I want to bite the muffin man

The smartest and I are on a health kick. I know, I know, we health kick every couple of weeks it feels like... only to be slowly seduced and led astray by soda, chocolate and the all important Chili's chips and salsa with ranch.

The smartest and I decided that we were in need of a bit of a life style change, so we decided to start a new eating regime in September (notice how I didn't say "diet", because the word "diet" sounds nowhere near as awesome as "eating regime"). We are trying some new things, including tracking our fitness and having a bit of competition between the two of us.

Shockingly, its actually been pretty fun so far. Something about being in competition with each other reminds us to be a bit more active, so we have been swimming more, playing soccer, and even ran a 5K last week (in the pouring and rather chilly rain), just for fun. Though my calves STILL aren't sure it was fun.

We have also opted to limit the grains/sugar/carbs that we consume. So we are trying to stay on the meat/veggie/fruit side of things. No bread. No chocolate. No snow cones. Here's what our house looks like these days after I hit the grocery store:

Shockingly, I haven't chased a bread truck down the street yet. But don't worry... it is still early. I may yet find time in my day to bite the muffin man.

A couple of things that we have discovered so far:

- The smartest likes mangoes
- I like grilled squash
- When you don't eat sugar, ripe fruit really does start tasting incredibly sweet
- Between the 2 of us, we can consume roughly 10 bananas in one week
- Friendly competition is an excellent motivating tool

We are definitely seeing some results- I, for example, can feel that we are eating less salt because my wedding rings fit the way that they did when we got married. We both feel quite a bit better most of the time- which isn't to say that we don't also feel hungry ALL the time, but we definitely feel better. Here are a couple of the recipes that we have tried variations of and liked:

Chicken tenders with avocado sauce  
One Pan Chicken 
Squash


Wish us luck as the Halloween Candy starts sneaking on to the shelves!

Healthy Meal Planning: April

That's right. I'm at it again. Or still. No... again would be more correct, after the quarter of a carrot cake I consumed in Oregon over the weekend. I am back in the healthy meal planning saddle for April- and ready to give you the low down, in hopes that your peer pressure keeps me honest.

At the beginning of the month (or actually the end of the month) I sit down with my iPad and sort through my Pinterest recipes. I have two boards- "Suppertime" and "Suppertime Skinny".

When the smarest and I decided to try to lose some of our "yay-we-are-married-and-eat-baked-goods-all-the-time" weight, I started the "skinny" board, to collect the lighter options all in one place. I try to use a mix of recipes from each board, so that the smartest doesn't slip into a starvation coma due to a sudden onset of salads.

The skinny board looks like this:

And the non skinny board looks like this:

Note the large amount of dairy occurrence in the latter. After I decide on my recipes and make my list:

I decide which meal to put where on our magical meal calendar. This calendar is one that mama artist gave us for Christmas. I'm hoping April's stern faced owl will help me avoid snacking. We will see. I try to space out the "good" meals, and plan light on days we are busy in the evenings (like cereal on Wednesdays).

After the calendar is full, I set about filling out my shopping list. I made a template for my list so I can categorize everything into the appropriate section, and limit the running back and forth throughout the store because I forgot the turkey bacon AND the crackers AND the pepper jack. The template looks like this:

While in the store, I am the geek walking around with my pencil, crossing things off my list. Whatever it takes, guys. Whatever it takes.

I did April's big shopping trip yesterday, in my typical Aldi and then Walmart fashion, and loaded our fridge. You can always tell what time of the month it is based on the state of my vegetable drawer. Currently- it looks like this:

Which means that it must be the beginning of the month. I usually have to do a mid-month fruit/vege stop when we try to go the healthy route and don't just eat applesauce and chicken nuggets. Just kidding- I don't think I have opened last month's chicken nuggets yet.

This month, here are some of the healthy and quasi healthy meals we are partaking of:

Pasta Salad
Turkey Bacon Avacado Grilled Cheese
Fajitas
Stuffed Peppers
Breakfast Sandwiches
Salt rubbed baked potatoes
Quesadilla Salad
Greek Yogurt Chicken
Corn Chowder

We had the pasta salad for dinner yesterday- and are having the leftovers today. It was pretty tasty!

So there you have it- that's where we are so far on the meal front. I will keep you posted on whether or not we actually stick to our guns and avoid the clearance Easter candy...

Healthy Meal Planning

I have made the executive decision that in March, the smartest and I are going to try a month of healthy eating. Our March is pretty busy looking- so I thought it would be just the ideal time to try my hand at healthy cooking (which may SEEM counter intuitive, but we will be eating out and doing a touch of traveling and celebrating, which means I will be cooking half as much as usual).

Now comes the tricky part. The part where I have no idea how to cook healthy meals. As with all issues with which I have zero experience- I turned to my good friend Pinterest for information. Here are a couple of meals I pulled from my "Suppertime (Skinny)" board:

Santa Fe Salad 

Baked Fajitas 

Chicken Tortilla Soup 

Santa Fe Stuffed Peppers 

Goat Cheese Caramelized Onion Quesadillas  

Chili Roasted Carrots 

Greek Frozen Yogurt 

Grilled Peaches 

So here's my question to you, oh blogosphere: what healthy ideas do you have. Are these recipes even healthy, or did I get sucked in by the hype?