Acupuncture and Weight Loss - A Personal Experience.

It's been almost 5 months since I started this blog to encourage myself (and others) to make sounder food choices, try healthier recipes and overall improve our health.

I hadn't a lot of weight to lose, but after losing almost 45 pounds two years years ago, I was noticing the weight creep back on and wanted to "nip it in the bud  as Barney Fife would say, when I noticed I'd put back on 15 pounds.

I've stopped the weight gain in its tracks with just some small changes, and it's slowly dropping back where I should be at my original weight within three months.  I'll continue to post as eating healthy and being fit is a life long journey.

Today's post is something I'd never had tried if not for the recommendation of a colleague who is incredibly fit and trim post menopause.

Acupuncture.

Yes, Acupuncture.

I HATE needles though I donate blood regularly, being one of those "O" types the blood banks like to see.  Still - I hate it and despite reading on all the health related benefits of this ancient Chinese medical practice, I refused to try it.

But I was told by someone I know well and trust that it does NOT hurt in the slightest and the effects are amazing, both on stress, overall health AND weight loss as it greatly aids in the reduction of stress hormones - beneficial for stress, aging and weight loss!  She said it also helped her with her sudden menopause symptoms when she turned 45. So I was willing to give it a try and am SO glad I did.

Acupuncture improves the body’s functions and promotes the natural self-healing process by stimulating specific anatomic sites--commonly referred to as acupuncture points, or acupoints. The most common method used to stimulate acupoints is the insertion of fine, sterile needles into the skin. Pressure, heat, or electrical stimulation may further enhance the effects.

Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on an ancient philosophy that describes the universe, and the body, in terms of two opposing forces: yin and yang. When these forces are in balance, the body is healthy. Energy, called "qi" (pronounced "chee") flows along specific pathways, called meridians, throughout the body. This constant flow of energy keeps the yin and yang forces balanced. However, if the flow of energy gets blocked, like water getting stuck behind a dam, the disruption can lead to pain, lack of function, or illness. Acupuncture therapy can release blocked qi in the body and stimulate function, evoking the body’s natural healing response through various physiological systems. Modern research has demonstrated acupuncture’s effects on the nervous system, endocrine and immune systems, cardiovascular system, and digestive system. By stimulating the body’s various systems, acupuncture can help to resolve pain, and improve sleep, digestive function, and sense of well-being.

I started treatment before the holidays - going in once a week to a local practitioner who has been part of our Village's business community of good standing for over 12 years, with a Masters of Science in the subject. Acupuncturists go through rigorous schooling similar to a medical doctor before qualifying to sit for the Board Exam.  Sterile needles are used only once and then dispose ofd in a bio hazard container.

After an extremely detailed analysis of my health history and concerns what followed was 30 minutes of relaxing on a warm table after the "needles" had been inserted in specific points based on my overall health goals. I walked out of there as relaxed as if I'd had an hour long full body massage.  But unlike massage, a general feeling of well being and calm lasted for several days, a reduction in stress that was noticeable after just my first treatment.

Why try acupuncture?

It does NOT hurt as you are not being poked with a hypodermic needle but an  acupuncture needle that is fine like a hair, with no hole in the middle.  You feel a gentle prick against the skin in some locations, that's not at ALL painful (and  other locations you don't even feel it.) When acupuncture needles are inserted, it causes the nervous system to calm down and the body to release endorphins. Endorphins have been shown to reduce pain, stress, and feelings of frustration and irritability, regulate the production of growth and sex hormones, and control cravings for chocolate and other substances.  They say that when endorphins are released, the feelings can be described as: peaceful, blissful, euphoric, optimistic, and joyful.  I have to agree,

It's enjoyable.  It's like a spa treatment (but one with medical benefits that my insurance does cover). The treatment rooms are typically private and warm, with beautiful art on the walls and soothing music.

Reduction in cravings.  I LOVE carbs and sugar and they are my downfall when trying to lose or maintain weight.  I noticed by week two, that my sugar cravings were less, wherein with afternoon "teatime" I used to eat a handful of biscuits (cookies), now I was happy with just one, and didn't feel the need for a big glass of sweet wine with dinner - happy with a half a glass of dry red wine, and not every evening.

THAT alone resulted in a one pound weight loss in two weeks without doing anything else AND eating big mashed potato filled meals during  Christmas that normally causes me to gain 2-3 pounds during the two weeks around Christmas.

Reduction in Stress: Stress? Let's see, two moves, new marriage, promotion at work in a very male dominated profession, two wonderful but rambunctious grand-kids under the age of 6, care for an elderly widowed parent, two Amazon #1 best sellers and all the book tours and signings that go with that, AND a mostly meniscus free knee that hurts all the time, and a 100 year old house we're restoring ourselves.  All in 2 years.  And dog hair - don't forget dog hair. Yup - I'm stressed and we all know that's "desserts" spelled backwards. My practitioner said it may sometimes take a few visits to get a noticeable reduction in stress for the occasional person, but I had that with just one treatment and felt better than I had in years and slept like a baby that first night.

Menopause?:  I had the hot flashes pretty well under control with my Smokey Mountain Natural bio-identical hormone creams but the acupuncture really made a difference in my irritability from lack of sleep due to menopause-related insomnia sometimes. 

Many insurance plans do cover it and. you may wonder, as I did, WHY I didn't do this 20 years ago?

Healthy Home Fries

Most people will agree that "home fries" (big chunky hashed browns) are wonderful with breakfast, but the traditional recipe is also high in fat and starch.

Lighten up your "taters".

Start with using peeled red potatoes or Yukon gold.  They have less starch and cook up better. (the reds the lowest starch of the two). The russets you may have on hand for baked potatoes or holiday mashed potatoes are VERY high in starch, so make a better pick of potato.

Then get a cast iron pan.

Yes, cast iron, like your Mom or grandma used.  We use cast iron for everything except tomato sauces that simmer a long time.  It gets a perfect stabilized heat for browning up the potatoes without using a bunch of oil.

Simply chop 3 smaller potatoes, and cook in a Tablespoon of olive oil on high heat.  Because a thick cast iron was used, this cooked the potatoes up quickly without scorching with less oil and less time. Great as a side dish for a casserole or breakfast hotdish.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like

I better stay away from the scale until next week.

Chocolate Peppermint Pie.  SO worth it.

Chocolate peppermint cream pie:

1 Graham Cracker Crust - cooled

Filling:
1 package dark chocolate pudding prepared as directed

Topping:
3 1/2 cups chilled whipping cream
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 3/4 teaspoons peppermint extract
1 teaspoon pink sugar
1 cup whipped cream (for garnish)
chopped Andes peppermint candies and pink sugar

Prepare pudding and cool. Fill pie crust until chocolate layer is about an inch deep. Put any remaining pudding in bowl for a snack later.

Whip whipping cream, powdered sugar, the pink sugar and peppermint extract until stiff peaks form.
If you like, whip remaining whipped cream and pipe onto edge of pie. Sprinkle with 3 or 4 chipped Andes candies and additional pink sugar. Chill and serve.

A Calorie -Free Smile for Your Monday

Muffin Top

What's this on the stovetop?  Why yes, it's a beer.  Today is Hump day which means I have to have a Hamms. They book begin with "H' so it's a sign.  

But the other item is a box of VitaTops from Vitalicious.  www.vitalicious.com

These little snacks are like individual "muffin tops" (but much bigger) and are a delicious  and healthy snack.  I've bought them in the past and loved them as a snack or for breakfast with a piece of fruit, but had been on a smoothie habit, which crashed and burned as soon as baked goods showed up at work for the holidays (and the occasional beer  had nothing to do with it :-)

I keep them in the freezer, pop a couple in my lunch bag when I wake up and they're thawed by the time I get into the office and get settled with a cup of coffee.

My favorite, the double chocolate has 100 calories, NINE grams of fiber, 1.5 grams of fat and vitamins and minerals.  It tastes like a bakery treat.  Heated, with a little scoop of low fat ice cream or just by itself -  YUMMMM!

There's lots of other flavors as well, including chocolate peanut butter, banana nut, cornbread, cranberry, brownie, etc.,all lot fat, and high fiber.  They also have a couple that are sugar free and Kosher.

I bought these as although I'm within 14 pounds of my goal weight, I've totally stalled.  I'm eating modest portion of healthier meals but with all the cakes, rolls, cookies and such that are around the office at holiday time, I was cheating too much (a protein shake doesn't look all that great when there's a piece of freshly baked chocolate cake on the office kitchen counter).

So, through the end of February I'm going to have a Vitalicious VitaTop Egg Sandwich (they make some great low cal, high fiber breakfast sandwiches including a vegetarian one), or Energy Loaf for Breakfast and a Vitatop for an afternoon snack.  We'll see if I can get over this weight loss speed bump and lose those last 14 pounds without depriving myself of some carbs for breakfast and an afternoon treat.

Note:  I've eaten the products before  but the little grocers in my village didn't carry them.  (most larger retailers and Target carries them, but I hate to make an extra drive to go to a different grocers, though I used to when I lived in Indiana to get the little vegetarian Vita Pizzas which are an awesome lunch).


So finding them online and also finding that with a purchase of a month's worth for breakfast and snack I got a dozen Vita Tops FREE,  Customer service is excellent too. When the banana nut order was  slightly delayed due to its popularity they let me know right away with a personal email and provided a UPS tracking number for it.

Yes - You can Have Pancakes

My usual Saturday mornings used to be a big stack of  regular sized buttermilk pancakes with bacon or sausage.

But how to have a pancake with a little less in the way of fat and calories? Well first, I ditch the fried meat and replaced with an orange.

As for the pancakes - 

First - make silver dollar sized ones, like the ones pictured on this salad plate that I cooked up for family.  You will have the impressions of eating more, with less. Have a little stack, give the rest to your husband or freeze.

Second - replace the buttermilk with non fat or low fat  Kefir and replace the sugar with powdered sugar.  The calorie saving is only a small bit, but if you make small changes to your recipes even 20 or 30 calories over time it ALL adds up.

Mix in one bowl

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tablespoons powdered sugar

Mix in another bowl.

1 cup Kefir at room temperature
1 egg at room temperature*
a small splash of Vanilla
2 Tablespoons melted butter or coconut oil

*Note - for a vegetarian version replace egg with one of the following
1/4 cup applesauce
1/2 of a mashed ripe banana
1/4 cup pureed tofu
EnerG Egg Replacer.

Combine wet and dry ingredients stirring JUST enough to mix and no more.  Cook on lightly oiled griddle. These are very moist so you're not going to need a lot of butter and syrup to enjoy them.

And if a couple extra get eaten. .

A Scandanavian Christmas

Today - we're putting healthy eating aside to start making those treats which we will share with friends and family this Christmas.  A smoothie for lunch and a light dinner may offset a few of the calories, but this is a day of not just baking, but of tradition, and the sharing of love.

I'm mostly Scot (not Irish as originally thought, which I only found out this year with the unsealing of my original birth certificate). But I was adopted and raised  by a Swedish/Norwegian Mom (and after her death, a Norwegian StepMom).  Therefore, I strongly relate to Luther League, lutefisk (as a science experiment), the art of Norwegian seduction (yah, you have some nice snow tires, you betcha) and I have been trained in the art of making food that can be classified by the FDA as a sedative.

Like lefse, unleavened flatbread make out of mashed potatoes, cream and flour and cooked on a griddle. I eat mine a common way, adding butter to the lefse and rolling it up (lefse-klenning in the mother tongue). Other options include adding cinnamon, or spreading jelly or lingonberries upon it. We'd also eat it for lunch with thin sliced Danish ham and cheeses throughout the holiday season.


But most of Mom's Scandinavian Christmas dishes were of the cookie/dessert variety, mostly made in the weekends prior to Christmas. One of those is Krumkaka which consists of a light sweet batter which is poured onto a hot mold and then quickly cooked and rolled into a cone shape while it is still warm. It's often served filled with real whipped cream, or just munched plain, while crisp, buttery and warm. (Note: photo was cropped to remove evidence of crime scene tape).

click to enlarge photo

Then there are the Rosettes. Also a batter in which a hot iron mold attached to a handle is dipped and the results deep fried and dusted with sugar. The cookie is light and delicate, almost like puff pastry, if done right. It looks easy. It is not. I've had many slip off the iron into the hot oil because the batter is too thin or the wrong temperature, only to resemble floating, fried .40 casings, and others that looked OK maybe, but would have ripped the dentures out of great grandma with their shriveled chewiness.

click to enlarge photo

But sometimes you get it right. Light, crunchy, fried perfection with just a hint of Cardamom.

Then there was fattigman, known as the "poor man's cookie", though our version was dressed up with a tablespoon of brandy to add to the heavy whipping cream, flour and butter. Like all of these recipes, it did require a special tool, one that is passed down from mother to daughter.

She'd make a dozen different cookies, which also included thin Swedish gingerbread moose, light and fluffy meringue cookies, thumbprint cookies with lingonberry filling, butter cookies, candy cane cookies, fudge, and my favorite as a child, a vanilla and chocolate pinwheel cookie that is consumed in 1/ 16th the time it takes to make them.

All the recipes seemed to call for lots and lots of flour. Why? Probably because my family could go through these cookies like locust on a summer day. Hours of work gone in minutes. I never knew how much energy, how much time, effort and love Mom and Grandma wrapped up in all those holiday treats until I tried to make them myself to share with coworkers and friends.  Only then did I truly appreciate the love that went into them.

These quiet times in the kitchen are my way of regrouping after a a long day or a long road trip. It's a time, wherein the faith I have, that can take a beating during the work week, is repaired, threads of hope and strength woven back into the areas that feel tattered as the leaves clinging stubbornly to the trees outside my window.

I love to cook for my friends and family. I've always spent at least two vacation weeks a year out West at my parents. There, I'd just give Mom, or later my Stepmom, a vacation herself and cook them three big meals a day, clean the house and do some light outdoor chores and keep them company while they got to put their feet up. Not much of a "vacation" for me, rest wise, but I loved how it made my parents smile and how good it was to hear them laugh.  Now I go out and visit Dad, the home nurse still helping with his personal care, but spending lots of time in the kitchen I grew up in, as even at 95, Dad loves home-crafted meals and Mom's cookie recipes as my husband keeps his home of 60 years in good repair.


I'll not go home to see him this Christmas. My Dad wants to be alone with his memories, not celebrating the holidays since my brother died, a blow after losing one other child and two beloved wives.  I understand.  There will be another time in a few short weeks where I can cook and entertain and spend time with him. So this Christmas, as I cook for my husband and friends, it will bring back memories of days when we had a family dinner table meal. Other than Friday TV night and barbecue night, all meals were eaten at that table, as a family with Mom and Dad and my brother.   I can't recall so much of what we talked about or exactly what each meal was, memory being not just selective but discriminating, in the end only as reliable as we are.

The dates and times and actual meals themselves are insignificant, but I remember the gathering, the smells of Mom's cooking, of laughter, of stories from school, from work, a discarding of weighty thought and the simple gathering of those you love, for nourishment of the soul. I can't recreate that through what I cook, or who I serve it to, but I still can remember how those simple meals made me feel, the redemptive power of the communion of family.

For those of you who still have that, treasure every moment.

And save a pinwheel cookie for me.

Big Fat Bacon - NOT!

Sorry folks, no bacon to see here. Nor salad, as we ate it all before I remembered I didn't take a picture.

I made this the first time when a couple I play with airplanes with (actually it was a giant remote control blimp that day) came over afterwards for dinner.  Dinner was simple. A pork tenderloin dusted with summer savory and baked for my carnivore friends, a loaf of bread we picked up at the grocery store's bakery department and fresh salad for all three of us. The husband of the pair politely said "I'm sorry, I just don't like salad but the rest looks great"  His wife, urged him to take a bite, to be polite.

He ate two platefuls of the salad and didn't touch the tenderloin.  If you're looking for something good for supper, give it a try. The dressing is quite sweet, so start with 1/2 cup sugar, adding more as you prefer. Add some Gardein "chicken strips" to it, for a little extra protein for a main dish entree. With the sugar and oil it's not particularly low calorie but with fruit, protein and a good fats from  Extra Virgin Olive oil and walnuts it's a dish you can serve to guests and still feel good about what you're eating.  I've never made this where someone didn't ask for the recipe.

Strawberry Salad

2 and 1/2  bags of prepared romaine salad (or one head iceburg lettuce,  chopped, and one bag romaine)
2 cups shredded Daiya brand non-dairy Monterrey Jack
1 small bag walnut pieces, chopped roughly
strawberries to taste (I used a couple of cups, in large chunks)

Dressing:

1 cup light olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup to 2/3 cups  sugar (to taste)
2 cloves roasted garlic, chopped  (you can use a  generous teaspoon of the jarred minced)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper

Blend oil and sugar, stirring briskly to dissolve (if you lightly warm oil in the microwave first it will blend easier).  Add remaining ingredients, and let sit for a bit in the refrigerator to let flavors blend. Toss just before serving.  Serves 6 as an entree with added protein or 8 as a side dish. (and it's easy to cut the recipe in half)

Soup - R Supper

Soup, if you avoid the cream or cheese-laden varieties makes a filling and satisfying supper that's not super high in calories. The recipe is one I made up and it's been a staple in the winter for some 20 years.

Tonight was Lentil soup

3/4 pound cooked veggie "sausage"
1 medium onion chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 diced carrots
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 roasted cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp dried basil
1 14.5 ounce can crushed fire roasted tomatoes
2 cups dry lentils
6 cups stock (veggie, chicken or beef or a combination thereof, I used half chicken and half beef)
2 cups water
salt and pepper to taste
a pinch of Smoked Paprika
3/4 cup spinach, rinsed and finely chopped
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Cook and chop sausage. Add olive oil, onions, carrots and celery and cook and stir until the onion is tender.  Stir in seasonings and cook on low for a couple of minutes.  Stir in lentils, stock, water and undrained tomatoes.  Bring to a gentle boil and simmer for an hour.  When ready to serve, stir in spinach and vinegar and heat on low 10 minutes.  Serve with a slice of baguette.

Substitutions at your own risk.  I posted this recipe elsewhere many years ago only to have someone say they made it and it was "only OK".  They substituted kidney beans for the lentils, hamburger for the sausage, left out the veggies and the garlic, substituted chili powder for the paprika,  tomato sauce for the fire roasted tomatoes and regular white vinegar for the balsamic.

I was kind and didn't say anything, but "seriously, it's not even the same recipe!"