Food Diary Entry #9 (for, Thu 05/02/2013)

For breakfast:
Bagel thins with almond butter and raspberry preserves. I also had some apple slices.

For Lunch:
For lunch I had a tortilla topped with the last bit of chicken I had, some cheese, romaine lettuce, cilantro, tomatoes, and chipotle salsa. I also had steamed edamame with chili garlic sauce. This meal was so filling and spicy!

For an afternoon snack/beverage:
Since I loved how my iced coffee turned out the other day I decided to make another one. As you can tell I made way too much and yes I finished it all.

For dinner:
So I completely forgot to take a picture of my smoothie for dinner but here is a picture of my fiance’s. His smoothie has kale, mango, some walnuts, and water. My smoothie had kale, raspberries, banana, and some walnuts. My fiance also had nachos (we are talking about a huge plate of nachos!) and cajeta empanadas (caramel stuffed empanadas, the last picture on this post fyi. it is a Mexican dessert). So I only had a few nacho pieces and I also had a string cheese. This was the most random dinner and not a very good one I may add. Next time I need to have a better meal for dinner because later I munched on…

This! Another bagel thin but with chocolate peanut butter.

For dessert:
Umm an empanada… I guess the bagel with chocolate peanut butter wasn’t dessert?? 😉

I am so stuffed and my mouth is on fire!

I just finished a taco that I stuffed with lots of veggies and chicken (and salsa) and then i had edamame with chili garlic salsa. My mouth is on fire you guys! I wonder if I put too much salsa… haha what too much salsa?! That’s crazy. I realize that I am pretty stocked in the spicy department!

Do you like spicy foods?
If you do you, which one or what dish do you like?

Food Diary Entry #8 (for, Wed 05/01/2013)

For breakfast:
Strawberries and cream overnight oats. This is actually my first time eating overnight oats and I actually kinda liked it. I got the recipe from Peanut Butter Fingers. It was yummy! I can’t wait to try more overnight oat recipes!

For lunch:
I had leftover chicken from the chicken tacos last night but I did not want to eat chicken tacos again so I made a chicken taco bowl! I added chicken, romaine lettuce, some iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, some shredded cheese, avocado, and some salsa to substitute a dressing. This was very filling! I was full for hours and I am talking about 3-4 hours of my stomach not asking me for more food. Which almost never happens!

Taco salad all gone!

Afternoon snack:
Since I wasn’t hungry for a snack, I made myself an iced coffee. I heated up some water, added a teaspoon or two of instant coffee, some sugar and then I let it cool a bit. After it cooled down I poured the coffee into a glass filled with ice and then I added some milk.

For dinner:
I got kind of lazy around dinnertime and just heated up some frozen pizzas. I ate a margherita pizza by Kashi, which fooducate (an app on the phone) rated a B-! My fiance ate a pepperoni pizza, of course. I ate a little less than 2/3 of the pizza. They are not big pizzas and 1/3 of the pizza is just 290 calories. I don’t feel bad at all!

I recommend this pizza, it is so yummy!

I am so full today that I didn’t want a treat or dessert! That almost never happens!

It is time for a change

I know that I have been MIA for a while now but my laptop wasn’t working and it took a while to figure out what was wrong with it. For now it is working but I will probably be needing to get a new laptop.

So I have been having a problem and that is fitting into the clothes I already own. I know that I had talked about not following fad diets and not dieting but lately I have been noticing that my clothes are fitting too tight. I don’t like this at all and I am obsessing over it. For a while I tracked my calorie intake and I noticed that I would eat less than 1100 calories a day and then other days I would eat twice that amount. No wonder I don’t lose weight! I put my body into starvation mode so when I eat twice as many calories my body is storing all the extra food! So I decided it is time to change this and I need to do something about it.

I decided to go to Choose My Plate to see what it would say and what it recommends. Obviously I am not eating right and I am definitely eating too little calories. I also noticed I consume too many fat foods even if they are healthy fats, I do believe there is too much of a healthy fat. I do think that 1800 calories is a little high for me because I get really full fast and eat small portions like 6 times a day. So I don’t know how I will eat so many calores! I think that I am going to increase my calorie intake a little a week and I will make sure to do at least 150 minutes of physical activity a week as well. I like what choose my plate says to do and I like that it says how many fats you should have. I think I eat way too many of those and definitely not enough protein or veggies! I will track my meals for a week and see how it goes. I have done my grocery shopping for the week and I am ready to get started.

If you guys could help me out and answer this questions for me. I’d love to know what other “normal” people do!

What do you do to maintain/lose weight?
What are your healthy food staples?

Another Groceries Haul

Yes another groceries haul… but I am kind of obsessed. I love seeing what other people buy and what groceries they choose to buy. (on tumblr, instagram…) It is also inspiring because some of the groceries I have seen are very healthy and delicious!

And so, it was time to buy groceries again since we ate out like 3 days in a row because we didn’t have any groceries. This time I bought groceries for a few days not a whole week. I have found that buying a whole ton of groceries for a week never works out because by the end of the week I forget to eat something and it goes bad. (I am planning on posting some of the meals I ate with the last grocery haul.. if you are interested?!)

For this trip I bought:

mangoes, kiwis, granny smith apples, lemons, bananas (duh! if I don’t have any my toddler goes crazy!), oranges, grapefruits, avocados, mint leaves, cilantro, arugula, green onions, sugarsnap peas, cucumber, ginger, garlic, mushrooms, tofu, bean sprouts, walnuts, pistachios, sesame seeds, sesame oil, golden raisins, yogurt covered raisins, nori seaweed, peanut butter, whole wheat mini bagels, milk and quinoa

Most of the ingredients I bought are for a few recipes I want to try from a really cool website, Green Kitchen Stories. The recipes I am going to try are green sushi salad, moroccan quinoa salad, mango walnut salad, citrus salad, and very green juice. I am very excited to try these out!!! I’ll post pictures of the recipes I succeed at making. 😀

Grocery List for the Week

I wanted to share with you guys my grocery list! Yay! I am so proud of myself because I actually planned out meals and made a list of what I wanted to buy. I still bought other things that were not on the list but for the most part I did stick to the plan. The images I got from myrecipes and health and they are images of some of the food I want to make this week. The images include panzanella, caprese bites, chai tea, and mint tea! I also watched these videos from Leaf TV. For the panzanella video click here, the caprese bites click here, the chai tea click here, and the mint tea click here. I found that channel on accident on youtube and now I am obsessed with their videos!

Doesn’t the list look cute? And the food looks delicious too!

A few items that are not in the list that I ended up getting:

• beer (for the fiance and for valentine’s day)
• a sweet red wine (for me, you must think we are alcoholics!!)
• a cucumber
• avocados (they were on sale!)
• a squash (the calabaza one from Mexico?!)
• kiwis
• balsamic vinaigrette
• turkey ham

A few items that I did not get from the list:

• chocolate bar (opted not to get it)
• cardamom pods (couldn’t find them, does anyone know where I can find them?! please let me know)
• mangoes (they didn’t look very good this time)
• lemons (I forgot them but luckily I still have a few)

So that is my grocery list for this week. We ended up not drinking since 10 o’clock seemed really late. (We are so not in college anymore.) So we plan to drink Saturday evening, lol yes we penciled that in for Saturday but we will see.

Vanilla Rooibos Latte

must get a better picture…

Lately at nights I have been wanting to drink a hot cup of tea, since it is getting a little colder here in Texas. Over the weekend I decided to experiment and make a latte. Instead of a coffee latte, I made a tea latte! What?! A tea latte?!! Isn’t that gross?! <– That is what i am imagining you are saying…

Yes. A tea latte. It is delicious and sweet!

Here is what you will need for a 16 oz latte:
– 2 packets Celestial Seasonings Madagascar Vanilla Rooibos tea (or just any vanilla flavor tea you have, but this one is really delicious alone as well!)
– 16 oz of milk (I used 2% but by all means use whatever you want. For a healthier option, I would go with skim milk or almond to cut out some calories and really make this a healthy drink.)
– 2 tsp of sugar (I used 2 packets of sugar in the raw.)

Instructions:
So you will want to heat up the milk and the sugar in a saucepan. Make sure you don’t boil the milk because it will make a huge mess, you just want the milk to be hot. (I know this because it happened to me.) Then remove the saucepan from heat and add the tea bags. Wait about 4-6 minutes and then remove the tea bags. Finally just give it all a stir and pour that creamy latte into your favorite tea mug and enjoy!

What should I be eating?

Some of the diet, recipe, cooking, food books I have.

Have you ever found yourself obsessing over what you eat? Have you skipped out on certain foods? What about the fad diets, have you done them? I know I have and they have not worked for me. I remember when breakfast was the most important meal of the day for energy and weight loss. All of a sudden I’m hearing that having a big breakfast is not good anymore but to instead drink a green juice/smoothie. Or how about how lean meat was okay but now all meat is bad. And, have you noticed that high fructose corn syrup has been on almost everything? Scary! Wasn’t snacking 2 times a day good and that 5 to 6 meals a day is really great for your metabolism? Yet, now I am reading that eating many small meals a day is bad for you as well. Oh yeah, have you heard of this crazy rumor that fruit should be limited because it has a lot of sugar!! Insane! Craziness! Or just plain Mad!

Is anything even good for you anymore?!

I have done the juicing for a week and I gained the 3 pounds that I lost right back. I was hungry and very nauseous the whole time. I freaked because I seriously thought I was pregnant!! (I’m not btw)

I did the whole no carb thing as well. Bad mistake, since I’m hispanic, we pretty much eat carbs with just about anything and every meal!!! Tortillas, Rice, Pan Dulce (sweet bread), and if no other carb is around we use regular sandwich bread to substitute the tortillas.

I have also eaten really bad ever since becoming a stay-at-home-mom. Its not my little angel’s fault at all!! Its all mine, my fiance and I just got really lazy and just kept buying fast food. When a baby arrives and you don’t have much help around, it gets really hard to be able to prepare meals. Fast food is just more convenient to get than going to the grocery store. Sad but true.

When I was with my parents my mom would always make us eat breakfast! Honestly, when I did eat breakfast I didn’t get hungry until lunch hour came around in school. When I ate breakfast I also did better on tests because I wasn’t stressing out about the room-being-so-quiet-that-if-my-stomach-growled-it-would-be-the-end-of-me. My mom would also have fruit on the kitchen counter and in the refrigerator. So when my sister and I got home from school, we usually snacked on plums or strawberries. For dinner, my mom would always make us have a protein (like grilled chicken, grilled pork chops, or blackened tilapia) and 2 to 3 sides of vegetables plus rice (seriously every dinner had rice or tortillas). Oh and we could not leave the table unless we ate the vegetables. I used to hate her for that but now I appreciate it because I do not mind eating veggies at all. Another thing that I thank my mom for is that she never let us have soda past 9 pm. It didn’t always mean that we could have soda before because well sometimes she never bought any unless she threw a party. My mom would always have juice, iced tea and water in the fridge. Those were always the three options available and most of the time I picked water. My mom would also have chips, popsicles, and cookies around as well. My sister and I ate them too, we just didn’t overeat them. I think that is the problem today and where I have gone wrong. I have tried to completely stop eating those items that when I do eat some of those items, I eat more than I should which then causes guilt.

So I have to ask, did I really grow up eating the wrong things?! Or has the obsession with being size 00 and not eating certain foods really the right way to go?

I am 8 pounds heavier after baby and the fast food consumption that I have taken on. (About 4 of those 8 pounds are due to the fast food.) I realize now that I am not Jessica Biel or Heidi Klum. I also don’t want rock hard abs, I just want to fit into my clothes and look decent. I am a normal girl, living a normal life with a normal fiance who has a baby. I can take as long as I can to take the weight off. I rather do it slowly because all these crazy diets and binge eating is backfiring.

So, I say goodbye diet fads and trends!! I will do what works best for me! So here is the plan… it is really simple actually. Eat fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean protein, and have chips, cookies, or ice cream.

I think it is pretty obvious that fruits and veggies are a must! Whole wheat and whole grain foods are obviously better than white. Protein will keep you full and carbs give you energy. Last but not least, it is okay if eat sweets! Sweets will not be a treat but instead it will be under the category dessert that I will have each day. I feel like I am so traumatized that I am actually going to have a hard time not feeling guilty every time I eat. I am tired of feeling guilty for doing something that comes natural to human beings! EATING!

Grocery Haul from HEB Market

4 jugs of water, granola, baby mum-mums, baby puffs in the apple flavor, baby oatmeal cereal, stonyfield 32 oz vanilla yogurt, yobaby yogurt in the vanilla flavor, sweet potato, green beans, sweet peas, baby spinach, kale, cantaloupe, bananas, pears, apples, strawberries, and chicken.

So here is another post about my grocery shopping trip. This time I went to H-E-B Market; which I believe are only in Texas but I could be wrong. This H-E-B in particular carries organic items and non organic items. Which I absolutely love! I’m hoping I will use up all these groceries and i would like to post all the meals I make. This way I can keep track of what I actually use and what I should quit buying.

On a side note: I will also be including groceries I already have.

Today’s post will be a short one for now.

Pin it Tuesday: Frozen Yogurt Melts

One Good Thing by Jillee

Ok, so here goes another pinterest find I actually made as well. I usually buy Cas Happy Yogis or Gerber Graduates Organic Yogurt Melts and he loves them. So while I was on pinterest one day (like always, actually) I came across an idea to make homemade yogurt melts. I knew I just had to try them for baby Cas and I thought it would also be good to soothe his teething gums. I’m sure everyone has already made them by now but I am way too excited about them! Like, I totally love them!!!

So you first start out with any yogurt you like, I really like the Yoplait yogurt brand (I know greek yogurt is better but I prefer Yoplait), and then you put it inside a ziploc bag.

Then you cut a tiny piece of the corner of the ziploc bag and then you make swirlies (<- not a real word but whatever) onto a baking pan and freeze anything from 40 minutes to an hour.

And enjoy!! I usually put the yogurt melts into little baggies to keep them in the freezer (like the picture below).

I also made some with Stonyfield Yobaby Yogurt in the banana flavor for Cas. Since he usually loves to eat the Happy Yogis in the banana peach flavor. (see below) Anyways these are yummy and I am wanting to experiment more with yogurt melts… I’m thinking maybe making them in a chocolate flavor or making a banana peach mixture for Cas.