three bowls

Okay kids, the fun is almost over.  For most people in this country, holiday eating hit its peak on Tuesday, and will start to decline through the New Year, at which point our guilt and shame will kick in and we’ll make lots of plans to fix how we eat.

Or at least that’s the clichéd version of American holiday eating…I actually feel like because of the time off from the 2367 jobs, I was eating less during the holidays since I wasn’t stress-eating to get through my over-packed day.  And, I have to say, this little website project has made me more excited about cooking (it’s always more fun to cook for more people, even if it’s virtually and just to recount your experience), so really, I’m rolling into 2008 without my usual load of guilt and shame.  Check me out!

Nevertheless, I can still improve and losing some weight is always a good idea for me, so I put together a Link Round-Up of some healthy diet links – both diet in the sense of what you eat everyday regarding of weight status, and in the sense of wanting to weigh less. 

How to Eat

• How to Eat in Seven Words – advice from Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  Those seven words?  "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
• Dr. Weil also has a great and concise resource - I’ve linked to this in the past - that’s called The Anti-Inflammatory Diet.  It has some excellent basic information.
• Epicurious has a short article on healthy eating, including some nutrition guidelines and links to resources, like the Tufts University Health and Nutrition Newsletter and, for the parents out there, a Feeding Kids Newsletter written by a dietician.

What to Eat/Pantry Stocking

• What to Eat by Marion Nestle – I haven’t read the book yet, but I listened to this podcast from KUOW’s Speakers Forum and decided I really would like to.  In the podcast, she describes how readers of her first book, Food Politics, expressed to her at readings and signings that they wished the book told them what to eat.  As a New Yorker who didn’t do her shopping in large supermarkets, she didn’t quite understand what their confusion was about…until it took her at least three visits to the grocery store just to get adequate data to compare the seven different types of romaine available at one market.  The book is supposed to be an aisle-by-aisle analysis of the grocery store to help empower you to make the best possible decisions.
• Yahoo has a list of “127 Foods that Fight Fat.” Well, not exactly, Yahoo.  More like some lower-calorie options for common foods.  However, keeping some of these options in the forefront of your mind when shopping might help you make good choices.
• Eating Well has a feature on stocking your pantry for eating healthy in a hurry.
• Dr. Weil’s advice on Pantry Stocking and some background on the Science of Nutrition to help clarify the "why" behind the "what."   
• Here’s my own little addition: my list of the 14 Top Healthy Foods based on my cross-referenced review of several recent lists and articles.
• And if all this healthy eating seems a bit expensive, here's an MSN story on eating healthy and organic on just $7 a day. (Spoiler: It helps if, like me, your peasant genes give you a natural affinity for beans.)
  

How to Cook

• Eating Well has Quick (under 30 minutes) and Ultra-Quick (under 20 minutes) recipes.
• Some cooking tips from Dr. Weil.
  

What to Eat When Eating Out

• Eating Well has a couple of sets of tips for eating in restaurants; nothing earth-shattering, but some good reminders. Set 1 and Set 2. 
• Lifehacker has a link to a chart comparing the calorie count and fat of various fast food options.  If you are out and about, sometimes that is your only option, so this is one way to minimize the damage.
• Lifehacker also has link to another article about how to lessen the impact of fast food eating. 
• And this has been making the rounds forever, but just in case you think Chipotle is a less-fattening option, you might want to confirm that by checking out the calorie content of your favorite burrito.

Miscellaneous Tips and Techniques for Weight Loss & Weight Maintenance
(Note – this is weight maintenance for those who have a tendency to put on the pounds, as opposed to quick-metabolism’d people who have trouble keeping weight on. )

• Body + Soul’s article on “Mastering Your Metabolism” which takes the anti-inflammation angle and applies it to weight loss and gain.
• Body + Soul also has some tips on “Curbing Your Cravings.” 
• LifeHack has a post on overcoming stress-eating through mental imagery. 
• Ben Popkin from Consumerist.com “Lost 14.6 Pounds Sitting in Front of a Computer.”  While I can’t really get behind the Shangri-La diet aspect of his success, mainly because I like to cook too much, the technophile part of me loves how he used all these different technologies to help him out.
• And Accidental Hedonist is running a poll about New Year's Resolutions and diet.  Weigh in with your opinion!  Get it?!? Ha ha...eh.