For My Navy Chicks

Every once in a while you're someplace where you don't have control over your food. You might be at camp, at a friend's house, at a business conference or on a ship!

There are ways to beat the system and still eat healthy:

• Eat a lot of small healthy meals. Sometimes you will need to pack-a-snack. Take fruit, nuts, tea bags and a bottle of water from the breakfast buffet to snack on later. That way you will be able to resist the waffles and Mrs. Butterworths. Eat a fried egg, a banana and some oatmeal with raisins. Then pack-a-snack for later.
• Be High Maintenance. I tell people I am celiac although I have never been formally tested. I don't need a test to tell me my body is allergic to wheat: if I eat flour products I immediately want to claw my throat out and kill myself. Wheat gives me instant strep throat and depression. Why would I need a test.
• Ask for help. Ask the chef for a whole piece of fruit or whole vegetable. I have friends who go to our neighborhood mexican place, Zuzu, and buy a whole avocado. Then they mix it with the limes from the iced tea bar and a little sea salt. Guacamole!
• Yesterday I was at a Realtor Rally. They served sandwich buffet which is my basic nightmare: meat, wheat and dairy. What to do? I ate a piece of bread with dijon mustard and the biggest stack of sliced tomatoes and raw onion slices. I picked a sweet pepper out of the iceberg lettuce "salad" bowl and washed it all down with several bottles of water. Go straight to the vegetable tray and start with covering 80% of your plate with vegetables.
• Poop. 80% of your immune system is housed in your small and large intestines. You must keep things moving down there. Poop every 24 hours with the goal of pooping once every 12 hours. The residual benefits of eliminating debris are bizarre: a clear head, a light body, a happier attitude, a healthy hunger, a stronger immune system, a total change of abdominal shape and a finer tuned appetite. Smart young kick-ass chicks who have been eating poorly will find they have fabulous abs just by becoming vegetarian for a month. Fear the Goat.
• Eat all the time. Eat five times a day. Start each meal with a huge glass of water. Then eat a huge piece of fruit. Sit and chat or read. Then eat a huge salad with every vegetable you can find and a huge splash of olive oil. THEN eat your meal. Snacks should always be whole raw foods: apple, carrot, almonds, raisins, walnuts, water.
• Fruit likes to be in your tummy by itself.
• Everything tastes better with a little sea salt or balsamic vinegar. Never tried okra? Cowgirl up and give it a try.

Salad Bar Bowl

If you are faced with a cafeteria style meal, take a large plate or bowl and place rice in the bottom. Place 2 huge scoops of beans on top. Then fill the rest of the plate or bowl to the top with vegetables, preferably steamed. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, balsamic vinegar or all three.