Monday, February 24, 2014

weekly food prep

Food prep is not always fun but it is necessary. It keeps you on track, makes you more accountable and keeps your bank account happy. If I don't prep my food I binge and when I fall off the wagon I hit the wheel, get crushed under the wagon, and then get dragged for miles. 
So here is a look into a day (or two) of weekly food prep. 

Step 1: make a menu and grocery list 
You have to decide what you want to eat before you go to the grocery store. 
My weekly list of food 
Breakfast: Smoothies
Lunch: roasted veggies, brown rice, and grilled chicken
snacks: carrots, apples, hard boiled eggs 

Step 2. Grocery shopping
I try to do this the day before so that I don't get too tired and cranky while dealing with the general public to come home and cook. People, grocery carts, screaming children, its just so much fun. 
I use a mixture of fresh, frozen, in season, out of season, sale items and coupons to figure out what I want to eat. 

Step 3: prep your food to cook

Lunch:
I had a craving for roasted vegetables so I picked up what was on sale and in season

I used garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil to season them

Then Stuck them in the over @400 degrees for 30 minutes
I put them on foil to make clean up nice and easy!

I seasoned the sweet potatoes with olive oil, kosher salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg
then into the oven at 400 degrees for 40 minutes or until crispy on the outside and soft inside



while my vegatables were in the oven I started the brown rice and grilled the chicken. I also peeled, chopped, and put my carrots into snack bags. 

here is what they all look like put in pretty containers!

rice:
salads:

Smoothie Prep:
I picked up frozen, strawberries, black berries, blueberries, raspberries, mangoes and fresh bananas
I cut the bananas up and then throw them all into bags at random. This is not a very scientific formula, I just throw what sounds good together in a bag and stick it in the freezer :)

 now in the mornings I can just throw the fruit in a blender with almond milk and I am good to go!

Step 4: Clean up
ignore this step and have a glass of wine. 
(this is my favorite step)


Every day is a fight with the fat kid, he screams PIZZA MF'er!!! and I scream back GRILLED CHICKEN.. WITH ROASTED VEGGIES. BOOM BITCH!
and then I eat my veggies and this wow this taste nothing like pizza. 



Thursday, February 6, 2014

Week 2 Recipe

So as usual I jumped two feet and face first into something that I probably should have thought out a little bit more and as it turns out, there is very little at the grocery store that I have not eaten. So I am going to twist this a little bit and make it recipe/ingredients. This weeks recipe is one that blossomed out of a need for change paired with a side helping of lactose intolerance. I have a few requirements when it comes to meals, and I am the most picky about breakfast. It has to be something that is A. easy to make (for weekdays) B. healthy  C. has to fill me up. D. Taste
 
I am getting a little tired of eating egg whites everyday for breakfast so I decided to jump the tracks for a week or two so I don't end up hating one of my favorite foods.

Week 2 Recipe
 
Breakfast Smoothies!
 
What?! What?! Raise the Roof... the roof.. the roof! whoop whoop... get excited!!!!!!!!
 
Super easy, pretty cheap, and its not egg whites
 
AHHHHH and the crowd goes wild!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 
so. anyways.
breakfast smoothies eh?
 
I went to the store picked out a bunch of fruit that I like some frozen some fresh and a half gallon of vanilla almond milk (this was the new ingredient)
The great thing about using almond milk instead of regular milk or water is that it adds a nice creaminess, it's low calorie, and it doesn't make my stomach want to fold in on itself and die like milk does. I have basically taken a hiatus from all things dairy the last couple years becuase it is not worth the pain in my stomach or the sounds it makes as it tries to speak whale.
Lactose intolerance is fun!
 
Once I got home I cut up the fresh fruit and stuck it in zip lock bags with a cup of one of the frozen fruits. Each bag had about 2 cups of fruit, I then stuck them all in the freezer. There is no need for ice if I do this and since we never hooked our freezer up the water line and I always forget to buy ice this works for us.
 
Now every morning all I have to do is grab a bag of fruit, add a cup of almond milk, a cup of water and blend! Super easy, healthy, full of protein, and when I pair it with a slice of toast and peanut butter I am full for a couple hours.
 
This fills two red solo cups to the top. I usually pour mine first then add a scoop of protein powder to the remaining smoothie, blend again and add more liquid if necessary and that is Scott's Breakfast.
 
Voila.
Breakfast Smoothies.
Boom!
 
This all adds up to around 200-300 calories based on the amount of fruit, type of fruit, etc etc
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

My Disney Hangover

I know you are probably reading that title and thinking " Really Lauren? Drinking at a child's amusement park? Classy" but no, I did not drink... I thought about it, as being around screaming children tends to lead to me cradling and sweet talking a bottle of wine but this Disney hangover is purely a food induced hangover of cataclysmic proportions.

This was a trip solely based on food. I said to hell with calories and guilt, I am going to enjoy the hell out of myself.

Churros, Pretzels, and Ice Cream, oh my!

You really start to question your life decisions when you are sitting on a bench with 3 other grown women, staring down main street, surrounded by children while stuffing a corn dog in your face. Now that's not to say that I wasn't enjoying every moment of that but it still makes you think. This delicous hand dipped super fresh corn dog was post churro, post cream cheese filled preztel (YES. Cream.Cheese. Filled. 3 of the greatest words that can be strung together), post beignets, post cajun dinner, pre ice cream, pre tacos. Take a moment to re-read that list of awesome foods. CREAM CHEESE FILLED PRETZELS!

This was all fantastic, I had the time of my life, we had a churro in every land (thats a big CHECK! on the bucket list), I almost got sick of churros (almost), we walked 22+ miles in one day, spent 17 hours on the park property, went to bed waaaaay past our bed time, drank a lot of coffee, giggled like idiots, made inapropriate jokes about the Pleasure Island sign in Pinnochio, smiled stupidly at the characters, took a ton of pictures and crashed hard around midnight.

The next morning I woke up feeling tired but ok, I had some eggs and bacon at IHOP and we hit the road back to Phoenix. Then we hit McDonalds, for chicken nuggets and caffiene, then we rolled into phoenix just in time for Super Bowl.

Needless to say I am heavier than when I left, my head still hurts, I still have heartburn and I have a pretty clear picture of why I try to eat as healthy as possible. This 3 day Disney food hangover is BS!
 I have had a smoothie for breakfast, a luna bar for snack, I have my turkey skillet for lunch with steamed veggies, and dinner will probably be turkey chili. All of this was with a side helping of tums, ibproufen, and coffee (hangover trifecta)
 
DISNEYLAND!
 
 Matching Shirts
 
 Disneyland!
 
 Looking out the windows of the Monorail