5 Muscles For a Flat Stomach

These 5 muscles are the key to exercising for a flat stomach -- Don't waste time training the WRONG muscles!
by Dr. Kareem Samhouri - CSCS, HFS
Neuro Metabolic Fitness & Rehab Expert
Author of the popular program:  Abs Strength Guide 
"Spinal Stabilization + Proper Exercise Selection + a healthy Anti-Inflammatory Diet" is the key to a flat stomach; increase your metabolism by signaling muscle growth.
From an exercise standpoint, the more you work the muscles that stabilize your spine, the faster you signal your body to lose fat and reduce your waistline.  Think about your abs as your spinal cord protectors, even though they're on the other side.  When you protect your body, it gets lean, and prepares to be able to withstand more.  Your "six pack muscle" (rectus abdominus) is an after-effect of training the rest of your core.
Your true core is made up of the following muscles:

1. External Obliques
2. Internal Obliques
3. Tranversus Abdominus
4. Multifidi
5. Psoas

In some cases it's worth considering your Quadratus Lumborum when training your core, but we'll talk more about side-bending, which will affect your hip bone definition, in a moment.
If you're training other muscles and you think you're exercising your core, you're training the wrong muscles. 
The 5 true core muscles are the only ones that really matter when it comes to training your abs for a flat stomach.  Once you get a flat stomach, you can always enhance the ripple effect by improving definition of the rectus abdominus; but should you go out of order, your body will reduce the speed of your results.
The reason that your body wants to see you train your abs in this order is because it is the best survival strategy.  Protect your most vital organs, and above all else, protect your brain, spinal cord, and heart.  When you train your 'true core' muscles in your abdomen, you are also tightening something called 'fascia.'  Fascia is basically a connective web of tissue that lines every organ in your body, attaches muscle to ligaments, ligaments to bones, and acts as a protective layer for your entire body.  Fascia runs through every aspect of your body, from your veins and arteries, all the way out to your skin.
When you train your internal and external obliques, you provide greater stability to these muscles, but they also have a connective web of tissue that attaches them to your lower spine, called your Thoracolumbar Fascia.  In other words, tighten your obliques and TVA, and you'll stabilize your spine through this fascia.
Your multifidus, or multifidi for plural, are triangularly shaped muscles that are on either side of each spinal segment, and they help you rotate, or when working together, backwards bend.  When you train these muscles, you are working directly on spinal stabilization, so you are signaling your body to get a flatter stomach. 
Lastly, we have your psoas.  Your psoas is a hip flexor, and it begins on the front of your spine, or super deep in your abdomen.  It's job is to help you bring your knee towards your chest, but when it's wound up, it forces your low back to extend instead.  What should be helping you glide your knee towards your chest is now forcing other areas of your body to substitute movement and try to help out by accomplishing the motion.  This causes a lot of undue stress on your low spine, and it goes against the goal of a flat stomach.
As you can see, each of the 5 muscles has a specific purpose for protecting your spine, and assisting with multi-dimensional movement.  That's what this is all about:  3D Movement.
By moving in 3D, you are constantly forcing your body to train in a functional way.  The real-world is 3D, it has bumps, grooves, and things that throw you off balance.  Sometimes you have to walk up a hill, step over a pothole, or do some stairs.  At times, you have to back up, move to the side, or reach and grab something on the opposite side of your body.
Simulate real-world demands in your training program and your body learns to believe it needs to get leaner to get through your day.  You know the saying:  "Use it or lose it."
This is so true, but there's even more to that statement, if you ask me:
Use it or lose it; but when you use it, grow it. 
Your body will grow and respond to any stress or demand you place upon it (Wolff's Law.)  Exercise, when done in a real-world way, makes your body believe it requires greater strength, less fat, or more energy for its day.  Your body adapts, and it helps you cope with your environment.
On the other hand, when you train the wrong way, or in one or two planes of motion, you lose the 'meaning' behind your exercise program, and your body responds by halting or slowing your results.
This brings up the topic of training 'sideways,' which is equally important to training rotationally.  We have a massive and powerful muscle on our sides called our Quadratus Lumborum.  It's job is to help us sidebend (hand to side of knee) or when used on both sides, to flex our trunks (bend over.)
Interestingly, when you're working out, your Q.L., for short, has one more very important purpose -- holding your lower ribs down when you breathe in heavily.  You can imagine how often you're using your Q.L. when you're training your core in an intense way.  It's almost part of the same group of muscles, but the nature of this muscle is a bit different, in that it cannot sustain a muscle contraction for as long as the rest of your core.
As a result, we're going to train the Q.L. with a lot of dynamic movements, like:

1. Side Step Squat
2. Q.L. Sidebridges
3. Spider Planks

This way, when we pair the three exericses above with stabilization exercises, such as planks and bridges, we work all dimensions of our true core and truly stabilize our spines.
Remember, there is a right way and a wrong way to exercise.
When you exercise the right way, your body adapts by losing fat and giving you a flat stomach.

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How to do Great Ab Workouts at Home: The Best 5 Crunch-less Abs Exercises for a Flatter Stomach in Less Time

by Craig Ballantyne, Men's Health Training Advisor, Author - Best Home Abdominal Workouts for Six Pack Abs

If you never do another crunch again, you will end up saving a lot of time and you’ll still lose stomach fat and be able to get six pack abs. Why? Because crunches don’t work very well for building 6-pack abs.
There are many better exercises, and you’re going to discover the best 5 bodyweight exercises for a crunch-free six pack ab workout program. After all, if they did work, you wouldn’t have to do them for 30 minutes like the bodybuilder magazines suggest.
Instead of wasting your life lying on your back doing an exercise that you can do hundreds of times, you need to replace crunches and all those other aerobics-era exercises with better, total-body ab exercises to get more results in less time.

There's a downside to standard crunches!
The other dark side of crunches, aside from them being useless for getting six pack abs, is that the crunch movement itself is actually HARMFUL to your spine and low-back. Every single time you perform a crunch, you are doing what the world’s leading experts on back pain describe as a dangerous motion.
You see, every time you crunch, you do what is called spinal flexion, and spinal flexion compresses the disks between your vertebrae. If you do that too much, you could end up with a herniated disc. After all, it’s the same motion as rounding your back to pick up something off the floor, and you probably know someone who has hurt their back that way!

 So you don’t need to do crunches, and you don’t even need to go to a gym, if you have the right total body ab exercises in your home abdominal workout program. In fact, with the right program, your entire fat burning resistance training workout will take less time than most bodybuilders spend on crunches every day! Yet you’ll still be able to get a flat stomach and six packs abs with this fast at-home workout. 

Plus, you won’t be doing long, slow boring cardio. Actually, your entire workout (resistance training plus abs plus interval training) will take less time (less than 45 minutes) than most people spend on slow boring cardio. 
And you only have to workout three times per week, not six days per week like the bodybuilding magazines suggest. So you save time in each workout, and workout fewer times per week. That will give you more time to spend showing off your abs at the beach or anywhere else you please.


Here are the top 5 exercise replacements for ineffective aerobics-era crunches…

 1. Replace Crunches with Stability Ball Rollouts. You’ll get a more powerful stretch in the Rollout exercise, and a more powerful contraction, all without doing excessive and dangerous spinal flexion.

 2. Replace Crunches on the Ball with a Plank with Arms on the Ball. 
According to the Men’s Health magazine, research shows that a Plank with Arms on the Ball is 30% more effective in working your abs.

3. Replace Bicycle Crunches with X-Body Mountain Climbers. 
This unique total-body ab exercise still works your obliques, but without repetitive crunching. Plus, it helps build invaluable abdominal endurance and stability to keep your low back healthy.

4. Replace Reverse Crunches with Stability ball Jackknives. 
You will still be able to work the lower area of your abdominal muscles, as well as your obliques with this Stability Ball exercise, but you also get the benefit of building back-protecting abdominal endurance.

5. Replace Sit-ups with Hanging Knee-ups or the advanced Pull-up Plus Knee-ups. 
Your abs will have never experienced anything like this exercise! You can also do a Chin-up Plus Knee-up for the same effect on your abs, and Chin-ups are a little easier. This is one of my current favorite exercises.

By getting rid of crunches you’ll lose nothing, while gaining time to work on better exercises to build your six pack abs and flat stomach, plus you’ll avoid exercises that are hard on your back.
Combine these total-body ab exercises (that burn more calories than crunches anyways) with superset resistance training and belly-fat burning interval training and you’ll get more ab results in less workout time!
For more detailed descriptions of all of these home ab exercises as well as more techniques for losing abdominal fat, click here for more great abs training secrets

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Get a Fighters Abs Without Leaving Your Home.

If you've ever watched a fight on TV, you know that fighters have some of the best bodies of almost any athlete most of the time.  They usually have six pack abs, and not a love handle in sight!

I recently started following a new program that shows you all of the secrets that some of the most ripped fighters use to get great abs and a rock solid core...

You should definitely check out this resource if you...

-       Have stubborn love handles that just don’t want to go away.
-       Want a midsection that will have other people in awe.
-       Want to get rid of your lower belly fat and see a FULL Six-Pack.
-       Want a slimmer waist or get rid of that beer gut.
-       Want to get a stronger core to fix lower back pain.

-       Are looking for the most cutting edge information on ab training.

Here’s the best part – You don’t even need one single piece of equipment.  As a matter of fact, you don’t even have to leave your living room if you don't want to.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN about this NEW Cutting Edge Info on how you can get lean flat abs like the Pro Fighters you see on TV

And for the ladies reading this, don't think that this is just for men...
Andrew has had amazing results with his female clients too, as you'll see on that page.

Have fun!

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Best-Selling Author

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5 Reasons that I Think Treadmill and Elliptical Machine Workouts are a Waste of Time

Plus 10 workout ideas that I believe are more effective and fun!
by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of best-selling program:  The Truth about Six-Pack Abs


Now that I pissed off all of the treadmill and elliptical machine worshipers... let me say that if you truly enjoy mindlessly pumping away on a treadmill or elliptical (or exercise bike for that matter too), then by all means, keep doing what you enjoy, because enjoying your exercise is one of the most important aspects to sticking with any exercise program...
However, don't say that I didn't warn you that you were wasting your time with all that mindless cardio machine boredom.
If I haven't mentioned it before, I don't believe in cardio machines, and to be quite honest, I don't think I've personally used a treadmill, elliptical, or exercise bike for at least the last 7-8 years or so.
As a matter of fact, I don't even use cardio machines anymore for warmups before a workout (I did before occasionally)... Nowadays, I prefer to do dumbbell or kettlebell snatches and swings mixed with bodyweight exercises as the perfect full body warmup at the beginning of my workouts.
So why do I have such hatred for cardio machines?  Well, here are 5 reasons:
1) Treadmills, ellipticals, and exercise bikes are mind-blowingly BOOOORING!  Personally, I can think of a million things I'd rather be doing than pedaling my way to nowhere!
2) Mindless steady state cardio exercise while watching TV or reading creates a mind / body disconnect resulting in poor results from your exercise routine.  Instead of reading a gossip magazine or watching a cheesy reality TV show on the TV screen in front of the cardio machine, a REAL workout consists of actually having your mind engaged strongly in what your body is doing!
3) I've seen studies that indicated that treadmill running may be less effective than outdoor running for various reasons such as stride abnormalities on treadmills vs natural running, slightly less caloric burn compared to outdoor running, etc.
...although I never recommend just "jogging" anyway (or as Ron Burgundy would say, "yogging") ... Instead, variable intensity walks / runs or sprints are so much more effective, training your heart rate in a much wider range instead of just the same pace during the entire workout.  I choose to do a lot of hiking up mountains and also wind sprints, but never steady state jogging.
4) Treadmills and ellipticals are ridiculously expensive and a waste of money for people that workout at home... there's so many better options for home workouts you could have spent your money on rather than wasting it on a treadmill, bike, or elliptical.
The perfect home gym setup is MUCH cheaper... there's no reason you need anything other than a jump rope, bodyweight exercises, a few dumbbells, stability ball, maybe a few kettlebells (if you want to get fancy), and perhaps high tension bands for some more variety.  And of course... the great outdoors has some of the best workout options of all... hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, skiing, sports, and more! 
5) Treadmills and elliptical machines are just a very ineffective way to workout compared to other options.  The metabolic response is much lower compared to the types of workouts ideas that I describe below.  Why should you do treadmill or elliptical workouts when you can get better results by doing more interesting forms of training that actually stimulate a fat-burning hormonal response and stimulate your metabolism to a greater extent...
So what are the alternatives to treadmills, exercise bikes, and elliptical trainers? Here are TEN of my favorite types of alternative workouts:

1. jumping rope - great mind-body connection - try speed jumping, crossovers, and double jumps once you get skilled at it.  An amazing metabolic exercise with one of the cheapest pieces of equipment available.  There's a reason that every world class boxer uses this exercise!
2. kettlebell training - nothing will get your heart pounding like high repetition KB swings and snatches or clean & presses (can be done with dumbbells too, but I prefer KBs).  Personally, I think one of the most intense body changing exercises ever invented are double kettlebell snatches (snatching both kettlebells at the same time overhead from the floor). 
3. outdoor wind sprinting (the ultimate exercise for a rock hard ripped body... just look at the chiseled powerful bodies of world class sprinters, and compare that to the weakling withered physique of a typical marathoner... nuff said!  I generally do wind sprints 2-3 days a week during the warm times of the year, and I'll do something such as 50 yards, 60 yards, 70 yards, 80 yards, 90 yards, 100 yards, and then repeat (with about 40-60 second rests between sprints).  By the way, for the international folks, a "yard" is just slightly shorter than a meter. 
4. hill sprinting - yet another classic exercise for a rock hard lean and powerful body!  I like to do 30 yard sprints up a steep hill and then walk down and repeat a bunch of times for maybe 20-30 minutes.  Amazing workout.
5. The rowing machine - ok, I don't really lump this in as a "cardio" machine like treadmills and ellipticals... I think the rowing machine is actually a great full body workout that actually uses resistance... The best results come from using variable speeds and really pulling hard to challenge your body.
6. Sprint style swimming workouts - a more muscular workout than steady state distance swimming... I actually love the upper body pump I get from sprint style swimming -- this is the same concept as sprinting vs jogging but in a pool instead.  It's all about intensity! 
7. heavy bag punching / kicking workout, speed bag, rebound bag - all are great forms of training and much more interesting than boring cardio machines.  These exercises are also great examples of exercises that require an intense mind-body connection, which is missing in boring cardio equipment like treadmills and elliptical machines.
8. shadow boxing - This is an awesome workout, but if you're shy, this is best saved for your home workouts since you'll get some crazy stares doing this at a typical gym from people who think they're "too cool" for stuff like this.
9. dumbbell circuits -- This is a super metabolic type of workout that involves alternating between various full-body multi-joint exercises to get a crazy fat-burning workout in minimal time.  A good example would be alternating between dumbbell lunges, overhead presses, bent over rows, step ups, and squat presses all with minimal rest between.
10. bodyweight training - bodyweight squats, pushups, lunges, jumps, bear crawls, mountain climbers and jumpers, planks, and the list goes on and on.  Another example of great mind-body connection and much more metabolic type of training than treadmills and ellipticals.  My fitness buddy, and world class trainer, Craig Ballantyne has 101 killer bodyweight exercises formulated into awesome fat-burning workouts here.

Well, I hope this article helps give you ideas on how you can get away from all of these mindless and ineffective treadmill and elliptical trainer machines (and exercise bike) workouts that are just wasting your time and energy that could be better spent on more effective workouts.

If you want maximum results, it's all about your intensity levels and also your mind-body connection... and that all important mind-body connection is usually missing when it comes to elliptical and treadmill workouts, that most people do while watching TV or reading.

If you don't already have a copy of my Truth about Six Pack Abs program, you can see some of the incredible reviews and results people are getting with Truth about Abs here
You can check out the common questions and answers about this 
super-effective fat loss program here
Have a great one, and get out there and actually ENJOY your workouts!  If you're ready, you can get started on the Truth about Six Pack Abs program here.
Til next time...Don't be lazy, be lean.

Mike Geary
Certified Personal Trainer
Certified Nutrition Specialist

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How to do Great Ab Workouts at Home: The Best 5 Crunch-less Abs Exercises for a Flatter Stomach in Less Time

by Craig Ballantyne, Men's Health Training Advisor, Author -  

Best Home Abdominal Workouts for Six Pack Abs

If you never do another crunch again, you will end up saving a lot of time and you’ll still lose stomach fat and be able to get six pack abs. Why? Because crunches don’t work very well for building 6-pack abs.
There are many better exercises, and you’re going to discover the best 5 bodyweight exercises for a crunch-free six pack ab workout program. After all, if they did work, you wouldn’t have to do them for 30 minutes like the bodybuilder magazines suggest.
Instead of wasting your life lying on your back doing an exercise that you can do hundreds of times, you need to replace crunches and all those other aerobics-era exercises with better, total-body ab exercises to get more results in less time.
There's a downside to standard crunches!
The other dark side of crunches, aside from them being useless for getting six pack abs, is that the crunch movement itself is actually HARMFUL to your spine and low-back. Every single time you perform a crunch, you are doing what the world’s leading experts on back pain describe as a dangerous motion.
You see, every time you crunch, you do what is called spinal flexion, and spinal flexion compresses the disks between your vertebrae. If you do that too much, you could end up with a herniated disc. After all, it’s the same motion as rounding your back to pick up something off the floor, and you probably know someone who has hurt their back that way!
 So you don’t need to do crunches, and you don’t even need to go to a gym, if you have the right total body ab exercises in your home abdominal workout program. In fact, with the right program, your entire fat burning resistance training workout will take less time than most bodybuilders spend on crunches every day! Yet you’ll still be able to get a flat stomach and six packs abs with this fast at-home workout.
Plus, you won’t be doing long, slow boring cardio. Actually, your entire workout (resistance training plus abs plus interval training) will take less time (less than 45 minutes) than most people spend on slow boring cardio.
And you only have to workout three times per week, not six days per week like the bodybuilding magazines suggest. So you save time in each workout, and workout fewer times per week. That will give you more time to spend showing off your abs at the beach or anywhere else you please.
Here are the top 5 exercise replacements for ineffective aerobics-era crunches…

1. Replace Crunches with Stability Ball Rollouts. You’ll get a more powerful stretch in the Rollout exercise, and a more powerful contraction, all without doing excessive and dangerous spinal flexion.
2. Replace Crunches on the Ball with a Plank with Arms on the Ball. According to the Men’s Health magazine, research shows that a Plank with Arms on the Ball is 30% more effective in working your abs.
3. Replace Bicycle Crunches with X-Body Mountain Climbers. This unique total-body ab exercise still works your obliques, but without repetitive crunching. Plus, it helps build invaluable abdominal endurance and stability to keep your low back healthy.
4. Replace Reverse Crunches with Stability ball Jackknives. You will still be able to work the lower area of your abdominal muscles, as well as your obliques with this Stability Ball exercise, but you also get the benefit of building back-protecting abdominal endurance.
5. Replace Sit-ups with Hanging Knee-ups or the advanced Pull-up Plus Knee-ups. Your abs will have never experienced anything like this exercise! You can also do a Chin-up Plus Knee-up for the same effect on your abs, and Chin-ups are a little easier. This is one of my current favorite exercises.
By getting rid of crunches you’ll lose nothing, while gaining time to work on better exercises to build your six pack abs and flat stomach, plus you’ll avoid exercises that are hard on your back.
Combine these total-body ab exercises (that burn more calories than crunches anyways) with superset resistance training and belly-fat burning interval training and you’ll get more ab results in less workout time!
For more detailed descriptions of all of these home ab exercises as well as more techniques for losing abdominal fat, click here for more great abs training secrets

If you liked todays article, please feel free to share with family and friends below. 

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The Ultimate Muscle Meal... a Salad on Roids

Today, I just wanted to share with you my special muscle meal of the week, and it actually comes in the form of a salad.

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of best-selling program:  The Truth about Six-Pack Abs

I know the ladies will love this idea, but for all of you guys out there that think eating a salad makes you less of a man... Well, you haven't tried the ultimate "salad on roids" yet!
Keep in mind that this salad is not low in calories. It's not low in fat. It's not low in carbs.
And guess what...that's the whole point!
It's not low in anything, but it sure as hell is HIGH in everything under the sun that's good for your body... just about every vitamin, mineral, antioxidant, and phytonutrient on the planet! And that means your body will receive all the nutrition it needs to maintain optimal hormonal balance, function at it's highest capacity, keep your appetite satisfied for hours, and prevent any unwanted cravings.
Keep in mind that last point... when you fill your body with all of the nutrients it needs on a daily basis, you pretty much totally eliminate cravings! This happens because your body is satisfied and doesn't need to crave any more food, because it has all of the nutrients it needs.
I've experienced this myself. Years ago, I used to crave sweets ALL THE TIME. But now that I eat the balanced diet that I do these days, I can't say that I've had a craving in at least 5 years! No joke.
Alright, here's the recipe:
The Ultimate Muscle Salad

• approx 1 cup spinach leaves
• approx 1 cup mixed leaf lettuce
• shredded carrots
• 1/2 of a ripe avocado, diced
• 2 hard boiled eggs, diced (preferrably organic, cage free)
• 3 Tbsp chopped pecans
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• top with homemade dressing made of balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and Udo's Choice Oil Blend (3/4 of total liquid should come from the vinegar) - read this article about the type of salad dressing to NEVER eat

Mix it all together and you've got one delicious and ridiculously nutritious salad. For an extra shot of antioxidants, wash it all down with some homemade iced green/white/oolong tea lightly sweetened with the natural sweetener Stevia or a little touch of raw honey.
Alright, now let's look at the approx macronutrient breakdown:
Prot: 23 g., Carbs: 46 g., Fiber: 12 g., Fat: 45 g., Calories: 640
Now before you throw your arms up in disgust and call me crazy for recommending such a high fat, high calorie meal, keep in mind to scale back the portion sizes for your own caloric goal. The portions above are simply the portions that I use considering that my maintenance caloric intake is around 3000 calories/day. If your maintenance is 2000 calories/day, then scale back the portions accordingly.
Also, I don't care about the high fat content of this meal... because every last gram of the fat in this meal is VERY healthy... from the pecans, the olive oil, the Udo's oil, the fresh avocado... and yes, even the fat from the egg yolks is good for you!
All of this healthy fat makes it a very hunger-satisfying meal, causing you to eat less for the remainder of the day (that's right... no cravings later that night!).
How about the carbs? Well, out of a total of 46 grams, you've got approx 12 grams of fiber. That's a pretty good ratio. Also, the healthy fats and protein in this meal will slow down the carbohydrate digestion, giving you a healthy glycemic response and steady controlled blood sugar.
Alright, so you're probably also wondering why there isn't a larger amount of protein. After all, protein is all the rage with bodybuilders, right.
Well, actually 23 grams isn't too shabby, especially considering 14 grams of that comes from the highly bioavailable protein from the hard boiled eggs. Also consider that this meal has a whole lot of healthy fats, which increases the utilization of your protein. This happens because your body does not need to use your protein for energy, and can instead use it for muscle building & maintenance, and all of the other various functions that amino acids are needed for in the body.
Overall, with this meal, you've got a great mix of healthy fats, good fibrous carbs, quality protein, and a huge diversity of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other trace nutrients.
If you enjoyed this idea today, feel free to share this link to your friends, family, and coworkers that might enjoy it.

If you liked this healthy lean-body meal idea, there are 84 other healthy and quick meal ideas in my popular Truth about Six Pack Abs Manual. If you don't already have a copy, check out some of the Truth About Abs reader reviews right now.
I'll be back in touch soon. In the meantime... train hard, eat smart, have fun, and enjoy life!



Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com

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The Healthiest Cheese-Steak in the World

My recipe for:
The Healthiest Cheese-Steak in the World
by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of best-selling program:  The Truth about Six Pack Abs
I've been known to come up with ways to make typical junk foods extremely healthy... If you've been reading my fitness newsletters for some time, you've seen unique recipes for healthier pizza versions, healthy burgers, my famous healthy chocolate peanut butter fudge, and many more delicious but healthy meals and recipes.
Today, I wanted to tell you about my "world's healthiest cheesesteak".
It's true... you REALLY CAN make a super-healthy cheesesteak, that's absolutely delicious!  And I'll show you how on this page.
Growing up in the Philly area, I'm sure you're aware we're known for our famous cheese-steaks. However, health and fitness have NEVER been associated with our cheesesteaks... until Gear-master healthy chef stepped in.
So here's how I make the world's healthiest cheesesteak:
First, I use Ezekial sprouted grain rolls, which are a mix of about 10 different sprouted grains with no refined flour. I'm still not a huge fan of eating too much grains in your diet, but if you're going to do it, sprouted grain bread (or rolls) is the best option.  Since Ezekial sprouted grain bread is a mix of 8-10 sprouted grains, you also get less wheat, since most people already eat way too much wheat in their diet.
If you can't find the Ezekial brand, most health food stores have several brands of sprouted grain bread (NOTE: this is NOT the same thing as "whole grain" bread... despite heavy marketing as "healthy", whole grain bread is not necessarily that healthy, but if you can't find sprouted grain bread, try to find the bread with the highest fiber content as a next best option).
Then, I use a good quality grass-fed beef and slice it thin. Grass fed beef contains larger quantities of CLA - conjugated linoleic acid, which (in it's natural form) is shown in some studies to promote fat loss and muscle building and also have a protective effect against cancer. In addition, grass fed beef contains a much better ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids compared with typical grain-fed beef sold at most stores (which comes from factory feedlot farms notorious for unhealthy cattle and inferior nutrition in the beef compared to grass-fed beef)
What I do is to just semi-defrost a large chunk of beef in the fridge for about 10-12 hours, and that allows it to be easily sliced thin for cheese-steaks.
Then, I use a raw longhorn, colby, our gouda cheese from grass-fed cows as well. Grass-fed dairy is also a great source of beneficial fat burning CLA just like grass-fed meat.
Finally, I top it all off with some sauteed organic vidalia onions and baby portobella mushrooms, both sauteed in a little virgin coconut oil (a great source of healthy medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) and immune-boosting lauric acid) and/or a little pasture raised butter.
and voila... we now have the healthiest cheesesteak on the freakin planet! Between the powerful antioxidants in the onions and mushrooms, The MCTs in the coconut oil, the fat-burning CLA in the grass-fed cheese and grass-fed beef, and the diversity of nutrients in the sprouted grain roll, we might even call this a "body-sculpting cheese-steak"!
But more importantly, it is damn delicious too!  And don't forget the healthiest condiment... mustard!  Yes, if you didn't know it, mustard is actually high in antioxidants.
Enjoy!
Feel free to share this page with your friends and family... put a link to this page on your facebook, twitter, myspace, or blog pages... your friends will love this idea.

If you liked this unique, but delicious healthy recipe, feel free to share it with your friends:

If you're not currently on my email newsletter list... it's FREE... and you're missing out on all of my crazy, but healthy fat-burning recipes, unique workouts, and more:- see top right, plus FREE gift for signing up.

 To your good health and lean body.

 Mike Geary
Certified Personal Trainer
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of the best-seller:  The Truth about Six Pack Abs

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