<p>@Momlive 1024- re: avocado oil-it seems that it is both a cooking and finishing oil that has a very high smoke point. Good for stir fries and available cold pressed. Here is an address://<a href=“Avocado Oil - Gourmet Guide – igourmet”>www.igourmet.com/avocado-oil.asp</a>. I haven’t used it yet, but I do use walnut oil to make a great salad dressing with dijon mustard, a hint of balsamic or fig dressing and a couple of drops of agave if too tart/season to taste. It is good for a change. I’d be curious about people’s experiences with avocado oil.</p>
<p>If you are tierd of the same old peanut butter, try hazelnut and cashew butters by Kettle:</p>
<p>[Kettle</a> / Nut Butters](<a href=“http://www.kettlebrand.com/our_products/nut_butters/?pid=34#/our_products/nut_butters/?pid=34]Kettle”>http://www.kettlebrand.com/our_products/nut_butters/?pid=34#/our_products/nut_butters/?pid=34)</p>
<p>I just had some of that for lunch. Yum! One caveat: they are not low calorie foods.</p>
<p>Just returned from lunch out with my H. We used to both get a full entree. Now we split one entree and add an extra cup of soup or split a salad. I walk away feeling good not stuffed. Also when you see 1/2 the meal come out on a plate you realize that it is plenty of food.
A couple of nights ago we went to an old favorite. A mexican place that I used to love their tortas. I told my H today that I don’t need to go back. The torta was not worth the calories. The quality has changed or my taste buds have.
I use canola oil and olive oil. I admit to knowing very little about oils. Can someone give a “short” primer on the pros and cons of the different types of oil?</p>
<p>I’m interested in learning about oils, too. I’ve been using olive oil for most cooking, but someone posted that it was a waste to use it that way. I have some almond oil that I needed for a salad dressing recipe. I have stopped using canola oil because I read that it has the wrong kind of omega’s. I had been using butter for baking, but used the almond oil instead last time. It’s really too expensive to cook with, though.</p>
<p>Okay - Bunsenburner was right. My pedometer was off quite a bit - I drove my usual route which the pedometer says is 2 miles and my odometer came up 2.8 miles. I then checked on Google map pedometer and also got 2.8. The good news is I’m walking a lot faster per mile than I thought I was! Actually, I had been wondering why it was taking me 25 miles to cover 1 mile. Turns out I’m doing 17 minute miles. Might need to invest in the GPS heart monitor BB mentioned.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>^^ really? I thought canola oil was good. Sigh. Does this change daily?</p>
<p>^^ Canola oil IS good, depending on what you want your oil to be good for. It’s “good” (heart healthy) because it is relaitvely high in unsaturated and monosaturated fats and low in saturated fats. If you specifically want omega-3 fatty acids then fish oil is your best bet. And for vegetable oils, flaxseed oil is relatively high in omega-3 - but its mixture of the various types is not as favorable as fish oil.</p>
<p>However, all edible oils, including canola, flaxseed, and for that matter margarine, butter, or pure lard, contain exactly the same level of calories per gram. Thus, dipping your bread in olive oil may be healthier for your heart than caking on the butter, but eating a lot of either one will cause you to gain weight. So if losing weight is your goal, go easy on oil of ALL TYPES. Oils have the most calories per gram of all the nutrients.</p>
<p>Pedometers are worthless as a distance measurer. If they motivate you to take x number of steps a day, that’s fine, but if they are ever accurate it is an accident. You have to not vary your stride length at ALL (and that’s assuming you calibrated the thing right in the first place). Same with the Nike Plus system- just not at all accurate.</p>
<p>(I didn’t speak up before because I was already in deep doo doo on this thread!)</p>
<p>46 to 34 waist - wow, BC! That’s great!</p>
<p>About canola oil, I think the idea is that our diet is too high in omega 6’s, which promote inflammation. But I am not really up on this, so don’t take my word for it.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Boy, I’ll say. I remember some years ago when sports writers were all agog because they put a pedometer on an NBA player for one game, and it said he had run something like 25 miles over the course of the game. </p>
<p>Everyone thought that was amazing. Yeah, a little TOO amazing considering that an NBA game consists of four 12-minute quarters. So that means he ran basically an entire marathon in 48 minutes of playing time. Quite the feat considering that the world record for the men’s marathon, by the very best runners in the world, is over 2 hours.</p>
<p>I think you can calibrate a pedometer to your usual average pace, but it make take some adjusting and you can’t vary the hilliness of your average walk too much. When I used mine it was within 10%, but I found it easier to just program my usual routines into the google pedometer or save loops at Livestrong.</p>
<p>Someone mentioned the GPS some posts back. I bought one and it is a handy little gadget. The whole family will share it. It measures distance, time, and rate. I walked three miles today and yesterday.</p>
<p>How is everyone doing now that the holiday weekend is upon us? I am leaving tomorrow for a weeks vacation and am trying to mentally prepare myself for the temptations and overindulgences.</p>
<p>Since I try to appear normal at social gatherings - I am making my hardly any pasta pasta salad. </p>
<p>I use about 3/4 of a small box (14 oz, I think) of the Barilla-plus penne pasta</p>
<p>3 bunches of asparagus, roasted
2 cans of artichokes, drained and chopped
4 medium tomatoes (or more if I like how they look)
2-3 summer squash, peeled and cubed
BIG bunch of basil, leaves rolled and snipped into ribbons
1/4 of fresh mozzarella cut into tiny cubes</p>
<p>dressing made of champagne or red wine vinegar & safflower oil.
fresh pepper. </p>
<p>I cook the pasta, roast the asparagus. </p>
<p>In the meantime I mix the other ingredients, and add the pasta when it has cooled a little. When the asparagus is cooled I cut into 1 1/2 slices. </p>
<p>When the salad is finished, the veggies outweigh the pasta. I sometimes add black olives and I use cubed tofu for my spouse rather than the cheese. </p>
<p>The barilla plus pasta has a little more protein, and slightly fewer carbs. So this dish isn’t a no-carb salad, but it isn’t high carb either. Just enough pasta to give it some substance</p>
<p>Looks good, wnp. I may try this this weekend.</p>
<p>^^ That sounds SO good.</p>
<p>We are having people over tonight and will grill steaks. I don’t eat meat, so I’ll have a veggie burger. Will also have tabouli and fresh corn on the cob (grilled). Watermelon for dessert. Lots of wine.</p>
<p>I just made a batch of Symphony brownies for a potluck tonight and just eating the scraps is probably more carbs than I’ve had in a day in months! Yummy though. I have no problem resisting sweets when they are out on a buffet table but it’s kind of tough when you are cutting them up and putting them on a plate.</p>
<p>As you can tell, I am not much for measuring.</p>
<p>I actually ran for a few minutes, here and there, on the treadmill. It is all your doing and I thank you. So far, shins can sustain the 3 minutes here, 2 minutes there, in a High Intensity Interval Training for Dummies…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That cracked me up! It would take a lot more than a well prepared pasta salad to make ME appear normal at social gatherings.</p>