This Blog has been created for the sole purpose of sharing great ideas for Sneals and high quality meals.

The Rules:

Sneals must be within 60 to 250 calories.  They must be as close to equal carbs to protein ratio but remember that it has to be LEAN.

or

it can be just a Lean Protein.

A meal must be 250 to 400 calories and be in the same quality as a sneal.

Try and make the instructions as simple as possible.  These menus are to help everyone live a healthy lifestyle, lose weight, maintain weight, and feel GREAT!!

MIracle Noodle Recipe:

This ultra-quick dish is a delicious variation on the classic late-night
Roman staple, spaghettata  (Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil) that can be
thrown together from ingredients you may normally keep in your pantry and
fridge.

Preparation time: five minutes

Cooking time:  five minutes

1 bag Miracle Noodles angel hair,

1  6- or 7-ounce can or jar of tuna  in olive oil  (preferably Italian
tuna in extra virgin oil, but supermarket brands like Progresso or Genova
are fine. Solid or chunk light tuna is tastier than solid white, which
tends to be dry.)

Chopped or pressed garlic to taste 1 tsp to 2 tbsps (fresh is best, but
chopped garlic from a jar is fine)

½ to 1 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves (or if you must, 2-3 tbsps of
dried chopped parsley)

1 tbsp capers (optional)

Black pepper or hot red pepper flakes to taste

Extra virgin olive oil or lemon flavored olive oil (optional)

Salt to taste

1.       Prepare the Miracle Noodles according to package directions.

2.       Open the tuna can and drain the olive oil from the can into a
saute or frying pan.  Put the tuna in a bowl and flake it with a fork.

3.       Add chopped garlic  to the pan and stir over medium heat until
golden. Add parsley and capers; stir until parsley begins to wilt. Stir in
the black or red pepper.

4.       Add a splash (about ½ to 1 tbsp) of extra virgin olive oil or,
preferably, lemon-infused olive oil (sometimes called citron oil), then
add the flaked tuna, stirring for a minute or two until heated. If the pan
seems dry, add a bit more oil.

5.        Taste for salt and add a pinch if needed.  The tuna and the
capers are salty, so you won’t need much and if you have used capers
preserved in salt, you can probably omit it.

6.       Toss with Miracle Noodles in a bowl, or add the noodles to the
pan and toss over low heat. Serve immediately.

Variations:

For a one-pot, highly nutritious meal, increase the amount of garlic and
omit the parsley. Instead, add ½ to 1 bunch of chopped raw kale, Swiss
chard or spinach (with stems removed) in step 3; it will take a minute or
two longer to wilt than the parsley.  A shake or two of hot red pepper
flakes and lemon-flavored oil are particularly good with these greens. (My
preference is for the chard or kale, which have a milder taste that blends
well with the tuna.)

Or, add cut-up green beans, lightly steamed and drained, to the pan with
the parsley. (Lemon-flavored oil really adds to this version).

For a more piquant flavor, add 1 or 2 tbsps  chopped sun-dried tomatoes
along with the parsley, and omit the lemon olive oil.

YUMMY!!! You can get the Miracle Noodles at www.Carbessentials.net.  So lets break this one down into it’s nutrition.

It has protein from the Tuna.  It has a very good fat in the extra virgin olive oil.

The veggies are awesome in just great vitamins and minerals and are an excellent carbohydrate.  

The Miracle noodles are an amazing product because they are almost zero calories and they are a great source of fiber.

 

CarbEssentials was opened in early 2003 by Raymond Powell, MD and his wife Dominique Powell. Dr. Powell, a board certified bariatrician, and has treated thousands of medical weight loss patients in his clinics and is always looking for high-quality, nutritional products to help his patients achieve their goals.  He calls these foods sneals.

This search for sneals takes Dr. Powell all over the United States. He personally selects each product sold in his stores to ensure that they meet his strict nutrition criteria. A majority of the products are medical grade, but a growing number of products are from the sports nutrition and unique niche industries. All products are taste tested by his family, employees and patients.

He has coined a term called a Sneal.  That is how he shops for these nutritional items.  He understands the reality of most of our lives.  He understands that most of us have very busy lives and need high quality nutrition that has to be; quick, convenient, portable, single-serving, and has to taste great.  That is where the word sneal came up.  It is a way to teach his patients a whole new way to think about nutrition

Dr. Powell also treats a growing number of patients who have had or about to have Gastric Bypass surgery and for those that are beginning to regain their weight back. He also consults with many other Gastric Bypass patients who are confused about what they should eat and take as supplements to get adequate nutrition while keeping their weight down. He has spent countless hours researching companies offering specialized products for weight loss patients. These low to moderate carbohydrates, low fat products are also available to the public and are excellent nutritional products for anyone, whether you have had Gastric Bypass surgery, trying to lose weight, or just looking for great nutrition.

These sneals are great for kids to take to school.  Again they are quick, convenient, portable, single-serving, high quality morsels of food that taste great.  Perfect to help treat and prevent childhood obesity or just to give kids great food to eat through the day.

Whether you are a medical weight loss patient just trying to lose a few pounds, or an athlete trying to optimize your diet, try our low to moderate carb, low-fat, high-protein, nutritional items. CarbEssentials and the Sneal a better low carb diet solution.  You can learn more about Dr. Powell, MD and Snealing at www.Physiciansplan.net and www.Snealtime.com.  You can shop for sneals on-line at www.Carbessentials.net.

“Stop eating and go exercise!”

This is the most common misconception when it comes to obesity. Simplistic at best, and completely false at worse, it offers no real solution for those who are trying to lose weight. Why? Obesity is a disease and it must be treated as one.

The World Health Organization and the National Institute of Health both define obesity as a chronic relapsing medical disease. Let’s break that term down:

CHRONIC: You are not going to cure it. You are going to need to manage it for the rest of your life.

RELAPSING: Refers to chronic…you don’t just lose the weight once and expect it to

stay off. (Actually, many people do expect that.) It can come BACK.

MEDICAL DISEASE: It is a disease that needs to be treated. It’s not a weakness that the patient should just be able to get under control on their own.

Let’s take a look at diabetes, another chronic, relapsing, medical disease.

Here is a clinical example:

A 5′ 2″, 250 pounds, 48 year old Caucasian woman is in her doctor’s office and her lab work shows she has a fasting blood sugar (no food for 12 hours) of 180 mg/dL (normal is 99 mg/dL or less). Her doctor diagnoses her with Type 2 diabetes and gives her a prescription of an oral diabetes medicine. She may receive a referral to the diabetes educator or a one-time visit to a dietician.

After two weeks, the patient returns for a checkup with the doctor and a finger stick blood sugar shows a random blood sugar of 92 mg/dL. Does the doctor say, “that’s great!” “Now that your blood sugar is normal, you can stop the medication!?” Of course not! He/she is treating a Chronic Relapsing Medical Disease. If the medication is stopped, what will happen to the blood sugar? Yep, you guessed it, it will go back up!

If she could lose 10%-20% of her weight by changing the quality/quantity/and timing of her food guess what most likely would happen to her blood sugar? It would come way down. Though there is never a guarantee that it would normalize, but it’s a definite possibility. But notice what was not treated? Her obesity.

Here is another example. A 5′ 9″, 52 year old man that is 292 pounds has a blood pressure of 185/98 (High Blood Pressure). What will the doctor do? Obviously, the doctor will treat it. The patient gets put on a high blood pressure medicine.

Two weeks later, the same patient comes in with a blood pressure of 120/80. Does the doctor take the patient off the medicine? Well, NO. The doctor is treating a Chronic Relapsing Medical Disease. If the blood pressure medicine is stopped, what will happen to his blood pressure? It will go back up.

Again, if the patient got his nutrition under control and lost 10% of his weight what do you think would naturally happen to his blood pressure? It would go down. Which is the disease and which is the symptom?

The Disease is Obesity and the Symptom is High Blood Pressure.

You could say the same thing for patients with high cholesterol or a combination of hypertension, diabetes and high blood pressure.

The medical community treats all of these conditions. But we never treat the obesity. It has been well established that obesity can cause or even worsen many medical ailments.

Unfortunately, many in the medical community not only don’t treat obesity, they minimalize it. As a result, there are thirty thousand diets and two rows of weight loss remedies that are over-the-counter at Wal-Mart and your local grocery store. You don’t see two rows of blood pressure or diabetes remedies over-the-counter at Wal-Mart. They are behind the counter with the pharmacist. These obese patients are desperate and have to attempt to treat it themselves. Guess what? IT AIN’T WORKING!

Why as medical practitioners do we not treat obesity? Because we (the medical community) don’t know how. We are not even trained that obesity is a disease. Maybe the medical students of today are getting some education but for the majority of practitioners in the trenches of medical care, we don’t have the first clue on how to treat obesity.

In my experience, I cannot even remember seeing any education about obesity but I learned how to treat Malaria and Intermittent Acute Porphyria and in 11 years of practicing medicine have never seen a case of either. After seven years of medical training and achieving my first board certification in Emergency medicine, I had a major moment of realization in my own personal life. I was a 3^rd year senior emergency resident, I was 38 years old and I found myself at 250 pounds. This was the heaviest I had ever been and my weight was starting to cause some major medical issues.

I did Atkins, the Zone, Slim Fast, Sugar-Busters, and Atkins again, Nutra-Systems, Jenny Craig, South Beach and even Cabbage Soup Diet. I was desperate. I would lose weight, plateau then regain over and over. I, the doctor, had to self teach myself what I was not taught in my first seven years of medical training; how to treat my own obesity as a disease.

Obesity is incredibly complex. I’m not just talking about all the good and bad stressors in your life and all the medical conditions, medications and family dynamics, jobs, marriages, divorces, traveling, children, illnesses, man in your life, woman in your life, kids in your life or a variety of other contributors.

It is incredibly complex within all the intricacies of the body. There are numerous neurochemicals involved with the brain that mediate desires, satisfaction and hunger cravings. Our emotional and medical state can change those levels. The types of foods you eat can affect the different levels of these neurochemicals.

There are neuro (brain) gastro (intestine) endocrines (hormones) that communicate between the gut and the brain that also control your hunger, your satisfaction, your cravings. The fat cell itself has been found to be an incredibly complex cell that secretes over 10 different hormones that control your hunger and satisfaction.

Then, of course, the food you eat stimulates all of these signals that can cause satisfaction, pleasure (brief), or even worsen hunger. Yes, food can make you hungry! Then the food we eat affects blood sugar levels, which affects insulin levels, which in turn affect blood sugar levels, which can affect your brain chemicals which then affects your hunger.

I could go on, but I think you get my drift!

So, let me ask you this? Do you think “burning energy” (losing weight) is as simple as stop eating and go exercise?

When I am searching for new products to add to the CarbEssentials line, there are two very famous quotes that are the foundation of the criteria that I use. The first quote goes like this:

“The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather cure and prevent disease with nutrition.”       Thomas Edison 1847-1931

Isn’t it sad to see that in the last 100 years that this has not happened?

The second quote:

“Make your food your medicine.”

Isn’t that a great thought process? If you take care of your body and eat better quality nutrition the body will take care of itself. That was said by a very wise man around 2200 years ago. Back when junk food didn’t exist and fast food meant you had to chase it down, Hippocrates knew that our bodies need quality nutrition to be healthy.

If you are struggling with the disease of obesity, you need to seek medical treatment from a specialist who is trained in the treatment of overweight and obesity. (Go to www.carbessentials.net for a link to the American Society Of Bariatric Physicians.)

There is something you can do first that is simple and will make an immediate difference. The first step in this whole process is to actually eat! Don’t go all day without eating because your life gets so damn busy and then eat all at once at the end of the day. Do you honestly think that is healthy for you?

The Carbessentials concept and the Sneal concept (www.Snealtime.com) matches perfectly with the philosophies of those two famous men. The foods available through www.Carbessentials.net are of the highest quality. They come in smaller amounts and most are single-servings to avoid overeating. By eating these “Sneals” every two to three hours throughout your day, your body will respond to you and you will have made your food your medicine.

I was amazed when I looked at myself when I was 38 years old and I was 250 pounds. I was at least 75 pounds over weight. I hated myself. I looked at my wife and wondered,  ”how she could have been attracted to me when I was so fat.” My back was always killing me and I could not even keep up with my 5 kids.

I was in my second year of my Emergency Medicine Residency. Yes, a doctor who is morbidly obese. How can that happen? Aren’t doctors supposed to know how to stay healthy? Aren’t doctors taught everything there is about nutrition?

The reality of it is that I, like most of us, had been hit with multiple stressors over several years. To include becoming a disabled United States Air Force Veteran, a herniated L5-S1 vertebral disc, a reconstructed ankle, getting divorced and remarried, moving from Charleston, South Carolina to Lubbock, Texas, starting medical school, graduating after 4 years of grueling school and then moving to Columbia, South Carolina and at this point in time 2 years of grueling Emergency Medicine Residency and the birth of two of my 6 total children. There were a lot of great times and some very hard times. But life as we all live it is never stress free. When we are stressed two things immediately get pushed aside, how we eat or how feed us and how we “move our bodies” (exercise).

As I looked at myself in the mirror one day and said, “I can’t do this anymore.” I realized after 6 years of medical training I had no clue what to do about my nutrition. Should I do a “Low-Carb Diet”?. Should I do a “Low-Fat Diet”?. Should I do a “High-Protein Diet”?. Most doctor, according to a recent Congressional hearing, get less than 3 hours of nutritional education in their entire 4 years of medical training. Most people spend that amount of time watching TV each and every day!!! So I tried Atkins (Low Carb), Sugar-Busters, Slim Fast, The Zone and essentially lost a little bit of weight but then put it right back on.

I started to learn and research everything I could find about nutrition and the science of Obesity and how to treat it. Yes, OBESITY, that is what I have as a diagnosis. I will always have it. Obesity has been defined by just about every medical organization including the World Health Organization as a Chronic Relapsing Medical Disease and I have it.

As I start these Podcasts/Blogs I will explain to you the concepts I have learned about treating myself and thousands of patients for Obesity. The science of nutrition, what is the right combination of Protein, Carbohydrates and Fats. How much and when should your nutrition be eaten. It is not as easy and many people think. If it was we would not have a country and world that has become obese.

After I realized how little I knew about my own nutrition and treating patients for Obesity for several years. I realized that all these patients had one thing in common. They need to be shown what, when, and how to eat. For myself as well as my patients there were several common themes. Not eating often enough, Not eating enough, and a term called Food Amnesia. The beginning of my concept for “CarbEssentials” was born.

Read On!!.