Since I’m all about Weight Watchers, I immediately downloaded this book when I heard about it.  It is a memoir (from someone too young to have a memoir really) about her life as she rose to fame, how food played a part in her life, how she viewed her body while making her way in Hollywood  being a plus-sized girl, how she became an inspiration on WW, how she helped turn her extended family around and got them to start losing as well. It’s an inspirational read, giving some insight into a woman who did not have body image problems even though she was plus-sized. She is a positive role model for her fans and for anyone losing weight.

I did find the beginning of the book which chronicled her rise to fame through American Idol and the film Dreamgirls a bit long as I was mostly interested in the weight-loss, but having read it, I see how it built on itself and brought you from the beginning to full circle present as a wife, mother, and spokesperson. I like that she is real, no chefs for her, she is cooking for her family and doing this for the right reasons, to get healthy for her son. She is realistic and she is doing this the right way.

I finished the book quickly, but I felt it was long enough to tell the story well. I like that she did not go into her family tragedy, leaving it a private matter as it should be. Her style is familiar, a person simply relaying the information of her life. You feel like it’s a real person speaking with you. Very effective.

If you struggle with weight, if you want to learn more about the number one weight-loss plan in the country, if you want some inspiration, then this is a book you should read. Worth the money.

.http://www.amazon.com/Got-This-Changed-Weighed-ebook/dp/B005OH9M3K/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1330032045&sr=1-1

Reblogged from Kitchen Slattern:

Recipe: Crock Pot Chicken Over the years I’ve regularly come across recipes for roast chicken that call for bunging the whole bird into a crock pot and just letting it go for four or five hours, and although I find nothing to quibble with in terms of the labor involved (next to none), I have up to now shied away from this approach mostly on principal. To me, the crackly skin and pan drippings of an oven roasted bird are among its main attractions. Also, most crock pot recipes rely on spice rubs for flavor, …

This looks great…and her blog is great

I came across Susan’s blog and enjoyed it, so I looked into her books. They are great! Available at Amazon, go check her out. Then write a review and tell people about her.

Little Death By The Sea http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/B005GY0Y8S/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link

Meet Maggie Newberry, and Laurant Dernier and France…This will make you want to go to France and see for yourself if it’s as magical as she describes. There is a mystery to be solved involving a sister, a child and two countries. The story builds slowly, then has twists and result in a thoroughly enjoyable read that leaves you curious for more. There should be a cookbook!

Toujours Dead http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0970671601/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link

Maggie and Laurant in France…an inheritance, a murder 40 years ago, a murder today, and the lovely Provence countryside weave a compelling tale that leaves you wanting more. Excellent storytelling and character development. This one makes you want to move to France for a year…the food, the countryside…it sounds absolutely wonderful…

Murder In Provencehttp://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/B005H41EM2/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link

Maggie and Laurant endure and become entangled in another murder in Provence…I never saw the twists in this plot coming, it was thoroughly enjoyable and leaves you hungry for more. And the food continues, and the quaint village life continues, you truly do want to see if it’s as she writes it. I hope she writes a sequel.

2 Tbl Olive Oil

1 lb Italian Turkey sausage ( I use 1/2 sweet and 1/2 hot, and links not bulk)

1 red onion, chopped

4 – 6 cups chicken stock (I use turkey stock)

2 pkgs frozen spinach (I like a lot of spinach, use one if you don’t)

5 redskin potatoes  sliced

1 tble minced garlic

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp Italian Seasoning

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1 bay leaf

1 cup fat free half and half

salt and pepper to taste

Take casings off the sausage and cut up into bite size peices.

Heat pressure cooker on brown setting till sizzling and add olive oil

Add onions and garlic and sausage, saute in the hot cooker till onion is fragrant.

Add remaining ingredients except for the half and half, and cover and lock the cooker lid

Cook for 7 minutes and perform a quick release when done.

Add half and half.

Season to taste.

Serves 6.  9 points per serving

• Balancing your menu and eating freshly prepared foods, not processed foods. More veggies and fruits. Keep fat to a minimum, but do have some, like olive oil.
• Some people have better luck cutting out sugar and synthetic sugar products (like diet soda) completely from their diet.
• Writing down everything you eat in one journal, and in another journal or in a support group, write or talk about how you are feeling. Track what your trigger emotions are so you can better deal with them. Identifying a problem makes it easier to solve.
• Exercise more, especially when angry or emotional. Exercise helps to re-direct emotions away from food.
• Professional help. There are many emotional issues related to food addiction and therapy is instrumental in breaking through those issues.

As you may know already, I’m losing my weight with Weight Watchers and I find that the plan is the most balanced and realistic in terms of real world interaction with food. Since I had such a disastrous experience with cutting out sugar completely, I am practicing moderation which seems to work. I get cravings, I plan to eat something sweet in a normal portion size and then the craving goes away. I haven’t over-indulged and I am behaving like my thin friends and that is one of my goals. To behave normally around food. Balance is important in life, and I am finding that with WW, I have balance. Therapy is also helpful, more for the emotional issues rather than the actual addiction.

Are you addicted to food? What do you do to handle it?

But the question remains, “Can Food Be  Real Addiction?” Why Yes, Yes It Can…

It’s no secret the United States has an obesity problem. You only have to go grocery shopping or people watching at the mall to see the evidence of this. With the numbers rising, and no end in sight, science has been studying the problem and has found that  excessive sugar, fat, and  salt  given to animals  activate the same receptors that drugs trigger. The brain is craving dopamine, whose receptors maybe lacking in many addicted people and sugar/salt/fat trigger dopamine and the “high”. But it doesn’t last and the person is off craving it again, obsessing over the foods that will make them feel good again, even though this behavior is wrong, even though it is making them fat, miserable, and in some cases diseased. For those that say just say no and exhibit some self-restraint, imagine telling a drug addict or an alcoholic to just say no, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work with food either.

Dr. Oz has a list of questions to ask  if you suspect you might be addicted to food:

• Are you hiding and sneaking food?
• Are you thinking about food for more than an hour a day?
• Eating after arguing?
• Experiencing withdrawal symptoms when you go without food?
• Do you eat despite not being hungry?

The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale has these questions:

• Do you spend a lot of time feeling lethargic after eating?
• Do certain foods trigger you to eat to excess?
• Do you find you have  to eat more of a food to get the same good feelings from it?
• Do you have trouble functioning because of food and your behavior with it?

Unlike drugs or alcohol, which you theoretically can walk away from, food must be the tiger played with everyday. So how do you do that if you are addicted? See my post tomorrow for more information on food addiction…

Related articles

• Dr. Oz on food addiction (examiner.com)
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/food-addiction-could-it-e_b_764863.h
• http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/05/news/la-heb-food-addiction-20110405
• http://addictions.about.com/od/lesserknownaddictions/a/foodadd.htm

Today I’ll share my recipe for Lentils. This is a dish that is healthy and is comfort food. You feel very satisfied and cared for when eating it. I make it in the pressure cooker in 17 minutes. You can make it on the stove top, I don’t know how long it would take till the lentils are soft, there are numerous sources on how to cook lentils.  The lamb makes this dish. I’ve made it with ham and it’s fine, just not as good as with lamb. And it’s best eaten the next day, even with the pressure cooking.

Monique’s Lentils

4 cups Turkey or Chicken Stock. (I use Turkey)

1 lamb shoulder blade chop (you want about 6 oz of meat)

1 pkg dried lentils

1 pkg frozen chopped spinach

4 cloves garlic

1 – 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion

1/2 cup chopped carrots

bay leaf

olive oil

salt to taste

Turn cooker to brown and add olive oil. When hot, brown the lamb on both sides.

Add onions and garlic and saute for a few minutes.

Add remaining ingredients and set cooker for 17 minutes.

Let it release naturally,

Salt to taste

Serve either by itself or over rice

6 servings

8 points per serving

As for my I Pad, there are rumours that Apple is coming up with a 7 in screen on the I Pad3. And there are rumours that Amazon is coming out with a 9in Kindle. Who knows what will be available by the time I get to have mine.

Bella story: She turned off my light on the desk! Her nail hooked on the chain just right and she pulled and turned the light off. Does anybody know anything about training cats? It would be really energy-efficient if she would  turn off the light when we leave the room, as I always forget!

Thanks for your support everyone…

I would spend hours in the local bookstore, perusing the hundreds of titles just crying out to come home with me. There were infinite possibilities in that store. So many things to learn. My interests were varied, non-fiction all. I couldn’t read fiction due to a cognitive problem I had from a car accident. I just couldn’t keep the story line straight, and I would forget what I had read by the bottom of the page. Most non-fiction didn’t pose the same challenges. My apartment was small and shelf-space was limited so while I was attached to my beloved books every couple of years as my interests changed,  I would cull the shelves, relegating my cherished books to the donation box. Their departure quickly replaced with new titles in bright and shiny covers. And so it went in my house, books coming and going, ebbing and flowing like a tide of words.

Then one day a new invention hit the marketplace. A Kindle. I scoffed its arrival saying confidently that nothing could replace the magic of a book. The feel of it, the tactile act of turning a page. Ludicrous invention, it’ll never last, going the way of all hyped up cultural phenomina. I went back to my shelves and said it’ll never be in this house. Then one day I was in Target and I happened upon the Kindles. They looked intriguing in person, and didn’t that screen look just like a page from a book. And feel how light they are. And you can download thousands of books. You can take them everywhere you go. Damn if I didn’t cross over to the dark side and buy one.

It was as though a light switch had been turned on. Prior to the Kindle, I had discovered I could read fiction again. Whatever cognitive problem I had was ”fixed”. So, I found myself spending hours perusing Amazon’s endless offerings. The library and bookstore officially replaced in my world. There was nothing they didn’t have. And then I found an even better feature…free books. Well, I was off and running. It’s been less than a year and I’ve read 71 books, with about 300 in the Kindle awaiting my attention. And I have an even wider scope of interests now. The Kindle goes everywhere with me and I am constantly reading. Turning the page replaced by clicking. I am part of the electronic revolution.

my Kindle