Recipe of the Week: Bean Medley Chili

Remem­ber to place your bid to become Trainer for the Day. Jeff Leonard and Julie Adams are the new lead­ers with a $50 bid. Get in on the action… pool your money with friends and place your bids today! Get all of the details and place your bid here →

Three beans are bet­ter than one. Each type has a dis­tinc­tive fla­vor and tex­ture, mak­ing every spoon­ful of this chili an adven­ture. Plus, it’s high in fiber and low in calo­ries and fat… can’t beat it!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 15-ounce can dark red kid­ney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 15-ounce can gar­banzo beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 1 large red sweet pep­per, chopped
• 1 large green sweet pep­per, chopped
• 3 table­spoons chili powder
• 2 table­spoons bot­tled minced gar­lic (12 cloves)
• 1 canned chipo­tle chile pep­per in adobo sauce, finely chopped
• 1 tea­spoon ground cumin
• 1/4 tea­spoon salt
• 2 14.5-ounce cans no-salt-added diced toma­toes, undrained
• 1 14-ounce can reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1/4 cup snipped fresh cilantro

PREPARATION

1. In 4– to 5-quart slow cooker, com­bine black beans, kid­ney beans, gar­banzo beans, onion, red and green sweet pep­pers, chili pow­der, gar­lic, chipo­tle chile pep­per, cumin, and salt. Add toma­toes and broth.
2. Cover and cook on low-heat set­ting for 8 to 10 hours or on high-heat set­ting for 4 to 5 hours. Stir in cilantro. If desired, serve bean mix­ture with rice.

Makes 8 (1 1/4-cup) servings.

Nutri­tion Facts Per Serv­ing
Serv­ings: 8 (1 1/4-cup) serv­ings
Calo­ries 191
Total Fat (g) 2
Cho­les­terol (mg) 0
Sodium (mg) 659
Car­bo­hy­drate (g) 38
Fiber (g) 12
Pro­tein (g) 12

Save 100 Calories: Snacks

Remem­ber to place your bid to become Trainer for the Day. Jeff Leonard is still hold­ing strong as the top bid­der with $20. $20? Really? Who’s got $25? Get all of the details and place your bid here →

Mak­ing small changes in your diet can save you calo­ries in small places where you won’t taste the dif­fer­ence but your body will know the dif­fer­ence. Eat­ing 100 less calo­ries a day (or 100 more calo­ries a day) adds up to about 10 pounds in a year. So 200 calo­ries less = 20 pounds, 300 calo­ries less = 30 pounds, etc. – small changes add up!

We are post­ing a series of arti­cles that will pro­vide you with tips on sav­ing 100 calo­ries at every meal, includ­ing snacks. Today we have tips for snacks — the mini-meals we all love!

• Salsa w/ veg­gies vs. 1 oz. tor­tilla chips (100)
• 1.5 oz baked chips vs. reg­u­lar chips (75)
• Sub­sti­tute fruit for gra­nola (1÷4 c) on frozen yogurt (110)
• Sub­sti­tute fruit for carob chips (1÷4 c) on frozen yogurt (230)
• Small Pinkberry vs. medium size (80)
• 100 calo­rie bag microwave pop­corn vs. full bag (130)
• Light or non­fat yogurt vs. “fruit on the bot­tom” yogurt (100)
• Low­fat ice cream, 4 oz, vs. pre­mium (i.e. Häagen-Dazs) (150)
• 2 mini choco­lates (i.e. Dove or Her­sheys) vs. whole candy bar (120+)
• 4 oz choco­late sor­bet vs. reg­u­lar choco­late ice cream (125)
• Eat the pie fill­ing, but skip the crust (150)
• 1 T. of peanut but­ter vs. 2 T. (100)
• Have 23 pis­ta­chios vs. 20 cashews (90)
• 12 almonds vs. 10 macadamia nuts (120)

Did you miss our break­fast tips or lunch & din­ner tips?

Nutrition Tips When Traveling in Airports

Remem­ber to place your bid to become Trainer for the Day. The cur­rent high­est bid is $20 from Jeff Leonard. Get all of the details and bid here →

If you spend much time trav­el­ing for work or plea­sure, you know how dif­fi­cult it can be to make healthy choices in an air­port. And it’s even worse when you get stuck in the air­port due to delays and can­cel­la­tions – which seems to be more often than not these days. For those who fre­quently travel it can be dif­fi­cult time to try to eat healthy while in the air­port. Here are some ideas to help you choose the healthy food choices on the go:

1. If you don’t have time for a meal prior to head­ing out the air­port, pack some­thing to take along — or pick some­thing up at your local deli. Wait­ing in air­ports can be stress­ful and/or bor­ing… which can bring out emo­tional eat­ing in many peo­ple. Bring­ing your own healthy snacks can do dam­age con­trol. Sug­ges­tions: turkey or peanut but­ter sand­wich, low-fat yogurt, fruit, nuts, string cheese. Snack on these health­ier choices rather than pur­chas­ing the not-so-healthy snacks on your flight.
2. Be on the look­out for healthy food options in the air­port. Most air­ports sell turkey or grilled chicken sand­wiches. Use mus­tard ver­sus mayo. You might also want to remove the cheese to save about 200 calo­ries and 20 gm of fat. Other healthy options include a salad with grilled chicken. Make sure you get dress­ing on the side and use it spar­ingly. A bet­ter choice would be to ask for low calo­rie dressing.
3. Foods that con­tain pro­tein, fat or fiber tend to hold you the longest. This is espe­cially impor­tant if your flight gets delayed and you end up sit­ting there for hours… This could turn into a diet dis­as­ter! So some­thing like a turkey sand­wich would be a bet­ter choice than a muf­fin. An ounce of nuts (make sure its one ounce or about a hand­ful — most por­tions are larger!) and a fruit would be a bet­ter choice than a bag of pretzels.
4. Drink plenty of water. This may help you to eat less. Also, fly­ing tends to cause dehydration.

Trainer for the Day

Do you have an idea for a killer work­out? Do you dream of set­ting up cones and direct­ing the masses through a chal­leng­ing series of exer­cises? Would you love to return the favor to {insert your favorite trainer’s name here} by hand­ing him/her a large num­ber of {insert your least-favorite exer­cise here}?

Here’s your chance! Bid your best offer to become Trainer for the Day on Novem­ber 11, 2011. Here are the guidelines:

• Place your bids in the Com­ments sec­tion of this post. Only the bids placed here will be con­sid­ered offi­cial bids.
• Bid­ding starts at $5 and will be accepted in $5 increments.
• Bid­ding will begin Novem­ber 1, and will close at 9 am on Novem­ber 9, 2011.
• The win­ning bidder(s) will be announced on Novem­ber 10, 2011.
• The win­ning bidder(s) will be Trainer(s) for the Day on Novem­ber 11, 2011.
• You can pool your money with up to two (2) other campers to increase your bid.

All dona­tions will go directly to Pied­mont Park Con­ser­vancy or Get Grounded Foun­da­tion — the win­ning bidder’s choice. And, since your check will be writ­ten directly to a non-profit, you will be able to write it off!

So pull out your check book and your whis­tle… the high­est bid­der will call the shots!

Parktoberfest Was Enjoyed By All

Because of your gen­eros­ity, we have now donated a total of $40,000 to Pied­mont Park Con­ser­vancy and our other high­lighted non-profits, such as Get Grounded. Thanks for mak­ing all of this possible.

Please post your results and improve­ments from today’s PT test — we want to hear your suc­cess stories!

See you next month, start­ing Tues­day, Novem­ber 1st!