High Protein Cheesecake

This is a basic cheesecake recipe and is then easily adaptable to suit your individual flavours, toppings and alike you may want to add. This will give you a basic non biscuit base and a fluffy dense moist cheesecake mixture!

What you'll need! 

300g chobani 0% fat greek yoghurt (or similar)
200g low fat cream cheese
100g egg whites (not from a carton)
50g oats
20g buckwheat flour (any type will do)
1/2 tspn vanilla essence
1/2 tspn baking powder
1/4 tspn cream of tartar
150ml boiling water

Method

Step 1- Blend oats to a fine powder and combine with flour and baking powder. Add the boiling water and continue to blend in mixer until a thick consistency is achieved. At this stage you can add sweetener, cinnamon or whatever flavours you would like your base to take on.

Step 2- Spread evenly on the base of a lined spring form tin and bake for approx 20min at 180 degrees. (Wrapping the tin in aluminium foil at this stage will ensure it is water tight for baking in a water bath later) While baking separate the egg whites and allow to reach room temperature before beating.

Step 3- Mix greek yogurt, cream cheese and vanilla essence together in a large bowl. At this stage you can add things just as lime zest, lemon juice for a citrus flavor cheesecake,  or a shot of espresso for a mocha style cheesecake, options are endless.

Step 4- Begin to beat your egg whites to form stiff peaks, once they begin to form a froth add the cream of tartar and beat until consistency is achieved. Fold egg whites into the cream cheese mixture and pour on top on the cooked base.

Step 5- Have a large dish in the bottom of the oven filed with water and place the wrapped cake tin inside (water bath) and bake for 50min at 170 degrees. After 50min turn oven off and allow it to slowly cool for an additional 2 hours inside the oven, transfer to fridge overnight for best result!

Hope this sounds easy enough and you have as much success with the recipe as I regularly do! If you have any questions hit me up on instagram as I'm always happy to help! @love_lifting

Macros for whole cake.
780cals - 71P/67C/14F

ENJOY! 

Jelly Oat Cake - High Volume Oats

Alright! This shit is going to knock your socks off if you love eating large amounts of food, and not to mention for great macros and amazing taste and texture.

Here is what you'll need.

1 Large ceramic/baking dish
80g Rolled oats (Can be more if you're not on shit macros)
1 teaspoon Psyllium husk - not critical but does help with the texture
250ml almond milk/coconut milk
300ml water
60-100ml egg whites
200g Fat free Greek yogurt
1 Packet sugar free jelly - whatever flavor you want
15g Cocoa powder
Liquid stevia
Vanilla essence + flavor drops or anything you want to add to give it a kick

Let's do this!

Step 1: Add oats and psyllium husk to the dish and add the milk and water and stir well, add in the stevia and vanilla essence and give it another stir and let sit for a few minutes.

Step 2: Chuck it in the microwave for up to 10minutes on  a moderate power (if you can adjust it, then say around 70-80%, if not then just keep an eye on it) that's why the large dish is important, in a normal bowl this will boil over leaving a bloody mess.

Step 3: Take it out and give it a mix and add the egg whites and stir in thoroughly, add some more water (up to 100ml) if required and chuck back in microwave for another 10min, keeping an eye on it.

Step 4: Take out of microwave and set to the side until it has cooled down quite a bit and firmed up, once happy with that chuck in 100g of Greek yogurt and mix it all around and flatten it out again, put in fridge to totally cool.

Step 5: Mix the packet of jelly as per normal and then add the cocoa and remaining 100g of Greek yogurt, here I use a stick blender and use that to blitz the shit out of it and also to add some air to the mixture. Once happy it is all combined take oats out of fridge and pour the jelly on top and back in the fridge it goes to set completely overnight!

Step 6: Fight the urge to eat it before it sets!!!!

Step 7: Whack whatever toppings and sauces on top and enjoy. The consistency should be thick and as you can see I could even cut the bloody thing with a nice and call it a cake, since I'm all about that #Cakeaday lifestyle!!

Hope you enjoy this as much as I do guys! Once you nail it, play around with it and reduce the oats and add some tapioca pearls (sago) and create new exciting ways to make it! I have tried it that way and it adds a whole different texture and sweetness to the dish!

Macros for the whole damn tray are - 645cals 15F/73C/48P

Hearty shepherds pie!

Shepherds pie, cottage pie...whatever the hell you want to call it they taste bloody great! and with this version and macros like these why the hell not enjoy it!!

Here's what you'll need!!

2 Kangaroo patties (260g) or whatever mince or meat source you want
200g onion
200g celery
200g carrot - keep it simple and easy, if you want different stuff then go for it!
1 reducked salt stock
1 and half tablespoons gravy mix
600g pumpkin
50g cream cheese/ricotta cheese
1 table spoon wisticher sauce
mixed herbs, salt, pepper, spices....

Largeeee baking tray!!  This thing is seriously huge and filling!!

1. Firstly dice all the vegatables, I use one of them easy slap chop style things to make it quick and easy. Then place them and brown in a hot pan for 5 minutes and add a table spoon mixed herbs and wisticher sauce.

2. Start to brown the mince in another pan, add the stock to the cooking veg and bring to boil and cook for a further 5 mintues and reduce to a simmer.

3. Transfer the browned mince to the pan with veg and add the gravy powder and mix all together and let simmer for 15min, stirring occasionally.

4. Chop pumpkin into chunky cubes and boil in salted water until tender. drain in strainer and return to pot and add the 50g ricotta cheese ad pepper, seasoning. blend with masher or stick blender until smooth.

5. Transfer meat mixture to a large ceramic baking dish and flatten, add pumpkin mash on top, spread and season.

6. Put into pre heated oven at 200 degrees and finish for 15min! Serve hot and ENJOYYYY!!!

Macros 680 calories - 9F/85C/65P

Do you even Breakfast!?.............Meal of Champions!

To get start started I just have to say how much I love breakfast! Every night I finish my last meal of the day just before going to bed, and before my head even hits the pillow I'm looking forward to the next morning already so I can have Breakfast! :)

regardless if you follow a weight training regieme or are cardio/circuit orientatied with goals of weight loss then breakfast in both cases is a meal you should NEVER skip. People will say they are to busy or have some excuse..........I just don't buy it, Oats take 90 seconds to cook in the microwave, and eggs/egg whites take about 3 minutes to scramble. So if you have an excuse, I don't want to hear it.

Breakfast should always be more dense in calories then most of your meals throughout the day, it will give you sustained energy during the day, and you wont be going to work hungry which then just leads to binge eating or snacking of junk food throughout the day!

I'll go over my breakfast this morning:

So here it is, 1 cup of Oats, 1 Large egg, 1 Cup Egg whites and 1 Kangaroo Pattie (110g)

Let's go over the macro nutrients for this meal.
1 Large egg - 100 calories - 7g fat, 7g Protein
1 Cup egg whites - 125 calories - 28g Protein
1 Kangaroo Pattie - 90 calories - 20g Protein
1 Cup Oats - 300+ calories - 65g Carbs

Total Calories - 615~ Calories - 53g Protein, 65g Carbs, 10g Fat

Oats are a great source of slow release energy, they are absorbed by the body slowly not giving you spikes in your insulin leading to energy slumps and crashing out early in the day.
Egg whites are a 'light' protein and rapidly absorbed by the body, hence why I have a heavier source of protein to sustain my body for longer. Overall the ingredients in this breakfast are ideal for any person with any goals in mind, you just have to change the portioning.

And there it is, less then 10minutes to prepare and cook! Add some blueberries to the oats and you can also add cacao powder for flavour. I also use Smokey Tabasco sauce on my omelet for a bit of bite :) then wash it all down with a large glass of water and a black coffee (sweetened with Stevia) and my Multi-Vitamin, 3000mg of Fish oil and a Super Kelp tablet (packed with natural Iodine for thyroid function and health)

Well I hope you enjoyed this and gave you insight into what a healthy and tasty breakfast is! Feel free to hit me up for any advice when it comes to nutrition or training!! Off to gym shortly for a killer back workout. Stay tuned!!

To Cheat or not to Cheat - Cheat meals!

This is always a topic of discussion amongst many in the fitness industry, everyone has their personal beliefs about the pro's and con's on having a cheat day/meal and have read all the articles out there on the internet so instantly they are pro's about the topic without understand any of the physiological responses the body goes through!

All I’m going to do is discuss some of the theoretical benefits and chuck in my 2 cents worth as well.

Increases thyroid hormone production - So when someone is calorie deficient they produce less hormones that regulate the thyroid (T3 and T4) so a strategic cheat meal or overfeed is beneficial to increase these hormones and regulate the thyroid to keep it functional and productive.

Increased energy output (24hr) - The surplus calories from a cheat causes the body to up regulate basal metabolic rate (BMR).And there are studies out there to show an increase of 9% above baseline, all in all giving you more energy the next day foe heavier lifting and giving you an upbeat mood for the day :)

Psychological benefit - This is plain and simple, You follow your diet for the week knowing that after all that hard training and clean eating you get a reward......for some people that is enough to keep them going week to week, but then it comes down to the individual to know how far to take their cheat meal/day, this is something you cant calculate and you learn from experience about your own personal limits. It's totally worth it!

So with that being said it sounds like having a cheat meal or re-feed day will work for anyone wanting to gain some lean mass and for a fat loss diet........well it's not always the case! Many trainers condone the idea of cheat meals while others support it knowing it works from personal experience. And I’m one to promote the idea from it not hampering my results over time!

But we also have to understand the human body, and I’ll break it down quickly! 

You have to remember we are talking about the human body, our bodies will adapt to anything we throw at it over time, so when you first start restricting calories and have your results you will then notice that you will hit a plateau, whether it be diet, weight training or cardio, it happens to everyone. So this for me is a good sign that we need to break the cycle and another reason why a cheat meal is beneficial :)

This being said to certain degree, a high calorie meal will help off set your metabolism but the benefit from the cheat meal comes from the higher calorie intake on that day, not the usual junk food that most people consume. Having no moderation or control on cheat days carries far more risk than benefits to your physical and mental health, it can lead to a fatal outcome from extreme acute gastric dilation after an eating binge.

A good little tip is buy enough for a couple of cheat meals and no more! If you have a 2 packs of Tim-tams in the fridge and 2L of ice cream in the freezer then we all know what is going to happen right......Epic FAIL. So keep that in mind and just get what you need for that cheat meal :)

So to sum up, YES by all means have a cheat meal.......but don't binge on unhealthy junk food, and there is no need for a whole cheat day.

Back to Basics - Food shopping made easy!

I often get asked the best foods to buy and how much of each should be eaten, and honestly the answer varies from person to person, depending on their weight, how active they already are, and the goals they want to achieve.

And when you start telling someone to eat more often if they want to lose some unwanted weight, they automatically look at you like you have no idea what you are talking about........"you're telling me to eat more often then I already do..... yeah righto buddy" but it's when you get into the nuts and bolts of what and when you should be eating is when you start to see how it all works!

The most simple way to put it about shedding some weight is - energy in vs energy out!! If you eat more calories then you burn per day with or without exercise, then you will gain weight. If you are calorie deficient then you will begin to lose weight, simple as that.

So even people who do not live a very active lifestyle are still very much capable of losing weight by restricting calories and consuming them on a structured timeline and by counting the calories they eat. There are numerous calorie calculators on the internet which give somewhat detailed calorie intakes depending on how accurately you fill in all the details. So this is a good starting block for you to gauge how much you should be taking in each day.

Now you have to know what foods to eat, and for me this is hard to try to explain. As for me over the years I now can look at food at the shops and fresh produce and know it's nutritional value is, the portion size, etc.... and when it comes to take away and fast food, well I don't remember the last time I had a greasy burger from McDonalds so when people always seem to have the same downfalls, all I can say is it comes with time that you will be able to fight the urge to indulge, and depending on how strict you are on yourself this will either come quickly to others, or some might find themselves struggling time after time.

If I tell you whats in my pantry and fridge it may sound bland to some people, but for me I enjoy it and know I need to do this to achieve my goals, and I know not everyone is so into it so I won't go into great depth but rather give a broad outline on foods to head towards and others to avoid!

Let's talk protein! This is the key macro-nutrient for weight loss and muscle gain! Head to the meat section and go nuts. Beef, Chicken, Kangaroo (best source of protein out there) Turkey, Salmon are all good to go! Yeah Pork and Lamb are not the best so avoid those if you can. Next we have eggs and egg whites. If you asked a serious fitness freak or body builder one food they couldn't live without, they would tell you, or maybe even yell at you EGG WHITEESSSSSS!! I have nothing bad to say about eggs or egg whites! Go nuts with egg whites, and not so crazy with egg yolks. And last my favorite for a night time snack is 0% fat Greek Yogurt, I can't fault it (the brand I use is Chobani)  per 180ml serving is 18g protein 0g fat and 5g of Natural sugars, and the yogurt is the only dairy I eat.

Next is fats, and this plays again a huge role in muscle growth and fat loss believe it or not! To keep it simple get your fats from Salmon, Almonds, Peanut butter, almond meal, coconut oil and Chia seeds. Check your labels, you don't want anything with saturated fats or trans fats. Only Unsaturated fats!

Lastly is Carbohydrates, stay away from refined and processed Carbs, so no white bread, white rice, potatoes or heavy starch grains or veg! Basic list of Carbs to eat - Sweet potato, Brown rice, Wholemeal pasta/bread/wraps, Pinto beans, Adzuki beans, Broad-beans and a favorite of mine Buckwheat flour. All these are tasty and can be cooked and prepared in just as many ways as all the other starchy products out there.

So this may sound all good and easy and I could write all day about it, but just remember you can read articles online all day hoping to come across one special sentence that will give you the results you want without doing anything......and we all know that's just not the case. It all comes down to YOU! so do some reading, understand how many calories you need per day, update your fridge with healthier foods and become aggressive and excited about training and eating right, because once you start seeing results it becomes addictive and you only go from strength to strength! So take those first steps and stay on track and surround yourself with support of friends and family and before you know it BAM! you'll start seeing the results you had wanted so badly!!

And remember It's all about the pump!!