Good Things Come in Small Packages

For some reason, everything seems to be getting super-sized, even appetizers. These little snacks have expanded to almost side-dish portions in recent years. One of the simplest ways to create a healthier appetizer buffet is to create bite-size portions instead of big platters of dips and spreads. You can scale them back down and still make a big splash. Tiny bites, or “tapas” are becoming all the rage, taking the restaurant business by storm. Maybe your own tapas are just what you need to scale down your holiday appetizers to a healthier size.

Instead of the large cheese logs you have made in the past, try making individual bite-size cheese balls. The same can be done with the spinach dips you currently serve in a big bread bowl. Instead, make tiny bites using similar ingredients. By offering smaller, bite sized portions, your guests will not tend to keep dipping and inadvertently fill up on appetizers before they even get a chance to sit down at the table.

Classics With a Twist

Take a look at some of your favorite appetizers and rethink the ingredients. Swedish meatballs is a great hot appetizer that’s filling and tasty. You can make them small enough to keep them healthier, yes, but you can also replace high-carb breadcrumbs with low-carb alternatives, such as almond flour and meal. Of course you can buy low-carb baking items like flour and biscuit mixes to help with the types of appetizers that require breadcrumbs or a crust.

One of my favorite appetizers is stuffed mushrooms. But, a breading-based stuffing is not on a low-carb diet. Again, rethink the classic recipe and you’ll design a stuffed mushroom that easily fits your dietary needs. Sauté a little onion, garlic, and celery with flavorful sausage, then stir in freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Stuff your mushrooms and you have a low-carb appetizer that is sure to please anyone. If you want a stuffed mushroom more like the ones you enjoy at restaurants (they use more breading because it stretches the stuffing) then stir in a bit of almond meal or even finely ground peanuts. You won’t be able to tell the difference, but your figure will.

Those delicious creamy spreads and dips with the thick pieces of crusty bread alongside may be appetizing, but that bread is loaded with carbs. If your diet has you shying away from bread and crackers, can you still enjoy the spreads? Sure you can. Spinach dip, crab dip, cheese balls, and other favorite appetizers are often light on the carbs as long as you find a new ‘vehicle’ to serve them on, or in. Stuff a grape tomato with crab dip and enjoy! Spread spinach dip on a cucumber slice. Cut celery up into one or two bite pieces, fill them with your favorite cheese ball ingredients, and you have an instant low-carb alternative to cheese and crackers.

Stick With a Few Favorites

There are appetizers that are naturally low-carb. Think of your favorite protein-based appetizers and you’ll have a few ideas right away. Wrap just about any seafood in bacon, put it under the broiler, and you have a festive appetizer that is perfect for any holiday buffet. Remember ham and Swiss cheese wrapped asparagus bundles? These are the appetizers that have stood the test of time, and are low-carb diet friendly.

Also, don’t ignore the obvious; the antipasto tray. Olives, sausage, cheese, pickles, and artichoke hearts artfully arranged, can be all the appetizers you need. This is a classic that never gets boring. Be sure to include a variety of each element to keep the interest.

When the Holidays come around, we all look forward to the appetizer buffet. But, when you’re on a low-carb diet, the choices can feel limiting. The surprising and wonderful thing is… they’re not! You have a lot of choices, some very familiar, that will keep you happy as well as low-carb.

Don’t Blame Norman Rockwell

The image of a plentiful holiday meal might bring the iconic image given to us by Norman Rockwell to mind.  But, look again at this image entitled “Freedom From Want.”  What do you see on the table?  Well, first you notice the turkey.  If you look closely, you’ll notice the turkey is huge, and in fact, Grandma is probably struggling trying to hold it up like that. The bird in that picture probably weighs about twenty to twenty five pounds. Take a look at that picture one more time. That turkey is almost as big as Grandma!

But, what else do you notice about that picture.  Look at the table.  It’s not crammed with creamy casseroles, piles of sweet potatoes, corn oyster bakes, or cheesy macaroni. You would probably find the mashed potatoes in the covered casserole, but that’s a bare minimum compared to today’s holiday spread. Yes, it appears the masterpiece, the star of the table, was most definitely the turkey.  You’ll see a few celery sticks, pickles, cranberry sauce, and some fruit on the table. So, Norman Rockwell depicted a typical holiday table during World War II as a huge, protein packed, low carb feast.

So, when did things turn to the carb-fest we have today?  We can’t exactly be sure, but with many changes in consumerism, we can trace a ‘boom’ in consuming to post World War II.  Families grew, and right along with the growth of families came a growth of meals.  Kitchens were becoming more modern and cooking was becoming easier.  More prepackaged foods became available.  The post World War II home meant Mom in the kitchen cooking big meals for a big family.  The holiday table grew along with the family.

We went from a high protein holiday meal, featuring a lean, nutritious bird, with a few sides straight from the garden, to a meal of shrinking protein and increasing carbohydrates in the form of creamy, sugary vegetables and fruits.  In lieu of a serving of baked sweet potatoes, we laced them with sugar, maple syrup, and a marshmallow topping.  Our blanched green beans turned into a canned soup and french fried onion delight.  Our tastes changed, and so did our expectations.

Over the years, we have developed a litany of side dishes that have taken center stage, or table, in place of the turkey.  As we complain about our expanding waists, we dream of those beautiful holiday tables.  Oh, yes, the holiday meal is our most guilty pleasure – and we hate to love it, but we do so love it.  So, now what?  How can we get back to the Norman Rockwell table, rich in protein and healthy carbs?

Go Back to the Farm

It’s often said that in order to eat healthy, shop the perimeters of the grocery store.  Stick to the produce and protein and you can’t go wrong.  The trouble starts when you move into the center of the store where you’ll find the packaged, processed foods.  Take that one step further and I say stick to the farm.

If you want to go back to the table that Norman Rockwell depicted in his holiday meal painting, you’ll need to think only of what is produced on the farm.  Whether it’s grown in the garden or the pens, hunted or fished, the closer you eat to what is in and of the earth, the healthier your diet will be.  Eating low carb usually means eating whole foods in a state closest to natural.  In other words, unprocessed or lightly processed foods are best.  Even foods that aren’t necessarily considered low carb, such as bread, can be enjoyed in small quantities if it is mostly made of whole, unprocessed grains.

Plentiful protein is another basis for a low carb diet.  That is not to say that you should eat only protein or mostly protein.  A low carb diet requires a good amount of fiber-rich vegetables, but protein is considered essential as well.  As a matter of fact, protein, and the fats that are naturally occurring in protein sources are not only necessary to feel full, but are also necessary for overall health.

When families relied on the farm for their food supply, it was not uncommon to have two or three chickens, ducks, geese, or turkeys on the table for a large meal.  The meal was then rounded out with a nice supply of vegetables, greens, fruits, or berries from the gardens and surrounding grounds.  But creamy casserole style concoctions were not common.  Instead, cream, butter, and cheese were saved for special touches, like desserts.

Look at your holiday menu this year.  Are you relying too heavily on the traditions handed down from our post World War II atmosphere of bigger is better when it comes to the family meal?  Are your favorite carb-rich dishes going to ruin your efforts at dieting this holiday season?  You won’t miss your traditional dishes if you replace them with plenty of good, wholesome, flavorful foods.  Take a look at the smiling faces gathered around the table that Norman Rockwell drew and ask yourself if those folks look deprived.  Make this the holiday season you finally stick to your diet and feel great about doing it.

Thus, you may think that  the best way to avoid eating too much, is to simply eat enough to avoid raging hunger altogether. If you’re not hungry, you’re much less likely to binge on Halloween treats, laden with diet destroying sugars and excess calories.

To some, this is true but to most, it is not so.

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Start thinking now about what you can do to stay on track over Halloween, and have your plan ready before all the ghosts and goblins show up at your door. Here are a few strategies that might help curb candy overload:

- Purchase candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters that you don’t like; this way you can give it out freely and won’t be tempted to keep any at home to snack on later.

- Choose healthy snacks to give out. Some options might include small packages of raisins, apples, granola bars, or other nutritious treats. Sure, kids might not be as happy with these choices, but you’ll feel good knowing you provided them with a better option than sugary, high-calorie candy!

- Give away excess treats. If you end up with lots of extra candy after the trick-or-treaters leave, get it out of the house quickly! Donate it to co-workers, give it to neighbors, or even throw it away – but don’t let it stay in the house, as you’ll be more likely to snack on it.

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- Set limits on candy consumption – for you and your kids. There’s no reason NOT to indulge in a sweet treat or two around Halloween; that’s part of the fun of the holiday! However, you can help your children establish healthy habits themselves by focusing on eating Halloween treats in moderation. Consider letting kids have 2-3 pieces of candy the first night, and then limit them to 1 piece per day after that. Then, practice what you preach and do the same! This will teach your children how to enjoy candy and sweets without overdoing it.

- Finally, get out there and move! Don’t drive your kids around to trick-or-treat; walk! This will help all of you burn more calories through the night in order to better enjoy a few pieces of candy. You might even use a tool like the food journal on MyFitnessPal.com to help you figure out how many calories you need to burn through walking in order to indulge in a few of your favorite Halloween treats.

Here are tips on how to choose  healthy snacks around Halloween, and stay headed in the right direction towards your weight loss goals.

Healthy Snack Ideas

• Air popped popcorn. For seasoning, you can spray a small amount of butter-flavored nonstick spray, and then add seasoned salt and some herbs of choice. Sprinkling some nutritional yeast on the popcorn, gives it a boost in nutrition, as well as a cheesy flavor.
• Chopped fruit is a handy snack that eliminates the craving for sweets. Keep some chopped melons, apples, berries, and pears in the refrigerator. People tend to eat what is readily available, and it’s easy to grab a handful of fruit to satisfy a sweet tooth.
• Nuts mixed with a healthy cereal is a salty, crunch snack that provides a good amount of energy. Almonds and unflavored, puffed wheat cereal is a good mix. Just put the ingredients in baggies to have on hand.
• Sugar free gum is another good way to avoid eating too much Halloween candy. Chewing a stick of gum tends to dissipate cravings. It helps to always have some available to help you avoid temptation.

For more tips, you may want to check out : 9 Simple Halloween Healthy Ways to Maintain Your Weight Loss

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Everyone has their ‘problem spots’. We all have areas on our body that we love and areas on our body that we’re not so in love with. If you have trouble with your hips and thighs you may wonder what can be done to lose weight in hips and thighs.  You may know that it’s not possible to ‘spot reduce’. What that means is that you can’t just lose weight in one or two areas of your body, you have to lose weight everywhere.  For that reason you’ll have to focus on overall body weight reduction to get the lower body you’ve always dreamed of.

Even though you can’t spot reduce, you will still lose more weight in some areas than in others for the simple reason that you have more fat in some areas than others.  Your body will burn fat first, then muscle, so as long as you still have excess fat deposits and you cut your daily calorie intake you will lose weight. So if you want to lose weight in hips and thighs but you don’t need to lose weight in your abdomen or butt, all you need to do is eat fewer calories and the excess weight will come off.

Try this:

Another thing that can help the appearance of your lower body, namely hips and thighs, is exercise. A lot of women wrongly think that if they do too many exercises it will just make their bottom half look  bigger because they’ll ‘bulk up’. In reality women just aren’t made that way. In order to get really big you’d have to workout on a full time basis, eat only 100% nutritious foods (no cheating) and more than likely take a drug or two. It’s just not going to happen.

If you target all your major, and not so major, muscle groups what will happen is that you’ll look smaller. When your muscles are toned you will look smaller since your body will be ‘cinched in’.  Think of your muscles kind of like a girdle. Building your muscles will allow you to hold everything in more, naturally, and that will give you an all over appearance of being smaller which will make it look like you’ve lost more weight than you really have.

To get the best results you should watch what you eat, make sure you drink plenty of water everyday to stay hydrated and to keep your body clear of toxins, and do some muscle building exercises.

One great and easy to do exercise for hips and thighs would be lunges. You don’t need any special equipment and it’s easy to learn how to do them. All you have to do is take a big step forward, bend the forward knee so you go as close to the floor as possible (and still be able to get back up!) then straighten up. Do the same thing with the other leg. Walk across the floor doing this and I’ll bet you’ll find that you’ve gotten a great lower body workout, though you may have a little trouble walking tomorrow!

It’s easy to lose weight in hips and thighs, just eat right and exercise. And, oh yeah, you’ll also lose weight everywhere else too!

If you are interested, you may want to get this:Crunch: Belly Butt and Thighs Bootcamp

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Smoothies and shakes are an ideal diet treat in the summer months because fresh produce is so plentiful. However, with all of the frozen fruit available, you can enjoy tasty shakes and smoothies throughout the entire year. Frozen fruit tastes just about as good as fresh; add in some low fat yogurt, and the shake will have an even better taste and be more enjoyable.

One of the diet shake recipes that I like uses mandarin oranges, mango and ice. Then I add a scoop of protein powder and low fat yogurt. This makes a refreshing beverage that not only tastes good, but it will also fill your belly and help you lose weight at the same time.

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From time to time, when I want to mix things up, I will replace the yogurt with banana (sometimes I use both). Adding fruit juices is another way to give fresh flavor to your smoothies and shakes. For example, cranberry juice has positive health benefits for your kidneys. Add some cranberry juice, apple juice, blueberries, strawberries and banana together, then blend it until smooth. This makes an excellent breakfast drink and is a great way to start your day.

If you love the taste of chocolate, but can’t eat it because it’s too high in fat, then there is good news! You can add cocoa powder to your diet shake recipes. One good one is to mix cocoa powder, banana, low fat yogurt, honey and ice together. Now you can satisfy your chocolate craving without having to feel guilty about it. Of course you shouldn’t drink a smoothie like this every day, but it makes for a nice change of pace that will help you stick to whatever diet plan you may be on.

While diet shake recipes and smoothies can be good for you. They are not the full solution to losing weight. If you are serious about shedding those excess pounds, then you need to do so from several different angles. You need to decrease your overall caloric intake. There are several ways to do this, but how you do it is less important than the fact that you’re doing it. You also have to work on burning more calories. Again, doing it is what counts. You don’t have to spend countless hours at the gym doing boring exercises. Just get moving!

Finally, feel free to experiment with diet shake recipes of your own. If you stick with low calorie foods, then the resulting shakes and smoothies should taste great and help you lose weight.

According to Alison Gosby, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sydney, in fact you should be paying more attention to the percent of calories from protein. Based on her research, protein and weight control may go together.She found that men and women fed a 10% protein diet ate 12% more calories over four days than they did on a 15% protein diet.

While many experts believe that protein content in the diet plays an important role in determining how many calories we eat, and how hungry we are, the new study lends some solid percentage to that idea.

Gosby and other researchers believe that people have an especially strong appetite for protein.

When protein in the diet goes too low, ”We keep eating in an attempt to attain our target level of protein,’ Gosby says. This is known as the protein leverage effect. Some think low protein levels in the diet may help drive the obesity epidemic. From 1961 to 2000, other research shows, the U.S. diet declined from 14% protein to 12.5%.

Gosby asked lean men and women, average age 24, to eat diets with three different protein contents: 10%, 15%, and 25%. A diet that is made up of about 15% protein is often recommended.

The men and women ate each of the three diets for four days at the research center. They had unrestricted access to other food besides the fixed meals they were given. What they ate was recorded.

As the protein declined to 10%, the men and women tended to eat more carbohydrates and fat-containing food, boosting the risk for weight gain. But Gosby found that increasing the protein from 15% to 25% didn’t seem to make any difference in total calories eaten.

The final analysis reported on 22 men and women, all very lean. Their average body mass index (BMI) was 21.8. A healthy BMI is from 18.5 to 24.9.

‘This study provides a bit more support — [but] it is a short-term study — that consuming protein helps us feel full longer,’ says Connie Diekman, RD, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis. She reviewed the study findings for WebMD.

‘So including some [protein] each time we eat can help us make better food choices and trim what we eat the next time we eat,’ she says.Figuring Out Protein Needseggs arranged in a circle

‘Aiming at 15%-25% of total energy intake as protein seems about right for a moderately active person,’ Gosby says. ‘The take-home message is to avoid foods high in fat and simple sugars, as recommended in current dietary guidelines. These foods dilute the proportion of protein in the diet.’ And that can encourage people to overeat, take in too many calories, and gain weight.

So how to figure out if you’re eating a diet that typically includes 15% protein?

If you eat 2,000 calories a day to maintain weight, a 15% protein diet would include 300 calories as protein, Gosby says. That translates to about 75 grams of protein. One gram has 4 calories.

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Her suggested menu to keep protein at 15%:

A bowl of cereal, piece of fruit, toast, banana, and orange juice. That provides 48 calories of protein or 12 grams, total. For lunch, a slice of ham and cheese with salad on a roll, yogurt, and a piece of fruit. That provides 28 grams of protein or 112 calories. For dinner, a piece of chicken, vegetables, mashed potato, and ice cream with fruit — one scoop. That provides 148 calories, or 37 grams of protein.

If you skip the yogurt and eat a chocolate bar and eat cake instead of fruit with your ice cream, then add two soft drinks, your protein intake will stay at about 300 calories, she says. ‘But your total energy intake will have increased by approximately 600 calories.’

Diekman offers this guide: Six servings of whole grains give you 18 of your 75 grams of protein, while 3 cups of dairy give you 24 grams.

You may also tend to skip breakfast — you’re still full from all you ate the night before. Since breakfast is the main meal that you should eat to ward off unwanted pounds and to gain needed fuel for the remainder of the day, this is the absolute worst meal to miss. Not eating a nutritious breakfast can also set you up for health problems and overeating at lunch, dinner or between meals.

People with night-eating syndrome are also likely to get up to eat after they’ve gone to bed. If you find yourself leaving bed at night to binge eat, think about the mood you’re in. Was the day particularly stressful or have you been depressed for awhile and feel helpless and out of control?

Night time is the worst time to ply yourself with extra calories. Your body needs fewer calories when you’re sleeping, so the food you’re eating becomes less satisfying and can easily turn to fat – especially if the food you consume is high in sugars and carbs.

Evening hours are often associated with relaxation, watching television and rewarding ourselves with high calorie snacks. People who work at highly stressful jobs during the day may skip daily meals only to become ravenous in the evening – eating everything in sight.

Overcoming Night Eating Syndrome: A Step-by-Step Guide to Breaking the Cycle

If you suspect that you might have NES, try these tips to overcome it:

· Don’t eat in front of the television. Spend meal times at the kitchen table and concentrate on what and how much you’re eating.
· Have a healthy lunch and nutritious afternoon snack. You’ll be much less likely to gorge on unhealthy foods when you get home.
· Portions, portions, portions. – If you have to have that dessert at night, cut it in half or share it.
· Eat breakfast. It’s your most important safeguard against overeating during any time of the day, and especially at night.

There is a hormone called leptin that suppresses hunger and is found to be lacking in people with Night-Eating Syndrome. Melatonin, another hormone that helps induce sleep, can also be lacking in those with NES.

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