Feta, You Bettah!

what you're looking at here is the best bite ever: some english cucmber, kalamata olive, spicy sprouts, vegan feta of course, and some crumbled home-made sausage (that recipe to come!), all on some spinach. oh yeah.

This blog is moving in a different direction, to be sure. I'm ready to move on, the weight-loss--food-addict-in-recovery thing is kind of depressing and I'm still trying to figure it all out but here is a recipe for vegan feta cheese. I'm not a fan of soy, not to mention it's well-known to be a heavily GMO crop and has been linked to giving men boobies (I'm not sure how true that is, the GMO thing is enough for this lady though!) ... I really just happen to think beans are better and meatier.

After dropping all the weight, it seems senseless to waste calories on something that's going to clog my arteries, endorse animal cruelty, and take a lot more of Jillian Michaels kicking my ass, all for a few measly bites. Because that's all a portion is. : '(  Anyway, my point is: Sometimes we need cheese, and sometimes we need feta. And this recipe, my friend, could not. be easier.

I got the recipe here: Mock Feta Recipe but I took all these pretty pictures to show you how to make it so we can ignore that or if you'd like a printable version, there you go. Note my changes, please, so that I feel some semblance of importance.

HERE WE GO!

 
1/4 c. olive oil
1/2 c. vinegar (I used white rice vinegar the first time, it turned out great.)
2 T water
2 t salt
1 T dried basil
1/2 t dried oregano
1/2 t pepper
1 lb tofu, extra firm pleez, drained (I never always drain my tofu, which is to say I always never drain my tofu! Who wants moist tofu anyway? If you don't drain your tofu, then what's the point of marinating it? There's no room in the tofu for flavors and oil because you're letting it sit there, bloated ((and probably embarrassed!)), full of water. For shame!)


DON'T USE SILKEN TOFU! I repeat, please don't use it. Maybe you just know better. Maybe it was just me. But I'm pretty sure it just was gross. The first time I made this I made it with extra-firm regular tofu, and it was heavenly. I don't know the brand because I don't know tofu, but unless you're willing to risk it, stick to the firmest tofu around. Silken wasn't right, and I think it's really only good for blending anyway.

Also, the extra-firm yielded nice, sturdy, feta-y crumbles while the silken melts in your mouth in the most unpleasant way (in a salad? gross!). Anyway, mix the ingredients like a vinaigrette, crumble tofu, add crumbled tofu to vinaigrette, let the flavors marry overnight (how romantic!), and strain like you've never strained before. (I just left the bowl with the stuff straining for an hour--no water in my fake feta!)

Et bon appetit! Throw it on on a salad with some cucumbers, thinly sliced red onion, greek olives, tomato, add a little more olive oil, balsamic, and salt and pepper: Greek salad! Do you like cold pizza, healthy-vegan-choice way? Well put a dollop of spaghetti sauce on a whole wheat pita and throw some of that feta on there! Presto! There I go, being all Ned Flanders. Too bad my mustache won't grow in thick enough. D'oh!

GOAL ACHIEVED

Today the scale said 150. This was my goal. I did it. I feel great.

BACK FROM OUTER SPACE

I've been crazy busy with the restaurant and I haven't been able to update, and I'd like to apologize to my billions of readers.

Okay, so the last time I updated was October 16th and I was -56.2lbs. Today I am -59lbs, which is FANTASTIC. Luckily, the weather here in the mid-west hasn't been that bad, I've been taking the pooch out for walks. (Every walk, I feel, could be the last one!)

Where to start???!

What I've been doing since July is take my weight every morning and write it down in a little journal I have, along with a few motivating thoughts. I have weigh-in periods that consist of about 3.5 weeks, and I note not only how much I lost in that period, but how much I lost per week. I was doing great until about the time I started this blog, in fact, it was why I started this blog. The numbers were daunting; the scale would barely move and barely move and barely move and go down a little and every once in a while it would go up. And lately I've been feeling completely unmotivated and bummed out. And then I realized I need to kick myself in the ass and go back to boot camp. No snacks! No bread! No alcohol! JUST SAY NO!

I haven't had a chance to listen to very many of them, but on one of Jillian Michaels' podcasts, she talked about something you know about if you lost or are losing weight: Plateaus. 

A plateau is a mountain that's super tall and flat on top and you can walk across it and all of the sudden you fall off of it because there's no peak and you've been walking so long across it that you've forgotten you even climbed up it and then YOU PLUMMET TO YOUR DEATH. 

In health terms, it means you couldn't move that scale if you jumped on it, and Miss Jillian believes that it doesn't exist. She says losing weight is about calories in, and calories out, and if you aren't losing weight... basically, you're not trying hard enough. Which is true. Currently, or at least up until yesterday, I wasn't trying hard enough. The most difficult thing is that you feel like you deserve to eat these things, or what harm could they do?, but in the end, for me, at least, they do physical and mental harm.


Again!!!! (I mean again, "This happened before, but I let it happen again!, Again!!!!"), I've been eating bread and sleeping in and drinking too much coffee and just letting myself skip meals and eat bigger portions. It's not like I've been eating pizza, or doughnuts! Actually, I've been an vegetarian for about a month (right now, the only animal product I consume are eggs), so you can guess that I'm not eating toooo terribly but I feel like for me, at least, it's a chain reaction. Back to bread, back to snacks; my hand reaches for things and they're in my mouth before I can even protest, back to the addicted to feeling like crap deal. And yet when I started this blog, when I had to recharge, I made the realization that I need to discipline myself in order to stay mentally healthy too.

It's weird; you know when you can tell that someone's mad at you? Even if you have no idea why, but you can just tell? Because they don't talk to you and they avoid eye contact? I do that to myself. Myself! It's just like when I was numbing myself out when I was heavy-- it happens when I don't discipline myself. (It's almost like my mind is saying to my body "If you're not going to take care of you, I'm not going to take care of you.")

So not only was I not losing weight as quickly as I could, I wasn't mentally in a good place. It's really frustrating to have done so well, to have lost this much weight, to have 10 POUNDS LEFT TO LOSE! and to still have those feelings of confusion and (sorry to sound melodramatic) hopelessness. I'm still trying to figure out how to make time for everything in life, trying to figure out what's going to motivate me to stay on top and keep me going.

Hopefully I'll be able to write more, motivate you, motivate me, et cetera. Cheers folks!

Are You There, God? It's Me, Marja

SO! My total loss is 56.2lbs. Freaking amazing right? My body looks better than it has in 5 years (I can't stop caressing my own collarbones, they're so pretty now!), and everyone is noticing the change-- including ladies who knew me before and who were (and still are) heavy like I was. I feel vaguely guilty, so I make sure not to gloat, but at the same time, I want to encourage everyone to feel good about themselves, and I want them to be able to make the changes that I have. You see, (and I know I've said it before, but--) we are addicted to feeling like crap. Be it to alcohol, drugs, processed foods, our own laziness or apathy, whatever! For some reason we just can't help ourselves, so we continue whatever cycle we're used to.

Now, I say that I feel "vaguely guilty" because I feel like I shouldn't feel so good in front of someone who is probably at least a little envious of my success (and believe me, I would be too). This brings me to one of my points, one of the things I've learned on this journey, which is:

THE IMPORTANCE OF POSITIVITY

I feel like so many of us are trapped in this mindset that positive people are dumb. Positive people are stupid; look at our poets, our writers, our rockers. Angst makes art, but I don't think it necessarily makes for a happy life. And really, how many of us are poets, writers, or rockers who should be sacrificing our happiness for a sonnet, novel, or album? Probably very few. But yet we sabotage our happiness simply because we don't want to be that positive person. Positive people are annoying. They don't get it.

I am a completely different person from the Marja of May 2011, which is about when I finally decided to start putting in the effort that was needed, and finally started seeing the scale drop. I had quit drinking for a while (which was good, I was drinking every night and my tolerance was getting high, not to mention I'd occasionally black out) and decided to quit smoking (I was a closet smoker for quite some time). I started taking walks to start feeling better and make sure that I would stay off the smokes. I was unhappy, I was depressed, I thought, Why me?

Seriously folks, taking control of your life is all you need. Too many of us have too many expectations in life, which is why I think so many of us are unsatisfied and our unhappiness continues on. We're not millionaires, so life isn't worth living, at least to the fullest in our situation. It's not worth it to take control of our lives because we think that what we want is impossible. But if we don't take control of our lives, we can't change our lives. That's the deal here. And if we don't stay positive and have faith, we're setting ourselves up for pretty brutal failure (which we're fine with because we don't want life to be great because we don't want to be that jerk positive person who comes over for coffee and refuses to complain about anything!!!) which brings me to my next point:

THE IMPORTANCE OF FAITH

I get tired of people bashing religion. I know there are some awful people out there that do bad things for organized religion, but I think faith itself is essential to living a fulfilled life. And any motivational book out there will tell you that in order to realize your dreams, you need to acknowledge that there is a higher power. You can name it Buddha, God, Mother Nature, whatever, but you need to have faith that the universe is in an order and that you can use it to your advantage. For me, God is a being that rewards positivity with more positivity. (And what's so bad about living a life that's good for the whole world?) The more people I treat right, the more I treat myself right, the more I simply enjoy taking walks, cooking and eating healthy food that makes me feel good, the more God will let me feel these things and take that wonderful experience out of them. I say, Thank you God for letting me see how beautiful the world is! 

Even recently, when there was a 36-hour power outage and my husband and I were worried about saving thousands of dollars worth of food; God will get us through, I told him, and I believed it. You see, if you have faith, then you are allowing the option of something good to happen, if that makes sense. I don't go to church every Sunday, I don't quote scripture, but I worship the universe, or God, or Buddha, or Mother Nature, in my own way. I take all of the good things I can get out of the world and use them to fuel my own positivity and faith. 


It's hard to cultivate faith (although they say it's God who "allows you to have faith," which is a pretty cool thought), and it's hard to cultivate positivity, especially when you're in that limbo of trying and not seeing results. You need to have faith. I mean, I think back to 50lbs ago, when I did the math and thought, if I lose 1 pound a week, I can lose ___, did I really think I was going to do it? I don't know! But I did it, and as I kept feeling better, or at least not feeling worse, and I knew that I would have to see results or at least keep feeling better, and my faith increased, my positivity increased. Sure I have stress, I get sad sometimes, or down on myself a little. But, with me in control, my life is going to be a happy one. It already is.

Them Rules cont'd.

5. BEING AWARE OF SATIATION

Satiation is being satisfied, of course, and it's important when you're trying to lose weight and when you're trying to maintain it. Along with rule no. 2 (that's portioning, of course!), being aware of when you're full is incredibly vital. Have you ever noticed that you feel full about halfway through your meal... but you continue to eat anyway? Why do we do that? We're not going to starve --chances are we're going to be around food at home, at work, everywhere-- but so many of us act on impulses ingrained in our minds and bodies to continue to eat when we're full and to eat when we only think we're hungry.

In Clueless, Cher's eating lunch and says something like, "When I cut it up into tiny pieces I actually lose weight" or something. While the classic 90's flick isn't particularly filled with helpful advice (OR MAYBE IT IS? ANOTHER BLOG, ANOTHER TIME), I think she's onto something. Being aware of satiation isn't just about knowing when you're filling up, it's about taking your time with your food. I know when I want to get back on weight-loss track that I can't eat sandwiches or burritos (or pretty much whatever you eat with your hands), and not even because of the bread or flour. Why? I SNORT it. Many of us do. It cannot get into my belly fast enough. That's why it's called "inhaling." Using a fork and knife forces me to eat at a table, and it forces me to take the time to cut something, even if it's just broccoli, and bring it into my mouth. Stretching the act of eating out may help those who eat too many calories too fast, and let's face it, that's all too many of us.

Being aware of satiation is also being aware of the practicality of our meal or snack choices. Most of us are unaware of exactly how bad our eating habits are, not to mention why we eat what we eat. Many of us eat emotionally, some of us just plain like food, and addicts usually partake in both types of grub-gettin'. Do we want that deep fried food because it's fast? Cheap? Tasty? What about our happiness?! That cheeseburger and shake will make us happy; not only are they both delicious, but we had a terrible day at work and we're nervous about a promotion and we're nervous about our husband's job and... etc. Now we're satisfying a problem with food that food had absolutely no responsibility to satisfy in the first place. That peg won't fit there, not to mention the anxiety of acting like this will start to take its toll on our health... if it hasn't already. 

The thing about food is that it's become the only thing we feel we have control over, and I think that's why we're not exactly jumping to try juice fasts or vegetarian diets, or for some families, eat home-made meals daily. We're living in the moment, and food is not only a form of entertainment nowadays (I think of one of my favorite TV shows, Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives), it's our favorite form of entertainment. After all, food is always there, reliable; we know that we need to eat in order to survive. So eat, drink, and be merry! (Never mind if we die tomorrow of coronary it was because of our friends on the menu at Outback Steakhouse, Chili's, McDonald's, etc.)

Another part of satiation: Most of us were raised thinking we have to eat 3 meals a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner-- no matter how big or small any of those meals are. If you eat a lunch that's over 1,700 calories, chances are you could skip dinner and still be okay. Instead of eating a number of smaller meals over the course of the day (a concept I'm currently working on), we eat our 3 meals. Even if we laid around the house all day, doing next to nothing, burning almost no calories, we'd probably still be eating those three meals. Now, I'm not encouraging anyone to stop eating, in fact, we want to have food in our stomach because we need our metabolism working. All I'm saying is be mindful of your body, think, Do I need that many calories? How many have I expended today? Chances are, if you ask yourself that question, you'll give yourself the right answer. 

NOTE: SOMETHING THAT'S HELPING ME
Something that's been helping me is the idea of eating only enough to be full for the next couple hours. Of course, I live where I work, I have an entirely different schedule than most of you reading this. You might be in a meeting that lasts longer than you thought it would, the grocery store was packed and it took an extra 45 minutes just to get out, etc. You start getting really hungry, and the next thing you know, you're eating something awful for you. I know the feeling, like, your mind is completely cloudy because you're so hungry! A suggestion: have a few back-up snacks on hand. Have a few different snack and meal choices that are always fast, easy to make, and satisfy you. Have a game plan. (Sometimes I plan lunch as I'm eating breakfast; as I make lunch I usually think, "If I get hungry later, I can eat _________." And it helps a lot.) Maybe an apple and rice cakes in your bag, keeping stuff to make PB &Js handy in your kitchen, stuff you can go to that will actually reinforce your good behavior. Because, honestly, the mental backlash of disappointment in myself lasts waaaay longer than those extra calories.

Food's purpose has always been to keep us alive, and not much more. So, just try, for me, to eat what will keep you going until your next meal. And if that salad isn't going to satisfy you for more than 2 hours, guess what? Have a piece of fruit, munch on some veggies, have a slice of whole-grain bread with a little peanut butter, have something, anything that will only keep you satisfied for around a couple hours. And have a basic idea of what your next meal is going to be like. If you eat like that, you're probably on the right track. It's better to pick at food and burn it off than eat a whole bunch and mess up your metabolism, mind, and your belly.

It's not meant to entertain you, and I promise you, eating fresh fruit and vegetables and whole grains can be just as delicious as that bloomin' onion... well, you don't want it to be just as delicious-- you'll have to work a lot harder at burning it off! You can learn to love anything, and you can make anything into a workable challenge for yourself. 

PERSONAL UPDATE:
I've lost almost 5 pounds in 8 days. = ) The meal plan I showed you in the previous blog is the basic skeleton: I have oatmeal with fruit for breakfast, for lunch I usually have a huge salad loaded with veggies and either beans or canned tuna and a little bunch of grapes to satisfy my sweet tooth. Dinner was stir-fried marinated tofu with zucchini and wild rice until I used up all the tofu. My hubby bought me three different kinds of rice cakes, and those turn out to be a great snack because even if I wanted to eat a ton of them, my jaw would probably fall off... The caramel corn ones make a good dessert (even if they're pretty processed. You just can't win 'em all!) on a night you don't want a big treat.

Yesterday I was eyeing the "Deluxe Shells with Cheese" for lunch and then for dinner. I told myself it wasn't all that bad for me, if I split the box with my husband it would be a little over 200 calories and about 7g fat. But I would have felt really, really disappointed with myself, especially since I now have about 14lbs till my goal weight and I don't want to mess with my success until I'm there. Anyway, I thought, Why do I want this so much? Because it has noodles? Because it's cheesy? Because it's saucy? Because it's hot? I narrowed it down to the sauce and the noodles. So I made whole wheat noodles with marinara sauce, steamed some broccoli to bulk it up (I wanted to be nice and FULL!), I had some cannelli beans so I threw those in to bulk it up further, and I wanted some cheese but settled for some chopped marinated artichoke hearts and plenty of fresh-cracked pepper. And some grapes again. And I was satisfied! Food monster caged!

Marja's Rules No. 4: Avoiding "Trigger Foods"

I don't know if it's an actual term, but by "trigger foods" I mean the foods that trigger your appetite; the ones that unleash your own personal Food Monster. My trigger foods have high salt, fat, and sugar contents, and if you'd like to know why we all like fat, sugar, and salt and why it makes us eat more and more fat, sugar, and salt, I urge you to read David Kessler's The End of Overeating. I know I've mentioned it before, but it really is a worthwhile read. Many of us do the whole self-sabotage thing where we take one bite of something, think, 'Oh crap. I just took a bite of this. This is not good for me. It tastes good, but it's going to make me feel bad about myself... but I've already eaten some and I don't want to waste it so'... it's gone before you even know it, its taste lingers and turns sour as you realize you just ate two double-chocolate frosted cupcakes in a row and you're reaching for a third. BAD, BAD, BAD, my dears. Throw it in the trash after the first bite. 

If you're at a restaurant and you can't stop that darn Food Monster from finishing something on your plate (or your spouse's, or your kids') that you don't intend on taking home, and your server is too busy to take the plate (or thinks you're still working on it), it's a good idea (God bless the poor server/dishwasher) to destroy the leftover food. Try to be discreet for the sake of the other patrons and without wasting the restaurant's ketchup (it wasn't doing anything wrong!), but you could crumple that roll into a ball, douse those fries in your leftover water, etc. You don't want to eat it and you can't if you destroy it. Pretend like you're destroying your Food Monster, which actually, you are. See! It can be done.


I, my friends, go from being a demure young blonde to a voracious,fangèd, drooling, many-armed, covered in goo, baked-goods-seeking-creature-from-the-innermost-circle-of-Hell. It's definitely not pretty, and what's worse, the beautiful blonde trapped in this awful being is pounding, pounding pounding on its ugly chest from the inside, pleading the Food Monster to not eat that third pretzel roll (believe me, they taste as good as they sound)-- saying "We can be friends! I'll let you have a glass of wine if you don't eat any more! You can stop now! You can *sob sob* stop!!!"

One of the reasons I've been plateauing is I've allowed myself many of my trigger foods, and so my Food Monster (I should really name her!) creeps back into my life. When things got busy for both of us here at the restaurant, my husband and I opted for Subway sandwiches. It's great because it's fast and it's "healthy," never mind that I was off bread for a couple months, with the exception of the weekly breakfast we have with Eric's dad at a local diner. Well, I noticed the increase of Subway sandwiches coincided with my weight loss slumping and put a cabbash on it. 

But it was too late. I had reintroduced too many things, stuff I didn't even realize was triggering me to eat badly (or not eat well enough)! More caffeine than normal started bloating me, as did adding salt to my food; eating a whole PB &J when I used to eat half, even a serving of ice cream --an actual half cup, people-- , all of these things led me to my so-called plateau. I attributed this to my weight-loss journey coming to an end; I had a cold that lasted 2 weeks; my period makes me bloated; when you've got less moving around, you lose fewer calories... the excuses were almost endless. I keep a personal journal in which I document my weight each morning, and jot down a few feelings and observations and such. Lately, my entries were all about "staying positive," "trying," but I'm realizing now that that 1 pretzel roll a day can't happen. Maybe I can't have it more than once a month! You see, the longer you go on eating a diet that is good for you, is burned cleanly by your body, the less likely a slip-up will become a major set-back. In fact when I was eating almost perfectly- very little fat, usually in the form of olive oil or the traces of it in beans or very lean meat, when I splurged on a couple of cocktails or a half of a piece of pie, my body didn't even notice it. Like it was magic or something! 

Now I have the challenge of facing my trigger foods again and building up the courage to say, You won't make me happy, dear french fry, and what's more, I don't need you. I know I can do it, because I did it before. Yesterday was my first day of Meals Only, MAYBE 1 REASONABLE SNACK and you know what? I made it through. And boy was I hungry! Here is what I ate:

for breakfast:
- a serving (1/2 cup dry) of oatmeal with sliced banana and a serving (1 teaspoon!) of brown sugar
for lunch:
- 1 whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich on "wheat" bread with 1/2 an apple
desperate snack right after lunch:
- strawberry fruit strip (45 calories, so easily inhaled, but at least it was organic, and thankfully, the last one, because 50 calories should stretch a littttle further)
snack before dinner:
- salad (around 1.5 cups of lettuce) with cannelli beans, shredded carrot, shaved red onion, and pepperoncinis with fresh ground pepper and fresh-squeezed lemon juice
snack after salad snack:
- 3 cherry tomatoes
for dinner:
- 3 grilled shrimp (around 1oz. each) with green tabasco for dippin' and broccoli with lemon squeezed on it


And that was all I ate! I WAS SUFFERING! But you know what? I'll get used to it, and this time, I am going to stick with it. Why? Because I woke up -.6 pounds! Oh happy day! And how did I do it? By controlling myself. I can do it, you can do it, it's called caging the food monster, baby!!!!

So basically, if you want to lose weight, and keep it off, you have to be mindful of what you put in your body, and really, be mindful of what your eating habits are when you eat other things (which is easier said than done, I know). If you notice that you're starting to slip, look at what you're eating. Keeping a food journal is an awesome way to do this. In fact, when I started keeping a food journal, I was like, Screw this! I don't want to write down every little thing! So I stopped eating those little things. People act like they have no control over what they eat, and I know, it actually feels that way a lot of the time. But you do have control, and it's not going to kill you to change your eating habits and cage that darn food monster, it's going to make your life almost unbelievably better. Don't trust me, though! Pick up a book about it, do some research. By learning more, you're investing time (and maybe a few dollahs) in your health. By investing time, you're telling yourself, Yeah, I deserve this! And by telling yourself you deserve this, you're going to achieve your goals. Just be mindful, always. It will become second nature. If one bite is all it takes to unleash your Food Monster, then you're aware of the one most important thing- exactly how to stay in control.

Marja's Weight Loss Rules (No, She's Not A Doctor, But She's Free!), Continued

3. Processed food is a No-No

By the 1950s, the United States was no longer full of desperately struggling families; the war was over, men were coming home from overseas, moms were getting busier and busier, and food production was headed for massive change, namely: convenience. 

The TV dinner emerged in the early 50s, more and more canned foods were becoming available (including canned cheeseburgers, and let us not forget our beloved Spam), not to mention housewives were experimenting with some really bizarre foods; Jell-O with weenies! Ambrosia salad! An abundance of marshmallows where marshmallows do not belong! (At http://www.masterstech-home.com you could try "Lemonade Fried Chicken" or "Checkerboard Square Clam Crunch," which falls under the gag-inducing terror-category of "seafood cereals main dish"). Fast food joints were emerging and you and your family could order and eat right in your car! (Some places had big tubes that blew in air-conditioning, so even if the car you drove in didn't have a/c, you did at the drive-in! Note: I have seen footage of such a thing on The Food Network, but am having trouble finding evidence, let alone a picture. Believe me, folks!)

 Hey! Why not make a tuna casserole with a powdered-biscuit mix ring around it? 

It goes great with 6 vodka gimlets and a carton of Lucky Strikes!

So now processed food is everywhere. It's positively inescapable! Look at the box of saltine crackers in your pantry. Listed are 4 types of oil --canola, corn, palm, and soybean, respectively-- and that cracker hanging from your lip is made with "one or more" of them. (The oils are actually bought in bulk by companies and whichever is cheapest will be used without a need for change of packaging. Hence, the "one or more".) Enriched flour is listed first, and as good as it sounds for it to be enriched, it wouldn't need enrichin' if it weren't bleached. (And maybe soon we'll get into why us Americans need our flour, rice, etc. bleached into oblivion, stay tuned!) Not to mention, if the crackers in your pantry are from Wal-Mart, like mine are :(, the wheat used to make the flour is probably from heavily subsidized farmers who are forced to use pesticides and possibly genetically modified materials.

And god, think of Oreos! Or chips!  

Preservatives! Additives! Genetically modified lions and tigers and bears, OH MY!

These things are simply not meant to be put into your body. Your body does not like them. My point is, the ingredients are processed before your crackers are even made by big machines and people who probably aren't paid enough!


So don't do it. If if comes in a box, it's processed. If you must eat something in a box (because, let's face it, not all of us can only eat fresh fruit and vegetables, even though if we did all of our health problems would virtually disappear), make sure it's organic, or at the very, very least says "all-natural" on it somewhere. Read the ingredients and make sure you recognize them. It's as simple as taking control over what goes into your body, which not only shows your body love (sometimes I really have to say, "Hey Body! I love you! Look at this yummy salad that's gonna fill you up!") but it's also a political statement, and it probably sounds silly coming from someone who owns a restaurant (and unfortunately, it ain't one of them all-natural, heavily organic places), but we all need to take a stand to how food is being produced right now. (And believe me, I have many goals of not only changing the food and products being used in my restaurant, but in my community.) They'll listen, because they want to get our money somehow. And I know stuff that's organic tends to be more on the pricey side, but it's worth it. The more you buy it, the likelihood of it getting a little more affordable goes up, and with the USDA stamp on it, you can feel reasonably safe knowing the quality and standards of its production will stay the same (or hopefully get better). In all honesty, you should be spending most of your energy on yourself, making your life better, and that in turn will inspire and enrich the lives of people around you. And by that I mean (and I have to live up to this too), making a genuine effort to buy the best food you can for yourself and your family. It's the greatest investment you can make for your health, and being in good health will change every other aspect of your life for the better.

Marja's Weight Loss Rules (No, She's Not A Doctor, But She's Free!)

Marja's Weight Loss Rules

The thing about being an addict is that you don't push yourself when you're an addict. You feel sorry for yourself, because you think everyone else has it easy, and poor you, you just can't help eating this or drinking that and the cycle never ends. Well, I'm here to tell you that all of us, addicts or not, crave discipline. Discipline is especially key for me in my weight-loss journey because not only does it help me lose poundage, but by keeping myself in check, I cannot numb myself out. My mind and my body are friends, and they might not trust each other, but they have to. Here are the basic rules I've composed to lose weight; these suckers have helped me say "GOOD RIDDANCE" to the vanished 46.8lbs:

1. Water. Water, water, water. Water is awesome because it has no calories, and over half your body is made up of it! I like to drink about a gallon a day; it keeps me hydrated when I exercise, and if I'm hungry and I know I shouldn't be, or if I feel like my idle hands will fill themselves with the homemade pretzel rolls I bake from scratch at my restaurant, I slam some water. Adding fresh citrus is a bonus, because it helps curb my appetite, though it does contain simple carbs, loads of vitamin C, folate, which is essential for new cell production and growth; potassium, which we all know helps keep our bodies in balance; and phytochemicals, which may help protect against various chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease.

Hey! According the the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' a 1998 study of citrus benefits claims that citrus not only has been fighting scurvy for hundreds of years, "Citrus fruits are nutrient-dense foods that can be good sources of carbohydrates, including dietary fiber, and many vitamins and minerals. Citrus fruits are equally valuable among populations who need to overcome and prevent micro-nutrient deficiencies as well as those concerned with problems of over-nutrition, obesity and diet-related chronic diseases. For example, citrus is an ideal component of low-fat, sodium-restricted diets." Problems of over-nutrition?! Obesity?! Diet-related chronic diseases?! Lemon and lime have never looked so powerful! Moving on.

2. Portion. Here in America, our portions are RIDICULOUS! Like, laughable. According to the USDA's site, USDA's www.choosemyplate.gov:

 

5 and a half ounces of protein?! I serve a ribeye in my restaurant that's a whopping full pound of marbled, juicy dead cow! And my extras are less than 260 calories? But my soda is around 140 calories, and I drink 3 of 'em! Not to mention the ranch dressing I eat with my French fries has 15 and a half grams of fat and 148 calories per 2 tablespoon serving (and really, who can eat only 2 tablespoons of ranch dressing?!)

Okay, I don't eat french fries anymore (unless I sneak one from the hubby), and I certainly don't eat ranch dressing anymore, but when I did, I certainly didn't eat them in portion control sizes. We Americans have a particular attitude about food, and it's "It has to be entertaining, it has to satisfy me, and no holds barred, I want it to taste great." (I found David Kessler's The End of Overeating. to be extremely helpful when I started my journey. I highly recommend it to anyone curious about our endless fascinations and cravings for high-calorie and high-fat food, even though we know they cause poor health.)

When I first started to really eat healthy (like, every meal of every day for like, more than one day), I was amazed at how full I could be off of a huge plate of veggies, and still feel pretty energetic. It's crazy how we've trained ourselves to finish off 2 servings of fries (the second one eaten after we're full already, of course) and when faced with the same volume of salad, most of us would only suffer through half and claim we're full.

Forks Over Knives, a 2011 documentary, put it in a way that I've never seen it; here's a no-nonsense way to see:

Those dots in the picture are receptors in our stomach that tell our brain when we're full. The food will reach those receptors, which tell the stomach when to stretch and such, and we eventually will stop eating. Well, 500 calories of vegetables will fill the entire stomach. 500 calories of fat with fill the stomach only about a quarter of the way, if even that, and since the receptors at the top of our stomach are not reached by the volume in the stomach, we will continue to eat, literally packing our stomachs with calories upon calories, trying to fill ourselves up. Oye vey! No wonder it's so hard to cage the food monster!


more rules coming up NEXT: 3. Processed food is a No-No, and 4. Avoiding "Trigger Foods"