Product Reviews

Skinny Bitch Diet Book Review : Part II

I do think the vegan diet has it’s merits, but I think that you have to be careful to still eat the right foods if you choose this lifestyle. You can’t just always be eating veggie burgers and nonstop carbs, you have to make sure that your diet is also rich in fruits and veggies, which are the cornerstone of health and weight loss. One could easily go off the right path if they didn’t know this, but the authors do point this out.

Another point they made, which was a citation from Fit for Life, and one that I’ve used in my own life which I found to be effective, was to try to eat a lot of fruit that is high in natural enzymes, by itself, first thing in the morning, instead of loading your body down with more hard to digest processed food like bagels, cereal and so forth.

The reason being that the morning time til about noon, your body is still supposedly in it’s “elmination phase” where it is still working on getting the stuff out from the day before and bogging it down with more complex digestion is the wrong way to ensure smooth elimination (as the authors say “pooping” – I love it).

The authors also strongly recommend that you go organic whenever possible, and made the point that if you can’t go organic on everything, make sure you at least get organic when it is something that you eat without peeling or removing an outer layer. So for instance, you would always want to buy organic strawberries.

The reason for this is that the peel or outer shell protects the inner fruit somewhat against the pesticides that are sprayed on the fruit to avoid insect infestation, so those are a little safer to consume when non-organic.  They also point out, hilariously, that you shouldn’t be a cheap ass and not buy organic, because look at all the other crap you spend money on.

Overall, I could go on and on about what I like about the basic, albeit crudely delivered messages of this book. It’s a great, quick read, and it leaves you with a refreshing perspective on your food. The messages are good, but not everyone is meant to lead the vegan lifestyle, so if you can even apply some of the principles you will learn in this book, you will be on your way to better health.

I would also highly recommend the book Fit for Life. I believe it was published back in the seventies, but many of it’s messages are still relevant today. Again, it’s not a diet regimen for everyone and Lord knows I couldn’t follow it to a T, but it gives you another perspective on eating and food and health, and I think it’s good to see both sides of the coin.

Skinny Bitch Book Review : Part I

This review is broken up into two installments. Why?  Because I had a lot to say about the book Skinny Bitch, and I just kept going and going and going……well you get the point. I’m not exactly short winded sometimes.  Without further ado, here’s part one of my Skinny Bitch review.

I picked up a copy of the book “Skinny Bitch” when I was at Borders a few weeks ago, and since then, I’ve read it twice. I loved it.  You may have heard of this popular book by now.  The authors are Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, one a self professed “know it all” and the other a former model and nutritionist.

While they site another book which I love and which I happened to read years and years ago a lot called Fit for Life, which advocates food combining and somewhat eschews meat like these authors do, I found the approach refreshing and very entertaining. I blew threw this book quickly. If you are sensitive or don’t like a lot of profanity or potty mouth talk, you may want to avoid this book, but if you tend to have a trucker mouth in your own home, somewhat like I tend to have at times, then this book is for you.

I did find a few one sided opinions though, such as the idea that eating soy ice cream and tons of processed soy products instead of meats and cheeses is ok. I personally think that you need to limit soy products because they have been under scrutiny for causing hormonal imbalances and also for possibly adding to blood sugar issues.  They also may screw up the function of your thyroid gland when consumed too often – this was something I read only recently.

The authors clearly advocate veganism. Veganism is a step harder than the vegetarian diet, because you have to eliminate all animal fats and meats from your diet. This includes eggs, cheese, milk and of course all meats and fish.

This  can be a lot harder than it sounds.  A lot of breads, pastas, and readily accessible foods and restaurant foods have egg or milk products in them. Even foods you may not guess have things like whey, a dairy product, or an egg derivative in them, so you have to become an avid label reader.  I even found out that Veggie Slices cheese and Veggie Shreds shredded cheese, which I thought were purely soy based, contain whey or other milk derived products in them, so they are not strictly speaking, vegan products.

Unfortunately, the truly vegan cheese is pretty hard to melt and I haven’t found any that are extremely flavorful, but I’m sure there something out there I just haven’t found yet.  I’ve been experimenting on and off with the vegan diet since reading the book, so I’ve been exploring the options and trying out some recipes, and I must say that once you open your eyes to the options, there are some very tasty options.

I still don’t think I could be a full time vegan. It’s just too hard, and I do still crave meat once in a while, and cheese and dairy products, or they’re just too hard to avoid if you’re out and about, but I still try to make healthy choices with these too.  Quinoa is one of my favorite vegan foods. It contains the full spectrum of amino acids, so it’s an excellent source of protein and fiber for vegans.

Originally when I read Fit for Life years ago, which advocates a diet very low in meat and never combining the food groups unless it’s a veggie with another food group, I thought that was hard to apply as well, although I found that approach effective as well for weight maintenance.

Review : Better ‘n Peanut Butter

Well, I finally got to try a product that is a lower calorie and fat version of peanut butter that I thought I would be able to satisfy my occasional cravings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with, without all that fat and calorie content. I love having the occasional pb&j for breakfast, or slathering some creamy (crunchy is good too) peanut butter on my hot, toasty bread or an english muffin in the morning.

But what kept me away from doing that all the time was the ridiculous amount of calories in peanut butter. For a measly 2 tablespoons (which isn’t much, I use a lot more than that in my pb&j sandwiches), it’s about 200 calories. That means that you are already adding 200 calories to your sandwich, just with the peanut butter, that doesn’t even include the bread of the jelly, even though I do like to use reduced sugar jelly or Polyner just fruit spread, which is calorie and sugar spare.

I just tried my brand new jar of Better ‘n Peanut Butter. It’s a spread that is supposed to taste pretty close to the real thing. It still uses real peanuts, but it looks like a large part of the calorie savings is that it’s low in oil, instead using peanut flour. The consistency is different form “real” creamy peanut butter, in that is is much more liquidy, not as thick as real peanut butter is.

My husband thought it had a little taste of soy to it, but I told him it’s not a soy based product, it’s probably just the peanut flour he was tasting. The taste is good, I want to say a little more like chocolate or something, and a bit salty and sweet, which is how I like my peanut butter, so that was ok with me.

I would say the biggest difference between this and real peanut butter is that the real just seems to have more substance to it, more thickness, and that is something that was missing. Although, what I liked is that when I put it on my hot, toasty english muffin (whole wheat of course), it immediately melted into the nooks and crannies well. And I really couldn’t tell much of a difference from real peanut butter when it was hot and melty with jelly on it.

It’s a great peanut butter alternative if you’re worried about calories. It clocks in at just 100 calories for 2 tablespoons. That’s almost half of real peanut butter! I would just say it’s not the type of thing you can eat out of the jar and get that same satisfaction as you do with the real thing, you have to eat it with something for it to be a good substitute.

Kim and Khloe Kardashian Touting QuickTrim Products

The Kardashian sisters – heck, the whole family, has become quite the reality sensation lately. Kim started off being known as the BFF of Paris Hilton, guess that relationship went kaput, because you never see pics of them together on the internet or in magazines any more, and I read somewhere that Paris Hilton even made kind of snide remarks about Kim’s round rear end (which by the way, lots of men like, and I happen to think she looks great with all her curves).

The only thing I know about Khloe is that she was on a season of the Celebrity Apprentice (Donald Trumps reality show where celebrities try to win the coveted prize of being Donal’s pick for his apprentice, although I don’t know that anything has really ever come of that for anyone), and she’s married to a very tall NBA basketball player.

I also know that she lost a ton of weight recently, and she looks fabulous, and very healthy to boot.  I’m not sure if both the sister’s weight loss is really due to Quick Trim or simply hard work and dedication, but they are both endorsing the QuickTrim diet supplement as a way that helped them to lose weight.

Quick Trim is basically an appetite suppressant and diet supplement that helps you to eat less and crave less food, so you can lose weight more quickly, and with less of the struggle that is typically endured during the diet cycles when you cut your food intake down and seem to be endlessly starving.  Of course, as with most other diet and weightloss supplements, you do have to also make the right food choices, but the right supplement has always helped me to kick start my diet, call it the placebo effect, but I feel like I have more control when I’m taking a good diet supplement.

The rest, of course, I know, is all up to me to actually get the weight off and keep it off and also work out on a regular schedule to burn off extra calories. Let’s not forget that the hallmark notion that you must reduce caloric intake to effectively lose weight, because after all, excess weight is excess calories. You can usually safely lose weight by reducing calories and learning how to suppress your hunger, eating about 1500 calories a day, which is totally doable if you pick the right foods that fill you up and don’t leave you wanting for more all day.

Review : Quaker Weight Control Oatmeal

Well, it looks like I have a new favorite breakfast, and the best news is that while it tastes good, and a little like you’re being naughty, this nutritious breakfast packs quite a bit of dietary fiber in it and also, even when you add some nuts, it comes in at about 400 calories when you also add a small V8 or tomato juice like I do (I like to add to this because it fills me up and keeps me full for several hours, whereas this oatmeal alone probably would not do that as well.

The one Quaker oatmeal packet that I’ve tried thus far is the banana bread one. It is so good! If you like banana nut bread, then you will definitely like this. You might even put a little dash of sugar or sugar substitute in it just to sweeten it a bit more, after all, it is weight control, so there’s not a lot of sugar in it. I like to add chopped walnuts to it also, which adds about 150 calories to this breakfast that really sticks with you but also has a lot of nutritious benefits to it. The walnuts add more fiber and protein, and they also add some of those omega 3′s that really help keep you satisfied and help keep your mind sharp, plus they’re great for your skin.

All I do is add really hot water, which I’m lucky because I have one of those hot water taps on our sink of the house we moved into, just enough to make it into a thicker “soup” like consistency, let it sit for a minute or two to cool off a bit so I don’t scald my mouth, but not too long because oatmeal always gets like paste when you let it sit too long and actually get cold, and then I add a few tablespoons of chopped walnuts to it, and voila, I’ve got a really fast, really tasty breakfast. If you wanted to, you could probably also add some sliced bananas, I haven’t tried that yet, but I bet that would taste really good and keep you full even longer.

Review : Zone Perfect Dark Chocolate Nutrition Bars

I know, I know, aren’t “dark chocolate” and nutrition a totally antonymous coupling of terms? They really shouldn’t go together, right? I mean, the only thing going for dark chocolate is that it does contain some antioxidants and has been proven, if not somewhat dubiously, to be good for your heart in certain ways, although us women have always known that chocolate, in any form, is almost always at least good for the soul, but is it really “heart healthy”?

While that is definitely debatable, we can say that these nutrition, or protein bars, are often nothing more than glorified candy bars with some vitamins and minerals added in for good measure and better, more appealing nutrition labels for the health conscious dieter. However, I do think that protein bars have their place in the healthy American diet.

It’s not as meal replacements, which is pretty much a joke since these things normally don’t stabilizy your blood sugar past an hour or two unlike a balanced meal, but as a snack, perhaps before working out for an extra carb and energy boost to power you through.

Or maybe it could be that midafternoon snack where you’re not really sure what else to eat, or you’re really craving something that’s slightly sweet, that maybe tastes a little “naughty” but you don’t want to go full tilt into a candy bar since you know that will spur on a full on sugar bomb.

The Zone Perfect Bars are pretty popular protein bars, and you can get them at most major drugstores and many department stores, like Target and Wal-mart as well. The dark chocolate ones caught my eye because they fit my criteria for a protein bar, being just under 200 calories per bar, and also having the right carb count and fiber count for me.

I purchased the marshmallow and chocolate ones, which are kind of like a smores flavor. That’s one of my favorites in the Luna bar, so I figured I’d like it in the Zone Perfect bar as well. I liked that these bars were actually heavy in weight too. Some of them are so light you wonder if they have any substance at all. The flavor was good, no funky sugar substitutes or anything, and no maltitol, which tends to make you gassy. Overall, I’d buy them again!