Custom Made Nutrition Plan

If you want to get healthy, but find the Food Pyramid set out by the U.S. government a bit daunting (What is a grain? How much is a serving? Six to nine servings? Does that mean I can eat nine donuts a day?) an article in Forbes.com says the U.S. Department of Agriculture is offering personalized food pyramids right online.

What I think is especially cool about this is you can see what you personally need. We're always told that women need more calcium than men, and men need more calories than women. Yet we have a one-size-fits-all food pyramid. I checked out MyPyramid.gov, entered my age, level of activity and sex and -- ta-da!-- my very own food pyramid. The program based the pyramid on the number of calories I should be taking in each day and told me in real terms what I need. For example: The U.S. Food Pyramid says I need two to three servings of meat and beans per day. Huh? My own personal food pyramid said I need to eat five ounces of protein each day. Got it!

Even better, your personalized food pyramid has tips you can click on to find ways to work healthy eating into you lifestyle and MyPyramid Tracker lets you assess how you're doing health wise by evaluating your diet and activity level.

It's a all free so check it out.

Superbowl Sunday -- Get Ready to Eat!

Even if the Patriots aren't in the Superbowl, most of us will likely gather with some friends or family and either tune in or to have a movie night and celebrate the end of football season. Whatever your choice, it's likely that you'll be doing some heavy duty snacking and the nachos, buffalo wings and pizza will be right under your nose.

The key is preparation. First of all, have a fiber-packed meal before you head to your celebration to fill you up. Then bring some low-cal food that you can eat as a contribution to the party. If you're hosting the party, make everything low-cal. I found some great recipes on Fitness Freebies and She Knows. If you don't tell your friend the snacks are healthy, they might just think you're a great cook.

Here are just a few of the recipes:

Shrimp Gazpacho Salsa

Ingredients:
One cucumber, peeled seeded and diced.
One large tomato, seeded and diced
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
1/4 cup finely diced peeled red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1-1/2 cups tomato juice1/4 cup red wine vinegar
Two limes, juiced
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 pound cooked peeled medium shrimp, chopped

Directions:In a large bowl combine cucumber, tomato, green pepper, onion and cilantro. Whisk together, tomato juice, red wine vinegar, lime juice, sugar, hot pepper sauce and Worcestershire sauce in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper and pourover vegetables. Mix in cooked shrimp and stir gently until well combined. Chill until served.Recipe makes eight servings.

Nutrition Information per Serving: Calories 60, Calories from Fat 0, Total Fat 0g, Saturated Fat 0g, Cholesterol 55mg, Sodium 390mg, Carbohydrates 6g, Dietary Fiber 0g.

Vegetarian Chili

Ingredients:
Four medium onions, chopped and peeled
One green bell pepper, chopped
3 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon mustard seed
Two, 15.25-oz cans kidney beans, undrained
One, 14.5-oz. can whole tomatoes, undrained
10 ounces trimmed, sliced mushrooms
Three carrots, peeled and diced
One, 6-oz. can tomato paste
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon baking cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions :Cook onions and bell pepper in oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until onions are golden and bell pepper is soft. Add mustard seed; cook for 1 minute, stirring. Add remaining ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer uncovered while stirring often for about 40 minutes or until most of the liquid has cooked away and chili has thickened. Serve hot with heated corn tortillas.Recipe makes six servings.

Nutrition Information per Serving: Calories 300, Calories from Fat 70, Total Fat 8g, Saturated Fat 1g, Cholesterol 0mg, Sodium 870mg, Carbohydrates 47g, Dietary Fiber 11g. Half-Time

Meatball Hoagies

Ingredients:
Meatballs
2 lbs lean ground turkey
1/2 medium onion, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup dried whole wheat bread crumbs
1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced
1 large egg
1 large egg white
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Sauce
One 15 oz and one 28 oz can no-salt crushed tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1-2 canned chipotle chilies, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon dried oregano
8 whole wheat rolls, approximately 3 1/2 inch diameter

Directions: Heat olive oil in medium skillet over med to high heat and add chopped onion. Saute, stirring frequently, until light brown and beginning to caramelize. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. In a large bowl, combine the ground turkey, bread crumbs, parsley, eggs, egg white, pepper, oregano, basil and garlic power. Add cooked onions and mix all ingredients well. With wet hands make 24 meat balls about one quarter cup each, place on a baking sheet and chill until sauce is ready.

In a large cooking pot combine tomatoes, garlic, onion and oregano. Bring to a simmer and cook 10 minutes. Finely chop one or two chipotle chilies (to taste) and add to the sauce. Simmer another 2 minutes. Remove meatballs from fridge and add one at a time to the sauce. Cook for about 10 minutes on medium heat, or until cooked through. Serve on whole wheat rolls. Serves 8

Serving size: One whole wheat roll with three meatballs Per serving: Calories 386, Fat 10.46g, Carbohydrate 36.64g, Protein 33.14g, Cholesterol 102.19mg, Sodium 451mg .

Blech.

Ed and I did not plan well last night. We both got home at 10 p.m. Neither of us had planned for a healthy dinner. Exhausted and not in the mood to start from scratch, Ed picked up some Chinese food on the way home.

Then an interesting thing happened: Not only did we have dieter's regret, we felt sick. Not food-poisoned sick, junk-food sick. Our bodies has gotten used to fruits and veggies and unprocessed food. They revolted when we downed the pu-pu platter for 2. We both still feel lethargic and kind of greasy on the inside this morning. I'm actually craving some veggies to purify my body.

Maybe this healthy eating is starting to take hold. Now, if I could just get addicted to exercise.

Make fitness a group sport

I was talking to my friend Mikel, who's a teacher in Maryland, last night. She's in the process of trying to organize a workout group at the end of the day.

I think this is a great idea: Teachers stay after school three times a week and exercise. Since everyone has those exercise videos they bought and used for a week before shelving them, the group has plenty of workouts to choose from. Mikel said she was thinking about a cardio video twice a week and a yoga or belly dancing video once a week.

Another friend of mine, who also works in a school, organized a Weight Watchers group to meet each week at the school. Teachers and staff were able to cheer each other on and work towards healthy eating together. She lost 30 pounds.

What intrigues me about both of these is ease and accountability.

It's easy to stay for an hour at the end of the work day. Let's face it, most of us already do. It's a lot harder to drive to the gym after that long day or get up an hour early in the morning. That's especially true here in Boston, where it's freezing and dark -- both early in the morning and not-so-late at night.

Then, you're accountable to the rest of your group -- they'll notice if you're not there. They'll notice if the group is on a diet and you run out for a extra large steak and cheese sub on your lunch break. Sometimes knowing others are watching you work toward your health and fitness goals keeps you in line. It's the premise this blog is founded on.

That said, I've done abysmally on the next step of my weight loss plan: Getting moving. I have taken exactly one walk this week. But I did find a great article about some easy ways to just get moving. It's got some great ideas, like getting a book on tape and listening to it only when you walk. Audio books are easy to get and free at your local library. I plan to try this next week.

The article also included a great idea for couch potatoes:

Exercise while watching television. For those who can't get off the couch because they are glued to the television, there is the Entertrainer. The device acts as a universal television remote with a heart rate monitor that straps around the chest, forcing the person wearing it to keep moving to maintain the volume on the TV. Stop moving altogether and the TV shuts off.

One last thing before I go: The Milford Daily News has a quick and informative weight loss quiz to debunk some of the common myths about dieting.

Produce of the Week

So in the quest to bring ever more variety to our diets, Ed and I purchased minneolas this week. This is a tangerine/grapefruit combination. It's also called the Honeybell because of the stem-like end. You peel it like an orange and eat it. I'm going to give it a try with lunch today. Last night, one of my cats -- Abe-- gave the fruit the once over.

Another Point of View

Not everyone is completely on board with Michael Pollan's "Unhappy Meals" that was in New York Times Sunday Magazine (see yesterday's post). There's an article on Scientific American.com that pokes some holes in Pollan's theories. The author, John Rennie, points out that some vegetables contain levels of carcinogens; something I've never heard before. In the interest of fairness and increased knowledge, it's worth taking a look.

Yet overall, the advice is the same -- less junk, reasonable portions, more fruits and veggies.

If only fat didn't taste so good!

Everyone's Getting Healthy

Thanks to Prof. Matson for a great article in the New York Times, "Unhappy Meals." Here, Michael Pollan explores what's wrong with the American Diet. It's definitely worth a read if you want to take a hard, critical look at your diet. In a word: processed foods, processed foods, processed foods are evil, evil, evil. Here's an excerpt:

From Complexity to Simplicity. If there is one word that covers nearly all the changes industrialization has made to the food chain, it would be simplification. Chemical fertilizers simplify the chemistry of the soil, which in turn appears to simplify the chemistry of the food grown in that soil. Since the widespread adoption of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers in the 1950s, the nutritional quality of produce in America has, according to U.S.D.A. figures, declined significantly. Some researchers blame the quality of the soil for the decline; others cite the tendency of modern plant breeding to select for industrial qualities like yield rather than nutritional quality. Whichever it is, the trend toward simplification of our food continues on up the chain. Processing foods depletes them of many nutrients, a few of which are then added back in through “fortification”: folic acid in refined flour, vitamins and minerals in breakfast cereal. But food scientists can add back only the nutrients food scientists recognize as important. What are they overlooking?

Again, I'm loving Trader Joe's. They provide great natural foods at a much better price than many of the upscale grocery stores, which often offer organic and natural foods. Also, check out your local grocery store. Shaw's, Hannaford's and Stop and Shop all have their own brand of organic and all natural foods.

On another blog, Diet Fat Tips, there are some great tips and basic guidelines for healthy aging -- and healthy living. Check it out.

It's also worth noting, West Virginia is offering to send its citizens to Weight Watchers for free. More and more, we're realizing the need for losing weight and getting in shape if we all want to be living large at 80.