The Strategy of Going Halfsies

When I was planning my pre-gym snack today, at first I just thought to grab a protein energy bar, but then I realized I didn't have to stick to the calories on the package: I could cut them in half!

Parmesan-Crusted Trout with salad & vegetables

I'm trying to keep my snacks to 80-100 calories each so I can eat many small meals, and not get to the end of the day and be stuck skimping on my dinner, my favorite meal of the day.

It sounds like a no-brainer: Cut it in half. But how often do you do it? Isn't it just as satisfying to eat half a bar as it is to eat a whole one? Because after the first two bites, the main enjoyment has been had, right? On the other side, it's really hard to just eat half if the whole thing's in your palm or staring up at you from the plate.

So much harder to eat half, so much easier to cut in half and only take half.

For lunch I invented a fantastically-rich tasting but calorically-poor entrée I call "Parmesan-Crusted Rainbow Trout." Please check it out. Unbelievably delicious, takes only 10 minutes to make. Here's the link (on the Weight Watchers website):  Parmesan-Crusted Rainbow Trout
(Makes two portions, 140 calories, 10g protein per serving.)

What I discovered is that while light mayonnaise tastes the same as regular mayo in a recipe, light cheese does not.  No, no, no!

I also found that mixing the light mayo with a little dijon mustard makes the sauce go farther. Real Parmesan cheese, instead of some wannabe "light" cheese, makes a huge difference in taste. But only a small amount still gives you the rich flavor. Halfsies, again: Use only half the amount of real, flavorful cheese as you would the full amount of "lite" cheez-product and you get all the flavor for the same number of calories.

This fish is so moist and tender! I cut the finished entrée in half and saved the other half for dinner.

Voila: 3 strategies in one:

• Streamlining by making two meals at once
• Going halfsies
• Shaving the cals by using light mayo instead of "Real"
  

The meal pictured is only 225 calories, using a light dressing on the salad and tossing the veggies with a few flavorful drops of toasted walnut oil.

What about you? Do you find yourself cutting things in half? When and why?

The Challenge: Many Tiny Meals

A friend of mine, who has trouble losing weight even when he tried a low-calorie, raw food diet, told me how one time he did lose weight consistently: at a boot-camp-style retreat where the organizers worked the participants hard 2x a day and fed them a high-protein meal every 2 hours.

Eating every 2 hours and working out supposedly "speeds up your metabolism." There is a lot of hoo-ha out there both confirming and denying this assertion, so I wanted to try it.

I set an alarm on my phone to ring every two hours with the annoying message: "Time to eat another 200 calories!"

The challenge: Each meal had to take no more than 15 minutes to prepare; 200-260 calories; high protein (at least 30%-40%); and contain fiber-rich carbs from fruits and vegetables instead of bread, pasta or other refined grain products. Steaming instead of sauteing kept the calories low, and employing measuring spoons kept the oil and dressings under control.

Here's a pictoral record of my assembled tiny meals.
(You'll notice there are only four, not five. In the morning I had coffee and a fruit smoothie before my workout, not pictured.)

This works for the Weight Watchers PointsPlus program, too! Each meal was between 4 and 7 PointsPlus, and added up to a 29-point day. Right on target for my plan.

Morning Snack

Broiled tuna steak with steamed yam: 220 cals, 29% fat, 37% carbs, 34% pro

 Lunch

Two thin cheese & salsa omelets with an Asian pear: 230 cals, 24% fat, 44% carbs, 32% pro

"Mediterranean Tuna Fillet over Eggplant Marinara:" 260 cals, 38% fat, 31% carbs, 31% pro

Dinner (above) and Evening Snack (below)

Salad with broiled tuna and a nectarine: 230 cals, 37% fat, 21% carbs, 42% pro

As you can probably guess, there was a big piece of albacore tuna steak that got carved up in creative ways! 

Result: I had a lot of fun today inventing these tiny meals. Eating a tiny meal every 2 or 2 1/2 hours meant I was never hungry, except once: I felt a little hungry after my morning workout, but I could easily wait until my next alarm. Each tiny meal felt satisfying, and I never felt full -- just not hungry anymore.

Best of all, I didn't get bored because I was documenting it all for you guys! 

Felt so proud of my "Mediterranean Tuna over Eggplant Marinara" recipe that I posted it on Weight Watchers.com. I encourage you to try it.

Next time I'd double the portions and refrigerate or freeze them to always have a healthy meal close at hand.

Find Restaurants with Low-Calorie Entrees Besides Just Salad!

What if there were a way to know which restaurants make healthy dishes under 600 calories? I'm not talking about just salad or the same old sandwiches at Subway. I'm talking real restaurant food, the kind you risk overeating for, because it tastes so good.

Well, now there's a new startup company in Los Angeles that aims to do just that for us Calorie Rebels. ThinDish partners with local restaurants to show you what entrees on their menu are under 600 calories. And not only that, but they'll have icons on the menu to indicate what is low-carb, or gluten-free, or diabetic-friendly -- and many other special considerations. They've even partnered with a lab to do the calorie analysis, so it's gotta be more reliable than the restaurants themselves -- who've been caught advertising fewer calories and fat than their food actually contains!

ThinDish is an idea whose time has come! Check out ThinDish.com to sign up before their official launch.

The ThinDish landing page is mysterious because they haven't officially launched yet, but go to their ThinDish partner website to find out about what their service will do for the diner, as well as the restaurant.  All they need to do now is get Yelp! and Weight Watchers and LA restaurant reviewer Jonathan Gold on board and we'll have the whole spectrum of diners covered.

Woo-hoo! It's safe to enter a restaurant again!

Assembling a balanced, quick, healthy meal that's high in flavor and low in calories

A tasty quick lunch of balanced macronutrient ratios: weight-loss meal, high protein, low calorie.
50% carbs, 30% fat, 20% protein

Forget cooking. Sometimes we're just too busy.
That's when we need the art of food assembly. 
The picture above shows a food assembly: a balanced, easy-to-throw-together meal that hits 100% on all targets: it's simple, quick, flavorful, and balanced in terms of macronutrient ratios. Plus the whole plate clocks in at about 330 calories: a lot of food for the caloric price.

I first heard of macronutrient ratios from my personal trainer at Myogenics Fitness, and online you'll find many different opinions about what ratio is best. But for me, at least, 50-30-20 ratio is ideal for weight loss or weight maintenance.  The 50-30-20 ratio means: 50% carbohydrate (low-glycemic, unrefined, or "good") carbs, 30% fat and 20% protein.

(If you're not doing moderate to intense cardio exercise every day, you might want to bump the carbs down to 40% and the protein up to 30%, and that's the same ratio popularized in The Zone Diet. But experiment and see what works for you.)

Fat Myth: A lot of people think a healthy diet means: avoid fat like the plague. If you think 30% fat seems like a lot for weight loss, the undisputed truth is that most Americans eat too much refined carbs and that's why we're a fat nation. So keeping refined carbs in check using ratios is a good strategy.
But! It's actually hard to get 20% protein without some fat, so you'll probably have to pay attention to your assembly's added fat sources. Watch out for added cheese, nuts and dressings.


More about this picture:
20% Protein: one whole egg + one egg white scrambled and seasoned with citrusy Asian ponzu sauce.
Plus 3/4 cup of low-fat cottage cheese.
There is also protein in the steamed organic purple potato and the steamed broccoli jazzed up with some low-fat, high-flavor Galeo's Miso dressing.  Love that stuff!
50% Carbohydrate: The potato and broccoli, and there's also carbs in the low-fat cottage cheese.
30% Fat: Half a pat of butter for scrambling the egg; and the yolk in the whole egg, which is a good source of amino acids like tyrosine.

Did you know that broccoli and potatoes contain a lot of protein per gram?
This pile of broccoli -- (5.75 oz or about one whole stalk) -- has more protein than one large egg white.

Risotto Recipe Makeover

My Mushroom-Gorgonzola Risotto - 40% lighter in calories than Food Network's

The challenge: Make over Giada De Laurentiis' Gorgonzola and Porcini Risotto (as seen on Food Network and The Rockin' Foodie blog) to be 40% lighter in calories.  But still full of rich creaminess and intense flavor.

Voila! A low-calorie mushroom and gorgonzola risotto to die for!

(Why 40% less calories? Because if you're a typical American trying to lose weight but eating a typical American diet, you can aim to eat 40% less calories a day – that brings you from 2000 calories to 1200 calories.)  I lost a pound a week easily by eating 1200 calories a day.

My version only has 231 calories per serving instead of 372.

Alternatives to gorgeous, creamy risotto...

My longtime friend and fellow calorie-conscious foodie, Z, over at The Rockin' Foodie blog just created a brilliant post about Radiohead and risotto. She melts them together along the themes of commitment and dedication, with generous knobs of butter and gorgonzola.

Risotto is one of my all-time favorite comfort foods.

However...another thing takes commitment and dedication, too. Keeping the weight off in a hyper-caloric world!

Seduced by the irresistible creaminess and complex umami flavors of this dish, I am yet wary of risotto's ultra-high calorie quotient. After all, we're not Italian peasants laboring in the fields all day burning off tons of calories which we need to quickly replace.

No, we're ladies of luxury with cals to spare. And bikinis to fit into, it's almost June for God's sake. I am inspired to create a low-calorie alternative to their gorgeous mushroom-gorgonzola risotto that is as tasty and comforting but costs you only...wait for it...40% of the calories.

Why 40%?

Because if you subtract 40% of the calories of a typical diet (2,000 calories) you get 1200 calories, which is the recommended number for weight loss of a pound a week for moderately-exercising, healthy adult women.

I am inspired!

To be continued.....

The challenger: Mushroom-Gorgonzola Risotto

Prove to Yourself that You Can Stop Overeating

Psychologist Dr. Judith Beck has a series of great "food experiments" everyone can do to learn essential healthy-lifestyle skills. They are in her book, "The Complete Beck Diet Solution."

In this world of "caloric superabundance" as I call it, we really do need skills to cope with all the tempting food we want to eat, but must pass up in order to maintain a healthy weight.

The truth is, there are enough calories in the food supply for every man, woman and child to become obese in America: 3900 calories per person, per day -- no matter how old, young or physically active they are. That's up from 3200 in the early 1980's.*

Not only that, but we are biologically hardwired to continue to eat if tempting food is available. The deck is stacked against us.

So what are we foodies supposed to do? We have to learn to stop eating, even when something is incredibly delicious.

The Experiment to Prove to Yourself that You Can Stop Eating

Step 1. Write this on an index card: "Extra food will always go to waste, either in the trash or on my body." Read it a few times. Read it out loud in funny and convincing voices.

Step 2.  Serve yourself an extra portion of whatever you're going to eat. In this picture, it's a piece of incredibly moist, warm, fresh cake with chocolate sauce and ripe peaches from the Whole Foods Dessert Bar. Just look at the moist crumb, the crispy top, the plump fruit. You are my arch-nemesis, you Whole Foods Dessert Bar!

Warm, moist cake with fresh peaches and chocolate sauce from Whole Foods' Dessert Bar

Step 3. Immediately portion off the extra amount.
Here I have divided the cake into two portions, although notice that all the fresh peaches are in one portion, ha! Keep in mind the portions do not have to be equal, the point is to only eat the amount you decide you will eat.

Fresh, moist warm cake divided into two portions, one for me...

 Step 4. Enjoy your portion slowly, savoring every bite. Guilt-free!
This picture shows the remainder of the cake, the portion that I have decided NOT to eat.

Extremely tempting leftover portion of warm, moist cake!

Step 5. Immediately get up and throw away the extra portion. Yes, you have to waste it. That's why you wrote the index card in the beginning that says, "Extra food will always go to waste, either in the trash or on my body." No, you cannot take it home and eat it later. The point of the experiment is to prove to yourself you can enjoy a certain amount of food, and you don't have to eat or save the rest. (This is really hard for some people to wrap their heads around. I'm not against taking home leftovers. But for the purpose of learning this SKILL, you have to learn how to leave it...forever.)

"Extra food will always go to waste, either in the trash or on my body."

(Yes, I asked the owner if doggie could have the cake instead of throwing it away. She said no, he is not allowed sweets either. Poor guy.)

Step 6. Yay! You did it! Give yourself lots of credit for completing this experiment and beginning to learn this very important skill. Note how long your desire to keep eating lasts after you throw away the food. My guess is you won't be tempted by the food once it is completely gone from your sight AND unobtainable.

That's another reason you throw it away. If you only just saved it, you might be tempted over and over again, to unwrap it and have it. It's a struggle you don't need!

Dr. Beck says it's worth doing this experiment over and over again until it's easy for you to only eat half of a typical portion of restaurant food, dessert, or anything else you would normally overeat. If you master this skill, no foods will be off-limits because you'll be able to taste as much or as little as you want without overconsuming calories. (Full disclosure: I have not yet mastered this skill, but am working on it!)

So, go ahead and try this experiment with your favorite food! And please report back in the comments section.

*(For more about the overabundance of calories in the American food supply, check out professor and food activist Dr. Marion Nestle being interviewed at Yale University in this fascinating podcast. "It's the elephant in the room," she says about calories and the obesity epidemic.)

Calories = calories?

Same number of carbohydrate-derived calories. One is a real food (about 3.5 oz sweet potato);
the other comes in a packet. Are they the same?

So, I'm experimenting with consuming less refined sugars and more whole, real foods.
A fancy packet of Hammer Gel for my morning bike ride is the same amount of calories as half of a small, steamed sweet potato. (About 90.) The sweet potato has fiber, and vitamins and phytochemicals and other good stuff.  The Hammer Gel has some electrolytes and sodium added.

(The coffee with half & half would be equally consumed along with either.)

My bike ride this morning (about 1hr 15 minutes, including stretching by the Pacific Ocean) wasn't as amped up as it has been on these supercharged energy gels -- but that could also be due to other factors, like less sleep, and a high-intensity weight training workout that left me sore, just the day before.

More testing is needed before I can definitively confirm whether or not Hammer Gel calories is the same as a piece of tuber.

I'd be curious as to know what other people have found.

Relearning Sweet Desserts

Figs, broiled, with a dollop of plain yogurt

I'm a big believer in dessert. I love it.
I also believe tastes can change. Desserts don't have to be calorie bombs.

Craving something sweet this evening, I made broiled figs with yogurt for dessert.
It's easy to fall in love with desserts this simple and good.

Four figs, a sprinkling of sugar to caramelize under the broiler, a dollop of Fage 0% Greek yogurt.
111 calories, 3g fiber, 19g carbs, 5g protein, 0g fat. 
2 minutes.

Pre- and Post-Workout Meals for High Intensity Weight Training

I love my weight training sessions at Myogenics in West Hollywood.  I work one-on-one with a trainer, Brad, doing exactly 5 machines for 22 minutes. 

Pre-workout meal is heavy on the carbs: a mini Clif bar, nectarine & orange. My regular super-strong coffee with one oz. half-and-half.

1 tsp. pure creatine before and after high-intensity weight training.
Meal - 330 calories: 6g fat, 59g carbs, 9g protein, 9g fiber

Post-workout meal: 3 oz. shrimp fried in a dab of butter, habanero salsa, half a steamed yam, 1/2 cup pinto beans, lots of water.
Yeah, I know: it doesn't look like The French Laundry's version, but it's tasty and filling.

375 calories: 7g fat (the butter); 52g carbs, 26g protein, 12g fiber

Brad, my trainer: after I asked him to take pictures of me working out:

Eats Whatever He Wants

I'm so stuffed...

Pinto bean soup with kale, salad with steamed veggies, mahi-mahi

...on just 350 calories. Seriously. I think I am about to explode.
I've been reading Volumetrics and Eat to Live again -- these books make me jazzed up about eating healthy. They both recommend soups and salads because both are so filling on such few calories, and dense in good nutrients.

Hence, lunch today (after a 16-mile bike ride):

Three-Course Lunch for 350 calories - soup, salad, protein

Salad with added steamed veggies (4 oz broccoli, 4 oz green beans, 5 oz eggplant); Trader Joe's marinated mahi-mahi (about 3.5 oz piece), homemade pinto bean soup with kale. 350 calories.
9g fat, 44g carbs, 29g protein, 14g fiber. Wow! Salad dressing is my fave low-fat lettuce lubricant, Galeo's.

I'm so full I could explode. I won't be hungry again until dinner for sure.

Nicholas Christakis: The hidden influence of social networks | Video on TED.com

"If your friends are obese, your risk of obesity is 40% higher."

A perfect reason why reading Calorie Rebel every day could help you lose weight: Nicholas Christakis' findings on this TED video show that the more fat friends you have, the more likely you are to be fat.
Conversely, the more healthily-eating friends (is that a word?) you have, the more likely you are to eat healthy = the better chance you'll lose weight and/or keep it off.
That's where I come in.
We live in a society of caloric superabundance. There's way more delicious calories out there to eat than your body needs. It's not easy to sidestep all those delicious calories, but ya gotta do it.

So make friends with Calorie Rebels. Just by hanging around with them, the ## may start to slide.

Nicholas Christakis: The hidden influence of social networks | Video on TED.com

Salads Starring [non-red-meat] Protein Sources

Presenting two non-red-meat protein sources to go with everyday salads.

Watch out: the chicken-style seitan looks a lot like Satan. It looks like hell but it tastes like chicken! Especially if you do not really, ever, eat chicken (like me) then you could never know the difference.

Seitan is low fat - so you can eat more of everything else! And it's high protein = high satiety. Stay satisfied longer with less calories.

Watch out for the canned salmon in the further-below picture. Canned salmon also looks yucky (BONES) but the bones are soft and you do not notice them when you eat it. Canned salmon has a lot more flavor and a lot less mercury than canned tuna. Truly yummier.

 Lunch Salad with Seitan

Seitan is a lowfat, high protein meatlike substance made from wheat gluten.

(click on the pic for a larger image)

Lunch salad with snap peas, tomatoes, cucumber, Galeo's dressing, and 3 oz. chicken-style seitan.
225 calories -- 4g fat, 26g protein (!!), 26g carbs, 8g fiber.

Lunch Salad with Salmon

Canned salmon is another great protein source for your salad.
Never mind the bones - they are soft and you can eat them.

Lunch salad with 3.5 oz canned salmon, tomatoes, 1/2 oz. walnuts, carrots, celery, cucumber & 1/2 TBS regular salad dressing.
350 calories, 22g fat (salmon & walnuts mostly), 26g carbs, 21g protein, 9g fiber.

How to Eat All the Produce You Buy at the Farmer's Market

The problem: You buy a ton of fresh fruits and vegetables at the Farmer's Market on the weekend. Then, it sits in your fridge and rots.

Farmer's Market Haul: enough for all my 1200-calorie days all week long
(click on the picture for a high-resolution image)

The solution: Take a picture of it. Then, plan out your meals for the week looking at your picture. By taking all the veggies out and composing them for their portrait, you will remember better what you bought than if you'd chucked all those plastic bags into the fridge compartments!

Also, planning your meals means you're more likely to stick to your healthy eating goals.
 
The two-fer: Eating fresh, low-calorie and healthy all week long, because you planned on it. And, your produce doesn't go to waste!

I Love Egg-White Omelets!

Egg-White Omelet & Fruit for Breakfast

Egg whites, fresh salsa, a small apple, a large peach. Coffee with half-and-half. 300 calories.

I love egg-white omelets. They are super fast to make, especially if you use egg whites straight from a carton. This one is simply filled with fresh salsa. An small Fuji apple, a fresh ripe peach, and voila, you have a high-fiber, low-fat, high-protein breakfast for about 300 calories. It will keep you going all morning. 

The bonus? NO sugar, NO refined flour -- that's good for you.

I pour a dash of Asian ponzu or soy sauce in the egg whites for salt/flavor. Doesn't add to the calories. I use a little extra-virgin olive oil (about 1/2 tsp.) in my nonstick pan.

Total calories: about 300 (including the coffee)
Fat: 6.6g
Protein: 16g
Carbs: 52g
Fiber: 7g  WOW! More than those farty beans!

Beans for Breakfast?

I know, I'm weird. But eating refined flour and starches for breakfast is not good if you want to lose weight and keep it off. You can find a better way. This is one of mine.

Beans for breakfast?

For the same amount of calories, beans have more protein and fiber than cereal, even oatmeal.
Beans keep you fuller longer so you don't feel like snacking mid-morning.

 Breakfast

300-calorie breakfast: Trader Joe's salmon, Cuban-style black beans, coffee with an ounce of half-and-half.

Compare: a serving of these black beans has 100 calories and

• 0.5 gram of fat
• 19g carbs -- low-glycemic (the GOOD kind!)
• 6g protein
• 6g fiber

A packet of plain (boring) Quaker instant oatmeal for the same 100 calories:

• 2g fat
• 19g carbs -- same amount but these are instant (read: processed) carbs that get into your system faster, and could make you hungry again sooner
• 4g protein
• 3g fiber

PLUS, who eats plain oatmeal? No, you put syrup or brown sugar or yogurt in it, which all add up calorically.


 What weird things do you eat for breakfast?

What does a 1200-Calorie Day Look Like?

I didn't start losing weight until I dropped my calories to 1200 a day. That's pretty low - but not if you eat lots of fruits and vegetables, lean protein, salads and soups. Then it's actually enough food to satisfy you, plus it's way more healthy than eating lots of refined-flour foods and sugary snack foods.
Of course I LOOOVE sweets and desserts -- but limit them to once a week for now.

I started keeping track of my calories using one of these calorie counting programs. I find Calorie King to be the easiest & fastest.

But what does a 1200-calorie day actually look like?

I know, I know: this is going to look VERY STRANGE to anyone eating a typical American diet!

Breakfast

Do not eat the cork - it's just for reference! 3 oz salmon is a small fillet. 3.5 oz. steamed yam is about half the tuber.
Plus coffee with 1 oz half-and-half: 300 calories.

Morning Snack

Three figs, 6oz strawberries, 1/2 cup nonfat Greek-style yogurt = 175 calories

Lunch

Big lunch salad with half a steamed yam, half a bag of baby spinach, tomato, honeydew melon, and cut-up lowfat tofu dog. Dressing is low-fat Galeo's Miso dressing jazzed up with 1 tsp. teriyaki sauce. Total: 250 calories.

Afternoon Snack

Puree of kale soup with pinto beans (homemade) - 125 Calories for 1 1/2 cups

Dinner

Humongous salad with 2 oz steamed salmon, steamed broccoli, raw cuke, snap peas, romaine lettuce. Galeo's dressing added garlic, lemon & a few drops sesame oil. 265 calories.

Dessert

Fresh white nectarine (5 oz) = 65 calories

Final Stats:

Total calories: about 1200. 

35 grams fiber from whole foods.

Plenty of phytonutrients from plant foods.

Omega-3's from salmon.

Calorie-free drinks: Filtered water, iced coffee no sugar, unsweetened iced tea.

Ratios: 23% fat, 23% protein, 54% carbohydrate

Exercise: Brisk walk around the neighborhood listening to RadioLab podcast - 1.25 hrs.

Remapping Visual Remains

Our mission: to lose weight and keep it off in a world of Caloric Superabundance.

Strategy #1. Accustom yourself to eating fewer calories. 

Translation: leave food on your plate every time you eat at a typical American restaurant.

Eggs Florentine (half order), The Dish restaurant, Seattle
(This was hard. See my review on Yelp)

How to View the Photographs - the Theory

We often see what appetizing meals look like, but we don't see what is left over.
The remains.
It's important to visualize remains so that when you see them in real life, you know that is what you are supposed to be seeing. If you are used to eating everything on your plate, you never see the remains. 

But, if you want to enjoy eating out and still maintain a healthy weight for the rest of your life: you have to leave stuff, or box it up and take it home. Rarely eat the whole thing. Maybe never. Get used to wasting food. It will go to waste either way, either in the garbage or on your hips, thighs and butt.

Remains of the Egg Florentine

Start Seeing Remains

These are photos designed to to train the eye to visualize, accept and expect to see remains on the plate.

When you look at these photos, it's most effective to be mentally relaxed. Notice your feelings. Would you eat those leftovers? Project a positive feeling onto each image as something you've left over and you're not going to eat.

House-made beignets at Cafe Fanny, Berkeley
(Beignets, I found out, are French doughnuts)

I got one beignet with jam
 & an espresso - just wanted a taste

Already you have a very strong association between a plate of appetizing food and a positive feeling of "Yum! I want that." Now you need to pair another GOOD feeling with the sight of remains.

Remains of beignet. A taste was all I needed.
I left the rest on the counter.

See remains, yet feel happy, satisfied, and on your way to establishing a healthy habit in a world of Caloric Superabundance.

See the full plate. Know that it's probably too much food. Leave remains. Feel good about seeing remains.

Fish and shellfish tagine with summer squash,
at Lola restaurant, Seattle

Remains of fish and shellfish tagine
(It was delicious for breakfast the next morning!)

For more about cognitive mapping.