The Grass Isn't Always Greener On The Other Side

Yesterday I had a moment that really made me stop and think "wow"

I don't think I'm the only one whose ever looked at someone who appears very thin and healthy eating junk food an envied that they can eat that and still be so thin.  I admit I make that judgement and sometimes feel like as much as I love healthy food it doesnt seem fair.

Well I had a real wake up call.  There's a girl in one of my classes who week after week I notice eating candy and junk in class and she's very thin.  Ironicly just last week I thought to myself "It's kind of not fair".  Last night in class I took out my dinner and this same girl leans over to me and says "I am so jealous of the way you eat.  Every single week I see you come in with that healthy food and it looks so good.  I eat so bad all I eat is junk and its going to catch up with me so bad one day.  i'm so jealous of how you eat I wish I could eat like that."

I just sat there and it hit me - you truly never know the struggles someone else with food (or life).  all you can do is be sure of yourself.

Then the lady behind her leaned over and told me how adorable my food was and I smiled and realized that I'm taking care of myself and what other people eat and do doesnt matter.

My yummy little dinner eaten while in class last night.

Food is Beautiful

I may be crazy but I think fresh fruit and vegetables look so pretty.   I was admiring my kale and strawberries so much before I juiced them this morning I had to take a picture to share!

Dinner is Served!

Something I've learned about myself (and I'm sure others are the same way) is that the more effort I put into my foods the less I'm likely to eat.  If its junk food straight out of a box or bag I eat way too much.  When its a carefully prepared sandwhich or a beautiful plate of fruit I'm lesslikely to go back for seconds and thirds.  Something about the presentation and know I'm eating quality ingredients makes me more aware of what I'm eating.

In the midst of my recent surge of food related struggles I've made a commitment to try and make better meals for myself.  So today I have to be in class from 4-10pm which means I have to make dinner and eat it inclass so I made myself an adorable little bento style lunch (along with a not pictured mug of vegetable soup I cooked yesterday).  Cheers to cute food!

Fresh strawberries, blueberries, cut up carrots and turkey and lettuce on a whole grain flax wrap.  YUM.

Great coffee at a grocery store? YES

For those of you with a Fresh & Easy (a fantastic healthy and affordable grocery store) you definitely want to start checking in on your locations.  I walked into one today and discovered that they have now added a huge food prep bar.  This is great news since they have a large selection of pre-cooked healthy meals that only need to be heated in the microwave so if you're out shopping or on the go there's a new place to go!

Also fantastic, along with the new food heat and prep area in the grocery store is a full service coffee machine which brews Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf coffee.

I got a medium non-fat decaf latte for only 2.50 (quite a savings from an actual coffee shop) and it tasted like it was just made by a barista.  It was so delicious!

It's also great because as you can see the drinks can be made full fat, or you can make them non-fat, decaf and they even have sugar free syrups available!

And as you can see here, the cost is really quite good as well.  A satisfying and healthy treat great for your waistline and your wallet!

Oatmeal Add In

I love oatmeal but it doesnt always hold me over.  I've found that Quaker's Weight Control is my favorite because of its combination of extra protein and fiber.  Today I tried something a little different; I added half a scoop of vanilla protein powder to my oatmeal (and a little extra water) and it was delicious!  Consistency wise it was hardly noticeable and the vanilla bean flavor of the protein powder was yummy.  Definitely something someone else might want to try if you like oatmeal but need more protein.

Other great add ins for oatmeal (instant or from scratch) include:

• canned pumpkin
• ground flax seed
• wheat bran
• cinnamon
• cocoa powder and splenda
• raw nuts and/or dried fruit

Whats your favorite thing to add to oatmeal?

A Food Day In The Life Of Me

So here is another installment of "What Janel Ate" :)

I skipped the photo of my coffee since it looks the same every single day, but I had my usually two cups with nonfat milk,splenda and foam.

Lunch I packed and brought with me since I wasn't home today.  It was a roll-up on flatout bread (with avocado, turkey and lettuce) with half an apple and some pineapple.  I also cute a few cute shapes out of my high fiber fruit snacks to dress it up.  Then I caved and had a serving of multigrain chips and salsa with it.

Late afternoon I got really hungry and had a carb control yogurt (which has less calories and more protein than traditional yogurt).

Dinner was at my grandparents so I couldnt add veggies like I normally would but it was really yummy.  It was 93% lean ground beef on a 100% whole wheat roll with some oven baked fries and a side of avocado.

Then dessert I couldnt resist - strawberry, vanilla and chocolate golden spoon my one true love.  I could live on frozen yogurt!

One thing I noticed though was that for the first time in a long time I didnt have any vegetables today (unless you count the lettuce on my burger and sandwich which hardly seems like it should count)!  So sad, and so unlike me.

A Day In The Life

I thought I'd good photo food journaling another go yesterday.  It was an interesting day for me since I was out of the house from 10am until 11pm.

Oddly enough I wasnt hungry again in the morning and just had my coffee.

Lunch was at Ikea (their food is great!)  I ate half the meatballs, a small salad with FF Italian and the plain veggies.

I also had some soup, but I only had the broth and a few carrots, no noodles.  It was just chilly yesterday and something warm at the end of lunch seemed satisfying.

These were my snacks for my afternoon class, but sadly I left my fiber bar at home so I only got to eat the apple.

Thursdays I have school from 4-10pm with a 15 minute break so here was my dinner I ate between classes.  The sandwich is an everything bagel thin with turkey with blueberries, watermelon and pear and a light string cheese.

By the time I get picked up at 10pm I'm hungry so my wonderful mom brought me a thermos with a Quaker weight control oatmeal made with ground flaxseed.

After such along day I could resist treating myself to a low fat ice cream cone from McDonalds.  My favorite!

I'm really finding this photo food journaling interesting (and hopefully someone else is too!).  I feel a bit funny taking pictures of all my food, especially in front of people but I really like looking over it the next day because its helping me see food patterns I didnt notice.

Product Review - Trader Joe's Fiberful

For those of you who have a Trader Joe's near you, these are an absolute mus try!

Trader Joe's Fiberful Fruit Strips, which come in both individual packages (like other fruit leathers) and they also come in a bag called Ends and Pieces which are the ends which are left after they cut the perfect size shapes for the individual bars.

Calories: 60 - Fat: 0 - Fiber: 6 grams

Calories: 120 - Fat: 0 - Fiber: 12 grams

One thing you might notice right away is that the pieces have twice the fiber, which is only because if you read the serving size the serving in the Ends & Pieces is actually twice as much.

These fruit leather pieces are so yummy.  They taste like real fruit and you cannot beat the added fiber.

For those of you who are on a budget I definitely recommend the Ends & Pieces which are the ones I always opt for.  The individual ones are great to throw in your purse or backpack, but they definitely cost more.  The individual bars are .59 cents whereas the Ends & Pieces are 2.49 for the whole bag.  If you bought enough bars to equal the same ounces in the bag it would cost you over 6 dollars so while they are more convenient they are triple the price.

A Day in the Life Of - Food

So here is day one of "A Day in the Life Of My Food".  I pretty much always eat breakfast but for some reason (probably too many cupcakes before bed, oops) I wasn't hungry so I only had coffee this morning.

My day always starts the same: two large cups of coffee with a little bit of half and half, fat free milk and foam.

I drank some of this mid-morning in the hops of combating some of my unhealthy eating lately.

By lunch I was starving so I had some blueberries, half and apple and a turkey sandwich on a bagel thin.

This was my afternoon snack. I love apples and I love these fiber bars!

It doesnt look too good here but I caved and ate half a plain cupcake too.

Dinner was a lean turkey burger on another bagel thin and baked french fries (I didnt eat all those though, they were shared I had about half).

I also had a salad with light feta, cucumber and light balsamic dressing.

I didnt get a picture of how much I ate since I broke my rule and ate out of the bag (OOPS) but I think I ate about 1 and 1/2 servings.  These are to die for by the way!

I also had one biscotti (not the whole box! lol) These are really delicious and satisfying.

Overall this made me more aware of how often, far too often, I have the urge to just snack or take just a bite or two of something until I realized I couldnt take a picture.  Looking back at these photos is interesting too because I wouldn't have realized how many carbs I ate today.

Today was not totally typical of a normal day for me but it was still interesting and enlightening.  i definitely went a little heavy on the carbs today and light on the fruits and veggies so I'm going to try and change that tomorrow!

Juicing = Lots of Juice!

So the Juicing has not been every day but it has been pretty regular.  Today we juiced a lot of fruits and vegetables! (our kitchen is currently over flowing...the one down side to juicing is you need a lot of fruits and vegetables which is not necessarily bad but when you have a small kitchen and small fridge but try to stock up when stuff is on sale it goes everywhere. lol)

Anyway, here is what we juiced today, along with the scraps.  I wish we had a compost!

In total we juiced 8 small carrots, 6 apples, 1 large pear, about 3 cups of watermelon, one massive cucumber, one kiwi, two small oranges, and one grapefruit.

As you can see, though it was a lot of fruit and vegetables, it also produced a lot of juice.  About 72 ounces to be exact.

The large pitcher is 32 ounces of a mix of watermelon, pear, apple, cucumber, kiwi, orange, grapefruit  and carrot juice.

The next contains 12 ounces of pure watermelon juice (so yummy!).

For my lovely fiancé 16 ounces of pure apple juice.

Then we have 16 ounces of watermelon, cucumber, apple, grapefruit, orange and pear juice.

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On a seperate note, I've seen a lot of blogs where people post pictures of all their food.  for the longest time I didnt understand it.  I'm interested in food and other people's eating habits so I thought it was kinda interesting to see how other people eat, but I didn't understand it since it seemed so time consuming but I think I finally understand; its about sharing and personal consciousness.

I've been journaling my food intake on and off (mostly online) for 6 years now.  I keep track but it doesn't really affect how I eat I just say "oops" when I eat too much.  So it occurred to me that photo food blogging is about being more conscious of what I eat and how much (and most especially how often!) I eat.  It would make me stop and think about what I'm eating and why if I have to take a picture first and know people will see it.

So I've started today (which will probably get posted late tonight or tomorrow morning).  It probably wont be an every single day post since I dont have time, but I'm going to try and keep up with it and hopefully someone else will be interested too!