It’s summertime, and the living is greasy… at least it is if you’re chowing down at your local carnival.  Anyone who thinks that carnival food is healthy obviously hasn’t been to one lately, but we still consistently underestimate how bad these fair foods are.

If you’re going to indulge, you may want to avoid these super bad actors:

• Deep Fried Oreos - Yikes! Each cookies is 157 calories and 10.1 grams of fat.
• Corn Dogs - At 375 calories and 21 grams of fat per dog, you could consider it a meal.
• Deep Fried Twinkie - Without the sugar, preserves, or chocolate that generally accompanies one, it’s still 420 calories and 32 grams of fat.  Imagine the stats when you add those extras on?!
• Snow Cone - Sounds harmless enough, right?  Just sugar and water.  Nope.  A 12-ounce cone has 550 calories!
• Funnel Cake - It may not look like much on that paper plate, but the average funnel cake will set you back 760 calories and 44 grams of fat.  Jeepers!
• Deep Fried Candy Bars - Anything deep fried is going to have a deeply disturbing calorie count, and at 700 calories and 44 grams of fat, this is unfortunately no exception.

Your best bet?  Cotton Candy, which has only 200 calories and no fat in each large cone.

 The National Center for Health and Statistics estimates 66 percent of American adults are either overweight or obese, and our jobs are a big reason why.

“Forty-five percent of workers have gained weight since starting their current jobs, a recent CareerBuilder.com survey finds. Twelve percent have experienced a weight gain of more than 20 pounds, while 26 percent have gained more than 10 pounds.”

So, what gives?  Why do our work environments hamper our efforts to maintain an appropriate weight?

• About 1/3 of us eat out at least twice during our work week.  That means we’re more likely to be tempted by less healthy items offered in excessive amounts.
• Many of us buy our lunches from vending machines, which typically stock the worst kind of food.  Nearly 2/3 of us buy at least one snack from a vending machine every day.
• In addition to eating larger quantities of bad food, we don’t usually exercise during the work week, so we’re not burning off those extra calories.

What can we do?

• Eat a protein-rich, fiber-packed breakfast.  Hopefully, that’ll quash the need to raid the vending machine.
• Drink plenty of water.  Thirst is often mistaken for hunger.
• Keep a food journal.  Writing down what you eat makes you mindful of your consumption.  Sometimes awareness is all it takes to keep you from downing that next mouthful.
• Move more.  Get up and walk around the office whenever you can appropriately do so.
• Chill out.  When we’re stressed, we often eat to soothe ourselves and calm down.  Instead, get more exercise, say a positive affirmation or do some deep breathing.

Americans love lists, especially when we’re trying to get healthy.  The best types of exercise, the best exercise equipment, the best ways to stay on track, the best foods to eat.  Lists give us that structure we crave.  Sometimes, though, the lists can be overwhelming, particularly if they direct us to stuff that’s hard to find or overly expensive.

Never fear!  The NY Times has our back on this one.  They asked Dr. Johnny Bowden, author of “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth“.  Here’s his list of of 11 best foods we can easily pick up at the grocery store.  The article provides details as to why these are nutritional stars and even gives suggestions on how to prepare them.

• Beets
• Cabbage
• Swiss Chard
• Cinnamon
• Pomegranate Juice
• Dried Plums
• Pumpkin Seeds
• Sardines
• Turmeric
• Frozen Blueberries
• Canned Pumpkin

Regrettably, most of these are not in my shopping cart.  But, a couple are.

I almost always have canned pumpkin on hand because I use it to make Yum Yum Brownie Muffins, one of my BF’s faves.  I also have blueberries in the freezer in a mixed berry blend.  And, I have cinnamon, although not by itself.  It’s an ingredient in the Pumpkin Pie Spice I keep in the pantry.  I do, however, add cinnamon to my skinny latte at Starbucks. 

I have heard great things from Dr. Weill about Turmeric, who suggests drinking it in a tea, but I’ve never used it.  Pomegranate has gotten lots of terrific press recently, and I’ve just stared getting some in my diet through the Greens To Go powdered packets.

Looks like I need to make sure these items become regulars on my grocery list.

 Yay!  Another healthy fast-food meal has been added to our drive-thru eating arsenal.

Burger King has launched a mac-n-cheese Kids Meal that comes with apple sices and low-fat milk.  The new meal delivers a very reasonable 350 calories and contains:

• 4 ounces of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (180 calories)
• Apple “Fries” (uncooked, peeled apple slices) with low-fat caramel dipping sauce (25 calories for the apples, 35 calories for the caramel sauce)
• Hershey’s 1% low fat white milk (110 calories)

This is yet another example of how kids’ stuff can work for adults.  Don’t worry if somnething is marketed for kids.  If you like the food, go for it!  I love mac-n-cheese, so I’m really looking forward to trying this new offering.

“No question about it, tomorrow is back on track.  But it does bother me that I’ve had this attitude lately. UGH! Do we EVER conquer this problem?!“

I have felt like that SO many times!  It was unbelievably refreshing to read this on Tatum’s Mom’s blog.  i am grateful to bloggers who share their ups and downs.  It means a lot to know I’m not struggling in isolation.  But the question remains: do we ever get over it, past it, through with it?  Or, do we continue to battle against being a fat person for all eternity?

I’m still in that phase where I’m 3 pounds above my goal, and it’s frustrating.  What’s weird is that, inevitably when this happens, someone runs into me and asks if I’ve lost weight, complimenting me on how I look.  It happened just this morning.  As I exited the stairwell, I ran into someone from another office that hadn’t seen me in several weeks.  He said, “Have you lost weight.  You look great!”  Naturally, it was a morale booster.  It also reminded me that exercise can make you look smaller while adding a bit of weight to your body.

I’ve recently increased the weights I use during my strength routine.  Plus, I’ve tried some new workouts: Muay Thai and Cardio X.  I’ve even installed a pull-up bar, doing daily pull-ups, albeit only one at a time.  It could be that these changes are keeping the scale up while whittling my middle.

Thank goodness for blogs and people who share compliments when they have ‘em.  It provides much needed perspective.

  I recently bought P90X, trainer Tony Horton’s set of extreme workouts.  I’d been thinking about it for over a year now and finally broke down and got it.  I also invested in the optional pull-up bar, which my wonderful BF assembled and installed for me this past weekend.  In case you’re wondering, it easily fits in any doorway and is removable.

I’m holding off on beginning the full-fledged program.  I have some stuff coming up in the next month or so that will keep me from doing it consistently.  I plan to begin the program in September.  In the meantime, though, I’ve tried the CardioX workout and will sample the other ones soon. I’ve also been doing a couple of pull-ups a day, just to get started.  Although my arms are getting stronger, my upper body has never been a powerhouse.  I can do one decent underhanded pull-up and manage a little bit of lift on the other styles, but that’s about it.  Still, the fact that I even have a pull-up bar in my place is pretty extraordinary, considering the non-athletic person I used to be.

In addition to the standard pull-ups, I’ve done a few leg exercises, too.  Every little bit helps, and every time you change up the way you use your muscles, it’s good.

Fashion critics calling Karolina Kurkova fat have created quite an uproar.  People are outraged, as well they should be.  If the pictures shown as evidence of her “weight gain” are any indication, it’s a patently ridicious assertion.

In reading about it, I stumbled across a comforting little tidbit.

For the record, I’ve been to several of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Shows (of which Karolina is a star), and ya know what? Almost every girl has a bit of cellulite–some more than others. Why? Because most women, even (gasp!) models, have cellulite, that’s why.

How nice to know!  Most of us aware of the airbrushing that modifies nearly every image we see, but it’s still easy to forget and accept what’s presented to us as reality.  I am *very* relieved to find out that even the most beautiful among us have less than perfect skin.  Maybe I’m not as far off the beauty mark as I sometimes think.

MSNBC has published yet another list of ways to cut 100 calories from your daily diet.  Many of the tips are commonsense and well known.

1. Flavor your coffee with cinnamon and nutmeg instead of flavored syrup.
2. Enjoy your salad without the croutons.
3. Order pizza with grilled chicken instead of pepperoni.
4. Leave 3 or 4 bites on your plate.
5. Season steamed vegetables with fresh lemon and herbs instead of butter.
6. Choose your piece of sheet cake from the middle, where there’s less icing.
7. Add a splash of 100 percent fruit juice to sweeten fresh brewed iced tea in place of sugar.
8. Control your portions by pouring an individual serving of pretzels or chips into a bowl instead of eating from the bag.
9. Ask for the bread basket to be removed from the table.
10. Dip fruit into fat-free yogurt, and veggies into bean dip or salsa.

#1 is especially interesting.  My first thought after reading it was to suggest using sugar-free syrup instead of regular syrup.  That’s what I do when I go skinny at Starbucks.  I also season my latte with both cinnamon and nutmeg.

There’ve been a lot of reports lately about the newly discovered health benefits of cofee, but cinnamon is a nutritional star, too.  Cinnamon is celebrated for its ability to improve blood sugar control and soothing an upset tummy.  Nutmeg is no slouch either.  It ”…appears to have some beneficial effects on mood, possibly enhancing serotonin’s activity.”

Even if you don’t swap out your regular syrup, you may want to use cinnamon and nutmeg in your coffee anyway!

 It has been an exciting week of firsts!  Earlier in the week, I had my first gourmet raw meal at a raw only restaurant.  The other night, I attended my first Muay Thai class.  Bonus: the class was FREE!  Hooray!!

“Muay Thai—or Thai Boxing—was born on the battlefields of the 15th century, during the legendary clashes between Thai (or Siamese) armies and their bitter rivals, the Burmese. Trained in the weapons-based fighting method known as Krabi Krabong, these early Thai soldiers also became famous for their toughness in close-quarters weaponless combat, where legs, knees, elbows and hands took the place of swords and sticks. This type of weaponless fighting became Muay Thai, known as the ‘Science of Eight Limbs.’ ”

I was introduced to Muay Thai in an article in a fitness magazine over a year ago and was delighted to discover that my city had a studio that offered a free introductory class.  It took me way too long to get around to taking the class, but I finally did.  It TOTALLY rocked!  It was a fantastic workout, tough but oddly energizing at the same time.  What made it even more fun was that my BF’s brother’s new GF took the class with me, and my BF’s brother stopped by, managing to take the ”action shot” accompanying this post.  There’s proof!

After we removed our shoes and socks, we started the kickboxing workout by lining up in the gym, facing our instructor, who bowed to us.  We bowed back, and then we warmed up by skipping rope.  Yikes!  It was *intense* from the get-go.  Next, we partnered up, two on a punching bag, and alternated punching and kicking combinations.  One of the routines was a front kick/3 punch combo… then a repeating roundhouse kick with one leg… then alternating punches where the left punch would increase from one punch to 5 punches and count down again. It was different every time, which I imagine would keep the training from getting stale.  Plus, because we switched off with our partners, it was intervals at their finest!  We ended the class with 50 squats, 45 seconds of mountain climbers, 45 seconds of up-and-downs, 45 seconds of modified V crunches, and finally two sets of 10 leg lifts.  Cool-down consisted of a few standard stretches.

The up-and-downs were the hardest for me.  That’s where you repeatedly go from a push-up position to a plank position on your elbows and back again.  The instructor said I could do it with my knees bent, but I refused.  I do 20 straight-leg push-ups consecutively; no way I’m doing the “girl” version now!  It was challenging, though, partly because of balancing as a I moved between positions.  Eventually my ab muscles started to complain, but I kept at it for the entire 45 seconds!

This class was a huge morale booster, not only due to the endorphin rush.  Even having done my daily workout of 15 sets of stairs, 1st thru 4th, I still had plenty of energy and stamina to get through a high intensity class.  I am in good shape!  I focus on my flaws so much that I often don’t realize how far I’ve come.  Testing myself physically in a whole new way not only reinvigorates me; it gives me a tangible demonstration of my conditioning… and it’s not half bad.  Woohoo!!  I am so happy that my hard work is paying off!  J

I’ve been looking into alternative eating plans, including vegan and raw.  I’ve done vegan meals before and raw ones, too, but I’ve never gone gourmet with either.  How fortunate that my city offers a raw restaurant with locations on each side of town!  My BF has lots of great qualities, but, as I’ve mentioned before, adventurous eating is not one of them.  So, while he was out of town on business, I hooked up with his brother and his brother’s new GF, and we all went out for a raw dinner.

Wow!!  It was SO good!  Unbelievably, outrageously, amazingly good!! 

 My BF’s brother started with a fruit smoothie topped with granola.  Interestingly, it came in a bowl, rather than a glass, and looked like a chilled soup.  He chose the Ora-Bana flavor, which was a mix of oranges, bananas and dates.  Ooo… it was tasty.  Cool, creamy, tropical goodness with a satisfying crunch.

We each picked a meal and then shared bites with each other.  My BF’s brother chose the Mexicali Sampler, which included a Mexi Wrap with a collard green “tortilla”, Enchiladas, Flax Crax and Mexi Toast.  It was served with yam rice, “beans”, guacamole and salsa.  It had some heat, probably because of the spicy red sauce.

My BF’s brother’s new GF chose the Purple Burrito.  She’s allergic to tomatoes and corn, so she skipped the salsa and guacamole, which was made with tomatoes.  The Purple Burrito was beautiful to look at because of all the vibrant colors.  Regrettably, the pic I took doesn’t capture it as well as I’d hoped because you can’t see the deep purple cabbage.  The cabbage “cup” was filled with Mexi pate, veggies and greens topped with sour “dream” and “yam yumm”.  It also came with flax crackers.

I thought it’d be a hoot to have the raw version of a traditionally bad food, so I selected the “Burger and Fries”.  It was a veggie burger made with beets, carrots, sunflower seeds and parsley, served on living bread with hand prepared catsup, mustard, mayo, onion tomato, lettuce, sprouts, avocado and almond cheese.  The “fries” were “breaded” avocado slices. It did not taste anything like a burger and fries, but that was okay with me.  The flavors and textures were lusciously palate-pleasing.  Every bite was fresh and clean, like capturing the crisp springtime air on your tastebuds.

We finished the meal by sharing three flavors of “cheesecake”: strawberry, apple, and yam.  They, too, were very good, especially the strawberry.  It had the tang of cream cheese, but there wasn’t a bit of it in the reicpe.  I found out the filling was actually made with cashews.  So, so good!

We were all astounded by how delicious everything tasted, so flavorful, and how filling it was.  I could easily eat this way all the time, except that the prep is daunting to me.  I talked about this with the proprietress of the restaurant.  She insisted that it really wasn’t that complicated or hard to do.  I was am still skeptical, though.  I think I need hands-on experience, so my BF’s brother’s new GF and I are going to take a 2-hour raw cooking class on a Sunday in late July.  My BF joked that a raw cooking class is an oxymoron.  Goofball!  (But he does have a point, doesn’t he?!?! J)

You never know.  Maybe ‘rich and raw’ will become a new addition to the Sassy Chef’s cooking repertoire!