15 Beyond Simple Nutrition Hacks To Live Leaner, Burn Body Fat, And Keep It All Off For Good

In the nutrition cosmos, tiny little tricks, manipulations, and strategies can make a GINOURMOUS impact. That includes everything from disease prevention and lifelong wellness, to powerful weight management, body fat loss, and sustained leanness.

Whether you implement 1 or all 15, we’ve pulled together 15 uber effective, beyond-simple nutrition hacks that can help slash calories and nasty ingredients from your diet, reduce the impact of carbs, prevent body fat storage, and streamline weight management without doing any heavy lifting.

It’s a numbers game — incorporate more to amplify the benefits.

This is your shot to effectively cheat the system and take a few honest shortcuts. Take note, take advantage, and capitalize, BOOM SHAKALAKA!

1. Leverage the Versatility of Greek Yogurt

Swap out sour cream, oil, butter, mayo, cream cheese, or buttermilk in recipes for Greek yogurt. You’ll cut out a TON of calories and unhealthy fats, and bump up the overall protein content.

1c Greek yogurt saves a whopping 1,850 calories/224g fat in place of 1c oil, and chops off 1,510 calories/186g fat when you throw it in instead of mayo — it’s perfect for dangerously delicious, lean Greek yogurt banana pancakes.

On top of the cal savings, GY contributes 20+ g of HQ protein — it may even make your favorite dessert, dare I say, healthy.

2. Use PB2

PB2 is powdered peanut butter with 45 calories per serving — that’s roughly 25% of the calories in the real thing.

I LOVE the healthy fats (MUFAs & PUFAs) in peanut butter and highly recommend that you eat the real thing, but sometimes calories are paramount, especially if you’re a peanut butter fiend and binge on multiple servings per day. 200 cals for 2 tbsp. escalates quickly.

PB2 is stellar in protein shakes post-workout, when fat intake should stay as low as possible (it slows digestion and nutrient absorption). And if you’re addicted to Nutella, there’s a delectable chocolate version, too.

3. Peanut Butter → Almond Butter

If you’ve never indulged the less popular cousin of peanut butter, almond butter, you’re missing out. Besides being 38917348x more delicious, with a thick, substantial, gritty consistency, almond butter has 3x the vitamin E — a potent antioxidant — 2x as much calcium, and slightly more fiber.

Almond butter is also paleo-approved; peanut butter isnt (almonds are nuts, peanuts are legumes).

4. Quench Your Sweet Tooth Post-Workout

There’s one blip in time where sugar is miraculously beneficial — directly after an intense workout. Sugar and refined carbs spike blood sugar, which triggers the body to release insulin and ultimately shuttle protein, glucose, and other nutrients into your depleted muscles. Because it’s AFTER a workout, nutrients replenish hungry muscle cells — not fat cells — for future usage. The faster the better, as it accelerates the growth and recovery cycle.

Dangle your favorite sweet treat as a reward to blast through your most grueling workouts. DO IT FOR THE FRUIT LOOPS!

Two rules, though:

• Simple carbs MUST be paired with protein, ideally from a whey protein shake or any whole food source.
• No fat. Ice cream, Snickers, and red velvet cake are all off-limits; fro-yo, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, bagels, and gummy worms are all good to go.

5. Grind Flax Fresh

Your body has incredible difficulty digesting whole flax seeds, which means the omega-3’s, protein, fiber, phytochemicals, and antioxidants inside go to waste. Conversely, bulk pre-ground seeds can oxidize, become unstable, and lose nutritional value.

Your solution: buy whole seeds and grind them fresh in a food processor — A) at the end of the day they’re significantly more nutritious, and B) you’ll save a ton of money.

6. Add Lime & Seltzer To Cocktails

Seltzer speeds up alcohol’s rate of absorption, which amplifies its effects. In simple terms — that means you’ll get buzzed faster off of LESS alcohol, for fewer calories.

Conversely, if you’re driving, avoid carbonated mixers (especially diet ones).

Besides adding flavor, lime blunts insulin response, which makes sugary mixers and anything else you stuff into your body less likely to trigger fat storage. Combine both in our delectably refreshing NorCal Margarita.

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• About
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Bryan DiSanto

Owner & Editor-in-Chief at Lean It UP

Bryan DiSanto is the Owner & Editor-in-Chief of Lean It UP, a culinary student at Le Cordon Bleu – Paris, an ACE-CPT & CSN, NYU graduate, ex-fat kid, and all-around fitness/nutrition nutjob.

He also contributes to Men's Health Magazine.

When he’s not working on his (or somebody else’s) abs, whipping up Eggocados, or running a Tough Mudder, he’s probably off yelling at a Carolina Panthers game somewhere.

Latest posts by Bryan DiSanto (see all)

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