Guilt-free SNACKING: The science and the solutions

Who doesn’t love a snack?

But the in-between-breakfast-and-lunch-or-lunch-and-dinner-or-dinner-and-bedtime nosh we all love dearly can make or break a perfectly “on-Plan” day. Clearly this subject deserves some serious consideration, so that is exactly what we will do in this post!

So what do I look for in a snack? Two simple things.

High fiber—I want something that is going to fill me up and get me through to my next full meal. It might sound gross, but fiber-rich foods can make you feel full because they absorb water and swell inside you. Unlike insoluble fiber, which quickly moves food through your body, soluble fiber tends to stick around a while, keeping you full and satisfied. Here are some soluble fiber-rich foods (or components of foods) to look for when you are poking around the fridge for something to munch on in between meals:
· Oats
· Brown rice
· Barley
· Oat bran
· Dried beans and peas
· Rye
· Seeds
· Vegetables (especially carrots, corn, cauliflower, and sweet potatoes)
· Fruits (especially apples, strawberries, oranges, bananas, nectarines, and pears)

High water content—Everyone knows you should get your eight glasses of water a day, but there is more to water than simply staying hydrated. When water is bound to food, it slows down the absorption and gives a longer lasting feeling of fullness in your belly.

Foods with high water contents are KEY to my entire “eat more weigh less” success story. Think about it! You could eat a pound of blueberries or a pound of pretzels—each would make you feel equally satiated because you have eaten the same weight of food. However, the blueberries have fewer calories because their water content naturally displaces calories. Foods with high water content increase the fullness factor and at the same time contribute fewer calories. Foods that have lots of water tend to look larger, too, and the higher volume of these foods provides greater oral stimulation. In other words...eat more and weigh less.

Fruits and vegetables are not only high in fiber, they are high in water content, so they are clear SNACKING CHAMPIONS, but mix up your snacking with high-water heroes like broth-based soups, oatmeal, and yogurt.

So what are some of my favorite snacks?

I love taking high-fiber, high-water content veggies (thick raw cucumber, zucchini, or squash slices or celery sticks work best) and dipping them in low calorie dips (always under 2 points per serving!) My bread bowl dip and roasted red pepper hummus are my favorites (recipes at the end), but I have been known to dip my veggies in fat-free salsa, too, for a completely guilt-free snack. Don’t knock it until you try it.

I am a sucker for chips and crackers, and I found these little guilt-free jewels! Paired with a wedge of laughing cow cheese…can’t be beat! Or feel even fuller by dipping apple slices in your laughing cow wedge! The Original Swiss is best with fruit, but the other flavors are great with veggies and these yummy crackers.

Edamame. If you haven’t chowed down on a cup of steamed and lightly salted soybeans lately, you are missing the boat, people. These guys are packed with fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals. A half-cup of shelled edamame (or 1 and 1/8 cup in the shell) is 2 WW Point, 120 calories, 9 grams of fiber, 11 grams of protein, and only 2.5 grams of fat. One cup of edamame in the shell is only 1 WW Point.

Dill pickles. Straight out of the jar. I love these guys! One pickle is free of charge in points (usually about 15 calories) and has 2 grams of fiber and a very high water content for that extra-full feeling.

Fiber One yogurt. Zero points and just 50 calories for this high-water AND high-fiber hero! Peach is the best flavor for sure.

Zero-Calore Soups. Lots of water AND vegetables. Nuff said!

Here are my favorite doctored WW recipes for dip EVER:

Bread Bowl Dip
2 points per ¼ cup; Serves 12
You don’t HAVE to have a bread bowl for this delicious low-calorie mess—in fact I recommend a bunch of fresh veggies cut into thin strips.

Ingredients
1 packet dry vegetable soup mix
½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
10 oz chopped spinach, frozen—thawed and patted completely dry
¼ cup grated carrot
16 oz light sour cream
½ cup Hellman’s Light Mayonnaise

Directions: Mix all ingredients in large bowl and let chill at least 30 minutes before serving.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
2 points per ¼ cup; Serves 14

Ingredients
30 oz canned chickpeas
7 oz roasted red peppers, bottled, drained
3 medium garlic clove(s)
3 Tbsp canned tahini
1 Tbsp olive oil
6 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 1/4 tsp table salt
1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
2/3 cup(s) fat-free Fage Greek yogurt

Directions: Drain chickpeas, reserving 1⁄4 cup of liquid. Place chickpeas, reserved liquid and remaining ingredients in a food processor; process 2 minutes or until very smooth. Cover and chill 2 hours.

Happy snacking, ladies!!!

I Spy With My Little Eye: Winning and Losing with Visual Cues

Monkey see monkey eat. The bad boys behind the Big Mac, the fiends behind the Frosty, and the wise guys responsible for the Whopper have been studying the human condition for decades. It didn’t take them long to figure out that we are, for all intents and purposes, pretty weak. Brightly colored storefronts and signage, cheap prices, huge portions, and fast service attribute to the lines at America’s favorite drive-through restaurants come lunch time each day…but that is just the bait. The catch is the strategically placed locations deliberately sprinkled along your route to or from work/the gym/church/home/the grocery store every single day.

And the fat doesn’t stop there. Even when you head to the grocery store to buy your healthy proteins, whole grains, fruits, and veggies, you are bound to pass every sugary/salty/greasy/processed junk food—packaged neatly in enticing boxes and bags designed to catch your eye and deter you from your original healthy mission—tactically placed on every aisle.

And while it is easy to say, “Stay strong—just ignore it,” the visual cues marketing mavens have been refining since the early 50’s that dominate the fast food and junk food industries are truly too tempting to ignore.

So let’s not ignore them. Let’s address them and figure out ways to conquer them!

A friend of mine brought this issue to my attention as an addendum, really, to my recent post, “Is your job making you FAT? Part three: The Commuter’s Quandary.” She recently moved to a neighborhood with a route to her job along which ZERO fast food locations exist, and she made a very keen observation:

On the drive to and from my old apartment at lunchtime, I used to seriously struggle (and LOSE!) with feeling like "I just really want McDonald's/Wendy's/Chik-Fil-A/Backyard Burger, and not that awesome leftover whatsit/Kashi pizza/sandwich thing at home." Even if whatever was at home was AWESOME and delicious and something I really did want to eat…

I really think the visual cues I passed EVERY TIME I left my house always reminded me of that delicious chemical compound so strongly associated with that red/yellow, look-at-me sign. I'm sure people's susceptibility to this varies; however, I would imagine that commuters suffer most because their driving routes are strategically stacked with drive-through garbage. Simply being exposed to it so routinely actually triggers the desire to make that stop.

AND SHE WAS RIGHT!

This from Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation:

The strategic locations of fast-food buildings have given rise to high amounts of traffic in particular areas, raising profits. McDonald’s, for instance, began setting up businesses off highways because these were locations where many potential customers might travel…

…Restaurants in these key locations bank on customers impulsively stopping by and ordering food. It may have been the locations that led them there, but it is the quick, friendly service and quality food that make them come back.

So thank you, dear friend, for the first solution to evading the fast food fix: change up your route to avoid passing visual cues that tempt you.

My friend finds driving straight home from work SO much easier now without all of those deliciously evil distractions between point A and B. I’ve been using my alternate route for a few months now, and let me tell you—the Chik-Fil-A breakfast burrito no longer gets a fleeting morning thought.

Here are a couple of other tricks I’ve devised to avoid the seemingly unavoidable junk food/fast food traps:

1. Utilize your local specialty stores to avoid dangerously delicious displays at Wal-Mart/Target/Kroger, etc. For instance, go to your Farmer’s Market to buy as much as possible; I guarantee they don’t stock the crap that sidetracks your sensible shopping. Hit up the pharmacy for personal sundries, the pet store for cat food, Lowes for household needs, and the list goes on. I typically don’t practice AVOIDANCE as a solution to my problems, but there are some excellent exceptions. This being one of them.
2. Make a list BEFORE you go to the grocery store, and NEVER shop hungry. I find the best time to go the grocery store is after a really hard work out. I’m so tired, and the powerful, natural hunger suppressants coursing through my veins make it super easy to get in and get out without a cartful of junk.
3. Plan out your day the night before. Typically as my hubby and I are winding down and watching a little television before we go to bed, I hop on my laptop and put in my Points for the next day. I think about what I want for breakfast and lunch and ask him what sounds good for dinner. When I have a plan for success and took the trouble to think about it ahead of time, I am less likely to stray from the proven formula: healthy + home cooked – fast food = little butt. I also go ahead and put in my Activity Points. I feel more obligated to fulfill my plans to exercise the next day if I record the effort ahead of time. You feel REALLY crummy when you have to delete Activity Points because you didn’t get off your butt to work out.

Don’t forget to strategically place your own POSITIVE visual cues!!!!

1. Instead of a candy dish, place a bowl of fresh, ready-to-eat fruit on your desk at work or coffee table at home (think apples, bananas, grapes).
2. Keep a Nalgene water bottle on your desk. It will at least remind you to drink your eight glasses of water a day.
3. Pack your gym bag in the morning and leave it in plain sight from your desk at work.
4. Leave your running shoes out in plain sight at home—even if your OCD or neat freak living companion is screaming to put them away neatly in the closet.
5. Put a few key ingredients to the healthy dish you are making that night out on the kitchen counter in the morning as a reminder of the yummy, delicious goodness to come.
6. Hang up a flyer for your next race, your gym’s schedule, or your own weekly workout schedule on the refrigerator. You’ll think twice the next time you go to open that door for a needless snack.

So avoid the traps and set up your own successful snares to lure yourself into your personal nutrition and fitness goals!!!

The more the merrier-together we are unstoppable!

I went to my local Community Garden’s grand opening a few weeks ago. This amazing endeavor entails local green thumbs working together to create their own little eco-system, and it produces masses of beautiful flowers and bushels of delicious fruits and vegetables. It got me thinking about how important community is to nutrition and fitness. Just like the bounty of vegetation bursting from the Community Garden vastly outweighs any single person’s gardening effort, having companions to share in your fitness and nutrition journey often amplifies your own results.

Recipe Swap
Have you ever heard of a cookie swap? Participants bring multiple dozens of their favorite homemade cookies and the accompanying recipes to exchange with guests. Well, instead of adding inches to your best friends’ waistlines, why not give them the tools to eat healthy with delicious, yet nutritious recipes instead?

1. Create an e-mail exchange with your best gal pals and share recipes once a week on a particular day. Make up your own rules! Here are a few guidelines you can throw around as ideas:
-Must be an original recipe
-Must be under XYZ amount of calories/Points/calories from fat/sodium…whatever you are watching or counting these days (e.g. If it is an entrée, keep it under 400; if it is a dessert, keep it under 200; if it is a snack, keep it under 150, etc.)
-Have a certain theme (e.g. great for picnics, vegetarian, Mexican, Italian, desserts, tapas, Indian, pasta, cocktails, etc.)

2. Have a recipe swap potluck night. Do you have a group of friends that gets together regularly for Bunko/book club/wine club/child’s play group/bible study/you name it? If you do, your group activity no doubt has snacks involved. Turn it into a recipe swap potluck night! You can take turns cooking or all bring a dish, but make sure you always bring enough copies of the recipe for everyone to take home. The most important thing is to include the nutritional information! I learned quickly on this blog to try to speak more language than just Weight Watchers Points (and I do try, Jen!), so try to include the calories, fat, and fiber as often as possible. If you could include the amount of sodium, you would be doing your friends an even bigger solid.

Don’t have an already established group? Start one! You can get together JUST for the recipe swap. Eating healthy food and catching up with friends—who could ask for anything more? You can even turn your recipe swap into a monthly cooking demo. Have a friend who rolls sushi or makes her own pasta? The best bread baker or the most amazing cocktail shaker? Take turns hosting and teaching each other your slimming kitchen secrets.

Message Boards and Online Communities
Support, support, support! That is why I started this blog in the first place. We all have questions, frustrations, tips, tricks, and must haves to share, and the Internet has revolutionized the way we can help each other out! There are lots of blogs, message boards, and online communities devoted to nutrition, fitness, and weight loss that can give you a place to learn and vent when you need it most.

While I find some of the comments on the Weight Watchers Online Community frustrating (e.g. I ate a whole cake. How many Points is that?), I do look for specific topics there to answer questions or to find folks who might be going through the same thing I am with relation to a weight loss plateau or starting a new exercise. Other online message boards are very similar in nature, so look for specific topics that relate to you.

Social Media is also an amazing place to get great tips! Become a facebook fan of your favorite healthy cooking magazine or website, your favorite fitness guru, your favorite calorie-saving products (yes, I am a fan of Western Bagel!) or your favorite calorie conscious chef. You will get posts in your feed of deals, tips, articles, and tons of other stuff to help keep you motivated.

Running groups and work out buddies
The buddy system isn’t just for summer camp, people! Find a friend that wants to work out, too. When I was first starting out at the gym, I did it partly because I knew I would get to see one of my dearest friend’s little faces every single time. And I knew she would miss me if I weren’t there. We relied on each other and motivated each other.

Find someone at or near your fitness level with whom you can work out, walk, run, jog, bike, you name it. When someone depends on you, you are more likely to follow through.

Getting an even bigger group together is even better! Running groups and gaggles of gal pals at a Zumba class can be so encouraging when it would be so much easier to sit at home and watch your stories. The more people involved, the more it feels like a party! And who doesn’t love a party?

In fact a 2009 study at the University of Oxford showed sportsmen to have a significantly higher tolerance to pain after exercising in a group than they did after exercising alone, suggesting that their group workouts led to a greater production of feel good endorphins.

Not only do these results imply a benefit to exercising with others, they also help to explain why group activities like dancing, laughing and making music make us feel so fantastic. The authors of this study suggest a greater production of endorphins during these activities could be a way to help humans to bond in groups and improve social interactions.

So get together and make it happen, people! Don’t do it alone!!

Is your job making you FAT? Part Three: The Commuter's Quandary

Readers, let me first apologize for my unannounced absence from the blogosphere over the past two weeks. I had a weeklong conference and a much anticipated job offer looming that was keeping me from producing any useful thoughts. So the good news is I got the job! The bad news is that starting August 2, I no longer get to go home for a healthy lunch every day that I can cook or assemble at my leisure with fresh fruits and vegetables I have on hand.

My new job is a 45 minute commute away, so it is time to dig the insulated lunch box out of storage and start planning ahead. I am plagued by the commuter’s quandary!

I don’t have time for coffee and breakfast now—I have to hit the road
Loading the coffee pot the night before and setting the brew timer…check. Travel mug…check. But the time for omelets and half-hour bouts of the Today Show are completely out of the question. So what is a gal to do? And while I can shovel cereal down my gullet on the way out the door or eat a banana and a Fiber One bar in the car sometimes, I really find a protein-rich breakfast keeps me full until lunch and sets me up for a more successful day of eating on Plan. So I am breaking out the old commuter breakfast egg recipes (e.g. the ones you can freeze, reheat in 2 minutes, and eat on the way) I love best—keep in mind I always substitute any type of sausage with Morningstar Farms veggie sausage patties crumbled and Southwestern Eggbeaters for eggs (1/4 cup egg beaters equals one egg) to save on fat and calories:
Sausage and Cheese Breakfast Cups
Vegetable Quiche Cups to Go

The breakfast cups are delicious on their own, but if I’m super hungry or know I’m in for a late lunch, I’ll pop a Western Bagel in the toaster while I’m preparing my travel mug of coffee. I’ll spray-butter the bagel and squish the egg cup in between the bagel slices for a supper yummy and even more portable breakfast sammie.

I don’t want to eat turkey sandwiches every day
When you get bored with what you are eating, it is tempting to go off Plan. For four years I packed my lunch, and I would fall into the easy “turkey on wheat + apple” trap way too often. I eventually found myself saying, “I brought my lunch, but I don’t want it. Let’s go out to eat!” While one healthy sandwich + apple a week is fine, I am going to try really hard to mix it up as much as possible to prevent myself from hitting every diner, drive-in, and dive in a five-mile radius of my new job.

The best way I found to combat the sandwich routine is to cook one more serving of dinner (or two or three if your husband/child/roommate needs to pack a lunch, too) than you need for one evening. Portion the entire meal out, and put your lunch portion in Gladware or Tupperware or Whateverware you use before you even sit down to eat. Let it cool with the top off on the counter while you enjoy your healthy creation. Honestly, it makes me want to create the healthiest, yummiest dinners, because I know I’m going to get to eat it again tomorrow for lunch.

I will also spend some weekend mornings making big batches of low-calorie soups or casseroles and freezing them into one-cup or one-serving containers. I make a different one every chance I get, so I have more choices from which to pick. So at least I’ll have something packed with fiber, filling veggies, and FLAVOR to compliment my boring turkey sandwich and keep me away from the vending machine later that day.

Woman cannot live on Lean Cuisine alone
While there are plenty of low-calorie and low-fat frozen entrées out there, I take serious issue with most of them—and for very good reason:

Sodium: a frozen dinner should deliver no more than 200 milligrams of sodium for every 100 calories of food, to keep you within the 2,400 milligram daily limit for healthy people recommended by the American Heart Association. So read your nutrition labels! The Lean Cuisine Jumbo Rigatoni with Meatballs (tell me again how this can be lean? Oh yeah, their concept of “jumbo” means the size of a nickel) will cost you 400 calories and 830 mg of sodium, which is 35% of your necessary sodium daily values on a 2,000 calorie diet—and most Weight Watchers or calorie counters are eating even fewer calories than that. This culprit is 30 mg of sodium over the limit at minimum.

Portion Size: There is good reason my blog is called EAT MORE weigh less please. I don’t want to waste my entire lunchtime caloric intake on a teaspoon of some green flecks that might have once been broccoli, three rubbery noodles, and a salt-laden cream sauce that has more fat than flavor. I could make a Texas-sized veggie wrap with a La Tortilla Factory large wrap, two full cups of fresh shredded veggies and greens, one tablespoon of 1/3 reduced fat Kraft Philadelphia Garden Vegetable Cream Cheese, and some spicy sriracha that totals a negligible amount of fat and a third of the calories in these frozen concoctions. When your plate appears fuller, it sends signals to your brain that you should feel fuller—take a note Healthy Choice!

FATTY FAT: While you are examining the amount of sodium in these bad boys, please take a look at the percent of calories from fat. You will be surprised and appalled. While the amount in grams might not look bad, consider the whole picture. Look at the calories FROM fat. The Lean Cuisine Stuffed Cabbage with Whipped Potatoes (sorry I’m picking on them, but they make it so easy!) only has 210 calories. Fantastic. But 50 of those calories are from fat, which is almost a quarter of the entire dish's caloric composition. YUCKO!

Can I get a vegetable please? There are just not enough veggies in your typical frozen entrée. While some varieties are better than others, there are some serious offenders out there—Budget Gourmet's Low Fat Rigatoni in Cream Sauce with Broccoli & White Chicken, for instance, has only about a teaspoon and a half of broccoli—no I’m not kidding. Commuters take heed: Pack a half cup of additional frozen veg to heat and toss in the mix if you must eat a frozen meal.

I aspire to NOT have to rely on frozen entrées for lunchtime sustenance at all, but I know that sometimes time gets the better of all of us. I will keep a few on hand but will try to eat a maximum of one per week. I am pretty much wholly against these salty, processed nightmares, but there are a few that do not entirely creep me out:
1) Amy’s Kitchen makes delicious organic frozen and canned meals and soups that make me a little more comfortable with the idea of a pre-fab lunch. It’s a family business, the food is vegetarian and preservative free, they offer an entire lower sodium line, and the entrées are packed with filling fiber.
2) Kashi makes 13 different frozen entrees that are all natural and have a lot more vegetables and fiber than your typical frozen meal. My favorite is the Lemongrass Coconut Chicken.

I can’t wait to start my new job and bring my healthy habits to a whole new workplace, and I am determined to not let this new commute deter my nutritious lunch routine. I am totally bringing my Ooey Gooey 2 WW Point Chocolate Muffins on the first day for all of my new co-workers!