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Healthy Snacks

Feb21

Is there such a thing? That depends on who you listen to. Healthy doesn’t mean it has to be a vegetable, or taste disgusting.

After all, it’s the combining of foods from the food pyramid that creates the energy we need to get us through the day.

Miniature carrot sticks and broccoli are not healthy when served with a dip that has 13 grams of fat per serving even though it’s better than 35 grams of fat in the most popular after school snacks companies pay millions of dollars to advertise all over the place.

I was talking with a friend of mine this evening about snacks. She runs a program for children at a school in the Midwest. As part of the national effort to combat childhood obesity, some changes are being made.

She told me that in her school, they will not be allowed to give the children certain snacks that were formerly acceptable. Birthday cakes will no longer be allowed. I didn’t even want to ask about ice cream.

Chocolate milk can now be served only one day a week, and the same with juice. Popcorn can be served but with no butter or seasoning of any kind. She says the kids refuse to eat it. Gee, I wonder why.

As a former trainer of child care providers in Family Child Care Homes and Day Care Centers, I was surprised. Why the drastic changes?

And what’s this about serving only skim milk or 1% milk? Milk that has a 1% or 2% fat content should be adequate. And no cereal except shredded wheat and similar cereals?

I forgot to ask her about Cheerios, long recommended for little ones yet very high in sugar as healthy snacks go. Why not include puffed rice? It’s sweet enough without all that added sugar.

It seems like regulations go from one extreme to another. For decades, schools pushed sodas and vending machine snacks, even had contracts with the soft drink companies, and now juices are condemned as if they were in the same category.

Vegetables are healthy when prepared in healthy ways, but they aren’t the only healthy foods. There are fruits like plums and bananas; apples with peanut butter make a great snack–if peanut butter’s still allowed.

And what about mini-smoothies? Mix equal parts of apple juice, pineapple juice, orange juice and water. You can use two juices but apple juice should be in the mix.

A scoop of whey protein powder, add a banana and it’s better than a milk shake. It’s healthier too, even if you leave out the protein powder.

An amazing number of children like yogurt and their digestive systems would certainly benefit from all that friendly bacteria.

Celery sticks are very good with peanut butter or a cheese spread. Frozen peaches are a great snack as are melon cubes. There are all sorts of healthy and delicious crackers on supermarket shelves.

The truth is, with some imagination and initiative, plus a little input from your audience, you can come up with some very delicious, nutritious, and economical snacks.

Recommended for children of all ages.

Walk Away From Fat

Feb14

Sometimes you just have to walk away. Easy to say, hard to do. Many if not most food addicts are fat. The problem with that is that we have a hard time walking away from food.

You have a food addiction, you get stressed, you get upset, and you eat. There is no walking away from food when you’re a food addict. If you could do that, food addiction wouldn’t be a problem.

Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t fight the good fight against fat, one of the “side effects” of food addiction. And you can walk away from fat.

In fact, walking is the easiest way to take off those extra pounds. I don’t mean speed walking or pounding the pavement so hard that you fall to the ground grabbing your gut after 30 seconds.

I mean easy, slow at first, constant paced walking while breathing in through your nose for four steps–it makes your stomach stick out when you do it–and out through your mouth for two steps–you’ll feel your stomach tighten. It’s a good feeling.

Don’t worry about how many calories you are burning. Just walk, and focus on your breathing.

Walk every day if you can. If you can’t walk outside, use a treadmill if possible. Most of all, be consistent so walking will become a habit.

Start with five or ten minutes if that’s all you can do. Don’t overdo, especially at first. You want your daily walk to become a habit so you will do it every day.

Start small and work your way up to 45 minutes or an hour. That’s all it takes, but if you want the best results, you have to do it every day.

Not to worry, though, because as your body gets used to this new invigorating activity, you will feel better, sleep better, and have more energy. Pretty soon, you’ll want to walk every day.

Measure your progress in inches, not pounds. You will be amazed at how this simple activity, when done consistently and thoughtfully, will change your life.

Walking is great for coping with stress, and when you breathe properly, walking will be an aerobic activity which burns fat rather than an anaerobic activity which burns sugar.

You want to burn fat. So lace up your most comfortable and supportive athletic shoes and hit  the road.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Sleep Deprivation Plays a Role in Food Addiction

Feb12

Why is it so hard for women to lose weight, and so easy to gain “emotional weight”? Well, it has a lot to do with hormones. And sleep.

If you don’t get enough sleep, you will have a problem with two very important hormores: Leptin and Ghrelin.

Leptin makes you feel satisfied. It’s the shutoff valve that tells your brain you’re not hungry anymore. Ghrelin, on the other hand, stimulates hunger.

Our physical bodies live on energy. When the body is hungry, it needs food. Food gives energy. When the body is tired, it needs sleep. Sleep gives energy, too.

Sleep allows the body to recuperate from the stress of the day. When you go for days without sufficient sleep, hormones become imbalanced and brain signals get mixed up.

The body needs energy, plain and simple. Sleep deprivation, the prolonged absence of deep healing sleep, puts an incredible amount of strain on the body.

Energy is in motion all the time, inflow and outflow. If the body can’t get the energy it needs from one source, it will get it from another.

When you have too much Ghrelin in your system due to a consistent lack of sleep, you will feel real hunger and crave food, while not being able to satisfy your appetite, no matter how much you eat.

That’s because the body doesn’t want food. It wants sleep.

There are hormones in your body you probably have never heard of. When our hormones are all in balance, there are no blood sugar problems, no hunger, no stress, no food addictions, and no destructive emotions.

Nothing takes the place of sleep. No anxiety drug will do the trick, and it doesn’t matter if “it’s not your fault”. It’s not anybody’s fault, It’s just how things work.

You need the energy you get from sleep, and lowering your Ghrelin levels will help you lose fat and maintain a healthier lifestyle.

Recently, I have begun to stop evaluating my day at night. Instead, I evaluate it the following morning when I am much clearer and more prepared to take action, rather than allowing the process to disturb my sleep.

I practice recognizing when I am tired. As bedtime nears, the moment I feel tired, I close up whatever I am doing, run a hot bath and prepare for bed.

This small ritual has allowed me to sleep for five and sometimes even six uninterrupted hours on some nights–not every night, but more often than before.

My health is improving and the fat is gradually disappearing. It kind of gives the phrase, “sleeping it off” a whole new meaning.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Pucker Foods for Food Addicts

Jan31

Are you ready to pucker up and kiss some of that emotional overeating, food addiction fat good-bye? Well, these two foods will definitely help you in that department. And they’re good for you, but you probably don’t want to hear that.

Food addicts and over-eaters of all kinds often don’t care if a food is good for you or not–at least not in the addiction state. We just eat whatever is there, as long as it’s very salty or very sweet or very something to match the intense emotions we feel when we eat helplessly.

But hey, we have our sane moments when our emotions are okay. It is in those moments that we have the opportunity to do things that support our body’s needs. It’s a chance you don’t want to pass up.

Lemons and vinegar are two really effective fat-burners and here’s why. They help you get your body out of its acid state  into alkalinity.  That’s when healing takes place. You can’t heal anything in an acid state. When you’re dealing with too many plumped up fat cells, your body is under duress, and it needs to heal.

I have two lemon trees in my back yard. This year, I’m really making the most of them. Lemons are great. I use half a fresh lemon in a glass of iced tea a few times a day. I drink a lot of iced tea. And I use the pink stuff. I confess.

You can squeeze one or two lemons over chicken or fish before you put it in the oven or on the grill. You can also just use a slice of lemon in water if you’re not nuts about the blank flavor of water. It does make a difference in the taste. And your body will thank you for it.

Another great food is vinegar. My favorite is balsamic vinegar. I put it on fish when I bake it and use it in stews and baked beans, as well. Vinegar also takes the acid out of things.

If you use balsamic vinegar on meat and fish when you’re baking it, or even in a pot roast or chili, you will find that you won’t have gas or get heartburn.

There’s no need to stuff yourself with good food. It  defeats the purpose of eating angry panic foods to stuff down your feelings like we do when we are stressed and uncomfortable.

Good food is a treat. And while you may add one of these two liquids for damage control, you’ll love what it does for your food and your body.

If you like baked fish, like New England Scrod or Alaskan Salmon as I do, squeeze a generous amount of fresh lemon juice and balsamic vinegar over your fish before you put it in to bake. You will be amazed at the incredible sauce the combination makes. Of course, it makes any fish taste fabulous.

The combination also works well on sweet red and orange  peppers. Bake the pepper strips until they look like they’ve been fried.

No fat and so delicious, you can eat them as a snack if you bake them long enough. Pay attention to the aroma so you’ll know when to take them out. Imagine eating something that tastes as good as potato chips and doesn’t give you heartburn or gas.

I hope you’ll give it a try. Sometimes little changes in our daily meals can make all the difference in the world.