Losing Momentum--Too Few Calories and Putting on Weight

My first week on the diet was great!  I was pretty consistently eating 1200-1400 calories and 65-75 grams of protein and I lost 6 pounds in the first week.

Then work got very hectic and I lost my appetite and had a day when I ate under 1000 calories.  As a result, I put a pound back on.  I guess I dropped too far below my metabolic rate, and my body went into starvation mode and held on to everything I ate or drank.

I am now focused on staying in the target range to get my weight loss back on track.  I am also adding some weight training with a kettle bell each day, and drinking more water.  More on that to come in future posts.

Here's my food log since the last post:

Monday:	Calories	Protein
Brown cow yogurt	150	6
GF International Coffee	70
two egg omelet with cheese	342	19.6
whole grain toast	110	4
tex mex chicken soup	240	12
whole grain toast	110	4
small apple	77
cognac	140
total	1239	45.6
Tuesday:
Cheerios with 2% milk	136	6.3
McDonalds double cheeseburger	440	25
Sichuan Pork	450	33
Egg roll	150	4
potato chips	160	2
Total	1336	70.3
Wednesday:
Cheerios with 2% milk	136	6.3
egg drop soup	60	1
chicken and shrimp with rice	343	30
ginger ale	145
shepards pie	36	3.6
	720	40.9
Thursday:
Brown Cow Yogurt	150	6
Barbeque Chicken Sandwich	480	34
Pesto, Angel Hair and Shrimp	600	25
Ginger Ale	145
Diet Coke	0
Total	1375	65
Friday:
brown cow yogurt	150	6
BLT on multigrain bread	420	17
Fried Chicken and Mac n Cheese	1020	79
Two Glasses of White Wine	240	0
Total	1830	102
Saturday
Left over Fried Chicken and Mac N Cheese	510	38
Birds Eye Voila Chicken Alfredo	420	27
two cups Coffee with Milk and Sugar	140	0
Two Glasses of Prosecco	166	0
Total	1236	65

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable weekend.

I had planned to go to our local Elks Lodge for New Year's Eve Prime Rib and Cracked Crab feast, but I started coming down with a head cold on Friday.  Probably for the best, as I could stay on my diet, but unfortunately, lying low for the weekend hasn't made me feel any better, with respect to the cold.  If anything, it is getting worse.

I am eating health-fully and hope to start feeling better soon.  Here is the last few days of my food log:

Thursday:	Calories	Protein
Cheerios & 2% milk	136	6.3
cup of tea with sweetner and milk	20	1
1 fried egg	92	6.3
1 whole wheat english muffin	100	7
shepard's pie with ham	720	72
white grape juice	120
total	1188	92.6
Friday:
Herbal tea	6	0
white grape juice	120	0
left over shepards pie	360	36
tomato and pepper bisque	300	4
lobster tail	100	24
3 glasses sparking wine	234	0.6
Total	1120	64.6
Saturday:
English Muffin with Almond Butter	200	9.5
GF International Coffee	70	0
leftover shepherd's pie	360	36
steak & sauteed zuchini	403	53.2
2 glasses of sparkling wine	156	0.4
Total	1189	99.1
Sunday:
Cheerios & 2% milk	136	6.3
Eggs Benedict with hash browns	1000	43
Chicken Spinach Penne Soup	280	12
Slice of Multi Grain Toast	110	4
Herbal Tea	6
Coffee with Milk and Sugar 2 cups	140
Total	1672	65.3

Good Hair Color Can Make All the Difference in How You Feel

My hairdresser of more than ten years moved away to eastern Montana in August.  Since then, I have not found a new stylist and took over my own hair coloring.  I tried several products, with mixed results.  Though I seldom rave about products in this blog, I must say I got great results in less than a half an hour with the Clairol Natural Instincts product.  It is ammonia free, takes no more than 15 minutes to set, and comes with a great color enhancement pack to use a few weeks after the initial color application.  The product is also very reasonably priced, at less than $10. This morning, I read Facebook posts while I waited and it was SO easy!  So if you are looking for a less chemically, effective, quick hair color product--particularly right before New Years Eve, you might want to give it a try.

What I noticed about the last couple of days on my diet is that I did fine, if not a bit under my calorie goal, and kept my protein content high, but where was the breakfast?  I see that I don't eat anything before noon or one in the afternoon.  That changed today when I had a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast with 2% milk.

Here are my Tuesday and Wednesday results:

Tuesday:	Calories	Protein
lasagna	600	25.6
1/2 California Pizza Kitchen Sicilian	500	27
green salad	100	0
small slice pumpkin pie	229	4.3
water/diet soda	0	0
total	1429	56.9
Wednesday:
cup of tea with sweetener and milk	20	1
bobs red mill soup with sausage	400	23
three slices of ham	360	48
small slice of pumpkin pie	229	4.3
diluted grape juice	120
total	1129	76.3

I have not been hungry between meals and have not succumbed to stress eating, but I think moving some calories to first thing in the morning should help to jump start my metabolism.

Cocktail Parties and Staying on Your Diet

First day of food logging paid off, as I knew ahead of the holiday cocktail party what I still had left to work with.
Here was my food log through lunch:

Monday:	Calories	Protein
4 oz OJ with greens	30
2 cups coffee with  cream/sugar	140
1 slice orowheat 12grain/almond butter	211	6.4
gala apple	77
panettone bread 1/2 piece	70

528 calories through lunch, leaving me about a thousand calories for the rest of the day.  I chose the protein rich nibbles at the cocktail party and had two 5 oz glasses of wine and a small piece of leftover pumpkin pie when I got home so that my total day looked like this:

Monday:	Calories	Protein
4 oz OJ with greens	30
2 cups coffee with  cream/sugar	140
1 slice orowheat 12grain/almond butter	211	6.4
gala apple	77
panettone bread 1/2 piece	70
7 jumbo shrimp	100	18
cocktail sauce	60
2 glasses of chardonnay	240
two pieces of bread and cheese	85	4
mussels in tomato sauce	194	26.9
blue cheese stuffed olive	25
small slice pumpkin pie	229	4.3
total	1461	59.6

I know that every day is not going to line up like this one did, but I felt very satisfied--I got to eat the things that I wanted and stayed on my calorie budget.

12 Months and 10 Pounds

Well I have done it now.  Over the last year of working in a natural gourmet grocery store, putting in lots of hours at work, and not that many at home or exercising, I have put on 10 pounds in a year.  I think the day after Christmas is as good a time as any (why wait for a new year's resolution anyway?) to start my diet and exercise plan.  I am taking the advice I gave my students and am now food logging and exercise logging and will record it all here for you to see.

There is no time like the present, right?

Happy Thanksgiving! Weight Watching Tips for the Holiday Season

Thanksgiving is two days away, and many dieters face the anxiety of all the food that will be available at family gatherings.  They aren't wrong.  Studies have shown that people tend to add one to two pounds of weight between Thanksgiving and New Years.

What to do then?  Here are some tips to keep in mind for sticking to your diet during the holidays

1) Stick to your same breakfast and lunch.  If you go out for a big brunch or a big lunch, you are going to have to cut way back on your holiday dinner.  To not offend Aunt Verdell by not eating the sweet potato fluff at dinner, don't blow out your calories at brunch earlier in the day.

2) Mind your cocktails.  Yes, alcohol makes the holidays more festive for many, but alcohol represents empty calories.  Many cocktails contain hundreds of calories each (margaritas, in particular), so sticking to wine spritzers and continuing to drink water throughout the day will help to reduce total calorie consumption at parties and family gatherings.

3) Remember how to portion out your plate.  Although there are many yummy starch side dishes during the holidays, your plate should be allocated 25% meat, 25% starch and 50% salads and green side dishes.  You can have a small taste of everything on the holiday table and not blow your diet if you keep your perspective on your plate and how much of each food group you are eating.

Enjoying the holidays and all they have to offer does not mean having to move up a pant size in January if you take a few steps early on to be mindful of how you are eating and drinking.  Happy Thanksgiving!

The Twinkie Diet Makes a Legitimate Point

The Twinkie Diet got more press this week. In this classroom study, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate a diet of protein shakes, canned vegetables, multi-vitamins and snack foods like Twinkies and chips for two months and lost 27 pounds.

What was his point? That losing weight is purely a mathematical equation. It has to do with consistently eating fewer calories than your body needs to burn each day and that the underlying food is irrelevant, at least as long as some of it is actually healthy.

So why all the emphasis on protein diets or vegan diets or low fat diets? They are all means to give people foods that may be more energy rich to drive less snacking. If a carbohydrate rich diet leads to a person being hungry every hour and a half and, as a result eating 3000 calories a day then, it is believed and has been proven in statistically large studies of dieters, eating protein at each meal makes it easier to get through the day and eat only 1800 calories.

If you are very diligent about food logging and very disciplined about your caloric intake, then you too can diet while eating only Oreos, Tostitos and Twinkies. That just isn't a reality for most people. Frequently, once they start snacking, dieters feel badly about abandoning their diet and take a plunge off the deep end of their diet--eating the entire family sized bag of Tostitos in one sitting, with cheese dip--rather than negotiating with themselves about how the snack will now mean that what they planned to eat for the rest of the day may have to change.

I think that the Twinkie diet makes a legitimate point that dieting does not have to mean suffering, and giving up all the foods you used to like to eat. However, it does mean a full-time commitment to negotiating caloric tables and sticking to your target caloric intake every day.

Reference Article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-twinkie-20101115,0,405998.story

Dairy Management and the Big Government Cheese Conspiracy

It seems to me that there are multi-billion dollar opportunities to end government programs that are at cross purposes and lower the Federal budget. The most recent is Dairy Management, a subsidiary of the Department of Agriculture, as reported in the New York Times today, spending millions to persuade Americans to eat more cheese to boost prices and consumption for the US dairy industry (not to mention the millions in Federal farm subsidies) and the National Institute of Health telling us that the reason we consume too much fat in our diet is cheese. This is no different than the Federal government extracting penalty taxes from the cigarette manufacturers to pay for anti-smoking campaigns while continuing to subsidize tobacco growers.

 

The hypocrisy doesn't end there, when one considers the substantial subsidies that have been paid to ethanol producers. Ethanol does not become a cost effective fuel alternative until oil is $120 a barrel. So the Federal goverment subsidizes its production at the same time that it increases the percentage required to be blended into our gasoline, driving production of a heavily subsidized product. Moreover, ethanol takes corn out of the food supply, whether to feed humans or livestock, to burn in our cars.

I hope that the newly re-empowered Republicans are willing to have the guts to say no to these conflicting programs, cutting them back completely to zero, rather than only limiting program growth. How about gutting Dairy management? Repeal the tax on farmers that is used, along with over $5 million of US taxpayer money, to finance its budget and let Dominoes figure out on its own how to make a better tasting pizza. That will save $136 million right away.

FDA 3 Diet Drugs 0 or Three Strikes and You Are Out!

The FDA has been busy the last three weeks.  It has recalled one diet pill and turned down approval requests for two others.  All three had scary side effects that made the benefits of taking them questionable. 

 FDA Rejects Arena’s Weight Loss Pill, Citing Tumors in Rats http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69M26620101023

Abbott Labs Recalls Meridia from Market on Risk of Cardiovascular Disease http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299401

FDA Rejects Qnexa http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Drug/fda_rejects_weight_loss_drug_qnexa_3010100150.html

Hmmm, would I trade cancer for weight loss?  Well, once I am on chemotherapy for the tumors I got from a diet pill, I guess I would lose weight!

I had a client a couple years ago whose doctor put her on Meridia.  She complained almost immediately of racing heart symptoms.  No wonder that one got pulled for risk of heart attacks.

Decades ago, my mother went to the doctor for some diet pills.  Those were the days of amphetamines.  She lost a little weight, mostly because she was vacuuming the house at 500 miles per hour.  In the end, she didn't like that feeling of racing through her errands and chores.  No wonder it was called speed.

These recalls and denials are a reminder that there is no easy answer to weight loss.  There is no magic pill.  Even Alli has some creepy side effects.  The best, healthiest and safest way to lose weight is to lower your calorie consumption and raise your exercise level.  Eating healthier foods--less processed food--helps a lot, also.

The last article I found this week compares the cost per pound of different diet methods, from Jenny Craig to Lap bands to the plain old fashioned diet.  Turns out the plain vanilla diet SAVES you month per pound!  Check out that story here.

Cost Per Pound Comparisons of Alternative Weight Loss Methods http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/jenny-craig-lap-band-price-pound-lose-weight/story?id=11939138&page=1

New Rutgers Study Shows High Protein Diet Helps Limit Bone Loss

I know it seems like every week there is a new study that tells you what you thought was good for you to eat was actually bad for you and vice versa.  A new study offered at the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research indicates that a higher protein diet for women, when calcium and and vitamin D were held constant, resulted in less bone density decline.

What I liked about this study was its size and length.  Forty-seven women participated for a year.  The size is statistically significant and the duration was long enough to measure real effects.  Many studies that get into the news have fewer than 25 subjects and last as little as 12 weeks.  I think this offers credible evidence that particularly as women approach menopause and begin to experience hormonal changes that can affect nutrient absorption and bone density, increasing the level of protein as a percentage of total calories is important.

This isn't a permission slip to eat at Texas Roadhouse three times a week, but yet another observation, that the typical American diet, which is laden with more carbohydrates and fat than protein, needs to be tweaked to include more protein in the mix to stay healthy.

Could the Amount of Sleep You're Getting Affect Your Weight Loss?

Reuters published a news release yesterday about a small sleep study with overweight people in the UK. The study indicated that amount of sleep may be a factor in weight loss. All the participants lost about seven pounds over the course of the short study. However, those who slept 8 and a half hours burned more fat and those who slept 5 and half hours burned muscle. Though the amount of sleep a person needs varies by the individual, it makes sense to me that when embarking on a lifestyle shift that includes diet and exercise, sleep should be a consideration, also, toward improved well being over all.

Sleep Loss May Thwart Dieters’ Fat Loss

When Your Diet Isn’t Working and News from Sheraton

There are times when your diet stops working, which is called a plateau, when you have to shake something up to continue your weight loss. Frequently changing the type of exercise you are doing or changing when and what you are eating can break a plateau.  But what do you do if you are genuinely reducing calories and exercising and you are seeing no results when you are just starting your diet?  This article reviews these situations, which could be driven by prescription medication, or a low performing thyroid, among other issues.  I think it offers interesting information about what could be going on for you when your diet’s not working.


http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2010/10/diet_not_working_heres_five_re.html

Sheraton Hotels, recognizing that road warriors don’t eat, sleep, exercise or relax the way they do at home, has designed a new health and fitness program to be offered in all of its hotels worldwide.  Here is the story on the new program:


http://www.hotelworldnetwork.com/brand-standards/sheraton-launches-brandwide-health-and-fitness-program-9225

Health and Vitality Through Energy Medicine

Article first published as Health and Vitality Through Energy Medicine on Technorati.

Is it possible for the average person to improve his or her health through personal manipulation of acupuncture points?  According to Donna Eden, author of Energy Medicine, the answer is an enthusiastic “Yes!”  Presenting as a keynote speaker, along with her partner, David Feinstein, at the Teton Wellness Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Eden described their mission to bring energy medicine to the public, offering tools to help any individual.

For nearly 5000 years the Chinese have been practicing medicine based upon the principles of energy channels, or meridians, and that physical or emotional distress may be treated by opening blockages or disruptions of energy along these meridians within the body.

Eden speaks from experience.  She has multiple sclerosis and at one point in her life, barely walked for two years.  She says that when her doctors told her that she would die of her condition, she gave up on Western medicine and searched for an alternative. Through Touch for Health Kinesiology she recovered fully and now teaches these techniques, and others. 

In a lively, nearly three-hour presentation to over 200 attendees, Eden and Feinstein used members of the audience to demonstrate the physiological impacts of stress, anxiety and overwork in the strength of our bodies, and then taught pressure point practices to relieve these energetic impacts to improve alertness, vitality and strength.

Although Western medicine is critical of Traditional Chinese medicine because clinical assessments of its effectiveness remain elusive and it has been described as pre-scientific.  However, Western medicine has its own limitations in the diagnosis and treatment of many autoimmune diseases and cancer.  Quantum physicists assert that the smallest particles of creation, sub-atomic particles, have both wave-like behaviors of energy and particle attributes of matter.  In that context, to use and adjust the body’s energy to the benefit health and wellbeing and avoid disease would be a remarkable skill.

7th Day of Gluten Free

QYB79ZMS676Y
Last week I read the eye-opening post that Tim Ferriss had on his site about gluten!  I decided to give it up for a while and see how I felt.  I am now on day 7.  Here is a photo of tonight's supper, a giant salad with a steak on top.

The salad was chopped carrots, radishes, green onion and green pepper on leaf lettuce with some low calorie caesar dressing. The steak was herb rubbed and grilled. I found the crunchy veggies satisfying and filling with the steak.

Giving up grains was not too much of a struggle, but I am having a tougher time substituting celery with my peanut butter than the slice of toast I used to rely on for my mid-morning snack.

What is happening without bread or pasta in my life is that I am losing weight.  That part of giving up gluten works.  I don't notice any change in my energy, sleep patterns, digestion by not having it, but Tim's guest shot post indicated I would feel it more when I go back to eating grains.  I will keep you all posted.

What Does it Take to Commit to Permanent Change?

Article first published as Wake Up Calls: What Does it Take to Commit To Permanent Change on Technorati.

A friend confided to me years ago he was pretty lax about his dental care. Until the day his dentist told him he had advanced gum disease, and he would begin to lose his teeth if he didn’t make a change.  From that moment forward he began brushing, flossing and rinsing.  He would do whatever it took to save his teeth.

Last Week Former President Bill Clinton explained to Wolf Blitzer about the reasons behind his new, nearly vegan diet:

“But I did it for a different reason. I mean, I wanted to lose a little weight but I didn’t ever dream this would happen. I did it because after I had this stent put in, I realized that even though it happens quite often that after you have bypasses, you lose the veins, because they’re thinner and weaker than arteries. The truth is that it clogged up, which means that the cholesterol was still causing build up in my vein that was part of my bypass. Thank God I could take the stents.

I didn’t want it to happen again. So I did all this research and I saw that 82 percent of the people, since 1986, who have gone on a plant-based, no dairy, no meat of any kind. No chicken, turkey. I eat very little fish. Once in a while I’ll have a little fish. Not often. If you can do it, 82 percent of people who have done that have begun to heal themselves. Their arterial blockage cleans up. The calcium deposit around their heart breaks up.”

Later in the interview, Clinton expressed his hope that with his new healthier regime, he would be around for his family and someday, for his grandkids.

Short term goals like losing weight to fit into a wedding dress can result in the five or ten pounds of weight loss you need, but what happens on the all inclusive honeymoon? 

Being on TV vying for a quarter million dollars and then follow-up TV exposure seems to work for those on the Biggest Loser and other weight loss shows, but how many people in the public eye fall back into bad habits and gain all the weight back, like Kirstie Alley? 

Does it take the fear of death or threat of severe illness to generate permanent change? 

If you are getting ready to go on your next diet, try to pick powerful reasons for losing the weight. Reasons that are going to mean more to you than momentary life stresses that drive snacking or reaching for processed convenience food when you are in a hurry. 

Put the list on the refrigerator, on the pantry door, on your desk at work, in your car, on your bathroom mirror.  Make certain you can see that list of reasons every time you are getting ready to make a food decision, and then remember why you are on a diet.

Healthy Food--Perceived as Negative Calories

Time recently wrote an article on a study done at Northwestern University on people’s perceptions of food, and the belief in “negative calories.”  In the study, 934 participants in an on line study were asked to estimate the calories in images of meals.  Turns out that when they saw a cheeseburger and fries, they gave it one estimate, but when they saw the same meal with a salad, they gave that a lower estimate, thinking that the healthy food lowered the total calorie content.

The study concluded that people overeat because they underestimate the calories of a meal with some healthy food in it.  What was more interesting in the study was that participants who self-identified as dieters underestimated the calorie count by a greater margin than the non-dieters—increasing their negative calorie count.  This study indicates that until people really know how many calories they are eating, they will continue to struggle with overeating.  Yet another friendly reminder about why conscious eating and food logging matters for weight loss success.

Here is the link to the Time article http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/21/why-americans-are-fat-we-literally-see-more-food-as-less/

And here is the link to the study summary http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/News_Articles/2010/the-dieters-paradox.aspx

Food Logs are a Diet Imperative

Article first published as Food Logs are a Diet Imperative on Technorati.

When I start a new weight loss class, I tell my students that they need to keep food logs of everything they eat.  Some people immediately get their hackles up, claiming that they “don’t want to be held hostage” to their food log and calorie counting.

I explain that for most of us Americans, because we have become such capable multi-taskers, we are eating more often and in larger quantities than we know.  We eat in front of the computer or TV at home.  We eat at our desks at work.  We eat in the car.  Because we are eating while we are doing other things, we do not realize and sometimes cannot even remember what and how much we eat.

The food log wakes us up to what we are putting in our mouths.  I suggest that my clients keep a small notebook or a post-it pad with them at all times and when they eat something, to immediately write it down.  That way the clients are less likely to forget about the half of a bagel they picked up in the break room or the slice of cake they enjoyed in the office to celebrate someone’s birthday.  If they are using computers to track their calories, given that there are so many free on line services now, they have their list of what they ate for later when they actually load it into the computer.

Even food logging for just a couple of weeks before starting a diet is a great way to get a handle on what foods a person is reaching for in what situations.  Once you can see that everything you ate for the last three days was a carbohydrate, you can begin to figure out why you have the sugar highs and carb crashes.  My clients balance out their diet, identify their “go-to” foods when they are stressed out or upset, and start to take control of what, when and how they eat.

After six weeks in my programs, I ask the participants to complete an evaluation of what they have learned, what they have changed and what they still need help with.  Overwhelmingly, participants list among what they have learned is that food logging helps, but they also say that staying consistent with their logging is where they need help.  Clinical studies show that the people who log their food lose more weight and keep it off longer than people did not keep track. 

The cost of obesity

I saw this article yesterday, but I think it came out on Wednesday.  Of course I knew that the medical costs of obesity were high, when you consider the extra doctor’s visits and the spendy prescription drugs obese people take for cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, acid reflux and type 2 diabetes, but also from sleep apnea and knee, ankle and back injuries from carrying all that weight around.   The study also threw in assumed costs of lost wages from discrimination from being fat, for women more so than for men, and a cost for shortened lifespan.  The study was sponsored by a gastric band manufacturer, which of course, is interested in broader reimbursement for gastric band surgeries.  If only this was the answer!

http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/fitness/2010-09-21-obesity-costs_N.htm

Another recent study reported that while the BMI calculations and weight did decline for people who had gastric band surgery from 47 to 30.5, the BMI a year after surgery is still in the overweight range.  I thought it was interesting because the study was conducted at a hospital in my home town in Wisconsin.

http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=24595

Giving everyone a gastric band and still letting them live into their lifetime of bad habits is not going to make any difference, except for the money paid to the gastric band companies and the doctors who insert them.  If you do not deal with the reasons why people overeat and adjust poor eating habits and choices, the problem of obesity in America is not going to be resolved. 

Soy for Pain Reduction, The FDA and More Diet Pills, Food Labels and Adzuki Beans

A Canadian Researcher is going to look at soy’s impact on chronic pain.  Apparently, earlier studies showed that increased consumption of soy reduced pain in rats, so a new three year double blind study for humans is starting at McGill University Health Centre.

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Researcher+hopes+prevent+chronic+pain+from+developing/3521844/story.html

As a follow-up to our post saying that the FDA would be reviewing Abbott Lab’s Meridia after a European ban on the product, turns out the review panel split on a market removal. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-15/abbott-s-diet-pill-meridia-splits-fda-advisers-on-withdrawal-decision.html

But the FDA did recommend against approving Arena Pharmaceuticals’ lorcaserin because of potential problems with heart disease, tumors. Depression and memory loss.

http://www.drugwatch.com/news/2010/09/17/fda-votes-no-lorcaserin-weight-loss-pill/

A new study at Washington State University backs the idea that if you read your food labels, you are more likely to successfully lose weight.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/wsu-apt091410.php

Give adzuki beans a try as a vegetarian alternative to lentils, black or navy beans.  See this article about the bean:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gZNc-nQMq_LFWDMfRRmETEls5uzA

Protein Bars--Good and Not So Good Choices at the Grocery Store

If you are using protein bars as one of your snack foods during the day, you must be mindful to read the nutritional label on the bars you buy at the grocery store.  Many bars have more carbs and sugar than protein, so the bulk of the calories are going to burn off quickly and you will be hungry again in no time.

Your goal is to find a bar that has 140 to 180 calories and 10 or more grams of protein.  Some of the grocery brands that meet these targets are: South Beach Living Breakfast Bars, Special K Protein MEAL Bars, Slim Fast Diet High Protein Meal Bars or HALF of a Snickers Marathon Protein Sports Bar.

Protein bars that I would look to avoid at the store, because they don't have enough protein relative to their caloric content are: Special K Protein SNACK Bars, Odwalla Super Protein Bars, Quaker Chewy Granola with Protein Bars.

Just remember, that reading the labels for nutritional content is very important.  Just because a product says that it is a protein bar, doesn't mean you will get the best protein bang for the caloric buck!