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Super Simple Oven Baked Kale Chips

10/26/2013

I have never mastered the art of oven dehydrating. I tend to burn things before they are crisp, so I usually use my dehydrator for things like this, but that takes a while. So, I keep trying and I finally mastered simple oven baked kale chips! These are so quick and I couldn't keep the kids away from them:)

Ingredients:

2 bunches of kurly kale

2 TBS olive oil

Celtic or Himalayan salt to taste

Freshly ground pepper to taste, if desired

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350ᵒ F. Rinse the kale and tear it off the stem into large pieces, as the pieces will shrink considerably as you can see in the photo above. Place pieces of kale into a bowl.
Drizzle with olive oil and massage the oil into the kale. Spread pieces into a single layer on baking sheets lined with parchment paper or Silpat mats. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Bake for 10 - 15 minutes, or until crisp. To make them extra crisp, I turn the oven off, let some heat out and leave the kale in the oven for about an hour to dehydrate fully.

You might also like:

Cheezy Vegan Kale Chips

Avocado Kale Salad

Cranberry-Apple Kale Salad Heaven!

Maria Rippo is a Transformational Weight Loss & Wellness practitioner with an online as well as a local practice in Bothell, WA.This article Copyright 2013 by Maria Rippo, all right reserved. To replicate or use any portion of this article, please do so in its entirety including this text or contact the author at [email protected].

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Egg Drop Soup: Super Simple Healthy Breakfast

10/24/2013

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If you've been checking out my recipes, you know that I LOVE simplicity, but taste takes a very close second. And, above all, the recipe has to be healthy for me to truly enjoy it. Egg drop soup is so fast and simple, yet enormously healthy. You can eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner and it sure beats Top Ramen!

Ingredients:

3 cups chicken or any other type of bone broth. I make mine with any leftover bones. You can also use an organic store bought variety.

1/8 tsp ground ginger

1 green onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, diced

2 eggs, whisked gently

1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt or enough to make it nice and salty, but not overly salted

Optional Additions:

2 chantrelle or other mushrooms in season

Baby greens or any other veggies you like to add. I prefer the Trader Joe's Organic Power Greens.

Instructions:

Heat broth in saucepan and add salt and ginger. Add onion and celery. Whisk eggs in a bowl and add slowly to broth mixture while stirring with a fork to break the eggs ups quickly. Add greens and mushrooms and cook until soft. Check for saltiness.

Maria Rippo is a Transformational Weight Loss & Wellness practitioner with an online as well as a local practice in Bothell, WA.This article Copyright 2013 by Maria Rippo, all right reserved. To
replicate or use any portion of this article, please do so in its entirety including this text or contact the author at [email protected].

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Yogi Tea Recipe

10/22/2013

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I normally slip out of bed first thing and head to the living room to start my day practicing yoga and meditation (normally means that's the idea, doesn't always happen). It just seems to make everything else go smoother for me. I really notice the days when I choose to sleep in, that I am just off. So, I cherish my quiet solitude in the morning before the northwest sun peeks it's face from the darkness.

After my practice, I like to have a cup of coffee and read for a bit, but the coffee just wasn't seeming to fit in so well with the feeling of rejuvenation and relaxation that comes after yoga and meditation. So, I decided to make some yogi tea instead. What I love about it is that its energizing and warming without caffeine. Its not dehydrating either.

Yogi tea is known to help stimulate digestive fire and detoxify your system. It is also said to strengthen bones and soothe tired muscles. It came to the US in the 1060's with Yogi Bhajan who routinely served it to his students after yoga practice and so became known as yogi tea.

I found this recipe in the Art and Science of Raja Yoga by Swami Kriyananda.

Here's the recipe:

10 ounces water
6 peppercorns
4 whole cardamom pods
1/2 stick cinnamon
5 whole cloves
1 slice ginger root

Optional Additions:

Milk and Honey to taste

Bring water to a boil. Add spices and boil on medium low heat for 20 minutes. Strain and add milk and honey if desired.

Maria Rippo is a Transformational Weight Loss & Wellness practitioner with an online as well as a local practice in Bothell, WA. This article Copyright 2013 by Maria Rippo, all right reserved. To replicate or use any portion of this article, please do so in its entirety including this text or contact the author at [email protected].

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Quick Breakfast Eggnog

10/21/2013

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This is a family favorite and a mama favorite because it's so quick and amazingly healthy!

Ingredients:

24 ounces raw, whole milk or nut milk, could also use organic pasteurized if that's your preference (for sources and raw milk information,
see www.realmilk.com)

4 raw organic or pasture raised eggs
1 TBS raw honey, slightly melted on low heat for easy blending
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp stevia powder
pinch of Celtic or Himalayan salt

Instructions:

Melt honey on low heat if its in solid form. Place all ingredients into the blender and blend very quickly. If you over-blend, it will become very foamy from the eggs. Pour into a glass and enjoy!

Maria Rippo is a Transformational Weight Loss & Wellness practitioner with an online as well as a local practice in Bothell, WA. This article Copyright 2013 by Maria Rippo, all right reserved. To replicate or use any portion of this article, please do so in its entirety including this text or contact the author at [email protected].

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Meal Planning Made Simple

10/19/2013

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Figuring out what to feed the family, or even yourself, can be so overwhelming. Here are some tips to simplify the process.

First, make some tea, take some deep breaths. Get some paper or use Evernote or whatever you use to take notes to make a list of the recipes you'll make and a list of ingredients you need.

You might like to download the Meal Planning Chart at the bottom of this article and print it out before you start so you can write on it as you go and then post it on the fridge.

Google "healthy or Paleo or Primal or ________... snack ideas." Pick 3 - 4 snacks the whole family can eat for the week. This week, I chose, celery with almond butter and raisins,
homemade trail mix with mixed nuts, coconut and dark chocolate chips, apples and raw cheese, hard boiled eggs and carrots, kale chips, organic popcorn with butter and nutritional yeast, raw milk. Ok, way more than 3 or 4 here but I have 4 kids (2 teenage boys) and I find that if I have a variety of options available, they always find healthy things to make without feeling deprived or sneaking other foods. They beg for kale chips! You might also like to check out my article, 20 Favorite Snacks to Stay Slim, Healthy and Vital.

Then, decide on 3 - 4 breakfasts. You can think of the ones you like to make, and just write them down and put any ingredients you need onto your list or Google for ideas. Then repeat the breakfast recipes on the rest of the days of the week, rather than having to come up with something new for each day. I'm going to be posting our breakfasts recipes for this week so you can see what we eat for breakfast!

Next, pick 5 or 6 dinners you will make using the internet or recipe books you have on hand. I usually try to do a soup with homemade broth, taco night with butter lettuce leaves for the tortillas, (the kids eat organic corn tortillas that I fry in farm fresh leaf lard or coconut oil). I do a chicken dish, a vegetarian night, a fish night and a red meat or pork night. We usually have leftovers at least once during the week whenever they start piling up and I need a night off from cooking! I also find a few new veggie recipes to accompany the dinners so we don't get bored of veggies. I love roasted veggies! Adding spices and healthy fat is the key to making delicious veggies.

For lunch it's always leftovers. I leave the dressing on the side for salad so it stays nice and crisp for lunches the next day (just make enough at dinner for leftovers).

Then we decide on two Paleo treats for the week b/c they use coconut or almond flour and honey or stevia to sweeten, so typically, if my daughter finds a Paleo treat, it will pass my test for healthy! You would not believe the yummy stuff she makes like doughnuts, cookies, frosting on cupcakes! This keeps the kids excited about eating healthy. www.elanaspantry.com and www.marksdailyapple.com is a great place for recipes. You can also check out www.beyonddiet.com for ideas.

Then, I go shopping on the weekend so I have everything I need for all the recipes and I cannot tell you how this reduces my stress load! It also makes our meals more exciting because I don't get caught in a rut. Have fun!

Click below to download your Meal Planning Chart PDF!

meal_planning_chart.pdf
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Download File

Maria Rippo is a Transformational Weight Loss & Wellness practitioner with an online as well as a local practice in Bothell, WA. This article Copyright 2013 by Maria Rippo, all right reserved. To replicate or use any portion of this article, please do so in its entirety including this text or contact the author at [email protected].

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3 Shocking Ways to Release Weight: Stop Dieting, Stop Weighing Yourself and by All Means, Don't Count Calories!

10/18/2013

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Releasing weight is about tapping into the innate wisdom of your body. By learning to
listen to your body, you will always know what to eat, when to eat and how much to eat. When you look for input and feedback from sources outside of yourself, such as a scale, or a calorie counting chart, you usually end up gaining weight instead of releasing it because it actually prevents you from listening to the needs of your body. In fact, 95% of people who go on diets end up gaining all the weight back and then some (UCLA), so if you have tried and tried to lose weight, and feel like a failure who lacks will-power, you are not alone. Look at the obesity epidemic. It is directly correlated to the dieting epidemic.

So, how do we learn to listen to the needs of our body?

First, we learn to feel the difference between being emotionally hungry and physically hungry.
Physical hunger is when you actually need fuel for your body to function. Emotional hunger is when you want to eat, but your body is not actually hungry. The best way to do this is to allow yourself to get good and hungry and really tune into how it feels. Now that you know how physical hunger feels, next time you go to eat, tune in and see if you are hungry or if you are just tired, angry, lonely, stressed, bored, or_____________. As my favorite natural body builder, Tom Venuto says, "Hunger is the only problem food can solve," so if you want to eat, and find you are not hungry, this is a great time to find other ways to meet your emotional needs. One way of doing this is simply to stop, tune into what you are feeling and really allow yourself to feel it.

Where is it in your body? What shape is it? What color is it? When is the first time you remember feeling this way in your life? Take a moment to imagine that you are that age and just give yourself (at that age) a hug in your mind. Let him/her know you are there for him/her and it's OK to feel this way. Accept how you feel. Now, imagine the ideal state of this feeling and then tune into it. What shape is it? What color is it? Does it move? What is it's temperature?

When you do this, you will be amazed at the clarity that will come to you for solving your challenges in healthy ways instead of eating so you don't feel. Now, take a nice deep breath if that struck a chord with you. If you are just realizing that you eat so you don't feel, know that all humans find effective coping mechanisms for not feeling. Acknowledging and accepting that you do this, allows you to own your cravings instead of your cravings owning you!

Another way to feel your hunger is to see how long it takes after a meal to feel hungry again. Just watch the clock and commit to not eating until you are good and hungry. When that happens, don't limit what you allow yourself to eat, but instead, tune into how you feel up to two hours after you eat. How did the food make you feel? Was it energizing? Did it help you feel satiated? Did you feel full, but hungry? Is the food you are eating working for you?

Once you sense how long you typically go between meals, then you can have an eating schedule. Keep it loose so it doesn't become a rule (that you then may want to break if you're anything like me!), but instead, allow it to be a gauge. If you want to eat, and it's only been two hours since breakfast, you'll know, it's an opportunity to tune in and find out what you are really craving. A good way to do this is to simply say, "I really want some chocolate. Chocolate sounds so good to me right now. I really feel like eating chocolate. Maybe it's not really chocolate I want. What I truly crave is_______________." See what comes up, you might just be surprised at what you have been using food to suppress.

The great thing about learning to tune into your body is that after a time, you will no longer enjoy the feeling of overeating or going to bed on a full stomach. It just won't feel right and the weight will begin to naturally come off without ever weighing in, counting a calorie or limiting a fat gram! You will begin to sense the needs of your body. There is not one diet that works for all people. We are each biochemically unique and there is no outside authority that can tell you what or how much your body needs to be in the right shape for YOU.

If you'd like to do more discovery work in this area, check out my Trim-Life Program offered online or in my Bothell, WA office!

You might also like:

Can Weight Loss Goals Cause Weight Gain?

What's Up with Food Obsessions and Why do We Eat When We're Not Hungry?

Cravings S.O.S: My Secret Tools for Cravings Success

Maria Rippo is a Transformational Weight Loss & Wellness practitioner with an online and local practice in Bothell, WA. This article Copyright 2013 by Maria Rippo, all right reserved. To replicate or use any portion of this article, please do so in its entirety including this text or contact the author at [email protected]

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Healthy Fat? What's That?

10/17/2013

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The health of a food is correlated to how much it is processed. The more any food is processed, the more it causes inflammation and damage in the body. When foods are processed, they go from a natural to an unnatural form. My philosophy is simple, if the food didn’t exist in its current form, 5,000 years ago, then it’s probably not something that belongs in my body. The Creator made food in the form it was meant to be eaten to keep your bodies strong and vibrant! It is seriously this simple. As soon as man began altering food, the rate of disease sky-rocketed. The father of medicine, Hippocrates, said it best himself, ‘Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine they food.'

Nothing was more detrimental to our health than the idea of making food last a long time and creating ways to make food preparation convenient. In fact, before the convenience food epidemic, heart disease was not even an issue. For example, in 1910, the heart disease rate was less than ten percent. It is now 45%. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) it is the leading cause of death in men and women. Someone has a heart attack in the US every thirty four seconds. (CDC) In fact, before 1920, coronary heart disease was so rare in America that when Paul Dudley White introduced his invention, the electrocardiogram to Harvard University, they told him to go focus on something more profitable because there was little use for this machine!

In a recent report in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease., Mayo Clinic researchers showed
that individuals favoring carbohydrates in their diets had a remarkable 89% increased risk for developing dementia as contrasted to those whose diets contained the most fat. Having the highest levels of fat consumption was actually found to be associated with an incredible 44% reduction in risk for developing dementia (PsychologyToday.com).

Friends, it’s time to educate ourselves! If we continue to listen to the recommendations of our government, chances are good we’ll become one of their statistics. In fact, chances are almost 50% for heart attacks alone. That’s one out of every two people.

In my opinion, learning the truth about fat is a great place to begin.

In 1910, when the rate of heart disease was much lower in the US than it is now, people were eating an average of 18 pounds of butter per person each year. That number has now gone down to four pounds per year. Also in 1910, lard made from the fat of farm raised pigs was the number one cooking fat. This fat is high in Vitamin D, the nutrient now many of us are deficient in.

In 1911, Proctor and Gamble introduced Crisco. To the unsuspecting American, it was a dream. We didn’t have to make it ourselves, it lasted longer than lard and at the same time, we unknowingly began eating trans fats.

By 1930, margarine consumption surpassed butter consumption. By 1948, obesity and diabetes became public health problems. (By this time, sugar consumption had also increased dramatically.)

In 1953, a major study put out by Ancel Keys, convinces America to eat less fat and more carbohydrates.

And now, here we are, disease rates and obesity out of control and how many millions of dollars have been spent on ‘research.’ Where are the answers?

One thing we can now be sure of is that artificial trans- fats and hydrogenated oils are damaging to our health and any food with these on the labels should always be avoided. Artificial trans-fats come from man-made fats such as hydrogenated oil and are not to be confused with the small amounts of trans-fats in beef and dairy, etc… It is the artificial trans-fats and other processed foods that we can thank the rise in heart disease for.

Hydrogenation is a process that creates a solid, shelf-stable fat that looks nothing like the vegetable fat it originated from. To make a hydrogenated oil, the oil is washed, bleached, deodorized and then heated to very high temperatures. Then hydrogen gas is bubbled through the mixture. Hydrogenation totally alters the molecular make-up of the original fat. It ends up being molecularly closer to plastic than fat and is a dangerous free-radical in the body. The way I understand this, this means that these free radicals are missing electrons and when they enter the body, they damage heart cells by ‘stealing’ electrons from them. The body has no use for these trans-fats and so it stores them away in fat cells and arteries to protect the rest of the body from them. Then the body waits for the healthy fat to come, causing us to crave more fat so the body can get the essential fatty acids it’s looking for. Can you see what we are putting the body through when we eat hydrogenated oils and artificial trans- fats?

There are three types of fats: saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated.

Saturated fats are found in animal fats and tropical oils. They are the most stable under high heat. They give cells stiffness and integrity and constitute 50% of the cell membranes (ie, necessary for cellular health). They are necessary for calcium to be effectively incorporated into the skeletal system because the fat carries the minerals into the bones. I actually became totally mineral deficient when I was a raw-foodist and did not eat animal fats! Coconut oil is saturated and is therefore good for cooking. It is also rich in lauric acid which is known to be anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal. According to Dr. Al Sears, M.D., ‘the saturated fat found in coconut oil is a unique fat that helps prevent heart disease, helps to build up the immune system and does not turn into fat in your body.’

According to Dr. Al Sears, MD, we need fat to transport nutrients, build a faster brain, maintain body temperature and give us energy.

The next type of fats are polyunsaturated fats. They are very fragile and most processed oils in this class are damaged before you even open the bottle they come in. The extraction process alone, which involves high heat, causes these fats to go rancid. These include soy, corn, cottonseed, canola and peanut oil. All are best kept out of your diet. Most of them are from genetically modified sources, which can cause damage to your digestive tract. Processed vegetable oils such as these cause inflammation and heart disease (Mercola). Other sources include fish oil, eggs and walnuts which are rich sources of Omega 3 essential fatty acids. These fats should not be heated, so eat your walnuts raw and your egg yolks runny! If you choose to use fish oil, the only non-heated variety I am aware of is from ww.greenpasture.org and I highly recommend it.

The third type of fat is monounsaturated. These do not go rancid as easily as long as you purchase the cold pressed variety. My favorite source for all oils is www.omeganutrition.com because they patented their own processing system to make sure the oil is never exposed to heat, light or oxygen before you open the opaque bottle. Monounsaturated oils should not be heated above 325ᵒ to prevent rancidity and should be bottled in opaque bottles to prevent light exposure. Remember to always avoid the smoke point with oils. This means, if you are cooking with the oil and it begins to smoke, turn the heat down right away or this oil will become a free radical, causing damage to your heart cells and organs. Olive oil and avocados fall into this category as do almonds, pecans, cashews, and peanuts.

The best fats to eat are butter from grass-fed cows. I use Kerrygold or Strauss brand. If you can get it straight from the farmer, even better, or make it yourself. I also use grass-fed ghee. I have found a source for leaf lard at my farmer’s market. I also use coconut oil. We use cold-pressed olive oil. We drink whole raw milk and raw milk cheese. I eat whole milk yogurt. Avocados and raw nuts and seeds are good fats also. One of my favorites is olives. Just remember, the soil you food grows in and the food, your food eats, makes all the difference in the quality of the fat!

Next time I will discuss Omega 3 vs. Omega 6 fatty acids, so stay tuned!

You might also be interested in these articles:

Fat is Not the F-Word and It Just Might Be What you Need to Stay Slim & Trim

Fatman: The Forgotten Hero in the Battle of the Bulge

Fat: What's the Right Amount for Me?

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Fat: What's the Right Amount for Me?

10/11/2013

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So, what’s the perfect balance between just enough fat, and not too much? We don’t want all that fat to sit in the storehouse making us flabby, we want it to be used up and then replenished—a perfect balance. But how? Three steps.

First, we must do everything to keep our blood sugar in check. Eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, fat and

protein, and reduce the carbohydrates—actually eliminating the processed ones that turn right into sugar.

When our insulin levels are high, which results from eating processed carbohydrates and sugar, our body must hold onto fat to store all the excess sugar in order to keep it out of our blood stream. I have personally witnessed clients going off of diabetes medication in ten days or less simply by eating properly.

When this step is followed, I have seen the body come into balance within a few months: a speedy metabolism, hormonal harmony and fat burning efficiency. If we are willing to eat the foods in the form created by the Creator of our bodies, meaning, eating REAL food in its original form, we can experience harmony in a body shape we’re comfortable in. To do this, we MUST eat enough of that hero called fat. One study found that when we eat enough healthy fat we release abdominal fat. Alternatively, when we over-consume carbohydrates, we gain abdominal fat. (NIH)

Second, make sure we’re eating enough of our hero. If we have too much fat, we grow sluggish, maybe nauseated. We become sleepy and dull. We gain a heavy gut and possibly feel full, but hungry. We may crave sweets or caffeine. If we take in just enough fat, we feel energized, awake, satiated. We’re able to go four or so hours between meals and even if we get hungry, it won’t feel like an emergency because our blood sugar will be balanced.

Are you the type that needs more protein and fat (say 20-30% of each meal)? You’ll know if:

You sleep better when you eat a high-protein snack one to two hours before you go to sleep.
You sleep best when you’ve eaten a dinner composed mainly of meat or other protein and some vegetables or carbohydrate.
You best maintain mental clarity and a sense of well-being for up to four hours after a meal when it is made up of darker meats and a smaller portion of carbs.
You live to eat and gets ravenously hungry at meal-time.

Do you require less fat (say 10% of each meal)? You’ll know if:

You sleep better when you eat a snack higher in carbohydrates, such as low-fat yogurt with berries, three to four hours before bed.
You sleep best after having eaten a dinner of mostly vegetables and other carbs.
Your meals keep you awake and clear when they are carb-based such as veggies, bread, grains and a smaller portion of animal or other protein.
You tend not to care much about food, and you eat to live.

We are all biochemically unique, so no one amount of fat works for every person. The key is learning to listen to our own inner wisdom, to the cues of our body. It will tell us how, when, and how much to eat.

When we eat the right amount of healthy fat, and our hormones are regulated because we are getting enough sleep; when we go to bed a little on the hungry side, enjoy life, hydrate our bodies, relax, fulfill our life purpose, breathe, move, and generally live a balanced lifestyle, then our body begins to trust that our hero, Fat, is good to go. So it will USE the fat we eat as an ENERGY SOURCE. Our body will begin to release excess fat on its own, while keeping our hero healthy and happy.

All this without ever counting a fat gram or stepping on the scale! Maybe the idea of our getting rid of our little-known hero was a very bad idea indeed!

Stay tuned for my next article on what kinds of fats are heroes and which types are foes. There is a big difference, and lack of understanding can cost you your health.

You might also like to read:

Fatman: the Forgotten Hero in the Battle of the Bulge

Fat is Not the F-Word and it Just Might Be What you Need to Stay Slim & Trim

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Fatman: The Forgotten Hero in the Battle of the Bulge

10/11/2013

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The challenge with eating fat to stay thin, is excess fat consumption can actually cause us to gain more weight, but we need enough of it to allow our body to use fat for energy instead of storing it. How do we do this?

Here’s a little story to illustrate:

There once was a kingdom called Body. A wise messenger (hormone) named Leptin, who resides in the great kingdom, hangs out, while he’s on call, with some friends near their kingdom’s storage facility. Leptin’s crucial role is to keep the kingdom (body) from starving to death by bringing news to King Hypothalymus (our master gland in the brain) about the state of the fat stores in the kingdom. The storage facility holds a hero named Fatman (the body's fat). Now, this hero is not largely recognized as such just yet, and he gets dissed because he’s very jiggly, slimy, and chunky. People tend to look up to the firm, muscly types as heroes. Even though Fatman’s job is crucial to the kingdom’s survival, usually the princesses strive to banish Fatman because they believe the bad stories they hear about him from the town criers. So, Fatman’s down these days. He’s feeling rejected and misunderstood, but he takes his job very seriously anyway because that’s just what real heroes do.

Leptin, however, understands Fatman’s crucial role for the survival of the kingdom, so he hangs out right outside Fatman’s storage facility keeping tabs on Fatman, making sure his stores don’t get too low.

As long as the princesses don’t try to get rid of too much Fatman, and no one attacks him, Leptin tells King Hypothalymus, “Hey, everything’s okay. Keep that metabolism humming. No need to bring additional fat into storage, our hero is healthy and strong.”

But, if the enemy of Fatman (Diet/Famine) comes in to destroy him, Leptin runs to King Hypothalamus with the mayday signal. “Fatman is weak and dying. Bring more Fat before he dies!” So, King Hypothalymus alerts Queen Thyroid to slow down the entire Kingdom (metabolism) and to convert everything that comes in (all food ingested) to fat, until our true hero is back.

AND

Since Fatman is our hero, King Hypothalamus greatly increases the greediness of the peasants (appetite) so they’ll be really motivated to find food and eat LOTS of it to replenish the storehouse.

Once food starts entering the kingdom (your body), it is ALL stored as fat, to be ready for the next famine (diet).

But there’s more trouble ahead. Just like chronic carbohydrate and sugar consumption cause insulin resistance, it also causes Leptin resistance. So when Leptin runs a message to King Hypothalymus, he’s thwarted by the Resistance, so the king doesn’t receive the message! So, even though the fat stores are full, the kingdom keeps working to build up more fat stores, and the peasants never feel full so they keep on eating.

Are you getting the picture? We need our Hero Fatman! But how do we know how much to consume? Does this mean I can scarf those McDonald’s burgers and fries? Tune in next time to find out!

Click here to go to Fat: What's the Right Amount for Me?

You might also like:

Fat is Not the F-Word and it Just Might Be What You Need to Stay Slim & Trim

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Fat is Not the F-Word and It Just Might Be What You Need to Stay Slim & Trim

10/11/2013

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freedigitalphotos.net

Many grotesque traditions have been practiced in the name of beauty, but when in the course of human history has the total absence of body fat been seen as beautiful until now? We are a fat-fearing nation, and this could possibly be the single greatest contributor to the current obesity epidemic.

Do you remember back in the 80s and 90s, all that fat-free food we thought would make us thin? I just couldn’t figure out why I had to work so HARD to stay thin. Staying thin was like a full-time job back then. In those early days of 'trying to stay slim craziness', I tried everything from plastering my bagels with only fat-free cream cheese, to munching processed, low-fat, crackers and breads, to cutting my chocolate craving with large amounts of Snackwells cookies (remember those?). I craved carbs enormously. This was when my food obsessions really took hold, and it would be many years before I realized why I felt like I was starving!

When I started eating healthy, processed foods naturally disappeared out of my diet. Avocados, virgin cold-pressed olive oil, and nuts and seeds—all fats—filled my menus. (We didn’t know about coconut oil yet, and I hadn’t learned about the health benefits of quality butter.) With all this fat in my diet, I just couldn’t figure out how I could be thinner than ever. I was so confused!

It wasn’t until years later that the research caught up to my experience. It is now known that healthy fat is necessary for keeping slim and vibrantly healthy! In a Harvard study of 101 men and women, researchers put half the group on a low-fat diet and half on a diet that included about 20 percent of calories from healthy monounsaturated fatty acids, or MUFAs. Great sources include nuts, avocados, olives, and safflower oil. Eighteen months later, the MUFA-eating group dropped 11 pounds, compared to their low-fat eating peers, who shed only six pounds – despite similar calorie consumption.

Did you know that your fat is actually a hormone-producing organ just like the thyroid, adrenal, and pancreas? It deserves a little love just like your heart, your brain, and those other vital organs we’re so careful about. What if our entire culture thought hearts were bad and served no purpose? And what if it did everything to get rid of them? Well, that’s how we treat our fat.

Maybe it’s time to start seeing fat in a new light. Our beloved fat protects us from the perils of famine and starvation. It has a purpose, and maybe that’s why it’s trying so hard to get us to notice it through an epidemic called obesity. Maybe obesity is here to wake us up to the truth about fat. After all, there is a time and season for everything under the sun. Once we stop madly trying to rid ourselves of fat, we can become curious about the message of its excess.

You see, our bodies are set up for survival, and our bodies’ intelligence causes us to hold onto fat. So, the next time you walk past that mirror, instead of giving in to the thoughts of disgust about the extra fat you see, consider thanking your body. It’s doing the amazingly intelligent job of storing fat for your survival! And then, think about thanking that hormone-producing fat for working so hard.

To understand more about how the body uses fat and why it keeps you thin, check out my article:

Fatman: The Forgotten Hero in the Battle of the Bulge

You might also enjoy:

Fat: What's the Right Amount for Me?

References:

http://www.rd.com/health/diet-weight-loss/eat-healthy-fats-to-lose-weight/

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Hi, I'm Maria. I practice hypnotherapy and holistic coaching specializing in emotional eating, addictions, depression, anxiety and PTSD. I LOVE what I do! One of my goals is to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for doing headstands in the most places around the globe! I have a love affair with butter and red wine and all REAL food Mother Earth lovingly provides her inhabitants. I collect recipes, hoard books, scavenge for heart rocks and go totally crazy when my 4 kids try to talk to me all at once. My favorite pastime is witnessing people realize the miracles in every moment and reminding myself to do the same. I love silence. I am a lover, a mystic, seeker of the Divine, a Warrior of Light, Alchemist. Welcome!

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