Summer Berry Green Protein Smoothie & WIAW

Since I missed What I Ate Wednesday yesterday (totally forgot and then already had a post planned out), I thought I’d do it today instead. Better late than never!  Head on over to Jenn’s blog Peas and Crayons to find out what WIAW is all about.

 

 

I had a terrible night yesterday . Like most of you know, I have extreme insomnia that gives me lots of trouble sleeping almost every night. For the past month or so, it’s been pretty good – I’ve been going to bed semi-early and haven’t had too many problems. Tuesday night was a different story. I got into bed around 9:30pm, because I had plans to go to the gym early yesterday, but had no luck falling asleep. Eventually I kind of drifted off, but woke up 20 minutes later sweating from the heat. I took the fan out of the window and turned the AC on, but by then it was too late. I was awake… and it was only 3:00am. I tried for a long time to go back to sleep, but it just didn’t happen.

But, hey, at least I got to catch up on Pretty Little Liars and So You Think You Can Dance!

 

 

A couple hours later, morning came and I’d still never fallen asleep. I decided that, since I was up, it was time for breakfast – so I made a yummy bowl of oatmeal (using my Low-Calorie Delicious Oats recipe, substituting a large shake of cinnamon and a packet of Splenda for the brown sugar).

Oatmeal is a huge summer staple for me. Most people don’t like oatmeal in the summer because it’s too hot, but I don’t care… I’ll have it all year ’round!

With my oatmeal I also had a huge bowl of pineapple I cut up from the one I bought on Saturday. Fresh fruit is also another big summer staple. I can’t help but stock up every time I head to the grocery store, it’s all so good!

 

 

By 10:00am I was starving again, so I made myself a gigantic green smoothie. It was so good! I haven’t had a smoothie in a while, so it was a nice change of pace. I’d forgotten how tasty they are

Summer Berry Green Protein Smoothie

(original recipe)

Ingredients (serves one):

 5 medium-sized frozen strawberries

4 oz. raspberries

1/2 cup frozen spinach

1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder

1 cup skim milk

2 packets Splenda

Directions:

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Add more milk, if needed.

Enjoy!

 

By the time lunch rolled around at 12:30pm, I was starving again. I cooked up some leftover orzo pasta I had from when I made Warm Broccoli & Orzo Salad last month, and added in the leftover chicken and broccoli from Tuesday night’s dinner. I tossed the dish with 1 tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper. It was delicious!

After lunch, I was finally able to take a nap and slept from 1pm-7pm.

(recycled picture) 

For dinner, we had the Sausage & Peppers pasta from the recipe I came up with a few weeks ago, but this time I also used my Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Sauce and I really liked how it came out. Because bell peppers are so expensive, I tried using frozen, but they weren’t very good. I couldn’t get them to crisp up like the fresh ones.

For my daily treat, I poured myself a big bowl of Lucky Charms! This dessert was well-deserved after the not-so-great day I had.

Let’s see how I did on my second day using my new Daily Health Goals…

Daily Goal Checklist

1. At least 100 grams of protein. Check! I got about somewhere around 130g (if I’m remembering everything).
2. At least 4 servings fruits/veggies. Check! 1 serving raspberries, 2 servings pineapple, 1 serving broccoli, 1 serving spinach, 2 servings red bell pepper.
3. Exercise and/or stretch every day. Check! I spent about 20 minutes before bed stretching.
4. No more than one treat/dessert per day. Check! I clocked in my bowl of Lucky Charms at 10:30pm and it was the only treat I had all day

 

Why I Think This Will Work

So far, I really like this system. It’s similar to calorie-counting in that I have to keep myself accountable and I do still have to look at nutrition facts/add stuff up. What makes me the happiest about this idea is that I still feel like I’m eating healthy even though I’m not going crazy over “how many calories is in this?” and “how many calories is in that?” At the same time, though, I’m worried that because I’m not doing that, it won’t result in as much of a weight loss.

I’m hoping that I will continue to lose weight, because part of my plan when I was designing my checklist was to make sure that I was so focused on getting in a lot of protein and a lot of fruits and veggies, that I wouldn’t have time to eat (or even think about eating) stuff that wasn’t healthy. Also, by eating so much protein, I’m hoping that it will keep my stomach satiated and full so that I won’t have to worry about straying too often from the healthy foods I love.

Obviously, this daily goal system is still in the very beginning stages. I might add another goal, change some of the goals, or adjust some of the goals at any time. Basically it’s just a test run to see how my body responds to this type of healthy eating program, as opposed to counting calories.

 

Why This is Better Than Counting Calories

One big problem I had with calorie counting is that I was eating a lot of foods like cereal, cheez-its, SmartOnes, Lean Cuisines, etc. because they were actually way less calories than the healthy stuff (even though I did want to eat the healthy stuff a lot of the time). I didn’t like that I was choosing not to fuel my body correctly in order to lose weight. I’m still not sure what is the best plan for me, but I’m hoping that by sticking to fresh fruits, veggies, and lots of protein, I’ll be able to see lower numbers on the scale each week without having to cost my body important nutrients.