, the less lactose it has.

 Salad Dressings  especially the creamier dressing run a high chance of having lactose in them. If you want to be safe all around, avoid creamy dressings and read the ingredients list for oil based dressings as well.

Automatic Desserts this includes the break and bake cookies, cake and brownie mixes, and pre-made desserts. All of these have a certain level of lactose, but only some people are affected by them.

Butter and Margarine these are at the bottom of the Mid range list because they are on the line between low and middle. Most of the lactose is taken out of butter while processing. Butters made with flax seed or clarified butter will have even less lactose.

Low Lactose Products

Yogurt  although yogurt has milk and dairy in it, it has been fermented. The live bacterial cultures found in yogurt have already broken down a lot of the lactose sugars. In fact, this is one dairy product that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends those with lactose intolerance trying.

Hard, Aged Cheese cheese falls into every category of lactose we have. This is because there are so many different amounts of lactose depending on the cheese. Hard, aged cheeses like Parmesan, Swiss, and Blue Cheese have the lowest levels of lactose of all the cheeses. Most people with lactose intolerance can eat these in small quantities and be fine. 

Cottage Cheese like hard, aged cheeses, cottage cheese has very low amounts of lactose. This is due to the fermentation process.

Processed Foods there are so many processed foods that it would take four pages to list them all out. Even foods that do not have milk naturally can have milk additives in them when put through processing. A few examples of processed foods would be potato chips, sausage, hot dogs, gravy, gravy stock, certain beers, etc.

Breads  although it is very low, some breads (especially processed breads) can have the lactose sugar. If you are extremely sensitive to lactose, be weary of store bought breads.

Mayo and Tartar although it may sound silly, I was not sure if these products had milk in them. Turns out, they do not. Mayo is made with eggs and oil and tartar is made with mayo, dill pickles, onion, hard boiled eggs, chives, and a few other things. Phew, sandwich lovers everywhere can breath again!