How this Fast Diet Lifestyle works: Eat these meals tomorrow, for a calorie total of less than 600. On another day this week, eat the meals from a different post, another day of eating 600 calories or less. Eat sensibly the other days of the week. That’s it: a simple way to lose weight and be healthier. Join me in the Fasting Lifestyle.

There its much talk around the world about energy to run our daily lives. For millions of years, humans traveled and performed work using their own muscles. That took energy in the form of food. Later, we harnessed animals to carry us and to pull our loads. Again, food was the energy source. For heat, we burned wood, for light we used candles [made of bee’s wax] or oil-lamps [powered by olive oil]. Around 100-200 CE, the Romans in England used coal for heat. In North America, the Hopi Tribe burned coal for cooking, heating, and firing pottery in the 1300s CE. But mostly at that time, water power turned mill wheels and operated machinery. What is coal? It is the only rock that burns. Coal forms over millions of years as plant material from swamps is buried by sediments, slowly decaying without oxygen, until only the carbon remains. Because coal is made of ancient living things, it is classified as a “fossil fuel”. Partially decomposed plant material is called ‘peat‘. More decomposition forms ‘lignite‘, a dull, dusty, brown form of carbon that burns with much soot and less energy output. True coal is ‘bituminous‘ or soft coal, which is the most common type. If bituminous coal is put under pressure, say from mountain-building, it becomes the most prized coal, ‘anthracite‘, shiny and hard and long-burning. Most coal was formed from vast swamps that existed 300 million years ago, during a period of the geologic past called the “Carboniferous”. Coal became a hot commodity in 1769, when James Watt built a steam engine that ran on coal. This ushered in the Industrial revolution. For the next 200 years, coal fueled the development of 1st-World countries: ships, factories, home heating, electrical generation plants, trains — everything ran on coal. Eventually, coal burning gave way to fuel oil — coal use and coal mining waned. By the 1970s, environmentalists were recognizing the down-sides of the mining and burning of coal. From water pollution at the mine sites, to air pollution around sites where coal was used, coal was a problem. The famous fogs of London, described by Conan-Doyle and Dickens, were caused by coal smoke and a new word was invented: ‘smog’, meaning ‘smoke + fog’. Still today, coal burning produces 41% of the world’s electricity. Coal is still forming, but since it takes so long to turn into anthracite, we consider coal to be a ‘finite’ or ‘non-renewable’ resource — if we use up all of the better grades of coal soon, we will run out of it. Better to leave it in the ground as a reserve, while we expand our use of cleaner sources of energy.

Food is what gives our cells the energy to do their job. Today’s menu presents foods from two coal producing countries: the UK and Slovenia. December 18 is the anniversary of the closing of the last deep-site mine in the UK: the Kellingley Colliery in Yorkshire, which mined its last in 2016.

Rounds, with Pan Muffin: 193 calories… 5.5 g fat… 3 g fiber… 6.6 g protein… 30 g carbs… 20 mg Calcium…  NB: Food values given are for the plated foods only, and do not include the optional beverage.  PB All the foods in this meal are round, hence the name. Easy to prepare with Canadian bacon [back bacon to readers in Canada or the UK] and pre-made pan muffins.

++1 slice Canadian Bacon [‘back bacon’ to Canadians] NB: You could go to two slices of the Canadian Bacon for another 20 calories and 6 g protein. ++++ two pan muffin++++2 oz apple, sliced along the equator so the slices are round OR 2 oz applesauce, in a round dish++++  Optional:  5 oz fruit smoothie or berry-yogurt smoothie [88 calories] ++++   Optional: blackish coffee [53 calories] or blackish tea or mocha cafe au lait [65 calories] ++ 

HINT: For easiest breakfast preparation, mix and cook the pan muffin recipe the night before. Freeze remaining batter or save for muffins tomorrow. Slice the apple and plate it. Cook the Canadian Bacon. Warm the previously-cooked pan muffin. Done!

PAN MUFFIN each: 71 calories… 2.5 g fat… 1 g fiber… 2 g protein… 11 g carbs… 8.5 mg Calcium… ..1 cup Bob’s Red Mill 10-grain hot cereal mix…. 1¼ cup buttermilk…  combine cereal + milk, let sit while preparing other ingredients. .. 1/3 cup butter … 1/3 cup sugar …1 cup unbleached flour…1 tsp salt… 1 tsp baking powder …1 tsp baking soda..

Cream the butter and sugar; mix in the egg. Add the dry ingredients and the cereal/milk mixture. Stir until just combined. Use 2 Tbsp batter for each pan muffin.  [use 4 Tbsp batter to make each muffin for Slow Days] 

Jota: 169 calories…  4.5 g fat… 7.4 g fiber … 11.5 g protein… 25.5 g carbs… 83.5 mg Calcium … PB GF The flavors of Slovakia are in this bean stew. Very satisfying. HINT: This recipe is enough for 4 [four] 1-cup servings.

++ 1½ cups sauerkraut, drained ++++ 1½ cups canned red beans, drained and rinsed ++++ bay leaf ++++ 4 oz red potatoes, cooked and diced ++++ 1 clove garlic, crushed ++++ 2 oz meat from smoked ham hock, cubed ++++ ½ cup or more vegetable broth or water ++++   Optional*: 1 clove garlic, crushed ++++ 1 tsp flour+ 1 tsp oil ++++ Optional**: raw leaves of baby spinach ++

Spray a heavy sauce pan with non-stick spray and cook one of the garlics until golden brown. Add the sauerkraut to the pan with the broth, salt, and pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes. In another pan, heat the beans with the bay leaf until warm. Remove half of the beans and put them in a food processor with the cooked garlic and half of the potatoes. Puree, adding water/broth to adjust the liquids. Add the puree, whole beans, potatoes, and meat to the pan with the sauerkraut. Taste for seasonings. Add some water/broth to bring the volume to 4 cups. *Optional: Simmer the other garlic clove in 1 tsp oil until brown. Remove garlic and whisk in 1 tsp flour, then add some stock to make a roux. Stir into the stew as a thickener. **Optional: When the soup is in the bowl, tear the spinach leaves into bits and poke them into the hot liquid to add some extra color, texture, vitamins.