Tip of the Week

I know it's only Monday, but there is no way any article can make me happier than this tip. I'm calling it the tip of the week, but to be honest, it might warrant tip of the year!

DID YOU KNOW: Calcium helps your body metabolize fat more efficiently by increasing the rate at which it gets rid of fat as waste (yes, that kind). Read a bit about the study that showed this here.

This means that milk after your pizza (or donut, or  fries, or hamburger, etc.) can help mitigate the damage caused by those foods!!!


Natalie Note: I wonder if ice cream counts as the calcium-rich food or the fatty food? Since I went for McDonald's reduced fat ice cream after eating crinkle-cut fries and a piece of buffalo pizza (Seriously, just one! I'm very proud of this - only 225 calories) during the Cowboys game yesterday, I'd like to think I put this theory to work.

Keep reading the Women's Health "article" for even more tips of increasing the rate you metabolize foods!

This one was also pretty eye-opening to me: "Knocking back the equivalent of just two mixed drinks (or two glasses of wine or two bottles of beer) puts the brakes on fat burning by a whopping 73 percent." WHOA. Good thing I just stuck to coffee (with milk - more calcium!) during the game!

I'm also going to add green tea to my afternoon regimen. This will be nice as the weather gets colder.  Right now I have a box of Chai tea in my study carrel at school, but it can easily be replaced with green tea. This is just one benefit to drinking green tea, by the way. It also has amazing powers to strengthen your immune system - something we can all use as we head into the winter season!

Bad Natalie!

I ate meat last night.

Even though it was Meatless Monday and I was doing really well for breakfast and lunch, I ate meat for dinner. I feel bad, but in my defense there was nothing meatless on the menu!

But it gets worse ...

I ate fried meat last night.

And it was goooood.

Now, in my defense, Your Honors, I was having a VERY RARE dinner with my brother. He picked the place because he is visiting my area for work and was short on time. Sure, there are wonderful food options in Kansas City (right, Renee??), but since he's staying out in the boonies, we were very limited in our options.

I didn't want to make a big deal out of what I "could" eat, so I just picked what I wanted to eat - within reason. Apparently, that was the Fried Pork Tenderloin Sandwich (not the exact picture above, but close; chosen because I couldn't handle chicken after this past weekend and pork tenderloin is pretty tame in the calorie department). I ordered steamed veggies instead of fries, but I also drank beer and we shared dessert. Overall, the meal (and I only ate half of the sandwich and a third of the meat!) was about 900 calories. YIKES.

That follows a weekend of lots of eatin' while Renee was in town - including a night of barbecue chicken from FOUR different bbq places in Kansas City and about 7 beers Saturday night. Not to mention the Bloody Mary buffet Sunday. At least we walked about 10 miles throughout the weekend.

So, you can imagine my concerns going into Weight Day tomorrow. I mean, I decided to shake up my calorie plan a bit, but not that much!!!

But still, it was all very, very tasty and included a lot of choices that mitigated the damages in a way I probably wouldn't have done a year ago. Just sayin'.