THE MIKE DOLCE SHOW: EP. 42 DRUNKEN SHEEPLE AND SAUSAGES

LISTEN HERE
Mike rants on separating yourself from the drunken, bar-fly herd and he answers your questions! Topics include: How to put your dog on The Dolce Diet; Dolce-approved desserts; why drinking tons of water aids in weight loss; should you eat before or after morning training; how Mike structures his daily workouts and meals, and more!
The founder of The Dolce Diet & creator of UFC FIT, Mike Dolce is known the world over for his work managing the weight cuts of UFC athletes like Johny Hendricks, Vitor Belfort, Thiago Alves, Chael Sonnen, Quinton Jackson, Nik Lentz, Jake Ellenberger and more! His #1 international best-selling books include The Dolce Diet: 3 Weeks to Shredded, The Dolce Diet: Living Lean, & The Dolce Diet: Living Lean Cookbook.
For more information on Mike’s books, MMA weight cuts, weight management, gaining muscle, weight loss, overall healthy living, UFC FIT and so much more, visit TheDolceDiet.com & TheMikeDolceShow.com & UFCFIT.com.


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August 23, 2013

UFC FIT REVIEW: SUICIDE GIRL TITA SIZES UP THE PROGRAM

“These workouts are fierce, fun, complicated, and provoking.” ~Tita Suicide

Last month I decided to shake things up a bit, and took on the UFC Fit challenge. The complete UFC Fit program contains:

-12 DVDs
-12 week fitness tracker
-Lifestyle and Nutrition Guide
-Plus an alternate “3 Day Shred” program


Broken up into four, three week segments, the program is developed to help you shed body fat, lower your weight, and improve muscle tone and cardio conditioning.
It accomplishes this by mentoring you through one to two 45 minute routines per day, with host Mike Dolce, a renowned mixed martial arts trainer.
I have really enjoyed Mike’s firm but encouraging coaching style.
He alternates between demonstrating the exercises, explaining them in detail, and suggesting alternatives based on your level of fitness. The result is an visual/audio, and technical guideline on each and every exercise in the routine.
Additionally, you’re encouraged to clean up your diet with a list of suggested groceries and recipes from The Dolce Diet. This diet offer a fresh take on “clean eating”, and can easily be included in every kind of lifestyle – from Vegan, to vegetarian, to paleo. As with all things, take what you like, and leave the rest! For me, I tried the smoothie recipe, and enjoyed some super rad turkey burgers.
Your work out schedule is presented on a calendar, leaving you free to simply get dressed, pop in a DVD and go.
Honestly – this was one of my favourite things about the UFC Fit system, since after months of planning and creating my own work outs, it left me to simply show up and get down to business.
After 3 weeks, I am still totally in love with this program.

Granted, it is a BIG commitment. If you are at all squeamish about expectations, you may find this program overwhelming. As I said before, it’s important to make things fun, and find ways to include fitness in your life, that you can enjoy and benefit from. Most people can’t swing one without the other, at least not in the long term.

The routines are complex and quite advanced, and though they do include simplified and low impact versions of the exercises, it is still one hell of a work out! My suggestion is to watch one of the routines before deciding to commit to the full calendar. Alternately, you could always begin by adding one or more of the work outs to your regular schedule, and use it as a cross training tool. Rather than take on the full calendar. Totally your choice.
After all, the most important choice of all, is to commit to fitness.
Last but not least, there are some crazy ninja moves thrown in for good measure, which definitely challenged ALL of my energy systems at once. Completely demanding in every way – these work outs are fierce, fun, complicated, and provoking.
Trust me. This stuff is legit!

UFC FIT SOCIAL
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UFC FIT Instagram
UFC FIT Twitter
Originally posted at CupcakeDuJour.ca by Tita Suicide.
Follow her on Twitter: @Cupcakedujour


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August 10, 2013

DOLCE LIFESTYLE: OUR TOP 5 WAYS TO COMBAT HOUSEHOLD STINKINESS

Incense matches are the saving grace for couples living in close quarters! You can thank me later.
Incense matches are the saving grace for couples living in close quarters! You can thank me later.

1) THE INCENSE MATCH

As you might imagine, cooked broccoli is not the only thing that can give off an unpleasant odor. The Incense Match is hands-down the easiest and most portable way to mask any (and I mean ANY) type of malodorous musk. Strike the match, let it burn until it reaches the oil on the match stick, blow it out and voila! No stink.


Paddywax candles are made with soy wax and the jars are 'upcycled' wine bottles.
Paddywax candles are made with soy wax and the jars are ‘upcycled’ wine bottles.

2) THE SOY CANDLE

I can hear you now: “Candles?! DUH. Thanks for the helpful tip. NOT.” But it’s the soy part that’s interesting.  They’re non-toxic, while many paraffin candles are made from the bottom-of-the-barrel leftovers of the petroleum industry. The potential danger lies in the toxins regular candles reportedly emit into a poorly ventilated household. Like with everything, I encourage you to do your own research! Here are two articles to provide you with a starting point.
CNN: Study – Some types of candles may pollute indoor air
Yahoo: Scented candles release as many harmful toxins as cigarettes
Soy candles are typically higher priced, but they tend to last longer. You can usually get a great deal on soy wax candles at Marshall’s, Ross, or your local discount store.


Spices like cinnamon and cloves are stars when it comes to filling a house with delicious aroma.
Spices like cinnamon and cloves are stars when it comes to filling a house with delicious aroma.

3) BAKE (OR JUST PRETEND TO!)

Does anything smell better than something baked with fresh cinnamon? NO. Period. No time to bake? No problem! For those who need pleasant pungency in a pinch (<–say that five times fast) simply simmer some cinnamon (<—that, too), nutmeg and cloves in water on the stovetop and your house will be filled with an exquisite emanation of awesomeness. Citrus fruit peels also work great. Experiment with the ingredients! Let me know what you discover!


Oddly, vinegar left to sit in a bowl overnight will remove any lingering pungent odors.
Oddly, vinegar left to sit in a bowl overnight will remove any lingering pungent odors.

4) VINEGAR

As I typed “Vinegar” I imagined everyone as they read it shrinking back in horror. Vinegar typically smells, well, vile. We recently posted a blog explaining how to clean your fruit and veggies with vinegarand a few readers were concerned about their food smelling badly. Well guess what? You rinse it and it doesn’t smell. Ta-da! So how does something that stinks suck a particularly foul odor out of your environment? Science, my dear friends. Actually, I have no idea why this works but my grandmother used to do it so here goes… It’s really difficult so bear with me. Fill a bowl about 3/4 full with vinegar and leave it out in the smelliest room. The stench should be gone within 24 hours. Whew! That was hard. Vinegar absorbs odors, so if your dirty uncle stopped by with his Pall Mall’s, here is your solution. 


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Essential oils added to water and baking soda make a great misting deodorizer.

5) D.I.Y. EASY DEODORIZING SPRAY

Watch out Febreze! Crafty frugal person coming through! All you need is a spray bottle, baking sodaand your favorite essential oil. Lavender is always a good choice. Simply add 1 cup of baking soda to your spray bottle; fill the bottle with warm water and let the the baking soda dissolve.  Then add about 12 drops of essential oil to the bottle; pop the top on and shake lightly. What you have there is a gentle, fragrant deodorizer.

What are your ideas for freshening up a space? Tweet us @TheDolceDiet today!

 


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August 9, 2013

YAHOO: Nik Lentz used Fight of the Night bonus money to pay for father's life-saving surgery

Nik Lentz used Fight of the Night bonus money to pay for father’s life-saving surgery

by Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports
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The telephone rang on Christmas Eve, as Nik Lentz was headed to a friend’s home for a holiday party. He saw the phone number of his manager, Monte Cox, appear on his caller ID.
Lentz, a UFC fighter, wasn’t expecting to hear from Cox. When he saw who it was, he briefly wondered why he’d be getting a call from Cox on Christmas Eve.
Perhaps, he thought, Cox was calling with holiday wishes. Or, he surmised, Cox had a fight offer to present that might have been good news.
Lentz answered and Cox’s familiar voice came on the line.
But this was not a pleasant call, definitely one that Cox did not want to make.
Cox told Lentz he’d been talking to UFC officials, and they weren’t happy with Lentz’s fighting.
Two weeks earlier, Lentz had lost a bout to Mark Bocek at UFC 140 in Toronto. About 14 months before that, Lentz defeated Andre Winner in a fight that UFC president Dana White didn’t find too compelling.
White, as is his style, held back no punches. He blasted Lentz and Winner for putting on what he believed was a horrible fight. The fans picked up on it and began ripping Lentz. The level of hatred and animosity directed toward him was, he said, utterly shocking.
But nothing was as shocking as the news Cox was to deliver. After eight UFC fights, the UFC had seen enough.
On Christmas Eve, Nik Lentz lost his job.
nik-lentz-mike-dolce-photo-tracy-leeBeing unemployed did not make Lentz very happy. The party was not much fun. It was not, however, the most significant of his problems.
His father, Jon Lentz, had been the glue around which the family had been built. Jon had dreams of seeing his son succeed athletically, but also wanted to help his two daughters reach their dreams.
He put one daughter, Mandy Kopmick, through law school. His other daughter, Alyson Lentz, was planning to go to medical school at the University of Minnesota and Jon was going to finance that.
All three children pleaded with him to keep his money. They would, they said, find a way to take care of themselves.
Jon Lentz had cancer. First, he’d had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but he was able to beat that. But then, the cancer came back and it surfaced in his lung.
Miraculously, he beat that, as well. But then, a third time, the cancer found its way to Jon Lentz’s bladder. And this time, it didn’t look so good.
Doctors said there wasn’t much they could do beyond a surgery that would cost Jon Lentz around $100,000.
“Family was a huge thing to my father, and he taught me that from a very young age,” Nik Lentz said. “If you don’t have family, you don’t have anything. He’d said throughout my whole life and throughout my sisters’ lives that he’d be there for us. He’d say, ‘I am going to do everything in my power to put you in a situation to be successful.’ He was going to take care of his family. That was very important to him.”
nik-lentz-the-dolce-diet-win-ufconfx7So, perhaps it wasn’t too surprising, knowing that about Jon Lentz, to know that when decision time came, there really wasn’t much of a decision.
Jon Lentz declined the surgery he needed to save his life, because if he paid for it, he couldn’t afford to pay for law school and medical school and to put his children in the best possible position to be successful in their lives.
Jon Lentz is a former musician and studio engineer. He’s 49 now, not all that comfortable talking about himself, even less about his private medical issues.
“I’m doing pretty good,” he says.
He’s recovering from a heart attack, his most recent malady, and he’s not strong enough to travel to be in his son’s corner.
“The thing that makes me the angriest about all this is that Nik’s last three fights, I haven’t been able to be there,” Jon Lentz said. “That’s been the hardest part. I never missed one of Nik’s wrestling matches. Never. I never missed a fight. I was there all the way through. It’s just been these last three fights, I haven’t been well enough to go.”
At Christmas 2011, there was a good chance Jon Lentz would never see his son fight again. First, Nik was out of a job and second, Jon had a life-threatening form of cancer.
Nik kept the bad news about losing his job to himself until after Christmas.
“Everything that was going on, why ruin things for them?” Nik Lentz asked.
He delivered the news shortly after Christmas. Jon Lentz, who was accustomed to seeing his son have so much success, was floored.
He believed his son was headed for big things as a fighter.
“You talk about something tough to take,” Jon Lentz said. “He had a pretty good record. He was doing well. And they cut him. I couldn’t understand it.”
Neither could Nik. He talked to Cox and asked Cox if he could make a call to UFC matchmaker Joe Silva to plead his case.
“When they’ve made up their minds like this, there’s no changing it,” Cox told Nik Lentz.
When his father became ill, it was Nik’s turn to take care of the family. That’s what the Lentzes did: They looked out for and took care of each other.
But now, here was Nik, the oldest child, the de facto head of the family with Jon battling for his life, without a job and unable to carry the family Jon had so nobly put on his shoulders.
nik-lentz-mike-dolce-ufc-150-photo-by-ufcAll of the breaks were going against Lentz when, finally, one finally went his way.
Paul Sass was set to fight Evan Dunham at UFC on Fox 2 on Jan. 28, 2012, in Chicago. However, Sass was injured in training and Silva, with no one else available to fight Dunham, called Cox to ask if Lentz would take the bout.
The paperwork to process his cut had not been filed; that was not unusual, because it often took a few days, even up to a couple of weeks, for all of the paperwork to be filed and for everything to be legally compete.
So, even though Lentz had been told he was cut, he was actually still on the roster. The UFC needed him and Lentz said, “Of course.”
And that was the day his life changed dramatically.
Lentz hadn’t been training – “I’d been pouting,” he said – and wasn’t in great shape when Cox called. But he never had any hesitation.
And when he fought, he fought with a fury, and a passion, that he had rarely shown before. The Lentz who was chastised by White and savaged by fans was suddenly in a fierce brawl with Dunham.
The doctor stopped the fight in Dunham’s favor at the end of the second round because Lentz suffered a large cut just below his right eye and couldn’t safely continue.
It didn’t matter. The crowd loved the fight, and so, too, did White and Silva.
Lentz won a $65,000 bonus for Fight of the Night.
Many UFC fighters have purchased fancy sports cars, or new homes, or jewelry, with their Fight of the Night bonuses.
Lentz, though, never had a doubt about what he’d do with his bonus.
“I took that $65,000 and I didn’t pay my manager’s fees or anything else and I called my Dad and said, ‘Now, you’re having that surgery,’ ” Nik Lentz said.
“I knew that was the only thing I could do with it. I’ve been poor lots of time in my life. I can live without money. But my Dad and I were so close; we were such a close family. I didn’t know if I could live without my Dad. It was an easy choice.”
Jon Lentz tried to resist, but there was no telling his son no. The son was going to give his father that money and arrange for the life-saving surgery.
It was no different, Jon came to realize, than when the kids were asking him to spend his money on his surgery and he was saying no, that he had to pay for law school, and medical school, and so many other things.
Now, the roles had shifted.
Nik Lentz’s left eye took significant damage in a loss to Evan Dunham. (Getty)
“I don’t have the words to tell you what that meant to me that Nik would do that,” Jon Lentz said. “It was probably the most special thing ever to happen to me.”
After the loss to Dunham, Silva could have cut Lentz again. But he recognized what Lentz had done for him. He walked over to Lentz in the cage after the bout and told him he would get a contract extension.
Something inside of Lentz changed. Before, he’d been a massive lightweight, a guy who cut down from 186 pounds to make the 155-pound division limit.
He bugged Mike Dolce, the noted MMA strength and conditioning guru, for help. Dolce agreed, on the condition that Lentz drop to featherweight. Lentz was skeptical but, as he was soon to learn, Dolce knows his stuff.
Lentz weighed less, but he was faster, stronger and more explosive as a featherweight than he’d ever been as a lightweight. He moved to Coconut Creek, Fla., to join American Top Team.
MMA: UFC 150-Lentz vs MitsuokaWith a new team in place, he’s won three in a row in the UFC and became the first American ever to twice beat a Brazilian on Brazilian soil.
He’s moving up in the rankings and looking forward to bigger and more significant bouts.
And Jon Lentz has one vision left, too.
“I always believed that Nik had that special ability,” Jon Lentz said. “I know the day will come when Nik wins that UFC [belt]. I know that will happen. He knows it, too. And I’ll tell you what: When he gets there, that is a fight I am not going to miss.”
Originally posted on Yahoo Sports – click to view.


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August 8, 2013

THE MIKE DOLCE SHOW: EP. 41 LEANER, FASTER, STRONGER

LISTEN HERE
Mike Dolce answers your questions! Topics include how to gain functional muscle, how to build a weight gaining meal plan, eating with diabetes, meal prep, and a 350 lbs. man who wants to lose weight asks Mike, “What would you do if you were me?” We also have a special guest appearance from The Dolce Diet’s ONLY sponsored athlete!
The founder of The Dolce Diet & creator of UFC FIT, Mike Dolce is known the world over for his work managing the weight cuts of UFC athletes like Johny Hendricks, Vitor Belfort, Thiago Alves, Chael Sonnen, Quinton Jackson, Nik Lentz, Jake Ellenberger and more! His #1 international best-selling books include The Dolce Diet: 3 Weeks to Shredded, The Dolce Diet: Living Lean, & The Dolce Diet: Living Lean Cookbook.
For more information on Mike’s books, MMA weight cuts, weight management, gaining muscle, weight loss, overall healthy living, UFC FIT and so much more, visit TheDolceDiet.com & TheMikeDolceShow.com & UFCFIT.com.


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August 3, 2013

RECIPE: DOLCE DIET BAKED KALE CHIPS

DOLCE BAKED KALE CHIPS 

These kale chips are not only tasty but are rich in fiber, iron, vitamin K and antioxidants. Potato chips, who?

INGREDIENTS
-1 head of kale
-Drizzle of grapeseed oil
-Sprinkle of sea-salt
-Optional: Dash of low-sodium soy sauce
DIRECTIONS
-Turn on oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
-Line a cookie sheet or baking pan with parchment paper.
-Wash kale thoroughly and tear it into bite-sized pieces, removing leaves from the thick stems.
-Pat leaves dry with paper towels or use a salad spinner.
-Place leaves on cookie sheet and drizzle with grapeseed oil.
-Sprinkle with a little sea salt. (Optional: Instead of sea salt, brush on a little low-sodium soy sauce.)
-Bake until crispy. Edges should be brown. (About 12-15 minutes)
Enjoy!
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August 3, 2013