Tomorrow is the big day guys! That wonderful day of the year filled with family, friends and lots to be thankful for. Along with the people that Thanksgiving brings, it also brings lots and lots of delicious food. Food that we don't always eat throughout the rest of the year. Many of us may happen to, dare I say, overindulge on Thanksgiving.
People always ask me my best tips for how to get through the upcoming holiday without gaining weight or overindulging too much. My best piece of advice is always that Thanksgiving is one day of the year. I repeat...ONE DAY. It is not two, not a week, not a month.
Sure indulge a little more than you normally would on Thanksgiving. Have some foods that you haven't tried before or those that you don't get to eat at other times during the year. But remember to savor that time and those bites on that special day. And the next day get back to your normal routine.
A couple of ways to make getting back to the normal routine as easily as possible are to:
-send leftovers home with others or donate extra food.
-do something active the next morning
-eat protein first the next day to help fill you up and prevent overeating.
-plan a fun activity for the day following Thanksgiving so that you aren't sitting around the house.
Wishing all of you a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving!
Photo from aldiko.com
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If you can pronounce the title (the first word...not the second haha) i'm incredibly impressed by you. I had to check six times just to make sure I spelled it correctly, let alone saying it right. That is what our weekend was about though. That and these little guys. Our friends were out of town for the weekend and we had the pleasure of hanging out with these cuddle bugs. Starting on Friday, the boy and I had date night at my favorite Indian restaurant and then met up with some friends to see Mockingjay (the Hunger games movie). The food was obviously delicious. We had vegetable samosas for an appetizer and then goat saag and naan to share for our entree. We're not really big goat eaters for the most part, but it was very tender and had a great flavor. I forgot to take a picture before we started eating, but you get the idea! Saturday night was where the German reference came into play. Two friends that we know from volleyball are from Germany and are moving back there in a few weeks. They had one last hoorah at their apartment to send them off. There was tons of incredible food and drink. And then there was the Feuerzangenbowle. This F-word is a German drink where a cone of sugar is soaked with rum, set on fire and allowed to drip into a sangria type wine and fruit mixture. What results is a hot, sweet and very strong drink. It is usually prepared for Christmas or New Years celebrations. It's always neat to experience other people's traditions and bittersweet to say goodbye. And luckily we didn't burn anything down!
The rest of the weekend was spent finishing projects, watching football and playing with the pups. I'm definitely ready for this short week at work! Happy Monday! And...a special shoutout today to this boy who's another year older. Happy Birthday! One of my nephews is ~5 months old and has recently gotten the go ahead to try oatmeal. This is the picture my sister sent me of the little man getting his oatmeal fix yesterday. Sometimes oatmeal can get a little boring to me and this picture reminded me how amazing it really can be. I mean think of all the options of flavors that you have! Some of my favorite oatmeal mixtures are: -cranberry and walnut -peanut butter and chocolate almond milk -chia seeds and cinnamon -brown sugar and sliced almonds -banana and chopped walnuts All of these combinations taste great, but also have a great source of protein to balance out the carbohydrates. You can even add Greek yogurt or egg whites to the oatmeal for even more protein! Another twist to traditional oatmeal is adding a little bit of quinoa to the mix. Quinoa is cooked very similar to oatmeal and brings a little bit of a nutty flavor to the mixture. It's also another fantastic source of protein.
What are your favorite oatmeal combinations? Happy Friday! This little guy has been another one of my favorite quick snacks lately. You know all those amazing chocolates you love with sea salt on top. Well here are those, mixed with some other ingredients and with some healthy thrown in. My favorite part is that it tastes delicious, but has some pretty great nutrition benefits too. For a small snack it contains a decent amount of fiber (4g) and almost a full serving of protein (6g!). Now granola bars can be tricky because they can be masked as "healthy" very often. Look for bars with whole grains, a good source of fiber (~5g), and less than ~200 calories (if it's a snack). Transition to a shout out to all my tall ladies (or ladies with long legs). I'm 5'10" and have fairly long legs because of that. I typically wear dresses to work since I love dresses and finding dress pants that are long enough is always a hassle. However, recently my job description has changed a bit and has started to include some exercise counseling, meaning that my dress wearing days are over (at risk of flashing my patients). I knew I needed forgiving pants due to the exercise, but also needed them to fit into the business casual category. Enter my internet search and Maurices (http://www.maurices.com/home/index.jsp). Maurices has pants that come in long and extra long. I ended up purchasing the Pull On Bootcut pants...and they look like dress pants...and they feel like yoga pants...and they have an elastic waist! What more could a girl ask for. Check out how perfect these are. And the true test: wearing them with 2.5 inch wedges! Amazing is all I can say. Well that and let's bombard them with suggestions to add more colors! Ok, my tall girl rant is over, but I leave you with this amazing video from Straight No Chaser and Kristen Bell. I mean this is awesome! Disclaimer: The thoughts on the items discussed in this post are my own. I was not provided with any items to review or any financial support.
Another weekend in the books with great friends. We started out Friday night celebrating the boy's upcoming birthday. His birthday is later in the month, but it's so close to Thanksgiving that I wanted to surprise him earlier. We ended up going to a Road Warriors Hockey game and having a bunch of his friend's come in to suprise him. I realized that we definitely have different reactions to surprises, but he had a great time overall. Side note: He also caught a puck! I was chatting with some of the girls when out of nowhere his hand darted in front of our faces. A puck had flipped over the glass and he caught it just in time. Talk about an epic birthday! Since he was in such a great mood from his puck catching experience, I convinced him to let me paint the trim in the hall bathroom. I obviously need to buy a house of my own since i'm on such a DIY kick. The trim before was wood. Exhibit A: The trim in the rest of the house is white and we thought it was time for it to match. So here it is! Of course no DIY project by Katie can occur without a major snafu (surprise). So we will likely be repainting the color of the bathroom sometime soon. He's obviously a very patient boyfriend :/.
The rest of the weekend was spent doing some good shopping with the girls and getting to watch "Million Dollar Arm" to remind me of that time last year in India. Hope you all had a great weekend. Happy Monday! We recently gave a presentation for work that highlighted our program and what we work on with our patients during the months leading up to possible bariatric surgery. Obviously that pre-surgery time is spent making sure that patients have the proper diet and exercise habits to support the tool. I was asked the question of what exercise goals I give patients at the start. Now first, you have to remember that my patients are all morbidly obese and often have joint pain along with other barriers to exercise. That being said, my initial exercise goal for patients is 2+ times per week for 10+ minutes. Most of you are thinking why even bother because 10 minutes twice a week isn't really going to be that beneficial. However, if I can get patients into the mindset of intentional exercise then I am creating a foundation that can be built on. My patients know that this first goal isn't going to be enough long term, but they also know that if they can achieve this short term goal then they will continue to be successful. The other reason for starting small is for compliance. My patients are much more likely to find the time to meet this small goal and be motivated to achieve this goal because it is attainable. If you don't typically exercise and all of a sudden someone is asking you to train for a marathon, you're probably more likely to throw in the towel. This small goal also allows patients to realize that exercise can fit into a lifestyle, even when time is limited. If they are able to find 10 minutes a couple times a day/week to do some form of exercise then they are far better off. Even though I myself have an exercise routine, I often find that I need to put myself in the position of my patients. I need to set smaller goals for myself to build up motivation and compliance. I also need to remind myself that short breaks throughout the day for exercise can help me feel better and benefit my health.
So get moving today and give yourself some small goals for success! What are your favorite workouts to perform in 10 minutes or less? This phrase may win as one of my biggest pet peeves in the dietitian world. I can't tell you how many times I hear my patients say that they chose unhealthy options over healthy foods because it was more convenient. Granted they have made many junk foods as convenient as possible by increasing their shelf life until the end of time and requiring little to no refrigeration. However, i'm here to tell you that healthy food can be convenient too! Ok, let's look at the first food. An apple. Or any type of fruit. How much more convenient can it get than no packaging and almost getting to eat the entire snack? This snack doesn't even require any special packaging or preparation. You catching my groove yet? Next food. So we say we need a little bit of protein now. Enter hummus, a great source of carbohydrates, protein and healthy fats. Instead of having to get a large container of hummus at the store and dole it out into portions, they have now come out with individual portion sizes. How convenient! While these do need refrigeration long term, you could absolutely throw them in a bag in the morning and they will be fine without refrigeration by the time lunch rolls around (assuming you aren't keeping them in a sweltering place during that waiting time). Combine with some pretzels or veggies and you've got a well-balanced snack. And finally. Individually portioned almonds. These are the perfect mix of good protein and good fats. The best part is that they have a relatively long shelf life so you can leave them in cars, purses, bags, etc. for a quick, convenient snack. They are even starting to come out with individually sized bags of other nuts just in case almonds don't tickle your fancy.
These healthy convenient snacks are just skimming the surface of snacks that you can have around to keep you and your body going during the day. What are your favorite quick, convenient, healthy snacks to have around? ...is my brother's signature saying when things hit the fan or don't go as planned. Well that certainly happened this weekend. I've gotten into a DIY mode and decided that since the boyfriend was adding stairs to his deck, I would take it upon myself to repaint the outside of his patio doors. The doors definitely needed it, but to make a long story short there were some bumps along the way, which got me in way over my head. To make up for my lack of amazingness (pretty sure that's not a word, but you get the idea) on the patio doors, I finished covering the dining room chairs. After two days of scouring multiple fabric shops, and getting lots of opinions, we opted for a vibrant print that we had seen the first night. Luckily, recovering chairs can be relatively easy or at least it has been when i've done it before. We started with this. We unscrewed the seat from the rest of the chair to reveal 90237507103985 bazillion staples. They really wanted to make sure that nothing was getting this fabric off the chair. For 3 hours I sat with a screwdriver, staple remover and needle nose pliers trying to get them all out. Don't let the picture fool you because at 11pm I certainly wasn't smiling. Thankfully, the foam and plywood underneath was still in good shape. Often I will just recover a chair or piece of furniture without taking off the original fabric, but the stains on the chairs and the piping made that difficult. So off they went. I then used a staple gun to wrap and attach the new fabric to the chairs. The corners can get a little tricky, but I wrapped them like I would a present and that seemed to work. I'm really happy with how they turned out. They bring a new dimension to the dining room, which we both really enjoy. Hopefully, with a little elbow grease and research we can fix the patio doors and show you guys. Here's to hoping my projects/work this week end up going better than this weekend. You win some you lose some. Happy Monday!
I like to call Thursdays the almost weekend because once you get to Thursday night you're in the home stretch. Last night called for a quick dinner because we were out during most of the evening looking for fabric to cover these dining room chairs (why would I even want to cover these right?! Sike!). We didn't have much luck in the fabric department, but we'll keep looking. We got home around 8pm and needed something that wasn't going to take an hour to cook. One of the must-haves that make quick meals is Costco frozen fish. I had recently picked up some frozen wild caught flounder along with my normal salmon purchase so we decided to give it a try (i'll discuss wild caught in another post). We threw the flounder on a pan with a little olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. We also cut up a big head of this guy, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted at 425 degrees. Roasting vegetables is one of my favorite ways to prepare them. Lastly, we decided on sweet potatoes for our carbohydrate. Knowing that baking them in the oven typically takes a decent amount of time (and i'm not a huge fan of the taste of microwaved sweet potatoes), we went with this recipe circa junior year of college. I cut the potato into small cubes, tossed with a bit of olive oil and cooked/sauteed in the cast iron skillet. I put a lid on top for a few minutes to steam the potatoes and speed the process. It comes out with an incredible taste (especially if you do a good job curing your cast iron) and just the right crispness. Quick, easy and ready for the weekend! What's your go-to quick, easy dinner?
I had the wonderful opportunity to write a guest post for a blog that I have been reading over the past few years. Kath on Kath Eats Real Food does an incredible job of sharing healthy recipies, exercise ideas and life's little moments. Find my post and more at http://www.katheats.com/guest-rd-metabolic-testing. Enjoy!
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AuthorKatie is a Registered Dietitian in the Greenville, SC area. She currently works as a surgical weight loss dietitian. In her spare time she enjoys playing volleyball, cooking and hiking. Archives
January 2016
CategoriesDisclaimer: I am a Registered Dietitian and Personal Trainer, but I am not a Medical Doctor. Please check with your doctor before changing your activity level or making changes in nutrition based on medical conditions. My recommendations are generalizations and may not be appropriate for all individuals.
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