Fiesta Chicken Pizza - 250 calories?!?!

I have discovered my best low-calorie recipe to date.  It is amazing.  Let's get right down to the nitty gritty.

RECIPE
1 whole Joseph's pita - 60 calories
2 slices low fat cheese (I used Provalone) - 50 calories each
1/2 cup Laura's Fiesta Blend - 90 calories, which I pulled right out of my butt, and it consisted of:
1 can corn
1 can black beans
1 diced green pepper
1 diced red onion
1 can Rotel (next time I'll use plain diced tomatoes b/c this was realllllly hot)
1 packet Fajita mix
1 and 1/4 cups diced cooked chicken.

I dumped all the ingredients for Laura's Fiesta Blend except the chicken into a saucepan and sauteed for 10-15 minutes, until the peppers/onions are cooked.  At the last minute I decided it needed something more, so I grabbed some cooked chicken I had on hand and dumped it in there.  Then I drained any remaining juice because I don't need runny juice on my pizza and neither do you. This made ELEVEN 1/2 cup servings.

I got out my trusty 60 calorie pita.  I covered it in 2 slices of Provalone cheese.  I dumped 1/2 cup Laura's Fiesta Blend on top. I gotta trademark that junk. I baked it for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, and it was DIVINE!!

Not only was it divine, but next time I want one, all I have to do is open the container in the fridge and scoop out some more of my Laura's Fiesta Blend b/c I made a buttload of it.

Week 2 Update

Week 2 ended on Saturday.  I am down 6 lbs.  Woohoo!!! It could've been more had I not had one binge day.  Boo.  Just to give you an idea of how my body works, I weighed in after my binge day and my weight was up 8 lbs.  I'm not kidding.  EIGHT pounds.  However, it all went away within a couple of days, plus some.

I had tons of witty things to type up here, but I've got a screaming bloody murder 2-year-old, and I can't even focus.  Working on another "recipe" tonight.  Homemade pizza. Have I mentioned I love pizza?!? I had made a new light chicken salad recipe with Greek yogurt I found on Pinterest, but it was nasty.  Don't let anybody lead you to believe Greek yogurt can replace everything.  These people who claim this have no taste buds and/or they are mayo haters, which means they aren't even fat to begin with.  If you can't easily eat 5,000 calories in one day and not blink twice, you are not allowed in my Fat Girls club.  Amen.

Coleslaw for 75 calories!!

It's that time of the year.  The perfect time for grilling and throwing down on a hot dog. Not just any hot dog.  A hot dog that is smothered in toppings so heavily that you have no choice but to eat it with a fork.  I can make this happen for you.

First, let me tell you how to make the slaw. This is a recipe I make year-round.  I freaking love coleslaw.  I've made this slaw for many a gathering, and it is always a hit, even with the annoying naturally skinny people who have never had to taste a "diet" food in their lives.

 As usual, this recipe is simple.  If it's not simple, I don't have time for it.  I have no time for elaborate, ornate meals with fancy trimmings.  I've got a 5-year-old with special needs and the craziest, busiest toddler you will ever meet.  My husband is never home at dinner time due to his work hours, so I'm just not that motivated to cook a whole lot.

Anywho, here's the recipe

COLESLAW
16 oz bag of coleslaw mix
1 cup Kraft mayo with olive oil
2 TBS vinegar
2 TBS splenda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp ground mustard
Mix all ingredients together.  If you've never made coleslaw before, after you first mix it, you will think it's way too dry and you simple must add more mayo or something wet.  You are WRONG.  Please believe me as it will settle to a perfect texture in a few hours.  I highly recommend making this the day before you need to serve it.
*Makes about nine 1/2 cup servings.  Each serving is 75 calories.  No, I'm not lying.  I redid the math 75 times just to make sure.  You're welcome.

ULTIMATE SLAW DOG

Oscar Meyer light hot dog - 50 calories
Healthy Life hot dog bun - 80 calories
Great Value Hot Dog Chili Sauce -(10 calories per TBS)
Mustard - 0 calories
LIGHT COLESLAW- 75 calories per 1/2 cup

As you can see, if I use a whopping 4 TBS of that hot dog chili sauce, my entire slaw dog comes in at 245 calories.  And it's HUGE.  I ate one for dinner tonight.  I was out of chili sauce. :(  But, it was still awesome and only 205 calories.  :)

Week 1 Update

Well, I've been counting my calories for 8 days now, and I'm down 3 lbs. Stick with me, I have a super duper long way to go.

Here is me today after a 3-mile workout. Just look at my glow!  And lack of makeup.  And lack of a shower.  I bet you can even smell me through your computer.  

Here is a little bit of diet humor, because if we don't approach this with a sense of humor along with a sense of determination, we will fail.

I am of the opinion that restricting yourself like this is not realistic longterm.  Even just eating less calories is not going to work longterm if I don't stay consciously aware of it for the rest of my life.  Honestly though, for me, just eating less calories is the very best plan of all.  Find what works for you.  

LOL

3-Course Lunch - 450 calories

I eat a ton of prepackaged foods.  The main reason I do that is for the built-in portion control.  I can't be the only American who does this.  Maybe I'm just the only one bold enough to proclaim it for the world on a blog?  I don't know.  I'm a very smart girl. I know it would technically be better for me to eat fresh, preservative-free and all that blah blah.  For right now, I'm gonna do the best I can with the small amount of $$$ I have to do what it takes to escape obesity.  I KNOW that to escape obesity I HAVE to not feel deprived.  Feeling deprived is only going to make me angry.  Nobody like an angry mama.  

So, I share with you my 3-course lunch.  I eat a version of this everyday.  Let's break it down.

APPETIZER (80 calories)

This is the addition to pre-packaged lunch that makes the meal filling and round.  There are some delicious light frozen meals, but are they truly filling?  Are they truly satisfying?  Not usually. Okay, not ever.  The main ingredient I'm about to share with you is life changing, and if I can't find these in my Walmart because they're sold out because I shared my top secret info, I'm gonna hunt you all down.  I want hurt you or anything, but I will totally raid your pantry and take stuff.  Don't think I won't.  

THIS, my friends is the magic.  These are Joseph's pitas.  A soft, thin little pita.  You eat 1/2 of a pita at a time.  The entire half has 30 calories.  Yes.  I said 30 calories.  What I'm telling you is you can stuff these suckers with anything and only add 30 calories worth of bread around it.  That's amazing. In this particular "recipe", I stuffed my pita with Hillshire Farms Honey Roasted Turkey, some light mayo, tomato, and lettuce.    The entire pita had 80 calories.  There are so many options possible with these things.  

These can be found on their own island in the bakery at Walmart. They are also available in the organic section at Publix, but of course they cost more.  They're $2 and something at both stores, but I believe they're $2.99 at Publix.  Publix does run them buy one get one free from time to time.  You get 6 pitas (12 APPETIZERS WORTH!!) in a package.  When I open a package, I go through and pre-slice them all with a pizza cutter.  They last WAY past their expiration date, and they freeze well if you should happen to stock

 up on them.  

ENTREE (220 calories)

The key for the entree, in my opinion, is that it must be 250 calories or less.  Usually, I eat some sort of Lean Cuisine or Smart Ones with 250 calories or less.  Or I could make a loaded slaw dog.  (RECIPE COMING SOON!)  In this particular meal, I used a Healthy Choice meal.  It was Chicken Alfredo with Spinach.  It had 220 calories and cost $1.50 at Walmart.  This particular meal is always $1.50.  At a later date, I will share the lower calorie, lower $$$ frozen meals I like the best with you.  

DESSERT (150 calories)

Dessert is essential for me.  I am hopelessly addicted to chocolate and I refuse to give it up because I have no intentions of doing so for the rest of my life.  The dessert here, as you can see, is a good ol' fashioned Fudge Round.  That's right.  A Little Debbie.  It has 150 calories.  

Why go with the Little Debbie?  I would love to go healthier.  For example, have you heard of Vitatops?  They are fudgy and awesome and preservative-free.  But guess what?  A box of 4 costs at least $4.27.  EFF THAT.  I also love the new Skinny Cow ice cream bars.  Again, a box of 5 is $4.27.  In a similar calorie range, there are variety of non-diet foods I can pick from on the cheap.  Fudge Rounds, Starcrunches, and German Chocolate Cookie Rings are Little Debbies that all have 150 calories or less. Even better, you get 8-12 in a box for around $1.50.  COME ON!!

  

Pizza Cheat! 350 calories

Ahhh, pizza.  The love of a fat girl's life. If I could only eat one food every meal for the rest of my life, it would definitely be pizza. And so I must quickly share with you all how to do pizza for 350 calories.  Of the frozen variety, because you are way too hungry to cook, aren't you.  I may need to rename this blog to the Lazy Calorie Counting Queen.

As you well know, Lean Cuisine and all those "diet" meals make some really yummy frozen pizzas.  They usually run around the 300+ calorie range.  If you want a single serving pizza on the CHEAP,one that was never intended to be a "diet" food and is still just 350 calories, hit up WalMart and buy these:

They are the Great Value brand of pizza with a flat bread crust.  I think they only have pepperoni.  You could always add some more junk to it for a few more calories.  You get 4 of them in a box, and they are $3.98, which makes them .99 per pizza.  You can beat the deal, and they taste great.  Despite being a "flat bread" crust, the crust is so good and kind of a wee bit greasy almost.  In a GOOD way.  You can microwave them for 2 minutes or you can cook them in the oven.  They're really good either way.

I hope you are enjoying my dieting cheats!! I will post every day.  I have several new posts in the works.

Salad with Fried Chicken--ONLY 315 CALORIES

First let me start by saying that I am ONLY counting calories.  I do understand that grilled chicken would be healthier on a salad.  Save the lecture.  I gotta get the calories down, as do millions of other people, and I want people to realize you can do this and still enjoy the messed up yummy stuff.  You just can't go to BingeTown on it.  (Easier said than done, I know. We're in this together.) Also, if anyone is aware of a frozen or refrigerated GRILLED chicken that doesn't taste, well, AWFUL, please let me know.

Alright, the first thing to discuss here is dressing.  I am a light dressing expert.  So let me save you the frustrations and letdowns and let you know that there are some excellent light dressings out there that are (gasp) creamy and fantabulous.  On this particular salad, I chose to go with my favorite light Honey Mustard dressing, Ken's Steakhouse Light Options Honey Dijon.

Other dressings you MUST know and you WILL thank me for if you are a fan of any of these types include:
1.  RANCH - Naturally Fresh Light Ranch Dressing (in the refrigerated section) (90 cals-2tbs)
2.  BLUE CHEESE - T. Marzetti Light Chunky blue cheese (in the refrigerated section) (90 cals-2tbs)
3. 1000 ISLAND- Ken's Steakhouse light 1000 Island Dressing (70 cals-2tbs)

Do NOT buy any sort of Kraft light dressing, unless you enjoy the taste of mayo mixed with pee and broken dreams.

So now we come to the fried chicken.  Heck yeah.  Get the Tyson Southern Style Breast Tenderloins.  They are the best.  And they are 180 calories per serving.  I do weigh out my serving, and it usually is exactly one big, fat, juicy, delicious piece.  Cook it in the oven.  Or just throw it in the microwave for 75 seconds if you're about to eat your arm off.  It's still awesome.

The cheese I used on this salad was what I had on hand: A slice of reduced fat Sargento's provolone cheese, which has 50 calories. I just sliced it up.  It was great.  I recommend using sliced cheese because the cheese is great to have around for sandwiches (and other recipes I will be posting) or it's a great already portion-controlled serving of cheese.  I buy all kinds of reduced fat cheeses,  Pepper Jack, Colby, Swiss.  They usually have 50-60 calories per slice and are an absolute staple to have on hand.

Then throw a veggie party.  I keep a bag of mixed veggies (you know, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower) around b/c I like Veggies and dip as a snack, OR I like to shred them up and toss them in my salad for adding CRUNCH and BULK, but not many calories. And of course I throw in some of my famous Romaine lettuce that I always have on hand as well.  :)

You can throw on a TBS of bacon bits for 25 calories if you'd like.

RECIPE
Mixed Veggies - 15 calories
2 TBS Ken's Steakhouse Light Options Honey Dijon - 70 calories
Shredded Sargento's Sliced Reduced Fat Provolone -50 calories
Tyson Southern Style Breast Tenderloins Chicken - 180 calories
TOTAL CALORIES - 315

Don't think you have to eat bland, boring crap to lose weight or go to extremes.  Portion control.  We can do this.  We got this.

I'm FAT. But I wasn't always. And I wont be again.

This perfectly sums up my whole problem with food.  I wish my body got credit for being "good" from 7 a.m.  until 5 p.m.  I wish I wouldn't destroy all my good efforts in one fell swoop every evening.  That's why I've starting this blog. To hold me accountable.  Oh geez, I should probably add one of those little tickers where you track your weight loss.  Because I WILL be losing some lbs.  I started this "diet" this past Friday.  So, today is day 4 of my diet.  I'm weighing in once a week, on Fridays.  I've done great the last 4 days, but it's PMS time, so I'll be happy if I've lost 2 lbs by Friday's weigh in .

What am I doing?  I am eating 1800 calories per day on the days I don't work out.  I am eating 2000 calories a day on the days I do work out.

What are my workouts?  Well, since I am rather large at this point in time, I stay away from the hardcore P90X world for now because I love my knees.  I do the Leslie Sansone Walk At Home DVDs.  I add handweights and resistance bands to bring on the pain.  I work up an awesome sweat and a nice heart rate, so I'm satisfied with her for right now.

Do my calories seem like a lot to you?  Well, this is how I'd like to eat for the rest of my life.  As I lose weight, I will have to lower my calorie requirements, and I know that.  This isn't my first rodeo.  There was a time long, long ago in my adulthood where I was a teensy weensy 115 lbs.

So, feel free to follow me on my journey.  I'm really good at coming up with yummy low-cal stuff.  And I plan to review some of the different diet meals, like Lean Cuisines and such, and give you ideas on how to keep the yummy factor up, the $$$ factor down, and of course, keep the calories down.  Any recipes will be SIMPLE.  B/c I'm a simple kind of woman.  (Ha, is there really even such a thing?!)

I probably should've made this my first blog.  Why is my spellcheck telling me "should've isn't a word?

LETTUCE MATTERS

The basic building block of all diets is LETTUCE. WAIT!! Stay with me. Lettuce sounds simple and BLAH, but it's not.  You're gonna be shoving that lettuce in sandwiches, pitas, and salads left and right, so you had better be picking something you like the texture of, that lasts a long time without turning to brown mush, and that isn't gonna feel like you're flushing $$$ down the potty.  (Ha! "Potty."  I might just be stuck in Mommy mode.)

I know I've bought many of those salad bag mixes, only to end up throwing them in the trash when they start rotting 3.2 seconds after I open the bag. These bags of lettuce, in any variety, are not your friend.  Some of the ones that last a longer time are the ones that are a "softer" variety of greens.  The problem with those, is they supply you with ZERO crunch factor.  Mama needs some crunch factor. 

So, considering all of these, you need to buy the 3-pack of Romaine hearts, and here is what you're gonna do.  You're gonna drop less than $3 on a 3-pack.  You're gonna cut the butts off those suckers.  You're gonna nestle the leaves in some paper towels in a plastic container.  And you're gonna grab a leaf for a sandwich.  Or maybe you're gonna grab a few leaves, quickly hand shread them, and make a salad. 

If you keep Romaine lettuce as I've instructed you, you're Romaine lettuce will be awesome for a week.  At least.  If you only break down one heart at a time and leave the other 2 in the bag, You're gonna  be good for at least 2 weeks. 

No more tossing lettuce in the trash left and right.  No more wilty, sad lettuce.  You've got lettuce that has a lot of vibrant green and a lot of crunch.  But the awesome of Romaine doesn't stop there.  You can regrow your freaking Romaine.  I'm not even kidding.  Stick that Romaine butt in a cup of water, sit it in a window, and watch it grow.