Linguine with Olives, Eggplant and Artichokes

(makes 6 servings)

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp olive oil, divided
  
  


• 4 small eggplants, quartered
  
  


• 1 (14 oz.) can artichoke hearts, drained and halved
  
  


• 1 red onion, chopped
  
  


• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  
  


• 1 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
  
  


• 2½ cups canned peeled tomatoes with juice
  
  


• 2 tsp sugar
  
  


• 2 tbsp tomato paste
  
  


• 1 cup pitted black olives
  
  


• 12 oz. linguine
  
  


• Salt and pepper to taste (Nutrition Fact calculated without added salt.)
  
  


• Fresh thyme leaves (optional)
  
  

Preparation:

• In a large-sized saucepan, heat 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat.
  
  


• Add onion, garlic, lemon juice and eggplant and cook until lightly browned (about 5 minutes), stirring occasionally.
  
  


• Stir in tomatoes, sugar and tomato paste then raise heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes.
  
  


• Add artichoke hearts, black olives and continue to simmer for about 5 minutes.
  
  


• Cook linguine according to package instructions. Drain pasta and add to a large-sized bowl. Toss with remaining olive oil. Add tomato mixture and toss well to coat.
  
  


• Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately garnished with fresh thyme.
  
  

Make 6 Servings:

Weight loss recipes Amount Per Serving(1/6 of recipe (399 g)): 380 Calories, 17 g Protein, 63 g carbohydrates, 9 g Dietary Fiber, 9 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 571 mg sodium

White Bean and Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza

(makes 6 servings)

Ingredients:

• ½ cup sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil), chopped
  
  


• 1 (15 oz.) can Great Northern or Navy beans, drained
  
  


• 1 package (10 oz.) thin crust pre-made pizza crust (such as "Boboli")
  
  


• ½ cup shredded, reduced fat, Mozzarella cheese
  
  


• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
  
  


• ¼ tsp dried oregano
  
  


• 1 cup shredded fresh basil leaves
  
  

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
  
  


• In a small bowl, place sun-dried tomatoes and pour boiling water over them enough to just cover and let stand for about 10 minutes until soften them. Drain well then chop into thin strips.
  
  


• Place beans, garlic and oregano in a blender. Cover and blend until smooth.
  
  


• Spread bean paste over surface of pizza crust.


• Sprinkle with sun-dried tomatoes, cheese and basil.


• Place pizza on a (ungreased) cookie sheet or pizza pan and bake at 425 degrees F until cheese is melted (about 10 minutes).
  
  

Make 6 Servings:

Weight loss recipes Amount Per Serving(1/6 of recipe (143 g)): 261 Calories, 14 g Protein, 42 g carbohydrates, 5 g Dietary Fiber, 5 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 6 mg cholesterol, 419 mg sodium

Finding joy in food / 183.6

I've been following this young lady's blog for the last couple of years. She follows a vegan diet and eats very healthy. She maintains her prefect healthy weight through eating natural whole foods.

What amazes me is when you look at the food she prepares it doesn't look at all like "diet" food. She uses wholesome ingredients and never mentions calories. She eats real food.

Since obviously what I've been doing isn't really working for me lately (like the last year or more), I thought it's time I take a different approach to my eating. Instead of constantly going for the totally non-fat, sugar-free, lowest calories food, I'm going to try eating more whole foods and fewer processed foods.

I'm going to stay with Weight Watchers and will still count Points and track my food, but I want to eat different food. A woman (or man) cannot live by chicken breasts and Brussels sprouts forever.

I attended two Weight Watcher meetings this week, one on Wednesday (at-work meeting) and one today. The topic for both was the same, about having a variety in your food. If you eat the same thing you'll get bored and start overeating, trying to compensate for the boredom. I'm living proof of this statement.

This is exactly where I've been for the past year. I couldn't even remember the last time I tried a new food. My breakfast for the last three years has been the same almost every single day. A couple of times I'd try oatmeal (yuk!), and immediately would go back to my same boring (although delicious) breakfast.

In case you're wondering, my breakfast was a healthy egg McMuffin type meal: one egg, 28 grams 2% sharp cheddar cheese, 4 thin slices Canadian bacon, 1 sandwich thin. PointsPlus = 8. Full of protein and cheesy goodness, but after three years, extremely boring.

After Wednesday's Weight Watcher meeting, I tried Fiber One pancakes. Thursday and Friday I had a mashed banana added to the Fiber One pancake mix and sugar-free pancake syrup (Smuckers). It was okay, but not fantastic. I didn't like the sugar-free syrup, although it tasted okay, I try to stay away from artificial sweeteners and usually have Stevia if I must have something sweet. It just didn't seem healthy. Processed Fiber One mix and sugar-free syrup, not exactly natural or a whole food.

Today I decided to break away from my usual practice of figuring out the Points before I eat. I know, scary idea isn't it? Breakfast today was really breakfast/lunch at 12:30 p.m. so I knew I had a lot of Points to play with (I get 29 a day and still have 44 of weeklies to use this week, plus all my activity Points).

I saw a recipe on Angela's blog that looked and sounded wonderful. Spiced-up Stacked Pumpkin Butter Pancakes For One.

I couldn't make them exactly as she said because I couldn't find the Kamut flour at the nutrition center of my local Fred Meyers. Instead, I used Bob's Red Mill Organic High Fiber Pancake and Waffle (a combination of several different types of organic whole grains). I added only a teaspoon of baking powder to make them fluffier, but not as much as Angela added since the mix already contained some baking powder.

I purchased my first jar of Nature's Way EfaGold Coconut Oil, pure extra virgin. I cringed when I looked at the calories, but I was determined to make the recipe as close to Angela's as I could. You can read about the benefits of coconut oil here. I've been reading about it on several blogs but sort of blew it off. I mean, it's an oil and very high in calories. However, I eat olive oil since it's healthy and it's high in calories too. I think it's time I try something different in the oil department.

Angela has a Pumpkin Butter recipe that I'm going to try, but this morning I didn't want to take the time. Instead I purchased R.W. Knudsen's Organic Apple Butter (one PointsPlus per tablespoon).

I made the pancakes using the Bob's Pancake mix and substituted the store-bought apple butter for the pumpkin butter as the topping. I added one tablespoon pecans on top of the apple butter and had one egg on the side (for extra protein and I'm a big egg lover).

This meal was fit for a king. I'm not kidding you when I say this was the best pancake I've ever eaten in my entire life. The total PointsPlus for everything was 14. That's a lot for one meal, but it was my breakfast and lunch together, and it was delightful. Worth every Point.

I'm going to stop by the health food store and pick up some Kamut flour, but I doubt it can beat the pancake I had today. I also plan to whip up the Pumpkin Butter. I'm not sure if the Points will be that much different than the store-bough Apple Butter, but I'd like to try it anyway.

Since I put away the book by she-who-shall-not-be-named I feel 100% better about myself and my life. Looking back at the past and dwelling on unpleasant situations really doesn't work for me. I'd rather look towards the future. I'm feeling very positive and happy today (it helps that the sun is shining).

Taking joy in our food isn't a bad thing. In fact, I think it's a much  healthier way to look at food, rather than think of it as the enemy. We need to grab our joy where we can find it, as long as it's good for us and healthy. I really believe it's okay if that joy is in our food.

~Diana

Picture from this morning, on my way to Weight Watchers

 Beautiful sky

Close up of the flowers that are just starting to pop out on our tree int he front yard.

Down down down & out

Would love to tell you peeps that I have lost shit loads this month. Haven't. But have lost!

YAAY

Last Saturday I had a little teeny weeny fill with Jane. Just 0.2mls but bugger me, what a difference! I have puked quite a bit, so I need to go careful until i work it out. I haven't, however, had one of those god awful 'can't swallow my own spit' episodes. I think i would definitely have had one if I had had 0.25!! Isn't it funny how very very VERY little fluid makes a difference when things are going right!

It's impressed me to be honest.

I am currently waiting on my Roast Beef dinner to go down... small amount of vomit where I didn't completely chew a bit of broccoli to death... and then I can have my pudding. I might give it about 2 hours until I try!

All I can say girls is HOOOO FUCKING RAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got on the scale this morning, and it wasn't earth shattering (maybe that is a good thing too!! HAHA) but it was lower. 114.9kgs. A whole new number to play around with and plug into the Gym Machines!!

I have only lost 7kgs since October, but I feel so much better for it. This time last year I was only a few pounds lower than I am now. That gives me a lot of hope as I got a whole HEAP heavier. It's slow, but the trend is down down down!!!

Tomorrow I have ambitiously decided to stage a Hen Night for my friend.

We start with tapas... mixed olives, cheeses and quail eggs then a starter of Mozzarella wrapped with Prosciutto and dressed with a Chilli Spiked Pesto, followed for Main of a Mixed Fondue - Beef, Scallops, Prawns, Corn, Okra, Broccoli and Cauliflower with different dips and a tempura batter to fry it in and the finishing with Rhubarb and Lemongrass Fool, with rhubarb lemonade (made with the juice from the rhubarb, desert wine and lemon juice!! YUM)

should be good, but with the stress, having to wear a bra and the general quantity I am feeling less than optimistic about how much I will eat. At least I am at home and can puke at will!! LOL

Anyway, much love ladies, must go and watch my fave show... Home and Away!!! LOVE IT!

night all

Lemon Chicken

(makes 4 servings)

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, trimmed of excess fat
  
  


• 2 tbsp chopped fresh or 2 tsp dried basil leaves
  
  


• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
  
  


• 2 tbsp lemon juice
  
  


• 2 tsp olive oil, canola oil or vegetable oil
  
  


• ½ tsp salt
  
  


• 1 clove garlic, minced
  
  


• Non-fat cooking spray
  
  

Preparation:

• Make lemon sauce: In a medium bowl Beat remaining ingredients with a fork.
  
  


• Spray a 10” skillet with cooking spray and cook chicken over medium-high heat until juices are no longer pink when thickest part of chicken is cut (about15 minutes).
  
  


• Pour some lemon sauce over chicken, turn chicken over and cook for an additional 15-20 seconds.
  
  


• Serve chicken topped with remainder of sauce.
  
  

Make 4 Servings:

Weight loss recipes Amount Per Serving(1 chicken breast (114 g)): 188 Calories, 31 g Protein, 1 g carbohydrates, 0 g Dietary Fiber, 6 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 84 mg cholesterol, 597 mg sodium

Cauliflower and Leek Quiche

(makes 2 pies or 12 servings)

Ingredients:

• 2 (9”) un-baked pie shells, at room temperature.
  
  


• 1 leek, chopped
  
  


• 1 cup cauliflower, chopped
  
  


• 1 tbsp butter
  
  


• 8 eggs, lightly beaten
  
  


• 2 cups shredded cheese, (half mozzarella, half cheddar)
  
  


• 1½ cups low fat milk
  
  

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
  
  


• Toast pie crusts in oven for about 10 minutes.
  
  


• Sauté cauliflower and leeks in butter until soft.
  
  


• Blend eggs, milk and cheese together until blended.
  
  


• Sprinkle a thin layer of sautéed cauliflower and leeks onto bottom of toasted pie crusts.
  
  


• Pour eggs and cheese mixture over cauliflower and leeks.
  
  


• Bake in oven until knife inserted near center comes out clean (about 30 to 35 minutes).
  
  

Make 12 Servings:

Weight loss recipes Amount Per Serving(1/6 of recipe (119 g)): 247 Calories, 11 g Protein, 14 g carbohydrates, 1 g Dietary Fiber, 16 g fat, 6 g saturated fat, 145 mg cholesterol, 310 mg sodium

Food Reward: a Dominant Factor in Obesity, Part I

A Curious Finding

It all started with one little sentence buried in a paper about obese rats. I was reading about how rats become obese when they're given chocolate Ensure, the "meal replacement drink", when I came across this:

...neither [obesity-prone] nor [obesity-resistant] rats will overeat on either vanilla- or strawberry-flavored Ensure.

The only meaningful difference between chocolate, vanilla and strawberry Ensure is the flavor, yet rats eating the chocolate variety overate, rapidly gained fat and became metabolically ill, while rats eating the other flavors didn't (1). Furthermore, the study suggested that the food's flavor determined, in part, what amount of fatness the rats' bodies "defended."

As I explained in previous posts, the human (and rodent) brain regulates the amount of fat the body carries, in a manner similar to how the brain regulates blood pressure, body temperature, blood oxygenation and blood pH (2). That fact, in addition to several other lines of evidence, suggests that obesity probably results from a change in this regulatory system. I refer to the amount of body fat that the brain defends as the "body fat setpoint", however it's clear that the setpoint is dependent on diet and lifestyle factors. The implication of this paper that I could not escape is that a food's flavor influences body fatness and probably the body fat setpoint.

An Introduction to Food Reward

The brain contains a sophisticated system that assigns a value judgment to everything we experience, integrating a vast amount of information into a one-dimensional rating system that labels things from awesome to terrible. This is the system that decides whether we should seek out a particular experience, or avoid it. For example, if you burn yourself each time you touch the burner on your stove, your brain will label that action as bad and it will discourage you from touching it again. On the other hand, if you feel good every time you're cold and put on a sweater, your brain will encourage that behavior. In the psychology literature, this phenomenon is called "reward," and it's critical to survival.

The brain assigns reward to, and seeks out, experiences that it perceives as positive, and discourages behaviors that it views as threatening. Drugs of abuse plug directly into reward pathways, bypassing the external routes that would typically trigger reward. Although this system has been studied most in the context of drug addiction, it evolved to deal with natural environmental stimuli, not drugs.

As food is one of the most important elements of survival, the brain's reward system is highly attuned to food's rewarding properties. The brain uses input from smell, taste, touch, social cues, and numerous signals from the digestive tract* to assign a reward value to foods. Experiments in rats and humans have outlined some of the qualities of food that are inherently rewarding:

• Fat
• Starch
• Sugar
• Salt
• Meatiness (glutamate)
• The absence of bitterness
  
• Certain textures (e.g., soft or liquid calories, crunchy foods)
• Certain aromas (e.g., esters found in many fruits)
• Calorie density ("heavy" food)
  

We are generally born liking the qualities listed above, and aromas and flavors that are associated with these qualities become rewarding over time. For example, beer tastes terrible the first time you drink it because it's bitter, but after you drink it a few times and your brain catches wind that there are calories and a drug in there, it often begins tasting good. The same applies to many vegetables. Children are generally not fond of vegetables, but if you serve them spinach smothered in butter enough times, they'll learn to like it by the time they're adults.

The human brain evolved to deal with a certain range of rewarding experiences. It didn't evolve to constructively manage strong drugs of abuse such as heroin and crack cocaine, which overstimulate reward pathways, leading to the pathological drug seeking behaviors that characterize addiction. These drugs are "superstimuli" that exceed our reward system's normal operating parameters. Over the next few posts, I'll try to convince you that in a similar manner, industrially processed food, which has been professionally crafted to maximize its rewarding properties, is a superstimulus that exceeds the brain's normal operating parameters, leading to an increase in body fatness and other negative consequences.


* Nerves measure stomach distension. A number of of gut-derived paracrine and endocrine signals, including CCK, PYY, ghrelin, GLP-1 and many others potentially participate in food reward sensing, some by acting directly on the brain via the circulation, and others by signaling indirectly via the vagus nerve. More on this later.