ArcaMax

Fall is my favorite season of the year. Hands down. Nothing can beat it. Nothing even comes close. I am loving this year’s fall – immensely.

What do I love about fall?

First off, I love the temperature...

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Pumpkin Chiffon

Just in ...Read more

Will exercise help you lose weight? That is certainly what we’ve been conditioned to think. However, evidence points towards a different answer. Exercise is great for your overall health but it won’t help you lose weight. In fact, it may be counteractive towards this goal. Let’s take a closer look.

homeandleisure/recipes/zola/s-3448981">Read more

I went to my naturopathic doctor a couple of months back. I have been dealing with an infection in my digestive tract that I contracted after a series of antibiotic prescriptions. It’s been a nightmare. She had some new test results for me. One of the first things she told me was I am not getting enough protein. I squealed at her, “I eat ...Read more

Crunch!

While developing Plan Z, I never really thought much about what I now call the Crunch Factor. I was never the kid in our family that face-planted in the bag of potato chips. I left that to my brothers. I went for the donuts.

I never wanted to eat the hard candy. I’d rather have a brownie or ice cream for my treat.

After designing ...Read more

The countdown has begun...

And the clock is ticking.

If you’re going to do Plan Z this year, I’m guessing you’ll want to be well into ZReboot for Thanksgiving.

Won’t you?

Plan Z is fast — up to four times faster than “regular” diets. But ZReduction lasts for 50 days. And Thanksgiving happens to fall on November 28 this year.

...Read more

You’ve probably noticed that I regularly try to convince you to eat whole, unprocessed foods. Every recipe I write uses what I consider unprocessed foods (with minor exceptions).

To keep it simple, let’s start off with some definitions:

What are processed foods? Processed foods are anything you buy in a package in a grocery store. ...Read more

Best Food for Kids Before and After School

When I was a grade-schooler my brother and I would walk home from school each day. He was one grade behind me. It was about a mile from school to the house. If we didn’t get any other exercise at least we got that.

I do know that we went out to play after school but when we got home and ...Read more

Enjoy this previously published Zola classic

Have you heard about the spotless giraffe!

Yep, that’s right. She was born a couple of months ago in Limestone, TN. She’s already 6’ tall of gorgeous. I was on my North Carolina mountain vacation when we heard about her. She made the NY Times, The Today Show, and about every other news ...Read more

A lot of people call me a clean freak. My house is pretty spotless most of the time. I have two cats, but I don’t have any small, human children, so frankly, this is not that hard to do. My husband and I split up the household duties pretty evenly. I do the menu, shop for the food, and cook it. Sometimes he chops veggies. He’s a great sous...Read more

What to do with all those tomatoes...

When you grow a garden, you know what it’s like when the tomatoes start coming in heavy and you have to figure out what to do with them. My mother used to can stewed tomatoes. It took her one long weekend, but we had enough for the whole winter.

I had an even worse problem than tomatoes one year ...Read more

Six Wonderful Sweeteners Better For You Than Sugar

Even if you never touch dessert it’s still easy to have too much sugar in your diet. We all know now that sugar is virtually everywhere in our food system. Plan Z dieters know to stay away from things like bread, pasta, pancakes, baked goods, sodas, fruit drinks, and virtually every ...Read more

My father was an engineer; a smart and precise man who had his weekend rituals. About once a month, I’d find my father at the kitchen table on a weekend afternoon sharpening the kitchen knives.

He’d have a sharpening stone in front of him set on a spread of newspaper print. He had a little can of oil that looked like a miniature version of ...Read more

There are so many vegetable options offered up by Mother Nature that I thought I could go my whole life skipping the ones I didn’t like.

It started when I was a kid. My family believed in the “Clean Plate Club.” You didn’t leave the table without eating everything on your plate, whether you wanted to or not. Compared to my brothers and ...Read more

My mother used to carry a big purse with her in the car. She had all that stuff in that bag that moms with small children do. The interesting thing was when she went into a store she usually just grabbed her wallet and ran in. She’d leave us kids in the car (when it was deemed okay to do that sort of thing). As a child, I thought that purse ...Read more

We were all taught the same thing. Calories in. Calories out. It’s all about the calories.

When I was a young teenager, I bought one of those pocket-sized calorie counting books they sold at the grocery store. They were prominently displayed by the check out. I took it home and it didn’t take me long to memorize it. I was obsessed with ...Read more

Herbal Aromas

I gave up planting fruits and veggies years ago but I have not given up on herbs. Every year I make sure I have plenty of those.

I’ve changed some of what I plant because my garden is much smaller now. But there’s nothing like cooking with fresh herbs. I love stepping into my garden to pick herbs when I need to ...Read more

Enjoy this previously published Zola classic...

From the IDF Diabetes Atlas:

“Today, there are over 380 million people living with diabetes. A further 300+ million with impaired glucose tolerance are at high risk from the disease – an alarming number that is set to reach 471 million by 2035. Diabetes has caused over 5 million deaths...Read more