Just Cook It: Tackling those food and beverage resolutions
The holiday season is behind us, and it’s time to get back to our normal routines. However, before we get back to our completely normal routines we have the pesky issue of our “New Year’s Resolutions” to deal with. That is, if you in fact have a New Year’s Resolution.
According to some studies, 40 percent of Americans resolve to do something different at the beginning of the calendar year.
Compare that to the fact that one third of Americans watch the Super Bowl and you can see that 40 percent is a larger number than it appears to be on the surface.
The reason I feel it is appropriate, and even important, to discuss New Year’s Resolutions is because three of the top 10 most popular resolutions always seem to be about food and/or beverage.
A popular resolution is to “lose weight and get fit.” After indulging in cookies, candies and decadent foods over the holidays, it makes sense to want to lose those extra pounds and get fit.
Getting fit involves physical activity and most gyms offer specials at the beginning of the calendar year to assist you with your resolutions. The issue is that by mid-February most of the people using the gym regularly are the people who use it regularly the other 11 months out of the year as well. It is estimated that 60 percent of gym memberships go unused.
Getting fit is very important, and losing weight goes with getting fit because in order to get fit most people would have to lose some extra pounds. However, losing weight is also done in the kitchen. You can actually gain weight while getting fit. Since muscle weighs more than fat, you can go to the gym and put on muscle (and weight) without losing a lot of fat if you don’t change your eating habits.
This brings us to another resolution – eating healthier and diet. What most people don’t understand is that eating healthy and dieting are two different things. I consistently eat healthy, but I don’t diet. I also advocate eating healthy over dieting in most instances.
Dieting is when you restrict calories in the hopes of shedding pounds. The problem with dieting is that most diet foods frankly don’t taste good and that most foods labeled “low fat” and “low carb” are just not that healthy for you. Let me say that I am not a dietician, but I do know a bit about food and how it is made, and I’ve also studied a lot of nutrition and food labels.
Diets are difficult to stick with over a consistent period of time. When you constantly restrict yourself from foods you enjoy you are more often than not setting yourself up for future failure. The term “yo-yo dieting” refers to going on a diet, seeing weight-loss results, and eventually falling off the wagon to the point that you gain your weight back and often times some additional pounds.
I find that the best way to avoid yo-yo dieting is to make a lifestyle change that allows you to consistently eat healthier while still being able to cheat on occasion.
I personally eat healthy five to six days per week and then allow myself to have one or two cheat days to round out the week. Consistency is the key. What your consistent habits are is what will show up in your life.
I find that the most important thing you can do to eat healthier is to cook for yourself. Another important part of this equation is to cook with fresh natural ingredients. When you cook your own meals you have total control over what is in them. When dining out you really don’t have the control you think you do. Eating out is fun and should be enjoyed – just not five or six days per week.
An easy way to think of a healthy meal is to use what I call “visual eating.” What that means is to visualize a dinner plate. One third of that plate should contain a lean protein – chicken, fish, turkey, etc. The other two-thirds of the plate should be steamed, grilled, saut茅ed, or roasted vegetables. Complete the meal with a side salad, as large as you would like, dressed with extra virgin olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and you have a very healthy meal.
The meal described above is not something you will eat everyday for the rest of your life — it is simply a guide. If you start with that particular idea of a meal, you can then deviate here and there and still be well ahead of the game when it comes to healthy eating.
For example – grass-fed beef or red meat is fine to eat once or twice a week in place of the leaner proteins. You can also substitute a starch such as a baked yam, steamed brown rice, quinoa, etc. for some of the vegetables. If you are a pasta lover, brown rice pasta is an excellent and healthier alternative to standard pasta and is available at most major grocery stores.
Staying away from white potatoes, processed foods, and fried foods is of course a general rule of what foods to consistently avoid. I save those things for a meal on one of my cheat days. That’s how I keep myself honest, by allowing myself to indulge one to two days a week. It helps me happily make consistently healthy choices the other five or six days.
Another popular resolution is to “Drink Less.” This one is pretty self-explanatory. In my humble opinion, a glass of wine with dinner is not such a bad thing. However, a six-pack a night is not such a great idea. I prefer to have a few cocktails on the weekends that I will enjoy – my basic philosophy in this department is quality over quantity.
I hope these general guidelines that work well for me and my lifestyle will help you find what works for you. If you have a New Year’s Resolution to better yourself in some way, I wish you the best of luck. Go all out and make 2014 your best year yet. A good first step, in my opinion, would be to – Just Cook It.
Mario J. Porreca of Belle Vernon is a food personality, author, and the host of Just Cook It on WMBS Radio 590 AM. He can be reached via his website at: www.JustCookIt.net. Follow Mario on Twitter: @MarioPorreca