What DO I eat?

So I’ve ever so gently stated what you shouldn’t be eating. :) I was asked recently to tell you what you SHOULD be eating. GREAT IDEA! In the coming weeks, I will do my best to give you a glimpse into my Dietetic, yet oh so real, pantry, fridge, menu and life. I’ll be as “transparent” as possible .

Our main filter is to, “know what we’re eating.” Simple is key, real food an added plus! Let’s start with some essentials in my pantry – prepare, it’s a long one…

Whole grain pasta – I prefer Barilla yellow box. Its full of fiber, protein and my men will eat it (and I dare say, enjoy it).

Whole grain flour and yeast for pizza dough in a pinch.

Tomato sauce – any variety with limited salt and sugar added (at the bottom of the ingredient list, if on at all), no high fructose corn syrup (why? because it doesn’t occur in nature and its something I can live without – so I choose to – end of discussion) and extra virgin olive or canola oil (NO OTHERS – I’m a stickler on my fats here). She doesn’t make her OWN sauce - NO! WHY? Tomato sauce is meant to be a “gimme”. Why complicate if we don’t have to?

Side Note: The pantry is a place for non-perishable storage and items for meals when you need something last-min. If the bulk of your daily food is this category, perhaps its time to do some re-arranging. In a perfect world, I’d buy ingredients meal by meal at the local, affordable, organic market on the way home from my afternoon at Starbucks and the spa where I’ve relaxed all afternoon as my children are thriving academically, emotionally and socially with our live in nanny at home - yeah, okay, as I change a stinky and move on…

Low-sodium canned goods: veggies, beans, tuna, chicken, fruit, because I’m from FL and am always prepared for Hurricanes (or ice storms as are apparently the case in Murray, KY).

Smuckers Natural Peanut Butter - the bigger the container, the better because it’s a source of “good fat”, and protein. Ingredients = peanuts (and some salt). With of course, berry preserves of some kind – ingredients of “berries” – imagine that. A good assortment of black, blue, ras, straw, currant, you name it – but simply berries and perhaps sugar and pectin – vit C for preserving is ok too – no shortage of antioxidants (or PB and Js here!).

Extra virgin olive oil for cooking, canola oil for baking and some (SOME) vegetable oil for those baked items my husband insist on anything else making it “taste funny” (i.e. brownies)

Always a jar of no sugar added applesauce (organic if its on sale), because its part of the “dirty dozen” and it can be added to any meal, used to bake with instead of oil at times and even used for the 7mo old in a pinch.

Fritos. They are my husband’s favorite. Are they a “healthy” food? No. But have you read the ingredients? Corn, corn oil and salt. Still follows our rule of knowing what’s in our food, and in moderation it can absolutely be included as part of a healthy diet, perhaps more importantly…YOU try being the husband of a dietitian! I don’t mess with the Fritos.

Kashi’s Peanut Peanut granola bars – in 140 calories they are low in sugar, and for a little bar a great source of whole grain, a substantial amount of fiber, protein and fat. A perfect snack, quick breakfast (or sent to the church nursery for your two-year-old's dinner –“mom of the year” – right here!).

Lastly for now, Cheerios. Plain Cheerios are a very low sugar, whole grain snack or breakfast and I’m convinced, its own food group for any two-year old. They can also easily be mixed with trail mix, granola or slightly more sugary cereals for less calories and sugar per serving. There are other things in my pantry of course – but these are my most of my “staples.”

(More to come)

Purpose Driven Food

So, when exactly did calorie free, fat free, sugar free and tasteless become healthy anyway? You need calories to survive right? So why force yourself to eat trash you don’t enjoy. A woman in my office this week says she eats a Nutrigrain bar for breakfast – and because it’s title is nutri and grain its automatically healthy… (another blog, another time, trust me there’s enough ignorance to keep me writing forever!). Marketing at its finest right there. So, moving on… She eats a 100 calorie pack for a snack and states “I do good until I get home…” Where she proceeds to tell me of the binge she had from about 5:30 on. What exactly classifies starvation as doing good!? I hear it ALL the time. ALLLLLL the time. Of the roughly 200 calories she spent before 5 pm she got filler and sugar and was tired and cranky. Picture, if you will, a HUGE wall that you have to move, now, bend down, and pick up 5 or 6 pebbles and LAUNCH them at the wall. That’s a 100 calorie pack, the wall is your hunger, accomplish much? Does your food have purpose? I should write a book on that :). No wonder you binge when you get home, you're starving!

Take low-fat (“healthier”) peanut butter (this one really cheeses me off). You’re eating peanut butter FOR the fat (and protein). Why change a perfect thing? And yes, we will eat peanut butter in heaven – only peanut butter – others need not apply. Thank you Jesus. You need at least 1000 to 1200 calories MINIMUM throughout the day – let me repeat that –1000 to 1200 calories throughout the day. Starting with breakfast, hgmm hgmm, starting with breakfast. Plan on eating at least 250-400 calories at breakfast and at lunch, leaving room for planned snacks if needed. What you eat before 5:00pm drastically determines what and how much you eat after 5:00. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Limited for weight loss, yes, but the calories you are eating should be providing whole grains and/or fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, protein, fats (good fats more often), calming a craving or providing an experience – “nostalgia” if you will. If its not serving any of those purposes, why bother? Save your calories for something of purpose.

High Calorie Decor

The magical candy bowl. Somehow the calories from the candy bowl *Poof* magically disappear. I don't know how many times I've heard from clients, "I did everything you said, I wrote down EVERYTHING I put in my mouth...SOMEHOW I'm just not losing weight". Or this one...(this one's good)... "I don't have ANY idea how my blood sugar got that high". Yeah, yeah, okay. It only takes me a little querying (digging) to find... dah dah dah daaaaahhhhh - the candy bowl! For some, its the mixed nut bowl. When I say "keep track of everything you put in your mouth" I don't just mean the things you sit down and eat with a fork or things that take multiple bites to complete. I mean everything that passes by your teeth that contains calories.

I decided recently to make my famous...and by famous I mean no one knows of this trailmix but me, but it sounds cool right? Anyway, every fall I make a trailmix with dark chocolate, dried pineapple pieces, dried cherries, almonds, walnuts etc etc. The colors just look so "fallee" (yup, my word). Healthy? Absolutely. Pretty? Oh so pretty. Low calorie? Not in the least. It is the perfect example as to why we don't keep candy bowls or trailmix bowls or cookie dough or other sweets in our home (or especially not on the counter, in eye sight or arm's reach whatsoever). Whether I wanted it or not, every time I went by the darn thing I was coerced (and I do mean "coerced", audible voices even) to take some. I DO think I burned more calories from my numerous trips BACK off the couch to get some more. Only the dietitian starts to feel guilt over too much trailmix, sheesh. Anywho. Moral of the story: food, especially yummy, high calorie food, needs to be kept in cupboards and for some, better yet - at the store.

For you work-a-holics out there, "I keep some candy in my desk for low blood sugar or a pick-me-up in the late afternoon" Or "its on my desk for my clients." If you're getting drained by the end of the day - go get a real snack, not a mini candy bar you need to "sneak". Do your clients (and yourself) a favor, offer a sugar free mint or gum. Trail mix and candy is fine, in a controlled situation, not a grab and go one. I promise you, you're eating more than you think. ONE...oh who am I kidding...TWO handfuls of almonds a day - because you know you don't just do it once - can be about a pound in a little over a week if you're already getting your day's worth of calories from your meals. Do yourself a favor, put the bowl away and get it out of your desk.

By the way, pine cones, leaves and gourds are much lower-calorie fall decor :)

Mayhem

So I've reached a blogging wall. I can only attribute it to one thing...mayhem! My house and schedule has been a disaster area. I don't exactly know when this obsession with organization came - definitely not in high school - you can ask my sister/roommate about that one...hmm on second thought - don't. But I've found that I can't think straight when things are out of place nowadays. My husband has become the tupperware nazi and I recently found myself desperately trying to organize my two year old. "No no sweetie, that's a train piece, it goes in the 'trains bin' not the 'legos'" - are you kidding me?! We recently moved and my life has gone on hold during the last 2 weeks of unpacking, cleaning, organizing, tupperware-ing (my word) and re-organizing. Workout time and dinner prep has been devoted to desperately trying to get my house orderly (I've learned unpacking with an infant and 2 year old takes A LOT longer with multiple diapering, feeding and cheerio breaks!).

Why do I share this utterly boring and neurotic part of my life? Because like organization, nutrition is a discipline. You'd be amazed at how discipline (or lack thereof) in one area of your life can seep into all others. When the house is out of control and your schedule is frantic you typically don't make wise choices regarding your nutrition and emotional "comfort eating" is at its peak. You may need to take some time to organize numerous areas of your life. My house is getting there, my schedule is a work in progress, and my nutrition is back on track. Its been a long 3 months of transition. But again, life happens. A couple months in a lifetime is but a blink - definitely not enough time to undo all that you've done toward better nutrition. If you find yourself in a tailspin - back up and evaluate. Try a schedule and/or organizing your home/workplace. Schedule time to sit down for meals. Plan your grocery list ahead of time. Throw the junk you've allowed to seep into your home out. Sit down with the family and talk over dinner rather than plop in front of the TV for a 10:00pm dinner (I've been there). Organization may not come naturally to you, but like nutrition, its a discipline you can work at. Take the power of your home, schedule, and food choices back. YOU determine what you put in your mouth, no one else. Plan ahead and most certainly throw stuff out! When you can't throw out - there's always tupperware. :)

Fasting

Okay. Fasting.

"Intentional deprivation of something (almost always food) for the purpose of humbling yourself before God, repentance, spending more time with Him, seeking His will, and/or asking Him for something. It is meant to be uncomfortable and to emphasize our ultimate dependance on Him." -Rev. W. Jordan Richmond

Ummm, nope...most certainly didn't read "powerful weight loss and cleansing tool". Physically speaking, fasting is a deliberate abstinence from food. It doesn't magically clean out your system (that's why we poop - technical term), it doesn't rid your body of toxins (that's why God gave us a liver) and it's not a great weight loss tool (although you will lose weight if you don't eat). None of the listed "benefits" of fasting have been proven by medical peer-reviewed research.

Physically/technically speaking (feel free to skip ahead if you don't care much for this explanation):

The body gets its energy primarily from glucose and fat (in the blood) from the carbs and fats you eat. Both your brain and nervous systems use blood glucose for energy and proper functioning. Your body also stores energy in both the muscles and liver in the form of glycogen.

Within hours of starting a fast, when you run out of the glucose you've eaten, your body goes to its glycogen stores (these don't last very long). Your body then goes into an altered metabolic state = starts using protein and some fat (some... very little... okay I've lost most of you... SOME fat and PROTEIN did you miss the PROTEIN part or the SOME part, the protein you're desperately trying to increase with your exercise, the protein that will help BOOST your metabolism and help you look smokin' hot!!!) I digress, where was I... Oh... It uses PROTEIN and SOME fat to make more glucose for the brain and nervous system. Resulting in a considerable breakdown of lean muscle tissue and SOME fat tissue and the production of ketones. Ketosis, that state those of you that tried the Atkins diet strived for (and I do mean tried because none of you stuck with it - bacon-birthday-cake anyone?). This is NOT healthy and in fact over time the brain's consistent use of ketones for energy can be damaging. In the short-term, you may lose weight, but its mostly water loss, dehydration, muscle tissue wasting, hgm hgmmm - muscle tissue waisting, and you will be tired, fatigued and dizzy (downright unpleasant to be around and cranky in every sense of the word).

Your body craves proper nutrition. Ignoring hunger cues, or cutting out any essential food group completely in an effort to lose weight or "cleanse the system" is not a good idea. That aching growl you get when you're starving is not your body eating your love-handles, as much as you'd like to convince yourself of this phenomenon.

Back to the biblical:

There are 3 types of fasting referred to in the bible: ""Normal fast" or total abstinence of food (Luke 4:2), "Absolute fast" or no water and food in which it almost always lasted for only 3 days (Ezra 10:6, Esther 4:16), and the "Partial fast" in which diet was restricted (Daniel 10:3). The purpose of all fasting is to get to know God better--done privately (Matt 6:17-18)." --Rev. Samuel S. Rainer III

Let me repeat that last part - The purpose of all fasting is to get to know God better. An excellent thing. Highly recommended for this purpose. In fact, if you've never done it, DO IT, its powerful. But, not for the purpose of fitting into skinny jeans or "cleansing the system"... please.

Also, beware of the tendency to make biblical fasting a weight loss tool. You'll have to learn to lose weight and be healthy the "hard way" which also may be the slower way - there are no short cuts. Suck it up. Deal with it. Get to work.

Do.

So... futile things annoy me - and somehow they seem to comprise most of our lives. Laundry gets washed, folded, into the drawers (baaahahaha yeah okay, still working on this one) only to be taken out, dirtied and back in the pile - and the pile keeps growing. I don't know about you - but if I got paid hourly for the time I spent doing laundry, folding, putting away (or not, whatev'), collecting from every floor in the house - wow - I'd be a wealthy woman. Making the bed, thats another one, its made all of what? 15 hours a day when NO ONE but ME is here. Please. Futile. How about meetings you sit in FOREVER daydreaming of all the OTHER things you need to be doing. Few things bother me more than meetings that take place with no actions following. We are a nation of talk. Talk talk talk talk. We dream big, but boy we talk a whole lot. When do we do? Even baby steps. What's that saying? Rome was not built in a day. But they HAD to start SOMEWHERE. Somebody in that planning meeting said, HEY, I'll bring a chisel next time and we'll get to work! I digress...

I have no problem firing clients in my nutrition coaching. No money is worth that headache. You will NOT see results if you actually Don't Do anything - shocker. I wish we were somehow healthier simply by reading about nutrition or intending to eat better. I meet with clients to discuss bight-sized things you can do immediately for better nutrition or weight loss and you either choose to do them or not. Its that easy. I'm not here to listen to you moan and groan about how you CAN'T lose weight or eat healthier. What special occasion came up to keep you from eating better for the next 3 months. How your college injury has somehow caused you to gain 500 pounds because you can't work out. News flash, you can be in awesome shape and lose weight simply by adjusting your calories. LIFE happens. I am happy to lend my expertise, in fact, I love it. I want to help anyone who is willing to be helped. But I can't put in the work for you. I can't put your fork down. I can't take the doughnut out of your hand every morning. I can't keep the food journal for you. I can't make all of your nutrition decisions for your family. I'm here to equip you with the knowledge to do so on your own and for your family.

Learn about nutrition. Look at labels. Try new things. Experiment with what works for you and your lifestyle to help you maintain a healthy weight and be in the best shape possible. But DO! Stop talking. Cause I don't want to hear it, and I doubt anyone else does either. Dream big. There is no reason you can't be in the best shape of your life RIGHT NOW. Shut up. Do.

Tomorrow's a new day. Decide to DO.

YOUR cookie diet

The Cookie diet, LA juice diet, Slimfast, Nutrisystem - the list goes on. Its simple math, yet someone's convinced you that their cookie is magic. There is nothing in the cookie or bar or shake that somehow makes you lose weight. Someone has found an appealing way to control your calories and make a TON of money in the process. You'll lose weight eating 1200 calories worth of ANYTHING consistently. Some things are better choices than others, but calorie control is the only requirement.

Do you need a jump start? Perhaps a re-group? The concept of a food journal is overwhelming you so as a result you've let the "eating healthy thing" go by the wayside. Now you're back to being mad at yourself - STOP IT! Nothing I haven't heard (or experienced). My husband and I need little re-groups occasionally. Not just re-groups, but NO-BRAINERS. August has been a crazy month of birthdays, traveling and state-fairs. And next month I'm sure it will be something else (hint hint - it ALWAYS is and I can guarantee there's a holiday that involves eating just around the corner). You need a "no think" menu, a no-brainer. You need a "cookie diet" for the in-between times or to simply get you started in the right direction, especially if weight loss is your goal right now. Is there something you could eat every day? Surely there is SOMETHING. The sky's the limit. Would I like this "menu" or "cookie diet" of sorts to contain whole grains, good fats, no processed foods, low sugar, high quality and lean proteins? Sure, but I also live in reality, and I'm a firm believer in baby steps. Remember calorie control, simplicity and consistency is the goal.

Here's my husband's "cookie diet":

1) Breakfast - Kashi peanut peanut granola bar, apple, coffee with Amaretto creamer and splenda

2) Lunch - Loaded natural peanut butter and black currant jelly on whole wheat with 1 snack bag of Fritos and berries (or other fruit) Coke Zero

3) Snack - Starbucks double shot with 2% milk, classic syrup and splenda

4) Dinner - Amy's Bowl (these are calorie controlled, whole grain, lowER sodium pre-packaged meals - my personal preference and we both like them) or 450-500 calorie meal of my making (which would involve cooking - not always an option in our household - don't know about yours ;) ) Coke Zero

5) Desert - 3 oreos (or 6 if he felt he got in a good workout this day) 8oz skim milk

He works out 3-4 days a week entailing 45 min cardio or weight training (He's into P90X - whatev')

So that's approximately 1500 calories. For a 5'7" average built man this is weight loss range. He lost 20 pounds in 3 months eating this most days of the week. Is this for everyone? NO. Him? YES. When life gets a little carried away and your eating starts to veer down that slippery slope or you just need a jump start in this eating healthier thang, take a couple of weeks (or so), dumb it down and re-group. If you're at a healthy weight, tweak your current diet with healthier options and keep tweaking. We are all a work in progress. Remember, Its YOUR "cookie diet". Make it doable for YOU (and your family). Just another tool in your toolbox.

Its a life thing, not a fad. So, what's your "cookie diet"?