Striving For Healthy

I want to take a break from weddings for a second and talk about my second favorite subject: food. Seriously, I love food. While I was in college we must have gone out to eat at least 4 times a week. So of course the “freshman 15” followed me. When I left college and started my first job, that’s when things started to turn around, weight wise. I was making all my meals and going for regular walks. Eventually I cut out a lot of the fattening meals, focused on the healthy ones and “amped” up the physical activity and I lost all the college weight.

So since many women try to lose weight before the wedding, I thought I’d help y’all out with a little recipe swapping.

So many people deprive themselves of things they like to eat when they want to lose weight. It almost never works especially when you find pictures like this everywhere:

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(Thanks Pinterest) And you cannot tell me you don’t salivate a little when you see that? Two of the best comfort foods in ONE sandwich? Who doesn’t love a good burger with Mac n Cheese?

I really wanted that burger, but I would have to somehow make it healthy…CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Instead of beef I chose to make a delicious eggplant burger. (Mine are not pictured, this is the gorgeous picture from the blog that holds the recipe)

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It has eggplant, humus, cannellini beans, onion and so much other good-for-you stuff all ground up into one burger. I love veggie burgers, but you have to be in a cooking mood to make them. They have a lot of ingredients to them and can be a little complicated to make.

For the macaroni and cheese part I picked up gluten-free rice macaroni. And, since I was already in the organic section, I also picked up some organic cheddar cheese. It looks like it turned out alright.

And, as a side dish, I went with baked sweet potato tater-tots. Here is how the pretty Pinterest picture looked:

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And here’s how ours came out:

Now besides the fact that we didn’t put the, in a fancy basket, I think they turned out well.

So how did I do? I am basing this around the calorie count of a Macaroni and Cheese burger from the Cheesecake Factory.

A Macaroni and Cheese burger from the Cheesecake Factory: 1,150 calories

My Eggplant Mac n Cheese Burger (Including the bun and the inevitable tomato & lettuce you’d put on it): Right around 580 calories, just about half of the cheesecake factory burger.

The tots are about 40 calories per tot, making 4 tots around 160 calories.

So the whole meal is fewer calories than one Cheesecake Factory Macaroni and Cheese burger. Is it the healthiest meal in the world? Absolutely not. I’m sure I’d be better served with a good salad. But sometimes we have to splurge, but the splurge doesn’t have to be a real leap. You don’t have to eat everything on the dollar menu and wash it down with a gallon of ice cream. A big part of losing weight is learning to eat smart. Being able to have the foods you want, just by substituting ingredients. In that way you don’t have to deprive yourself, but you don’t have to do the diet backstroke either!

I love a good challenge so if you have a recipe you’d like to see me “make healthy” send it my way! I just may feature it here on the blog!

Wedding Weight…Truths!

Every bride I have ever talked to has ALWAYS seemed to have the number she would like to be when she gets married. Some brides even go so far as to order their dresses a size or two smaller, hoping to lose the weight. SUCH a bad idea by the way, because god forbid you don’t lose it…they can always take a dress in but they can never add fabric on. So many brides try tons of different diets and plans to lose the weight. Well ladies, I am about to reveal THE SECRET to dropping all that poundage for you wedding. This is a highly guarded secret that Jenny, Nutrisystem, and others do not want you to hear about, and I am about to let it loose…ready…

EAT RIGHT AND EXERCISE!

Best kept secret anywhere I promise! Open a myriad of bridal magazines and you are sure to find one of those, “Lose 10 pounds in 30 days!” We are bombarded daily with the quick fix, and you know what, I’m sorry, but there really isn’t one. You can lose weight quickly by doing some of the crash diets but once you stop buying into “the plan” you gain all the weight back. In order to lose the weight, it is important that you change your whole life upside down. Quick fixes don’t do it, and are often unhealthy. The long way requires sacrifice, but I am living proof that you can lose it and keep it off. Here’s what worked for me.

Who gained the Freshman 15 (or 20 or 30) in college? This kid did, I got a nice spare tire right around my midsection. I was by no means fat (fortunately I have always been a rather small person thanks to my mother’s genes), but I gained a good deal of weight during college. Who could blame us though? The cafeteria food was horrid, and when we weren’t eating there, we were eating out. So when I left college, I really wanted to make a change. I did end up moving back home for a few months, so my lifestyle change began there.

The first thing I did was achieve poverty. Seriously. I had no job right out of college, so I had no income. My parents were nice enough to give me a place to sleep and food to eat, but everything else was on a (very) limited budget. So the first tip to weight loss is: be poor, well, at least when it comes to eating out. Because I had no cash to spare, I stopped eating out. When you go out to eat, you are consuming THOUSANDS of calories more than you should for just one day! If you can’t stop eating out entirely (my fiance and I like to go out for date night) go out only once a month. This is something you need to hold fast to. Eating out pretty much kills any hope of losing weight and keeping it off. Stopping eating out includes no trips to Taco Bell, Mac Donalds or any of the other death trap eateries, no cheating! You’ll save money too!

The second tip I think is crucial to weight loss. Cook for yourself. Go to the super market and actually pick up the ingredients to make your meals, and make it all from scratch. You can now see what goes into your food. Is it mostly pasta? Cut back, or sub in rice. Is it a lot of red meat? Try chicken, turkey or fish instead! Dump a lot of dressing on that salad? Quit it! Instead put a little oil and vinegar on your salad. This is probably the hardest for people to accomplish. I am the biggest offender of, “If it’s in my house and I can snack on it, I will.” The best way to quit eating all the unhealthy foods you’ve grown accustomed to, is to just not buy them! Only eat the food you prepare, don’t buy extras. Why spend the money for extra snacks? Instead, take the money you usually spend on snack food and put all that money into saving for the wedding! Trust me, if you know what goes into your food, instead of just de-frosting it, as well as not buying those “extras” you will make healthier choices, and be wealthier to boot!

So eventually I did move away from home to a new job. With my work hours, I did start really cooking for myself and making all sorts of different foods. I also started exercising. For this, I blame the dog.

This is Charlie! My little boxer/hound mix!

My parents got me an adorable puppy as a graduation present, and he couldn’t be more energetic if he tried. He needed to be taken for walks just to be relatively calm throughout the day. So tip number three, do about an hour or so of non-strenuous exercise everyday. For me, I had the puppy who was relying on me to exercise him everyday, his exercise was my exercise. I lost the weight because I started small and walked it off. I didn’t run or do any strenuous activity. At the time I HATED running and you couldn’t convince me to do it at all, but walking, especially with Charlie, was fun and easy to do.

So let’s recap. I started cooking for myself. I stopped eating out, and I did a non strenuous exercise for about an hour a day. After about 6 months I had lost all the weight and then some! It takes time, and depending on the weight you need to lose, lots of time. Of course you can speed the process up by being more strict about your eating or exercising habits. You can count calories, I have an app called My Fitness Pal which helped me count calories for a time, to make sure I wasn’t eating more calories than I needed. It was also a good reality check to show what I was eating as it gives a nutrition breakdown as well as a caloric breakdown. You can also intensify your exercise. You can jog or run for a little bit, and then walk. The more you put in and commit, the better your results will be.

But I want to give you hope, if you do the bare minimum of not eating out, cooking for yourself, and walking for an hour a day you will still lose weight! The best part about it is, if you can do these three things, and keep it up, you will continue to lose (at a slow pace) the weight and then keep it off! It is all about a lifestyle change. I now work out five days a week either running, walking or with the Xbox Kinect, I love to cook for myself and my fiance (as well as bake!), and I never go out to eat except for date night once a month, and even then I either get a small portion or pick a healthier restaurant. I’m really proud of how I’ve built a healthier AND wedding ready me! I want you all to try it too!

Here are some recipes (of course from Pinterest) that I’ve tried and love!

This veggie burger is one of my favorites! LOTS of good ingredients including Sweet Potato!

Guacamole Grilled Cheese! It is so tasty, and guacamole is extremely good for you if make from scratch! Serve with sweet potato fries for a healthier pub-style dinner!

This Cobb Salad was so filling and delicious! We made it with all fresh ingredients and very minimal dressing.

If you like french fries, try homemade sweet potato fries! They are still delicious and a whole lot healthier!