Category Archives: Healthy food

Eating out less… getting more out of it

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On a bad week, I would push for fast food dinners (and sometimes lunches as well) about 5 out of 7 days of the week.  I knew those meals weren’t good for my family  but we ate them anyway and I pushed for them anyway.  Of course I could say that I chose wisely about what I put in my mouth on those weeks, but the truth is, I didn’t.  Not even a little.  On the nights I went for broke (uh 2 Big Macs, please?) I promised myself that it would be the. last. time. ever.  It wasn’t the last time though.  Because I hadn’t changed patterns and behaviors.  Just saying it doesn’t make it so.

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. :)

Healthy meal and snack ideas for the busy person…

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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! :)

Watching what you eat… means more than just “diet”

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I remember the first go-round of weight loss success for myself.  I was 21 (almost 22) and came to a point in my life where I just wanted to be active and healthy.  I was alone  at the time ( no boyfriends) and found it refreshing instead of stressful and worrysome.

People I knew would tell me all the time how “thin” I was becoming.  Yet, inside, it wasn’t the weight loss that mattered.  What mattered to me most is that I felt better about myself.  The food that I was putting into my body and the exercise that I would embark on daily made me… happy.

I just came across an article in the New York Times entitled “To Eat Well, Be Instinctive”.  The article basically hits home the fact that watching what we eat and being conscious about the choices we are making for our bodies is one of the most important factors in losing weight.

Intuitive eating involves returning to basic drives, dispensing with the notion of “good” or “bad” foods and rules about when to eat. Absent a fear of deprivation, the philosophy holds, one’s hunger and taste cues — rather than cognitive rules — provide the most trustworthy guide toward balanced, healthy eating.

In my world, I do a lot of eating just because it’s what I am feeling at the moment.  In fact, a lot of my eating is done in front of the computer or television.  When I do sit down and have a meal with my family, dinner time is usually so hectic that I shove the food in my mouth as fast as I can just to move on to the next thing (i.e. cleaning the kitchen, baths).  But later on, I feel as though I deprived myself of actually being able to enjoy the food, so i’ll sit down and eat again.

So I would say that a lot of times *I* personally feel that I do ninety percent of my eating in a subconscious manner.  Because at the end of the day (heck, sometimes even in the middle of the day) my body feels sluggish and ready for bed.

So I think that watching what you eat is just the tip of the iceberg.  It goes beyond the mechanics and right into putting food at a new place in your life.  Recognizing how to fuel your body and become conscious of every taste, smell and texture.

If we all did that, eating might be a more thrilling experience and therefore we wouldn’t feel as though we had to over-eat or stuff ourselves to compensate.

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To Eat Well, Be Intuitive – By:  Mandy Katz (New York Times)