Heathly eating habits II cont...

These will be the last in the series of eating healthy, losing weight for a while, I promise!

9. Stop drinking diet pop. If it has aspartame in it, that actually causes you to crave sweet things. It doesn't satisify that sweet tooth like sugar so you want to have more. Drink unsweet tea or sweeten with stevia, or water, or green tea. Don't drink more than one 6 oz. juice in a day, eat a piece of fruit instead. It will fill you up. No on has ever gotten fat eating fruit, but some have drinking it!

10. Eat the real thing! Take for instance peanut butter. Have you read your label in the pantry? Most peanut butter contains all sorts of stuff along with the peanuts. So when you make that sandwich, you have to pile on the peanut butter so you can taste the nuts. Natural peanut butter only has nuts and maybe salt. You don't need nearly as much to get a real peanut taste. So by using less but getting the same flavor, you are saving fat and calories. The same with cheese and lunchmeat. Buy the best you can afford and you won't need much for that sandwich, again saving fat and calories. Treat yourself to the best in nutrition, you deserve it!

11. Start a garden in the spring. You will burn calories, eat better, and save money in one swoop! Grow stuff you like! It doesn't need to be a large garden, my first one was on our apartment balcony. My husband knew I needed a house when it began to look like a jungle, but the neighbors liked the tomatoes!

Lastly, I want everyone to know that our society just needs to step back and give everybody a little break. We can't all be super models, not that I want to look like that! God made each of us a size and shape unique to us. We need to take care of what He gave us to the best of our ability but we really get too freaked out about outward appearances.

So I guess my advice is to work on your outside this year, but also, work on your inside too. Work on blessing other people. My grandma used to say, 'pretty is as pretty does'. Some of the prettiest people I know aren't necessarily the best to look at but once you get to know them, they are beautiful to be around!

Remember to bless someone today!

Healthy eating habits, cont...

Yesterday, I started on my food pointers for the new year. Today I'll continue today and tomorrow and then I won't say another word about healthy eating for a while, I promise! If you have an great idea on how you watch your weight, post it! We can all use help!

4. Eat things as close to they lived as possible. I know, this sounds gross, it used to really gross out my students too. But here's the deal, the more processed your food is, the more of the natural taste is taken out and the more fake taste is put in. That's why processed foods have a lot of salt in them. The manufacturers have to replace that natural stuff with something!

Take chicken. If you want chicken, go for a real piece of chicken, not a nugget. Exactly where is the nugget on the chicken anyway? A real piece of chicken, leg, breast, thigh...is low in salt, not high in fat and tastes pretty good. A nugget, which is ground up chicken, is very high in salt and fat. Same for veggies and fruit, grains and breads. Go for the least processed and you'll always score better nutritionally.

5. If you want dessert, eat it! Don't deprive yourself of a few goodies in life! Have you ever noticed that skinny people often have a sweet tooth? Watch them, they eat the pie, they just don't eat it all. They usually savor it though, eating slowly enjoying every single bite. How often have you scarfed that candy bar and then realized that later you don't even remember eating it? Make those goodies really count!

6. Plan your meals. Truly, if your meals are planned, you will be less likely to just grab something. If you know that when you get home from work today, the ingredients for tacos, chili, your favorite soup, meatloaf...is waiting for you to just get out of the pantry, or even better, get it out of the freezer or crockpot, how eager are you going to be to get back in the car and go out? I make my meal plans almost monthly. That way, I can shop a week in advance for the big stuff and just buy produce and fruit each week or so. Yes, I did this when I worked full time, in fact, it was more important then because I had less free time. I can also big, batch cook easier if I had a plan. (I'll go into this later)

7. If you can't resist it, don't keep it in the house! Enough said.

8. Never, never, never go without breakfast. Your body is like a woodstove and if you leave the house without stoking that fire (your metabolism) it will be sluggish all day! Get it roaring and burning those calories! My students always hated this one. My anatomy & physiology kids would roll their eyes but about half of them would begin to eat breakfast during the year and always tell me that it made them feel better! Some even reported losing weight even though they didn't do anything else. Eat something with a protein in it, that will keep you from being hungry.

I'll post more tomorrow!
Have a blessed day!

Chocolate should be a food group

I am a former science teacher so I know all about the food groups and proper diet but as a chocolate junkie, I have always struggled with the fact that chocolate was put in the fats category. The fat category should be reserved for yucky stuff which chocolate is clearly not! Plus, dark chocolate, my personal favorite has been found to have many health benefits. I don't know which federal agency spent the money to find that out but they could've just asked any woman at a certain time of the month! I'm sure a good piece of dark chocolate has kept me from committing murder both at school and at home!

If you stuggle with your weight and have set your new years resolution to get your eating habits under control this year, I have a few pointers that may help you. Remember, I'm not a doctor, I just used to play one at school! Everyone would bring their medical problems to me. I would cringe when someone would say, 'could you look at this and tell me what you think!' I would always say, see the doctor and tell your parents. I figured I couldn't get sued with that response! I also look at life with a little satirical humor, so don't get bent out of shape here...get in shape! Ha!

1. Do not eat standing up or in the car! We as a society tend to eat on the go, so we don't really taste our food. This quick eating fools our bodies into thinking that we really didn't eat. If you are really hungry, find a table to sit down at and eat.

2. Eat what your body craves. If all you really want is mashed potatoes, don't make fried chicken, corn and hot rolls. Just eat mashed potatoes. Ask a pediatrician, a two year old will eat what their body needs. That's why some days all they eat is corn, the next day meat. Get in touch with your body.

3. When your stomach is growling you are losing weight. I heard that on a talk show years ago and it completely changed my atitude about hunger. Americans think it is a bad thing when our stomachs growl. We rush to fill it with whatever we can find at the moment even if we really don't want it. Wait it out to see what you are really hungry for or eat something that once grew in the garden!

I'll post more tomorrow, I think those three are enough to think about today!

Remember to bless someone today, even if they don't know you did it!