Having scored a bounty of fresh produce at the local Sunday Farmers Market I decided to take a stab at putting some of the vegetables together in an attempt at a bit of a salad, roast vegetable combo.

The result was tasty and healthy, but certainly more work than I would want out of a simple salad. Still, it made for a nice lunch.

Normally when I roast vegetables I use olive oil, today I used spray-on Pam, and not very much. While healthy, it certainly wasn't as satisfactory as a liberal dose of olive oil. I roasted 2 small red beets, 1 medium golden beet and a half dozen fingerling potatoes. I ended up getting impatient and not roasting them long enough – when roasted properly the skin should be easy to remove and the skin on these beets chose to stay on. Forunetly I had washed them well so I didn't really notice. I did notice that they were a little crisper than I would like, however.

The fingerling potatoes were really good done this way – originally I was going to boil those potatoes but I think now that I will be roasting the rest. I'll be cooking dinner tomorrow and plan to roast them and dress with a little oil, salt, garlic and maybe some chives to make a nice side dish.

For the star of this salad I sliced up some of the grape tomatoes, added some salt, a chiffonade of basil and dressed with just a little balsamic vinegar. Very simple, probably too simple for most, but for me it was what I was looking for.

A simple way to enjoy some of the produce from my farmers market journey.

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Farmers Market Salad

Took a quick trip to the local Farmers Market this morning. For the most part our market is just vegetables, there isn't a vast array of fruit sold here, probably first because I'm in Minnesota and not California, and second because the season may not be just right. Or our market stinks.

Whatever the case, it's fun to get out occasionally and see what kind of a bounty you can come up with.

Here is what I bought today:

2 giant kohlrabi, usually large kohlrabi are tough but the vendor said these come from a hybrid seed that costs $200/pound and result in very tender, delicious kohlrabi. I had to take his word for it there as there were no samples, I'll slice one up today for a snack and we'll see. At 50 cents each it wouldn't be the end of the world if they turned out tough.

At least a pound of grape tomatoes, I was able to sample one there and it was juicy and tasty. These make for nice additions to salads or perhaps I'll make a version of caprese salad with the bunch of fresh basil that I also bought.

I bought some fingerling potatoes that I'll probably just boil up and then perhaps saute with some of the sweet onions I also bought. These would pair well with the fresh green beans I scored for just a couple of bucks if I remember right.

I bought a bunch of red beets and some golden beets as well. I like to roast these very simply with olive oil, salt and pepper – I may try to roast with Pam cooking spray to see if I can make them a little healthier anyway.

The challenge with going to the Farmers Market like this is now I have to do something with everything I bought. Kohlrabi will make nice snacks, the grape tomatoes and basil can be easily paired or added to other dishes, as can the onions. The beets, green beans and potatoes will most likely need to be a starring side dish.

Do you like going to Farmers Markets?

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Sunday Morning Farmers Market

As you have probably noticed if you have paid attention to any of the pictures I have posted in the past about the meals I eat I do get out to Subway quite a bit. Maybe once or twice a week. Like any other restaurant there are good choices and there are bad choices.

When I am not focusing on my diet this would be a typical lunch there for me:

12" Tuna Sub, with all the fixings including cheese and olive oil
Bag of chips
2 cookies

According to my calculations the total calories for that meal is about 2,100 calories. What, you heard Subway was healthy? Think again, my friends. Very easy to go totally off the rails there despite what Jared says in their commercials.

As I have been doing good the last couple of months I have managed to avoid that kind of disaster. This has been my standard meal:

12" Turkey Sub, no olive oil, no cheese
Apple slices
Yogurt

That meal is much better at a little under 700 calories.

Yesterday I took a shot at a simple little change, which was:

12" Veggie Sub, no olive oil, no cheese
Apple slices
Yogurt

Total estimated calories for that meal is about 500, and surprisingly to me I did not miss the meat at all. I don't normally get cucumbers on my subs so I added extra cucumbers and thought about that as being the meat and it worked. It was filling, satisfying and tasty and at 500 calories for the whole meal the kind of healthy option Subway likes to advertise.

I think I've found my new go-to sandwich.

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A New Subway Sandwich

A few weeks ago I bought a persimmon at the grocery store. I didn't know anything about persimmons but they were in the exotic fruit section of the produce area and I like to try new things so I bought one. The persimmon I bought felt ripe to me (it had a nice slight give to the flesh), so when I got home I put away the groceries and pulled out the persimmon. It was fairly soft so I decided I would segment it like an orange and suck the "meat" off of the skin. Seemed like a reasonable way to eat it. Unfortunately what I didn't know was that this was a Hachiya persimmon, and it was not yet fully ripe. Trust me when I tell you that you do not want to eat a Hachiya persimmon before it is fully ripened.

There are two kinds of persimmons you will most likely find in America (you may find one or two more exotic varieties if you buy persimmons online) but I am focusing here on what you can get in the store.

Hachiya Persimmon

The Hachiya persimmon will look a bit like an acorn in shape and you want to buy these when they are soft. In fact, even when you buy them ripe as I did, you will want to make sure they are fully ripe before you try to eat one. This is because this variety of persimmon is an astringent persimmon, meaning on a technical level they contain very high levels of soluble tannins and in non-technical terms they taste really, really bad if you eat them too early. The taste is hard to describe, but it is something like bitter chalk.

When your Hachiya persimmon is fully ripened and very, very soft, it is ready to eat. There are a couple of different ways to eat this variety of persimmon. The first is to simply chop of the top and eat it with a spoon like a pudding. The second is to cut it in half, slice out the core, and then either eat with a spoon or just suck it from the skin. I chose to do the latter tonight, next time I will give the pudding method a try.

Fuyu Persimmon

The Fuyu persimmon is flatter than the Hachiya and looks a bit like a pumpkin. This persimmon you actually want firm and you simply eat it like an apple. Some people like to peel a Fuyu persimmon before eating but it isn't neccessary – the skin is edible. Just make sure to wash the fruit well before eating it. In this case a cut the persimmon into 8ths and sliced out the core.

Since the Hachiya persimmon is absolutely terrible when eaten firm you can see that it is important not to mix the two varieties up and eat them at the wrong time.

So how does a persimmon taste when eaten properly? Can't say I'm a huge fan. I'll take a mango over a persimmon any day. But still, if you want to give a persimmon a try you can follow this little guide to get the best experience.

Do you like persimmons?

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How to Eat a Persimmon

Managed to sleep in a little bit today which felt good, but I'm still dogging it health wise. Writing this at night after getting back from watching our high school girl's volleyball team win their sectional championship 3 games to 2 after falling behind 2 games to 1 so that was pretty exciting. But now as I'm thinking about bed I'm starting to cough again, which is no fun.

But the morning started off pretty well as I made a nice omelet which I decided I'd document a little deeper than normal here. Since I had more time today with it being a Saturday I spent a little more time than normal on this.

So from my mise en place you will see starting in the upper left corner, a small glass bowl with sliced baby tomatoes. I've got the set of these little 6.5 ounce bowls and they are great for putting together prepped items like this. Next is a small amount of pre-made guacamole that comes in these little 100 calorie packs that we like to pack with lunches. I love the little metal dishes I use for these and the next few ingredients but I don't know what to call them and can't find them on Amazon to link to. But they work great for organizing small prepped items.

Next is a couple of slices of onions diced, then a single slice of bacon diced up. The dollop of butter is for the omelet itself, which is 3 eggs and a splash of milk which is in the middle, presented in a glass bowl from my set of nested glass bowls, which is another kitchen favorite. Sea salt, black pepper and dried basil make up the prep.

The first four ingredients will be sauteed up in a separate pan along with the basil, salt and pepper while in a separate omelet pan I have the butter to which will be added the stirred up egg and milk combo, along with salt and pepper. I let the bacon render it's fat a little before adding the onions, and then after the onions become translucent I added the tomatoes and basil and let them cook down a little bit. Just as the omelet was ready I added the guacamole to the saute pan, mixed it around a bit and then slid everything onto the omelet which I then folded on to a plate. One slice of dried toast, some mandarin oranges and a small glass of spicy v8 to complete the breakfast.

I know I'd eat it again.

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Diving into Breakfast

Thankfully, it's the weekend. Still trying to shake this cold, or whatever it is. It's certainly resulted in less sleep this week than I would like. Kids don't have any activities in the morning so I should be able to sleep in.

This morning I made a 3 egg omelet with sliced baby tomatoes that I sauteed in a little butter, basil, salt and pepper. Added a little Parmesan cheese and served with a slice of dry toast and a small glass of spicy v8. Really liked this omelet although I think I could have done fine with 2 eggs instead of 3. That's a chance I need to lock into.

On a side note, I'm really trying to concentrate as I work on this post but it is sooooo hard when my 13 year old son is in the next room playing PS3 online with one of his friends. He's got his cell phone on speaker mode so they can both talk about the action in the game (I guess the game they are playing doesn't have in-game private chat), and they are constantly freaking out and his friend like to periodically play annoying music into the phone. Lucky for me we are on a T-Mobile Friends and Family plan so they he has unlimited minutes on these calls.

Unfortunately I am starting to cough again so I'm thinking this is going to be another long night.

I didn't take the time to pack a bento box for lunch today so I went to Noodles for lunch and had a Med Duo combo which is a flat bread sandwich and small bowl of Thai Curry soup. From what I can tell the sandwich is only 340 calories or so and the soup is a little less. Really tasty lunch and I can tell from how I felt afterwords that it was filling but not too filling.

For dinner I had a cold poached chicken breast sandwich, some tortilla chips and some mandarin oranges. Oh, and I'm sipping an India Pale Ale beer but it isn't tasting good, especially since I'm coughing so I think I'll only end up eating half of it or so.

Lots of to-dos this weekend, will try to work some good diet and exercise into my plans.

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Glad For The Weekend

Today didn't start off very well. I've been nursing some kind of cold the last few weeks where I seem to for the most part be OK during the day but struggle at night. When I'm horizontal something builds up in my throat and I start to hack and cough. Tough to sleep. Even tougher with a CPAP machine. My wife gave me all sorts of drugs to take but they didn't seem to work, I just couldn't get comfortable. I ended up taking the CPAP downstairs and got about 4 hours of sleep in the basement after watching some TV.

Then this morning I needed to take my car in for an oil change. I love my Bimmer but the service center is the devil. No, the are good at what they do it's just that they have fresh coffee and doughnuts in the waiting area. I was just waiting for a shuttle, not my car, but it was enough to slip up and have a chocolate-glazed doughnut since I hadn't had any breakfast and I just couldn't muster up the strength to pass it by. My bad. Then I went and had a banana-nut muffin for breakfast anyway so not a terrific start to the day.

For the second day in a row I packed a lunch in my bento box. Small fresh herb salad, half a bulb of chopped fennel, small amount of ranch dressing, a chilled poached chicken breast, small portion of three bean salad, a small cucumber sliced up, a yogurt and a small dish of tapioca pudding, this time I added some banana chips to it. I thought it might be too much veg with the fennel and the cucumber but both gave a nice crunch that I like to have when eating. The banana chips lost some of their crunch sitting in the pudding but that was to be expected. It sounds like a lot of food as I am typing it but anyone who uses one of these boxes knows there isn't much room – portion sizes are minimal, which is good for me.

On the way home from work (and on my way to the polls) I had a Snickers Energy Bar which is probably about as bad for you, if not worse, than a regular Snickers bar. I'll have to run the numbers sometime. They are pretty tasty, which is a bad sign.

For dinner I once again reheated some pork butt, shredded up with a little BBQ sauce and this time put in on a soft roll, also had some cheddar rice cakes and an avocado. For dessert a bowl of red grapes. I've been drinking a lot of water all day. I opened a diet cherry Dr. Pepper but only took one sip, it wasn't what the doctor ordered.

I'll be traveling tomorrow and won't be packing a lunch, but I am planning to have a good breakfast and make good decisions at lunch. From there? We'll see.

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Packed a Lunch Again

Almost one full day into November and I would say the month is off to a pretty good start. I managed to stay away from the house on Halloween last night, and I've avoided the leftover Halloween candy we still have left. We gave away full-sized candy bars except to the kids who pulled up in vans, they still got the small stuff. I did get busted for passing a counterfeit $100 bill at a casino, but that's a story for another blog…

This Saturday I read a post called Happy Halloween Bento that got me thinking about a couple of things – wouldn't it be fun to make up some ghoulish Halloween treats and boy, I really should put that new bento box to use.

So Saturday night I tried a couple of recipes from that post. First, I made the deviled egg spiders. They were actually pretty good, I don't think I've ever had black olives and deviled eggs together but it was a decent pairing. Unfortunately nobody else in my family had any interest in trying them so I had a couple that night and then the rest (I only made 3 eggs) on Halloween morning. My mother-in-law ate one too. The severed fingers worked out better, I didn't have the little smoky weanies but used an Angus beef hotdog cut in half instead. I happened to have a mini red pepper that was starting to get old, so that worked great for the fingers and for the blood I used a packet of BBQ sauce I had left from Famous Dave's BBQ. Amy did try one of those, although she thought the blood was too spicy.

So I never actually made any more of these Halloween treats, just was testing out the recipes. Who knows, perhaps I will pull them out again someday if we ever throw a Halloween party.

Yesterday I made slow roasted pork butt and I also poached some chicken breasts that I then chilled. For lunch today I made up the following bento box: fresh herb salad topped with a sliced chilled poached chicken breast, a small container of ranch dressing, some roasted veggies, cheddar cheese rice crackers, yogurt and tapioca pudding for dessert. I have no idea how many calories all that adds up to but what I do know is that those bento boxes are great for portion control. And after eating lunch I felt satisfied, which is good.

For breakfast I had a banana nut muffin and for dinner I had some leftover pork butt that I shredded and mixed with some BBQ sauce, then put over some spaghetti noodles the rest of the family had eaten. Had a small piece of garlic bread. For dessert I had a bowl of red grapes.

It's National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) and I'm going to attempt to write every day this month. Hopefully I'll be writing about how good I am being. Good luck to me!

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Bento Box Lunch

Halloween is coming up in a few days and for many of us this signals the beginning of what can be a disastrous time for our weight loss plans. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years – it seems like there are just so many excuses to over-indulge during the next few months.

I always enjoyed Halloween as a kid and now as a parent I enjoy it doubly so. Not just for the candy of course – Halloween is a reminder of Fall and the upcoming Winter (here in Minnesota we often get snow before Halloween but knock on wood not this year), a chance to see the creativity of neighbors coming out with awesome spooky displays and of course a chance to maybe even walk around with your kids. At least until they turn 12 or so.

But despite my enjoyment of Halloween it really does make for some weight loss and dieting challenges. Looking for some ideas for how to get through this Halloween? Here are 4 Tricks for Halloween Treats:

1. Don't participate – OK so this probably isn't a reasonable option but it serves as a reminder that just because there is cultural if not community pressure to participate in Halloween there is no reason you have to if you know that buying bags of candy is going to be a problem for you. Plan to go see a movie with the family, visit a local haunted house, do anything other than staying at home handy candy out to strangers. Sometimes the easiest way to be strong is to go away.
2. Put the candy bowl outside – The bane of the dieter is leftover Halloween candy. It sits there in your candy bowl just beckoning you to take one or two little pieces. The problem is those one or two little pieces turn into five or six and suddenly you are doing some serious damage to your diet. So if you must participate in Halloween plan to do so with having no leftovers. How to do that? Buy all the candy you think you need, put it in a big bowl and instead of having that bowl inside the house put it outside on your porch with a sign for the kids to take "1 or 2" pieces. One way or another you probably won't have any leftovers to worry about. Of course you may only have made one kid really happy but that is a risk us dieters have to take.

3. Hand out large candy bars – It probably seems counter-intuitive that handing out large candy bars rather than the traditional mini bite-size morsels would help you on your diet but I think it is much more likely you will be able to contain yourself from eating candy if the leftovers are huge bars rather than the normal innocuous little pieces. We'll see – this year for the first time we will be handing out normal size candy bars. Not only should this make it easier for me to not nibble but it also makes it very likely there will be no leftovers as word spreads throughout the neighbor that our house is the place to visit.
4. Throw the leftovers away – This little trick is probably the hardest of the bunch because nobody likes to throw anything away, especially chocolate. But if you have decided that you want to participate in Halloween you must have a plan to deal with possible leftovers and despite your good intentions, establishing a plan to eat "just one small piece" every day just won't cut it. At some point you will break down. So if you must participate do so with the plan of throwing away any leftovers you have. In fact you should be sure to have a similar plan for any new candy your children bring home. Let them munch on it for a few days but set the expectation with them that there is a statute of limitations on their candy as well.

Halloween is a fun time year but it can be troublesome for dieters. Use one or more of these tricks to help you get through it.

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4 Tricks for Halloween Treats

If you were paying attention to my Twitter feed last night you'll know that I participated in the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! Better for You BBQ Taste & Tweet event. I was asked to participate in the event a few weeks ago and was sent a really cool grilling pack from the company that included BBQ tongs, a corn buttering dish, corn holders, a coupon for a free I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! product and a $25 American Express gift card to purchase food for the grill. Pretty cool!

As you can see, I put the grill pack to good use:

I started off by using my chimney stack charcoal starter. Two pieces of newspaper and a match is all that is needed to get perfect coals. If you are still using lighter fluid then stop right now and buy a Weber Chimney Starter.

I would say that I bought all the food courtesy of the $25 gift card but alas my grocery store wouldn't take it so I'll have to spend that elsewhere. But on the menu for evening was grilled lamb (by request of my son and I'm glad he did – boy I love grilled lamb), grilled chicken breasts (I don't know why I insist on doing chicken breasts on the grill as I never like the outcome), grilled corn on the cob, a mushroom kabob (I used butter instead of olive oil like I normally would, it turned out fine) and for dessert, grilled pineapple.

I ended up eating a grilled lamb steak, 2 pieces of corn on the cob (sprayed with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! spray) and the mushroom kabob. Oh, and grilled pineapple:

I started by making a glaze with one and a half cups of orange juice, a half a cup of dark rum and a cup of brown sugar. Put over heat and reduced until I had about a third of the total starting liquid. Boy was it yummy. Chopped up a pineapple giving myself some nice slabs (with plenty leftover for snacking later), and skewered three of them for dessert kabobs. I glazed two and left one dry. Once I had all the food off the grill I scraped it clean and put on the kabobs, they ended up taking a lot longer to cook than I thought but of course by then the coals had died down a bit too. Added more glaze when I pulled them off.

Didn't have any ice cream but I think that would have gone well with the glazed pineapple. This doesn't come as a surprise but I much preferred the glazed pineapple to the plain grilled pineapple, although it was still quite good. I'm definitely doing this one again and hopefully staying clear of too much glaze.

All in all a good grilling, thanks to I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!

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A Little Grilling

I went into Monday of this week with the goal of taking a picture of everything I ate for the week. I have noticed that when I do that (ala my Rate my Meals posts) that I tend to eat much better than if I don't. I guess it's all about accountability. In doing this for a week I noticed a couple of trends that I am going to have to get a handle on:

1) It's harder to maintain a plan as the week goes on. I did pretty well up until Friday, at which point everything fell apart.
2) It's harder to maintain a plan as the day goes on. Through Thursday I did pretty well for breakfast, lunch and snacks. But then came dinner. This has always been my struggle.

Here are my breakfasts and lunches for Monday – Thursday of this past week:

Overall I think I did really well.

Breakfast 1: Bowl of oatmeal with blueberries, small dish with half a banana (I normally eat a whole one but half was too ripe) and some watermelon pieces, a slice of toast with peanut butter.

Breakfast 2 & 3: 2 egg omelet with mushrooms, spring onion and just a tiny bit of Parmesan cheese, a few strawberries and a slice of dry toast. I liked this one so much I made it twice. I cooked up the mushrooms in a little sherry. Delicious. Really happy with myself that I stuck with 2 eggs rather than 3 too – when I am not paying attention I can easily go to 3 or even 4 eggs.

Breakfast 4: oatmeal with blueberries, watermelon pieces and a banana. Guess I didn't feel like I needed toast that day.

I'm really happy with my breakfast choices.

Lunch 1: Big bowl of salad greens with a few spritzes of a balsalmic vinegar dressing, some deli ham and a few pieces of orange and red peppers.

Lunch 2: Salad bar with some proteins like fake crab, ham and egg, a few pieces of pickled beets and blue cheese dressing. Chicken chili and a yogurt.

Lunch 3: Salad bar with some proteins like fake crab, ham and egg, a few pieces of pickled beets and thousand island dressing. Beef chili with cheese, a couple of crackers and a yogurt.

Lunch 4: Foot long subway at Subway, Turkey (no cheese), with spicy mustard, extra lettuce, tomatoes, jalapenos, black olives and vinegar. Yogurt instead of chips.

Moderately happy with lunch. Salad bars choices need to be better as I need to stop having the chili or soup and also need to go with better dressing.

I did well with snacks each day as well, however come dinner time I just didn't make good choices. And then on Friday I got lazy and did fast food for breakfast and lunch.

Going to try it again this week. Here's to a better run at it.

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A Week of Meals

This weekend I had to stop at a gas station with my son to get him a drink for his soccer game* and I managed to convince myself that I needed something to munch on while watching from the sidelines. I chose what at first glance appeared to be a fairly innocent snack, a small bag (3.5oz) of Snyder's of Hanover Honey Mustard & Onion Pretzel Pieces.

*They won their district championship but lost their regional final tonight that would have earned them entry to State, so the season is over. Except for the pool party at our house. And yes, I've been reading too much Joe Posnanski.

But as it turned out these things are pretty darned bad. Well, they taste great, but bad for you. Just how bad? Well when you read the nutrition label you will quickly see that there are 140 calories and 3g of saturated fat per serving. "But John," you say, "that doesn't sound too bad." Well, let me finish. There are almost 4 servings in this small bag (I HATE when they do that). So instead of 140 calories and 3g of saturated fat I'm really consuming about 560 calories and 12g of saturated fat, which is 28% and 60% respectively of a 2,000 calories a day diet. For one small bag of pretzel pieces! I thought pretzels were ok to eat?

I did a little research at the Snyder's of Hanover website and found that they offer seven different varieties of this product: Southern Style Barbecue, Hot Buffalo Wing, Buttermilk Ranch, Cheddar Cheese, Honey Mustard & Onion, Jalapeno and Garlic Bread. Interestingly enough they all contain 140 calories per ounce serving, except for Cheddar Cheese which has 130. Regrettably I can't find that they actually sell their product in 1 ounce bags so the 1 ounce serving size is a myth. The smallest bag is the 3.5oz bag that I bought and nobody that I know* would look at that little bag and say, "Let's share."

*Of course, that could be my problem. And did you know that Joe is Tony's brother?

Now in Snyder's defense I should point out one thing. Unlike most products I have seen where "about 4 servings" really means 4.1, making the math even worse, in this case the simple math of taking 140 calories and multiplying by "about 4 servings" to get 560 calories isn't exactly right. Actually the product is 5 calories per gram for a total of 496 calories. So kudos for that.

But still the Bad Snack of the Day.

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Bad Snack of the Day: Snyder's Pretzel Pieces

It's probably never occurred to you to eat an orange any other way other than cutting it into pieces with the skin on and sucking on each piece or peeling it and eating each segment. 99% of the time when I eat an orange that's what I do too. But every once in awhile I like to get a little fancy and yesterday was one of those days. I never posted this picture of my breakfast because I didn't get a full day of pictures in, but as you can see I ate a segmented orange for breakfast yesterday:

Why is segmenting an orange a great way to eat an orange? No skin, no pith, no membrane, just pure orange goodness. Sure it takes a little work but once you have done a few you'll be able to get one done very quickly.

Here are the steps to segment an orange:

Using a sharp knife and a sure hand,

1. Slice off one end of the orange at the stem end, being sure to expose a good amount of inside orange.
2. Turn the orange over and take a slice off of the other end of the orange.
3. Set the orange on a cutting board flat side down.
4. Now take your knife and follow the contour of the orange to slice off the skin and pith.
5. Continue around the orange until all the skin and pith is gone.
6. Hold the orange in your hand, over a bowl to catch the juice, and carefully run the blade of your knife down one side of the orange segment and then down the other side (either side of the membrane) – the clean segment should almost pop right out.
7. Continue until you have completed segmenting the orange.
8. Enjoy.

Still not sure what the heck I am talking about? Watch this video:

What do you think, too much work or totally worth it?

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How to Segment an Orange

It's a good thing I have a few more days off until I start work on Thursday because I am not yet out of lazy vacation mode. Had a great time in Japan – we were in Tokyo for 9 days and took a daytrip one day to Hiroshima (4 hours each way on the Bullet Train – made for a long day!). I hope you enjoyed the variety of guest posts while I was gone. I've got some more I'll be teeing up this month too since I'll be out a lot on business. Really not a great time to trying to be focusing on eating and exercising. But is there ever a good time?

I had good intentions of photographing everything I ate while in Japan. As it turns out I didn't take a picture of a darned thing. A shame, really. No excuse either since I did have my cell phone with me, even though I knew it wouldn't work I was planning to use it for such pictures, but I just never pulled it out for some reason.

Even so, I thought I'd share some observations about eating in Japan.

For breakfast we ate at the hotel breakfast buffet every day. It was just a good way to get the kids fed every day with a minimum of fuss, plus gave us an easy way to get them eating some different food. While there was certainly a collection of "normal" American breakfast fare there was also a very nice selection of traditional Japanese breakfast food items like rice, grilled fish, pickled items, noodles, soups, etc. Both of my kids really like salmon so when they had grilled salmon available (about every other day) they were sure to have some of that. Most days they had rice, noodles, eggs, toast, cucumbers and fruit. I tended to eat a mix of Japanese and American, leaning more heavily toward Japanese.

We didn't really eat many lunches on the trip since we were usually so busy during the middle of the day. We did have a small lunch at the Denny's in Asakusa – the last time I was in Tokyo I ate at the Denny's in Shinjuku so I've been to two in Japan now. I had a small green salad that had a little scoop of tuna on it, a milk and tapioca ball drink and my daughter and I shared a mango for dessert. Didn't see a lot of street food, perhaps it was still too cold for the vendors – most days barely got into the 50s. One day in Ueno Park my daughter and I each had a sweet potato half from a street vendor, those were super tasty.

For dinner we did end up eating at more American places than I would have liked, but it just sort of worked out that way. I think we ate at McDonald's for dinner a few times and a KFC once. We would also do some nighttime grazing at AM/PM or Seven/Eleven where they always had a nice selection of foods including salads. There are plenty of small noodle or sushi bars available but they really don't cater to families coming in so we never ventured into one. We ate Italian one night.

We bought a lot of drinks from the never-ending amount of vending machines that dot the Tokyo landscape. I stuck to water, my son was the adventurous one who would buy drinks like the grape jello drink that was actually chunky like jello.

In all of the time we were in Japan, with all of the tens of thousands of peoples we walked by, around and at times, through (did you know Tokyo was crowded??), I can honestly say I only saw 4-5 overweight people. I don't mean obese, other than the Sumo on TV I only saw 2 people I would categorize as obese (not including the foreigners in the airport). It was really something. The crazy thing is there are certainly a lot of unhealthy options for people there to be eating. Every restaurant we went in was full, including the McDonald's and KFC, but they were filled with thin Japanese people. I have to think that over time the introduction of fast food meat into the Japanese diet will have to have a very bad effect on their waistlines but through observation it would seem it hasn't happened yet.

Just like I'm not yet ready for work it sort of feels like I'm not yet ready for blogging as I'm having a hard time structuring anything. Maybe you have a question about Tokyo I can answer? Maybe that will help me get re-engaged!

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Eating in Japan

Read below to learn how you can easily win one of these gift boxes too!

Disclaimer: A representative for the California Raisin Marketing Board provided this gift pack, however the opinions shared are purely my own.

The Super Bowl is coming up next week and I'm planning to do better than I did eating-wise last year, where the super bowl snacks were downed early and often. Liz, a representative for the California Raisin Marketing Board, read that post and had a suggestion for me: Try a new, healthier recipe that might go over well at this year's party.

And she offered more than the recipe, she actually ended up sending all of the fixings and then some:

In addition to the food items she included a giant football bowl, a raisin hat and a cute little raisin guy that my daughter called dibs on.

According to the California Raisin Marketing Board here are three reasons why California Raisins are a wise choice for game-day snacking:

• Just 1/4 cup of raisins equals a serving of fruit for adults
• California Raisins are fat- and cholesterol-free.
• Raisins deliver important health components, such as fiber, potassium and antioxidants

Here is the recipe for California Raisins Five-Spice Popcorn Snack Mix:

Ingredients:
1 bag (97% fat-free) microwave popcorn, popped
1/4 cup sesame sticks
1/2 teaspoon each: garlic powder and onion powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon dried cilantro leaves
1 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice powder
1/2 cup crisp chow main noodles
Olive oil cooking spray
1 cup California Raisins

Directions:
Stir together all ingredients except raisins in a large bowl. Spray mixture liberally with cooking spray and toss with your hands, repeating until popcorn is well coated with spices; stir in raisins.

I have to admit the results were pretty tasty. I especially like the combination of the Chinese 5-Spice and the Cayenne pepper. One thing I didn't like is that everything except the popcorn went to the bottom of the bowl (I had to stage the picture!), meaning you really had to dig to get some of the goodies like the raisins. It felt more like a popcorn snack than a raisin snack, although I'm sure it wasn't their intention to have the raisins be the star of this show. Check out their original Five-Spice Snack Mix recipe.

Now, want to hear the best part? You too can get one of these boxes full of all the ingredients to make this recipe and then some. All you need to do is comment on this post, link to this post, tweet about this post or re-tweet my tweet about this article (1 entry for each method), and I'll enter you in a random drawing. I will not be accepting entrants from contest blogs. This is going to be a short contest period so your odds of winning should be very good. Contest closes at 9:00PM CST, Monday, February 1st. That's tomorrow. That way we should have enough time to get the box sent out to you in time for your Super Bowl Party.

Good luck!

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Super Bowl Snack – California Raisins Five-Spice Popcorn Snack Mix

One of the approaches I used successfully when I first had some weight loss success on this journey of mine was to continue eating at all the same places I always had but to scale back how much I was eating. I pretty much know my battle is to reduce consumption and having a focus on that really seemed to make a difference.

As my weight has ballooned back up I've forgotten all the good habits I had started to establish as it pertains to portion size. One of the first things I did back then was to dramatically reduce how much I was eating at McDonald's, which is probably not the first time a fat guy like me has said that. McDonald's is generally not great for a diet, particularly if you have a problem with portion size.

I've never had success in daily tracking of calories but I have had some success in researching a few key meals so that I have a good understanding of what is OK or what is not. (hint, a foot long Tuna combo meal at Subway is NOT!).

I've sort of forgotten what's OK at McDonald's and what is not so I thought I would grab a nutrition sheet and dig in:

McDonald's Sausage Egg McMuffin

Prior to starting this journey a couple of years ago I had developed a habit of enjoying two sausage egg mcmuffin's and a hash brown for breakfast. The good news is I know that is SO bad and grossly filling that this time around I have been staying away from that meal. Let's see if there is any combination of this that could possibly work for a not-so-bad breakfast.

According to the McDonald's nutritional info:

2 Sausage Egg McMuffins and a hashbrown: 1,050 calories.
2 Sausage Egg McMuffins: 900 colories.
1 Sausage Egg McMuffin and a hashbrown: 600 colories.
1 Sausage Egg McMuffin: 450 calories.

Maybe the occasional sausage egg McMuffin wouldn't be a terrible thing but anything beyond that and you are really starting to dig into your daily caloric intake.

Egg McMuffin

This breakfast sandwich is their original classic and from what I remember reading it really isn't so bad from a calorie standpoint. But let's see how bad:

2 Egg McMuffins and a hashbrown: 750 calories.
2 Egg McMuffins: 600 calories
1 Egg McMuffin and a hashbrown: 450 colories.
1 Egg McMuffin: 300 calories.

300 calories isn't bad at all, I easily eat more than that with a "good" breakfast. Of course that includes fruit, dairy and other good things for you – I am ignoring all of that and just focusing on calories which of course isn't healthy either. But what I'm trying to determine here is "what is a relatively filling, cheap meal that I can grab on the go that isn't go to blow my diet." It's not 2 Sausage Egg McMuffin's and a hashbrown but perhaps it is a single Egg McMuffin.

Sausage Breakfast Burrito

Diving into this analysis I was mostly interested in this one because it is something I have become used to eating and I've never before research how bad they were for me. So I was really interested. The problem is that for some reason the nutritional sheet I got at McDonald's didn't show this one, it only showed the bigger McSkillet Breakfast Burrito. So I had to use the numbers I found on the Internet:

2 Sausage Breakfast Burritos and a hashbrown: 750 calories.
2 Sausage Breakfast Burritos: 600 calories
1 Sausage Breakfast Burrito and a hashbrown: 450 colories.
1 Sausage Breakfast Burrito: 300 calories.

So it's basically the same as the regular Egg McMuffin. The problem is that the value meal this comes in, the #11, includes 2 burritos, so by default that's the 750 calories pack. You can order the ala-carte but again I'm not sure if just one will be enough. I do know that I really don't like just 1 regular egg McMuffin as I never feel like that meal keeps me going, but perhaps a single breakfast burrito will. I'll have to try.

For all of you who are no doubt thinking, "don't go to McDonald's, make yourself something at home," you are probably right. But convenience is golden.

As in Golden Arches.

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Eating Breakfast at McDonald's

photo credit: NathanaelB

I'm wondering if I binge eat like others do. When I hear about binging I read stories of people eating a gallon of ice cream in one sitting, a whole pizza or an entire box of oreos. Other than the pizza (who hasn't indulged in an entire pizza?) I don't think I have ever binge eaten one item like that.

My binge eating in different.

My binge eating is all about tastes, textures, contrasts and cycles.

When I binge eat it starts with a desire to have some sort of taste, be it salty, sweet, sour, bitter or umami. For whatever reason I get in my head that I need that taste and I find something that satisfies it. Let's say I craved salty – so I'll eat a bowl of salted in the shell sunflower seeds. There, that wasn't too bad.

But that's where contrasts come in. When I am in a normal mood I can eat the sunflower seeds and that is that. When I am in a binging mood I need to eat something else and what I will go after is something that contrasts the taste I had previously eaten. So I'll eat a bowlful of pickles, for example.

What's that taste in my mouth? That's sour. What I need is something to contrast that – let's say some sweet Oreos. OK that was a fine dessert but my mouth is full of all these crunchy bits, let's switch the textures up a bit and have some smooth yogurt or ice cream for dessert too.

If I am lucky things will stop there. I'll brush my teeth, pop in a stick of gum, or just get otherwise preoccupied with something else besides food. If I am not lucky I will start the process over again, and cycle back to salty. The concept of having something sweet for a dessert is completely lost when you follow it back up with something salty – and it usually doesn't stop there.

I am confident the behavior I describe is binge eating but I don't know if it is normal binge eating.

I hope you don't but if you do, how do you binge eat?

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Do You Binge Eat Like Me?

My family played a game today called "Hide the Oreos." As is no secret, I love me some Double Stuffed Oreos. But that's no good for the diet. Unfortunetly, the rest of my family loves them too. Months ago we just had them in the pantry. Then my wife noticed they were getting eaten at too fast of a pace so she hid them in the back of the towel drawer. I found them there eventually, and for the last few months that is where they were "hidden."

Then a few weeks ago I noticed there wasn't any Oreos in that drawer but I knew we had just bought some and sure enough they had moved to the back of the rolling pin drawer. And for the last few weeks that is where they have been "hidden."

Sidenote for stating the obvious – we are not talking about the same package!

So once again today I notice that there are no Oreos in the rolling pin drawer even though I know we have some. This time the hiding spot was not so obvious. I quizzed my son who didn't give up much info although based on his responses to my questions he did inadvertently reveal they were hidden on the main floor (which is what I would have guessed anyway).

Then later I heard my wife make a very innocent comment when she was in the family room, "why are there clothes all over the floor? Oh right, they were trying on Halloween costumes" or something like that. Then a minute later I saw her with an Oreo. It took me about 30 seconds to process the comment and pickup on why I thought it was weird – that wouldn't have been the first time she had seen the clothes. Aha, she was saying that as a cover for why she was in that room, when in fact she was in the room getting an Oreo.

Once she went upstairs it didn't take me long to find the drawer they were hidden in.

This time I took the initiative and hid them in the piano bench.

I ended up letting them know where they were though. I need to find a way to stay away from them because hiding them isn't working.

Does your family hide food from you?

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Hiding the Oreos

Now I know what you are thinking. "3 foods he shouldn't eat? Let me guess – Pizza, Ice Cream and Cookies." Well, you wouldn't be wrong there! But, that's not what I'll be writing about here. No, these 3 foods are small little things that get included in my diet one way or another and every time I eat them it seems like there is some amount of "payback" where I tell myself I really should be more careful next time.

Onions
I love onions. Onions form the base of many recipes of mine, for example Chili. Start by sauteing onions and bacon. Fish soup. Start by sauteing onions and bacon. Caramelized onions for hamburgers, raw onions for salads. Onions, onions, onions. Onions don't have too many calories, so what is the problem?

They make me burp. And I'm sorry to say, but the burps are "flavorful" if you know what I mean. I know my body well enough by now to have noticed that I like onions but they make be burp and belch and they don't taste good at that point. But still I eat them. I really shouldn't eat onions.

Jalapeno Peppers
I'm a spicy food nut. And raw Jalapeno peppers are a big part of that. I'll buy them fresh and chop them up in chopped salads or add to omelettes. Of course I'll add them to nachos, or chips and cheese, or even extra jalapenos on my Subway sandwich. Sunday as my wife and I were coming back from Mexico we shared an order of nachos in Memphis (we barely had any nachos in Mexico but then we have them in Memphis?) and I picked off all of the jalapenos, of which there were many, and ate them myself. So what's the problem with jalapenos (same goes for habaneros and other stronger peppers)?

They give me fire butt. A day or two later, not as fast as with the onions, I'll get reminded that I had some hot peppers by getting what I can only describe as fire butt. Do I need to say more? I hope not.

Sriracha
Never heard of Sriracha? Let me quote from Wikipedia:

Sriracha (Thai: ศรีราชา, pronounced /siːrətʃə/ or SEE-rah-chah) is the generic name for Thai-style hot sauce named after the seaside city of Si Racha, Thailand, where it was first produced for the local seafood restaurants. Typically made from sun-ripened chili peppers, vinegar, garlic, sugar and salt, it is a common condiment in many Asian restaurants.

I've started using this condiment a few months ago and really like it, but I've gone too far. Rather than simply dressing up foods that need spice I've been using it on foods that are already spicy, like I have been adding it to the Thai Curry Soup that I have at Noodles. This makes the flavor meter go past 10 but it also results in a fate similar to eating hot peppers. Fire butt.

Of all the foods I need to be eliminating from my diet these low-caloric ones probably would not get noticed except that I should be listening to my body and at least be reducing my intake of them when I do imbibe.

What foods do you have trouble with?

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

3 Foods I Shouldn't Eat

I wanted to point out a couple of articles I read today that I thought were interesting and relevant.

First is this unique description of a succulent ballpark treat from Andrew Zimmern's Chow & Again food & dining blog.

Chris Schwab, with the Sioux Falls Canaries Baseball Club in South Dakota, sent me an e-mail a few weeks ago. For those who don’t know, the team is part of the same ownership group as our local Saint Paul Saints. Well, apparently at the Canaries’s ballpark, vendors are selling turkey testicles. They call them Fowl Balls, and the Canaries teamed up with a local turkey processing plant (Dakota Provisions) to sell these little darlings. Chris assures me that they are not selling them two to a sack. Canaries fans can choose from dipping sauces including ranch, barbeque, and bleu cheese to add just the right nuanced flavor to an overflowing sack of Fowl Balls. During the first home stand last month, they sold out. Nearly 1,500 orders.

Best food name ever?

Andrew hosts a cool show on the Travel Channel called Bizarre Foods.

Next is Hidden Calorie Bombs to Avoid at Restaurants from Dumb Little Man. It's actually a guest post by Garrett at Fat Bastard Eats. This is his list of hidden calorie bombs:

Soups
Awesome Blossom
Muffins
Full Meat Portions
Soda

Hard to argue with that list, although I think I would replace the Awesome Blossom with Salads. Everyone knows (or should know!) how bad that blooming onion is, but salads trick people into thinking they are being healthy. I know for a fact that I have had "soup & a salad" for dinner and even if I am good and don't have crackers, croutons or bread that I still hit 2,000 calories in one sitting. Crazy.

Honestly, if there was a contest for best blog post title Fowl Balls & Calorie Bombs has to rank right up there.

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Fowl Balls & Calorie Bombs