Here’s the newest suggestion that has come down the pike for the year 2012 and I’m going to give it a whirl since it has to do with carbohydrates. And I love my carbs.

Eat your three meals, as usual, but don’t eat any carbohydrates with your dinner. That means you can eat a sandwich for lunch with actual bread and you can have a slice of toast for breakfast with an egg or two.

At dinner, fill up on proteins and veggies. If you start with a salad or a vegetable beef soup, for instance, you will feel quite full without potatoes, etc. with your main meal.

For your sweet tooth, later in the evening, raid the freezer and munch on a sugarless fudgesicle.

If it’s salt you crave, crank up the microwave and pop a single serving of popcorn. I know technically that’s considered a carbohydrate, but what harm can an itty-bit of popcorn do if it assuages your hunger?

Of course, one of the other ways to lose weight that’s being touted loudly these days is to eat five or six small meals throughout the day. Maybe that works for some people, but personally, that means I’d have to think about food all day long. To tell you the truth, I get busy and forget to eat all those tiny meals, so that doesn’t work for me.

The bottom line–there’s no panacea. It’s still about eating less and exercising more, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try new ways of taking off the weight.

photo from

Every year, it gets harder and harder to find an awful looking, ugly tomato–the ones that are grown to taste good, not to look good.

photo from

If you’re lucky enough to find one, don’t expect it to be bright red. Sometimes they’re more orange. And don’t bother to look for a perfect stem sticking out of its misshapen body, because there probably isn’t one.

If you’ve ever bent over and picked a tomato direct from the plant, you’ll know the minute you hold this ugly baby in the palm of your hand that it’s been sun-drenched and grown outside and maybe it hasn’t even been sprayed with “who knows what.”

So, the next time you pass the tomatoes in your supermarket, try to figure out why you don’t see those hideous looking tomatoes in the store anymore. Are we so enamored of beauty that our food has to look gorgeous, while real taste suffers?

Oh, well. Pretty is “in.”  So, I won’t even get started on our pretty, pretty red beef, or our pearly white eggs, or …

]]> http://francesellenspeaks.com/2011/08/11/tomato-tomahto/feed/ 0 http://francesellenspeaks.com/2011/03/31/1950s-candy/ http://francesellenspeaks.com/2011/03/31/1950s-candy/#comments Fri, 01 Apr 2011 03:02:19 +0000 Frances Ellen http://francesellenspeaks.com/?p=1132 Guess what I just did? I bought a whole bunch of candy from the 1950′s. I’m gonna take a break from counting calories and instead I’m gonna enjoy some tastes from the 50′s.

Remember the lollipops that didn’t come with a stick? Instead they had a loop of something or other so you could fit your fingers through it. I got ‘em.

How about the coconut watermelon slices? Uh-huh!

Do you remember those wonderful wax bottles? I loved them. But no, I held myself back and didn’t order those.

Here’s what else I got:

Marshmallow Ice Cream Cones, Candy Lipsticks (they tasted sooooo gooood), Chocolate Gold Coins, Anise Bears, Turkish Taffy, Atomic Fire Balls.

I should’ve bought some Candy Buttons. Maybe next time.

Now all I have to do is wait for my package to arrive. You’re jealous, aren’t you?

Here’s the skinny on this sticky situation. Eat the darn thing. It’s a 100 calorie snack. It will give you a boost of energy and your sweet tooth won’t feel denied.

If you’re more the Hershey kiss type, feel free to enjoy four of them–another 100 calorie treat.

Dieting doesn’t have to be all bad news.

Today I decided to make this soup. It turned out to be a good, delicious decision.

5 cups water
2 (14 oz) packages frozen, chopped broccoli
OR fresh broccoli, if you have it.
3 cups diced potatoes
¾ cup chopped onion
3 chicken bouillon cubes
2 cans cream of celery soup
6 oz sharp cheddar cheese, cubed
6 oz Colby jack cheese, cubed

Cook the first 5 ingredients for 20 minutes (1/2 hour if using fresh broccoli).

Reduce heat and add soup and cheeses.  Simmer until cheese is melted.

Stir often so cheese does not stick.

Of course I’m talking about the days before Cherry Garcia. It seems while I wasn’t paying attention, the quality of all the Breyers ice creams were being cheaped-down, while Ben &  Jerry were using top quality ingredients in their ice creams. This has become my dilemma.

Do I eat less ice cream, because Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is a whole lot more expensive? Or do I accept the fact that Breyers ice creams have become mediocre, but are still pretty good in comparison to other cheaper brands?

This certainly isn’t the most pressing dilemma in the world, but it’s one I at least have control over. What do you think?

Spread peanut butter on 2 lightly salted rice cakes. Slice a banana and lay the slices on top of the peanut butter.  Quick! Easy! Nutritious! Superb!

Remember to eat slow and chew well. It takes 20 minutes for your stomach to send a message to your brain that says, “Good! My stomach is full. You can stop eating now.”

And as far as that message that announces your stomach is full? Try listening to it when you’re half-way through a meal–any meal. You sometimes find that you don’t really want to clean your plate. Save what you don’t eat for a snack later in the day (when the message you’re receiving says, “I’m hungry. I need food and I need it now!”)

I thought I’d be well over my need for sweets after trying to watch my diet for a few weeks. But the truth is, even if you stop eating cake and pie and cookies, etc., there’s so much sugar and sucrose and every other kind of sweetener in most of the other foods we eat that it’s impossible to stay away from sugar.

I used to be able to cut out sweets pretty easily. After a week or so, the craving disappears. No more. Sugar has invaded most everything we eat nowadays. This is my new solution.

After I eat dinner, I allow myself to eat a piece of hard candy. Sometimes I sit back and have a coffee flavored one. That’s almost as good as having a cup of coffee and a piece of cake.

Othertimes, I pop in a root beer barrel or some other taste treat I like. So far, it’s working.

Buy a large bag of potato chips. Buy a box of ziploc bags (sandwich size).

Empty the entire bag of chips onto your clean kitchen counter. Now read the potato chip bag. How many servings does the bag hold? My bag had 10 servings and each serving equaled 130 calories.

I wanted to keep my snacking to 100 calories. So, I separated the chips into 12 servings instead of 10 and put each serving into a ziploc bag. You’ll be surprised how many chips are in a 100 calorie serving–certainly enough to fill the salty  pangs of hunger.

Carefully place the small bags of chips back into the large bag. You’re good to go.

Try it.

The trick is to eat something that will fill up the void and the time. One way to accomplish this is to eat something frozen. That way you’re forced to eat it slow or suffer a brain freeze.

This is my favorite–1/2 cup of frozen blueberries with a big dollop of ReddiWip whipped cream. It takes a while to eat the berries because they’re little, bitty pieces of sweet ice.

I’ll tell you my secret. I eat them right out of my measuring cup. And this tasty snack topped with whipped cream equals 55 calories.

If you’re still hungry after that, pop one of those 100 calorie mini bags of popcorn. That ought to do it. Nighty night.