The Volumized Cheeseburger

The Volumized Cheeseburger
One of my core dietary principals is this:

Portion control is a fine idea, but it seldom works in real life. In fact, the failure rate is incredibly, ridiculously high.

If portion-control diets were new Ford vehicles, they'd be immediately recalled and Ford would be sued out of existence. Yet for some reason people keep listening to dieticians... all of whom seem to be 30 pounds overweight, but I digress.

A better plan for long-term leanness and full-time abs is to eat a whole lot of healthy foods: a volumized diet. Here's my full ARTICLE on this idea.

It's simple really: By choosing the right foods and learning your way around the kitchen a bit, you can eat a lot of tasty food (as we all enjoy doing) without getting fat. You do this by making healthy food with a lower caloric impact. The result: you get satiated (full), you get your cravings satisfied, you provide everything you need for muscle-growth and properly-fueled workouts, yet you don't take in excess calories and get chubby/unhealthy/un-laid.

Anyway, check out that article link above if you missed it. Now, let's get to the grub.

Here's a simple way to chow down on some mighty tasty bacon cheeseburgers without looking like a rotund dietician.


Volumized Bacon Cheeseburger
Ingredients:

Extra lean ground turkey
Turkey bacon
1 omega-3 egg
Whole grain, high fiber, as-natural-as-possible hamburger buns
Fat-free Swiss cheese
Olive oil mayo
1 avocado
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (found in cans in international section of food stores)
Veggie toppings of choice

Directions:

1. Dump the ground turkey into a bowl and crack the egg into it. Mix well with your hands, then form into patties. Add salt, pepper, or any other herbs and spices you want at this time. I like a little worcestershire sauce.

2. Pop patties on your grill. While they're grilling, mix the olive-oil mayo with a mashed avocado and a finely diced chipotle pepper. (Just play with the amounts here. I use very little mayo.) This is going to become your new favorite burger spread! A food processor will make quick work of this, but you can do it by hand too.

3. Cook the turkey bacon.

4. Pop the buns onto the grill for a few seconds to heat them up and get them slightly crisp, then add the cheese to the patties during their last few minutes of cooking.

5. Assemble burger, add any veggies you want, and enjoy.


Notes:

* All we've done here is substitute lower-calorie ingredients in for higher-calorie choices, mainly through the use of lean turkey instead of beef and pork. Compared to a regular bacon cheeseburger burger we save about half the calories while keeping the volume of food very high. You'll get just as full with about half the cals.

* The egg adds moisture, protein, and good fats. This is the secret to making a good turkey burger.

* We've also increased the quality of the fats by using olive oil mayo and avocado.

* The chipotle adds tons of flavor and heat, making you not miss the greasiness of a regular burger.

* I'm not much of a bread fan, but there are a lot of "better bad" choices out there these days including whole grain, zero sugar, and higher fiber hamburger buns. If you're really strict and low-carbin' you can ditch the bread and use leaves of butter lettuce as "buns."


I really think volumized eating is the key to getting lean and staying lean. If you can get full and eat tasty food like bacon cheeseburgers for half the calories -- while at the same time getting healthier stuff into your body -- then you're on the road to a longer life and long-term abs.

As originally posted by Chris Shugart @ T-Nation.com.