Dangit

Cold weather has hit. I'm eating everything that isn't nailed down.... and I'm drinking lots of hot sugary drinks. Yikes, gotta put a stop to this bad behavior! I have another doctor's checkup next week, so that should be a motivator..... <>....

Pasta Fun

I've always been a big fan of using pasta dinners to experiment on new ways to eat your veggies. For the last few nights, I have made some really tasty "throw it together" pasta dinners that are also super-healthy. Hooray for cleaning out the pantry!

Pasta Fun #1:
Chicken tenders
Button mushrooms
Canned, no salt added stewed tomatoes

Saute the chicken tenders in a little olive oil, with minced garlic and black pepper. Toss in the mushrooms and saute as well. Once these are mostly cooked, add the undrained can of stewed tomatoes and basil and oregano to taste. Simmer until the liquid cooks down, serve over whole wheat pasta of your choice.

Pasta Fun #2:
Frozen chopped spinach
Cannellini (Great Northern) beans

Saute spinach in olive oil and garlic. Add drained and rinsed beans. Cook on low, adding black pepper and basil to taste. Add olive oil as needed to keep a slight liquid consistency. Beans will soften a bit, and that's when you'll know it's ready. Serve over whole what pasta of your choice.

These were both delicious, and have a few added nutritional benefits... they're both very low in fat, with most coming from the omega 3-rich olive oil. And, as long as you buy low sodium canned stuff, there's very little sodium overall... you CAN cook without adding any salt!

Ehhhhh

I did weight myself after all today. It wasn't pretty, but it could've been a lot worse. After my awesome triumph of last week, I'm now back up by 1.6 pounds. Not devastating, but it certainly didn't make me do a happy dance. I know what caused it... and I am trying to be better.... though I did eat a leftover cookie today. Yum.

Shame, Shame

Oh, it's been a bad week diet-wise. I think I'm going to take a pass on weighing-in this weekend, cuz I just know it will be disappointing.

I ate out a lot this week. Eating dinner out once or twice a week can be okay, if you made good choices at a restaurant and work to make up for it elsewhere. But, this week I think I did dinner out 4 nights in a row followed by a not-so-healthy catered breakfast and a moment-of-weakness bag of kettle chips for dinner. And, I was *not* good about ordering when I had those dinners out. Fish and chips? Spinach and artichoke dip?

Uh oh, the cold weather makes things tougher cuz it just makes me want warm comfort food... usually involving cheese or butter.

So, I will make it through Thanksgiving and the brotherly visit this week, then get back on track. Bear with me....

Holla!

I lost a pound and a half over the last week. Hooray!!!!! And I didn't exactly make the best food choices - there was a work pizza lunch, and a grilled cheese day - but those bad lunches were balanced out with some lighter dinners, and a good variety of physical activity.

For those of you The Biggest Loser fans who like percentages, too, you'll be glad to know I've lost 6.1% of my total body weight so far this year.

I'll take it!

Sweet AND Crunchy

Another snack tip...

I have already professed my love for Quaker Quakes, their flavored mini snack cakes, but now I have found their snack-world "little brother"... Quaker Mini Delights. The "Chocolately Drizzle" flavor is great! These tiny little multigrain cakes, each about the size of a quarter, really are drizzled with chocolate sauce. Like the title of this post says, it really does satisfy both of those snack desires.

These little guys are part of the low-cal snack pack trend, but 100 calories just aren't good enough for Quaker. No, these are 90 calorie packs! So the whole pack is a little 2 point treat, perfect for an after-dinner snack!