Meal Ideas

• Add vegetables like bell peppers, broccoli, spinach, mushrooms or tomatoes to your egg or egg white omelet.
• Add broccoli, green beans, corn, or peas to a casserole or pasta.
• Have soup. You can stick with the basics like tomato or vegetable soup or mix up some minestrone or veggie chili to cut winter’s chill. When possible, choose soups with less sodium.
• Add lettuce, tomato, onion, and cucumber to sandwiches.
• Order salads, vegetable soups, or stir-fried vegetables when eating out.
• add tomatoes, radishes, and green bell peppers to a tuna salad made with mayonnaise.
• Top broiled lean meat, chicken, or fish with salsa. Each 1/2 cup of salsa counts as a 1/2 cup toward meeting your daily vegetable needs.

Salsa counts?? Woo hoo! :)

Make it Quick

1. Store cleaned, cut-up vegetables in the fridge at eye level.
2. Try hummus and vegetables like bell pepper strips and broccoli.
3. Pick up ready-packed salad greens from the produce shelf for a quick salad any time.
4. Snack on mini-carrots at work instead of candy.

Recipes

Vegetable Primavera

1. Choose a combination of different vegetables, such as mushrooms, tomatoes, cauliflower, and bell peppers. Chop the vegetables into bite-size pieces.
2. Sauté in a skillet with a small amount of cooking oil or non-stick cooking spray until the vegetables are tender, but still crisp.
3. Toss with your favorite pasta and add garlic and basil to taste.
4. Top with low-fat or fat-free parmesan cheese.

Make-Ahead Salads

1. Chop up some cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, and onions.
2. Lightly toss with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
3. Store it in the refrigerator in a bowl with a lid.
4. When you’re ready to eat, take a scoop of the marinated vegetables and spoon it over your favorite lettuce and toss.
5. You have a flavorful salad in no time.

I love this make ahead salad idea! What a great way to make a quick, yummy salad!

I need to do something to feel healthier. Since limiting my food intake doesn’t work for me, I’ve decided to ADD to my food intake! My goal is to eat 9 servings of vegetables a day. I did this once years ago for three days and my skin GLOWED. It was an amazing and very noticeable difference. I looked SO healthy. I don’t know why I stopped doing it, but I’ve wanted to do it again ever since.

Here’s a list from Healthy Eating Made Easy that you can print out of what a serving of vegetables is.

VEGETABLE SERVINGS: SIZES

* Asparagus, canned 7 spears
* Asparagus, fresh 5 spears
* Avocado Half
* Aubergine One-third of a large one
* Baby sweetcorn 6
* Baked beans 3 tbsp (1/2 cup)
* Broad beans 3 heaped tbsp (1/2 cup)
* Broccoli 2 large florets
* Brussels sprouts 8
* Cabbage 3 heaped tbsp shredded, (1/2 cup)
* Carrots 1 large
* Celery 3 sticks
* Cherry tomatoes 7
* Chickpeas See Pulses
* Courgette Half a large one
* Curly kale 4 tbsp (1/2 cup)
* Eggplant One-third of a large one
* French beans 4 heaped tbsp (1/2 cup)
* Kidney beans See Pulses
* Lentils See pulses
* Mixed salad Cereal bowl full (1 cup)
* Mushrooms, button 14
* Onion 1 medium
* Parsnip 1 large
* Peas, fresh, frozen or canned 3 heaped tbsp (1/2 cup)
* Potatoes Never count towards your daily vegetable servings, in any form
* Pulses, cooked: kidney beans, chickpeas, lentils etc 3 heaped tbsp (1/2 cup)
* Salad leaves, lettuce etc Cereal bowl full (1 cup)
* Scallions 8
* Snowpeas Handful
* Spinach, cooked 2 heaped tbsp (1/2 cup)
* Spring onions 8
* Sugarsnap peas Handful
* Sweetcorn, fresh, frozen or canned 3 heaped tbsp (1/2 cup)
* Tomato 1 medium
* Vegetable soup 1 serving of fresh or canned soup
* Vegetable sticks Handful of mixed - celery, pepper, carrot etc
* Zucchini Half a large one

When I did this before, I drank V-8, and ate large salads full of vegetables on beds of greens. I’m not sure, but I might not have counted the greens which may mean I was getting more than 9 servings of vegetables. I’ll try out the true 9 servings and let you know if my face glows again.

Here is a video bio of a health and exercise trainer named Alana Mann. In this video she talks about her journey towards her current theories about health. I love how she reveals the deeper values that are driving her career choices towards the end of the video. She says, “It’s my opinion that the world needs more strong and empowered women to really heal her.”

Click here to get to Alana’s website Origins of Energy.

Things I would love to know:

What are the underlying values driving your choices? Is it something you notice? Is it important to you that your choices match your deepest values? If so, how do you keep your values in mind while you make your everyday choices?

———–
“There was a lot of buzz this past week about a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Turns out fitness may trump fatness when it comes to living longer. In other words, it’s better to be fit and fat than to be at a normal weight and out of shape.

“I can’t tell you how happy this news makes someone like me. I feel like I’ve known this my whole life, but never really had the scientific proof to back it up. I’ve watched thousands of people shape up and experience medical transformations without necessarily reaching a weight most would call “slim.””
———-

Another note to any fat prejudiced people: Even if all people who have more fat on their bodies than you are comfortable with are unhealthy, that still does not give you an excuse to be rude, judgmental, or think that you are superior. You’re not!

(If you want to shift out of judgment: instead of thinking something along the lines of: “they shouldn’t be fat,” Try something along the lines of, “I prefer to be at about 15% body fat. That is my strong preference for myself. Other people can make different choices.” Check out this article by Steve Andreas for an in depth look at shaking the black hole of judgment.)

Sorry for the angry lecture, everyone else, the fact that some people think that fat prejudice is still acceptable really burns my tootsies.

Click here to check out Kathy Smith’s fitness blog.

She is pro women’s sports, pro exercising and eating healthy, pro women of all shapes and sizes, and anti-deprivation. So, I think she’s my kind of gal. I found many of her posts to be really inspiring (even though some also link to her products.)

Check out what she says about deprivation:

“I’ve noticed that most people get caught up in that vicious cycle of dieting and then blowing the diet. It usually goes like this: You’re unhappy with the way you look and feel. You seek a diet that promises instant weight loss through complete control of what, when, and how you eat. Soon you discover that you can’t stick with it, and you end up right back where you started…

“To be successful, you have to move out of a diet mentality. Most plans don’t take into account what food really means to us. They don’t consider how the flavor and color and texture and presentation of food can give us so much pleasure. They don’t consider how eating foods that you don’t like leaves you unsatisfied.

“It was a good reminder for me today that, as I support others in their efforts to lose weight, choosing foods you truly love and that also enhance your physiological well-being are the key to becoming an independent eater.”

Well said, Kathy! And a timely reminder for me as I was about to launch into diet-like behavior by eating a protein shake on a regular basis, rather than a really yummy breakfast. My diet like thoughts may help explain why I was eating cake mix out of the package with a spoon this week. (I know, pretty image.)

When I just decide to eat really delicious and mostly healthy food, I end up eating a very healthy, balanced diet. (It doesn’t necessarily make me lose weight, but I do feel and look healthier.) But if I start thinking that I need to get thinner and then focus on that goal, the fearful gorging begins.

Breathe in, deep breath. I’m letting go of needing to look a certain way. That won’t guarantee me love. People of all shapes and sizes are loved. (I’m already loved, why am I trying to get all thin to get love?) Just focus on moving my awesome body and eating very delicious, mostly healthy food. Breath out…

The advice about living longer always says stuff like: have a close circle of loving and supportive friends and family, economic stability, close access to nature, and interesting work. OH BOTHER, close friends and family… well, I guess if it makes me live longer…

Well, duh. I mean, of course I want all those things!

The trick is GETTING those things. I’ve lived what is probably a third of my life and I’m still working on getting all that.

So, I am taking a few simple tips and from the site and putting them into practice:

1. Get rid of your full size plates and use 9 inch plates instead. OK! THAT I can do.
2. Put movement into your everyday life. This one is cheating ’cause I already do that. ;) Walking is pleasure and a perfect stress reliever for me. I’m going to try and boost this one by inviting friends to go walking with me more often.
3. And, I’m going to make more of an effort to go to church every week. I’m blessed to live 20 minutes away from a church with an amazing minister. I might as well take advantage of that.

What are three simple things you can do to live a longer and happier life?

1. They are meaningless or worse yet, they put energy towards negative ends.
2. They are boring and tedious.
3. They are stressful, often as a result of negative interactions with peers and co-workers. 

My job was mildly positively meaningful, very boring and tedious, and I had good relationships with my co-workers and my boss.  I did what ChikSentmehighee recommends in the face of a boring job. I studied each step intensively. I made the process hugely more efficient which eventually halved the hours my job took. My old boss was very appreciative of all my extra energy and initiative and rewarded me with interesting projects to fill up my newly freed hours, and flexibility on the job, including letting me work flexible hours. I worked near the people I was serving, so I was also appreciated by the people I was near. My job was still only mildly meaningful and still somewhat dull, but I put energy into it and was appreciated. When my boss quit a few months ago. I was moved to a new department. My new boss didn’t seem to appreciate the high quality work I did and the extra energy I put into my work, but she was quite peeved when I didn’t “follow her directives” which included checking in with her before I left my office (???) and other ridiculous rules that didn’t have anything to do with how well I could do my job.  She rewarded my efficiency with more dull and boring work to fill up the hours. Just what I always wanted! And also rewarded my self-motivating and self-starting work ethic with closer supervision and more rules.  I was also in a separate building from my main “customers” so I didn’t work near people who knew that I worked from home a couple hours on my day off to make their lives easier. After trying to work out better working conditions for myself, and getting no helpfulness from my boss, I gave a heap load of notice, and quit without a new job already in place. People say I’m brave. I read about the possible reccesion over the weekend and thought that I may be very foolish. ChickSENTmehighee thinks I  made a good choice though. He says,

“Perhaps the only choice is to quit as quickly as possible even in the face of severe financial hardship. In terms of the bottom line of one’s life, it is always better to do something that one feels good about than something that may make us materially comfortable but emotionally miserable.” 

Sometimes it helps to see it in print.Wishing you a great day with an emotionally healthy bottom line! I’m off to have an unemployed adventure!

-Phylicia Rashad

It’s the traditional time of year for goals and I seem to be in synch with the universe. I’m thinking about my future. Every day, ok, every hour, I think of something new I want to do. Watching the caucus results makes me want to go into politics.  It’s so exciting! (I must be a true grown up now because I find politics interesting and I talk about my health.)

Then I watched Phylicia Rashad on the Tavis Smiley show and was inspired by her story to think that maybe I want to move to Mexico City. I have a good friend from Mexico City, maybe I could go with her!

Whatever I do, whatever you are doing, I think Phylicia Rashad’s advice is good. I love that woman. Good luck to you in the new year. Set your sights on what you really want, study, and don’t pay too much attention to the obstacles.

With love,

B.

…consider that all those calculations of what is “in my interest” and what will benefit me and what I can “afford” grow tiresome. When we live rightly, decision by decision, the heart sings even when the rational mind disagrees and the ego protests. Besides, human wisdom is limited. Despite our machinations, we are ultimately unsuccessful at avoiding pain, loss and death. For animals, plants, and humans alike, there is more to life than not dying.

- Charles Eisenstein

This is the tail end of an article about the ethics of eating meat. He argues that it’s ethical because we are all going to die and the real question is how the animal was treated while it was alive. I admire vegetarians and feel like a hyporite when I meat, because I sure as hell don’t want someone to eat me! But, I still eat meat. I just haven’t managed to find a way to feel healthy and energetic without it. I eat meat less often than I used to and I’m down to birds and seafood. i think every little bit helps.

This article promted me to decide to take another step. I will work towards only eating farm raised or hunted creatures rather than factory raised creatures. I already only eat farm raised free range eggs and highly encourage you to do so as well. (More ethical and all you have to give up is a few more cents.) I do encourage you to buy your eggs from a local farmer if you have the chance as the label “free range” in the grocery store has a variety of meanings.

The article can be found here.