Useful Website

One of my challenges in trying to cook/eat more healthy and to burn more calories than I consume is that I LOVE to cook and EAT.  Many of the recipes I make are a mixture of calories and don't always have a calorie count with them.

There are a couple of sites to use to figure this out.  The one I've been using is Sparks.com  You enter the ingredients, enter the number of servings, and voila - it gives you the calorie count per serving!

Tonight we had skillet chicken and rice from the America's Test Kitchens 2007 cookbook.  (My mother in law gives me the book and DVD's each year for Christmas or my birthday).  I was concerned about the calorie count because I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs rather than breasts.  Thighs are much more fatty, although I trimmed as much as I could.

Using the Sparks. com site I discovered that one serving was under 250 calories.  Not bad for a yummy meal.  I added a salad.  Unfortunately, my daughter threw on the packaged dressing with it which took an 8 calorie romaine salad to 140 calories!  So, instead of the glass of wine, I had salad dressing.  Oh well, I still was able to have my 2 cookies for dessert.

The cool thing about this is that I am in control.  I make my choices, and I live with my consequences.  On the days I go to the gym and do circuit training, I can pretty much eat whatever I want.  On the days I work out at home on the Wii Fit, I'm a little more conservative.  On the days I don't work out at all, no cookies AND no wine.  Just whine.

And slowly, slowly, the weight is coming off.  And everyone around here is happier about that!

Two Steps Forward

Three Steps Back

I've been doing so well on watching the calorie intake, usually coming in under what was budgeted for the day.

But today, I thought we'd be having our Annual "Baked Potato Fest" after our Community Bible Study Leaders' Time, so I budgeted and planned for that in my count for the day. I even ran by the store this morning and picked up a cake of a kind I DON'T like (very selfish of me but stay tuned).

It turns out I had the day wrong. Still, since I had brought the cake, I sliced it and set it out and found it easy to resist (remember, I didn't like this flavor). The ladies who did indulge raved about it and asked which Giant Store I'd bought it at! So even though I thought I was being selfish by not bringing a "GOOD" flavor, it turned out to be a huge hit! There was only one slice left to send home with one of the moms who had a teen boy at home (it had nuts so it was a no-no for my teen son).

Then I stopped at my favorite place for a "small" lunch after CBS leaders group today. When I got home and looked at their website and saw what I had eaten, I realized that I can choose to have noodles with my spaghetti tonight if I'm also going to take time to exercise on the Wii, or I can just have sauce without noodles. It's homemade, so the sauce is good, but I think I'll do the Wii.

Note to self: Don't stop at Quiznos on the days you don't have time to do any devoted exercising!