Low Calorie Peanut Butter Sauce

I miss peanut butter.  It has 100 calories per tablespoon, too much to include in a snack with my calorie limit of 1200 per day.

Today I thought of a new idea- make a peanut butter sauce.

I mixed 8 tablespoons of peanut butter, 1 cup of milk, and a little stevia.  Whisk together. 

I measured it and it made 18 tablespoons. 
Total calories 910/18= 50 calories per tablespoon.

Store in the fridge. 

Enjoy on oatmeal, rice cakes, on bananas and apples or granola. :)

I love you peanut butter. 

Holiday Breakfast

I took two days off of calorie counting for Thanksgiving.  Now I'm back to it.  I'm a little bored with what I've been eating. 

So heres a new recipe:

Apple (or Pear) and Cheese Frittata
Ingredients:
1 t butter
1 ripe apple or pear
1 t honey (or 1 T sugar)
1/4 t cinnamon
4 egg whites
1 egg
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
3-5 packets of stevia (or 1/2 cup powdered sugar)
1/8 t salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Slice:
apples completely through so that there are circles with stars in the middle.
Reserve three circles

Chop the rest into cubes.

Add to pan:
butter, honey and cinnamon into pan.  Let it bubble.

Add:
Circle apples.  Cook til soft and remove.

Add:
Chopped apples.  Cook til soft and remove.

Mix:
Eggs whites, cheese and stevia and mix.  Add cooked chopped apple.

Pour back into pan.  Cook for 10 minutes, until partially set.  Add apple circles on top.  Cook until set.

Enjoy a sweet and healthy treat! :)
The whole thing has 385 calories.

TWO WORDS:

SIZE 8!!!!

I haven't been this size since before we were married.  

Chair deconstruction

New thin, healthy recipes

Do you remember the egg in frame recipe?  You take a cookie cutter and cut through a piece of bread and put it in the frying pan, crack an egg in it and fry it in butter...

Not for me these days--
 Here is a new twist.

You cut a bell pepper into rings.  Throw it in the pan with some water.  Throw in some broccoli too.  Crack and egg in a bowl add an egg white and water.  Take the broccoli out the pan, mince it and mix it into the egg. Then pour the egg into the bell pepper rings.  Cover the pan, cook on low until set.  Add cheese on top and flip over.  Keep cooking until golden.

Yummy and low cal:

This picture proves I'll never be a food blogger, I don't plate food well.  However, it is really good.

Next:

I needed something with something in the morning.

I don't like oatmeal very much.

I do like eggs, but sometimes I just want something different.

I tried to find cereal with no sugar- unless I wanted Grape Nuts (all wheat) or something that cost $5 for a small box I was out of luck.

So I bought some oatmeal and came home to experiment. 

Most granola is oil, sticky sugar, sugary fruits and grains.

I couldn't use the oil because i don't want the calories.  I wanted a little honey for sticky sweet, but I didn't want to use too much.

So long story short:

Here is what I came up with:

3 cups oatmeal

2 T sesame seed

2 T ground flax

11/2 T honey

2egg whites

Stevia

Mix the dry mix the wet with stevia.

Pour the wet over the dry and mix well

Bake on cookie sheet at 250 for about 20 minutes or until crunchy and golden.

3.2 calories per gram

It is so good on 1/2 c greek yogurt with 1/4 apple and 1/4 banana with about 2.5 tablespoons of this granola on top- yummy, sweet nutty, crunch!

interesting reading

I've been reading a blog about a girl who lost 135 pounds, half her body weight.  It is very interesting that at the end when she finally reaches her goal, she then realizes she has to deal with the emotional side of eating- the why.  Read here if interseted.  This part really hit me:

 "Her book, “Women, Food, and God,” deals in part with this “inclination to bolt” as it refers to the intense desire to leave yourself, to flee, when life becomes difficult. It is the wanting to be anywhere but where you are. To escape boredom, anxiety, sadness, fear, and loneliness. Food is the place I go to escape. Many people do this. Obsession, in any form- be it with food, with schedules, with the future, with alcohol or drugs, is an avoidance of the present. It is a way of passing time, a way to “get through” life. Not to live life, but survive it."

She has to come to grips with having a regular life and being comfortable and not living in fear of gaining weight.  If interested read here

She then came to grips with the fact that she had to set her goal weight at something that was reasonable enough for her to attain without missing out on what was important to her with food and socializing. If interested read here.  She urges the reader to eat more and gain weight if they have to slave away more than they want to to maintain.  I thought it was really great.

Some of the best most real writing on the topic. 

Healthy Eating is Yummy!

This is sliced bananas with raisins.  There is a delicious peanut buter sauce on top.

to make sauce one part peanut butter, one part honey, three parts coconut milk---

SO DELICIOUS! 

(Yes, the kids should have washed their faces before this picture!)

My lunch of roasted veggies with a serving of ground turkey on top-

delicious!  310 calories- yes thank you!

I went out to lunch/coffee with some new friends today.  I knew they only served paninis there so I ate this at home and had a sugar free latte with the girls.  

Realization

Something I'm learning from PRISM:    I really feel ripped off when I have to eat a normal portion of food.  I really believe I should be able to eat a huge portion with no health consequences. 

It's not particuarly about the type of food like cake/sweets-  It's about really thinking I should be able to eat a HUGE portion.  Truly like I deserve it.  As if a normal portion is a punishment of some kind.

So with my dieting this year, I have replaced the huge portion need with vegetables.  I understand this is a strategy, but it is tiring to make that much food and expensive to buy that many vegetables.  I would like to still have a diet that is heavy on the veggies/lean meats, but in a normal portion ranges. I would like to learn that a normal amount of food is good and a blessing.

Stats:
I have lost about 8 pounds in two and a half weeks.  I was already extremely bloated from eating poorly for two months.
Within one week, I stopped having headaches and ache.
I'm comfortably back into my pants (whew, I didn't want to buy a new wardrobe, unless it was a smaller size! ;)

Sorry the pic is blurry- I got new cool boots in brown to match my new winter coat.



I won't be weighing anymore, per PRISM's guidelines.   I think I'll size down in pants by the end of this six week phase 1 (Dec 6.)  I have four pairs of 10s I found when I went through all my storage at my mom's house.  These are the pants from when Peter and I were first married.  One pair are the slacks I wore in our engagement pictures!   

I want to complete all 4 phases, regardless of my weight, to continue to learn how to measure success (not by a scale,) how to combat emotional eating and how to use these tools for life to be healthy.

great day shopping

I went to Storm Lake where they had a holiday shopping time.  Each store had cookies, candies and treats. 

I did some pre-planning and made a stevia sweetened mocha here before I left.  I made one for my friend as well so that there was no need to stop at a coffee shop. 

I passed up all the treats.  We went to the health food store they had raw nuts and dried fruit out. So I took 3-4 nuts and 4 raisin/cranberries.  I wrote it on my calorie sheet-- 37 calories ( i love caloriecount.com-- easy calculations)  I also bought a Zevia pop (that's what they say here not "coke.") Zevia is a stevia sweetened soda that this health food store has.  They also had wine tasting.  I got to try some Iowa wines.  They were good.  1/4 cup- 25 calories- in the journal.  No big deal.

I walked and talked with my new friend.  I didn't feel bad that I wasn't joining in with the treats, as I once would have.  It's just a fact-  I can't eat those types of foods.  (I was eating junky while we moved, I had headahces every day and a zit every minute and I gained 10 pounds) So I just had a nice time resolving to not feel that I was rejecting anyone, just being responsible for myself and not drawing attention to my not eating.  Fun times.  I got some cute clothes for Sierra at the consignment shop- Gap pants and a couple of really cute tunic shirts. 

I had my 62 calorie snacks and deepened a new friendship. :) Then I had my "supper" that was in my crockpot when I got home- veggies, roast, acorn squash- yummy!

Healthy Eating--

I don't have Sierra on a gluten free diet anymore. It didn't have much effect on her speech after six months of strict adherence.  So we've moved on.

I have moved us to a healthier lower bread/snack food diet.  We have all benefited.  We eat lots more veggies and fruits and whole grains and lean meats.

I'm on a discovery-  I've lost 56 pounds since last year.  However, I still needed to learn about emotional eating and how to break decade long habits. 

Since I lost weight with an extreme diet (which I am thankful for and forever will be) I still needed tools for real life eating.

So I've decided to commit to PRISM.  It deals each of my concerns.  It's not too extreme.  Basically to record what I eat, count calories and do a study to learn how to break habits.  I'm done eight days so far and I really like it. 

The family is benefiting because I'm cooking healthfully again and being careful about ingredients. 

I have a goal to lose 17 more pounds.  :) 

I thought I'd write about that journey here.