Hi there readers! The week sort of whizzed by and I owe you a couple of blog posts! I concentrated on eating really well this week and getting to the gym as often as I could. That means Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I got to the gym. Thursday and Friday I went for walks because I felt really done with the gym and the weather had warmed up nicely! Every day this week I was well past my 10,000 step goal (tracked via my amazing Fitbit!)

The week went really well, and my food choices were all really solid. In the mornings I had green smoothies:

(a cup of spinach, a handful of blueberries, half a banana, a scoop of Whole Foods vanilla whey protein, 1/4 plain 0% greek yogurt and a teaspoon of ground flax in each smoothie. Ice and water added so the mixture would blend in the Vitamix.) The smoothies were great even if it was a little cold for them.

Normally I would have a morning snack around 10:30 which would either be fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries or an apple) or a handful of a healthy something from my nature box. Normally I would pick the roasted chick peas. I love them! By noon I would be so ready for lunch. Thursday and Friday lunch was a turkey roll up with spinach and a thin slice of reduced fat swiss cheese – but I was lucky enough to have the left over spaghetti squash until Wednesday.

Dinners were sort of creative this week. Monday and Tuesday were salads with chicken breast for dinner:

Wednesday night I was kind of done with salads, but I wanted to make sure to have protein and vegetables in my dinner. So I made 1 egg, 1 egg white and sautéed vegetables to go with it. It was a great dinner! I could eat this quite often. I put everything into a wrap:

It rolled up so nicely!

The one sad discovery I made this week was regarding my go to wrap – the Joseph lavash. Because I am tracking everything (yes even the random M&M I might have!) in my fitness pal, I get a really great read out regarding all of the nutrition I’m taking in. I never go over the allotted sodium, but because of these darned lavash wraps – I am eating way more sodium than I prefer to. Each wrap has 520 mg of sodium – and when you pair that with reduced sodium turkey (even reduced sodium turkey is full of sodium!!!) that brings your lunch to 961 mgs of sodium for one meal! Ugh. So I am going to search for some alternatives. I will let you know what I find.

By Thursday I was in a mood! I could feel that my body was kind of low on carbohydrates… I kept up with my normal routine during the day. I skipped the gym because I was already above my 10,000 step goal and I was exhausted. Was my body running low on fuel? I thought that was a possibility – so I made a good and healthy dinner…. with pasta! One of the things I love about doing a healthy eating routine on your own is that you can eat anything you want – in my book it’s just about portion control. So I wanted pasta, and I only made 1 cup of pasta. That was plenty for me to enjoy. I sautéed red peppers, garlic, and grape tomatoes. I meant to add spinach to the vegetables but I forgot! I also grilled 1 chicken sausage (I love the al fresco brand). This is how dinner looked when I was all done (the whole kitchen experience took about twenty minutes – another bonus, a quick meal! Of course there was clean up on the other end… maybe another ten minutes):

This dinner was fantastic. It was really what I needed – I’m glad I listened to my body.

On Friday I continued to eat healthy. Friday night I set to work in the kitchen and made a very healthy and hearty soup for dinner. Another butternut squash and red lentil soup! This time I topped the bowls with scallions, cilantro, crispy things (to add some texture) and a couple of pieces of chicken sausage. This soup is SO GOOD.

I followed my own recipe to make the soup again and it came out perfectly. Find the recipe for this soup here. I highly recommend that you give this recipe a try! It was such a perfect meal and the leftovers are really amazing, too! (Lunch today!)

As of Friday I had lost 1.6 pounds. It certainly is a slow slog but I think that is the best way to lose weight because you have a better chance of keeping it off. The battle continues!! Stay tuned. 🙂 Happy weekend, everyone!