Good Eats

Things I've been loving to eat lately!

• Chobani yogurt (usually blackberry or mango on the bottom) with macerated frozen fruit (usually strawberries). I do two tsps of sugar on the strawberries, adds a nice sweetness without too much damage. This combo makes me almost feel like I am eating ice cream. Truth be told, I'm not sure that it is any better for me than regular ice cream – at least the Perry's brand I like to eat is generally not bad, calorie-wise, anyway – probably the same cals and sugar level. BUT eating a container of yogurt and fresh fruit doesn't trigger me into wanting more and more like eating a bowl of ice cream does, so there's that. I feel like I have hacked my way around the sweets thing, at least for now.

• Chocolate cereal with almond milk. My two faves are Chocolate Cheerios and Chocolate Chex. Again, sweet things I can eat without triggering the crazy. Not bad at all on the cals, either!

• Homemade nachos. While I can go a little crazy on these (like, I should make a pizza pan's worth instead of a big sheet pan's worth, duh), it is still pretty easy for me to fit this in for an easy dinner if I watch the quantity and what I put on top. My go-to combo has been: Santitas tortilla chips, a can of Goya pink beans mashed into refried-ness (I add spices and a tiny bit of honey), pickled jalapeno peppers, sliced black olives, pepper jack cheese, sour cream, and salsa. It is delicious and filling.

• Overnight oats. My favorite recipe is this one from the Minimalist Baker, though, to be fair, I haven't yet tried another one because I like it so much. It makes for a big breakfast, calorie-wise, so I have started to save this for once a week or so, but it is massively delicious and very filling. I love the consistency and coolness of overnight oats – much preferred over hot morning oats. Yum yum yum. Oh, and here are a bunch of great-sounding recipes to try, too! Looks like I'll be mixing it up in the coming months.

• Brown bag lunches. I am finally getting the hang of it again! I'm using my little soft-pac Igloo cooler lunch bag and have been making more and more fabulous sandwiches. I tend toward the simple, but using delicious, fresh ingredients, you don't have to be fancy. My latest jam uses Wegman's new 27-grains and seeds bread (genius! Comes in half loaves, too!) spread with a little bit of mayo and lots of dijon mustard, and slices of deli ham off the bone, swiss cheese, and fresh tomato from our garden. Oh, and salt and pepper. YUM. I've also been eating cucumbers (though today's is the last one, alas!) and some bell peppers from our garden. Harvest time is the best. I will miss all the freshness.

Of course another bonus about brown bagging it is the cost savings. I can easily spend $10 or more each day on getting lunch out during the week (three times, I was averaging!), which in retrospect seems crazytown when I can spend, say, less than $20 or so and feed myself lunches for the whole week!

Wegmans bread: $3.00
Swiss cheese: $3.50
Lunch meat: $6.50
Condiments: pennies, since I always have them in the house
Veggie/fruit sides: free from the garden, or max $5.00 a week from the store

Total: $18.00 per week!

Man. I thought I was already convinced, but I never did the math. I am totally sold on brown bag lunching now. Maybe I will try to limit myself to going out to lunch once every couple weeks or so, instead of every other day like I was doing there for a while.

So anyway. It's nice really nice to get into an eating groove because it takes the guesswork and stress out of figuring out what the heck I am going to eat all day. Since Monday especially, I have pretty much been set on the day's menu from the get go, and that makes things so much easier to manage – it frees my mind from food all the time. That is half my battle!

The scale hasn't shown any change – still at 295.8 since I last reported to you on Tuesday. I'm OK with that, though a little surprised since my eating has been pretty awesome, and I've been stepping up the exercise as well. But, I know these things take time and I am more than happy to be patient. I like how I've been feeling this week and I want to keep building on my good habits! The number on the scale is not the whole story, after all.