 First, a TMI warning: One cannot talk about a woman's weight-loss journey and chocolate consumption without also talking about hormones, cramps, periods and the like. Does anyone else want to yell at the screen when women contestants have a bad week at the ranch on Biggest Loser? Why is everyone baffled that every four weeks or so the women contestants under 50 show some inexplicably puny weight loss, or heaven forbid, a weight gain? Maybe they will have me on as a guest expert to slowly and patiently explain that our bodies simply turn on us at regular intervals to make us retain, bloat, ache, crave and crabify. Yes, crabify.
With that preamble, perhaps I DON'T need to explain that I'm not surprised that I didn't lose any weight this week. I DID continue to enjoy an increase in my energy level and general level of optimism, dispite the afore-not-mentioned circumstances. Since I've only lived in my own body, I don't know if my experience is the same as other women's, but the week before my period starts is usually not that uncomfortable (no cramps yet), but the hardest to get motivated to exercise. This week on dark chocolate, by contrast, I've worked out four times since Sunday and felt good doing it.
Usually a few days after my period ends I notice a remarkable reversal of period-related bloating, etc. I look forward to getting on the scale in a week and having some good news to report. [As an aside, my heavy periods coupled with years of undiagnosed celiac disease are the current working theory as to why I continue to have anemia issues. My period really does take a lot out of me.]
In the meantime, I created a new recipe that is not too bad for me and totally fitting for this time of the month. I call it...
Gluten-free Mocha Banana Oat Squares
I had originally planned to just modify my peanut butter banana oat squares, but by the time I was done I had changed it enough to warrant its own thing. I forgot the peanut butter, added coffee, used an egg instead of flaxseed... you see what I mean. It came out really tasty and fit for breakfast.
1½ cups gluten-free 15-minutes-to-cook oats (I use Trader Joe's)
1 egg, beaten
¼ cup coffee
1 banana, mashed
1/8 cup chocolate protein powder (I'm using Xocai)
1/8 teaspoon (or less) salt
30 grams of dark chocolate broken up in chunks (I used 3 xobiotic squares, but you could use 1/8 cup(ish) of chocolate chips)
Preheat the oven to 350. Combine the egg, coffee and mashed banana. Mix in the rest of the ingredients until everything is moist. Line a 6"x9" baking pan (or some other pan that's on the small size - 8"X8" would probably work) with parchment paper or lightly grease the pan with non-stick cooking spray. Pour the oat mixture into the pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, until lightly brown on the edges. Lift the food out of the pan by its parchment paper and let it cool on a wire rack. Cut into bars and enjoy!
Makes 12 squares.
I've just completed my first week with a dark chocolate protein shake breakfast, replacing my former non-chocolate protein shake. I've also eaten 2 little squares of dark chocolate a day, one around 3:00 pm and the other after dinner. It's too early to be sure if this will be a long-term sustainable strategy, but the first week's results are encouraging. I'm down two pounds and my pants are a little roomier. It could be solely because of my increased attention to diet in general - sort of a placebo effect. Still, it's nice to see movement in the right direction.
The other encouraging indicator is my energy level. With the exception of last Tuesday (following a Monday dinner that included a couple of slices of bread), I've been feeling really amazing. This is notable because I generally just feel pretty good. It was almost like a light switch being thrown. Again, I can't be completely certain it's the chocolate, but that's the main thing I'm doing differently.
Given these early successes, the research will continue!
Healthy Choco-PB Dip
I created this single-serving dessert which is totally guilt-free. It combines healthy dark chocolate with powdered peanut butter, inspired by my friend Robin's "dip strawberries in dark chocolate" idea and my friend Lisa's recent enthusiasm for powdered peanut butter, which has only 22 calories per tablespoon and 85% less fat than regular peanut butter. This choco-PB dipping sauce has only 55 calories, plus the caloric value of the fruit you are dipping into it. Nice.
Ingredients
1 6-gram square of dark chocolate (I used a Xocai Power Square)
1 teaspoon of powdered peanut butter (I used Just Great Stuff Organic)
1 1/2 teaspoons hot water
Directions
Put the chocolate in a microwave safe dish and heat it until soft but not hot. Boil some water for tea. (You'll want a hot drink to go with dessert, right?) Add the peanut butter powder to the chocolate and pour the hot water over the top of both. Stir until combined. It will be the consistency of brownie batter (less water for thicker, more water for thinner.) Dip your cut up fruit chunks -- banana, apples, pineapple, berries -- in the choco-PB sauce and eat up! Lick the dish when you think no one is looking. Show restraint and don't go make a second one. Console yourself with the knowledge that you will be able to do this again tomorrow.
 Since my big weight loss 3+ years ago, I've gained back 15 pounds from my target weight of 125. It's winter. It's cold out. I'm not running as often. I've been following the same eating plan for the last year. I need a change. As Matt Cutt says, if you want something badly enough, you can do anything for 30 days. If you are a regular here, you know I've written about this before. One of my new year's resolutions was to replace some of the coffee I drink with green tea. I've kept up with this, and have been drinking anywhere from 1-3 cups a day, some regular, some decaf. Green tea is better for you -- lots of antioxidents, weight loss support and loads of good stuff to support overall optimal heath ( more about that here.) I have to admit that I don't actually like it. I mean, it's okay, but I never actually say "Ahhhh, green tea," like I do with coffee. Not long after I started my tea resolution, I met up with a friend who began eating dark chocolate years ago for the same reasons I started drinking green tea. If you know me, you know I haven't eaten chocolate since the "Heaven From MANNA" truffle incident of 1994, when I came to believe that I do not have an effective chocolate off-switch. But my interest was piqued. After a bit of research, it looks like my issue may have been with the fat and sugar of the chocolate I was eating, and not the cacao itself, which is loaded with antioxidents and other healthy stuff. I want to try something different, so I'm going to try dark chocolate for 30-days. I'll keep a log and I'll keep you apprised. If I find myself sliding off the edge in the presence of the chocolate, I will definitely pull the plug. Today I started with a dark chocolate protein shake. I'll have a 30-calorie square in the afternoon to keep me away from the salted mixed nuts that I gravitate towards at work. I'll replace my after dinner raisin graze with a square of dark chocolate. I took "before" pictures and measurements (not sure I want to share that yet, but I will when my "after" pictures and measurements demonstrate my amazing transformation.) I'll let you know how it goes.
 I love sweets. I want to be healthy. My cravings for sweets can easily get me to forget my desire to to be healthy. I have a disabled "off switch" when it comes to some foods. Okay, many foods. In a way, celiac is a blessing because it is essentially an externally imposed self-control mechanism. So, when Jenn came home with a gluteny apple pie last weekend, I wasn't tempted because I knew I couldn't have it. [Jenn knows I'm fine with the boys and her eating gluten in the house and that I try to stay away from sugary desserts anyway, so don't think it was an insensitive or inappropriate thing for her to do. I couldn't ask for a more supportive partner -- in fact, she's WAY better at reading labels than me. :-)]. I DID feel like having my own desserty item that was relatively fast, healthy and which would satisfy my sweet tooth. I also didn't want so much of whatever it was around so that there was built in portion control. Thus this recipe, which is sort of a cross between a baked apple and an apple crisp. I decided it was healthy because the total volume of relatively unhealthy ingredients (butter. sugar, gf flour) is pretty small. If you double the recipe and eat all of it, you will probably slide out of the healthy range. Everything in moderation, right? This recipe is for one apple that you can share with someone else or not (I didn't!). Easy Healthy Baked Apple
1 apple, cut in half with seeds removed (I used a grapefruit spoon and it worked great) 1 tablespoon melted butter 1 tablespoon brown sugar 1 tablespoon brown sugar 1 tablespoon gf flour of your choice (I used Namaste brand gf flour blend) 2 tablespoons of gluten-free oats Your favorite apple pie-ish seasoning of your choice: nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom (if in doubt, use a couple of shakes of cinnamon. You can sprinkle a little more on top after baking if you want.) Handful of raisins, optional Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter in a medium bowl and mix in all of the ingredients. Spoon it on top of your apple halves. Put the halves on a baking sheet and put them in the oven for 35-40 minutes until the crisp is crispy and apple is tender. Eat them warm! You can always top with vanilla yogurt or ice cream or whipped cream if you want, but they are good all on their own. Feel virtuous! Enjoy a fresh, warm gluten-free tasty treat! Be very happy. :-) [[Sign up for the mailing list to get the monthly newsletter and other updates, offerings, tips and more! (I never sell or share my mailing list.)]
I attended my first Appetite for Awareness event in October of 2010, right after I got my celiac diagnosis. I blogged about it here: http://www.clairebakerok.com/1/post/2010/10/gluten-free-glutton.html. I'm afraid I didn't have much restraint or pace myself very well then. I don't want to leave this year's event feeling like I have to wear my stretchy pants for the next week. Because this is is a definite must-attend festival, I thought I'd offer some tips to the uninitiated for having the best day possible. 1) Have a plan. There is a LOT of food there: restaurants have their standard menu items, product reps have samples of packaged items, bakeries bring cupcakes and cakes and cookies galore. I haven't quite decided my approach, but I will either: a) focus on the fare offered by restaurants I want to try, b) find the best pizza in the place, or c) find the best sweets in the place. NOT ALL THREE. I swear. 2) Go hungry. Think of it as brunch on gay time. Or maybe just have a light breakfast so that you aren't so hungry when you get there that you blow your plan. 3) Don't bring home samples of food that you will regret having in your house later. Or just get ONE sample pack to SAMPLE, not to stock your pantry with. As a rule, gluten-free packaged foods are NOT health foods. 4) Plan on salad for dinner if you have any desire to eat when you get home. 5) Take time to appreciate that just about everybody there gets it. That just doesn't happen very often. 6) Use SEPTA to get there and back. Save yourself the driving and parking hassle. You'll have a big tote bag of stuff when you leave and you can use your train ride time to check it out. Or you can rest your eyes and be filled with the warmth of a 100% gluten-free belly. 7) Remember to patronize the restaurants and vendors who supported the event throughout the year. The more it pays for them, the more other restaurants will notice and hopefully fall in line. There are probably more tips, but that's a good start. Have fun, go home full but not feeling gross. See you there! ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Join me on my free, fun and interactive happy gluten-free webinar to get the facts about who benefits by going gluten-free, strategies to avoid it, and how to get the support you need.
September 27, 9 pm
Register here.
Can't make that time? Register anyway and I'll let you know how to get access to the replay.
[May is Celiac Awareness Month, and I’m giving away copies of my ecookbooklet: So What CAN You Eat? Gluten-free Paleo Vegan (mostly) Recipes for Health and Weight Loss, to all who join the mailing list. Visit the homepage here.
19 fast, easy recipes!]
1) I'm cooking most of my own food, so I know what goes into it 2) I'm more likely to just get a salad (with dressing on the side) when I eat at a restaurant that doesn't have a gluten-free menu, helping me meet my weight management goals 3) I can't succumb to the temptation of workplace pizza or doughnuts when they appear 4) I'm more mindful of the nutritients and calories I'm putting into my body 5) I've gotten to experiment with new foods and have found some new things to add to my list of favorites, and they are healthy (Beets! Brussels sprouts!) 6) I've befriended nutritional yeast as a replacement for some of the B vitamins I lost with enriched carbs, and I LOVE it! 7) I've come up with new ways to prepare vegetables and make them satisfying as the MAIN dish 8) I've begun using condiments in interesting ways (yellow mustard on broccoli is delicious!) 9) Nuts and beans are great protein sources, AND they make good dips, spreads and hummuses (or is that hummi?) 10) (This should be number 1!) I generally feel so much better and have so much more energy! What gifts have you found from having to live gluten-free?
The family recently ordered takeout pizza, and I'd already had the oven on, so I decided to try the Kinnikinnick crust I had in the freezer. I picked this crust from the very good selection at Martindales, our local excellent health food store, based primarily on price. Many of the frozen crusts cost way more than an entire large gluteny pizza, delivered, but I decided I could pony up the $4.50 or so for two personal crusts. One crust, about 6" X 8", has 220 calories, so I decided to cut one in half, dress it in jarred sauce, cheese, green peppers and spinach, and round out the rest of my meal with salad to keep from going too crazy and blowing my calorie goal for the day. I baked it on aluminum foil on a pizza pan in our hinky oven, which had a really long time to pre-heat, since the family's pizza took forever to arrive. I wanted to put mine in the oven at about the same time as everyone else was plating up their food so that I could both a) eat hot food, and b) eat when everyone else was eating.
It was a little hard cutting the frozen crust in half neatly, and a chunk on the half I was going to use broke off. I decided it didn't matter, abutted the two pieces on the pie pan, dressed it, and put it in the oven. It cooked faster than anticipated (note the brown corners), but I didn't burn the bottom. The crust tasted pretty good -- I was both happy and sad that I hadn't made more for myself. It was pretty brittle, and thus failed my bendy crust test. Still, it was better than the Bisquik crust by a long shot. I still have 1 1/2 crusts in the future, but for my next trip to Martindale's, I'll look for an alternate brand for comparison.
I made and posted some new videos on easy gf living. Find them here on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/clairebakerOK?feature=mheeLet me know if there are other topics that would be handy to hear about. I'm happy to share how I deal with any particular challenge regarding easy gluten-free living. Frankly, if it's not easy, I won't be sticking with it, so I figure out a way to live with ease, which makes me happy, and I don't mind having celiac.
Here are a couple of great YouTube links about things to always have in your freezer and fridge to make sure you make healthy choices with you are hungry and pressed for time. I realized while watching them that all of the suggestions were gluten-free. In fact, the presenter notes at the end of the second video that her husband has a wheat allergy. She makes a quinoa "tebuleh" that she keeps on hand. It's solid advice, and I follow most of the suggestions. Check 'em out: Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtpxqDi6sF4 Video 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clGlNNQdAlQ
I haven't talked much about my weight loss journey, but since it's the season of over-indulgence, I thought I'd share. I was always on the heavy side and decided a couple of years ago that I wanted to be thinner. It was a warm day in late April in 2009, my shorts from the year before were too tight, and my family had joined a neighborhood pool that was set to open in 6-weeks' time. I finally felt like I had had enough and I was ready to do the work to change things. Like everyone, I had barriers to eating better and exercising more. I have been a vegetarian for a long time, but I was eating lots of cheese and milk and ice cream, so my main approach was to cut out full-fat dairy, cut out snacking, reduce portion size, and start walking. I decided that walking could be sustainable, and that I probably wouldn't be able to keep up with something strenuous or unpleasant. I work full-time, and the only time I had to walk was very early in the morning, while my partner and two kids were still asleep. After a few days of walking and dieting, I felt like I was starving and went on-line looking for motivation to stick with it. I found a great site called PEERtrainer, which has a lot of great articles about changing one's approach to eating (not just about dieting). I got exposed to and began following the Eat to Live approach put forth by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. Eat to Live is heavy into high nutrient foods, especially green leafies, and low in animal products and refined carbs like breads. There is no calorie counting; you can eat all the fruits and vegetables and legumes that you want. I also joined some small on-line groups and teams through PEERtrainer, began logging my meals and exercise, and generally found accountability and support. I lost 30 pounds in 6 months, getting down to my goal weight of 125. Through one of my groups I learned about a website call " Couch to 5K" and decided to give running a try, since I felt like the long walks early in the morning were taking too long, and maybe I could get the same or more benefit if I went faster. Lo and behold, I found I actually LIKED it! I'm still doing it, running 3.75 miles 5 days a week, sometimes longer or more often, so I guess it's pretty sustainable. I also joined a VERY inexpensive gym -- $10 a month -- so that when the weather is too cold or yucky, I can do a circuit workout or treadmill there. And my other other back-up for days that I can't run and can't get myself to the gym are workouts at home. We have the Wii, so I do Wii Fit Plus or EA Sports Active workouts OR I do workouts that are in the On Demand section of our cable subscription. Some days I do really hard ones, like Jillian Michaels. Other days I do much gentler ones, like the walking series by Leslie Sansone. I try not to let myself off the exercise hook very often. It's so much easier for me to stick to the routine than to go day-by-day. I got the celiac diagnosis a year ago and have gained back 12 pounds. Part of it is likely a function of a healed gut. The other part is that I'm eating more refined carbs. I think it's the psychology of deprivation. Since I can't eat most of the refined carbs in the world, when one crosses my path that I CAN eat, I have a hard time saying no. The good news is that Eat to Live is VERY compatible with a GF diet. I also slacked off on the frequency and intensity of my workouts. I just need to get refocused on why I want to be thinner and return to doing what works. In some ways it's a hard time of year, since there are so many temptations. But in some ways it's easier for me because I know the temptations are everywhere and I can have my healthy eating plan ready to implement when temptation crosses my path. I hope you'll check out the links above for extra ideas and motivation. I couldn't have lost the original 30 without them, and groups like this one and the ones I mentioned will be key to my re-losing the 12. Oh, and none of them cost me any money. They all do seem to have something to sell, but I used nothing but free content at the websites and got books from the library. (I did buy the EA Sports active for wii, but my kids use it too!)
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