Load Up With This Loaded Bowl

This is one of the healthiest, tastiest, no-cook meals I've made in a long time. For the minimal effort that goes into it, the flavor return is immense. The only "cooking" I did was using my rice cooker for the quinoa. This meal is great way to keep extra heat out of your kitchen on a summer night! This salad will keep well, covered, in the fridge for 3-4 days. Without the avocado, it could last up to 6 days, and may be frozen. Feel free to substitute brown rice for the quinoa, or add grilled chicken to make a heartier meal.

The Loaded Bowl (modified from Clean Eating Magazine)
serves 12

Ingredients:

3 cups quinoa, rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can black beans, rinsed and drained (or 2 cups cooked black beans)
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered
1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (more or less according to your taste)
2 fresh avocados, pitted, peeled and diced
Fresh lemon juice to prevent avocado from browning
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste
Juice of 4 limes
Zest of 1 lime

Dressing:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
Sea salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

1. Prepare quinoa according to package directions. While it is cooking, prepare the remaining ingredients.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine beans, tomatoes, and cilantro.

3. Dice avocados and drizzle with lemon juice. Set aside.

4. Combine all dressing ingredients in a bullet-style blender. Pulse until garlic is incorporated and dressing appears creamy. Set aside.

5. Fluff quinoa with fork and add to bean mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Add lime juice and zest; toss to combine. Top each serving with avocado pieces and dressing.

Nutrition information per 1-cup serving:
Calories - 293
Fat - 12g
Saturated fat - 1g
Carbs - 39g
Fiber - 6g
Sugars - 1g
Protein - 9g
Sodium - 59mg
Cholesterol - 0mg

Overcoming Overeating

Why do we eat? We all know why we should be eating: to supply our bodies with plenty of energy to get through the day; to get nutrients like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytochemicals which help us to stay healthy and free of disease; and to get useful carbohydrates, proteins, and fats—all of which contribute to running our bodies properly and maintaining good health.

In our food-obsessed culture with out-of-control portions always lurking within our grasps, how can we not overeat? It’s hard to break habits and go against the lessons we have always been taught, like cleaning our plates, not being wasteful, or getting the best deal—which usually means ordering up and getting a lot more food for the money.

There are many ways to stop overeating. From the following list, find a few that work best for you, and try several. 

Skills for Any Setting

Whether you’re cooking your own meals, eating at work, or snacking at a football game, here are the strategies you can take anywhere

• Know your portion sizes. Make your own "portion pack" to take with you or keep the following common items in mind when preparing and eating meals.

o   A golf ball is the size of a serving of nuts (including peanut butter) or cheese.

o   A deck of playing cards is equivalent to 3 ounces of any meat.

o   Use a die to estimate a proper serving of oils and fats.

o   For fruit and veggie servings, use a tennis ball.

o   One serving of cooked grains or potatoes is about the size of a computer mouse.

• Divide your plate. When cooking at home, looking at pictures on menus, or shopping ala carte at the work cafeteria, your plate should look like this:

o   Half (or more) of the plate should be filled with fruits and vegetables.

o   Protein-rich foods (meat or legumes) and starches (grains, potatoes, bread) should take up one quarter of the plate each.

o   Fill your "divided plate" only once. If you’re still hungry, have another half-plate of vegetables. It’s that simple.

• Surround yourself with positive people who motivate you to reach your goals, not those who want to sabotage your efforts. When you feel tempted, emotional, or if you have already gotten off-track, turn to your support group. Call a friend, email a family member, or even get online. Sometimes all you need is a short word of advice from a friendly voice.

Tips at Home

Cooking at home may be the easiest way to control your portions during a meal, but it also presents us with fully-stocked cupboards and refrigerators that can be tempting:

• Bring home healthy fast food. Try pre-cut, frozen, or microwave-in-the-bag vegetables. Automatic portion control.
• Stop the Taste-Testing Habit. If you’re the cook in the family, you may be eating a lot of calories when you taste your foods as you cook. To stop this natural habit, try chewing gum while you prepare you meals. Each time you are tempted to sneak a bite, you’ll have to take the gum out of your mouth. This will make you more conscious of what you’re doing.
• Make fruit your dessert. It’s a great way to get more produce into your diet, and it satisfies the sweet craving many people have after a meal. Experiment with new and exotic fruits. And, when it comes to fruit, eating a little extra isn’t a bad thing.
• Keep your hands busy. Many people want to eat when bored or just out of habit while watching TV. Keep your hands occupied with something else, and you won’t want to eat. Try knitting, painting your nails, shuffling cards, petting your cat—anything that keeps your hands moving will do the trick. Or, keep your whole body busy by doing crunches, squats, lunges or other body exercises while you watch.
• Make a rule that works for you and your family. No eating in front of the TV, in the car, or at your desk. This will help you avoid mindless eating when you’re not hungry.

Tricks for Dining Out

It’s difficult to control your portions—not to mention ingredients and cooking method—when you are at a restaurant. Despite this, there are several things you can control:

• Inquire about portion sizes. If it sounds huge, and it probably is, ask the server to split your entrée in half. Tell them to box up half ahead of time (and maybe even keep it in the kitchen until you’re ready to leave). Or, split the dish with a friend.
• Order ala carte. When you feel like you can’t win on size, or if even half of an entrée is still way too big, order side items. Most restaurants do offer staples like baked potatoes, steamed fresh veggies, and rice dishes. Or, even if it’s dinnertime, ask for the lunch portion. You may have to pay the dinner price, but you’ll save yourself from eating way too much, and you’ll be much happier about that.
• Decide ahead of time what you’ll order. That way, you won’t be tempted by the less-healthy fare when you look at the menu. If you’re familiar with the menu, don’t even look at it—simply order what you already had in mind.
• Don’t be afraid to make substitutions in ingredients and cooking methods. Many people don’t like to be picky at restaurants, but think of it this way. They’re there to meet your needs and serve you. If they don’t have something you want, ask! Vegetarians and vegans know this scenario all-too-well, because they have to modify almost every dish on the menu to be able to eat it. Waiters and waitresses will want to comply and help out (because it means tips for them), and chefs can easily make modifications. 
• Add something new. Ask for extra veggies in your salad, or to add vegetables to a dish (like pizza or pasta) that doesn’t normally contain them.
• Substitute. Get the plain baked potato instead of the mammoth french fries; Ask for grilled chicken on your salad instead of breaded. 
• Tell your server you don’t want the free bread, chips, etc. when you first arrive. Or, if you do eat it, let them know that you don’t need another round.
• Don’t pick at the food left on your plate. Put your utensils on your plate so the handles get dirty. You won’t want to pick them up again, and you won’t mindlessly eat more while chatting over dinner. Or, try laying your napkin over top of the remaining food. Out of sight, out of mind.

10 Tips for Breaking Through a Plateau

You're exercising, eating well, and steadily losing pounds. Then all of a sudden... BAM! The scale seems stuck, week after week. Yes, the dreaded plateau. Don't think you're the only person this happens to (although most people DO believe this only happens to them) - nearly everyone trying to lose weight experiences a phase when the scale won't budge and there's still 5, 10, 15 pounds to go. So, when this happens, you've got a choice to make. You can either call your diet a success, or keep plugging away. If you've lost quite a bit of weight - even though you still have that last 10 pounds to go - and you're sleeping better, feeling good about yourself, have lots more energy, feeling good about how you look, then maybe you've already achieved your goal. But, if you REALLY have some more pounds to go, here are ten strategies you can use - try one or any combination - to melt the last 10 pounds.

1. Journal, Journal, Journal

This is one of the most powerful tools to help you stay on track or get back on track. Your journal can help you see where you are perhaps going over or under on your calories for the day, or aren't getting in the Guidelines for Healthy Living requirements. Use your journal as a detective tool: Had a good week? Look over it at the end of the week and try and see what you think contributed to that success. Had a not so good week? Look at last week's journal for clues too; sometimes it takes a full week before the effects of a blown week show up. Using the journal on a consistent basis is the best way to make sure that you're really eating the amount of food that you think you're eating, which can be two different things sometimes.

2. Eating by the Numbers (AKA are you getting in too many carbs? Protein? Not enough fat?)

Look at your food choices; are you really getting a wide variety of foods in? Remember, your body needs nutrients from lots of different sources and if you're eating the same things all the time or too much of one type of food, you're probably not getting the proper nutrition your body needs. How is your protein to carb ratio? Come talk to me and we will figure this one out!

3. Weigh and measure portions

Too many times our portions have gotten bigger without us realizing it, using measuring cups and weighing out our portions can give us a better idea if our portions have suddenly grown bigger than we're counting. Remember, portion size does matter.

Beware of those hidden extras where we multiply portions, and beware of BLT's: Bites, Licks, and Tastes that never seem to get counted on any journal. These add up. 

4. Too many refined carbs?

Are you eating too many sources of simple and refined carbohydrates, the stuff that's heavily processed and no longer looks like its natural food source. Think of it as the difference between whole grain bread and processed white bread, brown rice vs. white rice, popcorn cakes vs. corn on the cob. Try to include more of the natural sources of carbohydrates in your diet stuff like beans, yams, potatoes, brown rice, and whole wheat anything rather than so many crackers, pretzels, and chips (even low fat chips). This is not to say you can't have any refined carbs, just try to limit the amount of them if you're having trouble losing weight.

5. Not enough fat?

This sounds counterintuitive, but our bodies need certain types of fat to protect our organs and bones from wear and tear. This is stuff like vegetable oils, margarine, butter, regular or reduced fat (not fat free) salad dressing, avocados, regular or reduced fat (not fat free) mayonnaise, olives, and peanut or soy butter. You think there's enough fat in my food already, right? We are often making much lower fat choices than we normally would have, and as a consequence our consumption of fat falls far below the recommended guidelines according to lots of nutrition experts of 30% of your total calories in fat per day. If you are limiting your fat intake to only the fat that's naturally in food and even then you're probably taking the skin off the chicken and drinking skim or 1% milk, then you might only be getting around 10% of your calories in fat per day, not enough for your body. So, the reason our bodies need enough fat in our diets each day as opposed to just feeding off of our body's fat stores is because fat contains an essential fatty acid: linoleic acid, that our body can't produce on its own. That fat is needed for proper metabolic and digestive function. Fat provides essential nutrients our bodies need, it transports fat soluble vitamins that our bodies need, it is needed for proper digestion and metabolic function, it helps us keep fuller longer, keeps our hair and skin nice, and is crucial for proper gallbladder function. If you're on a super low fat diet you can develop gallstones that are no fun and super painful.

6. Drink half your body weight in water each day

According to Barbara Levine, R.D., Ph.D., the Director of the Nutrition Information Center at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, "overweight people tend to need more water, because fat cells hold more water than other fat cells in the body. To determine the number of ounces of water you need per day, divide your weight by two. For example, a person who weighs 140 pounds should consume 70 ounces, or about 9 cups. Of course, this is an estimate. The best way to gauge whether you are getting enough water is to monitor the color of your urine. If you're drinking enough, it should be the color of pale straw. If it is a deeper yellow, you're not getting enough fluids". Lots of times we misinterpret thirst for hunger, try water first, wait 20 minutes, real hunger will not go away.

7. Increase the frequency or intensity of your physical activity

Are you exercising? If not, know that you'll be much more successful at losing the weight and keeping it off if you are also physically active. Find something that you enjoy doing and just do it! Start with a five minute walk out of your door; look at your watch after five minutes start heading back, just like that you've done 10 minutes! Next week, start adding in a couple of extra minutes, try walking for 7 minutes out of your door, and 7 minutes back, you've now done 14 minutes. Keep adding until you're up to at least 10 minutes out and 10 minutes back.

If you're already active, are you exercising at enough intensity? If you can easily carry on a conversation while exercising (you should be able to speak, but it should take a bit of effort) you're not challenging your body enough. Your body becomes really efficient at adjusting to the amount of physical activity you're doing, so you regularly have to adjust either the intensity of your workouts or the frequency in order to continue to reap the maximum benefit from physical activity.

Try strength training in order to build lean muscle tissue. As we get older we lose lean muscle tissue, which depresses your metabolism; in addition severely restrictive diets where we eat too few calories can cause us to lose weight but lots of it is lean muscle, which also depresses our metabolism. If we build muscle tissue this can help us to reverse that process and to make us trimmer and stronger.

8. Take your measurements and look for other non-scale signs of progress

Often, even when the scale isn't moving, we're still improving our health and our bodies, which will show up in other ways other than the scale. Have your measurements gone down? How are your clothes fitting? Can you climb a flight of stairs without being winded? Has your cholesterol gone down? Can you walk now for 20 minutes when before you were huffing and puffing at 5 minutes? How do you feel? Have you reached your 10% goal? Hold that keychain in your hands as a measure of your success.

9. Are you on an attitude plateau?

Are you just tired of feeling like you're going to be doing this forever? Does that translate into that right now your desire to lose weight is equal to your desire for freedom from counting and having to think about points and healthy food choices? Remind yourself of why you started this process, look at how far you've come. Is your goal still the same? Is it that you're scared of success, are okay with how you look right now, have you become complacent? Ask yourself these questions honestly. If you're tired of the weight loss routine or have become complacent, try spicing up your food plan by trying more interesting meals and snacks, adding new foods, trying new recipes or new restaurants. Set new goals, setting a new goal can continue to challenge yourself. Pretend like it's your first week on program all over again, try to recapture that enthusiasm that you had in the beginning! You can do it as long as you don't give up!

10. Consider maintenance

A plateau that lasts a long time can be the practice to show you that you can maintain your weight. Sustaining weight loss is a challenge in itself. Consider doing the maintenance process so as to take a break from weight loss. Taking a break from weight loss and focusing on keeping the weight off can be the best thing to do, especially if a vacation or stressful situation is what is keeping you from continuing on your weight loss journey. It's better to gain some ground, then hold it, then go back and gain more ground than to give up because then you lose all of the ground you've gained (lost!).