BITS OF WISDOM: "Mealtime is when children sit down to continue eating." -- Anonymous

Eating Food, Just to Be Rid of it"

Okay, tell me if you've ever done this: It's Monday late afternoon. You decided yesterday that starting today you were going to

1) eat right

2) start to get regular exercise, and

3) give up all your bad habits.

So, you're picking things up around the house and starting to notice all the little bits and pieces of leftovers from the past weekend. Namely, cookies here, and small bits of candy there. In my house today I noticed I had three large shortbread cookies (I'm overly fond of shortbread cookies with icing), several bags of the candy that resemble real rocks which I keep saying I want to put in a jar, but I haven't found just the right jar (just for display, you know), and the leftovers from the 4th of July picnic, which in my case is about five pounds of fruit salad - not bad in itself, but I can only eat so much fruit salad.

And Then There's the Wine

Of course, I had to buy some wine at a tasting on Saturday (I always buy it, don't know why I think those wine tasting's are such a great deal - they always entice me to buy), and now there's an open bottle waiting.

So, my thoughts are, "Do I eat this, or not?" "Do I throw it away and WASTE it?" "Oh, my, dear no. That's not a good idea," I think. Oh, I just remembered there is also an entire plate of large cinnamon rolls (Cinnabon style) I made Friday night. They'll be stale soon. That's not good. It'd be such a shame to throw them all away, and I only ate one.

And so it goes. Do I talk myself into eating up the last remnants of the weekend, thus going into Tuesday and possibly Wednesday with the taste of weekend indulgence still on my lips, or do I decide, really decide, I've had enough? It's time to eat better, like I just said, last night. Remember last night? It seems so long ago now ...

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Calorie Expenditure of Everyday Things:

Eating crow .... 225
Pushing your luck .... 250
Beating around the bush .... 230
Jumping on the bandwagon .... 200
Falling off the wagon .... 25

How Old Are You? Really.

Have you known someone in their 30s who acts as if they are closer to 70, or how about the centanarians who are setting records for the 100 and 200 yard dash? That's the difference between "real age" and chronological age.

Through a series of questions, RealAge assesses your lifestyle and genetics to determine your "real age," compared to your chronological age. It's never to late to reduce your Real Age. Why not get started today?

First use EFT to Address Emotional Issues, Then You'll Lose the Weight

I'm seeing more and more articles about the correlation between emotional wellness and physical health. It makes sense to address the emotional issues which in turn helps our efforts at making small lifestyle changes easier. If you are incorporating EFT into your plans for weight changes, then I suggest using EFT on everything that happens in your day-to-day life. Use it on the frustrations of not having enough money to the worries about your kids staying out too late. Anything and everything that causes you distress is potentially standing in the way of your emotional health and your ability to lose the weight you want.

+++ The Daily Bites are mini-lessons in how I use EFT to maintain my 80 pound weight loss. Twice weekly and free +++

Example: You're son was supposed to be home by 1 AM last night and now it's 3 AM and you're sick with worry. When he finally does arrive, the car has as smashed front end, and he's got a black eye. You are now upset that he was hurt, angry that he didn't call, alarmed about the car and insurance issues, plus a hundred other emotions are running through your head, and the first thing most of us want to do is grab some ice cream or a handful of cookies while we "clear our heads" and decide what to do next. The desire to eat when under stress makes sense because it allows us a way to distract our minds from the issue at hand, it gives us something to do, it might allow us to release some frustration through chewing, and it helps us to feel better all at once.

What's different is that this time, before he even arrived home you were using EFT on the worry and anxiety of what is going on. Where he is? Is he all right? Has something happened? Should I be angry or fearful?

"Even though I'm worried sick, I deeply and completely accept myself."

"Even though I don't know what to do and I'm beside myself with fear and anger, I deeply and completely accept myself."

"Even though if he's not hurt, then he's in serious trouble, I deeply and completely accept myself."

Using EFT in this way helps to calm you, and helps you come to rational decisions as to what needs to be done. It helps you cope in a calm and effective manner. The additional benefit is that when he does arrive, or you do get the answer to the questions, then you're so much better able to deal with what is going on then, instead of still being stuck in the earlier anxiety and worry state. You're learning to deal with what comes up when it happens - rather than piling one bad emotional experience on top of another and never resolving anything.

If you use EFT in this manner, whenever you find yourself upset, angry, fearful, sad, mad, whatever, just use it, then you'll find yourself reaching for a hug instead of a cookie much more often.

Check out EFT Basics

Trader Joes Wins the "Most Fun Cereal Box" Award with "Essentials, a nutritious blend of flakes, twigs & clusters." (Twigs?)

Putting Things Off Until You Lose the Weight

If you don't enjoy the life you've got because you think you don't look good in shorts or you can't bring yourself to wear a bathing suit, you're doing nothing more than wasting your life for nothing. Maybe you don't look like a bathing beauty but who does? I've heard so many people tell me that they would give anything to be at a weight they once were, but when questioned they almost always say, "Now that I think about it, I thought I was fat back then too," but guess what? They weren't. Those same people are sometimes shocked to see photos of themselves as a teenager or young adult; "Why I wasn't fat at all," they'll say.

Read the entire article

What's New in Food News

Pepsi-Cola has introduced an 8 Oz. can, and other companies are sure to follow suit. This size is much more appropriate for children, and even adults who just wanted a few swallows (not an entire gallon soft drink). When you're shopping and you see the price is slightly higher for the smaller cans, don't immediately calculate how much cheaper the larger size is, or you're just giving yourself more calories (sugar, etc.) than you need in exchange for supposedly saving a few pennies - and frankly, you're still paying more since if you bought the 8 Oz. cans you were going to pay $2.25 and instead you're getting the 12 Oz. cans which are $3.00. You paid 75 cents more, and you've done yourself no favors.

Think this way when you look at packages of cookies and other goodies as well. If they sell individual cookies, buy one or two or those instead of a whole package. Our local Safeway store sells individual pieces of cake (which I actually cut in half), so instead of paying $6.00 for a whole cake (which mostly I'd eat), I get one piece. It's so much better to satisfy your sweet tooth with SOME of what you want, instead of giving yourself an excuse to go crazy about it.

Pepsi's New C2 - Big Hit!

Coca-Cola's new formulation called C2 which is half the calories and half the carbs as their regular coke drink is winning rave reviews. Everyone I know that's tried it has loved it. Makes you wonder why they didn't do this a long time ago? It can only help, as it must be reduced in calories as well - although that's not a large part of their advertising campaign.

Design Your Own Diet

Have you read the Peanut Butter Diet or the Drinking Man's Diet? You can design a diet around any of your favorite foods as long as you use portion control. Taking the Peanut Butter Diet as an example, they suggest the usual three small meals, plus snacks and most recipes include some peanut butter, so breakfast is two eggs with a side of peanut butter, and lunch is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with low carb bread, and dinner is some vegetables, and an entree that uses a peanut sauce (get the idea?). So, if you have the discipline to stick to a diet plan, go ahead and design your own remembering to include small amounts of your favorites in the meal plans.

Remember, reducing diet plans are meant to be temporary. Lifetime eating plans are what dictate how you look and feel the majority of the time.

Food Trivia: Gatorade got its name after the Gators, the University of Florida football team, tested it.

Dietary Supplements no Longer to be Mad Cow Risk

On Friday, July 9th, 2004 the FDA finally decided to restrict the use of certain known high risk animal parts to be used in cosmetics and certain dietary supplements. The ban covers the brain, skull, eyes, and spinal cord from cattle 30 months of age or older, and the tonsils and a portion of the small intestine from all cattle, regardless of age. These have been banned in livestock feed for awhile now, so why wait to ban them from dietary supplements?

Website Spotter

Links to tons of resources for plus size apparel.

The Diabetic Gourmet

Fitness and Exercise Sites

Mayo Clinic's Strength Training Videos

A great way to see an exercise being demonstrated.

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Links to Sites of Interest:

I'm continually adding to my weight loss links pages, so if you're looking for something new, use the Bite Links as a starting place. You'll find sites with health, fitness, and information relating to losing the weight you want. If you have a site or know of a good resource send it to me, so it can be added.

Recipe: No Sugar Added, Flavored Syrups

Homemade No Sugar Added Syrup - To make syrup use a 2/1 ratio sweetener to water, so for one cup of syrup use two cups sweetener, 1 cup water. I got the idea to make my own no sugar syrup when I was searching the Internet to buy some syrups. A couple of years ago we got a shaved ice machine, and now I wanted to experiment with making no sugar SnoCones (what's a Snocone? Just a scoop of shaved ice in a dish or paper cone, with flavored syrup poured over).

Look at the label on your syrups and you'll see it's usually water, flavoring and sweetener, so why not make your owns? With the pourable Splenda, you'd add a cup of Splenda to one-half cup boiling water, then add flavoring - most already contain color, but you can also add colors if you like, and that's it. It will thicken somewhat as it cools.

Where can you get flavorings? First check your local grocery and then check the pharmacy - yes pharmacy. My local pharmacy had bottles of LorAnn's flavorings and extracts (perhaps for do-it-yourself medicinal folks, I don't know), behind the counter.

The oils and extracts from LorAnn.com are much more concentrated than those you usually find at the grocery store. I just assume if it comes in a teensy little .125 fl Oz. bottle, then it's highly concentrated. If you buy it by the ounce or larger, then it won't be as concentrated. For the highly concentrated oils, I use 1 to 2 drops, and for the not highly concentrated, I might use an entire teaspoon full.

I even made a homemade root beer drink using plain water, Splenda and a drop of Root beer extract. It tasted great - no bubbles, but the taste was right on! Think about how much money we spend on soft drinks - what if you could make something that tasted just as good at home for pennies? I think it's time well spent.

Don't want to make your own? Try Torani-Syrups

Shaved Ice by Hypothermias

Recipe Doctor - Fixing Your Old Recipes

I've also started to experiment with using non-nutritive sweeteners in some of my recipes. Up until now I was afraid of them. I didn't want to risk a dessert not turning out well (I have a reputation to uphold, after all!), but I wanted to make a no-sugar added, low carb birthday cake for a friend, so I settled on a cheesecake with an almond flour crust.

It turned out great! I was surprised and the friend was quite pleased that I'd taken the time to make something just for her. So, that emboldened me to try again, so I experimented this weekend with my Krazy Karo Krunch recipe. It's basically a carmel corn with butter, sugar and Karo syrup. I didn't try to substitute for the Karo syrup yet (that comes next) but I did replace all the sugar with Maltitose instead and it worked beautifully as well. Keep in mind that some people are sensitive to maltose and it can produce an unpleasant side effect (namely, intestinal distress). I use the threat of intestinal distress to keep myself from eating the whole batch and that seems to work for me. I've also noticed when I tried to new Russell Stover candies that only one or two pieces seemed very satisfying when I used to eat half a bag of the regular sugar sweetened treats.

I've talked to others who've said the same thing. They are noticing their desire for sweets lessens when they start to use more artificial sweeteners - try it yourself, but don't go crazy thinking you can freely eat candies and treats just because they are sugar free. They are not calorie free, and calories do count (see below).

Let me know if you'd like me to post recipes as I "alter" them.

Yours in good eating,
Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP