Weight loss

Frozen vegetables

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As I’m 60, it means I was brought up when freezers came in and changed our world.

However, even today, I hear people talk against using frozen vegetables. I use frozen vegetable extensively as they are cost effective, keep well and convenient. I ask my weight management clients to have stock in too!

I recently noticed a comment where someone suggested that the cheapie frozen veg available in the supermarkets that supply common folk like you and me, was inferior and to be avoided.

Just incase you have this doubt, check out “Mineral, fiber, and total phenolic retention in eight fruits and vegetables: a comparison of refrigerated and frozen storage” available here

What the report said was “Minerals, total phenolics, and fiber were analyzed in several fruit and vegetable commodities to evaluate the differences between fresh and frozen produce. Magnesium, calcium, iron, zinc, and copper were evaluated in corn, carrots, broccoli, spinach, peas, green beans, strawberries, and blueberries. Each commodity was harvested fresh and split into two batches. Half of each commodity was kept fresh, and the other half was frozen. The nutrient content was analyzed over three storage times per treatment. The retention of nutrients was highly dependent on the commodity, but the majority of the commodities showed no significant difference between fresh and frozen for all analytes (p ≤ 0.05)”

This report does imply that some vegetables are not as good as others as holding onto their frozen nutrients, but, when I get home in a rush, it’s great to reach into the freezer and know you have a portion of veg for the evening meal.

For those who want to dive into the exact difference between fresh food and frozen, I offer you Nutritional comparison of fresh, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables. Part 1. Vitamins C and B and phenolic compounds is an interesting report

To be even handed , if you can go and live in a farm or you have a fantastic garden, it must be great to reach out of the kitchen window and pluck some veg. Thats very rare, and to be honest, I remember my mother “blanching” our garden veg back in the 70’s when that lovely chest freezer arrived.

Outside in the vegetable patch , you can stagger your vegetable crops a bit, but the reality is that you’ll get a glut at sometime. So the freezer is your number one call. As a reflection, we went blackberry picking recently and loved it. We went again, then one more time, and now we cannot face the prospect of another blackberry. We should have frozen those later batches.

As a novel experience, blackberry picking is great. After a while, thank god for freezing!

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DWF: chicken dinner and a strength day.

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THE FOOD . A zone Chicken dinner.

Here we have 112g of roast chicken, (4 blocks) 150g of boiled potato (3 blocks) . I rubbed 2 blocks of butter onto the chicken ( kate loves her crispy skin) and put about 2 blocks of butter onto the vegetables. I boiled up a “mess” of courgettes, broccoli and cabbage, served with an ” as much as you can eat” mentality. Any diet that restricts non starchy carb should be avoided. As many veggies as you can get down I say!!

Use the veggie stock to make gravy (with the juice from the chicken)

The sneaky “bad” things I did were: 1) slung a glass of wine into the baking pan, to support the juice from the chicken and the trivet ( thats the bed of onion, celery and carrot) hoping that most of the alcohol had boiled away ( check if I”m delusional, by following this thread) and 2) stirred in 2 tea spoons of gravy powder which had a bit of carb in. I’ve ignored that as it minor and life is too short.

Delicious and filling!

Straight after diner, when the chicken is cold, rip it off the bone, with your hands. Put the trivet and the bones and any remainder gravy/juice into a pot to make a stock ( you’ll need this for tomorrows curry)

THE WORKOUT

Today, kate and I are off to the gym ( at the amazing Crossfit London) to do a strength workout 3 sets of 5’s of deadlift, squat and press.

If you are stuck at home can I suggest 3 sets of 10 kettlebell deadlift (holding whatever weight kettlebell you have), 3 sets of 10 goblet squats, ( with a weight you can cope with) and 3 sets of 10 dumbbell press. Do these with rest periods as a strength session, not a mad workout!

Not every workout should be a near death intense workout, you need to sprinkle in strength ( and you’ll see the odd run now and then)

If you want more hints and tips do join the mailing list. Ill be launching a free Zone course and I’ll email when it’s ready.

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To see if I have time to help you personally in an around the city and the East End of london, do drop me an email Andrew@andrewstemler.com

Introducing the Daily Food and Workout:DFW

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Most days I’ll post a workout you can do with minimal equipment and no gym access. It be will be on a 3 day on, 1 days off rota

The “gym-less” workouts only assume you has access to 1) some dumbbells 2) a kettlebell 3) a skipping rope 4) a car park and some benches.

Obviously a full Crossfit or exercise regime requires more stuff and more variation, and ill encourage you to practice and train in weightlifting and gymnastics and other forms of cardio, but doing these workouts as bits of intensity (hard and fast) should help most people

So todays workout is

With a running clock set for 15 minutes as many rounds as possible of

20 lunges, 20 double under’s, 100m run.

Feel free to tweak everything: 10 lunges, 10 single skips, walk 50m for 7 minutes 10, or 12 minutes. If there is an exercise you cannot do or tweak, feel free to switch it with one you can do, or just leave it out and practice it later if you can.

If you are in chronic pain take it easy, feel free to limit the range of motion, feel free to rest if you must, but it’s simply about pushing you on a bit or a lot, depending on where you are

For food, ill be recommending the Zone diet . For now this is a TWO BLOCK snack, or “brunch” if you prefer.

This snack had 2 blocks of carb in the form of a slice of bread, 2 blocks of avocado (In the form of 2 (overly generous) teaspoons ) 42g of ham (as one block of protein) and 28g of cheese (as another block of protein).

I sneaked in a tea spoonful of chia seeds for extra fibre and a mini scrap of butter as an old habit

and ended up on toast like this

I’ll be explaining in great details how the zone block system works, but its intention is to ensure that each meal or snack has a balance of the main 3 macro nutrients: carbs protein and fat.

Ill be a launching a free ” how to zone course” some time in the next few months so do join my mailing list and ill tell you when you can get it

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Before you start that diet: ask yourself some questions

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I’m not really that into navel gazing. I came from a  religious family so I’ve had my fill of sitting quietly. On top of my christian praying and reflecting  experience, my mother and brother even  fell for that 1970’s transcendental meditation craze. So I had to put up with that too. Being 14 and being made to meditate wasn’t fun.

Never the less  there are some lessons to be learned from “sitting with yourself”  or  as Socrates said,  “the unexamined life is not worth living”. To sensibly ask yourself questions is actually a good idea. To actually listen to the answers is probably better!!

So you’ve decided, once again to lose weight. This time, rather than just jumping on the first weird diet you can think of, why not ask yourself some questions. Here are some useful ones.

Spend a bit of time thinking about the past ( both recent and longer term). Not too much, otherwise you can lose yourself in the mists of time. But get a handle of your history. 

Are you  overweight now?

Why are you overweight? (This is  a very stark, rude question, but was it illness, unhealthy eating, too much food, not enough exercise etc).

Have you ever lost weight before?

If so, what helped?

and what hindered?

Ok, so you have lost weight in the past! What made you put the weight back on?

Ok, thats your past, or as much as you realistically need to consider, what are your views and targets now?

Are you looking for a  short term  fix (a wedding in 2 weeks), or are you prepared to have a long term target

To be successful you need to change your approach to food, weigh and measure, change choices, record your eating habits, and exercise, and all this will no doubt make you feel uncomfortable. So, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 is high)  answer these questions.

Be honest, as we can all want to lose weight but not have much motivation because we know it’s hard work?

How motivated are you to lose weight?

How motivated are you to change your eating habits?

How motivated are you to increase your physical activity?

Will you try new strategies/techniques for changing your eating, exercise, and other behaviours?

Are you prepared to spend time studying reading materials  about nutrition ?

Will you record your exercise  and everything you eat and drink,?

Will  you  change your eating habits?

 Will  you be able to work regular physical activity into your daily schedule?

Will  you be able to exercise  and be active most, if not everyday?.

If you make a mistake, have  a lazy day, or give into temptation, can you forgive yourself, and “get back on the programme”?

Do you have an emotional connection with food?

Do you eat more when you are upset, annoyed or miserable?

Do you eat to celebrate?

If you have  confrontation, do you seek comfort in food to calm down?

A SERIOUS BIT

Think about this question carefully?

Have you ever purged (used laxatives, diuretics, or  vomiting) to control your weight?

If yes,  is this “often” (About once a month  A few times a month  About once a week  About three times a week  Daily.)

If purging is part of your present weight loss strategy, and you feel unable to stop, you probably need to chat to your doctor who could get you some  one to one support to deal with this issue

Thats just the tip of the iceberg. If you’d like more help or thoughts on managing your weight, do join the mailing list of email me directly on Andrew@andrewstemer.com

Epiphany, conversion, or resignation

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during my life, I’ve had lots of dramatic changes, Drinking too much, to drinking very little, smoking 100 cigaretes a day, to stopping totally, being sedentary and inactive, to becoming active and fit.  Ive changed career  many times. Whilst there was a day on which the big event happened, it was never an epiphany, or a conversion. it was simply resignation.

Little is to be achieved by histrionic  pledges. We all know that new years resolutions are not worth the dime. Many of us have seen the over enthusiastic conversion, and then lapse of the drunk or druggie. Its easy to whip a roomful of the overweight into pledging to eat healthily. Its rarely successful. Self pressure sales techniques are interesting. A pressure salesman may  flog you some rubbish ( shares, windows… what ever) ,but their aim is just to get your signature: if you join a gym, buy rubbish shares, you don’t have to do anything… just pay. Real changes that you have to make need to be grounded in something more than sales tricks.

In my experience, effecting change, is a long term process that needs experimentation, practise and a “terrorise the habit” process.