Monthly Archives: October 2013

The Rules For Losing Weight

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I have written about rules to lose weight.  Instead of writing them all over again, I will post them again from time to time.

Here are the links to the blogs I have written before about the RULES to lose weight.  Read for the first time or brush up!  Sometimes, we just forget and get into bad habits.

habits

 

https://skinny-rules.com/2013/03/13/ten-nutshell-rules-on-how-to-get-skinny-and-stay-skinny/

https://skinny-rules.com/2013/06/27/the-rules-work-10-rules-to-follow-and-you-can-still-enjoy-life/

https://skinny-rules.com/2013/01/30/10-rules-so-you-can-lose-about-10-pounds-a-month/

Portion Control for Weight Control

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I wrote a blog about portion sizes and what you should eat if you want to see yourself lose weight.  Here is the link:  https://skinny-rules.com/2012/12/15/portiondistortion/

Here is another clip out for you to use to determine portion control: (I do suggest staying away from the Grains, the baked potatoes and raisins or any dried fruit for a diet)

Watch portion sizes and follow what I wrote in the above blog.  Also, remember to eat a protein portion about every 3-4 hours, have two small portions of veggies and 2 small portions of fruit per day.  Have two cups of salad, twice a day.  Watch your carb count in your salad dressing, as well.  Watch the carbs that you drink and try to keep that down. You should be able to lose weight if you follow these rules.  After a week or so, cravings go away.  I promise!

Portion-Chart

A fruit by any other name would smell as sweet, but it could still put weight on you!

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You could do 6 protein snacks every 3-4 hours (4 ounces of meat or cup, 2 ounces of low-fat cheese, 4 ounces of low-fat cottage cheese or 1/2 cup yogurt or an egg) and you could eat two small servings of veggies a day (leaving out potatoes and other root veggies and avoiding rice), but still have trouble losing weight.

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Fruit could be an issue.

Some people have fruit as a snack.  Fruit without a protein is not good for a diet.  You should have to servings of fruit a day….but have it with a protein snack.

Have some fruit with some peanut or almond butter, your salad and meat, cheese, nuts, protein bar or shake, in your low-carb Greek Yogurt or cottage cheese.

And you need to pick your fruit wisely, because some fruits are more fattening than others:

Examples:

a whole apple is 25g of carbs vs. an orange at 11g of carbs.

1 cup of strawberries is 13g of carbs vs. 1 cup of blueberries at 20g of carbs.

A medium banana is 27g of carbs vs. 1 cup of papaya at 14g of carbs.

Here is a list to go by:  Net carbs = the Total Carbs- Fiber

Popular Types of Fruit

 Net Carbs(g) Sugar(g) Fiber(g)
Total Carbs(g)

Fruit with Seeds (1 medium piece)
 Apples 15.76 14.34 3.3 19.06
 Grapes 0.41 0.39 – 0.41
 Pears 20.56 16.27 5.1 25.66

Citrus Fruit (1 medium piece)
 Grapefruit 17.88 17.87 2.8 20.68
 Lemons 3.81 1.45 1.6 5.41
 Limes 5.16 1.13 1.9 7.06
 Oranges 12.29 12.25 3.1 15.39
 Tangerines 9.71 8.89 1.5 11.21

Stone Fruit (1 medium piece)
 Apricots 3.19 3.23 0.7 3.89
 Cherries 0.99 0.87 0.1 1.09
 Nectarines 12.05 10.73 2.3 14.35
 Peaches 7.85 8.22 1.5 9.35
 Plums 6.64 6.55 0.9 7.54

Tropical Fruit (1 medium piece)
 Bananas 23.85 14.43 3.1 26.95
 Chinese Gooseberries (Kiwi) 8.84 6.83 2.3 11.14
 Coconut 2.85 2.80 4.0 6.85
 Guavas 4.88 4.91 3.0 7.88
 Litchis 1.49 1.46 0.1 1.59
 Mangos 31.49 30.64 3.7 35.19
 Papayas 24.32 17.94 5.5 29.82
 Pineapples 9.41 7.78 1.2 10.61

Berries (1 cup serving)
 Blackberries 6.24 7.03 7.6 13.84
 Blueberries 17.51 14.44 3.5 21.01
 Cranberries 8.32 4.44 5.1 13.42
 Raspberries 6.69 5.44 8.0 14.69
 Strawberries 8.67 7.08 3.0 11.67

Melon (1 wedge serving)
 Cantaloupe Melon 5.03 5.42 0.6 5.63
 Honeydew Melon 10.36 10.15 1.0 11.36
 Watermelon 20.49 17.73 1.1 21.59

Can Popcorners Help With Your Diet?

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popcorners collage

A new trend of snack.  Popcorners.  All kinds of flavors.  Advertised on their website as, “- a sensible snacking solution that is all natural, gluten-free, and non-gmo.”

Great, but natural in the food market could mean just about anything.  Gluten-free is great and so is non-genetically modified.

However, how is it for losing weight or keeping weight off?

The nutritional content says that it ranges from about 20-23g of carbs per bag small one ounce bag.

If you want to lose weight, you have to keep your carbs between 50g and 100g a day.  The closer to 50g, the better.

If you are eating almost half of your daily allowance in a bag of popcorn (similar to the carb content of a bag of chips), then what the heck can you eat the rest of the day to keep your carb count down?

You will NOT lose weight on chips, pretzels (double the amount of chips), or Popcorners.  In fact, I personally stay away from anything that is made from corn, potatoes or rice.  Major carbs and starchy, shoots your glucose way up and helps to continue to sugar roller-coaster and cravings.  It is just crappy so-called “food.”

shittyfood

One of my clients has stopped sugary carbs for a few weeks now and he no longer craves any of these things.  He used to crave shakes, chips and french fries and it went away with time (withdrawal).

Snacks should be protein-based.  Low-carb protein bars or shakes, meat, low-fat cheese, eggs, measured out nuts, low-fat chocolate pudding, low-carb Greek yogurt, fruit, etc.

Why not make an omelette with veggies and some low-fat cheese?  I do that and it is really good.  Get some good turkey bacon or sausage.  Stop eating processed foods from a bag.  If it can live in your closet for an undetermined amount of time, it is probably NOT good for you.  Even protein bars go bad after a while.

Eat better food.  Garbage in, garbage out.

Even Burger King Has Entered the Diet Low-Carb Ring

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The news has been out for a few weeks now. Burger King now has new lower fat, lower calorie fries.

friesskinny

In light of the rising rates of obesity worldwide, Burger King’s “Satisfries” can be munched on for 20 percent less calories than normal fries, and 40 percent less fat. In addition, the snack contains 30 percent fewer carbohydrates than competitor McDonald’s french fries.

Burger King’s Chief Marketing Officer, Eric Hirschhorn, told the Huffington Post:

“You live in Manhattan and might be having a kale smoothie on your way to work this morning. But a lot of people don’t even know what kale is, and if they do, they don’t want to eat it. You have to give people what they want.”

If you want to order the Satisfry, you will need to pay 20 – 30 cents more. Children can have the substitution for free.

Despite claims that the Satisfries are better, here are the nutritional counts:

Satisfries:
Calories. 340. Protein. 4g. Carbohydrates. 51g. Sugar. 0g. Fat. 14g.

51g of carbs in a bag of fries is good? If I can only have between 50 and 100g of carbs a day to lose weight, then a bag of fries is pretty much IT for the day! But, the protein is only 4g and I need 6 protein meals throughout the day, so this is NOT a diet food.

Rule of thumb. Want to lose weight? Avoid root vegetables. They are loaded with carbs and sugar.

AND LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT.  LOWER FAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT!  SOMETIMES IT IS WORSE!

If you are stuck going to Burger King–

Here are some of my recommendations for Burger King Low-Carb dinner choices that are lowest in carbs. Please note….no bun, hardly any carbs. The Low-Carb Whopper has 3g of carbs and the Low-Carb Jr Whopper has 1g of carbs (because there is NO bun!)

Low-Carb Breakfast Choices

Breakfast Bowl: Serving Size: 1 bowl, Calories: 540, Fat: 42g, Carbs: 17g, Protein: 24g

Breakfast Muffin Sausage Egg Cheese W/o Bread:
Serving Size: 1sandwich, Calories: 270, Fat: 22g, Carbs: 2g, Protein: 15g

Breakfast Sausage Burrito – No Tortilla:
Serving Size: 1 Burrito, Calories: 170, Fat: 14g, Carbs: 2g, Protein: 10g

Breakfast Bowl (Eggs and Sausage Only) –
Serving Size: 1 bowl, Calories: 270, Fat: 21g, Carbs: 3g, Protein: 13

Breakfast Muffin Sandwich Without English Muffin
Serving Size: 1 sandwich, Calories: 268, Fat: 25.9g, Carbs: 0g, Protein: 15g

Breakfast Muffin Sandwich: Sausage, Egg and Cheese – No Muffin
Serving Size: 1 sandwich, Calories: 270, Fat: 22g, Carbs: 2g, Protein: 15g

Breakfast Bacon: Serving Size: 1 Serving, Calories: 40, Fat: 3g, Carbs: 0g, Protein: 3g

Breakfast Muffin-bacon Egg & Cheese
Serving Size: 1 Muffin Sandwich (131g), Calories: 250, Fat: 11g, Carbs: 22g, Protein: 14g

Breakfast Muffin Without Muffin
Serving Size: 1 sandwich, Calories: 290, Fat: 25g, Carbs: 2g, Protein: 12

Breakfast Ham
Serving Size: 1 Serving, Calories: 35, Fat: 1g, Carbs: 0g, Protein: 6g

fries

Buyer beware, stay away from the fries, shakes and buns. Then, you could be eating low carb. Always look at nutritional information.

I Want To Lose Weight, But I Can’t Seem to Do It With My Chips and Ice Cream!

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I was talking with someone the other day about losing weight.  They have a desire to do it, but they aren’t willing to learn new habits.  They are in a rut.  They need to re-learn how to eat a healthy lifestyle diet and not just eat foods for a “diet.”  These people want to “nosh” on things when they are home, and they are all comfort foods:  Chips, crackers, ice cream (low-fat).  Their health is not as important as that need to satiate their addiction to carbs, sugar, salt and fat

Wrong  Philosophy Makes You Stay Fat:

chips

If you are eating potatoes of any kind (chips included), and you aren’t putting in any exercise, then you will not lose weight.  You most likely will gain.

Some people think that if food is from Trader Joe’s, that it is good for them.  However, if items have flour in them and are processed, no matter where they are from…they are not good for your diet.

Some people think that low-fat is good way to diet.  I have news for you, NOPE!  Read about it online.  It is an advertising scam that we all fell for and that is why everyone got fat.  We eat low-fat, but they replace things in food to taste good that are high in carbs to make up for it (like Fructose Corn Syrup) and that is the stuff that is making us all fat and getting diabetes.

If you read anything that Dr. Mark Hyman writes about in his Blood Sugar Solution, he talks about how you need to eat food that is fresh and covers a wide variety of colors in the rainbow–eat, not juice and drink.

Let’s look at Empty Calorie Snacks:

1.  Lay’s Baked Potato Chips:  1 ounce bag or about 15 chips:  24g of carbs

2.  Ruffles Potato Chips: 1 ounce bag:  15g of carbs and believe it or not, the light, no fat is more at 17g carbs.

3.  Cheese Its Crackers:  29 crackers:  20g of carbs. (Reduced fat is the same)

4.  Trader Joe’s Mini Cheese Sandwiches:  13 crackers:  16g of carbs

5.  Trader Joe’s Multigrain Crackers:  14 crackers:  22g of carbs.

(AND THERE IS LITTLE TO NO PROTEIN in crackers, so you are eating empty calories.  If you ate something good that had protein, you would be less likely to be too hungry again later and scarf your next meal.  You would be better off making a turkey sandwich on whole wheat or a pita, for the same amount of carbs than to eat a bunch of white flour that does nothing but bloat you.  Eating mindlessly does nothing to help your diet or your health.  If you learn to have a nutritional snack between lunch and dinner and after dinner and stay away from snacking on bad foods, you will feel and look better.)

6.  Dreyer’s Reduced Fat Slow-Churned Vanilla Ice Cream (12g of sugar or about 4 sugar cubes):  for half a cup (have you seen how small half a cup is???):  15g of carbs.  If you eat it like most people, you are probably eating 1 1/2 cups at 45g of carbs.  The three main ingredients of this are all forms of sugar.

Fat doesn’t matter!  THE REGULAR DREYERS is 16g per half a cup.  You are NOT going to keep your weight down with the slow churned REDUCED fat ice cream.

Carbs-are-killing-you-top-Hoboken-NJ

Better Choices:

1.  There is Breyers Carb Smart Vanilla ice cream and that is a better choice if you have to have ice cream.  It is 4g of carbs per half cup.  That is a huge difference.  Less carbs means less sugar–less fat on the body.

2.  A low-carb tortilla or sandwich bread protein sandwich.

3.  A protein salad.

4.  Western Bagel Perfect 10 Bagel at 10g of carbs per bagel.  You could even melt some cheese on it!  Make your sandwiches with it! (sold at Western Bagel or Westernbagel.com)

5.  A low-carb protein bar or shake.

6.  Two low-fat string cheese or slices

7.  Low-carb Greek Yogurt and some fruit

8.  Measured out nuts (look at the label on how many nuts equals how many carbs).  Try to keep your snack under 15g of carbs, which is a lot, considering that if you want to lose weight, you must have between 50 and 100g of carbs per day.  But, if you have most of them in this one snack, it messes up your whole day.

Eat a good protein lunch with salad and veggies so you aren’t starving before dinner and a protein snack will be enough for you until dinner time.

Try this:

(LC) A low-carbohydrate diet minimizes sugars and starches, replacing them with foods rich in protein and healthy fats.

(RF) “Real food” means choosing foods that humans had access to throughout evolution. Processed, unnatural foods with artificial chemicals are avoided.

LCRF is not a “diet.” It is a way of eating, a lifestyle change based on bulletproof scientific evidence.

For more information:

http://authoritynutrition.com/how-to-eat-healthy/

 

 

 

The Skinny on Healthy Skin Food

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Here’s how to keep your skin looking radiant and your waistline trim.

Make sure you’re eating at the right time. Space your meals out evenly throughout the day (so don’t skip breakfast and don’t wait more than three to four hours between eating). This keeps your blood sugar stable and helps protect your skin’s collagen and elastic tissue.  Stick to protein meals (eggs, meat, milk, nuts, some veggies)

For periodic breakouts, cut back on dairy products, which have been linked to acne; just be sure to get your calcium elsewhere. If you can’t break your dairy habit, reach for skim milk (even better: soy or almond milk).  Almond milk is lower in carbs too.

If you suffer from rashes or redness, cut back on pickled and fermented foods (including tofu, soy sauce, sausage, and beer), as well as foods that stimulate the production of histamine (like egg whites, seafood and shellfish, and nuts). If you consistently choose face-friendly foods but you’re still struggling with breakouts, rashes, or other skin issues, another health condition may be to blame, and it may be time to make an appointment with a doctor to discuss your concerns.

Eating your way to better skin doesn’t have to be boring. In fact, eating pizza (when it’s light on the cheese, heavy on the tomato sauce, and loaded with veggies) can whip your skin into Cover Girl shape.

Fast food is not good for the skin.  Sugary foods, fatty foods, fried foods and processed foods are not good for the skin.

Here is a chart of healthy skin foods:  Keep portions in control, especially the carby carrots and sweet potatoes.  (Remember: Two portions of veggies a day and two portions of fruits a day.  6 portions of protein a day.)

healthy-skin-food.jpg

Junk Food is BAD for your Health and DIET

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junkfoodcalm

Heard the saying?  “You are what you eat!”

I admit that now and then, I have junk food.  But, I am very particular what I do have.

If I go to Taco Bell, I have the beef or chicken taco salad with only cheese, sour cream, lettuce, beef, salsa.  Or a burger, protein style at Carl’s Jr or In and Out burger.  Or a fast food salad if my choices are slim and I watch the carbs in it.  But, overall, most of those food items are cheap, not organic and not that healthy.  I also might order low-carb pancake mix or pasta now and then to have something that tastes “good”, but isn’t as bad as the regular version.  Bacon and sausage have nitrates and that is not good for you, but I keep it limited.

However, if you eat well, your gut will run well.  I know that since I have been careful about food choices and cut down on carbs, my irritable bowel and my heartburn has gone away.  My churning gut, filled with gas-producing items and bad balances was actually making me sick and this could have led to further health issues and complications down the line.

This following article is about how what we eat affects everything.  We can’t just eat whatever we want based on desire or taste.  We can’t eat Hawaiian rolls for breakfast, pizza for lunch and Panda Express for dinner.  All of these items are filled with preservatives, white flour, gluten, sodium, major carbs and calories and little protein and nutrients.  We are supposed to eat to live, not live to eat.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/what-we-eat-affects-everything/279922/

And gut flora and bacteria are issues in how well your brain works.  There are studies as well, that show that the first 20 days of a baby’s gut flora and the foods they get can affect whether they are prone to autism or not.  http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/06/20/gut-brain-connection.aspx

There are 4 types of foods that help keep a healthy gut:

1.  Foods with fiber (get at least 25g a day):  citrus fruit, , leafy greens and yellow vegetables and food with fiber.

2.  Foods that help the good bugs:  yogurt, sauerkraut, miso, bananas, garlic, asparagus, onions.

3. Choose foods that soothe: caraway, cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, fennel, ginger, mint, nutmeg, oatmeal.

4. Eat foods to flatten your tummy: avocado, brown rice, dark chocolate, nuts, oatmeal, olive oil, seeds.  (Keep in mind that these foods are higher in carbs, be mindful of measuring.

Eat fresh, healthy foods and you will feel and look better too.  It affects EVERYTHING!

Frozen Burgers Are Diet-a-licious!

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There are a lot of people who work a lot and are in a hurry, but get really stuck on what to do for a quick protein to eat every 3-4 hours throughout the day.

Protein ideas:

I have written a lot about protein ideas, such as eggs, low-fat cheese, nuts (measured), low-carb protein bars, low-carb and high protein shakes, and different meats.

Sometimes people want a patty or a burger (without the bun).  Trader Joe’s (and other stores) have plenty of frozen foods that are a great selection for low-carb and high protein foods.

I have seen beef burgers, buffalo burgers, turkey burgers, chicken burgers and even Mahi-Mahi burgers.  These foods can be served with vegetables and it is like having a delish cooked food, but it can be grilled quickly or even microwaved because they are cooked and frozen and ready to go.  I have had them.  YUMMY!

In a quick amount of time, you can have a good lunch or dinner meal.  Kids and adults can enjoy them.  Yes, there is sodium in them to freeze them, and are not as “healthy” as a fresh piece, but you will not be doing it daily and you sometimes need this because they are good for a DIET.  They are extremely low-carb–barely 1 or 2 carbs per item.  Check out the boxes next time you are shopping.

meattj