Category: English

¡Hola, Sabrosa!, English, Healthy Mexican Food

10 Easy Ways to Eat More Fruits and Vegetables

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Your diet should include a healthy variety of fruits, vegetables, protein and grains. Fruits and veggies are an important part of your diet because they add vitamins and rich nutrients that will make you feel better throughout the day. Try these easy-to-follow tips and you’ll be on your way to a better, healthier you!

¿Estás lista?

Getting creative and healthy with your meals has never been easier. Fruits and vegetables give extra color, sabor y textura to your dishes, while adding a little creativity to your dinner table. Madrina Malena recommends three cups of veggies and two cups of fruit each day. Here are 10 delicious ways to help you get your daily fill of frutas y verduras!

  1. Make a fruit smoothie. Fruit smoothies are postres in a glass! Get a simple blender and crush ice and fruit like watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberries and mango and whip up a dreamy licuado for a refreshing drink or snack.
  1. Add chopped vegetables to your main dishes. (¡Qué vivan las salsas frescas!) Liven up your meals with fresh vegetables, picados and salsas. Incorporate sautéed or fresh onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers and spinach into your dishes for added vitamins and nutrients, and treat your senses to sweet, savory or spicy salsas and pico de gallo.
  1. Eat a green salad once a day. Make an ensalada mixta a healthy daily habit! Start with fresh lettuce and add other crispy veggies. Try a simple dressing of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Whether paired with lunch or dinner, a fresh salad with mixed greens, carrots, cherry tomatoes, green onions and peppers is the perfect complement to any meal.
  1. Fire up the grill. Face it. Everything tastes better on the parrilla. Whether you grill the vegetables in a kabob or in a fajita mix, the combination of corn, peppers, onions and chile powder will spice up any meal. Ever tried grilled pineapple with chilito? How about grilled asparagus? Try some of Madrina Lori’s grilled veggies today!

Eat up to three cups of veggies and two cups of fruit every day for a healthier you!

  1. Shred and puree vegetables. Instead of using dairy or meat products to thicken your sopas and stews, try shredding and pureeing vegetables. Pureed and shredded carrots, celery, potatoes, mushrooms and sweet potatoes make a hearty (and healthy) addition to your dishes.
  1. Add fruit to your desserts. When you’re craving something sweet—algo dulce—get creative with baked goods by adding blueberries, pears, strawberries, bananas, applesauce or apples into your favorite recipes. Fruit sweetens the flavor and adds a luscious texture.
  1. Plan a vegetable main dish. At least once a week, let your veggies be the main attraction! Make Lori’s calabacitas con shredded chicken! Get creative! Make a veggie taco! Push the envelope and add spinach to your enchiladas. Pile some shredded jicama, cabbage and carrots on a yummy bean tostada. Add calabacitas to your burritos and nopalitos to your taquitos. Nothing tastes better than Hatch green chile on a quesadilla.
  1. Sip on vegetable soup. A good sopa de verduras will warm your belly and your soul. Mix together a playful combination of peppers, corn, zucchini, tomatoes, onions and beans for a delicious main or side dish. Too hot for soup? Try Lori’s gazpacho and pretend you’re in sunny Spain!
  1. Snack on fruits throughout the day. When you’re feeling hungry, reach for raspberries, grapes, blueberries, bananas, apples and pears, which will curb your appetite and give you a healthy boost of energía. Balance the fruit with a handful of protein-rich almonds and you’re on your way!
  1. Stock up on fruits and vegetables—fresh, frozen and canned. The absolute easiest way to eat more fruits and veggies is simply to have them around! Buy more fruits and vegetables when you go grocery shopping. Keep a bowl of fruit on your table. Don’t forget to stock up on canned and frozen vegetables to ensure your meals are tasty and nutritious. Take a hint from Madrina Malena: rinse canned veggies before eating to wash away some of the added sodium.
¡Hola, Guapa!, English, Healthy Body

Getting on the Scale

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A message from Madrina Ana…

I always hated the scale. Did you know that I used to be so anxious about weighing myself that my blood pressure would go up when I went to the doctor for a simple checkup?

Yup. That was me.

I have had many years now of getting healthy, and honestly, it is a one-day-at-a-time proposition, as our hermanos and hermanas say in Alcoholics Anonymous. Those of us who have made healthy changes to protect our health and wear cuter clothes know that it is a step-by-step process. We just try our best and put one foot in front of the other.

Weighing ourselves can be a nightmare if we let it. And the way to reframe the nightmare is to think of it as just one tool that can help us make healthy changes.

Remember: the number on the scale is just that: A number. It is one tool. There are many others.

At De Las Mías we recommend that you weigh yourself once a week. Period. Try not to weigh yourself every five minutes. It’s not that good for you to get too focused on your weight.

¡No vale la pena! (It ain’t worth it.)

Weighing ourselves falls under the category of “self-monitoring.” That means watching yourself, becoming more aware of yourself and what you do. Research shows that people who self-monitor make more progress in achieving healthy weight than those who don’t. But using the scale to “watch your weight” is just one tool.

Other ways to self-monitor are: Measuring your waist. Paying attention to how your clothes fit. Noticing how many veggies you’re eating now as opposed to last month. Becoming aware of how much energy you have. How good you feel about the healthy changes you’re making. How much you are enjoying those walks with your kids, your hubby, your comadre, your dog or yourself. How free you feel on your bike on a sunny day! How proud you are to be feeding your family healthier food. How fun it is to try a new recipe!

Those are all ways to “watch yourself,” to become more aware of what you are doing and how you are loving and respecting your body as you get healthier.

If you follow our “Poquito de Todo” philosophy, you will eat better, and as you eat better, you will become healthier and achieve a healthier weight.

We want you to love your body, love your food and be a role model for your children and your comadres, sisters and friends. We want you to do it “Poquito a Poquito,” one healthy step at a time.

So, weigh yourself once a week and remember that the number on the scale is just a number.

Keep up the effort. ¡Vales la Pena! (You’re worth it!)

¡Hola, Sabrosa!, Edición No. 8: Healthy Habits, English, Healthy Mexican Food

Mom, Why Is My Tortilla Brown?

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During a recent check-in with a De Las Mías comadre, Laura (not her real name), shared that since getting on the De Las Mías app she has started making healthy changes for her whole family.

One of the steps she took was to swap white flour tortillas for whole-wheat flour tortillas. She was proud of herself, she said, for making healthy changes. She recognized that this new way of life was affecting her whole family. (¡Eso, Comadre!)

She giggled when she told me that her little boy asked, “Mom, why is my tortilla brown?”  

Her answer to her jito was that brown tortillas are better for you than white ones.

Laura’s little boy is smart because he knows that sometimes when we do things we have to know why. Knowing why is a good motivator.  

Share the benefits of eating healthy foods with your family.  Here are some good reasons to eat whole grains:

  • Whole grains have important nutrients for your body such as protein, fiber, minerals and vitamins
  • Whole-wheat flour is better than white flour because when the grain is refined from brown to white, many nutrients are lost
  • Whole-grain and whole-wheat flour contains all parts of the grain so you get all the nutrients that the bran, germ and endosperm contain
  • Whole grains may help reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer, just to name a few
  • Whole grains may help you maintain a healthy weight
  • Whole grains are high in fiber, and give you an easy way to add more fiber to your diet. Fiber helps you digest your food and it’s good for your panza

Here are some whole grains to add to your healthy eating adventures:

  • 100% whole wheat tortillas (¡Qué vivan las brown tortillas!)
  • 100% whole wheat breads (Look for “whole wheat,” “100% whole grain” or “whole (other grain)” as the first ingredient)
  • Whole-grain pasta
  • Whole oats/oatmeal
  • Whole-grain corn (from corn meal, not corn flour)
  • Blue corn tortillas!
  • Popcorn (¡Eso! Kids love popcorn!)
  • Quinoa (food of the Incan gods)
  • Brown rice
  • Wild rice

Look for whole-grain recipes in the De Las Mías app!  

Got whole-grain recipes to share? Send them to us and we will choose some to include in La Cocina!

¡Unidas for a Healthy Life!

¡Hola, Guapa!, Edición No. 1: Getting Started, English, Healthy Comadres

Healthy Changes: Don’t Go It Alone—Tell Your Comadre

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Making healthy changes isn’t easy—it takes commitment and hard work.. The good news is: you don’t have to go it alone. Starting a new healthy lifestyle journey is much easier with a comadre by your side. Keep in mind that it is even better if your comadre is also on a healthy lifestyle journey.

You’ve told yourself, “I am ready to make this change.” ¡Estás lista!

Now it’s time to take the extra step and tell your comadre you’re ready. The experts tell us it is important to tell another person we’re ready to make a change. This increases our commitment and the chances of success!

Now’s the time! ¡Ahora es cuando! Turn to your comadre, sister, friend, mom or madrina and tell her, “I’m ready to make a change. This is my plan. Will you help me stay on track?”

Okay, you assessed and declared that you’re ready, you’ve told a comadre and now you make the necessary preparations! Just like you take out the utensils, the bowls and the ingredients to prep for a meal, you have to prep to take action.

Ask yourself, What do I need to make this change?

Try this:

  1. Identify the change you want to make.
  2. Declare yourself ready.
  3. Make a plan. (Write it down.)
  4. Share it with your comadre!
  5. It helps to tell her how you want her to help: Give me an ¡Eso! when I meet my goal. Go with me on my daily walk. Call me in a week if I haven’t called you.

We’ve written plans to commit to healthy changes plenty of times over the years. Here’s an example of one that works well when you’re starting a new healthy lifestyle. Feel free to make it your own!

An Easy Plan for Committing to Healthy Changes

This is the small change I would like to make: I would like to eat fruit instead of cookies when I watch TV.

To get ready I need to:

  1. Buy oranges.
  2. Keep them in a bowl by the TV.
  3. Call my comadre and tell her my plan. (Increase your chance of success by setting a start date!)
  4. Commit to check in with her at the end of the week whether I make it or not.
  5. If I don’t meet my goal, I promise to try again.

¡Adelante! You are on your way to making healthy changes, one small step at a time.

Buena Suerte, Comadre! We wish you luck as you make your commitment to healthy changes. To get into action, follow the De Las Mías ¡Un Poquito de Todo Philosophy!

¡Hola, Guapa!, Edición No. 1: Getting Started, English, Healthy Body

Get Started with Physical Activity

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¿Sabes qué? Most Latinas—60% of us—are not physically active. ¡Basta! Let’s change that story!

Mely riding bike 1

Many of us are intimidated by what “physical activity” means. Health education research shows that some people don’t even like the word “exercise.”

We hear the words “physical activity” or “exercise” and we imagine pictures of sweaty, skinny chicas in their tight little outfits at the gym and we say, “¡Ay, no!” “¡Chale!” “Forget it!”

Get started with physical activity and move your body!

Honestly, comadres, it’s not that big of a deal. Here’s our official DLM advice about being fit:

¡Move your body! ¡Enjoy it!

Dance it. Love it. Walk it. Bike it. Run it. Grow a garden with it. Please it. Be proud of it. Stop comparing it.

Move it as much as you can. Engage in a fun physical activity at least five days a week for 30 minutes a day and give yourself a big ¡Eso! (Maybe even a ¡beso!)

Here are some of the top benefits of physical activity:

    • Gives you energy
    • Improves your mood
    • Improves your confidence
    • Improves your sex life (¡Créemelo!—Believe it!)
    • Helps you manage stress
    • Helps you lose weight
    • Helps you control your weight
    • Lowers your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers

Continue reading “Get Started with Physical Activity” →

¡Hola, Guapa!, English

Avoiding the Thin Trap: A Letter From De Las Mías Founder

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A letter from De Las Mías founder Ana Consuelo Matiella

Late the other night, I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to turn on Netflix. Since I craved laughter, I found a list of Mexican comedians and I clicked on Ricardo O’Farrill. Funny! Laugh-out-loud funny. When he got to making fun of Jews I sat up straight on my bed and said, “Uh-oh.” His Jewish joke, the one I heard, wasn’t terribly offensive. If I recall, it was making fun of the Hebrew pronunciation of Spanish. Okay, I said, I can live with that. Laughter is a stress-reliever so I kept watching. Lots of cussing and swearing, but, hey, that can be funny, right? I’m from the state of Sonora. I can swear you under the table. I have cousins who cannot speak if they can’t say something related to the word chingar. O’Farrill sounded like he was quoting out of a dictionary called El Chingonario, which I happen to have on my shelf right now. A gift from another cousin…this one from Magdalena, Sonora. So I kept watching. I was giggling away when he got to the “fat chick” jokes. “Ha-ha!” the audience laughed. They laughed at the gorda jokes, the ones about how the gordas jiggled when they danced at the nightclub, and how funny it was that the gordas, because they were fat, weren’t going to get to have sex after the party. Quoting the Chingonario, I whispered an insult to his mother, and logged off. O’Farrill, funny guy that he is, it took me back to my childhood and the memory of all the fat jokes I had to endure as a big, chubby girl growing up in Nogales, Arizona. It took me back to my mother, and the picture I have of her wearing the tight black skirt and form-fitting matching sweater. She’s leaning like Ava Gardner against the rustic wall of our TV room, smoking a cigarette. So sexy, my mama. I remember helping her out of her girdle at night after she and my dad got home from the parties. It was flesh-colored pink and it had metal stays. My mama was never fat. She never had to hear gorda jokes aimed at her. She was beautiful and, above all, thin. She had this expression she used when she wanted to communicate that a woman was doing well. If she ran into someone at the market and recounted it to my tia, she would say something like, “I ran into Chalita at the store.” My aunt would say, “And how is she these days?” And my mom would answer, “Oh she’s fine, and above all, thin.” That was the final clincher. Sobre Todo Delgada.

Worried About Being Thin? Here’s a Cautionary Tale.

My mom was born in 1932 and came into adult womanhood in Mexico during World War II; she had stories of rationed silk stockings that she treasured like precious jewels. She was a fashion plate. She cared so much about what she looked like that she suffered from it. She was beautiful and stylish and, above all, thin. She was also bulimic. She was on prescription diet pills that at the time were called “Black Beauties.” My mom had an eating disorder and it stemmed from her deepest desire to be thin, because that meant she had worth. She and O’Farrill were on the same wavelength, except that she wouldn’t have laughed at his jokes. She would have been embarrassed that O’Farrill might have been making fun of her daughter, even as she was feeding her steak and no carbs. Like O’Farrill, my mom wanted her girls to be thin. Having a chunky daughter did not sit well with her. She tried to put me on various diets. She knew a thing or two about the no-carb diet. Thanks to Vanidades magazine, Atkins was a household word at our house in 1965. Looking back, I believe the doctor was treating her binging-and-purging—her bulimia—with Biphetamine, rationalizing that if she weren’t hungry, she wouldn’t binge. But when the Biphetamines made her jittery, he gave her Valium. She was a classic case for the times: while my mom might have benefitted from a good therapist, she was simply given pills to solve her problems. But she was never fat, and for my mom, that was, above all, the most important thing. So, one day when I was about 15 and she saw that my clothes were getting too tight, she said, “Ya no comas pan.” No more bread and tortillas for me. This was my first weight-loss diet: Breakfast: a hard-boiled egg and what she called “diet bread.” (This tasted a bit like cardboard.) Lunch: I was supposed to take carrots and celery but I discovered tortilla chips and Coke at the Charrito’s stand at the high school. (The Charrito was a blind guy who sold junk food to kids out of his makeshift cargo bike. He was ahead of his time.) Dinner: A steak and a salad. No oil. Just vinegar. A pear or an apple for dessert. Look it wasn’t a terrible diet, okay? I get it. She wanted me to be attractive and Sobre Todo Delgada and she was trying her best to be a good mom and protect me from fat jokes and bad outfits. I get it, but early on I also got this message: A woman is worth more when she’s thin.

Focus on a Healthy Body, Not a Thin Body

I am 65 years old now and have tried many more diets. As a health educator, I have made great strides. I switched from being on a diet to learning to eat in a healthy way. It took years of hard work for me to realize that my self-worth, confidence, power and self-esteem are not determined by how thin or fat my body is. You might think that the problem I faced 50 years ago has gone away, and that we have evolved from thinking that a woman’s self-worth is based how much she weighs. Alas, it is still with us! This distorted and cruel way of defining self-worth for women is still here. O’Farrill, a modern Mexican man, gets laughs because people still laugh at jokes about gordas. And there is something wrong with that. I founded De Las Mías because I want Latinas to be healthy, powerful and confident. And yes, of course, I want us to express our cariño, our beauty and our femininity. We believe that we can learn to love, nurture and take care of ourselves and our bodies without becoming overly focused on thinness. De Las Mias is about being healthy and adopting new behaviors that will result in a healthier life. I don’t want you to be Sobre Todo Delgada, I want you to be ¡Sobre Todo Healthy and Powerful! Focus on being healthy—avoid worrying about being thin. Learn to love yourself and your body. You are beautiful the way you are, comadre.

¡Hola, Comadres!, ¡Hola, Guapa!, ¡Hola, Madrina!, English, Healthy Body, Healthy Comadres

Find a Physical Activity That Brings You Joy

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Physical activity keeps our hearts fit and pumping oxygen, our muscles strong and our joints healthy. The only way to do this is to move. You don’t have to be a superstar athlete to reap the benefits. Finding a physical activity that brings you joy means taking the “work” out of workout. Here’s a story from our resident fitness coach, Madrina Yoli, that will inspire you to move.

Why We Need to Be Active

I remember when my mom was turning 50 and going through the changes. She came home and told me, “Mija, the doctor said I had to start an exercise program. ¡Ay Dios! I can’t do all you do! I will die!” I was just finishing my degree in exercise physiology and was eager to help her. So I started by explaining to her the reason why we need to be active and how it will help her body. “Mami, you do not need to run a marathon or be a weightlifter to be healthy. You can do things like walk to the store instead of drive. Do some stretching while you watch TV, or maybe we can get you a stationary bike. We could even plant a garden with flowers and vegetables in the backyard and working on it will be part of your exercise.” She said, “I’m ready to start!” I said, “Okay! I will be your exercise comadre—it’s best if you have a training buddy.” We started by writing down her goals for the week in a workout journal. I showed her, “See, here are all of your goals for each day, and here you write down when you complete them in order to keep track of your progress.” I taught her that we needed to start slow in order to let her ligaments and tendons grow stronger to avoid injuries. After that, we started to work on the heart and I reminded her the only way to work out the heart is through aerobic exercise. All you need to do is increase your heart rate. Our ultimate goal was 150 minutes of aerobic exercise per week, so we started out with three 30-minute sessions per week and picked her favorite exercises: dancing and walking. “Later on, Mami,ˮ I said, “we can get you some resistance bands and begin to work on some strength training, but for now, just remember one important thing.” “What’s that, Mija?” “Have fun!” After 12 weeks, we could see a big difference. Find a physical activity that brings you joy and you will see a difference too.

¡Hola, Guapa!, Edición No. 1: Getting Started, English, Healthy Comadres

Starting a Healthy Lifestyle is Easier Than You Think

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We are pleased to welcome you to Edición No. 1 of the De Las Mías online revista! Each edición features articles and recipes to inspire and inform you to start a healthy, balanced lifestyle.

Start a healthy lifestyle. Go from thinking to doing.

Here are articles that will help you move into action:

Moderation is the key to a balanced life. We know from our own experience—and the experiences from our comadres—starting a healthy lifestyle is easier than you think.

Ready for a healthy, balanced lifestyle?

Ready to get started? Click here for the next article.

¡Hola, Guapa!, ¡Hola, Madrina!, Edición No. 4: Reflection, English, Healthy Comadres

Women and Altars, Nichos and Shrines – ¡Qué Viva la Morenita!

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Every year around the winter holidays, I am full of pride for my cultura. It is this season when I feel all the cultures that I carry within me more strongly. It could be because all the senses are awakened with the flavors of our wonderful food, the bright colors of the lights and decorations, the music of Las Posadas and all the diversity of our Indo-Hispano celebrations. There are so many rich and delicious traditions that we partake in this time of year, that even with all its consumerism, it is still a magical time of year.

In our family, the season kicks off with Our Lady of Guadalupe’s Feast Day.  

 

One of my earliest memories takes me back to my childhood in Nogales, Sonora and Arizona. It was the custom that many families on the Mexican side of the border erected shrines to Our Lady on their windows facing out to the street.  My mom would drive us around the neighborhoods, so we could take a closer look at all the different ways the community honored Our Lady. Even from the distance, looking up at the Nogales hills, you could see the scores of windows illuminating Our Lady with multi-colored strings of lights.

As a Mexicana, I am a classic Guadalupana, and I venerate and honor Our Lady every day of the year. Even as I seized to call myself Catholic, I retained my devotion to La Morenita. I think it is precisely because she is called La Morenita that I have so much love for her. The legend says that she came here to give the indigenous people of the Americas comfort for their suffering. And I can so get behind that idea, that I hold it dear to my heart. There are other more cynical explanations, if you care to look, like that our Spanish ancestors made up the whole story in order to convert the indigenous people, but I choose to continue to hold her in very high esteem. Here’s a great summary from the Huffington Post that you might find interesting.

A lovely custom that many Indo-Hispanos like us practice is to build or erect shrines, altars or nichos to Our Lady of Guadalupe. When I was raising Sada, we had annual Our Lady of Guadalupe parties and we would invite the children in our lives to make shrines. We collected small cardboard boxes, construction paper, old remnants of tissue paper and fabric, glitter and whatever else you could find in your craft drawer and have a party. There was a lovely woman in Santa Fe at the time, Connie Hernandez, who had a little religious shop where she sold old-fashioned devotional cards of various saints and milagros, and I would make my yearly run to Connie’s to buy the estampitas to put in our shrines. The kids loved the activity, but it was always fun to see the adults wanting to take part in it too.   

Here are some of Our Lady of Guadalupe shrines that we have in our home and some we made for this special occasion!

Comadres, if you have a shrine, nicho or altar to honor Our Lady, we would love to see it and post it!

¡Felices Fiestas, Comadres!

¡Y que viva la Morenita!

¡Hola, Guapa!, Edición No. 1: Getting Started, English, Healthy Body

Ready to Start a Healthy Lifestyle? ¡Orale, Pues!

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The cochitos, empanadas and tamales of Christmas are long gone and your skinny jeans make you feel like a chorizo. You feel motivated to kick off a new routine with a bang.

¡Eso! You’re ready to start a healthy lifestyle.

Research on the subject of “change” tells us that many people don’t succeed at making healthy changes because they are simply not ready. Being ready to make a healthy change is the key to success.

Find Out if You’re Ready to Start a Healthy Lifestyle

Starting a healthy lifestyle takes commitment. Do you want to know if you’re ready?

To increase your chances of success, say it to yourself: “I am ready to make this change. ¡Estoy lista!”

Then take this short true/false quiz to help you find out if you’re truly ready for healthy changes:

  1. True or false: I have been thinking about making some healthy changes for at least a month.
  2. True or false: I have identified one small change I would like to make.
  3. True or false: Making this change will help me feel better about myself.
  4. True or false: I intend to take action to make this change in the next 30 days.
  5. True or false: I know that it might take time to make this change but I am determined to keep trying.

If you answered “True” to three or more of these, ¡Eso! You’re ready to start a healthy lifestyle. If you answered “False” to three or more, you’re probably not quite ready to make a change.

Explore how De Las Mías can help you become healthier and happier.