Weight Loss Blogs

Here’s a video from CBS on weight loss blogs. Doesn’t say much we probably all didn’t know, but still fun to watch!

Blogging to Lose Weight

Kath

SuperFoods Today

SuperFoods:

• Oats
• Cinnamon
• Apple
• Walnut
• Honey
• Cinnamon again
• Pomegranate
• Spinach
• Plain yogurt
• Pumpkin
• Orange
• Tea
• Mushrooms
• Garlic
• Walnut again

Sidekicks:

• Squash
• Whole grain bread
• Natural peanut butter (= peanuts)

Should-Be SuperFoods:

• Skim milk
• Banana
• Carrot
• Celery

How many SuperFoods have YOU had today?

"What’s In Your Fridge?"

The Fridge:

IateApie.net is hosting a “What’s In Your Fridge” Contest this week asking readers to post photos of the inside of their fridges. Here’s mine!

Top Shelf:
(L to R)

• Pomegranate seeds
• Avocado on top of….
• Leftover garbanzo beans
• Smoked salmon on top of….
• Homemade sugar-free cranberry sauce
• Lots of diced pineapple!

Top shelf left:

• Ezekiel Sesame Bread <3

Veggie Drawers:

• Celery
• Bell peppers
• Broccoli
• Turnips
• Parsnips
• Baby spinach
• Apples
• Carrots

Door:

• Organic skim milk
• Natural organic peanut butter
• Stonyfield low-fat plain yogurt x2
• Two single-serving sugar-free yogurts
• Smart Balance
• Kalamata olives
• Capers
• Reduced-sugar raspberry jam
• Jar of sun-dried tomatoes
• Assorted condiments (below), such as Cholula hot sauce, pickles, prepared pesto, Hellman’s reduced-fat mayo, leftover Sauvignon Blanc, old mango sauce, 3 kinds of mustard, ketchup, 5 kinds of hot sauce (thanks, husband!)

Middle Shelf + Bottom Shelf (below):

• Thanksgiving turkey, thawing for Thursday!!
• 2% cottage cheese
• Omega-3 Cage Free Eggs
• Egg whites
• Dried apricots
• 6 pack of beer

In the Cheese Drawer:

• Sargento reduced-fat Italian, shredded
• Parmesan, hard
• Laughing Cow
• Sargento chipotle slices

Fruit:
And last but not least, our fruit bowl…

• Bananas (I panic if I don’t have any!)
• Pear
• Lime
• Roma tomatoes
• Kiwis
• Oranges

Root Veggies:
Sorry, no photo, but we have sweet potatoes, 3 butternut squash and acorn squash in the pantry!

Perhaps a pantry tour is in store for next week!?

"If It Doesn’t Taste Good, Don’t Eat It."

This is going to be a major issue for me tomorrow, as one of my clients is a fast food joint (fried chicken one, to be specific) and I have to eat there for lunch. We’re cooking fried chicken and biscuits all morning and then we have to eat them.

Now “have to” is debatable, but I have to at least eat something. I think I’m going to try to eat a chicken breast without the skin (It will probably be pointed out that I’m “so picky I have to remove the skin”) and hopefully there will be salty canned green beans on the side. I won’t eat a biscuit since they have shortening in them (=transfat). I’ll have an apple and something healthy from the whole grain group in my car.

It makes me soooooo annoyed that I have to eat this food, and I hate having to miss a good meal with gross food, but I don’t see that I have a choice, as this is a client and I have to be there.

On the topic, here’s a Fit From Within chapter that I posted in Elle’s CK blog:

Fit From Within’s Chapter 10: “If It Doesn’t Look Good, Don’t Eat It.”

Overeaters will eat a dish that’s too hot or too cold, overcooked or undercooked, or something they just don’t like. They give foods so many chances, taking bite after bite of this scalding/freezing/burned/raw/bad-tasting dish, as if eating enough of it could transform it into something good after all…..To become Fit From Within, you have to develop discernment. This means becoming selective about what you put in your mouth – “picky” even…..Not every meal will be a gustatory adventure, nor does it have to be, but everything you put in your mouth does need to meet some basic standards. At the very least, it should be fresh, properly prepared, and taste like something. You’re worth it!!!”

Healthy Thought of the Day

I posted this comment on Elle’s CK blog the other day:

“My new thing is that I feel warm and fuzzy and healthy when I eat right and guilty and disgusting when I eat poorly. Even if I have the calories available for a good treat, I don’t want to loose the warm and fuzzy healthy feeling, so I pass. It’s taken me 2 years to realize that.”

It’s not about calories in-calories out (although it is!!), but true healthy eating goes beyond the numbers and what you can and can’t fit into a day’s worth of calories and knocks into your EFFORT. Are you putting 100% effort into being healthy? When you do, you feel amazing, no matter what the scale says or where you are on your weight loss journey. I often say that I feel better when my weight is up (perhaps after a big eating weekend) and I’m putting 100% effort in to get back on track than when my weight is down and I’m “allowing” myself to eat junk.

Here’s another Fit From Within excerpt that says it best. I swear this woman wrote my book a few years before I got around to it!

“It is nearly impossible to have a negative attitude when you are supremely healthy. Let me fully acknowledge that I am not always this healthy. I get lazy sometimes, or I don’t replenish the energy I give to work, family, and life’s glittering diversions. But when I put my health at the top of my to-do list, it’s not long before I feel on top of the world.

When you build a body out of the healthiest food, the healthiest environment, the healthiest lifestyle, and the healthiest attitudes you know of, it’s like moving into a mansion from a tar-paper shack. At this level of health, or even on the road to it, the very process of living becomes a joy, and abusing yourself in any way becomes just about impossible.”

Thought of the Day

I have spent the past 2 years of weight loss thinking about food.

When is my next snack?

What’s for dinner?

Did those almonds really fill me up?

What should I have for breakfast on Friday?

One thing I’ve noticed is that on the weekends I’m much less obsessed with snacks and meals because I am doing quality things in my life: shopping, walking, household projects, spending time with the husband, even cooking!

On the weekdays, however, it’s hard to get through the workday without watching the clock for my next meal. I changed my eating habits and planned snacks earlier this fall, and I am working on listening to my body and hunger and not letting the clock tell me when it’s time to eat. So the following excerpt from Fit From Within REALLY hit home:

From Fit From Within

The rationale behind three meals a day is simple: if you start to eat only three times, you have to stop only three times, and stopping is the problem….This doesn’t mean there can never be an exception, that you will never have afternoon tea or an after-theater snack…Nothing that you eat rationally and out of choice rather than compulsion will interfere with the fit-from-within process. Nevertheless, I highly recommend that, unless you have a medical condition that requires you to eat more often, you stick with three meals a day most of the time.

If you do, there will be several waking hours during which you will have nothing in your mouth. This is good. This is when you learn to focus on your inner life and your outer world instead of food. It’s also when you come to know at a visceral level that, although food and water and air are indispensable for maintaining your body, the essential individual that you are is sustained by something else, something more.

Eating three meals a day is both a discipline and a gift. In the beginning, it might take all the fortitude you’ve got to get form one meal to the next without picking up something to eat. Call in your inner resources, understanding friends, or something else that inspires you. Learn the difference between what it feels like to be hungry and to think you’re hungry because you’re used to eating often.

Eating Peanut Butter Oatmeal

I wrote this comment in response to Meg’s comment, but I wanted to make it more visible.

Instructions for Eating Peanut Butter in Oatmeal:

You have to keep the peanut butter on the spoon instead of stirring it in. That way you get a little lick in every bite. If you stir it in it gets too diluted and you can’t really taste it. It’s just all “PB flavored” then. You can also get by with much LESS PB if you keep it on the spoon. I just put a little pile of oats on the spoon and am careful not to bite off too much PB per bite. This is ALSO good because you eat more SLOWLY!!

P.S. If you’re not eating all-natural peanut butter then you might as well be eating a donut for breakfast. Traditional PB is filled with sugar, salt and trans-fats = horrible for the body!! Your jar ingredients should just say “Ingredients: Peanuts.” Or perhaps “Ingredients: Peanuts, Salt.” NOTHING ELSe! All-natural PB is widely available now and its only drawback is that it requires a good muscle stir when first opened. Once all the oil in incorporated, just store it in the fridge and you’re set for a few weeks….or days

Good Calories, Bad Calories

Read this excerpt on the Good Morning America website about the new book “Good Calories, Bad Calories.” I’m dying to read it.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3654291&page=1

My 2 cents:

I agree with what he says. Mostly the evolutionary part. I do not think our bodies thrive on meat, cheese and saturated fat, but I do think we should be eating a diet that comes from the earth, is not refined, and avoids sugar and processed foods (including refined carbs):

Basis of diet (at every meal): Plants, grains, and fruits

Supplemented with (a few times per day): Animal products (milk, yogurt, eggs)

Occasionally (like once per day): Animals themselves

And only rarely (a few times a week): Things that are made in a factory.

So I think his claims and research are great, but this author needs to be REALLY careful he does not promote his book like Atkins did, because tons of dumb Americans are going to go eat steak topped with cheese all day. Just based on this excerpt, he does not emphasize vegetables enough, and it’s the “promotion” of saturated fat that is making the headlines. His message should be that saturated fats aren’t necessarily as bad as people say they are, but that doesn’t make them good enough for you that they should be the basis of a diet (which is how Atkins was interpreted).

So basically I agree that refined and processed foods could very well be the main cause of obesity (because they not only do funky things to insulin and hormones, but they make you want to eat MORE, which ultimately affects calories/in/calories/out). But minimizing refined foods does NOT mean eating tons of saturated fat and protein. It should mean eating more fresh fruits and veggies and grains in their ancient and whole forms.

Boredom Hunger

I am a complete boredom eater. Two days in a row now, I’ve fought “hunger” all afternoon. I don’t know if it’s real hunger – it’s more of an empty feeling in my stomach (like a pit) than growling.

In the mornings when I get hungry, usually around 11 a.m. if I have a normal big breakfast, my stomach starts to growl. It rumbles. I am clearly hungry.

But in the afternoons, when the clock ticks soooooo slowly, I have to stop and ask myself, “Am I really hungry?”

I read somewhere recently that if you have to stop and ask if you’re hungry, then you’re not really hungry. Hunger is real – you just know.

So I guess that means that my afternoon stomach feeling is really just boredom.

But how do I get rid of boredom eating if I can’t get rid of being bored!!!!