Healthy Food Choices

A Healthy Breakfast Choice at Denny’s

I was totally surprised today. As a special treat for the kids, since I’m going to be gone for a week, I decided to take them all out for breakfast. We started to go to IHOP but that was so crowded and loud we walked out and headed over to the newer Denny’s.

Now I was prepared that I was going to have to peice something healthier together off of the sides menu, since in my mind, Denny’s is NOT a place I associate with as healthy. I remember looking at some of the nutritional info for their breakfasts at one point in the past and making note NOT to eat breakfast there.

Well… today was  a special occasion, and my skinny kids don’t have a problem with calories and fat…so we went.

And I was totally surprised.  Denny’s has added  a few new things to their breakfast menu since I’ve been there last. 

The Build Your Own Grand Slam allows you to pick up to 4 items, including healthier choices like turkey bacon, chicken sausage, egg whites, whole wheat pancakes, fruit, oatmeal, and yogurt. Very cool.

I wish I had had my camera, but I didn’t. So you’ll have to take my word for it… I built My “Healthier” Grand Slam out of

- chicken sausage

- turkey bacon

- egg whites scrambled

- whole wheat pancakes (which I took off most of the butter and only ate 1/2 of  because the portion size is huge.)

and then I paid extra for a side of fruit.

Yummy! Starting out the day with protein and healthy carbs has really helped today, especially as I’m running around trying to get errands done before I leave tomorrow.

I’ll have to remember this for another time when the kids are up for a special morning out.

Are Artificial Sweetners Making You Fat?

As I mentioned earlier, I was finally convinced that drinking diet soda was hindering my weight loss, so I’ve cut it off. No more soda of any kind for me.  If you have a copy of Craving Secrets, I recommend reading through the sections on soda, caffiene, and artificial sweetners. 

But even then I wasn’t fully ready to give up my habit – until I listened to Isabel De Los Rio’s explanation of what’s happening biologically – How I was sabatoging my efforts by drinking diet soda (and eating foods with  artificial sweetners) .

Isabel  has such a good way of explaining the why artificial sweetners hinder our fat loss, so I’ll leave it to her to explain.

How Artificial Sweeteners Are Making You Fat

By Isabel De Los Rios, The Diet Solution

In my practice as a nutritionist and personal trainer, new clients are always coming to me telling me they are doing everything they are “supposed” to be doing, but still, do not lose weight. Of course, this is frustrating. Losing weight is hard enough, and to change your eating habits and still see no results, that’s even more frustrating.

 Why do these people not lose weight? If I had to pick the most common reason why most people’s efforts have proved no results, I would say it is the deception of artificial sweeteners and processed diet foods. Yes, you heard right. It is the diet coke, diet snacks, processed foods and artificial sweetener in your coffee that is keeping you fat.

How is this so?
Read more…

Healthy Food Choices: Napa Valley Salad with Cranberries and Almonds

I think I have a new favorite salad!

Last Saturday for special time, my 6 yo daughter had us back at Fuddruckers – and again, it was a no carb day for me.  So that ruled out my favorite, the turkey burger. But I was hungry so, after searching the menu for a good no carb choice, I settled on the Napa Valley Salad with grilled chicken (minus the blue cheese).

Oh this was a good choice, and again, I wish I had brought my camera so I could show you a picture. I’ll have to make it again and show you a picture of it later.

This salad does contain carbs – in the form of apples and cranberries. But I decided that it was better to have my carbs in the form of fruit than with a hamburger bun and fries.  Anyway, here’s how I would (will) reproduce this salad at home.

Ingredients:

2-3 cups chopped Romaine Lettuce

1 sliced apple (slices chopped in half)

a sprinkling of dried cranberries

a sprinkling of slivered almonds

one grilled chicken breast, sliced (I’d probably do a 1/2 chicken breasts)

Assembly order:

1. chopped romain lettuce

2. add in apple, cranberries, and almonds

3. toss all together

4. top with sliced grilled chicken

Yum!

I’m not big on salad dressing, and usually go without. But you can always use your favorite salad dressing on the side, and then dip your fork into it then get your forkful of salad to get both the flavor of the dressing for a lot less calories and fat.

Eating Out Healthy: Cheddars’ Grilled Chicken and Steamed Veggies

When my husband and I need to discuss anything, our best bet is to leave the house and for a restaurant. The reason – because there’s no outside distractions, no kids interrupting, no computers or TVs to compete for our attention. We fall kind of in a rut, ordering the same things at the same restaurants. But given we are on a new meal plan, and are trying to stay true to the weight loss theory behind the meal plan, we’re working on eating out healthy. So we decided to try a new place.

A Cheddars Casual Cafe opened recently near us and it’s always busy when we drive by, so we decided to give it a try last week. It was a no carb day in our rotation of high carb-low carb- no carb days (according to our meal plan), so I was trying hard to find something healthy on the menu that was heavy on the vegetables and lean grilled meats and low on the carbs, without being a salad. I really didn’t want another salad.

At first glance the vegetable plate sounded good, but the buttery croissant is not a healthy choice, and looking at the sides…not many that really count as healthy or that I could eat on a no carb day.

So what I found that looked really good was the grilled chicken with steamed veggies. But one problem: it’s on the children’s menu. I looked all over the menu to find another version of it, and couldn’t find an exact match.

So when the waitress came, I said “I know I’m not a child, but this is really what I want” and she let me get it! (I also ordered a cup of chicken tortilla soup.) And it was perfect. Just the right serving side for me and I was happy with the flavor of the seasonings. My husband thought I was rather nuts for ordering from the kids menu, but hey – it was healthy and what I wanted.

I did leave the rice alone, again, because I’m trying to honor this carb rotation meal plan. But the pile of steamed broccoli (yum!) and the chicken was yummy  and worth getting again. I ate some of the chicken and broth from the cup of soup that I ordered, but didn’t really want it after eating the chicken.

But I will admit – I did sabotage myself – by eating some of my husband’s onion rings. Deep fried vegetables, while good are NOT a healthy choice. (yes I’m admonishing myself).

Anyway, there  are several healthy choices on Cheddar’s menu (but not on the appetizer menu!). Cheddars does not provide nutritional information for their menus and their menus apparently vary a little between locations. So as usual, the same rules apply to eating out healthy at Cheddars as anywhere else – avoid the fried, sauced, battered, breaded, and “loaded”. Embraced the Grilled chicken, fish, steak, and steamed veggies.

Next time I think I’ll try the lemon pepper chicken. (and my camera!)

Healthy Food Choices: Smoothies

The other day I was thinking a lot about how poorly I’ve been feeling and starting thinking about what was some of the differences between days when I feel pretty good and when I don’t, and one thing that came to mind was the amount of fruit I’m eating. 

Lately, I’ve not been eating much fruit, mostly because we are low. And then I realized that my son and I had stopped making smoothies as well.  So I headed downstairs to see what I could scrounge up for a smoothie.

Smoothies are just cold blended drinks. My sister-in-law juices her fruit first and then blends the juice with milk or yogurt.  I prefer to just blend up whole fruit and have my smoothies a little thicker and more filling.

A while back,  thanks to this video from Craig Ballantyne, the fitness trainer behind Turbulance Training, my son and I were inspired to start experimenting with adding different things to smoothies.

 
(in case you are interested that link Craig talks about is www.EasyVeggieMealPlans.com)

An Orange & Banana smoothie made with yogurt, oatmeal, and flax seeds

• Fruit (usually a banana and something else)
• yogurt
• a handful of oatmeal
• about a tablespoon of flax seeds 

My son’s favorite combination is banana and orange juice (I keep an ice cube tray full of frozen orange juice for smoothies and cooking).

My favorite combinations are:

• blueberries, mixed berries, and banana
• banana and strawberry

I’ll even throw fresh spinach in with the mixed berries.

my 6 yo making a pomergrante/blueberry smoothie

We don’t have a blender any more (I broke it), so we use my Cuisinart SmartStick hand blender, and it makes it really easy for the kids to use and for clean up. And, in September, we discovered that the stick blender is really easy to travel with and make smoothies on the road.

So anyway, after I had this realization that I hadn’t been having my fruit or a smoothie in a while. Found some frozen banana slices in the freezer, added in a handful of frozen blue berries (that we picked for a local berry farm), and added in the yogurt, oatmeal, and flax seed.

My son of course drank 1/3 of the mixture. (”Smoothie, you’re making a smoothie? Can I have some?” )

But it tasted good and I felt much better for the rest of the day. So lesson learned (I hope), my smoothies and fruit are impacting how I feel. So Tomorrow I get to go grocery shopping again – and smoothie making ingredients are on the top of the list!

If you haven’t experimented with smoothies, I recommend doing so! It’s a lot of fun to experiment with… and if you have  10 year old son who likes to play with ingredients in the kitchen, like I do, this might be right up his alley

Enjoy!

…Shannon

P.S.  Angie has been experimenting with Green Monster Smoothies, you might enjoy reading her experience with Green Smoothies where Spinach is a major ingredient.