Canteloupe anyone...

2.5 hours later and hunger pangs striking. 1/2 a canteloupe anyone? 1WW pt. not bad. Note: the fruit guy on 55th and 8th does not have the ripest canteloupe...I'm going to have to whip out my grapefruit spoon for this one. Will have to stick to my 50th and 8th guy for this :-)

Peanut Butter and Banana....

Good Morning Everyone, So, in an effort to eat more natural foods, I decided to see how full I would be from eating just a banana with 1.5TB of natural peanut butter. So far so good. It's been half an hour and I'm still full...YAY!!! This hopefully filling breakfast ranks in at 5WW points. An interesting thing I noticed yesterday...my top was a bit loose on me!! This calls for another YAY!!! I also randomly went out and bought a bunch of fruits and veggies, all of which I plan on consuming in some shape or form today. Here's what I bought: canteloupe avocado cucumbers tomato lemon blueberries spinach I see a salad brewing for lunch, but as always, I will keep you all posted. Anyone watch Losing It With Jillian last night? How are you all doing?

A morning update...

Hello All, How are you doing on this hot and humid day? Maybe I'm crazy but this is seriously my most favorite weather :-) Ok, so I thought I'd give you an update on my day so far. This morning I had my Kashi cereal with a banana and 1.5TB of chunky PB. Mmm...all for 5pts. I then had a snack of half of a very deliciously ripe canteloupe for 1.5pts. YUM!!! I noticed I'm doing pretty good with getting fruit in my diet. Yesterday I had a whole medium papaya and today canteloupe. It's always great when you can vary up your fruits. Luckily for me, the fruit street vendors in NYC are not only cheap, but most of the time the fruit is very ripe! How are you guys doing today?

Don't Give Up...

Hey Guys, I hope you all are doing well and had a great weekend. So, I managed to eat FAIRLY well this weekend, but that does not mean I did not have my ice cream slip up, which is OK. With the amount of extra points I get every week (35) and my activity points (I usually get 12-15 in per week), I can have my ice cream treat and not beat myself up over this. Another thing I want you guys to realize while on WW is, slow and steady wins the race here. Every week I do weigh myself and one week I will be down, the next week I will be up a pound. Honestly, this is fine because I know with due time the weight in pounds does come off. My biggest indication of losing the weight is how loose my clothes get on me. Sure, some weeks you don't lose the pounds, but you are probably losing in inches. The most important thing to remember is that with WW you can't go wrong. You are learning aobut portion control and are learning to make healthier food choices and are being forced to treat your body well, which is what you should be doing. With that said, this is a new week guys and you can do it! Just be patient and honestly...you have nothing to lose by trying :-p

Peanut Butter Banana Protein Smoothie

Good Morning Everyone, On this hot and humid morning I started my day off with a low point, filling Peanut Butter Banana Protein Smoothie. Ingredients: 1/2 banana, chopped 1TB. of peanut butter 1/2c. of almond milk (I love Silk Pure Almond, sweetened) 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder (I used Designer Whey) Ice as needed Preparation: Blend all ingredients in a blender or hand mixer. Enjoy! WW points: 6 Tip: When I see my bananas getting really ripe, I slice them up and place them in individual baggies and freeze them. When I make my smoothies I drop them in frozen and they double as ice cubes.

Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches...

I told you guys I would post my review for Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches and here it is. THIS IS SO RIDICULOUSLY GOOD!!! For only two points you so get your iced cream sandwich fix. What else could you want on a hot summer day. These ice cream sandwiches are perfect for the occasional creamy, frozen treat! Also, these sandwiches are not skimpy. For two points you get a more than decent, filling size ice cream sandwich. These babies do not leave behind a gritty after taste like other low calorie frozen treats do. These come in both chocolate and vanilla flavors. Here are the deets on the ice cream sandwiches: Calories: 140 Fat: 1.5g Fiber: 3g WW pts: 2 Should you try this: YES

Yesterday's Update....

Hey Guys, Sorry I was a bit M.I.A yesterday. I am here know to update you on yesterdays food adventures! I started off my day with my usual PB, cereal and fruit combo. This time I used an apple instead of a banana and I used Kashi Heart to Heart cereal. Using an apple saved me .5pts. So my breakfast turned out to be five points. This really kept me full until lunch time. Lunch was very simple. I wanted to finish up the Yoplait Greek yogurt I bought, so I had a container of that with half cup of Kashi cereal. This lunch was only 4pts. and I was hungry within a few hours. For a snack I had a quarter cup of Kashi(I guess you can say it was a Kashi day) with a tablespoon of PB. This was a 3pt. snack. After I left work I had a two point Kashi granola bar. Dinner was a four point pasta and sauce, but I only ate half...I think the Kashi's of the day were just filling me up! A couple of hours after dinner I had a Skinny Cow Ice Cream sandwich. Now this was the best part of my day :-) :-). I'll post a review on this later. So, my goal for today is too incorporate more fruits and veggies and less Kashi. How did you all do yesterday?

Lunch Time...

Yesterday I made egg salad to bring to lunch today. I decided to make my egg salad a little bit different by adding some spinach. Here are the deets for my egg salad sandwich: 2 hard boiled eggs, shells removed, roughly chopped 1tsp. mustard seeds A handful of baby spinach, finely chopped 1tsp. cayenne powder 1tsp. of garlic powder 1tsp. of adobo powder 1Tb. of light mayo 2 slices of whole wheat bread Preparation: Place all the ingredients except for the bread in a bowl a mix till all is combined. Once combined, place between bread slices. Enjoy! Servings: 1 WW points: 7

My Yummy Cantaloupe and Ricotta Breakfast

A new week....

Good Morning Everyone! How are you all doing? I hope you enjoyed the hot weekend we had as much as I did. So, we are now into a brand new week. For those of you just starting WW, you have a fresh day to make healthy, good for you, food choices. For those of you continuing WW, you can continue to make your healthy food choices! Today I will be starting my day off with half a cantaloupe with a quarter cup of fat free ricotta. A total of 3.5pts. What are you guys having for breakfast?

Emergency Snack Attack!

I always keep an emergency snack in my bag. This is usually a granola bar or trail mix. The snack that I have been having lately is Kellog's Fiber Plus granola bars. These bars rank in at only two points and the nine grams of fiber in the bar definitely fill you up. Right now my favorite flavor is chocolate peanut butter......mmmmm.... The only downside to these bars is they have a lot of ingredients that I really cannot pronounce. Actually, this is a big downside. On the other hand, when I say these bars are for emergencies,I mean it! What are your healthy snacks?

Subway....no fail lunch options

Well guys, I've said this before...when in doubt for lunch, always choose Subway as an option! Today I had a six inch turkey sub on whole wheat, with mustard, lettuce, tomatoes and onions. A very filling five points. What are your healthy fast food choices?

Dinner time....

Well since I know I was a little clumsy during my snack, I knew I had to think of a healthy low point dinner. I decided to make myself an egg white wrap. This wrap was full of protein and very filling. Here are the deets: One wrap, use a one point one One egg white Small handful of chopped spinach 1 slice of reduced fat Swiss cheese Salt/pepper/garlic powder Cooking spray Preparation: Combine the egg white, spinach and seasonings in a bowl. Spray a sauté pan with the cooking spray and cook the egg white mixture. Once cooked, place on wrap, then add the cheese. Fold wrap up and enjoy! Servings: 1 points: 3

m&m's and snacking...

Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with snacking. However, the kind of snack you choose is what's important. An apple, for example, is much more nutritionally sound than, let's say, peanut m and m's! So, yesterday I found myself snacking on a small handful of peanut m&m's. I looked up the points for this and WW said a bag size is 4pts. I hope this bag size is the same size as the ones you find while in line at the grocery store. If so, I'm saying I had SIX points worth of m and m's. I hope I'm not guesstimating too low on this. I do think I have to be extra careful for dinner though :-/

Diner Lunch...

Today I had lunch with my two friends Anne and Michael. We went to Cosmic Diner and I ordered a turkey sandwich on whole wheat with lettuce, tomato, onions and hot pepper, lots lots and lots of hot peppers:-). I did not get any cheese or mayo, but I did get mustard. See below I am guesstimating my points to be 5. I took out some turkey from my sandwich because there was too much. How was your lunch today? PS: My friend Michael Salvatore is the author of Between Boyfriends. Check him out on www.michaelgriffo.com.

Last Night's Dinner...

Good Morning, All!! After I left work last night I headed straight to the grocery to get cooking on my recipe for Achari Paneer. This will be featured on TheAjnabee.com today. By the time I got home, it was pretty late and I was STARVING!!! I wanted to have something quick, filling and of course within my daily points. By this time, I had 5.5 points left in the day. So, I tweeked my usual peanut butter for these days and came up with another great version! Now, I know this doesn't look to appetizing but it was oh so good! I'm telling you, if you like peanut butter you have to try this recipe out. Here are the deets: Ingredients: 1 small apple, diced 1 1/2TB. of peanut butter of your choice (I used chunky) 2tsp. of cinnamon 1/4c of any cereal (I used Kashi's Honey Sunshine) Preparation: Combine all of these ingredients in a bowl and enjoy!! Servings: 1 Points: 5 What did you have for dinner?

And it's now time for lunch...

My dear friend Anne (hi Anne!) made me a chicken salad sandwich for lunch today. She told me she used Arnold's Bakery Light bread. This is one point for two slices. She also used white meat, no skin of a rotisserie chicken, which I'm guessing is 3pts. Anne likes to use light mayo and a few walnuts, I'm guessing 4pts here. Mmmm...all this deliciously seasoned with lemon juice, tarragon, salt and pepper...YUM! This was a delicious sandwich and I'm guesstimating 8pts. for this. How was your lunch?

Breakfast time...

This morning I was able to shave off 1.5pts. from my delicious breakfast and still manage to stay full until lunch time. I still used one whole, small banana, diced and a quarter cup of Kashi Go Lean Crunch. However, instead of my usual two tablespoons of peanut butter, I used a tablespoon and half....this is what saved me 1.5pts. How was your breakfast?

Dinner last night...

I managed to have a 6pt. dinner last night. Just two points over my quota. I had homemade Bombay Sandwiches, loaded with veggies. Actually, all my points came from the bread. Each slice of bread had 2pts. In my sandwich I did not use any butter or potatoes. I only used green chili chutney, tomatoes, onions and two slices of beets. All for zero points. How was your dinner last night?

Review: Yoplait Greek Yogurt

Today for my snack I brought Yoplait Greek Yogurt, in Strawberry. This yogurt ranks in at 130 calories, 0 grams of fat and fiber. Making this yogurt a total of 3pts. To be honest, I think 3pts. is a bit much for non fat yogurt. Especially since I like to mix a quarter cup of Kashi Go Lean Crunch into mine, which would make my snack a total of 3.5pts! Not only did this yogurt do too well in the points category but I feel flavor was also at a loss. There was nothing artificial about the ingredients, but something did not taste right. It did leave a weird after taste. So, all in all, I'd rather save myself a whole point (which I could have used for dinner tonight....ahem) and go for my usual 2pt., great tasting yogurt!

My Bulgur Salad

Today for lunch I had a bulgur salad. I made this salad last night in 10 minutes! The best part of this salad is it's loaded with fiber and antioxidants. Each serving of bulgur has 7 grams of fiber! Here are the deets for my Bulgur Salad: Ingredients: 1c. cooked bulgur 1/2c. frozen broccoli florets 1/2c. frozen string beans 1/2c. frozen sugar snap peas 1/4c. low sodium soy sauce 1TB. chili powder 1TB. garlic powder 2 handfuls of spinach, chopped Preparation: Place your sauté pan on medium heat and add the frozen veggies. Stir in the soy sauce and garlic powder and chili powder. Cook this until the veggies have defrosted. Add the bulgur and spinach. Toss all together. Enjoy! Servings: 1 or 2 if this is a side dish.

My day so far...

Hello Blog Readers! Ok, where do I start? How about it's 7pm and I have four points left for dinner!!!!! WHAT THE H?!?!? So, thus far today I have had my breakfast which consisted of pb, kashi go lean crunch and a banana, all mixed together. This was 7pts. Lunch was bulgur and veggies for 5pts. I also had a yogurt and cereal snack for 3.5pts. Those three items cost me nearly 16pts. Now, I've realized breakfast is so high in points because even a small banana is1.5pts. Maybe next time I should try having an apple for 1pt? Or since the pb is 5pts. for two table spoons, maybe just have 1 1/2 TB? This alone would save me 1.5pts. Hmm....things I should consider. Lunch- sorry, I think 5pts. for lunch is acceptable. My snack- I think a 3.5pt.snack is very high. I used a 3pt. yogurt and I should have used a 2pt. This would have saved me 1pt at least. So, there are ways to make this better, but right now I'm trying to figure out my 4pt. dinner :-p How did your day go?

Another Berrytastic Smoothie

Saturday morning I made a wonderful pre workout smoothie. I was too keen on working out on a completely empty stomach so I made something light and filling to hold me over. I made a great berry smoothie with a secret ingredient. The deets are below: Ingredients 1/2 cup of blackberries 1/4 of a ripe avocado 1 cup of water Ice as needed Prep Blend all ingredients in a blender. Enjoy immediately! Ok, so in case you didn't guess it, the avocado is the secret ingredient. This gave my smoothie a richness and made it very thick. I got a healthy dose of monounsaturated fats from the avocado. I suggest you guys try this recipe out if you are looking for an instant pick me up.

Weekend Update

Good morning all! I hope you all had a very healthy weekend. My Saturday was pretty healthy. I managed to eat right and get a great workout in. Yesterday on the other hand was not too good. I managed to not count my points or eat right. I was doing just fine until after lunch, when I did not have anything healthy in the house because I needed to go grocery shopping that evening. I did have bagels and cream cheese though. So, I managed to make that. That was downfall number 1. Downfall number 2 came in the form of an indian buffet for dinner. While at the buffet, I was thinking that it had been such a long time since I've been to a buffet. The food was so good that I did go back for seconds. It was a total disaster. Not only was this a disaster but I noticed my body did not enjoy this at all. Well, eating poorly one day out of seven hopefully did not do too much damage. I know I had 15 points of activity ranked up and about 25 extra points and my daily 20. So, onto a new week. We can only look forward now. Although, I think I will do a bit of extra exercising today. How did your weekend go?

Kebabs for dinner...

Last night for dinner I went out for Indian food. I had a craving for Tandoori Vegetable Kebabs from Horn OK in Jersey City. Horn OK's food is delicious and the atmosphere is colorful. So, I ordered the Vegetable Tandoor Kebabs which consisted of a couple of broccoli florets, a couple of cauliflower florets, a few green peppers and onions, and two pieces of paneer. I ate everything but the one piece of paneer. These kebabs are soooo good! They are tangy and spicy and look as if they have been cooked on an open fire with just a slight char. I tried to get the recipe for this but they refused to give it to me :-( This weekend I'll have to try to come up with a similar recipe..somehow! I ate all the vegetables and no bread or rice. I also ate a ton of green chili's....I know that's 0 points. So, my issue is, finding out how many points the kebabs were. Now, alone, the veggies have no points. Any spices that were used are probably no points as well. However, the tanginess that I was telling you about earlier, I think that is from yogurt. I don't know if the used full fat yogurt, low fat or even fat free. So, any help with guesstimating these points guys?

Lunch time...finally

Lunch time finally came around and if you remember I said I did not have time to pack my own lunch. So I bought myself a 6pt Healthy Choice Cafe Steamer meal of chicken pesto, pasta and veggies. I have to say this was tasty, however I could hardly see any veggies!


What I would do differently is add some of my own veggies. Maybe some frozen broccoli or spinach. This would also make it a lot more filling. This meal also had 4 grams of fiber and 20 grams of protein! For 6pts this meal held me over through a 30 minute stair master session and a couple of hours after that. I would definitely have this again, only if I had an extra serving of veggies. How was your lunch today?

Did I Make It....

Did I make it to lunch time without snacking after my 7pt breakfast? Well I ate my breakfast at 9am and was due for a 1pm lunch. I have to be honest though at around 12:15pm I started to get hungry so I had an Asian pear which is 0pts. This did hold me over until lunch time.

Here we go...the 6pt Breakfast

As discussed yesterday, today I will have a 6pt breakfast, 6pt. lunch and 6pt dinner to see if I feel less hungry and snack less through out the day. So here goes...my 6pt. breakfast: 1 small banana: 2.5 pts. 2TB of PB: 5pts. 1/4c. of Kashi Heart to Heart: .5pts. OK, so my 6pt breakfast turned out to be 7pts! Let's see how this goes...I hope it was worth all hte points.

Dinner Last Night...

I didn't really have time to cook something for dinner last night, which means I also did not bring my lunch today -but that's a later post. So instead of cooking I went to Subway. For me, Subway is the safest place for me to make a healthy food choice. There is hardly no guess work involved with their low fat 6 inch subs. Expecially since they have over 5 subs with 6 grams of fat or less! The key is, no cheese and load up on lots of veggies when ordering. Go to www.subway.com to view their healthy sandwhiches. So, last night for dinner I had the oven roasted chicken breast sandwhich for 6pts! Not a bad way to end the day. What did you guys have?

Snacking.....

Shortly after my wonderful Lentil Salad lunch I went on a snacking fritz. Although I snacked a lot, I still stayed within my points range and chose healthy snacks. I started off by having a half cup of Kashi Heart to Heart cereal with a quarter cup of fresh blueberries. This snack was only 1 point. About an hour later I had my All Bran crackers. This was 2 pts per serving. Shortly after this I had an Oikos yogurt with a quarter cup of cereal. This was 3 pts and my last snack for the day. Now, here is what I'm wondering: if I had a higher point lunch would I have needed to snack as much? I had my breakfast at 9:00am and this was a 6pt meal. I did not have the urge to snack in between breakfast and lunch at all. In fact, this kept me full for 4.5 hours! Sure, if I have a higher point lunch I'll still use the same amount of points as if I have been snacking, but at least I'll feel full and not keep having to go back for snacks. So, here is what I'm going to do tomorrow: I'm going to have a 6pt breakfast, a 6pt lunch and a 6pt dinner. Let's see how this works out. How have you guys been doing today? PS: I was also able to get to the gym and get some activity points earned :-)

Turning Madhur's Lentils Into a Salad...

Since I made a batch of Onion and Garlic Lentils from Madhur Jaffrey's cookbook, I decided to bring that to lunch today. Again, I had this with my bulgur. I had also brought a plain side salad with me, so I decided to chop this up and mix it in with my lentils and bulgur. The result was a delicious lentil salad which was very filling and only 4 points!

Doing the Double D's for Breakfast....

For breakfast this morning I had Dunkin Donut's Turkey Sausage Eggwhite Flatbread Sandwhich. This is a totally filling breakfast for 6 points. Yes, this is more than I usually have for breakfast, but I know this will keep me full til lunch time, and I will probably not need my 2 point snack between breakfast and lunch. DD's Eggwhite Flatbread sandwhiches are great for an on the go morning breakfast. On one flatbread you get a fluffy eggwhite omelet with a little bit of cheese. All of this has been oven toasted which makes it extra special! FYI...the regular flatbread sandwhiches rank in at about 12 points. The eggwhite turkey and eggwhite veggie have a decent 6 points.

Woohoo...go DD!!!!

Guesstimating Dinner Last Night...

Last night for dinner I had Channa Masala. Honestly, I'm guesstimating the points on this because I did not make this. I did have this with two tortilla's, which I know were 1 point each, so that's atleast 2 points there. Also, I did not have more than one serving of the Channa Masala, and I think I had about a cup and a half. Therefore, I'm guesstimating the Channa Masala to be about 6 points. This would bring my dinner to a guesstimate of 8 points. Not bad, I went over my daily points by .5 so I delved into my extra weekly point allowance. I also have activity points ranked up, but I try not to use them. After dinner I watched Losing It With Jillian...anyone else catch this show? What did you guys have for dinner?

Asian Pears

Not quite a pear and not quite an apple. However this wonderful fruit combines the flavors of both to totally tantalize your taste buds! Could this seriously be the perfect crunchy, sweet fruit snack? Ranking in at around 55 calories and 5 grams of fiber this wonderful fruit is a zero point snack. Pair this fruit with some yogurt or even a sharp cheddar and you've got yourself a great snack! Have you had your fruit today?

Can Madhur's Meals Make Me Skinny...

Yesterday I made my first Madhur Jaffrey meal...Lentil with Onion and Garlic, a Middle Eastern dish. This recipe was so easy and seemed very healthy to me. The recipe only calls for onion, garlic, dried red chili and green lentils. Mrs. Jaffrey used 3TB of EVOO, but I was able to make the whole recipe with only 1TB, and still was able to make the four servings. Also, the recipe suggests eating this with pita or any other type of Middle Eastern bread. I, however decided to have this with bulgur and this seemed to pair up perfectly. So, lunch today was bulgur with green lentils. Very filling and full of fiber, protein and flavor. All for 5 WW pts. I will post a pic tonight!

My Healthy Breakfast

Breakfast this morning was Oikos Honey Greek yogurt with half a cup of blueberries and half a cup of Kashi Heart to Heart cereal mixed in. Not bad for a nutritious filling breakfast for 3.5WW pts. Breakfast was at 9am and it is now 11:30am and I'm hungry for a snack. Time for my All Bran crackers -pts. per serving. What have you guy had to eat to eat today?