Thursday, August 1, 2019

11 Easy Eggplant Recipes for Your Summer Menu

Eggplant seems to get “pigeonholed” into just a couple of recipes: Eggplant Parmesan and ratatouille, the classic French vegetable stew. But this cousin to tomatoes and peppers is a versatile ingredient that can play a starring or supporting role in a wide range of healthy dishes.

The most familiar type of eggplant is large, bulb-shaped and deep purple, but you may find long, thin varieties and small round ones. They may be bright green or white or lighter purple, sometimes with white streaks. Whichever kind you buy, bear in mind that smaller eggplant are more tender, sweeter and less seedy than larger ones.

6 Summer Slim-Down Foods That Help You Lose Weight

We’ve gathered 11 simple ideas for enjoying eggplant in summer, when it’s at the peak of freshness. It’s a non-starchy vegetable, so you can eat as much of it as you want while staying on track with your Nutrisystem weight loss plan. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), a cup of cubed eggplant has just 20 calories, but provides you with 2.5 grams of fiber and a significant amount of potassium. Eggplant is especially rich in flavonoids, specifically anthocyanins, compounds in vegetables that help protect your health.

Ready to start taking advantage of all that eggplant has to offer? You’ll love these quick and easy eggplant recipes during these hot summer days.

1. Thai Eggplant Pizza >

These personal pizzas start with a base of thick eggplant slices cooked to firmness. They’re topped with layers of chopped chicken, real mozzarella cheese and vegetable slices, and flavored with a fast-and-easy spicy peanut sauce.

Count As: 1 PowerFuel and 1 Extra

2. Roasted Garlic Eggplant Pizza >

Two kinds of cheese and four cloves of garlic atop eggplant rounds make this quick dish deliciously gooey. One serving includes two of these tasty pizzas and just 104 calories total.

Count As: 1 PowerFuel

3. Air Fried Eggplant Poppers >

Whether it’s party time or you’re just hungry for a healthy snack, you’ll enjoy these tasty little bites. The air fryer makes them crispy on the outside, warm and tender inside, and free of excess grease all around.

Count As: 1 PowerFuel, 1 SmartCarb and 1 Vegetable

How to Trim Hundreds of Empty Calories: Summer Edition

4. Eggplant Margherita Pizza >

Filled with the flavors of a classic Margherita Pizza, this Eggplant Margherita Pizza lessens the carb-load and slims down the waistline.

Count As: 1 PowerFuel and Vegetable

5. Ricotta Pesto Eggplant Pizza >

Sweet and savory flavors complement each other atop the base of thick eggplant slices on these delectable personal pizzas. Figs and creamy ricotta cheese blend deliciously with the zesty pesto to light up all of your taste buds in every bite.

Count as: ½ PowerFuel, 1 Vegetable and 3 Extras

6. Sausage and Pepper Eggplant Pizza >

If you love a meaty topping on your pizza, fire up your oven for this hearty flex meal. Chicken sausage is high in flavor and satisfaction, but low in calories, so you can enjoy two of these filling pies in one serving.

Count As: 2 PowerFuels and 1/2 Vegetable

3 Summer Soups You’ll Crave

7. Roasted Red Pepper Eggplant Pizza >

This variation on eggplant-based pizza features the Middle Eastern flavors of feta cheese and hummus, plus the sweet, fire-kissed taste of roasted red peppers. Better yet, these pizzas are ready to eat in just 40 minutes from start to first bite.

Count As: 1 PowerFuel, 1 SmartCarb and 1 Extra

8. 3-Ingredient Eggplant Fries >

Yes, you can enjoy fries while staying on track to your weight-loss goal with this super simple recipe. All you do is slice up the eggplant into “fry-shaped” strips, add a little seasoning, and bake until crisp. Finger-licking encouraged!

Count as: 1 Vegetable

9. 5-Ingredient Eggplant Parmesan >

We took the most popular eggplant dish and gave it a healthy makeover, reducing the calories while amping up the flavor. You still get the real mozzarella cheese and tasty marinara sauce you love, but none of the excess fats and simple carbohydrates that weigh you down.

Count As: 1 PowerFuel, 1 Vegetable and 1 Extra

Summer Bounty: 4 Delicious Eggplant Recipes

10. Easy Eggplant Bruschetta >

Three easy steps are all it takes to make this fresh appetizer you can enjoy yourself or share with family and friends. Instead of bread, the tomato-and-feta cheese topping rests atop thick slices of hearty eggplant.

Count As: 1 PowerFuel, 1 Vegetable and 1 Extra

11. Balsamic Eggplant Chips >

With a handy food dehydrator you can turn nutritious eggplant slices into crispy chips that make a satisfying snack. We added balsamic vinegar for a touch of sweetness without excess sugar.

Count As: 1 Vegetable and 1 Extra

The post 11 Easy Eggplant Recipes for Your Summer Menu appeared first on The Leaf.

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The ultimate guide for busting out of a rut

Here’s the thing. The fitness journey can feel monotonous. And generally speaking – it really is because you continuously are sending your body the same signals (eating healthy, working out, sleeping, etc.) over and over. As fitness pros – we feel you. Eventually we can tire of the same exercise circuit or meal lineup. But, simple tweaks in our weekly routines can have the power to stir up new enthusiasm and even push us to the next level in terms of physical change, metabolic function and mental game. At the end of the day, we want you to avoid any inkling to throw in towel or fall off track. So it’s important to have a list of go-to’s in those instances you feel like you’re in a rut

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SV: I Reached My Original Goal to Lose Half of My Weight [428->214] + My Story

Fully Clothed Comparison Pics: https://imgur.com/gallery/wLMDstb

This morning I finally hit my goal of losing half of my weight. I went from 428 pounds to 214 pounds.

I began this journey back in September of 2017. I had been bigger from about 4th grade on and had really ballooned up after college going from 325 pounds to 428 pounds in about 7 years. Back in middle and high school I was always an athlete. I would wake up at 4:00am in the morning and go for a 2 mile run followed by 500 sit-ups. Then I would eat a quick breakfast of a few eggs and couple strips of bacon and go to the gym. Once at the gym I would usually go for 20 minutes of high intensity on the exercise bike, lift heavy for an hour and a half, then follow that by another intense 20 minutes on the exercise bike. I had this morning routine every M-Th during the football season, since my coaches didn't allow us in the weight room on Friday's so that we wouldn't wear ourselves out for that night's game, and M-F in the off season. Every other school day we had PE class for 1h45m and after school I either had a 3 hour practice, game, track meet, or in the off season I added a two hour agility training. I say all this to give an idea of the level I used to be at. I ate to maintain that very active life style at the time.

Once I went off to college, all of that ended. I went from athlete to sedentary gamer. World of Warcraft had just released my first semester of college and a group of us guys on my dorm floor were hooked. That is all we did when not in class and on the weekends I had days where I played 20 hours straight a day with only 4 hours of sleep. This came with a lot of ordering pizza and eating junk food. I had kept eating the same amount of food I had been when I was very active. I started piling on the weight.

After college, I got a third shift lab job, lost all contact with my friends, and just doubled down on gaming. I would order pizza at least once a week, some weeks three times, where I would have a large pizza, order of breadsticks, cookie/brownie, and 2-liter of soda. I would eat that as one meal. I would get a large order of boneless wild wings from BWW with 16oz of blue cheese dressing and an order of fries every weekend. I would also regularly buy family sized bags of chips that I would eat in a sitting. When I cooked for myself, it was a ton of unhealthy food. I regularly went out for ice cream and fast food as well. I just started gorging myself.

I was eventually laid off from that job and got a new second shift lab job in a new town. I was in that role, continuing the same lifestyle, for around 8 months before I applied to a first shift position and got it. Around this time (Summer 2017) my blood pressure was rising at an alarming rate, my blood came back that I was only a couple mg of glucose from being diabetic, along with a ton of other concerns in my blood work. My doctor wanted to put me on blood pressure meds right away. I convinced him to give me 6 months to work on it. This was the end of July 2017. Needless to say I didn't start working on it right away and continued on with my now normal lifestyle.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me was actually at the end of August 2017, a little over a month later. I was in my car driving with the seat all the way back and it had become a struggle to turn the steering wheel because my belly was so big. That was when it hit me how big I had gotten. It, for some reason, just hadn't clicked with me how big I was. I went in to my local AnyTime Fitness on September 6th and signed up. I was given a session with the head trainer for a fitness assessment, I'm assuming because I was so large, which I had on Sept 15th. After that session, the trainer was actually impressed with how well I was able to perform everything at my size and talked me into signing up for their small group training unlimited access membership. It is a bit pricey but, gives me access to all sorts of things like their InBody scanner, all classes included, unlimited small group personal training, unlimited tanning access (not really my thing but a nice perk) and a heart rate monitor that I wear across my chest and shows up on the screens around the gym with everyone else who has one too. I loved all of that, especially the monitor and InBody because I could have all of that data to track and monitor everything.

I started out focusing just on the exercise. After a month and losing my first 8 pounds, my trainer convinced me to start tracking what I was eating. So I began doing that and was surprised at how much I was actually eating. So naturally I started eating less, then eventually started eating healthier foods, and on New Years for 2018 I made my resolution to start eating more vegetables. My new girlfriend at the time, now fiancé, loved eating veggies and was the type of person who ate salads for snacks after school growing up because she loved them. Her and her mom really helped me get into eating veggies. It was a slow process of trying new things but, I eventually got to a point where I am today where I eat a lot of veggies and lean meats.

I am currently back to a more athletic lifestyle, though not as intense I used to be. I run long distance (5 to 6 miles currently) 3 days a week (T, Th, Sat), have group training preceded by around 20 minutes of cardio running on the treadmill 3 days a week (M, W, F), and have a boot camp style class two days a week (T, Th after my runs). I spend a lot more time outside and haven't played WoW or any other games really since October of 2017. I am currently working toward going form my current 22%BF down to an eventual 12%. I want to at least be below 200 by my wedding next spring, which I figure I will easily hit.

So some experience I gained throughout this journey:

Take it slow. I made some small changes every 2-3 weeks over the course of this journey to reach where I am today and I still make small changes, that I maintain, to continue to improve my fitness and weight loss.
You will overeat some days. It has happened to me many times and the key is to just accept it and continue the next day like it didn't happen. This comes from many things like family get togethers, holidays, friends in town visiting, etc.
Based on #2, I learned to plan for those events. It is ok to cut back a little every day during the week and eat a bit more on the weekends. I still love frequenting the local wineries and my fiancé and I enjoy going out to eat a few times a month. I just cut back during the week to save up for it.
Adding exercise helps a ton. I figure, by adding exercise, I have lost 75 to 80 pounds more during this time frame than I would have if I were to just eat the same without exercise. It made it fun for me and gave me other goals to strive for beyond my weight loss and I maintained more muscle. I still lost some muscle but, I lost 9-10 pounds of fat for every pound of muscle lost so I feel it wasn't too bad.
Find an exercise you love doing and pursue that. You will never stick to it if you hate it.
Avoid eating back more than a fraction of exercise calories. They are off on their calculations and overestimate. I figure this is because they don't subtract the amount of calories you would normally burn in that time period if you weren't exercising but, I could be wrong on that. Either way, they are always overestimated so just treat calories burned form exercise as more weight loss.

That's all I have for now, I have taken up 45 minutes writing all of this instead of working. Good luck to everyone else on their journeys. If I can start at 428 pounds and do this, so can anyone. It's simple but, challenging and yet within everyone's ability to achieve. Just find what works for you and stick with it.

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Finding a New Balance

These past couple of weeks have been both amazing and incredibly stressful! I'm under 200lbs for the first time in 5 years, and feel more like myself than I have in quite a while. My relationship is fairing better, I'm more focused at work, I've gotten into a groove with my nutrition and exercise routine, and things are overall positive!

All of this is great, but I also have PTSD that's been flaring up a lot lately due to many of the positive stressors and changes in my life. It's kind of funny, because I had never thought of positive changes triggering my disorder, but having my therapist lay it all out for me kind of gave me a wake up call. I had been having a hard time focusing on everything at once, and so I decided to take a break from losing weight.

For the past week, I've been eating at maintenance, and knowing that for the moment I don't have to worry about how much I'm losing each week is helping me focus on the other aspects of my life right now. Like the new promotion I just got that has me doing work I sometimes do not feel qualified for (despite my years of experience and degrees, thanks anxiety!). The fact that my husband has started a new acting gig so I'm juggling more of the house work and pet care than normal. The fact that they restructured training at my gym, and now it's more convenient for me to work alone than with a trainer (which has actually been going great now that I'm getting used to it). The biggest current stressor is the fact that I'm flying for a conference next week and haven't flown in many months. The last time I flew I was over 250lbs, so I still feel like I'm not going to fit in the seat. I didn't even need an extender last time, so there's almost no chance I'll need one now that I'm over 50lbs lighter, but it's hard to get over the "fat" fears of flying that I developed after 5 years of being morbidly obese.

But I am working through all of these anxieties. And eating at maintenance for a while. Not relying on food for comfort, even in the midst of all of these stressors has been a challenge, but I'm doing it! I do plan on resuming my regular weight loss once I get to a more balanced place with the rest of my life. And I'm not intentionally eating at maintenance every day. I'm just allowing myself to eat UP TO my maintenance calories if it fits into my schedule better. So I am not completely abandoning my calorie counting or nutrition, but I'm being more lenient on what calorie goal to hit. In reality it's just as easy to still hit my weight loss calorie goal, but in my little disordered brain, eating at maintenance removes a stressor, so that's what I need to do for now!

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Thursday, 01 August 2019? Start here!

Today is your Day 1?

Welcome to r/Loseit!

So you aren’t sure of how to start? Don’t worry! “How do I get started?” is our most asked question. r/Loseit has helped our users lose over 1,000,000 recorded pounds and these are the steps that we’ve found most useful for getting started.

Why you’re overweight

Our bodies are amazing (yes, yours too!). In order to survive before supermarkets, we had to be able to store energy to get us through lean times, we store this energy as adipose fat tissue. If you put more energy into your body than it needs, it stores it, for (potential) later use. When you put in less than it needs, it uses the stored energy. The more energy you have stored, the more overweight you are. The trick is to get your body to use the stored energy, which can only be done if you give it less energy than it needs, consistently.

Before You Start

The very first step is calculating your calorie needs. You can do that HERE. This will give you an approximation of your calorie needs for the day. The next step is to figure how quickly you want to lose the fat. One pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories. So to lose 1 pound of fat per week you will need to consume 500 calories less than your TDEE (daily calorie needs from the link above). 750 calories less will result in 1.5 pounds and 1000 calories is an aggressive 2 pounds per week.

Tracking

Here is where it begins to resemble work. The most efficient way to lose the weight you desire is to track your calorie intake. This has gotten much simpler over the years and today it can be done right from your smartphone or computer. r/loseit recommends an app like MyFitnessPal, Loseit! (unaffiliated), or Cronometer. Create an account and be honest with it about your current stats, activities, and goals. This is your tracker and no one else needs to see it so don’t cheat the numbers. You’ll find large user created databases that make logging and tracking your food and drinks easy with just the tap of the screen or the push of a button. We also highly recommend the use of a digital kitchen scale for accuracy. Knowing how much of what you're eating is more important than what you're eating. Why? This may explain it.

Creating Your Deficit

How do you create a deficit? This is up to you. r/loseit has a few recommendations but ultimately that decision is yours. There is no perfect diet for everyone. There is a perfect diet for you and you can create it. You can eat less of exactly what you eat now. If you like pizza you can have pizza. Have 2 slices instead of 4. You can try lower calorie replacements for calorie dense foods. Some of the communities favorites are cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash in place of their more calorie rich cousins. If it appeals to you an entire dietary change like Keto, Paleo, Vegetarian.

The most important thing to remember is that this selection of foods works for you. Sustainability is the key to long term weight management success. If you hate what you’re eating you won’t stick to it.

Exercise

Is NOT mandatory. You can lose fat and create a deficit through diet alone. There is no requirement of exercise to lose weight.

It has it’s own benefits though. You will burn extra calories. Exercise is shown to be beneficial to mental health and creates an endorphin rush as well. It makes people feel awesome and has been linked to higher rates of long term success when physical activity is included in lifestyle changes.

Crawl, Walk, Run

It can seem like one needs to make a 180 degree course correction to find success. That isn’t necessarily true. Many of our users find that creating small initial changes that build a foundation allows them to progress forward in even, sustained, increments.

Acceptance

You will struggle. We have all struggled. This is natural. There is no tip or trick to get through this though. We encourage you to recognize why you are struggling and forgive yourself for whatever reason that may be. If you overindulged at your last meal that is ok. You can resolve to make the next meal better.

Do not let the pursuit of perfect get in the way of progress. We don’t need perfect. We just want better.

Additional resources

Now you’re ready to do this. Here are more details, that may help you refine your plan.

Quick Start Guide - Build your foundation!
Loseit Compendium - Frame it out!
FAQ - Answers to our most Frequently Asked Questions!

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Slowly but Surely.

This has been hard. I'm sorry I can't give you guys numbers to reference my weight loss. I can't talk about how I've journaled my food intake. I can't tell you what specific diet I've been on that has helped me. But I can tell you that for the first time on two years my face looks thinner in pictures. I'm starting to see and feel progress.

When I started college I gained 60 pounds in a year from poor diet, depression, and new medication. When I realized I gain this weight I tried to loose weight by logging what I eat in lose it. And I started cutting back my calorie intake until I was eating less than 500 calories a day, on the days I ate. But this led to binge eating on the weekends and gaining all the weight back because I didn't develop healthy habits for weight loss. I cycled through anorexia and binge eating for a couple years until I got the help I needed to stop.

Slowly I've learned to love myself and my body because I have to, but that doesn't mean I don't want to loose weight. Slowly I've started eating healthier. I've stopped drinking soda and I've cut back my drinking. I've started eating less (don't worry I'm still eating enough). I go on walks for fun now and I've cut out dairy (turns out you're not supposed to get diarrhea after you drink milk). I'm making small changes to be overall healthier.

But how do I monitor my progress now? I can't step on a scale because I WILL slip back into anorexia. I can't log my food because I will stop eating. Well, my pants have gone from too tight to too loose and my face looks more like the me I remember from highschool. And I'm not rushing to loose more weight. I just want to be healthier.

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Wednesday, July 31, 2019

What are your motivations for weight loss? I am sharing mine in this post....

Hello everyone. I have been on my diet since around mid June and started working out July 1st of this year to aid to more weight loss. I was wondering what are some of you guys weight loss motivations. My main motivation is that I am a Type 2 Diabetic and want to reverse it and also be at a healthy weight and keep the weight off. Tattoos are one of my other motivators. I know that if I lose a ton of weight that my tattoos might distort so before I get a tattoo on a spot of my body where it might make the tattoo look dramatically different, I want to lose the weight first. I can't wait until all the weight is gone and finally get the tattoos I want to get! Another great motivator for me is life itself. I say this because I want to live a long, healthy life and losing weight will help me with that.

Anyone else have any motivations? Please post them here.

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