Tips and Tricks

Several of you have asked for favorite recipes, tips and tricks. I linked some of our current favorite recipes in the left hand side bar.

I do a lot of recipe modifications. I don't have "diet" or low-fat recipes, per say. My weight loss journey is about making a switch to a healthier eating life-style. Here are some tricks I use (you probably know of most of these):

• If a recipe calls for 1 cup of oil, I'll use 1/2 cup canola oil and a half cup of unsweetened applesauce. This works well in muffins.


• If a recipe calls for all-purpose flour, I usually use whole-wheat flour instead. My husband isn't a fan of whole-wheat, so if I'm cooking for him too, I'll use half unbleached all-purpose, half whole-wheat. I have recently begun to enjoy King Arthur's White Whole Wheat Flour. It tastes less "wheaty," for lack of a better word.


• In a recent muffin recipe calling for tree cups of flour, I substituted a 1/2 cup of Organic Whole Wheat Pastry flour and they came out really tender and delicious.
  
• I buy plain yogurt instead of flavored (it tends to be cheaper anyway). When I was in the States in August, I noticed that HFCS is in a lot of yogurt. Mostly the cheaper, non-organic types. It's an issue here too. So, I sweeten plain yogurt with local honey or maple syrup. Often, I'll use my handheld blender and add bananas, strawberries, blueberries and make a yogurt smoothie. Frozen fruits work well for this.


• I use muffin tins when making meatloaf. Helps with portion control and the kids think they're pretty fun looking.
  
• "Skinny" mashed potatoes are a hit even with my husband. I use chicken broth and garlic to flavor them instead of butter. A dollop of low-fat sour cream on top of each serving is a tasty addition.
  
• We've switched to mostly whole wheat pasta. See benefits here.
  
• We rarely keep ice cream, cookies, candy, chips, chocolate, soda or even juice in the house. It's all too tempting to have around (Matt has a stash of junk that the rest of us do not touch - but, he has much better self-control than I or the kids do). The girls eat a ton of fruit daily and if I have juice in the house, they beg for it all day. We eat out, as a family, once a week. We absolutely let the kids have ice cream, juice and most anything in the menu they choose at that time. With all the other events/playgroups that come up during the month, they get plenty of stuff that we don't have in the house. They are NOT deprived. I think this is a good rule to have if you're like me and have a hard time resisting sweets and rich foods when out a restaurants, gatherings,work parties, etc. These things pop up often enough that I feel it best to keep tempting not-so-great foods out of the home so that I feel less guilty about indulging on occasions outside the home. This one was a bit redundant. However, I feel pretty important, especially if you, like me, have issues with self-control.. In my opinion, it's best to keep all of your "weakness foods" out of the home.
  
• While I'd love to boycott McDonald's. It's just not going to happen (read: something to do with my husband). We eat there about once every three months and the girls know (Olivia especially) that it's a REAL treat. Olivia will say, "You're letting us eat JUNK today?!"

Please do not get the impression that we are perfect eaters. Yeah, right! We are far from it. I know plenty of parents who are very very strict. I've seen a mother grab a cupcake out of a child's hand during a playgroup because their kids never get sugary foods. But, realistically, junk walks into every house. Just yesterday, Olivia was sent home from school with candy. What am I supposed to do as she's ripping open the box and sharing with Lila before I even have time to think? Sometimes, I just let it go. Most days, we eat very well and most days, is my goal.

I'll add to this list as I remember them. Do you have any tricks and/or common recipe modifications?

No Cake For You!

Part II - Cutting out the Sweets

I am the typical American who feels like something is missing if I don't have dessert after dinner. As I thought about how I became overweight, I knew that my sweet tooth had something to do with it. Okay, a lot to do with it. I love to bake. For me, there is nothing better than spending a quiet afternoon in my kitchen, while the girls are napping, mixing up something sweet for the family to enjoy after dinner.

I did three things at the same time.

I decided to completely cut out HFCS. No products with even trace amounts would enter my home. I did this for the whole family. Trace amounts add up throughout the day. I don't buy into the new ads and commercials pushing HFCS as natural. I am informed. I've investigated both sides of the HFCS "story" and made my choice. I think it's bad stuff and will avoid it like the plague (also, my doctor told me to avoid it). With diabetes in my immediate family, I feel I shouldn't take any chances. Now that HFCS has been found to be contaminated with mercury, I feel even better about my decision.

I also threw out white, refined sugar. I use raw sugars and organic sugars, honey and maple syrup. Admittedly, I still have a lot to learn when it comes to cooking without even less-than-refined sugars. Baby steps, right?!

Then I stopped baking. I tried just baking something sweet once a week instead of three or four times a week. If I made a batch of cookies, I would give each of my girls two cookies. Matt would have three, maybe four, and he'd be done. I, on the other hand, would keep eating. When I began to feel sick, I would stop eating and freeze the rest of the cookies - thinking they'd be great to pull out when we had guests over. The morning I got up and found myself reaching into the freezer for a frozen cookie, I decided it was over. My love affair with sweets had to end.

This was crushing. I cried. I felt robbed. I used to be able to eat what I wanted, how much I wanted and whenever I wanted without gaining an ounce. My body was betraying me and I was pissed and heartbroken. I loved to bake and I loved me some sweets. It wasn't fair.

Each night, after dinner, I would struggle. My mind would pull up an image of some sort of dessert. I would open the refrigerator or cupboard, my mouth salivating, my hands reaching. I would then repeat, in my mind, over and over the following:

"Respect yourself, Natalie. You do not need this. You just want it. You are not hungry. You are (fill in the blank: bored, lonely, mad, sad, have PMS, etc.).

Eat Responsibly!"

Slowly, I began to develop something of a conscience about food consumption. Then, after a few weeks, I realized a funny thing had happened: Not only had I dropped five pounds, I no longer craved sweets. My cravings were far and few between and if I kept myself busy in the evening, I was easily able to distract myself from food until bedtime. I can't say I had great tricks. I would read, get online, talk on the phone, go to bed early and I would even allow myself to become mad and mourn over my "loss."

When my father came to visit in October, I noticed his head in a cupboard one night after dinner. He looked at me and said, "Where are your snacks?"

I looked at him and said, "I don't have any. Matt has his stash of snacks (read: junk), the kind I don't like, but, other than that, we don't really have anything. The girls eat things like fruit, dried cereal, plain popcorn, or homemade yogurt drinks."

He looked back at me and said, "Well, that's pretty extreme. You didn't have to get rid of everything."

Poor dad. He doesn't really have a weight issue, he works out daily and eats more raw vegetables and fruit in one day than I probably do in one week. While I know he struggles from time to time, he is, for the most part, a conscientious, responsible eater. So, I was depriving him. However, I did have to be extreme about it. At least for a long time - until I knew I had developed self-control. If I had a chocolate chips in my cupboard, I knew I could easily make chocolate chip cookies - my favorite indulgence.

So, you're wondering what I do snack on. A typical snack for me would be one of the following: Low-fat organic granola bars, low-fat yogurt drinks, 1/3 cup of wasabi peas, a handful of nuts, a couple of homemade mini-muffins, fruit or veggie sticks, a slice of cheese. But, I keep snacking in between meals to a minimum. Sometimes I need something so I don't become so hungry that I'll pig out at dinner. Tea and honey is a popular afternoon snack. If I have a filling enough lunch, I can usually hold off on eating until dinner.

As far as sweets go, I've kind of taken on a more Portuguese way of eating sweets. Most (not all, of course) view them as weekly treats, not daily. So, no, I do not deprive myself totally. That's silly. Usually, Matt and I eat out once a week. I usually save my sweets for eating out, or for gatherings we're often invited to. I feel that if I control what I eat in my home, which is where I eat 80-90% of my meals, eating out and indulging once a week, isn't that big of a deal. For my body, this has worked well. I still lost weight if I indulged once, sometimes twice a week. Anything more than that, I would notice no weight change that week.

You may also be wondering what to do if sweets and savories are your problem. Well, I am not a health care professional. So, I'm not qualified to dish out advice. But, in my opinion, I would work on one of them at a time (I also purged trans fats, artificial flavors & preservatives, etc. one at a time-I found it hard to do it all in the same week or month). If you're avoiding fad dieting, like me, and are pushing for a lifestyle change, it's all about baby steps. I have not yet written about my biggest hurdle:

Portion Control. More on that another time.

I'm Losing It! - A Weight Loss Journey

Part I

This post has been on the tips of my fingers for months. Up until now, I wasn't going to post about it for the following reason:

Everyone who knows me, knows I've never been obese. A tad bit heavy, maybe. Obese, no. So, you're asking yourself, "How can she dare share her weight loss story? She doesn't know a thing about being fat."

I was afraid of offending people who have had life-long weight loss struggles and didn't want to come off as preachy. However, weight loss stories can be inspiring and you know what, it's fricken hard to do. So, I decided to post about it.

What you may not know is that I am an over-eater. I'm passionate about food and I love to cook and bake. However, I do not have portion control and I tend to be lazy when it comes to exercise. I can make any excuse to eat and eat a lot of it. Brownies? I'll make a whole batch, my family will each have one. I'll eat the rest in a day or two. It doesn't even help if I freeze them. I'll dig in the freezer and eat them frozen.

Last year, during a routine physical, I found out my cholesterol was hoovering near the high range. As a 30-year-old, premenopausal woman, this was alarming. My father, not yet 60, has struggled with high cholesterol for over two decades. My doctor warned me that I, most likely, had inherited his genetic factor. He didn't mention that I should lose weight, however, if I had really listened to what he was saying, I would have have heard what I didn't want to hear.

Then, one night this summer, I stepped on the scale and noticed that I was tipping the scales at a weight I had never been (aside from being pregnant). I walked downstairs, got on the computer and Googled for an obesity calculator. I held my breath as I entered my height and weight in the BMI calculator. One click of the mouse and there it was: I was in the overweight range. I walked upstairs, my head spinning with the truth, crawled into bed and had a good cry. Up until college, I was nagged each year by my family doctor to gain weight. Each year, he was alarmed at how thin I was and encouraged me to eat more. As I stared at the ceiling that night, I thought, "How did I let myself get this way?" Lila was nearly two. Baby-making was no longer a valid excuse.

I then contemplated the facts:

• I was low on energy and tired all the time. Even after a good night's sleep.
  
• I had a double chin and my largest-fitting jeans were getting snug.
  
• While I had cut out trans fats, HFCS and other additives out of my diet, I was still eating too much food. A low-fat, whole-grain muffin isn't healthy after you've ate five of them in one sitting.


• I had obesity, high cholesterol and Type II Diabetes in my immediate family.


• While my BMI didn't fall into the obese category, it did fall into the overweight range. I knew how easily it could spiral out of control and knew, without a doubt, that I was at a very high risk for disease.

My journey began in August and it started with this book (see Amazon sidebar for link):

This is not a fad diet book (I do NOT believe in fad diets - Atkins, Southbeach, etc. - more on that later). It's a book about sensible eating. What fats to eat, which fats to avoid. How to calculate your BMI and disease risks, make a few simple changes to decrease your waistline, maintain your weight and live a longer, healthier life. The recipes in the book are easy, delicious and portion controlled. Part One of the book outlines a "Healthy Heart Lifestyle Plan." Lifestyle is the key word. Part Two has recipes. Including easy make-overs of comfort foods (lasagna, for example).

My weight loss did not start and end with this book. Anyone who has lost weight knows reading a book and making a few recipes is only the tip of the iceberg. It's a constant, often depressing, sometimes empowering, battle. I'll call it a journey.

I've lost 20-pounds and shaved 13-points off my cholesterol. It's now down in a very normal, healthy range. It has not been easy and throughout future posts, I'll share with you small pieces of my journey. If I happen to get a lot of response, I may start up a separate blog about it. I would love to hear weight-loss stories from anyone who has one. If you want to share it, but, don't want everyone knowing who you are, feel free to email (narsenau at hotmail dot com) me or post an anonymous comment entry.

My Superheros Save the Day

I've been in a grouchy funk for the past two weeks. I think it's the rain getting me down. I can only take so much rain and gloomy weather before I start to go out of my mind. It's been a rainy winter here.

Today, I was especially grouchy. The kids, obviously feeding off my grouchiness, were getting into everything as I struggled to act like a mature adult and not throw a tantrum every time they dumped out a toy bin all over the floor, spilled milk, fought with each other and so on.

It didn't help that daddy left on another business trip this morning and the sun only peaked out for a few short minutes here or there throughout the day. On a day like today, if I didn't have kids (or if I had gotten an afternoon sitter), I would have grabbed a book (and, possibly, my laptop), gone, by MYSELF, to a restaurant close enough to the sea so I could hear the waves crashing as I leisurely dined on lunch and then a coffee (what I love about Europe is that you can stay at your table for as long as you want and no server will bug you or even dare to drop a hint that you leave in order to make room for waiting guests).

Let me get to the point of this post. It all turned out all right at the end of the day. Just before bed, right after baths, Olivia dug out the superhero capes I recently bought them at Etsy. She and Lila "flew" around the house as I looked on and snapped pictures. They put on quite a show and, somehow, their happiness and laughter got me out of my bad mood. As soon as I was in better spirits, I was able to put them to bed easily!

We all know how happy any parent is when the kids go to bed quickly and easily! I have a whole evening of quiet solitude to look forward to and I can enjoy it so much more knowing that the girls went to bed with smiles on their faces because mama wasn't in a bad mood anymore!