Sunday Book Review: French Women Don't Get Fat

I've heard in the news that French women don't get fat or we should eat more like the the French or eat a Mediterranean diet. I'm never sure what that actually means.




After reading French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano I know! I'm being a bit facetious here ya'll.  Mireille shares her experience of gaining a 20 lbs in the US when she was an exchange student. How their family doctor who she fondly calls Dr. Miracle helped her get back on track.

What I took away from the book is to really enjoy your food.  We should do more than eat to live. This insight is the best part of the book.  So she encourages you to eat flavorful healthy meals.
   
Her diet plan as such is divided into four phases.

Phase One:  For 3 weeks pay attention to what and how eat.  Like do you snack, skip meals, indulges in lots of sweets?

Looking back I snacked a lot.  I was skipping breakfast.  Eating more sweets than I needed and possibly enjoyed.   My food was pretty joyless most days of the week.

One thing I've found because I did choose to take out dairy with my diet is I don't miss it with my mexi-bowl lunches at all. I find some avocado much more decadent.  I love cheese best melted in an omelet or a small bites of a rich cheddar sans crackers or bread.  

I don't miss the corn chips either.  I do miss the crunchiness so I am trying to find other tastier healthy crunchy things to enjoy. Like kale chips.

The weekend before she recommends eating leeks and broth for 48 hours and a jump start to the changes.  I don't see that as particularly unique. I remember women in my family doing all salads for  a weekend.

Phase Two Re-casting:  This can last one to three months.  Start eating three meals a day. Look at your habits. What could you give up completely? I managed to cut back on my coffee so I have removed over 1/2 cup a milk I used to drink every day.  I don't eat grains 6 days a week for now mostly to see how I feel.  I'd say one of my biggest offenders are breads. pasta and corn chips.

I don't really miss basic medium grain brown rice all that much.  I'd love a little basmati rice with some curries again on occasion.  I've found I much more enjoy Silva's corn chips then the organic ones.  So maybe on occasion I will indulge in a bit with some fresh salsa.

During this phase she recommends a day for indulgence(s).  Over time, she suggests, you need this less as and less as you figure out how to compensate during the week. Her suggestions seem very familiar to the things I learned in Mindless Eating. She's never really clear to me on what compensating means.

The thing I found a bit lacking in the book is a clearer idea of how much to eat. I know this is different for everyone. Her book French Women for all Seasons as some better examples as well as the French I Women Don't get Fat website.  When I look at the amounts I get the impression she is a rather pewit woman.

Phase Three Stabilization:  Here you might look to see if there are things you could cut back even more or not.  Now you can start changing things up and add some indulgences now and then.


Phase Four The Rest of Your Life:  Now you have found just the right amount of food you need and know the foods that you truly enjoy.


Lastly, get moving like a french woman.

So give it read.  Even if you don't want to lose weight she has some great recipes in it for croissants :)  That said I think I'd rather walk down to our local bakery and buy my croissants and walk home to enjoy it.  How very French of me ;)

Bonjour and Bon Apetit!

Sip It Saturday: A Double Pils and Roasted Okra

Last Saturday I indulged in a few beers.  I haven't any beer in several weeks and this was refreshing.  My husband makes fun of me these days as I tend to prefer the lighter less hoppy beers.  I think it's been the heat that did it too me.  Yet tastes do change.

I had one while I chatted with Stephen while he was preparing our dinner and another with this delicious meal.



Bunless burger topped with cheddar cheese and onions with a side of roasted okra.   I'm in love with roasted okra!

Roasted Okra
Pre-heat Oven to 425 Deg
Cut the okra 1/2 in or so.  About 1/2 to 1 cup per person
Drizzle with olive oil
toss with some salt, garlic and onion powder/granules.
Cook for about 12 minutes

Foodie Friday: Husk Cherry Salsa

Have you ever heard of husk cherries?  They are new to me.  They look like mini tomatillos and they are a relative.  They are cross between sweet and tart.  I tried some at the farmers market last Saturday and fell in love.  So of course I bought some and came home and made this fresh salsa.



1/2 pint husk cherries cut in half
4 small tomatoes finely chopped
1/2 red onion finely chopped
2 small cloves garlic finely diced
juice from 1/2 a lime
1 jalapeno finely chopped
salt to taste



If I had bought some cilantro I would have added some but sadly I did not.  It was sweet, a bit spicy and delish on some Silva's corn chips.  Yum!

Snack Time Crunch Time

I keep finding yummy things to make and share so I think I'll starting posting some Foodie Friday on Wednesday too.  I don't want anyone to miss out on the local farmers market bounty.

One of the things I like about about corn chips, pita chips, or wasabi peas are the crunch. Since I am abstaining from them at the moment I've been craving something to crunch and for some reason nuts and seeds just don't do it for me.   So when this buzzfeed link, 25 Baked Alternatives To Potato Chips And French Fries,  went across my facebook feed I had to take a look.  It was the answers to my crunchy craving.  So today I made kale chips and some zucchini chips too. 

The kale chips I cooked in my lower oven at 325 deg which is both convection and regular oven.  A fan goes on when it's just in the regular oven mode.  I think having that air circulation helped these crisp up.  I wonder if using convection would do even better?  I'm getting ahead of myself. 

I washed and veined the kale as a friend of mine said she found the veins didn't get very crispy.  Patted them dry and tossed them with some olive oil, salt, and garlic powder.  Basically cook until crisp.  I checked on mine every 5 minutes or so. They took about 10 plus minutes.



I tried this zucchini chip recipe.  As the recipe suggested do go light on the spices since the slices shrink quite a bit so it gets very concentrated.  So next time I plan to spice them near the end of the cooking to see if that helps. You cook these slowly at 225 deg for about an hour so plan ahead if you want some. 

These veggies chips are just the tip of the iceberg.  I can't wait to try some winter squash chips and maybe some beet chips too.  I'm not a beet fan.  Beets are so beety. I'm sure for a treat I'd love the ones here covered in bacon!

Monday Musings: A Confession

So I must confess. I am on a diet. Some of you know me and know I am anti-diet.  Ideally we make lifestyle changes and lose weight slowly.  I am making those changes. Yet, I am aware that I do want to lose at minimum 20 pounds. So it's there.  I need to be honest about that while also focusing on the healthier eating habits I learned from Mindless Eating.

And the diet I'm on is fairly drastic and a bit crazy especially for me.  We are loosely following the 4hour diet by Tim Ferris.  This web page here gets you the basics. You don't eat any grain carbs as well as fruit and cheese. Some nuts are good for snacks. You can eat beans, meats, eggs, and veggies.  On cheat day anything is fair game.  I picked this one as a starting point because I want see how I feel if I don't eat wheat in particular.  I tend to go for starchy and grainy snacks if hungry.  I've been feeling bloated and lethargic.  I can over due the dairy as well.

I admit I am a bit hungry in between meals.  It was worse the first week but easier the second week.  Since I believe in changing the rules  if I want to I do have 1/4 of greek yogurt during the day to curb hunger if I need to as well as a handful of almonds or pumpkin seeds. I can have a piece of chocolate and a glass of wine in the evenings too.  I do use milk in my coffee as opposed to cream. I've dropped the amount to 1/4 cup this week.  I might up it to 1/3 cup again as it's just not as satisfying. Food should be satisfying or why bother?

The hunger I have is different than the sugar crashing hunger I got before.  I'm hungry but I don't feel like I have to eat right now or I will die.   Now that I don't eat cheese every day when Stephen makes me an omelet on Saturday the melted cheese is divine. Everything I eat just tastes better.  Some of it could be all the great local produce.

I'm not craving the breads or cookies even.  Last Saturday Stephen made one of our favorite oatmeal cookies and I had one.  I didn't want another.  He did take the rest to work on Monday so we wouldn't be tempted. The kids made brownies and it wasn't a hardship to say no. I except that I hate to say no to my kids when they cook!

What was hard to not do was to nibble the crumbs in the pan.  That wasn't because I wanted the crumbs it was habit. I love to nibble.  Even though I don't want to go have a big bowl of pasta with sauce.   I find it really hard to not toss two or three pieces of the pasta in my mouth when I put the pasta away if the kids made some.

So one of my new food rules is to only eat when I am hungry and only if it's on the list.  So I only snack if I am hungry.  The other is eat more veggies at least 3 cups a day. Which I need to do on this diet but I want to keep doing forever.  The last one is kind of two rules together eat until I am stated by eating smaller amounts.  So I'm putting less on my plate than usual.

It sounds like my meals could be boring and bland but I promise you they are not.  So I'll be sharing what I eat.  I'm a foodie at heart.  I love food.  I take it as a challenge to make simple everyday fair delicious.

Sunday Book Review: Mindless Eating

So you have put on some pounds and you can't figure out why?  Don't want to go on a diet?  This is the book to read.  Not that anything one thing is an easy fix but just a few things in a years time can make a big difference.  Brian Wansik shares his research on our relationship to food and why it's it can be so hard to change.

Most Americans get visual queues to know they are done eating.  So if you use a smaller plate for your meal you will eat less and feel more satisfied than on a plate that looks half empty.

Put the good stuff to eat at eye level in your fridge.  I make a mixed bin of chopped veggies called Yuppie Veggies inspired by a local restaurant that is no longer in business.  Yuppie veggies include: broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, and carrots. It's easy peasy for me to pull out them out then steam or saute them for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Seriously, I do have veggies for breakfast.

Because we eat mindlessly and it's actually challenging to get our selves to be mindful.  The ideal is to make small changes that are positive then those good habit become mindlessly "dieting."

Wansik suggest the power of three.  So maybe you want to lose some weight find three 100 calories things you can take remove without feeling deprived.  In a year you could likely lose 30 lbs!

Or maybe you want to eat healthier.  Then make it a goal.  Try keeping track of it with some awareness for a while.  He even has some free downloads on his web page. 

Monday Musings

It's a been a while.  I've been doing lots of stuff but not taking the time yet again to blog about all the happenings. I plan to again over the next few weeks.

Just a few hints to wet your appetite.

The boy kid and I went swimming regularly until it got so hot out it wasn't even fun going to the pool. The girl spent most of her free time helping at Theatre Lawrence.

My husband Stephen and I tried to get a garden going but the heat kicked us in the ass.  There is always next year!

Stephen was let go at his job but he got a new one, thank the gods with a nice pay raise so even better.

I've been working on my sweater yarn.



Eating healthier and walking at least 3 times a week.



Yarn Bombing, hanging out with my fiber friends, and knitting sweaters.  I know crazy in all this heat.  I was actually cold this morning eating my breakfast on the porch.



Last week we finally caught up with some homeschooling friends.  During the summer it just wasn't happening.