What to order (and not order) at Starbucks
If you don't have the right info, you could be drinking a cake for your next Starbucks cuppa. Photo by engin akyurt

What to order (and not order) at Starbucks

As promised in my post on drinking calories, here we have a guide to the shrine of corporate existence: Starbucks. This article will give guidance on what NOT to order from Starbucks, and what to order instead.

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5 natural morning energy drinks
Green tea will wake you up, make you lean, and detox your body. Try subbing a cup of greean tea for the second cup of coffee. Photo by engin akyurt

5 natural morning energy drinks

In my previous post on drinkigng calories, I warned against the downsides of sugary sports and energy drinks. Of course, I have an alternative. This is the list of my top 5 natural morning energy drinks to get your mojo going and start your day. All of them not only wake you up and energize you but have great health and weight loss benefits.

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Week 7 – DAOFitlife Meal and Exercise Plan
My favorite dish from True Food Kitchen- can't wait to go back to LA and have it again! Hot sauce is great to speed up your metabolism.

Week 7 – DAOFitlife Meal and Exercise Plan

On a weekly basis I update my meal and exercise plan google sheets so you can see real time what I eat, drink, and how I move. You can download…

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DAO Recipes (UPDATED APRIL 13)
Matcha is a great alternative to coffee and powerful for the metabolism. Photo by Lex Sirikiat

DAO Recipes (UPDATED APRIL 13)

After going through my meal plan for each week, you will see that most of the recipes are no-brainers. Some do require more elaboration – so I will use this post to disclose my recipes for each week of meal plan. Nothing in here takes more than 5-10 minutes for breakfast or lunch, or half an hour for 3 nights of dinner.

On a weekly basis, I bring you a new meal and exercise plan. For the meal plan, I keep a digest of the recipes in this post, so bookmark it!

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Saboteur Series part IV: The Sedentary Athlete
An hour long run doesn't mean you can lounge on the couch and eat chips the rest of the day!! Photo by Greg Lippert

Saboteur Series part IV: The Sedentary Athlete

Have you experienced starting an intense workout program, diligently sweating and working your butt off every day, and then gotten on the scale and seeing the number stay the same, or even go up? The Sedentary Athlete and Compensatory Eating saboteurs may be to blame. They go together like a couch and potato chips !

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How you can get fit without the gym
A normal dogwalk is a great example of a "non-workout-workout" that will keep you fit! Photo by Honest Paws

How you can get fit without the gym

Many professionals are under the misimpression that the fact that they may not have time to work out an hour a day means that their fitness prospects are doomed. FALSE.

On the flip side, the part of the population that leads the Peleton board every day may believe that this is all they need to do to get shredded. FALSE.

What’s missing in both of these assumptions in the fact that there are 24 hours in a day, and even if we use one of them to run 6 miles, do a bootcamp class, or rock the weightroom, there are still aboutt 15-16 hours waking hours in the day. And what you do in THOSE hours is what drives your fitness destiny.

I am going to talk to you today about NEAT – what it is, why you need it, and how you can use it as “insurance” for being active every day.

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Top 10 Trader Joe’s items for people who don’t have time to cook

Top 10 Trader Joe’s items for people who don’t have time to cook

In order to survive a professional career and be domestic, I have become a “Trader Joe’s chef”. Which means, I buy stuff at Trader Joe’s that I can throw together in rando combinations and somehow make it delish. It’s a skill I developed after years of shopping at the Trader Joe’s in my neighborhood (the West End, in Washington, DC) on Friday nights when I was single. I’d leave work around 7 or 8pm (#consulting life) and take advantage of the fact that the Trader Joe’s would be empty so that I could do my shopping and explore the aisles with no lines. Week after week spent poring over ingredients and chatting with the staff who knew me on a first name basis resulted in building up a repertoie of Trader Joe’s meals to put on my menu.

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I tried the food combining diet for a week, here is what happened
A core principle of the food combining diet is eating fruit before noon. Photo by Cecilia Par

I tried the food combining diet for a week, here is what happened

You may have noticed in my meal plan for last week I had a lot of fruit on the menu for breakfast. Well the reason why is that I decided to try the “food combining diet.” In this post I will cover what that is and what my experience was.

In my post overviewing different diets, ,I didn’t cover every diet under the sun. There is always something new to discover, and I did that just last week when I ran into the “food combining” diet. I tried it for a week, and I am writing about what happened.

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The Fitprofessional Top 10: Calorie-friendly Condiments
Hot sauce is one of the best condiments to speed up your metabolism and add zero=calorie taste. Photo by DiChatz

The Fitprofessional Top 10: Calorie-friendly Condiments

Earlier we explored what kinds of foods you can eat a lot of without gaining weight. Now let’s turn to the stuff that makes the food GOOD – the condiments. Sauces, dressings, and syrups can make or break a meal. Especially if the food you are eating is low on fat, oil, or sugar, something extra to enhance the flavor will help you derive better satisfaction and get less hungry later.

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Your brain, the liar: how to stop negative thoughts from gaslighting you
Tempting solution, but alcohol will only defer, not fix, the problem. Photo by Zachary Kadolph

Your brain, the liar: how to stop negative thoughts from gaslighting you

If you are on a path to fitness, mental fitness is a critical pillar.  You can  only fix so much on the outside. The negativity you experience on the inside can sabotage years of efforts and weigh you down, literally. It is a proven fact that positive thinking and weight loss success are interrelated. Not only that, but mastering the art of guarding your mind can lead to better job success, relationships, and overall health. On the flip side, a negative mindset is associated with depression, weight gain, and disease. 

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Do you REALLY need cardio?
Photo by Gabin Vallet

Do you REALLY need cardio?

Do you have a “love-hate” relationship with cardio? 

I DEFINITELY do. Let me count the ways.

On one hand, after a good run or spin class, you feel that “high.” The sweat is cathartic You are detoxed. That playlist you would never disclose publicly absolutely rocked.

On the other hand, it is time consuming. It can be boring. You can only queue up so much on the Netflix app. 

So the question is, are there any really good reasons to do cardio? Does it get you results? And what role does it play in weight management?

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Week 4 – The DAOfitlife meal and exercise plan
Persian food is on the menu this week. Saffron is a huge patt of Persian cuisine, which is a natural domaine reuptake inhibtor.

Week 4 – The DAOfitlife meal and exercise plan

On a weekly basis I update my meal and exercise plan google sheets so you can see real time what I eat, drink, and how I move. You can download…

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