Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Puzzle Pieces

One really HUGE piece of the eat right/weight loss puzzle for David and I has been the change in our eating habits. I do so love to eat – as I think I mentioned before! And really I like all kinds of foods… mostly the ones that taste good, so therefore they aren’t good for you, but back to my point – since starting on this path to get healthy and get skinny I’ve changed the types of foods we’re eating for dinner.

When you’re counting calories – which is what we’re doing – it’s hard to “just make a meal” and think it’ll be OK to eat. Because by the end of the day – you really gotta know what you’ve eaten during the day so you know how much you can have at dinner. So in order to help me in this pursuit of cooking better food I set out to find recipes that had the nutritional information available for me (that simply made my life easier!). I have found 2 magazines that have been life savers for us. One of them is called Healthy Cooking – it’s published by Taste of Home. I made a LOT of the recipes out of it and I’d say 98% of them are things we liked enough to eat again! The other one is a Weight Watchers magazine and there are TONS of things in there that I’ve marked for us to try! I tried to get links for the recipes, but they wouldn’t let me. Both of the above mentioned have web sites! Taste of Home and Weight Watchers

Don’t get me wrong – there are lots of things we ate before that were on the healthy side, but I have no idea about the calorie count or anything like that. I also know – but haven’t used yet – that there are many web sites out there that can help you figure that stuff out!

So how do I do a weekly plan? Usually I sit down on Sunday afternoon and go thru these wonderful publications and pick what I want to make each night! I try to take into account any nights David won’t be here – as well as Thursday night which is usually designated as a “leftovers night” since I have Bible study that night!

We eat a variety of stuff for breakfast – usually something protable and fast, and David usually eats the same thing – a banana – unless it’s the weekend and I make eggs for breakfast! Then lunch is usually a turkey sandwich or a chef type salad for me!

Here is this week’s dinner menu:

Monday night: Thai Chicken Pasta (which was OK, but not one I’d rush to make again!)

Tuesday night: Individual garlic meat loaves with Chive mashed potatoes (these are WW recipes – which were totally YUMM-O!)

Wednesday night: Chicken and Edamame stir fry (from WW)

Thursday night: leftovers or sandwiches

Friday night: Corn, chicken and cheddar soup (WW)

Saturday night: homemade pizzas

Sunday night – omelets

So that’s a basic week here at the Winslow house. There is no rule that says we have to eat these meals in a certain order or that they need to be made on the day I originally listed them. One day I would like to get really good at the whole meal planning thing and be able to cook most of the stuff I need for the whole week at once. But I’m not there yet… one step at a time!

4 comments:

Christy Edwards said...

Girl, I am right there with you! Losing weight and getting healthy/fit is not easy, but we can do it! Have you checked out http://www.sparkpeople.com? It's free and is an amazing resource for people like us. Hope you like it! :o)

Christy

Luke, Avery, Monroe's Nanny said...

You go girl!!!

Holly said...

Christy - thanks for reading and posting!! I have heard of sparkpeople, haven't used it yet, but have heard many good things about it!! Thanks for the heads up!

Thanks Mom!

Amy said...

I will have to check out these recipes. While I am enjoying fitting into some prematurnity clothes this eating healthy is hard! My luck Robert will be ready to have another kid and then we get to start all over! (Which by the way I would be ok with!!!)