Tag: Sweet Potatoes

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Should You Limit Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

No two people lose weight in the same way. This is why it is hard to determine how many carbs each person should consume every day. Some people may find that they can lose weight while eating 40 grams of carbs each day, while others have to limit their choices to fewer than 20 grams.

In order to find how many carbs you should be consuming you will need to track your weight loss results. Start off by keeping a food and exercise journal. This way you can review it each week and see exactly what you ate and how many pounds you lost.

You should also take into account your exercise level as well. If you are an athlete training for a sporting event you can eat more carbs than a person who is trying to lose weight.

Even though you have your list of recommended foods for the Paleo Diet they each contain different amounts of calories and carbohydrate levels. Just because a food is listed doesn’t mean you can eat them all day in huge quantities. You should take your overall calories into consideration as well.

A good example of this would be nuts. Yes they are allowed on the Paleo diet but they are also very high in calories. Nuts are best used as a snack and limited to a small handful, around 10-12 nuts each day.

Another area to be careful with carbs and sugars is with fruit. Again fruits are healthy and good for you, but some fruits contain large amounts of sugar. If you are trying to lose more than just a few pounds limit your fruit to one or two pieces per day.

Sweet potatoes are another recommended Paleo food but are also high in calories. Eating a sweet potato is a good choice for lunch if you are planning on an afternoon of high activity, such as gardening. Your body needs energy to perform this task and by eating before exercising you can burn off the calories. It is best to avoid eating sweet potatoes for dinner. You are less likely to be active in the evening and the calories will just sit on your body.

When starting out on the Paleo diet limit your choices of high carbohydrate foods and choose those which are rich in fibre such as vegetable. This will help maximize your weight loss efforts.

By keeping track of how many carbs you consume you can see how your body reacts. If you aren’t losing each week then cut back on your carbs and fruits. As you reach your desired weight loss goal you can slowly add these back in.

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on Athlete
  • Related Blogs on Burn Calories
Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

31 Recipes

This month I’m participating in FloCoIMo which is Floyd’s (and beyond) alternative to NanoWrimo. My idea first was to create an art journal, but after the first day of the year that seemed like too much work for me right now. I imagine I’d sit around the last week of the year hurridly putting something together, just because. And so I went back to my original idea, which someone told me would be too much, but that’s me, I’m doing it any way. 31 recipes in January.

So far I’ve made five and I actually want to do it, I look forward to each recipe. It goes along nicely with my resolution to cook more and I’m trying out new recipes that I’ve been saving up for way too long.

Yesterday morning for brunch I had another tandoori chicken burger served on naan. Recipes one and two of the month. I just love this recipe.

For dinner I made Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchilada Casserole. I was scared that I wouldn’t like the mushy texture of the sweet potatoes in this, but I did. This recipe was a success, Josh said “I think this is even better than I think it is” as he is now battling the same sickness I had over the weekend. It was very good. Savory, spicy (but not too hot) and comforting.

I made a few minor changes to the recipe, which you can find here. I used kidney beans instead of black because my black beans were not done soaking. I used tomatoes with green chilis in the sweet potato mixture instead of just chilis. I added red onions to the layers. I didn’t use cream cheese. I used cheddar cheese instead and on top. I used beef broth instead of chili when making the green chili sauce, only because that’s what I had on hand. I served with avocados sprinkled with sea salt. I also made more sweet potatoes than that recipe suggests so I could put it in a bigger pan and make six servings. This will definitely be made again.

My fifth recipe is Five Ingredient Granola. I used pecans, oatmeal, chocolate chips, peanut butter, sea salt, honey+corn syrup.

These were good, but way too sweet, especially post Christmas. Next time I would use dried cranberries, more nuts and all honey.

 

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on Art Journal
Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

Dole Health Summit: Part Two: Real Fruit Bites and More

Lunch at Dole: whipped ginger sweet potatoes, salmon with fresh tomatoes, vegetables lasagna, roasted squash, salad and chocolate covered pineapple

One thing that stood out to me during the Dole Health Summit was how proud the employees are of their health and habits. Before I went to the Dole Health Summit I kind of expected that there would be fresh produce available, but I was not expecting it to be so delicious and thoughtfully prepared.

Throughout my life I’ve believed that health food and good food were on two different teams. It never occured to me that they could be one in the same. When I thought of health food, I thought of “diet food” and to me it was boring, raw, cold, and uninteresting. I grew up in the 90’s where people were told not to eat fat, so I doused my iceburg lettuce in fat-free ranch dressing. We were told to eat cottage cheese, fat-free frozen yogurt, diet soda, and celery sticks to be healthy.

Onyx Restaurant at Four Seasons: ginger salad with miso soup

If I’m being totally honest, the concept of healthy can equal delicious is new to me. I use the term healthy loosely, because it seems that we all, scientists included, have our own idea of what healthy eating looks like.

But Dole managed to merge the two worlds effortlessly. You’d never know that health food wasn’t delicious and you’d never feel deprived or cheated eating this way.  Good, delicious, thoughtful and interesting food. I want more of that in my life, the merging of healthy and delicious foods.

Onyx: risotto with mushrooms

I realize that this may sound strange to those reading who already “get” it, but for me, it’s been a very long journey to this point. You see, it wasn’t until my mid-20’s that I had fresh blueberries, cherries, salmon, black beans, avocados, asparagus, dark leafy greens, or roasted vegetables. Blueberries were made into muffins. Cherries came from a jar in syrup. Salmon was from a can. Beans were brown or green and swimming with bacon. And vegetables were cooked in the microwave.

Dinner at Onyx, Four Seasons Hotel

I’ve since taught myself to enjoy interesting and new flavors. I prefer tea and coffee unsweetened. I rarely drink soda or diet soda. I’m not afraid to try new foods. I want to continue challenging my to change my definition of what good food is. Good food can be a local burger or butternut squash roasted to perfection with garlic, olive oil and chili powder. It can be coconut curry with chicken and vegetables. Good food, or delicious food, doesn’t have to be saturated in fat, salt or sugar to taste good. And I say these things as a reminder for myself, because I sometimes forget how good fruit and vegetables can be.

basil mango sorbet with dark chocolate and mint

Even the Dole employee cafeteria offered a healthy array of food choices. We had the opportunity to eat breakfast there our first morning. You could choose from whole wheat pancakes, to breakfast burritos with made-to-order omelets, homemade salsa, and avacado, or lox with cream cheese, bran muffins or fresh fruit.

In the Dole test kitchen we had the opportunity to try out new products and old favorites. For me, you can’t go wrong with frozen banana soft serve. Oh the miracles of the internet for bringing this amazing concoction into our lives.

We tried the salad kits which were filled with things like dried cherries, blue cheese and nuts. Not to mention the Real Fruit Bites. I really enjoyed these a lot (maybe too much!). I liked that you could taste the oatmeal in them. Apple was my favorite, and pineapple takes second. Josh really liked these too and I was sad to find out he raided my goodie bag and ate most of my packets.

Next was a new product that I haven’t seen yet…

Dole Shakers. Basically they are frozen fruit and yogurt, similar to dippin’ dots. You add fruit juice to them and shake for an on-the-go smoothie. I really liked the taste of these and enjoyed the thick texture. Some of the other bloggers noted that they took on the flavor of whatever juice you use, I didn’t mind that though. I thought they were refreshing and could imagine using these in a pinch or while traveling. I also think they might be good with unsweetened vanilla almond milk to cut down the sugar.

What are you favorite healthy, yet delicious recipes?

Click Here to read Dole Health Summit: Part One

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on fat