Mmmm mmmmm Good!!!

Okay, I love snacking as I have already said. I have about 15 minutes left to wait for my dinner to cook so I thought I would share something I found today that I lu-lu-LOVED! I have had Fiber One bars and they are good, I usually get the Oats & Chocolate. BUT today I found the yummiest one yet. They are Oats & Strawberries with Almonds. Oh my goodness, they are good!!! That strawberry flavor really comes out. And like their partner and crime, Oats & Chocolate, they are only 2 points! Woo-hoo! That's what I call Successful Snacking! Try them soon, they are delish! :)

I LOVE You People of Zio's!

Ummm, guys...guess what? I have some big news. Okay, so it's big news to me. You may be like, "Eh, I've already heard that." For those of you that haven't though, here goes...

ZIO'S HAS NUTRITIONAL INFO ON THEIR WEBSITE!!!!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! This is big news people! Most fast food restaurants provide nutritional information, but sit-down restaurants are so much harder to get that information from. Yes, there are those like Olive Garden and Chili's that do, but I have heard from more than one restaurant that they "cannot provide nutritional information because there are too many custom ways to prepare their entrees." What a bunch of hooey! We know it's because you don't want us to know what's actually in there because we might not want to eat it after all. Post the info for how it's prepared and let us worry about the rest.
Anyway, the reason this is such a big deal is because they haven't had their nutritional info up in the past and I love to eat there. My typical order is usually cheese pizza and a side Caesar salad. I've always assumed that was a ton of points, but it's really not that bad. According to their info a side Caesar salad is 5 points and the pepperoni pizza is 13 (they didn't have the info for plain cheese, which of course would be less). Usually I only eat half the pizza, so I am pretty psyched! Even counting the points for the pepperoni pizza (since I don't know how much it is without pepperoni) and doing half that, you are looking at 12 points for a meal out at Zio's! Of course you still have to watch your bread intake, but an entire loaf of their bread is 5 points, so that's still not bad if you have one or two small pieces.
Here's a shocker for you though. In the past I have been known to order Spaghetti and Meatballs. Weeeelll, Zio's Spaghetti and Meatballs has a whopping 1580 calories, 109 grams of fat, and 8 grams of fiber. All that fiber can't help that poor dish out. It has a total of 40 points!

(That thud you heard was me hitting the ground!)

Now mind you, I have never finished a bowl of Spaghetti and Meatballs, but even if I ate half, that's still 20 points! Sheesh! So you can see why nutritional info is so important. I would have never dreamed that would contain so many points.
Okay, well that's it. Stop by http://zios.com/ and have a looksey for yourself. Have a good day and I might just see you at Zio's tonight! :)

I LOVE YOU MT. OLIVE!!!

As mentioned in my previous post today (that's right, today is another tw0-for-one day, woo-hoo!), Mt. Olive Sweet Pickles must shared with the world. I LOOOVE these sweet lil' packs of pickle goodness. They are only 74 (gasp!) calories or 1 WW point. So yummy! Run, don't walk (or rather drive) to your nearest store and pick some of these babies up.

Here is their cute little website where I got the pic: http://www.mtolivepickles.com/

"That's Picklicious!"

Hahaha, that's cracks me up!!!

Snack-Ack-Acking

I have a confession.


I LOVE food! (I feel ya Garfield)


Ya'll still with me?


Hello???

Oh, phew! I thought I might clear out the room with that confession. I do, I love food, I love to eat...mmm, mmm, mmmmmm! I mean, hello, I got this way somehow! And you know what, it's okay to love food, we are programed to love food, it's just how much we love it that matters. Obviously we should eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but what about that pesky little "S" word. You know the one (and no, I'm not a cuss-er). SNACK. I love to snack too. My problem in the past has always been snacking on the wrong things. Do I want to divulge what a normal snack in the past has been? No, I do not, but let me tell ya, it wasn't pretty.
Since I joined Weight Watchers though, I have learned a lot about healthy snacking. There are so many options out there that don't include reaching for that bag of chips and mindlessly munching. Can you have those coveted chips if you want? Sure, you can have whatever you want, but you will find as you go that sometimes it's just not worth it. We all have our food hang-ups, those things that call our name as we walk past. The best defense, don't, do not, I repeat DO NOT keep them in your house. If they are there, you will eat them. Case in point, I love sweet potato chips...love, love, LOVE them. I can sit down and do some of that mindless munching and realize half the bag is gone before I know it. Recently I brought some of those delicious chips into my home thinking I could control myself. Ummm...yeah, not such a great idea. Does that mean I will never again taste the goodness that is sweet potato chips? No, but like I said, it's just not worth it right now. And you know what, I don't really even think about them that much.
Successful snacking is all about finding the right foods and I hope to help you do that. There are so many options like the very successful 100 calorie packs (all about the portion control), fruits and veggies, baked chips, light cheeses, the list goes on and on. Today, for example, I woke up hungry and with a major case of the munchies. Today would have been a bad day to have tempting, high-calorie foods in my home. I searched, I scoured, I rummaged and I came up with a yummy snack that I enjoyed thoroughly. I had 8 saltine crackers, a pack of Mt. Olive mini sweet pickles (only 74 calories!!!), and a piece of Weight Watchers light string cheese. Total points spent = 4. Not bad, not bad.
So, what are some snacks that you like to have that are low in points/calories? I plan to start trying to post more Successful Snacks on here and I would looove your input.

PS - You can click on the picture to make it larger so you can actually read it. It's pretty cute! :)

WHERE HAVE I BEEN???

So boys and girls, have you missed me? I have missed yooou! I can't believe I have been gone for so long! A lot has happened too. Like there was some rain, some sickness (boo!), some more rain, some not-so-great eating habits, a car wreck (double boo!), and did I mention rain? N-E-way, as I said, I haven't been doing so great on my eating. I had to miss the meeting two weeks ago because of Memorial Day (pronounced Mee-more-eee-al...that's for you Jenn...hehe) and then last week the aforementioned sickness had me down so I had to miss that as well. Missing meetings = low motivation. I went tonight though DETERMINED to start fresh but wasn't going to weigh. At Weight Watchers, you have a "No Weigh-In Pass" that you can use if you, like me, have had a bad couple of weeks. When I got there though, those ladies that weigh you must have some voodoo magic going on because every time I say I'm not going to weigh, I break down and weigh. Yes, I give in to peer pressure (or voodoo magic weigh-in ladies one). So I closed my eyes and hopped on the scale and...

(the suspense is KILLING you, I know!)

...I gained.

Triple boo! I gained 1.6 pounds, but you know what, like I said earlier, I'm not going to let it bring me down.

"I am beautiful no matter what they say, words can't bring me down! I am beautiful in every single way, yes, words can't bring me down! So don't you bring me down todaaay!"

Sorry, that didn't really fit. I have just been watching Glee reruns on iTunes and all of the sudden pictured Mercedes singing (you GO girl!!!). Haha! Yes by the way, I do frequently burst into song. Moving on...

So, I am back, I promise (okay, I kinda promise) and I plan on writing something this week, I just don't know what yet. I don't have any new recipes to cook this week because I went to the store without a list (never a good idea) and have plain ol' Jane stuff to cook this week. I will think, think, think though and try to come up with something good. I kinda thought no one really read my little blog, but I got a message through my mom's Facebook page that said that a lot of people were enjoying Subway's breakfast sandwiches because of me (I need my commission check Subway. Are you listening?). That made me feel all warm and fuzzy! :) Anyway, I hope you all have a TERRIFIC week! I will leave you with a little saying our Weight Watchers leader gave us tonight about tracking your points. Of course this can apply to tracking calories or whatever. Basically, keep track of what you eat, it's one of the best weight loss tools out there.

If you bite it, write it.
If you snack it, track it.
If you nibble it, scribble it.
If you drink it, ink it.
Grab your pencil before your utensil!!!

How cute is that??? I just loved it and was glad to be able to share it with all of you!

Love, love, love,
Kat

Two For The Price of One!!!

I haven't blogged in so long (over a week!) that I posted two new entries. Soooo after you get done reading about these yummy crepes (mmmmm), keep scrolling down to read about my love of Rhapsody (sigh...).

Love,
Kat :)

Have Your Crepes and Eat Them Too!

I'm going to show you how you can have even something as yummy and sinfully delicious as this even on Weight Watchers. People call these things crepes. Chrissy and I call them French Pancakes. Joe calls them Enchilada Pancakes (hahah...really???). Whatever you call them, they are sooo good! Chrissy, my pal, makes them for me in the mornings sometimes and I love going over there for some chick chat and crepes. So, this recipe really comes from her (everyone say, "Thank you Chrissy!"). Anyway, after I started doing Weight Watchers she invited me over one morning for crepes and I was like, "Eeeek, I bet those are loaded with points!" I went and had her read me off the ingredients and plugged them into my handy-dandy recipe builder on http://www.weightwatchers.com/. You do have to have a subscription to eTools to use this. I was shocked that I could actually have them without ruining my points. So as always, I have taken the recipe and twisted it a little to shave off even more points. Here is my lightened up version of Chrissy's French Pancakes. I really didn't change much, but I got them down to THREE points a piece! Woo-hoo!!!

Chrissy's French Pancakes

Points per serving: 3

1 cup of flour

4 eggs

2 tbsp. sugar

1 1/2 cups milk (you can use 1% or 2% for this one, the points stay the same)

Okay, so the next part is pretty simple indeed. Mix all the ingredients! Wah-lah!

I usually let that sit in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes to get the ingredients all good and combined. While we are waiting, lets cut up some fruit for our side. Healthy and delicious!

Okay, now it's time to cook the crepes. Make sure your pan is nice and hot and sprayed with some cooking spray. I also opted for a couple of sprays of butter spray at the last second before I put in the batter for a little extra flavor. This is really where I cut most of the points, I took out the butter you would normally use and used the cooking and butter sprays instead.

When pouring the batter into the pan, you just want to make a very thin layer, these are very thin. They also cook very fast, no longer than about 30 seconds on each side. Of course every stove is different and depending on your heat level (mine was on pretty high). Just make sure you watch your crepe closely.


















When they are done, take them out of the pan and roll them up like so:

Yes, I am aware this is why my darling husband calls them Enchilada Pancakes. Haha! :)

I sprinkle them with a little powdered sugar and serve with warm syrup. Of course you can fill them with fruit or whatever, but I like them with just syrup. Here is the most important part. If you can handle it, use sugar-free. It tastes almost as good, but when you realize that a serving of regular syrup has 220 calories and sugar-free syrup has 20, it should be no contest. 1/4 cup of sugar-free syrup is a point free food! Yippee!!!

I love you Mrs. Buttersworth!

So, there you have it...yummy, easy, and surprisingly, not that high in points. Now the points value depends on how many crepes you are able to make. I was able to get 7 out of my batch which is one of the reasons they were only 3 points a piece. I made them a bit smaller and thinner, but I was able to have three instead of two...at least it made me feel like I was getting more! :)

My brilliant friend Jenn included the a pic of the Weight Watcher recipe builder in one of her posts, so I am going to do the same thing! Here you go:

Happy Eating!!! :)