Favorite Product of the Week: Galeo's Salad Dressing

I have been eating a lot of salads and raw vegetables lately, and there is one very specific reason for this -- Galeos Salad Dressing. I was turned onto this after eating lunch at a friend's house a few months ago. She made a big salad for lunch, and to be honest, I was a little worried that just a salad wasn't going to be filling enough for my very large, nursing mother's appetite these days.

Not only was it surprisingly filling, but it was exceptionally delicious -- all because of this salad dressing. It's called Galeos, and the flavor she used was Sesame Seed. I can honestly say this is the best store-bought salad dressing I've ever had. I've since turned many people onto it. I'm telling you -- once you buy a jar, you're going to be hooked. Not only do I eat it on salads almost every day now, but I dip raw bell peppers and cucumbers in it and pinch myself every time -- it's that good. My husband can't get enough of it either. He'd like me to introduce it to his parents the next time we have dinner together.

The Sesame Seed flavor is our current favorite. It tastes like one of those really good salad dressings you'd get in a Japanese restaurant and don't have a clue how to replicate. It's creamy, tangy with a hint of miso, and really just indescribable beyond that. Delicious and yummy are the only words that come to mind.

As an added piece of information, it's somehow extremely low-calorie and made with ingredients you'd find in your own kitchen cabinets. You know how I feel about counting calories (I don't do it), but I thought I should acknowledge the nutrition information in this post, as I learned after some very limited research that this dressing is apparently sought after because of it's low calorie count. So not posting that fact might be akin to ignoring the big white elephant in the room. If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, however, you'll believe me when I say that the reason I rushed out to the store to buy this stuff just hours after eating it is because of the taste and the taste alone. It really is that good.

Go see for yourself.

Your Weight Is Not Going to Change. Are You?

What if I told you that your weight would never change? That whatever number that appears on the scale today is what it will be for the rest of your life (despite the fact that I don't really believe in scales)? I'd like to know the answer.

Would you minimize your email window right now and walk to the nearest ice cream store? Would you make a doughnut date with your best friend for tomorrow morning? Would you eat every cookie and cupcake passed around the office no matter what the flavor? If so, awesome. Go for it!

Seriously. If you need permission, I hereby grant it to you: you have unconditional permission to eat whatever you want whenever you want it. Remember, in this scenario, there is no changing your weight. It is what it will be for the rest of your life.

I ask this question because last month, I overheard two different nutritionists saying that, really, we can't change our weights. Shocking? It shouldn't be. We all know by now that diets don't work. Yes, I suppose that if we continually eat past our fullness levels, perhaps we'll increase our weights. And yes, if we starve ourselves for any length of time, perhaps we'll decrease our weights (temporarily). But as we all know by now, diets don't work, and 95 percent of people who lose weight on diets end up regaining it ultimately (oftentimes reaching higher weights than they were at prior to dieting). So, really, the vast majority of us are meant to be at whatever weight we're meant to be at.

End. Of. Story.

So I ask you again, what would you do if you knew that your weight would not be impacted by what you ate? Just for fun, why don't you play with that notion for the next month. Eat whatever you'd like and pay attention to how it makes you feel. If you truly give yourself unconditional permission to eat whatever you want (and are not worried about your weight for one moment), I think something magical might happen for you. It happens for virtually everyone who goes through this process, also known as intuitive eating. I could tell you that you'll eventually learn which foods leave you feeling fabulous and which ones make you want to curl into the fetal position in your bed and not get up until morning. But I'd prefer not to answer the question for you, and instead let you experience it fully. For yourself.

Let me know how it goes, and if you can't bring yourself to try this experiment, write to me and let me know why. No judgment here. Just curiosity with the aim of helping you make peace with food and with yourself. Happy eating!

[*At right: the turkey burger from John O'Groats. It tastes as good as it looks]

Happy New Year

I sent out the following letter to my newsletter subscribers this weekend and it dawned on me this morning that perhaps it would be beneficial to post it to my blog as well. So...here's a letter from me to you....just a few days into the new year.

Happy New Year!
Wishing you a happy, healthy 2010

As I type this email on New Year's Eve, my husband is cooking dinner, my baby girl is practicing pre-crawling maneuvers on her play-mat and I am happily settling into a new home office we created for me this week. I don't have a profound message to type tonight, nor do I have an inspiring story to tell. I just want to reach out to you during a time that can be a struggle for those committing to a non-dieting way of life.

Airwaves are abuzz with dieting offers and "slim-down" "tips and tricks" at this time of year, and as you know by now, supportive non-dieting messages are too few and far between. So before you get tempted to buy into the multi-billion dollar diet industry, I'd like to gently remind you that diets don't work. They're not good for you, they've been proven to correlate with weight gain in the long run, and the yo-yo cycles created by diets have been proven time and time again to be unhealthy.

So as you ring in the new year I offer you a virtual hand. You can hold my hand for as long as you want on your journey to make peace with food and with yourself. I'll be here to cheer you on, offer a shoulder to cry on and remind you as many times as I need to that you are perfect just the way you are. I'll also be here to remind you that changing a number on a scale won't make you any happier. Changing your perception of and love for your body, though, just might.

My message is as simple today as it was when I launched my business two years ago: Eat When You're Hungry. Stop When You're Full. And Love Yourself.

And have a happy, healthy, joyful new year filled with laughter, lattes if you like them, and all the things that make life so delicious.

Warmly,
Maggie