Small Changes

FIY - Week 6

By: Ann-Marie Giglio
Co-Publisher, On the Gay Horizon

This week we're thinking about small changes to our diets. 

Diet = the food you eat. 

Has anyone taken soft drinks out of their diets yet?  How about just removing one or two that you currently drink during the day and replacing with water?  If possible, use your own, refillable container.  If you really get serious about losing the soft drinks and switch entirely to water, without changing anything else in your life, you'll lose about 10 or 15 pounds over a year's time, not to mention the piles of additives.

Remember that your body is very, very smart.  When it doesn't get enough water every day, it will start holding onto it. 

It's like using a deprivation diet.  When you're only eating 1200 cal/day, your body switches into starvation mode and your metabolism actually slows down!  That's definitely the way to burn calories. 

The other small change you can make is to switch from white potatoes to sweet potatoes and yams.  Not every time you reach for a potato.  Just start with once a week. 

My favorite way to eat them is, of course, roasted.  Just pop them into the oven with whatever else you're roasting, skin and all.  Easy.  For a treat, slice them into quarters--or thinner if you need to cook them quickly--spread a cookie sheet with olive oil, get some oil on the sweet potatoes, sprinkle them with sea salt and cinnamon, and roast at 350 or 375, depending on your oven, until they are to your liking.  Probably 20-30 minutes.