That Sugar Book by Damon Gameau

I spotted this book a mile off in my local bookshop, the brightness and the 'fun-ness' of the cover just drew me in. There's so much anti-sugar stuff about at the minute I thought why not give it a go. What made it stand out more for me, than all the other anti-sugar books, was how down to earth and fun the book is, inside there's so many bright and interesting pictures and illustrations.

The book is split into 4 parts: Damon's 60 day experiment, sugar science, experiment fallout and turning things around and finally recipes.

The experiment part is a truly fascinating read. He [Damon] wanted to see what effect 60 days of sugar would have on his body. From going from a healthy male who ate no sugar to eating the average amount of sugar a normal Australian would eat on a daily basis. Damon shows us how his mood, his body and his overall health changes. It's just super interesting to see how high (or average really) sugar intake can affect a person, especially it's addictive qualities and effects on the brain.

Not only do you see the affects of sugar on Damon over his 60 day experiment, you see the affect of sugar on different populations, the Aboriginals who consume crazy amounts of fizzy drinks, and those in America who suffer from 'Mountain Dew Mouth'.

The science-y part of the book is also great, not at all 'dumbed-down' but very clear and definitely fun. Every piece of information is reinforced with funky illustrations and data. There's great information about the different forms sugar takes (glucose, sucrose etc), insulin and how sugar can give us non-alcoholic fatty liver disease among other things.

The author follows up his experiment with how he got healthy again, the things he ate, how long it took to get back to normal. His test results were definitely thought provoking, especially finding out that he ate the same amount of calories pre-experiment as he did in just sugar during the experiment and gained weight. I've always understood that sugar is bad for us, but this experiment does make you think a lot more about calories in versus calories out.

The recipes are great, hearty and filling and most of all... without sugar! I must say the stew recipe is amazing and a new favourite in my house.

The book is also twinned with 'That Sugar Film' which I would love to see but has yet to come to the UK, although I have been assured it is coming soon! If you're in Australia or New Zealand do pop over to the website thatsugarfilm.com to see the showing times near you and to watch the trailer.

And to Damon, thanks for this book and for putting your own body on the line for the experiment.

Thanks for reading! Please do subscribe, follow on twitter @NF_Fitness, comment and like this page I really appreciate it. Please do ask any questions, I'm more than happy to help anyone.


See my previous post here: Strength Training Anatomy Review

And read my journey up Kilimanjaro here: Reaching the Top

Fitness Food - Muscle Mousse Cheesecake

A lovely decadent and versatile protein cheesecake using the amazing Muscle Mousse, for only 307 Calories a pop and a whopping 33g of Protein.

A crumbly biscuit base, followed by a layer of blended banana sweetened with stevia, a layer of Butterscotch protein cheesecake and topped off with sliced banana. You can use any biscuit you want for the base and any flavour of Muscle Mousse. The banana is an optional extra, and can also be replaced with any other fruit to complement the flavour of cheesecake you've gone for, strawberries and raspberries go well in this recipe.

You will need:

Equipment -

• 2 serving glasses
• 1 hand whisk
• 1 hand blender
• 1 glass jug
• cling film/sandwich bag
• 1 medium sized mixing bowl
• 1 spatula

Ingredients - 

• 300g 0% Fat Greek Yoghurt
• 1 serving of Muscle Mousse 
• 1 Banana
• 2 small biscuits
• 1 teaspoon of Stevia/sweetener

As you can see there aren't a lot of ingredients at all, it's a very quick and easy recipe. 

Follow the steps below to make your cheesecakes:

1. Grab your biscuits and pop them into a sandwich bag or wrap them in cling film. 

Once the biscuits are sealed inside, bash them up, go crazy. You can make them into a fine crumb or leave it slightly lumpy, however you'd prefer your bases to be.

Once you've bashed up your biscuits, equally distribute the crumbs into your serving glasses and prod the crumbs down with your fingers or with the back of a spoon. 

Base - Completed.

2. Now for the next layer. Cut your banana in half.

Add half of your banana into your glass jug with 1 teaspoon of Stevia.

Using your hand blender (or just a fork if you don't have a hand blender) blend up the banana with the Stevia.

Next, pour it out in equal amounts on top of your biscuit base.

3. Now for the main part. The cheesecake of omnom-ness! Grab your mixing bowl, yoghurt, Muscle Mousse and hand whisk.

Add 300g of yoghurt and 2 scoops of Muscle Mousse to the bowl and whisk it up.

Using the spatula to scrape the bowl, add the mixture in equal measures to your serving glasses.

4. Next, the topping. With the other half of your banana, slice it up and arrange the slices on top of your cheesecake.

Place your cheesecakes in the fridge for a minimum of about 25 minutes to allow the cheesecake to set.

5. After they're set, they're ready to eat! Top them off with some calorie free syrup!

Here's the final product. ENJOY! I'll put the macro's/calories below for each individual cheesecake and for the mixture as a whole if you wanted to make just one big one. 

If you liked this recipe and want to see more please + this post, comment, and follow me on twitter.

Thanks!

Macro's/Calories for individual cheesecakes (Calories/Carbs/Fat/Protein/Fibre):

Macro's/Calories for whole mixture (Calories/Carbs/Fat/Protein/Fibre):

Muscle Mousse Review

Muscle Mousse - Protein Mousse Dessert.

Today I'm going to review Muscle Mousse, which is a protein mousse dessert, just think protein shake that sets. I first came across Muscle Mousse at the Body Power Expo 2014, tried a sample and bought a tub straight away!

I'll go over a few points about Muscle Mousse to give you a better idea about it.

Taste (5 out of 5) - 

Muscle Mousse comes in 6 flavours, and I've been lucky enough to try 2 of them.

Peanut-Choc Caramel: This was the first tub I bought. It tastes a lot like Snickers or a Babyruth bar; nutty, chocolatey, caramelly, mmmmmmm, amazing. It tastes really decadent and not at all like any other protein shake type product I've ever tried. It is on the sweet side but I don't think you'd get this unless you had a sweet tooth anyway!

Butterscotch: Fantastic. Really, really amazing flavour. They actually had samples of this at Body Power which made me want to buy this product. They had actually sold out of this flavour though which is why I got the Peanut-Choc Caramel, I was disappointed until I got it home and tried it, both are awesome. It tastes like Butterscotch Angel Delight (the best Angel Delight flavour in my opinion!) and it isn't as sweet as the Peanut-Choc Caramel.

I can't wait to try every single flavour... White chocolate next I think.

Versatility (5 out of 5) -

The versatility of this product is absolutely great. Awesome as a mousse. Awesome as a thick shake if you don't let it set (sounds kinda weird, tried it, actually really good). It can also be made into a healthy high protein cheesecake (recipe coming... check back soon). You can mix it up with water, milk, almond milk, all tastes great. I'd be interested to try chocolate milk with the chocolate or banana Muscle Mousse, or different flavoured waters. I'll let you know how that goes.

Packaging (4 out of 5) - 

I love the packaging for this product. It's super simple and effective. It was great seeing the Muscle Mousse Moose at Body Power, although I felt super sorry for the guy inside as it was really hot without the costume on top! My only criticism is the size! I want more, bigger tubs please!

Calorie/Macro Breakdown - 

Each 50g serving (2 scoops) has:

175 Calories
30g Protein
12g Carbs
<1g Fat

The product has a good carb to protein ratio, and it's as you'd expect for such a tasty product. I would've actually expected much more fat, so I'm really pleased with the sub 1g.

Conclusion (4.8 out of 5) -

This is an awesome product. Will I re-buy it? YES. Do I use it everyday? No. At the moment I can't really afford to use this product every day, it sells for around £20-£25 for just 15 servings. So I'd rather keep it and use it as a treat for myself. A treat for cutting or bulking in my opinion.

Great product, try it out!