Today's Wish List and Purchase

I signed up for ShoeDazzle today and made my first purchase! A stylist sends you things that she/he thinks you would like. If you chose to purchase that pair of shoes, handbag, or piece of jewelry, you buy it that month. If you chose not to buy it, you skip that month. You only pay for it monthly if you actually want to buy something. The shoes cost $39.95 each month and you can pick from different shoes that they think you would like based off of the questions that you answered. This is the first month of me actually buying something. We will see how next month goes!

Now the wish list:

Dresses I like: Coral Striped dress and Ruffle Dress.

Shoes from Piperlime
Tory Burch Reva Ballet Flat

1. Blue and White Dress

2. Gray Dress

3. Orange Linen dress

5. Colorful dress

Recipes for dinner

New recipes that sound delish and low cal:

Grilled Salmon with Corn Relish- I will definitely be having this this week! It sounds soo good!

I LOVE tortilla soup! Just get low fat cheese and sour cream and it will be pretty healthy. I like to add black beans also for more protein. Avocados are very high in fat, but in monounsaturated -- the "good" kind that actually lowers cholesterol levels. I don't suggest loading up on them, but it is definitely good to include these kinds of fats in your diet and will actually help to lose weight.

Chicken tacos sound great! The flank steak looks really good too. It would be great served on top of a spinach salad.

Resources for low cal meals:

1. http://www.myrecipes.com/healthy-diet/calorie-counts/

2. http://www.cookinglight.com/

3. http://www.eatingwell.com/healthy_cooking/healthy_cooking_101_basics_and_techniques

Day 2 of counting calories

I have been keeping track of my calorie intake on my iphone. I use an app called MyFitnessPal and it has a lot of foods already in its directory. I just search for the food and add it to my breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack. You can also add exercise. I am enjoying it so far. It is actually kinda fun to see how many calories I have left at the end of the day.

Breakfast

Lunch

For a snack around 3:30, I had a piece of Light String Cheese (60 calories).

For dinner, I had the red snapper that we were supposed to eat last night. The fish was still frozen so we saved it for tonight. Last night, we ended up eating baked potatoes with broccoli and a small spinach salad. You can read about healthy baked potatoes here.

I also started the Couch to 5K tonight. There is also a nice app for that. It tells you when to walk and when to jog. It's pretty easy to follow. I started the couch to 5k program about 2 years ago. It is a 9 week program. I finished week 4 and then went out of town for 3 weeks due to a trip to Cancun and my best friend's wedding festivities. Unfortunately, I never picked it back up. I am NOT a runner at all and found this program to be very manageable as long as I did it about 4 times per week.

Since I ran, that deducted calories from my total sum. According to my calorie counter, I still need to eat 381 calories to hit the 1200 mark, but I feel like I ate a lot today. I am not hungry either. It is also 9:00 and I am trying to not eat after 8:00. I know that eating late is a big NO NO!

Hopefully I will get some posts up this week that are more about my life and not about what I am eating!

Day 1 of counting calories

For lunch I had the weight watchers pizza minis. The box comes with 2 trays- each with 4 mini pizzas. It was good. I also had a cup of cantaloupe, which I hear is really good for your skin so I am going to try to eat a lot of cantaloupe.

1 cup of cantaloupe= 60 calories

mini pizzas= 280 calories

The plan for dinner is some red fish with broccoli and rice.

Recipe:

4 6 oz. fillets of red fish

1 cup of diced onions

3 garlic cloves

1 TBLSP of basil

1 TBLSP of oregano

1 TBLSP of thyme

3 TBLSP of olive oil

1 TBLSP of red pepper

1 TBLSP of black pepper

1/2 cup of low sodium chicken broth

Saute onions and garlic, add herbs. Simmer for 10 minutes or so. Coat pan with olive oil or can you use Pam. Brush fish with olive oil or can spray fish too. Sprinkle red pepper and black pepper on fish. Put fish in pan. Pour sauted veggies on top. Pour chicken broth on top. Bake for 20 minutes on 475 degrees.

Serve fish over 1/2 cup of rice with a cup of broccoli.

Fish- 334 calories

1/2 cup of rice- 130 calories

1 cup of broccoli- 54 calories

Total for dinner: 516

Total for day: 1055

(includes breakfast)

That means I still have 145 calories left over which is enough for a snack or a Skinny Cow dessert!

Breakfast today

One vitamin plus one smoothie= good breakfast!

plus one TBLSP of Whey Protein powder- strawberry flavored (I didn't use the whole packet)

Mix all of the above ingredients in a blender for a healthy smoothie. It was pretty tasty!

Geaux Tigers!!! LSU

I am a LSU Tigers that LOVES SEC football!! I live in Houston now, but miss the days in Baton Rouge! I miss being able to go to all the football games. No school knows how to tailgate like people at LSU! Getting there at 7 Am on game day is too late for LSU folks! Many people get out there on Friday afternoon and don't leave until Sunday! It is a blast walking from tailgate to tailgate, trying all the foods that have been cooked- gumbo, alligator, red beans and rice, ribs, the list could go on and on!

I was a DZ at LSU. I met many girls during my time here. I lived in the sorority house my junior year of college. That meant many nights of staying up late and many days of skipping class to go to TCBY!! We also had many late nights studying History in the dining room.



Watermelon Bust- always fun!

Christmas Party


Senior Luncheon

I had a blast at LSU and always enjoy going back for football games. I hope one day, I will have kids that go to LSU and we can enjoy it even more! I am linking up to Kelly's post.

GEAUX TIGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fast Food

If you MUST eat fast food at some point, here are a few things to think about....

McDonalds:

Medium fries: 380 calories

Double Cheeseburger: 440 calories

Medium Coke: 210 calories

So for just one meal of the day: 1030 calories!!!

Based on my 1,200 calorie per day diet, I don't have much room left for breakfast and another meal!!

Healthier Options for eating fast food if it' a MUST:

McDonalds: Get a salad. They have salads for under 150 calories. They also have salads under 450 calories if you are eating dinner. Drink water!!! The Premium Grilled Chicken sandwich without the mayo is 370 calories. But that means NO FRIES OR COKE! You can look up all of their nutrition facts here.

Wendys: The salad with the lowest calories is the Apple Pecan Chicken Salad with 580 calories. Although, I am not quite sure about that. In one place on their website, it says 580 and another place says 350. The 350 calories may not include all of the toppings, dressing etc. For all I know, neither one includes the dressing! The Homestyle Chicken Go Wrap is 320 calories. I guess I would stick with that one.

Taco Bell: 1 crunchy taco is 170 calories. 1 soft taco is 210 calories. The salads were in the 700-900 range. Your best bet is to stay away from Taco Bell unless you want their Border Sauce! That is calorie free!

Burger King: Whopper Jr. Sandwich without mayo is 206 calories. With cheese and no mayo, it is 300 calories. The tendergrill garden salad is 230 calories plus the salad dressing.

Subway: There are several sandwiches for under 350 calories.

I rarely eat fast food, maybe once per month. I do not suggest it. Even if the calorie count is low, there are numerous other problems with the food. The food is usually high in trans fat, saturated fat, and sodium.

Other tips:

Always drink water!!

No fries!!

Get the sandwich undressed- no mayo, cheese, etc. Trust me- it's NOT the low fat brand!

Ask for a packet of ketchup or mustard and put it on yourself. You can control the amount.

Carry around your own salad dressing

Go here for a stop and go guide to fast food. This website also gives many more tips.