Salad Boost

Add a boost to your salad by adding kale.  I tried spinach for a while but just couldn't take the taste anymore.  After my foray with spinach I went back to romaine, but last night I tried adding kale to my daily salad.  It wasn't fabulous, but didn't taste too bad.  I also got this great salad spinner from Tupperware (I have a great sales lady if you would like one!) and used that to make sure my kale and romaine were dry and would stay fresh.  For dressing, I use 1 tsp of olive oil, a few dashes of red wine vinegar, and a good dose of pepper and sea salt.  Yum!

"Fried" Chicken

I found a new recipe on the Biggest Loser website and tried it out tonight.  It turned out really well and was delicious!  Even my husband was scarfing it down.  It was spicy and tasted like a mix of friend chicken and shake-n-bake chicken.

I'm only posting a link to the recipe because I'm not sure about copyright laws.  I cut the topping recipe in half, used turkey instead of chicken, used Japanese panko crumbs instead of wheat crumbs (only because I couldn't find them), and added garlic powder to the seasoning mix.  The total calorie count was 1109, split between 8 servings.  My servings weren't equal (ranging between 2 oz. to 6 oz.) but each serving is approximately 138 calories.  Not bad, after my slight heart attack at the total count! 

Sorry about the lack of photos.  I forgot to take a picture of the finished product again!

Hint of the Day

Hint of the Day: Try not to eat after 8pm.  Food eaten too late at night will sit heavy in your stomach and won't digest as well.  You'll actually be hungry in the morning and be able to eat a healthy breakfast if you get all your eating done before 8pm.

Recipe tool

I found this tool that will help you calculate how many calories are in a recipe.  Try it out and let me know how it works!  Currently I'm working on finding recipes online (aka the Biggest Loser website) so I haven't used it, but I'm interested in seeing if it really calculates for you!

http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php

Grilled Chicken with Mango Salsa

As I'm writing this I'm watching Biggest Loser and wishing I'd remembered to take pictures of the dinner I made.  I tried a new recipe tonight but was so hungry after a long day of work and exercise that I scarfed it as son as it was done. (update: I made this again this weekend and took pictures!)

Skinless/boneless chicken breast
1 mango
1/2 small onion
jalepeno
small tomato
1/2 lime

Sprinkle seasoning of your choice on the chicken and grill.  I used Mrs. Dash garlic & herb seasoning and used the Foreman grill, since it's not quite warm enough to grill outside yet.  Grill until no longer pink in the middle.

Dice all the fruit and veggies and mix together in a small bowl.  Squeeze the lime over the mixture to add some extra taste.

You can spread the salsa together on top of the chicken, eat on the side, or if you're bad like me (or saved your calories) you can eat it with taco chips.  If you skip the chips and use only 2oz of chicken and 1/3 of the salsa, the calorie count is only 147 calories!!  Chips add 140 extra calories.  Enjoy!!

Hint of the Day

Hint of the Day: Archer Farms organic fruit strips make fantastic mid-afternoon snacks.  They're only 45 calories, super healthy, and all natural!

Hard Fall

So the reason I started this blog was to keep myself accountable to my diet.  It's really easy to cheat and decide that "today just doesn't matter because I'm really stressed" when no one knows that you're on a diet (except your husband, who can't yell at your eating if you're chowing down at work).  So I told myself that if I committed to being brutally honest and posting it on here that I'd hopefully stay on track. 

Then came last weekend.  I fell off the wagon.  Hard.  I have to say though that it didn't start off my fault.  Last week I was saving calories all week for Dawn's bachelorette party on Saturday.  Her sister was making all kinds of yummy treats so I really wanted to be able to eat those.  Friday caught me by surprise though.  Someone brought puppy dog tails for breakfast, which for those of you who aren't from Minneapolis are delicious cinnamon roll twists that come with an entire cup of home made frosting.  So I had one, knowing that I had my super healthy soup for lunch.  Then at team breakfast I was told that the team was going comp shopping (they'd forgotten to invite me earlier), so we ate at Chipotle on the way.  I only had one taco, but topped it off with chips and guac.  After suffering the rest of the day I was fairly good for dinner, but then I picked up a big bag of PB M&M's for dessert.  FAIL!  To give myself credit, I did measure out only 2 servings though instead of eating the entire bag by myself.  (Note: the bag says 7 servings but I really did measure and there were probably only 4 total, since the bag was almost empty after I took 2 out) 

Saturday was fabulous and I had a good breakfast and lunch. All except for the ton of butter I loaded on my yummy roll from the Diner.  I hadn't had butter in two weeks and I.Love.Butter.  It was nice to have lunch with Ashley and Elliott and to hear that Elliott had struggled over the winter and was cutting back too.  I think I'll have to get some tips from him because he's lost 40lbs over the past few years.  Dinner was another story.  Chicken fingers, fries, puppy chow (not too much, to give me credit), and a scotcharoo.  ugh!  I wanted to die on Sunday after gorging, which tells you how far I've come.  Looking back I could have downed all that without a blink and eating more sweets no sweat! 

Anyways, I've tried really hard today to get back on track and even took the time to make dinner at 8pm tonight after working late AND forcing myself to still work out.  So I have hope that I can salvage this diet and truly make it a life change.  Stay posted!

Hint of the Day

Hint of the Day: I'm a life long addict to Cheerios, but I've recently switched to Multi-Grain Cheerios.  They have a nice light crunch and provide a serving of whole grains for less calories than regular Cheerios. Try it out if you like Cheerios too, or if you just need some extra grains in your life.

Hint of the day

Hint for the day: try to eat at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies each day.  They fill you up so you'll eat less junk.  I like to start the day with V8 fruit juice - so many delicious flavor combination's, plus you get a serving each of fruits and veggies!

Tasty Soup

I found a packet of dried onion soup mix in my cupboard on Sunday and set it aside to make one of the recipes on the back of the box.  Silly me, though, recycled the box that night without realizing that the recipes on the packet were different than the ones on the box.  So late last night I tried to come up with a creative and hearty recipe on my own for tonight.  It was a yummy soup that was perfect for the crappy day we had today (near freezing with cold rain, with the promise of snow).  Try it out!

**disclaimer** I am looking only at calories on this "diet".  I'm pretty sure there's a load of sodium in this recipe, so if you're watching your sodium or anything else, this probably isn't the recipe for you.

Chicken/Onion Soup:
1 chicken breast - 2oz - 47 cals per oz.
1 packet dry onion soup mix with 4 C water - 20 cal
1 packet chicken buillion - 10 cal
2 carrots - 2 cal
basil, 5 leaves - 1 cal
2 oz Orzo pasta - 200 cal

Take your crock pot and put the first 3 ingredients in on low heat.  Chop the carrots into small pieces and add.  Shred the basil and add, stirring the whole mixture.  I cooked this on low for 7.5 hours while we were at work.  When I  got home I added the Orzo and cooked for another 20 or so minutes.  Serve and enjoy this savory dish!

Total Calories: 250 total calories split between 2-4 servings, depending on size of serving!!

Tiny Victory

I had two tiny victories today.  First, today was the 2nd day in a row that I met my calorie goal!  This is huge for me, because I love to snack.  It's been excruciating not snacking all day at work, because Target  revolves around eating.  No joke, I squarely plant at least 10 of these extra pounds at the feet of the people who bring in treats every day, those who make waffles for Friday morning breakfast (even though they're delicious) and the candy aisle in the store that's conveniently down the block.  Let's hope I can keep this rolling.  My next baby step is to swap out some of my junkie snacks (aka the ranch wheat thins - 140 cals and mini PB cups - 44 cals) with healthier options.  Second, I have so far avoided Easter candy (for the most part).  Today one of my friends, who is very familiar with my sweet tooth having sat next to me for a year, joked about the  bad timing of my diet in regards to PB Easter eggs being in stores currently.  This whole time I've successfully blocked the image of these from my head!  I LOVE PB M&M's, but especially love the M&M eggs.  I'm really struggling now that the idea has been planted, but I think it will be a huge success if I can make it past this season without eating any.  Take note, Judy!

Tip for the day: Seasoning has zero calories and adds a kick of flavor to boring food.  I like Mrs. Dash seasoning to spice up my chicken.  You can also use real veggies such as peppers, onion, or garlic and get some veggie points for the day too! 

Healthy and Delicious

Here is a post from my Tiemeier family blog back in January.  This is about the time I started thinking seriously about eating better.  This recipe is super easy to make and is delicious!  I've started eating the salad every day for lunch and we eat the entire meal at least once every other week.  Enjoy!

I found this recipe in People while at the gym yesterday.  Target has signed us up for the Biggest Loser at Work challenge, and while I'd love to lose 10 lbs I joined just to try and eat healthier.  This recipe is healthy (and yummy we decided!).  Super easy and fast too.

1 12 oz. boneless sirloin steak
2 1/2 T EVOO
1 clove garlic
1 tsp salt (I used sea salt, freshly ground)
1 tsp pepper
4 C arugula (I used hearts of Romain)
1/4 C thickly shaved Parmesan and/or Asiago (I used both - 2 slices each)
balsamic vinegar to taste (I used red wine vinegar)

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. heat 2 T of olive oil and garlic in a cast iron skillet over med.high heat
3. coat the meat with olive oil and season both sides with salt and pepper.
4. sear meat in hot skillet, 3 min each side.  move as little as possible.  (check meat at this point.  I only did 2 minutes a side because our meat cut was thinner)
5. using an oven mitt, transfer meat in skillet to the oven and cook until medium rare, no more than 3 minutes.
6. remove meat from oven and let rest 3-4 minutes. cut against the grain into 1/2 inch thick pieces
7. divide arugula (or romain) among 4 plates and top each with 4-5 slices of meat
8. top each plate with 2-3 cheese shavings and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (or red whine vinegar) to taste. (I also used sea salt and pepper for the salad dressing - amazing!)

I served this with White Merlot from Beringer and it was a fantastic and healthy dinner.  Calorie count: approximately 382 calories!

Strawberry Delight

Here's a healthy dessert or snack that will give you a taste of sugar along with a dose of fruit.  Slice 3oz of strawberries and top with 1tsp of powdered sugar.  Eat and enjoy!  This snack is a mere 37 calories!

Inaugural Post

For lent I decided to crack down on myself and really start fixing my diet.  I LOVE chocolate, particularly peanut butter M&M's and puppy chow.  Work was really stressful last summer and that started my downhill slide into terrible eating, much more worse than I ever have in the past. Around New Year's I realized that my pants didn't really fit that well anymore.  And it got worse!  Picture me, in the middle of January in the frozen tundra that is Minnesota, standing on the train platform in a dress because I didn't fit into any of my pants comfortably.  It was a very cold winter and I'm lucky my legs didn't freeze off. 

I was a dancer growing up and haven't ever had issues with my weight, so I finally decided it was time to break my M&M habit.  I started a food journal, realized HOW many calories I was eating a day (I'll share that later...it's too depressing to see right now) and figured out how many I SHOULD be eating.  I also decided that the pretty pink food scale I purchased 6 months should probably be used rather than just be a decoration in my kitchen.  So for the past week I've been eating healthier, keeping immaculate track of my calories, and trying to work out more.  I'm not perfect and have gone over calories every day this week, but it definitely would be worse if I ate what I normally ate.  I look forward to your company during my journey!

Healthy Recipe

Last week, Biggest Loser had a cooking competition to make healthy and tasty meals in just 30 min.  One of the meals sounded delicious so I looked up the recipe online afterwards.  Tonight we (I) attempted our own version of the meal.  It actually turned out pretty well so I thought I'd share the recipe.  Biggest Losers version was 330 calories (you can find theirs on their website).  My version is under 300, depending on how much cheese you use.

Ground turkey
red pepper
cilantro
lime juice
onion
chili pepper seasoning
season salt
white pepper seasoning
tortillas

Cook the turkey in the pan with diced onion until cooked through.  Drain.  I set aside about 1/2 for a meal later in the week since there are only two of us.  You can use the whole pound though if you're cooking for a bigger group.

Add finely diced red pepper and chopped cilantro.  Add about 1/4C water and season to taste with chili pepper, white pepper, and season salt.  I used a bit more season salt to balance the taste.  Add about 1-2T of lime juice.

While the seasonings are cooking into the meat, toast a tortilla in a separate pan.  Do not use any oil or anything.  When fully toasted, cut into quarters.  Top with the cooked meat and add some shredded cheese with a very light hand.  Enjoy!