Whether or not you’ve seen the new “Get Him to the Greek” flick, you ought to try going to the Greek yourself – fat-free Greek yogurt, that is! As you know from Alpha Male Challenge, fat-free (aka “non-fat”) dairy products are on the True Alpha menu. As we said in the book:
Primitive man didn’t drink milk. If he managed to catch a wild animal, he ate it. The process of holding the beast still and trying to pull its udders would have never crossed his mind. It wasn’t until the agricultural revolution and the domestication of livestock that whole dairy products became a staple in many folks’ diets. … Given the crucial role that protein plays in the Alpha Fuel Solution, we recommend that you keep dairy on your menu, but in modest amounts, and mostly in low-fat or fat-free forms. (You’ll be getting enough healthy fats from the rest of your menu.) Low-fat or fat-free dairy is generally an exception to the rule of avoiding “fatfree” foods. But beware that commercial yogurt with fruit, or packaged cottage cheese with pineapple, are far from great diet foods, even if they’re low-fat or fat-free. The “fruit” is mostly fruit-flavored sugar or fruit concentrate with added HFCS, colors, and thickeners. If you love some yogurt occasionally, you’re much better off buying plain and adding your own delicious mix of fruit and nuts.
So, here are two of my favorites!
Who didn’t grow up on a diet that included a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch? Well, swap out the white Wonder bread for white non-fat Greek yogurt! If you find that you look forward to eating your yogurt and it has made you feel healthier, then you might be interested in making some of your own. If this is something you’d like to do, it might be useful to find out what is yogurt made of as a starting point. Instead of sugary jelly, use fresh berries (I love a mix of raspberries and blackberries). Use store-bought peanut butter that contains only peanuts and salt (without sugar), or even better, substitute fresh ground peanut butter or almond butter that you grind yourself at the local Whole Foods or health food store. Stir up the nut butter, berries and yogurt and you have an awesome throw-back to the PB&J sandwiches you loved as a kid (ingredients pictured, above) .
Want something more exotic? Picture yourself on a beach on Kauai, relaxing on the sand with a Pina Colada in hand. Try my Hawaiian Sunrise yogurt mix (ingredients pictured, left). Get some fresh pineapple, which you can buy as a whole pineapple and prepare it yourself, or buy it pre-cut for you at a local supermarket (in chunks or as a cored solid). Then grab some macadamia nuts and some shredded coconut (you can get reduced fat coconut to cut down on calories). Mix it up, lay back, and enjoy the taste of the Tropics!
Of course, there are endless variations you can make using combinations of fruit and nuts, instead of buying the prepackaged cottage cheese look into different cottage cheese recipes for variations of healthy cottage cheese you can make yourself! A mix of apples and walnuts is awesome, and bananas and pecans are great too. Slivered almonds can go with just about any fruit. You can mix some mango and papaya with shredded coconut, along with some macadamia nuts, for another tropical treat. Just remember not to go overboard on the nuts – a palm-full will do. And check out other great healthy eating choices in AMC!