Rebel With a Fork

Sigh…

A recent article on Yahoo health gives us 7 more foods not to eat. We already know about the milk and the farm raised salmon, though this article makes it even grosser …

One of the two or three canned goods that I do use is canned tomatoes, and now those are on the list because of that cool white liner they put in the cans now. So what’s the solution? Grow your own tomatoes and take up canning? Seems like a good idea, right? Well there’s potential problems there too that I’ll write about when we get closer to growing season. Don’t order your seeds just yet….

And the whole potato thing – I didn’t realize! Thank heaven we don’t eat a lot of potatoes.

Read The 7 foods that experts won’t eat – (opens in a new window)

It’s getting harder and harder to get a safe healthy diet. At some point you just have to do your best to minimize the risks. I shoot for 90%. I realize that you can’t be 100%, especially if you have to work for a living. there are just not enough hours in the day.

Use the information in the members area to stay informed and make choices that cut your risks, but still fit into a busy lifestyle.

I’m always getting comments from people who have tried unsuccessfully to copy one of my special dishes. Where they fail is that they over complicate things.

My friend was telling me that her mother had tried to make my sweet potato dish for her neice. She added milk and butter and brown sugar – and it just didn’t taste as good. She was surprised when I told her that all I use is a little butter, and sometimes a dash of cinnamon – whip them up, top with marshmallows and throw  it in the oven to toast the marshmallows.

My turkey is simply sprinkled with a little garlic powder and basted with butter. That’s it. And it turns out wonderful.

Most of my cooking is pretty simple. I enhance the flavor of the food, not try to cover it up or change the flavor. Go ahead and sign in to your member’s area and look through the recipes and see how easy they are.

Don’t over complicate things! It’s really easy to eat healthier, and you’ll enjoy the food a whole lot more. Not to mention that you can finally give up dieting and lose weight without hardly trying.

Hey, that’s what being a rebel is all about, right? We do things differently from the herd…

Like many of you, I have an incredibly busy schedule this week. Fortunately for me, all it takes is a couple days of not eating right before my body starts sending reminders.

Too busy and too tired to go to the store to get some healthy food?

Too busy and too tired to make something healthy to eat?

Within a couple of days, I’m too tired to do everything I need to do, the bags under my eyes get worse fast (I’m fighting heredity here too), my skin starts looking dull,  I can’t think fast or clearly, I get depressed easily – and that picture is actually turning my stomach… what am I thinking?!

I headed right out to the store today.

You might think you’re saving time by pulling through the fast food lane, or eating whatever happens to be there, but let me tell you, without vibrant energy – it doesn’t matter.

We can’t always control the demands on our time. Sometimes it just is what it is and you just have to get through it. In the game of life, it’s healthy, energy, and clear thinking that will help you win.

I put a lot of new fast recipes and survival tips in the members area to help us all get through. Yeah – me too. I use the site more than you do!

Now I’m going to finish my green tea and get to sleep. Sleep is going to be in short supply this week, so I’d better take advantage of tonight!

Take good care of yourself ! It’s the best present you can give yourself. And everyone else too. No one wants to be around a grouch. And you sure don’t want to be sick and tired when the big day finally gets here, right?

OK, enough preaching… you know how you’d like to feel.

Tis the season for … heart attacks.

You have  -

Poor diet

Holiday stress

Work stress

Finanacial stress

No exercise

Cold weather

Shoveling

Not enough sleep

It all adds up to a prescription for disaster.

Protect your heart this holiday season -

Eat 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables every day

Eat rich foods in moderation

Try to get some fish  in

Take your vitamins. This time of year you need to be supplementing with Vitamin D, and fish oil or something to get your Omega 3s – on top of your normal multi & anti-oxidants. If you’re over 50 or on blood pressure meds, you definitely should be taking CoQ10.

Eat all day. Don’t just do all of your eating at dinner. You need to keep your body fueled throughout the day, and you’ll burn more calories.

Get enough sleep.

Try your best to not over-schedule. Yes, it’s hard to do.

Head over to the members area and make sure you are loading up on heart healthy foods!

Members should find this press release amusing.

NIH LAUNCHES PROGRAM TO DEVELOP INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO COMBAT OBESITY

The National Institutes of Health is launching a $37 million program that will use findings from basic research on human behavior to develop more effective interventions to reduce obesity.  The program, Translating Basic Behavioral and Social Science Discoveries into Interventions to Reduce Obesity, will fund interdisciplinary teams of researchers at seven research sites.  Investigators will conduct experimental research, formative research to increase understanding of populations being studied, small studies known as proof of concept trials, and pilot and feasibility studies to identify promising new avenues for encouraging behaviors that prevent or treat obesity.

The program is led by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), in partnership with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR).

“Obesity is a significant public health challenge raising an individual’s risk for type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, certain cancers, osteoarthritis, and other conditions,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.  “These grants are intended to develop new and innovative ways to tackle this important problem.  This approach differs from previous large clinical trials of behavioral interventions to reduce obesity by placing new emphasis on applying findings from basic behavioral and social sciences to improve behavioral strategies.”
 
The program’s studies focus on diverse populations at high risk of being overweight or obese, including Latino and African-American adults, African-American adolescents, low-income populations, pregnant women, and women in the menopausal transition.  The interventions being developed include creative new approaches to promote awareness of specific eating behaviors, decrease the desire for high-calorie foods, reduce stress-related eating, increase motivation to adhere to weight loss strategies, engage an individual’s social networks and communities to encourage physical activity, and improve sleep patterns.  Brain scans will also be used to understand brain mechanisms in obesity that might guide the development of new interventions.

The research projects, principal investigators, study sites, and the NIH sponsors include:

– SCALE: Small Changes and Lasting Effects, Mary E. Charlson, M.D., Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York City, sponsored by the NHLBI.

This study will develop and refine a mindful eating intervention aimed at producing small, sustainable changes in eating behavior in overweight or obese African-American and Latino adults with a goal of achieving at least a 7 percent weight reduction in each participant.

– Translating Habituation Research to Interventions for Pediatric Obesity, Leonard H. Epstein, Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo, sponsored by the NIDDK.

This study will translate basic research on the reduced response to food after repeated exposure over time to identify and test strategies for reducing the intake of high-calorie foods while increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables that children consume.

– Interventionist Procedures for Adherence to Weight Loss Recommendations in Black Adolescents, Sylvie Naar-King, Ph.D. and Kai-Lin Catherine Jen, Ph.D., Wayne State University, Detroit, Mich., sponsored by the NHLBI, co-funded by the NICHD.

This study will develop and refine a home and community-based intervention using findings from basic behavioral research on human motivation to improve adherence to weight loss strategies in African-American adolescents.

– Developing an Intervention to Prevent Visceral Fat in Premenopausal Women, Lynda H. Powell, M.Ed., Ph.D., Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, sponsored by the NHLBI.

This study will develop a multi-level intervention targeting the individual, her social network, and the community to increase physical activity and reduce chronic stress and depression in order to reduce unhealthy patterns of weight gain in women in the menopausal transition.  This project focuses on reducing visceral fat because this is the type of fat most strongly correlated with health risks.

– Increasing Sleep Duration: A Novel Approach to Weight Control, Rena R. Wing, Ph.D., Miriam Hospital, Providence, R.I., sponsored by the NCI.

This study will translate basic research on sleep duration into a unique method to reduce obesity and obesity-related conditions in young and middle-aged overweight or obese adults.

– Novel Interventions to Reduce Stress-induced Non-homeostatic Eating, Elissa S. Epel, Ph.D., Barbara A. Laraia, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D. and, Nancy E. Adler, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco, sponsored by the NHLBI.

This study will develop intervention strategies to reduce stress-induced eating in lower-income pregnant women, focusing on the reward and stress response systems that may influence eating behaviors and lead to unhealthy weight gain during pregnancy.

– Habitual and Neurocognitive Processes in Adolescent Obesity Prevention, Kim Daniel Reynolds, Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University, Calif., sponsored by the NHLBI, co-funded by the NICHD.

This study will develop intervention strategies to improve nutrition behaviors in adolescents based on basic behavioral research on the formation of habits, self-regulation of eating behaviors, and the influence of neurocognitive processes on dietary behavior.

A Resource and Coordination Unit (RCU), led by David Cella, Ph.D. of Northwestern University, Chicago, and funded by the NIH’s OBSSR, will facilitate collaboration across the studies.  As part of this program, the RCU will also organize an OBSSR-funded conference in 2010 addressing methods in behavioral intervention development.

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$37 Million!

Heck, send them here – it’s a lot cheaper

Seriously, the issue is not what causes obesity – it’s why people won’t change. You can’t tell me that in this day and age that people don’t know they need to eat healthier. They may not have enough truthful information to make the change, and that’s a problem All they know is what the advertisers feed them.

The funny thing is – 100% of the people who do change are happy they did. OK, that’s not scientific, but I’ve never met a person who said, boy I realy miss all the crappy food I used to eat, and I wish I could go back to being fat and sick and feeling bad.

I’ve only talked to a couple of people who still crave certain fast food favorites. Most people, once removed from it actually detest the taste of foods they used to eat.

I’m thinking they are going to find that the chemically laced foods most people eat are addictive. That’s my prediction. We’ll see what happens.

I don’t know about you, but my month is shaping up to be way too busy.  And as I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to make it through, I’ve been busy adding tons of stuff to the members area to help you make it through too!

I swear I must of added 20 more recipes tonight!

This month you need fast and easy every day dinners, stuff to take to parties, and exceptional  holiday dinner fare. Oh, and some great gift ideas wouldn’t hurt either, right?

I’ve got you covered on all counts!

Go ahead and hit your members area and find all of the goodies.

I get so excited. I love cooking holiday dinners. Heck, I love eating good food any day!

I ate myself silly today. I guess that’s part of working on a food centered website. I had french toast for breakfast, turkey soup for lunch, and a gourmet cheeseburger with a big salad and seasoned potato wedges for dinner.

Of course, I had to shovel this morning, so I burned off a lot, right? And I’ve been busy working for you all day. So I’m sure I’ve burned off plenty of those calories. Oh yeah, taking hyper dog out a zillion times too… Man, it’s cold out there!

If there is something that you need that I haven’t covered, drop me a line and I’ll do my best to get it up for you. After all – I work for you!

Remember – celebrate good food every day!

This video is what we’re all about here at Rebel With a Fork -

What’s on your plate?

Enter the members area for great suggestions!