Ground Turkey Breast

I found this at Smart and Final. I have never seen EXTRA lean ground turkey breast!

Now, to most people this isn't a big deal, but to someone like me, who is just starting to diet for a Figure competition, this is a fantastic treat!

There is a huge difference between losing weight and losing body fat. I never want to lose weight, I only ever lose body fat.

When you lose weight, all you do is drastically cut calories, do way too much cardio, and you become smaller.

A "mini me"

So, if you have ugly saddlebags now, you will still have them when you lose weight, but they will just be smaller. (I guess this is a whole other post).

When dieting down to lose all your excess body fat, you retain the lean body mass and lose the fat only, so those saddle bags? Gone, like magic.

The trick is eating the right foods. And one of the "must do's" is limiting your fat intake. I didn't say eliminate, I said limit. You still need some "good fats" (and I suppose this is yet another post).

Fat has more calories per gram than protein or carbohydrate. It's really easy to be fooled by labels, so you need to learn to read them.

For instance, many people think "ground turkey" is fine. Well, it is not. Ground turkey is loaded with skin and fat. very, very bad, might as well eat a nice tasty piece of beef.

Ground turkey BREAST is what you want. But it comes in different fat percentages, just like ground beef does.

Usually I can find 93% fat free, but this is 99% !!!

You cannot always count on the label to give you the low down though, you need to know how to figure it out for yourself. Here is how:

Look at the label for the grams of fat and the calories. In the instance of this turkey, the fat grams are 1.5 grams and the calories are 120. Figure out the percentage:

Grams of fat x 9 = fat calories

divide by Total calories= % Fat

1.5x 9 = 13.50 fat calories
divided by 120 total calories = .11% fat


Ideally you want to eat foods that are 10% or less fat.

What did I do with my extra lean ground turkey? I made chorizo, and then sauteed it and mixed it with egg whites and spinach. Yum!

In a bog bowl combine (hands work great) the 20 ounce package of turkey, 2 Tbsps chili powder, 2 Tbsps chipotle powder, 3 Tbsp white vinegar, 1 Tbsp oregano crumbled, pepper and 3 cloves garlic crushed.

This is not science, use more or less, all one kind of chili, use garlic powder instead of salt. I then formed it into patties and froze them, except for the 2 ounces I had with my egg whites and spinach.