Tag Archives: diet

Low-Fat, Low-Calorie Raisin Bran Muffins

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A variation of a Martha Stewart recipe.

This summer, after cleaning out my RV for the last time, I found myself with an unopened box of raisin bran cereal. I like raisin bran, but there are other cereals I like better. So I searched for a way to use up the cereal and remembered how I used to occasionally make raisin bran muffins. So I went in search of a good recipe that called for the ingredients I had on hand. I found this one on MarthaStewart.com.

I made them with just one substitution: I didn’t have whole wheat flour so I used just unbleached flour. They came out amazing: moist and tender. I stored the leftover muffins in the fridge and reheated them one at a time with a 30-second zap in my microwave.

Of course, the big drawback to the recipe is also what makes it moist: it contains oil, which is high in fat (duh) and also high in calories. Although the folks at MarthaStewart.com seem to think this is a “low-fat” recipe, it could be better. I decided to try again with a substitution that could make it better: using unsweetened applesauce instead of oil.

This isn’t something I dreamed up. I’d read it in other places and figured this recipe would give me a good opportunity to try it. Here’s my version of the recipe — not only did it come out great, but it’s about 80 calories less per muffin than the Martha version. Like the other version, this makes 6 largish muffins.

Ingredients:

  • Nutritional Info
    Nutritional information with the ingredients here. As you might expect, it’s pretty high in fiber.

    1 1/2 cups raisin bran. I used Kellogs, but you can use any brand. If you can get it without sugar-coated raisins (ick), go for it.

  • 3/4 cup 2% milk. You could probably substitute fat-free milk for even less fat and a lower calorie count.
  • 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour. If I had whole wheat flour — it’s on my shopping list now — I’d do 1/2 cup of each.
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/4 cup packed brown sugar. You could probably reduce the amount of sugar if you wanted to since the unsweetened applesauce is still sweeter than oil. That would further reduce the calorie count.
  • 1/4 cup sauce unsweetened applesauce. If you use sweetened applesauce, you might be able to completely omit the brown sugar. I don’t know; I haven’t tried it. I don’t buy sweetened applesauce.

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a 6-cup muffin tin.
  2. In medium bowl, combine cereal and milk. Let stand until softened, about 5 minutes.
  3. Stir applesauce, egg, and sugar into cereal mixture and mix well.
  4. In a small bowl, thoroughly combine remaining ingredients. Fold into cereal mixture.

  5. Raisin Bran Muffin
    One of the drawbacks of substituting applesauce for oil is that the muffin sticks to the paper liner. The next time I make this, I’ll put the batter in the individual lightly oiled tin cups.

    Divide batter into prepared muffin cups. Bake 20-25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

  6. Cool in pan 5 minutes, then move to a wire rack. Store in a sealed container in refrigerator.

If you do make this, let me know what you think. I’m also interested in any substitution ideas you might have.

Know What You’re Eating

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Read the ingredients.

Chobani Yogurt
This is my favorite yogurt these days. Just wish it wasn’t so damn expensive since I eat so much of it.

I was looking for yogurt in the supermarket the other day. I’ve been drinking a lot of smoothies lately and I wanted an inexpensive alternative to the Chobani greek yogurt I usually buy. Although I usually make my yogurt, I’ve been so busy with work around my home and cherry season chores that I figured I’d make things easy on myself and just buy a quart or two. I figured that if I could find an inexpensive brand, it wouldn’t be worth the trouble of making it myself anymore. At $5+/quart, the Chobani gets costly quickly when you go through a few quarts a week.

So I was in the dairy section of the supermarket, checking out brands I’d never really looked at before. I didn’t need Greek yogurt for my smoothies, but I did need it to be plain, fat-free yogurt — and nothing else.

Yogurt, in case you’re wondering, is milk with active yogurt cultures added. It involves heating the milk, cooling the milk partway, adding the cultures, and holding the temperature until curds form. One more step — draining off a good portion of the liquid whey — is what turns regular yogurt into thick Greek yogurt.

I looked at labels and was absolutely shocked by the additives I found in some. While it’s common for Greek yogurt makers to fake Greek yogurt by adding thickeners, I didn’t expect yogurt makers to add unnecessary ingredients to regular yogurt. Yet there they were in the ingredients list. Pectin was especially popular — nearly every yogurt contained it.

Organic Yogurt Ingredients
Good thing that locust bean gum is organic.

The ingredient list in one organic yogurt was so offensive that I took a picture of it.

Remember, yogurt = milk + active yogurt cultures. It doesn’t need pectin, corn starch, locust bean gum, or added vitamins.

You have to understand that many of my friends are organic food snobs. In their minds, if it’s not organic, it’s not healthy. These are the people who buy organic produce, sometimes paying three to ten times the price of non-organic produce. They think organic means no chemicals. (Certain chemicals are allowed in organic food production.) They think organic means healthier. (No scientifically conducted test has shown a difference in nutritional value between organic and non-organic food.) They think that the industrial farming methods that make it possible to feed millions of people cost effectively are unsafe or even evil. When faced with a choice between an organic yogurt and the Chobani I usually buy, they’d pick the organic, likely without even reading the label beyond the word “organic.” That word, which the manufacturer has paid a premium to the FDA to use, is shorthand, in their minds, for “healthy.”

Chobani Yogurt Label
It might not be certified “organic,” but at least it’s yogurt — and only yogurt.

I looked at every label for every non-fat and low-fat plain yogurt in the supermarket. In the end, I bought the Chobani. It was the only one that didn’t include additives that aren’t a part of real yogurt. I also bought a half gallon of skim milk and will be making two quarts of yogurt today, using the Chobani as a starter, for next week.

Those of you who are blindly buying products because the label proclaims they’re organic might be putting all kinds of weird ingredients into your bodies. You can keep them. I’ll stick with a product that contains exactly what it should — and only that.

Organic vs. Non-Organic Yogurt

How to Calculate Nutritional Information for a Recipe

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And why you might want to do it.

As the folks who know me well or follow my blog know, I’m dieting again.

Back in 2012, I lost 45 pounds in four months and regained both my health and my self-esteem. Although I’ve managed to keep most of the weight off since then, it’s been creeping up slowly. I want to nip that in the bud so I’ve gone back on the same diet that helped me lose so much weight so fast nearly three years ago. I expect that two months of serious dieting should be enough to get back down where I was in September 2012.

Nutritional Info Example
Calculating the nutritional info for an easy and yummy looking biscuit recipe a friend shared on Facebook makes it clear that this is something I need to avoid. (In case you’re wondering, this recipe’s ingredients are 4 cups Bisquick, 1 cup sour cream, 1 cup 7Up soda, and 1/2 cup butter.)

I know the reason I gained that weight back, which is important to prevent it from happening again:

  • Portion control. Although the diet I was on basically “shrunk my stomach” so I couldn’t eat those big portions, over time, I stretched it back out by eating more and more. What can I say? I like to eat. And when you put a big plate of food I really like in front of me, I want to eat as much as I can. This is something I need to control once I’m back down to my goal weight again.
  • Bad food choices. In general, I eat very well. Lots of fresh foods — not prepared foods — cooked simply. I grill or smoke most meats, I eat salads and fresh vegetables. But occasionally I make bad choices — usually at restaurants — that include fried or high-carb (or both!) foods. And every once in a while a friend will share a recipe online that looks too good to pass up and I’ll make it.

I believe that if you’re at a good, healthy weight and keep relatively active, short forays into the realm of bad food choices should be okay. Sure — enjoy a piece of pie or a flaky biscuit or a plate of pasta once in a while. But remember that portion control! And don’t do it every day.

That’s what I’ve learned over the past two years. Now if only I could remember that when you place my favorite food in front of me!

But how do you determine what’s a good food choice and what’s a bad food choice when it comes to preparing recipes? That’s where nutritional calculators come in handy. The one I use is on a site called SparkRecipes, but there are plenty of others. You enter the ingredients for the recipe along with the quantity of each item, indicate how many servings it creates, and click a Calculate Info button. The result is a display like you see here, which I calculated this morning for a four-ingredient biscuit recipe a friend shared. The numbers make it clear just how healthy — or unhealthy — a food choice the recipe can be.

I began doing these calculations for all the recipes I share on my blog. I recently learned that by omitting part of a recipe — for example, the dumplings in the chicken and dumplings recipe I recently shared — or substituting one healthier ingredient for another, you can make a recipe healthier without sacrificing flavor. This can help you cook healthier meals for yourself and your family — something that’s especially important when weight-related health problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes is an issue.

Is calculating nutritional information like this worth the effort? What do you think? Isn’t your health worth a few minutes of time in front of a computer so you can make an informed decision?

Monitoring Resolution Progress

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Maintaining a checklist may seem a bit over-the-top, but it does help.

Yes, I’m a geek. And yes, I’m somewhat compulsive about some things. But I really think it helps to stay on track with goals and objectives. Here’s what I mean.

The Weight Tracking Table

Back in 2012, when I finally got serious about losing weight and lost 45 pounds in four months, one of the things I did that I believe helped me to succeed was to create a weight monitoring chart. It was a simple list of dates with spaces to record a daily weight reading and body measurements.

Weight Loss ChartHere’s the first three months of my chart. I stopped tracking my weight on paper when I moved home to Arizona, but got all the way down to 149 pounds (from 196) by the middle of October.

Although most diet plans tell you not to weigh yourself daily, I did. And as the weight ticked down day after day, with minor upticks along the way, my success — clearly indicated on the chart I kept on the back of my medicine cabinet door — positively reinforced my efforts. Not only that, but I when I fed those numbers into an Excel spreadsheet, I wound up with a cool chart that showed my progress. (I told you I was a geek.)

I didn’t take body measurements daily. It was a pain in the ass to do. But the few measurements I did record show my progress and also helped reinforce my efforts.

My point is this: when you set a measurable goal, it might be a good idea to track it on paper (or in some other recording tool). This gives you evidence that you’re on target. And as you get closer to achieving your goal, you can feel good about it, not just when you reach that goal but at various points along the way.

Note that my weight chart shows upticks. Whenever a weigh-in showed me to weigh more than the previous day, that made me think about what I’d done that might have given me this setback. It made me work harder to stay on track. After all, with a goal like losing weight, the longer it takes, the longer you have to make sacrifices to reach your goal. It’s in your best interest to stick with it so you can minimize the time you’re making that big change in your life.

(And please don’t think that once you’ve reached a weight goal you can go back to your old ways. You can’t. Those old ways got you where you were. Just keep in mind that it’s harder to lose weight than to maintain a healthy weight once you’ve taken off the extra pounds. The main sacrifices come in the losing weight stage. After that, the “sacrifices” are fewer and must become part of your lifestyle. With me, that meant portion control. It wasn’t until I went back to my huge portions that my weight began creeping up again. I’m nipping that in the bud now.)

This Year’s Chart

Because I have five New Year’s resolutions this year, my chart is a bit more complex. It has multiple columns since some of my resolutions have multiple parts. Some columns get simple check marks. Others get numbers.

I created the chart in Excel, since it’s a grid, but I don’t expect to record the data in an actual spreadsheet. (I’m not quite that much of a geek.) Instead, I printed it out and put it on my bulletin board. Each morning, after writing in my journal about the previous day, I record the previous day’s results. As I look at the chart I have a concrete, in print record of how I’m doing.

Resolution Progress Chart
My New Year’s Resolution Progress Chart. I suspect that this will keep me on track — at least as long as I keep printing new charts and recording my progress on them.

Over-the-Top?

Is this approach over-the-top? Super anal-retentive? Evidence of an obsessive compulsive personality disorder?

Maybe.

But I think the reason many people don’t succeed with New Year’s Resolution goals — or any other goals, for that matter — is because they don’t have a daily reminder of what that goal is. It’s not in their face. There’s no one looking over their shoulder to make sure they stay on track.

This is my solution. The chart is in my face and I’m looking over my own shoulder, making sure I stay on track.

And, as always, I’m the only one that can ensure my own success.

2015 Resolutions

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A very ambitious list.

I’ve been slipping — and it’s got to stop. So I’ve decided to set up and stick to some New Year’s Resolutions.

1. Fight the Social Media Addiction

I spend entirely too much time on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Actually, if you spend more than 30 minutes a day on social media — and aren’t being paid to do it as part of your job — you probably spend too much time, too.

Think about it. Yes, you enjoy it. It’s a nice, convenient social experience. But it’s also a timesuck. And the time you spend online looking at cat photos and clicking like buttons is time you could be spending doing other more rewarding things like engaging in personal interactions with family and real (not virtual) friends, working on projects that enrich your life (or bank account), and getting some fresh air and/or exercise. These are all things I want to spend my time doing. I don’t want to sit in front of the computer after breakfast, tune into Facebook, and look up two hours later to discover that half my morning is gone and nothing constructive has been done.

So I’m placing a limit on social networking:

Less FacebookFacebook:

  • No checking in between 8 AM and 8 PM. “Checking in” refers to logging on for the purpose of reading new updates on my newsfeed and checking and responding to comments on my or other people’s updates.
  • Maximum of 3 updates per day, including updates of photos or links but excluding updates automatically generated when I post to my blog. These can be done at any time.
  • No likes. (I actually began doing this a few months ago and I find it very rewarding, mostly because it prompts me to share more meaningful commentary when I like something.)

Twitter:

  • No checking in between 8 AM and 8 PM. “Checking in” refers to logging on for the purpose of reading new tweets, checking and responding to notifications on my account, and adding or removing followers.
  • Maximum of 12 tweets per day, including photos, links, tweets automatically generated when I post to my blog, and retweets but excluding scheduled tweets. These can be done at any time.

LinkedIn:

Stop using it. Period. This should be pretty easy since I only check in once every month or so and always leave with a bad taste in my mouth.

Google+:

Really? People still use this?

I know this sounds silly or even kind of extreme — almost like a mom setting parental controls for her kid — but I have identified a problem and I have decided to tackle it by setting limitations. Let’s see how I do.

2. Watch Less TV.

I think I watch an awful lot of TV, especially when you consider that I (1) don’t have cable or satellite TV, (2) only get 4 live channels, and (3) rely mostly on Netflix, Hulu+, and other Roku-available content for options. Again, I think this has to do with the long winter nights — I certainly didn’t watch much TV when the sun was setting after 8 PM.

What’s reasonable? I think 5 hours a week is reasonable. That’s less than an hour a day. That might seem a bit low, but when you consider that I’m out with friends a few evenings a week, it should be pretty easy to maintain.

Read a BookAnd there is this added cheat: a movie — no matter what length it is — counts as just an hour. But, at the same time, an “hour-long” TV episode watched without commercials, which is really only about 44 minutes long, would also count as an hour. I’ll need a scorecard to keep track. It should be interesting to see how I do.

What will I do instead? That’s easy: read.

3. Lose 15 Pounds

MeasureYes, I need to lose weight again. Doesn’t everyone?

Back in 2012, I lost 45 pounds and went from a size 14/16 to a size 6/8. Since then, my weight has crept up a bit, although I’m still able to (barely) fit into all of my new clothes. Time to nip that in the bud and go back to my goal weight. Remember, I burned the bridge to fat town back in 2012.

I’m not very worried about achieving this. I’m going to use the same diet I used in 2012 to lose 45 pounds in 4 months. I expect to get back to my goal weight within 2 months but will likely stay on the diet for an additional month for the added benefits it offers — mostly appetite reduction. That’s what made it possible to keep the weight off as long as I did.

In my defense, since the last 10 pounds came on very quickly — over the past two months — I suspect it has a lot to do with my reduced activity level. Winter means short, cold days here in the Wenatchee area. Unless I’m out doing something that keeps me busy and warm — like skiing or snowshoeing — I’m not likely to be outside. And there isn’t much exercise indoors — although climbing scaffolding can be pretty exhausting after a while. This is my best argument for going south for the winter and I may do it next year. (Yeah, I’m a snowbird for health reasons. That’s the ticket!)

Oh, and if you’re one of those people who think “big is beautiful” and that being thin is something that society forces upon us to make us feel bad about our bodies, wake up and smell the deep fried Oreo you’re about to shove in your pie hole. I never said I wanted to be thin. I’ve said (elsewhere in this blog) that I wanted to remain a healthy weight for the rest of my life. The added benefit is the ability to look good in clothes, have lots of energy, and feel better about myself. Don’t be an idiot. If you’re more than 10% over what’s a healthy weight for your height, you owe it to yourself and your family to shed those extra pounds. Trust me: you will be glad you did.

4. Write More

Writing PadOne of the things social media time has stolen from me is writing time. Instead of sitting down to write a blog post or an article for a magazine or even a chapter of a book, I spend that time on Facebook or Twitter or even (sometimes) LinkedIn. Or surfing the web. This are mostly unrewarding, unfulfilling activities. I get so much more satisfaction out of completing a blog post or article — especially when there’s a paycheck for the article.

I want to blog more often — at least four times a week. Blogging is something that makes me feel good. I wish I could explain it. I think it’s because I’m documenting the things I’m doing, thinking, and feeling. Creating an archive of these things.

I’ve been blogging for 11 years now and am very proud of that fact. I’m also thrilled that I can go back and read about the things that interested me so long ago. Why wouldn’t I want to do this?

I also want to explore new markets for paid article work. I have opportunities and when I can focus I can write and submit work I can be paid for. Why aren’t I doing more of this?

And I definitely need to complete a few work-in-progress books that I’ve started. And turn some of my blog posts into ebooks I can earn a few dollars on.

And I sure wouldn’t mind reopening some of the fiction work I began 20 or 30 years ago — work that was once so much a part of my life that I’d think about it in bed to help me drift off to sleep. Time to bring all that back into my life.

5. Just Say No to Starbucks

Say No to StarbucksWhy do I go in there? The coffee isn’t even that good!

I live in Washington, for Peet’s sake (pun intended), a place where there are coffee shops on nearly every corner and more drive-through coffee stands than gas stations. Why am I going into Starbucks, a place where saying “medium” instead of “grande” can earn you a snicker from the order taker?

Chocolate Covered Graham CrackersAnd don’t say it’s the dark chocolate covered graham crackers. Although it could be.

I guess I just don’t like the idea of supporting a global corporation with mediocre products when I could be supporting small, local coffee shops with slightly less mediocre products.

What I really should do is stop drinking coffee in the middle of the day.

This will be easy to do once I set my mind to it. I just have to not crave coffee when I walk into the Fred Meyer or Safeway supermarkets.

Scorecard

Because I’m so anal, I’ll keep a scorecard to see how I do. I’ll try to report back with success — or failure — at year’s end.

Wish me luck!

And why not share a few of your resolutions for 2015? Use the comments link or form for this post.