Apples: Never lost in the sauce!

I've had it with summer: Bring on the fall -- and its abundance of apples. Although I eat apples year-round -- even summer's mealy ones make it into my luncheon salads -- I crave the crisp, juicy apples that are now taking over the markets.

I only buy organic apples, which to me makes sense since apples always top the list of the dirtiest fruits and vegetables. The problem with organic apples is that they don't have the variety of conventional ones, but that's a small price to pay.

Apples are a great source of fiber, in addition to some vitamin C and the flavonoid quercetin, which has antioxidant properties.

At market, look for apples with no bruises, dents, scapes or soft spots. Once home, pop them in the refrigerator, where fresh apples will keep up to three months. Of course, for long storage periods, check them daily and discard any apples that are beginning to rot. You know what they say about one rotten apple.

At room temperature, apples should be OK for about a week. Again, check them daily. When my kids were small, I always kept a big basket on the counter, ready for eating. And it worked! Today, all three of my kids still love apples.

And they also love my applesauce.

I cut at least 10 McIntosh apples into quarters, and throw them into a pot, compelte with stems, skins and seeds. Place the pot on simmer, and cook until the apples are mushy and soft.

I use Macs because of the high-water content in the apples. No water needed for applesauce.

Once they are soft, I place them in a hand-cranked Foley food mill, which immediately turns the apples into sauce -- minus the skins, stems and seeds. But by doing it this way, you capture the fiber from the skins, which pumps up the nutritional value of the applesauce. Add some cinnamon and call it sauce!

The cycle of abuse

Yesterday I listened to Denise Brown talk about her sister, Nicole's, life struggle with OJ Simpson. The event was the annual luncheon of The Center for Women and Families of Eastern Fairfield County, an organization that helps keep thousands of women safe each year, in addition to educating anyone who will listen about domestic abuse and sexual assault. We all know Nicole's story, and for years, we watched her anguished family seek justice for the daugther and sister they loved.

As I listened to Denise, I began thinking how someone's actions 17 years ago changed her life forever. Denise is now an advocate, appearing before Congress and organzations such as The Center, trying to get people to understand the cycle of violence -- that abusers are not abusers 24/7. That in many cases, abusers are charming and lovely, until some event turns them into monsters. Her plea is that we all work together, to be on the alert at all times, searching for evidence of abuse in our loved ones, our friends, our neighbors and our co-workers.

So what does the Brown family's fight for justice have to do with dieting? Absolutely nothing. Sort of. On the way home from the luncheon I started to look at my life, which although not perfect, is pretty darn close. There has never been a day since I married Jack that I have been afraid to come home. My home is my safety net, a place of love, a place of comfort. I am so fortunate, and I want to be able to live this life for many years to come.

And the best way to do that: Eat healthy and exercise daily.

The Four Agreements

I learned about the Four Agreements last year during a yoga class, picked up the book by don Miguel Ruiz, and have been trying to put those four principles to work ever since. The principles are practiced to create love and happiness.

I am using these four principles to become less cynical, which in turn I know will bring contentment, peace and happiness. Cynicism is a requirement of a journalist -- a healthy attribute to keep you questioning the people you are interviewing. But here I am, four years after leaving my profession, still trying to erase those years of not trusting anyone from my present life.

What do the Four Agreements have to do with my weight? I am an emotional eater, and eat to feed a hunger deep within. Tame my inner beast, and pounds be gone. That's my theory.

Reading The Four Agreements is simple. And lovely. I read one each morning, and work on that concept the rest of the day. Still, living the principles has become one of the hardest tasks I have ever set forth to accomplish.

So here they are:
1. Be Impeccable with your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
4. Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

Cheese puffs out! Pirate's Booty in!

Before I would buy a piece of clothing for my kids I would ask them: "Do you love this (fill in the blank)?" If they said "yes," we took it home. If they hesitated for even an instant, it stayed in the store.

Yesterday, I was thinking about why I love The Food Lovers system of eating so much, and that flashback popped into my mind. If my kids loved their clothes, they would wear them.

The Food Lovers system is based on the premise that you eat only the foods you love. Period. Do not waste calories on food that is unappealing or not satisfying. The key to eating is portion control, and once you understand that, everything else falls into place.

I have to admit that the past few weeks have been a real eye opener for me. I can eat everything in the store, as long as the food does not contain what Food Lovers calls the dirty dozen (primarily sugars that fill our processed foods) in the first four ingredients. But for every food in the store that is made up of one or more of the dirty dozen, there is a healthy substitute waiting to be tried.

And I've found some foods I really love. Like Pirate's Booty, the healthy alternative to cheese puffs. First, it doesn't turn your fingers and teeth orange, a very good thing for adults. And Pirate's Booty tastes terrific.

I've become a shopping detective, searching for new and interesting foods, and then reading labels to see how healthy they really are. I've also been reading the labels on some of our mainstays, and was amazed by the amount of junk so many of them contain.

But the most amazing thing of all: In the past two weeks, I can honestly say there was not one food that passed my lips that I didn't love. As for my weight: I cannot weigh myself until a week from today, but I can tell I have dropped a few pounds. I already feel it in my clothes. Wow! I feel so normal.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

There was a time when I considered my body as my temple, something to honor, cherish and protect, something to feed with only nutritious, healthy foods.

I'm not sure when my temple became the holding place for cheesecake, Twizzlers and enormous amounts of food, but I so wish I had never let this happen. And I'm also sure that this didn't happen overnight, but gradually, over the years.

Two powerful thoughts there:
1. Our bodies should be our temples.
2. It took time to look the way I do now, so to get them back into shape will take time. There is no overnight fix.

Which brings me to Aretha Franklin, who sang one of my favorite songs, Respect. What a powerful word.

If we all respect our bodies, feed them with foods and vitamins that will make them thrive, we will simply feel better, look terrific, and have more energy. We will be able to be true participants in life, not merely bystanders watching everyone else have fun.

I don't have to listen to the song. Aretha spelling out that one word, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, is now ingrained in my mind. I mentally spell it to myself several times each day, and eventually, it will become part of my DNA.

My body. My temple. It's time I protected it more, and showed it some respect.

This joke's on me

There is something comforting about old friends. We joke, we talk, we've watched our families blossom -- but most of all, we laugh.

Friday night we had book club at Bloodroot, the feminist vegetarian restaurant in Bridgeport that is perfect for a group of women to get together for hours to chat. After we discussed the book, Sarah's Key, the conversation naturally drifted toward diets, the subject that has occupied our lives since our kids were small. This night we talked about the worst diets we had all been on, which made us laugh so hard we had tears in our eyes.

If there is one thing we have all been, it's consistently on and off diets.

I told the story of signing up for Jennie Craig, and as I was leaving, bumping into one of the women at Bloodroot this night. We laughed and laughed, but when I was alone in the car, on the way home, this fact hit me hard: We have all spent too much of our waking days obsessing about our weight.

I wish I could turn back the hands of time, go back a few decades and appreciate the importance of reaching a goal weight and sticking to it. It's time for me to stop fooling around. Consistently eating lean protein, tons of fruits and veggies, avoiding sugar and exercising daily can add years to my life. And now, I need all the extra years I can get.

Enough laughing. It's time to get serious.

Dr. Hunk

I have to admit that that the Doctor's TV show is one of my guilty pleasures. That I owe to Dr. Travis Stork, the one who is so cute I just want to pinch his cheeks. Among other things.

So when I saw his sweet, smiling face gracing the cover of Woman's World, it took one second for that grocery check-out pulp magazine to make it onto the conveyor belt. Whatever he was selling, I was going to buy.

He was selling water. Just water. Actually ice-cold water. Dr. Hunk says that if you drink six 8-ounce glasses of ice-cold water daily, at specific times of day, you'll not only boost your overall health, but speed up your weight loss.

Can it be this easy?

According to Dr. Stork it is. He cites research from Virginia Tech that discovered people who drink water before a meal automatically consume 13% fewer calories at the meal. Dr. Stork says to think of your tummy as a balloon that expands and contracts depending on how full it is. Fill it with zero-calorie water and there's not much room left for food.

And why the ice? When you drink ice water, your body has to heat it up to body temperature, which shoots up you metabolism by 25% for the next 60 minutes.

So why haven't we heard this before? According to Dr. Stork, there's no money to be made from encouraging people to drink water. No profit, no publicity.

His formula for adding water into your diet is simple. Drink an 8-ounce glass:
As soon as you get up in the morning;
Mid-morning;
Before lunch;
Mid-afternoon;
Before dinner;
At 8 p.m.

I'll toast to this.