"I gained 5 pounds at Thanksgiving!"
Now for 10% of Americans, this might be true, but for most of us it's just plain old water weight.
Folks, you're going to retain water and feel bloated and gross the day after eating. It's factual physiology and your body trying to deal with an excess of food. But you need to realize this will come off with some good, old fashioned sweat (and getting back to eating fresh healthy meals!)
Rather than trying to starve yourself the day after overeating, hit the gym. Go for a walk. Get active. SWEAT!!! And resume eating whole, unprocessed, fresh foods with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables. You'll feel good as new in 48 hours.
As for me, I got up this morning and burned 480 calories at the gym. I feel 90% better! Did the sweaty Stairmaster, the funky elliptical and some pushups/abs.
Pre-workout toast:
Now I'm having an oatmeal pancake sans sides (to keep calories lower for my dinner tonight). I did add some walnuts for staying-power, as I have reason to believe walnuts do something magical to my body.
Also gave in a had butterscotch coffee. It smelled too good to pass up. If I get shoulder tension, I'll just have to relax in the car with a good book.
Breakfast calories (plus toast): 415.
Off to Spartanburg, SC for the night. Lunch today is most likely make-your-own sandwiches. I'm bringing a pear as a side dish. I'm hoping to get a walk in this afternoon around my father-in-law's neighborhood.
I'll be back tomorrow after lunch with my report!
Enjoy the rest of your weekends :)
6 comments:
Kath,
Care to share your recipe for Blue Cornbread? It looks so good! :)
I am a huge fan of your blog and you've become such an inspiration to me! I am a college student and I'm devoted to eating healthy.. but it's so hard living in a dorm room with my amazingly skinny roommate who eats nothing but chocolate and pizza. I try to buy healthy foods -Plain yogurt, carrots, hummus, kashi crackers and granola bars, cottage cheese, fruit & natural peanut butter are always in my room.
Can you think of any other foods or suggestions that can help me stay healthy while living in my dorm and eating out of a cafeteria everyday?
Again, Thank you so much for all the hard work you put into your blog! I hope to someday be as healthy as you!!
Hello! Your Thanksgiving dinner looked beautiful and delicious! :) I hope you're enjoying your weekend! -Meg-
Hey Anon,
Healthy living in college is TOUGH!! I think your success will depend on your lifestyle. I spend many of my college nights drinking (I didn't drink a ton, but enough to add 300-500 calories to each week) and of course the drinking led to eating. I was so happy when I graduated because I felt like I could finally start living a healthy life. Good for you if you're mature enough to do this while in college!!
My best advice to everyone is to get lots of exercise so you can eat enough and not feel deprived. I try to burn at least 400 calories per day, if not more, through my early morning workouts and at least one 30 minute walk (weather and time permitting). This lets me eat 1700-1800 calories per day and still lose weight. Of course you should watch spending too much time in the gym (it is possible to have an exercise addiction) but the more you move, the easier it will be to maintain your weight (or lose some).
As for eating in the dining hall, see if you can go back and look at my Thursday nights. I've been eating at a local college dining hall for a few months now as I take a nutrition class on Thursday evenings. The dining hall is small and doesn't have many options, but I almost always have a huge raw vegetable salad with not much dressing to help fill me up. I'll have small portions of the "hot entrees" to go WITH the salad. Lately they've introduced soup, which is usually a safe choice. You can also bring your own whole wheat bread to the dining hall (if they don't have it) and use their condiments and deli meats to make sandwiches.
Eating in a dorm room is very difficult, but I would be sure you have lots of grab-and-go fruits like apples and bananas, peanut butter, canned beans if you can swing them (they're great mashed on a sandwich), and packets of tuna with packets of mustard and dried herbs to mix together and spread on crackers. It sounds like you've already got a good selection.
Hope that helps!!
Kath
Here's the cornbread recipe (slightly modified from Alton Brown's "Cornbread No Chaser" in his baking book). This is not a sweet cornbread, but it is nicely moist:
203g cornmeal
10oz milk
56g vegetable oil
50g applesauce
2 large eggs
135g AP flour
5g baking powder
6g salt
1t butter
-preheat oven to 450* with a 9 or 10 inch cast iron skillet inside
-warm milk, and soak cornmeal in it for 15 mins
-in a mixing bowl beat together oil, applesauce, and eggs
-add cornmeal-milk mixture to eggs-oil mixture, beat together
-in another mixing bowl add flour, baking powder and salt, briefly mix for even distribution
-pour liquid mixture into dry mixture and fold together
-making sure the oven and skillet are preheated, pull skillet out, add butter and swirl around to coat pan
-pour dough in, bake for 25 mins
-when done, remove from skillet to cool (otherwise it will keep cooking)
-enjoy!
If you don't have a cast iron skillet, buy one. If you're dying to make this bread RIGHT NOW, you could give it a try in a cake pan. You may have to cook it a few minutes more... lemme know how it goes!
The husband forgot to mention: this recipe is NOT low-fat!! The bread is about 80 calories per oz, so a good sized piece is about 250-300 calories. But it's good if you have room to splurge :)
Kath
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