Perpetual Healthy Eating and Fitness Rant & Rave thread

[merigayle]

MM- hugs! This is why i never ever go shopping   i find it depressing. When i was at my prepreg race weight, i could just walk into a store and everything looked awesome. Yeah, i miss those days.

Thanksgiving, well, it was ok food wise. I had two brownies for dessert and my dinner consisted of heavily dressed salad and green bean casserole and some veggies and dip and one roll. Could have been worse, could have been better, but butter would have meant starving.

[Run Amok]

Ugh. I have been off the workout train for a few days and then I re-sprained my ankle last night walking down the steps. It's a little sore, and I also have a headache, so one more day of not running for me. 

I am, however, filling the freezer with goodness. I'm in the process of making braised cabbage, beans with sage and rosemary, baked beans, tomato barley soup, crackers, and apple sauce. I think that's it. All into the freezer in individual portions for easy access. Also going to chop a bunch of romaine + spinach for easy salads. Oh, and precooked farro for breakfast and I bought a bag of grapefruits at costco to peel and segment also.

I still have a couple of servings of black bean soup and some chickpeas masala and an indian eggplant dish in the to eat too.

Fridge stocked with salad fixins. 

[nadra24]

No weight gain for me over Thanksgiving weekend...I ate reasonably on Thursday, but then got a stomach bug and spent all day yesterday puking.  Feeling better today, but I still haven't eaten much.  Blah.

[merigayle]

i weighed yesterday and was only up a pound or so. i am just trying to do my best and with the new year kick it into high gear again. my workouts have been hard to get in, DD starts her new school Monday, so once we are in our new routine, i should be able to get back into it, though it appears i will have to run at 5am Wed and Fri mornings.

[diablita]

oh no, RA!  I'm so sorry about your ankle.  And I enjoy seeing your runs on endomondo; I guess I won't be able to give you "pep talks" for a bit?

[debbatx]

Hopped on the scale this afternoon. Ho.ly.Shit. 

[merigayle]

Hopped on the scale this afternoon. Ho.ly.Shit. 

[cgraz]

I am avoiding my scale like the plague! I figure next Friday will be the bad one - I weighed in the day after Thanksgiving but I don't think the damage had been metabolized yet!

[debbatx]

Eh, I kind of expected it after Thanksgiving, leftovers, eating cheeseburgers 2 meals in a row (thanks, Dad), spaghetti and meatballs last night, and then migas this morning. I haven't had a stretch like that in a long damn time. The only thing missing was the wine and margaritas.

It's supposed to be 60 tomorrow morning at 5. I'm going for a walk.

[Run Amok]

oh no, RA!  I'm so sorry about your ankle.  And I enjoy seeing your runs on endomondo; I guess I won't be able to give you "pep talks" for a bit?

It's not bad. I just tweaked it a bit. I'm hoping to run tomorrow. It is a little sore, but I think it will be ok. we'll see!

[Run Amok]

Debba, do you follow hungry girl at all? I know you are off of WW but still trying to eat healthily. I like HG, but never end up making their stuff, for some reason. Anyway, I was browsing there last night and thought of you- they usually include the points plus value of their recipes.

So the diet I follow has a couple of recipes that feature corn bran... something I have to order online in a 5lb quantity. PITA,so I never did. But, this time around, I decided to order it and try and out some of the recipes that use it.

One of them is her answer to hot cereal. I guess there has been at least one study that has demonstrated that within an hour of eating oatmeal, at least some people end up hypoglycemic- which, of course, kick starts the hunger cycle. Her quick fix is to just add some wheat bran to the mix, which really seems to do the trick, at least for me.

But, she also has a longer cooking option that involves farro (which has a good amount of protein and fiber) and corn bran. Then I've been topping it off with her stewed prune recpie, which I also hadn't tried because... yuck. But, the farro cereal and the stewed prunes make a nice, satisfying, warm, filling breakfast at about 200 calories. It does take a little time to prep, but it's mostly just time over the stove so I make it along with dinner or my sunday night prep and it's not a big deal.

[merigayle]

what is the difference between corn bran and corn meal?

Hungry girl is great, but for me, she uses too much prepared foods and artificial sweeteners for my tastes.

[debbatx]

Thanks for the tip, RA - I'll check it out. The vast, vast majority of our recipes come from Cooking Light. I adore that magazine. The scale was back down a bit this morning - to a manageable, though not great, level. I'll take it for now. Birthday cake on Saturday (and leftovers on Sunday!) coming up this weekend. And no, I do not give away large portions of cake after Reid's birthday. The cake from the bakery we use is just too damn good.

[Courtney]

So, can I bitch a bit about my SIL?  I'm gluten free, and have been now since April.  I don't expect her to know much about it, or anything like that.  But she tells me, all know it all like, "Oh, there's only 2 tbsp of flour in this recipe, and it's really spread out, so you can eat it."  Um, no.  No, I cannot.  Don't act like you know, when you don't.  Ask about it, sure.  Or just tell me what's in it, fine.  But don't say that and then get butt hurt when I choose to eat something else.   

I'm sick after spending the weeekend cooped up in a smoke filled house.  Super. 

[debbatx]

That sucks, Courtney.

[Courtney]

That sucks, Courtney.

It's not too bad, just a head cold.  But jeez.  It happens like clockwork after a weekend there.  MISERABLE. 

[debbatx]

I meant that all of it sucked - from the "it only has a tiny bit of flour" thing, to the smoke-filled house, which would knock me on my ass for days. That's just no fun.

[cgraz]

Yeah, that is right up there with the crazy stuff people do to vegetarians. Just a little bit of flour all spread out. Good grief. (Although I do use that same justification when addressing how healthful a dish is that contains a stick of butter..."but it's a stick in the whole recipe, and there are at least a dozen servings, so you're really only getting one pat of butter in what you ate!")

Now I am trying to handle the leftovers responsibly. I made pot pie, and skinnied up the recipe a wee bit by making it with lowfat milk instead of heavy cream, but it still has a buttery crust, etc. So having just one portion will be key, instead of the seconds I usually have because I love it so much.

[Run Amok]

what is the difference between corn bran and corn meal?

Totally different products. Kind of like the different between flour and wheat bran. Corn bran is really just a very low calorie way to get additional fiber in your diet and that is pretty central to this way of eating.

Here is a little comparison chart of different kinds of bran- I use oat, corn, and wheat- although very differently. http://healthy-living.org/html/bran_comparison.html I use oat bran sparingly because it's pretty high in calories and low in fiber (though high in protein). Corn bran is moderate calories, very high fiber but low in protein. Wheat is lowest in calories, high protein, and moderately high in fiber. So, farro + corn bran combines the good properties of wheat bran and corn bran and gets a nice boost of additional protien from skim milk.

She has a recipe for crackers that I want to try (I don't have a rolling pin though, so need to sort that out) and also a recipe for cookies.

Hungry girl is great, but for me, she uses too much prepared foods and artificial sweeteners for my tastes.

 I don't  get the sense that debba could exist on brown rice and steamed veggies though. I was thinking that HG might offer debba some ways to do lower points versions of familiar foods.

Here's a good example of the kind of thing she does. I might chose to use a little bit of real sugar instead of the splenda, myself. http://www.hungry-girl.com/chew/show/2225

[merigayle]

thanks for the explanation.

MIL is a smoker and why we have only been ONCE with DD to see her and it was in summer, with all the windows open. It was barely tolerable. The last time we went (i dunno 8 years ago? 7?) I got so sick from two days there i vowed to never go back.