Take a Look. It's In a Book. A Reading Rainbow!

Reading Rainbow was a great show.  I just Wikipedia'd it and I guess it existed from 1983 until 2009!  Why do I have this growing suspicion that future generations are doomed?  Because Reading Rainbow doesn't exist anymore, and shows like Jersey Shore and Skins do.  Listen to me... I'm slowly but surely approaching "Stay off my lawn, you damn kids!" ranks.

ANYWAY!  The original intent of this post was to talk about cookbooks, so I'm going to steer back in that direction now.

I try to eat as healthy as I can as much as I can, but if the healthy food I'm eating doesn't taste good, it becomes less likely that I'm going to continue the trend.  It's really hard to stay focused on eating smart in today's world where everything seems to be drenched in fats and oils or smothered in cheese (mmmm... cheese)... especially if you eat out a lot!  Want a sure-fire way to make me bitter?  Take me to a restaurant when I'm "being good", order a bacon cheeseburger with fries, and watch me scoff at you from over my grilled chicken salad (dressing on the side, please).  It's so hard to stay focused on maintaining a healthy lifestyle sometimes!  I want to eat food that tastes good!  I am not a bunny... I do not want to exist on a diet of lettuce and carrots.  I want things like mac n' cheese, burgers, potatoes, etc.  Fortunately, if you tend to cook your own meals most of the time, there are SO many resources out there for making healthy foods that still taste fantastic!  Here are a few of my favorites, and you'll probably see a lot of the recipes I post come from one of these:

Weight Watchers - Make it in Minutes
This one is great for weeknights.  Everything in it takes 30 minutes or less!  Recently, we made the tortellini with prosciutto (we omitted the peas, bleck) in creamy sauce, and it was deeeelicious!  I also have another Weight Watchers cookbook that I like a lot, but I bought it 4-5 years ago and it appears they don't sell it anymore.  I'll just have to post my favorites from that one in here!  :)

Cooking Light - The Essential Dinner Tonight Cookbook

Brian gave me this one for Christmas.  I'd say this one is probably my favorite of my healthy cookbooks.  It has pictures, and everything I've made from it so far has been fantastic!  My favorites so far have been the chicken chilaquiles and the chicken thighs with roasted apples and garlic.  So so delicious! 

The Essential EatingWell Cookbook

Brian also gave me this one for Christmas.  The only negative is that it doesn't have as many pictures as I would like.  Cookbooks with pictures of the recipes tend to get used more in my house.  However, almost all of the recipes in here sound delicious, and the couple that I have tried were excellent!  I can't remember which recipes specifically came from it, though.  I think maybe the mini meat loaves?

 

Now Eat This!
Okay, so I haven't actually tried making anything from this one yet, since it's brand spanking new, but I can already tell I am going to love it!  The hunk on the cover caught my eye while meandering around Borders one day, so I looked it up on Amazon and saw it got rave reviews, so I ordered it (right there in in Borders using my Amazon Droid App... gotta love technology!).  I can't wait to try making the mac n' cheese they show on the cover!

So... if you're trying to eat better, but still want your food to taste more like people food than bunny food, and you like to cook, then I would highly recommend any of these books!  Now, I've made myself pretty hungry, so I am off to find some lunch!

Learning the Hard Way, and a Couple of Personal Endorsements

Alright, ladies and gentlemen!  My first healthy living tip!  Are you ready for it?  Here it is:

Lift with your legs, not with your back!

I know, I know... you know that one already!  We all do, right?  Yet we find ourselves throwing our backs out anyway, sometimes doing the silliest of things like picking a pen up off the floor or tying our shoes.  It's just so much easier in theory than it is in practice!  In my particular case, I was shoveling my driveway after that awful snow/sleet/rain storm last week, and the snow/slush was so heavy and the snowbanks on both sides of my driveway are so high that my only option was to sling it up and over the top of the giant piles.  The only problem is I don't really have the arm strength for doing that when the snow gets too heavy, so I was using my entire body as a sort of catapult to fling the stuff as far up and over as I could manage.  I felt a pop, froze, instantly knew I was in trouble, and then felt the pain shoot up my spine.  Fortunately for me, a few days of putting heat on it and taking things easy has me back to almost-normal after only a few days of discomfort.  This week I'm going to be taking extra care to really stretch out my back muscles well, and I'm slowly phasing my workout back in.  So, take care of  your backs, people!  Do stretches and strength exercises, be careful when lifting, and ask for help if something is too heavy!  Young people can throw their backs out too!

For those of you who have made a resolution that 2011 will be the year you shed those excess pounds and get into better shape, I'd like to share my personal winning combination with you.  First, I will preface this by saying that I hate dieting.  I like to think that in general, my eating habits are pretty healthy, and I can't stand being restricted from eating certain food groups like a lot of these diets out there tend to do.  I've done low carb, low fat, high fiber/protein and found all of them to be pretty unrealistic and unmaintainable for my personal lifestyle.  My problem is usually portion size control and unhealthy snacking (usually out of boredom).  Sometimes I don't realize how much I've eaten until it's too late.  The next thing I know, the pounds are creeping on one by one until I feel terrible about myself and force myself onto a diet.  These are sometimes met with moderate success, then I fall off the bandwagon, and the cycle repeats itself.

I also don't like working out in a gym.  I've never been able to maintain a consistent gym workout schedule.  I just can't do it!  I get so bored on the same machines day after day, exercising in place, staring at a TV that's showing a news story about how doomed humanity is.  That's not to say that I hate exercise... I love things like hiking, kayaking, and even bits of biking here and there.  I enjoy getting my exercise by actively exploring new places, or even familiar places where at least the scenery changes as I move.  However... I've come to realize that a regular workout routine is pretty much unavoidable.  During the week, I just don't have the time to go kayaking, hiking, or biking every day... especially in the winter when the days are so short.

Where am I going with this?  Well, I think I've found a personal healthy eating and exercise routine that works really well for me and is yielding some pretty great results!  Weight Watchers and Jillian Michaels!

I've done Weight Watchers before and was very successful on it.  I lost about 25 lbs in 6 months and maintained it for a while... until I canceled my membership and stopped tracking my foods and activity, that is.  About a month ago, I signed up again (online only this time), and I am really truly enjoying it!  What I like about it is it keeps me accountable for what I eat.  It forces me to think about my portion sizes and food choices.  Now, Weight Watchers has a new "Points Plus" program where fruits and most vegetables are zero points, which is great because now I'm choosing them more often as snacks, whereas on the old program I didn't want to "waste" my points on a banana when I could have a few reduced fat cookies.  By choosing fruits and veggies for snacks, I'm filling myself with more nutritional food instead of "empty calories" that don't fill me up!  I also really like the flexibility of the system.  With my weekly allowance points, I can allow myself to splurge once a week and eat whatever I might have a craving for.  It keeps me sane to have those kinds of options.  It just more "normal" feeling to me.  Let's face it... things like pizza and pasta are always going to be a part of my life!

In conjunction, I am also doing the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred workout (although I did take some time off due to my back injury).  You can get the DVD at Target for $10, and it's a 25 minute workout that incorporates circuits of strength, cardio, and ab exercises.  I like it because it's only 25 minutes, and yet it makes me sweat more and I feel it more than I do after an hour or two of half-assing it at the gym.  It's 25 minutes of non-stop movement (no breaks!), and it is definitely NOT easy, but it's doable.  Personally, I would rather do a very difficult and intense 25 minute workout than a moderate hour-long workout... but that's just me.  It also helps that I can roll out of bed and do the workout in my own living room, instead of having to drag myself to the gym.  So, this workout in conjunction with other active living habits have really done the trick for me.

I don't plan on focusing this blog on weight loss, but I know that it's something that plagues a lot of people's minds this time of year... just before the weather starts getting warmer and we have fewer layers of clothing to hide ourselves under.  I figured I would share what is working for me, and maybe it will help some of you as well!  I'm down 8 lbs in 4 weeks so far!


Oh, and if Jillian Michaels or anyone from Weight Watchers happens to stumble across this blog, feel free to send me an endorsement check!  :)