Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Turkey Chili Recipe

Turkey Chili
1 cup = 200 calories

Ingredients:
1 lb 97% lean ground turkey (you can use 97% lean ground beef instead)
1 can diced tomatos
1 can Ranch Style beans
1 can tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
1 package of chili seasoning
Rice

Next time I'm going to leave out the Northern Beans. Not my favorite bean and the chili was a little too bean heavy.

 Make SURE you use 97/3 turkey or ground beef. If you use anything less you might as well eat a cheeseburger (I'm being a bit dramatic, but don't short yourself on lean protein).

Brown the turkey. It will turn white as you cook it, that's normal. Add a chopped onion at this point if you like onion.
 Add all the other ingredients to a big pot and cook on medium until it boils. Turn down the heat and simmer until dinner time. Cook the rice separately.

Layer a little rice, one cup of chili (use a measuring cup), a little cheese and crackers if you can afford the extra calories.
This is super yummy! Add your favorite hot sauce if you like a little heat!

Tuesday's Food 2.28.2012

Egg white breakfast sandwich, you can find out how to make it here.

I couldn't find an accurate description of my breakfast sandwich, but this one from Starbucks has about the same calories as mine so I used it.

Leftover turkey chili from the night before. I did add some cheddar cheese and saltine crackers. The cheese I used (1/4 cup) had half the calories of the entire bowl of chili. Not sure it was worth it!
I had a sweet potato at 3:00pm. I will bake 2 or 3 sweet potatoes at a time and keep them in the fridge for lunch or snack. I just microwave them and use one sweet-n-low. Being prepared is half the battle of eating right!

 For dinner we had steak stroganoff.  It is simply amazing and my husband's favorite meal. Anytime we have steak (like we did on Sunday night) he will grill one extra and I use it in the next couple days to make this steak stroganoff.  I ate before him and forgot to take a picture of my bowl, so this is his. I didn't eat quite as much as him. :) It is NOT low-calorie, so you must use self control with your portions. One portion size = a deck of cards. So noodles = deck of cards, stroganoff = deck of cards. That being said, click HERE for the recipe.
I went to Target and treated myself to a small sugar-free vanilla skinny latte. It was worth the 102 calories!

I had a baby that wanted to be held while I needed to cook dinner, so I cooked dinner like this!


Monday's Food 2.27.2012


Breakfast was real oatmeal (I cooked it on the stove) with one sweet-n-low, 2 slices of 100% whole wheat toast with 1tbsp of almond butter on each piece. 


Lunch was a tuna wrap with leftover salad and almonds. 


I didn't eat all my lunch, so I edited the food entry by deleting the greek yogurt, pita chips and carrots. Remember, you do not have to eat everything on your plate!

 Homemade turkey chili - VERY low calorie! I was only able to take about 4 bites because my baby started crying and then I had to runout the door to teach bootcamp. 
Because I didn't get to eat dinner I took a protein bar with me which  I ate in between workout classes. Try to keep a meal substitute like this protein bar in your purse or desk at work because sometimes you are just do not have the time to eat right. Better a protein bar than a Big Mac!

This is my favorite protein bar because it tastes yummy,  has 17g of protein and only 1g of sugar. You really have to check the sugar on so-called protein bars. Some have more sugar than a milk shake!
I had one protein bar at 2:30pm and another at 7:30pm.
You can find these at Wal-Mart and Kroger in the diet food section.



Monday, February 27, 2012

Sunday's Food 2/26/2012

I've screen printed my calorie logs so that you can see how I inputted all my food. I might have forgotten to take pictures at breakfast and dinner so I found internet images identical to what I ate. First day mistake!


Breakfast was a 1/2 cup dry (cooked on the stove) of plain oatmeal with one Sweet-n-Low mixed in and an EAS protein drink. Total 260 calories. I usually like to get at least 300 calories for breakfast, but this works since I got a lot of protein from the EAS drink.





Lunch was a salmon filet, medium sweet potato and a handful of baby carrots. There is a lot of orange on this plate! I buy the frozen Atlantic salmon at Wal-Mart. I simply put a little Cavendar's seasoning and bake at 375 for 10 minutes. I had baked the sweet potato the night before. I put one packet of Sweet-n-Low on the potato. And that large sonic drink is water! Not the cherry vanilla diet coke I wanted to order. :)


For a mid afternoon snack I had a small bowl of Kashi Heart cereal. This is really the only Kashi cereal that I like.





Dinner was a small caesar salad, a 6 oz filet mignon (no bacon) and half of a twice baked potato. This meal is a perfect example of eating what I wanted (or in this case what all the boys at my house wanted for dinner) and using portion control. Remember one portion of any food is the size of a deck of cards.





Shad had two of his uncles over for dinner.


Of course they are already teasing him.



~Marietta


***Please excuse any typos as this blog was posted using BlogPress from my iPhone.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Food Diary Challenge

The most effective way to lose weight is to exercise to burn calories and to eat right by cutting down on calories.

Exercising is the easy part for me... Eating right? Not so much. To truly track your caloric intake you should keep a record of what you are putting in you mouth. The app "My Fitness Pal" is probably the easiest method because it computes the calories for you and you always have your phone with you.

I just had a baby 3 weeks ago and have not cared a bit what I was putting in my mouth. I was way too concerned about my new baby's needs.

However, starting tomorrow I will commit to one week of taking pictures of each meal and sharing that day with you on the following day. So tomorrow (Monday) I will share today's (Sunday) meals. My one disclaimer: My total calories will be a little more than yours (about 2,000) since I am feeding another human. But I will post the calories of each meal so you can see how much REAL food you can eat. (Fake food being processed junk.)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Friday, February 24, 2012

Quick Weekend Workout


This workout follows our bootcamp format of cardio to get your heart rate up (to burn fat!) and then strength training to tone up.


50 PLANK JUMPS
50 SQUATS
50 BURPEES
50 PUSH UPS
Rest for 1 minute

Repeat the same workout for the below repetitions:
40 times & rest for 1 minute
30 times & rest for 1 minute
 20 times & rest for 1 minute
 10 times & stretch! 


Below are descriptions of the exercises. 

PLANK JUMPS

SQUATS


BURPEES

PUSH UPS





Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Menu Monday: Breakfast Sandwich

My go to post-workout (morning) meal is an egg-white breakfast sandwich. You should always eat lean protein after bootcamp or any hard workout. So here is a yummy and QUICK solution that is packed with protein and whole grains, so it will fill you up! Also, you can make this sandwich, wrap it in tin foil and eat it on your way to work. This way you won't drive thru McDonald's or Chick-fil-a... right?!?! :)

My sandwich always has:
Two pieces of bread, toasted
Egg whites
1 piece of cheese
Tony Chachere's seasoning
Lite Mayo

Sometimes I add whatever else I might have on hand... tomato, onion, spinach, turkey bacon, sandwich meat - ham or turkey, etc.

Easiest way to make this sandwich pour 1/2 cup of egg whites into a cereal size bowl, add a shake or two of Tony Chachere's and microwave until done. Take the egg white mixture and put onto toast in one piece. Add mayo and cheese (my favorite is a sharp provolone).

I always use either Ezekiel Bread (available at Kroger in the organic freezer section) or Sara Lee 100% whole wheat bread with no high fructose corn syrup... it's crazy that you have to check your bread for this horrible stuff!



I almost always use these egg whites because they are so quick and easy.