Diane

Who doesn’t like pita bread?

It’s tasty, easy to fill, and makes even a boring lunch seem special. The one drawback for us is that the store-bought pitas have ingredients I am not crazy about and they are pretty expensive.

So, I finally found the right combination of ingredients that gives us healthy pitas for just a bit of money. I think it costs me about $1.50 for 16 pita rounds or 32 halves. That’s a lot cheaper than the store and these are actually good for us.

Gather your ingredients and get ready. These are simple, fast, and from start to finish take less than 2 hours. They freeze beautifully, which is a plus. Feel free to half the recipe if making 16 seems like too much for you.

Once the dough is mixed and risen, divide the dough into two equal pieces and place on your clean counter or rolling mat.

Next roll out each piece into 6 to 7 inch rounds. At first I was using a ruler to be precise but then I just eyeballed it. I do that a lot when I’m cooking. Sometimes it works out well, and sometimes not so much.

Once they’ve rested for a bit, bake them in your 500 degree oven. They might puff up big like these, but sometimes mine stay just a bit puffy. I have no idea why sometimes they puff and sometimes they don’t.

Aren’t they pretty? After they cool completely, cut them apart and fill them with your choice of fillings. We often do baked chicken strips with hummus and salad greens. Egg salad is popular, as is black beans, cheese, and salsa.

I hope you enjoy these whole wheat pitas. My family loves it every time I take the time to make them. In fact, every time I make them I wonder why I don’t always have them on hand. Oh yeah, that’s because they get eaten up so quickly! Diane

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I used to think I hated brussels sprouts, but then again, I had never tried them. Maybe I just thought I hated them because of how they looked and how I thought they were going to taste.

Well, I asked on my Facebook page one day on ideas on how to prepare these green little vegetables and got some good ideas. I tried them once and cooked them too long and burned the batch. I’ve tried again several times and finally hit on the preparation method and simple recipe that my whole family loves.

I bought a bunch of brussels sprouts and washed them thoroughly. Well, actually my five year old washed them because he thinks it is fun.

Next, I cut them in half lengthwise. In other words, right through the stem. If you look carefully at the picture below you can see where I sliced a 1/4 inch slice into the stem end of each brussels sprout. This really helps them not get all shriveled up and weird looking.

Next toss them with some good olive oil, a bit of salt, and some garlic. Then lay them in neat “soldier-like” rows on a baking pan. I like to line mine with parchment paper for easy clean-up. With seven kids, easy clean-up is a blessing.

Then wait just 15 to 17 minutes. No longer – or I promise you – those little babies will burn to a crisp. Take them out and enjoy.

 

We actually had to tell our five year old to stop eating them because I was afraid he was going to be sick. He just couldn’t seem to get enough of them!

I hope you try these and that your family enjoys them as much as we do! Diane

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I am a big fan of sweet potatoes except the mushed up ones that some people serve at Thanksgiving.

I like them baked, boiled, and roasted. This recipe may make sweet potato haters into sweet potato lovers because it combines that popular flavor combination of sweet and savory.

First I peeled and cut the sweet potatoes. I use a crinkle cutter instead of a knife because those sweet potatoes can be very hard to cut. I mean really hard.

Then I mixed the olive oil, dried rosemary, and minced garlic in a bowl. I actually still have fresh rosemary growing but it was pouring down rain so hard that I just couldn’t bring myself to get out there and pick it.

 

Then I added the oil mixture to the potatoes and mixed thoroughly with my hands. You can use a spoon if you don’t like the feeling of oil on your hands but I figure the oil might be good for my skin. I popped them in the oven while the chicken was finishing up roasting.

Here is the result. Delicious soft sweet potatoes that all of my kids gave a big thumbs up too. That’s kind of unusual in my house because a couple of them are just a bit picky.

I hope you try these and that you liked them as much as we did! Diane

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I love making this recipe when I’ve got the time to do all the dicing and slicing. The mango avocado salsa combined with the seasoned polenta cakes makes a terrific side dish to the chicken. The dish is low in calories, with each serving only having 305 calories.

I sometimes use the polenta in the tube as this recipe calls for, but I often make my own polenta cakes using my favorite recipe.

Enjoy! Diane

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I don’t know if you are like I am, but my family enjoys granola bars. In the past I used to buy NutriGrain bars but knew the huge ingredient list and high sugar content wasn’t great for my family.

I’ve tried a lot of variations on granola bars and this is my family’s latest favorite.

It is super easy to make. You simply mix all the ingredients together and turn it out onto a pan lined with parchment paper.

Bake them and take them out of the oven. Let them cool for about 5 minutes, then score them with your knife so they will easily break apart. The longer you cook them the crispier they are.

Here’s the recipe below. I hope you enjoy! Diane

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Cookies are one of my weaknesses. Hence the reason why I rarely make them!

This recipe is great for the times when you want something sweet that also has some nutritional value.

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Enjoy! Diane

 

This recipe is one of our family’s favorites. It combines my husband’s Spanish culture with savory flavors. As with most of my recipes, this one is healthy and relatively easy to prepare. I hope you enjoy it. Diane

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We talk a lot about the importance of portion control when losing weight. That is one of the three techniques I used when losing weight, fat content and exercise being the other two. (Read more about it in my book.)

Although portions are very important, another thing to consider when controlling your food intake is also caloric density.

It is completely natural to feel hungry on occasion. Everyone does. When I was on one of my 500 diets, I often reached for a “healthier” food that was fine to eat but did not fill me up. After eating it, I’d realize that I was still hungry and try another food. That sometimes set off a cycle of uncontrollable eating that was hard to stop.

Caloric density is basically a the measure of how many calories are in a given weight of food. A high calorie density food has a lot of calories in a small weight of food, and a low calorie-density food has a relatively small number of calories per weight.

I am a visual person, so I thought you might like to see some real life examples of how calorie density can affect your hunger levels and weight loss effort.

Here we have carrots and bread. The carrots and one slice of bread both have about 70 calories. You may be different than I am, but if I ate all those carrots I would feel very full. If I ate one slice of bread, I’d probably still be a bit hungry.

Next we have graham crackers and mini-wheat cereal. Calories? Both have 65 calories, but there is a huge difference in the “filling factor.” I enjoy graham crackers but also have to be careful with them because I can eat the entire wax package if I’m not paying attention. The difference here is in each food’s ability to keep me full.

Here is a great visual. A single tablespoon (about 26) of chocolate chips has about 70 calories and so does a small apple. Now, if you are anything like me, an apple is a lot more filling than a tiny amount of chocolate chips. I could easily eat 10 tiny handfuls of chocolate chips but could never, ever eat 10 apples in one sitting.

Finally, here are two yellow squash, which are only 90 calories. What’s on the right? A single tablespoon of peanut butter. Now I love peanut butter, but it is one of those foods that packs a lot of calories into a small weight, making it a high calorie-density food.

One thing about this journey to healthy weight management is that it requires you to make smart decisions all day long. The next time you are faced with a food choice, think about the caloric density of the food. Will it not only nourish your body, but will it also help you stay full?

Do you think about the density of the foods you eat? Does it help you? Diane

Thanks for all your great comments! This giveaway is closed. The winner is Sarah Kewer! Congratulations and happy juicing everyone.

Looks tasty doesn’t it?

Today I’ve got a review of the really amazing Bella NutriPro Cold Press Juicer. Although we couldn’t offer a juicer as a giveaway, I decided to offer one reader a $25 VISA Giftcard as a giveaway. Maybe the winner could buy some great fruits and vegetables?!

The Bella NutriPro juicer, which looks the picture below after you assemble it, was super easy to put together.  The picture on the left shows that there is no spinning blade like on most juicers. Instead this juicer uses a two-stage cold press technology that squeezes and chews the fruits and vegetables to get the most juice possible without adding any heat to the juicer.  The lack of heat and no shredding of the produce with blades helps preserve all those great enzymes, which is why we juice in the first place!

Some of us were very excited to try it out!

Six of my kids were home when we first tried it out and the older ones quickly took over the process because I guess they didn’t think I could do it. Really.

The first day we made a fruit juice with grapefruit, pineapple, and oranges. That was a very big thumbs up. The second time out we used spinach and apples and made green juice (in the very first picture of the post.) Everyone was hesitant to try it, except me, but they thought it was very good. One of my daughter’s friends came over that night and he and John both tried some that we had saved for them. John asked me to make him some more so I did!

The third time out we used frozen strawberries and frozen peaches to make this delightful sorbet. Tip: If you do this, let the frozen fruit thaw slightly.

Doesn’t that look amazing? The Bella NutriPro Cold Press Juicer is easy to clean. It comes with a giant tootbrush and it took no time to clean it. That’s a good thing.

I would like to give you five chances to win a $25 VISA Giftcard. There will be one winner drawn on Saturday night, February 16, 2013. I will notify the winner by email and they have 48 hours to get back to me with their address. You can have five chances to win the giftcard by doing each of the five entry requirements, or just have one or two chances by choosing which ones to do.

Here’s how to enter:

1.  Leave me a comment telling me what your favorite fruits or vegetables to juice are. (Required for entry.)

2. Like NutriPro on Facebook or Twitter and tell me your name for verification.

3. Share this post on your Facebook page and tell me your name.

4. Visit the NutriPro website and tell me one thing you learned about juicing.

5. Like Fit to the Finish on Facebook. (You can like it from the top of the sidebar)

Good luck and happy juicing!! Diane

Disclosure: I received a Bella NutriPro Cold Press juicer to review and all opinions are entirely my own. The VISA Giftcard was purchased by me.

Most diets are all about taking everything away.

Take away grains. Take away legumes. Take away all fat. Take away cooked foods. Take away white foods. Take away processed foods. Take away sugar. Take away meats. Take away eggs. Take away ______________ (you fill in the blank).

Take away, take away, take away.

You see what I mean? We are constantly being told to take away and if you are anything like me, when people tell me I absolutely can’t have something, I often want it even more. (That’s probably a character flaw in myself. :)) Not that we don’t need to take away things when we lose weight, but it shouldn’t be the only thing we focus on.

When I finally decided to lose weight, I didn’t take much away at first, although I did give myself a moratorium on chocolate for awhile. While I paid attention to eliminating unhealthy fats from my diet (think Oreos and fast food), I also focused on adding healthy fats.

Instead of taking away a lot of things, I found myself focusing on adding things to my life.

This concept of adding to our lives when we lose weight instead of taking things away can be very uplifting and freeing.

As you go about your quest to lose weight, I’d encourage you to think about the “Addition Factor.” The beauty of this is that as you add healthy foods and healthy habits to your life, those unhealthy habits and foods you have may become less and less appealing. In other words, the healthy can begin to crowd out the unhealthy.

Here are some ideas when it comes to adding health:

1. Add sleep. Some studies indicate that good sleep habits may play a role in weight loss and weight maintenance. On a personal level, I found that once I started working out regularly, I slept better, which may have helped me lose weight.

2. Add vegetables and fruits. So simple yet so hard for a lot of people. Our society does not seem to embrace the “farm to table” concept but instead embraces the “box to table” concept. Try some new fruits and vegetables or reintroduce yourself to more common ones such as broccoli. You may laugh at that, but I know many people who haven’t had a fresh vegetable in years!

3. Add healthy grains. As you add healthy foods to your diet, look for healthy grains like oats, whole wheat flour, millet, buckwheat, wheat berries, brown rice, etc. Again, here is where our concept of adding comes into play. You add healthy grains and those soft breads and buns made from refined white flour that are spongy and fluffy begin to pale in comparison to hearty grains that are dense and full of nutrients.

4. Add activity. Although you certainly can lose weight without exercising, adding some aerobic, strengthening, and flexibility activities into your life only helps you feel better and look better as well. Adding activity was a huge step for me, because I used to spend as much time as possible sitting down.

5. Add stress-reducing behaviors. Emotions are a normal part of our lives, and stress can make us desire to overeat or make poor food choices. Add some stress-reducing behaviors to your life such as prayer, meditation, learning to say no, avoiding people who stress you out, learning time management skills, and focusing on the positive.

6. Add healthy proteins. You don’t have to eat meat to lose weight, nor do you have to avoid meat. But what you do need is healthy proteins. I learned to cook and love beans, stopped eating McDonald’s cheeseburgers, and discovered that I did like Greek yogurt after all!

7. Add time for you. It is so common for us to get so wrapped up in other people in our lives that we forget to add some time into our schedule just for us. Force yourself to do something for you each day. For me, I have carved out the early morning hours for myself. These hours allow me to read, write, and exercise before my day gets going. When things get crazy later on in the day I feel more relaxed than I did when I did not have time scheduled for myself.

What additions have you made to your life that help you with weight management? Diane

There is still time to enter to win a copy of my book!