Go Dee –You’re a Rock Star!

Thanks for the update Dee—we love you!

Continuing on from yesterday’s post, I’m finding it very helpful to keep things in perspective. I weigh 180.5 pounds today which is far from really being thin. But I feel kind of thin. 200 pounds is a not-so-distant past and I still remember very well what my clothes felt like a few weeks ago. So even though I have a lot of work ahead of me, I actually feel (relatively!) thin. The back zipper on my skirt keeps shifting around to the side because the skirt is loose. Alright, it’s still a size 16 skirt, but did you hear the part about it being LOOSE? Hallelujah!This photo is not me, but it shows you what I mean by allowing yourself to celebrate the victories on the way to the goal. I love watching The Biggest Loser because so many people can relate to the struggles and emotions these people feel. And when you see an overweight person who is brave enough to stand up on television and dance in a sports bra at 199 pounds — because they used to weigh 260 — what a perspective!

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Angela in Body, Diet, Exercise, Guest Blog, Nutrition, Whole Food Leave a comment

Pinterest Epic Fails

Paleo Banana Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups almond flour or almond meal
4 pastured eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil (melted)
3/4 cup coconut sugar
2 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup shredded zucchini
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (mini preferred)
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix all wet ingredients together first and then add in the dry ingredients, mixing well. Pour into a loaf pan greased well with coconut oil and cook for 75 minutes or until a toothpick or fork comes out clean (aside from melty chocolate ). Let cool before slicing and serving but it tastes best when still slightly warm. Enjoy!!

HERE’S ANOTHER GREAT HEALTHY RECIPE—I MADE THIS FOR SIDNEY’S 13TH BIRTHDAY PARTY—please note the pinterest picture I copied and the actual picture of my dish—BAHAHAHA!

Sweet Potato & Pomegranate Salad

2 medium sweet potatos, cubed, plus olive oil, sea salt and pepper for roasting

2 cups baby salad greens (kale, spinach, arugula, etc)

1/3 cup pomegranate seeds

1/3 cup crumbled feta

1/4 cup almonds

handful of chopped cilantro

2-3 chopped scallions

DRESSING

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 clove minced garlic

2 teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

1. Roast the sweet potatoes: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Chop the sweet potato into bite sized cubes. Drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast in the oven for 20-30 minutes.

2. Make ther dressing: Whisk together the olive oil, honey, garlic, salt and pepper

3. Assemble and toss lightly—and ENJOY

Here’s Mine

The Pinterest Version

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Angela in Body, Diet, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Planet Fitness Deal

Is joining a fitness club too expensive? Check out this new offer that Planet Fitness is presenting. Ten dollars to join and then ten dollars a month. Here’s the perk–they are open 24 hours monday thru friday. They also offer unlimited personal training. There is no contract so it seems really reasonable to try it out for a month. Kathy just joined and I am looking forward to the ab training classes they offer as my muffin top is in need of some slimming! I would also like to be able to do a sit up as well as some of my 60-70 year old patients!

As the most innovative health club brand in the United States, Planet Fitness is known for a lot of things – our absurdly low prices, our Lunk™ Alarm, and most of all perhaps, for our Judgement Free Zone® philosophy, which means members can relax, get in shape, and have fun without being subjected to the hard-core, look-at-me attitude that exists in too many gyms.

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Angela in Body, Exercise, Weight Loss Leave a comment

Why am I always hungry?

Here is a great new post from our dear friend Dee–please check out her site http://www.gettingthebestoffood.com She shares her journey and includes a realistic attitude that accounts for all the daily struggles, stress, and obstacles that sabotage us relententlessly. You go Dee!!!

The first time I saw this diagram was nearly a year ago and it has never left my memory. Over the past few months I have noticed how refined foods such as white bread and sugar have effected hunger throughout the day. This simple illustration shows how all highly processed foods, fats and oils look in the stomach. I’ll be right back, gotta grab an apple.

OK, I’m back, less starving than I was a minute ago. If you look at all of the diets that have been successful and popular, most of them have fruits and veggies in common. Atkins, not so much because it’s an all-protein diet. The challenge that I’ve found is getting veggies to taste good. Fruits are naturally delicious without anything added, but veggies are usually better when you make them bad…like broccoli with cheese sauce, fried green beans with butter, creamed peas, spinach au gratin. At this point, I’m finding it more challenging to make veggies fun. Well, fun is a strong word. I don’t know if they’ve ever been fun. Here are some tricks I’ve learned:

Bake kale with a spritz of olive oil for crispy chips with a touch of sea salt
Hide spinach in smoothies, soups, baked eggs
Mash sweet potatoes with a touch of cinnamon, almond milk and agave nectar and bake for fake pumpkin pie
Use romaine or Boston lettuce leaves to wrap the healthy ingredients you would normally put on bread, like tuna salad, grilled chicken, lean steak
Soak dates — use the water as a healthy natural sweetening liquid and puree the soaked dates with water to make a paste as a solid sweeter for recipes (paste with spaghetti squash and cinnamon is great.

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Angela in Body, Diet, disease, Green Living, Guest Blog, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Wheat Woes

If you stop consuming wheat the following should happen—-

1. Your weight will decrease

2. Your appetite will decrease

3. Your blood sugars will decrease

4. You will have decreased joint pain

5. Your C-reactive protein will drop (marker of inflammation)

6. Your blood pressure will improve

7. Your triglycerides and LDL (bad cholesterol) will decrease and your HDL (good cholesterol) will increase

8. You will have less acid reflux and irritable bowel symptoms

All excerpted from Dr. William Davis’s lecture at the A4M conference in December 2012. Learn more at his blog

http://www.wheatbellyblog.com

Also visit my previous post Against the Grain -part 1 for more information on the dangers of modern day wheat

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Angela in Body, Diet, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Detox Cleanse

Well, it’s that time of the year when we all start making resolutions for change. We aspire to become better people and to take better care of ourselves. We set unrealistic goals, take an all-or-nothing approach, and most of us will epically fail within the first few months. Weight loss, nutrition, and self-improvement are choices that we make daily, every time we open our mouths to put something into our bodies.

Many of you have asked about cleansing and detox kits. Don’t buy them! Anything that is artificial or comes as a supplement or powder isn’t worth chancing.

I do think cleansing and detox can be healthy and play a good role in jump starting you into a new healthier lifestyle. I came across a 14 day detox program that uses only real food to detox which I think is safe for most. It also incorporates social support for the program which is where many of us fail in our New Year’s Resolutions. You can learn more about this at http://www.yurielkaim.com/

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Angela in Body, Diet, Nutrition, Whole Food 1 Comment

Day #1 Menu

I’m going to have to confess that I’m only going to do 2 meals daily with smoothies considering that I have a 13yo and a 5yo at home that I will have to cook for this week and will be greatly tempted by the real food they are eating. I will however make a whole food paleo based dinner for the family and will share that with you. I will post any weight loss at the end of the challenge and am planning to go as long as I can in this endeavor. I know Amy plans to do a full 10 days—I am planning on taking it one day at a time as that is our philosophy here. Baby steps! Remember-we are all in this together and are human! So here we go with day one!

Breakfast: Mixed in my NINJA—-5 strawberries, 1/2 banana and 2 tablespoons of chia seeds

Lunch: 1 stalk kale, 1 cucumber, 3 apples with 2 tablespoons of chia seeds—all juiced in the Omega 3 rather than the NINJA

Dinner: 1 pkg grass fed chicken breast sautéed in butter and olive oil with 1 stalk broccoli, 1 zucchini, 1 cup (cooked) whole grain rice and 1 egg–

All the cool kids in the back of the bus!!!!!!

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Angela in Body, Diet, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Smoothie Posse Pre-Holiday Smoothiefest

Meet Amy—Smoothie Posse Queen

“The Smoothie Posse Pre-Holiday Smoothiefest” is about to begin! Sorry for the short notice but there is no better time than now. All Angela MD Wellness Warriors are invited to join our challenge to replace up to 3 meals daily with a healthy whole food smoothies for a week to ten days—or as long as you can take it. More to come tomorrow as we post our recipes and shopping lists for next week’s endeavor –My friend Amy posted this challenge on Facebook last week and she had 27 people on board to start out the holiday season eating and drinking wholesome fruits and veggies! We go into the holidays guiltless with a healthy mindset completely compensated and prepped for any overindulgence we may face. We will face it without shame after restoring our bodies with real nutrition. We will share all the bitchy withdrawal symptoms we may experience so be prepared –this S*#T is REAL! You don’t have to own a juicer, blender or fancy kitchen utensils to participate. We have accounted for all that. My dear friend Amy and I have reconnected on Facebook since high school–she was an amazing cross-country athlete and I was a nerdy dork. She then went on to study exercise physiology at the University of Texas and become a personal trainer and running coach. I went on to medical school learning how to treat sick people instead of preventing disease with nutrition and wellness. As my daughter Ciara shared after her high school senior retreat, “I absolutely loved hearing everyone’s story and am sad that there were so many people in high school I should have tried to get to know better!” Did I remind you that this child is wise beyond her years? Don’t get too excited since she still doesn’t know how to change a toilet paper roll at age 19. It is sad that Amy and I didn’t spend more time together back then considering we share so many beliefs. This is one time I am grateful to Facebook for helping me reconnect. So game on people–tomorrow I will be posting menus and plans–the whole point is to try to eat real food for as long as we can! We are doing smoothies, juices, and whole foods only! Please join in gang —you can do 1 day at a time without commitment. I will be posting shopping lists and recipes that we tried over this past week tomorrow for anyone willing to give this a try!

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Angela in Body, Diet, Exercise, Nutrition, Uncategorized, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Are you up for a challenge?

How about a pre holiday challenge–Screw waiting for the new year to make resolutions–Let’s hit the new year on the ground running. This is why our wellness patients decided to start the Biggest Loser contest on November 1st. They wanted to attack those holiday parties feeling healthy and fit. Not only are we all going to look and feel better for those parties, we aren’t going to feel guilty if we fall off the wagon and overindulged because we are already doing the work! Congrats to most wellness participants whom have already lost 2-3 pounds before we even hit the month of December! Besides, the only reason we are even using the scales is to determine a grand prize winner. Everyone comes out a winner despite how much they lose because this isn’t about pounds. This is about nourishing our minds, bodies, and souls with REAL FOOD! I am going to be telling you this week about a program we are excited to start. A few of us are testing the waters this week so we can determine what kind of resources and information will be most helpful to you! Stay tuned for more information and SPOILER alert: It may involve smoothies!

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Angela in Body, Diet, Exercise, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

The Definition of Insanity

I think counting calories sucks!!!! It doesn’t really work–just look around and see the number of overweight people in our country and you will be convinced. As Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So what we are doing isn’t working. We need to really be focusing on the quality of our food. Math and getting caught up with numbers is wasted energy. Ask yourself? Is weight loss really a good hobby? How many of us spend too much time thinking and obsessing over our weight? Use these next few tools at the grocery store this weekend to help you out. Remember that the “Fooducate” app for your smart phone can help you out too.

1. How many ingredients are in it?

2. Is it organic?

3. How much sugar is in it?

4. Does it contain any artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, MSG, chemicals ETC?

Organic foods are nutrient dense, safer for the planet, and are grown with more care. Forget those nasty free radical causing chemicals that make snacks low-calorie—-Let’s just eat real food folks! As Sean Croxton says–Let’s JERF (a great verb in my opinion)–Just Eat Real Food!

Stay tuned for the big holiday challenge–more to come tomorrow!