A Prescription for Change

May 16, 2012

weight loss wednesday

doctor visit and a prescription for change

Have you ever been told you would die shortly if you lived the way you did?

I have.

In February of 2008 I went to the doctor for a checkup. I hated going to the doctor. It was never good news for me. I was not feeling very good at the time. I did not tell my wife this, but I was coughing up blood for no reason. That made me very nervous.

I walked in and the nurse called me from the waiting room. She walked me to the scale where I told her it was not necessary for me to go on it. It went up to 350 pounds. I did not know my exact weight, but I knew I was over 400 pounds at the time. As always, she wrote down “350+” as my weight.

The nurse took my blood pressure which was 160/100. She freaked out a little.

That was normal for me. It is crazy to think that was normal for me as I consider it now. It was high because I was not taking the blood pressure medication they prescribed to me. Nor was I taking the medicine for my cholesterol which was over 300.

The doctor came in and asked me what was wrong. I told him I was coughing up blood and feeling dizzy a lot. He was writing some things down and then asked a couple of questions….

“Are you eating any better than before?”

“No.”

“Are you taking your medication?”

“No.”

That is all he had to ask. After that he told me what I knew, but did not want to hear.

“If you do not change the way you live, you will die shortly. Your blood pressure is high, you are coughing up blood and it just seems like you do not care. You have to make some drastic changes. You need to not only lose weight, but change your life.”

I have heard of people who have heart attacks and still live life like they did before. Only to have another heart attack or die. I did not want to be that person.

I was scared. I asked what the best bet was and he told me to change how I ate. I had to do it fast.

I joined Weight Watchers and started to lose weight. During that time I decided to not only lose weight but change the way I ate. I really limited my processed foods and started to focus more on real ingredients. You know…..fruits, vegetables, lean meats and whole grains.

That is how I am living my life now. I am not perfect, but I do not have to take the medications I once ignored. I live an active life now and I can go on any scale and know my exact weight.

I also still focus on real foods now. That is why I love Attune and Uncle Sam cereal, which is made of a few simple ingredients. I think that is the key for me. That is how I am going to stay under 400 pounds for the rest of my life.

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Tony

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Chicken Meatloaf Recipe

May 15, 2012

recipe tuesday

Chicken-Meatloaf-Marla-Meridith-Photography

Around here we love the diversity, simplicity and great flavor of meatloaf. This comfort food is not the most glamourous, but most folks embrace the joy of coming home to one after a long day at work. It is equally wonderful to open your homemade lunch box to find this kind of nourishing meal at your fingertips.

For little kids, trim a slice into small cubes. Babies can eat this protein packed meal with their fingers and bigger kids can improve their fork handling skills.

Try you meatloaf with a side of extra sauce. Also top with some delicious micro greens. Like this….

Chicken-Meatloaf-Marla-Meridith-Photography

Don’t forget those vegetables to make this a well rounded meal. You can go with steamed veggies and some rice. We love these Balsamic Grilled Veggies with the loaf too!

Balsamic Grilled Vegetables

My Green Beans with Toasted Walnuts and Quinoa would be the perfect pairing too!

Green Beans with Walnuts

You could also make a delicious salad. How about this fresh take: Salad with Goat Cheese Pecan Balls and Raspberry Vinaigrette

The other nice thing about my healthy meatloaf recipe is it is entirely gluten free. Instead of traditional bread crumbs I use Attune Food’s Erewhon Crispy Brown Rice Cereal as the binder. You will never know the difference!

This is comfort food as good as it gets…dig in!

Chicken-Meatloaf-Marla-Meridith-Photography

Chicken Meatloaf

RECIPE:

YIELD: makes about 8 servings of meatloaf

 

¾ cup Erewhon Crispy Brown Rice Cereal

½ teaspoon Onion Powder

½ teaspoon Garlic Powder

a few pinches coarse ground Black Pepper

2 tablespoons chopped fresh Herbs, such as Thyme or Oregano

2 pounds ground Chicken (I like to mix dark and light meat)

1 large Egg, whisked

2 tablespoons Soy Sauce or Tamari (use this for gluten free diets)

½  cup diced canned Tomatoes

 

OPTIONAL:

Hot Sauce

 

TOPPING:

Marinara Sauce

 

Serve over:

Quinoa, Pasta, Rice or Veggies

 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F with the rack in the middle. Pulse the brown rice cereal in a food processor or crush in a bag until you have a fine crumb.

Combine the chicken with the cereal crumbs, onion powder,  garlic powder, pepper and herbs. Make a well in the center and slowly add in the egg, tamari sauce and tomatoes. Mix with hands until well combined. Make a mound in the center of a casserole dish and cover loosely with aluminum foil. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove foil and top the meatloaf with some marinara sauce. Bake uncovered for about another 10 minutes until meat is cooked through.

 

Recipe and photography copyright 2012 Marla Meridith.

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Marla

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Realwashing

May 14, 2012

from our team monday

After years of “functional food” being popular – people are rightly becoming increasingly skeptical of food being designed by scientists to be healthy.  More and more evidence is coming out supporting the idea that the body is incredibly sophisticated at picking out nutrients and vitamins.  No longer is a vitamin pill equal to an apple – in fact, the human body is specifically designed to absorb the vitamins from whole food, rather than from the isolates that are stuck together with additives and flavors.  Evolution has ensured that the thousands of years of people eating whole food grown in nature has trained the body appropriately.  It’s becoming clear that not all vitamins, fiber, and protein is the same.  All those years scientists wasted extracting and isolating the very best parts of fiber from the grain and the protein from soy, and spraying food with vitamins.

Here comes the real food revolution.  Well, sort of.

In response to the trend of consumers demanding real food – food scientists and marketers have responded by making food real again!  Are you skeptical?  You should be.

Expect more food with long shelf lives that is marketed as simple, wholesome, and real.  We’re already seeing aseptic looking white packaging with Helvetica font featuring once big branded food that is now “simple”.  Foods are being reformulated to remove High Fructose Corn Syrup, substituted with something called evaporated cane juice – which sounds a lot more real than sugar, which is what it is.  Products are being fairy dusted with whole wheat flour, or something called wheat flour, which is actually just white flour.  Natural flavors which are scientific concoctions barely understandable by the people that make them, are flavoring our foods – instead of the ingredients themselves.  Pictures of farmers are shown in commercials growing things like potatoes and vegetables – clearly leaving out pictures of the corporate offices and lobbyists doing most of the work.  More and more growth is coming from organic – yet, quite a bit of those products are being imported from places with different organic standards than the United States.  People are fighting for GMO labeling, yet the government insists that there is no difference between genetically modified and “real”.  Meat is being reformulated to remove pink slime, yet the antibiotics and corn pellet diets remain.  Farmed salmon is injected with dye to give it its “real” pink color.

Call it the real food revolution.

Or just realwashing.

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Daniel

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