Vita Sana in Miami so far ... Lord help me.

Breakfast
Strawberry Banana Juice 120
2 Pastelitos 520

Total: 640

Lunch
Honey Garlic Chicken 320
Special Fried Rice 185
Egg Roll 130
Diet Coke 0

Total: 535


Total so far ... 1075

425 to go ....

Think smart ..

Snack
Pastelito 260
Strawberry Banana Juice 120
Total: 380

Late Night Snack:
2 Potato Bread Slices 133
American Cheese 79
Honey Ham 177
Total: 389



Total: 1,844

I went over by 344. Bummer.

Hmm... there seems to be a pattern here.

I am so sleepy for some reason but I wanted to post my calories so far ...

Breakfast
Non Fat Milk 90
Banana Nut Cheerios 100

Total: 190

Lunch
Fire House Sub - Medium Hook and Ladder 410
8 oz Barq's Rootbeer 111
Cheddar Sun Chips 140

Total: 661

Total so far ... 851

Calories left ... 649

Not too shabby .. but this week has shown me that I usually have breakfast and lunch under control ... but after that ... I'll wander to the fridge often and not make wise decisions. I'm going home for the weekend with my family .. lets see if I can put what I'm learning into practice. Just say no.

VITA SANA!

Don't knock it till you try it.

Loosing weight can often times be hard, but the good thing is that the food market provides a lot of healthy options to make this goal easier to attain. I know that when I first switched to fat free milk and whole wheat bread 3 ears ago, I never thought I'd like it. Foods like turkey burgers and whole wheat pasta were such crazy ideas to me at the time. Good thing I tried it all out, because I realized that I really do enjoy some of the healthier options out there.

While I have some time now, I wanted to write about a meal I made for my family recently. Healthy Spaghetti! I can't tell you if my family enjoyed it because I can't speak for them haha. I think it was definitely different from the spaghetti we're used to. My mom makes the best spaghetti and she usually adds to huge spoonfuls of sour cream and then two more spoonfuls of butter. Eeeek! I can see the calories adding up in my head. I'm not going to lie, it's absolutely delicious, but since we were on my turf, it was going to be healthy spaghetti!

Now, I got the recipe from my Biggest Loser Cookbook and I'll share it here.

The Pasta Part:

Use whole wheat pasta and boil it like you would for spaghetti.

Sauce:

1/3 cup finely chopped yellow or white person

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 1/3 cups canned crushed tomatoes

1 tablespoon no-salt-added tomato paste

1 tablespoon water

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon dried basil leaves

Lightly mist a medium nonstick saucepan with olive oil spray. Set over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 5 minutes, or until almost tender (do not brown). Reduce the heat to low. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, water, honey, oregano, Italian seasoning, olive oil, and basil. Stir with a wooden spoon to mix. Simmer for 5 minutes for the flavors to blend.

76 calories. How can you beat that?!

Now when I made it, I added ground turkey and I didn't like how that turned out. I'd stick to the recipe. I love it. I can't wait to make it again!

Next ...

This is my new favorite drink. You couldn't pay me to drink that Tomato V8 juice that they sell. BUT .. the clever people of V8 have been mixing their fruits and veggies and now there is V8 Fruit Fusion! Amazing! I absolutely love it. Sometimes, I do think I can taste the veggies, but if I put some ice in my glass it goes down smooth. I have 3 different flavors in fridge now. My favorite is the Pomegranate Blueberry blend. It has anti-oxidants which I love and anything blueberry is supposed to make you happy. If you experience depression, eat some blue berries! V8 does have other blends available but the V-Fusions are my favorite.

And....

So .. I'm always confused after those Julia Louis Dreyfus commercials that Healthy Choice has ever since they re-vamped their TV dinners. You know, the funny one from Seinfeld. I can never tell if the commercial is supposed to make me like the new product or not. Either way, it confused me and the last time I walked into the store I bought some out of curiosity. Their marketing strategy worked.

So I had the Turkey Medallion Healthy Choice this week and I have to say .. it was phenomenal!! I never like TV dinners at all. The turkey pieces were substantial.. the mashed potato had consistency and don't get me started on the warm cranberries, apples, and butternut squash. It was really good!!!

Now, I also have to add that our microwave stopped working a couple weeks ago and we've been cooking all our TV dinners in the oven. What a world of difference! I recommend everyone put them in the oven rather than microwave plus it makes you wait 30 minutes which allows you to not eat as fast and to take your time when you finally have your meal. I'm including a picture of the actual meal when it's done. I think it was scrumptious and it was 220 calories.

The rumor is that these new meals are high in sodium. This one was 500 mg of sodium. The recommended salt intake is between the range of 1,500 and 2,400 milligrams (mg) a day for healthy adults. So, I'm thinking that as long as you keep track of your sodium intake throughout the day, you should be ok. All in all it's a good meal and very low in calories. I had the Sweet & Sour chicken for lunch today and it was good too!

Gotta give these foods a chance .. there's a world of healthy out there!

For the record

Breakfast
Banana Nut Cheerios 100
Low Fat Milk 90

Total: 190

Lunch
Healthy Choice Sweet & Sour Chicken 430
Strawberry Banana V8 Fusion 120

Total: 550

Snacks
3 Reeses Pieces 270
3 Kit Kats 200

Total: 480

Total so far ... 1220

I have 280 calories left for the day. I'll be back later to let you know how it goes.

A for Effort!

Breakfast

Fat Free Milk 90

Banana Nut Cheerios 100

I banana 72

Total: 262

Snack

8 Club Crackers 70

Guava Spread 100

Fat Free Cream Cheese 30

Total: 200

Lunch

Healthy Choice Turket Medallion Meal 220
(with red skinned potatos and gravy & butternut squash, apples, and cranberries)

Total: 220

So far ... 682

Yay .. that leaves me 818 calories for dinner. The best part is that I've had dairy, whole wheat, fruits, veggies, protein, and have only drank water. Not bad. I'll be honest, I'm in the mood for KFC for dinner but I'm going to look up the best option if I do make my way over there to celebrate after my Tort Law final. Wish me Luck!

I wanted to come back and finish my post for the day. I can't say I made the healthiest options but this is what the blog is for to be honest .. so this was dinner. Luckily I did choose smarter than I usually would have at KFC but I did have some snacks I should have stayed away from.

Dinner

KFC Popcorn Chicken 550

Small Coleslaw 180

BBQ Sauce 40

Honey Mustard 120

Total: 890

Snacks

Bite Size Chocolates

2 Kit Kats 140

1 Reeses 90

1 Almond Joy 80

16 BBQ Pringles 150

French Onion Dip 60

Total: 520

Daily Total: 2,092

Not good. I walked for 30 minutes and I'm going to do some excercise tonight do at least burn off 500 calories.

Holy Calorie! Oy vey ...

So, I decided to type up everything I ate today so far ... I had a feeling I had gone over in calories but I wasn't sure where. It is so easy to think you're eating healthy or to think something wont add up too much when in fact it does. I am shocked to see that by meal one I had already eaten more than half of my daily calorie intake. I should eat 1,500 calories as a minimum but should definetely not exceed that amount. I thought that by eating some protein with some veggies in my egg this morning, it would have been healthier but I have come to find out that some of my choices were not so smart. Now, I haven't gone over my calorie count but we're at a total of 1286 and that only leaves 214 available .. and it's 7 p.m. The last time I ate was at 4:00 p.m. so I'm going to have think smart for dinner tonight. So lets go over this ...

Breakfast
2 Scrambled Eggs 140
(I should have just had one egg)
Ketchup 30
Chopped Tomatos 20
Chopped Peppers 20
Milk Non fat 1 cup 86
2 slices of Whole Wheat Toast 140
(One slice of bread or no bread would have been a better option)
Strawberry Jelly 56
Pancake Syrup 59
Honey Baked Ham (3 slices) 111
(I'll be honest, I probably couldn't live without ham in my eggs, but I slice would have been sufficient)
Chopped Onion 30
(This meal contained a lot of veggies and protein which is good. However, there were some options I could have made better decisions on.)
Total: 692


Lunch
1 Cup of Spinach 7
Chopped Tomatos 19
Box of Raisings 42
Onions 30
Cucumber 17
French Salad Dressing 134
(This meal was actually really good on the nutritious factor, the fact that it was low in calorie helped me not go over my calorie max.)
Total: 249

Snack
2 Weight Watchers Toffee Bards 220
Half an M&M Peanut pack 125
Total: 345
(Snacks were really bad. Maybe one toffee bar would have been enough but having two really added up and I should not have eaten M&M's.)


Daily Total: 1286

214 more calories to go ... Oy vey.

I'll do better tomorrow. :)

Vita Sana & Laid Off

So, I got laid off this Thursday. It was rough, I'm not going to lie. At first I was really positive about it but that only lasted for so long and yesterday the stress of job searches settled in. In a time of stress it is extremely easy to fall back into the crazy eating habits a person might have. I know that I have a little signal that goes off in my mind that says .. "You're going through a hard time, you deserved a meal, whatever you want." However, I am determined to make this time around be the LAST TIME AROUND. I'm not going to baby my inner insecure and doubtful self by taking care of myself in a way that really wont be healthy at all. Yes, eating whatever I want will make me really happy .. in the moment .. but when that moment fades what will I have? I'll be left with guilt, pitty, more pounds, more distance from the things that I want, poor self image. The negatives outweigh the positive.

A good thing that has come out of being laid off is that I have more time to work out. What a better time to focus on excercise!! What excuse could I possible give?? I'm excited .. I think this is finally my chance to make this a priority. Yes, things are stressful, things are tough, but my being laid off is a blessing in disguise and I am positive of that. Something better will come my way and now I can focus on school and my health.

Wish me luck.