Cherry Bran Wonders

Have you ever just wanted to eat through your frozen foods in your freezer because you were too tired to cook?  Yea, well - that was me this week.

I am exhausted.  I came down with a stomach bug last week and my appetite has not returned to normal yet.  And while losing a few pounds a la stomach bug isn't necessarily bad, I am a little hungry and want some decent food.

In the throws of my illness, saltines and fruit were my drugs of choice. Just the thought of certain foods threatened the breadth of my appetite when I was sick (Eggs! ewww. Peanut butter! not going to happen). Wanting something that could sustain me a bit more than my crackers and oranges diet, I decided to try to make myself muffins.  Low effort, high energy, and enough food for a few meals - perfect!

Using whole grains which have been shown to improve weight loss success and help with long term weight maintenance; dried cherries which are rich in antioxidants for anti-aging and high in melatonin which can aid in sleep which helps with weight loss; and other simple ingredients, I concocted something that my stomach could handle.  Cherry Bran Wonders!

Cherry Bran Wonders

• 3/4 cup dried cherries (Try getting these in bulk from Whole Foods: wholefoodsmarket.com)
• 1.5 cups oat bran (you can get this dry and in whatever quantity you want at Whole Foods: wholefoodsmarket.com
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1.5 t cinnamon
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 c applesauce
• 1 T canola oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix all ingredients. Grease/oil muffin pan. Spoon ingredients into muffin pan until each muffin cup is 3/4 full.

3. Bake for 12 to 15 min, or until toothpick comes out clean.

4. Enjoy!

The 3 Foods Everyone Should Have In Their Diet

While I am not someone who thinks of what I eat as 'diet' foods, nor do I obsess over how much fiber I have had; how many servings of fruits and veggies I have had; or how many calories I have consumed; I do believe that certain foods are essential to my nutrition.  On that list of foods are those that are rich in monounsaturated fatty acids (aka MUFAs).

MUFAs have been shown to help people lose weight and keep it off, burn belly fat, reduce food intake, and much more.  The secret to why MUFAs are so great for us? They are healthy fats that can help with satiety.  Yep, HEALTHY fats.  Seems like an oxymoron, right?  These are cape-worthy super-fats that can help enhance heart health and protect against chronic disease.

MUFAs can:

• boost the number of calories burned within the first 5 hours after consuming a meal
• help you feel full on less calories, due to the natural fats contained in these foods
• help decrease body inflammation that can lead to co-morbid conditions, including heart disease and type II diabetes

So what should you add to your diet to ensure that you are taking advantage of these wonder fats?  Here are the Three Foods That Everyone Should Have In Their Diet

•  Nuts and nuts butters - people who ate peanut butter in their morning meal were less likely to binge late and remained fuller longer.  Nut butters are also some of the cheapest health foods on the market! Nuts are a wonder food due to the perfect combination of fat to fiber to protein. Try almond butter or almonds, which are higher in fiber than other nuts.  Add it to the power protein shake (on my site) or have it on some whole wheat toast.
• Olives and olive oil - People who ate olive oil had less inflammation in their bodies and controlled their hunger better than those who did not eat olive oil.  This wonder food is most often associated with the Mediterranean diet but olive oil can be used anywhere and on almost anything.  (think Rachel Ray, with her EVOO -extra virgin olive oil). I cook with it in almost all my recipes, so browse around for a recipe that catches your taste buds.
• Avocado - this amazing food can be found in guacamole, added to salads, used instead of butter for rich but mild flavor
• check out some of the recipes on my site, including the Mang-cado Summer Salmon and the Blue-n-Green Salad

For more information, stories, or Qs, please email me at lunchladycynthia@gmail.com

Cod and Sundried Tomato Saute

I had a great day today.  I went to the gym on my schedule, I ate when I wanted to and what I wanted to instead of being bound by meetings, I read...I took care of myself.  One of the most important and valuable things that we need to do and remind ourselves to do is take care of ourselves.  When we love and respect ourselves, we can give more of ourselves to other aspects of our lives (friends, family, work, children, etc...).

Part of respecting and loving yourself is making sure that you eat healthfully and feel good about yourself.  The mind-body benefits of healthful eating cannot best be captured in words, but is best understood once you experience it.  You have more energy, you sleep better, your mood changes, your body says 'thank you,' your cravings for other toxic food dissolve, and so much more.

Today, I took care of me.  And in taking care of myself, I cooked a delicious dinner of cod, which has high levels of DHA and EPA which have been linked to greater fat loss in people.  The mushrooms and spinach are high in water, fiber, antioxidants and folate which help make you feel full sooner and help fight cells damaged by poor eating habits, stress, sun, etc.

Cod and Sundried Tomato Saute

• ~1 lb cod, marinated in ~1/8 cup worsteshire, ~1/8 cup dry red wine, Spices of Provence, garlic, crushed red pepper (marinate for up to 3 hours in the fridge)
• ~1 c spinach
• ~1 package shitake mushroom (you can also use baby belle or portobello, but I like shitake because they nicely and gently absorb the flavors of your dish)
• 5-6 sundried tomatoes, sliced
• 2-3 white onion slices, chopped
• 6-8 kalamata olives, sliced
• ~3T pine nuts
• ~1.5T crushed garlic
• ~2T olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 deg.  Once oven reaches temperature, put fish into the oven (I use a metal pan) and cook for 20 min or until fish flakes.

2. In a satue pan on high heat, put olive oil with garlic and onion into the pan and cook until onion begins to brown.  

3. Next add the olives, tomatoes, and pine nuts and allow the flavors to mix.

4.To the satue pan, add the mushrooms and let them soften.  Last, add the spinach, sauteing until it wilts.  Sprinkle with garlic powder and salt.

5. Take the fish from the oven.  Take a portion of the sundried tomato saute and sprinkle with feta cheese.  Enjoy!

The Kitchen Sink Salad

 For comments, Qs, stories, please email me at lunchladycynthia@gmail.com.  I would love to hear from you!

I have been doing a lot of traveling these days - some for work and some for play...nonetheless it keeps me happy and open-minded to the world.  It makes me realize that there is life outside the bubble that I exist in among work, friends, family, and my home.

Most recently I returned home from a trip to CT, where I saw my best friend from childhood get married to her high school sweetheart.  Having grown up in CT, it was great to be back in familiar territory.  Moreover, I was surrounded by a select few friends from my childhood who knew me at my core.  And while a little less than a decade had passed since I had really seen these friends or spoken with them, it was as if only a day stood between our last conversation and the ones we were engaged in over drinks and dinner at this wedding.  Amazing - that even as kids we all saw each other and knew each other at our core.  We were as transparent to each other this past weekend as adults having found their identities as we were to each other as kids in elementary school.  How beautiful :-)

Upon returning home, I had little in my fridge to make for dinner.  A head of romaine, beans, olives, tofettes, and some other ingredients.  Nonetheless it was enough to craft a salad, even if the ingredients were a bit of everything, sort of like the kitchen sink!  The beans had filling, colon-cancer-fighting fiber; the tofu full of protein for muscle and metabolism boosting goodness; the olives full of healthy fats; and well...you get the picture.

Kitchen Sink Salad:

• 1/2 cup peas
• 1 heart of romaine, chopped
• 1/2 c kidney beans
• 3 spicy tofette patties (or ~1/3 of a package) (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tofettes/97825364607)
• 2T gorgonzola crumbles
• 5 black olives, sliced
• garlic powder, to taste
• cumin, to tastse
• 3T dressing, of choice (I used: http://www.bolthouse.com/html/cs_thousand_island_n.html)
• 1/4 c cottage cheese (a delicious boost of protein, but I understand if it sounds too weird to add to a veggie salad...give it a try in a small amount - it's delicious and you can thank me later)

Mix all ingredients and enjoy!

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Mindful Eating and 5 Tips to Try Be a Conscious Eater

I'd love to hear from you! For comments, Qs please email me at lunchladycynthia@gmail.com.

I just came home from CT after seeing my long-time childhood friend get married.  We both grew up in CT, and while she lives in CT I have not been back in a almost a decade.  Needless to say that while I was excited to revisit my past home as well as some of the people that I know and love that grew up with me, I was also a bit terrified.  I mean, what if we had all changed so much that we had nothing to talk about? What if we don't recognize each other because we are all getting older, wrinkles and gravity making themselves at home on our faces and bodies? What if we all are succumbing to deteriorating genes, with saddles bags and spare tires setting in (and no, I am not referring to alternate modes of transportation)?

Scary thoughts aside, it hit me -  Screw it, I am just really happy to be here and enjoying the company of people that I love and that love me back. I don't want to worry about the past vs how we are now.  I just want to enjoy the moment.

Living in the moment (also referred to by my dad as 'being a dog' for dogs' abilities to forget the past and remain present) can help us all become more aware of our bodies, thoughts, and emotions.  This can also help us understand why we eat, since many of us use food as a divergence.

But check this out: mindfulness that comes from practicing yoga, meditation, and pilates has actually been shown to help moderate food intake and maintain a healthy weight.  Some of the food mantras that make yogis particularly successful at minding their weight include:

• slower eating
• savoring food's flavors
• eating only when your stomach is about to shrivel up and die it's so hungry

To get fit and practice more mindful eating as a means to aiding weight loss, try these 5 things:

• rank your hunger  -imagine a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is full and 5 is that you want to eat your fingernails as your next meal.  Now, every time that you are hungry and about to eat, rank your hunger, noting your emotions as well.  If you are not at least a 4 on the hunger scale - stomach talking, thinking is blurry - then you may be using food as a divergence.
• log your food - seeing on paper how much you ate in a day may be startling, but may also help you become a more conscious eater.  You may be surprised at what you find, which can lead to more conscious eating. Log your food intake daily with columns for
• type of food
• portion of food
• time of day
• emotions feeling/events that just occurred
• hunger rating (see above)

• eat more (green) protein -  protein is harder for your body to break down so more energy is spent digesting it than other foods, like fats or carbohydrates.  Because protein is harder to break down, your body expends 20-30% more energy using protein as energy which not only boosts metabolism but also keeps you fuller, longer. Since animal protein produces a lot of greenhouse gases and may have unnecessary hormones/preservatives, try dabbling in greener protein sources a few times a week or more.  Some great non-meat protein sources include: seitan, gardein, tofu, and even fish.  Whole foods has some great non-meat proteins so check them out: wholefoodsmarket.com.
• drink before you eat - water, that is...often times, 60% of your hunger is actually thirst but we have lost touch with our bodies thirst and hunger signals.  So reach for a glass of water next time you are hungry.  If after 30 min you are still hungry then perhaps you truly are...
• exercise vigorously - vigorous, heart-pumping exercise has been shown to help dull appetite, while moderate exercise may stimulate it.  A dulled appetite may be able to help us feel true hunger when it hits and divert emotional or external hunger when it arises.  Shoot for intervals (1 min heart-pounding exercise, 2 min moderate exercise) for 30 or more minutes for maximum benefit.

Tell me what you do to test your hunger or how you effectively manage your weight!  Comments are welcome!


Happy spring 2010,
Lunch Lady Cynthia