I got caught up on my backlog of new recipes … finally! They always take longer to type up than I expect but now they’re done and posted in the “Recipes” tab up top.
I know you’re lazy, too, but you actually have to hover over the Recipes tab and then click on the recipes. Sorry for making you work so hard!
But then you’ll see Smoked Salmon Reubens … Cheezy Broccoli Soup … Grandma’s Vinegar Cake …. and more!
Enjoy!
I found a very cool website called My Fridge Food. It lists common items and you click the boxes of the ingredients you have on hand. Then it presents you with a list of recipes you can make.
I plugged in bacon, salsa, eggs, lemon juice and broth and immediately a long list popped up.
Seems I have 100% of the required ingredients for BACON CUPS!
I also had 67% of the ingredients for Easy Guacamole (although not so easy without an avocado) as well as Chicken Noodles with a Twist. The ‘Twist,’ I presume, was that I had no chicken. Or noodles. I was all over the lemon, though.
I had 50% of the ingredients for 21 recipes, and 40% of ingredients for a bunch of recipes, and 33% of ingredients for even more than that. Truth be told, I have more than just those five ingredients in my house, so these figures aren’t technically true. But I’m always looking for another bacon-salsa-eggs-lemon juice-broth recipe. You really can’t have too many.
You can sort the recipes by percent of ingredients, category, number of ingredients, cooking time, calories, carbs, fat, or protein.
I can see a lot of uses for this website.
For instance, they tell you the ingredients you’re missing which allows you to substitute something that you do have.
It’s obviously great for the immediate problem of “Gah! I’m HUNgry! What can I make with this stuff?”
My 81-year-old father lives alone and plays a game he probably calls “Grocery Store.” The rules are simple; he doesn’t buy any groceries until he is completely out of all the food in his house. All. The. Food. As you can imagine, it makes for some exciting and unique dinners. Much in the same way buying cans without labels does.
But also, My Fridge Food could be a great planning tool. What if my grocery budget is running low so I only want to buy cheap stuff this week? What can I make with beans, eggs, peanut butter and ramen?
Or, “I’m looking for different low-calorie recipes; here are all the items I like to eat, O Wise and Generous Website.”
I can’t wait to play around in there some more, but first I have to go stuff some scrambled eggs and salsa in my Bacon Cups. I think I’ll hold back the lemon juice and broth for something fancy when company comes. Cocktails, perhaps.
So what can YOU make with the weird stuff shoved in the back of your fridge? (And don’t be telling me there’s no weird stuff. If you’re reading this, I know you have at least a teensy lazy streak and that means, by default, there’s weird stuff in there!)
I read an article about J. Graham Thomas’ study of over 6,000 people who have maintained a weight loss of one year or more. Ninety percent of them had lost weight in the past but put it all back on.
So how did they keep the weight off this time?
1. Committed to at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise/day
2. Limited TV time to less than 10 hours/week
3. Ate a low-calorie diet with less than 30% calories from fat
4. They stuck to regular eating patterns; not much food variety
5. Ate breakfast every day
6. Avoided emotional eating and fast food
7. Had weekly weigh-ins and tracked calories
No magic bullets and, I’m happy to say, everything I preach here in LazyLand. Except that TV thing … how’s a girl supposed to forget she’s on an elliptical, if she’s not immersed in Liz Lemon’s problems??
Don’t you just love Liz Lemon?
Did you read what Mary Schreiner had to say about protein, carbs and ‘mixing it up’ the other day? And about metabolism?
Mary Schreiner, MPH (Masters in Public Health) has worked in the weight management arena since 1990 with both the American Heart Association and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Besides teaching weight loss classes, she’s been involved in several Low-Carb vs Low-Calorie studies. Since she was overweight into young adulthood, she knows how difficult the struggle with weight control can be. It’s more than just eating less and exercising more. She speaks on several health related topics like:
~ Nutrition and Diet in Disease Prevention: Heart Disease, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s
~ Weight Loss Tips and Tricks
~ Women and Heart Disease
~ Exercise – The Fountain of Youth!
Here is another question I asked her.
• If you’re trying to keep your calories in check so you can lose or maintain your weight, how do you know how many calories you should be eating every day?
When trying to lose weight, I often advise people to find out their Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and use that number as the number of calories you should be eating each day. Then, the more you move = the more calories you burn = the quicker you will lose weight.
We all would love to lose 30 pounds in a week and never have to diet again. However, our bodies do not work like that. It is better to lose slowly (1 pound a week equals 52 pounds in a year!). And if done in a slow fashion, that usually indicates a person is:
1 – eating enough calories each day so they do not get too hungry
2 – are possibly making some lifestyle changes (choosing leaner protein, using low fat items, eating more fruits and veg for snacks) that they will continue after the diet
3 – getting added activity most days, even if just a 10-minute walk at lunch time and parking farther away from the office or store.
4 – has created an eating plan that includes a mid-morning and a mid-afternoon snack
Mary has generously offered to review one lucky reader’s food journal so tell me why you’d like feedback on your diet, either by leaving a comment or privately through the ‘Contact Me’ page. Creativity counts, as would tugging at my heartstrings and/or making me laugh. You’d have to do a few days of writing down EXACTLY what you eat — including quantities — so Mary can give you good feedback. I’ll also want to post the journal and the feedback so that others might learn, too. I don’t have to post your name, though.
Let the commenting begin! *insert royal sweeping arm motion here*
I’ll have more questions for Mary in the future, but what about you? What do you want to ask a nutritionist? Do you do the four things to lose weight slowly? Do you want your food journal studied?
Mary Schreiner, MPH (Masters in Public Health) has worked in the weight management arena since 1990 with both the American Heart Association and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Besides teaching weight loss classes, she’s been involved in several Low-Carb vs Low-Calorie studies. Since she was overweight into young adulthood, she knows how difficult the struggle with weight control can be. It’s more than just eating less and exercising more. She speaks on several health related topics like:
~ Nutrition and Diet in Disease Prevention: Heart Disease, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s
~ Weight Loss Tips and Tricks
~ Women and Heart Disease
~ Exercise – The Fountain of Youth!
Here are some more of the questions I asked her.
• We blame a lot of our weight gain on our metabolism. Can you talk about metabolism and how it relates to our weight gain or loss?
Metabolism refers to how many calories a person burns on a daily basis. RMR or Resting Metabolic Rate indicates how many calories a person burns at rest. In other words, if you were sick in bed all day, you would still be burning calories.
Most people’s metabolisms are determined by their size. The larger a person is, the more calories he/she will burn just in maintaining their current size. And, when a larger person gets some exercise, he/she will burn more calories than a smaller person doing an identical activity.
There are some people who seemingly have a higher metabolism. They seem to be able to eat anything and everything and never gain weight. Maybe they are blessed, but they may actually be moving more than the average person. These often are the people who swing their leg while sitting, or tap a pencil on the desk. In other words, some part of their body seems to always be in motion and therefore burning calories.
For the general population, metabolism slows down as we age. This occurs because most people are not getting daily exercise and are not doing any activity that encourages muscle strength. We slow down first, then the metabolism slows. Muscle burns a lot more calories than fat. As we age, our body fat increases as our muscle mass decreases… so there goes our calorie burning mechanism.
But this does not have to happen. Getting some aerobic activity (walking, swimming, biking, dancing, etc) 5 or 6 times a week will help burn the body fat. Doing some weight training, carrying your groceries, walking up stairs, even gardening will help to maintain the muscle you currently have. And you can build muscle by doing weight training at the proper intensity. Those one-pound weights will not do the trick.
How do you know that you are at the right intensity to get the muscle building benefit? A couple of sessions with a personal trainer at a local gym or recreation center will set you up with a safe and appropriate routine. It is worth the investment.
When losing weight, you will lose water, fat, and muscle. That is one reason that dieting alone will make you fatter. If you diet, then gain the weight back, you will gain back fat and water. So your weight might ultimately be the same as before the diet, but now your body fat percent is up and your muscle mass percent is down. Exercise is essential during, and even more essential after, losing weight. You want that muscle back!
• Is there a way to accurately test our metabolism to know exactly what our resting metabolic rate is?
There are several good websites that can help you determine your Resting Metabolic Rate, and they often will let you see how many calories you burn while doing certain activities like walking, swimming, house work, etc.
Many of these sites have good tips for losing weight, offer food diaries for your use, and will even look up the calories for you if you tell them what and how much you are eating.
Calories Per Hour : look for the RMR calculator. It will ask for your gender, height, weight, and age then will give you a pretty accurate number. It will also show you how many calories you would burn by becoming more active. Good motivation.
Spark People : lots of good information especially about exercise, diet, and weight loss.
Calorie King has a book where you can look up the calories in almost any food, but their website lets you track you calories and exercise, and lets you know if you are really burning more calories that you are eating … a Reality Check!
Okay … Here I go to figure out what my RMR is. What about you? Is this information you want to know about yourself? Do you think it will help or hinder your weight loss goals?
I learned two things in the last couple of days. Scratch that. I RE-learned two things in the last couple of days.
1. When you don’t eat much sugar, you truly do lose your taste for it. This was evidenced by the fact I could only manage one bite of the cake my sister baked. Also evidenced, in retrospect, by my other sister proclaiming the chocolate oatmeal cookies I brought “needed more sugar.”
But she was wrong. They didn’t. She just needs less sugar. So there.
This has no bearing on my third sister’s ability to hypnotize me with her potato salad.
2. When you don’t lift weights for a week because you’re “too busy,” you lose massive amounts of strength and muscle tone.
I guess the question here is … “Why-oh-why must you keep learning this lesson, Becky??”
The answer? I dunno. It’s stupid. It takes me about 30 minutes to run through my strength training routine. I have 24 freakin’ hours in every single day. Ergo, I’m stupid for forgetting this over and over again. It never changes. It’s always true.
Bottom line … I’ll shun most sugar, but I’ll embrace my gym.
And just so the lesson sticks this time, I will continue to include generous amounts of Donna’s potato salad.
What lesson do you have to re-re-re-re-learn?
If I wasn’t so lazy, I would have planned a party for Official Launch Day today. But I’m über-lazy so I’m just going to bloggily proclaim this Official Launch Day.
Please travel with me down the fascinating, annoying, funny, heart-breaking, delightful path toward good health and weight loss.
Learn stuff. Laugh. Share your frustrations and your joys. All with very little effort.
Be lazy. Eat chocolate. Drink wine. Lose weight.
Welcome!
(Please consider emailing the link to your friends … and/or linking to your Facebook page … and/or twittering it. See the little “Share This” button? You can’t imagine how much I’d appreciate it. Seriously. So much. Thanks!)
What’s your biggest ‘healthy living’ challenge? What would you like to read about on this blog? How do you like it so far?
