I meant to make a note of the Chinese New Year yesterday. This is the Year of the Dog. According to the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco:

People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They have a deep sense of loyalty, are honest, and inspire other people’s […]

Well, what a difference a week makes! I cut back on the eating out/takeout (from 5 to 1), the Diet Coke (from 1/2 gal each day to 1/2 gal for the week), and added in a tiny bit of exercise (an hour total on the treadmill).
I lost a little over 4 […]

There was a great pointer on Big Fat Blog to a UCLA report that concludes that “the so-called obesity epidemic is at best a metaphor and not a very effective one at that.” (I’ve talked about why I agree with this perspective a while back, so I won’t go into it here.)
The full […]

From Weighty Words, emphasis mine:

I know it isn’t the first time I’ve said it nor am I the only blogger to say it, but if doing the right things feels so good, why don’t we?

Good question!!

I caught just a snippet of this on the news shows this morning, but didn’t manage to find out what they were talking about until I checked my Google alerts. Apparently the FDA has approved over-the-counter Orlistat.
The biggest beneficiary of this move is GlaxoSmithKline, who, according to Forbes, had seen a 60% […]

So I got an email from Adam Brook; he’s written The Golden Gate Diet. You can read the first two chapters of his book online, which is nice.
Based on that, it appears that this is Dr. Brooks’ version of Volumetrics. Both diets focus on eating more foods that have a low energy density (less […]

All I can say is huh?! I gained nearly a pound and a half from last week.
I normally don’t weigh myself from week to week, but I’ve been experimenting with a way of tracking how well I’m doing with eating a varied diet. So I’ve been writing down generally what I eat each day […]

I caught the first part of this past week’s episode of YOU The Owners Manual on Discovery Health where they talked about weight and gastric bypass. The overall impression of the surgery was favorable, highlighted by a woman who’d lost 120 lbs after hers.
But what struck me as amazing was what Dr. Mehmet Oz said […]

This recipe is inspired by one for individual potato-bacon frittatas that was in the December issue of Cooking Light (recipe link goes elsewhere, since the one on CL is behind a registration). It’s a great thing to make on the weekend so you can have an easy protein fix for breakfast […]

So yesterday I mentioned I was going to be pan-frying up some salmon fillets. I had to cook them, as they had been thawing for three days, and even though they were vacuum-packed, I knew they wouldn’t last forever.
But I had been putting it off, probably because 1) it had been a busy week […]

Oh, this is probably less than coherent, but I’m going to just post in anyways…it’s getting late, and I don’t want to hang onto it until tomorrow!
Jimmy Moore pointed to an interesting blog post by Micki McGee on the social and economic forces that could be contributing to obesity in America.
Micki doesn’t […]

Wow. What she said! From Zazen in the Moonlight:

Simply stated, Buddha said there are four kinds of action. Things that we like to do that are good for us, things we don’t like to do that are bad for us, things we like to do that are bad for us, and things we don’t like […]

One of my diet books had a paragraph that suggested that microwaving food was terrible since it supposedly destroyed the enzymes in food. At first read, this was a bummer for me, since I reheat in the microwave religiously.
Thank goodness for Google. A quick search turned up this page on enzymes and […]

Last month, I commented on a blog post on the site Weight of the Evidence re high-fat foods that said:

Often the very foods we’re told to avoid or reduce significantly are often the ones that offer the higher levels of essential nutrients!

She used the example of cheese, and in the case of cheddar cheese, […]

I meant to post this the other day. What Jimmy Moore says about Sylvester Stallone’s high protein pudding!

Stallone Puddings have quickly risen to the top of the bestseller lists on many of the online low-carb stores because these are high-quality, protein-fortified snacks that actually taste GOOD because they are sweetened with Splenda and Ace-K!

This stuff […]

I’ve moved away from making bars a daily part of my diet and more towards an item I have on hand as a backup. And while I’m a big chocolate fan, I’ve never cared too much for the candy-bar style of snack bars. So I’m psyched that I found another bar that I like: […]

1/2 lb of cleaned shrimp*
1 bunch asparagus, cleaned and cut into small pieces
2 cloves minced garlic
zest of one lemon
1T chopped parsley
salt and pepper
1 1/2 T olive oil
Pre-heat oven to 425. Mix all the above into a large zip-lock bag until coated. Put on a large cookie sheet as a single layer and roast for 10-12 […]

So I finally stepped on the scale. First, the actual number: 278. Last weigh-in (before Thanksgiving) was 282. That makes 97 lbs overall, and 89 since I started this new style of eating back in early February.
I guess it’s good news, as I did lose, though certainly not what I could have lost […]

Here’s another quick recipe inspired by SuperFoods Rx, which notes that blueberries are one of the “three major SuperFoods” that should be eaten “most days” since “the blueberry combines more powerful disease-fighting antioxidants than any other fruit or vegetable.”
I often put blueberries on oatmeal or yogurt, but last night, I was thinking of having […]

Note to self: check out Rodale’s (aka Prevention Magazine) The Sugar Solution to see if there’s anything new or interesting there.

I’m taking a page from Lent (where I normally give up giving up things) and am resolving to be resolution free this year. That said, I do have two things I need to do this year: keep going and make a dent in the 140 or so lbs left to lose, and learn more about […]

One of the foods I’ve been trying to work into my diet more is pumpkin, which is making a lot of the “super food” lists. SuperFoods Rx says that it’s a “real nutrition superstar.”
That’s all good, but I didn’t think that adding pie to my diet — or even a pumpkin custard — […]

So I’ve decided to postpone my next weigh-in until next Monday. Mostly I’d like to give myself a better chance of seeing some downward movement since the last one. I should be in pretty good shape. Even though I went way off track for two or so weeks after Thanksgiving, my theory is […]