Meal-Tracking Online

You ever have one of those work weeks that by Friday make you feel like you’re panting and out of breath?  I’ve had a couple of those back to back.  But my games have launched finally and the worst is behind me—back to the grind!

One of the most important tools you can possibly keep in your repertoire for weight loss and maintenance is meal tracking.  For weight loss, meal tracking can give you a sense of control over how quickly or slowly you lose weight.  Your meal tracker won’t make food decisions for you, but it gives you control over your accountability.  For weight maintenance, meal tracking is the perfect way to get yourself back on track—like when your company sends you to NYC and you decide to go a little nuts on NY pizza and street meat.  Hypothetically, of course.

I use a great meal tracker that was created by the 20/20 Lifestyles program that I did my weight loss with (they’re hoping to make the program available to the public in the future).  But there are a lot of great meal trackers online.

One of my good friends started using the LiveStrong.com My Plate program created by the Lance Armstrong Foundation (http://www.livestrong.com/myplate).  She’s found the program to have almost all features she needs to help her track her weight loss (as well as some health issues).  Here are her favorite features for My Plate:

• Provides numbers on calories, carbs, protein, fat, and sodium for each food.  You can create saved meals (foods consumed at the same time) and recipes which provide the same numbers.
• Huge database of foods (even my weird gluten free foods) including foods that don’t have calories on the package (like Whole Foods’ sausages).
• Tracks weight, exercise and water intake as well.
• Has reasonable calorie goals (although the goals for fat, carbs, protein are a little skewed towards carbs).  Can chart weight against calories and see if a change is necessary.
• Great recipe feature!  Since my husband and I cook together, and we usually cook multiple portions to reheat later.  What I do is I put all the ingredients into the system, and the servings, and it will tell me the calories/protein/carbs per serving (this helps me decide if it is worth making).  Then when we make it, I weight the pot empty and full and put into the system the total weight so that it will remind me what the right serving size is each time I have it.

Have you discovered any online (or offline) meal trackers that have been helpful?

Packaging Doesn’t Always Equal Junk

With my job having been so crazy lately, grocery shopping has taken a bit of a dive in my priorities.  Now, that doesn’t mean I’m not sticking to my calorie range and eating as well as I should!  That just means I don’t have a lot of fresh food around the house (or time to prepare it, even if I did).  I realized today when I was packing my lunch that I have a kind of emergency supply of pre-packaged healthy foods for just these seasons!

So here are a few of my favorite quick-to-grab, easy-to-make foods:

StarKist Tuna Salad Pouch – I about fell over from shock when I first looked at the nutritional info on these little 3oz pouches.  There are only 100 calories in one pouch, 13g of protein and only 3g of fat!  Seriously, quickest lunch ever: grab two of these pouches and couple whole wheat crackers.

Brothers-All-Natural Fruit Crisps – Since I don’t have any fresh fruit around the house, these little pouches of freeze dried apples, pears, bananas and strawberries are the perfect answer.  Each little pouch of fruit is 40-60 calories of nothing but fruit!  They also help with those crunchy, munchy cravings.  I like getting the big box at Costco, but you can find them most anywhere.

Birds Eye Steamfresh Veggies – I’m sure you’ve already seen these at your grocery store—they’re everywhere!  If you don’t already keep some bags of the steam-in-bag microwave veggies around your house, you need to.  There’s no quicker dinner!  I’ll throw some chicken on to broil (add a very small amount of BBQ or teriyaki sauce on the side) and a bag of these veggies.  Dinner is done in 15 minutes and I got my veggies for the day!

SnackMasters Turkey Jerky – This one is my new favorite snack to go!  I’ve had turkey jerky before, but this SnackMasters brand just tastes amazing.  Their Teriyaki flavor is my favorite, but they also have Hot & Spicy.  Heck, if you’re feeling adventurous, you could try their salmon jerky or ahi tuna jerky!  The turkey jerky is only 70 calories in an ounce, and it’s a quick grab when you’re on the go.

Do you have any favorites in the pre-packaged category?  Does packaging make you nervous?  What are your secret weapons when you’re schedule gets crazy?

Bouncing Back!

Well, my beloved Steelers let me down yesterday.  But you can’t win them all!  It was a good game, and—at least at my house—even better food!  I couldn’t resist cooking up a Pittsburgh classic: Kielbasa, pierogies and sauerkraut!  It definitely wasn’t a low-call kind of meal, but I have to let myself go every now and then.

I find that I’m getting much better at bouncing back to my normal routine when I let myself have these little caloric vacations.  I didn’t keep any of the leftovers (I know, my mother would be appalled), and I definitely didn’t force them on any of my guests (my biggest pet peeve ever)!  I did bring the extra cupcakes into work, but frankly it’s just payback for my coworkers who always have junk food sitting around their own desks.  I packed my breakfast and lunch today, and I’ve got my trip to the gym planned for tonight.

When living healthy is your daily routine, it’s not so hard to get back onto the right track if you take a small detour!

If you find that bouncing back is harder than you think it should be, take a look at your daily habits and routines.  Do you find that your own healthy lifestyle is your “normal”?  Or is it less a part of your daily schedule than you realize?

If you’ve made many healthy changes to your own life—and stuck to them for a while—do you find that you can bounce back pretty easily from these kinds of days?

Oh, Those Dietary Guidelines...

On Monday, the USDA released their 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.  My friend Alex, over at I Eat Asphalt, gives a great layman’s breakdown of what changes this announcement entails.  Basically, the USDA is finally taking serious the obesity epidemic that our country is facing.  Most of the changes could simply be summed up as “Eat less and eat nutritiously.”

I’m happy to see the government finally making this step, but I can’t help but feel that they’re still several steps behind the rest of us.  These are their messages to Americans:

Balancing Calories- Enjoy your food, but eat less.
- Avoid oversized portions.

Foods to Increase- Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
- Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.

Foods to Reduce- Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals—and choose the foods with lower numbers.
- Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

Please, oh please tell me that your reaction is “No. Duh.”  Really USDA?  This is your news flash of 2010?  The saddest part is—if you followed the directions above while eating a 2000 calorie diet, you would only lose weight if you’re seriously overweight.  If I followed that kind of diet, I would gain 35 pounds in a year!

What do you think?  Do you USDA recommendations to guide your own diet choices?  Are they behind the times?

Ready! Set! Eat?

People, I have discovered one of the most amazing tools ever!  Our friend over at Leaving Fatville turned me on to http://www.readyseteat.com/.  Awesome!  Ok, whether you’re trying to lose or maintain your weight (or just don’t care), this is the perfect website for planning our last minute dinners.

The basics: You tell it how much time you have and what kind of main ingredient you’d like, and then it spits out some quick and easy dinner recipes for you.  You can enter your zip code and select your normal grocery store (so that it can tell you what ingredients are on sale).  AND there’s a “Healthier Recipes” button to filter out the high calorie dinners.

Awesomeness:  The recipes are designed to be quick and simple, but flavorful.  You won’t have to go scrounging for hard-to-find ingredients, and you won’t be spending a fortune.  Once you register on the site, you can rate recipes and find other coupons and offers.

Pitfalls: Even the “Healthier Recipes” aren’t perfect.  If you’re trying to lose weight, the worst thing you could do is just pick one of their healthy recipes and assume the calories are low.  However!  It’s easier than pie to substitute what are obviously paid sponsor foods (like Banquet frozen chicken) and just use plain chicken breast in your recipe.

I can’t even tell you how thrilled I am!  I’ve been in one of those ruts where I’m eating the same five dinners every week.  While that’s ok with Mr. Husband, I’m getting bored and quick.  I can see me using this on the weekends to plan out my meals for the week (so I don’t have to make last minute stops at the store).

Any great suggestions on how to keep dinners simple but creative?  Any weekly timesavers you’ve discovered?  Favorite easy recipes?

Protein Bar Puzzle

There’s a lot of talk out there over protein bars.  They are touted as meal replacements, diet aids, snacks or nutrition supplements.  So what should we do with them?  How do you pick a good one?  Do any good ones even exist, or do they all taste like Styrofoam?

I’m here to help!  Protein bars can be a big part of weight loss and weight maintenance.  You can use them as snacks or meal replacements.  One thing protein bars are not: nutritional.  It doesn’t matter how many vitamins they pack in them, a protein bar cannot replace vegetables and fruits—natural sources of fiber, vitamins and minerals.  I often use protein bars to replace a breakfast when I know I don’t have time to put anything together or a snack when I know I’m going to be crazy busy at work.

When you’re choosing a protein bar, your choice is going to first be based on the nutritional facts and second on the taste.  When you’re looking at the nutritional facts, what’s the most important number?  Protein!  That’s why it’s called a “Protein Bar!”  You want there to be more grams of protein than fat.  Ideally, there will be 10 grams of protein or more.

Since you’re already comparing your protein number to your fat number, you simply want to make sure there’s as little fat as possible.  There should definitely be less fat than protein.  Ideally, there will be 5 grams of fat or less.

The next number you’re looking for is carbs.  When you start looking at the number of carbs in protein bars, you’re going to be in for a shock.  For the most part, you don’t want any more than 25 grams of carbs.  If more than 50 percent of those carbs is sugar, chances are that you’re not holding a protein bar in your hand.  Say “hello” to the candy bar that snuck its way into that section with fancy words like “nutrition” and “all-natural.”

If you’re following the rules listed above, you’ll get a protein bar that’s between 150 and 200 calories.

I have a list here of bars that I have tried and that actually taste good!

Special K Protein Meal Bar (Strawberry)
170 Calories, 5g Fat, 25g Carb (15g Sugar), 10g Protein

Zone Perfect All-Natural Nutrition Bar (Double Dark Chocolate)
190 Calories, 6g Fat, 22g Carb (14g Sugar), 12g Protein

Luna Bar (Peanut Butter Cookie)
180 Calories, 6g Fat, 26g Carb (11g Sugar), 9g Protein

I’ve tried a lot of protein bars, and some of them are just disgusting!  Have you tried any good ones?  Any we should avoid?  Were you surprised by the nutrition numbers on your own protein bar?

Surviving the Holidays - Part 1

We’re starting off our December series on surviving the holidays and temptation with a few tips and tricks!  These are strategies I use, or my friends use, or suggestions I’ve received from people.

Eat Your Veggies!  Even if you’re not tracking anything you’re eating, counting calories, or using any other strategies—if you’re eating eight servings of vegetables in your day, you won’t have as much room for other junk.  It’s easy during the holidays to find vegetables smothered in fat and sugar, but there are plenty of good recopies that can keep vegetables calorically simple.  If you’re loading up on low cal healthy foods, you’ll be less hungry which makes resisting temptation much easier.

Eat Right Part Time!  My counselor had recommended during my Christmas vacation last year to commit to eating at least two meals each day well.  If I knew I was doing brunch with the family, then commit to eating a small but healthy lunch and dinner.  This always made me feel pretty good!  Even if I was feeling a little guilty over the one meal, I could think “at least I did well on the other two!”

Enjoy the Good Stuff!  My friend Katie reminded me of a great philosophy I used to use daily.  If you’re staring at a bowl of chips, it’s easy to tell yourself “I can have these any time.  If want chips next week, I could go buy them.”  If you’re going to indulge, aim for foods that you can’t have that often (like Katie’s homemade sugar cookies!).  It makes passing up on some treats easier.

Have a Plan!  You all know I’m a planner.  Even if you get to a party and suddenly realize your plan flew out the window, you at least started off as well as you possibly could.  And you always run the chance that your plan will actually work!  Lately, I’ve found myself assuming my plans will fall through, so it ends up being a little self-fulfilling prophecy.  I need to start letting my plans work the way that they should, but not feeling too guilty when they do fall through.

How do you survive temptation?  How do you arm yourself to avoid overeating or overcoming temptations?

I Seem to Have Lost the Band Wagon

The past week—alright, fine—the past couple of weeks have been my first significant weight gain since losing close to 100 pounds.  I’d like to blame the holiday specifically engineered to make us eat.  Oh wait, that could describe all American holidays.  You know, the holiday that’s all about eating candy.  Oh wait, that really only narrows the field by like one or two holidays.  Ok, I’d like to blame Halloween, but I can really only blame myself (ok, and maybe dopamine and opioids, but that really was an entirely different post).

This weekend, I was feeling so far away from the band wagon that no one on the band wagon would really be able to see what I was eating—so I ate a little of everything.  Let me tell you: everything was stinkin’ delicious.  I also now feel like a five-year-old who was allowed to eat whatever they wanted and now I feel completely ill.  I wish I could bottle this feeling and whip it out every time I’m about to over indulge.

Ok.  So here we are.  Post Halloween and counting down three and a half weeks until Thanksgiving.  My husband and I are taking an amazing vacation during Thanksgiving and I really don’t want to have to count calories.  So I need to track down the band wagon asap and get my butt back on it.

“What’s the game plan?” you ask.  The game plan is to make a game plan!  I’m planning out my meals again.  I also think I’ll be giving myself a few limits like: no eating any food at work or on the weekend that I don’t plan for.  I find this helps keep me in context when there’s temptation sitting around.  The next part of the plan is to make sure there’s no temptation sitting around.  I’m normally pretty irritated at other people’s insensitivity to temptation (like when a coworker throws a bowl of candy on your desk).  But I came into work today and threw my bowl of candy on another coworker's desk (gees, she’s so insensitive!).

I’ll also be making sure I don’t de-prioritize the gym—gym time has been getting the boot lately for other important tasks, like catching up on America’s Next Top Model.  I considered wearing my pedometer regularly again, but then I remembered I washed it (as in, left it in my jean’s pocket and did some laundry).  I’ll be stopping by Target on my way home from work today.

So how about you?  How do you get yourself back on the band wagon?  Tips and tricks?  And I’d love to know what kind of game plan you create for yourself for the holidays!  If you’re interested in guest blogging on how you survive the holidays, email me at liveitouteveryday [at] comcast.net.

Eat Your Veggies!

Did you know that only 1 out of every 3 adults in the US eat more than three servings of vegetables each day?  The CDC recently published some state numbers on how many servings of fruits and vegetables we’re eating every day.  There’s some fascinating information (and a couple of maps that would make you gasp) under the Health Professionals section here: www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov.

Are you surprised by that number?  I asked around my work to see what others thought, and one coworker replied, “I like vegetables, but I just don’t buy them often.”  This was me not that long ago.  I kept commenting to my nutritionist as I was doing the 20/20 Lifestyles program, “I forgot how much I love veggies and fruit!”

We all have different reasons for not eating the veggies we need daily.  Some of us live in veggie-hostile environments.  My husband refuses to eat anything that grew out of the ground, so I’m the only person in our house who consumes vegetables.  Some people are unsure of what to buy or how to buy produce.  I knew how to buy good carrots and zucchini, but until I moved to Seattle produce like avocadoes and brussel sprouts were foreign territory to me.  And some people just don’t know what to do with the veggies once they have them.  Cooking some veggies takes a little practice, and not everyone loves boring, warmed, unseasoned vegetables.

I’ll chat about some specific veggies in later posts (so let me know if you have any requests!), but here are a few ideas of how we can build more produce into our diet every day:

·         Veggies (unadulterated) are always low-calorie.  You can absolutely include a little in every meal: a hand full of cherry tomatoes with your snack, a salad with your lunch, and grilled veggies with dinner are easy.  The key is to commit to keeping veggies around your house so you can pack them to go and snack on them at home.

·         Consider how you can use veggies to compliment what you’re already eating.  Don’t skip the lettuce and tomato on your burger.  Throw some broccoli in that mac ‘n cheese.  Add eggplant to your lasagna for a little excitement!

·         Consider how you could replace high-carbohydrate or calorie-dense foods with vegetables.  Instead of having bread as an appetizer, get a salad (watch that dressing!).  Instead of pasta, have your chicken or meatballs with asparagus and zucchini (or spaghetti squash as great substitute).  Instead of a bun for your hamburger, try portabella mushrooms or large leaf lettuce.

Do you find it hard to build veggies into your daily diet?  Are there specific days or times that are easier to get your servings of vegetables than others?  How have you found ways to work in fresh produce?

Exercise vs. Calories

Hoo boy!  It has been a crazy work week and it is only Tuesday!  It’s looking like my schedule is going to stay this way for a while too.  I’ve been forced to start considering my priorities since my time and energy is an absolute premium right now.

I’ve noticed that when this kind of stress arrives, my tendency is to prioritize exercise over calories.  What I mean is that I’ll catch myself not tracking what I eat or how much, as well as making choices to eat a lot of high-calorie comfort foods, but still prioritizing my exercise classes and time at the gym.  I find that, for me, it’s easy to justify those bad food choices because I’m still prioritizing my gym time.  It’s easier!  I like the gym.

So which is more important?  The answer is that both calories and exercise are important to losing and maintaining your weight, not to mention your overall health.  If you’re looking to change your life for good, you’re going to need to make lifestyle changes to both how you eat and how active you are.  And both eating well and exercising complement each other: having the energy for an intense cardio work out is hard when I’ve been loading up on doughnuts all day, and I always feel so tired no matter how well I’ve eaten when I haven’t been to the gym for a few days.

But we all know that life happens.  And sometimes you just can’t both watch your calories and make time for exercise.  Over the long term, making one a priority over the other could be a big mistake.  The choices I have made in the past to prioritize exercise almost always result in weight gain.  Why?  You’ve heard it before: calories in, calories out.  It doesn’t matter if I’m burning 500 calories at the gym every night—if I’m eating 3000 calories in a day, that’s still 1000 extra calories that is going right to my fat cells.  I’ve learned that (if I have to choose) I need to prioritize watching my calories and tracking my eating.

Have you found the same for yourself?  Are there other ways you’ve found to work within limited time and energy periods of life?

Milking the Dairy Debate

When it comes to dairy foods, everyone is pretty divided on whether we should dub it a “healthy” food group and how much of it we should eat.  How much calcium do we need?  Are dairy foods the best way to get calcium?  Should I only consume fat free dairy foods?  Does this mean I need to stop smothering everything I eat in cheese?

Disclaimer:  For our discussion today, I’m completely ignoring the antibiotics/organic debate and looking purely at dairy foods from a nutritional standpoint.  Also, many of my in-laws are dairy farmers so I would appreciate if they stopped reading right here (as I would like nice Christmas presents this year).

Generally, most people need about 600 to 1000 milligrams of calcium each day.  However, your body can only absorb about 500 milligrams at once (about one third of what you need), so it’s impossible to get all the calcium you need in one dose.  Dairy foods are often the easiest, and quickest, ways to get doses of calcium into our diets; but did you know that calcium is naturally found in many other foods?

Salmon, tofu, almonds and broccoli are just a few natural foods that are great sources of calcium.  Leafy green vegetables are the best low-calorie source of calcium (not to mention a slew of other nutrients).  An orange actually has more than half the calcium that a serving of cottage cheese has.  An artichoke has more calcium than a serving of cream cheese.  Interestingly, sesame seeds are the most abundant source of calcium in nature (cup of sesame seeds = 2200 mg, cup of milk = 280 mg).

However, dairy foods can be high in saturated fats, so we need to be careful of the quantity of dairy foods in your diet (remember that small amounts of saturated fat in our diets is fine).  Reduced fat dairy foods are great sources of protein.  There are many fat free dairy foods that actually taste pretty good as well.

So what’s the verdict?  Well, that’s up to you!  Personally, I take daily calcium supplements, sometimes eat greek yogurt for breakfasts, and eat low fat cheese sticks as snacks.  All in all, it really only comes to about 2 to 4 servings of dairy each day.  Do you find that less dairy each day would works better for you?   More?  Just make sure to track those calories and watch the fat.

Are You Drinking Your Weight Gain?

Considering my profession, I have an appreciation for good marketing.  I heard about this ad the other day on the radio and just had to look it up:

This ad comes from the New York City Health Department, and I love how they have executed it.  The look on the woman’s face at the end is the kicker.  She’s just absolutely disgusted at him as she sits and drinks her soda.  "You'd never eat 16 packs of sugar.  Why would you drink 16 packs of sugar?"

But I can hear you now, “Yeah, yeah, I know.  But I don’t drink a lot of soda.”  Here’s a study you’d be crazy interested in, then.  Scientists fed people either 450 calories of jelly beans or soda each day for a month.  At the end, the soda drinkers had gained more weight than the jelly bean eaters.  Why?  Apparently, the jelly bean eaters unconsciously reduced the calories they ate in other places, but the soda drinkers didn’t.  This means the term “empty calories” is more true than we know.  Our bodies don’t recognize calories from some beverages as sustenance—our brains continue to tell us to eat the same amount of food even though we don’t actually need the same amount of calories.

Interestingly, the radio article I heard this ad mentioned in was about New York City wanting to stop people from using food stamps to purchase soda.  There are already bans on other kinds of food people can use food stamps on—however, soda is among some high sugar foods and drinks that people are able to get.  Many studies have shown that low income families suffer from the highest rates of obesity than any other social class.  Are you wondering how that could be?  Try it out: take $10 to your grocery store and try to purchase fresh, healthy foods to make a dinner for four people.  You’ll find that your $10 stretches much further if you leave the produce isle.  Carbs and fat are cheap.

So, are you drinking a lot of calories in your day?  Are there any low or no-calorie drinks you’ve found to help keep your taste buds happy?

Finally, if you and your family are privileged enough to afford healthy and fresh foods every day, I would challenge you to consider families without that luxury next time you’re in your grocery store.

Those Sneaky Health Halos

We’ve previously discussed Health Halos, which is a fancy word for the perception of “healthy” that we apply to foods that carry certain labels—labels like “low fat” or “sugar free.”  You can check out that post here.

Today I’d like to take a look at another category of labels that are creating health halos all over the place: organic, all natural, or locally grown.

I read a lot of the other blogs in my category.  I find that many of the healthy living blogs that focus on food (you’ll know them by the endless stream of food-photo filled posts) use a lot of the above buzz words.  One blogger in particular is genuinely trying her best to eat as healthy as she possibly can but often shares recipes that have ingredient lists like this: organic flour, all natural sugar, locally raised eggs, etc.  Congratulations!  You’ve just made an organic, all natural, locally supported waffle that has the exact same calories as any waffle at any Der Waffel Haus.

Unprocessed?  Yes.  Healthy?  No.

The worst part is—as is with any health halo—we tend to eat more of a food that we think is healthy than we would if we knew we were eating something that has a higher calorie content.  One of my favorite magazines, Cooking Light, just wrote an article on this: check it out.

When we’re not on our guard, it’s easy to assume that organic is the same as healthy.  Eating unprocessed foods is definitely a healthy goal.  And there are plenty of organic foods that are also low calorie.  But you ask: “Oh how are we to tell the difference?  Oh where are we to find this elusive information?” (I hope you put as much dramatic voice into those questions as I did in my head.)  You need to look right past those labels and headlines to find the nutritional information on packaging.  You check serving size first, calories second and then scan the rest of the info (looking particularly at fat and carbohydrates).

Have you ever eaten a food and only found afterward that it wasn’t as healthy as you thought?  Are there labels that you think you’re particularly attracted to?  Why do you think these kinds of labels work so well on us?

Recipe for Success: Eat Right, Get Active



I just love fat pictures!  Last month was the one year anniversary to the beginning of my weight loss journey.  From August 2009 to February 2010, I steadily lost over 95 pounds.  I’ve had several occasions since beginning my weight maintenance journey in March to consider the attitudes and choices that made me so successful.

While I was losing my weight, many people would ask, “So what are you doing?”  I could see the excitement, the expectation in their eyes.  And I knew it would die as soon as I gave them my answer: “Well, I’m really just learning how to eat healthy and exercising my butt off.”  Most people would look disappointed, congratulate me, and move on.  Only a few would push for more on what I was doing.

Don’t hear what I’m not saying.  There are plenty of diets out there—diet foods, diet programs, different dieting philosophies—that do work well for some people.  But, for most people, all that is needed is food education and a kick in the butt.  Most of us want to eat well; we just have no idea how!

When it comes to food, the most important part is to find healthy, low-calorie foods that you enjoy.  In completely revamping my daily diet, I remembered how much I loved fruits and vegetables.  Honestly, a dinner feels incredibly satisfying to me when I get to finish it up with a cup of fresh mango (mangoes are so stinkin’ good that they totally count as dessert).  And I often have to cut myself off because I love fresh zucchini so much that I could eat a pound of it every night for dinner.  When you build in plenty of healthy foods that you genuinely enjoy, you’ll find yourself easily motivated to stick to your diet.

In addition to enjoying healthy foods, you’ve got to get up off your butt!  I know, I know—you hate exercise.  But being active doesn’t need to be strict exercise.  Take a walk to relax.  Go wrestle with your kids.  Help a friend move.  It’s extremely important to build activity into your regularly life, not just to weight loss but also your general health.  You’ll begin to find that it feels like you have more energy to spend when you spend more energy (that’s me channeling Mr. Miyagi for the day).  I feel so sluggish on days that I don’t get to the gym.  But days that I run around none stop and still get to the gym, I feel like I could keep going for hours!

What kind of changes to diet and activity have you found that work well for you?  Were they easy or hard to incorporate into your life?  Do they keep you motivated?

I Make Great Sammiches!

I was chatting with a friend (and faithful reader) who mentioned that she loved my post on snack suggestions.  I was telling her about how I’ve discovered two fantastic sandwich combinations that have been my lunch obsession for weeks now (my nutritionist says I get on food kicks just like a 5-year-old).  But they’re both fantastic and fantastically easy to make!

The first is a Toasted Roast Beef Sandwich.  On the weekend, I’ll get a beef round roast and make it for dinner on Monday (stick it in the crock pot for 10 hours in the morning and you have dinner waiting for you when you get home).  Now you have leftover roast beef:

2 slices of low-calorie/high-fiber bread
10 grams of dijon mustard
3 ounces roast beef (reheated)
1 ounces reduced fat blue cheese (or gorgonzola)

My second is a Toasted Chicken Cordon Bleu Sandwich.  Again, on the weekend I’ll grill up a bunch of chicken breasts to use throughout the week.

2 slices of low-calorie/high-fiber bread
10 grams of dijon mustard
2 ounces chicken breast (reheated)
2 ounces lean deli ham
1 ounce slice of reduced fat swiss cheese

Just toast the bread and layer on your ingredients.  You can even spice things up with a couple slices of tomato or some fresh basil leaves.  Both sandwiches are between 300 and 350 calories.  The secret ingredient is Sara Lee Delight White bread—each slice is 45 calories, and I’m pretty sure they make the stuff with fairy dust because it’s delicious.  Pair them with a handful of carrots and half an apple and you have a perfectly balanced lunch!

Back on Track

It’s Wednesday and I’ve already had it up to my eyebrows this week.  I have made the conscious decision to eat my stress.  Even after all the planning, I’ll still get pizza for dinner or go out for lunch.  It’s been one of those weeks.

Since I’m already working through in my head what I’m going to do to get back on track, I figured I’d let you follow along.

#1 Meal Tracking – For me, tracking everything I eat is extremely important to my weight maintenance.  For some people, it helps them stay aware of how many calories they’ve eaten.  I mostly use my meal tracker to help me plan out my day.  On days other than today, I’ll sit down in the morning and plan out my breakfast, snacks and lunch.  Then I have a good idea of what to start thinking about for dinner.

#2 The Gym – Generally, even when I make bad food choices, I still don’t have trouble getting to the gym.  I love my gym!  This week, though, motivation has been low.  I need to spend some time thinking about my favorite classes, exercises, and why I like them.  I often find that listening to some of my favorite dance and workout music helps get me in the mood to work out, too.

#3 Focus on How I Feel – I’ve probably eaten around 1500 calories already today (with plans to go out to dinner), and I feel crappy.  When I eat like this, it never—and I mean never—makes me feel good!  Sure, I get that sugar-rush when I first eat these kinds of foods (remember opioids people?), but in an hour I feel sleepy and sluggish and tired.  Not to even mention a little sick to my stomach.  And I think I’m getting a headache.  Have I mentioned that I feel crappy?

#4 Just Do It – At some point, probably Saturday because I have plans to go out to dinner on Friday (I know, I’m just unbelievable, right?), I’ll get up out of bed and kick myself in the butt.  My inner dialog often goes like this: “What are you thinking?  Look at you.  You’re ridiculous.  You know what you’re doing, so stop it.  You know what to do, so do it!”  And then I’ll drag myself off to my 10am Body Step class and feel so good that I did!

Can anyone relate?  What do you do to get back on track?

Is It a Fruit or Not?

Everyone knows that fruit is a fantastic way to get healthy, complex carbohydrates into your diet.  As long as you’re not over doing it (yes, you can over-do fruit), fruit can be an important component to regulating your blood sugar, keeping your energy up, and even keeping your sweet tooth satisfied.  Most people should be getting about 2 to 4 servings of fruit each day (a serving is a half cup, which is never as big as you think it is).

But then there is dried fruit—is dried fruit still fruit?

Dried fruit is a tricky thing, and you don’t want to treat dried fruit the same way you treat regular fruit.  The first difference is quantity.  Since dried fruit is so much smaller and lighter than its un-dried (or hydrated) counterpart, a serving size is much, much smaller.  Case and point: one cup of grapes is about 70 calories, and one cup of raisins is over 400 calories.  A serving size of dried fruit is generally about a quarter cup, but even that quarter cup is not equivalent to one serving of regular fruit.

The second big difference is that dried fruit often has added sugar.  I have a couple different salad recipes that call for dried cranberries:

40 grams of Dried Cranberries: 138 calories and 29 grams of sugar

40 grams of Cranberries: 18 calories 1 gram of sugar

The dried cranberries have 15 percent more sugar than the regular cranberries.  Although dried cranberries tend to get more added sugar than most fruits (because they’re so tart), make sure you’re checking the ingredients and nutritional info so you have a good idea of how much added sugar you’re getting.

Lastly, don’t underestimate the importance of the water naturally in fruit.  I have a weakness for dried mango—I find it hard to stop eating.  But when I eat regular mango, I can eat a small bowl (about 6 ounces) and then feel full and satisfied.   The water in fruits helps to fill you up so that you begin to feel full before you’ve eaten more calories than you actually need.  Since dried fruits remove that water, it’s best to make sure you’re drinking water while you snack to help you not overeat.

I’ll post in the comments my favorite salad recipe using dried cranberries.  Please post any of your own recipes for other good dried fruit uses.  I’m looking a great trail mix combination!

USDA Still Doesn’t Get It

Did you know that there is a new Food Pyramid from the USDA?  I had no idea the USDA finally woke up and adjusted their recommendations.  As it turns out, the New pyramid is definitely leaps and bounds better than the Old, but still completely unbalanced in how they prioritize their food groups.

You’ll notice Grains still have the top most emphasis.  The only change from Old to New is that now the USDA is emphasizing whole grains.  This pyramid is obviously still more concerned with our agriculture industry rather than our waist lines.

It’s great that Vegetables have a large portion of the pyramid, but the USDA is pretty undiscriminating when it comes to starchy or high-carbohydrate vegetables.  If you were trying to lose weight, decided to load up on veggies, but then only ate peas and legumes, then you would be fighting a losing battle.

I’m not surprised to see Fruits next on the pyramid.  Fruits are good to have in your diet, but you want to be careful with natural sugars like fruit.  Sugar, is sugar, is sugar.  You can have too much fruit in your diet just as much as you can have too much candy in your diet.

I’m fascinated that we’ve reached Oils already without encountering Meats yet.  The USDA definitely got one right with their recommendation of fats, but their priorities could use some adjusting.

Ah, Milk.  I guess dairy farmers lost the fight on this one finally that they get bumped to the second to last priority.  They still emphasize milk in American diets way more than any of us should be consuming, but they got it right with the low-fat recommendation.

And that brings us to Meat & Beans.  Poor protein.  If we follow the New pyramid, we are going to be some hungry, munchy individuals.  The USDA has some good recommendations under here with a preference for lean, non-fried meats.  But without a significant amount of protein in your day, you are going to want to eat constantly.

All in all, I wouldn’t recommend using the New food pyramid as a guide to healthy eating.  The http://www.mypyramid.gov/ site does, however, have some other great resources (like calorie counts and nutritional information).

Oh NEAT!

Today we’ll be talking about how neat NEAT is!  NEAT is Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.  Now you can see why they made it into an acronym.  That mouthful of words refers basically to the movement we make in our day that is not specifically exercise.

As I sit at work I can see a pair of people talking—one gesturing wildly as she talks.  I see a woman bouncing her leg as she sits and types.  My boss (who is seven months pregnant) has made about a dozen trips to the bathroom in the last hour.  I watch a man stand at the printer tapping his hand impatiently on his thigh.

There are three components of energy expenditure or how our bodies spend energy:

1) Basal Metabolic Rate – I had previously defined BMR (or your Resting Metabolic Rate) and provided a way to calculate (click here to read the post).  Your BMR is the calories your body spends just keeping you alive: pumping your heart, running your brain, breathing, etc.

2) Thermic Effect of Food – Your TEF is the calories your body spends processing the food you eat: chewing, swallowing, digesting, etc.

3) Activity Thermogenesis – Your AT is any calories your body uses when you move, whether exercise or spontaneous activity.

Most people focus on the exercise portion of their AT.  Meaning, most people spend their entire day in a sedentary fashion and then make a trip to the gym after work to make up for it.  But NEAT can contribute significantly to our overall energy expenditure.  Studies have found that NEAT can make up as little as 15% to as much as 50% of a person’s energy expenditure.

Much of our NEAT is influenced by our environment.  At work, I choose to send anything I need to print to the machine furthest from my desk.  I own a townhouse with three floors, so stairs are an inevitable component of my home life.  But some of our NEAT is biological as well.  Obviously, young people have more natural NEAT and elderly can lose NEAT that may have been more natural.  Or, think about how you feel after you’ve eaten Thanksgiving dinner—you’re not usually in a mood to bounce around the house.

Have you noticed NEAT in your own life?  How do you think it impacts your weight maintenance, loss or gain?

Incredible Weight Loss Drink!

You’re not going to believe it, but I’ve found a weight loss beverage that has 0 calories and no caffeine (or other iffy ingredients).  It’s pretty darn cheap, and it actually tastes good!   I’d like to introduce you to: Water.

If you actually fell for that, you haven’t been reading long (this blog definitely does not offer any silver bullets or quick fixes).  But I guarantee you that water can have a huge impact on your weight loss and maintenance!

Studies show that drinking water before a meal will result in you eating about 75 to 100 calories less than you would normally.  Avoiding those calories alone, you could lose 5 pounds over several months.  One study actually showed that drinking water increased the rate at which subject burned calories (their metabolism) by 30 percent!

Another reason to drink water is that it keeps you from drinking other sugary or fattening drinks.  Many studies have proven that your body tends to compensate it’s caloric intake when you eat high-calorie foods.  However, our bodies do not compensate for extra calories from beverages!  Meaning, if you sneak a handful of M&Ms before lunch, you’re likely to eat a few less calories at lunch.  But if you have a large Coke with lunch, you’re still going to eat the same amount of food.

What’s the best way to drink enough water?  Keep it with you!  I have this nifty plastic cup with a lid and straw that I keep at my desk at work—super convenient.  There are a lot of great water bottles out there, too.  Are there any tricks you use to drink lots of water throughout your day?