For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

A quick heads up that starting next week I’ll be traveling until early March (Kevin is turning 40!), so I won’t be posting Friday links. The podcast will continue as normal.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week why big goals lead to failure, how friends sabotage your health, and why vegetables are the best path to weight loss. 

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

Photo by SnoShuu

Recently I was having a conversation about exercise with a friend who is trying to lose weight. He had just hired a super hardcore trainer who wanted him to workout 2 hours a day, four days a week, for the next several months. This was paired with a strict diet of chicken breasts, broccoli and brown rice.

“Are you sure that’s realistic?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

I’m pretty fit, but such a training schedule would be difficult for me if for no other reason than it is a huge time commitment and I would have to sacrifice other things I care about in my life to make it work. My friend has been sedentary for most of his adult life, and is constantly complaining about being too tired and too busy to take care of himself. There was no way this would last.

My friend went on to explain that he knew it would be challenging, but it was something he needed to do. His doctor recently told him that he had to lose 40 lbs to clear up his sleep apnea and control his cholesterol and blood pressure. And drastic situations call for drastic measures.

I could see my friend’s logic on the surface, and he took an impressive step by deciding to take more control of his health. But I could also see that he had fallen into what I call the Not Enough Fallacy.

Read the rest of this story »

For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

This week saturated fat gets a new lifeline, a pound isn’t just 3500 calories, and eating avocado pits is insane.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week the truth about calories, the magic of broth, and why weight loss requires more than Real Food.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (Yes, I took that picture of the pepper heart myself.)

Read the rest of this story »

Photo by Bronski Beat

When I was a dieter I always had a goal. Many goals.

“I want to weigh 120 pounds.”

“I want to be a size 2.”

“I want to eat fewer than 50 grams of carbs every day.”

I thought if I achieved these goals I would be happy. But the truth was that as long as I had these goals, I was frustrated.

I consider myself lucky that as a female I never confused my weight loss struggles with my self-worth. That is, I knew I didn’t need to be skinny to be a good scientist or a worthy girlfriend. But it was incredibly irritating to me that I was doing everything I was told to do––eat salads, avoid carbs, drink lots of water, exercise every day, etc.––and wasn’t getting the results I wanted.

It wasn’t until I stopped dieting and systematically started transforming myself into a healthy non-dieter that the “success” I had been seeking finally materialized. Trading in my goals for a system––a healthstyle––quite literally changed my life.

Read the rest of this story »

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week how to preserve your aging brain, vegetables are the new bacon, and how to stay motivated to achieve your goals.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (Yes, I took that picture of the pepper heart myself.)

Read the rest of this story »

Photo by Lakbay 7107

When I was a chronic dieter it seemed like no matter what I weighed, I always wanted to lose another 5-10 lbs. I can’t explain why it took me so long to realize this was crazy and counterproductive.

In retrospect it’s clear that the shape of my body, not the size of it, was my real issue. And if I would have spent less time denying myself sushi rice and more time strengthening my hamstrings and glutes, my “problems” would have disappeared in a few weeks.

Read the rest of this story »

Photo by Abdullah AL-Naser

Joshua Hardwick is a fitness enthusiast from the small town of Chesterfield, UK. He loves the internet and runs his own fitness blog over at www.iwantasixpack.com. You can keep up-to-date with his posts on Twitter or Facebook.

6 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Actually Go to the Gym

by Joshua Hardwick

If you’re anything like me working out makes you feel energized and clear-minded, but actually gathering enough motivation to go can be difficult. While it isn’t so bad in the summer months, I find it extremely difficult to make it to the gym on cold winter mornings when I know it’s well below zero outside.

When I manage to drag myself to the gym in the evenings I usually feel exhausted from work, and more often than not I’d rather just go home, watch some TV and go to bed.

When I don’t workout though, I always regret it. Here are some tips I’ve found that keep me motivated.
Read the rest of this story »

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

It was an exciting week here at Summer Tomato, including an enlightening interview with food critic Michael Bauer that led to Summer Tomato mentions in both the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. Wednesday was also the anniversary of my very first blog post at my old Thought for Food blog. What a difference a year can make!

If you would like to see more of my favorite articles each week or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For complete reading lists join me on the social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon and Delicious. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you there.

Submissions of your own best food and health articles for future For The Love of Food posts are also welcome, just drop me an email using the contact form. I am also accepting guest posts at Summer Tomato for any healthy eating, living and exercise tips.

For The Love of Food

• To Market, To Market! Farmers Markets Should Make Some Noise During National Farmers Market Week <<Next week is national farmers market week! Celebrate by getting some summer tomatoes!! (Huffington Post)
• If we are what we eat, Americans are corn and soy <<Great piece by Dr. Sanjay Gupta over at CNN about the failing American diet.
• Organic food is no healthier, study finds <<B.S. of the week. The problem with this review is that so many of the studies cited are flawed, which I have discussed before. Big “organic” is not more nutritious. Duh. It still uses a monoculture system. However, that does not make the pesticides and chemical fertilizers any less dangerous (e.g. Parkinson’s disease, birth defects, asthma, etc.). Notably, large differences have been found in nutrient levels between biodynamically grown food and monoculture food. I recommend The Ominvore’s Dilemma if you want to understand this better. I’m sure big Ag loves this study. Please tell me in the comments if you would like me to do a thorough review of this publication next week. (Reuters)
• Use NEAT Activities to Burn More Calories <<One of the most effective ways to upgrade your healthstyle: do more non-exercise activities. (Lifehacker)
• The General Motors Diet <<Interesting op-ed in the New York Times proving that even rational, intelligent people fall into the diet trap. Don’t do it!
• The Big Question: Are You Better Than Yesterday? <<Fabulous guest post by Chad Fowler over at the Four Hour Work Week blog about how to tell if you are making progress on your health and fitness goals (or life in general).
• The Good Food Restaurant Map <<L.A. foodies pay attention! My favorite food podcast, Good Food on KCRW has a running map of the places Jonathan Gold (LA Weekly food critic) reviews each week on the show. I drool with envy every time he describes one, so if you’re in the area these are worth checking out!
• Heirloom Tomato Salad <<I love pics of tomatoes. Check out this beautiful summer tomato salad recipe. (FoodMayhem)
• Top 15 Social Media Resources for Foodies <<Great social media resources for online foodies, though it is not at all clear why Summer Tomato doesn’t appear on this list! (Mashable)
• The Claim: Refrigeration Preserves Nutrients <<I didn’t have a refrigerator for most of the week, so this article was good news for me! (New York Times)

What great articles did you read and write this week?