Easy Chicken Stir Fry

As with most of my recipes I like to keep things simple and try to use ingredients a "normal" person can find in there local store on any day of the year.

First let's talk sauce. I wanted a sauce that was not over sweet nor spicy. This one seems to have a happy medium.

INGREDIENTS:

For the Sauce

2-3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (or a bit of fresh minced ginger)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup soy sauce or 1/2 cup tamari soy sauce

1/4 cup cider vinegar or 1/4 cup white vinegar

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Additional

1 bag stir fry ready veggies

1 bag chicken breast

DIRECTIONS:

Combine all ingredients in a large glass jar with a lid. Screw lid on. Shake well.
Can store leftover sauce in fridge up to 2 weeks. Shake well before using.

Next cook up your veggies and meat. I like to use a full bag of frozen stir fry ready veggies.  


I also like to use full package of Tyson Frilled & Ready Fajita chicken.  


To use sauce: stir fry your vegetables and meat as desired, add appropriate amount of sauce, bring to a boil, boil for 1 minute or until slightly thickened.

Serve & enjoy!!! 

*I found that it made up 5 servings. Each serving was about 214 calories according to my calorie journal. 

Negative Calorie Foods

Lets talk this morning about negative calorie foods. Have you ever heard the theory that certain foods have a negative caloric effect, meaning they burn more calories during the digestive process than they contribute?  For any of you that read fitness or health blogs this term is something you are very familiar with. For those of you who are just starting out you are probably as confused as I was when I first heard the term. I have always been a huge believer in the calorie counting method of losing weight and when I am successfully losing weight each little calorie is golden. As you can imagine then for a calorie counter such as myself the thought of negative calories is very intriguing. I did some research and this is what I found. According to health.com "Negative calorie foods, which burn more fat and calories than they contribute, are a myth." Well, shoot that just took the wind out of my sails. But wait; lets not get discouraged yet and lets read on. The author goes on to say that these foods may not be negative but they are pretty darn close to it. Okay; I like that.. So what foods are they referring to? Can I make anything worth eating out of them? The answer is yes.. Yes you can. Here is the list I found along with a couple must try recipes. 

Fruits 

apple 
cranberries 
grapefruit 
lemon 
mango 
orange 
pineapple 
raspberries 
strawberries 
tangerine 

Vegetables 

asparagus 
beet 
broccoli 
cabbage (green) 
carrot 
cauliflower 
celery 
Chile peppers (hot) 
cucumber 
dandelion 
endive 
garden cress 
garlic 
green beans 
lettuce 
onion 
papaya 
radishes 
spinach 
turnip
zucchini

First recipe that I love, love, love is the Weight Watchers Zero Point Soup aka Cabbage Soup. Here is a link to recipe along with nutritional information. 

Another one of my favorites is Zero Calorie Red Roasted Carrots. Not a meal but a great side.

Now lastly, we all deserve some dessert from time to time.. Here is my go to Zero Calorie Crust-less Apple Pie. 


Although foods such as celery, lettuce and cucumbers may have negligible calories, make no mistake, they still count towards a day's worth of calories. Lets face it every calorie is golden when you are trying to lose weight so why not spend them wisely. Enjoy!

Stuffed Riceless Peppers

Because we live in northern Michigan and venison is so popular I have made up several recipes using it. My family loves venison. I am sure you could switch it with any meat your family enjoys. 

Ingredients:

1 pound sausage (I use venison/pork sausage), browned

Salt and pepper for browning sausage

2 Bell Peppers

Olive Oil

1 can diced tomatoes, drained (I use Ro-Tel Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies)

1 can corn (I use southern style), drained

1 can black bean (drained and washed)

1 8oz can black olives

1 1/2 to 2 cup(s) thick cut parmesan cheese

Sour Cream (optional garnish)

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350°F and coat a shallow baking pan with nonstick spray.

I cut peppers in half rather than bowl cut but both ways work. Bake flesh or inside side up sprinked with olive oil for 15 mins. 

While peppers are baking aka softening up; work on making filling.  

Filling: 

Mix browned sausage, tomatoes, corn, black beans and olives in skillet on med heat for 10 to 15 mins while peppers are baking. 

Fill and Bake:

Pull peppers out of oven top/fill peppers with mixture. Adding cheese as you go leaving some to top the peppers before baking. You will have more filling then peppers; I fill dish up all around the peppers. The filling is the best part so bake it all up. 

Bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until the peppers are tender when pierced with a knife and the cheese is melted and golden. Top with sour cream and enjoy. 

Makes 2 servings (2 halves each or 1 whole pepper) I eat one half with loads of the extra filling topped with sour cream and I like some heat so some franks on top. 

Spring fever

It has been unusually nice this past week here in northern Michigan. The birds are back, and singing just as loud as ever before. I feel like I should be out walking. The problem for me and outside walking is that I hate going alone. I really want to be able to cross off walking around the lake off my things to do but don't want to risk not being able to make it. The lake is 7 miles and I should be able to do that without a problem but just not sure. Thanks to my wonderful friend Keri I was encouraged to get off the couch and walk 2.4 miles yesterday. That was my first outdoor walk of the season and it felt good.

We grilled out last night and boy was it good. I need some good healthy grilling recipes so send some my way.
I plan on attacking the yard today. See what's going on in the beds and what I need to buy when I get home from vacation. I know that I need some more soil to fill in an old bed and plant grass - I also need to replace all the wood chip this year. Can't wait to see what all my plants do this year. I think I need to move a few around but don't remember which ones yikes. My flower beds could get out of control. I would also like to move my rose bush but worry about that. Regardless of all the work I have I enjoy it and can't wait..

So, get off the couch, out of the office and enjoy the great outdoors.

Fruit Infused Water

Fruit Infused Water

Let me first start off by saying that I have not been paid by anyone to promote any products - but I would gladly become a spokes person for the Infuse Water Bottle. I attended a finances round table for work and received this cool water bottle. 

So far I have only tried adding strawberries to it. I am dying to try some of the recipes found on this site. This one in particular. 

Cherry Limeade

What you will need:



• 1 Key Lime sliced thinly
• 6 pitted cherries cut in half
• 1 sprig of mint
• ice and water 

Let steep 30 minutes.

Support System

 Good evening,

Just like so many others I have restarted my diet or "life style change" so many times that I have lost count. As I restart my diet again I think about why I have to. I read all the articles, research some great recipes, stock fridge, pull out workout videos and give myself a pep talk. Monday comes, I'm strong and succeed. Tuesday comes; start strong and darn bad lunch choice. Shoot this day is shot so guess I should give up and try to restart Wednesday. Wednesday morning, you are not feeling it... Maybe Thursday. A couple weeks later I restart the same thinking as before. So what went wrong? 

Things happen. You get invited to lunch. Kids sporting event goes long and quick dinner is needed. You wake up not feeling good, no workout that night. Life happens, so dang now what?!

Mentally I know when life happens, roll, pick up and push on. One bad meal does not need to turn into a week of bad meals or worse yet a month of them. But, even though mentally I know what to do I just don't do. Which leads me full circle.

As I exam all the attempts and fails I have made over the years one thing I have found to be true I can not do this alone. The key to successful weight loss is having a strong support team. This doesn't mean you have to hire trainers, nutritionist and if you don't have a supportive household you can't do it. What this means is you need to build a support system that works for you. Support system can include local support like spouse, friends, coworkers or groups like weight watchers etc. Or support systems can be made up of online friends, groups or a hybrid of both. Once you establish your support use it; lean on it and you will find that bad days can stay as bad days and less likely to become bad months.

Stuffed Zucchini Boats

You asked; so here it is.. My version of Stuffed Zucchini Boats. 

Because we live in northern Michigan and venison is so popular I have made up several recipes using it. My family loves venison. I am sure you could switch it with any meat your family enjoys. 

Ingredients:

4 medium zucchini

1 pound sausage (I use venison/pork sausage), browned

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion

1 clove garlic, very finely chopped

1 can diced tomatoes, drained

1 can corn (I use southern style), drained

1 cup finely shredded mozzarella cheese

Salt and pepper

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 375°F and coat a shallow baking pan with nonstick spray.

Trim the ends from the zucchini and halve them lengthwise. Using a melon baller, hollow out each half leaving a wall of 1/4-inch or less on the sides and bottom. Reserve the pulp.

Season the zucchini halves with salt and pepper, arrange them on the prepared baking sheet and bake until softened, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Roughly chop the reserved zucchini pulp and set aside.

Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until soft and translucent, 5 to 6 minutes. Add the garlic and continue cooking for 1 minute longer, then add the chopped zucchini.

Season the mixture with salt and pepper and continue cooking until the zucchini is tender and the entire mixture is lightly caramelized, 3 to 4 minutes longer. Stir in the tomatoes and corn and cook for 1 minute longer.

Divide the zucchini-onion mixture between the hollowed "boats," and top each with about 1/4 cup of shredded cheese.

Bake for an additional 8 to 10 minutes, or until the "boats" are tender when pierced with a knife and the cheese is melted and golden.

Makes 4 servings (2 halves each)

How I plan to calorie count my way back to my goal weight.

In this post, I'm going to layout my CICO plan. First off that's define CICO. CICO stands for calories in vs. calories out. Basic idea is that you burn more then you eat. This method worked for me before and I am hoping it will work for me again. Now as we all know everybody is different, and what works for me may not work for others; and what works for others may not work for me. I am not here to tell anyone how to do things, because I don't know you! I think it's important that each person finds what works for themselves. 

I want to start by saying that I don't have any set of "rules" that I follow. By taking away rules, I feel much less pressure. I'm not following a particular "program" or anyone else's guidelines. I typically just make stuff up as I go along, and learn from my mistakes.

We have all heard it before; "You must count calories to lose weight." Track everything you eat and all the calories you burn and if you have a deficit you did good for the day. I am currently using two apps. One for food tracking and one for fitness tracking. Both are synced up together and both offer tools I enjoy having and rely on. I started using the My Fitness Pal (MFP) app years ago and really enjoy it. The first thing I like about it is that it has a built in barcode scanner which is nice for recording food. The other feature I like about it is that I can access the calories for most if not all restaurants or fast food locations right from my phone before I eat the item and regret it later. The other app I enjoy using is my Fitbit Dashboard App. This tool is great for tracking my daily activity. It has the ability to track my sleeping patterns also but I just can't sleep with a watch on and am afraid to know how little I actually sleep. 

So you probably want to know how many calories I plan on eating a day? Here is where that science comes in. I believe that if you take Your Resting Metabolic Rate or  RMR  and subtract your consumption calories you will get your basic daily calories. Hopefully that number will reflect that you have a calorie deficiency. Now science says that it takes 3500 calories burnt to equal one pound of burned fat. My plan is to losing 2 pounds a week so I need to have a 7000 calorie deficiency at the end of the week. Here is my basic math:

RMR = 1708 Calories per day
Calories In = 1200 Calories per day
------------ 508 calorie deficit 

The goal is to be at 1000 each day so that I can reach the 7000 by the end of the week. This math then is telling me I need to burn (calories out) an additional 492 calories each day in some form of fitness. 

There are a lot of fitness articles that will tell you that you should eat your fitness calories or calories out as I call them. I do not believe in this. I believe that you need to make sure you consume or that your calories in are good calories that will keep your body fueled. But, I also believe that if you are hungry then you need to eat more. 

Now the fat girl that I am says that you need to have a high calorie day.. aka cheat day. I don't like to call it a cheat day.. I look at it more as a be reasonable and smart but don't stress the calories out. An example of this would be.. eat your normal healthy breakfast, healthy normal snacks, reasonable and normal lunch or dinner. Allow yourself to splurg on one of those two though. If you eat pizza have three small slices. Don't stress the 1100 calories when your normal dinner is 500 calories. That also means thought that you shouldn't eat the whole large. It's all about finding balance.  

I don't want to and don't plan on tracking all the macro nutrients like carbs, protein, sugar etc.. I want to keep things simple. This should help me from stressing and getting overwhelmed. My apps both track those things and there if I want to see them but really as long as my body feels fueled it will tell me if I need something else or less of something. The one thing I have found out is that there are more calories in fruits and veggies then I would like. I do plan however to track them even though I strongly feel they should be free.. By not tracking them I am only cheating myself. My Fitness Pal has an awesome recipe tracker on the app! When I'm cooking, I can literally just scan the barcode of ingredients and build the recipe right there on the app. Then it's saved for the next time I make the recipe, too. You can even import recipes from websites and swap out ingredients if you change things up. It's a really great tool!

---

I think that pretty much sums it up! I can't stress enough that it really helps to experiment to find what works for YOU. Try making your own rules and change them around until they fit for YOU. I think the approach I'm taking is very similar to intuitive eating--I'm eating what I want, I'm listening to my hunger cues, I'm not following any "rules"--only I happen to log my food and track the calories, so I can keep myself from getting out of hand.

I also want to make it clear that I am not trying to tell anyone at all how they should or shouldn't eat.  As I always say, find what works for you--something you can do for the long haul--and do that.  I'm not a doctor or scientist or nutritionist, or anything like that. I am just trying to keep it simple and something I can do for the long haul.