Quinoa and Beet Salad with Tuna

Quinoa salad, tuna salad

3 cups red quinoa, cooked

1 green onion, sliced thinly

Italian parsley, chopped

1 roasted beet, diced

1 T lemon olive oil

1 T rice vinegar

1/4 tsp. dijon mustard

salt and pepper

I’ve been avoiding breads, pasta, and crackers in favor of whole grains of late and I created this quinoa salad by accident. I started out thinking that some green onion would be nice, then remembered I had parsley and then thought I would put in some left over roasted beet.  I dressed it with just a little vinaigrette made with my favorite olive oil (O and Co.'s  Au Citron). The result was sweet and savory and light. I made it for lunch one day and had enough to serve with dinner and several more lunches. I show it here with tuna salad, but it is also delicious with grilled chicken or fish.

My avoidance of bread has to do with my renewed efforts to control episodes of hypoglycemia and to fix my metabolism.  I recently found another program that is similar to The Schwartzbein Principle but that seems to fit more into my ongoing weight loss efforts with Weight Watchers — it's called Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads by Christine Avanti.  Christine is a nutritionist who, like Dr. Schwartzbein,  believes that fixing the metabolism is key to achieving optimum weight.  Her program involves eating protein and good carbs together with healthy fats (the PC combo) every 4 hours, keeping blood sugar even.  The difference is that the Skinny Chicks program is about 1400 calories per day which works out to be about 24 WW points and seems pretty compatible with Weight Watchers.

The one point that made me reevaluate what I have been doing is her recommendation to eat breakfast within one hour of waking and to never delay a meal. I tried this and noticed that I had fewer headaches.  I felt like slapping myself up the side of the head! I have known for years that I should never SKIP meals, but for some reason, I thought it was ok to DELAY my breakfast until after I exercised.  On my weigh-in days, I even delayed breakfast until after I weighed in...at 9:30 a.m.  I started wondering if this was triggering a 3-day headache in and of itself.  I also have been wondering if the calorie restriction of dieting itself was part of the problem.  So I am embracing eating by the numbers (21 g of protein and 30 g of carb per meal) and eating every four hours and having breakfast within one hour of waking.  So far, so good.  Headache days dropped from 4-5 to 1-2 per week. Not sure yet if it is a fluke.  It's only been three weeks, but it is incredible to get part of my life back.

Karen, herself