Chocolate & Peanut Butter Protein Brownie

After a crazy response on Facebook and Twitter today here’s the simple recipe for making the Chocolate & Peanut Butter Protein Brownie I posted this morning. As always with my recipes, make sure you tailor the ingredients and amount depending on your own macronutrients and dietary goals.

Before I begin, big shout out to Chris Lavado who gave me the initial idea for the brownie!

Ingredients:

2-2.5 scoops of Whey Protein – I use Bodybuilding Warehouse Premium Whey (chocolate cookie flavour, all of their Premium range taste amazing!)

1 can of Diet Coke or 7-Up (just less than half a can)

1 Egg White (33g liquid egg white)

25g Almond Butter/Peanut Butter

Walden Farms Chocolate/Caramel Syrup (its fat free, sugar free, carb free and calorie free)

Step 1

Add the whey protein into a large bowl.

Add the egg white.

Add the diet coke (half a can to start off with)

Step 2

Mix with a fork and feel out the constancy, if its too think add more diet coke, but add a little at a time.

The diet coke is what gives it the fluffiness and more constancy than a standard protein sludge.

Step 3

Pop in the Microwave for 2 mins, after 2 mins it should be like a thick mousse.

I put it back in for a further 1.30min to thicken it out and make the edges harder but the middle still gooey.

Step 4

Add the Peanut/Almond Butter then the Waldens Farm chocolate syrup on top.

Step 5

Enjoy!!

Let me know what you think and what added ingredients you used. I’m thinking next time trying vanilla premium whey with cinnamon and Waldens Caramel sauce!

Lee

Protein Cookies

As you all know from my goals article and all my recent tweets I started my cutting diet 2^nd January for my first show in May. I’ll explain more about my diet, training and progress in a separate article, however to help with sweet cravings during the cut I’ve added Dan Wheelers protein cookies into my diet and they’re amazing!! Dan’s a really good mate and motivational source to keep pushing myself to the next level. Below is the recipe to Dan Protein Cookies, adapt them to fit your own diet and enjoy.

Ingredients:

40g Oats

50g Whey Protein (I’ve recently purchased Bodybuilding Warehouse

1 whole egg

66g egg whites (2 egg whites)

Tablespoon of cinnamon

10g-20g Nutella

50g Blueberries/Cherries

• Mix all the dry ingredients (oats, whey protein and cinnamon) together in a bowl.

• Add the whole egg and egg whites and mix together, depending on the consistency you might want to add a small amount of water.

• Pre heat the oven to 200° then add the blueberries/ cherries to the mix and give it a final stir.

• Spoon the mix onto a baking tray making either lots of small cookies or less thicker cookies.

• Cook in the oven for around 15 minutes and once they’re done add the Nutella to the flat side of the cookie and enjoy.

MACROS:

55g Carbs

64g Protein

18g Fat

All the ingredients above are devised to fit our current cutting diet and depending on your own diet adjust accordingly. Let us know what you think of the cookies and what ingredients you used (I’m thinking of adding peanut butter next time) by either commenting below or sending me and Dan a tweet (@Lee_Malone or @danwheeler). Also make sure you check out Dans site for more recipes, useful information and lots of motivation from Dans own transformation- http://www.danielwheeler.co.uk

Dan rocking his AestheticLifestyle vest #TeamAL

Core 150 Shaker

Following on from my previous article, Food Prep for the Week. Which covered the importance of being prepared to not only help stick to your diet but to also save time and space. I am pleased to announce that I have been fortunate to be supported by the Core 150 shaker, huge thanks to them for this and its nice to know my hard work in and out of the gym is paying off and being recognised.

Question: How many times have you heard supplement companies recommending you buy their pre workout supplement, intra supplement and post workout supplement?

Yet they sell a standard shaker with only one compartment to store and mix your supplements in, forcing you to either bring even more tupperware boxes with you containing the rest of your supplements or in my case having to bring 3 separate shakers to work with me, taking up a lot of space in my gym bag and also a lot of time of an evening washing each one.

This is where the Core 150 Shaker comes in perfectly; all internal compartments are removable making it easier to load your supplements and also to clean, each internal compartment holds 50g of powder (pre, intra & post workout) and the shaker itself holds 1 litre of water.

I have been using the shaker for just over a week now and it’s made my prep so much easier, I’m even more organised, I save time with not having to clean separate shakers and I have more space in my gym bag. I have tried other shakers in the past that do have screwed compartments below but I've found my supplements would get stuck between the screw thread, the compartments couldn't hold up to 50g and certainly couldn't hold 1 litre of water inside, leaving my shakes lumpy and too thick.

Overall the Core 150 Shaker is perfect and exactly what the fitness industry has been waiting for. One final point that makes the Core 150 Shaker stand out from the competition, it’s the first sports shaker in the world to fully endorse a charitable cause. Their aim is to provide a meal for 1 million undernourished kids over the next five years and your support in purchasing their shaker will be met with a donation to Mary's Meals supplying 1 meal to a needy child.

For more information and to buy your own Core 150 Shaker please visit their web site: http://www.core150.com/

Food prep for the week

As you know I was away on holiday last week to Egypt and tomorrow its back to work and the gym, so I spent about an hour today prepping all my food for the week. This is a question I have been asked a lot by students and people with busy lives/jobs "How do you prepare all your food?" or I hear "I don't have time to cook all these meals everyday". Well I was under the same impression when I first started training while I was at university and always slipped from my diet, currently I work as a Specialist Recruitment Consultant, Monday-Friday, 8.30am-5.00pm and I never slip from my diet.

Like the Benjamin Franklin quote, if you prepare all your food your less likely to skip a meal or stray from your diet. I took time whilst cooking all my food to take a few pics and show you how I make sure I stick to my diet and hit my daily macros.

The most important 2 things when it comes to your diet are a good set of scales and tupperwear, lots of tupperwear!

I actually got these Salter digital scales for christmas last year, I got asked if there was any little bits I wanted and I suggested a set of digital scales (I did get a funny look! ha) but I can honestly say I have used these every single day this year. One thing I've found with the tupperwear is not matter which cheap or expensive option you buy it will eventually leak-ALWAYS!!

Firstly I weight out all my Chicken, Turkey and Salmon into portions for the week.

Once each potion is weighted out I put them all on a baking tray and season with all purpose seasoning, chicken seasoning (no added salt) and cayenne pepper. I also add two mushrooms, one spring onion, a red pepper and cook for 30-40 minutes in the oven.

Once everything is cooked I take it out of the oven to cool down on a few plates.

When everything is cooled down I individually wrap each portion in kitchen foil and put in labelled freezer bags and freeze for the week. I'll take out my required portion each evening to defrost for the following day.

And thats it, simple! For that hour or so on a Sunday afternoon, it saves me cooking my food every evening taking up so much time, which I have tried in the past. 

So as you can see below is all my food ready for tomorrow-

Meal 1- Breakfast (not shown)

Meal 2- Protein shake and almond nuts

Meal 3- Sweet potato, turkey and broccoli

Meal 4- Brown rice and Chicken (Pre Workout)

Meal 5- Protein Shake (Post Workout)

2 litre bottle of water (I refill once I've drank its all)

3 Bag of Green Tea

Meal 6- Cottage Cheese (not shown)

Everything you see above is added into my gym bag along with my gym trainers, Under Armour shorts, Optimum Nutrition tee, gym gloves and iPod.

For anyone who doesn't have a big gym bag there is also the very useful 6 Pack Bag which I really want if anyone fancies treating me! 

It's a PERFECT way of managing your meals and highly recommended by so many different athletes. Awesome idea and I hope to pick one up some day.

I hope this article helps and makes achieving your goals and sticking to your diet much easier.

Low Carb – High Protein Pizza Recipe

Now I know everyone has their favorite cheat meal and for me its pizza, I've loved it since I can remember. As you know I love coming up with healthier versions of all kinds of foods and this is my low carb-high protein pizza recipe. Like all my recipes you can adjust the ingredients and amounts to fit your own daily macros and personal taste.

Ingredients:

1 large wholemeal tortilla wrap/ 2 small wholemeal tortilla wraps

2 tbs Tomato Purée

low fat cheese

low fat mozzarella

Handful of Spinach

3 Mushrooms

Half green pepper

1 green chillie

180g chicken breast

Basil

Garlic Salt

Paprika

Firstly weight out your chicken breast, season then cook in the oven as you normally would for 40 minutes.

Step 1: take a wholemeal tortilla wrap (1 large or 2 small) and add 2 tbs of tomato purée/paste (I added some Peri Peri sauce too).

Step 2: Add some low fat cheese and veg of your choice (I added spinach, chillies, mushrooms and green pepper).

Step 3: Add 180g of cooked chicken and top with low fat/fat free mozzarella then sprinkle of herbs/spices of your choice (I added basil, garlic salt and paprika).

Step 4: Cook under the grill until the cheese has melted and the base has gone crispy (5-7 minutes).

Below is another low carb pizza I made on a large wholemeal tortilla wrap using sweetcorn and yellow peppers as well.

Step 5: ENJOY!!

Let me know what you think of the pizza and what toppings you used by either commenting below or tweeting me @AestheticLifest

Bed time snack – Protein Ice Cream

This simple recipe makes an amazing snack perfect before bed as it contain slow releasing protein (cottage cheese), easy absorbent protein (whey protein) and healthy fats (almonds and peanut butter). Just like my Protein Pancake recipe all ingredients can be adjusted or taken out providing it fits within your daily macronutrients. For example I’m currently eating and training for lean mass, but for someone that’s dieting to lose body fat they’d probably want to take out or lower the amount of the almonds or peanut butter within the recipe.

Prep time- 10 minutes

Setting time- 30-60 minutes

Ingredients 

10g-12g Almonds

200g Natural Cottage Cheese

1 tbsp Peanut Butter

80ml Almond milk

1 tbsp Cinnamon

1 scoop Whey Protein

1 tbsp Hershey’s Unsweetened Cocoa

First thing to do is blend up the almonds, I personally don’t like to blend them too finely as I prefer them still chunky. Then add 200g of low fat/no fat cottage cheese, peanut butter, whey protein, Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa, cinnamon and almond milk.

Blend until everything is mixed and you’re left with a nice think consistency (you may need to give it a few blends then scrape any peanut butter or whey protein off the sides-make sure the power to the blender is SWITCHED OFF before you stick a spoon in it). Next just simply pour into a bowl, cover with kitchen foil and put it in the freezer for 30-60 minutes (30mins for protein mousse or 60mins for protein ice cream).

Let me know what you think of the recipe by either commenting below or tweeting me on our new Aesthetic Lifestyle account.

Enjoy.

Perfect Protein Pancakes

There are a lot of different recipes out there for protein pancakes, I’ve tried so many of them and having combined a few I personally think these are by far the best and everyone I've gave the recipe to agrees! 

Ingredients-

40g-60g oats

5/6 egg whites

12g Almond nuts

2g splenda/sweetener

2ml vanilla flavouring

5 g Cocoa (I used Hersey’s unsweetened cocoa)

20g Protein Powder (I used Choc Cookie flavour from Bodybuilding warehouse)

50 frozen berries (I used 50g blueberries)

Low cal spray oil/Coconut Oil

*Amounts and some ingredients can be changed to fit your own dietary macros or simply to your own personal taste. (Serves 5-7 pancakes)

Firstly make sure you weight everything out, if you haven't got a decent set of scales now is the time to get some, especially if you want to take your nutrition and diet seriously. Add 150ml of water to the oats in a bowl and cook in the microwave until all the water is absorbed. 

While the oats are cooking blend the almonds then add the oats, egg whites, flavouring, berries, whey protein, sweetener and cocoa then add all to the mix.

Blend until everything is mixed up, you should be left with quite a thick milkshake like consistency.

Spray a frying pan with the low cal spray, once the pan is very hot pour your desired amount into the pan and spread by tilting the pan around. Flip the pancake or turn over with a spatula is you don’t have the skills!

Repeat until all the mix is gone and add whatever topping/sauce you want providing its within your diet. (Here’s some suggestions- sliced banana, berries/blueberries, natural honey, peanut butter (no additives) , 90% cocoa dark chocolate Lindt square or ANY Walden Farms sauces as they’re calorie free, sugar free, carb fee and fat free and come in so many different flavours like chocolate, pancake syrup, blueberry and more) 

Here's my finished pancakes, I topped them with natural peanut butter and also broke up 1 square of Lindt 90% cocoa which as you can see melted perfectly and tasted great!

I've been dying to have these for breakfast all week but I'm holding out until Friday for my Birthday Breakfast!

Let me know what you think of the recipe and what toppings you tried out by either commenting below or tweeting me pics @lee_malone

Enjoy

1 week of fluid manipulation complete

So after six days of trying out the fluid manipulation technique my holiday is finally here.

I'm just about to board my plane so I'll make it short and sweet, overall I feel a little weaker but have never looked better! As you know I really struggled on my second no carb day but loves my two high carb days that followed having gone through 36 whole grain rice cakes.

I've attached a picture of my breakfast this morning-200g of fillet steak and 50g of broccoli. I've also attached a a picture of how I looked last night after 7 meals, 1.5 litres of water and 300ml of red wine (all consumed before 7.00pm).

Fluid Manipulation Update

Since my previous post on Tuesday I've gone through 2 no carb days and 17 litres of water!

The first day (Tuesday) was fine, I had a good day in work then went to the gym for a hyper trophy shoulders session and my energy levels were fine. However the second day of no carbs (Wednesday) wasn't the best, from my research I found a lot of people were quite moody by the second day but for me personally I just felt really drained, I couldn't focus and my muscles felt quite flat.

However today is the start of my carb loading phase and 2.5 litres of water and I LOVE IT!!! For my breakfast I had 2 scoops of protein mixed with oats and my vitamins.

My second meal:

6 whole grain rice cakes, 2 tablespoons of natural honey, a tablespoon of nutella, a tablespoon of whole earth peanut butter (no added sugar or sweeteners) and another 2 scoops of protein mixed with water. 

I'm feeling so much better and my energy levels are right back up, I've got 4 more meals to go today and I think I'll head to the gym after work for my final session of the week-hyper trophy chest and light abs.

And finally I just want to say thank you to Physique of the Week who sent me over some Optimum Nutrition Amino Chewables for winning their twitter competition. Have a look at their web site as they're the biggest and best online weekly fitness competition, I think I'll be entering when I get back from Ibiza so I'll need your votes!

Fluid Manipulation Experiment

So my plan was to maintain my current cutting diet for 2 more weeks in the run up to my holiday to Ibiza on 29^th June, however I’ve decided to give the fluid manipulation technique a try this final week.

If you’re not familiar with this technique let me explain, the goal is to manipulate your fluid intake throughout the week to achieve a leaner and ‘dryer’ look, be it for a bodybuilding competition, photo shoot or to simply look your best on the beach. This is very common amongst bodybuilders and fitness models where they manipulate their water and carb intake, to get rid of "water weight".

This technique isn’t just used within the fitness industry, actors often use this technique before a topless scene or photo shoot in order to look their leanest. Obviously I don’t know for sure but I can imagine Brad Pitt did something like this for his role in Fight Club.

The three main principles I’m going to be manipulating to cause my body to dump water fast are:

·         Water Intake: A common mistake I found when researching this is people thinking you can get the ‘dry’ look by not drinking any water/fluids, wrong! Firstly I’m going to put my body into flushing mode by consuming 8 litres of water on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Then suddenly drop my water intake down to 2/2.5 litres on Thursday and drop down again to 1.5 litres on Friday.

·         Carbohydrates: Low carb and high protein diets are another way to help put your body into flushing mode, so I’ll be dropping my carbs to around 120g on Sunday and Monday followed by 2 no carb days (Tuesday and Wednesday), followed by 2 high carb days (Thursday and Friday). Some people have one high carb day, others have two, I'm going to give two a try and see how I get on.

·         Training: I’m not going to any muscle in 6 days, my goal instead this week is high reps on all muscle groups (10-12 reps) in order to get myself glycogen depleted. If all goes to plan by the end of the week my muscles should soak up the carbs (Thursday and Friday) and inflate the muscles dramatically.

Again from my research in to this I’ve found a number of different example programs and more importantly that it takes most people a few attempts to perfect the fluid manipulation technique solely depending on how their bodies react, which is the main reason I thought I’d give it a try and see what works best for me.

Ideally I wanted to have this article up on Monday but with work and the gym I was too busy so wrote it all up today and here is a photo of my diet for the day (zero carbs).

If all goes to plan I’ll post a few progress pics up on Friday along with my current stats.

To keep track of how I’m finding it and my workouts follow me on Twitter: lee_malone