mjbrenner Member

It really depends upon age and the reasons for being a picky eater. For kids, you can cut up extra carrots, cucumbers, fresh green beans, or broccoli while you prepare dinner and leave some out in a bowl on the kitchen counter. It's fun for the kids to "steal" some of the dinner food before it's being cooked and served.…

Many wine sauces are loaded with butter. The dish you found in the database was likely entered by another MFP user, using a very different recipe. Your best bet in this case is to save your own recipe and enter your ingredients individually. I have to do this all the time for my home cooked meals.

I am. I use it to make sure I get enough protein while also keeping my calories low. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

If you want to break the soda habit, you could try moving to flavored seltzers. There is a specific base flavor that is unique to seltzer, but once you adjust to that, you are getting lots of flavor with no calories or artificial sweeteners of any kind. If it's available near you, Polar's vanilla seltzer tastes positively…

Steak, greens, and a salad Use bagged salad, and add a chopped, boiled egg and some crumbled bacon. You can fry up the bacon and boil the eggs in advance to minimize the prep you need to do right before dinner. Throw a seasoned steak or pork chop (or a few, depending upon your calorie allotment) in a HOT skillet with a…

My understanding is that both carbs and proteins are needed. Proteins are needed after resistance training so your muscles can repair and grow stronger Lifting is an anaerobic activity, so it uses up.the glycogen in your muscles and the sugar in your blood, leaving you HUNGRY. People more into weight lifting than me could…

White rice is my kryptonite. I can make a meal with white rice for my friends and shredded cauliflower for me and love the meal just as much as I used to. When I clean the table after everyone has left, however, I almost can't control going for the leftover rice in the serving bowl. It's a strong enough urge that I now ask…

I love me some beer, but I save it only for my cheat day. I'll allow myself two glasses of dry red wine - really one big glass - a night if I think of it. Moderate drinking is linked to a longer, healthier life, after all.

Good questions. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I balance out over the whole week because I manage to plan calorie-rich dinners, so being maybe three hundred calories under every day is not a big deal. If I wasn't planning for such large dinners, I would probably be eating only 1000 calories a day, or 900 less than my…

I met my wife when we were in college, at a supposedly "shallow" time in our lives. I was first attracted to her because she knew logic theory, not because she was thin. I was overweight, but I was rocking the self-confidence at the time and she loved it. Even once I became obese, I have had friends lament to me that I am…

If you don't brew your own coffee, then start. You'll save money and be able to do a few tricks to help cut back on calories. Most of the time, people seem to need sugar and cream in their coffee to mask the bitter flavor. Adding just a pinch of salt to your coffee grounds before brewing will drastically cut back on the…

I find that 1/2 cup of full fat cottage cheese or 1/2 cup of canned beans (drained and rinsed) will help me to feel full for a while. Each has similar calories to a large apple.

I like Beanitos bean chips. I portion it out into 1-serving baggies (~10 chips), which stops me from eating the whole bag. If I eat the chips slowly, making sure to chew each bite very well, then one 140 calorie serving feels filling for a long while. It comes out to about $.55/serving, which is roughly comparable to…

I know that this is not Atkins-friendly advice, but I found that I needed small doses of sugar while I was still breaking my addiction. I ate low-carb like a good doobie, and when the hunger/cravings got so intense I couldn't deal with it, I'd have 1/2 cup of apple cider or suck on a few raisins. That small dose of simple…

I just ordered a six pack from Amazon. I'm curious to see how they mesh with my meal styles.

For me, my real loss came when I combined a low carb lifestyle with food logging and daily weighing. The low carb keeps my from getting hungry, and the food logging and constant weight-checking give me many, many data points to interpret.

I understand the frustration with the low-carb zealots who try to justify it as the only valid lifestyle. We face it all the time with users who reply to our posts with comments like, "I avoid sugar by eating trons of it," and "Dr. Atkins is dead, so how could his approach possibly be?" Ignorance comes from both sides.…

No, you might not be killing yourself, but for me it would be killing myself. After an exhaustive metabolic panel, my doctor explained to me that calorie for calorie, fat is far healthier for me than carbs. For some of us, this really IS health food. Add a couple generous sides of non-starchy veggies, and this meal is…

The organic/health food section of your grocery store will likely have some decent healthy-enough snack food options for a low-carb dieter on a road trip. I just took a road trip with some black bean chips and coy crisps as my go-to snack food. Raw almonds are another good choice. If you can bring a cooler, some cottage…

I find that I can maintain a satisfactory rate of weight loss and still go hog-wild one day a week. Having one day for off starches and sugar makes the other six of the week entirely bearable for me.

I am now experienced with The Four Hour Body, and I feel comfortable giving a review of the book. I like The Four Hour Body and am experiencing very real progress with it. I have nothing to gain by explaining why I like this system. Rather than dismissing the entire book out-of-hand a sheer quackery, I would encourage you…

Chris - thank you for providing a link to a page that links to a peer-reviewed journal as a citation. That makes a big difference, at least to me. I find that if I eat a lousy breakfast I am hungry very soon thereafter. If I skip breakfast, I am not really hungry until noonish. If I eat a high-protein, low glycemic load…

A splash of Chambord in a glass of club soda is very refreshing and lightly fruity, but it won't get you buzzed, if that is your goal. If you want to feel the booze and like fruity drinks, you can have a traditional margarita - white (clear) tequila, a splash of Triple-Sec, and mix with lime juice. The "sour mix" that bars…

Home made beef jerky is very paleo-friendly and you can control what goes into it. Alton Brown uses a great no -heat drying technique.

Alton Brown's turkey brine is absolutely amazing. If you start it this afternoon or evening, your turkey will be ready to roast tomorrow. I never thought I liked turkey until I started using this recipe.

I am a stay-at-home husband, so my lunch does not have some of the same limits on it that it might have back when I was a teacher. My standard go-to meal for when I am on the run is a cup of cottage cheese and a half cup of beans. It is not exciting, but it keeps hunger away and energy up for 8+ hours.

Many people, including followers of the Paleo diet, avoid legumes due to the comparatively high concentration of anti-nutrients and toxins. That said, the way that most people cook beans reduces toxins and anti-nutrients to negligible levels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_vulgaris#Toxicity If you like many of the…

I love my fried food, and I pretty much hate giving it up, so I won't. Here are my tricks for frying and still eating pretty healthy: Use garbanzo flour instead of wheat flour. It has a faintly nutty taste that goes really, really well with meat and fish, but it doesn't have the grittiness of whole wheat flour. It is…

There is constant debate on just how necessary carbs are for energy. One of the best things you can do, if your insurance covers it, is to get a full blood panel and have it explained to you by your doctor. Eating healthy became much easier for me when I learned that my body burns fat with fewer problems than it burns…

I do not try to stick to a set ratio so much as an eating style. I avoid all grains and starchy vegetables and try to limit my "sweet" vegetables, like rutabagas, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes. I get almost all of my carbs from beans and vegetables. I tr y to keep my protein up to at least 150g a day, if not higher. In the…