Showing posts with label Appetite Suppressant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Appetite Suppressant. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Hope For Yo-Yo Diet Cycle - Shake The Crave



 Here is my diet cycle.  Sound familiar anyone?  Day 1 – I’m so motivated.  I've got a vacation, events, and cute clothes to wear and I'm going to take advantage of it by being 10 lbs. lighter!  This is the day I will pull myself out of the quagmire of diet failure!  I start out with a healthy breakfast.  I know that it’s important to start out with a good breakfast!  Gotta keep that energy up!  2 hours later, however, I start to feel hungry and my stomach starts to feel a little growly.  I go in and grab a healthy sized healthy snack, telling myself I will watch it at lunchtime.  It’s definitely not too late, I've got this!  Lunchtime comes and I’m feeling hungry again.  I look at what my co-workers or my husband or the people on the Food Network are eating and I don’t want to be deprived, so I get myself an extra helping of something plus another food item.  Alright now I’m feeling a little apprehensive about the future of this first day of the rest of my life.  C’mon, let’s not make it like all of the rest of the days I failed!  I swear to myself that I will definitely have to watch it from now until bedtime.  Evening comes around and I’m watching my favorite t.v. show.  I can’t watch t.v. without feeling a bit hungry, which I am.  It’s been 5 hours already.  I feel deprived but yet at the same time I tell myself I should be careful.  I eat a full dinner.  In front of the t.v.  Day 1 – Epic Fail!!!!
Day 2 – I don’t eat breakfast, in fact, I don’t eat until 2 pm.  I hop on the scale again, after this morning’s initial eye-popping number  to validate that this was a great idea.  Sure enough, I’ve lost a lb. from this morning’s dismal reading.  Great!  It’s a good thing, ‘cause I’m hungry.  I look in the freezer and there sits a carton of my favorite ice cream!  Tillamook, you are a bad, bad company because before I know what’s happening, I dish out 3 large scoops of Mudslide.  Ha!  But I’m being  smart.  I put in a half cup of Oatmeal to up the fiber count!  And hey, that’s all I’ll be eating until right at 7 pm when I plan to have a healthy green smoothie and call it a night.  
  At 3 pm I realize that I committed to bring food for our women’s group summer get-together.  It’s going to be salad with a chicken option and desserts.  I tell myself I will just have the salad and a tiny bit of chicken for the protein.  When I get there, it looks amazing! The food is delicious and conversations are lively.  I look around and I am not, by any means, the biggest gal in the room.  It makes me feel more at ease and so, I sample all of the entrees and many of the desserts.  I leave realizing that I have just failed Day 2.
But there is a ray of hope.  After my 4th of July food fest, I found the motivation to do a little less eating and a little more exercising and so this morning I was right at my ready-set-go weight.  It is 15 lbs. above what I’d llke to be, but not as bad as it could be.  Of course I've already repeated my Day 1 pattern.  However, I do know something that breaks my cycle of epic diet fails. 

Appetite Curbing Foods.    I recently wrote about barley being very good at suppressing the appetite because it makes you feel fuller longer.  It really does work!  Another thing that is a great substitute for the ice cream that somehow I feel like I need in my life,  is an appetite suppressing  shake.  It needs to have natural ingredients and it needs to make me feel full, as well as satisfy that sweet-tooth dairy craving I have.  It's the craving that makes me buy ice cream even though I know I’m kidding myself when I tell myself that it will only be eaten in small amounts and will last for at least a fortnight.  I will eat every last bit of it in less than a week.

 I know appetite curbing foods work because I was successful at replacing certain trigger foods that are high in calories--low in staying power.  And that is why I’m not any heavier than I am right now.  I just need to have a lot of it on hand.  And that is my commitment.  

 Trusted Health Products carries some amazing natural facial care products that I love.  Now they have finished developing and have released their newest product.  It’s called Shake The Crave, an all-natural  meal replacement/snack.  The name says it all.  I like it because it’s 120 calories of high protein, great- tasting goodness!  You can mix it with whole milk, 2% milk, almond milk, rice milk, coconut milk, etc. depending on your preference.   I really liked the taste of both the chocolate and vanilla!  They taste great, not like some kind of yukky diet drink.  And it does keep me very satisfied until it’s time to eat.  It’s got 100% organic natural ingredients.  Here is the ingredient label for the vanilla:  Organic Non-Fat Dry Milk, Organic Cane Sugar, Organic Coconut Powder, Organic Ground Vanilla Bean, Electrolyte Blend (Potassium Citrate, Calcium Chloride, Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Sulfate, Potassium Phosphate, Potassium Chloride).Allergen information: Contains milk and coconut.

At only $40 per canister, allowing for 2 shakes per day for one week, the cost boils down to $2.67 per day.  Not bad, you could break an energy drink habit, a diet coke habit, or a candy bar habit for that amount, replacing it with something amazing for your health!  Right now you can get a free 2 sample package for just the cost of shipping, which is $4.95 U.S.  It’s a great way to see for yourself whether or not you can succeed at your goals, especially if you have unwanted food cravings!

disclaimer:  I received sample products for review purposes.  All opinions and experiences are my own. 

Monday, June 30, 2014

Summer Bean And Barley Soup


I’ve been interested in cooking with different grains lately for health reasons, but also for diversity.  We recently rediscovered cracked wheat cereal and it’s not as terrible as I remember when I was a kid.  My cute mom would try to make us eat it, but to no avail!  The mistake she made with that was to have a variety of cold cereals tucked neatly into the cupboards. What sugar-infused kid wouldn’t prefer the artificial rush of manufactured cereal over cracked wheat?  We were good at holding out, that’s for sure! I've wondered what other kinds of grains are out there that I haven’t tried, but want to now!

 I’ve chosen barley as my grain du jour and will be focusing on some recipes here for the next little while.  For one thing, barley is a natural appetite suppressant, keeping you filled up for up to 16 hours, while being tasty and  nutritious. As someone who loves to eat-- and eat a lot--this would be a great weight control tool!  I know from first-hand experience that while it is hard enough to practice portion control when feeling satisfied, it is virtually impossible when hungry! 

Barley has the most fiber of all the grains, which is why you stay feeling fuller, longer.  It may also have anti-diabetes and anti-obesity actions.  Basically, it is eaten like rice, except it takes longer to cook.   Hulled barley is the best, because it has the tough outer shell taken off, but is still not processed other than that.  It’s also best to soak it overnight unless you are cooking it for a long time.

I made a Bean and Barley soup in the crock pot that was really tasty and super easy! It had Parmesan Cheese, bacon and lots of veggies. 

 I actually utilized the rind on the cheese, which is naturally salty, to give it a bit more flavor.  Also, because it's summer, I put my pot outside on a bar stool because I don't want the extra heat inside! That's why it's called Summer Bean and Barley Soup!  Put the pot inside and it becomes Winter Bean and Barley Stew!  See how that works?

Adding the rind to the mix!



Ingredients

1 cup multi-bean mix or Great Northern Beans, rinsed and soaked overnight.

½ cup barley

3 cloves garlic, smashed

3 medium carrots, roughly chopped

2 ribs celery, roughly chopped

½ medium onion, roughly chopped

1 bay leaf
4 tsp. dried Italian herb blend

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 14-ounce can whole or diced tomatoes with juice

¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan

1 Parmesan cheese rind

Optional: 4 - 5 crisp bacon strips, crumbled, Hot n' Spicy All Purpose Seasoning
Mixture before cooking and adding water


 Directions
Put beans, barley, vegetables and seasonings and cheese rind into a crock pot.  Add 6 cups water, cover, and cook on high until the beans are tender and the soup is thick, which could be 6 – 8 hours. 

1 hour before done, add the tomatoes and stir well.  Just before serving, add the Parmesan and the crumbled bacon.  If you have any Hot 'n Spicy All Purpose Seasoning, you can put that on and it really makes the flavor pop! I use Spike. Serve with a crusty bread and salad.  You'll stay full for quite awhile! 
 
Finished Soup, ready to add condiments