Foods that help you lose weight

Cabbage and salted cod fish over Korean brown rice with beans.

Organic whole-wheat pasta in a sweet pepper-tomato sauce.

A takeout dinner salad with smoked wild salmon added at home.

Hot cereal with dried fruit and pine nuts. Add low-fat milk, banana or other fruit.

Baked cod fillet with a coating of cornmeal and black pepper.

Ackee and salt fish with boiled green banana -- hold the Middle Eastern pocket bread I'd stuff with this Jamaican national dish, especially popular at breakfast.

Canned fish salad -- tuna, pink salmon, sardines -- with diced celery and apple, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and ground cumin. Best eaten over salad mix, not between bread.

Editor's note: Here is how I've lost more than 40 pounds and kept it off. Today, I also discuss China 46 in Ridgefield and re-heating food in plastic containers.

Fish, fish and more fish -- preferably wild caught -- whether fresh, salted or canned. 

No bread, no pizza. No cake or ice cream -- ever. No butter or heavy cream.

Fruit and cheese for dessert, and unsalted almonds roasted at home for a snack or you could roll up reduced-fat cheese and smoked wild salmon with a bit of mustard.

Lots of organic salad mix, fruits and vegetables -- at every meal, not just lunch or dinner. Kimchi and olives as sides. 

Dinner leftovers for breakfast, especially when you can substitute filling brown rice or sweet potatoes for bread.

Fermented cabbage kimchi from Arirang Kimchi in Englewood.

 


I had already stopped eating meat and poultry, and lost a few of my 228 pounds, when trainer Nick Manzo at my old gym suggested I could really lose weight by giving up bread and pizza.

About 2 years later, I am happy and contented at under 185 pounds.

I went from conventional pasta and white rice to whole-wheat spaghetti, brown rice and Korean 7 Grains -- a mixture of brown rices and beans.

I stoped eating white potatoes, but continue eating sweet potatoes, which I prefer bolied and mashed with extra-virgin olive oil and seasoning.

I try to go to the gym three days a week, and walk, climb stairs and take public transportation.

China 46

Last Saturday, I drove past the wreckage of the old building that housed China 46, but the sign remained standing.

The restaurant, on Route 46 in Ridgefield, was best known for its delicate soup dumplings and other Shanghai-style dishes.

For many years, the old truck-stop diner was home to Phoenix Garden Too -- a branch of a Chinatown restaurant -- before China 46 opened there.

China 46 closed in 2007, according to Internet chatter.

On the same side of Route 46, but closer to the New Jersey Turnpike, the sign of Gasho of Japan remains standing months after the Ridgefield Park restaurant building was torn down. 
  

Plastic containers on the shelf of a 99 cents store in Bergenfield.

Reheat on glass

Most of the plastic storage containers I saw at a Bergenfield store were marked "Microwavable" or "Microwave safe."

But you're best bet is to plate the food that was stored in the container before reheating it to minimize potential chemical transfer from the plastic.

For the same reason, cover food you are microwaving with a paper towel, not plastic wrap, which contains chemicals to make it flexible.