Here is a fast and delicious dinner using a prepared sauce.

I chose a 15 ounce jar of prepared Alfredo sauce and use only ¼ cup for each 2 ounces of pasta. When making the recipe below for four, you will have half the jar left over and it is delicious added to cooked vegetables. The chicken is cooked in an Italian dressing for extra flavor.

Serve the finished recipe  with cooked carrots and a side  salad for a well balanced meal. The recipe is below or click here for a printable copy.

½ pound fettucine, uncooked

2 cups broccoli florets, fresh or frozen

¼ cup itailan dressing

1 pound skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into bite size pieces

½ jar Bertolli Alfredo Sauce about 1 cup

Cook pasta as directed on package, adding broccoli to the boiling water the last four minutes of cooking

While pasta cooks , heat the dressing in a large nonstick skillet on medium-heat. Add chicken; cook 6-7 minutes or until done, stir occasionally.  Stir in sauce, simmer  covered for five minutes,.

Drain pasta and broccoli; place in a pasta bowl. Add chicken mixture; mix lightly

Serves four  545 calories per serving

With ½ cup carrots add 25 calories

While you breastfeed, you should lose weight more slowly than you would otherwise.  Safe weight loss for most adult women when not nursing is thought to be one to two pounds per week, or about eight pounds a month.  For breastfeeding moms, safe weight loss after the first postpartum month is thought to be only one to two pounds a month for the first four to six months, and not more than four and a half pounds a month.

For many of you, one to two pounds a month may sound painfully slow.  But remember, you won’t be depriving yourself, so you shouldn’t feel hungry.  If you nurse your baby for ten months, it could add up to a loss of ten to twenty pounds!

Weight loss is greatest between three and six months post partum.  The average weight loss is one to two pounds per month, though overweight women may lose 4-5 pounds in a month. After the first month, rapid weight loss greater than 4 to 5 pounds is not advised.  In an Australian study of 174 mothers, weight loss was found to level off by the sixth month. Many women are unable to reach their prepregnancy weight until they stop nursing altogether. As long as a mother is breastfeeding, her breasts will add pounds to the scale.

Could  Raw Beet, Arugula, Rhubarb Salad improve your running? I am not sure, but at the very least it is  delicious.  Beets are getting a lot of attention because they might help exercise performance. At least one study finds eating 200 grams ( about 2 cups)  of beets an hour before running improves performance, it is believed it is  the natural nitrate -rich content  that improves exercise capacity. Nitrate is linked with beneficial health effects such as improving exercise performance and lowering blood pressure but when used as a preservative in processed meats such as sausage and bacon it has  been linked with cancer.  The paradox of nitrates being both harmful and beneficial makes it wise for those looking for an exercise boost from nitrates to get it from whole vegetables not nitrate additives. According to a recent SCAN conference I attended beets are not the only vegetables rich in nitrate. Arugula and Rhubarb carry even greater concentration of nitrate here are the comparisons from a presentation by Steven R. Hertzler , PhD at that conference :  Arugula ( 4679 mg/kg), Rhubarb ( 2,943 mg/kg), Beets ( 1,852 mg/kg) .

The Raw Beet, Arugula, Rhubarb Salad  is adapted from a  recipe   that appeared in the Wall Street Journal,   besides being packed with fiber, and potassium, who knows maybe it could even help your running performance.

New moms often ask me what they should eat to help them and their babies be healthy. All new mothers ( breast and bottle feeding) run the risk of fatigue and for that reason  I recommend eating  frequently to control hunger and overeating.  Snacks that contain protein, complex carbohydrate, and some fat help keep your blood-sugar levels steady. Eating enough food allows fat cells to make the hormone leptin and leptin signals the hypothalamus to cut our appetite and make us feel full. When the stomach is empty it makes another hormone called ghrelin. Grehlin signals the brain the body needs more food and we become hungry again. If you skip meals or snacks, you may confuse this internal appetite regulating system. You’ll also feel weak, famished and tired. It may sound crazy but hunger is the enemy of anyone who wants to eat well and lose weight. It leads to over eating and poor food choices. Just observe the quality of what you eat when you are “starving”. That is when mothers over-eat because they are too hungry to make good choices.

Snacks that are rich in simple sugars like candy, sweetened fruit juice, or soda are rapidly digested.  These foods give a boost to your blood sugar.  Often, your body responds by overproducing insulin, the hormone responsible for keeping your blood sugar steady.  When too much insulin is produced it can bring your blood sugar low enough to cause a new round of hunger.  To prevent this cycle, simply eat regularly and eat foods like whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and low-fat cheeses for snacks. Snacking on fruit, vegetables, cheese sticks, or yogurt tend to be filling and self-limiting while “dry” salty foods like chips, pretzels and crackers never quite lead to fullness because they contain very little water. Foods that have high water content tend to promote fullness.

One word of warning about night-time snacking.  If you need to eat something at the 2:00 A.M.feeding, because you’re really hungry, then by all means have something to eat.  But keep in mind that nighttime snacking can be a tough habit to break once you’re no longer getting up to feed your baby  and don’t need the extra food. When my children were babies, I filled a glass with ice cubes before I went to bed. When  night feeding time arrived, I drank the glass of  ice – cold water instead of eating. If you are a nursing mom, the glass of water at the very least will keep you well hydrated.

In my neighborhood Las Olas Taqueria is a popular and delicious destination for homemade Mexican food made with vegetarian beans and rice, homemade sauces and salsa, and locally-raised meats. I am often asked about these foods so I decided to estimate the calories and food groups they carry using a kitchen scale, calorie book and common sense. I ordered a  chicken bowl, chicken burrito, chicken taco, and chicken salad,  brought them  home, and came up with the estimations below .

Chicken Burrito:  832 calories

Chicken Bowl:   748 calories

Chicken Taco:   266 calories

Las Olas Chicken Salad

Chicken Salad:  476 calories (dressing on the side)

In all of theses I skipped the cheese, guacamole and sour cream and saved 370 calories. Cheese will add 100 calories, sour cream 120 and guacamole about 150 calories. To increase vegetables ask for plenty of lettuce  and salsa . Chicken is probably the leanest of all the meats but I have ordered the beef and pork and found them to be lean too. Chorizo sausage ( which I have never tried) contains 135 calories per ounce compared to 50 calories for one ounce of roasted chicken and I estimate you get about 4 ounces in each item.

All four of these meals were terrific but if you are watching calories or carbs I recommend the salad or the taco, and hold the cheese, sour cream and guacamole. The flavors are so good in these foods you really do not need these extras.

Here are the details on my calculations:

The Chicken Burrito without cheese, sour cream or guacamole weighed 20 ounces and I estimate it  has about 832 calories, contains 2 servings of vegetables ( 1/2 cup from salsa and pico de gallo sauce combined, plus 1 cup of shredded romaine) it a good source of protein (4 oz chicken plus the beans), between the rice and tortilla it carries the equivalent of 6 slices of bread ( 4 in the tortillas, one in the 1/2 cup of rice, one in the 1/2 cup of beans).

Measuring a Las Olas Burrito

The chicken bowl consists of a bed of rice with beans, romaine lettuce, pico de gallo, salsa, fresh cilantro and lime. I ordered mine without cheese, or sour cream.  Basically it is a burrito without the tortilla, and more rice. It weighed 18 ounces and  using the calorie information  from the burrito, I estimate about 41 calories per ounce, or 748 calories all together. A chicken bowl with 1 1/2 cups of rice and 1/2 cup beans carries the equivalent of four slices of bread .

The Chicken Taco is made with 1/2 of the soft flour taco and it included lettuce, salsa, fresh cilantro and chicken, it   weighed 6.5 oz and  I estimate it has  about 266 calories, contains one serving of vegetables, a good source of protein and the equivalent of 2 slices of bread.

The Chicken Salad  is made from a bed of romaine lettuce with chicken, beans, rice, salsa,  pico de gallo, fresh cilantro and the delicious citrus lime dressing was served on the side. It  weighed  20 ounces ( minus the dish) and I estimate it has about 476 calories. Each 1/2 cup beans and 1/2 cup of rice counts as a serving of bread. Again I ordered it without cheese, sour cream or guacamole.

To calculate calories I used Bowes and Church’s Food Values of Portions Commonly Used and  compared it to the  Chipotle Nutriton Calculator data

Chipotle Chicken Burrito

A Chipotle Chicken Burrito without cheese, sour cream or guacamole weighed 18 3/4 ounces and according to their nutrition data it contains 770 calories and the equivalent of five slices of bread from the tortilla, rice and beans.

Tags: Buritto, Mexican Food, Taco