Calories in-Calories out

How do you know how many calories you should be eating each day?  If you Google BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) Calculator and put your info in, it will spit out how many calories you can consume per day.  That is how many calories you burn if you didn't move all day long.  Now, if you worked out and burned 500 calories, you can add that amount to what you got from the BMR calculator.  If you eat more calories than your BMR+your workout, you will gain weight.  If you consume fewer calories, you will lose weight.

If there is one thing I have learned from watching The Biggest Loser, it is that a pound equals 3500 calories.  So, if in one week, your total calorie intake is 3500 calories lower than your weekly caloric allowance, you will lose a pound.  If you eat 3500 calories more than your weekly caloric allowance, you will gain a pound.  Make sense?

It is all a game.  You can pretty much eat whatever you want.  If you want to eat that Cold Stone Milkshake in a Love It size for 1427 calories, you are going to need to find a Cold Stone Creamery about 4.5 miles from your house and run there and back at about 6 mph.  :)

Flatbread pizza

I love pizza!   Probably because of all the yummy cheese and toppings, but I love it all the same.  As you all know my fondness for wraps, I figured for lunch I would make a pizza with them.  I tossed one of my flat out wraps right on the grate of my oven that was heating at 350 degrees.  Leave it there for 7 minutes. While waiting for the wrap to crisp up, I sauteed onions, mushrooms, a hand full of spinach and roasted red peppers in some cooking spray.

After my 7 minutes was up, I put 1/4 cup pizza sauce, my sauteed veggies and 1/2 cup of reduced fat mozzarella on my wrap and popped it back in the oven until the cheese was all melted (about 5 minutes).

Pull it out of the oven, slice it up and enjoy!  My pizza was only 280 calories and it was so delicious!

Fruit and nut bar

OK, It is official.  I have an unhealthy obsession for fruit and nut bars.  A few weeks ago, I started making my own LARA bars and now these.  Hi, my name is Kim and I have an addiction.  Who can blame me though?  They are easy to make, easy to take with you anywhere and good for you!!  Plus, these have chocolate chips.  They are so good.   I love the variety of fruit (cranberries, dates and blueberries) and nuts (almonds and pecans) in these...and did I mention there was chocolate?  I already have them cut into 10 bars and put them into snack bags so I can just grab the bag and go.  It is so convenient, delicious and good for you!

After my 6 year old took a bite of these, she exclaimed, "My taste buds are going on a delicious journey."  Not sure where she comes up with some of the things that pop in her head, but she loves these too.

Yummy Fish Tacos

This Fish Taco recipe came from the same wonderful person that wrote the salmon burger recipe.  I LOVED the salmon burgers so I just had to try the fish taco recipe.  Her pictures were a lot better than mine, but in my defense, I was in a hurry because I just wanted to eat them already.  First of all, the cilantro lime crema is so flavorful.  It was such a wonderful element to these tacos.  Every thing tasted so fresh because of the lime.  It was the perfect dinner.

Cranberry Breakfast Cookies

Who doesn't want to have cookies for breakfast?  Heck, I used to LOVE having some chocolate chip cookies with my coffee in the morning.  Now I make some better choices, though.  I adapted this recipe from madincrafts.

3 mashed bananas
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 cups of rolled oats
1/4 cup Almond Milk
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 T. cinnamon
1 packet of Stevia

Mix all the ingredients together and put on a Silpat on a cookie sheet in heaping spoons full.  My batch made 19 cookies and were 81 calories a piece, 3g fat, 1.7g dietary fiber, 4.7g sugar and 1.8g protein. Enjoy some cookies and coffee of your own!

Food of the week: WRAPS

One slice of bread can be up to 120 calories depending on the type you choose.  You can save yourself a lot of calories just by eating wraps.  I eat tons of wraps for lunch and I love them!  The round wraps I eat are only 60 calories and the oblong ones are 90 calories.  You really need to read the nutritional information on the wraps at the store because some of them are over 200 calories a piece. So, enjoy a wrap for your lunch!  Wiggity wiggity wack!

Homemade Nutella

I used to eat Nutella ALL the time, but had to cut back because it had 100 calories for just 1 tablespoon.  I used to have it on pretzels, toast, strawberries, English muffins with bananas, ice cream, just plain on a spoon and a multitude of other things.  When I came across this recipe for low cal, low sugar Nutella, I swear I heard the angels sing.  I ran to my neighborhood grocery store immediately looking for hazelnuts and couldn't find them.  Then I ran to another store and they didn't have them.  Finally, I drove a little further to Whole Foods and they had them!!!!  I made 2 cups of this chocolatey goodness and put it in a jar.  Mine worked out to 59 calories a tablespoon.....just 59 calories!!!!  So, eat up my friends.  Enjoy the sweet life without the guilt.  I know that I am happy to have my friend Nutella back in my life.  I may have started singing, "Reunited, and it feels so goooooooood."