Friday Catch Up: All About the Eats (& weight loss tips)

Hello lovely Peeps! 

Sending happy Friday vibes your way. 💗✨

I hope you got through this week with flying colors and that it included a lot of sunshine, laughs and those you love most. 

And I hope you have a fun weekend planned. I think we'll get in some church time, go out for dinner, and might go to the local Spring Home Show that's always filled with good things...I especially love seeing anything related to gardening and flowers. :)

I will be heading off to do some hospice work soon. Then I'll be taking my Mom for a visit to see an Auntie and bring her something for her bday (it's next week). So before I head out for the day I thought I'd pop in for a Friday Catch Up on the week and I'll also share it with my friend Cathy of Our Creative Life. You can find her here. Share all about your week and join us there too! 😉

One of the first things I wanted to share about this past week was that my gorgeous new electric tea kettle arrived! It has a Laura Ashley print on it. And even a gauge for the temp. Isn't she a beauty!! I just look at her and she makes me smile. BTW you can find it on QVC. 

(other patterns too)

So to go with a good cuppa, I wanted to bake something. As you know Matt and I are on a health journey and changing things up with our lifestyle. So I was looking up some different recipes for banana bread. This one intrigued me because you use cottage cheese. It added protein and made the bread very moist. I didn't care for quite such a moist texture but the taste was great! I added some cinnamon and vanilla. And I did 1/2 regular flour and 1/2 almond flour. Adding a little sprinkle of butterscotch chips on top makes everything better, right?  And I baked it all in my Polish stoneware loaf pan. Another little cutie - isn't she? I'm in my floral era, can you tell??? 😁🌸

I have some other kinds of healthy banana bread I want to try...some use some protein powder in it, or unsweetened applesauce, etc. I want to find one where I like the texture as well as the flavor the best, and that will also cost me far less sugar and calories (& more health benefits) than my traditional banana bread. Stay tuned...

We had some yummy healthy meals this week: sushi bowls with carrot, cucumber, avocado, nori sheets, crab, sticky rice, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, a drizzle of sriracha mayo and crushed peanuts. Eaten with chopsticks for fun too! We used low sodium soy sauce and kept the vinaigrette light because this meal gets out of hand with sodium pretty quickly.

Another night was cabbage roll soup, a garden side salad with rotisserie chicken and some bread for dunking in the soup (& we do top the soup with a little parm). Soup and salad is a meal we could both eat over and over. 

For lunch one day I cooked up a protein plant based spicy crispy chicken patty in the air fryer. I cut it up and had it as a wrap with a little sriracha mayo & peanuts in a large romaine leaf. It was SO tasty! The chicken was only 140 calories - it had great texture, it was yummy, so easy, & was filled with protein.

Here are some snacks we're loving and incorporating into our weekly life too. We have these in Buffalo flavor as well. 

If you like pickle these are more flavorful than regular pickle potato chips - I'm addicted to them! 

And these elderberry lolly's by YumEarth are low sugar and contain vitamins but taste like an absolute treat. You can have 2 for only 40 calories! 

And I continue to absolutely love a yogurt for a treat at night instead of ice cream. I've upped the game by adding some toppings and putting it in the freezer for 10 minutes before digging in. I take a couple Tbsp of semi sweet chocolate chips and melt them in the micro. Then I pour and smooth that over the top of the greek yogurt (this one was coconut flavor) and I added some crunched peanuts and pretzel bits. Freeze for 10-15 mins and you have a crunchy shell on top of your cold creamy yogurt to crack into. SOOOO GOOOOOOD!! And a total of around 110-120 calories and 12 grams of protein to end your night. Perfect when you need an ice cream fix. 

Matt also loves making sugar free instant pudding with some premier protein milk and making a parfait with it along with berries and and some granola. 

But here's my yogurt dessert:

Also, I forgot to get a good shot of this -but it was a chocolate mug cake that had no eggs, stevia sweetener, coconut oil and a few chocolate chips in it. I added a drizzle of chocolate syrup and squirt of whipped cream. And it was so decadent and good. I know the ingredients sound weird but the baking soda needs acid in the form of the white vinegar to work. I used regular all purpose flour. Mine only needed 1 min 20-30 seconds in the micro. Don't overcook it! 

*I needed a chocolate cake fix and this totally fit the bill. 

I know this week was all about food - but Matt and I are really enjoying this journey of figuring out how to change our lifestyle in ways that work. But we both want to eat the flavors we enjoy and not feel like we're settling for something lesser either. 

 We both log all of our meals, water, and exercise on an app that keeps track of everything (our calories, macros, protein, sodium, carbs, sugars etc). It's truly amazing when you hold yourself accountable for every little thing you put into your body. It opens your eyes to a lot of things and makes you rethink the way you eat. 

I have been working hard on slowly building my exercise patterns and have logged 2 & 1/2 hours of exercise already for this week (including today). I have been building up my endurance and feeling so much better than I have in many months. I'm down 13 lbs now and Matt is down 16 and we've only been at it a month or so. We both have big goals for this year and we're doing it slow and steady. Right now we make sure to stay in a calorie deficit. And once we get where we want to be we will do a maintenance life style and continue to focus on health the rest of our lives. 

We have actually been having fun figuring things out together and enjoy the challenge of it all. We also love encouraging one another.❤️

 If you're interested in an app to help track - we love My Fitness Pal. You can do it for free and it's great! But we pay for the premium so we can use the scanner for logging our meals and other benefits. I hope maybe some of these recipes are helpful to you if you just want a few healthier options in your week. 

Now that I've been doing this for a while I can say it just gets easier and easier to be in a zone with it all. If you've been thinking about changing some things: this is your sign to do it now!! We can do it together and share too. Keep me in the loop if you do!

Blessings always. 

xoxo