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Feeling sweet this week for breakfast! I prepared dark chocolate Kodiak Cakes (not sure if these are regional or not but in case you don’t know it’s a healthier pancake mix.) To go with the pancakes, I’ve added 1/3 serving of 0% Fage greek yogurt, strawberries, and Walden Farms 0 Calorie syrup.

For lunch, I prepared Skinny Taste’s Stir-Fried Pork & Mixed Veggies. My grocery store didn’t have snow peas so I subbed asparagus. Note about recipes: even if I follow a recipe with a calorie count per serving listed, I still calculate my own calories by weight. I ended up having about 50+ more calories per serving than the recipe called for after I weighed out all of the ingredients. I served the stir fry with cauliflower rice and low-calorie string cheese. 

For snacks, we have our usual Dannon Light & Fit (tried the toasted marshmallow flavor and it is LIFE) and fruit. 

I’m still going on my daily walks. I usually get 3000 extra steps for one walk, but sometimes I go on 2-3 walks depending on if coworkers feel like getting out of the office. Friendly coworkers who love walking is one of my favorite work benefits. 

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Sometimes, you just have a craving that you have to satisfy, thus it was for this steak. Rather than saying no to something so high calorie, I made it work. Light breakfast of coffee and milk, some cheese and crackers for lunch, and a looong walk in the afternoon added extra calories. I even ended up having room for dessert afterward!

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Late posting last week’s meal prep. ;) 

Wanted a more savory breakfast this week so we’ve got Dave’s Killer Bread (thin sliced) with hummus, turkey sausages, a hard-boiled egg, and an orange to round it out.

Felt snack-ish so I made snack box inspired lunches. We’ve got roasted turkey, light mozzarella cheese sticks, Simple Mills sea salt crackers, baby carrots, cucumbers, and sugar snap peas with hummus dip. The crackers are my new favorite things; they’re made out of almond meal and flax so they’re much more filling than normal crackers.

I usually rely on yogurt and fruit for snacks so I’ve chosen apples to go alongside of my normal Dannon Light & Fit yogurts.

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Meal prep for this week! From left to right:

Snacks: pineapple and Dannon Light & Fit yogurt. Pineapple has been my biggest fruit craving lately, so, fortunately, our grocery store was running a 2 for $5 this week for them. Of course, I got two pineapples, but only cut up one to get started. the amount I eat each day depends on how many calories I have left. A usual amount for me is around 130g for around 70 calories. The yogurt was on a deal too, 10/$10. I usually eat one as a late-night snack, but they’re only 80 calories for one so if I get hungry during the day I’ll eat a second. 

Breakfast: Oranges (~80 cals/each), mini bagels (100 cals each), cream cheese (50 cals/2 Tbsp) and smoked salmon (74 cal/40g). Not shown is 2 Tbsp whole milk that I put in my coffee each morning (38 cal). Total breakfast: 343. 

My work does bagels on Wednesday and I’d been feeling a little left out lately. The vendor they use is a little mom and pop shop in my area and their bagels are so good. However, I can’t justify the calories for one full-sized bagel with cream cheese, just to be hungry again shortly after. This is my compromise. Plus I get bagels every day this week, not just Wednesday. Also, smoked salmon. I think my compromise is better. ;)

Lunch: Ground turkey & pinto bean taco meat (218 cals/160g), Mexican cauliflower “rice” (70 cal/114g), romaine lettuce (8 cal/48g), cherry tomatoes (7 cals/41g), salsa (15 cals/2 Tbsp), light sour cream (17 cals/1 Tbsp), cilantro (0 cals/1 Tbsp). Total Lunch: 336

Every single meal prep video, recipe index, recommendations list, etc...features some sort of taco salad, and I think it’s for a good reason. The bold flavors come from low calories flavor sources like spices, lime juice, and a touch of dairy. Lunch hit the spot and I was full for over 5 hours today! 

I’m still going on walks with my friend every weekday and am working on taking walks on the weekend. Every bit of movement counts (and having a few extra calories to work with allows me to have a bit of chocolate at nights too!)

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Yesterday I meal prepped breakfast and lunch for four days. I made kale, sausage, and sweet potato hash with hard-boiled eggs, strawberries, and blackberries. For lunch, I made a Nicoise inspired salad with seasoned tuna, green beans, tomatoes, eggs, and olives on a bed of arugula and butter lettuce.

Both recipes are inspired by the Damn Delicious meal prep cookbook (altered slightly to lessen calories). I’ll be eating both meals Mon-Thurs this week and making other plans for Fri-Sun. 

Both recipes were both very tasty and very filling! That salad during lunch held me over until almost dinner time. I highly recommend both.

The calorie “quick-adds” were for the hash and the tuna part of the salad. The hash came out to about 280 cals/portion and the tuna came out to around 161 cals/portion (give or take around 10 calories depending on the portion. I weighed everything as close as I can to each other, but I’d rather track every calorie I can, even if it’s just a few difference.) 

For dinner, we had some lemon pepper marinated chicken drumsticks in the freezer. I thawed and roasted those in the oven for 25 minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit. 

We served it with some buttermilk mashed potatoes (236g yukon gold potatoes, 1 Tbsp butter, 2 Tbsp low-fat buttermilk, salt & pepper) a bagged salad, and my low-calorie ranch dressing (14 cals per Tbsp.) You’ll notice that the count on the potatoes is different. I made my plate with the 236g but didn’t eat all of them, so I weighed the leftover portion and round the difference, which ended up being 103g (which was about half the original amount). I halved the butter to .5 Tbsp but left the amount of buttermilk alone since it was already so low in calories.

For dessert, I enjoyed a Strawberry Cheesecake Dannon Light & Fit Greek yogurt, which should help me keep full until tomorrow.

I also enjoyed coffee with both breakfast and lunch. Since plain coffee has almost no calories, and I use stevia as my 0 calorie sweetener, I just tracked the 2 Tbsp of whole milk I added to each. 

Another note is that I have a pedometer app synced with MyFitnessPal. It tracks my steps throughout the day and automatically adds any additional, available calories to my total. I currently aim for 5000 steps a day, which is more realistic for my current life situations than the industry imposed standard of 10,000 steps. I have a coworker who is very excited to go on walks with me throughout the workday which definitely helps me be active as well as helps improve my mood. :)