Wow, I’ve been MIA, eh? I’ll publish a post with a little recap of what’s been going on in my world — b/c I’m sure ya’ll have been holding your breaths, right? Hahah, yea, didn’t think so.

When I first began my weight-loss journey around 7 years ago, I wasn’t aware of too many free, online weight loss resources where I could track calories, exercise, and progress, etc., so I mostly used Calorie King for finding the calories in foods.  A few years in, I used Fit Day to track my food intake in a spread sheet. Then, I pretty much ditched online resources in favor of my own personal tracking records — an old school giant calendar to track daily calories and exercise:

While I’m not likely to use these sites again (even though I’d like to get into a more muscular shape and tracking calories and exercise could help); I’d still like to know all that’s available (holla’ to a girl and let me know what you’re using!) and I’ll share with you the FREE fitness/nutrition tracking sites I know about:

Calorie Counter — Calorie Counter is a free online journal in which you track how many calories you eat and burn. I recommend this sort of thing for people who have a significant amount of weight to lose for health-reasons, and are just beginning to understand how to figure out calorie contents and how that affects weight loss. From the site: “My Calorie Counter can help you track how many calories you’ve burned, how many calories there are in your diet, and the number of calories in the food you eat. There are tools such as a calorie counter and charts showing how many calories in a certain food, along with a calorie chart and a journal that acts as your own personal food diary.”

Daily Burn — You can track your food, record your work-outs, and communicate with others regarding your goals. It has videos with demonstrations, which is cool. They also offer two iPhone apps, including “FoodScanner” and “Daily Burn.”

Fit Day — I have used Fit Day for a significant amount of time back in the day when I was keeping stringent records of what I ate. It was cool because you could just type in the food you ate, “small apple” for example, and it would add the 80 calories to your chart. From the site: “FitDay is a free online diet and weight-loss journal. The FitDay journal allows you to track your diet and activities with no guess work. This lets you take control of your diet and fitness and achieve your fitness goals. We hope you find the tool useful.”

Live Stronger/Daily Plate — You can make a dare to lose weight, to spend time with your family, to run a marathon, to save money, etc. — anything that’s gonna improve your quality of life — and, once you take the dare, you’ll join others in a forum who are attempting to achieve the same thing(s) as you are. You can track your food intake and fitness with MyPlate. There are also tons of articles, videos and tools for your disposal.

MedHelp Free Weight Loss Tracker — I’ve never used this one and haven’t met anyone who has, but it seems cool (just don’t pay too much attention to things like BMI). From the site: “MedHelp’s free Weight Loss Tracker helps you keep track of your weight loss, body mass index (BMI), calories and exercise. Want to add a mental note or before-and-after shots of your weight loss? You can add a journal associated with your weight tracker as a diary of your thoughts and as a collection of your photos. You can also use the weight ticker to share your weight loss with the world!”

Real Age — This site has a ton of cool resources like a weight-loss, waist-loss and walking tracker, and a menu planner. I wish they could combine everything into one, but, from what I’ve gathered, they’re all separate. The site has a ton of cool articles and links, though, and the “real age” test (tests whether you are biologically younger, older, or the same age as your calendar age) is pretty gnarly! I took the test and got age 22.8 — so 3.5 years younger than I am. I also got a list of the things I’m doing well — no meds, eating my fruits, etc.; and a list of the things I need to improve on — anxiety, exercise (need to do more than the bare minimum) and diet (I’m assuming because I checked that I do not eat any dairy…which I’m counting as bogus!). But you’ll notice how they take things like the size of the car you drive, your relationship status and your debt, among other things, into account. Whoa!

Spark People – I love using Spark People’s recipe calculator, but I haven’t really explored much else on the site. I’ve heard great things about it. From the site: “In addition to informative articles and interactive tools, such as fitness trackers and meal plans, members can find support and encouragement from our vibrant, positive community of members and experts. We pride ourselves in offering medically accepted weight-loss and healthy lifestyle recommendations that are easy to understand and implement.”

Traineo — Stumbled on this one; I’ve never used it. From the site: “Just enter your stats (current weight, height, goal weight, etc.), and Traineo will give you a detailed graph of your weight loss progress as you move along, as well as projected weights for the future and tells you exactly how many calories you can ingest each day to reach your goals. Even a caveman could use this website and drop pounds, it’s that simple. Plus, with a free account, you’ll get access to other Traineo members in the community so you can swap stories and tips so you stay motivated” (quote from Geek Sugar article here)

Misc.

• Active.com — This site offers event/activity searches so that you can find marathons, 10ks, etc. in your area. It also offers newsletters with exercise tips, event updates and more; an online community where you can join others who are training for the same events you’re training for; and training plans.
• Calorie King’s “Food Search” — The “food search” option allows you to find the nutritional information for almost any food, including fast-food, restaurant and frozen foods.
• Nutritiondata — Everything you ever wanted to know about the foods you eat. Nutritiondata breaks down your foods to the core — the regular info. we’re used to (calories, fat, sodium, fiber, protein, carbs, sugar, etc.) and adds things like amino acids, minerals, protein quality fatty acids, nutrient balance, and more. The three best things are: 1) the charts – very easy to understand and aesthetically-pleasing; 2) the”good summary” that breaks down the good aspects of the food. For instance, this is the summary on cooked long grain white rice: “This food is very low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Folate and Manganese”; and 3) the protein quality chart, in particular, since it allows you to find foods that would best complement the food you looked up.

What sites do you regularly use (or have you used) that you’d recommend to others for their fitness and health goals?

<3.

The Cranky One

TGIF guys!  First some random bites of info.:

1. I won a cool little pack of exercise cards from Miss Kari at Running Through Life!  Thanks, pal!  I must say that doing strength-training exercises only using my body weight has been the most enjoyable way for me to build muscle.  We used cards like these once when I was enrolled in a boot camp and I would always think to myself ashamedly that I had been incorrect in thinking one needed a gym and extensive machinery to get a little bicep action.
   This picture is cheesy, what can I say? But those are the cards in my hand as I dream of tricep extensions!

2. Thanks to my friend Tamara for informing me that Calorie King has now posted nutritional information for Olive Garden restaurant here!  What was once elusive and daunting — to gauge how much damage one did with a bowl of pasta and few breadsticks — is finally out in the open!  It’s certainly a good thing – now we can be informed eaters! It also sucks, cuz, let’s face it – you can see your previous choices might have been downright awful!  My favorite dish back in the day was the “chicken con broccoli” coming in at a whopping 960 calories and 41 grams of fat.  I thought it was just chicken with broccoli!  Seems harmless.  Until you face that it’s drenched in a delicious fat sauce.  Oy. Anyone else have a mini heart attack when they found out what their food really consisted of?
3. I noticed I have a little “tick” that I wanted to share because it totally made me laugh (and cry boo hoo) at myself.  I am a total straight-from-the-pan-muncher*! A “pan muncher” or “PM” is someone who, even though she has set aside a nice little portioned out meal for herself, “innocently” nibbles on bits of food straight from the pan while her portioned food sits nicely measured and untouched on the plate. The foolish PM has what is called “in the moment amnesia” so that while the act is occurring she is not even cognizant of it because she is staring lovingly at the cute little portions on her plate and already congratulating herself for being controlled and mannerly while mindlessly indulging!  What a foolish PM I am! *yes I did just make up this term Any one else guilty of PM-ing?
   

Now on to the exciting topic of the day (by “exciting” I mean completely random and only interesting to me, sorry)! TOFU! I made tofu for the first time last night and I absolutely loooooved it!

I tinkered with the recipe from All Recipes here and this is what I ended up doing:

“Baked Tofu Bites” done Bella Style

Ingredients

• One 16-oz package extra firm tofu (I used the Whole Foods 365 brand) — 400 calories, 20 g fat, 4 g fiber, 32 g protein
• ¼ cup light and low-sodium soy sauce — 33.75 calories, 0 g fat, o g fiber, 0 g protein
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup – 104 calories, 0.1 g fat, 0 g fiber, 0 g protein
• 2 tablespoons ketchup — 30 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g fiber, 0 g protein
• 1 tablespoon vinegar — 3 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g fiber, 0 g protein
• 1 tablespoon Hoisin — 35 calories, 0.5 g fat, 0.4 g fiber, 0.5 protein (Read more on Hoison here)
• 2 tablespoons organic, no pulp, orange juice not from concentrate — 13.75 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g fiber, 0 g protein
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds — 52 calories, 4.5 g fat, 1.1 g fiber, 1.6 g protein
• pepper to taste

Directions

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line a cookie sheet with foil and lightly spray with Pam Cooking Spray.
• Slice tofu into 1/2-inch slices, and gently press excess water out of tofu. Cut sliced tofu into 1/2-inch cubes.
• In a bowl, stir together the tofu and additional ingredients.  Cover, and marinate at least 5 minutes.
• Place the tofu on the baking sheet in a single layer. Bake in a preheated oven for 15 minutes. Turn tofu, and bake until the tofu turns golden brown, about 15 minutes more.

Nutritional info.:

• Entire cookie sheet worth of tofu (good for sumo wrestlers and really hungry, cranky girls aka ME! ok, I didn’t eat it all but I sure wanted to and came close!) — 671.50 calories, 25.1 g fat, 5.5 g fiber, 34.1 g protein
• 1/4 portion:  167.88 calories, 6.28 g fat, 1.38 g fiber, 8.53 g protein
  

Notes about tofu:  I guess it’s a common challenge to drain the tofu of excess water before cooking so that it doesn’t maintain a soggy texture.  I read that some people let it sit on paper towels and one person even had weights sit atop it to drain the water.  I patted the tofu vigorously with paper towels but found that “vigor” and tofu don’t go well together as the block began to crumble.  Oh wait, I wasn’t supposed to pat it while it was still in full block form? Yea.  I didn’t read the directions.  Lame!  My tofu did come out a bit mushy.  The thing is…I liked it!  Honestly, I thought the tofu tasted like something a good Chinese restaurant would concoct to turn healthy tofu into a heart attack amongst noodles.  But this is just plain good for you and delicious (oh please spare me your “‘good for you’ is a relative term and soy can actually be bad” speech!).  Any suggestions for draining tofu?  Any tofu recipes you want to link me to?

Last night I ate it as is with a side of corn bread and some red potatoes baked with a tad of olive oil, Pam Cooking Spray and fresh from the garden rosemary. Today, I ate it in a salad:

Let me just say, you ain’t no fu if you try this recipe! Just (to)fu it!!

I’ll leave you with a link to the real, and actually meaningful, “To Be or Not to Be” soliloqy here.  How blasphemous of me to conflate discussions of tofu with Hamlet!

Marathon & Tendinitis Update
The Salt Lake City marathon that my best friend and I were training for is this Saturday, the 18th.  As I mentioned in a previous post, due to over training, I got tendinitis in my right knee.  I was planning on running through the pain, but now that my ego has subsided and rationality has kicked in – I’ve decided not to.  I don’t want to further aggravate the problem and after doing a lot of research on tendinitis, I cold seriously screw up my knee in pushing through the pain for 26.2 miles.  There will always be other marathons, but I only have one right knee. When in doubt, love your knee.

I am super excited to see Tamara and her little baby William in the beautiful landscape that is Utah!  So, my friends, that is the silver lining.  I get to visit Tamara and support her while she runs her first marathon!

Buuuuuuut…I’m not going to lie; I can’t help feeling a little blue.  All I’ve wanted to do lately is run off my worries.  Instead, I’ve been icing my knee with frozen peas and taking it easy.  My eating habits, however, have not diminished to compensate with my decrease in exercise, so I need to kick that in the rear before my rear gets any bigger! (I needed to confess that.  Funny how these blogs start to feel like confessional mixed with a therapy session!)

I have enjoyed doing some upper body strength training.  Nothing like push-ups to challenge me! Yesterday I did an hour on the elliptical at the gym and kept it really challenging by doing intervals of 8 and 12 mostly.

Now, enough of me, me, me!  Let me share two new snacks and an entree I’ve enjoyed that you may like to try.

Prunes & Cottage Cheese
No, I am not an 80-year-old woman!  I just love foods that pack a nutritious punch worth every calorie.

• 1/2 cup low-fat cottage cheese = 100 calories, 2.5 g fat, 0 g fiber, 14 g protein
• 5 Sunsweet dried plums = 100 calories, 0 g fat, 3 g fiber, 1 g protein
• Total: 200 calories, 2.5 g fat, 3 g fiber, 15 g protein
  

Blueberry Oatmeal and Blueberry Muesli

• One package Trader Joe’s Heart Health, Whole Grain, Blueberry Instant Oatmeal (Made w/ flax seed and plant sterols) = 160 calories, 2.5 g fat, 6 g fiber, 4 g protein
• One ounce Trader Joe’s blueberry muesli =  97 calories, 1.4 g fat, 2.1 g fiber, 2.8 g protein.  Nutritional data from Calorie King as I disposed of the package before getting the stats!
• Total:  257 calories, 3.9 g fat, 8.1 g fiber, 6.8 g protein

Famished Girl Scramble Burrito with Avocado

• 1/2 of the Famished Girl Scramble = 102.5 calories, 3 g fat, 0.5 gram fiber, 12 g protein
• 1/3 cup sliced avocado = 78 calories, 7.17 g fat, 3.27 g fiber, 0.97 g protein
• 1 Trader Joe’s Hand Made Whole-Wheat Tortilla = 140 calories, 5 g fat, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein
• Total: 320.50 calories, 15.17 g fat (that’s higher than I expected, but 7 g of it is healthy, avocado fat!), 6.77 g fiber, 15.97 g protein

I hope you enjoy your day!  Anyone else going to be eating an individual, tailored, meal today while others at the table gorge on butter and cream?!

My favorite recipe site is AllRecipes.com.  While it is not specifically geared for the health-conscious eater, you can still find recipes of what you want to make and just substitute full-fat ingredients with their non-fat or low-fat alternatives. Note – AllRecipes.com does have a “Healthy Cooking” tab, but I have found that some of the recipes listed are falsely labeled.  Any recipe that calls for butter should NOT be in the “healthy” section, so still be cautious when browsing those.

If you really want to get keen on healthy eating and substituting for healthier ingredients, there’s a slew of things you can do!

Extensive List of Substitutions
(Some of these taken from Ohio State source here and University of Missouri source here)

• Use whole wheat options over refined options when it comes to bread or tortillas (note “multigrain” is NOT the same as whole grain or whole wheat)
• When it comes to flour for baking, substitute whole wheat flour for up to ½ of the flour. For example, if a recipe calls for 2 cups flour, try 1 cup all purpose flour and 1 cup minus 1 tablespoon whole wheat flour. Use “white whole-wheat flour” or “whole wheat pastry flour” for total amount of all-purpose flour
• Use olive or canola oil instead of other oils
• Use Pam cooking spray instead of butter when simply “greasing” pans or baking dishes
• Use egg whites (usually 2 egg whites for every egg) or ¼ cup egg substitute in place of full egg
• Use nonfat milk in place of whole milk or cream
• When baking: Fat acts as a barrier, making flour less likely to absorb water, thus giving a moist tender baked product. Ingredients commonly used to replace fat partially combine with flour. A structure forms, but it’s not the same. The following are the best options:

1. Applesauce – substitute for equal amounts of fat – product will be very moist, may need to reduce liquid in recipe (may also need to reduce baking time by 25%
2. Mashed bananas — substitute for equal amounts of fat – gives distinct flavor
3. Pureed prunes — substitute for equal amounts of fat – product will be very dry, so add moisture in form of prune juice, milk or water – gives a dark color
4. Pureed pumpkin — substitute for equal amounts of fat, gives distinct flavor and color
5. Grated zucchini — substitute for equal amounts of fat – works best in quick breads
6. Low-fat cottage cheese — substitute for only 1/2 of fat – gives rubbery texture
7. Pureed tofu — substitute for only 1/2 of fat – gives “beany” flavor (works well with some dessert recipes)
8. Non-fat yogurt — substitute for equal amounts of fat — product will be very moist, may need to reduce liquid in recipe

Also check out general tips on how to lighten up your food, from All Recipes, here.  I think it’s basic, but good to reinforce.

And if you have to dine out – remember to check Calorie King first for nutritional info.  You can also check Healthy Dining Finder to find restaurants with healthy options.

If you really need an incentive to get in the kitchen, get a really cute apron.  Hey, whatever works, right?