Two Hidden Side Effects of Making Your Own Healthy Desserts That Make You Lean and Healthy

I'm guessing that you've had the pleasant surprise after joining Path of the Dragon that I frequently share recipes for alternative healthy desserts in the Dragon Fuel category.

Of course the desserts have the benefits of healthier ingredients, lower calories and the freedom of customizing to your own taste.

But there are two scientifically-backed reasons why I developed the habit of baking and cooking my own desserts. The effect is enormous, because the habit makes it much easier for me to stay shredded and athletic!

miyou guys will love it

1). I actually burn more calories by cooking my own food rather than intense training. This sounded ridiculous to me. But the body uses 30% of its daily energy expenditure on Non-Exercise-Activity-Thermogenesis (NEAT). And that includes any movement you perform other than exercise. For example, walking from your office to the outside, climbing stairs to retrieve something from your bedroom, going to a physical store shopping, and of course, peeling potatoes, cutting them, mashing them and baking them to make your own dessert.

NEAT burns more calories than intense exercise because even the most intense and strenuous exercise uses only up to 25-30% of your daily energy expenditure. And for me specifically, I train for hours, but my training style is low volume high intensity sprinting, jumping or weightlifting. I would perform one set of 80 meters sprint full speed and the rest for three minutes to let my nervous system recover make sure the quality of my next rep is high. And I would perform a set of 2 power cleans that are 1.3x my bodyweight, then rest for three to four minutes so that I can feel fresh for the next set. So even though I spend hours at the gym, the calories burned would probably account for 15-20% of my daily energy expenditure.

And here is the cool thing about NEAT. Unlike intense weightlifting that challenges my body's muscular structure, tendons, connective tissues and bones, NEAT does not induce structural damage. What I'm saying is, NEAT does not add more load on my body to recover, but helps recovery by promoting blood flow while burning more energies.

Sure, the calories involved in all the actions of preparing and baking a cake might not be significant. But it helps me get into the habit of standing up and moving around. And this style of spreading frequent mini movements across my day keeps my NEAT high.

To put it simply, NEAT is a bigger and easier lever to pull in terms of burning calories in a day than intense exercising.

2). Baking my own desserts gives my body more energy during intense workout while keeping my daily total Caloric balance the same. It is no secret that a carbohydrate detox is healthy for the body. So many people have cut the source of carbs in their diet and suddenly find that they drop fat so quickly. And I did it too. I remember there was a period of time when I felt thoroughly fatigued everyday because I was training so intensely with lots of sprinting, jump sessions, and higher-volume-than-normal lifting with heavy weights.

Around the same time my family got back from China and they started to cook my food. I felt satisfied with especially the noodles. Then one day the scale told me I had gained 5 lbs in a short amount of time. Now you probably can't notice because I still looked lean. However, I train to be athletic in addition to aesthetics. So I must keep my weight low while gaining strength. And adding 5lbs of weight without significant strength and power gains meant I became slower and less athletic.

That was the time when I decided that, if carb-intake was the culprit, I would quickly cut my weight by doing a carbohydrate detox. So for three weeks I ate steak and eggs, with no carb intake at all. Not from noodles, not from rice, not even from vegetables or potatoes. I drink AG1 so I cover my nutrients basis. And I had no desserts. I like chocolate bars but I didn't have any bite at all. When I was hungry, I just ate more steak and eggs. And just like I thought, I dropped those 5lbs so quickly that I was even surprised. I think I achieved it after a week. However, starting with week three, I started to feel low energy during training. I had to pause often to let fatigue dissipate even during warmup. Not only that, when I was at home, I felt that I had to sit down, or lean against a table more often. I thought at the time it was because of my intense weightlifting. But it was not true. After my third week, I realized that my fatigue was likely due to an extremely low level of carb-intake. Now I understand that the body can shift into a state where it uses fat as energy source for physical movement. And this process of using ketones to fuel movement is made famous by the ketogenic diet. However, for fast and explosive movements like sprinting and jumping, muscle glycogen is better for performance. And muscle glycogen is replenished by consuming carbs.

So I had conflicting thoughts. I wanted to be light and fast, and a low-carb diet achieves that. But I want to have more energy for a quality workout, and consuming more carbohydrates achieves that. How can I achieve these two conflicting goals?

Well, I solved the problem by realizing that staying lean can be achieved through NEAT.

Now I can have lots of energy during training. I used to pause often. Now I just sprint through all my warmups and exercises. I have to slow myself down to make sure my nervous system gets properly recovered while my energy system says, we have plenty of fuel so let's go we're ready. And then after workout, NEAT makes sure I burn the excess calories.

And this is the current state.

Get shredded. Stay shredded. Be athletic. Move with joy.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Let me know what you think. What's your current diet strategy? Do you have a goal for health that is measured in your body weight? Or do you train to see what your body is capable of performing?

Drop it in the comments because I'd love to hear them!

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