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You don't have to cook everything from scratch to make a healthy meal.  With a little help from your grocer's frozen food section, you can have a healthy, tasty and satisfying meal on the table in minutes – and I'm not talking about frozen dinners.

For example. I recently discovered Gorton's Grilled Tilapia Fillets.  Some of you might roll your eyes and call me Christopher Columbus.  You might ask how could I have discovered something that's always been there and that a lot of other people already knew about.  But I'm not talking about claiming to be the first person to ever eat Gorton's Grilled Tilapia Fillets.  I'm talking about discovering a very tasty and healthy protein source that is very WeightWatchers (read waistline) friendly and not high in sodium.

While fooling around on the WeightWatchers website (instead of working on my movie script or writing my book), I decided to find out how many PointsPlus values were in Gorton's Grilled Tilapia Fillets.  I had clipped a coupon for them because they looked interesting and I was already a fan of Gorton's grilled shrimp.  To my delight, I discovered that the fillets are only two PointsPlus values each.   Pair a couple of those with a cup of veggies and a half cup of rice or a baked potato or a serving of oven-baked fries and you have a healthy, satisfying meal for only seven PointsPlus  values.

Nowadays you could steam vegetables in the microwave right in their bags and make very tasty microwaveable brown rice in ninety seconds.  Two of my personal favorites include Uncle Ben's Whole Grain Medley (Roasted Garlic Flavor) and Seeds of Change Dharamsala and Moroccan Curry flavors.  At 500 milligrams of sodium per serving, these are not particularly low sodium selections, but they're not high either.  Uncle Ben's also has a plain microwaveable brown rice that only has 15 milligrams of sodium per serving.

Another frozen food discovery I recently made was Tyson's Grilled and Ready Chicken Fillets.  At only 110 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, and 230 milligrams of sodium per serving with no preservatives, they are an excellent option – especially for maniacs like me who grill chicken to death for fear of poisoning myself and others with undercooked chicken.  You can throw the grilled chicken fillets  into the microwave and then into a Nature's Own Whole Grain Sandwich Round with some barbecue sauce or honey mustard.  Pair that with a nice salad or veggie soup and you've got a healthy, tasty, low-calorie, and satisfying lunch or dinner that takes all of five minutes to prepare.

I've only mentioned a few frozen foods in this post; however, a plethora of frozen food options await you.  Just be sure to read the food labels for sodium content, nutritional value, fat and calories and you will be all right.   Also try to get foods with no preservatives.

Let me know how it goes.

Peace

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Taking leftovers to work is hardly a novel idea.  In fact, there are very few novel ideas in the world  – whether we're talking about writing or food.  However, from time to time, I find myself rediscovering and getting inspired by old ideas that really work.  For example, for dinner tonight, I had a turkey meatloaf sandwich.  It sounds like I consumed a million calories in a diner, right?  Wrong.  I made  a sandwich out of a slice of the turkey meatloaf from my recipe page, a tablespoon of Annie's Organic Ketchup, and an Arnold Whole Wheat Deli Thin.  I paired that with my English cucumber, pea and tomato salad and a cup of pole green beans.  Not only was the meal delicious (that turkey meatloaf sandwich was awesome if I say so myself), but it was also healthy, filling and low in calories at the same time.  Between the salad and the pole green beans, I wiped out 6 servings of vegetables in one meal (1/2 cup cucumber, 1/2 cup tomato, 1/2 cup green peas, 1 cup 50/50 mix, and 1 cup green beans).  I did that on purpose since I hadn't eaten any fruit or vegetable servings during the day.  The best part is that the whole meal only used 7 of my 25 daily Weightwatchers points, which left room for dessert.

I was able to take a healthy dinner recipe and turn it into a portable meal that I could take to work for lunch.  I could make the turkey meatloaf sandwich the night before and pair it with soup or a salad or raw veggies and a dipping sauce.  For Tuesday's lunch, I might make a wrap out of my leftover fried tilapia tenderloins.  For Wednesday's lunch, I might chop up leftover grilled marinated flank steak and throw it over a salad and pair that with a whole wheat pita.  As long as I'm  armed with healthy recipes and open mind, the possibilities are endless.

Making sandwiches and salads aren't the only way to go either.  I could pack a microwaveable container with, for example, the cilantro-lemon shrimp on my recipes page, brown rice and a side of sautéed zucchini, and throw that in my lunchbox with a cold pack.    Or maybe I could pack some of the turkey chili on the recipes page and have that with sautéed broccoli.   All I'd have to do at lunchtime is warm up the food in the microwave and  feast while my co-workers eat greasy fast food and wilted tuna sandwiches.  Suddenly, eating healthy is not such a hardship.  🙂

Keep in mind though, that taking leftovers to work is only a figure-friendly lunch idea if the leftovers are made from healthy recipes to begin with.  If you pack last weekend's fried rice and honey garlic chicken from the local Chinese joint into your lunchbox then you are just compounding last weekend's high caloric fling.  You really don't want to do that.  It's one thing to  enjoy such a meal occasionally.  It's another thing to drag it with you day after day, first in your lunchbox and then later on your hips and thighs.

I hope I've inspired you to jazz up that lunchbox.  Let me know how it goes.

Peace.

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When I was a small child, my family often took  the train to Chicago to visit family members.  We would have meals in the dining car during the long trips.  One day, my mother bought us breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, toast and bacon.  I don't know if it was the movement of the train or if I was coming down with the flu or what, but I got very sick and I associated the illness with the scrambled eggs.  Ever since that  fateful train trip, I could never eat scrambled eggs again.  In fact, up until very recently, the only way I ever enjoyed eggs was when they were hard-boiled – like Easter eggs.   There was one exception.  When I was nine years old, my mother sent my brother and I to Panama to visit family.  My uncle, who was  a chef, made a huge omelet for breakfast one day that contained veggies and chopped Vienna sausage.  I remember enjoying that meal. 

Despite the fond memories I have of that meal and that trip in general, to this day, I have never had a sunny side up or scrambled egg.  Up until this year, I never had an omelette.  Obviously, my negative experience on the train limited my exploration of dishes I could otherwise have been able to add to my food repertoire including, but not limited to,  fried eggs, scrambled eggs, breakfast sandwiches containing eggs, omelettes, and frittatas.  At first glance, this does not seem like a huge loss since the way those dishes are usually prepared can cause them to have more fat and calories than is recommended for someone pursuing weight loss.  However, the invention of non-stick pans and butter-flavored cooking spray (among other things) allows us  to make healthy, nutritious, filling, low-calorie and low-fat versions of those dishes. 

Variety is not only the spice of life, but also one of the most powerful secret weapons of weight loss.  If the only type of egg you can look forward to having is a hard-boiled egg, you are obviously severely limited because there is only so much one could do with a hard-boiled egg.   You can have it whole, chop it up and put it into a salad, or make a deviled egg.  Period.  But, if you can open your mind (and your palate) enough to try different types of egg dishes, then the possibilities are endless.  You could, for example, have an egg white omelette with veggies, or a healthy breakfast burrito or breakfast sandwich to take with you on those days you have to race out the door.  You could even have a quick egg dish for dinner instead of ordering takeout on one of those nights when you just can't face cooking some elaborate meal.

So what changed for me?  Being on the WeightWatchers program and striving to incorporate  at least seven servings of fruits and vegetables per day into my diet inspired me to look for low-calorie (and thus low point) foods that give me the most bang for my buck nutritionally, as well as new and innovative ways  in which to prepare them so that I don't get bored and revert back to bad habits.  My usual go-to weekday breakfast includes having oatmeal or whole grain cereal and a hard-boiled egg.  To avoid having eggs seven days a week, I switch that up with having a breakfast sandwich made with turkey sausage and a slice of Galaxy Nutritional Foods Veggie Slices (pepper jack flavor).   However, eating that, day in and day out is enough to make anyone crazy (and I don't need much help in that regard), so I came up with the oat bran pancake recipe you can find on my Recipes page, which I have with center cut bacon.  I also began to actively look for other ways to incorporate protein into my breakfasts that didn't involve soy or dairy. 

On a trip to New Orleans last year, my sister and I went to a restaurant for breakfast.  It was a festival weekend and every open place in the French Quarter was packed to the rafters.  The restaurant had a set breakfast menu and didn't offer hard-boiled eggs.  I was hungry and, at my sister's urging, decided to try a fried egg with bacon, hash browns and whole wheat toast.  Even though I instructed the waiter to make sure the egg was fried very hard, with no running yolk whatsoever,  I seriously doubted that I would be able to eat it.  However, I had an open enough mind to push aside my negative childhood associations and to try it with an adult palate.  To my surprise, the egg was quite tasty and, since it was fried hard,  the texture didn't bother me.  I still avoided the yolk though.

Forcing myself to push past my lifelong aversion to eggs has opened up a whole new world for me.  I have now added an Eggs and Veggies dish to my weekday breakfast repertoire that is nutritious, delicious, low-calorie and filling, and allows me to get two servings of vegetables in before I go off to work in the morning.  As soon as I figure out how to perfect and accurately record the recipe for that dish, I will add it to my recipes page, so check back.  

In this post, I focused on eggs to make my point, however these concepts apply to any foods you might be afraid to try or that you think you don't like because you didn't like them as a child, or that you may have specific beliefs about.   For example, I knew a  guy who believed that you only eat soup when you are sick.  If this guy allowed this belief to stop him from eating soup at any other time, he would lose access to two secret weapons for weight loss: variety and the ability to fill up on low-calorie food   (i.e. having a low-calorie soup with a sandwich or salad for lunch or having a low-calorie soup as a first course at  a restaurant to take the edge off and avoid overeating the entrée).

I hope that my story inspires you to open your mind and your palate because variety is not only the spice of life, but one of the keys to weight loss and good health as well.  Let me know if you make any progress in this area. 

Peace

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I probably should change the title for fear of offending someone.  “Tips for the Busy Dieter” or “Tips for the Dieter Who is Short on Time” (aren't we all?) would probably have worked just as well.   But, to me, the phrase “lazy dieter” had a ring to it.

I once got an e-mail from a friend who said that she admired the fact that I found time to write and diet.  Time to diet?  That phrase made me think.  I realized that she was right.  It does take time to diet or, I should say, to strive to live a healthier lifestyle.  I didn't take off the weight I've lost so far by just dieting.  It's been a combination of eating healthier (as well as less calories), exercising, and getting nutrition and health counseling. 

There is certainly an investment of  time required.  You have to stock your pantry with the foods and tools that will allow you to make healthy meals for yourself. You have to plan meals and keep healthy snacks within reach.  You have to learn which foods give you the most bang for your buck.  In my mind, that means the foods that will give me the most health benefits and satisfy my cravings and appetite for the least amount of WeightWatchers points or calories. 

When my job offered a WeightWatchers at work program, I made time to attend the meeting once a week for an hour.  Now that the program has ended, I make time to keep track of my weight and my food intake with WeightWatchers online.  I try to work out for at least half an hour four to five days a week and, on the weekends, I go food shopping and cook dinners to last me throughout the week.  That way, when I come home late in the evening during the week, I don't have to worry about cooking.  I just warm up one of the meals in the microwave and go about my business.

With the time-crunched and chaotic lifestyle that most of us lead today, making that sort of time commitment may seem daunting to some and impossible to others.  But I look at it this way:  I'm making an investment in me.  I can't take care of anyone else (not my family or my employer or my clients)  if I don't take care of myself.

Our bodies are like machines.  If we wear them down into the ground without fueling and lubricating and  maintaining them properly, they will wear out a lot faster than their useful lives.  Moreover, they will break down on us more often.  Since we only get one, it's probably a good idea to do a bit of preventative maintenance.

With that being said, there are some shortcuts we can take advantage of for getting healthy food onto the table fast during the week.  I like to get a little help from the grocery store wherever I can.  For example, I like to buy pre-packaged and pre-washed baby carrots from the store that I can throw into my lunchbox during the week.  I buy a big bag and then divide them into single servings in individual snack bags that I can pair with hummus ( I usually have 12 baby carrots with 2 tbsp. of hummus).

I sometimes buy a whole roasted chicken from the deli section.  That way, I can have the chicken legs one night for dinner with vegetables and another side.  I can take the skin off the chicken breast, dice it up and make  chicken salad I can take to work for lunch.  I can freeze whatever I don't use one week, then defrost and use it the next to make soup, add protein to a salad or whatever. 

I like to buy prepackaged salad greens and baby spinach to use in salads and wraps.  One of my go-to lunches is a wrap made with deli turkey, a sliced plum tomato, a cup of baby spinach or 50/50 lettuce mix, a whole grain wrap, and Dijon mustard with a can of Progresso Light Vegetable Soup on the side.

I also like to buy the prepackaged stir fry vegetables you can find in the fruit and veggie section of the supermarket.  With a hot wok, minced garlic, minced ginger, chopped onion, a little peanut or canola oil, defrosted frozen shrimp (or diced chicken), and soy, chili and teriyaki sauces, I can have a fresh, delicious and nutritious stir fry on the table in minutes.  You can serve that with instant brown rice you can make in the microwave while the stir-fry is cooking and go about your business in less time than it takes to call and wait for takeout.  You could even buy the garlic and ginger pre-minced in jars and use an onion chopper to chop the onions or use defrosted frozen pre-chopped onions.  By the way, all of this defrosting takes place in your refrigerator overnight.

You could take advantage of the vast amount of pre-cooked and prepackaged frozen foods available in your local supermarket – just watch the sodium levels.  When I wanted to make a quick pre-movie meal  and cocktails for me and my friends to have after work on a Friday night, I discovered pre-cooked and seasoned frozen shrimp and whole-grain coated chicken tenders in the frozen section of my supermarket.  The shrimp, which took all of five minutes to prepare, was low in calories and sodium and absolutely delicious.  The chicken tenders were also a big hit.  I popped them in the oven and served them with barbecue sauce.  I whipped up a salad and a pitcher of cocktails and we were all happy campers.

These are just a few ideas you could use to get healthy and balanced meals into your family throughout the week.  Over the next few months, I'll try to keep you informed of quick and healthy meal ideas.  Hopefully, you'll share some of yours as well.

Peace

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When we think of dieting, we think of being hungry and having to eat boring, bland food.  Just the idea is enough to send us to the refrigerator to eat everything in sight. 

One of the tricks to being successful on a diet is to find ways to satisfy our appetites (physical and emotional) without overeating.  Some ways to do that include practicing portion control, substituting healthier choices and finding balance.  These are some of my secret weapons for weight loss. 

On the WeightWatchers diet, you can eat anything you want: lasagna, pizza, strawberry shortcake, chocolate cupcakes . . .  The thing is, to stay within your weekly points (and thus lose weight), you have to find balance.  So, if you're scheduled to attend a dinner party where cocktails and high calorie foods will be served and you want to indulge, then you would save the 35 extra points you get each week for the dinner party and work out several times that week to earn extra points.  Or, for those of us who are not on WeightWatchers, you would work out several times that week and eat really well so that you could have a cheat day on the day of the dinner party without  guilt. 

Making healthier choices to satisfy our cravings is another useful tool for weight loss.  For example, instead of hitting the vending machine in the late afternoons, I substitute a healthy snack to tide me over until dinner (i.e., baby carrots with hummus or a peanut butter and grape  spread sandwich on light whole-wheat bread, or fresh fruit and a handful of pistachio nuts).   When I get the evening munchies and I'm craving salt, instead of reaching for addictive potato chips and devouring a large bag, I pop a bag of 94% fat-free popcorn instead.  If I'm craving chocolate, I might have a few York Peppermint Patties or make hot chocolate with Ghiradelli's unsweetened cocoa powder, almond milk, a packet of non-calorie sweetener (Truvia) and a dash of vanilla flavoring instead of having a chocolate bar. 

When my doctor first took me off dairy, I mourned the fact that I might never be able to eat ice cream again (prior to that I could have bought stock in Ben & Jerry's), but then I discovered the joys of ice cream made from coconut milk (Purely Decadent's Mocha Almond to be exact) and whipped cream made from cashews, and now I am a happy child.

My third secret weapon for weight loss is portion control.  I make sure to include all of the foods I like in my repertoire so that I don't feel deprived.  I just find ways to lighten up the recipes without sacrificing taste or texture.  Sometimes, that's not possible though.   In that event, if I really want it, I will still have it.  I just make sure to limit the item to one portion and then plan the rest of the meal and sometimes the rest of the day around it.  If it's a high calorie meat dish, I might have it with a salad and forgo the carb.  Or, if it's a high calorie side dish I crave, I might have it with a lower calorie protein like shrimp or boneless skinless chicken breast and a zero point vegetable.

I am sure that, with a little experimentation and practice, you will find a few weapons for weight loss of your own.  In the meantime, I hope that some of mine work for you. 

Peace

Get Inspired

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One evening, after a particularly grueling day at work, I dragged myself home, warmed up some food and had dinner sitting on the couch in front of a TV tray while I watched cooking shows.  I wasn't in the mood to write a blog post.  I certainly was not in the mood to write fiction.  In fact, I wanted nothing more than to just mindlessly veg in front of the TV set.  There wasn't much of me left.  I was mentally exhausted from getting up early in the mornings to work out and write and then practicing law until well into the evening hours.  

I decided to check my e-mail.  There was a message there from someone I had met at the Silken Sands Writers Conference.  She had read my blog and said that it had inspired her to eat better and to start working out.   Those few words lifted my flagging spirits.  It felt so good to know that my blog was inspiring people to live a healthier life. It gave me a sense of renewed energy.  That night, I jotted down several ideas for blog posts and began thumbing through my recipe box for recipes to add to the site.  The next morning, I wrote a new blog post and started my recipes page.

Later that day, I thought about how a few kind words could inspire a person to keep going – whether it's to write, to follow a dream, or whatever.   But for that e-mail, I might have decided that I just didn't have enough time to maintain this blog in addition to working, working out and working on my fiction.  Life has a way of beating us down sometimes.  I realized then that I needed to find sources of inspiration wherever I could to deal with those times. 

As I searched for sources of inspiration, I realized that they were all around me.  For example, when I read about the epidemic of childhood obesity in America and think of my nieces (who are not obese by any means but who eat as much junk food as the typical American child), I want to set a good example for them in terms of pursuing a healthier lifestyle.  When I listen to one of them tell me that some of the kids in her class tease her because she likes to eat vegetables (and they don't), it inspires me more to show her, by example, that being an individual is a good thing – especially when it comes to one's health.  When I read about other attorneys who have written bestsellers, had their stories made into blockbuster films and are now able to pursue their dreams full-time if they should so desire, I get inspired to write fiction.

I keep a vision board – a corkboard with pictures and print cut out from magazines that represent different goals or aspirations that I have (becoming more money savvy, losing weight, etc.).  Every time I walk past it, I see a picture of a smiling woman in great shape in workout gear.  She is measuring her tiny waist with a tape measure.  Above her head is the title “Healthy Living.”  Seeing that image  day after day inspires me to  get up most mornings and work out.  You may laugh, but since I am 45 lbs lighter than I was 14 months ago, it appears to be working.

What can you do to get and stay inspired?  Well, it depends on what you want to get inspired to do.  If you want to get inspired to live a healthier lifestyle, then maybe reading blogs like this one or checking out health-related websites can help.  If you want to get inspired to write, then joining a writers group, attending a writers conference or attending a poetry reading  may be just the ticket.  If you want to get inspired to learn how to cook, check out cooking websites or take a cooking class.  If you want to get inspired to exercise, then find some sort of exercise you would likely enjoy and try it.  It may be trying out a belly dance workout in the privacy of your own home, investing in a Wii Fit, taking a Zumba class, getting a bike and going bike riding or taking a walk with your child in a park and then having a healthy picnic. 

Get out.  Live.  Try something new. Get inspired.

Peace.

Learning to Cook Healthy Dishes Leads to Weight Loss

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I was never known as the cook in my family.  My mother is a fantastic cook.  She can “burn” in at least five different cultures.  She learned to cook from her mother and from spending summers on a farm in Tennessee.  Later, she made friends of different nationalities and took a little from each culture.  She learned to cook Haitian food from her Haitian friends, Jamaican specialties from her Jamaican friends, Panamanian dishes from my father's family, lasagna and other Italian dishes from her Italian friends and so on and so forth.  Growing up, our house was always the United Nations of food.  I never knew whether I was going to get smothered pork chops, curry goat, bacalao, black rice  or lasagna for dinner.  I just knew it would be good.

I never had any excuse for not knowing how to cook.  My mother tried her very best to teach me.  I was her main helper for holiday dinners.  I spent so many hours in her kitchen peeling sweet potatoes and helping her mix up sweet potato pies and cakes that I should know how to make those things by heart with my eyes closed. 

My mother did manage to teach me how to make fried chicken and one corned beef dish though.  I learned those two dishes in desperation because she didn't cook on Friday and Saturday nights.  So, on Friday nights, I would make dinner and on Saturdays, we would have takeout. 

They say that practice makes perfect.  I guess that's true.  My friends will tell you that I make a mean fried chicken and some of my siblings remember that corned beef dish very fondly.  I was surprised a few years ago when one of my sisters mentioned it. 

My mother always made balanced meals, but, in college and in law school, I opted for the meal plans and ate most of my meals in the cafeteria.  Since I was a dancer for the first three years of college, it didn't have any effect on my weight at that time.  In my senior year, however, I stopped taking dance classes (the advanced classes were too early in the morning for me) and that's when I began to put on weight.  In law school, I gained fifty pounds and, over the last 17 years of practice, I gained eighty more. 

As a young lawyer, when I was single, I ordered delivery or picked up from somewhere night after night.  I was too tired to cook at eight o'clock at night (or later) when I returned home from work.

When  I got married, my husband cooked.  He was an amazing cook who specialized in Jamaican cuisine, so we ate fish or meat with sauce and rice and peas most nights and not very many vegetables.  While my taste buds were very happy, I steadily gained weight. 

I knew that I had gained weight, but I never fully realized how my eating habits were affecting me until, in October, 2007, I decided to do something about it.  I bought some exercise videos and signed up on Team Beachbody's website – http://teambeachbody.com .  It's a great site that allows you to track your workouts and your weight loss and to team up with exercise buddies online.  You can even chat with other people who are doing the same exercise program as you or who have goals similar to yours. That feature came in handy when I misplaced the instructional DVD for the Slim in 6 program and needed to find out when I  was supposed to move on o disc 2.   The site also has great recipes on it.

Anyway, in filling out the profile information for the team beachbody website, I weighed myself and discovered that I was 267lbs.  It was the heaviest I had ever been in my life.  I knew then that I had to get serious about weight loss, but I didn't yet have all the tools I needed to do that.

I started working out and slowly began to lose weight; however, it was extremely slow going because I needed to change my eating habits.  In March of last year, a friend of mine referred me to this doctor of Chinese medicine she had been seeing.  The doctor gave me acupuncture and nutritional counseling and got me eating 7-11 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.  She also took me off dairy and made me keep a food diary listing everything I ate.

To make sure that I got in all those servings of fruits and vegetables each day, I had to learn how to make vegetable soups, different types of salads,  smoothies and other “veggielicious” dishes.  That's when I discovered the vegetable recipes on the CDC's website – www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov    I also got numerous recipes from the Foodnetwork's website and the Teambeachbody website.  I printed the recipes out, stapled them to index cards and kept them in index card boxes in alphabetical order.  Now, if I want to make a chicken dish, I go to tab “C” and either pull a tried and true chicken recipe or a new one.  If I don't like how a new recipe comes out, I toss the recipe and recycle the card.

I started watching cooking shows and following the recipes, and, over the past year, I've become quite a decent cook.  I knew I had acquired some skills when I made vegetarian collard greens for my mother and she sang my praises. She is reknown for her collard greens and she cooks them southern style with a smoked ham hock  or a turkey neckbone for seasoning.

At first, while cooking (as opposed to ordering in or driving through) and eating my fruits and veggies did wonders for my health, my skin, and my energy levels, it did not do much for my waistline.  I lost twelve pounds during the six month period from March, 2009 through September, 2009.  In September, 2009, I joined Weight Watchers.  In that program, I learned portion control and how to “lighten up” recipes (i.e. how to make subsitutions to reduce the amount of  calories in a recipe without sacrificing flavor).  In the past 23 weeks since I've been on Weight Watchers, I lost another 23lbs.  All told, I have lost 35 lbs in the past year and 45 lbs. since October, 2007. 

Being more in control of what I eat through learning how to cook and how to modify recipes has helped me tremendously in my weight loss efforts.  When I started this journey, losing 100 pounds seemed an impossible task, but now I am halfway there and the goal is in sight.

If I can do this, anyone can.

Peace

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