MENA diet/exercise thread

[sereia 0]

i bought kedem grape juice yesterday (because i hate red wine but want the benefits)

YUM! best tasting grape juice!

[doodlebugg 10]

1 cup shredded Chihuahua cheese, Asadero or Monterey Jack

I always cringe at cheese in recipes. I've been cooking lowfat for nearly 10 years now - if I start loading up cheese on stuff, I end up getting myself a nice stomachache. o.o

What I do:

- Add flavor, not fat. Cheese is basically ... a big old block of pure fat - use spices & good prep, not fats (mayo, butter, oil, cheese = bad)

- Trim as much fat as you possibly : cut fat off the meat - you just chopped off loads of calories. Making burgers? Press down with that spatula - not only are those big ol' flames on the grill pretty cool looking - but a ton of calories just got burned ... quite literally.

- Don't be afraid of bread. Bread's good. So's pasta - if you prepare it right (like, without butter & cheese.)

- If you *must* fry, fry with less oil/fat, or preferably, no added oils/fat.

- Remove fatty toppings ( cheese, oil, mayo, bleh )

- Watch out for those so-called "sugar free" and "low-fat" items in the store. LoL! Read the ingredients & nutrition facts for em. When they take out one thing, they replace it with another. Don't trust it.

- Packaged baked goods are EVIL. All of em! EVIL! EVIL! No exceptions! Put the danish down! (Even the so-called "low fat" ones - do't be fooled! They substitue sugar for fat. The calories are *almost* identical. No difference. )

- And finally, I like this one the best - if you read the ingredients, and you feel the need to ask yourself ... umm, what's this "partially hydrogenated monoglyceride riboflavinomine xanthanine gum of esther"? Then it's probably best that you ... ... don't eat it.

It's worked great for me.

Also....don't by anything that says "enriched." Means they've taken all the good stuff out. I've even found some supposed whole wheat bread that is enriched. Bad stuff! I'm all into whole wheat pasta. Love the stuff. The hard thing in my house is the rice. My husband is convinced he had enriched rice in Egypt. I'm like...."honey.....I helped clean all that rice, picking out the stones and such and there is no way that rice is enriched!!!! So....what I do. (shush....don't tell him) is that I cook with a little of "his" rice and more with "my" rice. He's never noticed the difference.

I remember one year I was on Atkins and I gave the kids "rice" pilaf....but there was no rice in it, it was grated cauliflower. Neither one knew!!!

[Nasturtium 500]

I absolutely love heirloom tomatoes.

Do you have a fav? Ammar says that they are pretty particular in his area, and won't eat anything they haven't seen before-- so no new varieties of anything. WHich is totally awesome for me!!!!!!!! More for me! I'm going to try to pick out one of each color (red, orange, yellow, striped, green, white, purple/black, chocolate) and bring a cherry and a full-size of each.

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

I am at school now and I'm going to make a work out schedule according to when my show is on. Hee Hee Hee. Our stationary bikes have their own little TV's with cable. I like to keep my mind occupied if I'm going to do cardio so this looks like my work schedule. Ghost Hunters International on Sci-fi. Ah shucks this site don't post just the Ghost Hunters Intl. schedule but you can narrow it down on the Sci-fi website schedule search.

My plan is to first strength train and lose some pounds and increase flexability until I reach a certain weight then I will begin the running plan I told you all about. Couch to the 5K.

[chaishai 1]

I am at school now and I'm going to make a work out schedule according to when my show is on. Hee Hee Hee. Our stationary bikes have their own little TV's with cable. I like to keep my mind occupied if I'm going to do cardio so this looks like my work schedule. Ghost Hunters International on Sci-fi. Ah shucks this site don't post just the Ghost Hunters Intl. schedule but you can narrow it down on the Sci-fi website schedule search.

My plan is to first strength train and lose some pounds and increase flexability until I reach a certain weight then I will begin the running plan I told you all about. Couch to the 5K.

I have done the couch to 5K before - extremely effective and you will keep going from there!

[doodlebugg 10]

I did the couch to 5k last spring before I started having problems with my right knee. It really is an incredible program. I was amazed at the stamina I built up.

Ok so yesterday all I wanted to do was commit to the oatmeal in the morning. Well I don't know what got into me but I also had a nice big salad for lunch, the leftover stuffed peppers for dinner AND .... the biggest thing was I peeled an apple and sprinkled it with splenda and cinnamon, nuked it for one minute and instead of topping it with Ben n Jerry's cinnamon roll ice cream I topped it with fat free french vanilla yogurt. Dunno why I did it but I did AND instead of making the full fat microwave popcorn at the end of the night I had a tiny bag of smartfood (the kind I normally pack in the kids' lunches).

You guys are rubbing off on my and I'm not happy about it!!!

[Nasturtium 500]

Yay! Yesterday I had a big stirfry like the one I posted only I also added a cut up radish to it to try. Radish is not bad cooked! I don't like them raw, so I wasn't sure how I would feel about them. i don't like peppery things like radish, peppers, etc so it was a surprise.

How do those of you who get monthly exhaustion combat that? it would seem like maybe there is somehting that would help (diet-wise), but then again since it's all hormonally linked, it maybe just can't be helped. I've noticed at first I get voracious in diet and then once things start, I don't care about food anymore, so it's hard to figure out what to eat since i'm not hungry and just want to sleep.

That couch to 5k sounds cool! I did something like that myself, and it was at the local indoor track (free). It is 13 laps to make a mile, and I did 2 walk to warm up, then 2 run, 2 walk, 2 run, 2 walk, 2 run, 2walk, 2 run, then 2 walk. At first I was ready to die, but then it started to get easier. It took me maybe 45 minutes and my motivation was to get thinner and to not be shamed by the little punk kids who were wandering around or that 80-year-old man who was going faster than me. I stopped when i got really busy but I wish I hadn't. it was the best workout ever. I should see about going back.

[hollyw 0]

I joined a gym yesterday! But then I ate 2 chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. Baby steps

[sereia 0]

yesterday i made seared ahi tuna and a big salad with spinach and other greens, persian cucumbers, baby tomatoes, mint, avocado, olives, and a lemon/evoo dressing. on sunday we went to our local farmers market and found a REALLY strong olive oil so we only need to use a drop to give it flavor!

[Nasturtium 500]

I wish I was close to a good seafood market that was cheap! Here we have a good one, but it's at least $20 per fish.

[sereia 0]

ouch! no costco there either, julianna? we got the sushi tuna for really cheap there. other markets are $20/pound or so but i think it was around $10/pound at costco!

[Nasturtium 500]

Nope! No costco! Just walmart, and they don't have much going on.

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Yeah the couch to the 5K is great. I'm going to do it but I want to slim down more because the weight now and that kind of rigor would be too hard on my poor bones. I just broke my foot last month and it's nearly healed but I don't want to press my luck. So it's simple cycling for me for about 10-15 more pounds.

I had cream of rice this morning and now I'm hungry and on campus. Yikes! What shall a girl do for healthy eating options when caught on campus hungry?

[doodlebugg 10]

i'm STARVING and there's no food here except the forbidden fruits of the vending machine and I have an hour to go and NO ideas on what's for dinner and no energy to cook it if I did.

This ain't gonna be a good day folks but at least I did have my oatmeal for breakfast and a nice salad for lunch.

[Aymerlu 3]

i'm STARVING and there's no food here except the forbidden fruits of the vending machine and I have an hour to go and NO ideas on what's for dinner and no energy to cook it if I did.

This ain't gonna be a good day folks but at least I did have my oatmeal for breakfast and a nice salad for lunch.

I like to nibble on SOYJOY bars when I get hungry. They're even good for ya too! I also keep almonds in my desk drawer and sugar free jello in the fridge.