This summer has been a success for me in the foods category. I ripped off my hesitation cloak and embraced finding new foods that were both filling and nutritious! I can say that with the help of the grill I had quite a few tasty treats this summer!

My 10 fantastic food finds for the summer:

1. Sweet potatoes

I was never much of a lasting fan of sweet potatoes. I would eat them at Thanksgiving in an obligatory way and then not touch them again until Thanksgiving the following year. However, after this summer… I have a whole new perspective on sweet potatoes! Best way to make them? Par boil them and cut them into fat fries. Sprinkle lightly with olive oil and sea salt and then grill them! They are fantabulous for sure!

2. Spinach

The only way my dad could get me to eat spinach back in the day was to tell me that it was Popeye’s favorite treat. It was only then that I would grudgingly eat spinach. HOWEVER, this summer– I started buying freshly washed, already cut baby spinach. I would add it to salads, sandwiches and eat it just because! Now, I cannot imagine my fridge without it!

3. Jalapenos

I used to like jalapenos and then I didn’t for the longest time. And now? I grew jalapenos in my garden this summer and found mad love for them all over again! Garden grown jalapenos pack heat and bring delicious flavor! It’s a great added veggie to any dish that requires a little kick! Last seen: In my husband’s chili, which we ate on Saturday night!

4. Red Onions

I have always considered myself a sweet vidalia girl. Sweet vidalias are sweet and oniony and well… just plain good. However, after this summer — they have stiff competition! Meet red onion. Red onion is sweet and mild in flavor. It has considerably less carbs than its yellow counterpart. It adds color and flavor to any dish

5. Carrots

Like Kelloggs Cornflakes I had to taste them again for the first time. Dip them in hummus or eat them plain — carrots are simply delish!

6. Albacore Tuna Fish

At one point, I loved tuna fish and then I didn’t. I craved it all throughout my second pregnancy (maybe because I couldn’t have it?) and then after I gave birth… the craving died down. I gave it a second whirl and found that it went very well in a spinach salad or on whole wheat bread! Now… I am a fan again!

7. Blueberries

Put these little blue balls of heaven into a bowl with skim milk and light sugar on top and you have a breakfast for champions!

8. Tomatoes

Until my garden, I had been avoiding tomatoes like the plague. But… garden grown tomatoes have been proven to be a big hit at dinner time! Everyone loves them including me!

9. Avocado

I have always loved avocado and would eat it if someone prepared it for me, but really didn’t develop a taste for them until this summer. Now, grocery shopping isn’t complete without adding a bag of avocados in the cart! Eat them in homemade guacamole or slice them up and put them on a sandwich. They are fantabulous either way!

10. Miniature Red Potatoes

Sprinkle them with a little olive oil, seasoning and then wrap them in tinfoil and throw them on the grill. The potatoes might be small — but the flavor is big enough to leave you feeling satisfied.

In addition to the wonderful food finds… I also found a wonderful fashion/workout find in the name of mbt shoes!! have you seen them? They help tone your leg muscles and give you better posture! I feel straighter after I walk in them!

Those are my fantastic summer food finds. What were yours?

Good habit alert!

According to scientists anti-oxidant filled green tea offers us the following health benefits:

1) Helps lower blood pressure
2) Helps lower blood sugar (very important if you have a problem controlling your sugare — aka pre-diabetics)
3) Helps fight cancer
4) Helps our immune system fight off diseases and infections due to being chock-full of flavenoids and polyphenols. (say that three times fast! )

High-grade green teas can even help lower cholesterol!

So swap out your morning cup of coffee for a steaming cup of green tea once in awhile and reap the benefits!

Thank you for reading my good-health share of the day!

On a good week, I would push for fast food dinners (and lunches) about 2-3 out of 7 days.  So that still means that almost half of those weeks were filled with weight climbing, heart-attack and stroke inducing foods.  I would see my kids eat it and my heart would break.  But I felt like I just couldn’t stop.

This next thing I mention… I would like to hammer home.  Because everytime I think of this… my determination for good health for not only myself but for my family as well, grows.

With all of the fast food that we were consuming…. there came a point where I felt like I was killing my kids.  I felt like I was handing them an invisible cloth with all of my failures and weight-humiliation on it and forced them to wear it.  They’re kids.  They eat what we eat.  They mirror the patterns that we set.  The risks for obesity for them is that much greater because I am obese and because my family has obesity issues.  If they see me eating crap food and couch-potato-ing it up… they are going to think that it is acceptable.

Of course, the reality is that they may not find it acceptable and may try desperately not to live that life.  But still.  Why put them through that if I don’t have to?  Why make them try to undo the mistakes that I handed to them on a platter?  Their psychs are so delicate right now.  And parents, we are the best teachers our children have.

On this whole journey, that is the one thing I keep reminding myself.  I’m not just doing it for me and for my future…. i’m doing it for them and for their futures too.

We are learning to eat differently as a family.  It hasn’t been easy.  My oldest is really kind of resisting the food changes.  I let him pick out a couple of meals a week.  I actually found a great book by Jessica Seinfeld called; Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food.    So, instead of McDonalds Chicken Nuggets, I actually make the book’s recipe for chicken nuggets.  This involves chicken breast strips, pureed broccoli and a sesame seed/cornflake coating on the outside.   I dip the chicken breast in the broccoli puree and then roll it in the cornflake crumb mixture and bake them.  They love them!  Most importantly, my son feels empowered because he gets to pick a favorite meal and I don’t have to freak out about the meal being unhealthy.

When I cook at home, I feel empowered and in control of my own health and of my families health.

I am taking the time to prepare for date night.  That includes trying out the new acne products I purchased a few days ago. I really want to be fresh-faced for my date.

So, i’m taking some care to have a strategy in place for myself in regards to both food and drink tonight.  I want to make sure that I will make the right choices.  If I tried this on the fly, I don’t know that I would be as successful with it.  So I am trying to plan as much as possible.

How do you handle “date night” with your significant other?  Do you set boundaries for yourself ahead of time?  Do you wing it?  Do you choose date nights as the only night you splurge?

For me, staying the course with weight loss is much easier if I have some easy snacks or meals on-hand.  I have tried losing weight unscripted and on the fly before, but I found that having no strategy just doesn’t work for me.  As a mom who wears many hats and has many responsibilities, sometimes meal time can feel like a big overwhelming job.

And so enters fast food.  Because you see, for me, it’s easy to drive up and order and take home.  It doesn’t take much time and everyone is fed.  The problem with this, is that fast food, while quick, is majorly unhealthy.  It is loaded with salt, transfats and refined sugars.  You can however, find *some* low-calorie stuff on the menu, but for the most part, everything is ridiculously high in calories, fat and salt.

I love to eat.  I’m just going to throw that right out there.  I love food.  And so for me, getting healthy means that I have to change my course with food.  I have to put it in the proper place.  Because it’s okay to love food but you want to make sure that you fuel your body with the kind of food that loves you back.  So, I am trying to open up my relationship with food to include mainly healthy options.   I would like to share some of what I have discovered with you.

Meals:

• Veggie burgers (warm up your foreman and in 8 minutes or less you can have a healthy meal!  So far I have tried Morningstar Veggie patties)
• Weight Watchers, Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice freezer meals (choose your favorites and make sure you have them on hand!  Pop them in the microwave and have a meal on the fly!)
• Healthy Breakfast Sandwiches (Egg Beaters, low-cal cheese, turkey bacon or turkey sausage, and Thomas 100 Calorie english muffins — so yummy!  You can make them in advance and freeze them!)
• Cereal (keep a box of your favorite low-cal cereal on-hand)
• Brown rice (you can make so many things with brown rice!)

Snacks:

• 60 calorie Jello pudding snacks
• Colbert 50-calorie cheese (individually wrapped.  You can find them at Sam’s Club)
• Skinny cow Truffle ice cream bars (only 100 calories a piece!  A delicious 2 pt. snack!)
• Jolly Time 97% Fat Free popcorn (1 serving is only 1 WW point.  A whole bag is only 3 WW points!)
• String cheese (low-fat mozarella cheesy goodness!  1 stick is 2 WW points or 80 calories)
• Hummus (you can make your own if you don’t want to buy it in the store:  chick peas, sesame seed oil (if you can’t find tahini), crushed garlic, lemon ~ This stuff is great for carrot sticks and other dippables!)

Another thing I found, is to keep low-cal shaved lunch meat on hand.  I like Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh Shaved Meats.  50 calories and 1 gram of fat, gets you a serving of six slices of meat.  You can nosh on roast beef, chicken, turkey, ham and beef salami!

Also, it’s always a good idea to keep some prepared vegetables and fruits around!  Carrot sticks, grapes, strawberries, celery, green pepper, etc.  If it is already washed, prepared and put into a Tupperware container or baggy, then it will be much easier to choose and transport!

And the last piece of advice:  Don’t buy what you hate.  If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.  I have done this before.  I will buy squash (not my fave) and think that maybe I should give it another chance.  But what ends up happening is that my good intentions of becoming a squash lover flies right out the window soon after buying it.  It sits in the vegetable bin (and at the very bottom of that bin I might add), and then everytime I think about using it, I choose another veggie instead.  I end up eating all of the veggies I like and intentionally skip over the squash.  So the day before grocery day, if all I have left is squash (or insert other disliked veggie here), I will opt out of eating veggies all together that day.  The squash goes bad and I am no closer to becoming a squash lover.

So what I found on my journey so far is that it is not hard to eat healthy if I arm myself with healthy meals and snacks that I can fix on the fly!

Side note:  For those wondering about the face behind the blog, I am going to get my husband to take some pictures of me with our new Canon camera and post at least one on the about me section!

Cartoon by Natalie Dee

Diet soda harms kidney function.  Natural news reported that the chemical Aspartame destroys kidney function.  According to the article, a study was done to determine the affects of drinking diet soda on a regular basis.  The study found that the women who drank 2 or more diet sodas a day, doubled their risk for kidney failure.

Aspartame is no stranger to scrutiny.  It was reported back in the 70s and 80s that aspartame causes tumors, brain holes, seizures and death.  Investigations into the chemical never went very far.  The FDA will claim that aspartame is safe, but to this day, we the consumers really don’t know that it is safe.

Damn.  Damn.  Damn.  I have been trying to wean myself off of Diet Pepsi for some time now.  I replaced it with Crystal Light Energy drink (it has a little caffeine and some vitamins).  Of course, after reading the article by Natural News on aspartame, I just had to look at the ingredients.  And get this… Crystal Light Energy drink contains aspartame.  Damn.

Thankfully though my Special K drinks do NOT contain aspartame. *whew*

If you’re not sure if the chemicals contained in whatever it is you are eating and drinking are 100% safe for your body, think twice before eating/drinking/using.  I know I will.