Shrinking Sisters

Checking out Nutrisystem's new foods

Sick as a dog -- that's what I've been this weekend.

(Although when my dog feels sick he goes into the back yard, eats some grass and pukes on the dining room carpet, so I'm not sick like that.)

I was guzzling Theraflu all weekend, taking advantage of the appetite-killing properties of the decongestant. So Super Bowl Sunday didn't cause any damage. Hubby grilled hamburgers, which I'm sure were delicious, but I couldn't really taste anything.

And being sick meant my husband did the grocery shopping, so now we have 5 pounds of baby carrots and seven heads of garlic -- overkill but greatly appreciated.

(Anybody have any garlic carrot recipes?)

Thankfully I have some soup to comfort me, courtesy of Nutrisystem. They sent me some of their new entrees to check out and some are really good, including their new wraps (buffalo chicken, Southwest chicken, barbecued pork, at right) and new soups (the chicken tortilla and creamy tomato are excellent).

The entrees have added fiber and protein to keep the glycemic index on the down low, helping to satisfy your hunger.

Their new breakfast muffins are a big improvement over past varieties. The blueberry and double chocolate muffins are great. And while the cinnamon bun (at left) isn't like anything you'll find at Cinnabon, it is a satisfying substitute. And what cinnamon bun do you know that has 7 grams of protein and 8 grams of fiber?

I also wanted to find out about their Jumpstart plan that's being touted in TV commercials. Part of that are Nutrisystem Flavorfulls, drink powders in lemonade and iced tea flavors that contain 3 grams of fiber per serving. The Jumpstart also includes a one-on-on phone consultation and a success packet with tips for success. The lemonade Flavorfulls were my favorite and were a good way to sneak in more fiber and take the edge off a grumbly tummy. 

And while I haven't been doing Nutrisystem 100 percent, I ate it for most of my meals and snacks last week and discovered that I lost 4 pounds -- just the jump start that I needed.

It's World Salt Awareness Week: Here's how I cut down

It's World Salt Awareness Week. Do you know what too much sodium in your diet can do?

Osteoporosis, stomach cancer, kidney disease, stroke, obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure.

Not to mention ugly bloating and those salt-overdose headaches and cotton mouth.

Added sodium is everywhere in processed foods -- even foods you might not realize. An innocent cup of lowfat cottage cheese has a ridiculous 760 milligrams of sodium. Most canned soups, even the "healthy" stuff, can eat up half your recommended sodium for the day if you eat the entire can -- which most people do for lunch.

Want to cut soup sodium? Here's my hard-core way. Short of making my own soup, I sometimes buy Healthy Valley Organic No Salt Added soups. An entire can of the NSA black bean soup has 60 milligrams of naturally occurring sodium. Their lentil soup has 50 milligrams per can.

I'm not going to sugarsalt-coat it: The soup tastes like organic baby food. So I add a teaspoon of Frank's Red Hot sauce. A teaspoon has 200 milligrams of sodium, which is still far less than a can of regular soup. You get some sodium plus the zing of hot sauce. You also get a slight metabolic charge from the chili peppers.

Once that's in, the soups are filling and loaded with fiber and protein. One can of the lentil has 16 grams each of fiber and protein.

Better than butter? A schmear of avocado

Remember the bad old days of dieting, when people were told not to eat avocados because they were "fattening"?

Thank goodness that nonsense is over. Avocados are a superfood -- full of monounsaturated fat (MUFAs), vitamins and fiber.

Avocados have been pretty inexpensive lately so I've been buying a few a week. Aside from guacamole, avocados can be a great substitute for spreads and sauces like butter, mayonnaise and cream cheese.

Take today's lunch. I had some leftover turkey chili from last night, which was virtually fat free. I like to make sure that my meals are balanced with protein, carbs and protein, so I added a slice of toasted sourdough bread (it's lower on the glycemic scale than other breads because of the acidity). And to it I added an ounce of mashed Hass avocado with a squirt of lemon juice and a pinch of my fancy-pants salt. (Yes, that's a Shrek plate.)

That ounce of avocado only has 45 calories and a bonus 2 grams of fiber. Take that, butter!

How many calories does a redesign burn?

I was reading an especially poignant post over at the blog See Sara Shrink. She wrote:

... I haven’t lost weight in awhile.  But it’s not like I haven’t been trying.  I wake up every day with the best of intentions, but by lunch I’m fighting the same battles I’ve been fighting for years.  The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

OK, who can relate?

(Raises hand.)

I've been holding steady since the end of the year, when I burned off a few holiday pounds. But I'm tired of holding steady and need to see the scale move again. 

I have to keep reminding myself that I did work on bettering my health in 2009. I got my cholesterol down from borderline icky to perfectly normal and dropped my triglycerides 100 points into the completely normal category. And I did it all with diet and exercise.

So that was 2009. Now it's three weeks into 2010 and I need to make more changes, primarily in calorie intake. I have already mentioned that I have to drop down to 1,200 for a couple of reasons. One, I have a slow metabolism (I had it tested). And two, that will help give me leeway for the "invisible calories" from supplements like fish oil, dark chocolate calcium and other good-for-me things that aren't really food. I really hate counting the calories of stuff that isn't food.

Step one is this redesign. When I first redid the logo I had in it a photo of my sister and me from 1991. That's not realistic, now, is it? So I freshened up the site and added current photos of us.

It's cleaner, lighter and brighter and I'm hoping that'll rub off on us. And you, if that's what you need.

Soup is good food

South Florida recently was in the throes of a cold snap (got all the way down to 65.)  I looked into my pantry to see what kind of stick-to-my-bones food I could serve for dinner, and spied the soup that my sister gave me. MyBlogSpark had sent her some new varieties of Progresso soups that are lower in sodium, calories and higher in fiber.

My daughter, the 9 3/4 year old food aficionado, concurred.  Soup was on.  

I was impressed that a 1-point meal of soup was as good as Progresso's Light Chicken Noodle Soup.  The chicken was REAL chicken (not little brown mystery cubes) and the vegetables were firm and tasted and looked like real vegetables.

My notoriously picky daughter gave it two thumbs up.

Progresso has recently offered no MSG varieties of soup to their product line as well.

The cold snap ended days ago, but the soup is staying in the front of the pantry.  I've started taking them to work for lunch; there are four new flavors that each have 7 grams of fiber per serving, which keep me full throughout the afternoon. 

Right now, Progresso is holding a "Souper You" essay contest -- the grand prize is a trip to NYC for a makeover. The sweepstakes is going on through March 15. While you're getting the particulars on the sweepstakes, you also can get a $1 coupon for Progresso soup at the same site.

A little shameless self promotion

Readers have asked whether there were any Shrinking Sisters T-shirts or anything to purchase.

Of course!

For some time we've had a Cafe Press store but it hadn't been updated in awhile (I kept fiddling around with the blog logo and needed to put in a current one).

So I updated the store with our strawberry logo that you'll find on our Facebook page, and you can buy shirts, jackets, tote bags, journals, mousepads and coffee mugs. The shirts come in men's women's, juniors and plus sizes.

Check out this beauty at left that I'll be wearing to FitBloggin '10 in March.

 

Want to see a clip of the upcoming season of Australia's Biggest Loser?

I found this clip for the upcoming season of Biggest Loser: Couples ... in Australia. The show seems pretty much the same as the American version, although they seem to have more food-based challenges. I can't embed the clip, but you can see it in the link below.

VIDEO: Biggest Loser 2010.

I'll keep this my dirty little secret...

As we all know, tracking food consumption and exercise is a key to successful weight loss.  SparkPeople  is a free Web site that is chock full of tools to help achieve your weight loss goals.

But one of my favorite things to do is to lurk on people's profiles and see what they're eating and how much exercise they do.  I came across one of my favorite members' logs and was shocked at what was consumed.

Below is a typical lunch for this person:

Lunch	Cal.	Carbs	Fat	Prot.
Burger King, BK VEGGIE Burger, 1 serving	420	46	15	23
Burger King Medium French Fries (salted), 1 serving	480	61	23	5
Burger King Medium Coca Cola Classic, 1 serving	230	56	0	0
Kraft Singles White American Cheese, 1 serving	60	2	5	4

So although I may snicker at a fast-food lunch at nearly 1,200 calories, I must acknowledge that this person AT LEAST logs all that is consumed. The good, the bad and the fattening.

I dare you to track me on SparkPeople.  My user name: I_AM_CAROL.  You will never see one meal that is nearly my entire day's worth of calories.

Now to start tracking ...

Goodbye, Mr. Chips!

Yesterday was crazy busy. Pick the kid up from school, take him to golf lessons, grab a bag of dinner at Subway and then home to eat, change into his baseball uniform and make it to the game by 6 p.m.

All of that in a little more than 2 hours.

The Subway stop isn't a regular thing but we were seriously strapped for time and Subway is our go-to place for fast food. You have total control over what's going in your sub or salad and the calories are reasonable.

I usually get a footlong turkey sub on the bread with the highest fiber (even though the honey oat has 5 grams for a 6-inch, I get the 9-grain wheat at 4 grams of fiber because it has 210 calories instead of 260 calories). And then I run it through the garden -- every available veggie -- and a squirt of mustard.

When it came time for my son to ask for his toppings, he looked at the list and said to me "Oil? Why would anybody put oil on their sandwich?" Beats me, kid.

My son likes to grab a bag of baked chips with his sub but I don't do that anymore -- I don't need the extra 120 calories of fiberless carbs.

I would always ask him for a chip or two -- "just one!" I would say.

But yesterday I ended that. Mom doesn't want that chip anymore. The sandwich suits me just fine.

Just another thing I'm doing differently in 2010.

'Move along folks, nothing to see here, show's over'

Today I'm introducing a new tactic in my "Doing Things Differently in 2010" plan.

I'm introducing an eating cut-off time.

There's no magical reason for not eating after a certain time of day but enforcing a cut-off time (usually 2-3 hours before bedtime) will keep you safe from the "danger zone" of being bored and tired -- not really hungry. That's when a lot of people can get into trouble.

Often, when you go to bed stuffed you'll wake up not feeling very hungry. You want to wake up ready to eat breakfast to get your metabolism humming for the day.

In theory, my bedtime is 10:30, so my cut-off time will be 8 p.m. After that, it's water or maybe decaf tea with a little honey.

(I was thinking of one of those cop shows where the officer shoos people away from the crime scene when I came up with the headline.)