Double Walk Duty

happy Friday!! Little man and I took it easy today. we played around the house, did laundry and went on about a 40 minute walk (roundtrip) to our neighborhood coffee shop and bakery.

Breakfast was pretty simple and straightforward this morning. One of my Yoplait greek 100 calorie yogurts, with some granola and a cup of organics chai spiced tea.

after morning naps (for lincoln and me!) we did some laundry, played and had some morning snacks. mine was trader joes multigrain crackers (1 serving) plus 1 laughing cow french onion cheese wedge and about a tablespoon of the roasted garlic 45 calorie hummus from eating right. i was pretty disappointed in the hummus and don't think i'll be buying it again. nothing lives up to my mom's hummus recipe! 

after little man went down for his afternoon nap, i was going to make a salad, but my lettuce had gone bad, so i made a quinoa salad, using the same toppings (bell peppers, onions, carrots, broccoli, poached chicken, corn, feta and avocado, atop 2/3 cup quinoa with some lighthouse blue cheese vinaigrette. so yummy and a great alternative. plus the extra protein in the quinoa kept me full all afternoon. 

for my afternoon snack, i picked up a nonfat caramel macchiato while we were out on our walk. it was the perfect pick me up and cured my sweet tooth ;0) 

lincoln and i then got to face time with daddy before he went down for his last nap of the day. when he woke up, he definitely woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and the only thing to cure the baby blues was to go on another walk around our neighborhood! totally fine by me, because it meant i got to enjoy a glass of vino tonight! 

after i got little man bathed, fed, read him his story and put him down for the night, i made my dinner. another blue apron meal!! it was seriously the best one yet. Za'atar spiced steaks with rutabaga-barberry tabbouleh and labneh cheese. it was awesome and i've posted the recipe below! 

my total calories for the day came in at 1,589 (after burning about 350 calories on my double walks). 

and here's the blue apron recipe!

blue apron Za'atar spiced steaks with rutabaga-barberry tabbouleh and labneh cheese

Serves 2 (about 610 calories each) (the tabboulleh would definitely serve at least 3 people and i portioned out a third for me)

2 flank steaks

3/4 c bulgur

2 cloves garlic (i used 4)

1 lemon

1 lb rutabaga

1 bunch mint

1 large bunch parsley

3 oz labneh cheese

2 tbsp pomegranate molasses

1 tbsp dried barberries

2 tsp za'atar steak spice blend

make the bulgur. bring water to boil, add bulgur and cook 12-14 minutes. remove from heat and drain. set aside. 

prepare the ingredients. peel and small dice the rutabaga, zest and quarter the lemon, pull the leaves off the stems of the mint and parsley, mince the garlic. in a small bowl, mix the labneh cheese, the juice of 2 of the lemon wedges, half the mint, a pinch of the garlic an season with salt and pepper. 

cook the steaks. season the steaks with half of the za'atar spiced mix, salt and pepper. heat 2 tsp of olive oil in a nonstick pan and cook the steaks 2-4 minutes on each side for medium rare. remove the steaks from the pan, set them aside and cover with foil. 

in the same pan that the steaks were cooked in, add the rutabaga and cook for 6-8 minutes. if the pan looks dry, add additional oil. add the garlic and the remaining spice mix and cook 30 seconds to 1 minute. add 2 tbsp water, the pomegranate molasses, and the dried barberries to the mixture and cook an additional 30 sec to one minute. 

remove from heat and add in the cooked bulgur, parsley, lemon zest and the juice of the remaining two lemon wedges. drizzle with olive oil (i omitted this) and season with salt and pepper. 

plate your dish and serve with a side of the labneh cheese mixture and garnish with the remaining mint. 

enjoy! (i know i did) 

Because I'm happy ....

has anybody else watched the video of the guy proposing to his girlfriend every single day for a WHOLE YEAR? I can barely keep a secret for a week, so this was pretty amazing to me. also, it made that damn pharrell "Happy" song get stuck in my head (hence the title).

but you know what? I'm embracing all the happy today. I got the best news from a good friend of mine this morning that made me smile like a goofball, got to work and watched the proposal video floating around facebook (all the happy tears!), and I made it through my first day of healthy eating without giving into my sweet tooth or wine craving. (it's the little things ;0).

anyways, my morning started out pretty much exactly like yesterday and I rolled with the same breakfast, Yoplait 100 greek yogurt (peach flavored today - but I'm using the same photo from yesterday) and 1/3 cup great grain granola, plus my iced coffee with 1 tbsp. dark chocolate sauce and 1/4 cup coconut milk. heading to work on Mondays and Tuesdays makes this easy breakfast kind of a no brainer.

for my mid morning snack today, I tried out these saffron road chipotle crunchy chickpeas, but I forgot to bring any tea with me today, so I just rolled with good ol' h20. you guys these were so good! they had a little bit of a kick to them, which I loved. they're also tiny, so you get a good amount of them which makes you feel like you're having a large snack (even though you aren't!). these would be great for a movie night, although I'm a big fan of good ol' popcorn too. i could also see topping a southwest style salad with these bad boys for some added crunch. I can't wait to try out the other flavors they have too.

I went home again for lunch and made exactly the same salad as yesterday. lettuce, onion, bell peppers, broccoli, avocado, poached chicken, feta and sliced almonds with lighthouse blue cheese vinaigrette and it was just as good as yesterdays! I promise i'll mix things up the rest of the week so you're not seeing the EXACT same food day in and day out. I would get sick of eating the same thing just like you'll get sick of seeing me eat the same thing ;0) but with all those yummy veggies prepped from Sunday, it was a super easy and fast lunch to make on my lunch break.

what are some of your favorite quick and healthy lunches? I'm all ears for new ideas!

you know what's next?! "snack time and lunch, snack time and lunch." I promise I'm not getting paid to endorse Yoplait, but when I went to get my afternoon snack today, this commercial popped into my head. I kind of secretly love the dorkiness of this dad, and I'm probably going to totally be the mom version of this to my kid (sorry little man!). anyways, for my afternoon snack I had an apple with one laughing cow 35 calorie white cheddar cheese wedge. one of my favorite snacks has always been an apple with cheese. I typically would pair my apple with 2-3 large slices of cheddar, because "chedda makes everything betta" but when one slice of cheddar is around 110 calories, it quickly leads to a not so healthy snack. I thought pairing my apple with the laughing cow cheese would still let me indulge in one of my favorite snacks minus the calories! and it did, this brought my favorite snack down from around 400 calories to about 100....go me! while, the real thing will always taste better in my mind, this was a great alternative and i'll definitely be using it a lot in the future. I also had a cup of Organics Chai Spiced Tea.

I was super excited about my dinner tonight! I baked a sweet potato and loaded it with a black bean, corn and red onion mixture, topped it with a little melted cheddar cheese and then topped that with a quick makeshift guacamole (1/2 avocado mashed, a few tomatoes, red onion, salt, pepper and garlic powder). it was seriously so good, filling (I could only finish about 3/4 of it) and a healthier version of a stuffed baked potato!

I've posted the recipe for my dinner at the bottom of this post for those of you who want to try it out!

My calories for today came in at exactly 1,500. Which means I'm off to try and ward off the late night munchies until bedtime. Cross your fingers for me that the ugly sweet tooth and wino monsters don't roar their ugly heads.

Black Bean & Corn Stuffed Sweet Potato with Guacamole for One

1 medium sweet potato
1/4 c black beans
1/4 c sweet corn
1 tbsp. diced red onion
1/4 c shredded cheddar
salt
pepper

For the Guacamole:
1/2 avocado
1-2 slices of tomato
1 tbsp red onion
salt
pepper
garlic powder

preheat your oven to 400. start by rinsing, and poking holes in your sweet potato. place it on a baking sheet and bake for about 50-60 min.

while your sweet potato is baking, combine your stuffing: black beans, corn and red onion go into a bowl and season with salt and pepper. stir.

when your potato is done, take it out of the oven , and cut it open, stuff your potato with the filling and top with about 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese.

pop it back into the oven for 8-10 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

while that's cooking, assemble your quick and easy guacamole for one! in a small bowl mix the avocado, tomato and red onion and mash away till it's the consistency of your pleasing. season with salt, pepper and garlic powder to your liking (I like lots of garlic and lots of pepper so I'm hesitant to suggest a specific amount - you do you)

Once your cheese is melted, pull your potato out of the oven and top with the guacamole!

(Usually I would also smother this in sour cream, but since I'm counting calories, I chose to skip the sour cream, and just use the guac. salsa would also be a  yummy addition)

For those of you out there tracking calories, I added these ingredients up in the MyFitnessPal app, and it totaled 539 calories for the whole thing (including the guacamole!)

Enjoy!

Let The Tracking Begin...

i think of today as day one. even though I shared what I ate with you all yesterday, I don't really count it. only because with little resources, and an empty fridge, I was relegated to cupcakes for breakfast ;0)

now don't get me wrong, it's not like you're never going to see me eat a cupcake again. let's be honest, you'll probably see me eat lots of cupcakes over the course of time, but I'm blogging about what I'm eating in an attempt to be HEALTHIER, and I stocked my fridge and pantry full of healthy goodies to do just that. so now that I'm armed and ready to go, today is my official day one ;0)

for the next few weeks, I'm working Mondays and Tuesdays until my replacement starts. when I left to stay at home and get little man healthier, I felt really, truly awful about it, and offered to stay on a couple of days a week until my replacement started, if they wanted me to. I never took my new job with the intention of leaving so soon (or even at all!) so it was a hard decision, but little man comes first, so it was the best decision for him and for our family.

any-who, I got a little sidetracked, but I just mention that I'm working today, because I started my day off with a homemade ice coffee (iced coffee, 1 tbsp. dark chocolate sauce, about 1/4 cup coconut milk - I really like the SO Delicious unsweetened vanilla coconut milk) to go and once I got to work, had breakfast. today's breakfast consisted of a 100 calorie Yoplait mango greek yogurt and about 1/3 cup great grain breakfast granola. it was delish! I also have to say, I'm pretty impressed with the Yoplait greek yogurts. I have a pretty strong aversion to any custard/creamy type textured foods. I hate cottage cheese, normally yogurt, crème brulee, cannoli's, cream filled donuts....you get the idea. so for me to find a yogurt that I can eat, and not only eat, but really really enjoy, it's a pretty big deal. the Yoplait greek yogurt isn't too sweet and when topped with the crunchy granola, it might be one of my new favorite breakfasts! Yoplait 100 calorie greek yogurt, you win!

around 10:30 I got snacky. I told you guys that my biggest hurdles were mindless eating and snacks, so I've tried to arm myself with lots of low calorie, healthy snacks to curb the snack monster. I also know it's much better to eat 5-6 small meals when you're trying to diet/lose weight than three larger meals, so my first snack of the day consisted of one of my pre-packaged 70 calorie Boom Chick-A-Pop Kettle Corn Popcorn and some Organics Green Tea.

(Sidenote: I drink mostly h20 during the day and actually enjoy/like the taste of it. I haven't had soda or juice really in a long time (unless it comes in a yummy cocktail) because I don't like the way the sugar makes my teeth feel, so unless I specifically note something I'm drinking, you can assume I'm consuming h20 for the most part ;0p)

about 12:30 I headed home for lunch. one nice thing about working downtown in a smaller city, is it takes 10 minutes or less to get just about anywhere. for lunch I made a big yummy salad full of lots of the goodies I prepped yesterday. my salad consisted of lettuce, bell peppers, red onions, broccoli, avocado, poached chicken, slivered almonds, feta and lighthouse blue cheese vinaigrette. I'm a sucker for blue cheese dressing but I know it's loaded with calories and fat, so I started using the vinaigrette instead and at 80 calories for 2 tbsp, I think it's a pretty good compromise.

the snack monster hit once again about 3:30 and I snacked on trader joes multigrain crackers (yes I actually counted out 14 crackers which is one serving) and paired it with a 35 calorie laughing cow white cheddar cheese wedge. it hit the spot and my total snack came in at under 200 calories :)

once i got home,  i was so excited that it was 64 degrees out and thanks to daylight savings it's actually light out after work, so i packed up little man and my niece, ocean, and we set out on a 40 minute walk. one of my biggest struggles in losing weight has been getting a chance to work out. with husband working in upstate New York, and it costing $6 for babysitting at my gym, it makes it hard to go. so getting outside and going on long walks always feels good.

as soon as we got back from the walk, i had a few pieces of broccoli (not pictured) while i made little man his dinner and got him bathed and ready for bed. and after he went down, i got to cooking my blue apron dinner! you guys i love blue apron. so much so, that i'm going to dedicate a post to it later this week, but my italian wedding soup with chicken meatballs was delish!

I counted all of my calories up in the MyFitnessPal App and the total came in at: 1,510 (this is after i burned 200 calories on our walk).

my overall goal for each day is around 1500 calories. that should allow me to lose about 2 lbs a week in a healthy way. I've crash dieted a number of times, and while some have worked (atkins in particular) I've always gained the weight back plus some. I'm trying to do it the healthy way this time around and change my overall eating habits instead of crashing and burning again and again and again.

wowza...this was a long post! I'm sure as I get into this, my posts will get shorter and shorter, but for now, happy novel reading! ;op

Questions for you!

two things i struggled with today....my sweet tooth! i give into it all. the. time. and because this little blog is holding me accountable, i didn't, but i really really really wanted to. any tips for curbing a major sweet tooth when trying to lose weight??

the second thing was wine. when i couldn't have something sweet, the next thing i wanted was a glass of wine, but i know alcohol makes it really difficult to lose weight, so i want to save my little wine indulgence for the weekend. i'm thinking of buying some sparkling water and limes so i can have a nightly calorie free "cocktail." anybody have any other ideas?

i'd love to hear from you about your weight loss secrets, tips and tricks! leave me a message in the comments or email me at savoryandsweeteats@yahoo.com.

Grocery Overhaul

i told you it was coming and here it is!

my day did not start out very healthy....but in my defense i had zero food in my fridge and was planning on doing a major grocery shopping trip, which i did. so, how did i start my day? with a sugar rush...i ate a leftover confetti cupcake from sweet frostings bakery that i had picked up on a whim a few days ago. not the best breakfast that's for sure.

i tried to make up for it the rest of the day. while grocery shopping i picked up my favorite, a 12 oz iced americano with about two tablespoons of half and half as fuel for the trip, and then once i got home, i had a better breakfast. i had picked up some lean cuisine turkey sausage breakfast sandwiches for when the little one, won't let me make breakfast and i need a quick bite. i tried one out for lunch and they were delish! and at only 220 calories and with 15 grams of protein, i think these will be good to have around when i'm in a hurry.

for dinner, we headed over to my parents house for sunday dinner (a new tradition we're starting). my mom made a delicious chicken and mushroom dish in a creamy tarragon sauce that she served with a side salad (topped with red onions, tomatoes, feta and croutons which i topped with a french vinaigrette dressing) and some french bread. i did have a second piece of bread and an extra serving of the sauce. i also had one glass of chardonnay.

i spent the afternoon, prepping all the food i bought for the week so i have healthy snacks to grab when the little guy is crying for my attention. i put together smoothie packs for easy breakfasts (i just have to empty the baggy into the blender and pour 1 cup of coconut milk in and breakfast is served), chopped up a bunch of veggies to throw on top of salads, and poached chicken to top my salads. i also measured out single servings of the popcorn, dried chickpeas and almonds i already had at the house into individual baggies so i can grab those as an easy snack and don't have to worry about overeating.

my biggest downfall is bored eating and late night snacking while sitting on the couch. i'm hoping that by having everything measured out and lots of fruits and veggies all ready to eat, this will help curve my mindless snacking.

below's what i picked up at the grocery store along with some photos of my food prep. i also list the smoothie recipes/ingredients down at the bottom.

here's what i picked up:

on the veggie front:

red peppers
yellow peppers
broccoli
brussel sprouts
onions
carrots
lettuce
spinach
sweet potatoes

fruits:

bananas
avocados
frozen blueberries
frozen smoothie starter packs (carrot, mango, peach)

freezer items:

kashi greek pizza
kashi indian pizza
lean cuisine turkey sausage breakfast sandwiches
ground turkey burgers (these were fresh, but i froze them)

dairy/non-dairy type items:

unsweetened vanilla coconut milk
yoplait 100 calorie greek yogurts
feta cheese
laughing cow white cheddar
laughing cow onion and chive swiss

miscellaneous/snack items:

hummus
100 calorie whole grain english muffins
whole grain quinoa protein bread
sliced almond salad toppers
chipotle dried chickpeas
boom chicka pop (45 calorie/serving popcorn)
green tea
chai tea
coffee

i already had some frozen chicken breasts, pork chops and lean ground beef in my freezer from previous costco runs as well as eggs, so i didn't need to pick up much proteins this trip.

and for those of you who are interested, here are the smoothie recipes:

Blueberry Banana Smoothie

1/2 c frozen blueberries
1/2 banana
1 tbsp flax seeds
1.5 tbsp peanut butter
1 cup spinach
1 cup coconut milk

I pre measure out all of the ingredients except for the coconut milk and put them in a baggie and store it in the freezer, this way i don't have to add any ice to the smoothies, i can just throw the frozen baggie and a cup of coconut milk and blend.

Peach/Mango/Banana Smoothie

1/2 cup smoothie starter (frozen peaches, mangos and carrots)
1/2 banana
1 tbsp flax seed
1 cup spinach
1 cup coconut milk

*i meant to pick up some steel cut oats that i could throw into these smoothies as well for some added fiber, but i forgot. for those of you wanting to beef up your smoothies with a little extra fiber to keep you fuller longer, i would add 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of the oats.

**depending on how thick you like your smoothies, add more or less liquid to the blender. you can also thicken your smoothies with greek yogurt, but i like mine more sippable as opposed to needing  spoon ;0)