My Go-To Snacks

So you're a snacker... Me too! I really look forward to snack time at night. Especially if I did my strength training at the gym. My night snack depends on my remaining calories for the day. Here is a list of my Go-To snacks to squelch that sweet craving without ruining my hard work!

1. Vitatops by Vitalicious - Where do I even begin with this... They are all delicious! The Deep Chocolate helps those chocolate cravings. The Banana Nut Energy Loaf tastes like banana bread! I love to nuke it from frozen for about 45 sec. The hubs loves to add 2 oz skim milk for a nice banana bread  pudding type snack. VitaTops and loaves have a calorie range from 50 - 120 depending on which one you choose. Choose any, you can't go wrong.
2. Fruit - More specifically frozen grapes. Yeah, who knew. 100 grams of frozen grapes is about 67 calories. I find that I eat the frozen grapes slower since they are so cold, which makes the serving just the right size. The natural sugars in fruit are good to have in moderation. Everything in moderation.
3. Skinny Pop Popcorn - 1 serving is 150 calories. Sometimes I save my calories (or burn enough) to eat 2 servings. Skinny Pop is are free of GMO's and contain no artificial ingredients. Fantastic!
4. Silk Dark Chocolate Almond Milk - This tastes so good! 100 cals for 8 oz. it is also free of GMO's and free of dairy, soy, lactose, gluten, casein, egg, and MSG. Can't get much better than that!
5. Orgain Organic Plant Protein Powder in Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk - Whew! That was a mouthful. Depending on how hard my strength training was, my go-to is a great protein powder. 150 cals for the protein powder and 30 cals for the almond milk. 

There is my list. You will usually find all these items in my house because I never know what I might want to snack on!

What do you snack on?

A Peanut Butter Chocolate No Bake Twist!

Oh Em Gee! This was so good! I'm really excited to share with you a great little treat I had today. 

First off, fresh rolled oats are amaze-balls. My local grocery chain has this machine from The Grainery. Check out the website for all sorts of info. I'm happy I picked up this brand!

Secondly, what does that picture look like? As soon as I pulled it out of the microwave, I thought "Peanut Butter No Bake!". I was equally excited to devour this and was not disappointed. 

Peanut Butter Chocolate No Bake

1/2 C or 40gr fresh rolled oats (you can use any plains oats you prefer)

1C water

12gr PB2 with chocolate

a little no cal sweetener to taste (sugar will add more calories)

Microwave for 2 min. Make sure to use a big bowl or cup as oatmeal likes to expand. 

You can make it a little creamier with milk or any milk substitute. Try PB2 without chocolate too. 

It will be a little hot so it is more like a hot, gooey, no bake cookie. 

Serves 1

Cal 195

Protein 9

Carb 33 

Fiber 5

Fat 4

Chol 0

Lunch is Served, Ma'dam...

(In an old English butler tone) Lunch is served, ma'dam...

If only I had someone to make my meals. Sure it's easy for the celebrities to eat healthy, they have the funds to pay someone else to do it. Hell, they usually pay someone else to watch their children! I don't have the funds and it does take time. But the real myth buster? It's cheaper to eat at home. I have to go grocery shopping more often but I'm spending less. Why? Because I'm buying foods that are less processed too. Think about it...the more people (distribution), and the more processing (equipment), that touches your food, not only makes it more expensive, it takes the good bits out that your body needs. That's not to say that I don't eat anything processed. Otherwise, I couldn't have cottage cheese :). Here is today's lunch:

Strawberry and Cottage Cheese Salad

Approx 1 C Organic Baby Spring Mix (45g) cal 10

1/2 C Land O Lakes cottage cheese 113g cal 90

5-6 Strawberries 140g cal 45

2 Tbs Kraft Light Balsamic Vinaigrette (31g) cal 30

Spring mix in bottom of a nice size pasta bowl. Scoop cottage cheese in middle. Chop strawberries. Drizzle with dressing. 

Serves 1

Cal 175

protein 14

carbs 22

fiber 4

fat 4

sugar 15

Pretty Tasty! EGGS on TOAST

EGGS on TOAST! Yeah, TOAST!

Ok, I turned a very English thing and made it delicious! (Hey, the BF is English. Don't judge me!) 

Sandwich Thin 100 cal

2 eggs 140-160 cal

1 Avocado 240 cal

Toast the Sandwich Thin. Mash the avocado with a little salt. Spread on toasted bread. Cook eggs in your preferred method. I scrambled with a little butter for flavor. 

Top on the avocado. 

EAT!

Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies

Don't judge me. I'm only human...The hardest part of dieting (or lifestyle change) is breaking my sugar addiction. I can go about 2-3 days without sugar and then I crack. It takes 2 weeks to make a habit. I'm so far from that. 

While perusing Facebook today, someone was making no bake cookies. That sounded so good. So I found a peanut butter no bake cookie recipe here. I made some modifications.

1.5 C sugar

1/4 C butter

1/2 C milk

1 C natural peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 C flax seed

3 C instant oats

I've never had a problem using instant oats. The cookies are currently in the refrigerator to speed the cooling process. I like to think of the cookies as fuel. Peanut butter and oatmeal are great for energy. I will be using my elliptical soon and running shortly after that... Aim high, I say!

Zucchini Pesto Roll Ups

Today was the Great Lakes Kite Festival. Not enough wind so the kite flying was slow but the day was gorgeous! Great day to be at the beach! No beach food here. We just took water and an apple, just in case. 

Now on to dinner...

Nom nom nom...It's been a slow week here. I haven't made anything fancy until tonight. Got this from my fave website PaleOMG.com here.

I used the Archer Farms Natural Italian Chicken Sausage from Target, zucchini, and premade pesto. 

Sausage $3.89

Pesto $2.39

Zucchini $.99/lb $1.41

$7.69

I cut each sausage into 4 pieces and had 20 pieces. The pesto is premade because I don't have any herbs growing yet. The zucchini was a different variety but tasted the same. 

It was a slow week on food so the recipes have been less this week. 

Turkey Lettuce Wrap

It's lunchtime! What to use when you can't have bread anymore? Use lettuce leaves! I haven't had bread since Saturday. I can't really tell a difference yet but BB hasn't had bread for 2 weeks! Good job, babe! He can tell a huge difference in how he feels. 

To assemble:

lettuce leaf (I used green lettuce. Romaine is also hearty)

turkey slices (as natural as possible)

a little guacamole from here

red pepper sticks

Roll 'em up and eat 'em!

If the guac is made up ahead of time, this is super fast to assemble. And it tastes good to boot!

The cost breakdown:

guacamole

2 avocados $1.00 (on sale this week 2/$1.00)

1/4 red onion $.50 approx

1 roma tomato $.50 @ $1.29/lb

1 lime $.34

lettuce $.99 a bunch

turkey $2.33

red pepper $1.00 @ $2.99/lb

Approx cost per roll up $.75! And that is being generous on the portions!

Green Bits and Guac Vessels

So I can't handle juicing. Blah! But the Paleo I can! Yay! 

Need a dip for your vegetables? How about guacamole? Without even changing anything from a regular recipe, you can eat guacamole. 

2 avocados

1 roma tomato

1/4 red onion

juice of 1 lime

sea salt or kosher salt

Finely chop all. Add juice and salt. Mash the green bits into the other bits. Helps it stick to the guacamole vessel better. And because we all like to eat crunchy things, celery sticks make great guac vessels!

If you are lucky, the guac will last longer than a day and you can take it to lunch the next day...*hint, hint* BB

Also for dinner were these AMAZE-BALLS chicken burgers from PaleOMG blog. As usual, I did a little tweaking. Mostly because I didn't have all the ingredients. Like ground chicken. So I googled it and made my own with, wait for it...a food processor! No way, you say! Way, I say! I also added another garlic clove and Italian Herb Seasoning to replace the parsley, thyme, and basil.