In California, we’re fortunate enough to occasionally find out of season fruits during the otherwise dreary (fruit wise) winter months, and thanks to the popular Trader Joe’s and Safeway grocery store chains, selections often includes watermelon, pre-sliced and packed in a tub and ready to eat.

Most melons, but particularly watermelon, are a dieter’s friend, and particularly for the post-operative weight loss surgery community. With a protein heavy diet, sometimes something as simple as a piece of fruit can be a treat, but we have trouble digesting high sugar varieties (oranges; orange juice). In addition, we are always in need of extra fluid. Watermelon is a great solution. It is both a low sugar fruit and with its high water level of 92%, more than any other fruit, it helps hydrate the body.

“A one-cup serving of watermelon will provide around 48 calories. Watermelon is an excellent source of vitamin C and vitamin A, with one serving containing 14.59 mg of vitamin C and 556.32 IU of vitamin A. Watermelon also provides significant amounts of vitamin B6 and vitamin B1, as well as the minerals potassium and magnesium. Pink watermelon is also a source of the potent carotenoid antioxidant, lycopene.” Wikipedia

How far East Trader Joe’s and Safeway trucks its watermelon, I don’t know, but if you are lucky enough to find a tub of watermelon, try this delicious and very low calorie salad, which comes together in just minutes. It would work well with other melons, such as honeydew, as well.

WATERMELON FETA MINT SALAD

Step 1:
From a wedge or slice of watermelon, cut a rectangular piece as shown. If using melon from a tub from the grocery store, no trimming is necessary — simply cut length as desired.

Step 2:
With a melon baller or rounded measuring spoon, scoop out a well in the melon piece.

Step 3:
Fill the well with crumbled feta and mint. You may wish to briefly crush the mint leaves to release more aroma. Finish with a grind of pepper of desired, as well as a sprinkling of course sea salt. No dressing is necessary, but a quick spritz of balsamic or other light vinaigrette would work beautifully as well.

Experiment with your fruit, herbs, and presentation. Pears are in season — consider serving a pear half with crumbled bleu cheese and a garnish of your favorite herb, as well.

Idea and photographs courtesy of Kiteless. Thank you!

Adequate hydration is crucial for everyone, and there isn’t any fare more fit than a clean and crisp glass of water.  “Water flushes toxins out of vital organs, carries nutrients to your cells, and provides a moist environment for ear, nose and throat tissues” says the Mayo Clinic.  That’s a small list of the health benefits of water. 

I think the adage “8 and 8″ (eight ounces of water, eight times per day) is something everyone has been told or has heard, but actually, how much water each person should drink on a daily basis is affected by a number of variables.  For instance, taking in too much water is hazardous, as well.  Dehydration is dangerous, yes, but water intoxication is also a known and dangerous condition.

Still, Weight Loss Surgery post-ops, like me, are instructed to “sip, sip, sip” water all day, every day. It becomes particularly important for us to hydrate because we are not only taking in reduced amounts of food, but the fluid which was in that food, as well.   We are in constant danger of dehydration. 

What are the symptoms of dehydration?

~Mild to excessive thirst
~Fatigue
~Headache
~Dry mouth
~Little or no urination
~Muscle weakness
~Dizziness
~Lightheadedness

Nutritionists tell us to divide our body weight in half and drink that many ounces every day.  Using that calculation, a 150 pound woman would need to drink at least 75 ounces of water each day, or, nearly five 16 oz bottles of water.

To avoid dehydration which comes more easily to me now, and to make the new routine more pleasant and easy to follow, I’ve developed a routine which I borrowed from my travels to health spas and resorts.  I call it “drinking with my eyes” and it becomes both a healthy and beautiful ritual when I practice it. 

After the jump, how to create beautiful spa water.

You’ve heard the term “eyes too big for your stomach”, and everyone can be tempted to over eat from a platter full of appetizers, or a tempting basket of bread on the table, or  portions which are simply too large.   While that’s not a smart way to let your eyes eat for you, there is a smart way.

I drink with my eyes, first.  I make serving water — spa water — a pretty event.

This ritual started many years ago after I visited a day spa.

The dressing table had two pitchers of water — one with just a few orange slices floating in it, and another with a few cucumber slices.  Each had a tray of crystal stemware presented on a white napkin.  It sparkled in the sunlight and was beautiful, and I immediately walked over and poured a tal glass of icy cucumber water.  It tasted as refreshing as it looked.

As my visits to spas on travel assignments increased, I found that every time I saw a display of fresh water with a garnish or infusion of fruits and herbs, I’d reach for it immediately.  I was drinking with my eyes.

That started my long-standing habit of making my daily water consumption a thing to be enjoyed, visually, rather than a chore to be counted or checked off a list. 

I purchased a beautiful glass pitcher, a single beautiful piece of stemware, a small silver tray, and a white napkin. I set up my spa water daily on this tray, using just a few pieces of fruit which last all week, in the freezer or in my desk.

As I see that beautiful pitcher of garnished water throughout the day, I refresh my glass.

Sip, sip, sip.

When making and drinking spa water, only a piece or two of fruit is required — it’s the infusion you are looking for, and not the added carbs from fruit juice.  More heavily fruited drinks, such as Aqua Frescas, are delicious and healthful, but more caloric. 

You are looking for fruit as garnish, so some days I may slice one small key lime into my pitcher — others a lemon. 

A small kumquat is very pretty when sliced thin and floated on your cubes.  A long stem of slightly crushed mint, and even rosemary, is a fresh addition, and looks beautiful when paired with frozen cranberries or grapes, which float on their own as ice cubes.

If you prefer sparkling water instead of still, you can use that — mineral water holds its carbonation for quite a number of hours. 

Coworkers used to tease me when they saw my crystal pitcher and glass and say “Well, lah tee dah”, but you know what?  It wasn’t long before they wanted some of MY beautifully presented water, instead of something from the hallway fountain or kitchen sink, or worse, the soda machine. 

I now walk down corridors and see several offices with a pitcher of water with floating fruit, sitting on a credenza.

When drinking water every day is important to your health — drink with your eyes.

Resources:

How Much Water Should You Drink?
Mayo Clinic

Water Intoxication
Wikipedia

Herbal Spa Water
Sunset Magazine and SpaIndex.com

Citrus Cucumber Aqua Fresca
Indian Springs Spa and SpaIndex.com

Photographs courtesy of Kelly Cline and Spa Index Media

A few months ago, on my Weight Loss Surgery blog, I posted images of items weighing 100 pounds, to celebrate when I hit that weight loss benchmark, but still felt fat (which I am — it’s just as hard for me to grasp that I was *more* than 100 lbs overweight, as it is for others).  It helped for me to see how 100 pounds translateed into identifiable objects, so that I could better appreciate the significant milestone.

In that vein, the crew at WiseGeek.com have assembled an entire page of images representing 200 calorie portions of various foods and beverages.

The cheese surprised me. I’m a big cheese eater and I know it’s very easy to rack up the calories with that good protein but high fat food.  Still, you can see how little hard cheese there is a 200 calorie portion.   

Check out the 200 Calorie Portion Gallery, here 

In the United States, many of us think of Bento Boxes as a divided lacquer dinner tray from a Japanese restaurant, with a scoop of rice in one section, a meat entree in another, a bit of shredded salad and an orange wedge in another. 

Translated literally, however, “bento” means a small, portable meal containing cooked rice, and side dishes which can be served at room temperature, including protein, fruit, vegetables, and sweets. 

Bento Box Lunches are a long standing tradition in Japan, and Japanese mothers go to great lengths to present attractive, whimsical and inventive snacks. Very often, the evening meal is created specifically to produce the type of food which can be packed the next day for the bento. The Bento Boxes themselves come in many shapes and sizes, from small containers for children or small eaters, decorated with popular animated characters (Hello Kitty, Disney characters, and Studio Ghibli animation), to larger undecorated multi-level boxes or jars  favored by Japanese executives.  Bento Box enthusiasts also collect an assortment of accessories, from picks for spearing olives and fruit, to sushi-styled dividers, meant to seperate orange segments and carrot strips.

My interest in Bento Box Lunches came about for practical purposes. As a post-operative weight loss surgery patient, I eat small portions. I always have leftovers, but packing my lunch can still be a challenge.  Bento Box Lunches help me meet those challenges.

First, I need to ensure my lunch is nutritionally adequate. Second, I try to prevent boredom and repetition. Third, I try to make my meals visually attractive to maximize sensory pleasure for a very small meal; and, Fourth, I still need to practice portion control to prevent overeating.  I realized that bento box lunch systems would enable me to practice creative and healthful portion control.  You can’t overpack a Bento Box, and the aesthetic presentation forces you to be creative, which often means more nutritious. The more colorful your lunch, chances are the more nutritious it is.

Looking for inspiration, this summer, I stumbled on several photo sharing groups on Yahoo’s Flickr website, focusing on  Bento Box Lunch enthusiasts. 

One of the more popular and active groups is devoted to users of the Mr. Bento Lunch Jar.  Made in Japan by Zojirushi, the lunch jar pictured at left (courtesy of Zojirushi) consists of a thermal outer jar filled with smaller insulated jars which, when packed with hot or cold food in the morning, will maintain the temperature for up to six hours.  Mr. Bento users report packing hot soup in the morning, and lifting the lid at noon to watch steam escape from the still hot soup. 

I searched for additional Flickr groups and also found the Bento Box Group, and, the Laptop Lunch Group, aimed at using that popular reusable lunch box system for school children. 

Members of each of these groups, who are each devoted to a particular type of bento-inspired system, are enthusiastic about their lunches.  They upload pictures of their daily menu, share ideas for maximizing space and decorating food, take inspiration from one another, and compliment one another on creative food choices, inventiveness, aesthetics, and just plain cuteness.

The lunch pictured at right is provided courtesy of my friend Karen Ho, a Flickr user (Aktiviston’s Bento Photographs).  It is colorful, rich in texture and flavor, and looks like a gourmet lunch from a bistro.

Karen has packed her Mr. Bento Lunch Jar with Green Leaf Salad topped with a sliced pear, roasted sunflower seeds and golden raisins in one container; orzo with parmesan and basil in another container; and, yogurt drizzled with honey and topped with frozen blackberries in a third container. These individual containers will stack together in the main jar and be unpacked for her lunch.  What looks like a  complicated and time-consuming meal to pack is actually a lunch she assembled in ten minutes, but will rival anything on the cafeteria line, I’m sure.

I acquired the same Mr. Bento system from Amazon for $35.00  (free shipping is available this month).  The Mr. Bento system is my choice for a hot or cold lunch.  For room temperature snacks and sandwiches, a variety of other bento box styles are available from sellers on eBay and from following tips provided by the Flickr users. 

I quickly amassed a collection of every type and style of bento box and bento accessory I could find.

My lunch is packed in 15 minutes or less, usually the night before, but sometimes in the morning if I plan to heat a hot lunch before packing it.  My cold lunch is usually yogurt or cottage cheese for protein, fruit segments, vegetables, and a sweet treat (one piece of sugarless candy or a sweet date, or unsweetened applesauce).  My hot lunch is soup, stew, or sliced meat and a small boiled potato or a few crackers with a bit of cheese.   The Mr. Bento is so efficient my soup seldom needs reheating, and my yogurt is still chilly.

The Laptop Lunch System is more popular in the United States and permits school and office lunches to be packed in reusable containers with a minimum of waste.

Another popular bento lunch site is Cooking Cute, which showcases both traditional bento lunches, and more contemporary laptop lunches.  The laptop lunch shown at left is courtesy of the Cooking Cute site, and shows stir-fried baby zucchini, broccolini, onion, and tofu in one container; brown rice topped with a sprinkling of sesame seeds and salt in another container; blackberries and raspberries in a third container; and, a bit of hummus and crackers in the fourth container.
 
There have been interesting results from packing my bento lunches for the past six months.  Most importantly, the portion control is a help to me. But I also look forward to my lunch much more than I did in the past — it is simply a visual treat, each day.  My food choices are varied and interesting — I may have one or two bites of five different things.  

Apart from my rapidly growing collection of bento supplies (boxes, picks, dividers, and decorative elements) my actual lunch and food expenses have decreased significantly.  My co-workers look on with great interest, agreeing my mini-buffet is both more interesting and nutritionally balanced than their sandwich and chips from a deli.  Even my employer respects my lunch hour now, and doesn’t encroach on my time.  My daily ritual of spreading a bamboo placemat and unpacking my bento box has created a boundary he doesn’t cross.  I no longer hear “Can you stop eating a minute and come make a photocopy for me?”  Instead, he says “I’ll come back when you’ve finished eating your beautiful lunch.” 

And it is a beautiful lunch.  Like many of life’s good things which come in small packages, Bento Lunches are surely among them.

Resources:

Cooking Cute
A bento box enthusiast with wonderful photography, recipes, tips, and a glossary of common terms

Mr. Bento Flickr Group
Daily inspiration from users of the Mr. Bento Lunch Jar

Laptop Lunch Website
Purchase the Laptop Lunch System

Laptop Lunch Flickr Group
Packing a nutrious and colorful lunch for you and your child

Bento Box Flickr Group
Daily inspiration from users of Bento Box Lunch Kits

I’m preparing to attend my first Thanksgiving Dinner this year as a post-operative weight loss surgery (WLS) patient.  I had RNY (Gastric Bypass) surgery in May 2006 and have lost over 100 pounds to date – thirty pounds in the year leading up to surgery, and seventy plus pounds since May.

I’m not dreading my first Thanksgiving Dinner as a WLS “post-op.”  If anything, I have many reasons to be grateful this season; chief among them is my renewed health.   I find I’m a loner in my attitude, however.  Many of my weight loss surgery peers don’t look forward to the stress of attending a food-centric event where they claim they “cannot eat anything.”   Several tell me they plan to stay away all together; others tell me they will eat a bit and likely go into another room and cry, until everyone is finished.  

I am sympathetic to the struggle many have in separating the event from the food, but I don’t understand it.  There are many ways to enjoying an event without giving in to the triggers which cause overeating.  This is a stress factor that post-operatives share with anyone with special dietary needs, actually.   How do you enjoy a dinner at the home of family and friends, when you’re following a special diet (or in my case, eating very small amounts)?

Here are a few tips for those who may find themselves in a similar situation:

Be Thankful, Not Hungry.  This may sound trite, but it’s apt.  The Thanksgiving holiday is a time for us to remark on blessings and give thanks.  Try to count those blessings, and not the number of marshmallows you scrape off your yams.

Brown Bag It.   Pack a nutritious meal of what you can eat and enjoy, if you genuinely fear there will be nothing you can consume at a holiday meal.  Take care of yourself, first, and make your packed meal as flavorful and attractive as that which will served to other guests. Garnish, and serve yourself on a beautiful plate.

Play Waitress.  One of the problems with being a WLS post-op is you are nearly always finished eating before everyone else. The time element in eating a meal becomes your enemy. While others continue to dine, you find yourself picking and eating more than you intended, or drawing attention to how little you’ve consumed.  For that reason, when you are finished eating, stand up and offer to refill beverage glasses.  Clear away used dishes or offer to refill empty serving dishes.  Help the hostess organize the disaster in the kitchen so that he or she can sit and enjoy her meal — remember how rare that was when you cooked the meal?  Mingle and move, and the hostess will love you for it.

Compliment the Saboteurs.   When you are losing weight on a healthy eating plan, your success can trigger feelings of inadequacy or betrayal in friends and family.  They may feel uncomfortable that you are taking control of a health issue they could use a little help with, as well.   You may have been the “eating buddy” of your cousin, and she’s upset there is no one to raid the leftovers, with.  “Have just one bite, it won’t hurt you” is a common refrain.  Try to gently turn away the saboteurs with a compliment: “I already know you make the best stuffing in the world, so I couldn’t possibly stop with one bite, but thank you.”

Deflect Aggression.  If the saboteur persists and attacks you for wanting to stay healthy, or vegan, or “on your crazy plan” during a holiday meal, whether it’s calling you nutty for going vegan this year, or remarking that you’re crazy to have had “that surgery”, or “you can take a day off your diet, it won’t kill you”, remind this person very simply:   “I want to succeed on this health plan, and I know despite what you just said, you love me enough to want me to succeed, as well.”    A hug and a kiss on the cheek will seal the deal.  “Besides” you’ll add, “I want to be as good looking as you, more than I want that pie.”

Get Off the Pulpit.  Give your family and friends a break, as well. Don’t become the Food Police and remark how fattening all the side dishes are, how many calories are in the potatoes, how much or how little you can eat of what’s being offered, or how Aunt Sally is going for a third helping of cornbread.  No one is more unpleasant to be around than a rabid dieter who has memorized the calorie charts.

Play to the Crowd.  Use humor to deflect and change the often unwelcome focus on your newly healthy eating habits.  I recently remarked to well-meaning friends who wouldn’t stop offering me “one more bite” that in my case, I was able to use the phrase “my eyes are bigger than my stomach” and actually mean it.

Best wishes to all FitFare readers, for a satisfying holiday.

Kate

Photo courtesy of http://www.freeimages.co.uk/.