Eating Healthy for Cheap

Yesterday I read an article about McDonald's trying to upgrade their kid's meals to make them healthier! Noble goal, but one that I believe is based on Public Relations, rather than health! My opinion! I do not believe that adding treated apples and decreasing fry size, while leaving chicken nuggets on the kid's meal is that much cause for rejoicing. It is a step in the right direction, I guess, but not enough! What concerned me most were the comments of people on this article! It broke my heart! Many people were saying that they had to frequent McDonald's because the food was cheaper than buying food at the market! Really? I pondered this all day! The golden arches seem expensive to me, but I am a frugal cook!

So I am going to keep track of the cost of my meals for a bit, just for my own peace of mind!
Last night we had a giant salad! I was in a hurry! My son had a therapy, right at 6 pm, so dinner was a quickie! I opened a bag of organic spinach which was $1.99 from Trader Joe's! I divided it between four plates. I topped it with chopped cabbage, also from TJ's for $1.19. Next I layered on Broccoli Slaw and used about half of a bag which be a $1.00. I chopped up four large organic strawberries on top of each salad, which I purchased at TJ's for 4.99, but I used only about 1/4 of the package so $1.25. It was a special deal of  $4.99 for 2 pounds of organic strawberries! I added a handful of cranberries, say $1.00 which is more than they probably cost. I also added chopped chicken from a Costco rotisserie chicken. I used about 1/3 of a chicken, so around $1.70. Topped the salad with dressing from TJ's for 1.99 and used maybe 1/2 so $1.00. This meal was delicious, healthy and cheap! It cost $9.15, which for my family of 4, is way cheaper than we can eat at McDonalds! Even if we only allowed each person to choose 2 items from the dollar menu, the cost would have been $8.00, plus tax, plus gas there. I would have come out ahead to eat at home and it was healthier!

Many other meals are so healthy and inexpensive. Even if you do not have access to fresh vegetables, all grocery stores sell frozen vegetables and most grocery stores have sales that you can stock up on these veggies. Soups are healthy and cheap. Make them with grains, beans, frozen veggies (if you can't get fresh), and spices. I use the frozen pea, corn, and green  bean combo all the time for my chicken soup. I add the chicken, spices, 2 16 oz bags of mixed veggies and either rice, couscous or pasta!  Amazing and cheap! I make a huge pot of soup every single week and we eat it for lunches too! Cheap!!!

Use the Costco Chicken, if time is short. My family of 4, 3 adult guys, can get 3 meals from one chicken. I purchased one on Monday. Monday night we had Taco Salad and used one side of the breast, black beans, lettuce, cheese, salsa and organic tortilla chips. Also a cheap meal and less than $10.  Yesterday, we had the spinach salad and used the other half of the breast. Today I am either going to use the rest for a stir fry! Cheap! I buy organic chickens too which are pricier, but I knew this week I was pressed for time!

Grains and Beans are both very cheap, especially if you buy them in bulk! I just wrote up a bean page for my website today, which will take a few days to get on, because I want people to know that they do not have to eat at McDonalds! Beans are amazing and they are not just for poor people! In Mediterranean cultures, beans are huge. It's just our culture that is so meat centric! My kids have been raised on beans because I was raised on beans! No complaints because they are delicious!

Any Grain can become an amazingly delicious salad meal. Try wheat berries, quinoa, rice, couscous, or any grain you find that is cheap can be done like this! Cook your grain and let it cool, add any bean choice, or chopped chicken, and then chop up tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, peppers,  or whatever veggies you have and top with a vinaigrette! It's cheap and filling!

Spaghetti is cheap! A pound of noodles can be bought on sale for $1.00. Use 1/2 pound of hamburger meat. Use a jar of sauce. Even Trader Joe's Organic Pasta sauce is only $2.29. Chop up a pound of zucchini into the sauce too or add a salad and that is still a meal less than $10. Costco has bags of romaine lettuce that are cheap!

I do not live in a food dessert! I live in Seattle, so maybe I am living in a bubble! My family is not rich! I try to buy organics for the dirty dozen at least. I know my local grocery stores well, and which ones carry the best prices on specific organic fruits and veggies, and believe me they all differ! I do not spend my whole paycheck at Whole Foods, but sometimes they do have the best prices. Trader Joe's consistently has great deals, but I realize they are not in every state yet! I love shopping there because they are small, and I do not need so many choices of foods. I want only fresh, real foods and I try to buy the best quality if possible, but I do the best I can. I serve way less meat, because I really can't afford huge amounts of organic meats! I make  meals that are usually cheaper and way more healthy than McDonalds!

Check back! I am going to try and keep track of my food choices this month to prove to myself that it is cheaper to eat at home, than off of the Dollar Menu of Fast food!

Cooking in the Heat

No one enjoys cooking in the heat! Summer is officially here, at least for those of you who don’t live in the Pacific Northwest! Up here we are slowly warming up! As the heat soars, your desire to cook a hot healthy meal dissolves, but it’s not healthy diet habit to live on restaurant food for long. Some lifestyle solutions for cooking in the heat are:

·        Fix simple meals: Meals do not need to be complex to be healthy! Simple meals full of cut up fruits, veggie salads with a meat and grain included, wraps full of meat and veggies, tacos or burritos, quick stir fries full of summer veggies, cold soups, or fresh sandwiches full of nitrate free meats and organic cheeses and lots of chopped veggies, are great choices! Check out the super salad meal chart! Visit your local farmers market for the freshest, tastiest choices!

·        Grill out: My favorite summer meals are grilled. You are all familiar with grilled meats and maybe corn on the cob, but all fruits and veggies can be grilled! They can be placed on the grill if they are cut in large slices, in a grill basket, or placed in a foil packet with seasonings and steamed on the grill. Your grill should be your best friend for summer meals!

·        Use your crock pot: Some of your favorite winter meals can be fixed in your crock pot, which does not heat up your kitchen. There are so many delicious crock pot meals to choose from. Plan ahead, add your veggies and meat to the pot, and a meal is made! Add a chopped salad and cut up fruit for dessert! A great crock pot cookbook is worth the expense! My kids actually beg for crock pot food!

·        Fix light meals: Summer meals should be light and not overly heavy meals. No one wants that stuffed, bloated feeling in the heat! Smaller healthier meals will satisfy and keep you more comfortable. Summer is a great time to take off those extra pounds that you added during the dark winter months when food offered comfort! You just do not need the comfort of heavy foods in the summer!

·        Experiment with some unknown veggies and fruits: There are many fruits and veggies at farmers markets that I have not seen or tasted. Ask venders how they are best fixed and be adventuresome and develop some new favorite recipes. I just learned about avocado squash today and can’t wait to try them out!

Summer is my favorite season for adding lifestyle solutions that make weight control easy! Whatever your cooking method, filling your plate full of veggies and fruits seems like summer. No diet, but just healthy eating! Everywhere you go, fresh produce abounds and should be tasted and enjoyed. Meals that are simple and do not require a lot of time, allow you to get out there and enjoy the great days and long evenings of summer!

Healthy Vacation Foods for Weight Control!

If you are like me, you tire easily of fast food, and plan ways to encourage healthy vacation foods for your family while traveling! This is a healthy diet habit! Summer is almost here, and most of you are finalizing plans for your vacations. Road trips to distant states, trips to lake houses, or a nice visit to your relatives! Here are some tips that will allow you to travel and keep your weight under control!

1.      Travel with snacks always! Kids equate vacations with snacks and mostly unhealthy ones. Win the whining wars early, by providing great snacks. Take a cooler in your car and fill it with cut up veggies, frozen fruit, low-fat cheese sticks and whole wheat crackers, home-made granola, popcorn, soy crisps which are yummy and contain protein, trail mix with nuts and dried fruits, and hummus or peanut butter with pitas. I always try to find a few new ideas that my family will love. We refill our cooler with great snack foods along the way! Make sure that you pack your cooler and snack food bags where they are easily reachable. We have learned this the hard way! Coolers facing the wrong way and snacks buried in the way back under everything!

2.      Take along a picnic lunch. Plan on stopping at a great park or vista along your trip path. My family is always excited about finding a new picnic spot. We have some very fun memories of these travel picnics!

3.      Be prepared for the unavoidable fast food stops. Know what you will eat before you enter fast food restaurants. I guarantee that if you do not do this, you will end up with a meal special, loaded with unwanted calories. Spend a few minutes on-line, before your trip, choosing healthy alternatives at your kid’s favorite spots. If you can’t always provide healthy foods, you can offer some healthy choice advice!

4.      Eat at grocery stores. We do this often because they offer healthier choices. You can find a variety of veggie and fruit salads, soups and chilies, freshly made sandwiches, and fresh juice drinks. This beats fried fast food and sodas any day! There is usually a small area set up for in store eaters too.

5.      Keep your home rules on the road most of the time. We do not drink calories at home and we do not drink calories on the road. All grocery stores have flavored waters or we stick with water. This saves many calories per day. We would rather have a food treat!

6.      Practice portion control on your vacation some of the time. Vacations are a time of fun and fun does not mean that you have to splurge at every meal and overeat. That is a vacation habit that you want to avoid unless you want to return home in the next size clothes.

7.      Practice healthy diet habits on the road. We always delete all sauces, mayo and extra calories from our restaurant meals. Ask for calorie counts on foods before you order and make sure that they fit into your meal plan. If you normally plan for 600 lunch calories, stick close to that number when you eat out. Split portions with your family or order kid size meals for adults which is the correct serving size. If you have a cooler, you can save half of your meal for later.

Vacations are a fun lifestyle solution. We enjoy eating, that adds to our fun. We love to locate quaint little shops to eat in our travel destinations. Some of them are not so healthy, but that is okay. We still talk about the giant feet donuts we got in British Columbia, more than once I might add, but splurges are what memories are made of!

RANT AND TEARS

I am so sorry you guys, I always promise that I will not rant, but I have a personality that stuff bugs me! The good thing is that I am not mean, but rant I must!

Last night after everyone went to bed, I finally had some alone time! Sat down at my computer to write an article for my website. Got distracted by other articles on my facebook page and ended up in tears! Seriously! Head on my keyboard and in tears! Sad because we are all being taken for a ride by big business who knowingly sell us products full of chemicals. Started by reading an article about the new dirty dozen worst produce. Celery is no longer tops, but apples are! Do not eat apples that aren't organic. They are full of chemicals that can't be stripped away with peeling! Read lots of funny comments like "An apple a day keeps the doctor in pay" or something like that! We laugh, but this is a serious problem! Choose organic produce at least for the top offensive produce!

Read another article about the MRSA epidemic in this country and MRSA in meat production. This was the scariest article I read. Much of our meat is tainted with MRSA. Factory workers are greatly infected! Note to self and others. Please purchase rubber gloves while handling meat products, because some meat is infected, and if you have a cut on your hand and handle raw meat, you could be too. Yes, MRSA is destroyed in cooking, but what about all of us who cook and touch raw meat! SCARY! Sent a note to my local "Bill the Butcher" thanking him for bringing organic, chemical, pesticide, steroid, antibiotic free meat to our local community in Woodinville! See, I told you I was nice! He answered with thanks this morning! He is nice too! Check out their stores!

The MRSA article was the one that brought on the tears. I love vegetarian and vegan food, so I started checking out those sites, wondering if I could actually pull off the switch in a family full of guys! They happily eat anything I produce, but enjoy meat. Not going to happen full time. So rubber gloves it is and organic meat for sure! I am a cheapskate at heart and love deals, but I truly believe keeping my family healthy is a good deal. There are other areas that I can save in! Organic meat is not that much more expensive. I am cooking meals with meat as a side, and not the main attraction anyway. I would encourage all of you to do the same! Great healthy diet habit!

I've also been reading about genetically modified products. How they are taking over regular crops and could in the long term wipe out organic farms. Their seeds blow onto organic farms and take over. Organic farmers are put out of business. Many people do not even know what genetically modified products are. People think as long as they are buying their foods from Whole foods and Trader Joe's, that they are safe. Not so! Both of those stores carry GMO products! What is going on with genetic engineering is frightening. Other countries ban this practice or label GMO foods. America does neither! We all eat GMO foods because they are not labeled. Argentina recently cloned a cow that was given human genes, so it could produce milk more similar to humans! Do other people just not know about this or not care? These frankenfoods sure seem wrong to me. The companies say these products are the same and could not possibly harm us! No proof just words! What will they say in 20 years when it is too late?

So the reason for the tears is that so many people still do not know about all of this! They think people that are against all of this stuff are just nuts. I promise you that I am not a nut. I have a science degree in Dietetics, read scientific articles, and and scared to death for my kids, one of whom has autism! Did it come from something that I unknowing ate, breathed, or drank? Tears!

Stir-Fry Away!

Greetings everyone! In honor of half of the United States frying with heat, I thought I would write about stir-fries today. They are a healthy treat on hot days because they are light when veggie filled. I cook mine in a giant 16" stainless steel electric skillet which does not heat up my kitchen! I have never made a stir-fry the same so this will be a generic recipe that you can modify to your hearts content!

Generic Stir Fry


Choose meat of choice: Chicken, Beef, Pork, Vegan chicken choice or tofu, Bratwursts or your choice. Add the amount of meat you like. I use 1/2 pound to 1 pound for 3-4 people. Season meat with pepper, ginger or any spice you love. I like to add more spices than recipes call for. I would add 2 t. of ginger or grate fresh ginger in with your meat. Add 1/4 cup of garlic. I use the chopped jarred garlic because I am lazy. Add a small amount of sesame (best) or olive oil (2T) and stir fry the meat for a few minutes until it is done. Remove from pan.

Choose veggies: Great choices are onions, peppers, celery, cabbage, carrots, zucchini, summer squash, broccoli, broccoli slaw, really any veggie you love will do! I was teaching my son last week and he chose them all! Wild and great! Chop all veggies separately into bite size pieces. Your choice of chop. My son chopped large and it was awesome. I always stir fry each veggie separately and then remove. I add the veggie and a small amount of water (1/4 to 1/2 cup) to avoid calories and stir fry it around until it is still very crispy, then remove to a bowl. Next, next, next, till you are done with all of your veggie choices. This takes a bit longer but I hate mushy veggies and none cook exactly the same!

Add Sauce and Herbs: When it is all done, add everything back in and mix. Add either a predone sauce (Yoshidas) or add a bit of low salt soy sauce and water. I actually just love the taste of the veggies with no sauce. Add in chopped herbs at this point. Love chopped cilantro in everything. Basil works too. Try them all and pick your favorite! Mix it up and heat through.

You can serve this over any whole cooked whole grain, brown rice, whole wheat noodles, or eat it plain. Some times we add a small amount of Yakisoba noodles to our actual stir fry.

Stir fries are very filling great dude food. You can cook huge quantities so it is a great choice for those of you who love to eat large quantities. Fry away in these frying days of summer!

Applying the half plate rule at a party

Last night I went to a Young Life Leaders end of year party with some of my favorite people! Yeah, Young Life Capernaum! Young Life for High school and College kids that are differently-abled! The first thing I did when I arrived, was to check out the meal plan. Chicken and white rice casserole, fresh green beans, fresh fruit salad of mixed melons, Costco white rolls, and s'mores for dessert. I am so not into deprivation, but I also like to practice the half plate rule, so I plan! The half plate rule is to fill your plate half full of fruits and veggies, 1/4 full of your protein source, and 1/4 full of your carbohydrate source.

My plan:

• I know for sure I can make the fruit and green beans fill half of my plate. Great! Half way there! 
• There is dessert on the horizon, which I do want. It is not a great choice, but one I want to indulge in. I know that we will be having a fire, roasting marshmallows, making s'mores, laughing, and having fun! I would feel deprived if I did not make a s'more and eat it! (Not good)
• I will serve myself a small serving of the casserole that would count as my 1/4 plate protein serving.
•  I will opt out on the Costco white roll. If I am going to eat processed food for my grain serving, I would prefer the s'more! 
• I will fill my plate only 3/4 full because I know the s'more will be my carbohydrate 1/4 section of my plate. Remember to do this because dessert counts in your plate!

My plan worked. I filled up on fresh crispy green beans, a large serving of fruit, modest serving of casserole and a s'more. I was satisfied, not deprived, and highly enjoyed the entire meal and evening!

Using the half plate rule is easy to visualize. You know immediately if your choices are off and no one is ever asking you to deprive yourself!

Losing weight

If you are trying to lose weight, you have three choices; go on the latest greatest diet, exercise more, or make longterm lifestyle solutions! Conventional wisdom says that it is all about calories in and calories out. Get them under control and weight control will result. That is what the USDA suggests in their new dietary guidelines. Research is showing there may be more involved. Chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and other additives might be interfering with your endrocrine system and actually changing how your body deals with calories, as well as your metabolism, and possibly your fat cell number. Scientists still do not have all of the answers!

What can you do if this is true? My recommendations would be to implement lifestyle solutions like:

• Adopt the half plate rule but use smaller plates. Mounding a large plate, even following the half plate rule, will probably add weight. Remember half of your plate should be fruits and veggies. Aim for more veggies than fruits because they are less caloric.
• Adopt light recipes for your favorites. Most recipes can be just as delicious with reduced calories.
• Adopt the Meatless Monday idea. Have a meatless meal at least one day of the week.
• Make sure you are keeping your starches under control. Remember they are to fill only 1/4 of your plate. One serving of a grain is only 1/2 a cup, which is quite small.
• Eliminate processed foods from your diet as much as possible. Eat real foods. If it comes in a box, bag, or package, it is not real food. If it needs an ingredient list, it is not real food.
• Buy organic meats without antibiotics, or hormones and grass fed or free range. If cattle are given hormones to increase their growth, you are eating the very same hormones. Could these hormones be increasing your weight also? Find a great source of organic meat.
• Buy organic fruits and veggies at least for the most contaminated produce called the dirty dozen. Once again, eating pesticides could be interfering with your endocrine system and causing weight gain.
• Learn correct portions of meat, starches, and fruits, but eat unlimited veggies!
• Limit chemicals in your home. Use green products whenever possible.
• Exercise daily even if it is just brisk walking. Add more steps daily!
• Eat set meals and snacks (mini meals) and end mindless eating.

These are just a few things to think about when you are making lifestyle solutions. The way to personalize your plan is to keep a food journal for a couple of weeks. Evaluate your journal and clean up your problem areas. It is difficult but doable. Unless you want to fight this battle for the rest of your life, it is easier to make a few permanent lifestyle solutions that promote healthy eating and keep your weight under control!

The New My Plate by the Gov!

Well here it is everyone,
The new guidelines for your eating. No more food pyramid, hopefully ever again. It was very confusing. The half plate rule is simple to understand. Learn to rate your plate. Does my plate really look like this. I think you will quickly see that you do not fill half of your plate with fruits and veggies and grains, they are are on the overdone. I quickly see a couple of things that I would add.

1. Be careful with fruits. They are more caloric than veggies. Eating fruits at each meal and also at your snacks will put you fruit heavy. Might be great to make dinner, half of a plate of veggies (large salad and a veggie).

2. Once you get grains under control, I would aim as close to 100% whole grains as you can.

3. Switch to smaller plates. You could use huge plates and eat this way and grain weight! If your plates do not fit in your dishwasher or cupboard, you might be in trouble.

4. Smaller plate sizes are the easiest way to keep portions under control. Simple. Your brain is satisfied and your tummy will be too.

5. Ditch all caloric drinks. The average person drinks 450 calories of liquid a day! Eating is way better!

6. Go with all organic products if possible! Fighting Obesity is more than just balancing calories in and calories used! Chemicals are messing with our hormonal systems!

This is a great start in the right direction but keep getting educated!!!!!!!

    

	Balancing Calories
	●	Enjoy your food, but eat less.
	●	Avoid oversized portions.
	Foods to Increase
	●	Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
	●	Make at least half your grains whole grains.
	●	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.                   PDF

New Day

Holiday weekends are not known for being diet friendly! The extra holiday day just seems to turn our heads to mush and we eat foods that we normally resist, and portions that are large scale! Many of us started out today with renewed thoughts of finally getting this weight game under control!

Today, I watched the first installment of Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. I usually do not like these shows because they are not real life. Most of us do not have an army to back our weight loss. This show was different. There will be eight chosen clients, who will strive to lose half of their weight in a year. Each show is about a separate client and their year long process. So you get it, the year is over. They are not competing with anyone. This weight loss is for them. They are doing it for them. They have help in the beginning for one week, because they must learn what they need to do, and then they are on their own for the next year. They are reweighed every three months and their progress is registered. If they lose half of their weight by the end of the year, then they qualify for skin surgery to take off all of the hanging skin from their weight loss. Seems like a great deal!

Last nights show was about Rachel, a PE teacher. She was 220 pounds overweight. She had been the homecoming queen in high school, as well as valedictorian, an overachiever in other words. She was tired of being disappointed in herself. She started out at 369 pounds.

I do not want to give the show away. It is worth watching. What I loved about it is:

• I liked that they showed Rachel as so vulnerable. She said of her weight, "This is all about the mistakes I have made and all the things that I have done to myself"
• They showed how difficult weight loss is and how family often brings you down. Her family was behind her, but not supporting her in their actions. They left all kind of junk food out and around and did not buy healthy foods. It took a few months and tears for them to come around completely!
• Rachel only met her first goal completely. She almost met her second goal, but was 5 pounds off. She only lost 3 pounds from 6 months to 9 months but was still given the weight loss surgery. She ended up losing to 208 pounds and looked amazing. She was still 23 pounds above her original goal to lose half of her weight.

Even though Rachel did not meet all of her goals, and one time only lost 3 pounds in a three month period, she was honest and dealt with it. Together they solved her problems honestly, and gave her more training in nutrition. I loved that. The show was real. Most of us are not machines. We are real people. Weight loss is complex, but do able. It is about figuring yourself out. Practicing honesty with yourself. Even though Rachel did not make every single one of her goals, she pressed on, and she was rewarded for her persistence and looked wonderful. I loved that. Do not give up when you feel like it!

Memorial Day Memories

Today is Memorial Day. The usual holiday wish of Happy, as in Happy Memorial Day, just does not fit. This is not a happy day for many families of service men and women who have served, but not come home. Wives, husbands, kids, parents, friends, and the rest of us mourn with those of you who have lost a loved one. Our wishes, prayers, and thoughts are with you today! This will be a day of remembering!

My Dad was a Lt. Col in the Army. He served for a year in Korea and two years in Vietnam. He was a pilot who flew reconnaissance missions in Korea, flew supplies to troops in Vietnam on one tour, and was in charge of an airfield for his second tour of duty! He was gone from home when I was in first grade and ninth grade. Very difficult years for me and my poor Mom, who was left caring for unruly kids who needed their Dad! We are the lucky family though, because our Dad came home and is still with us and doing well.

My heart is with all of the kids without parents, whose parents are serving right now. It is a heavy burden to live with daily, wondering if your Mom or Dad is okay today. Kids are too young to understand what is really going on. My encouragement to everyone is to reach out to these families right now. Do not wait until they have lost their loved one. Reach out right now. Offer what you can. Invite military kids to your father-son camp outs, if their Dad is gone. Mother-daughter activities also! Do whatever you can to help military kids to make it through! This is a way you can greatly serve military families! It could change a kid's life in the process too!

It is easy to honor bravery with kind words but it is another to take action. Take action this year and reach out to military families and include them in your family, your family celebrations, and reach out to their kids! Be a surrogate Mom or Dad in any way that they will allow! Let's celebrate Memorial Day each day this year as we honor those brave servicemen and women and their families!

Thoughts and Prayers for Military Families! Kerry

Food Guidelines of the Herbfarm

This morning I was checking through my facebook business pages and I ran across "Food Guidelines of the Herbfarm." For those of you who do not live in the Seattle area, "The Herbfarm" is the gold standard of restaurants. I personally believe that we should all be able to make comparable meals at home, so I was excited to see the tenets of their beliefs! Their chefs totally rule!


THEIR BELIEFS:

• No dish can be better than its ingredients and that the best ingredients are usually local! Yeah!
• Chefs who cook with local ingredients develop a more complete understanding of the foods they use and this understanding can give rise to great expressions of the food, its prep and enjoyment.
• Supporting local farmers, foragers, cheesemakers, and fishermen, helps preserve local foods. 

THEIR CREED:

• They will not use products that can only be grown in another climate!
• Foods should only be used in season when they taste better, and if they are not in season should be dried or preserved locally or by the restaurant.
• They should showcase herbs! (I believe herbs are their secret ingredient!)
• Menus should flow in a balanced progression without repeating foods or flavors (translation: lots of variety)
• Menus will delight all.

Well, I started thinking of their beliefs and creed, and imagined a world full of home chefs cooking this way! Don't we all love amazing delicious foods? Why has food developed into something that comes in a bag or box? Are we really that busy? Do we really enjoy those processed salted cardboard foods? Have we lost our ability to taste? Have we really believed advertisers that these fake foods taste great? Why don't we strive to cook delicious foods? I don't know. I do know that fresh foods, full of herbs, are mouthwatering. I deserve to eat this way. I will buy farm fresh local foods this year, grow my own herbs, grow my own specialty lettuce crop in my garage hydroponic set up, and fix delicious fresh local meals!

 The best ingredients do make a difference! Join me this season in cooking organic local farm fresh foods and herbs! Check out your local farmers market or join a CSA this year! Happy Cooking!!!

Memorial Day Weekend

Wow, it is that time again! Do the years keep going faster or what? Here is to hoping that you all have a wonderful holiday weekend full of family and friends. This said as my husband just departed for a weekend away with his fishing buddies! I rate! Seriously, I hope to have some big girl play dates with friends! Maybe see a movie. I am forcing this on myself because I would prefer and could choose to spend the weekend slaving away on my website and making it so pretty. Life is short and we all need play! So I will play!

This morning I intended to finish up a few lose ends but I started reading twitter posts. Hours later, I am so confused. I have read many new things and lots of contradictory information. How can we begin to know where to start on weight control when even experts are torn. So sorry to all of you. My goal is always to make information meaningful and clear and to use balance! Please always correct me if I am off base ever! Here are some of the interesting and confusing things that I read:

• From the government, I read that we are burning 150 less calories per day than in 1960. This corresponds to our countries' weight gain. (No mention of increased intake of processed foods and that we do not eat and buy real foods anymore)  Think of 150 calories a day, times 50 years worth of days, and that is tons of extra calories and weight gain. They say it is all about calories. If you put in more than you burn,you will gain weight and we have. That is it and they solved the obesity problem. The government is amazing! You need 150 minutes of exercise per week and 3 out of 4 of you are not doing this! You might be in the 2/3 of people who are overweight or obese. Lack of exercise is where it is at! Weight control is hardly that simple, even though exercise definitely plays a part.
• There is a new Food Pyramid from the USDA that is due out on June 2 and it is supposedly super simple. It will benefit all of us. It must be the half plate rule, which is simple. I can't wait to see what the government says I should eat. It can only be an improvement because the current food pyramid is very confusing and hard to understand. Do you guys even look at the food pyramid to make your choices? Do we even have nutrition education at most schools? I sure hope this will change because the obesity crisis is really a crisis of worldwide concern!
• There is a new group of Diet Bully's in our nation! You know those people who do not what you to eat what you love but change everything you eat and follow their diet! They must bully because people are wising up that diets do not work long term! But making a new diet is one of the quickest ways to become a millionaire. So they resort to bullying! Do not buy new diet books. Learn to eat for health and learn to eat what you love sensibly!
• Health writers should track the money behind medical studies! Do not even get me started on this one or I might rant and I promised I would not! I lied! Funding done for studies often has strings attached. If a study is funded by a pharmaceutical company, it will more likely have outcomes that favor the sponsor. If they do not favor the funder, the money will dry up. Health writers are lulled in and quote the results and we all buy them hook, line, and sinker (Fishing on my mind from my husband tying flies all week.) 

Weight Loss is not Easy. New amazing studies will not make it easier. A new food pyramid will not make it easier. Adding more exercise will help but is not the total answer. No one is going to bully you into weight loss. You must become the expert and find what works for you! We are all different and one size does not fit all! Healthy Diet Habits and Lifestyle Solutions to correct your problem areas and habits works!

Healthy Eating for Kids

Happy Tuesday everyone! Hope that all is going well! Today is another day of random thoughts from me. Too long without blogging!

 I got up this morning and someone had posted a disgusting picture of something that looked like pink frozen yogurt but was really a goop of meat that had removed from the bones. The goop was recolored and flavored and used in hot dogs, salami, chicken tenders and the like. Gross. Jamie Oliver did an experiment showing American kids that chicken tenders were made from this goop. American kids were happy to eat the final product. British kids were grossed out. Jamie Oliver was blown away that American kids were not grossed out. Why are our kids culturally different? These kids looked 7 or 8 years old? How is there hope for the obesity epidemic in this country if even young kids do not care? They said they would eat it because they were hungry. I have been saddened all morning. But I will keep plugging away because I want to change people's thinking if possible.

I dropped my son off at school and then went to Trader Joe's. I carefully purchased my products. Organic veggies and foods that were not genetically modified, even though that meant spending a little extra money. I had a nice chat with the checker and we chatted about the wonders of cabbage and all that you could do with it. Stir fries, salads, and literally anything that has mixed ingredients could take a helping of cabbage. We also talked about how filling it is. How cabbage is the greatest food item to keep you full. I was starting to feel better. Maybe people do care about what they eat! She also blew me away by saying she was eating the frozen wild salmon patties and cabbage salad for dinner tonight. Very few people menu plan and to find someone that had planned a healthy dinner was heartening. She was a young girl in her twenties! Yay!

My thought for today is: Food choices matter to your health. Plain and simple. If you eat crap, you will feel like crap. If you eat healthy food, you will feel better, have more energy, think better, have less food cravings, have better control of your weight, less chance of heart disease, and diabetes. I could fill an entire page of the other health benefits of healthy eating. Please take this information to heart and feed your families and yourself well. 

Happy Healthy Eating All!

Blogging vs Websites

Great Monday Everyone! I hope the weekend went well for all. Mine was party city! I went to a Young Life Capernaum end of year party, followed by a graduation/birthday/goodbye to Beirut party! Too much fun and too much eating! No so good for a Healthy Diet Habits blogger and website maker!

 I have not been around in the blogging arena for the past three months and I have so missed blogging.  I have been developing a website about healthy diet habits with my lovely sister. I have seen diet after diet fail and this is disheartening.  Being overweight is about both, "what you eat" and also "how and why you eat", which is rarely examined in dieting. I have a great start on a website dedicated to this with over 150 pages so far and into the top 1% in Alexa. I thought I would spend a few minutes talking about website writing vs blogging, in case you are thinking of doing either one!

Blogging is simple. Find a topic you are passionate about, and share your thoughts and feelings about it. Try to make people think and laugh at the same time. Get your point across in a positive manner without offending anyone, although every now and again a good kick in the pants is okay. You can be random, scattered, and jump all over the place, as long as people can follow! Blogging is a blast! The key to a good blog is great organization. People need to be able to find your blog post again. It is good to enter excellent key words and have great titles. Clever titles may be good for a laugh, but may not allow the blog reader to find your post again! Blogging is personal and can be about sharing your story. It's about teaching but being known to others, and letting them see the real you. You can be in the story which is fun. I love blogging because I love to give details in story form. Just ask my poor husband!

Websites on the other hand require planning right from the start. For those of us used to blogging, they can be a serious challenge. There is no sitting down and just writing to your hearts content. There has to be a plan. An overall plan. Where are you going, what are you including, what are your keywords, what is your tiered system. How are you going to link all of your pages together and how will they relate. A good website leads readers from place to place and is easy to follow. This can get difficult and complicated when you add hundreds of pages. And once you get started and into your topic, you should have hundreds of pages! You have to. You have to find a niche within your topic that will give people what they need to know. They must like your website to come back. You must build great content, content, content which will drive more readers to your site. The trick is to provide this great organized content in a manner that is entertaining within your framework. I think most of us want practical information but most websites are not practical. What good is information if you do not understand how to use it. I have tried to keep this in mind as I have written my website. How can I make this topic practical for my readers who want to get off the diet treadmill, eat for health, lose weight, and keep it off longterm. It is a tall order but doable. My site is a work of love in process so check it out! http://www.healthy-diet-habits.com/index.html

Great to be back! Hope that everyone has a great week!

Kerry

Farmers Market Guide

Happy Saturday Everyone! Saturday in Woodinville means only one thing! Which farmers market do I wish to attend? Hummmm? Woodinville or Redmond? Today Redmond won out. It is bigger with more venders and at this time of year when fresh veggies are still sparse, bigger is better! Grabbed the go to guy, Dan, and off we went!

Why would we want to spend part of our weekend at the Farmers Market? Plain and simple. Fresh food tastes better and we want to be healthy. We want to support our local farmers and encourage them to keep growing the fresh food that we love!!! Plus we wanted to pick up the 2011 Puget Sound Farm Guide that just came out. It has everything we need to locate local farms, CSA's, Farmers Markets, Food Co-ops, and all of their information such as times and dates. Worth the trip to the market alone :)

This time of year at the market was sparse as expected. My favorite fresh fruits and veggies were not very abundant yet! But the atmosphere was still exciting. We had a great lunch of a fresh tamale and French bread stuffed with sausage, onions and tomatoes. Both were great! I love simple fresh ingredients and the sandwich will become a staple at our home. Just stir fried sausages, onions, and tomatoes stuffed in a French baguette. Super easy and my kind of a meal. Just fun to be outside and to get excited for what the next few weeks will bring.

The market also brought the motivation we needed to get our own garage hydroponic garden up and running. Seeing how much money we could save growing our own specialty lettuce spurred us on to renew our vision for our own harvest! I hope to have my own fresh salads in a few weeks! Yeah!

All in all a great day at the market! Can't wait for next Saturday! Be sure and grab a 2011 Puget Sound Farm Guide and check out all of the farmers markets in your neighborhood. You, like me will not be disappointed!

EASTER EATS

The focus of many a holiday, is the family meal? We have our generational menu that has been passed down through the ages. Healthy or not, our kids cannot make it without the famous Jell-O salad with the vanilla ice cream, or the starchy carbohydrate array! Easter is no exception! Most of us will be making ham, potatoes, corn, bread or rolls, Jell-o, and maybe a token green salad or green veggie and pie. I am dining with my wonderful friend’s family. That is our meal plan, the traditional Easter meal! My friend asked me to bring a green salad, because in her words, “You guys like green stuff.” Too funny!

Should we just accept this traditional meal or look for some ways to make some changes? Well? My choice is always: “Follow the half plate rule when possible.” How would that look for the Easter meal? How about this menu plan:

·        Ham

·        Roasted Potatoes drizzled with olive oil, sea salt, pepper

·        Chopped salad full of colorful veggies (Easter is colorful)

·        Asparagus-cooked how you love it!

·        Sliced melons

·        Lightened dessert of choice

This would be a great meal, enjoyed by all. It’s similar to our traditional meal, but half of our plate would be full of veggies! Yeah! Usually melons would be our dessert of choice, but because this is a special holiday, we will add in the dessert. I guarantee that you would be satisfied and even feel better than the heavier filling meal.

Let’s think outside of the box with our meals. Changes do not mean doing without, just adding some new tasty, healthier foods! Change tastes better!

FOOD DYES DRAW SCRUTINY-LINK TO HYPERACTIVE KIDS?

I read an interesting article, in the Seattle Times Sunday March 27th issue, about food dyes. It was a scary article showing that the use of artificial dyes by food makers is up by half since 1990. A British study found that children given food dyes showed  increased hyperactivity. Food dyes are used to make our foods pretty. If foods look colorful, we will eat them more. Many foods contain up to 9 different food dyes. Even healthy sounding foods like fruit roll ups are full of food dyes. Europe requires that foods containing dyes have warning labels on them. American food makers like Kellogg and Mars replaced the dyes with some natural dyes to avoid the labels there. America does not require food manufacturers to put warning labels on products containing dyes.

There have been studies that link dyes to hyperactivity in children, and cancer. In 1990, the FDA banned a red dye in cosmetics because it was linked to cancer, but permitted its use in foods. Go figure that. Not safe on your face, but you can eat it! Food Industry officials say that the dyes are safe and British studies are inconclusive. The FDA and the Grocery Manufacturers Association say these dyes are safe! Many companies are developing natural dyes, which is a step in the right direction.

My advice to everyone will always be the same. Whenever possible eat real foods over processed ones to avoid these chemical dyes. If we avoid foods that contain many dyes we can force large food companies to change their ways and clean up their foods. Do we really need to eat neon orange Doritos?

100 Calorie Snacks

Today I went to the store on a hunt for new 100 calorie food snack packs to recommend. Portion Distortion is the reason that most of us gain weight. Our culture has experienced the super-size me mentality, in a big way! Anything that helps us to control our portions is an idea I can recommend! Sounded good to me! I like to try items before I recommend them because sometimes foods that sound good are not. E.G. The 100 calorie chocolate chip cookies should be delish, but are terrible. So my plan was to purchase a few of the new 100 calorie food choices, try them, and recommend them! Sounds like a fun day to me!

I started in the dairy aisle and came upon the Jello pre-done Mousses and Puddings.  Yummy! I had heard that they are really good. I added the Jello dark chocolate mousse to my cart, but I glanced at the ingredients. Bad move. The first ingredient was water, then xylitol, and then some form of milk, followed by a bunch of ingredients I did not recognize. I was bummed! Dark chocolate decadence, I want you! I slowly put them back because I want to be healthy, and I want you to be healthy too. The 100 calorie snacks are made from junk, literally. They are not healthy, so eat them sparingly. Maybe buy your favorite box but don't plan on buying them by the pallet!

A Greek yogurt with a few almonds and an apple would taste great as well as give you nutrition! That is what I would recommend. Alas, except for buying a box of Lorne Doone 100 calorie cookies, that are my favorite, I came home empty handed. It is just hard to pay good money for junk, especially when the first ingredient is water!

I will post my healthy snack list in the next couple of days, so check back. Real food tastes so good and fills you up!

Happy Healthy Snacking!

*Just a note. I did find other 100 calorie snack packs of more healthy choices like cubed cheeses,  popcorn, nuts and craisins. I would recommend these because they are real foods and not processed ones :)

Calories by the Pound

I was flipping through some of my great books this week and I found a chart I had not noticed before. Calories by the pound. Very interesting! I had never thought of calories like that before. It clearly shows why certain foods cause us to gain weight and others don't. Here it is! Check it out!

FOOD	CALORIES PER POUND
Vegetables	65 to 195
Fresh Fruits	135 to 420
Nonfat dairy foods	180 to 450
Potatoes, pastas, brown rice, sweet potatoes, corn, hot cereals	280 to 650
Legumes: peas and beans, such as pinto, garbanzo, black and lentils	400 to 750
Seafood, lean poultry, lean red meat	400 to 870
Dried fruit, jams, fat-free muffins, and all breads, including sourdough rolls, bagels, pita breads, and baguettes	1200 to 1400
Dry cereal, pretzels, fat-free cookies, fat-free potato chips	1600 to 1780
Regular salad dressing	1800 to 2000
Chocolate bars, croissants, doughnuts	2200 to 2500
Nuts, regular potato chips	2500 to 3000
Butter, margarine	3200
Olive oil, corn oil, lard	4010

*From “The Pritikin Edge” by Robert A. Vogel and Paul Tager Lehr

There is a big jump between Seafood and Dried fruit, which is where the processed foods begin. Big surprise there? It really makes you think about the foods that you eat. How about eating a large bag of potato chips. That is almost the same calories as eating straight butter. Would you ever do that? I sure did not pick up that fact, when the bag of Chips that I was eating, listed the calories as 10 chips for 120 calories. Tortilla chips, my favorite are about the same as chips. Tears, tears, tears! You can still eat your favs., just need to be careful with them. Eating real food will pay of for you in weight control! Eat Healthy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out the website! I have been working hard! http://www.healthy-diet-habits.com

Great weekend to all! Kerry

Obesity and Next Generation Food Pyramid

Are Obesity and the Food Pyramid related?

I wanted to let you know about some new changes taking place out there. I have never loved the USDA's current food pyramid. It is heavily into grains and people use it to justify eating junk food. Well, I need grains, but alas cookies do not count! Well, the USDA has made some new guidelines and will publish a new food pyramid later this year! Wow, I won't have to recommend the Mediterranean Food Pyramid anymore! Maybe? Well, here are their new recommendations:

•  Enjoy your food, but eat less.
•  Avoid over-sized portions.
• Make half your plate fruits and vegetables (The half plate rule)
• Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.
• Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals – and choose the foods with lower numbers.
• Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

These healthy diet habits are not difficult to incorporate into your life!

Another very scary piece of info I ran into was on the Obesity.org site. There have been a lot of studies done on children and adults and exercise does not seem to help in the development of obesity. Eight year old kids that exercise heavily do not seem to be thinner or have better BMI's than those eight year olds that do not exercise. That does not mean exercise is not important because it is very important for your general health, but not that helpful if you are overweight or obese or hoping not to become. What are we to do as a society?

I believe that you are what you eat! It is of extreme importance to eat healthy, avoid sugar and processed foods, develop a meal plan for calories and follow it with your family, and follow the above guidelines by the USDA. Practice portion control, eat less, follow the half plate rule, go for low fat milk products and watch salt intake and stop drinking sugary drinks. Please do not buy them for your family. The average person drinks 450 calories of drinks per day and that adds up to 45 pounds of weight gain per year! Each person needs have a food policy that says, "I don't drink calories!" I was at a dinner last week and there were various sodas, and only one diet soda that had caffeine. When the hostess asked me what I would like to drink, I said "I would love a glass of water!" It was not that hard. This one "food policy" that you develop for yourself, could be the difference between obesity and health!

Yes, I do believe that Obesity is related to food choices more than exercise habits. It is hard to make a general rule, because I believe that there are other causes too. Obesity is complicated, and I do not believe that scientists totally understand what causes it, at this point. Dieting and Genetics and Hormones are all factors to be considered too!

Various Health Tips

One of the most helpful qualities in life is the love of learning! Read everything you can get your hands on, because there is so much helpful information out there! I was at my local pharmacy today, and they had free booklets you could take. I took them and learned lots I did not know! Did you know:

• If you eat a daily serving of nuts (about a handful) instead of red meat you can lower your risk of heart disease by 30%. Don't overdo this because they are fattening. 
• Walking for just ten minutes at a fast pace delivers immediate benefits in burning calories and fat and maintaining healthy glucose levels.
• Vit D supplements may get you through the winter flu-free.
• Water-soluble cinnamon extract decreases fasting glucose in prediabetes, according to a recent USDA study. 
• Start your day with oatmeal. It will move unhealthy LDL cholesterol out of your bloodstream.
• If you do not like fish, take an algae-based omega 3 supplement that contains the same omegas as fish oil.
• Break your multivitamin in half and take half at breakfast and half at dinner to get a steady supply of vitamins and minerals all day long.
• Control Diabetes with a good nights sleep.
• Black rice, which is a whole grain with a nutty flavor is loaded with healthy antioxidants and is a new superfood. It may better than blueberries and you can get it at health food stores and Asian food markets, and some supermarkets!
• If you eat flaxseed, whole grains and berries, you can drop your risk of breast cancer if you are post-menopausal by 14%.
• 3.5 ounces of fish food on your plate twice a week will lower depression.
• Count your blessings each day and write down something you are grateful for. Your gratitude journal will help you be more optimistic, healthier and exercise more.
• Eat at least one cup of cooked dark green leafy veggies (Kale, spinach and chard) or four cups of raw each day. This can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 14 percent. Cook them in a pan over low heat in a bit of olive oil until wilted.

Well, I am off to write in my gratitude journal, that I am glad I picked up these health brochures today and took the time to read them. I want to try black rice. Yummy! I am encouraged to eat more kale and spinach, which I love and try chard! Be a learner, it could save your life one day! Blessed to be a blessing! Kerry

Long term weight loss

Most of the people who diet, gain their weight back. The national weight loss registry reports that only 5% of people keep the weight off long term. Here is a list of the qualities found in people who did keep the weight off long term:

• They expect failure and keep trying.
• Do not deny themselves; they eat some for taste but not to get full.
• Weigh themselves often.
• Exercise for 1 hour a day. One out of four people walks briskly.
• They add extra bits of physical activity into their daily routine.
• A high carbohydrate/low fat diet works best for most of the people in the registry.
• Eat five small meals per day.

If you have lost weight and do not want to gain it back these are some ideas that have worked for successful people who have kept their weight off long term!

Food Policies for Kerry

This is my list of food policies that I try to practice. I call it my cheat sheet and review it often because these are the areas I most often fail in.

1. Flip my calories and try to eat most of my calories early on in the day. I feel a lot better eating this way.
2. Eat smaller meals and 2 snacks rather than grazing to keep my blood sugar more balanced. Remember that big meals spike blood sugar and I will be hungrier.
3. Eat breakfast when I first get up to speed up my metabolism and I will eat less later on.
4. Work on not eating after dinner. Use strategies from my list of other things to do besides eat, if I am struggling.
5. Pay attention to whether I am emotionally or physically hungry and practice eating until I am satisfied and not stuffed.
6. Don't deprive myself of the foods that I love but eat them in moderation with no guilt attached and be flexible.
7. Use the half plate rules and make sure I prepare enough veggies and salads to fill our plates half full.
8. Know proper portion sizes for the main foods that I eat and choose wisely most of the time.
9. Use my restaurant/fast food guide for the restaurants I visit.
10. Cut out most white stuff and processed foods and eat more whole grains. Ditch the empty calories most of the time because there is no place that they fit in on my meal plan.
11. Be in touch with my feelings and do not eat when I am emotional but solve my problems rather than eating my way through them.
12. Check out the markets for lower calorie foods that I love if I do not want to do without them. Safeway angel food cake and strawberries/cool whip is awesome and less than 150 calories!
13. Get rid of thinking that there are forbidden foods. If I want it, I can have it but just a small piece. I can eat it again whenever I want.
14. Try and walk daily for thirty minutes and do weights and the ball 3 times per week.
15. Take calcium and Vit. D daily.

This is a simple list but it has a solution for most of the areas that I struggle in. It is kind of a changing list and if an area is under control, I will delete it. I would suggest that everyone develops their own food policy list similar to mine, that has their polices on it. It takes a lot of pressure off to know what your policies are, rather than having to make the same decisions and face the same struggles over and over. 

Check out the website! It has a few more pages every day! Kerry

 

New Products

KerryHey there everyone!

 I was at Trader Joe's today looking around for inspiration! Found some new products, at least I had not seen them before. They were all one serving and located in the freezer section:

Reduced Guilt Mac'n Cheese        270 calories                             $1.99

Reduced Guilt Sole                       190 calories                             $2.99

Reduced Guilt Roasted

Vegetable Couscous                     250 calories                             $2.69

Reduced Guilt Baked Ziti              320 calories                             $1.99

All of these entrees would be great lunch choices that you could just stick in the microwave at work. They all looked good especially the couscous and sole. They are way healthier than eating fast food and less caloric. They must be good because people were loading up on them!

Also started looking at the rest of the freezer section and there are many great entrees for lunches or dinners in a pinch. They may seem more pricey than cooking from scratch but they are cheaper than eating out.

They had some single serving items that looked great!

Garden Vegetable Lasagna for 290 calories and it serves one but I could not find the price.

Spinach and Vegetable Lasagna for 340 calories for $1.99

Chicken Lasagna for 290 calories. It is the same size as the Garden and Spinach Lasagna so I assumed that it was one serving but when I checked it was actually two servings so I was almost tricked. It would be almost 600 calories for the serving. I would think most of us would eat the entire thing. I would much rather go for the garden or spinach lasagna and get a double portion! I like volume!

Watch the serving size because the manufacturers try to trick us by making the stats look really low and hope that we miss the serving size.

Check out the new website that my lovely sister is making for me!!

Kerry

Week 6 of Simple Lifestyle Changes

Well everyone! It is the end of the 6 weeks of Lifestyle Changes. I hope that you have all incorporated a few of these simple changes! I would advise you to create a Journal Roadmap sheet using the information you have garnered from the previous weeks. You should have identified your helpful and unhelpful behaviors, activities, situations, and times that are hardest for you, and your triggers and feelings that are difficult. Fill out a cheat sheet for all of the ideas and helps that most apply to you.

Also, include on your cheat sheet the main changes that you hope to make in the coming months. Even if you are only working consistently on a few of these changes, you should see success as you are more aware of your choices, habits and patterns. Remember a great idea is to work on three habits per month as it takes a month to create a new habit. If you do this for a year, you will have 36 new habits incorporated into your life fairly easily.

I will share my personal cheat sheet with you tomorrow to give you an idea of how to do this!

Blessings!

Kerry

Journal Questions

I posted some questions a couple of weeks ago that you could begin to ask yourself when looking at your journals. Here are some more questions to ask yourself. If you are not journaling about what and why you eat, I would encourage you to try to journal at least a couple of times per week for awareness purposes. Your observations can give you areas to work on to change rather than dieting!

Did you try to decrease portions a little bit?
Did you observe the 20 minute rule or eat a few nuts or soup before your dinner?
Did you try to increase fruits and veggies and observe the half plate rule?
Did you eat breakfast daily, add a protein source, healthy grain or a fruit?
Did you try to cook healthy meals rather than grab and go?
Did you eat healthy pre-plated snacks rather than grazing?
Did you clean out your cupboards of all junk food?
Did you try to eat your meals on smaller dishes and bowls?
Did you try to come up with any strategies to help with emotional eating?
Did you notice the times during the week where you ate when you were not hungry?
Did you try to eat 100% whole grain bread and healthy cereals or try any new grains like quinoa or couscous?
Did you try to increase fiber in your diet?
Did you try any new salads or stir fry your veggies with fresh herbs?
Did you find that your cravings were improving?
Did you notice any new food triggers?
Did you notice any situations that were difficult food wise?
Did you try to address your feelings in a manner that did not involve food?
Did you look for lower calorie versions or recipes for foods that you love to keep them in your life?

There are tons of questions that you can ask yourselves when you journal. Your journal provides a road map that shows where there are detours. If you can learn the detours, you can devise strategies to avoid the detours. We are all different and there is not one set plan that will work for each of us but great strategies will trump willpower every time.

Journaling is the best predictor of weight loss! As you ask yourselves these questions, you can begin to understand yourself and develop a personal plan!

Happy Weekend Everyone!!!

Week 5 of Simple Lifestyle Changes

Another Happy Monday Everyone,
The goal of this 6 week mini tutorial is to help you make some simple lifestyle changes and to help you to see that a total diet redo might not be necessary. It is all about keeping the really great foods in your life that you love on a limited basis and looking for those triggers in your life that cause you to look to food. Keep working on being aware of what triggers you to eat. Develop some great strategies to use when you are in a situation that triggers are bombarding you!
Some other Diet Advice would be:

• Add more fish into your diet and lower-fat protein sources.
• Limit fat to between 20% to 30% of your foods. (Basically cut way down on the processed foods and add more veggies. We eat by volume which is great because veggie dishes and salads take up a lot of room on your plate. Your visual brain will be happy!)
• Continue to decrease eating fried foods. Never a good idea!
• Do not fall prey to deceptive advertising. Remember that low fat does not mean low calorie. A bag of fat free licorice is very pricey calorie wise and will start the cravings. Skip entire aisles of the market and shop the outer edge where the healthy foods are placed. 
• Continue to work on seeing processed foods as poison. They literally poison your body and cause you to experience severe cravings for sugar.
• Eat smaller meals to keep your blood sugar under control. This will keep you full longer and help with cravings.
• Continue to experiment with meatless meals, soups, healthy bean chilies, and new veggie type salads or Mediterranean dishes.
• Choose low or non fat milk, yogurts and cheeses. Non fat cheese is not great but the lower fat versions are fairly good. Watch yogurts. Some are very caloric. There are some great Greek yogurts with 100 calories a serving. Many of the yogurts are very high sugar. Try other milk sources also. The Soy light Milks and Almond Milks are great choices.
• Buy ready made or prepared fruits and veggies rather than junk food or chips. Many people tell me eating healthy is too pricey. But have you priced out some of the specialty chips per pound that we all load up on. You could be eating steak!
• Review previous weeks as a reminder and make sure you are incorporating some of these changes into your life.

If you have any questions, contact me through facebook and I will be happy to answer them. 

http://www.facebook.com/lifestylesoln

Have a great week everyone! Kerry

FEAR OF THE MIGHTY SCALE

Many people are afraid of their bathroom scale. It holds great power over them and the thought of finding that the scale shows a few extra pounds is so overwhelming that they do not weigh. I wanted to clear up a few misconceptions about your scale weight.

1. Your weight is not a fixed number but varies daily. Yeah, we all know that. Why the freak out then? Most of us find that our weight will fluctuate within a few pounds. This is simply a product of how much salt you ate or your hormones most days and not true weight gain. Do not freak out and binge eat!

2. The best way to control your weight is to know yourself. What is your weight range. If you normally weigh between 140 and 144, then do not freak out at 144. Consistently track your weight weekly and as long as you are in that range you are ok. When you need to worry is when your weight is consistently 142 to 146. You probably have gained two pounds. So there are times when you feel lighter at 142 when you are in your lower 4 pound span, than 142 when you are in your upper 4 pound span. Claim a four pound block that is your range. When you are hitting the upper range and going a bit beyond, that is the time to clean up your eating for a bit.

3. The best way to tell if you are gaining a few pounds is by your clothes. Are they tight? You could be 142 and your pants fit great or 142 and your pants are tight! If they are tight, you probably gained a few pounds, even though the scale does not register it.

4. WEIGHT GAIN DOES NOT SHOW UP OVERNIGHT BUT TAKES A FEW DAYS TO HIT. I believe this fact is not known or we ignore it. Most people weigh the day after "pigging out" and say "Whew, I did not gain any weight!" Then they purposely eat healthy for a couple of days and weigh. They have gained a couple of pounds. They say "I may as well eat because when I pigged out I did not gain a pound, but when I ate healthy I gained. I am soooooo depressed. I must make myself feel better by eating a bag of my comfort chips!" A little exaggeration but isn't this what we do?

5. If you track your weight gain or loss it will not be a straight line but a zig zag line going up and down. That is just how our bodies work.

6. The important thing is to claim your pound range. Most people stop weighing when they reach their weight goal and then hope for the best. Keep weighing weekly and do not live in a dream world!

If your pants are tight you are probably gaining weight even if you scale does not register it yet (Unless you accidentally put your jeans in the dryer!) The most helpful hint I have for not gaining weight is to never buy bigger clothes. When you hit the high end of your weight gain, add more veggies and be mindful of your carbohydrates and you will be a winner!