Tag Archives: maintaining a healthy weight

Slurp This, Not That

Not all soup is created equal. That’s like saying all chocolate is the same. I extol the merits of soup and its ability to help you lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, but I feel the need to define “soup”. To avoid confusion and – in the spirit of this blog – to keep a positive spin on things, we’ll call good, healthy, diet-friendly soup “sexy soup” to distinguish it from all the other “soups” out there that are worse for you than an Italian hoagie. (Note: Italian hoagies are awesome BUT I don’t recommend eating them several times a week if you want to lose weight…unless you bike the five miles to and from the hoagie shop.)

Sexy Soup IS:

Mostly vegetables and water,

Going to maintain a liquid state in the fridge and not congeal into some sort of glop,

Less than 150 calories per 1 cup serving,

Tastes so good your kids will eat it.

Cream of Broccoli Soup, for example, is not Sexy Soup. If you remove the water, it’s really a block of cheese with one stem of broccoli added for color. Have you ever seen it when it’s cold? It’s Jello. But if you love cheese Jello like I do, then try this trick: Cook a bunch of broccoli and mix it in, about half soup and half broccoli (and water if you need to thin it out a bit). It won’t be quite as thick as the original, but at least it won’t be misleading to keep the word “broccoli” in the title anymore, and you’ll have calcium oozing out of your pores.

Canned soup is convenient, but it’s not Sexy. Some of the soup companies have created healthy lines of soup: “100% Natural”, “Light”, “Heart Healthy” and so forth. Not a bad idea, and these soups are on track calorie-wise, but each ONE cup serving gives you about 700 mg of sodium. That’s 30% of the sodium you should consume in an entire day. If they have less sodium, they add more sugar, as much as 3 teaspoons in a ONE cup serving. I don’t add that much sugar to my coffee, and I like it sweet!

Let’s not forget the main reason we love soup: it’s a warm, comforting, delicious way to eat lots of vegetables. Most canned soups don’t give you a lot of veggies; you usually get what you see on the label’s picture…a whole three carrot slices per can.

How do you make Sexy Soup that’s satisfying and rich without adding loads of dairy, salt, or sugar? The trick is to make the water feel like not-water in your mouth.

Option one: when the soup is cooked, pour half of it into a blender and blend it, then return it to the pot. Your “broth” is creamy, but there’s something left to chew. Note: this is a great way to get veggies into kids; if they pick out the carrots they can see, they still slurp down the ones they can’t.

Option two: add purees. Don’t pitch your decorative pumpkins! Did you know that pumpkins were a vegetable before they were décor? You can eat them! Not after you carve them, light a candle in them, and leave them on the doorstep for a month, no, but even in November and December, an unopened pumpkin can be cooked and consumed. Bake or microwave it, scoop out the now soft insides (not the seeds), puree it in a blender, and freeze it in little ziploc baggies to add to soups. Purees of cauliflower, yellow summer squash, and carrot also work for Sexy Soup.

Option three: add potatoes or rice. Potatoes and rice tend to thicken a broth when simmered for a while. Just make sure most of the soup is made up of colorful plants.

Option four: cheese or milk. If you add dairy, follow the Rule of Thumb for your veggie:fat ratio. One thumb of fat/dairy per one hand of veggies. Choose a strong cheese that you can taste; if a mild flavored cheese blends in too well, you may as well leave it out.

Option five: blend all of the soup and pour it into a large plastic martini glass. Put on sunglasses, heels, and lip stick, then sit by a pool and sip it through a straw. Sexy is as sexy eats!

“Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.” Daniel 1:12

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: SOUP: Water and Vegetables. Tags: Diet, Fruit and Vegetable, healthy living, maintaining a healthy weight, SOUP: Water and Vegetables, Soups and Stews, Vegetable, Weight loss. 4 Comments

Sep. ’13

Dessert Snobs

The one thing that has made the biggest difference in both my body and my lifestyle is savoring my food. Paying attention while I eat leaves me satisfied after every meal, even with smaller portions on my plate.

Imagine a moist dark-as-night piece of chocolate cake is placed in front of you. Most people take one bite, emit some sort of grunt of delight, and then shovel the rest of the cake down their gullet in less time than it takes for a toddler to discover how to unroll toilet paper. When they finish the last two bites, slowing down at last because they see the end is nigh, they sigh and wish for more because “that was so good!” This is how I used to eat cake. And lasagna, and fries, and ice cream, and cereal, and steak and everything.

Next time you have cake, try this instead: savor every bite. That’s right, EVERY bite. Take a bite, emit grunt, take a bite, make mm-mm-mmm! sound, take a bite, paint the inside of your mouth chocolate with your tongue, and so on. Pay attention to the texture, the flavor, the contrast of cake and icing. I guarantee that by the time you’ve finished your piece of cake, you will not want a second piece. Why? You’re bored! Seriously. Five or ten minutes of thinking only about cake is way more time than you need to cover all the bases.

The definition of savor is to “taste (good food or drink) and enjoy it completely.” Food as entertainment; what an interesting thought!

When I savor my food, I find myself feeling grateful for my abundance and for my taste buds. If you look at the anatomy of the human mouth, we were created to enjoy eating. Carnivore teeth can bite and swallow, but not chew. Herbivore teeth can chew, but really, how many taste buds would you want if you were chewing lunch for the fourth time? Don’t get me started on jellyfish; their mouth is also their anus, so you know they thank God that they don’t have taste buds. (And I thank God that I’m not a jellyfish!) The point is, God created food to have flavor and our mouths to detect those flavors. Just as I realize how blessed I am with my family when I pause and think about it, I am more thankful for my food when I pause and think about it. (If I’m inaccurate with the biology lesson, forgive me; I’m still convinced that humans have the best deal meal-wise.)

Paying attention while you eat is harder than it sounds. I never used to sit down to eat without something to do: talk with someone, read something, watch TV. It still feels weird to sit at an empty table and focus on my food, but I enjoy what I eat so much more now.

About a year ago my mom said something that sounded crazy to me at first. She said, “I’m not going to eat Hershey’s chocolate anymore.” But Mom, that reduces your chocolate options by, like, 90%! What kind of insanity is this?!

She loves Harry and David’s dark chocolate truffles and she has good reason to: they’re awesome. They’re so awesome, in fact, that Mom decided not to waste her time, money, or calories on sub-par chocolate. She became a chocolate snob. And she should be applauded!

We need to learn not only to enjoy our food while we eat it so that we don’t wish for more when it’s gone, but we also need to learn to stop eating foods that are not worthy of our time, money, and calories. At church potlucks and family dinners, I used to finish anything I put on my plate, whether it was fabulous, fairly good, or future compost. Now I try many things, but only finish what tastes fabulous, especially when it comes to desserts. If I’m only supposed to consume X number of calories per day, I’m not going to waste them on mediocre food. Does that make me a snob? Yes it does. But I’d rather be a food snob than eat like a garbage disposal as I used to.

There’s one exception to savoring your food, of course: vegetables! Feel free to shovel your veggies in like you’re stoking the engine of an express train. Don’t get me wrong, vegetables can be fabulous (if yours aren’t, try adding garlic) and they should be savored. But if you don’t particularly like veggies and you’re only eating them because they’re good for you, then don’t savor them.

You know how sometimes you just want to plant yourself in front of the TV and stuff your face? You’re not hungry, particularly, but you want that repetitive plate-to-face action happening? Choose a veggie. It’s mindless eating, so do it with a food that won’t hamper your goal when consumed in large quantities.

^“So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 8:15

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: TWO FISTED EATING: Portion Control and Enjoyment. Tags: Chocolate, Diet, food, God, healthy living, humor, maintaining a healthy weight, portion control, Weight loss. 3 Comments

Aug. ’13

Naked Veggies

Jenn had a great question this week and I thought I’d pull it out of the comments and post it just in case anyone else had a similar question and didn’t see it.

Jenn: “You said after you are done, don’t go get seconds, but I always thought you could eat as many veggies as you want. So could you go back for green beans but not the rice and curry?”
Great question, Jenn! And the answer is: it depends on your veggies.

If your veggies are naked (no butter, no dressing, no extra calories) and low calorie, then by all means, fill up! Green beans, zucchini, carrots, celery, lettuce, etc are all in this category. (Peas and corn, on the other hand, are high-ish in calories (for a veggie) and can add up fast.)

The problem is in the flavor, the “good” stuff, that we add to the veggies to make them taste better. An extra helping of green beans is no problem, but the extra butter and salt can be.
If you’re maintaining a healthy weight and going back for seconds on veggies works for you, then do it. But if you’re trying to form new habits, then breaking the habit of RE-filling your plate with anything, even veggies, is essential. You can always get the beans out for a snack later on! When I have the munchies at 10pm and I can reach for leftover stir fry, that’s a good thing. A better thing would be if I just went to bed at 10pm. “Oh, Honey…”