Your voices have been heard! The anti-inflammatory diet came out on top with more than double the votes of either of the other two options.

As a quick overview, there is not truly one well-defined and well-recognized “anti-inflammatory diet” per se, but rather we have a lot of research about how food affects inflammation in the body that we can leverage to decrease inflammation. In the coming weeks I will bring you information on what inflammation is, whether or not we really need to fight it with food, and what the research is telling us about lifestyle changes you can make to affect your levels of inflammation.

Sit back and relax because you’ll have plenty more info on anti-inflammatory eating coming your way soon!

I hear this from clients all the time: “It doesn’t matter what I do! My weight goes up and down and up and down. I’ll lose a few pounds and then I’ll gain two back and I just want to give up.”

Ahhh the scale…a mean mistress. It’s a rare person who has not noticed that, whether trying to lose weight or not, his or her number on the scale tends to fluctuate. This is true for just about everyone for a variety of reasons.

If you’ve been tracking my goal-getting journey, you know that one of my goals was to get back to my normal body weight by losing 7 lbs. If you haven’t been following along, well…now you know. So the first 4-5 came off in the first month or so. After that, things slowed to a screeching halt and began climbing…1 pound, 2 pounds, 3 pounds. I was sticking with my nutrition and workout goals for the most part, but it was still climbing.

How could this be, you ask? It’s actually very common. Read on and I’ll run you through a few reasons that your weight is not the “end all, be all”…or even necessarily a good way to measure your overall progress. It’s part of the equation, and it is certainly linked to health outcomes, but it does not warrant or deserve the intense focus we tend to put on it. Here are 7 reasons your weight may fluctuate that have nothing to do with eating too much or not exercising enough:

1. Time of the day – Believe it or not our weight changes, sometimes pretty significantly, throughout the day. During the day we retain some of the water we consume, so we tend to weigh the most at the end of the day and the least first thing in the morning after we’ve used the bathroom. I have a pretty small frame and depending on the day I’ve clocked as high as a 4-5 pound difference from morning to evening.
   
   
2. Hydration – Along the same lines as #1, the amount of water we drink during the day can affect our weights. On a day where we are sweating heavily or not drinking enough fluids, we will weigh less than a day where we are adequately hydrated.
3. Bathroom/food status – Gross but true. If you haven’t had a bowel movement in 1-2 days, your bowels may contain at least a couple of pounds (sometimes more!) of fecal material. Your bladder can hold anywhere from .5 to 1.5 lbs of urine as well.
4. Menstruation – Sorry ladies, but it can’t be helped. Most women retain at least an extra pound or two of fluid during menstruation.
5. Fluid retention/swelling – This can be caused by many different things, but in healthy people it is most commonly due to high sodium intakes. Have you ever noticed that your pants don’t fit quite right or your fingers look like sausages the day after the Superbowl party? Sodium and water are friends, so when we eat a lot of sodium, our body hangs on to extra water for a day or two.
   
   
6. Stress – In general, stress tends to make our bodies want to gain fat. Stress management is a very key component of overall health.
7. Muscle/fat – Most of us have heard the adage, “Muscle weighs more than fat.” It’s true, and it’s also true that if you start a new exercise program you will be gaining some muscle as you lose fat so progress can be tricky to track. Be careful with this one though, because you usually won’t be gaining enough muscle to really affect your weight for the first month or two of a new exercise program.

For these reasons, I try to encourage (and beg and plead) clients to focus on their overall health and fitness, their habits, and how they feel, as well as assessments like weight, circumference, or body fat to assess their overall progress. Given the things listed above, going up a pound or a few every so often is normal and should be expected. Don’t let it stress you out or discourage you! If you feel like you’re likely to quit on improving your health if the scale goes up, I have a strong recommendation for you – don’t get on the scale!

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Since my new practice, i’mPowered Nutrition & Fitness, is offering a $20 discount on my Goal-Getter package to help you meet your New Year’s goals, my next project is going to be something a little different. Both my husband and I are going to show you what the Goal-Getter package is all about by laying out our own nutrition and fitness goals and documenting our journeys to goal-get them! Alright, alright…enough punning.

Husband and I will start off with the body composition and fitness assessments to test where we are at now, then use those results to create goals. Based on those goals and our individual personalities/lifestyles, I’ll make a nutrition and training plan — i’mPowered-style — and we’ll follow it. You’ll get to watch the journey!

Stay tuned for the results of our “before” assessments!

When it comes to selecting the “best” alternative to dairy milk, it somewhat depends on your intended use for the milk. Different milk alternatives work well for different purposes, as I mention below. Some of these alternatives are thin, some are thicker, some have nutty or earthy flavors, while others are sweeter and lighter tasting. Unfortunately, I neglected to take note of the cost of each of these, though I recall them all being around $4 per 64-oz container.

One important nutritional detail is that, for someone who is avoiding dairy for one reason or another, it can be much more difficult to get in daily recommendations of calcium and vitamin D, since those are found in the highest concentrations in dairy milk (naturally and fortified, respectively). Each of the milk alternatives I tried has been fortified with calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin A.

The second thing to watch for when selecting a dairy alternative are added sugars. These alternative milks frequently come flavored (vanilla or chocolate) and even the “original” versions are often sweetened. I tried to go with unsweetened options whenever I could to avoid added sugar.

1. Trader Joe’s Rice Drink

For drinking, this was my favorite. Even unsweetened (10 g sugar per serving), it has a semi-sweet flavor and does have a mild rice taste (which I loved!). This “milk” is more watery and less thick than others like soy or cashew. I suspect that it would not work well in cream-like sauces or soups as it is probably too thin. Nutritionally, I don’t really have any complaints. It is made from milled brown rice, but don’t go looking for the fiber benefits of brown rice here — it’s just for the flavor.

In a nutshell: Tasty for drinking, nutritionally sound (watch for added sugars in other brands though). Probably too watery for recipes needing a creamier option.

2. Pacific Hemp Non-Dairy Beverage

This was my second favorite milk alternative for drinking, but that is likely because I forgot to specify to my husband to pick up unsweetened hemp milk. This particular product is sweetened with brown rice syrup, bringing the total grams of sugar content to 14 per serving, which is slightly higher than the amount of natural sugar found in dairy milk (12 grams). It has significantly less protein than dairy milk. The flavor of hemp milk reminded me a lot of cream of wheat, believe it or not, and not in a bad way. This milk is about the consistency of fat-free dairy milk and would probably work fine in any recipe using regular milk.

In a nutshell: A unique, earthy, cream-of-wheat type flavor and a pretty typical dairy-like texture. Watch out for the amount of added sugars.

3. Silk Unsweetened Cashew Milk

The taste of this milk was ehhhhhh….okay. Nothing to write home about, but tolerable. It was definitely thicker than regular dairy milk is and it worked delightfully in this alfredo sauce recipe. It had a very slight flavor of cashew and was just a tad more bitter than regular milk. This would probably be my go-to dairy alternative for cream-based recipes.

Notably, this cashew milk is only 25 calories per serving and no grams of sugar, even natural sugar (since cashews don’t contain carbohydrates). If you’re carb-counting or looking at losing weight, that could be a nice option.

In a nutshell: Great for recipes and tolerable, though not enjoyable for drinking. Very low in calories and contains no sugar.

4. Silk Unsweetened Soy Milk

Welp. I don’t have much good to say here. I was actually looking forward to drinking soy milk because I really enjoy flavored soy milk and the nutty flavor it adds to hot chocolate or pumpkin steamers. Unfortunately that yummy flavor is not the same without the added sugar. Unsweetened soy milk was blech. I used the whole darn carton but mostly in recipes. I drank a couple of glasses but ick.

Texture-wise it is similar to cashew milk in thickness and works nicely in recipes. Nutritionally, it has slightly fewer calories than fat-free dairy milk and quite a bit less sugar. The original version has about the same amount of sugar as dairy milk.

In a nutshell: Not for drinking (at least for me). I might use it in recipes.

In general, most of my dairy-free friends said that they do not try to “replace” dairy so much as just eliminate it and eat other things. Even so, I wanted to test a variety of products to find dairy-free versions of things that I could recommend to my patients/clients. The following are my reviews of the yogurt-like products I tried during my dairy elimination:

1. SO Delicious Coconut Yogurt Alternative
   
   This yogurt was actually delicious. The yogurt had excellent flavor, texture, and sweetness. The coconut milk gave it a hint of a coconut flavor but despite my distaste for coconut, it was not overtly offensive. Nutritionally it isn’t great because, like many flavored yogurts, it contains a significant amount of sugar (18 grams) in the form of cane syrup and because of its coconut milk base, it carries more saturated fat than a nonfat dairy yogurt or different plant-based yogurt. It does include probiotics.In a nutshell: Tasty but high in sugar and expensive. A little higher in saturated fat than I would like.
2. Almond Dream Yogurt AlternativeThe flavor of this yogurt was not exactly superb, but definitely tolerable. The texture was a bit thin compared to dairy yogurt, but the flavor was alright. I think my ultimate thought about this product was…meh. It has the same amount of sugar as the SO Delicious Coconut Yogurt and has no saturated fat. This yogurt cost $1.79.In a nutshell: Unremarkable. Tolerable but not worth the price tag. Nutritionally slightly better than coconut yogurt, but still high in sugar.

   
   
   

3. Coconut Dream Yogurt AlternativeI came at this yogurt hopeful, because I had really enjoyed the SO Delicious coconut yogurt the week before. What a letdown! This coconut yogurt was very thin, and I apply that description to both the taste and the texture. It had a significant “fake taste” similar to the aftertaste with artificial sweeteners, despite the fact that it doesn’t contain any. Nutritionally, this yogurt is the same as the SO Delicious brand. This was also $1.79.Summary: Blech. No thanks.
4. Silk Soy Yogurt AlternativeThis was my least favorite yogurt, but I have to say it was a pretty close tie with the Coconut Dream. The soy yogurt texture was a little gritty but okay. I really did not care for the earthy flavor of soy mixed into the yogurt. I barely got it down, and this darn yogurt cost me $2.49! I guess the good news is that of all of the yogurt alternatives I tried, this one had the least amount of sugar (13 grams) and no saturated fat.Summary: Nope. Nope. Nope.

As of Wednesday, I completed my 2-week dairy elimination and Thursday marked the first day of my dairy re-introduction. I haven’t been able to write much as I’m in a play (it premiered Thursday!) that has kept me pretty occupied with tech/dress rehearsals.

So generally, after a 2-week elimination of a suspected symptom-causing culprit, it is customary to complete a gradual reintroduction to assess for an increase in symptoms. Thursday, I added in a single dairy-containing food, and Friday I ate two, today three, etc.

Thus far I have noticed no improvement in symptoms since eliminating dairy. In fact, my second week in my throat clearing and phlegm seemed to get worse. That happened to be the week in which I selected rice milk as my beverage of choice and ate rice a handful of times. I suspect that maybe rice might be causing my symptoms. Perhaps I’ll do a rice elimination sometime to check.

I have identified several great products that have actually made dairy-free life not only tolerable but enjoyable! Check out my product reviews for milk alternatives and yogurt alternatives.

My dairy-free friend Valerie made a recommendation for an alfredo sauce recipe from Silk’s website. She came over today and we made it!

It came out deliciously – almost better than my normal dairy-inclusive version! It smelled and tasted just like regular alfredo. We made the pasta with cashew milk and took the liberty of a couple of adjustments. Here’s the modified recipe I made (you can add any kind of meat or fish for protein as well!):

Ingredients

• 16 oz fettuccine
• 3 Tbsp canola oil, divided
• 1/2 sweet onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 Tbsp flour
• 4 Tbsp chicken or vegetable stock
• 2 cups unsweetened cashew milk (or soy milk)
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 2 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1/4 cup vegan mozzarella shreds (I used Trader Joe’s)
• Fresh chopped parsley for garnish

Instructions

1. Prepare fettuccine according to package directions.
2. While fettuccine is cooking, saute chopped onion and garlic over medium heat in 1 Tbsp oil until fragrant and translucent.
3. Remove onion and garlic to separate dish and reserve.
4. Add remaining oil to pan and stir in flour and stock. Simmer for 2 minutes.
5. Stir in cashew milk, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, white pepper, and nutmeg.
6. Whisk cornstarch into 1/4 c. cold water and stir into sauce.
7. Add vegan cheese and return to simmer. Allow to thicken, stirring constantly.
8. Stir in onion and garlic and pour over prepared fettuccine and stir well. Top with chopped parsley for garnish.

Recipe modified from https://silk.com/recipes/fast-easy-fettuccine-alfredo.