15 Red, White, & Blue Food Ideas
Even if you’re not at the park watching fireworks or gathered in a backyard with 50 of your closest friends, there are still ways to get festive with food! Favorite 4th of July Festivities We all want something to look forward to. In the summer, I always look forward to the 4th of July. Independence Day brings parades, fireworks, swimming pools, and barbeques – all good stuff! My family usually attends our city’s “Pet Parade”, then we walk to the town park for an old-fashioned festival – complete with funnel cakes and three-legged races. In the evening, we cook-out with friends and try to stay awake long enough to watch…
Intermittent Fasting 101
What is it? Intermittent fasting is like regular fasting (not eating), except on a regularly-planned schedule, totally optional, and usually done to lose weight. Intermittent Fasting is Hugely Popular In 2013, the Canadian Medical Association Journal predicted that intermittent fasting (IF) would be the next big weight-loss fad. As we know, many predictions don’t come true, but this one sure did! Intermittent fasting – rotating periods of eating and fasting – is a huge trend in diet culture right now. A 2020 poll found that IF is one of the most popular weight-loss diet Americans have ever tried. Yes, ever in recorded dieting history. An estimated 24% of US adults…
Taste A Little Summer With Hawaiian-Inspired Ahi Tuna Poké
Fast, fresh, and super healthy I love pumpkin-spiced desserts and gravy-covered meats, and other fall and winter foods. However, after Christmas, I immediately look forward to temperatures above 32’F and days with more than nine hours of sunlight. That’s not happening anytime soon here in Central Oregon, so I wanted to find a way to bring a little summer into my diet. My husband Chris and I made a recent trip to Hawaii – in December. Yes, it was sublimely warm and sunny. After that experience, we wanted to have poké here on the mainland, as a reminder that it’s warm and sunny somewhere. A few of the most popular…
10 Must-Have Foods for Healthy Eating
Ever think about overhauling your diet or just eating healthier, but then get overwhelmed with all the choices? It’s no wonder – the options are endless! The average supermarket now carries over 40,000 products, which is a 5x increase from the 1970s – so many choices [1, 2]!! When I talk about food and nutrition with friends and family, one of the most common questions I get is, “What do you eat?” I think to myself, “Yay – I’m so glad you want to chat about food!” because I could talk for days about it! Even though I think a lot about food and nutrition, the reality is that I…
4 Ways to Crush Your Labor Day BBQ
low stress * whole food * gluten free As written: Gluten-free, Whole Food, Paleo; with options for Whole30 and Keto diets Labor Day is truly the last hurrah of summer. We Pacific Northwesterners are getting in the last cookout and camping trip before the chill and structure of fall pulls us from our summer dreams back to the reality of short days, flannel layers, and hot drinks. Plus, it’s a 3-day weekend! You can have a BBQ on Sunday evening and people might actually attend. This means you (or Chris and me – the host(s)) have an extra day to wrap your head around having people in our house and…
Protein-Packed Lunches
Easy add-ons for a boost in protein and healthy fats Lunch: the meal that is often treated as an afterthought. In our busy lives, lunch is a meal that we “grab”, “pick up”, eat at our desks, or consume while doing something else entirely. Increasingly, lunch is simply a means to an end – a way to prevent hangriness – so we can keep going through the rest of our day until dinner. This relegation of lunch to the sidelines of life just makes me sad. My ideal would be to sit down at a table, maybe with other people (what?!), and enjoy each bite of a simple, fresh, and…
10 Healthy Snacks Under 200 Calories
Being hungry is the pits. That gnawing, empty, relentless feeling of your body wanting food is hard to ignore. If you’re like me, you’ll be irritable, have a hard time concentrating, and give the dirtiest of looks to anyone who causes you to be late for lunch. While not yet in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “hangry”, or, irritable due to hunger, is a feeling I try to prevent every day. Snacks are the antidote to hangriness, but if you’re not careful, snacks can be unhealthy, meal-sized, and leave you feeling like you need a nap. Whether you work in an office, are at home during the day, or out…
Best Breakfast Bowl for Special Diets
If you’ve read my original Best Breakfast post, you probably know that I love a big bowl of nutritious goodness to start my day. If you’ve read a few other of my posts, you know I’ve practiced and respect many special diets. So,this post is meant to demystify and lay out your perfect breakfast bowl, no matter what your food preferences or restrictions. Gluten-free: You’re in luck-the original Diligent Daybreak is already gluten-free! 1/2 whole milk yogurt (eg, Fage Total 5% Greek) 1 banana, sliced 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk 1 tablespoon no-sugar-added peanut butter, nut butter, or chopped nuts 1 tsp chia seeds 1 tablespoon or ~20 raisins 1/4…
The Best Breakfast for Sustained Energy
What’s your ideal breakfast – black coffee, biscuits and gravy (I heard recently that’s Portland’s signature breakfast), a granola bar on the way out the door? Breakfasts range from zilch to 1000-calorie sugar-and-fat bombs, and everything in between. My “historical” breakfasts have been high-carb, medium protein, and low fat. Think pancakes with strawberry jam (made with love by my mom), Frosted Mini Wheats with skim milk (a 90s favorite), and many derivations of oatmeal … As I’ve gotten wiser (ahem, older) and more aware of how breakfast impacts my energy levels, I’ve observed that these common and carb-forward breakfasts, although delicious, left me feeling super lethargic – and starving –…
Small Bites, Big Results
