Things I'm enjoying lately

I think it's been a while since I'm recommended stuff to you guys.  So here's a post about some foods and other products that I have been enjoying recently!

1) my new Osterizer blender!  Stacey and I got this as a gift at his office holiday party, and I've recently re-found my love for green monster smoothies.  DELICIOUS and nutritious.

2) True Lemon powder packets.  100% natural, no artificial sweetners, and still only 5 calories, just like crystal lite.  I get enough artificial sweetners with my diet soda and sugar free syrup, so I figure that I should cut it out where I can.  And I love this stuff!  Delicious.  They also make one in raspberry lemonade.

3) Belvita breakfast cookies.  I must confess that I have not tried them as breakfast yet, so I don't know about the claim that they keep you full, but they are yummy as a snack. 

4) Good 'n Natural food bar in peanut butter!  This is my new favorite breakfast through the school week.  It's delicious, portable, and keeps me satisfied until lunch.  It tastes like a healthy version of my Grandpa's fudge!  YUM.

5) Did I say that all of these would be healthy?  #5 is cocoa puffs!  Also known as an awesome vegan chocolate option.  :-)  And only 100 calories for every 3/4 cup, so not too shabby for chocolately goodness.

6)  and finally, Perrier sparkling water.  I don't drink this often because it's usually expensive, but when it's on sale I stock up because I love this stuff.  It makes me feel fancy.

So those are just a few things that are making my life easier and yummier these days.  I hope you enjoyed the list!  :-)

One more thing I'm enjoying-

Here I am in my brand new scarf which I won over on my friend Jennifer's blog!  She made it herself, which is talent that I cannot even imagine.  Thanks again, Jennifer.  It's beautiful and oh-so-soft!

PB & Banana snack

What should you do when you feel like eating some serious junk food but don't want to blow your whole day? 

And no, it's not "pour yourself a bowl of Special K", though I'm sure that would work, too. 

Create a healthy(ish) dessert, and enjoy every bite!

Here is a simple recipe for a peanut butter and banana "cake". 

Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon natural peanut butter
- 1 medium banana
- 1 tablespoon sugar free syrup
- 2 sandwich thins

Directions:
Layer all ingredients however you want, I did the following:  1/2 sandwich thin, 1 teaspoon PB, 5 slices banana, 1/2 sandwich thin, some syrup, 1/2 sandwich thin, 1 teaspoon PB, 5 slices PB, 1/2 sandwich thin, 1 teaspoon PB, the rest of the banana slices, and some more syrup!  Microwave on high for 20 seconds.  EAT.

total calories: 372

Chocolate Peanut Butter Roll-up Bites!

This is what happens when I brainstorm to find a low point chocolate snack: pure genius.

It is low in points, easy to make, and tastes like it's bad for you.  ;-)  Perfect for my current PMS status.

Step 1:  Gather your ingredients

1 tablespoon Peanut Butter & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter

1 low carb high fiber tortilla

1 packet of Splenda (optional)

 Step 2: Spread peanut butter all over tortilla, sprinkle Splenda on top (if using)

 Step 3: Roll up tightly!

 Step 4: Cut up into bite-size pieces

 Step 5: Microwave for 25 seconds (optional, but it makes it ooey and delicious!)

Step 6: Lick excess peanut butter off of tablespoon.  (Doesn't everyone do this? Like my PJs?) 

Close-up of a bite!

Entire roll: 4 PointsPlus

Tasty Tuesday!

Good evening, guys! Welcome to another edition of Tasty Tuesday. Today is an example of... imperfection. Which is cool, you need to not just see me on my "perfect" days. I'm PMSing bigtime, and you know what that means: SNACKS. Also: HUNGRY MONSTER!!!

This morning started off with 40 minutes of this:

With this:

Breakfast was a giant bowl of delicious oats! 1 cup of oatmeal (dry) is the perfect amount for me. It makes a large amount and keeps me full all morning. This bowl was made with almond milk and topped with sliced banana and some leftover canned fresh pineapple! So good.

Lunch started off great, but then turned into a PMS-crazy-MEGAMEAL!!! I started with leftovers: 1 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup black beans, some canned tomatoes and a teaspoon of olive oil. YUM.

This is when things went downhill... I opened up some Almond Dream "bites" which are seriously the most amazing ice cream treat that I've eaten since going vegan. DELICIOUS!!! There were 7 left, about half a serving, and I ate them all...

Long story short: I ate the rest of the flatbread (5 servings!) and the rest of the hummus (4 tablespoons!) Luckily, this GIANT, PMS-inducede mega-meal kept my tummy full for several hours. I wasn't even kind of hungry until 10 pm. That's insane! Also ate (not pictured): Coconut Cream Pie Lara Bar. Yep: mega meal! Note: I didn't consider these Flatbreads to be a trigger food. Now I'm reevaluating...

For dinner, I had a green monster! In this GM: 2.5 cups spinach (steamed in the microwave first), 1 cup almond milk, 1/2 large frozen banana, 1/2 tablespoon flaxseed, 2 ice cubes

Cheers!

Selfish with my healthy foods... (rant)

This morning I felt like an angry monster. Mostly because when I went to make my oatmeal, I discovered that Stacey had DRANK my almond milk and it was ALL GONE. >:-(

I am often quite selfish with my healthy foods. Is this justified selfishness? I'm not sure.

Here's why I don't like Stacey eating my healthy/vegan foods:

1) They are expensive. Since we split groceries 50/50, this really shouldn't be an issue. Technically, half of the almond milk was "his". But sometimes, I will buy an Amy's pizza in the middle of the week, and when I bake it on Saturday he'll want to split it. When his Totino's pizza is sitting right there.

2) He is not trying to lose weight or eat healthy. Therefore, why is he eating my delicious healthy food?? He will eat a can of vienna sausage, a little debbie, a tall glass of sugary not real juice juice, and a lara bar. NOT COOL.

3) He's not vegan, and not trying to be. So stay out of my special vegan foods, especially my Amy's pizza, almond milk, and vegan boca burgers. Please?

Okay, vent over. Now on to rational thinking. LOL, if he reads this, I am sooooo in trouble. Not really... Stacey, I love you, and I'm sure that I do a lot of crazy things that you would blog about occasionally if you had a blog, right? :-)

I would love it if he decided to start eating healthier or to start cutting back on his meat consumption. If he did those things, I think that I would enjoy sharing my vegan goodies with him. But I will never pressure him to be vegan, like he'll never pressure me to give up veganism.

It is sometimes hard to live with someone who doesn't eat the same things that I eat. I struggle with this, mostly because I'm afraid of what will happen in the long term, if we should ever start a family together. I will want to raise the kid vegan, or at the very least vegetarian (I realize that it would be hard to keep him/her 100% vegan once they start school).

Also, I currently almost NEVER cook for Stacey. This is because he has stomach issues with beans, and I refuse to cook meat. So we each cook for ourselves, and he doesn't cook at all, so he is eating mostly this: canned meat, bread, balogna, frozen meals, lots of fruit, little to no vegetables, and fast food.

I feel guilty about it, but then I remember that I'm a feminist, and why should it be assumed that I should do the cooking in the household just because I am the woman?

P.S. Sorry for no "Tasty Tuesday" this week! My camera's batteries died and I haven't bought new ones yet.

Healthy crackers and cold cereals = Leah Power Foods (LPF)

I love pretending that my new Weight Watchers plan is something official. ;-) As something official, it definately needs its own acronyms. The first one is "LPF" for Leah Power Foods. LPFs are foods that I'm incorporating into the Weight Watchers Power Foods list (found here if you are a WW online member).

This week, I added hummus as an official LPF. Next week (starting tomorrow for me), I am adding the second LPF to my plan: healthy crackers and cold cereals.

What qualifies as a healthy cracker or cold cereal? I'll tell you what doesn't: trigger foods.

For me, that automatically disqualifies things like oringial Wheat Thins and original Triscuits. I'll give examples of healthy crackers as I find more.

Last week I tried some delicious spelt cracker flatbreads from Whole Foods that definately qualify!!! They had pronouncable and recognizable ingredients, tatsed delicious, and aren't something that I would be tempted to binge on. Oh, and they were VERY low Point.

Healthy cold cereals: same rule. If I would be tempted to binge on it or if it has way too many unpronouncable and unrecognizable ingredients, it won't make the LPF list. So far, all the Nature Path cereals that I have tried qualify.

I'm subtracting 15 WPA to allow for these LPF. Last week, I was down 5 for hummus. This week I'm down 15 more, so my total WPA remaining will be 29. Gulp. Can I do it? I think that I can handle it! :-)

Tomorrow morning is a WI, and I'm not expecting anything great. I had an OKAY week, not a GREAT one, eating-wise. I'll report back tomorrow morning and let you know how it goes!

I hope that all of you have great weekends!

P.S. Yes, I know that I broke the "day of silence" but I couldn't help myself.

Tasty Tuesday!

I started the day off right with a high-intensity workout on the Wave. I find the way my legs look in this picture hilarious!
Next up, a giant bowl of oatmeal made with oats, banana, light soy milk, and a tad of vanilla almond milk. With my morning Diet Cola and lots of water! Once again, this oatmeal was eaten half at 8am, and a bit more around 10:30. Didn't end up eating all of it this time, just wasn't that hungry.

One of the engineers brought me a present: a bunch of fancy cookies from the first class lounge at the airport! The ingredients were all vegan, and it was so tiny that I counted two of them at 1 PointPlus, since I really have no clue.


Lunch started with a Green Monster smoothie made with soy milk, flax seeds, spinach, dandelion greens, kale, a banana, and some unsweetened applesauce.

Hi to Stacey on the couch! Don't mind the crazy glare on his glasses.

I was still a little hungry, so I had some leftovers of barley with black beans and veggies! Mixed a teaspoon of EVOO in there, too.

I packed a baggie of veggies and a sandwich for school. I only ended up eating a few of these, and none of the sandwich. Wasn't hungry for it!

I did enjoy a late afternoon clementine... okay, two. ;-)

No, I wasn't driving when I took this, but yes that is my steering wheel!

This is what I'm eating right now for a late dinner. Some more leftover barley and beans with some toast. 1 tsp of EVOO drizzled on the toast.


Thanks to Megan for the name idea of "Tasty Tuesday". I love it! BTW, if you read my blog and don't read Megan's, that crazy! Hers is way better.

*edited to add: I ate an additional 5 pieces of light wheat bread late last night!!! Note to self: stop buying this for awhile, it's clearly a trigger food for me.

My newest snack obsession... (and general WW update)

Triscuits with hummus. I could eat this all day long. Seriously, have you tried triscuits with hummus? If not, you are missing out.
Anyway, I am down .6 for 2011 so far. Not my best weigh-in, but very far from my worst. I will take the loss!

Now I am finally back to an "even" number. 157.0. Maybe I can get back to losing a pound a week now, for awhile? Stay at an even number?

This weekend I ate 37 of my 49 weekly points, which is insane. But in my defense, there was a LOT of down time. And it's that time of the month (TOM), and around TOM I tend to overeat more than usual, especially the snack-y stuff like chocolates and french fries.

So I have 12 WPA left to get me through to my next weigh-in, which is Saturday the 15th. My plan is to eat 4 per day for three days and then stick to my DP on Thursday and Friday. I'm hoping that this way of spreading them out will help me on the scale, but who knows?

Also, it's a SNOW DAY in Memphis today! Which is so rare that it's amazing. I love snow. I think that it was such a beautiful evening last night, watching the flakes fall.

Of course, now comes the nasty part: Sleet and freezing drizzle is expected to fall all day today, which will make the roads worse than they already are. To me, the roads weren't that bad this morning. I took it slow driving to work, and made sure to WOFI (Watch Out For Idiots).

I did track 100% over the weekend, which is why I know exactly how few WP I have left. And it feels pretty great to be back to tracking. Even though I only took a couple of days off (December 25 and 26) it has taken me this long to get back to being at 100% tracking. And I'm glad to be back OP.

Another post about how I never cook

It's very rare that I do more than use my rice cooker. I just had to share how I get through my days as not just a vegan, not just a vegan who doesn't cook, but as someone who does the seemingly impossible job of being a vegan who doesn't cook and is trying to lose weight.

It's easier than it sounds.

The products that I recommend here are just some of the foods that I eat regularly. I also eat a LOT of fresh produce and healthy things like brown rice and oatmeal, so don't assume that I eat nothing but processed vegan junk food after reading this! :-)

I have a few products to thank:

Bird's Eye Steamfresh vegetables- I cannot recommend these too much. You can find these in the freezer section. Frozen vegetables don't go bad, but even if they did they wouldn't in my house. Lately I've been guilty of eating a bag of vegetables almost daily.

Put the entire bag in the microwave for five minutes. That's it. You're done. You have a big bowl of steamed vegetables ready to keep your stomach full and happy. Zero WW points, too. Unless you want to add a teaspoon or two of extra virgin olive oil, and then you add points for that. (a great way to get in ALL your vegetables serving and healthy oils at once, something I do for a late-night snack often).

JIF (or Skippy, or Kroger generic) Natural peanut butter: I have always loved peanut butter. It is one of life's little pleasures. Sometimes a tablespoon of peanut butter (2.5 points) is enough to please me, sometimes I need 2. But usually 1 tablespoon with a banana or an apple makes a GREAT and very filling breakfast.

Another idea: Melt a tablespoon of peanut butter with 2 tablespoons of light karo and use as a syrup over some dairy-free frozen waffles!!! A-Maz-ing.

Old El Paso (or Taco Bell, or Kroger generic) Vegetarian or Fat Free Refried Beans: I love refried beans!!! For lunch, I will sometimes eat a half cup of these (1 point, 4 points for a whole cup, Evil WW Math) with some salsa (and sometimes a tsp of EVOO), spread on some Wasa crispbread or a flour tortilla.

Full of flavor, fiber, and protein, but not high in either fat or WW points, refried beans rock.

Wasa High Fiber Crispbread: I cannot give this stuff too much credit. I eat this in the morning with peanut butter, in the afternoons with refried beans and salsa, and in the evenings with pizza sauce and Daiya "cheese" for mini-pizzas. These are tasty, crunchy, low point, and very filling. Mostly I enjoy how crunchy and low point they are, since I am a recovering chip-a-holic.

Amy's Roasted Vegetable Frozen Pizza: This pizza is possibly the most delicious thing on this earth, vegan or not. Please, go try it. I'm not joking or exaggerating, it's the best food on Earth.

The ONLY downfall of this delicious delicacy is that is costs at least $7.00 for one relatively small pizza. :-(

So I have this once or twice or month, or more if someone else buys one for me. Also,

<-----not a low-point food if you eat the WHOLE thing in one sitting.