Calorie Equation

If you want to know how to calculate your calorie intake, here’s a formula from Men’s Health nutrition expert, Alan Aragon.

Alan Aragon’s goal calorie calculator:

You’ll need:

a) Your goal weight in pounds
b) The number of hours you workout per week

For example, I want to be 120 pounds and I workout 3 hours per week…

Daily Calories = Goal weight x (workout hours per week + 9.5)

Thererfore…

Daily Calories = 120 x (3 + 9.5) = 1500 cal.

Protein = goal weight
Fat = half goal weight
Carbs = [Daily calories – (protein calories + fat calories)]/4

Therefore…

Protein = 120g
Fat = 60g
Carbs = 120g

According to Alan, it doesn’t matter if you eat 6 or 3 meals per day, so don’t get too worried about frequency, just focus on the calorie calculator numbers.

A Yummy Moroccan Veggie Dish

Valerie Waters (the Hollywood’s Hot Trainer, also the creator of the Valslide) introducted Chef Gavan Murphy (The Healthy Irishman) on her blog yesterday, and Chef Gavan shared a great recipe with us...

I really like this veggie dish, it's yummy, it's healthy, and so easy to make! You can add this dish to your "eat clean" diet.

Here’s the Recipe:

Serves 8

• 2 cups butternut squash – peeled, seeded & diced into 1" cubes
• 3 cups Japanese eggplant, sliced diagonally into 1" pieces
• 2 cups red onion – diced into 1" pieces
• 3 garlic cloves – minced
• 2 tbsp. fresh ginger – grated
• 2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 2 cups fresh cauliflower florets
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• S&P to taste

• .3 cups vegetable broth
• 1 stick cinnamon or 1-2 tsp.
• 2 tbsp. agave / honey
• 2 tbsp. lemon juice
• 1 tbsp. lemon zest
• 2 tbsp. fresh chopped cilantro
• 1 tbsp. chopped mint for garnish

Directions:

Combine the squash, eggplant, onion, cauliflower, peas, garlic, ginger, cumin, chili powder, S&P and olive oil in a large mixing bowl and toss together. Mix well.
Pre-heat a large saute pan. In 3 batches, saute the veg mix until lightly browned, approx 3-4 mins. per batch. Remove each sauteed batch to another mixing bowl and repeat browning process until completed. When all the veg have been browned return the entire batch back to saute pan. Add broth, cinnamon (stick or powdered), agave, lemon juice and zest and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 20 mins. stirring occasionally. Taste and season with S&P. Just before serving remove cinnamon stick and stir in cilantro.

Cranberry Orange Relish

Cranberries are quite bitter so the majority of recipes use sugar when making. It’s usually 1:1 water:sugar. I try to avoid sugar as much as possible as there are so many great alternatives. I prefer to use agave nectar which although is a real sugar and has similar properties to many sugars its glycemic index is much lower which makes it less likely to raise blood sugar levels. Agave is 40% sweeter than sugar so you also use less. Check out www.allaboutagave.com for more info.

• 1 12 oz. bag cranberries
• 2/3 cup water
• 2/3 cup agave or honey
• 1 tbsp. fresh ginger-chopped
• 1 med. orange-zested

Place all above into sauce pan and bring to a boil. Once the cranberries start popping reduce the heat and stir until blended, 10 mins. approx. Taste for sweetness (add more agave if needed) and refrigerate. This can be made a day or so in advance.

Yields 3 cups.