This is one of our recent grocery shopping trips’ hauls.
Note all the produce.. pears, baby carrots, bell peppers, apples, lettuce, spinach, grape tomatoes, asparagus, avocado… probably some more that’s hidden in there. So delicious! I can’t wait until our garden is giving us enough produce to replace a significant part of our usual grocery shopping bill!
…And the rest is mostly low-fat dairy. Cottage cheese, vanilla yogurt, milk, sour cream, babybel cheese. And then chocolate chips (a good treat stirred into the vanilla yogurt) and some coffee mix stuff that’s awesome to add to actual coffee instead of to water like they suggest.
Anyway, so… I haven’t been doing actual cooking much lately. Mostly steaming or blanching veggies, tossing together salads, occasionally making some rice and/or chicken to go with it, but often having a hard boiled egg or turkey slices for some protein.
So while I may have lost 12 pounds in the last 2 months (awesome!) my husband – who has no weight to lose – is needless to say NOT very pleased with this arrangement, despite his intense love of vegetables. He’s been forced to fend for himself on many occasions, often opting for a 3-4 egg omelet loaded with cheese. Poor guy.
So I’m going to make an effort to cook at least one actual meal a week (more like 3-4 because of the husband’s “puppy eyes” face) and I’ll try to remember to take pictures so I can post them here along with the recipes.
Meanwhile, what’s your favorite low-calorie/low-fat recipe resource?
I found Hungry Girl recently, and a lot of the recipes sound tasty but are too much work or have too many ingredients I don’t want to have to have on hand… weird stuff. But some are good-sounding and might enter my kitchen. I’m also aware of SparkRecipes which has a lot of user-submitted recipes, and the nutrition facts to go with them. Then there’s the Calorie Count Recipe Analysis, where you can copy+paste recipes from any other source (including my website) and get the nutrition facts. I’ve been playing with that some, becoming horrified, and adjusting amounts and ingredients to see if I can make a recipe better for me, if not better tasting (it’s no secret I’m a huge fan of butter, bread, pasta, bacon, and cheese).
I still follow the Pioneer Woman’s food blog, but often have to close my eyes SO-TIGHT while reading her posts, so that I don’t accidentally rush to the fridge and eat a stick of butter along with a pound of cheese.
PS If you’re also trying to eat more healthfully, do NOT click the “related posts” links here… please don’t do it.
Hi! I'm Emily. I'm a Navy wife and brand new stay at home mom. I cook simple, delicious, grain-free recipes, do crafts, decorate on a budget, and keep a happy home. I breastfeed, babywear, cloth diaper, and co-sleep, but I'm not a hippie.
Another good website for great low fat recipes is Gina’s Skinny Recipes. http://www.skinnytaste.com/
Miss you! Haven’t see you posting lately! I always enjoyed reading your blog!
This is one of my favorite healthy recipe sites: http://www.eatingwell.com/.
I like eatbetteramerica.com. Its not a blog, but its a good site that takes classic dishes and “healthifies” them.
I know what you mean, Hungry Girl IS kind of weird. I sort of pick and choose what to take from her website and emails. A lot of it seems to be what I would consider fake foods, just weird processed diet foods that I don’t particularly want to eat. I LOVE SparkPeople but watch out on SparkRecipes, people put things in there that are FAR from being low cal or good for you. When eating out, I like to use healthy dining finder, which tells you not only what restaurants have good choices but what dishes are good choices and if there are options (dressing on the side, no oil, etc.) to make them more so.
On a completely unhealthy note, have you ever made Pioneer Woman’s Mt. Dew apple dumplings? Sugar coma!!!!
Twitter: JoyfulAbode
Cascia, isn’t it delicious?
Flavored yogurts do NOT ALL have HFCS in them… the dannon light n fit ones do not, which is why we stick to those. Also, I know Publix brand yogurt (we don’t have publix here unfortunately) doesn’t have it either.
And my husband loves veggies and healthy eating, but also loves (and honestly needs) hearty portions of protein and carbs, which I’ve kind of passed up while counting calories.
That looks a lot like what we bring home from the grocery store. But we no longer purchase flavored yogurt of any kind. They all contain high fructose corn syrup. We get low fat plain yogurt and just sweeten it with fresh fruit. It’s too bad that your husband isn’t enjoying eating healthy.
Twitter: JoyfulAbode
Katie, I wouldn’t say we’re focusing on the fat issue… but fat free sour cream for example has 21 calories per ounce. Full fat sour cream has 61 calories per ounce. So if I like to eat a lot of sour cream on my quesadillas, I want it to be lower calorie, so I pick fat-free.
I also prefer skim or 1% milk just because it’s not as thick-tasting, which I find gross.
I have been eating a ton of lean proteins (not bacon, though I did buy some turkey bacon to play with later)… hard boiled eggs, 98% fat free turkey dogs (40 calories each), turkey lunch meat, boneless skinless chicken breasts, etc…
I’m basically counting calories, which leads me to eat foods that are “bigger” for the number of calories in them, like veggies… you can’t get away from the fact that 3500 calories = 1 pound. Whether it’s 3500 calories of carrots or of bacon, it’s the same difference.
You know, rather than trying to go low-fat, I would say, don’t worry about the fat. Here’s my reasoning (thanks to a friend who has been “educating” me): your body doesn’t actually absorb fat. You get fat cells from the sugar that metabolizes into fat. A better idea to lose weight (and so far its been working for me, about 5 lbs in the last month or so): cut down on carbs and eat more proteins/fats that pack a punch. I’m telling you: eggs, cheese, bacon, yum! I mean, other stuff is good, too, but the protein (not going crazy here) is where it’s at. Not forgetting fruits & veggies, of course, plus dairy (although why worry with low-fat for that, either?).
It’s worth a try, and it’s so tasty.
For online sites, I really like Cooking Light (their recipes are at myrecipes.com). As far as cookbooks, I love Ellie Krieger’s “The Food You Crave” though most of her recipes can also be found online at foodnetwork.com. She seems to take more of a healthy eating approach than Hungry Girl’s sometimes overly-processed “light” recipe approach, if that makes sense?
I’m also in the process of eating healthier because I need to lose at least 20 pounds before December when I have my wedding dress fitting. Hopefully I can do it!