Airplane Food Critic

The prune

Last week I tried out a new thing. I decided to eat 5 to 7 prunes every day. Just to see what would happen. I had had a bag of prunes in my cupboard for some time and thought, why not? What happened was very little, which is a good thing. In the morning I would place 5 to 7 (depending on how many fell out of the sticky bag) on a plate. I would begin eating them for my morning snack around 8am and snack on one here and one there until about 11. These things are filling!! I know there is a lot of sugar in these little guys but I didn't feel I was eating that many of them and by lunch time I was stuffed. I could barely eat my lunch. On the downside, I did have a puffed out stomach feeling by the afternoon that didn't go away until the evening. This was a bit uncomfortable but manageable. Over all, I think they were an asset to my diet because I was full most of the day and I ate smaller meals after eating the prunes.

Dried Fruit vs Fresh Fruit

Dried fruit pros are that they are not perishable, they are easy to pack and transport, some fruits provide even more antioxidants (like blueberries) than their fresh counterpart, they are a good snack when you have a sweet craving and they are high in fiber.

Dried fruit cons are that they have less nutrients then the fresh fruit, they have more sugar in a smaller area,

Fresh fruit pros are many, they are rich in fiber, nutrients and minerals and the water in them helps fill you up more.

Fresh fruit cons are that they are perishable and bulky.

The best option when it comes to fresh vs dried fruits is to use both in your diet. Use dried fruits to help with any sweet tooth cravings, to punch up meals and to add more fruit to your diet. Use fresh fruits every day as part of your nutritional program. As for the sugar levels, just don't eat all your daily fruit intake in the form of dried fruit. I don't think you could anyways, it would make you pretty uncomfortable.

I am out of prunes now or I would probably be eating them still just for the filling feeling it gives me.

Swimming

When I say I went swimming, I mean I laid by the pool reading a book while my bf worked out in the pool. I know I should be working out. Building muscle increases your metabolism. It was a Saturday afternoon and I was feeling lazy. What was memorable about going to the pool is that I had to walk across our whole condo complex to get there. I am so happy with my weight loss that I did the whole walk in nothing but my bikini and slippers. Strutting my stuff, if you will. I am so close to my goal weight I am giddy!

The lovely swimming pool

We made a fabby new smoothie that I would like to share with you. When we got back from the pool we decided to make homemade salsa and have aqua frescas on the balcony. Aqua frescas are made with fruit and water. It is basically a watered down fruit drink. They can be very refreshing but most recipes call for sugar to be added. I was in the mood for pure fruit. We came up with a fantastic smoothie that was refreshing and tasted like summer.

Cantaloupe Smoothie

1 cantaloupe, seeds and rind removed

1 cup pineapple

2 cups frozen peaches

2 cups water

2 cups ice

Put everything in a blender and blend until smooth. If I hadn't killed my mint plant (which is a great feat in and of it's self) I would have loved to have garnished with a sprinkle of mint.

Mother's Day was a toughy for me. But then again, isn't every weekend for me?? It was a big cheat on my diet but a fabulous one. I think, by this time, I shouldn't even call it a cheat on my diet, I should just consider it part of my diet since it is a weekly (at minimum) occurrence. My brother, father and I took my mother out to a lovely lunch in Napa at a French restaurant. We had a fantastic bottle of French rose, of which I drank half . I ordered like I was on vacation because in my mind I was on vacation from worrying about my weight. I had a pork belly salad with chicories and candied pistachios to start. Then I had braised short ribs and yukon potatoes and for dessert I had a banana gratin with almond crunch and vanilla ice cream. IT WAS SO GOOD!! Boy was I stuffed after that. I got home at 3:30 and wasn't hungry the rest of the day. I wanted to make a drink to both hydrate myself after the alcohol I drank and to aid in digestion. I came up with a ginger lemonade. I put two inches ginger, peeled, in a blender with the juice and zest of one lemon and a whole other lemon. I added about a cup of ice and a cup and a half of water. I also added a tiny bit of honey but for most that would not have been enough. I like the tang of the lemon so it was just right for me. I whirrled it all together to make a frosty drink. It really hit the spot. I didn't feel that food hangover I can get after eating a lot of fatty foods.

Braised Pork Belly....yum

That pretty much sums up my week of dieting. I am still on track. I have 5 pounds to lose in 16 days. What I need to do now is not become complacent. I must soldier on to the end of this experiment. Wish me luck!

It all started on Friday when I was doing nothing out of the ordinary. All last week I followed my five meal a day diet plan. I do not really understand why but the weight was just MELTING off of me. I dropped a great deal of weight by Saturday morning. To be specific, I had lost 3.5 pounds since Monday. I have absolutely no idea why. I was not doing anything particularly different. I ate about 1200 calories a day in five meal increments. I didn't have alcohol, I didn't eat within three or four hours of bedtime. That is it. I woke up Saturday thrilled about the level I had dropped down to but I was a little leery of it at the same time. A rapid weight loss like that could mean a rapid weight gain might soon follow. And that is exactly what happened, no thanks to my eating habits for the next two days.

I woke up craving chocolate frozen yogurt. This was thanks to Men's Health online magazine. I know I am not a man (duh) but I do subscribe to Men's Health because I find the nutritional and weight loss sections to be very informative. Women's Health is strongly leaned towards running and the recipes do not have the low calorie qualities I look for. Men's Health has this REALLY cool feature called "Shop once, eat for a week". This shows a list of things you can buy at the grocery store for under $50 total and then it gives you recipes that will feed you all week long with what you bought! Buuut I digress, back to frozen yogurt. Men's Health had an article about the 12 best smoothie ingredients. They offer ingredients that will boost weight loss, heart health and build muscle while tasting good at the same time. Since I teased you this far I will share the ingredients with you but I will let you go to the website yourself to find the reasons why they are so good for you.

12 Smoothie Ingredients:

Peanut Butter

Fat Free Milk

Blueberries

Raspberries

Low Fat Vanilla Yogurt

Pineapple-Orange Juice

Cherries

Bananas

Whey Protein (this is the manly ingredient0

Frozen Mangoes

Ice

And.....Fat Free Frozen Yogurt!!

The fat free frozen yogurt, they say, adds calcium and phosphorus with none of the guilt. That set me off on a need for chocolate frozen yogurt.

Before I set out on my search for frozen yogurt, I had a quick breakfast because I never want to leave the house without having my most important meal of the day. I had a poached egg on a piece of toast. As a special treat, I added a couple drops of white truffle oil to the egg. It was wonderful. For those who do not know how to poach an egg, I shall give you the simple instructions.

Poaching an egg:

What you will need:

a pot of approximately two cups of water

1 or 2 tbsp of vinegar

an egg

Heat the water to simmering. Add the vinegar. The vinegar keeps the egg from dispersing into the water giving you a nice lump of egg in the end. Crack the egg into a bowl (this will make pouring it into the water easier). Swirl the water with a spoon. This will help clump the egg together. Slide the egg into the swirling water.

Cook on simmer for about three to four minutes. Remove the egg with a slotted spoon making sure to get as much water out of the egg as possible. Placing it on a dry paper towel or dish cloth will help drain the egg of water too.

I like to add a little more vinegar to the water because it adds a little vinegar flavor to the egg which I like and it keeps me from adding too much salt to flavor the egg later. One tablespoon of vinegar will suffice though.

Armed with a good breakfast I headed out to find my chocolate frozen yogurt. I know nothing of frozen yogurt save for what Men's Health said so I didn't know what to expect. I have not had frozen yogurt since I was about ten years old. I used my trusty Android and found a TCBY. Before I entered the store I saw a sign on the door that read "Everything we serve is at 96% fat free or more". I was impressed and encouraged by the sign. Inside there were about 8 different choices of yogurts, all of varying amounts of fat-freedom. To my delight, the chocolate variety was Fat Free! I did a bit of research on TCBY's yogurts and found that a half cup serving of the "Double Dutch Chocolate Fat Free Frozen Yogurt" has 110 calories, 4 grams protein, 0 grams fat, 3 grams fiber, and 24 grams carbs. I had the Kiddie Cup which is only 1/3 of a cup so I was enjoying even less of all those carbs and calories. A poster on the wall in the store said that there are also seven active probiotics in the yogurt as well which they say enhances your immune system and assists in digestion.

The person I was spending the day with was hungry and we ended up at Subway. He bought a foot long sandwich because, after all, they are only $5 as we all know. I said I would have just a bite. I ate half the sandwich. I couldn't help myself! According to their commercials, Subway CAN be low calorie and low fat but we got the sandwich with the salami and pepperoni and provolone cheese. I am sure that wasn't all that low cal. In fact, according to the Subway website, I consumed 500 calories and 21 grams of fat. Oh well! then I watched a movie so I was just sitting there for a couple hours. After that, I kept on with my over-eating and went to sushi with friends.

Sushi, itself, is not a terrible food to eat, but I ate until I was stuffed. At least I got the rolls with the multi grain rice instead of the regular white rice. I was with a bunch of friends so we ended up at my house and like a good host I served some nice red wine. I had a couple glasses of that...now you can see my calories are adding up.

I went to bed stuffed and feeling a might bit guilty. All of the foods I ate were healthy, if eaten alone, but I stacked large portions on top of large portions. Sunday was Easter and I didn't stop the over eating for the rising of our Lord from the dead. Ohhh nooo....We had brunch at an Italian restaurant. I had a whole serving of polenta (which is actually very good for you) smothered in butter and mushrooms and topped with truffle oil. I also had a whole serving of spinach ravioli stuffed with sausage and topped with tomatoes and cheeses. Oh woe is me!

To summarize my weekend mistakes: I ate food that was relatively healthy for me, I just at WAY TOO MUCH of it all. This week I need to make up for it with lots of fruit smoothies and lean proteins. We shall see. I have 15 pounds to lose in 53 days.

About me:

I have been going to Hawaii in November for over 10 years now. It has become a really good system for my health (mentally and physically). I go right after Harvest dies down so it is a good rest that follows working 16 hour days, 6 days a week. Last year I did not go. I learned a great lesson by not going. I learned that I never ever want to not go to Hawaii in November again. The main, lingering issue is that I realized that I lose weight from October to November for the trip. This means that I go into the Holiday season at a minimal weight. I always come OUT of the season fat and happy but not out of control. This year I went into the Holiday season fatter than I wish to be and I came out of the Holiday season...well, let's just say fat but not happy. So instead of complaining I tried to start eating healthy beginning at the new year. This was not a rapid weight loss but rather a halt to weight gain. Which isn't terrible but not what I am looking for. What I needed was a motivation. What I needed was to go to Hawaii. So that is what I am doing. I understand a lot of people cant just go buy tickets to Hawaii in order to drop a few pounds but I am hoping that this little account of my attempts to lose my own weight will help others. I know that reading other people's weight loss blogs inspires me.

About the Diet:

My plan is to begin with a rapid weight loss regimen then transition into a very healthy diet that is devoid of processed sugars, is low in fat and high in fiber and protein. I think we all know what a healthy diet is by now. Fruits, Veggies, Fish, lean meats, Whole grains, milk blah blah blah. I would recommend to others to follow the diet as I say not as I do because my lifestyle is such that I spend a lot of weekends eating and drinking at dinner parties, restaurants and events. This makes it very difficult to follow a rapid weight loss program because when you indulge, the food immediately turns to fat as we all know. Oh well, I can't help my schedule and I am certainly not going to go to a party or event and only sip wine and munch on a lettuce leaf. I am going to go over board as is my nature.

The Super Soup:

I did a bunch of research about different kinds of foods and how they affect your body. I was doing the bulk of this research on my way home from a particularly indulgent trip to Tahoe where I drank too much and ate things like cheese fondue (a fave of mine). As such I decided to create a soup that not only provides "fat-melting" foods but also detoxifying and cleansing.

Fat Melting

There is really no such thing as a food that literally melts fat, although I like to dream that is what is happening. There are, however, foods that can boost your metabolism so you are burning the fat a little faster. There are also veggies that are packed with nutrients and vitamins or fiber so you don't have to eat as much to feel the benefits. Some examples of fat melting foods are:

Ginger

Hot peppers

Spinach

Any leafy greens

Garlic

Strawberries

Apples

Detoxifying and Cleansing

There are foods that are considered good for cleaning out your system of toxins and waste. Some keep your liver clean some wash out the colon. Some detoxifying and cleansing foods are:

Ginger

Lemon

Garlic

Parsley

Cilantro

Celery

Protein

You wont go far with out having a little protein. In a diet I suggest having the most protein in the morning so you are using it all day long. Foods with high protein are

Eggs

Soy milk

Tofu

Greek style yogurt

Tuna

Lean chicken or turkey breast

Other good stuffs

Some foods act as a diuretic. This does not decrease the fat in your body but helps release some water so you feel and weigh lighter. Examples of this are Parsley and Cucumber. Flax seed is packed with Omega-3 Fatty Acid which helps with the immune system. This can be very helpful when eating a low calorie diet. It also adds fiber to your diet to keep you full. Then there is always the idea of "eating the rainbow". Eating as many different colored vegetables as you can will offer you a complete range of vitamins needed to stay healthy as you go on a rapid weight loss diet.

Ok, all that said here is the "Super Soup" that I came up with:

2 inches ginger

1 Jalapeno, seeded

1 cup fresh cilantro

1 cup fresh parsley

3 tall celery ribs

5 cloves of garlic

1 cup spinach

1 small cucumber

1 cup mixed red, orange and yellow bell peppers (I use about 6 of the mini ones)

1 tbsp flax seed

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup soy milk

1/2 cup greek style yogurt

1 cup chicken broth

Peel the ginger and chop up everything into chunks. Place everything into a blender, preferably a Vita-Mix. Blend until smooth. Heat up individual servings in the microwave.

This makes about 4 or 5 cups of soup. I split the soup into thirds so one serving is approximately 1.5 cups. I am no expert on this stuff so I went to www.calorieking.com and entered all the ingredients to find the nutritional information and this is what I got for the whole entire blender full:

Calories: 322

Fat: 29.7

Carbs: 44.5

Fiber: 13.5

Protein: 24.8

I plan on drinking two cups of this today for breakfast and lunch. If I am in total need of chewing on something I will have a green apple. I will also be drinking 2 Litres of weak green tea today. (I can't handle the caffeine)

Also, I plan on having a cleansing smoothie for dinner. I had this smoothie after my trip to Tahoe and I really felt better after being hungover from too much wine and too much cheese. Here is my recipe for a cleansing fruit smoothie:

5 frozen strawberries

1 lemon

1 orange, rind cut off

1 apple

1/4 cup Organic grade B Maple syrup

1/2 cup water

1 inch ginger, peeled

1 Tbsp Flax Seed

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Cut the rind off the ends of the lemon. Chop up lemon, apple and orange and place everything in the blender or Vita-Mix. Blend until relatively smooth.

Day 1

I didn't realize just HOW much garlic I put in the soup. This may not go well for me today. It certainly isn't going well for my coworkers. Next time I am putting 4 cloves in. I am also going to skip the soy milk and put in a whole cup of the yogurt because it provides less fat and more protein.