Nutrition For February 25th, 2011

A lot of women ask me how to control bloat. Our weight can fluctuate 5 lbs either way, on a daily basis. It is discouraging to weigh yourself and see that you are up 3 lbs when you have been working out like crazy and eating a healthy diet.

The way to control bloat is to watch your refined carbs. One gram of starchy carbs holds four grams of water, which is one of the reasons I adhere to a lower carb diet. I mainly stay between 50-100 grams of carbs a day and I stay far away from anything starchy (rice, bread of any kind, potatoes, etc. Oh yeah and SUGAR!). I do eat Fiber One every morning but the amount of fiber in that cereal lowers the the amount of carbs that you count toward your daily total. I'm sure you have heard the phrase 'impact carbs'. The amount of impact carbs in any given food is grams of total carbs - grams of fiber. For example a serving on Fiber One is 1/2 cup. It contains 25 grams of carbs and 14 grams of fiber. 25 - 14 = 11 grams of impact carbs.

Here is my nutrition intake for 2/25/11:

On this particular day I took my kids out for lunch so it shows what you can do if you do the same thing.


Breakfast
Muscle Milk Protein Bar
Snack
100 calorie pack of almonds
2 ounces of cheddar cheese

Lunch
Triple stack hamburger
3 pieces of American cheese
1/2 a hamburger bun

Snack
2 chicken thighs (just the meat from a teriyaki place that I had left over from the day before)

Dinner
2 fried chicken wings
1/4 cup rice
1 Bourbon and soda

Total calories: 2,277
Total carbs : 57 grms
Total Protein: 176

I am not suggesting that you eat the way that I do. A couple people commented on the fact that I eat no fruit and almost no vegetables. That's true. I do try to get more leafy greens in my diet on a daily basis. I manage to do that about three times a week in the form of spinach, broccoli and lettuce. Yes, you should eat vegetables but I do suggest that you are careful with how much fruit you eat. Research shows that the body still recognizes fruit as sugar.

Sweet and Sour Beef with Cabbage

Okay. So I have posted a few chicken breast recipes and will continue to do so but I am also going to post beef recipes. I am a big beef advocate. As long as you choose lean cuts the nutritional pay off is huge. And of course it's high in protein and low in carbs...even when the recipes involve other things besides beef.

Whenever I have complete nutritional information about a particular dish I will include it in the post. Up to this point the chicken breast recipes that I have posted have been from my older files and have been hand written. I do have some recipes that have been copied from who-knows-where and some do have calorie, fat, protein and carbohydrate information.

On that note, here's the recipe:

2 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 pound lean beef cut-up for stir-fry
3 cups cut-up cabbage
1/2 cup sweet-and-sour sauce

Heat wok or skillet over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil; rotate wok to coat sides.

Add beef; stir-fry 2 minutes or until brown. Remove beef from wok.

Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil to wok; rotate wok to coat side. Add cabbage; stir-fry about 3 minutes or until crisp-tender. Add beef and sweet-and-sour sauce; cook and stir about 2 minutes or until hot.

Prep and cook time is appox. 15 minutes, so super fast. Makes 4 servings.

1 Serving:
Calories 225
Fat 10g
Carb 13g
Protein 22g
Sodium 150mg