eatclean – Fat Girls Fitness

Dress Appropriately

A lot of salad dressings are terrible for you. They are made of processed horribleness that totally kill your whole “I’m healthy because I’m eating a salad” vibe. Dressings, particularly the ones that claim to be “fat free” or “sugar free,” are diet dream crushers, dressed from head to toe in a web of lies.

Like most things, if you can’t explain where it came from or how it was made, then you should probably avoid it. Modified ingredients that cause certain food items such as dressing to be “low fat” “low carb” or “no sugar added” make up for these losses with other items, not natural to your body. Your body reacts to these foreign ingredients in a number of ways, typically with effects the opposite of weight loss. When your body is distressed or confused, it typically likes to play it safe, and hoards sugars and fats, which are useful for survival. But when we are trying to lose weight, we want our bodies to be preppin’ for thriving, not surviving.

I get it though: plain salad can be kind of lame. But its easy to make a basic dressing and get creative with other flavors without having to worry about ingesting the scum of the universe atop your mixed greens.

Make your own dressing!

Mix:
1/4 C Olive Oil
1/4 C Agave
Juice of 1 lemon or lime
Mix with any dried spices (+salt and pepper) or add avocado, juice from berries, etc. to mix it up! You can also look into some Greek yogurt based dressings! Also delicious and with great health benefits!

So easy! Oh yeah!

Let me know what healthy dressing recipes you come up with to stay away from bottled dressings!

Later,

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The Great American Cobbler

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One of the greatest things about being an American is freedom. Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. The freedom to make a delicious berry cobbler using only my roommate’s ingredients.

Great American Cobbler facts:

Tastes healthier than most (although I’m not sure if that’s a good thing).
Very simple to make. #basic
Yummy for breakfast.
Relatively inexpensive, provided that you use only your roommate’s ingredients.

Warning: I don’t generally recommend cobbler of any kind if you are trying to lose weight. But if you’re looking for a decent dessert choice, this one is OK. You can vastly increase the fruit to cobbler ratio for an even better choice.

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Flour; 3/4 cup
Milk; 1/2 cup
White or Brown Sugar; 1/4 cup
Baking Powder; 1 teaspoon
Salt; 1/4 teaspoon
Honey; amount uncertain
Vanilla extract; just a drop
Frozen or Fresh berries; 2 cups or more
Non-stick Spray
Optional: Stevia; to taste
Optional: 1 tsp butter (to coat pan)

Steps:

Pre-heat oven to 350
Mix the following in a bowl
- Whole Wheat Flour; 3/4 cup
- Milk; 1/2 cup
- White or Brown Sugar; 1/4 cup
- Baking Powder; 1 teaspoon
- Salt; 1/4 teaspoon
- Honey; amount uncertain
- Vanilla extract; just a drop
- Optional: Stevia, to taste
Coat 9 inch pan
- I use nonstick coconut oil spray. You can also melt 1 tsp butter in the pan, this improves the taste.
Pour batter into pan
Sprinkle frozen or fresh berries on top, don’t mix in
Sprinkle just a touch of sugar on top of berries
Bake 50 min – 1 hour.
Eat the fucking cobbler.

FAQ’s

Q: What if I don’t have a roommate?
- A: Unfortunately, you may need to purchase your own ingredients.

Q: How much honey should I use?
- A: I’m not sure. I just squeeze a bunch in.

Happy nomming!

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“One Step” Slow Cooker Chicken

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Ok, so really it’s TWO steps. Three if you count buying the chicken, and four if you count turning the knob on your slow cooker. Reasons why this recipe is awesome:

Simplicity/Affordability
- Ridiculously simple;
- Only takes TWO ingredients;
- Perfect for people who can’t afford salt.
Deliciousness. Juiciness factor = high; A++
Appeal to Sadism. You get to bathe a chicken breast in its own broth. And then you get to eat it.

BUT! Take heed: This dish is NOT pretty. In fact, it looks gross. Save something else for date night.

You’ll need:

A Slow Cooker
Chicken Breast (as a typical white person, I prefer Organic)
Chicken Broth (as a typical white person, I prefer Swanson)

Procedure:

1. Apply raw chicken breast to slow cooker. To avoid contracting Salmonella, ask an elderly neighbor to handle the chicken for you.

2. Apply broth to chicken. One cup broth per chicken breast = good, but you can probably get away with a little less.

3. Turn knob. Try not to hurt your wrist.

For juicy results: 7 to 8 hours on LOW is ideal.
- 3.5 to 4 hours on HIGH works too.
Time Adjustments: Cook time assumes you’re cooking three lightly frozen chicken breasts in three cups of broth. Adjust up or down based on:
- how many breasts you’re handling; AND
- the frostiness of said breasts

Dinner is Served!

This chicken is PERFECT for shredding (imagine – salads/tacos) but also quite yummy whole. There’s no need to season or salt it, but if that is your most urgent desire, I’m not going to jump through your computer screen and stop you.

If you’re interested in experiencing heaven on earth, try it with a side of aromatic jasmine rice and greek yogurt. It’s yummy, healthy, and (presumably) John Stamos approved.

So good for you.

Added bonus – your kitchen will smell awesome for hours.

Happy Slow Cooking 🙂

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The Only Bread I Eat

Ok, not true. To be perfectly honest, I eat many breads.

But I do have a favorite: Trader Joe’s 100% Rye Bread. Here is a photo of my lovely:

On Taste

I can’t say that TJ’s 100% Rye is my absolute favorite by taste.

..Which isn’t to say it tastes anything other than wonderful. It’s just that bread is a tough category to compete in.

Bread is so damn good. I just want to eat all the bread in the world and then regurgitate it back up and then eat it all again. I want to spend 95% of my life eating bread, and the remaining 5% writing about eating bread. I want to marry a Channing Tatum shaped loaf of bread, and then I want to cheat on it with a hot steamy loaf of that impossibly delicious Honey Wheat Bushman from Outback Steakhouse.

You know what I’m talking about…

Why TJ’s Rye is the Overall Winner

Clearly, I have bread issues. In general, if I start, I can’t stop. I also cannot keep ANY simple carbohydrates in the apartment, because I will eat all of them.

Yet – somehow, I find TJ’s 100% Rye to be PERFECT for my needs.

It gives me the carbohydrates I need to not die of sadness; AND YET…
I can stop eating it when I want to.

…I think that’s because unlike many commercial breads, it’s not designed specifically to addict you. Evidence?

…the short ingredients list.

Unlike most commercial breads, TJ’s Rye contains zero percent crack.

So even though TJ’s Rye isn’t #1 in taste, it’s number 1 in my heart. More reasons:

The taste IS very good (but see pro-tips below)
It’s PERFECT for avocado toast (See recipe: “Avocado Toast on Fleek“)
High Satiety Factor
- 100 calories
- 3 grams fiber
- 3 grams protein
It has NO artificial colors or preservatives
It keeps well in the freezer

Pro-tips:

This bread tastes a bit weird unless toasted. I toast it on a pan, either:
- uncoated; or
- lightly coated with non-stick Coconut Oil spray
This bread can be EXTREMELY crumbly, especially when not toasted.
In general, I’ve found that breads from Trader Joe’s have fewer (or different) preservatives than your standards breads. Meaning, they will go bad more quickly than most.
- Keep it in the fridge or freezer
- Note: I haven’t had this specific problem with this specific bread, so maybe it’s fine. I have had other breads from TJ’s go bad VERY quickly.

If you have bread issues like I do, then give it a try. It might be a decent bread that you can eat regularly without gorging yourself.

If you don’t have a Trader Joe‘s near you, but you have another bread you recommend for these same reasons – share the wealth!

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Feeding Herman Canine

Just as I’m suspicious of processed foods for humans, I am (almost) equally concerned about what I feed my doggie.

This isn’t to say I’m a complete crazy person. Yet.
But I am crazy enough that I regularly cook for my dog. #yikes

Here are my three concerns:

Nutrition. What nutrition does the dog food contain?
- Some commercial dog food is messed up. And by messed up, I mean messed up beyond belief.
Health Concerns. My dog is tiny, and tiny dogs are prone to three issues specifically:
- weight gain;
- knee problems;
- anal gland problems
Supporting Animal Cruelty. If you think about the cruelty that goes into making human food, I can only IMAGINE the cruelty that goes into making dog food. I want to vote with my wallet. To whatever extent reasonably possible, I’d like to avoid supporting cruel practices.

A Resource!

DogFoodAdvisor.com is an excellent resource. They use a 1-5 star rating system to help you find the ideal food for your dog.

Whether your dog eats Wet Food, Dry Food, or Raw Food – you can easily find the top rated products. You can also use the search feature to look for more details on a specific food.

It’s very simple. Each category of food is broken down according to the site’s rating:

What I LOVE about this site is the level of specificity that they apply to each analysis.

Their database is EXHAUSTIVE
They examine each and every ingredient of a given product
But they also offer a bottom line w/ regards to each product so that you don’t get bogged down in the details
They offer levels of confidence with regards to statements they make about the safety and/or nutrition of any particular ingredient
They even show a recall history for the brand you’re looking at

One of the foods I regularly feed Herman is Primal Freeze-Dried Raw Food. Here is just a small part of their analysis on this product:

More to Learn

Just as there is more to learn about human nutrition, there is also more to learn about the perfect doggy diet.

That said, we probably know what a perfect doggy diet ISN’T. It’s not a diet full of processed junk and filler.

Some dog foods can be prohibitively expensive, so we can only do the best we can. But this is great resource to figure out where to get started.

How does your dog food stack up?

*EDIT* If anyone knows of a similar resource for cats (or other pets), please share the wealth. I’ve just found BestCatFoodAdvisor.net, but I don’t have any personal experience with it.

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Help! I Just Drank Casper’s Friendly Urine

Welcome to beautiful West New York, New Jersey. This is what my drinking water looks like:

Even outside of Flint, Michigan – it is apparent that are countless fuck-ups when it comes to drinking water.

I’m beginning to wonder – hey water authorities, you know it’s suppose to be clear, right?

Here are things I won’t do with my town-supplied water:
1. drink it
2. cook with it
3. give it to my dog

Here are things I do do with it:
1. bathe (but only when I really start to smell)
2. brush my teeth (but only when they really start to smell)

What’s G00d.

Your drinking water (and bathing water) may be harmful to you, and more likely – to your micro-biome. This is true even if it’s perfectly clear!

In the worst case scenario, your drinking water can poison you and slowly make you crazy.

But most likely you were already crazy to begin with.

We still don’t understand much about the effects of certain chemicals in our drinking water on our health. There are just too many chemicals to even begin testing! Why do companies want to poison us so much??

What’s worse – most of us aren’t even aware of what’s in our drinking water. And that’s partially because it varies so much based on so many factors. And partially because who gives a fuck.

Obligatory Gratitude

At this point I should note the following: I’m really thankful that our drinking water is treated. I realize that a sad micro-biome is less serious than let’s say oh…. typhoid.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek to limit those aspects of water treatment that might cause us intestinal distress, or worse – the feeling of drinking the urine of a friendly ghost

Filters exist! And should probably be used in many areas. Filters even exist for your shower head. So now, you can shower EVEN WITHOUT your tin foil hat.

A Resource!

I want to learn what’s in my water. But I can’t because for some reason my town isn’t in this otherwise AWESOME database.

It’s the Environmental Working Group’s National Tap Water Database. All you need to learn more about your water is your zip code and the name of your water utility.

Since my town wasn’t in the database, I captured the info for my hometown where I grew up. While I don’t understand any of it, I’m going to assume based on the little red circles that I should expect a second head or extra big toe to pop up at any moment.

How am I not a mutant?

BTW, I checked a few towns on top of this. And even though my search was brief, I uncovered MANY towns whose water supply looks much worse than this. Sooooo many more red circles…

As I mentioned, I don’t know what’s in my town’s drinking water. But I’m not going to assume it’s anything good. Because:
1. It’s gray; and
2. when I use it for my humidifier, my ENTIRE APARTMENT smells like chlorine.

..so that scares me.

In Sum

You might not give too much thought to your drinking water. But it probably wouldn’t hurt to have throw a filter on your tap.

I don’t filter my water, just because our sink is weird. I buy jugs of water from 7/11 because I’m a class act. Eventually I’ll buy a Brita jug.

If you’re a total nutbag, you can even filter your shower water. Who knows – you might be right. Your shower water might be killing you.

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On Fasting

“In poor countries, people die of starvation. In rich countries, people die of over-eating.” – Fauja Singh, world’s oldest marathon runner (aged 101).

Single black olive and parsley — Congratulations, this is what you get to eat today.

Fasting is not yet fully accepted.

Despite mounting evidence of the health benefits, there are still doctors who tell you to “never skip a meal, least of all breakfast!”

I, on the other hand, believe we were designed to starve occasionally, and even perhaps regularly. I also think breakfast is bullshit.

But anyway. I fast in hopes of longevity. We don’t have enough time in this world, and I want to live forever so I can do all of the awesome things.

Does it work? It seems that way. Right now, periodic fasting and caloric restriction are some of the only practices showing real promise in extending our lifespans and improving most markers of health.

I also don’t think fasting hurts. At least not most people. As a filthy atheist, fasting is the closest I get to a spiritual practice.

Here’s what I do

Weekly: I usually do a full water fast one day/week, but I don’t keep it regular, and I don’t track it. Some weeks I just do two VERY low cal days each week (as in 5:2 plan). Weekly fasting is VERY easy to do, I don’t even think about it I just do it subconsciously.

Monthly: Each month, I make sure I fast 2 full days, water only. Usually on the 1st or 15th of each month).

Seasonally: 4X a year I turn my 2 day fast into 3 days!

Keep in mind

Fasting isn’t for everyone, but it’s probably great for most.

If you never skip a meal, just start by doing that every once in a while. Unless you have an actual medical issue, skipping meals is good for you. You also shouldn’t fast if you’re underweight.

Contrary to popular belief, fasting does NOT increase your appetite in a manner that will lead you to gain weight. In fact, regular fasting will most likely decrease your appetite. As far as compensatory eating? It happens for some, but generally not to the extent of the caloric loss you experience while fasting.

Of course, this may not apply to disordered eaters. And fasting may not be right for you. Even so, I think IF could be great for binge eaters and yo-yo dieters.

A 5:2 plan is VERY easy to do and may alter your appetite completely. For more info, check out the book “The Fast Diet” by Michael Mosley

You can also check out this awesome documentary, also featuring Dr. Mosley.

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How to Find Good Food

Yesterday I wrote a post about decent fast food options. I know I know, I totally suck at Fitness.

If you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me, I’ll do my best to restore some balance to the universe with this post.

How? By sharing a really awesome website I came across yesterday. It’s called EatWellGuide.org.

EatWellGuide.org landing page

The premise: EatWellGuide.org helps you locate local healthy options. All you do is put in your Zip Code, town, or City.

Why I like It:

I’ve been struggling to find a local Farmer’s Market. Even though I live just outside the city, I live just outside the city. So it’s a schlep to buy food there and bring it over on pubic transport.
It’s easier to use than Google Maps because the search is narrower.

Potential Downfall:

It seems like it may be focused on certain geographical areas, but I’m not 100% sure.
Try it out and see if it works for you!

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Coconut Oil Coffee

Holy crap. My Cousin Diana is on fire.

Yesterday, I posted a recipe she texted me a little while back – Spaghetti Squash a la Cousin Diana.

Admittedly, I haven’t tried it yet. But it looks out of control.

Today, she’s back at it. And this time, she’s all about COCONUT OIL COFFEE.

What???

How to:

Black coffee
Sweeten to taste (she likes two splenda)
1 – 2 teaspoons coconut oil
Blend for a few seconds to allow oil to emulsify

RESULT: Healthy coconut coffee goodness.

This is life changing.

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Spaghetti Squash a la Cousin Diana

This recipe arriveth at Fat Girls Fitness via text message from my cousin Diana.

Cousin Diana is a medical doctor!! So you punks better listen up & show her recipe some respect.

Spaghetti Squash? Or an actual photo of your mammary glands?

You’ll need:

one spaghetti squash
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tomato (diced)
minced garlic
shaved parmesan
Optional: 1 or 2 slices provolone cheese

Instructions:

Find a spaghetti squash. Where? Beats me. My local shithole doesn’t seem to have any.
Once you find that thing, cut in half, length wise. Also, give me a call and tell me where you found it.
Set oven to 450F
Scoop out seeds
Add the following (per side):
- one tbsp olive oil
- minced garlic
- 1/2 diced tomato
- shaved parmesan
Bake for 60 minutes
Remove from oven, use two forks to shave squash into spaghetti like strands
Optional: cover w/ one slice of provolone cheese & place back into oven for 10 min.

This is what it looks like covered in sweet sweet provolone 🙂

Full disclosure: I haven’t personally tried this recipe just yet.

It’s not that I don’t love my Cousin Diana (really I do!). It’s just that I’ve had zero success in finding a spaghetti squash ANYWHERE in this godforsaken town.

In any event, it looks good. Like Leonardo DiCaprio good. And I’m told it’s tasty. Like Beyonce tasty.

So I will try it soon.

..And if it sucks, well I’m sorry. Maybe you shouldn’t believe every recipe you read on the internet.

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