Saturday: Peanut Butter and Smooth Caramel Crisp

Saturday: Breakfast:Peanut Butter and Smooth Caramel Crisp 140cals. 
Lunch: Turkey pepperoni and a slice of Swiss cheese, snack bar 150 cals, a Stella brew after the movies.
Dinner: Turkey burger with zucchini and carrots, and Cauliflower and carrot mash.
Mash: 1 whole cauliflower head, cut off the stems and seperate the flowerets , 1/2 cup of carrots, and a few bits of red pepper , chop all in Cuisinart add 1/6 cup non-fat half and half, puree in Cuisinart to the consistency you prefer.  I like it a bit more chunky, but if you like it like mashed potatoes blend a little longer.

Friday: Peanut Butter and Smooth Caramel Crisp

Friday:  Breakfast:Peanut Butter and Smooth Caramel Crisp 140cals.
 Lunch: Turkey pepperoni and a slice of Swiss cheese, Snack was a Snackergy sour cream & onion zipper snack 100 cals.
Dinner:Salad with spring mix greens, tomatoes, fennel, radishes, dried cranberries, and smoked salmon.  I usually use the cherry or grape tomatoes, I recently bought yellow grape tomatoes, just for something different.  The smoked King salmon was a gift from my sister.

Thursday:  Breakfast was a bar 140 cals, lunch is a berry shake.  I used  the Berry Delicious shake 100 cals, and added a 1/2 cup of blueberries, and a 1/2 sup of raspberries.  Total calories so far today 170.  Snack White Cheddar Protein Crisps 120cals, 8g carbs, 15g protein.  Eating light today because we're going out to dinner.

Dinner at Yummy House China Bistro.  We're definitely going back to visit.  The appetizers were great. We ordered the pot-stickers, the calamari, and the wasabi shrimp, all were fantastic.  For an entree I  had the Honey Walnut Shrimp very yummy, Andrea had the special fried rice, BBQ fried rice with duck she also liked hers.  Ann got the veggie fried rice, Lizzy had the Honey Walnut Chicken, Kay and Carole split Szechuan Style Pork.  We passed all the goods around the table, everyone enjoyed their meal.  This place is definitely a keeper. 

Wednesday: Exercise at the gym Monday and Wednesday with Eric. Tuesday two and a half mile walk in the neighborhood. Not much happening this week Wednesday we met friends for lunch at CATRINAS COCINA Y GALERIA they serve authentic mexican food.

I had FLOR DE CALABAZA it's squash blossoms very good.  Andrea had the Tamales with japenos, she said she wouldn't get that one again it didn't have much flavor and wasn't hot enough for her.  Our friends split the FAJITAS CATRINAS, they said these very good.  We like Catrinas very much we go there frequently.  The fish tacos are very good. My nephew had the MOLE ENCHILADAS he liked these very much.

They only have a beer and wine menu, but the do a pretty good job with the sangria and wine Margarita's  

So for dinner, when we go out to lunch we always have salads.  So we emptied the fridge.  Mixed greens, leftover turkey from earlier in the week, carrots, fennel, radishes, tomatoes, and a half cup of quinoa leftovers from the bean salad.

CORN DOUGH FILLED WITH SQUASH BLOSSOMS, HUITLACOCHE AND CHESSE. SERVED WITH MEXICAN RICE AND BEANS

Foodies and why we are....

I live with a foodie, I grew up with two foodies, an have met many more growing up.  I love a good meal.  I like looking for recipes and I like talking with my roomy about recipes.  Andrea (roomy) is the actual chef and she is good at it.  She loves cooking, it's her hobby, she loves to cook for people and she loves to experiment.  She has helped me so much and I her, because I have to watch my weight so she helps me do this, by helping me make good decisions about food and exercise.  I help her in that we look for recipes that are not big calorie counters and healthy.  When we met we ate lots of pasta dishes and rice dishes, you see she is of Italian decent, her father was a full blooded Sicilian so pasta was in her blood.  We have pretty much cut these out of our diet except for special occasions.  Andrea has taken many courses over the years and has learned much about cooking, she gets many cooking magazines and find recipes in books, newspapers, from friends and family.  The idea here is to find recipes that taste delicious and are healthy, but allow us still to enjoy food. Unfortunately I was given the slowest metabolism of anyone alive (or so I think) so just smelling food I can gain weight.  So the next 50 years of my life I'm going to live it healthy, but still have fun.

Monday: Workout with Eric at the gym.
Breakfast; Crispy Fudge & Graham  bar, 160 Cals, 5g fat, 18g carbs, 5g fiber, 15g Protein.
Lunch; Gazpacho left overs, 1 slice of Jarlsberg light cheese.  Snack: Snackergy's sour cream & onion,  zipper snack 10g protein, 8 carbs, and gluten free.

Dinner: Began with Fava Bean and Spring Vegetable Soup, Bon Appetit May 2000, we use a vegetable broth that is home made.  We save the vegetable scraps from previous meals and make a broth that we freeze so we always have a nice veggie broth on hand at all time.  Very good I  would recommend this soup highly.  We use fresh fava beans, we happen to like them very much so when ever we run across them in the grocery store we pick them up.  Oh yes, we do take the little jackets off of them.  One of the reviewers mentioned pureeing some of the solids to create something a little thicker, and then we didn't cook the fava beans as long as the recipe called for so that gave the soup a prettier green color. The soup was 150 cals per serving.

Second, we had Ginger-Peach Glazed Turkey Cutlets,  from The Oprah mag, June 2013.  We discovered these turkey tenderloins at Publix Supermarket, they can usually be found where the pork tenderloins are found.  They come two to a package, some times they are marinated, but you can find them plain.  The marinated ones are have good flavor so you don't have to do too much to them.  Normally anything that you would cook with chicken we use turkey;  ground turkey, turkey cutlets, and turkey tenderloins.  If you haven't noticed yet we eat lots of turkey.  So tonight's dish we used a plain turkey tenderloin.  I like it quite a bit. The turkey was about 40 calories per ounce, we generally use anywhere from 4 to 5 ounces for a serving .

Bowling

Sunday:  Skipped exercise today, but we did go to the bowling alley for two game, probably my best two games ever. 

Breakfast; Peanut Butter and Smooth Caramel Crisp bar, 140 cals, 4.5 g fat, 18g carbs,10g fiber, 15g protein, 
Lunch; 1 left-over slice of pizza (spinach, tomato and Parmesan cheese) a small bowl of the watermelon salad  from yesterday, a couple hand fulls of  popcorn at the movies.
Dinner; Grilled Tomatot Gazpacho from The Oprah Mag, June 2013 issue, I thought it was pretty good roomy sez it could have a bit more spice and left over quinoa salad from the other night.  Shallots were used in the gazpacho, because you know I don't do onions. 

Saturday morning exercise with Nan at her studio. Dominoes Game tonight!
Breakfast consisted of pudding 100 calories,  lunch was PBJ, I use this cool flat bread called fold-it, if you get the flax with 90 cals.  Two tablespoons of peanut-butter, I like Skippy's  180 cals, and Guava Jelly  50 cals per tsp, I use Pamilito's cause it's made right here in Florida not far from Tampa, 320  total.  Dinner was a disaster.  We had a dominoes party, ordered pizza's from Pane' Rustica (the best) I was good only had one slice of the veggie.  We made watermelon salad with ricotta salata, mint, calamata olives, marcona almonds, dressing was olive oil and lemon.  Desert that was the real killer, Peanut Butter Fudge Coffee Ice Cream Cupcakes, I'll attach the recipe, there were amazing.  so I stopped counting calories and just enjoyed.
There is a similar watermelon salad in Food and Wine July 2009, Watermelon, Feta and Mint salad, we made a few adaptations stated above.

Peanut Butter Fudge Coffee Ice Cream Cupcakes

makes 24 cupcakes

1 1/8  cups all purpose flour

1/4     cup dark cocoa powder

1 ¼    teaspoon baking soda

1/2     teaspoon salt

3/4     cup granulated sugar

1        large egg

1       teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2    cup milk

1/3    cup heavy cream

1/2    cup butter, melted

3/4    cup milk chocolate chips

1/2    gallon coffee ice cream

8-10  Oreo cookies, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove ice cream from freezer to soften.

In a bowl, whisk egg and sugar until smooth and no lumps remain. Add milk, cream, butter and vanilla, and mix until combined. Sift dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture. Mix until batter is smooth, then fold in chocolate chips. Line a muffin tin with liners and spoon 2-2 1/2 tablespoons of batter into each cup. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Let cool completely – or stick in the freezer to cool even quicker.

Using a spoon, quickly but somewhat neatly spread ice cream on top of cupcakes and into a little mound. Repeat with remaining cakes and freeze for at least 1-2 hours. Once ganache has been made and slightly cooled, remove cupcake from freezer and spoon ganache over top of each quickly, immediately topping with a sprinkle of cookies. Freeze for another 30 minutes then serve!

  Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache

3/4 cup heavy cream

8 ½  ounces milk chocolate, chopped

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

Heat the heavy cream in a saucepan over medium heat, just until bubbles form on the sides. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate  and peanut butter, continuously stirring until ganache is smooth and comes together. Let cool for 10-15 minutes before spooning on cupcakes.

Epicurious: updated May 25, 2012, from How Sweet It Is!

Friday June 21, 2013 workout with Eric, Breakfast Strawberry Cheesecake bar 155 cals, 4.5g fat, 16g carbs, 12g  protein pretty yummy. Lunch  1.5 oz turkey, 1 oz cheese, half  cup cottage, half cup of carrots (fresh from the garden, (not mine) very tasty) and 1 stalk of celery, 223 cals

Cardio class this morning with Nan. Today, lunch was pretty much on the run as I was running my mom from hair appointment to doctor appointment to finding a birthday present for my sister.
 Breakfast, Chocolate Coconut Bar--150g cals, 5g fat, 18g carbs, 7g fiber, 10g protein.  Lunch 1 oz turkey burger from last night, 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, 5 stalks of celery 280 calories.
 Dinner - repeat turkey burger from last night, Quinoa Salad with Grilled Cherry Tomatoes from The Oprah magazine June 2013, 507 calories.  The caramelized shallots really added a nice touch to the burger.  Snack today was the rest of the Cinna-Crunch n' Chocolate bites from dessert last night, 75 cals. So if I feel like it later I may have a Skinny Cow, Camel Truffle Bar 100 cals.  That would bring my total calories today to 1112, so not a bad day.

Skinny Cow, yum

 Today, I did what I suggested not to do and that was to weigh myself two days in a row, so the scale went up instead of down, so the day started out a bit grumpy.

So harder to keep up with this blog  then I thought.  But I have a good excuse, the roommate was sick for two days. So no great activity happening.  My day usually begins by getting up at 7am, getting ready for the gym.  Today 7 am the alarm clock goes off and the cat immediately bounds across the bed, time for breakfast.  I drag myself out of bed feed the cat, make coffee, brush my teeth, throw on the gym clothes and head out the door.  Wednesday mornings is a morning with Eric my personal trainer.  He works me hard for an hour some with weights some without weights.  I usually have a bit of something before I go so I have a bit of energy.  My breakfast usually consists of a protein bar or protein pudding, after gym I will finish this up.  I take a water bottle to workout which holds 24 oz of liquid, so there are my first 3 - 8 oz glasses of H2O.  I shoot for 8 glasses a day.  Besides hydrating by body it's supposed to help curb your appetite.  Back to the protein bar, I order them from,www.NashuaNutrition.com, they have a big variety of bars and shakes.  I like the Rocky Road bars, they have 170 calories,7g of fat, 15g of carbs, 14g of protein, this may seem like a lot but it's my whole breakfast.  I do switch around and some are better then others. The Caramel Crunch are really good too and they are a little better for you.  When I'm feeling like being really good I use the Mocha (my fave) Pudding and Shake Mix, they are 100 cals, 1.5g of fat, 7g of carbs, 15g of protein.  I make the pudding the night before so it's nice and firm and cold in the morning.  I use just a touch less water then they say to get the right consistency.  So that's breakfast.  Lunch is usually the same thing everyday, kind of boring, but it works for me.  I buy Boars Head Turkey or a turkey tenderloin (I explain that later), a light cheese, like Jarlsberg, carrots, lots of carrots, and celery oh and cottage cheese.  Lunch: 2 oz of turkey, 1 oz of cheese, 1/2 cup of carrots, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, a stalk or two of celery.  I do weigh out my cheese and turkey.  So if I eat all of this that comes to about 240 calories for lunch.  I will allow about 200 calories for snacks from breakfast to dinner, that will give me about 600 calories left for dinner, if I'm keeping with 1200 calories a day.
 Dinner becomes a bit more creative.  Like tonight for instance it's turkey burgers.  Just to let you know Turkey is the only poultry, beef or pork that I eat,  I do eat fish, but that's it in the animal world.  New England Turkey Burger from Cooking Light July 2013 issue, about 407 cals, my body doesn't agree too much with onions so I use shallots instead.  NO bun, roasted veggies,asparagus and zucchini, about 1/2 cup 40 cals and then salad, about 50 cals.  I also use light mayo in the burgers.  The salad tonight is roasted golden beats, arugula, carrots, dried cranberries, a little toasted tofu and fennel, dressing is usually a glaze balsamic vinegar that I lightly drizzle over the top of my salad it has about 30 cals per tablespoon.  I am very generous with the salad because usually it doesn't have too many calories. Oh and salad is always last on the meal, instead of first.
Today I only had 2 oz of turkey and 1 oz of cheese today, because I was late with lunch because I was cleaning out my moms re-fridge for her and roomy was cleaning her carpet.  You see she is 89 years old and can't do much cleaning on her own.  Mom just happened to have one of those little bags of reduced fat cheese-its (160 cals) ugh!!   Snacks are hard to come up with, carrots but I get tired of those, I get the 90 calorie bars from Quaker, or Nashua has lots of things you can look for, like White Cheddar protein chips (120 cals), or cinna-crunch'n chocolate (150 cals)  you really have to look around to find something that you can snack on.  If your good about dishing out two table spoons of peanut-butter you can put this on celery,
the cinna-crunch n' chocolate is a good dessert if you need one.
I'm trying to cut out as much bread, pasta, rice as possible and fruit too, I do mostly protein and veggies.  Sticking to this is the trick, mostly during the week it's not too bad.  My big problem is going out to eat, what to do!  So far today I've had about 1050 cals, so if I need a little something to nibble on later I have about 105 cals left.  If I really get a hunger urge I did exercise today, but even with the exercise I try to keep the calories at 1200.  So there you have it.

Grub Necessity

Okay, I've been planning on starting a blog for a while now, trying to put together what I actually wanted to do was my biggest dilemma.  So I finally decided to talk about diet, because I'm obsessed with my weight, it's what I think about every day.  I have had a weight problem since I was in 5th grade.  I've been on every diet imaginable from the liquid diet to the grapefruit diet to weight watchers and many others.  So it has come down to counting calories and weighing myself a few times a week.  I think weighing once a week is probably the best so you don't see the ups and downs of the every day weight as it becomes too discouraging.  My doctor says try eating 1200 calories a day, well that's virtually impossible if you don't write down everything you eat.  Then you need to find a good food calorie counter, so you can look up how many calories are in that "big mac" you just ate.  So now I need a something to weigh the food on, because I can't eat a 5 pound burger or that may be the only thing I'm eating today.
So any good suggestions as to apps for calories and exercise?  I've found a few but can't decide which one to use;  myfooddiary, dietdiary, sparkpeople, etc.  finding one that does exercise and food would be great.   
That's the next thing exercise, I have never been big on exercise.  I've gone through every exercise program known to man.  My sister and I used to walk the track at Coleman Jr High, then we did Jazzercise together, then she moved.  It's a good idea to get a partner to exercise with because it makes you go.  So then I had to find someone new, so I did over the years.  I worked out at a gym with body builders (that was fun, but not exactly what I needed).  I did some other things along the way.  Now I've joined a city gym and hired a personal trainer.  He works my butt off 3 times a week and then I try to take some of the other classes the gym offers on the other days, then on the other days I walk with my roommate. 
 So my plan is to post what I'm having for my meals and exercises that I do during the day.