Week one, well almost

 It has been almost one week since my quest began, some things have been a little longer.  Changing my eating style has not been nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  Some of my old habits are hard to break, so far snack foods have been the hardest.  I have always enjoyed Little Debbie style cakes (swiss rolls anyone), candy bars, just about anything from hostess, cakes, cookies, pies, basically if it is sweet I enjoy it.  Unfortunately as good as they taste, they are high in saturated fats and cholesterol, a bad combination.  If you eat just one occasionally it is not horrible, but they always put two or more in a pack so stopping at one is hard.  Couple that with late night snacking, and that is one part of my problem.

A decent substitute so far has been nuts (currently peanuts and almonds) with raisins or dried cranberries.  Though nuts are high in fat, they have no trans fat (this is the killer) are low in saturated fat (the bad kind ) and high in polyunsaturated and mono-unsaturated fats.  These help reduce cholesterol in the system by transporting it through the blood to the liver where our bodies can dispose of it.  Raisins are loaded with antioxidants, only beat by prunes, not sure if I am ready to go down that road yet.  This combination so far has been successful at taming my sweet tooth.  I have been eating nuts for a while now, but never really paid attention to serving size.  Come to find out what I thought was a single serving was more like 3 or 4, I have this issue with most foods.  Nuts are a double edge sword, though they are high in good fat, it is still fat, so from a weight loss standpoint they are not the best choice.  If you need to shed a few pounds, or do not want to have to buy the next size up pants, I would stick to one serving of nuts (1 oz, about a handfull) a day.  The first time I measured out a single serving of nuts I really did not think it was going do the trick.  I was wrong however, once you add a single serving of raisins (1/4 cup) you have a healthy fulfilling snack.

That brings to me the one thing I probably enjoy the most about a major diet change, getting to try new foods.  I feel the biggest part of my problem is I like food, I enjoy all types of food.   The downside is I apparently have an issue with portion control (really started to notice this when I started measuring portion sizes).  What I thought was a portion of food was actually two or three, this is fine if it is fruits and vegetables.  When it is fried foods or fatty meats, ribeyes how I will miss thee, the calories and pounds start adding up.  Not to mention how bad it is for your cholesterol levels and your heart.  A serving of meat is about the size of a credit credit card (well not thickness wise that would be insane).

I am finding that I can cut out all the "bad" foods and still get the same enjoyment from eating.  The difference is the food I choose to eat (well so far anyway) is healthy and beneficial to me, not full of fats and cholesterol and detrimental to my  health.  I also get to try lots of new things, and this has been a very enjoyable part of the experience.  I am  also finding that a single portion can be very filling.  You need to slow down while you eat and enjoy the food, this gives your brain and stomach a chance to get in sync.  As a society we tend to eat fast, this in turn causes us to eat larger portions with out realizing we are full (hence the over stuffed feeling after most meals).  The full response is not instantaneousness it takes time for the stomach to relay to the brain that we are full.  Then there is the visual response, if you are eating fast, you are taking larger bites, this makes you mentally think you ate less then you really did.  It is like cutting a pizza, if you cut it into 4 slices you will think there is less then if it is cut into 8 slices.  Either way you are eating the same amount of  pizza, our brains however think we ate more if we eat more slices.  Take smaller bites and enjoy the food, use the time to have quality family time, talk about your day.  I have found if I slow down while I eat I enjoy my meal a lot more, and I eat a lot less.

I will leave with a recipe I created last night, that I rather enjoyed.  Recently I picked up some tuna steaks, I have read many times they are a good replacement for beef steak.  They are much lower in cholesterol and saturated fat and very high in Omega-3 fatty acids (this is known to lower cholesterol and boost mental capacity).  I am not a huge fish fan, but you should eat fish twice a week.  When it comes to eating fish, traditionally I would eat fried haddock, fried catfish, or any fired white fish (cod, pollack, etc).  Though i was eating fish, it lost all the health benefits in the bread coating of fat, and was instead detrimental to my health.  I was eating one kind of fish correctly, sardines or kippered snacks (herring).  This surprised me, I always figured they were not good for me because they came in a can, and did not seem like a healthy snack (this did not keep me from eating them however).  I was wrong, as long as they are not in oil, they are actually rather good for you and are a low price way to supplement your Omega-3 intake (you should get 1600mg a day).  The best ones for you are the ones packed in tomato sauce.  You can eat these twice a week in the place of fish, however watch your sodium intake, canned fish are high in sodium, try to get a low sodium kind if possible.  Now for the recipe, if you are looking for a steak replacement I recommend this, just as good.

Tuna Steaks

You will need:

Tuna steaks
Lemon juice (fresh squeezed preferably)
Salt
Pepper
Garlic clove (minced)
Celery (finely chopped)
Scallions (finely chopped)
2tbsp White wine vinegar
1tbsp Soy Sauce (low sodium)
1tbsp Worcestershire sauce


Heat stainless steel skillet.
Rub lemon juice, pepper, & salt on tuna steaks
Cook until desired doneness (2 to 3 minutes per side, I prefer them a little pink like a medium well done steak)
Remove tuna steaks from pan and set aside

Lower heat to medium high and add remaining ingredients in order listed, cook for about one to two minutes (until the sauce thickens some)
Put sauce mix over the top of the tuna steaks and serve with your favorite rice dish and a vegetable side (I liked baked asparagus or a cauliflower).