Thank God for Fiber!

Well, it's no secret anymore that I love to eat! I'll eat just about anything to, as long as it's covered in chocolate and sugar is in the ingredients list. HA! One of my favorites is Girl Scout Cookies. All those cute little girls standing outside the grocery store to catch me as I'm headed in to get my groceries so that I will inevitably spend $20+ on their little boxes of yummy, hip sticking cookies. My all time favorites are these:

You can call them samoas, caramel delights, or as we say in my house, "those yummy girl scout cookies in the purple box"! Call them whatever your little heart desires. The bottom line is, I can shamelessly (and I do mean shamelessly) eat an entire box of these in one sitting!

Thankfully while my sister was at the store the other day she saw these:

These little puppies are A-MA-ZING! They taste identical to the Girl Scout Cookies! The best part about it is that I can get a lot of my daily fiber out of these and because of the fiber, they don't have near as many points as those blasted hip loving cookies do. If you haven't ever tried these you should... they are too yummy to pass up!

Sweet Potato Empanadas

My new favorite dessert! This dessert is great for cold weather and is still figure friendly! They're fairly easy to make and you can prep the filling ahead of time. I think that they taste best when they are fresh out of the oven. These are fun to make when you're having a crowd over and need a dessert that you can eat without using a lot of points. These little puppies are only 2 WW points each! Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Empanadas

8 Reduced Fat Pillsbury Crescent Rolls

3 Tbsp All-Purpose Flour

1/2 Cup Cooked Sweet Potato

1 Tbsp Unpacked Brown Sugar

1/4 Cup Sugar

2 Tbsp Smart Balance Light Buttery Spread with Flax

2 oz Weight Watchers Reduced Fat Cream Cheese Spread

Splash of Lemon Juice

Cinnamon

Filling:

Combine sweet potato, brown sugar, splash of lemon juice, and cream cheese in a bowl and set aside.

In another bowl, mix together your regular sugar, cinnamon, and a little bit of salt if you like and set aside.

Preheat your oven to the temperature on the crescent roll can. (I think it's 375F)

Get out your baking pans (you'll probably need two) and line them with parchment paper or spray them with non stick spray.

For the dough, you'll want to start with a clean work surface like your counter. Sprinkle your 3 Tbsp of Flour on the counter so that you can place your dough on it to prevent sticking.

Take your crescent rolls out of the can. Divide the roll in half along the dotted line in the middle. Now, unroll one half of what you just divided. When unrolled it should look like a really long rectangle. Divide what you just unrolled in half along the dotted line in the middle of your rectangle. You should end up with two sets of dough. Take one set of triangles (2) and pinch the dough together along the dotted line so that you create one solid piece of dough. Now roll out that dough so that you get one big square. Cut the square into four equal pieces and place them on the pan you want to bake with. Repeat this process with the rest of your dough.

Once you're done prepping all the dough it's time to fill. You'll want to place about 1 Tblsp in the middle of each of your squares. Next you'll want to dip two of your fingers in a little bit of water and run them along two touching sides of your dough. This will be the bottom portion of your empanada. Now, grab the dry corner of your dough and fold it over to make a triangle. The water that you just placed on the bottom part of your empanada will help to create a seal so that your yummy filling doesn't ooze out during baking. Make sure you press your edges together really well so that your empanadas don't spring a leak!

Bake at temp listed above for about 10 minutes. It's best to check them every minute or so after that to see if they're done. You'll want to take the empanadas out when they are just starting to brown.

When there's just a few minutes left in the baking process go ahead and grab a dish and melt your butter.

Once out of the oven, brush the tops of each one with the melted butter then sprinkle with your sugar and cinnamon mixture and enjoy! Just be careful... they'll be piping hot!

Breakfast of Champions!

I haven't always been a breakfast person. Don't get me wrong.... I can eat ANY time of day. Eating is not the problem. The problem is that by the time I enjoy my one or two cups of coffee I'm full. So, once I started WW I realized how important it was for me to eat breakfast so that I could jumpstart my metabolism first thing in the morning. I have several breakfast favorites but this is my usual "go to" for breakfast right now. It's filling, satisfying and low in points!

Let's start with the bagels. I just love these Thomas Bagel Thins! They are 110 calories (3 WW points) and delicious! They come in plain, everything, and whole wheat. I'm currently addicted to the everything bagels but they are all yummy. Now, on to the cream cheese. I really enjoy good cream cheese. I won't mention brand names but I've tried the fat free cream cheeses and they taste just like...... fat free cream cheese. Not the way to start your morning! However, the WW cream cheese is the same amount of points (2 WW points for 1 Tbsp.) and it tastes like the real thing. It's so yummy and creamy and you wouldn't even know it's fat free :-)

My usual breakfast consists of a bagel with cream cheese, coffee and a Fiber One Key Lime Pie yogurt. All of that only totals 6 WW points! Not too shabby for a morning meal!

Asian Food Quick Fix

I really love asian food but I'm very picky. I have just a few places that I like to eat Asian food at whether it be Chinese or Vietnamese food. As you know, Chinese food is FAR from healthy eating/WW friendly. My favorite dish at a Chinese place is Orange Chicken. I was really craving orange chicken one day so I thought I would look up the point value. Well, unbeknownst to me 1 cup of orange chicken was 14 points! One cup, that's it?!?! I like to eat the whole stinkin' container! Ha! I had no idea how much sugar was in orange chicken.... no wonder I like it so much! So, I set out to find an alternative. The first thing I found was this:

Let me start off by saying I've never been a huge fan of pot stickers OR peas but this meal is just delish!! I add just a little bit of low sodium soy sauce to it and it's amazing! It's a light meal with a semi-sweet sauce that fills me up but doesn't weigh me down. The meal is only 7 points and it's worth every one!

So on Saturday I had some time to kill and I went to the grocery store still on my quest to find orange chicken and I came across this:

JACKPOT!!! I have finally found what I was looking for! This orange chicken isn't Chinese food but I tell you what, in some respects it's better! The chicken is sweet and spicy, the rice is chock full of edamame and almonds, and the sauce is just as sweet and spicy as I like it! The whole meal is only 8 points! Aaaahhhhhh! Can you hear the angels singing in the background? I can :-)

COFFEE!

Anyone who knows me knows that I have to have my morning coffee.... otherwise you'll need to approach me at your own risk! Two Christmases ago my parents bought me my first Keurig Coffee Maker. I absolutely love this thing. You can ask my sister how much I love it... a few weeks ago it wouldn't work (because I hadn't cleaned it in a while) and I all but cried because I couldn't have my morning coffee. As sad as this may sound, I actually have a back up coffee pot just in case :-) Another thing that I love about the Keurig is that I can have a different flavor of coffee every day for a week. Since the coffee cups are individually packaged I never have to worry about the coffee going bad. If you're looking for a gift for the coffee lover in your life that keeps on giving, I would highly recommend a Keurig!

The other part to this story is the coffee creamer. I've found that the Coffee Mate Fat Free Creamer (in any flavor) is very WW friendly! You can have 2 Tablespoons for only 1 point. For me that's plenty even in my darkest coffees. So, if you're looking for a coffee creamer that won't eat away all your points here it is!

Ranch Dressing - The Healthier Way

I can eat ranch dressing on or with everything! I just love it! The only problem is that it's like a bazillion points on WW so I had to come up with an alternative. Here it is:

All you have to do is mix one container of Non-Fat Greek Yogurt (any brand will work), one packet of Ranch Dressing Mix and 1/2 cup of skim or 1% milk. You can add more or less milk depending on how thick you like your Ranch Dressing. With this recipe you can have 4 Tbsp for only 1 point! Compare that to the regular Ranch Dressing that has a little valley on the bottle: 4 Tbsp of their dressing is 8 points! How cool is that!

If you change the amount of milk you use or if you decide to you anything other than non fat greek yogurt it will change the point value so you'll need to recalculate :-) Now go forth and take your new knowledge of ranch and put it on everything!!!

Weight Watchers - My New Friend!

Food... I LOVE FOOD! I love to eat it, shop for it, cook it and smell it while it's cooking away! I love everything about food except... when it makes me fat (or feel that way anyways)! I really wanted to change my eating habits and learn to enjoy food in a "healthier" way. So, I decided that I was going to give Weight Watchers (WW) a try. I absolutely love it!

This has been one of the hardest yet most satisfying journeys that I've been on! I've had to retrain myself in the way that I view food and that has probably been the hardest part for me. I tend to look to food for comfort which we all know never ends up well... LOL!

Since I started WW about four months ago I've lost 23 pounds. That is a lot of extra lovin' I've been packing around! I have to say that I feel amazing inside and out. I'm getting back to a place in my life where I'm happy with my body. I'm not looking for a number on the scale or a number on the tag in my jeans to satisfy me I just want to "feel" good. It feels like it's been such a tiring and long process but the reality is, I've changed my lifestyle not just lost weight. I've learned to look at food differently. When picking what I'm going to eat I really weigh all my options now and make sure I'm not over indulging in the junk food like I used to. I've learned to substitute healthier options for the not so healthy stuff.

So, all of that to say, for all of my friends out there who are doing WW or even their own "diet" plan, I'm going to try to start posting one meal/tip a day that I've learned along the way that has really helped me to be successful! Hope fully this can help you or someone you know too!

Happy pound dropping!