Great Oatmeal Tricks

     Page Two Hundred Forty-Seven.
     Want to know how to dress up oatmeal when you're still asleep and can't think clearly? Here are some little hints.

     1) Add a tablespoon of bran to each serving of oatmeal while cooking. You'll also have to add a touch more water, too. This extra fiber adds nutrition and also makes the bowl of deliciousness more filling; thereby, keeping you from craving your next meal for a longer duration.
     2) Add some craisins, raisins, chopped dates, walnuts, pecans, pistachios or whatever you like while cooking. Again, add a little extra water. Be prepared, the cooking process will reconstitute the dried fruit and it will be warm, gooey, ooey and yummy. All these items will add even more healthful bulk, to keep you full longer. If adding the tree nuts, you'll get that much more protein.
     3) Add cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger or cardamom. Add vanilla extract or other extracts:  almond, orange, lemon, mint, butter rum, etc. while cooking. Pure flavor.
     4) Add brown sugar while cooking. There's no law against a little sweetness and malty flavor.
     5) After cooking, add maple syrup or table syrup. What was that about no law against sweetness?
     6) Top with finely diced fresh fruit like apples. Or toss on some berries, bananas or... why the possibilities are endless. Sprinkle on some crunchy granola. Yum
     7) Top with milk. This increases the protein, of course, and also if you didn't add enough cooking water, the milk will fill in the moisture gaps. This protein and calcium also makes it a complete and balanced meal.
     8) Prepare all the dry ingredients the night before. Put everything into the sauce pan and cover with the lid. Refrigerate or not, who cares? Then, when you arise in the morning, there's no thought involved. Just add the liquids, cook slowly for 5 minutes and chow down.
     9) For example, Orange Creamsicle Oatmeal: vanilla extract, orange extract, grated orange rind, white sugar and milk. Or Lemon-Poppy Oatmeal. Or Butter-Rum Oatmeal with extra butter added. Or Sweet Green Tea Oatmeal made with green tea instead of water. That would be good with cardamom, honey and chopped dates. Hawaiian Oatmeal cooked with a combination of water and pineapple juice and topped with more pineapple, sweetened coconut, chopped walnuts or almonds, coconut milk and topped with a marachino cherry. Come up with your own combinations. Anything you can create and cook at home will be substantially healthier than a McMuffin, doughnut or something prepared straight from a box in the freezer. 
     10) Remember, always add that bran to increase the nutrition.

My Daily Fiber

     Page One Hundred-Fifteen.
     Here's an appetizing topic to discuss today: fiber. Are you getting enough?
     In the olden days (pre-1980's) fiber was referred to as roughage. People used to talk about getting their daily roughage because if you didn't eat it, you might not be "regular". Around one hundred years ago, the public believed that many, many health issues could be traced back to irregularity. During the decades leading up to the twentieth century, American bowel habits were the open topics of conversations. As delicate as Americans think they are, we just love to talk about our bowels and whether or not they're working properly.
   A few pages back (page 108) I wrote about how I'd recently been sick with the flu and wasn't eating properly for a few days. I took advantage of that illness to allow my stomach to shrink so I could jump start a little weight loss diet. Nobody would ever accuse me of being obese, but for a few years now, I've been wanting to loose a couple inches around the waistline, nothing more. Well, it's worked and my stomach has definitely shrunk. With a shrunken stomach, less food is required to feel full so less is consumed, thus fat loss. What a concept.
     For eighteen days now I've been consuming maybe 40-50% of the fat and calories that I had been eating. I'm rarely hungry because I usually feel full (see shrunken tum-tum, previous paragraph), my energy level is normal, my color is good and I'm doing my complete weight training routine. I'm taking my beloved 3-5 mile hikes around the neighborhood, biking, jogging... everything is good in spite of the fact that I'm eating half of what I had been. It's really shocking to discover how little food I really need to live. I'm sure that I could eat more, but my current mindset is such that I'm really enjoying getting back to the body shape that I'm most comfortable with. Basically, right now my higher priority is to loose some of the fat I've put on in the last eight years as opposed to stuffing my face and stretching my stomach back to what it was. Who knows how long this will last, but at my current rate, in about eight weeks or so I'll be where I want to be. And, in fact, if this little experiment works, I'll actually be in better shape that before because I'm substantially more muscular today than I was back then. So, my torso will be more of a "V" than it was. We'll see... I'm choosing not to stress too much over this whole thing.
     Getting back to roughage, I've been concerned that I haven't been consuming enough of that. So yesterday I resorted to a trick I learned while working at Fancy-Schmany Nursing Home. I mixed some Miller's Bran into a dish of apple sauce. I'm sure I added way too much bran, but I ate it. Was it as tasty as, say, a slice of Death By Chocolate cake? Probably not. In fact, definitely not. (But then again, you don't eat Death By Chocolate cake exclusively so it'll make you move your bowels.) But it really wasn't terrible. And in fact, that bowl of applesauce/bran was so filling that it ended up being my dinner. Seriously. I don't know if that's a commentary on how filling it was or how little it takes to stuff my stomach right now. But regardless, it was my 6PM snack.
     Americans are notorious for not getting enough fiber as much of our food is highly processed. So, even after this little weight loss experiment ends, for good or bad, I should probably consider incorporating this trick on a regular basis. But one thing at a time. First, loose about ten to fourteen pounds (optimistically) and stabilize at that spot. Yeah! Second, have a slice of Death By Chocolate cake again. Yum! Third, eat more fiber. Yum!