Because it's not about food....

It's about being PREPARED and enjoying the fuel we put in our bodies.  

I am a BEING of ORDER!

Therefore, I am preparing my meals.

Woo Hoo!  

(This is big for a mom who is driving teens to/from work and activities for 90% of her waking hours, or so it seems)

Yesterday I tried some new things, thanks to Sandy at Sandy's Kitchen!!  Lover her!  She has a lot of recipes for those following the TSFL program and using Medifast food.  Or for those just wanting to eat healtheir.  I've followed her for years now.  So I tried two of her items listed.  First:

MEDIFAST PEANUT BUTTER FUDGE BALLS
I didn't follow the exact recipe she has because I didn't have almond milk, but here is what I did:

Ingredients:
1 MF Chocolate Pudding
1 MF Hot Cocoa
4 T. PB2
1/4+ cup mixture of Water and Sugar Free Peanut Butter Syrup

Combine all ingredients in small bowl.  Form into 8 fudge balls.  4 balls makes 1 meal (since you used 2 MF meals in the recipe)

I actually made 5x this recipe - that's why you see 40 balls in the pic up there.  Then I put them in baggies (4 per bag) and froze them.  We can just grab one and go and have it ready by the time we eat.  The hubs really likes them!!!

You can find Sandy's recipe here.


Second:
MEDIFAST OATMEAL COOKIES

Ingredients:
1 MF Maple & Brown Sugar Oatmeal
1/4 t. Cinnamon
1 packet Splenda (I used Stevia)
1/3 cup water
1/8 t. baking powder
1/2 t. vanilla
1 T Peanut Butter (I used PB2)

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix all ingredients and let sit for 5 min.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or spray with cooking spray.  Drop by spoonfulls and bake  for 12-15 minutes.

I doubled the recipe for me and the hubs.  Next time I would try to get the cookies flatter if I could to more crispiness.  But they were fine.  Definitely better than making the actual oatmeal.  My son took a bite and wanted more. :)  I will include these up in my Recipes - Medifast tab.  You can see Sandy's original recipe here.


I have also found the I love the Coleman Chicken Meatballs that Costco sells.  The carbs are lower and protein higher than other meatballs I compared and they looked like a great option for our "lean".

So we had them as our L&G last night and salad - So yummy and easy and fast.  That's really what I need, is easy and fast and yet still seems like a quality meal.

I love mushrooms on my salad and had 6 meatballs (on left), Brent had 4 meatballs with 2 turkey sausages. And of course light dressing.

Another meal I had that was super yummy, and also from Costco was this Garlic Pepper Marinated Sockeye Salmon.  Just defrost and bake for 15 minutes and it's total gourmet!  I added some cucumber as my "green" and had a delicious dinner.

For the hubs, I scrambled up 1 cup of egg beaters with some red pepper and added some light cheese just before it was done for a cheesy egg scramble.  Fresh cucumbers also finished off his "green".  So that was also a super fast meal fix that filled him up.

Onward and forward as a BEING OF ORDER!  

Yup, that's me.  If you have any quick and easy, healthy meal ideas, do share! 

oxXXOooXoo ~Margene

First Week of 2011

It’s the first week of this new year.  Yes, I have a flair for the obvious!  So we are on plan this week.  The hubs has been struggling with hunger but he has been stickin’ to plan... such a good guy!  

Our first lean and green of 2011 was at Panda Express!  We had the steamed veggies and some of the lower calorie entrees.  Mine was the mushroom chicken.  It was very delish.  A real treat.

Here are a couple other lean and greens from this week.

I tried these new chicken meat balls I found at Costco.  They are low in carbs and high in protein and I figured we could have 8-10 each for our “Lean”.  Then I sauteed some red peppers and mushrooms to go with them.  The chicken meat balls have a tiny kick to them and left my mouth a little hot, but not too much for me to handle.  The hubs loved it and added hot sauce to his.  He loves that burn.

Tonight I had an old standard that I love:  Chicken salad with Walden Farms bacon ranch dressing.  Very satisfying!

This week has been a bit like being in limbo again, but it’s not too bad.  I’ve been stranded at home w/o a vehicle and had to find creative ways to get places.  The other day my daughter and I decided to just leave and we walked to the bus and rode to the theater and watched a matinee movie.  Then walked to the store and rode the bus back and walked home.  It was So Super COLD... but it was fun.  Not that I want to do that in the freezing cold again!  


Some of our same trials are creeping back in, like my husbands stress, and some of the things I struggle with, but that is to be expected and I can see blessings come through it all.  In fact, a huge blessing is coming this weekend.  I will have to post about that later.  Something SUPER cool!

I am excited at the thought of actually going into transition in a couple months and then to maintenance.  I am excited for our goals this year.  It feels like limbo right now but there are a lot of cool things ahead and I’m trying to keep it all in focus.

And I am enjoying SO many NSV.  I sometimes hate to share them with friends or family as it surely must get OLD to them, but it’s all so HUGE to me.  Here are a couple:  my watch is loose now and slipping farther up my arm all the time.  When I started in Feb. it was a bit too tight on me.  None of my rings fit anymore!  They all are either way too big or uncomfortably lose (mind you, these are just the cheap rings from Freddy’s and Claire’s... I am not into jewelry).  My favorite NSV is how the hubs responded to me several time during our Utah trip.  When he’d see me from a far and we’d  be walking to meet (like I’m coming out of the gas station and he’s going in), he would grab me and whisper in my ear “I love seeing you from afar, you look so amazing and then I realize you’re my wife!  You are so hot!” It seriously gave me chills when he tells me that.

So it’s about STAYING ON PLAN and KEEPING FOCUS and COUNTING BLESSINGS!  How is your first week going?