Daily Nutritional Worksheet & Souper Fast Healthy Meals
 January 19, 2009
Daily Nutritional Worksheet & Souper Fast Healthy Meals
by Chef Noche
Welcome to Week 3 of our Getting Fit and Eating Right Newsletters! In the spirit of reality TV shows, I am doing a reality newsletter where I am going to make a gradual and healthy lifestyle change to lose weight, maintain a diabetic lifestyle, and generally become more fit and develop healthier eating habits.
Each week, you can follow my progress, and learn what I learn about food, nutrition, and exercise. If you are new to the series, we have posted Past Newsletters on our website, so you can catch up at your own pace.
And now, on to the show...
My Weekly Weigh-In
My goal is to get my BMI Index (percentage of body fat) down to a normal range for my height. Using the DineWise BMI Index, I discovered my goal weight is 183.5 lbs. This means I have to lose 21.5 pounds, or grow an extra foot, to have a normal BMI rating.
This was a better week for me. My exercise was much better by being more intense. I had 3 "dripping sweat" workouts and 2 that were less intense, but I was moving. I missed 2 days.
I do my weekly weigh in on Monday morning. On Sunday I was with the guys watching the Giants lose to the Eagles. I confess I had more than Proper Portions of chips, cheese and crackers, BBQ ribs and chicken wings, especially as the stress levels went up. Since the Giants lost, I can look forward to not having those temptations in the near future, and I can start focusing on baseball season. Let's Go Mets!
A Closer Look at What I am Eating
The more I teach myself about the basics of food nutrition, the more I can see how to improve my diet by making smarter choices. DineWise makes it easy to do nutritional meal planning because the meals are already measured and portioned to the guidelines set by the Advisory Board. But I don't eat DineWise meals every day of my life. I still have to take responsibility for what I cook on my own.
Last week I decided to start out counting just calories. On Saturday I grabbed a can of commercial ravioli for lunch. It is not something I normally have, but it was in the house. I checked the label before I opened the can: 2 servings per can, 480 calories total. Perfect! That was under my 500 calories max per meal so down it went.
After lunch, I experienced a minor blood sugar spike. I went back to the can of ravioli and looked at the rest of the nutritional information: 16 grams of fat, (max per meal) and 70 carbs, which is double for my diabetic plan. 10 grams of the carbs came from sugar, making this lunch not a healthy choice for me. I came up with this easy solution to watch what I eat on the fly:
Download My Nutritional Spreadsheet
I created this simple Nutritional Spreadsheet to set goals and track what I eat during the day. It is an easy-to-use excel spreadsheet that is also designed to be printed and carried around with you. If you start with breakfast that exceeds some limits, you can adjust your lunches and dinners accordingly.
The spreadsheet automatically calculates how close you came to your plan, and you can adjust the goals for your own healthy lifestyle. You can also just print the page and carry it around with you like a nutritional coach. There is a screen shot of an "actual day" where you can see how it worked for me. I love it. |
Delicious & Easy Homemade Soup DineWise Style
 The Importance of Salad in Your Diet is a former newsletter that is also one of the most viewed web pages on our website, attracting readers from all over the world. Everyone knows adding fresh salad is healthy lifestyle common sense. But what about delicious homemade soup?
Done right, soup is a healthy change of pace to salad, with all the same nutritional benefits, if not more. But I used one of those bad words in today's busy lifestyle: Homemade.
Think Assembly, Not Recipe
As a chef, I have no problems spending hours in the kitchen making anything, especially a soup base. Here is a short cut to how you can crank out quart after quart of delicious healthy soups: Think like you are assembling instead of following recipes. Here is what I mean.
If you like the taste of bagels, ham, goat cheese, and basil, chances are you would like a pizza bagel made from the same ingredients. Let's call that rule one: Add items you like to eat. I'll get to rule two later.
Hungry Man Chicken Vegetable Soup
So let's make a hungry man chicken vegetable soup. Instead of a homemade broth, start with Swanson Chicken Broth. If you are on a low sodium diet, get the low sodium version. If you want to go low fat, get the low fat version. They also make a new cooking stock.
The difference between a stock and a broth is that a stock has a richer flavor because it is made with bones and generally whole vegetables. Broths are made with bits. Here is a list of Swanson Broths and Stocks, along with their nutritional information. After you pick your broth or stock, put it in a small pot and start to boil it. Once it comes to a boil, turn it down to low.
Next, we are going back to our first rule: Add ingredients you like. Start by dicing defrosted, precooked DineWise Chicken Breasts. Then dice any combination of vegetables you enjoy eating. By dice, I mean cube small enough so 3 or 4 solids in the soup can fit on your spoon.
Unless you hate them, start every soup with a Mirepoix, which is just a fancy french name for onions, carrots, and celery. Then you can add as many of your favorite vegetables as you like. If you want to skip the chopping process, many supermarkets sell frozen chopped vegetables. Add these vegetables to your soup and cook until they become tender. Try to have about 75% of the pot filled with chicken and vegetables.
At the very end I like to add a DineWise precooked White and Wild Rice to the soup so I get some carbs in there. Carbs are good in the right portions, and since the rice is precooked, it eliminates the whole rice cooking process.
FASTEST Soup on Earth
If you used any combination of proteins, sides, and vegetables from the DineWise Family Style menu, all you would have do to is boil your broth, add your defrosted and diced precooked soup components, and season. When you look at all the choices you have, you can really make some amazing soups in minutes and stretch your dollar, as well as your nutritional goals.
You Can Add, But You Can't Subtract.
Now we come to seasoning, and rule two comes into play. I am having you season at the end because we don't know exactly know how your combination of protein and vegetables will blend. The rule is: You can add, but you can't subtract.
Season a very little bit at a time, and refer to rule one: Add flavors you like. I like to use Mrs. Dash for starters because it is salt free. In a beef soup I might add some steak seasoning, in a chicken soup I might add some Old Bay seasoning, and if my wife and daughters aren't having any, I like to play around with hot spices. But I always add a little at a time, stir, and taste. Go easy with salt. If you can taste the salt, you added too much. Once you put it in, you can't get it out.
The whole process shouldn't take you more than 10 minutes; I can do it in about 5. Even if it takes you 15 minutes, you have some powerful health food that can be satisfying enough to be a meal.
Healthfully yours,
Chef Noche
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