Alright folks, I busted out the video camera for this one, so you KNOW it must be business time.

For those of you who frequent my site, you know I like to throw down a serious amount of food, which more often than not leads to both inner shame and public embarrassment. I’m a big fan of sweets – pies, cakes, and more specifically MAN’S GREATEST INVENTION (formally known as the Cinnabon), so when I found out that there was a protein bar on the market that supposedly tasted like apple pie, I had to check it out.

This bar is a big ‘ol bucket full of win for several reasons.

1) Taste & Quality Ingredients

It’s pretty safe to say that if you look on the back label of most protein bars you’re going to be hit with a bunch of words that you can’t pronounce and don’t know the meaning of. For all we know know, they could be talking about our moms, and that just ain’t right!

As an example, here is the ingredient list of another apple pie flavored protein bar on the market:

Soy Crisps (Soy Protein Isolate, Tapioca Starch, Salt), Apple Layer (Apple Puree Concentrate, Deionized Apple Juice Concentrate), Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Glycerol, Vegetable Fat, Cornstarch, Wheat Fiber, Malic Acid, Calcium Lactate, Natural Flavor, Sunflower Lecithin), Yogurt Coating (Sugar, Palm Kernel Oil, Nonfat Dry Milk Solids, Yogurt Powder (Cultured Whey Protein In Concentrate, Cultured Skim Milk, Yogurt Culture), Soy Lecithin, Salt, Natural Flavor),, Corn Syrup, Crystalline Fructose, METAMYOSYN® VXP Protein Blend (Whey Protein Isolate, Milk Protein Isolate, Whey Protein Concentrate, Dried Egg White, L-Glutamine), Maltitol Syrup, Dried Apples, Palm Oil, Glycerin, Water, Canola Oil, Ground Cinnamon, Natural Flavor, Fructooligosaccharides, Vitamin And Mineral Blend (Ascorbic Acid, Tri-Calcium Phosphate, D-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate, Niacinamide, Zinc Oxide, Copper Gluconate, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin A Palmitate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Biotin, Potassium Iodide, Cyanocobalamin), Xanthan Gum, Di-Potassium Phosphate, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Wheat Germ, Peanut Flour, Almond Meal.

Compare this to the Quest apple pie bar ingredient list:

Protein Blend (Whey Protein Isolate, Milk Protein Isolate), Isomalto-Oligosaccharide* (100% Natural Prebiotic Fiber), Almonds, Water, Apples, Natural Flavors, Sea Salt, Cinnamon, Lo Han Guo, Sucralose

* Isomalto-Oligosaccharides are 100% Natural Prebiotic Fibers derived from plant sources.

See the difference? High quality ingredients, no crappy fillers (such as soy lecithin), and no sugar alcohols, which commonly give people the farts – not a good thing if you want to eat these in the company of those you care about.

The addition of all these additives and such usually give the bar a fake, chemical taste. Quest bars, though? No such taste, and if you look at the ingredients you can see why. They’re also gluten-free to boot.

2) Caloric Intake

There are certainly a lot of protein bars on the market to choose from, but a majority of them are just glorified candy bars: tons of fat and sugar pumped into the bar to make it taste palatable while containing inferior protein sources. If you get any fiber, it’s usually a measly 1-2 grams, which is nothing to write home about. All of these additions usually increase the calorie count to at least 350-400 calories per bar.

Quest bars on the other hand contain between 170 & 210 calories (depending on the flavor) and all of them contain at least 17 grams of fiber, and at most 24 grams of carbohydrate. Do you know how incredibly dope that is? Let me break it down for you:

24g carbs – 17g fiber = 7 grams of actual carbohydrates = AWESOME!

At 20 grams of protein bar, they pretty much fit into any scenario that you can imagine without breaking your caloric budget. They’re also great to have in a pinch if you need something quick on the go or need to take the edge off before you end up going on a wild food binge and blow all of the progress that you’ve made.

So, if you don’t want to watch the video review or look at my pretty mug, here is the verdict: DELICIOUS! If someone created a gun that used these bars as ammo instead of bullets, I would willingly put my face in harms way just to try and get a bite of them as they whizzed by.

If you’ve been burned by crappy protein bars in the past, you owe it to yourself to give these bars a try. You can find them at Quest Protein Bar in a wide variety of flavors (I’ve had 3 so far myself, all delicious), and you can even try a free sample before you commit to purchasing a larger order.

If you want to go that route, I suggest buying a single bar and paying for the shipping because it may take awhile for them to ship out the free sample due to popular demand. Also if you type SHIPFREE in the coupon section of your order, you’ll get free shipping on your first order – don’t say Rog Law never gave you anything!

Just in case you were wondering, I have no affiliation with this company at all. I don’t get any sort of kickback from this review or if you end up purchasing anything – I just want to share some incredibly tasty bars with you all.

You get no sexy or witty introduction from me today – we’re jumping straight into the thick of it!

1. Move beyond passion

You’re going to need passion in order to get started, but passion is just a prerequisite, a starting point;  passion alone won’t pay the bills. I wish this weren’t the truth, but it is, and it’s something that I wish someone had told me when I was getting started in this industry. In both the commercial gym and strength & conditioning setting the hours can be long and the pay won’t be great initially, so it’s very easy to get burned out before you make any significant progress if you’re fueled only by sunshine & rainbows, which leads me to my next point.

2. Level up consistently

One of the most important life lessons that you’ll ever learn is from a little known movie called Napoleon Dynamite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5wmParkppw

Skills pay the bills. If you have them, the world is your oyster, but if you don’t (or at least work towards getting them) you’ll become easier to replace as time marches forward, which is the whackest thing known to man. Luckily for you though, you have one fact working in your favor: The internet is awesome.

There is so much great content out there to be found on the internet that it boggles my mind. Most of it is free if you have the time to do the required digging, yet some of it you’ll have to pay, but even then it’s an investment in yourself and you’ll come out way ahead because of it.

Whatever you do, PLEASE never stop investing in yourself. Read research journals and blogs, purchase educational products, go to conferences and whatever else you have to do to step your knowledge game up. If you’re just keeping up then you’re actually falling behind everyone else.

For example, I graduated with a degree in English Literature with plans to go on and become a teacher, but during my senior year I decided that I was going to pursue my passion and try my hand in the health & fitness industry. At this point I had two options: I could change my major to exercise science, delaying my graduation by a few years and incurring more debt or graduate then and get my education through alternative means (aka the real world) afterwards.

I chose the latter option, and it was the best choice that I could have made. Because of my passion, I devoured anything that I could get my hands on and learned more on my own through experience than I ever would have in school, plus I received this education at a fraction of the cost and got to choose what I studied – take that, Sallie Mae!

Here are some resources to get you started on your way. Make sure to check at your local library and see what you can find before spending big bucks.

Resources

http://www.tonygentilcore.com/resources

Don’t forget to develop other skills such as writing, public speaking and business skills (i.e. sales and marketing) along the way as well.

3. Commit to excellence

I was lucky enough to get my start at Cressey Performance, one of, if not the best, gyms in the country. It was a fantastic experience that I cherish to this day, but as a newbie who never experienced anything else, it completely ruined me because of one undeniable fact: that place rocked. The clients were self-motivated, the variety of equipment was amazing, and the staff, get this, actually cared about their clients, doing anything in their power to help them achieve results, both in and outside of the gym.

Now step into your standard commercial gym -what do you see? Most likely the opposite of what I described above, with the most important missing element being this: the trainers don’t give a hot damn about their clients or their results.

Between trainers texting on their phone while their client teeters on the edge of face planting from some goofy exercise or giving them a cookie cutter program that doesn’t take into account their goals, experience level or time commitment, you would have thought that shares in the FCK corporation were selling for $88339857 billion dollars because you’d be hard pressed to find anyone looking to give one.

The bar is set low. How low? We’re talking Flo Rida, subterranean gnomes digging towards the center of the Earth with rocket-powered shovels low. Pretty much imagine any horrible scenario that could happen in a gym, and odds are that there is someone out there that you haven’t even heard of that’s making it happen (or worse).

So with expectations already set low, this is an awesome time to be you. Why? The fact that you’re reading this shows that you’re at least interested in becoming better, so imagine what would happen if you took the action steps necessary to make it happen? You’d blow those around you out of the water – it’d be like Salvador Dali entering a 1st grade art contest.

By getting involved in this industry, you’re placed in a unique position where people pay you to help get them to a place that do by themselves. Respect this bond and you’ll be in demand, but take advantage of it and fail to deliver results and you’ll be dead in the water.

It takes just as much effort to suck at something as it does to be awesome at it, so make the commitment to become an absolute beast at what you do and you’ll be far ahead of the game.

4. Get your hands dirty

Filling your head with information is great, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t apply it. Before my internship, the most experience  that I had with coaching and leading a group was coordinating raids in Everquest, which doesn’t really translate well into the real world all that well. As a requirement for bringing me on, I had to volunteer as a coach in some capacity to show that I actually possessed the skills that would be required of me during the internship.

So, what does the guy who has no interest in sports,  other people’s unruly kids, or catching balls volunteer to be? A assistant coach for an after school flag football team. Sweet!

The experience served its purpose though: I became more outspoken and a lot more comfortable with coaching than I was before, all of which carried over into my internship experience. Besides, after coaching a huge group of kids who are hopped up on juice boxes, coaching athletes and adults was a piece of cake, and Rog loves cake.

Whether you know for sure that you want to get involved or are still on the fence about it, an internship is a low-cost way to test the water and see if this is something that you want to commit to for the long term. Find a local gym or school in your area (or outside of it if you’re willing to travel) and see if they have any internship or volunteer opportunities. The worst that they can say is no, but people love free help, and the learning experience is worth it in the long run.

If you want to forgo the internship route for the time being, at the very least you can contact professionals in the field via e-mail and ask them questions, or ask if you can stop in and visit their facility for a few hours to see how they do thing. Just ask – there are a lack of jerks in this industry and people are more than willing to help you if you reach out to them.

Do anything that you can in order to see if this something you want to turn into a career, or of it just sounds like a cool idea.

5. Get Certified

I put this one last because out of everything else I’ve found that it is the least useful factor of all.  Yes, it’s important as far as getting your foot in the door at a commercial gym or as a strength & conditioning coach since the best ones usually require that you hold at least one nationally recognized certification. Aside from that though, it only shows that you can prepare for and pass a test.

A certification is a way of showing gatekeepers that you’re not just some random off the street and that you possess a certain level of knowledge as well. It is only that – a starting point. If you’re going to stop learning after you obtain a certification then you won’t last long at all.

Many of my biggest influences in the fitness industry don’t have any kind of formal certification, which goes to show that you don’t need to hitch your hopes of success solely paper credentials. If you can help your clients get the results that they desire, then I highly doubt they’ll care whether or not you’re certified.

If you have a gym in mind that you want to work at, call ahead and see what certification(s) that they require. Here are a few of the big ones out there:

NSCA
NASM
ACSM
ACE

6. Start a blog

This is entirely optional as you don’t need a website or a blog in order to be successful, but I’ve found it certainly helps. Think of the gym that you work out of as your physical platform and your blog as your virtual platform. With one, your influence is extremely limited – you’re only able to affect the people who are physically able and willing to come to you (unless you’re a rock start like, then people will come from all over the world) but with a blog your reach isn’t limited at all.

A blog is also a great tool to use in order to gather and put down your thoughts on e-paper everything that you’re learning during your journey, which is not only helpful to you but for others as well. Odds are if you blog consistently the likelihood of meeting a ton of other awesome fitness professionals is quite, leading to a wealth friendships and professional relationships.

7. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Initially you may be overwhelmed by everything that you have to learn, but take solace in this fact: you’ll never know it all. Don’t put that burden on yourself. What you don’t know will always outweigh what you do know and success won’t happen overnight, but as long as you keep grinding forward and learning, you’ll be eons ahead of your peers.

So, how are you feeling – feeling good, feeling great? Did I leave anything out? If you have any questions about specifics or something that I didn’t cover here, send me an e-mail or leave a comment below and I’ll get right on it.

Ingredients:

170 grams or 6 ounces macaroni (dried)
454 grams or 1 pound of chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
14 grams or 1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 cups 2% milk
264 grams or 2 cups cheddar cheese, diced
264 grams or 2 cups low fat swiss cheese, diced

Directions:

1. Fill a large pot up (2/3 of the way) with water and bring it to a boil. Add noodles and cook for 8  minutes (or follow directions on package). Drain noodles when done and cover in ice.

2. While noodles are cooking, coat a large skillet with 7 grams (1/2 tablespoon) oil and heat over medium-high heat. Once hot, add chicken and top it with 7 grams (1/2 tablespoon) oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper. Let sear for 5 minutes then flip and sear for 3 more minutes. Pour 1/4 cup of water in skillet, reduce heat to medium and flip chicken one more time. Cook for 5-7 more minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink in the middle. Cut chicken into bite-size pieces.

3. Set oven to boil

4. In a large pot set on medium-high heat, heat the milk and cheese together for 5-7 minutes stirring constantly. Once cheese is melted, stir in the salt, pasta and chicken. Place in a 2-quart casserole dish. Broil on high for 10-15 minutes or until bubbly brown.

Yields 4 servings

1 serving: 713 calories

71 grams protein
30 grams fat
40 grams carbohydrate
1 gram fiber

Entire recipe: 2856 calories

285 grams protein
118 grams fat
160grams carbohydrate
5 grams fiber

Impressions:

It’s mighty hard to mess up mac & cheese, but I managed to do it on my first time around, so instead of focusing on the disaster that my first batch was, I’m going to tell you what I did to make it what will undoubtedly go down in history as BETTER THAN YOUR GRANDMA’S MAC & CHEESE.

1 – Don’t melt the cheese prior to putting it in the oven.

I think this where I went wrong big time, causing the final product to come out a bit thin and watery as opposed to thick and gooey. In my second batch, I simply added the cheese on top of the macaroni before putting it into the oven.

2 – Bake first, broil last (if at all).

This is a personal preference, but it turned out well. Instead of broiling, I put everything into the oven for about 20-25 minutes on 375 degree, but if you want that nice lightly brown top crust, you can broil it for a few minutes after removing it from the oven.

This recipe was found in Leigh Peele’s Bulking cookbook which can be purchased here. It also features another 20+ delicious, high(er) calorie recipes for those who are looking to put on some muscle or just like eating larger dishes. Even if you don’t, you can always divide the recipe up into smaller portions.

Affiliate note: If you purchase any of Leigh’s cookbooks by clicking the links on this page, I’ll get a small portion of the sale, but this in no way biases my review. I’ll never promote something on this site that I haven’t used personally or that I don’t think will be a great benefit to you all. That is my promise to you, and if you ever catch me trying to pull a fast one on you, PLEASE feel free to evict me out of my home and force me to live on the streets with access to nothing but a 1990s tape player and a spoon. Why the spoon? I have no idea, but I’d much rather have a fork, so it must be punishment in some way, right?

Let these truisms sink in for a moment: You rock. You’re awesome. You’re the best thing since oxygen. You’re the shit.

Don’t believe me? Shame on you! But I understand your skepticism – there is a whole world out there trying tirelessly to convince you otherwise, so let me throw some indisputable facts your way:

• You completely dominated anywhere from a few million to a billion cells to earn the right to be brought into existence – all this before you even took your first breath.
• Over 55 million people die each year, but (I hope) if you’re reading this then you’re still among the living.
• Out of all the pages on the internet, you managed to find my website (Ok ok, I’m just kidding here…but seriously).

Got that into your head? Fantastic! Let’s move on.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of being included in Alan Aragon’s talk at the JP Fitness Summit (the best fitness gathering on the planet in my opinion), which focused on the things that matter in regards to health, performance & body composition, so he asked me to present one of the key elements that played a role in my own transformation. I knew going into this that me talking about nutrition after Alan did such a through and outstanding job on the topic would be the equivalent of an 8th grader following up Albert Einstein’s physics presentation with one of his own, so I went another route and spoke exclusively about the what separates me from you, and you from everyone else in the world – your mind.

Mind Over Body

I am a former fast food addict. From a young age I grew up with Ronald McDonald, Wendy & some burger dude with a crown as my best friends, visiting them a few times a week, stuffing my face with portions far too large for my body.

This only got worse as I got older.

Now I had a car and a steady source of income – a bad combination. I knew the hours and locations of every fast food joint in my city, and I knew the tendencies and specials going on at each of them. Is this Wendy’s always out of barbecue sauce? Time to take a trip down the road to the next one, because having chicken nuggets without the sauce is a cardinal sin.

Want proof? Check out the card statements below.

Take a look at the first picture and note that my fast food addiction wasn’t contained by silly things such as borders and large bodies of water – I even crossed into Canada to taste test their version of McDonalds! This is just the damage from a single card – I had another bank account with a much higher frequency of use.

Then came the blood work during a routine physical.

Total Cholesterol: 300+
LDL: 260
HDL: 52

I knew my eating habits were horrible, but when you’re staring numbers like that in the face as a 20 year old, it puts things into perspective. At this point a good 70-80% of my diet was fast food, and I knew something had to change before I ended up leaving a pretty looking corpse way before my time.

I tried to quit several times, some attempts better than others, but each ending in a fiery binge of grease and chaos, complete with post-food conquest guilt and the feeling that this is how things were going to be until the day I died.

This went on for more months than I’m proud to admit before I simply said that enough was enough. It was Christmas Eve. I pulled up to the drivethru with one of my friends, ordered some chicken tenders and fries, enjoyed my final glorious meal before swearing that I’d start the new year with a clean slate and that I’d never hit up another fast food joint again.

And I haven’t.

But what was different between this and all my other failed attempts? Honestly, the only difference was this: I believed that I could do it and would do it.

While this applies to fitness, it can and should apply to every other area of your life as well.

Whether your goal is to be ripped with muscles on top of muscles, to be the worlds greatest crocheter or simply be a better parent for your children, the first step towards achieving is believing in yourself, believing that it’s possible and believing that you can achieve it.

Do you need to have a solid plan when starting out? Not at all. Don’t let perfect become the enemy of good enough for the time being – you’ll learn what you need to along the way.

Do you need the support of everyone around you? It’s nice to have, but it’s not a necessity. There is a world full of cynics and naysayers out there ready to try and shut you down the moment you try to move beyond who you are and towards who you want to become, some out of envy that they don’t have the courage to do the same, and others just to see you fail so that they don’t feel the silent sting of your success.

Haters are gonna hate, and the fact that you have some means you’re probably on the right path.

Whatever you do, whatever your goal is, don’t attack it with the “I’m gonna try” attitude. I’m gonna try to lose weight. I’m gonna try to eat better. I’m gonna try to make more money. No – you’re GOING TO do those things, because that’s what you told yourself that you’re going to do.

Think back to a time in your life when someone believed in you – how completely awesome did that make you feel? The fact that you’re reading these words right now is a direct result of the wonderful people that I’ve met along the way who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.

There have been many times when I’ve wanted to pack up and stop writing because I felt that the quality was horrible and that it wasn’t reaching or helping anyone at all, but those days are gone and I’m going to keep on keeping on, if for no other reason than my respect for those who believed in me and to serve as an example of what is possible for those who don’t fully believe in themselves yet.

Do you believe in yourself?

If you don’t have that believes in you, then I believe in you.

If you ask why you should believe in yourself, I ask in return why not?

Without belief, nothing is possible but with it anything is.

I’ve never met a person, I don’t care what his condition, in whom I could not see possibilities. I don’t care how much a man may consider himself a failure, I believe in him, for he can change the thing that is wrong in his life anytime he is prepared and ready to do it. Whenever he develops the desire, he can take away from his life the thing that is defeating it. The capacity for reformation and change lies within.
– Preston Bradley

“All right fellas, we’re gonna make camp, rest up. Y’all might be in for a treat. You know back before the war broke out I was a saucier in San Antone. I bet I could collar up some of them greens, yeah, some crawfish out the paddy, yo’! Ha! I’m makin’ some crabapples for dessert now, yo! Hell yeah, ha!”
– Kirk Lazarus, Tropic Thunder

Ingredients:

283 grams or 1-1/2 cups cornmeal
20 fl oz or 2-1/2 cups 2% milk
250 grams or 2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
129 grams or 2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
112 grams or 1/2 cup vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. In a small bowl, combine cornmeal and milk; let stand for 5 minutes. Grease a 9×13 inch baking pan.

2. In a large bowl, whisk  together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Mix in the cornmeal mixture, eggs and oil until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan.

3. Bake in a preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center of the cornbread comes out clean.

Sexification Tip – Save any left-overs in the freezer in a freezer bag and when reheating do it in the oven.

Yields 12 servings

1 serving: 310 calories

6 grams protein
12 grams fat
45 grams carbohydrate
1.5 grams fiber

Entire recipe: 3725 calories

78 grams protein
140 grams fat
539 grams carbohydrate
16 grams fiber

Impressions:

The Rog messed up hardcore. You know that specific direction above where it says whisk the ingredients together? I realized once everything was already mixed together that said whisk was not in my possession, and it turns out that made all the difference in the recipe.

Did I do thaaaaaaaaaaat? Yes, Steve Urkel, yes you did. Make sure you have a whisk when you make this, or if you don’t have one at least make sure that you’re pretty handy with a spoon, which I unfortunately wasn’t.

Aside from the crunchy and lumpiness that came about due to my whack mixing skills, this recipe tasted pretty good. The only corn bread that I had on a regular basis was what my mom made from the jiffymix box, so I feel one step closer to world domination now that I’ve made my own from scratch. If you like leftovers or want something quick to bring to a party, this is the recipe for you. Me though? I’m the Kirby of the fitness world – I’ll inhale food like nobodies business – so needless to say this only lasted about 3 days in La Casa De Rog.

This recipe was found in Leigh Peele’s Bulking cookbook which can be purchased here. It also features another 20+ delicious, high(er) calorie recipes for those who are looking to put on some muscle or just like eating larger dishes. Even if you don’t, you can always divide the recipe up into smaller portions.

Affiliate note: If you purchase any of Leigh’s cookbooks by clicking the links on this page, I’ll get a small portion of the sale, but this in no way biases my review. I’ll never promote something on this site that I haven’t used personally or that I don’t think will be a great benefit to you all. That is my promise to you, and if you ever catch me trying to pull a fast one on you, PLEASE tie me in a chair and force me to watch Golden Girls reruns for the rest of my life because I deserve it – thank you for being a friend.