Healthy Low Calorie Staples in Our Home

Like I mentioned in the last post, Barrett and I are trying to get healthy before the cruise! Our weight update this week is Barrett is down 15 pounds, while I am down 6.

The hardest part of this whole process for me is not the lifting weights and running. I actually really enjoy being active and love how it allows me stress relief after a long day at work. The hardest part is eating right! I have such a sweet tooth and I crave things that are not good for me. Barrett and I have been so excited about finding "different" healthy foods that we really enjoy. I wanted to share some of what we found through our journey.

Item #1 - Sensible Portions Veggie Chips

I found these little treasures on the same aisle as the rice cakes. They are not as expensive and they have less calories than baked lays potato chips. The best part....one serving = 38 chips = 130 calories!!! This is what the veggie chips look like out of the bag. They don't even taste like veggies, they taste just like potato chips (maybe even better)! Delicious!

The next two items I found to "silence" my sweet tooth.

#2 - Atkins Day Break Peanut Butter Fudge Crisp Bar

These are excellent! If you like peanut butter you will love these bars. They are a little pricey to me, but worth it to be able to satisfy my sweet cravings. One bar = 150 calories with 10 grams of protein and only 1 gram of sugar. We are able to get 5 of these bars at our local WalMart for just under $6.

#3 - Atkins Endulge Caramel Nut Chew Bar

We are able to get 5 bars in a box for under $5. Each bar has just 130 calories and they really are delicious! They actually taste just like a Snickers bar!


#4 - Hungry Jack Complete Wheat Blends Pancake Mix

Barrett and I love breakfast food, especially pancakes. We found these pancakes and LOVE them. You simply mix with water, and we usually add cinnamon to batter. We can split a one cup serving and each have 4 pancakes for a total of 225 calories. Pair the pancakes with sugar free syrup and it's a great low calorie breakfast (or in our case usually supper)!


#5 - Great Value Egg Whites

Again, I do most of my shopping at WalMart and the Great Value brand is a lot cheaper than the other name brands. If I find the generic brand is comparable in price I always buy it. I had tried liquid egg whites before and really couldn't remember how I felt about them. I bought these as an experiment for us to try, and we LOVED them. We like to scramble them with a little bit of cheese. The best part about these? The entire carton is only 500 calories. One carton usually lasts us 3-4 meals.


#6 - Diet Lipton White Tea with Raspberry

When I first bought this drink I was skeptical, but they have really grown on me. I prefer these over the diet green teas, and really enjoy them slushy. Each tea is 0 calories. You can buy a 12 pack for under $6. I love drinking these with my afternoon snack.

#7 - Great Value Decaffeinated Iced Tea with Peach

These are great to add to a bottle of water for only 5 calories. I believe you can get a box of 10 packets for $2-3. They usually will also satisfy any sweet craving I have!

Hopefully someone reading the blog may see one of these snacks they want to try. If you try one and like it, please leave me a comment!

Getting Healthy

I really haven't had much to blog about lately. We have had a few snows here in the past several weeks, but I didn't do a great job of taking pictures. Barrett and I have mostly been working and also working on our fitness! We were needing some motivation to get started eating healthy and running again. Our motivation came when mom and dad planned a cruise vacation for our family to go on in the spring! You talk about motivation!!! We cannot wait to go on the cruise and we want to be looking good in our swim suits! ;)

You may remember me talking about the Couch to 5K program back at this blog post. While I really loved this training program, I really wanted to do more cardio than 30 minutes three times a week. Since I enjoyed the 5K program I started researching the Couch to 10K program. Then I found the app on my iPhone! I LOVE IT!!!

This app tracks your workout, you can listen to your music and it tells you when to jog/walk during your workouts. You can even post to facebook when you finish a workout!

Here is what the display looks like on your phone!

Barrett and I just started the week 4 workout today. It is definitely more cardio, and we can feel our endurance improving. Today we did jogging/walking intervals for 62 minutes and covered over 4 miles. Whew, it was quite the work out!

Another thing we have been doing is watching our calories. While I don't have a lot of weight to lose, I want to eat healthier. Another app I came across on my phone has definitely made calorie counting easy! The app is called "Lose It" and it is a free app on the iPhone.

Not only does it have a database of restaurant and supermarket foods for calories, it will also determine how many calories you burn during exercise. It is such a great app!

Finally, we have been getting in the weight room at least twice a week. I am mainly sticking with one workout focusing on legs and the other on arms. I have been proud of us for sticking with our program for 4 weeks! We have already seen changes. Barrett has lost 11 pounds and I lost 5. I'll try to update the blog as we continue to see progress!

5th Quarter

One of the local churches in our area sponsored a 5th quarter last Saturday after one of the basketball games. Barrett and I stopped by to spend some time with the students. The students ate, played games, and just had a good time of fellowship. I thought it was such a great idea since there really isn't anywhere for them to "hang out" in town after the games.

The picture above shows me and B with our "king and queen of 5th quarter" gear. The students voted by round of applause who should win, and we did! Ha! The glasses and hat were hilarious!

The group played several games. One of the games I had never played before and it was quite interesting! There was a line of boys and a line of girls. Everyone had a toothpick that they had to keep in their mouth. The first person in line was given a life saver and had to transport the life saver from their toothpick to the person in line behind them. It was a really funny game. Check out the pictures below...

Barrett and I had a great time stopping by the 5th quarter. I hope they continue to offer things like this for the students in the community!