Eating right on a busy schedule

Hi Friends!
So first off I want to update you on my weight loss. You all know by now how open I am with it. As you read from my last blog post I had the stomach virus. Well I lost 9 pounds in a day from that. I know it's mostly water and everything and you gain back a few pounds but I took it extra slow with getting back into actually eating. I only gained back 2 pounds! So current weight:

187 pounds - I'm finally in the 180s!

Current weight loss from the start of my journey: 30 pounds

Current weight loss overall: 40 pounds

My Weight Watchers goal was set at 189.9 so I surpassed that...yayyy!

Next Weight Watchers goal I set for 179.

I still have 27 pounds left until I reach my ultimate goal but it feels so close!

I guess because I have been so far away from it for so long.

OKAY!

Time for the educational side of this...

                           This blog post is all about eating right when there just isn't enough time. Someone private messaged me about this and I thought it was very important to tackle as soon as I could. This is such a dilemma for most people. You all know you're busy. And you all know you make it an excuse to eat poorly. The fact of the matter is that some people have it easier than others.

I have it nice and easy because I have a desk job with access to a fridge and a microwave. Not everyone has this luxury.

Breakfast
So first I am going to start with breakfast. Everyone always says that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Guess what? LISTEN TO THEM. I don't care if you are hungry or not. This meal should be your biggest of the day. My two favorite breakfasts?

Hot oatmeal

Egg white omelette

Now obviously I don't have time to make an egg white omelette in the morning before work so I usually take oatmeal. A packet of Quaker Oatmeal is just 4 points on WW. Use some skim milk (instead of water to make it a little creamy and definitely tastier) for an additional 1 point. Oatmeal keeps me full for HOURS. I'm not even kidding you. I won't be hungry at least until lunch at this point. Which is great in my opinion. If this isn't filling enough for you then please eat something else! Add some fruit into it or eat some fruit on the side. Maybe even some non-fat Greek yogurt. 

PLEASE be careful with Greek Yogurt. This may sound dumb but it is going to benefit all of us...I stood in the grocery store one day and compared all of the Greek yogurts. My favorite tasting is Oikos. I don't eat it anymore because it was the worst one out of all of them. The 2nd worst? The one that most people eat...Chobani. The one that was the absolute best nutritionally? Yoplait Greek 100 Calorie WW endorsed yogurt AND Light & Fit Greek yogurt. So choose your favorite! I personally go with Yoplait because it is much cheaper. HERE'S A HINT: Food companies will highlight alllllll of the good stuff and just because it says Greek on it, doesn't make it good for you. 

Don't believe me?? Here's my yogurt of choice:

Compared to Oikos:

 

I mean come on...The Yoplait is 2 points compared to Oikos at double that, 4 points!

Let's play smart people. Read your labels. That is A LOT of fat in that small cup. SCARY!

Okay I'm done my rant with Greek yogurt...

My egg white omelette:

I grab all of the veggies that I have and throw them in the same pan.

Usually consisting of:

Spinach

Red pepper

Onion

Mushrooms

Tomatoes

And non-fat cheese

After sauteing these items with a little bit of EXTRA VIRGIN LITE OLIVE OIL, I pour the egg whites (0 points) on top of them. I usually guesstimate about 3 times the serving size for egg whites. So i triple the nutrition facts, adding up to about 1 point for the whole omelette (veggies are 0 points and the cheese is such a little amount that it doesn't add up to anything).

Some other breakfast items that you can grab in a jiffy?

I try to stay away from bread products as much as possible. No English muffins, bagels, tortillas, pitas, NOTHING. Pitas and tortillas are made out to be really good but they are the hidden enemy. A lot of tortillas say low fat or low carb and they are still a lot of points! A lot of people also think that the sundried tomato or spinach wraps are better than the normal flour wraps because they are "veggie" based. Uh uh...they are usually worse than the flour ones because of the artificial veggie flavoring. A great tortilla that you can use is:

It is low carb, high fiber. <----This should be one of your favorite phrases when it comes to eating right. It's exactly what you need to lose weight!

Remember what I told you though...don't be fooled for the highlighted stuff, turn it over and look at everything...

Great calories, no sugars and good on protein!

We have a winner. :)

So in the morning you can make a great breakfast wrap.

Put a little bit of low-fat peanut butter, a little honey, sliced banana and strawberries and wrap it up in this wrap (toast it if you want) and you are good to go! This wrap is up for interpretation, you can use apples and cinnamon with honey if you want, etc. 

English muffins can work too as long as it's the light or high fiber ones. These are 3 points each and I usually put banana and peanut butter on them. But use them sparingly!

Lunch

So the night before work I like to sometimes saute veggies and reheat them for lunch. My favorite mixture is cabbage, baby carrots, mushrooms and onions seasoned with a little bit of EXTRA VIRGIN LITE OLIVE OIL, salt, pepper and garlic powder. They are so good reheated the next day and so easy to eat when I'm busy. Sometimes I throw some ground turkey in there and I have my complete meal...so yummy!

Another thing that you can eat that is quick and easy is a hard-boiled egg for protein. (This can be made the night before as well!) I like to put honey mustard on mine because without it it just tastes so dry to me. With it it tastes kind of like deviled eggs for no additional points! (Hard-boiled eggs are 2 points a piece). 

So I have discovered a new tuna product that I love and is great for you:

AWESOME.

The good-for-you food just keeps getting better!

It's about 3 points for the whole can. And I eat the whole can.

Mix this with a little Kraft Fat Free Mayo and put it on top of a garden salad. You don't need dressing. It's one of my favorites...mm mm mm!

For lunch or dinner you could also try a Smart-Ones microwaveable meal. These are WW endorsed and are delicious! (Except for the pizza, DON'T EAT THE PIZZA!)

One of my favorites...mmm. These are excellent after a work out!

Dinner

I'm not going to elaborate on dinner here because most people have time to eat dinner of some sort. A home cooked meal is always a better option and throughout me posting my blog posts I will be giving you some awesome dinner recipe ideas. Anything that I post will be tried by me and made sure they are up to good health standards. So tonight I tried +Shannon Murphy 's Green Pepper Stuffed Casserole. It was amazing. My whole family loved it and requested that I make it again sometime. Even my 5 year old niece loved it! So I want to share it with you. Shannon has an excellent cooking blog that you should check out! Click here to view it! Shannon sometimes even posts healthy recipes that you can try! Remember: Almost anything can be made healthy with some modifications. I decided to modify this recipe a little bit, you'll that in red.

These pictures are all Shannon's.

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef (I used 97% fat free ground turkey from Redners')
• 2 medium green peppers (chopped) (I used 1 extra large green pepper because I couldn't find mediums)
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 3 garlic cloves (minced) (I used 1 garlic clove because I had never chopped garlic before and it was a pain in the A! Plus my sauce has garlic in it.)
• 2 teaspoons of sugar (I like my sauce on the sweeter side, you don't have to add sugar though) (I did not have to add sugar)
• 2 cups of brown rice (cooked)
• 1 24 oz jar of spaghetti sauce (I used Francisco Rinaldi Garlic and Basil flavoring) (I used Ragu  Robusto Sauteed Onion and Garlic) 
• 1.5 cups of (fat free) mozzarella cheese 

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook your ground beef in a large pan until browned, drain your meat
3. Place your ground beef back in pan and add your green peppers, onion powder, and garlic.
4. Cook on medium-low heat until your peppers are tender.

1. In an 8x8 casserole dish, stir together your rice, spaghetti sauce, and 3/4 cup of cheese.
2. Add your beef mixture  to the sauce and stir until everything is well combined.
3. Top with remaining cheese and bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese begins to brown. (If you use the fat free cheese, the cheese WILL NOT brown!! Don't exceed 20 minutes. Fat free cheese just gets hard, take my advice on this).  

1. Let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.
2. Enjoy!

Final Product

I added an oregano garnish on top after it finished cooking just for a little something extra :) Using my recommendations, cut your platter into 6 pieces and each piece is 8 points each! (These pieces can easily be cut in half for half the points.)

On a difficulty scale of 1-10 for preparation, I give it a 4. There is a decent amount involved but it is doable. P.s. I didn't have to drain the turkey because there was no leftover fat, :)

Great job, Shannon. Thanks for the recipe!

Extra yummy snacks

Fiber One Brownies

Fit and Active popcorn

Homemade smoothies made with nonfat Greek yogurt and flax seed
My favorite smoothie, 3 points per serving, you get 2 servings out of a bag and all you need to do is add skim milk and blend:

Musselman's All natural applesauce, an acquired taste but so worth it for the lack of points

Regular and pretzel goldfish - 4 points per serving, whole grain, 3 points per serving. And the serving sizes are big!
Veggie straws such as these, you can get at Costco...38 straws for 3 points! But be careful, not all brands are that good.

Triscuit minis - 3 points per serving. I don't like triscuits because they are so dry but these are awesome!
Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches - AMAZING!! And only 4 points. IT'S WORTH EVERY POINT!

Last few helpful hints
1.) Obviously you should be drinking a lot of water every day. The recommended amount is 8, 8 oz cups of water a day. The easiest way to make sure you drink all of your water is to do what I do. Buy yourself a tumbler. Do your math and figure out how many times you need to drink your tumbler in a day. I have a 16oz. tumbler. I need to drink it 5 times because I was to drink 10, 8oz cups of water a day.
Eliminate soda. An occasional diet soda is OK! It's also 0 points.
Eliminate fruit juice. It's all sugar. Sometimes I do need some apple juice. I only drink the serving size and add some water to it. Most juices are too sweet anyway! Obviously orange juice and tomato juice is the exception to this rule. Unfortunately for me, I don't like either.
If you need something else, try Crystal Light packets! =0 points. or Arnold Palmer packets! =0 points!


...just as good as the can.

2.) If you need to eat a sandwich or something with bread. Please tell me you will eat Sara Lee 45 Calories and Delightful. 1 POINT A SLICE! Most breads are 2 points a slice! Even Weight Watchers brand is 2 points a slice!! Go and buy this brand. It's also delicious and has oats which are always a good thing in moderation.

3.) Don't ever think that you can't treat yourself or cheat a little bit. A handful of M&M's is not going to kill you. You didn't put this weight on in one day, it isn't going to come off in a day. Don't deprive yourself because that will just lead to mass self destruction.

4.) Right along with the Greek yogurt deception...don't let other things fool you. Just because it is whole grain doesn't mean it's better for you. Auntie Anne's is a great example. My boyfriend was so excited that they came out with a whole grain pretzel. After some calculating I realized that they are almost just as bad as the regular...why wouldn't I eat the yummy regular one then? Regular pretzels are a whomping 9 points while whole grain pretzels are still 8 points.

Dough is dough people. It's never going to be good for you.


And the last thought of the day...

Don't forget to exercise :)



...yeah that's me.

Thanks friends, you're my inspiration xoxo