Absolutely Everyone Needs a Plan. John Schlife,
and soda. Why? See if the following reasons that I frequently hear are ones that you also use.
Examples
1 ‘‘We were going to have grilled salmon, but I forgot to get it out of the freezer, so I just called my wife and asked her to pick up some tacos on the way home.”
2 “The kids wanted spaghetti, but when I started to fix dinner, I realized that I had forgotten to pick up the noodles when I went to the grocery store, so I just called my husband at work and told him to pick up a pizza on the way home.”
3 “You should see our schedule at night. We’ve got a dozen places to be at the same time. In between piano lessons, hockey practice, and swim practice. I barely have enough time to swing into the drive-through for a quick bag of burgers and fries that when we get home I can quickly feed the kids before they start on homework.”
Sound Familiar?
Does this sound familiar? I do not need to identify this behavior for patients. They can read what they have written in their food diary, but they think that there is nothing they can do.
The Plan
Thirty-eight percent of Americans give their first thought to what they are going to have for dinner while standing in front of an open refrigerator. But there are people who do now have nutritious dinner meals. These people have thought about it. They have a plan. It is really not that hard. Use the following steps:
The plan is for the dinner meal only. (You’ve got breakfast and lunch down.)
Use a written plan.
Plan all 7 days of the week. If you always eat out on Friday night, write down where you are going to eat and what you plan on ordering.
Get input from everyone in the living unit.
Be specific. It is not vegetables, ditto, ditto for 6 more days. It is “steamed broccoli,” or it is “corn on the cob.” It is “frozen peas in the microwave.”
Use 2 mandatory items: vegetables and something from the potato, rice, pasta category.
Optional items—meat and desserts. Even if you only have dessert once a week, write it down.
Grocery shopping. Make your grocery list from your plan. (A little sidenote here—people who start this type of planning see a big reduction in their food bill, as they now buy only those items that they have on their list and that they plan on fixing.)
Post-It. Post your plan on the refrigerator door. If the plan says tonight is grilled salmon, you will be reminded to set it out in the morning so that it is ready to be grilled when you get home. Remember the spaghetti that didn’t get fixed? You can have that spaghetti because you planned for it, wrote it down, and then bought the noodles. That hectic day where you wanted to have a warm, healthy, and great smelling meal waiting for you to serve quickly before starting the kids on homework? For this day, your meal plan should say, “Soup in the Crock-Pot.” This takes 5 minutes in the morning before leaving for work. Add some whole-grain bread to your hot soup, and you have a great dinner.
Final Advice
Try this type of written plan for 4 straight weeks. See how you like it. It is guaranteed to “set you free.” Written plans are big stress reducers. The entire expenditure of mental energy is the 5 minutes it takes each week to write down the plan. You now have time for important global thoughts. Dinner becomes healthy, and you are in control of it.
JULY 2020
If exercise is as important as eating and sleeping, then it must be done daily, just like eating and sleeping. How many people eat and sleep three times a week?
—The Author
Hearty Black-Eyed Chili
Recipe:
Place the following in a Crock-Pot and cook on LOW all day:
1 lb. dry black-eyed peas soaked overnight
1/4 c. couscous (makes this chili hearty and thick)
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 16-oz. can no-salt stewed tomatoes
1 12-oz. can no-salt tomato paste
1 small can chopped green chili, rinsed to remove salt water, enough to fill Crock-Pot 2 inches from the top
Spices
2 T. garlic powder
3 T. ground cumin
2 T. red pepper flakes
4 T. dried basil
JULY 2020
Posole for Bob: Happy Birthday
Whenever I go to a covered-dish meal, I try to develop a brand-new dish specifically for that occasion. Birthday parties are my favorites. My good friend, Bob Murati, and I have roots in New Mexico and have a mutual love of chilies. We love chilies fixed any way, although I cannot always make a dish as hot as Bob prefers. Because he and I will not be the only ones eating it, I did prepare this for Bob’s 50th birthday. I was also born in 1946; thus it looks like October will be the time for me to make a really hot recipe to share with Bob and other New Mexico-connected friends.
Recipe:
In the morning, place the following ingredients into a Crock-Pot on LOW all day:
4 cups posole (if unable to find posole, use hominy)
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
1 16-oz. can no-salt stewed tomatoes
1 6-oz. can no-salt tomato paste
4 small cans no-salt V-8 vegetable juice
2 cans whole, mild green chilies, rinsed to remove salt, chopped into half-inch pieces
water, enough to fill Crock-Pot 2 inches from the top
Spices.
4 T. ground cumin
1 t. chili powder
2 T. garlic powder
1 t. red pepper
1/2 t. black pepper
July 2020
Controlling Amounts: Rig the Game
Do you purchase 6 boxes of Thin Mints each year when the annual Girl Scout cookie sale is in your neighborhood, and then put them in your freezer with a commitment to make them last 6 months or at least 6 weeks? Do you then suffer from freezer burn as you stand in front of the open freezer door and consume the entire 6 boxes in 6 days or even 6 hours? How about going to an allyou-can-eat buffet with a commitment to eat light? How about putting extra food on your plate with the hopes of leaving some food on your plate because you have heard someone say that people who avoid overeating know how to avoid feeling compelled to clean their plate? Are you still overeating? Are you still eating food to make sure your plate is clean? Do you eat something simply because it is already on your plate or because you have already paid for it? Do you eat something because it is free (salty nuts and pretzels on the airplane)?
Healthy Foods
There is a tendency for the cynics and the critics to take a look at all the processed foods that are healthy and blame them for our increasing rates of obesity and diseases that are caused either partially or entirely by being overfat: heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, many cancers, etc. There are literally dozens of new nonfat, low-fat, lower-in-fat, no-calorie, or sugar-free foods entering the market every year. These healthy foods are being wrongly blamed for many of the health problems of Americans. For example, a fat-free cookie is considerably less damaging than the same cookie with fat. But the typical cookie can still have a large amount of both fat and sugar and is not a no-calorie or even lowcalorie