Eating A Little Healther - Best Cereal & Apples

I walked into the Giant to pick up a prescription for my mother (knee surgery pain meds!) at 11:00 at night a few days ago. It was great, because the pharmacy is open 24 hours! So I'm told it's going to take about 30 minutes to fill so I decided to do some of my healthy eating food shopping I've been putting off.

Here's the background: I've been meaning to pick up some healthier foods and snacks to keep with me during the day. When I'm shooting a wedding, the amount of energy I need is ridiculous. Many don't know that you're on your feet with 20 lbs of equipment in your hands for over 10-12 hours at a time, running around, trying to get every important shot possible. Your body needs energy to keep going or you're just going to crash.

Aside from energy, I want to maintain a healthy diet. The reason to eat more throughout the day is that it keeps your metabolism burning at a higher rate throughout day. So my meals are breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, and then dinner. That's 5 times through out the entire day.

Many people try to lose weight or maintain their weight thinking they have to cut out food, but this is exactly the wrong thing to do. By not eating, or eating less, you starve your body, which tells it to shut down the calorie burning factory. No burning needed, so it sends some of the workers home. However, if you feed your body throughout the day, it is in a constant cycle of burning. Of course, if you feed it fatty & unhealthy foods, we all know what will happen next: bog down, fat storage, cholestral..the list goes on. So this doesn't mean you feed it Twinkies and chips.

I also wanted something higher in fiber to get all those cancer fighting benefits. So first, I wanted to try the healthiest cereal possible because I just don't have time to eat anything else in the mornings. It's the simplest to prepare. You'll even find a bowl sitting in my car because I take it with me! So, I googled and came across a list of high fiber cereals. One of them was for Kashi Go Lean (regular). If you get another version, like Kashi Crunch, you're eating more sugars and more calories. So I went over to the cereal aisle, compared other brands as well, and find out Kashi actually has 10 grams of fiber. That's 40% of your daily fiber requirement and more then many other cereals there. It also is very low in sugar with only 6 grams (I read you should stay under 10g).

I've been eating it every morning for a week, and it's pretty good. I never put sugar in my cereal...that's just gross. Cereals already have enough sugar IMO. I have to warn you, the taste is 'healthy.' If you're not used to eating whole grain cereal and you're coming from Pops or Cap'n Crunch sugary sweetness, this will be a 180 for you. For this type of cereal, I think it tastes pretty good and it's very healthy. I add some fresh strawberries if I have time to cut them, and away I go. Definetly try a box or let me know what others you've tried.

Also, while I was at Giant, I also picked up the healthiest apples you can eat. They are called Red Delicious. They have the highest amount of anti-oxidants of any apple. If you don't know, you need these bad boy antioxidants to fight free radicals, which are linked to heart disease and some cancers. I eat one of these in between meals as a snack. Other apples are health too, but this one tops out.

Just one last thing about all this fiber for the women out there: studies have shown there is a dramatic reduction of breast cancer with women who consume a higher fiber diet from fruit and cereal. (Source)

You can also read some more here: Link

Now I just have to try to actually make time for the gym again. I used to row for the UMBC crew team in college...God, I miss that! Need to start doing that again somehow if I can find the time.

Mini Biography

Good morning! So I was laying in bed last night, trying to go to sleep after shooting out a bunch of emails to clients and thinking about what to blog next...and I thought why not a little about myself. A proper introduction.

Here's the lowdown on me (if you don't know already!) My name is Asim Soofi and I am a professional photographer / IT professional / jack of all trades living in Baltimore, MD. I was originally born in Pakistan many many years ago...I'm at the point where I don't mention my age unless I'm bribed or it's my passport renewal application. Okay...fine...My birthdate is December 30, 1976. Interesting fact is one of my cousins was born 1 day after me...in the same house no less. And I was actually born at home...old school! Midwife and all.

My dad originally had gone off to Norway and had been there for a few years. He came back to Pakistan, married my lovely mother, had my older sister Ayesha, and then convinced my mother Norway was going to be kick-butt so they packed up and moved. Turns out it was a tad colder then the Pakistani climate my dear mother was used to. Then there was good news...mom was pregnant with yours truly. So a few months before I was to make my official arrival, she came back to Pakistan to have me. After a few months, we went back to Norway for a few more years, welcome my younger brother Abid. Then came back to Pakistan again! However, after a short while there, we made our final destination the U.S. We arrived to the states in June 1983 to my aunt's home in Triadelphia, West Virginia.

Fast forward to recent years. After moving from WV to California, PA, (yes, there's a town called California in PA --- one hour from Pittsburgh), then moving to Queens, NY (the last brother sibling Aamir was born here), my parents made the final decision to buy their first home in Fort Washington, Maryland. Fast forward again a few years, we arrived in Baltimore, MD in 1989. It's been home ever since.

I later graduated from University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) with a B.S. in IT. I've been into photography for over 15 years now, but decided to pursue it professionally about 3 years back. It's been awesome ride ever since and I'm catching up on lost time.

I shoot primarily Indian weddings, Pakistani weddings, and American weddings. I'm looking forward to other cultural ceremonies as well, such as Chinese weddings and other cool and different ceremonies. Each one is unique in its own way and it's always a great way to learn about other cultures and how they do things. That's one of the things I love about shooting weddings in general. You get to meet such diverse people and share so many experiences with them in one of the most important days of their life. Pretty awesome IMO.

I've met some great couples and have had the best of times. It does get very hectic and stressful at times, but the end results make it worthwhile.

Hope you enjoyed my little history. Let me know if you'd like to know anything else about me.

/asim