Obesity Cure Quest

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Struggle Meals and Healthy Eating

I'm terrible at planning meals and keeping decent foods to cook with, so today I grabbed dried peas, some chia seeds, quinoa, chicken bouillon and spices and am just making something called a soup. Sorta. I get lentils and peas and rice, and I've not been a very good fiber eating lady for a moment, and that's not even what I'm trying to do today. The thing is, beef and ham and hearty foods are expensive, and this is the stuff I had in my pantry (yes, I had the quinoa because, clearly, it's not a regular staple). So I got to thinking about these cheap things we can keep on hand--how they are struggle meals, really. They are also better for you than processed foods. I'm not sure I want to keep on keeping on with blogging about the weird shit I ate in the beautiful realm of fiber, but it is cool to think about Depression style foods, like, how we can eat stuff that's filling, tastes good and is cheap. I really do hope we don't see lentils, dried, ...

Beyond Caricatures: A Patient’s Inner Dialogue With Dietitians

Beyond Caricatures: A Patient’s Inner Dialogue With Dietitians... This blog isn’t a food diary in the usual sense, and it’s not a weight-loss chronicle either. It’s something else—something I need for myself, but also something I want to share, especially with dietitians and anyone working in nutrition. Here’s what I’m doing here: 1. An internal motivational tool. I need a place to keep long-term habit changes front and center. Writing keeps me accountable. The purpose is unapologetically self-centered—it helps me stay focused when the system around me makes it so easy to forget. 2. Talking to the “imaginary dietitian.” Think of this as my inner monologue, made public. Dietitians often ask, “What do you eat?” and I never have an answer, because I don’t eat in patterns. I eat when I’m hungry, and what I make is always a surprise—even before I cared about fiber. That’s why staples like beans, lentils, cabbage, avocados, and flax are a better fit for me than recipes or strict...

Five Critical Shifts Every Dietitian Needs to Make

Five Critical Shifts Every Dietitian Needs to Make... Let’s be blunt: obesity treatment often fails not because patients aren’t trying, but because the advice doesn’t fit real life—or worse, it shames them. Here are some simple but radical shifts dietitians (and doctors) can make: 1. Everyone’s different—stop with the stereotypes. People don’t need to live on donuts and french fries to gain weight. Biology alone can tilt someone toward fat gain, even on foods most of us would call “reasonable.” When you default to “cut sugar and fried foods,” you risk discounting the actual rhythms of appetite biology. Don’t assume the cause; look deeper. 2. Ask before you prescribe. Too many patients are treated like they’re ignorant of basic nutrition. They’re not. Ask questions: What do you already know? What’s your routine like? Often people already understand that broccoli is better than mac and cheese. The real gap is how to make changes fit their lives. Start by listening, not lectur...

Cashews, Chicken, and the Long Shadow of One Snack

Cashews, Chicken, and the Long Shadow of One Snack... The night before last I ate way too many cashews. Not a polite handful, but somewhere in the territory of half a bag. They were good — salty, rich, crunchy — but heavy enough that the next morning I wasn’t remotely hungry, and perhaps I had a cashew hangover in a flipside sorta way. So yesterday I grazed on almost nothing until dinner. And when hunger finally did hit, I made rice noodles and decided to conduct a honey-walnut chicken experiment. I cut up chicken tenderloin, bathed them in kefir, then gave them a kefir-egg wash. I showered the pieces with cornstarch and flour, and fried them up with walnuts, honey, soy, garlic, and ginger. It just sounded good. I wasn’t doing any kind of bean or veggie side — I just felt like having a belly-sinker type meal. I was also hoping my teens would eat it. They did not. This morning I eased into food with what I’d call a nibble breakfast : about five cashews, a handful of plai...

Weird Sh*t I Ate: Walnut-Chia Cinnamon Pear Dessert

Weird Sh*t I Ate: Walnut-Chia Cinnamon Pear Dessert I have the luxury of being home for lunch, and while I have ample time, I just want to do what I do and get food in the gut. Who wants to be a short-order chef on their lunch hour? So, today, for some reason, the canned pears I bought for bringing in the fall really called my name. Also, I'm a canned food savage. I love the crack, pour, eat advantage. These pears where in their own juice. I poured them in a bowl with the juice, crumpled some walnuts in, mixed in a table spoon of chia, then added vanilla and Ceylon cinnamon. The chia gelled, and I slurped up what was a fresh-tasting, very sweet pudding--of sorts. I'm cool, though. My random scrap for lunch clocked 13 grams of fiber and a good bit of omega-3s. Recipe (or whatever) 1 can of pears in pear juice (yes, the whole can) 2 Tbsp walnut bits 1 Tbsp chia seeds A dab of real vanilla A generous sprinkle of Ceylon ...

Cool Sh*t I Learned: From Thunderclaps to Gentle Breezes (The Fiber Effect)

Cool Sh*t I Learned: From Thunderclaps to Gentle Breezes (The Fiber Effect)... Beans, beans, they're good for your heart. The more you eat them, the more you fart. The more you fart, the better you feel, so eat your beans at every meal. Why do we fart when we eat fiber? It’s because fiber isn’t for you—it’s food for your gut microbes. When they chow down, they ferment it, producing hydrogen, carbon dioxide, a little methane, and sometimes sulfur gas as byproducts. That’s what makes you gassy—and it’s also what makes you healthier. Those same microbes are cranking out short-chain fatty acids like butyrate that soothe inflammation and strengthen your gut lining. If you regularly eat fiber, the “vapors” subside. Your gut bugs adapt, shifting their communities and enzymes to handle the load. The same bowl of lentils that once had you blaming the dog barely ruffles the curtains after a while. So yes, more fiber can mean more gas at first. But a steady injection of beans, veggies, gr...

Weird Sh*t I Ate: A Can of Olives for Breakfast

Weird Sh*t I Ate: A Can of Olives for Breakfast... Last night’s dinner was a full-on spice riot: turmeric yellow rice with chili dal. It had everything—brown and red lentils, onion, chili peppers, garlic, smoked paprika, turmeric, kale, adobo, and about three lifetimes’ worth of red chili flakes and cayenne. Breakfast the next morning was rather random. One entire can of black olives A couple stray walnut pieces (not enough to matter) One sad strip of beef jerky Chug of kefir. High fat, high sodium, almost no carbs or real protein. Basically, if you condensed the Mediterranean diet into its most questionable form and then sprinkled in gas-station jerky. To feel somewhat okay with this, I chugged about a cup of plain kefir. It's not delicious like this, but I'm getting used to it. I'm thinking I'll round out the sodium spike with probiotics, calcium, and nine grams of actual protein. Let's call this a Mediterranean-deli-meets-dairy-farm fusion bre...