Twitter What You Eat

 

hungry girl

 

 

 

I read an article about Hungry Girl (St Catharines Standard) a woman in her 40’s who started blogging about being hungry and wanting to stay slim.  Now 3  years later she has recipe book that is a New York Times Best Seller, a diet plan that works and she reached her goal to lose weight and keep it off.  I found a neat thing on her site called Twitter What You Eat.  What a cool site, you keep a food, calories and weight diary along with thousands of other people.  They say if your faced with a list of what you eat and drink in a day you’ll think twice about eating again.  Some people like to eat just because they are bored.  I find the worse time for eating is when I’m watching TV, that is my snack time.

Getting More Fibre in Your Diet

If you read our review of the appetite suppressant Appesat you will know that rather than taking Appesat we recommend UniqueHoodia. There are several reasons for this (see our appesat review for all the reasons) but one big reason is that essentially all Appesat does is give you a boost of fibre in your diet.

Fibre is a natural appetite suppressant which is why you will often see high-fibre cereals advertising that they can keep you full until lunch. It goes without saying that an increase in your fibre intake can be achieved with a few simple (and much cheaper than Appesat) changes in your diet.

Making a change to your diet can, at first, seem like a tough thing to do. However, a few small changes over time and you will soon have increased your fibre intake and start feeling the benefits of appetite suppression.

Before we provide you with some suggestions on how to incorporate more fibre in to your diet let’s first look at what fibre is and what its health benefits are.

Fibre is made up of several complex carbohydrates and can either be soluble or insoluble. Unlike most other foods we consume, fibre contains no calories, vitamins or minerals and therefore passes through your body without being digested. This is also why people suffering from constipation are encouraged to eat more fibre (or roughage as it is also known).

If you are thinking you can gain fibre from eating meat then you are sadly mistaken. Fibre only exists in the cell walls of plants, therefore things like fruit, vegetables, and grain are all commonly high in fibre.

In addition to the appetite suppression and therefore weight loss benefits, fibre also offers other health benefits. It is known to help reduce the risks of bowel problems such as haemorrhoids and cancer of the bowel and colon. It also helps to stabilise blood sugar levels and reduce blood cholesterol levels.

As you can see, the benefits of a high-fibre diet stretch much further than just helping you to control your appetite and lose weight. Therefore even if you are happy with your current weight a little more fibre in your diet can only be a good thing.

With this in mind here are some simple meal ideas to help you begin to increase your daily fibre intake:

Breakfast:

Wholemeal toast

Wheat or grain based cereal

Bran muffins

Porridge oats

Pure fruit smoothie

Lunch:

Sandwiches made with wholemeal bread

Any vegetable soup with wholemeal bread

Beans on wholemeal toast

Wholegrain pasta salad

Nuts and seeds

Fruit Salad

Dinner:

Wholegrain pasta or rice with a sauce of your choice

Vegetable stir fry

Bean or vegetable Enchiladas (use wholemeal tortillas)

Vegetable chilli with kidney beans

By now you can probably see how easy it is to get more fibre in your diet and why we advise against spending money on Appesat. If you want to suppress your appetite then there is no better option than taking UniqueHoodia. Of course you can combine UniqueHoodia with a change to a high-fibre diet if you wish but it is not essential to help you lose weight.

The 2nd and 4th meal - the snacks

So why do I need a snack?  What should I have for a snack?  Would I lose weight if I eat less?

These are some of the questions I am asked over and over again. I will break it down for you because this is important and it will help you.  The body is a machine and needs fuel – snacks keep your tank full.   When you are starving, you tend to eat whatever is in front of you, so the key is to curb those cravings by eating healthy snacks throughout the day.  Interval between meals should be between 4 to 6 hours.  Have a meal between 2 to 2.5 hours after a snack – regardless of how hungry you are. We consume the fuel our bodies really need for optimum health.  Whenever people think of weight-loss, they aim to cut down on fat.  All this does is raises the proportion of carbohydrates we are consuming, spiking our insulin level, and making us fat and unhealthy. We would not eat spoonfuls of sugar, but sugar has no fat – it is pure carbohydrate. Our attempts at fat free chips, low fat cookies and muffins, fat free ice creams…end up giving us more and more carbohydrates, like the person who eats spoonfuls of pure sugar.   Just look around – after 30 years of trying to eat low fat foods we have got fatter, rather than leaner. We have got exactly the opposite result.   The prevalence of obesity continues to be a health concern for adults, children and adolescents in the United States - http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/Obesity/

The more carbohydrates (carbs) we consume, the more insulin we secrete. Insulin turns excess carbs into stored fat.  Dietary fat does not trigger insulin secretion.  Insulin production can be controlled if we eat low-density carbs, dietary fat, and protein in the right proportions. If we can maintain insulin levels down, it is easier to burn off excess body fat – and to keep it off permanently. Through a healthy eating habits it is possible to improve mental focus, enjoy increased energy and vitality.

So here are some of my substitutes for bad snacks and some of my favorites:

• Cottage cheese and fresh berries instead of yogurt – less sugar in cottage cheese and the berries give a nice anti-oxidant boost
• Almonds and almond butter instead of peanuts and peanut butter – More fiber, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat
• Romain lettuce wraps with low-sodium lunch meat (turkey, roast beef, or chicken) loaded with veggies (peppers, avocado, and tomatoes) with 1tblsp. of olive oil instead of protein bars.

*** Too much sugar (carbs) and bad fats in most protein bars. Protein shakes are ok in a pinch to keep you regular.

Get your 2nd and 4th meal and you will see the progress I promise, keep it consistent and the engine will run perfectly.

Staying Focused on your Exercise.

It isn’t easy staying motivated to exercise, especially if you’re a beginner. In fact, most veteran exercisers would probably agree–some days they got it, some days they don’t. If you’re trying to lose belly fat and make exercise a habit, you may be surprised to learn that there’s not much difference between you and people who exercise regularly. There’s no magic pill that brings discipline and motivation to your workouts.

Here are some mistakes that contribute to failure to exercise:

* Focusing on the scale: Weight loss isn’t going to happen right away. For some folks, it takes months to see significant changes. When starting a program, it’s best to set measurable goals like getting a certain number of workouts in each week or lifting a certain amount of weight.

* Working too hard: Newbies sometimes go at their new workout programs like veteran exercisers. Starting easy and working your way up to more frequent exercise makes your workouts more enjoyable and gives your body time to adjust.

* Not working hard enough: On the other hand, some people don’t take their intensity high enough to promote weight loss results. Learn the right way to monitor your intensity.

* Comparing yourself to others: If your friend is losing weight faster than you are, it doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you. We all lose fat at different rates. Try to keep the focus on the gains you’re making, not someone else’s.

* Giving up too soon: If you’re not seeing results yet, giving up is the last thing you should do. If you’ve been working out consistently, you may be well on your way to weight loss. Whether you’ve seen results or not, you ARE getting something out of exercising regularly.

Traffic to my blog? WHAAA??

I went to STATS earlier, curious if I had 1-2 views today… when I saw 58 I kind of freaked out! 58 people I don’t know looked at me in all my fat glory! 58 people know my weight. 58 people are counting on me to keep giving them good news each week. The PRESSURE! I almost feel like I am taking part of The Biggest Loser - Blog Edition. Hey… I should start that…. I think I’ll CC that title and make it a real deal. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!

Anyway, to the readers out there, thanks for stopping by. I have turned comments off since frankly, I don’t want feedback. It may change in the future, but in these first early weeks - I could do with out the bad stuff people write.

Be sure and subscribe. I’ll be posting pretty often.

I Love This Young Man!

I came home tonight after a 12 hour day of walking/working…(11.84 miles and 1800 odd calories burned) to find my home riddled with 5 small children, a not so small child, and a grumpy mom who volunteered to have ALL of them over for the day/night knowing I would NOT be home to help.

Anyway, I was cold, tired, hungry and in need of a shower and had 8-900 calories left for the day at 9:30 at night!!

Sometimes I think I have gotten too good at eating lots of food for few calories.

But which need comes first…all the while needing/wanting to love on these precious children.

Food won after a few hugs and kisses were passed around of course!

I quickly microwaved 2 hot dogs and was standing in the kitchen with a dog in each hand.  (Gosh this sounds soo bad…two fisting hot dogs!  I will have you know though, I did take one bite at a time.)  Truth be told, those precious children ate half of my dinner!! Oh well.

Back to my point…while standing in the kitchen two fisting my hot dogs and thinking I hope this is enough calories for the day, cuz I cannot imagine eating MORE…the not so small child (almost 9 yrs old) looks over at me.

He looks me up and down from head to toe (I cannot believe he has that look down at 8 yrs old) and says this:

“Dang! Auntie! You are …you are…”

I interrupted him to say this ” Gavin, listen here buddy, I have been gone for 9 hours and I am hungry…leave me alone!”

“But Auntie, I was gonna say…you are lookin’ GOOD!…I mean you are getting skinny!  umm umm how much weight have you lost?”  All the while he is roaming his eyes up and down checking me out!

Gulp! Oh! Ummm 51 Lbs buddy…51 Lbs…By the way…that is just about a whole Maddie (his sister).

nicest sweetest kid ever!

oh and I got up to 1500 calories for the day…I know.  quit yelling at me already.  Not enough!  I will do better tomorrow!

The Day Before Friday...

My Thursday thoughts often drift to the fact that it is the day before Friday. Not that I’m wishing my life away, but the weekend is almost here. As usual, I’m so ready!! I feel like this week has been a bit of a treadmill of tedium, and I’m ready to jump off and do something fun. I did try to break up the boredom a little bit with a different kind of breakfast this morning:

I took a banana wheat bran scone out of the freezer, toasted it and then topped it with some PB2 and pomegranate honey jelly. I take back my negative opinion of these scones. Topped with some PB and jelly, this little scone was awesome! I had some blackberries on the side, and a bowl of my “ambrosia.” I had 1/2 a cup of Greek yogurt mixed with some canned mandarin oranges and topped with a little bit of sweetened coconut. I loved it just as much this week, as I did when I came up with it last week. Unlike last week, I didn’t eat the whole can of oranges today, so there’s more in my future! I also had a cup of coconut coffee mixed with skim milk and some sugar free hazelnut Torani. This breakfast was a fun and different start to the day.

Throughout the day, I snacked on this little baggie of Kashi Honey Sunshine cereal. This is, of course, my favorite “snacking” cereal, and you could win a box in my 100th post giveaway. If you haven’t entered already, you have until midnight on Friday. Just go to this post to find out how to enter. I’m looking forward to announcing a winner on Saturday, and Sweetie Pie’s Prize Pack is all packed up and ready to go to its new home. It could be headed your way!

Around 11:00, I had what has become my traditional morning snack this week:

I had a little trouble removing the middle with my plastic child safe knife today, so there are some extra pieces. There was plenty of Bee’s Knees PB to go around!

When lunchtime rolled around, I had another of my turkey burgers from the other night on an Arnold’s thin with some dijon and brie. I scored this brie the other day at a party, Sarah style, and I decided it would taste good on today’s burger. Using a different cheese was an easy way to change up my leftovers! Plus, I’ve eaten all of my chipotle cheddar. I also had hummus and some baby carrots. Is it just me, or are these baby carrots huge? Several of them were bigger than my thumb. They really are as big as they look in the photo, and it took some serious chomping to eat them. I kind of liked the crunch!

Speaking of crunch, I had one of these after lunch:

I love taking a bite and letting the chocolate and the honeycomb sort of melt in my mouth. YUM! Still craving chocolate, I went and got a fudgy peanut butter vitatop out of the work freezer. I started eating it before I remembered to snap a picture. Oops!

Ok, now I need you to put your imagination cap on. You have one of those, right? It might be hanging next to your thinking cap? I had another work reception to attend this afternoon and it included a random afternoon glass of vino, a few nibbles of parmesan, an artichoke heart, and a few nibbles of marinated zucchini and peppers. I skipped the bruschetta, and other items, but had enough nibbles to satisfy my curiosity. That seemed reasonable, and balanced. Hooray!

After that, I went back to my office and had my afternoon bowl of oatmeal:

Today’s bowl is full of Kashi Heart to Heart Apple Cinnamon instant oatmeal. Unless I find some hiding in an unexpected place, I believe I’m out of pre-flavored oatmeal packages. CRISIS! Ok, not really. Maybe I’ll just have a different snack tomorrow, or maybe I’ll take some plain oatmeal and fix it up. Either way, I’m kind of happy that I’ve eaten all of my random little pouches of oatmeal. That means I can buy a new kind to try now! Since I have limited kitchen storage space in my apartment, I have to try to use things up before buying more as often as possible. That rule obviously does not apply to coffee from the ‘burg!

When I got home, I had something great planned for dinner. The weather was kind of dreary today, and I decided to abandon my plan completely and just have a bowl of Trader Joe’s turkey chili topped with a piece of cheese. It doesn’t get any easier than opening a can, and I really wanted the warmth and coziness of this bowl. I’m doing better at thinking about what I really want, and trying to have it. I can just make my new recipe another night. This bowl was completely satisfying, and I don’t think you can go wrong with melted cheese!

I followed that up with a small salad. I had the rest of my farmer’s market lettuce mix topped with a little goat cheese, a few dried cherries, and some balsamic vinegar. It was a bright little spot of green. I’m definitely going to visit the lettuce lady again on Saturday!

My veggies were followed up with the rest of my little container of Vanilla Snowflake LaLoo’s goat’s milk ice cream topped with vanilla almonds and a few blackberries. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how much I love this ice cream. My previous posts have probably made that point. Ok. I’m going to tell you again anyway. It’s SO GOOD!!! 

I got back from the gym later than usual. It was 10:15 by the time I got back to my apartment and started writing this post. While I’ve been typing, I’ve been munching on one of my favorite little sweet snacks:

I have some Galaxy vanilla almond munch granola mixed with some Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips. This bowl keeps me nibbling for a nice long while, and feeds my chocolate tooth. It really is one of my faves. I’ve been eating other granolas lately, and I was so excited when I made the return to the Galaxy. I love it, and I especially dig all of the whole almonds in the mix!

Now, I’m going to make some chamomile tea and read a bit before I head to bed. My workout was really good tonight. I burned 706 calories and felt totally energized throughout the workout!! In fact, it left me a bit too energized for bedtime. Sometimes that happens. I’ll count some sheep, sip some tea, and hopefully nod off pretty soon. What helps you to unwind at the end of the day?

Have a great Friday, and don’t forget to enter the giveaway if you haven’t already!! Ciao for now, bloggie friends!