Fall is upon us, which means that the new TV season has begun, baseball is heading into the postseason, and football is starting up. The weather’s getting cooler and the couch will soon call for you to lay down in it with a warm blanket. Now keep in mind, we’re not encouraging any couch potato behavior. We’d prefer that you pop in a 10-Minute Trainer® video and use the couch as a towel rack. But we’re all human, and it’s almost impossible to resist the siren song of a playoff game or the return of Dancing with the Stars or Grey’s Anatomy. Just because you’re taking a couple of hours off to flatten your gluteal muscles and sofa cushions doesn’t mean you have to stuff yourself with chips and cookies or other bagged diet killers. Here are 10 tasty and healthy snacks that are great for TV downtime.

1. Popcorn. It’s not just for the movie theater anymore. In fact, you’re better off skipping it at the movie theater. A bucket of oil-popped movie theater popcorn can contain as much fat as three to five double cheeseburgers. But air-popped popcorn is a pretty benign treat. Three cups of popcorn have just 93 calories and 1.5 grams of fat. Air-popped popcorn doesn’t have much nutritive value outside of the energy you may get from the calories and some dietary fiber, but it can satisfy your munchies without getting you too far off the diet path. The best popcorn comes from your own hot-air popper—offering no additional fat or salt, unless you add it later. If you’re going for microwave convenience, make sure you read the label carefully. Even some of the “healthy” brands contain a fair amount of fat and salt. And many microwave brands contain perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which has been linked to cancer. You might be better off making your own microwave popcorn. Just put a 1/4 cup of popcorn into a brown lunch bag, fold the top over tightly, and microwave at your usual popcorn setting. Try to avoid salt and butter. Instead, enjoy your favorite herbs, or a squeeze of lemon juice with some garlic powder or cayenne pepper.
2. Bean dip. Beans are a great source of protein and fiber and don’t have tons of calories. One cup of canned pintos only has 206 calories; it also has 12 grams of protein and 11 grams of fiber—almost half of your recommended daily allowance. And beans are incredibly filling. Even prepackaged bean dips are pretty decent (of course, always check the label for the fat and sodium contents). You can make your own dips, hot or cold, by food-processing canned black or pinto beans (my favorites are the ones canned with jalapeños). Add water to create your desired consistency, or you can also use fat-free refried beans. You could add some chopped bell or jalapeño peppers, green onions, or canned corn to add a crunchy texture or some chopped tomatoes for a little extra flavor and vitamins. Instead of fatty tortilla chips, use baked chips or, better yet, some raw, crunchy veggies, like carrots, celery, sliced bell peppers, broccoli, or cauliflower.
3. Salsa. And the great thing is that salsa is so low in calories and so high in fiber, you can basically eat it by the cupful and not gain weight. If you buy it at the store though, watch out for the salt content—that’s the secret ingredient in most canned and jarred salsas. You’re much better off making your own pico de gallo. Just dice tomatoes and onions and mix with as much minced jalapeño and/or garlic as you can stand. Add fresh cilantro, salt, and pepper to taste and toss the veggies in the juice of two limes. Let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before serving. You can eat it with baked chips or the crunchy veggies that also go great with the bean dip. The salsa and the bean dip also complement each other well, for the double dippers among us.
4. Crispbread crackers. These crunchy treats (including Wasa and Rykrisp brands) have around 30 calories a cracker (depending on the brand, flavor, and style) and a couple of grams of fiber in each one. For the Top Chef in you, they make great bases for some healthy ingredients from your refrigerator. Try a dollop of fat-free cottage cheese with a dash of hot sauce; a slice of turkey breast and roasted red pepper; a “schmear” of hummus and a couple of pitted olives; or a slice of tomato and a fresh basil leaf with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Even the pico de gallo recipe above with some shredded nonfat cheddar will make a tasty treat. By being creative with some wholesome ingredients, you’ll forget all about the halcyon days of eating Ritz crackers washed down with aerosol cheese right from the can (sigh)..
5. Pistachios. Pistachios are a great heart-healthy snack full of antioxidants, fiber, and unsaturated fats (the good kind). A 1/2-cup serving (with the shells, assuming you don’t eat them) only has 170 calories, with 6 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber; however, that serving also has 14 grams of fat, so don’t go nuts chowing down on a whole bag. Walnuts, peanuts, cashews, almonds, pecans, and other nuts all have their nutritional upsides, too, but the reason I think pistachios make great snacks are the shells. The shells are difficult to open, so rather than shoveling handfuls of pre-shelled nuts down your throat, eat shelled pistachios so that you’re forced to slow down. Keep an eye on the sodium content when you buy the nuts. Either buy unsalted or low-salt versions. And forget those disgusting pink ones that taste like lipstick. Who needs to leave hot-pink fingerprints all over the couch? A lot of stores also sell flavored versions that aren’t too salty. Chili-lime is one of my favorite flavors.
6. Edamame. The Japanese have one of the healthiest diets in the world and soybeans are a great staple of that diet. Edamame, the steamed or boiled soybean pods, contain all the essential amino acids, many essential fatty acids, and soy isoflavones. And a 1/2 cup of beans only contains 100 calories, 3 grams of fat, and 9 grams of carbs, with 8 grams of protein and 4 grams of fiber. Truly one of nature’s perfect foods. And like pistachios, you can serve them in their shells, which slows down your face stuffing, giving you time to feel full before you’ve overeaten.
7. Mini-pizzas. Forget the frozen food section. Anyone with a toaster oven or a broiler pan can be his or her own Mama Celeste or Chef Boy-ar-dee. Just take half of a whole wheat English muffin (67 calories; 2 grams of fiber), add a little tomato sauce or low-sodium pizza or spaghetti sauce and a sprinkle of low-fat or nonfat mozzarella cheese, and voilà—tasty and healthy pizza! As with the crispbread crackers, your imagination’s the only limit for toppings. Fresh herbs like basil and oregano are delicious. Peppers, mushrooms, and anchovies are popular and fairly healthy. Just stay away from processed meats like pepperoni, which are often loaded with saturated fat, carcinogenic nitrates, and sodium.
8. Pita chips and hummus. Now you can open a Greek taverna in your living room. While some stores sell pita chips now, you can easily make your own with very little fuss and muss (and usually with much less fat and salt). A large whole wheat pita has 170 calories, 5 grams of fiber, and less than 2 grams of fat. To make chips, cut around the edge of the pita with a small paring knife, so you have two discs. Then with a knife or pizza cutter, cut the discs into eighths or smaller chip-size pieces. Arrange the pieces on an aluminum-foil-covered cookie sheet, lightly spray with some olive oil cooking spray, and sprinkle with a little salt or low-fat Parmesan cheese or your favorite dried herbs. Cook in the oven or toaster oven until lightly browned and crispy and serve with your favorite hummus or dip recipe.
9. Relish tray. Some of my favorite snacks are pickled or brined anything—cucumbers, cauliflower, peppers, artichoke hearts, carrots, okra, baby corn, cornichons, cocktail onions, olives, sauerkraut, kimchi . . . even herring and hard-boiled eggs! Extremely low in calories, a plate full of pickled veggies on the coffee table is great for snacking. But watch out for the sodium! Certain store brands have more than others. The more ambitious might try marinating their fresh veggies in vinegar and a little heart-healthy olive oil, to control the amount of salt involved. If you use salty brands, you might consider rinsing them to get rid of some of the salt or mixing them on a plate with some fresh, unpickled vegetables to mitigate the salt intake.
10. Deviled eggs. Eggs, having once been considered a scourge of the heart-healthy diet, are now getting a better rap (read “The Good, the Bad, and the Eggly” for more on the ins and outs of eggs—see Related Articles below). What’s indisputable is the health value of the whites. If you take the yolks out of the equation, the egg whites can prove to be small, healthy, high-protein delivery systems suitable for all kinds of nutritious creamy fillings. Cut a bunch of hard-boiled eggs in half, lengthwise, and scoop out and discard the yolks. Try mixing some nonfat cottage cheese with your favorite mix of mustard, curry powder, garlic, paprika, pepper, salt, or other spices and blending or food-processing until creamy. Spoon or pipe the mixture into the egg whites where the yolks used to be and you’ll have a high-protein snack without the fat and cholesterol. You can also use the empty egg whites as scoops for your favorite healthy dip or salsa.

Of course, you can enjoy even more snack food if you can work some exercise into your TV watching. During playoff season, don’t just save the stretching for the seventh inning. Try some exercises like Debbie Siebers’ Slim in 6® Slim and Limber throughout the game. Or if you’re settling in for a night in front of the tube, make a deal with yourself—you can veg out and watch The Office and 30 Rock if you turn off ER (come on, you can catch the entire series on DVD soon enough) and do Shaun T’s Hip Hop Abs® Fat Burning Cardio instead. If you watch a show like Heroes that motivates you to kick some butt, schedule some Turbo Jam® time immediately after the show while your adrenaline’s still pumping. Or if, like me, you’ve become enslaved to your DVR or TiVo, use it to your advantage and do a cooldown stretch to your favorite show as a reward for a well-done workout.

When it comes to reshaping your body, nothing is quite as effective as lifting weights. Cardio is great for your heart, Pilates will help you get stronger, and yoga will balance you out; but nothing compares with a well-designed resistance program for getting lean.

This is in contrast to our weight lifting cultural icons. Arnold, Hulk Hogan, and the WWE are who and what we tend to associate with pumping iron. It may be more accurate, however, to associate those massive bodies with anabolic steroids and turn our attention to the real cultural icon for weight training: Jack LaLanne. The guy who practically invented “lifting” as we now know it is well into his 90s and can still ace the fitness standard designed for a 30-year-old. Once considered a bodybuilder, his legacy has far more to do with his fitness exploits than his brawn. His feats include things like swimming with his hands and feet shackled and towing 70 people in 70 boats across Long Beach Harbor on his 70th birthday. The key to Jack’s success over all these years has been lifting weights.

In his intro to P90X’s Chest, Shoulders & Triceps workout, Tony Horton tells us, “It’s just good old-fashioned weight training that’s gotten lost in a lot of fancy gidgits and gadgets and things that don’t work.” But weight lifting is making a comeback.

In a couple of months, Turbo Jam creator Chalene Johnson will unveil her new program focusing on weight training as the path to a lean and healthy body, called ChaLEAN Extreme. As scientists look for the latest way to halt a growing obesity epidemic, the research still leads them back to the same simple fact: resistance stimulates the muscles to work, which causes an effect throughout the body that keeps it strong, healthy, and lean. Let’s take a brief look at why.

The basics of body composition.

The science of how our bodies work is complex. However, the basics of body composition, and why we get obese and out of shape, are very simple. Due to the former, we can see how it’s possible to believe that one magic nutrient, drug, or movement might transform us from fat to fit. But once we understand the latter, we see how this is highly unlikely, if not impossible.

A simple overview of body composition looks like this. At the base is a skeleton that is held together with connective tissues. This encases most of your organs and circulatory system. Muscles surround the structure and enable it to move. Body fat protects the organs and joints. It’s all covered by your largest organ, your skin. We’re leaving out some obvious functionality but this is basically what makes up your body composition, which determines your shape.

While there are different body types, all of them look good when all of the above are in the correct proportion. We look worse when our body fat percentages exceed their intended uses. Excess body fat inhibits the body’s natural ability to function, and, hence, leads to myriad health problems. To correct this, we need to reduce the amount of body fat in our bodies. There are many ways to make this happen. Eating less, eating better, and exercising moves the process in the right direction. But the easiest way to do this is to add muscle. And the best way to add muscle is to exercise using resistance.

Weight training basics.

Most weight training is what we call anaerobic. This means, simply, that the intensity it takes to do it exceeds your body’s aerobic (oxygen-carrying) capability. Anaerobic training relies on something called the Krebs cycle, which is a process in each cell that puts the body under stress. This stress forces your body to adapt and works nearly every human function we associate with fitness, including your body’s aerobic system. So, oddly enough, a well-crafted anaerobic workout program is all the work you need to have a perfectly healthy aerobic system. This is because recovering from anaerobic work requires your aerobic system to work. If you can understand this concept, it will be easy to understand why weight training is so vital.

The fat-burning misnomer.

Many less intense programs, like aerobics and most “cardio” programs, focus on training in what some people call the “fat burning zone.” This term is misleading because what it really means is utilizing fat for fuel—not burning body fat. Well—wait—it does actually mean that. The process is a little complicated, but I’ll simplify it.

At low-level outputs, your body burns its stored fat as fuel. At higher outputs, it burns sugars that have been stored in your blood and liver, called blood glycogen. It’s important to do both, but targeting fat mobilization as your primary fuel source in your workout makes little sense, unless you’re training for endurance sports.

Your body has a limited store of glycogen—about enough for an hour or so of hard work. It attempts to save this for intense exercise (and brain function) and tries to do low-level tasks by burning body fat. Training at low intensity has a benefit, but it’s only a fraction of what high intensity can accomplish in the same amount of time. And even though you are burning stored fat instead of glycogen, you aren’t stimulating your muscles in the same way. This lack of stimulation means that you aren’t creating the same level of hormone release, organ function, or muscle growth. The result is that you get far less fitness improvement in a given amount of time.

The metabolic process.

This is, at its most basic, the speed at which your body engine runs while resting. The more fit you are, the higher your metabolic rate is likely to be. Excess muscle on your body takes more energy just to keep it there. Body fat doesn’t have the same requirements. In fact, it sort of does the opposite, by gumming up the works and inhibiting the metabolic process. Remember that muscle is there so that the body can move and do stuff. Fat is there to protect the body, especially the organs. It is similar to having a spare tire sitting inside of you. It adds weight and slows you down but does nothing helpful for your metabolism. This means that the most effective way to burn body fat is to add muscle to your frame because it burns fat around the clock. That is precisely what Chalene Johnson’s new program, ChaLEAN Extreme will do—and you’ll be hearing a lot more about “muscle burns fat” in the coming weeks.

Why your scale is lying to you.

Using the above body-composition basics, it’s pretty easy to understand why losing weight should not be your ultimate goal. Instead, you should focus on losing body fat, which means that you’ll get smaller at the same weight. By volume, muscle weighs far more than body fat. So much so that by adding muscle you can actually gain weight as you shrink. This isn’t true for most people, but many “skinny fat” people find that all of their health indicators improve as they gain weight.

This is especially important to consider if you’re highly de-conditioned, because not only do you have more fat on your body than you should, you probably have less muscle. As this ratio comes into balance, the scale may not be dropping, but your body can be making substantial changes. Furthermore, weight training can change your bone density. This does not increase the size of your bones but increases their weight and strength. For this fact alone, it’s recommended that everyone add some resistance training into their lifestyle as they age.

What to do if you want lean muscles instead of bulky muscles.

The bad news is that there is no such thing as a lean muscle. The good news is that there is really no such thing as a bulky muscle. We use these terms to describe a body type, not a muscle. Lean muscle is also a term that means, well, muscle. All muscle is lean. Body fat is not lean. So the only non-lean muscle is one that has excess fat around it.

You can’t really change a muscle’s shape. It either grows, called hypertrophy, or shrinks, called atrophy. Weight training programs target muscle growth. All muscles are lean and shapely. To look lean and shapely, you want to build your muscles so that your metabolism increases and your body-fat percentage decreases.

“Bulky” (in quotes, because it’s a matter of opinion) is a term used for muscles that are larger than normal. These are much harder to get than most of us, especially women, tend to believe. Bodybuilders certainly wish it were a lot easier. But adding excessive muscle takes an almost obsessive amount of work. Due to gravity, our bodies don’t like to weigh too much and resist adding muscle. It’s easier to add excess fat because not much can be done about overeating. Adding bulk is so difficult that steroids have become a huge societal problem.

It’s also easy to control whether or not you become “bulky” through the number of repetitions (or time spent) doing resistance work. Sets that are longer than 12 or so repetitions (or about 30 seconds) self-limit the muscle’s ability to grow. Therefore, those looking for a “lean” look should target higher reps once they’ve decided that their muscles are large enough.

And the added benefit of antiaging.

Finally, nothing helps you age more gracefully than weight training. There are other ways to stay lean, but using resistance training creates hormonal releases that offset the aging process better than anything else. Furthermore, you lose muscle as you age—about 1 percent or so per year beyond the age of 30. Antiaging medicine is often prescribed in the form of injections of the very same hormones that are released when you do intense resistance workouts. Weight training is a cheaper, and arguably more effective, alternative to spending a lot of money on doctors. Just ask Jack LaLanne.

by Steve Edwards

The newest Beachbody workout ChaLEAN Extreme, is just what you need to get fit in 2009.

Just turn on the television, read a fitness magazine, or search the internet, and you will see that there are numerous ways to get fit and lose weight. All of these programs and routines help you to lose those extra pounds, develop a lean sexy body, and maintain good health. Best of all, these total body workout programs are available on DVD, which in turn, can make our fast paced lifestyle a little easier. It’s too difficult to take time for ourselves with so many activities during the day, and to actually stop by the gym. But most of us can find time to workout at home. The gym is the space between the television and the couch. Just switch on your TV and use some good workout DVDs. Gyms and health spas are taking a back seat nowadays. Why? Time is the biggest factor, already mentioned, but there is another factor. When you do get time to stop by the gym, you find yourself lost. What routine should you do? Who’s going to show you the proper form? Or vary your routine to prevent boredom and fitness plateaus? Unless you want to spend extra cash on a personal trainer, a workout program like ChaLEAN Extreme, could be just what you need.

Chalene Johnson is a renowned fitness expert and she is most popular for her Turbo Jam workout series. Turbo Jam is very popular among men and women, and Chalene has a unique way of keeping the workouts interesting with her upbeat attitude and great music. It’s no surprise that Chalene Johnson has done it again with her newest workout routine, which she says is the Next Generation workout, and she has named it ChaLEAN Extreme.

ChaLEAN Extreme is a total body workout routine will help you burn fat, build muscle, and get that lean sexy body you have always wanted. This routine will set your metabolism on fire, and will trigger your fat burning engines so that you burn an extra 500 calories per day. Most importantly, you will find your metabolism is still burning that stubborn fat even when you are not working out. The new circuit training routine takes your metabolism to an all new level, you will continually burn fat, even while you sleep. The results will be extreme and best of all; you’ll start seeing results within 30 days from the day you begin.

How ChaLEAN Extreme works?

It’s quite simple. The program has been divided into three phases and Chalene aims to help you build lean sexy muscle with the use of the newest revolutionary circuit training method. There are 18 workouts total and as you go through these workouts, you’ll notice big changes in yourself. Slowly but surely, you will see weight disappear. Lean muscle will replace the extra weight you used to have. And as each phase of the routine passes, your results will continue to improve. ChaLEAN Extreme is a 90 day program and Chalene promises great results.

The three phases of the program of ChaLEAN Extreme workout includes –

Phase 1: Burn Phase

The first month is the ChaLEAN Extreme: Burn Phase. In this phase your muscles will be pushed to attain failure in 10-12 reps and will focus on accurate form, which will maintain the effectiveness of the workout. Then the routine changes, you prevent boredom and fitness plateaus as you move to the next phase.

Phase 2: Push Phase

The second month is the ChaLEAN Extreme: Push Phase. In this phase your muscles will be pushed beyond its comfort zone. The primary focus will be on toning every part of the body one by one to strengthen and tone each part. Then guess what? Another change, and another fitness plateau is diverted, as your body continues to push forward to new heights.

Phase 3: Lean Phase

The last phase is the ChaLEAN Extreme: Lean Phase. During this phase, concentration will be on every part of the body; the upper, the lower and the core. This phase will be focus on getting you as lean as possible. You have survived the first two months, you have lost weight, you feel great, and you are realizing your fullest potential. This gives you the extra energy to achieve your fitness goals, and have what you have always wanted, to be in great shape and look great.

The ChaLEAN Extreme workout will focus on a total body workout in 90 days. The effectiveness of this program will be a rival of the very popular and very successful P90X program. The P90X program has proven its effectiveness, and ChaLEAN Extreme will prove the same.