Crazy DIET tips!!

I just finished watching an episode of Oprah, a show I have a lot of respect for, and which I sadly haven't watched in years. Today, however they were talking about child obesity and American diets. I love learning about health. I am a health fiend you might say. Any article I see about health, I typically will devour; one because I strive really hard to lead a healthy life, and two, health experts are always discovering new and surprising facts about what is healthy and what isn't. Sometimes I feel like I care so much about my body because it is one of the small things I can actually feel I have some control over in this chaotic world of ours when so many of the things we plan don't work out in the way we had hoped.

As an adolescent, I was awkward and overweight as many are. Not obese in any way but I had some extra and unwanted pudge. I think most adolescents hate how they look, and honestly I don't blame them; their bodies are so out of whack, they aren't kids any more, but they aren't adults and their bodies and minds are just as confused.

At twelve, I started to pay attention to labels, mostly fat content. I never really counted calories, but if something had anything higher than a 7g fat content, I wouldn't eat it. I would always choose the fat free items.

Over time, along with the rest of America, I have started to avoid fad diets and began learning more healthy ways to eat, by choosing more holistic foods; foods that come from the ground, or from nature rather than a box or processed until it has no resemblance to REAL food. I also learned that our bodies actually NEED fat! Good fats mind you and probably not as much as the Big Mac has to offer but still, some good fat, in good amounts is....good!

Oprah's guest speakers were the editor of Men's Health, and the author of Eat this not that.

The audience was given a quiz of foods that they should choose over the other. One of the more surprising things they listed was pork bacon vs. turkey bacon. Obviously there are many different brands out there, but the consensus seems to be that because the sodium levels of turkey bacon is so much higher, pork bacon is actually the healthier choice. Another surprising choice was a multi-grain bagel with low fat cream cheese vs. a glazed doughnut.

vs.

Answer: glazed donghnut.
Why: Multi-grain is deceiving, just because it has many different grains does not mean that they are whole grains. It needs to say multi-whole grain. And the amount of carbs and calories in a bagel are astounding!

Wait what!!? Why have I avoided doughnuts for all of my life!!? Hand them over!

The website even has a game which is astoundingly enlightening! Play it! Really, it is lots of fun to get so many answers wrong!!
The worst thing I found out while taking this quiz was the caloric intake of any of Schlotzsky's sandwhiches, which are some of my favorite but I may never be able to eat one again :(

Our health is something that we should all value, because without our health, we don't have anything. Love yourself enough and choose to make good choices. Sometimes it's difficult when there is an open bag of M&Ms in the kitchen and you have a choice between fruit or chocolate. I know I don't always make the correct choice because it is hard, but the right choices in life are most of the time not easy. I'm not preaching here, I just found this program extremely interesting, surprising and informative and I wanted to share with all of those who also are health conscious.

Amp it up!

So we are on a diet...

I gained 5 pounds when I got home....

yeah, not happy about that.

And Kyle, well, he is always unhappy about his weight so we decided to take drastic measures and don don don go on a REAL diet. It's not that serious of a diet, just cutting back strictly on carb in take by eating mostly veggies, meats and fruits and only eating a few carbs a day, mostly with oatmeal and those new whole wheat gold fish, yummy. This is not a permanent diet, it is only till we get at our desired weights. Plus with the help of Billy Blanks and his new amplifier which works your core, back and arms, we are turning our slushy bodies into stone. However, the amplifier set that Kyle purshased only came with ONE amplifying bar. And as you can see there are TWO of us. That caused a bit of a problem. I mean, we share well, we eat off the same plate, drink out of the same glass, I sometimes borrow his t-shirts to sleep in, but we can't use the same amplifier at the exact same moment in time...

... that is until Steven Hawkings figures out how to warp the time/space continuum.


So we put our creative minds together, literally, we bumped heads, and it hurt... and came up with a cheaper solution than simply buying another amplifier for $15 (I know I know, we are cheap, but we are also poor). We made our own amp bar with pcv pipe, sand +water inside and ankle weights at the ends. The Billy Blanks amp weighs 3 lbs which when working out is plenty. But since Kyle is a boy... oh sorry, I mean MAN (really he is a five year old boy trapped in a big boys body) he wanted his to weigh more. I don't know to prove his manliness.

Here Kyle is looking sweaty after our work out.

I know, I know, we are geniuses. We pat ourselves on the back several times for this achievement, and so far it works great. The only problem is that there are no sweat bands on our version like on the Taebo version. Any ideas anyone?

Look at that strong boy, ahem, I mean MAN. He is looking buffer already!

AND... we found a new recipe that we think all who are trying to be healthy and also eat more blueberries for their antioxidants will like. We really liked it.

We found this recipe in SELF magazine. But we only used half a pint of blueberries rather than the full pint because we thought it was too much and we would not recommend seeding your jalapeno because it made our salsa rather weak. To strengthen it, because we didn't have anymore jalapenos on hand, we used cayenne pepper and Tabasco sauce and that really seemed to kick it up a notch.

Turkey Roll-ups With Blueberry Salsa

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1 pint blueberries
• 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 kiwifruit, peeled and diced
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1/4 red onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 butter lettuce leaves
• 4 slices deli turkey

PREPARATION

1. Combine mayonnaise and curry in a bowl. Place blueberries, jalapeño, kiwifruit, lime juice, onion and salt in a bowl; stir to combine. Top each of the lettuce leaves with 1 tbsp mayo mixture, 1/2 slice turkey and 1 tbsp plus 1 1/2 tsp blueberry salsa. Roll up to serve.

The skinny

145 calories per serving, 5.5 g fat (0.1 g saturated), 22.3 g carbs, 3.5 g fiber, 5.4 g protein