How much protein do we need?

Check out:

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/greenpicks/312/how-much-protein-do-you-really-need.html

Simple vegetarian lunch

Tired of eating out, I made myself a very simple, complete and healthy vegetarian meal lunch on my off day today – Fong’s pasta.

These were the things I added to my spaghetti:

2 tablespoons of light olive oil (not sure if I chose the right olive oil but seems to taste ok, haha!)

A pinch of salt

Rosemary herb

Basil herb

Sliced black olives (ready to consume from bottle)

Chopped up Italian sun dried tomatoes

Blanched organic sawi (mustard leaves) - blanch with the boiling water before boiling the spaghetti.

Although it looked simple, I thoroughly enjoyed the flavour from the black olives, sun dried tomatoes and organic sawi. Whenever I buy sawi, it has to be organic because the ordinary sawi can be bitter while the organic ones has a sweetish taste, crunchy and easily eaten raw. Yes, I sometimes get slightly bitter organic sawi and wonder whether it is actually organic. I prefer to get it from a trusted organic shop but it’s such a hassle to travel to the nearest one, so I usually buy them in a hypermarket nearby.

Since I am not getting protein from meat, I have the spaghetti meal with my favourite soy based shake. I decide to blend the cappuccino flavoured shake with celery since celery is known to lower cholesterol and has a bitter taste that may go with coffee flavour. I also add a small green apple. I thought I will pengsan (faint) drinking it since the combination sounds repulsive, but it turns out to be all right. The flavour is not repulsive but not spectacular either, but it is decent, so anyone can try it. I prefer the Cappuccino shake blended with celery on its own or Cappuccino shake with a green apple on its own.

Here is the recipe I use for my shake meal:

Blend celery or green apple with some ice water 

Add ice water up to about 400ml in measurement

Add 2 heaping scoops of Herbalife F1 Cappuccino (It is rich in protein and has lots of nutrients)

Blend again and serve.

The shake helps me to cut down on nonsensical food outside which more often than not, hurt my joints. So for someone with a medical condition like mine, I am discovering that kosher food, organically produced food and eating food according to one’s blood type is helpful for everyone. I wish that the nation’s policy can encourage such a policy on food since Malaysians eat out a lot. This will help a long way in encouraging a healthier, and not more obese, nation. It’s very difficult for me to adhere to these guidelines but it’s always good to seek out these foods as much as we can.

Maximise Your Metabolism

By Luigi Gratton, M.D., M.P.H.


Exercise training helps you burn more calories both during the day and at night.

Total Caloric Expenditure is simply the total amount of calories that your body burns in one day. The vast majority of calories expended are used for the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) or the "Resting Metabolism." This BMR accounts for over 70% of an individual's total calories used in one day. These are the calories your body uses to keep your engine running.

Your body is like your car. Think of turning your car engine on in the morning and just letting it run in the driveway. The car sitting in the driveway burning fuel is like your BMR. The bigger the car engine, the more fuel it uses. So a big truck burns lots of fuel and gets maybe eight miles to the gallon while an economy car uses little fuel and gets 40 miles to the gallon. If you pushed down on the gas pedal and revved the engine, you would be burning more fuel, which is basically what you do when you exercise.

The amount of muscle you have determines how many calories you burn everyday in a resting state. Each pound of muscle burns approximately 14 calories per day, so a big football player may burn over 3,000 calories/day at rest (BMR=3000). Meanwhile a tall and thin ballerina may burn only 1,200 calories/day at rest (BMR=1200).
When you exercise, you build more muscle mass and increase the size of your engine, which is a good thing. That means that even while you sleep you will be burning more calories because you have increased your BMR.
Imagine taking a small economy car and putting in a bigger engine that requires more fuel. That is the basic idea behind exercise training, fine-tuning your body's engine into a high-performance machine.
Herbalife® Inner Nutrition products help provide you with the best fuel for your high-performance engine. With a variety of delicious shakes, bars, soups and soy nuts, Herbalife offers a wide selection of fuel for your body. This healthy fuel will help keep your engine fine-tuned for maximum caloric expenditure–even while you sleep.

Tips for burning more calories:

Exercise to increase muscle mass.

Fuel up with Herbalife® nutrition products.

Rev up your workout routine to burn more calories.


Dr. Gratton also serves as Vice President of Medical Affairs and Education at Herbalife.

http://health.herbalife.com/health-articles/energy-and-fitness/maximize-metabolism