The Flatout bread was excellent. If you want to make it or learn more about the ingredients, look at my blog yesterday.
Here are the pictures I took. I make a mighty good pizza.
Tag Archives: lose weight
Veggie Patties Good For A Diet?
A friend of mine was eating at a restaurant that I go to with my husband, and she commented that she ate a veggie patty in a lettuce bowl, instead of a burger bun. She wants to lose weight and felt she was being really healthy. Well, perhaps a veggie burger is healthier regarding fat issues with meat and keeping your arteries clean. However, this is not always the case.
The healthy reasons to choose a veggie burger:
One of the best reasons for choosing a veggie burger is to cut saturated fat. Depending on its size, a regular hamburger’s 4-7 grams of saturated fat are a significant part of the recommended daily limit of 15 to 25 grams, which varies from person to person. Most veggie burgers contain from 0 to 1 gram of saturated fat. However, a burger made of extra lean ground beef (90% lean) reduces saturated fat, but only to 3-5 grams. Chicken, turkey and salmon burgers are better options. At 2-3 grams, their saturated fat can be almost as low as a veggie burger.
(So, you can eat meat and still be healthy, if you go for low-fat options!)
The size of a veggie burger affects its nutrition content, and its size is another reason why it is a healthy choice.
If you choose veggie burgers for the benefits of soy, check that you’re getting what you want. Veggie burgers with soy contain soy protein that can help reduce blood cholesterol, but not all the protein is from soy.
Some people choose veggie burgers over traditional hamburgers to boost their dietary fiber intake. Others want to cut back on red meat, since too much of that may increase the risk of colon cancer.
Others simply like the convenience of being able to cook a frozen veggie burger in one to two minutes. Others fear E. coli bacteria in meat, although the risk is minimal when the meat is thoroughly cooked.
Try not to choose a veggie burger with over 300 mg of sodium per serving, if you eat a lot of processed foods. If you limit your meat consumption, look for veggie burgers with more iron than others (aim for at least 10 percent of the Daily Value) and fortified with vitamin B-12.
Sometimes people think a portobello mushroom can replace a burger nutritionally. If you eat plenty of meat, fish, poultry, or vegetarian protein, a mushroom “burger” is fine. If you don’t, accompany your mushroom burger with a soup or salad containing beans or low-fat cheese. A veggie burger made with soy, nuts, or other proteins is a nutritional replacement for meat because it provides protein, iron and other nutrients that a mushroom lacks.
CAN YOU LOSE WEIGHT WITH A VEGGIE PATTY?
Now, as far as keeping the carb count down in your diet, you need to know this! Veggie burgers are high in carbs. So, they might be good in many ways, but they are not so kind to the waistline. The friend I ran into, who had the veggie burger in the salad bowl–she had about 48g of carbs just in the veggie patty. And with dressing and other things in her salad, she probably had at least 15g of carbs more. So, she had her allotment of her 50-100g of carbs in her food just at dinner. I would say for sure that she didn’t lose weight that day and that she might have put some weight on, depending on what she ate the rest of the day. And here she thought she was eating light. I had the lean meat burger patty, which had 0 carbs. So my salad was about 20g of carbs and hers was more like 65g of carbs.
So, if you want to lose weight, unless you look at labels, look online and check for carbs and are VERY CAREFUL, the vegetarian option might not help with weight loss. Sorry, but that is just the way it is. You have to make SMART choices! If I was a vegetarian, personally, would have chosen the salad bowl and added egg to it as my “protein”. Less than 1g of carb per egg and 6g of protein per egg. Sometimes I have an egg or two in my salad anyway. They are tasty.
How to Count Calories
I prefer to count carbs and watch my portion control. I eat 50-100g of carbs per day, have 6 small portions of proteins a day, four small servings of veggies and two small servings of fruit each day, two small salads per day, watching what choices I make on all of them. However, some people want to know how to count calories. Here is how:
- Determine How Many Calories You Should EatHow many calories you need to eat to maintain your current weight depends on factors such as your gender, age, height, weight, and activity level. Your body uses about two-thirds of the calories you consume each day just to keep its systems functioning — your heart beating, your muscles moving. The rest of your calorie intake, according to My Calorie Counter, fuels everyday activities.To find out your ideal caloric intake, start by calculating what’s known as your base metabolic rate (BMR):
- Women: Multiply your weight by 10. Men: Multiply by 11. This is your BMR.
- Now add to that 20 percent of your BMR if you have a sedentary lifestyle; 30 percent if you are somewhat active; 40 percent if you are moderately active; or 50 percent if you are very active.
- The number you get is how many calories you need to maintain your weight.
1. Count How Many Calories You Actually Eat and Burn
You can track your calories online at MyCalorieCounter.com or their app. Also, you can list how many calories you burned.
You can easily cut 500 calories by making small diet and exercise changes throughout your day. Here’s one approach:
- Breakfast: Drink water instead of orange juice (calories saved: 117)
- Snack: Have sliced cucumber and a tablespoon of hummus instead of a bag of chips (calories saved: 119)
- Lunch: Swap out your salad’s creamy ranch dressing for fat-free Italian (calories saved: 66)
- Dessert: Eat half of a cup of strawberries instead of a half of a cup of chocolate ice cream (calories saved: 118).
- Exercise: Stroll at a moderate pace for 30 minutes (calories burned: 125 for a woman weighing 145)
2. Get Portion Saavy.
In a world where SUPERSIZED is the new normal, these tips can help you recognize what a healthy portion looks like, which can help you keep calories in check:
- Think of a tennis ball. It’s the equivalent of one cup of food, which is the recommended portion for such foods as pasta, cereal, and yogurt.
- Don’t eat straight out of the container or bag. It’s a recipe for mindlessly overeating. Instead, measure a serving size of whatever you’re noshing on — almonds, soy chips, or other snacks — and put it on a plate or in a bowl.
- Use smaller plates. Trick your mind into thinking that you have more food by downsizing your large dinner plate for a smaller salad-sized one. A healthy portion can look teeny on a huge plate but will seem more normal when you shrink its surroundings.
- Spoil your appetite with nutritious food. Try eating celery sticks with peanut butter an hour before mealtime.
Remember to keep portion size in control and count calories and/or carbs! Read labels!
Mother’s Day and FOOD choices
Tomorrow is the biggest day of the year for restaurants. Mother’s Day. Everyone takes mom out to eat or has something at home. It can be disturbing to a diet, if you allow it.
Remember that you can eat, but you should stick to portion control and carb control. If you do more carbs at that one meal, keep a count of them and work it out to have less throughout the day. Keep in mind the amount between 50-100. You can have a great omelette, but try to steer clear of buffets or eating all of the buffet food.
- Stick to eggs, bacon, sausage and try to avoid the bread, potatoes, pancakes and waffles. Have a bite, but you do not need to eat a whole piece.
- Ask for replacement items like sugar-free syrups, non-dairy creamer for coffee instead of milk and Splenda for sugar.
- Have fruit and/or grilled tomatoes instead of bread or potatoes.
So, what if someone bought a cake and you feel you must have some. Get a sliver and only eat a piece of it or half of it. Don’t ruin your diet to make other people happy. Your gaining weight isn’t going to make or break someone else, but it will upset you. You could also bring your own desert, like Splenda chocolate pudding or low-carb ice cream that you buy or prepare the day before you go. You just let your host know in advance or when you get there that you are on a special eating plan and that this is your desert. No one has to know it is a diet. I have said things like, “I have to eat gluten-free now” or “I am not allowed sugar for now.” Telling people that a doctor ordered you to do something or that you are allergic to something usually shuts them up from their usual sabotage tactics to get you to be bad about choices like they are doing.
Eat, but pick and choose and don’t be greedy. You are working to be low-carb and those high carb and sugar items will only make you feel worse later.
Remember: Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels! Don’t use holidays to blow that!
Oh, and have a Happy Mother’s Day. It is about the company and not the food! Keep reminding yourself about that.
Pancakes That Will Keep You Skinny
After two years of dodging illness, I caught a cold. Today I am starting to feel better. I still ate well, but I felt like I needed pancakes. Did I go off the diet? NO!
I ate my Lindora.com pancakes. They are so good. I have tried a lot of different low-carb syrups and STILL my favorites are Maple Farms Sugar Free Pancake Syrup (gluten-free and Splenda-sweetened) and Cary’s. Both are about 12g of carbs per quarter cup of syrup vs. 50g per two tablespoons of regular sugared maple syrup.
But, while investigating for this blog, I discovered that Maple Farms makes a pancake and waffle mix that is only 8g of carb per 1/4 mix (more for the Lindora version). So, I am going to order it and try it and report back. If it is as delicious as the Lindora version, I am happy. It will be cheaper too and still loaded with protein at 11g per 1/4 cup!
The site where you can buy these things if you can’t find it at a store and where I will buy my mix (Ralph’s market had the syrups): Netrition.com http://www.netrition.com/maple_grove_pancake_mix_page.html
And I found packets that you can bring with you to restaurants for syrup: http://www.shopwell.com/walden-farms-pancake-syrup-ready-to-serve-packets/honey-syrup/p/7245713399
Counting Carbs While Eating Out
Carbohydrates have a big impact on weight because they are broken down into glucose, which in turn raises your blood sugar. They are found in starches such as cereal, bread, and pasta, and in sweets such as cakes and cookies, but also in many “good for you” foods like fruit, starchy vegetables like potatoes, peas, and corn, and dairy products including milk and yogurt. Learning how to accurately identify and count carbohydrates will help you lose and maintain your weight.
On my eating plan, having between 50 and 100g of carbs a day helps me to lose and maintain my weight.
Tips for Counting Carbs Home or Away
You can buy a carb-counting book, use an online version, or download a smartphone app to see how many carbohydrates are in the foods you eat. You can also read the nutrition label on prepared foods to tally up the number of carb grams in each serving. You might have to guesstimating carbohydrates at a restaurant.
Here are tips to make tracking easier:
Use measuring tools. At home, use a food scale to weigh that apple or whole-wheat roll. Use a measuring cup to dole out your portion of cereal or pasta. When you measure the serving size, your counts are more accurate – and you learn what a ½ cup or 1 cup serving looks like. Keep the tools handy so you’re not searching for them at every meal. I don’t even need to bring cups with me anymore.
Use every day visuals. For example, a cup of fruit, starchy vegetables, or ice cream is about the size of a baseball or an average fist. A pancake or waffle is equal to a CD. Then you can look up your serving size using a carb-counting guide or smartphone app.
This also gives you a point of reference when you’re eating out. According to Melissa Joy Dobbins, RD, LDN, CDE, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, “if you know what a cup looks like and how many carbs are in a cup of that pasta when you eat it at home, you can use that to guesstimate carb counts at the restaurant.”
Table(spoon) it. When you’re away from home, estimate your portion by counting tablespoons. Here’s the conversion:
4 level tablespoons is equal to about 1/4 cup,
8 tablespoons is 1/2 cup, and
16 tablespoons is 1 cup.
So 8 tablespoons of macaroni salad equals 1/2 cup and 30 grams of carbohydrates.
Do your homework. Before you head out to a restaurant, check out its menu online. Decide what you’re going to order, and then gather the nutrition facts for the ingredients to put together a guesstimate of the carbs in your meal. Many restaurant chains now put all their nutrition facts, including carbs, on their Web sites.
Mind the proportions. Know that the more grains and starches in a dish, the higher your carb estimate. For instance, you can count an 8-ounce cup of a broth-based soup as 15 grams of carbohydrate, while a thick soup with beans, lentils, or noodles should be counted as 30 grams.
There’s an app for that. There are many apps available. Many are free, and many can help you with counting carbs. For example, GoMeals provides three apps in one – a database of nutritional values (including carbs) of thousands of foods you’ll find at the grocery store and your favorite restaurants, a tool to track and record your meals, and a restaurant finder with menus and nutritional information.
You Might Really Love Fish With This On It
I took my husband out to his favorite seafood place for his birthday yesterday and I had this marvelous and delicious dip for my fish. I am not really a fish fan, but I eat it to stay thin. But, if I just have a little bit of this dip for my fish every time I eat it, I could eat fish all of the time. It was called, “Aioli.” I never had it before in my life, but I am now a convert. I looked it up online and I found a recipe that is easy. Remember not to use too much. It is for flavor, not a meal, in itself.
Garlic–Cilantro Aioli Dip
2 cloves garlic, cut into slivers
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Directions
Garlic–Cilantro Aioli Dip
Put garlic in olive oil and set aside at room temperature to steep for about 30 minutes.
Remove garlic, and combine the oil with fresh lime juice, cilantro, and mayonnaise. Add salt to taste.
YUM!
Sweet Temptation
A great proverb: ““Good habits result from resisting temptation”
I can’t tell you how annoying it is when you are on a diet and someone (who KNOWS you are on a diet) offers you something NOT on your diet.
It happens all of the time. Temptation. Sabotage. Whatever you want to call it. It is annoying and it is real.
What can you do to prevent temptation? 10 Ways To Reduce Temptation:
1. Never go anywhere hungry. My father was thin and he used to go to dinner after eating a piece of chicken breast at home. I always wondered why he did such a weird thing. Eat before going out? I get it now. He was a reformed chubby kid and as an adult, he learned how to stay thin. I didn’t figure it out until after he passed away and I lost my weight. So, eat some protein before you go out to a dinner with other people. You will find it easier to pass up the rolls and ordering food based on hunger vs. nutritional need. Once you get good at doing it, it will become a normal routine or habit.
2. If you do go out, tell the server to not bring rolls and you will NOT be ordering dessert.
3. Don’t go shopping hungry and go with a list of items that you need, items that are nutritious and part of your diet.
4. Don’t keep bread in the house, if at all possible.
5. Always have protein in the house. Meat, cheese,eggs, Greek Yogurt, nuts, seeds, protein bars. If you are hungry, have a protein drink or some cheese/meat slices to kill off the hunger.
6. Eat protein every 3-4 hours and don’t go longer or you will be more likely to cheat. You are weaker in your strength of saying “NO” when you are hungry.
7. Warn people who have invited you over or out that you are on a special diet and just let them know that you need cheese, meat, nuts, eggs and you cannot eat grains like rice or bread and no beans. If they ask why, tell them it is for something medical or you need to be low sugar and those things convert to sugar. It is really no one’s business anyway.
8. Drink plenty of water or some form of sugar free beverage and keep full and hydrated on it.
9. If someone keeps asking you to try something that is NOT on your diet, don’t be afraid to say something to them. Don’t cave in. What they are doing is WRONG. You can say, “You know, I know you are trying to be nice, but that what they are asking you to eat is not good for your health. You don’t have to mention weight, just say “health” and they are more likely to back down. I, personally, have no trouble saying, “Hey, stop trying to sabotage my diet or my health.”
10. Remember that just because it is a holiday, or someone’s birthday, or the weekend or whatever the excuse–doesn’t meant that you have to eat something that will set you back for days after weeks or months of working so hard. I never really understood why we have to eat things like cake or ice cream when it is your birthday anyway. Who came up with that idea?
BONUS ANSWER: Get sugar free/low carb/gluten-free replacements of items that are sweet. There are bakeries now that make these things and you can Google and have all kinds of replacements mailed to you. So look into it and don’t just eat whatever crap comes your way. You don’t have to do it. Be strong for YOURSELF!
Cut Cravings: Eat Protein Rich Breakfasts
If you want to get and stay skinny, you have to get your brain to help you in the quest to feel full and not overeat. As you have heard before, breakfast is THE most important meal of the day. You will also have MORE energy to do things throughout the day.
There has been a study. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130326151127.htm
“The consumption of the high-protein breakfast led to increased fullness or “satiety” along with reductions in brain activity that is responsible for controlling food cravings. The high-protein breakfast also reduced evening snacking on high-fat and high-sugar foods compared to when breakfast was skipped or when a normal protein, ready-to-eat cereal breakfast was consumed,” according to Assistant Professor, Heather Leidy.
“Eating a protein-rich breakfast impacts the drive to eat later in the day, when people are more likely to consume high-fat or high-sugar snacks,” Leidy said. “These data suggest that eating a protein-rich breakfast is one potential strategy to prevent overeating and improve diet quality by replacing unhealthy snacks with high quality breakfast foods.
Examples of Protein Rich Breakfasts:
- Poached organic eggs with smoked salmon, avocado and salad
- Boiled organic eggs with cold cuts of meat and salad
- Lightly scrambled eggs with organic bacon and salad
- Leftover dinner
- Meat and nuts
- Protein smoothies (see the protein power example in this article)
- Full fat organic yogurt with fruit and nuts
- Canadian bacon, or any other bacon.
- two tablespoons of a nut butter
Cereal and wheats/grains are NOT a protein rich breakfast, so you will be triggered to eat more later. Lindora.com sells high protein pancakes, if you are so inclined once in awhile!
Weight Management Success Tools
How much do you want to lose weight? Do you really want to do it? Then, you have to work for it. You can’t do anything half-assed and expect full results. So, here are some suggestions to do it and do it well.
WEIGHT MANAGEMENT SUCCESS TOOLS:
1. Plan and prepare your meals for each day. You gained weight because of BAD choices or UNINFORMED choices, so this is not a diet, this is a change of LIFESTYLE. You have to plan what you will eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and your three protein snacks in between and after dinner. You have to prepare to eat something with protein every 3-4 hours, four small vegetable servings a day, two small vegetable servings a day and two small salads a day. You can even make part of your plan to go out, but have in mind what you would order that will fill your daily requirements. If you eat pasta, rice, wheat products or starchy vegetables, you might be ruining your chances for success.
2. Your in-between meals can be snacks that are protein-based like a protein bar, but choose snacks wisely. Low carb choices have to be the way to go. Even yogurt needs to be a good choice. Dannon Greek Lite and Fit has 8 g of carbs and Chiobani has 20g of carbs.
3. Try to eat items that have a lot of fiber. Some protein bars have fiber. Good vegetables have fiber. Fiber makes you feel full and less like snacking. You can even use a fiber supplement like Metamucil.
4. Shop smart. “When I go shopping, I read labels. I look at carbohydrates, and I don’t buy anything that’s over 20 carbohydrates. I Don’t buy large quantities of food because then you don’t overeat.
5. Find an enjoyable exercise. I prefer Pilates, Yoga and the elliptical if I can use my IPAD while on the machine (killing two birds with one stone.) Some people hate all of that and love Zumba or dance, or even swimming. Some people like group social hikes. Some people only like walking their dog. Find something and do it. No more excuses. Moving your body is good for being youthful, healthy in body and mind.
6. Portion control! 4-6 ounces of meat/protein per serving, six servings of protein a day. And the alloted vegetables, fruit and salad (see number 1)
7. Educate yourself. I learned a lot by going to Lindora and reading their books. I read online a lot about carbohydrates, glycemic loads, etc. Read Skinny-Rules to learn. You need to learn what to do to lose the weight.
8. Get support. The nurses at Lindora were excellent support for me. Some like groups like Weight Watchers or Overeaters Anonymous. Look into a support group, person or website.
Skinny-Rules 