I’m compiling everything I know about healthy eating on a budget and as I scoot along with my project. I’m featuring segments of it here under the “Healthy Budget AND Healthy Diet” umbrella.

Well, I can’t skip cabbage and you shouldn’t either, as it THE premium low cost/ great nutrition,/low calorie vegetable.

Maybe this will inspire you>>> (Read the article)

Comments(1)

Sometimes I get restless: Should I to move to the city? My walls should be painted. Why don’t I visit my family more? I should finish my last will and testament. My shrubs need trimming.

Then the restlessness breeds more and more negativity. My marriage should be more whistles and bells. I take too many naps. I forgot an appointment with my web designer. I should… I should… I should…

.. and finally, I get sick of myself.

Have you heard the phrase, “Fake it ‘til you make it”? That is exactly what I had to do last week when these negative voices in my head were running amok. I just had to put a stop to the negativity.

I decided to fake it. I smiled even though I didn’t particularly feel like it. I was polite to a telemarketer. I treated myself nicely, by taking a walk in the middle of the afternoon, and when the voices started in, I just calmly told them to take a break.

After a day of faking it, I walked out my back door, took a deep breathe and was hit over head with this thought: “It is my choice. I can enjoy the day - or not – totally my choice.”

(Read the article)

Comments(2)

Baby carrots or big-girl carrots?

Surely by now you’ve figured out that “baby carrots” are really just shaped, regular-size carrots. Authentic baby carrots actually look like a miniature carrot with the greens still on and are referred to as Belgian or French carrots.

 

Besides being slightly more expensive, shaped carrots get slimy very quickly. It only takes me a total of seven minutes to peel and make carrot sticks from a two-pound bag of carrots. Might I suggest doing the grown-up thing and prepare your own baby carrots? I call these my big-girl carrots.

 

How to store

Carrots are really hardy and will typically last somewhere between two weeks to two months in the refrigerator, if stored properly. If you buy them with greens, cut the greens off. (Note: buying with greens does not ensure the carrots are fresher than those in plastic bags.)

 

Minimize the amount of moisture they might lose by storing them in the coldest part of the refrigerator (in the back or along the side wall).

 

Wrap them in wet paper towels, placed in sealed plastic bags with a tiny bit of water or in a plastic storage container without much air space.

Carrots should also be stored away from apples, pears, potatoes and other fruits or vegetables that produce ethylene gas, since this will cause them to become bitter.

How to prepare

Besides eating them raw as a snack and in salads be sure savor cooked carrots. Their nutritional value actually increases when they are cooked because raw carrots have a tough cellular wall our bodies are not able to breakdown very easily. Lightly cooking carrots actually makes their nutrients, including beta-carotene, more usable for our bodies.

 

I like to sneak carrots into spaghetti sauce and every imaginable kind of soup (split pea, lentil, chicken noodle).

Roasted Carrots: Cut carrots in half lengthwise and then into 1-1/2-inch pieces. Toss them with oil, salt and pepper, ginger or coriander. Place in a roasting pan large enough so they are not stacked on top of each other. Roast in a 400°F oven for 20 to 30 minutes.

Dilled Carrot Salad: In a bowl, whisk together – 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon wine or wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons mustard, 1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill and 1 teaspoon sugar. Salt and pepper to taste. Grate one pound of carrots and stir into dressing and serve. (350 calories total)

Carrot Avocado Salad: Cut one pound of carrots into cubes and cook in a pot of boiling water for five minutes. Drain and cool. Mix with 1/2 cup cilantro, 1/2 cup chopped onion, 3 tablespoons oil, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 clove chopped garlic, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper and 1 peeled and chopped avocado. (885 calories total)

Can I eat the greens?

Many people do, especially when added to soup stock. Some people report intolerance for them if eaten in quantity because, as do many greens, they do have some small level of toxicity.

 

FYI

One large carrot = 1 cup shredded = 45 calories

Comments(4)

I just finished a teleclass with my Sure Success clients… we shared these ideas for how to not get wildly independent from your diet on this Independence Day weekend while attending a cookout / party:

Here are some ideas:

• Have a mission/focus for the party that doesn’t involve eating. (For instance you could organize games for the kids, hold the babies, get to know someone new. You could make yourself useful and act as a co-host — visiting for a while with each person or keeping the beverages stocked.)
• Plan to include an exercise – as much for the distraction/ enjoyment / stress reduction as for the calories burned. Bring along a some equipment. Perhaps a frisbee, swim suit, badminton, a ball and glove, or bicycle. (Can you bike to get there?) At the very least bring your walking shoes.
• Don’t drink alcohol. You’ll add calories and lower your eating inhibitions.
• Don’t stand near the food table.
  
  
• Eat only off of a plate and only while sitting down. No grazing.
  
  
• If a potluck, be sure your contribution is healthful and diet friendly. Fruit salad, raw vegetables, or grapes are always appreciated.
  
  
• Pretend you are a public health official and so, would know how wise it is to skip all things with mayo and cream.
  
  
• Only one dessert, two if very very small, but don’t delude yourself into having “just a bite of everything.”
  
  
• Write your intention in code on the palm of your hand. How about an “R” for reasonable? This is your “palm pilot.” Let it guide you.
  
  
• Officially end your meal. Throw your plate away; say a word of grace and be done. Any other ideas? Register and leave a comment.(Note: You only have to register just this once, this keeps the spam away.)

  Hoping for peace in the world, bringing you peace of mind.

Nameste,

Sandra

 

Comments(4)

 

A reader recently asked:

Dear Sandra,

A few times in the last two weeks I’ve made the decision to indulge myself by eating some of my “bad” foods. However, when I have indulged I have always looked up the calories and still stayed within calories for the day. For example, last week I went out to Culvers twice and ate a kid’s grilled cheese with fries and a diet soda. I also regularly have about 200 calories worth of good chocolate.

So is it really just the calories that matter? Or if I regularly eat too much fat, will I not lose weight, even if my calories are under the max?

Thanks,
Ruby

I’m sure Ruby isn’t alone in wondering about this. If you were paying attention in high school health class, you probably learned that macronutrients are the essential calorie building blocks of any and all food. There are only three macronutrients: protein, fat and carbohydrate. These three, along with alcohol (which is not essential and therefore not a macronutrient), are the sole source of all calories. While food does provide other important things (minerals, vitamins, etc.), these have no calories and are referred to as micronutrients.

The long and the short of it is there are probably mixes of macronutrients that may cause you to lose weight slightly faster – but your diet is about more than just weight loss. It is also about satisfying your hunger, satisfying emotional needs and bringing you optimal health.

So (although it seems a bit formal) the question is fourfold:

What mix of macronutrients do you need:

… in order to be healthy?

… to not feel hungry?

… to not feel deprived?

… in the appropriate calorie range to lose/maintain your weight?

You may want to use an online website to track the food you eat in a typical week or two so you can see your total calories as well as the macronutrient breakdown of your diet.

Here are some considerations for the four questions:

(Read the article)

Comments(0)

Note from Sandra: a guest blog by my yoga teacher, Shelley Masar

In recent weeks I’ve been listening to a Sounds True download, The Lost Teachings of Yoga, by yoga scholar Georg Feurerstein. Over the course of six 70 minute CDs he delivers this message: yoga is the on-going process of self transformation. Yogis study with teachers and texts. They meditate, practice breath exercises and asanas ( yoga postures). They strive to be virtuous all in order to become more self-aware. They seek to become self aware in order move beyond the physical, mental, and emotional habits that cause suffering.

Without awareness, according to the yoga sages, everything we do and think is little more than habit. Becoming aware of and changing habits was no easier 2,000 years ago when yogic wisdom was first compiled than it is now. So the ancient teachings are full of suggestions about how to wake up to subtle habits and all the ways they play through us. And the teachings are full of insight about how we should navigate after we’ve learned all about the boat ( You can know a sail is torn, and set to mending it without knowing any more about reading the stars.).

New intentions and disciplines are treacherous and it is easy to become self disgusted. But all the teachings are clear that self-disgust is NEVER useful. That said, self-acceptance is paradoxical we are told to accept our ourselves AND re-train ourselves? (I think of the bumper-sticker that says, ” You can’t simultaneously prepare for war and peace.” I always think, “Yes, but don’t you have to?”)

One of my physical/mental/emotional “ways” is to keep a keen watch for the unhappiness of others. My mother likes to say that “[my] antennae are attuned to pain.” For example every morning I drive across University Avenue one of the main east west arteries of this midwestern university town that is also the boundary between the traditionally black north end of Champaign-Urbana and the burgeoning engineering campus on the northern edge of the University. The strip I travel passes two major regional hospitals, a 40 million dollar university research laboratory, an upscale hotel for visiting scholars, a shabby motel for the rest of us, a dozen fast food places, gas stations, auto parts stores, muffler shops, an ambulance service, and a slew of low-rent local businesses trying to stay afloat in box store America.

My antennae scan both sides of the avenue. The fix on the exhausted nurses and orderlies waiting for buses in front of the hospitals. On the poor kids trudging to and from schools where the chips are so stacked against them it will take a miracle if they come out confident and curious. On the inactive people people in line at the drive-thrus waiting for donuts and tacos who will grow more sluggish on the corn syrup that makes the food so cheap. And to the cars, the small (polluting) sports cars I envy. The big old (polluting) cars with duct-taped windows. Cars that remind me that I too am driving a (polluting) car past gas stations where the price of ( polluting) gas is over $4.00 a gallon. On the people going into gas stations that traffic in chips, cigarettes, lottery tickets, soft drinks, and celebrity magazines. ( I don’t buy the magazines, I loiter at the racks reading about Brad and Angelina who I think is beautiful, and Brittany and Paris, Jennifer, Janet, and Madonna.)

These observations of personal and collective despair threaten my yogic optimism. To wax poetic, they threaten to start the landslide from the ever-melting glacier on my inner cold mountain that will plow down the pine trees of my soul to say nothing of the fragile trillium that grow beneath them.

“We practice to become more self-aware, more self-accepting, so that we can move beyond the physical and mental and emotional habits that cause our suffering.” The morning practice, meditation and breathing, I do before heading across University Avenue has been strengthening. That is, it’s becoming more habitual in a good way and more often interesting. It was after meditating that it dawned on me that my dark observations and self-incriminating thoughts were, are, no more, no less, than habits. The lonely exhausted hospital workers won’t start to laugh, the children won’t be happier, the crap-food/ gas dependency, the fantasy magazines and the lottery-thing won’t be replaced by more promising cultural mores because I rail against them in my mind. I could do as the teachers suggest and replace my distraught and compulsive observations with the beautiful Buddhist mantra that wishes all beings happiness and the root of happiness; freedom from suffering and the root of suffering.

Perhaps letting go of my dark litany might actually better fulfill the first of Guru Pitanjali’s commandments, “Ahimsa,” to do no harm. At least I’d lay off my knee-jerk reactions to myself. And perhaps the subtle energy of my less unhappiness would rub off somewhere. Maybe I’d eventually find more energy to contribute somehow, somewhere.

We change slowly. Little by little. But we do change. I wasn’t always sure that was true. My unfolding yoga experience began long ago, but one of it’s precursors was a stint in AA where meetings would end in a circle where we held hands and said the serenity prayer after which we would pump hands and chant, “It works if you work it.”

The yoga teachings also say that no effort is ever wasted. Slowly, step by step, we make our way, integrating everything our souls have ever longed for.

Om Ganeshya Namaha, May our obstacles be removed.

Shelley

 

Comments(1)

I can’t believe I actually bought one, but I did. Staples office supply store has a big red button that when pressed says, “That was easy.” I love it.

It’s totally true: Weight loss is easy. It really is. As soon as you want it bad enough to adopt a can-do attitude – you will find easy ways to lose weight too.

Getting back into summer clothes and discovering that, well, shall we say, winter clothes are a little more forgiving – this is a time of year when many folks suddenly acquire that can-do attitude.

Are you ready to push the “That was easy” button?

Are you ready to get rid of those extra jiggles? Really ready? Well good. Because it’s easy!

Following are the ABC’s of easy weight loss.

No, you don’t have to do all 26. Pick the ones you are willing to do for a week. Pick all those that appeal to you in an easy manner. This is totally about you combining a can-do attitude with a little bit of focus

• Apple – carry one with you at all times.

• Bags and Boxes – eliminate them. Eat only off of a plate.

• Change – your meal frequency. Eat three squares or four to six mini meals. (Read the article)

  Comments(2)

  Posted to Diet, diet motivation

I have a client, Jennifer, who recently took up fencing. She was trying to talk me into it, but I realized I was afraid. Not afraid of getting hurt really, just afraid of doing something with my body that I’d never done before.

 

The day after my appointment with Jennifer, I was in the throes of PMS, and my friend Angie suggested I meet her at the batting cage at 5:30. What a great idea. I did it! I hadn’t held a bat since high school. But I did it! I know my stance sucked… but I only completely swung at air on four of my 54 pitches. Not too bad, I think.

 

Maybe fencing or batting cages aren’t for you. But I’m asking you too let go of a limiting belief you may have about your body. Don’t wait until you are sure you can do something before you try it. That’s backwards.

 

If you try it and don’t like it, well, then don’t do it again. Move onto something else. There are 100s of ways to move your body. Last summer I took a belly dancing class. Hated it. Dropped it. Moved on. But there were dozens of ladies in the class who absolutely loved it, belly rolls and all.

 

Make this your summer of fun and activity.

Reasonable Dieter Christine provides 51 outdoor activities to ponder. I provide five small words to consider, “Stop pondering – just do something!”

1. Paddle boat
2. Walk, either with your dog, an MP3 player or a loved one
3. Sign-up for a walk-a-thon
4. Play basketball with your kids
5. Join a softball team
6. Take tennis lesson
7. Go swimming
8. Horse shoes
9. Golf
10. Take your family to the zoo
11. Garden
12. Play soccer with your kids
13. Rollerblade
14. Bike ride
15. Camping
16. Jog
17. Horseback ride
18. Play catch
19. Hopscotch
20. Jump rope
21. Kayak
22. Snorkeling
23. White water rafting
24. Hiking
25. Water ski
26. Scuba or skin diving
27. Sky diving
28. Surfing: body or board
29. Table tennis / Ping pong
30. Volleyball
31. Archery
32. Fencing
33. Frisbee
34. Hang gliding
35. Rock climbing (rappelling)
36. Badminton
37. Dancing
38. Hacky sack
39. Motor-Cross
40. Polo
41. Skateboarding
42. Squash
43. Tai Chi
44. Water polo
45. Water volleyball
46. Carpentry, installing rain gutters, building fence
47. Raking lawn
48. Watering plants
49. Paint outside of home
50. Plant trees
51. Batting cage

Add your own in the comments. Tell us what you have already done, or what you would like to do.

Comments(0)

Even if you are not a die-hard calorie counter, it does us all good to note how many calories we are consuming occasionally. To have a reasonable diet we need to keep our head in reality. A kitchen scale is great for dieters.
Part of calorie counting is weighing and measuring. An electronic kitchen scale is indispensable, it will really save you time. If you want to get the low down on how to use it innovatively and efficiently — I’ll have an article about it in my next newsletter.

In the mean time, I had clients asking me which I’d recommend. Here are my requirements:

• digital
• weighs accurately to 1 gram or .5 ounce
• weighs at least 10 pounds
• has a tare button
• designed so you can set a large plate on it, and not have it block the readout or buttons
• switches between grams and ounces

If I was going to order myself a new kitchen scale, and had room on my kitchen counter … I would order this kitchen scale.

If counter space was an issue, so I was going to store it in a drawer… if think I’d choose this kitchen scale.

It would be great to have a calculator built in to the scale. I use my calculator in the kitchen all the time when I’m calorie counting.

Comments(0)