New Daily Health Goals

Even though yesterday was kind of a relaxing day, I accomplished a lot! I decided that I needed to have more healthy snacks around the apartment so I wouldn’t be tempted with spoonfuls of peanut butter and breakfast cereal all day.

First, I made my favorite Low-Calorie Blueberry Muffins, except I switched up the recipe a little bit and turned them into Blueberry-Lemon Yogurt Muffins… so tasty! Instead of using 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, I used 1/3 cup fat-free plain yogurt. And I also threw in a melted lemon juice ice-cube (adapted from my original frozen lime juice “recipe”) in with the wet ingredients.

Using yogurt instead of cottage cheese didn’t really make that big of a difference, taste-wise. The only reason I did it was because I was out of cottage cheese. In the end, either is fine, but I prefer cottage cheese because it’s the healthier option. I loved the addition of lemon flavor into the cupcake! Next time, I’m going to use two cubes to pump it up even more.

Next, I made some hard-boiled eggs…

For the eggs, I used this technique from Back to Her Roots. I’ve always been happy with my old standby hard-boiled egg recipe, but Cassie’s knocked mine out of the park! The yolks were perfectly yellow and they were supremely easy to peel.

Lastly, I whipped a batch of Brent’s favorite Carrot Cupcakes. Each of these cupcakes is .3 servings of vegetables… awesome!

For dinner, I made this delicious meal with chicken, Israeli couscous, broccoli, and corn. I didn’t really use a recipe, although it was loosely based off of this recipe from Heather’s Dish.

I started off by cooking the couscous (even though I love regular couscous, it was the first time I’d ever made or eaten this kind!) in chicken stock. Meanwhile, I steamed a bag of frozen chopped broccoli and diced up some chicken breasts. I seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper, then sautéed it in canola oil for about 7 minutes. I also microwaved some leftover corn I had from when I made this week’s batch of Spicy Mexican Soup. Then, I mixed everything together, tossed it in a tablespoon of olive oil, and added some cayenne pepper and more salt.

I absolutely LOVED this dinner. It was so good that I may have forgotten about my whole Savor Your Food challenge thing… Whoops. But, technically, August doesn’t start ’til tomorrow, so I think I’m safe

I thought a lot today about what I was saying yesterday – how I’m not happy with calorie-counting. I think I’m going to do a trial run of a daily goal-based system and see if that works for me.

Daily Health Goals

1. Eat 100g of protein.
2. Eat 4 servings of fruits/veggies.
3. Exercise and/or stretch (at least 3 days each week should be exercise, though).
4. No more than one treat/dessert.

 

Besides what I mentioned above, I’m also allowing myself one half-day of splurging each week (which is something I also did while calorie-counting). If I’m out with friends, or having a date night with my mom or my boyfriend, I don’t want to have to freak out over what or what I’m not eating.

Let’s see how I did today!

I had 103 grams of protein (wow, just made it!), 5.6 servings of fruits/veggies (1 8oz. container of raspberries, 1/2lb broccoli, 1/2 cup corn, two carrot cupcakes), I did this ab workout, and I had two carrot cupcakes (although I don’t totally count those as “dessert”).