Thursday, April 29, 2010

Day 24 - Burgers and Recipe Cards

Diet tip of the day: Make sure you're checking the Nutritional Info on the packages you pick out at the store. Just because it says low fat or low calorie doesn't guarantee it's good for you. Super lean ground beef and ground turkey can have almost identical nutritional value, so you might not have to sacrifice the things you love for the sake of your health.

The weather is beautiful! And what goes better with beautiful weather than cooking out? I think I have a special gift for picking up the smell of burgers on the grill from miles away. Needless to say, I've been having quite the craving for burgers lately, so last night was the night to finally cook some up. I looked online at a couple of websites to find a healthy recipe, and I ended up picking an Italian-inspired burger. We didn't end up topping them with marinara sauce, just to cut down on calories, but we did stuff them with shredded mozzarella and basil. It was really easy, too. Instead of dividing the pound of beef into 4 patties, we divided it into 8 mini patties, then put some mozzarella and chopped basil in the center of one patty and put another patty on top, sealing the edges. They only took a few minutes in the frying pan (I know, that's not really grilling out, but it was a little late to grill out by the time we finished grocery shopping), and they were delicious!

I'm not sure if anybody else has had this experience, but my boyfriend's smoke alarm HATES him. Everyone else in his apartment can go about their business, leave the oven open, fry chicken in a pan, put a burning tray of fries directly under the smoke alarm (okay maybe not) and not even a peep. My boyfriend starts to turn the dial to preheat the oven and the alarm is blaring. So, last night, we had quite the symphony of smoke alarm sirens and South Park being turned up more and more in the background to accompany our cooking experience. In the end, my boyfriend threw a towel at the smoke alarm and it finally gave up the fight, but even in the midst of all that commotion, we had a great time making that meal.

I'd like to ask you all to do me a favor. Send me your best healthy recipe, whether it's beef, chicken, breakfast, dinner, or dessert, I want to hear what your favorite healthy recipe is and exactly how to make it. So, e-mail your recipe to theshapeshifterblog@yahoo.com and I'll try them out and post about my experiences making and eating your suggestions. Please please please send me your recipes, because I would absolutely love to add to my options.

Now, as far as my diet goes, this is where it stops being easy. Note, I didn't say it's getting hard, I'm just not going to be losing 7-8 pounds a week. I don't expect that, especially because of how hard I would have to work in order to keep up that kind of weight loss. So I need to accept the fact that I will be seeing lower numbers (or I guess higher numbers than I expect to see...) from here on out. It's not going to come to me as easily, and I'm going to have to really use dieting and exercising to my advantage, not just one or the other. I've found that, for me, having a relaxed diet and exercising more helps me maintain my weight, but not lose weight. On the other hand, a really strict diet and no exercise is more successful for me, but can only work for a short period of time. I'm going to try to exercise like I'm not dieting and diet like I'm not exercising. We'll see how that works out for me when I weigh in next week. I still have a weigh in tomorrow, and I'm expecting to have lost about 3 pounds, 4 at the most.

For an exercise today, try doing some forward lunges to strengthen your leg muscles. If you want to make it an arm work-out, too, grab some light weights and lift them straight out to your sides as you go down into your lunge, or just leave them straight down to add some extra weight to your lunge.

Remember to send me your recipes!
theshapeshifterblog@yahoo.com

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