Eating Healthier - Commerce City,CO

Did anyone mention string cheese or celery sticks (you could have it with peanut butter or laughing cow cheese) as snacks. I'm doing the South Beach Diet right now and it recommends some type of cooked egg in the morning (quiche cup, omelet, scrambled eggs, etc) with some vegetable cooked in it, then a snack in the morning, then a salad with some type of meat protein for lunch and a sugar free jello then another snack in the afternoon. Then for dinner some type of protein and 2 vegetables. Plus a dessert of Ricotta cheese, no cal sweetner, an extract for flavoring (lemon, almond, vanilla) then if you want to make it chocolate add cocoa powder. Good luck.

I love sparkpeople.com There are a lot of recipes and other resources for making the change to a healthier lifestyle. And it's completely free! That said...like a previous poster said, I try to cut/portion/bag snacks a few times a week. It does take some pre-planning, but the more you do it the easier it gets.

Here are some of my favorite snacks for at work:
Hummus with carrots or red peppers
almonds
oranges, clementines
apples
banana
light string cheese
raisins
strawberries
avocado
whole grain crackers
whole grain tortilla (with or without peanut butter)
grapes
cherry tomatoes
garbanzo beans w/ ff raspberry ving. dressing (strange, I know!)

I also drink lots of hot green tea or peppermint tea.

What kind of "healthy" are you looking for? Low calorie? Low fat? Low sugar? Natural?
I am trying to watch my bad cholesterol and my sugar intake.
I LOVE snacking on oranges in the afternoon at work. I also have a bag of shelled walnuts I like to snack on. Apples, bananas, cheerios and craisins are also great snacks. I always make sure I have lots of nice cold water with me too! Good luck mama!

I'm in the same boat. Allrecipes.com has some good healthy meals that my whole family enjoy. I too have a snacking issue, but I try to stick to celery, carrots, the laughing cow cheeses (low fat) and even cheerios if I'm wanting something sweet. For lunch I usually eat a tuna packet and maybe a piece of fruit as I am not a big lunch eater for some reason but know I have to eat. My FAVORITE breakfast right now is 2 hard boiled eggs, half a grapefruit and black coffee.

I bring food with me everywhere I go! I take little baggies of mixed nuts, apples, bananas, (any of your favorite fresh fruit), granola, yogurt, cheese cubes, cut up veggies with dipping sauce, and veggie sticks (like a potato chip... but much healthier)... and of course a bit of dark chocolate! (make sure you get things with few ingredients... no added sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc.) Those are my most common on the go food items for myself and my family! I never leave home without my "snacks"!

Look at the USDA website - mypyramid.gov. It has the current food guidelines and some good meal ideas. When I was pregnant, I used this site to completely change my eating habits (and lost 40 lbs in the process). It will likely help to bring your snacks from home (carrot sticks, celery, 1 oz of toasted almonds, fruit, edamame are all easy ideas). It might also help to put aside all the $$ you save from avoiding pre-processed, fast and vending machine foods for a while and then buy yourself something. Good luck

I've been getting the 90 calorie Kellog cereal bars and using those for a quick breakfast, mid morning snack or mid afternoon snack. I think the key is to get something small in about every 2 hours so that you are not SO hungry that you need to go grab something from the vending machine when you finally can't take it anymore.
I also get protein bars and shakes usually from Costco and keep those on hand for that too.

Jessica Seinfeld has some good healthy recipes for families that are easy to make and low cal. As far as snacks go some nuts are healthy or an apple with some cheese, or almond butter. You can also try to make your own low cal healthy granola mix as well. Carrots are great and easy to nosh on during the day. Celery and peanut butter or almond butter again is good. You can do cucumber slices with hummus. You could also blend up your own smoothies and take those to work, they are great and some are low cal and filling. Snacking is okay as long as you are snacking on the right stuff, rice cakes are good as well. I would try to pack a bag or keep a drawer at your desk that you can store healthy snacks in, and keep a cooler bag at your desk for those snacks that need to be refigerated that way you don't have to leave your desk to walk by that tempting vending machine.

Another thing you could do is ask your work to get healthier snacks in the vending machine, there are companies out there that have lots of healthy snacks for vending machines, or calorie proportioned snacks at least. It really is up to you and what you really want to do. Because if it's something you really want to do you will go out of your way to make it happen.

When I was in high school, I used to take a salad for lunch, no meat, with the dressing in a separate little container. For a snack, I'd take a baggie of pretzels. I think the easiest thing I did to eat healthier was to cut out the morning snack of a candy bar (all too easy to get my hands on from the school's snack bar!) It was amazing the difference just that change made.

I've also learned (although I don't always follow it) that you need to take a break for a snack. Don't eat while you're doing something else! I used to think that reading or studying while eating was a great way to multi-task, but it turns out I just ended up eating mindlessly. I wasn't paying attention to what I was eating, so I didn't really taste my food, so I felt like I hadn't eaten much, so I ate more. It's a bad, bad habit! Same goes for eating while working or watching tv.

Putting snacks in snack-sized baggies is also a great way to limit how much you eat. Instead of just digging into a bag of pretzels, and eating until I'm full, I have a smaller portion and find I'm usually okay with just what's in the bag.

BTW, I LOVE pretzels with small cubes of cheddar cheese, or some string cheese. I eat a pretzel or two with each bite of cheese, and yum!

As for meal ideas, anything that doesn't come out of a box is going to be WAY healthier than processed foods. So make tacos, spaghetti, burritos, grilled or baked chicken and a baked potato, and always serve a vegetable on the side. I sneak veggies into dishes whenever I can, like sweet 'n sour chicken. I load it with carrots and broccoli.

I put crushed pineapple in jello for a side dish or snack. It's great for getting fruit. Sometimes I put in mandarin oranges in addition to the pineapple. Super yum! And believe it or not, you can shred carrots to add to the mix and you can hardly tell they're in there.

We love apple slices for snacks, too.

hummus and baby carrots.
almonds

for meals:
stir fry (i use Asian seasoned gluten from Asian market)
home made pizza on whole wheat bobali with less cheese and more veggies
grilled fish tacos
home made veggie " sushi" hand rolls with nori, brown rice, avacado and lettuce, Shiracha and wasabi to dip.
Thai steak salad (basically a salad with sweat hot chilli sauce, mango, tomato, mung bean sprouts, diced giner, lime, peanuts)
mexican rice bowls (rice beans cheesse lettuce tomatos.....)

Just make cooking simpler. If you like sauces, either put them on the side and use less or add less to a recipe. Use "smart balance" margarine instead of butter. Service vegetables baked with olive oil and garlic, not a bunch of butter. Go lighter on salad dressing..........just use less. Portions is a big trick in eating healthy.

typical meal: basic LEAN meat, salad, vegetables, bread (not white bread) If you serve dessert don't offer two dozen cookies. Give each person two, or have a fruit salad.

Snacks are not a bad thing if you make good choices. In fact you should eat every few hours. Breakfast, mid morning snack, lunch, mid afternoon snack, dinner. Keep the snacks small and be sure to include protein to avoid getting sleepy and to help you feel sated. Examples of a healthy snack would be a handful of almonds and a piece of fruit. Or a small yogurt. Read the labels of the yogurt. I have discovered Oikos and not only is it organic, but has at least twice the protein content as the other yogurts. I have this for lunch with fruit and bread or rice cakes. I'm full!

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something I struggle with (and I'm a marathoner and meet with nutritionists often, attend boot camps 2x a week and training 2x a week) is that I'm always on "the go", so I can get into ruts where I'm snacking all day too.

But that is OKAY, if you are snacking on the right things. Keep in mind that the more often you eat (not more; more 'often') the harder your metabolism has to work, and the harder it works, the faster it becomes! Just like exercise and building muscle: the more you do it, the faster and stronger you get! Your metabolism is the same way!

So smaller portions of the best things is actually very good for you! Snack all you want!

I struggle with having things ON HAND. So what I try and do is take time on a saturday or sunday and chop all my veggies and fruit for the week and package them up in to-go baggies so I can just grab them from the fridge. I keep a cooler in my car for nuts, fruits and veggie bags to snack on the road in between meetings, school, picking kids up, training etc.
(almonds, peanuts, chopped celery, carrots, peppers, apples, strawberries, grapes, oranges, kiwi, cheese cubes, rice cakes, natural/organic peanut butter, or make tuna salad ahead of time & use celery to dip it in etc)

Also, I find that drinking water from a straw makes it much easier bc I honestly just don't LIKE water but it is SOOOOOOOOO good for you in ways I don't have room to discuss! Get a bottle and drink from a straw all day; you'll be surprised how much water you get in and how full you feel!

a great magazine is Clean Eating which has very simple, easy recipes that are SO SO healthy. They have a cookbook out as well, which isnt too expensive on amazon.com.

http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/

HI--
The key to eating healthy is to eat all natural, real foods. Anything that is processed or has chemical preservatives in it isn't good for you. Bottom line, if the label has something on it that you don't know what it is, then avoid it.
J.

Hi S.,

How many recipes would you like, as I oer over 650 between my cookbook, 600 just for use in high altitude. Are you looking for snacks, meals. Snacks are easy, but first you must stop buying all of the prepackaged stuff and make your own. Know that even premixed or fruit on th bottom yogurt is not as healthy as Plain Yogurt with fresh/fresh frozen fruits and maybe a pinch of honey added. I also address special dietary needs in the high altitude cookbook, and the new one: 'Love More Feed Less' has many healthful snack recipes within to help replace those prepackaged.

To start here's a favorite: Fruit wraps

Take a whole date, remove the pit and replace with an almond. Then cut a thin piece of munster cheese in half lengthwise, and wrap half around the date and enjoy. 3 wraps makes for a great snack expecially when at work.

R./The Muffin Lady