Vital Living

Bridging the gap
In psychology, you’ll often hear the term ‘bridging the gap.’ This means that here you are at point A, but you want to be at point B. This distance is ‘the gap.’
At this time of year, people tend to think about their health and often times they know they need to alter habits so they can get to point B. We all know the drill: people make too many changes, all at once, and those changes are oft-times too strict, so point B rarely arrives.
When you concentrate on additions and not subtractions, bad habits fall away as we feel healthier and stronger. We simply don’t crave unhealthy food anymore. I’m sure you already know the bad food choices you sometimes make, so here is a list of additions to make to your diet. Let’s focus on these:
• Begin each day with breakfast. Ideas include oatmeal with nuts and seeds, cold cereal with fresh fruit, omelets with vegetables, yogurt with (preferably homemade) granola, leftover soup (try it sometime!) and whole grain muffins with blueberries.
• A mid-morning snack might include 10-15 raw almonds and ¼ cup of raw sunflower seeds, a piece of fruit, carrot and celery sticks or whatever vegetables are in season.
• A sandwich is always an easy lunch, but please be sure to vary the ingredients. Add lots of veggies and use whole-grain breads with at least 3 grams of dietary fiber per slice. Salads are a wonderful choice for lunch with some kind of protein such as garbanzo beans, sliced chicken or tuna.
• A mid-afternoon snack would be along the same lines as your mid-morning snack, but please vary your selections. If you had nuts and seeds for your morning snack, do not have them for an afternoon snack, and choose vegetables instead with some hummus.
• A hearty bowl of soup makes a wonderful winter dinner with a lovely salad. Use a crock-pot, and when you get home after work, dinner is made! Baked chicken with roasted veggies is easy, as is a bowl of chili stuffed into half an acorn squash. Keep it simple and keep it varied.
Make a goal to get some kind of exercise every day. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Just do something. Keep moving and you will feel so much better. If you try to start the New Year with a big diet goal and a huge new exercise regime, you might be setting yourself up for failure. It might work better for you to bridge one gap before starting another.
Please remember our Earth with any resolutions you might be making. Be sure to recycle, reduce and reuse. Just these three R’s alone will make a big difference.
Happy New Year, everyone!
8 cups whole oats
1 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts or almonds
½ cup sesame seeds
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup pumpkin seeds
1½ teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cloves
1-10 ounce jar fruit sweetened jam, your choice of flavor
¼ cup honey
¼ cup walnut or pumpkin seed oil
2 teaspoons vanilla or extract of your choice
    (almond is nice)
1 cup dried raisins
½ cup flax seeds, very lightly ground
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil two cookie sheets with 1” sides.
Place the oats, coconut, nuts, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and spices on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes stirring once, until lightly browned. Let cool slightly and then pour into large bowl. Heat the jam, honey and oil until well blended. Stir in extract. Pour into oat mixture and blend well; you may use your hands, but be careful of the hot liquid. Place in prepared cookie sheets.
Bake for 20 minutes, stirring once. Add the raisins or cranberries and bake another 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Take out of the oven and mix in flax seeds. Let cool completely and place in glass jars. Store in the refrigerator.
Note: Feel free to be creative. I change the nuts and seeds. I sometimes substitute dried cranberries or other dried fruit for the raisins. Crystallized ginger is also very good. In the fall, use pumpkin pie spice or Chinese five spice. This granola is excellent in the morning with kefir or yogurt and fresh blueberries.
To make a yogurt parfait, layer granola and then yogurt in a glass and top with fresh berries.
Patty James M.S., C.N.C.
DirectionFive Health, Founder and Director
www.directionfive.org, 707-888-1103
Nutritionist/Chef/Writer, co-author of “More Vegetables,
Please!” www.pattyjames.com.
Founder of the nation’s first certified organic cooking school