Avocado.  It’s the incredible, edible…fruit?  Yes, despite its creamy and somewhat savory flavor, avocado is actually a fruit.  And a darn good one too. Its chock full of healthy fats, fiber, potassium, and vitamin E.  It’s also incredible versatile. You’re probably very familiar with adding some avocado slices to your salad to beef it up a bit, or making some homemade guacamole to go with your free-range chicken and vegetables, but have you [...]

With the season’s change, I’ve started to play around with new and inspired recipes. One dish in particular that I’ve recently had fun experimenting with are stir fry recipes. To me, a stir fry is a fun and relatively easy way to cook up various fresh vegetables, protein and can even include a twist of fruit. The following is a concoction I recently created… Note: while I’ve had several years of prepping healthy food / [...]

I don’t want to brag or anything, but as of late, I have become something of a protein shake genius. I’ve been creating all sorts of interesting concoctions and today, in an effort to help you step up your shake game, I’m going to share two of my favorites with you. Protein shakes, in general, are a fantastic post workout meal, because you will absorb all of the nutrients rather quickly. After a grueling, intense [...]

It’s the weekend y’all!  And if you’re like me, you have lots of leftovers taking up space in your fridge, and you need to clean your fridge out before you do your Saturday shopping!  Well you’re in luck because I have the perfect recipe to use up all of your leftovers and keep your taste buds happy at the same time!     As the name suggests, this frittata could contain just about anything from [...]

You know what I crave a lot? Muthaeffin’ Chinese food. I remember the days of ignorant bliss when I thought I was being “healthy” by ordering steamed rice and kung pao chicken. During my early years as a trainer, I worked full time at Bally Total Fitness (don’t laugh) and was enrolled in 4 college courses at any given time; It’s funny that at the time I thought I was soooo busy. And what does [...]

  Shakes - Chances are, if you play a sport, train or aim to shift your body composition one way or the other, you’ve had your fair share of shakes and probably have one association or another with them. Some shakes are more like smoothies or milkshakes (Caution! and more than likely reflect the sugar content and calories of a Dairy Queen milkshake), some shakes have a gross consistency (where the powder doesn’t quite mix) and [...]

Someone recently asked me “what the heck do you do with coconut butter?”. My answer, of course, is that I eat it with a spoon. Alas, I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to do, so instead I shared one of my favorite coconut butter recipes. Hopefully by now you have been absolved of the nonsense brainwashing that fat makes you fat. I touched on this a little in last week’s recipe. Fat is fabulous [...]

My love of avocados runs deep. It is an infinite love, and one that has changed my life immeasurably for the better. I remember our neighbors’ avocado tree growing up-how it would bear massive amounts of fruit and we’d come home with bags full for our culinary pleasure. The Californian in me demands that avocados are a staple in my diet, and the health benefits I have reaped from this are numerous. They are rich [...]

Happy Holidays everyone! Can you believe that we are more than halfway through the month of December?  We really hope that you guys have been on track with your nutrition, so that you can indulge and enjoy yourselves at least a few times this month.  After all, the holidays are way more fun when you can enjoy some yummy food as well as the other festivities the holidays have to offer!  Speaking of yummy food [...]

  Growing up Middle Eastern was…different. I went to a small private school where my sister and I were the only Iranian kids and the bullying over all things–from race to my frizzy-haired, bushy-browed appearance–was a daily struggle. But no matter what, I always felt this sense of pride in being Persian; I loved my culture and the deep roots of my heritage. Since my parents are immigrants, I spent a great deal of my [...]