Portion Size

Ah, portion size.  Who doesn’t have trouble controlling this part of their eating?  Wouldn’t it be lovely to eat as many portions of food as you would like and not gain a pound and stay perfectly healthy?  Sometimes 4 slices of pizza sounds so much better than just 2, and it is so tempting to return to the kitchen 2 or 3 times for another helping of lasagna.  However eating like this is not an option for me, maybe if I had a faster metabolism I could.  Based on what kind of food I was eating when I was overweight I really was not eating a great deal of junk, my problem for the most part was portion size.  I never considered things like calories or serving sizes, another slice of bread was just another slice, nothing more.

If you are wanting to lose weight you are going to have to eat responsible portions.  The problem with the way we eat, and I am very guilty of this, is that meals can be just another thing to quickly get done so we can do dishes and get the kids to bed or finish cleaning or get to soccer practice.  We shovel food in and never listen to our body when it is telling us that it is full.  I have found I really do not need as big of meals as I thought I did, I start with sensible portions and if I remember to slow down I find that I am really quite content with my meal.  I figure that if in another hour or two my body is really telling me that it is hungry I can have a banana or orange.  I have learned to slow down and listen, I don’t feel the need anymore to finish everything on my plate if I am not hungry, if I eat out I try to make the decision before I even begin eating that I am not going to eat that entire meal.

This is hard, sometimes I associate food with comfort and relaxing.  Curling up on the couch with a movie seems much more enjoyable if I have something to snack on, even if I am not hungry.  Getting to the point where I only eat when I am hungry has been and will always be a struggle. A great way to handle the “snacking” problem is to eat throughout the day 5 small meals.  This really helps if you are someone who wants to eat throughout the day instead of only 3 meals a day.  Just remember to listen to your body, give yourself time to fill full and stop if you are full!

Inside Workout

It rained all day long where I live.  I am not complaining, I loved every single drop of it.  Rain makes me so happy, well mostly when I can be home curled up watching it rain.  It will not make me happy next week when I am at work with 10-12 children under the age of two unable to play outside :0 (The children come back next week after 5 weeks of break, wish me luck!)

A rainy day meant no running for me, and I was kind of relieved.  As much as I love a great run sometimes I am just so over it.  I am always glad once I do it but some days I want to do something else, something different.  So today I came home from work, pushed my coffee table to the side and I did this workout.  I am way behind on the whole “planking” craze, I know it has been very trendy but are those people really planking?  Cause that thing hurts, like hurts in a way that has my whole body shaking as I try to hold it for a minute.  Holy moly.

20 minute workout

1 minute jump rope in place

25 squats holding a weight in each hand (I use 8 lb)

15 Jumping jacks

15 pushups

25 sit ups

1 minute high knees

1 minute lunge with weights

1 minute bicep curls with lunges

20 jumping jacks

1 minute plan position

30 second plank ups

30 seconds jog in place

30 seconds push ups

25 fast squats

30 seconds burpees

20 chair dips

45 seconds bicycle crunches

1 minute plank

ENJOY 🙂

Dinner

Tonight I was craving a Chipotle Burrito Bowl like you wouldn’t believe.

I did not want to spend the money though so I made my own at home!  I just diced chicken, seasoned it with cumin, chili powder and garlic and sauteed it.  I cooked up some brown rice and through together a bowl of chicken, brown rice, black beans, spinach, cheese and salsa. I dipped blue corn tortilla chips from Trader Joe’s into it. It was not Chipotle but it was a pretty good cheap alternative.

 

Because food should be good

Because on a cold, rainy January night your home should smell like warm soup on the stove and take you back to your mom’s kitchen. Food should taste good and real, every flavor, every last drop should send your mouth utterly fulfilled with the decadence of that bite.  When food is made with love you can taste the love, the warmth, the kindness.  My mom makes food with love, she has always and will always cook for us as if it was the last meal we would ever have.  If you want to see how much my mom loves her family, come to my parent’s home on one of our birthdays and you will find her for hours on end in the kitchen preparing a meal so filled with love your heart could burst.

Meals like the one I made last night make me think of her.  One of my favorite meals of hers is Chicken and Dumplings, it is as good and real as food can get, all from scratch. As I prepared my own last night (I didn’t make homemade dumplings, and yes I am ashamed) it took me back to watching her cook, feeling so blessed to call her my mom, and reminded me of our nightly family dinners, the place I developed my love and passion for cooking and enjoying good food.  As I chopped the delicious vegetables

sauteed the flavors together, and watched through the windows as my husband worked in the yard, I found my heart filled with the same love my mom pours into her family. I felt so blessed that I now am cooking for my own home, pouring my heart into every meal that finds its way through my kitchen.  Cooking for the ones you love, filling their bodies with good and wholesome food fulfills you.  You may not think you are great at it, you may wish you could cook like my mom, but I believe that sometimes it is the love that makes the food taste so good, not the talent.

As I sit here watching the rain come down, I hope that you enjoy a meal today that you fill with love or someone else fills with love for you.  This recipe might just do that…

Chicken and Dumplings

Recipe From Rachael Ray

Dice 1.5 pounds chicken breast tenders into bite size pieces (I just used whole chicken breasts and cut them up)

Place a large pot on stove with 1 tbsp olive oil and 2 tbsp butter.  Chop 1 onion, 2 carrots, 1 celery rib, and 1 russet potato.  Add into pot, along with 1 bay leaf ( I used a dried one) and saute for 5 minutes.

Season with salt & pepper and 1 tsp of poultry seasoning.  Add just over 2 tbsp flour and stir for 2 minutes.  Stir 1 qt of chicken broth or stock and bring to a boil, add chicken and stir.

In a bowl place 1 small box of biscuit mix, add 1/2 cup warm water, handful of chopped parsley and stir until a thick dough forms.  Drop 1 tbsp at a time of biscuit mix into the broth, spacing evenly.  Reduce heat to medium low and steam for 8-10 minutes.

Remove lid and stir lightly to thicken soup, add 1 cup of frozen peas, stir.

Then enjoy a big bowl of this while snuggled on the couch, next to the fire with the rain coming down 🙂

 

Family Favorite

Last night’s dinner is a family favorite in our home 🙂  Besides being easy, my steak, pepper and onion sandwiches are tasty!  Last summer we grew bell peppers in our garden and we had an abundance of them!  I was looking for meals that would use them and this was definitely our favorite, it became a staple in our summertime dinners.  We had so many peppers that I sliced and froze many of them and we are still enjoying them now in January!  Even though it did not feel anything like summer yesterday these sandwiches are warm and cheesy and perfect for winter too.  I highly recommend you make these, they are so easy and I promise even if you are a terrible cook there is NO way to mess these up 😉

Steak Sandwiches

Recipe adapted from Canyoustayfordinner

(makes 4 sandwiches)

1 lb of steak, ribeye or sirloin

4 sandwich rolls -chose roll according to how healthy you want to be. For mine I chose a small wheat roll or a small dutch crunch to splurge and I get a large dutch crunch for my husband

1.5 tbsp of olive oil

1 bell pepper thinly sliced

half a large onion thinly sliced

pinch of sugar

generous dash of salt and pepper

1/4 tsp garlic salt

1 -2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

cheese of your choice

Cooking:

Thinly slice your onion and bell pepper.

On a separate surface slice your meat VERY thin.

Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a large saute pan.  Add your onion and bell pepper plus a dash of sugar and saute until they are soft and smell wonderful!

Once the peppers and onions are soft scoot them over to one side of the pan and add your meat onto the other side.

Season the meat with salt and pepper.

Cook meat until no longer pink.  Once meat is no longer pink mix it in with the onions and peppers.  At this time I add in Worcestershire Sauce and Garlic Salt.  I have never measured out exactly how much I add but I would estimate 1-2 tbsp sauce and 1/4 tsp garlic salt.  I would start small and then season to your taste!

Turn on your broiler.  Divide the mixture onto your sandwich rolls and top with cheese of your choice.  For mine I try to use a reduced fat cheese, Trader Joe’s sells 70 calorie slices of white cheddar that taste great!  Other great cheeses to use are provolone, pepperjack or sharp cheddar.

Broil sandwiches 2-3 minutes or until cheese is melted, keep a close eye to make sure they don’t burn.  I sometimes like to add a spicy mustard on the top of mine while my husband likes them as is, find what you like!

They pair great with a big salad and some sweet potato fries!

His

Hers

The Center of Attention

I have been doing some reading on vegetables and how we construct our meals.  I know I know, I read really interesting things.  What I have read is basically this, we are completely mistaken by the way we form our meals and what we focus on within those meals.  Our main dish or entree typically is the steak, chicken, lasagna, ravioli, etc.  On the side we have our small helping of typically one vegetable.  What we should be doing is having the vegetables and fruits be our main dish with things like meat or pasta as more of a small side dish.  It can be hard to get in this mentality because we are programmed otherwise, I mean when was the last time you went to a restaurant that offered vegetables as a main dish and you could order a side of chicken? This doesn’t mean we need to stop making those delicious “main” dishes but it does mean we need to make the fruits and veggies the center of our attention.

My advice for making this happen is to cut down on how much of our main dish we are making, instead of cooking one whole chicken breast per person cut it in half and fill in that extra space on your plate with your favorite veggie!  Something that really helps me get veggies at each meal (especially breakfast & lunch) is to make ALOT of it with dinner, then it is done and ready for you to throw it in your morning eggs or lunch salad.

In that spirit, here is my favorite way to have broccoli, I kid you not I eat this stuff like candy.

Roasted Broccoli

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cut the crowns off of 2-3 heads of broccoli

Place on a large baking sheat and toss with 1-2 tbsp olive oil and 1/2 to 1 tsp salt

Roast for 15-20 minutes, tossing them around halfway through, until edges of broccoli are crispy light brown!

ENJOY!

 

 

 

 

 

Mac and Cheese

Last night’s dinner was one of those that had me a little nervous but turned out fabulous!  Mac n Cheese is such a delicious comfort food that the idea of trying to lighten it up seems kind of wrong.  That being said, while this recipe is very different than typical Mac n Cheese it is very tasty and a great lighter alternative. Even if you are not a fan of cottage cheese I would still make it because once you process it and add in the other cheeses the texture and taste is very different!

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Recipe from Cooking Light

*I only made a few small changes

boil 3 cups of Penne Pasta (I used regular but you could try whole wheat)

Begin with 12 oz of 2% low-fat cottage cheese, places in food processor and process until smooth

Stir in 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar cheese, 1/4 to 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp black pepper.  I added about a 1/4 tsp of garlic powder to give some extra flavor.  Stir well.  Mix with cooked Penne and pour into a greased 11×17 glass or ceramic baking dish.

In a small bowl mix together 4 tbsp Panko Breadcrumbs, 1 tbsp parsley (fresh or dried), 1/4 cup of Parmesan.

Sprinkle the mixture on top of the pasta and bake for 10-15 minutes at 375 degrees.  Then turn on the broiler and broil about 2 minutes until top is golden brown.

** the only changes I made were extra Parmesan in the sauce and then I also sprinkled some freshly shredded Parmesan on top before I baked it.  I also added garlic powder to the sauce and I thought this gave a great flavor.  Some ideas I had for next time were to add spinach, broccoli or chicken but I really liked it as is.

***If you are making this for more than 3-4 people that have hearty appetites I would double the recipe (it also makes for great leftovers!)

I paired this dish along with a big helping of roasted broccoli and my husband called it a “home run”!

Grocery Shopping

If you are anything like me you love to grocery shop.  Growing up grocery shopping was a fun family outing and to this day if you ask my parents they would probably agree grocery shopping is one of their hobbies:)  I love picking out produce, finding new items and yes I like to check out what other people are putting in their carts (I am not the only one who does this, right?).  If I had all the money in the world I would always shop at the finest stores where shopping is a luxury experience.  At this point in my life always shopping at Whole Foods or Nugget Market is not an option, one because of money and two because we don’t even have those stores here, that may be the best thing for my bank account 😉 So where do we grocery shop?  The majority of our shopping is done at Winco, Costco and Trader Joe’s.

Winco is a West Coast store, it is very cheap but it does not always make for the most enjoyable shopping experience.  Let me just say that if you want a good time people watching Winco never disappoints.  They have the cheapest prices on your everyday items, but it is not my favorite place in the world so I try to make my trips there fairly quick.

Trader Joe’s is one of my very favorite stores and I like to buy crackers, chips and other foods there because they tend to have healthier ingredients and you won’t find ingredients like high fructose corn syrup or many artificial ingredients. Did you know that according to Trader Joe’s any of the items sold under their own brand contain no artificial ingredients, high fructose corn syrup, preservatives and are sourced from non gmo food?  The prices are actually very reasonable and make it a budget friendly place to shop.  Since I only buy for two of us their smaller package sizes are a good option for us.  Some of my favorite products to buy there are hummus, blue corn tortilla chips, frozen pizza, almond butter and beer!

Last but definitely not least, is Costco 🙂  I could live there, I really could.  It can be a very budget friendly place to shop because you can buy in bulk but there are also way too many temptations to blow your money on.  If you shop smart, it is a great place to buy products like olive oil, paper towels, chicken, ground beef, cheese and other everyday items.  We buy our ground beef there and just wrap it up and freeze it in bundles.  When you are there you just need to ask yourself, do I really need a huge bag of bagel bites or what appears to be a lifetime supply of frozen pizza?  So make a list, stick to it and enjoy the glory that is Costco….And don’t forget lunch at the food court!  I kid you not that was one of our favorite lunch date places when were dating, nothing more romantic than splitting a hot dog and chicken bake 🙂

Farmer’s Markets:

I also love getting produce and other local goods from our local farmer’s market.  Our city has one every Saturday morning and Thursday nights in the spring/summer.  One thing I recommend when shopping at farmer’s markets is to make sure you are making purchases from places that are REALLY local.  I get frustrated when I see prduce for sale that is not from my immediate area, if I am going to support local and small businesses I want my goods to really be from there!

In the summertime I get all my produce from our own backyard 🙂  If you have a yard large enough I recommend starting your own garden!

Circuit Workout

Today’s workout was a good one.  My husband and I worked out together and did a Circuit Workout in our living room.  A circuit workout is a great way to beat the workout boredom of slow routines.  Circuits quickly go through a series of different moves and then have you repeat them!  We got our workout today from here  We did the very first workout listed and it was pretty tough, we were both sweating at the end.  It is okay if you can only do one time through to start, we stopped at one!

Dinner and Dessert

Tonight I am making a lightened version of Mac n Cheese.  I also received a ton of lemons from my in-laws today so what better way to use them than lemon bars?!  I am trying a low calorie lemon bar recipe, I will share the recipe once I perfect them.

Sunday Food Fun Day!

Today started with this:

This was a really delicious and easy breakfast to make, you can find the recipe here

I made it the night before and it tasted just as good in the morning, and will make for some great leftovers this week!  The only change I made was the topping, my husband isn’t crazy about almonds so I tried to do the topping without the almonds.  Without the almonds it was too watery but I still poured the cinnamon, sugar and butter topping on top and swirled it in with a knife and then popped  it in the oven.  When there was about ten minutes left I pulled it out and sprinkled brown sugar on top, this was delicious!  If you like almonds though I bet it would taste really great with it!  The flavors of the almond paste, lemon and blueberries is delicious in the cake, I could have easily eaten the whole pan!

Dinner

Tonight’s dinner looked somehwat like this:

You can find this Cooking Light recipe here

I messed up a little bit and added the chicken into the mixture instead of adding it on top, it didn’t really matter because it tasted great but I am sure it tastes great the way that is recommended.  I really should not try to talk and cook at the same time, apparently I cannot read directions properly and talk at the same time.  Anyway, I sprinkled some olives on top and had a salad on the side and it made for a quick and easy Sunday dinner!

I hope you enjoyed your Sunday and I will see you tomorrow for a posting on grocery stores!

 

Finding happiness

I think that many people think that if only they could lose weight they would be happy.  Because your weight can hold you back from so much it is natural to think that as soon as you lose weight happiness will arrive on your door step just waiting for you to try it on.  There is so much more to happiness than seeing a certain number on the scale or fitting in size 4 jeans.  If you are unhappy, lonely, self conscious, losing weight is not necessary a cure all.  In fact in can be hard at first when you lose weight because that weight served as a shield of sorts, it protected you and made you feel hidden in the crowd.  Just being skinny is not enough to make for a happy life.  If you want to be happy and you think being overweight is holding you back, then yes lose the weight, but also recognize what it really will be that will make you happy.

I could not have been happy when I lost the weight if I did not have friends around me cheering me on, a husband who loves me no matter what and a family that knows and understands me. I still feel self conscious, I still wish I could lose these last ten pounds that are driving me nuts!  I still am working on finding confidence, that was one of the hardest things for me about being overweight, the absolute lack of self confidence.  It became a way of life for me so it is still hard for me to feel good about myself.  I have to remind myself at times to be proud of myself, I am young and healthy and I am making a change for the better.

Losing weight doesn’t guarantee that everything will immediately get better for you, it is a process.    If you used food as a friend for years it may feel lonely when that food is not there anymore, so find those people, those moments that will be there when the weight is gone.

Weekly Menu

The Menu for our home for the upcoming week looks like this:

Chicken & Dumplings

Lightened Up Mac n Cheese

Cooking Light Chicken Tamale Casserole

Steak, Cheese & Pepper Sandwiches

Sunday morning breakfast: Lemon Blueberry Coffee cake

I will post recipes after I make them 🙂  It looks like I will be spending a lot of time in the kitchen this week but all the recipes are fairly quick and simple and they are lightened up versions of recipes so that is great!

 

Saturday Exercise

Today I did a two mile run and I am now planning to do half of a P90x video while I watch playoff football! Goooooo 49ers!!!!