Tag Archives: diet

Roasted Spicy Chickpeas

Vegan Experiment – Day Two: Ranch Dressing!

Diet, Dietitian, Healthy Diet, Recipe, Smoothie, , , , , , , ,

Today, I realized that there is more to think about when following a vegan lifestyle than just meat and dairy foods. I have to admit to an unintentional slip today – ranch dressing! But I’ll get to that as I go through my meals in pictures.

Breakfast: Kashi Cinnamon Harvest cereal with almond milk, coffee with almond milk and splenda.

An easy vegan breakfast
An easy vegan breakfast

Snack: Roasted spicy chickpeas.

Roasted Spicy Chickpeas
Roasted Spicy Chickpeas

This was a time-consuming recipe; but I’m working on stretching my food dollars so it was worth the effort. I started with a bag of dried garbanzo beans (chickpeas) and soaked and cooked them one day. The next day, I tossed the half of the cooked beans with a tablespoon of canola oil, a pinch of salt, and a fair amount of paprika, cumin, and a touch of cayenne pepper. Then I cooked them in the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour on a baking sheet lined with tin foil and sprayed with canola oil cooking spray. Cook the beans in one layer because the goal is to dry them out until they are a crispy crunchy treat. If you don’t cook them long enough, they will be mealy. I know this from my first attempt at this recipe! Per 1/2-cup serving: 135 calories and 7 grams of protein.

Post-workout snack: granny smith apple courtesy of my gym’s member appreciation day offerings.

Lunch: Last night’s dinner leftovers: Quinoa with red/green bell peppers, red onions, garlic, pineapple, sliced almonds, and a dash of sriracha sauce served with a side of roasted vegetables (beets, carrots, onions) seasoned with canola oil, garlic powder, oregano, and red pepper flakes.

Quinoa bowl and roasted garden vegetables
Quinoa bowl and roasted garden vegetables

Snack: Sweet Peanut Butter Smoothie!

I typically make my smoothies with either milk, yogurt, or almond milk depending on what I have on hand and how much protein and calories I would like to have. This time, I used water and ice instead of a milk or yogurt. I blended banana, pineapple chunks, and peanut butter with water and ice (adjusting to fill my cup and be the consistency and I wanted).

Snack: Celery and snap peas.

This is where I inadvertenly fell off the vegan wagon. I had an evening meeting to attend. The good news is that I brought the snacks and so could bring vegan alternatives. One thing I brought was a veggie tray with ranch dressing. I grabbed a celery stick and dipped it in the ranch dressing and as I was chewing, it hit me that the dressing was probably not vegan! I checked and I was correct – buttermilk is the second ingredient. This made me realize that there are more foods to limit that I realized. I wanted the convenience of the pre-made veggie tray… If only the grocery stores packaged veggie trays with hummus instead of dressing.

Dinner: Portobella mushroom sandwiches (mushroom, lettuce, avocado, mustard on sandwich thin) and Alexia sweet potato fries with ketchup.

Portobella sandwich with sweet potato fries
Portobella sandwich with sweet potato fries

When making the Portobello sandwich, I was reaching for the mayonnaise when I realized that was also not vegan! This is more difficult than a vegetarian diet.

So, how am I feeling? Gassy! There is so much fiber in my diet now!

Otherwise, I’m feeling good and have energy for working out. I’m getting plenty of carbohydrates and calories; but I am still lacking in protein. I love how incredibly low my saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium intake is following a vegan diet. Even with my one unintentional slip, I’m still going strong and feeling good about sticking with this challenge!

Nutrition information: 1360 calories, 204 grams carbohydrates, 43 grams fiber, 35 grams fat, 3 grams saturated fat, 0 trans fat, 0 cholesterol, 43 grams protein, and 725 milligrams sodium. For the daily values, my numbers were 60% calcium, 63% iron, 25% vitamin D, 8% zinc, and 0 vitamin B12.

All images are personal photographs. You may use them as long as you credit me (my name and a link back to my Web site).

Quinoa Loaded Bowl

Thoughts on Dieting and a Quinoa Recipe

Diet, Dietitian, Grains, Healthy Diet, , , , , , ,
One Pea on a Fork
One Pea on a Fork

I believe we should all eat when we are hungry.

I interned and now work part-time with a private practice that specializes in eating disorders. We all have that voice inside our heads that sends us positive and negative messages about our bodies, our food intake, our ability to control these things. Eating disorders, like any psychological illnesses, are normal thought patterns taken to the extreme. Those with eating disorders battle with that voice in their heads and that voice begins to win.

I have also worked briefly at a bariatric surgeon’s office who specialized in lapband surgery. I had ethical issues with his post-surgery diet so it wasn’t a good fit. In the time I worked there, however, I saw another form of disordered eating in both the pre- and post-surgery patients.

 
Both of these populations had lost touch with or flat out ignored their body’s hunger and satiety cues and I, in no way, endorse this.

If you are hungry, eat. If you are not hungry, don’t eat.

Yes, that is simplistic and much easier said than done; but that’s the premise for a healthy relationship with food.

I  also do not believe in “dieting” per se. The research shows time and time again that dieting does not work. No matter the method (low carb, low fat, high protein, shakes, meal plans, or simple calorie restriction), the weight comes off (duh), the dieting stops, and the weight comes back on. The diet mentality is not effective.

One can go “off” a diet and therein lies the problem.

 
I’ll step off my soapbox now to share a recipe and picture. I’m working on my food photography skills. Here is a version of a recipe I found in Clean Eating Magazine.

Quinoa Bowl: 1/2 cup quinoa, 1/2 cup rinsed black beans, 7 grape tomatoes halved, chopped red onion to taste, 1/4 avocado chopped, red wine vinegar to taste, lime juice, and cilantro. YUM!

Nutrition Info: 335 kcal, 56g CHO, 9 g fat, 13g protein.

Quinoa Loaded Bowl
Quinoa Loaded Bowl

Original publication date July 29, 2012 at http://newmotivationcoaching.blogspot.com.Images from personal photographs and http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images

Cheeseburger

Fast Food: Cheeseburger Vs. Salad

Dietitian, Fast Food, Healthy Diet, , , , , , , , , ,
Cheeseburger
Cheeseburger

I admit it. I watched part of The Doctors television show the other day. I caught a segment on how Americans eat and one of the doctors was working at a fast food drive-through window attempting to get customers to choose a healthy meal over the unhealthy meal they were ordering. It did not go that well for him. Only one person on the segment out of four changed their meal after he told them how unhealthy their selection was in terms of calories, fat, and sodium levels.

What stuck with me was that one woman said that a cheeseburger was kind of like a salad. Her point was that salads have vegetables and cheeseburgers have vegetables. Therefore, they are similar. The audience laughed good-heartedly and I groaned and laughed.

Then I got to thinking… Is a fast-food salad really that much better of an option than a fast-food cheeseburger? I turned to the restaurant’s Web sites to make some comparisons.

 

Let me start by saying that there are other choices than what I have compared below. If the Wendy’s Garden Side Salad with no croutons and low-fat dressing (70 calories, 0 g fat, 190 mg sodium) or the ¾-pound Dave’s Hot ‘N Juicy Triple Burger (1060 calories, 67 g fat, 2020 mg sodium) are your choices then yes, the salad is much healthier. However, I have tried to pick middle of the road choices that I think people would make in these examples.

First, I compared a regular McDonald’s Cheeseburger to their Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken (with and without the creamy southwest dressing). As the table below shows, the salad with dressing, which is how most people would order it, has 90 more calories, 2 more grams of fat, and 240 more milligrams of sodium than the cheeseburger. If you can go without the dressing for the salad, you are only saving 10 calories, 4 grams of fat, and 100 milligrams of sodium versus the cheeseburger. That is not a huge difference.

Food Calories Fat Sodium
Cheeseburger 300 12 750
Salad 290 8 650
Salad with dressing 390 14 990

Next, I moved to Wendy’s to compare the Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe to their Apple Pecan Chicken Salad (with and without the pomegranate vinaigrette dressing). Again, the cheeseburger is the healthiest option in terms of calories, fat, and sodium. The salad with dressing has 210 more calories, 8 more grams of fat, and nearly 700 more milligrams of sodium. If you can go without the dressing, you will still have 100 more calories and 3 more grams of fat than the cheeseburger; but you will save almost 300 milligrams of sodium.

Food Calories Fat Sodium
Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe 350 19 850
Salad 450 21 580
Salad with dressing 560 27 1540

I could continue; but I think the pattern is clear. The salad is not always the healthier choice at a fast food restaurant. We are still operating under the assumption that the salad is always healthier, or at least that audience and I were, and that is just not true! Now, there is a lot to consider when deciding which choice is healthier, such as the types of fats, cholesterol, and other nutrients such as the vitamins and minerals. But if I included all of that, you would have stopped reading by now…

My advice?

1. – Avoid the fast food places altogether. You can make a yummy salad or a healthier cheeseburger at home using a small portion of lean grass-fed beef, low-fat cheese, and lots of vegetables.

2. – If you cannot avoid the fast food restaurant, ask for the nutrition information before you order (many have handouts) or look at their Web site before you go. Most importantly, make your choice before you order at the register (where you can see the pictures and smell the food).

3. – Realize that what you think may be an unhealthy choice, may not be the unhealthiest choice on the menu. Sometimes, the cheeseburger may be better than the salad.

 

As always – enjoy your food!

 

Original publication date: December 10, 2011 at http://newmotivationcoaching.blogspot.com

Image from: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images

A Healthy Plate from ChooseMyPlate.gov

Fill Your Plate with Color for National Nutrition Month

Dietitian, Healthy Diet, National Nutrition Month, , , , , , , , ,
A Healthy Plate from ChooseMyPlate.gov
A Healthy Plate from ChooseMyPlate.gov

March is National Nutrition Month and what better way to celebrate than with a plateful of colors?

The Academy of Nurtition and Dietetics’s (formerly theAmerican Dietetic Association) theme for the 2011 National Nutrition Month is “eat right with color” to emphasize the importance of choosing a variety of foods to promote optimal health. Since different colors of food contain different types of nutrients, incorporating a variety colors provides a wide range of nutrients that our bodies need to function at their best.

Other guidelines for healthy eating include:

Enjoy 2-3 servings of fruit every day. These provide many vitamins and minerals in the form of phytochemicals along with fiber. Eat the skins when you can! Fresh fruits make a great snack food, frozen fruits add thickness to homemade smoothies, and fruits can be pureed to use in place of fats in baking.

Sneak in 5-7 servings of vegetables every day. It’s important to eat vegetables from all five categories – dark green, orange/deep yellow, starchy, legumes (peas and beans), and others such as onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, okra, green beans, and cucumbers. Vegetables provide many nutrients and fiber. Pile vegetables on sandwiches, add to sauces and frozen entrees, and puree to add to soups. Just be sure to not add on calorie-laden sauces!

Aim for making half of your grain selections whole. Whole grains provide fiber and carbohydrates necessary for energy and brain power. Replace processed, refined, white products with whole grain products when choosing rice, pasta, and bread. Not all brands taste the same, so don’t give up if you don’t like the first one you try.

Lean meats and dairy are good choices for protein. Proteins are the building blocks of our bodies; they are the basis for our enzymes and hormones and build muscle that enables us to move. Proteins are typically high in fat. The healthiest options are to choose lean cuts of meat, to remove visible fat and grease when cooking, and to look for low-fat or non-fat dairy products.

Last but not least are the fats. Fats are a major component of our cell membranes, they provide padding for our internal organs, and they help with absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins. Just be sure to choose the healthier mono- and poly-unsaturated fats found in avocado, almonds, walnuts, fatty fish, and canola, safflower, or olive oils.

Fill your plate with a variety of colors while following the above guidelines and you are taking a big step towards good health.

By the way… March 9th is Registered Dietitian Day. Have you hugged your RD lately?

Original publication date: March 2, 2011 at http://newmotivationcoaching.blogspot.com.

Image from: Choosemyplate.gov.