Twice last week, I was talking to people who strive to eat healthfully; but, they get stuck because they are cooking for one.  How do you cook for one, eat well and not eat the same thing a million days in a row?

One word – freezer.

Once every month to six weeks, I take a day and cook  entrées.  I did this on Sunday. I boiled a chicken, used the broth for butternut squash soup (that is also fantastic as a sauce for ravioli). I used some of the broth and some chicken for white chilli, the rest I divided into single servings.  In fact, I divided everything into single servings and put them in the freezer along with the chicken breasts that I baked. In the mornings, I can remove whatever I want for dinner and put it in the refrigerator to thaw.  In the evenings, while I am warming whatever the entrée is, I can steam some vegetables to go along with it and voila! A healthful dinner that didn’t take hours to fix.

This Sunday, I seasoned all of the chicken breasts with Montreal steak seasoning (it’s not just for steak anymore, dontcha know). Often, though, I cook each piece separately, wrapped in foil and seasoned differently.  I like to use the steak seasoning, Tony Chachere’s Cajun seasoning, Italian dressing, ginger dressing, onions, teriyaki, or stone ground mustard.  I use a lot of those same seasonings when I cook a pork loin that I’ve divided into portions with two servings each. For pork, I also like to use applesauce. Once the meat is cool, I just put the foil wrapped entrée inside a plastic bag, marking on the bag what’s inside and into the freezer it goes.

You can do this with most meats, although I would suggest cooking them until they are just done before freezing them. If they are overdone, they will dry out and be like shoe leather when you go to warm them up. Pot roast is great this way. I brown ground meats and put them in the freezer for easy additions to salads, tacos, eggs, or rice.  I season the ground meat with Italian seasonings, chili seasonings, or just a lot of garlic.  Again, I note on the outside of the plastic bag how it’s seasoned.

If you cook a few different things on that one day, you’ve got choices at hand every day; but, you’re not eating the same thing night after night.  And, really, how much harder is it to cook five chicken breasts than it is to cook one?

With the things I cooked on Sunday, I’ve had white chili with rice and a green salad. I also had a green salad with chopped chicken. Then there was the butternut squash soup with a side of rutabagas and green beans. Tomorrow night will be baked chicken with asparagus and roasted carrots. There are all kinds of options here to keep my diet varied and healthful.  It just took a little planning.

On Saturday, a friend and I went on a four mile Heartsore Hike. (Okay, it was on a paved trail and not really a hike, but Heartsore Walk doesn’t have the same ring to it.) Both of us are struggling through some things and decided that motion was a good way to deal with it.  The walk was fantastic and we were both in better spirits afterwards; so, we headed out to Mimi’s Cafe for lunch.

I haven’t been to Mimi’s in over two years and was really looking forward it. I ordered an Omelette Basquaise – substituting fresh cut fruit for provençal potatoes and a buttermilk spice muffin for toast.  I ate all the fruit, but half of everything else. The food was as savory as I remember.  It was tough to do, but I ate slowly and was careful to consume only half plus a slice of that carrot bread they bring out. I mean, seriously. Have you tasted that?! I could climb in a bin of it and eat my way out! Anyway, since we were talking over our meal, I didn’t check loseit.com for nutritional information and I didn’t think to ask for a chart.

Big mistake.

When I got home, I put everything into my food diary.  Because I don’t know how many ounces were in the carrot bread slice, I estimated that item.  My estimate put my meal at 975 calories – and that’s just the portion I ate!

Had I ordered the potatoes instead of the fruit, eaten my whole omelette, the carrot bread and the whole muffin, my meal would have chalked up a huge 1880 calories.  That’s more than my entire daily allotment! Mimi’s has lighter options I could have chosen.  Had I done the smart thing and asked for the chart prior to ordering, I would have had a much healthier meal.

At present, not all restaurants are required to provide nutritional information on their menu offerings. Those who do are not required to have their foods tested in labs; however, if they make certain claims, they must be able to substantiate those claims.  For instance, if a restaurant claims that their mashed potatoes are low-fat, then the serving can contain no more than three grams of fat.  The serving must comply with FDA definitions.

We’ve talked about portion control.  It is particularly important in the context of eating out. Enormous portions are served on enormous plates, tricking our eyes and helping us to overeat. We already know that we need to divide the portion in at least half the instant it arrives, instantly creating a more reasonable portion. I’ve heard of people boxing up that half portion immediately.  My friend Julia even brings her own glass containers to also avoid contributing to landfills. Even with a reasonable portion, we don’t know what’s actually in it.

Most chain restaurants have nutritional information charts or brochures available upon request to tell us what’s in our food. Next time, I’m going to do myself a favor and request it!

When it’s in a carbonated soft drink.

My cousin read an article on aspartame that really scared her – scared her off her Diet Cokes, even.  She switched to drinking one regular Coke a day and maybe one regular Dr. Pepper.  Her activity level remained the same and she carefully remained within her 1300 daily calorie budget.  In a month, she gained five pounds and felt like a can of exploded biscuits.

I’ve talked about calorie budgets and how I lost weight by staying within the one recommended to me by LoseIt.com.  There’s more to it than that.  I changed what I ate – more veggies, less starch, nothing processed.  I did not eat my 1500 daily calories in the form of three candy bars,

Why? Because the body processes calories differently according to their origins.

While I talk in terms of budgets, calories aren’t pennies, they don’t all spend the same way.  A calorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. (My chemist mother would be so proud right now.) What we refer to as a calorie in dietary terms is actually a kilocalorie, or a large calorie.  It is the amount of energy required to raise a kilogram of water one degree Celsius. In terms of water, a calorie really is a calorie.  In terms of food, a sugar calorie is a whole different kettle of fish than a, um, fish calorie.

Massive oversimplification warning!!  Your metabolism is the process that breaks down all of the energy you take in (food) and converts it to energy you store (fat) or into energy you use (beast-mode lifting or just breathing). Your metabolism has to work harder on some foods to break them down. Fish is harder to break down than the liquid sugar in soft drinks; so, your body is going to actually use energy to metabolize the fish while the cola is pretty much going straight to your butt.

Let’s say in this 1300 calorie budget, it takes 1200 calories to maintain basic life functions (which is pretty close to accurate for women), the surplus 100 must be burned or they get stored.  Let’s say that those extra 100 are from protein and that your body uses five calories to break them down (that’s not an accurate number, just an illustration).  You burn 95 of them on a walk but you actually burn all 100 of them because of the metabolic burn.  Now, let’s say that those 100 calories came from a soft drink, but that your body needs only one calorie to break them down.  You burn the same 95 on your walk, but you burn only one extra because the sugar was so easily accessed. You now took in four more calories than you burned.

Ingesting 3500 surplus calories equals one pound of fat gained. Even at a rate of four a day, if you continually take in more calories than you burn, eventually, you will gain weight.  Small deficits or surpluses add up. Ounces make pounds – in both directions.

As Jeanna found out, it can take only a month for those ounces of soda to add up to five pounds.