Shirtless Chef – Pro tip for protein!

Local fitness enthusiast Jason Murphy remakes favorite meals of his youth into healthy dishes. See the full list of his recipes at www.mysaline.com/shirtless.

Pro Tip with Protein!

One of the biggest mistakes I see when people try to lose weight is the crash diet. When working to achieve and maintain a healthy weight and body composition, you need to think long term instead of fast and furious. The problem with a drastic calorie cut is two fold.

First, it’s completely unsustainable, and anyone that tries it ends up binge eating and being worse off than before the diet. Second, when restricting protein, of the percentage of weight you lose, about half could end up being muscle weight instead of body fat. That will leave you end up with the dreaded “skinny-fat” condition where you have no muscle tone and a floppy spare tire on the mid-section. Then there’s your well-being in general.

This type of diet will leave you feeling weak, hungry, and with an overwhelming feeling of the “do nothing blues”. Protein is key to maintaining a healthy body weight, whether you are a man, woman, or child. It gives you energy, it repairs muscle tissue, and it keeps binge cravings at bay. It also doesn’t have to mean eating some supplement bar full of sugar that tastes like chalk dropped in Nestle Quick powder, or choking down a giant steak every day.

On a hot summer day, you can make your protein light and refreshing, and even in dessert form. Give this a go and you will not be dissapointed. Protein in dessert form is the ultimate diet hack in my book, and it can be for you as well. I’d say you could have your cake and eat it too, but you will be too full and satisfied to want cake after this tasty treat.

Protein Lemon bars

Ingredients:

Crust

1 cup almond flour

1 tbsp coconut flour

1/2 stick grass fed butter cubed and chilled

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup Stevia in the raw

2 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

1/4 tsp sea salt

Filling

3 cups grass fed greek yogurt

2 pasture raised eggs room temp

1/2 lemon juice

Zest from one lemon

1/2 box grass fed cream cheese room temp

1/4 cup powdered monkfruit sweetener

1 batch stabilized whipped cream (see link below)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

Combine the crust ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the mix crumbles together and the butter is integrated into small bits.

Scoop out the dough and press into a disk. Place in a large zip lock bag and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Preheat the hotbox to 350 degrees. Line an 8×8 baking pan with parchment paper. Press the dough out evenly across the pan and bake for 15 to 17 minutes until golden brown and delicious:

Cool the crust completely. Beat the cream cheese until smooth, then add one egg at a time. Once both eggs are mixed in, add the rest of the filling ingredients and beat until smooth:

Pour the mix into the pan and bake at 325 degrees for 35 minutes or until the filling has set and the edges are starting to brown. Allow to cool completely before topping with stabilized whipped cream. The instructions for the whipped cream is on this link for my strawberry cake: https://www.mysaline.com/shirtless-chef-strawberry-cream-cake-part-deux/