EatFit. LiveWell.: 1/24/10

500 Calorie Dinners Cookbook

500 Calorie Dinners takes the guesswork out of healthy cooking by providing delicious, easy recipes and menus for dinners that come in at about 500 calories, an amount experts say will help most people lose weight without feeling deprived. Once you try the meals in this book you’ll be amazed at how well you can eat for 500 calories. One night you’ll have a steak sandwich with grilled peppers and a garlicky aïoli served along with roasted red potatoes and a green salad with a tangy vinaigrette, the next night braised chicken in a paprika-spiked sauce over egg noodles with snap peas tossed with a creamy tarragon dressing. Want a glass of wine with dinner or a dessert to end the evening? We’ve included those in our menus too. Try pork chops with an orange and fennel salad along with a side of quinoa and a dish of strawberry frozen yogurt.

And this book will help you to do more than just trim your waistline—it will help you to improve your heart health and reduce your risk for diabetes too. It provides solid advice from EatingWell Magazine’s nutrition experts on what foods should be included in any healthful diet, how to figure out how many calories you need, how to determine appropriate serving sizes and estimate calories (without carting around a kitchen scale everywhere you go) and how to lose weight while still feeling satisfied.

Buy it here!

Dani's Story

Before we start writing about what we are doing today, I thought it would be a good to share a little bit about my past. I grew up in central Pennsylvania with my mom, step father and sister. As a child and teenager I lived on a diet of cherry coke, chips, my mom’s "famous" popcorn and large portion sizes for most meals. I would always skip breakfast, eat little for lunch and fill my dinner plate at least twice. For most of my youth I was active in sports, so I was able to maintain a normal weight, even while eating an unbalanced diet. As a senior in high school I starved my body of food after my boyfriend of two years broke up with me causing me to lose a substantial amount of weight. Needless to say my emotional coping skills were not very strong at this stage in my life. That was one of those moments in life that you think you will never get over. Now it seems so silly, but hindsight is always 20/20.

As I entered college, I weighed around 120lbs and I am sad to say that I gained the freshman 15 well before Christmas. The all you can eat food options and drinking were temptations I easily gave into. During my sophomore year I joined the La Salle Women's Rugby team. The extra activity was enough to help me maintain my weight while I indulged in all of the excess that college life offers.

When I graduated college I weighed around 145 lbs. I went directly into the workforce and started gaining weight. I joined the gym and stated taking diet pills. The combination of the two helped slow my weight gain. During the same year I started dating Tanya. In 2006, we trained for the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco. I stopped taking the diet pills, but continued to go to gym. I gained weight rapidly even though I was training for the maraton. This is when I realized something else must be going on. Unfortunately I did not have health insurance at the time, so I ignored the problem.

In spring 2007 I changed jobs and moved from Philadelphia to New York and moved in with Tanya. This is me almost 2 years out of college during a visit in Pittsburg. Even though everything seems to be going my way, I am becoming increasingly depressed and larger in size. I stopped going to the gym and used food for comfort.

Not long after the trip to Pittsburg, Tanya forced me to go to the doctor. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, or an under-active thyroid. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this condition, the thyroid releases hormones that control your metabolism. Since my thyroid was not making enough hormones, my metabolism was very slow. This caused weight gain, depression, fatigue, puffiness, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I was started on a low dose of levothyroxine in fall of 2007. To the left is a picture of me at a holiday party not long after my diagnosis. Here I'm at my max weight, 200lbs.

Over the next 6 months my doctor continued to increase the dosage of my thyroid medication. During summer 2008, my doctor was confident that I was on the correct dose because my blood pressure, cholesterol level and weight has dropped. To the left is a picture of me during a trip with Tanya cross-country. We were in the middle of moving from New York to San Francisco for a job I accepted.

Over the next year I took a greater interest in my health. I started seeing an endocrine specialist, who added liothyroxine to my arsenal. This addition really got my thyroid under control. At this point I realized that the thyroid medicine alone was not going to get me to my weight loss goal. Inspired by NBC’s The Biggest Loser, I joined 24hr Fitness and purchased a BodyBugg. I began monitoring my calorie input and output with the BodyBugg system. To maintain a calorie deficit, I created a very strict diet for myself, but after two months I slipped back into my poor eating habits. My diet of various bars for breakfast and lunch was not enough to sustain or satisfy me. I pretended to maintain the diet I set for myself around friends and family, but would sneak McDonald's or various fast food places into my errands. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t stick to my goals so I tried to hide the unhealthy food I was eating. The picture to the left is from summer 2009. I weigh 180lbs and am continuing to struggle to lose weight.

While visiting my family on the east coast we went on a bike ride through Hershey, PA. This one ride was a turning point for me. I realized that I could actually have fun and exercise. Both Tanya and I started taking spin classes and bought road bikes. I set a personal goal to complete a century ride in 2010. I put my BodyBugg back on and began monitoring my calories again. This time around I made sure I paid close attention to my diet. I started finding foods I love that fit into my 1500 calorie a day diet. I am currently going to spin twice a week and weight training on non spin days. On the weekends Tanya and I go on longer outdoor rides when the weather is nice. We are registered to ride in the Solvang Half-Century in March and the Amgen Breakaway Century in April. To the left is a picture of me at 167lbs and still losing weight.

UPDATE: Below is a picture of me today. I have surpassed my weight loss goal and am maintaining my current weight of 135 lbs. I have upgraded my road bike and hope to join a women's cycling team in 2011. In addition to this, I hope to complete a triathlon and the infamous California death ride next year!

For all of you out there trying to loss weight, keep up the good work! You will get to your goal!

Tanya's Story

Food and cooking have been a central part of my life for as long as I can remember. Only, I didn't realize how important it was to me until more recently....

I grew up in a military family living and traveling all over the the

U.S.

and Europe. It was a wonderful way to grow up and I am lucky to have had many incredible memories and experiences from it. After attending about 8 different schools I continued the "tradition" of moving throughout college starting at Cabrini College outside of Philadelphia, PA, attending wilderness education courses at the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyoming and eventually graduating from Penn State Harrisburg in Harrisburg, PA with a degree in Communications.

After graduation I wanted to move to New York City for work. It was a place I had always wanted to live and experience. I got a job as an Executive Assistant at Martha Stewart Living Radio (MSLR) and moved into my first apartment in Jersey City, NJ. I spent I didn't 2 1/2 years working for MSLR moving up to radio producer of the channel's morning show "Morning Living with Kim and Betsy". I was immersed in a world of homemaking and loved it - everything from decorating with glitter and organizing your closet to removing red wine stains and making hostess gifts. I learned some pretty nifty and useful things that I try and impress people with every now and then! But, my favorite part was interacting with chefs, sharing recipes with our listeners and scheduling health experts to answer questions about health and nutrition. I was in food heaven!

How let me just take a minute to backtrack here.....

My mother is German and my father American and I grew up in a family where home cooked meals were a norm - no frozen dinners, no eating in front of the TV and Cheerios was our cereal of choice. Now, don't get me wrong...I didn't grow up in a crazy hyper-healthy household. My mom grew up eating home cooked meals so it was natural for her to continue doing what came natural to her and she knew that cooking dinner pretty much every night was the best way to keep her family healthy and happy.

So, when I moved out and into my own place I remember grocery shopping with my mom for all the things that were in her pantry as well. It only made sense for me to continue cooking for myself the way she always had for our family. I definitely had watched and helped my mom a lot in the kitchen so I was pretty adept at cooking for myself. But, there were still many calls home around 6:30 pm where she would explain to me over the phone how to make a roux for my great grandmothers spaghetti sauce or how thick the dough should be for crepes or how many eggs to use for a quiche. On the weekends when I went home we would cook together or she would help me make something for the following week.

During this time I met Dani and eventually we moved in together in New Jersey. We both had really hectic work schedules and I did my best to keep cooking as many dinners as possible and making lunches for work. But, it was tough and the New York lifestyle was really wearing on us. In October of 2006 we ran for Team in Training in the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco. It was our first time in California and we fell in love with San Francisco. We could see ourselves living in this beautiful place without snow, mostly blue skies, friendly people and of course amazing fresh food. In June of 2008 we moved and haven't looked back.

Since moving I have been freelancing as a Communications Manager and while I enjoy my work I have always felt something missing. A few months ago I had a Eureka! moment thanks to the ZenHabits newsletter about finding your passion. When I answered the questions the answers came so naturally I'm almost annoyed at myself that I hadn't thought of it sooner.

"What are you good at?"

Cooking

"What excites you?"

Going to the grocery store, cooking, food. I like to read cookbooks.

"What have you secretly dreamed of?"

Cooking for others, teaching people to get healthy, inspiring others and making a difference.

It was so obvious! Within a month I enrolled in Bauman College where I will be starting classes in March of 2010 in their Nutrition Educator course. I am excited to have this blog with which Dani and I plan to share what we're learning on our journeys and get others excited about making positive changes in their lives.

500 Calorie Dinners Cookbook

Dani's Story

Tanya's Story

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