Almond Milk

The other day, a Facebook friend posted the following message, "Chocolate Almond Milk. YUMMY!" which started my thoughts about Almond Milk. Then, in a Cooking Light magazine, I saw an advertisement for Almond Milk. Almond milk is one of the most nutritionally valuable milk substitutes available today. It is high in a number of vitamins and minerals, including vitamin E, manganese, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, selenium, iron, fiber, zinc and calcium. Almond milk is low in calories, at only 40 calories per eight ounce serving, and low in fat. It contains only three grams of fat per eight ounce serving. Almond milk is lactose, gluten, casein and cholesterol free; it's also free of saturated fats. (According to the advertisement.)

Wow - this stuff sounds GREAT! At the next trip to the grocery, I pick up some YUMMY almond milk. No sooner had I gotten home and put up the groceries, I grabbed the almond milk and poured me a huge glass.

I took a drink, made a sour face, and said, "This stuff tastes like ALMONDS!"

Husband gives me a strange look and says, "Well, yeah. It is made of almonds. What did you think it tasted like?"

"Um, milk!"

He just rolled his eyes. :)

Seasoned Meat or Not, I Don't Care.

As I mentioned before, I am currently on a debt reduction plan as well. I am not blogging about this; I find that debt reduction happens very slowly and there's not much interesting to say about it. Or maybe I decided to blog about food because it is my passion as opposed to bills..bills..bills.

Either way, one of my debt reduction goals happened to coincide with my eating plan - I needed to greatly reduce the number of days I eat out. If I was guesstimating, I would say I ate out 5/7 lunches and 3/7 dinners per week. That was a massive source of income lost. But I digress; this post is about my weight loss goals.

So now I'm down to eating lunch out once a week, and eating dinner out twice a week. Lunch has to be $10 or less, my dinner has to be $20 or less. (For a reasonable eating out total of $50 a week, much better than the previous $200+) Because of this, I am very picky about what restaurant earns my business.

I say all of that to say this - I love Taco Bell. I don't care if their beef is real seasoned beef or not, it is good - cheap - and fits into my diet. The following was my lunch today:

2 Fresco Style Crunchy Tacos
1 Side of Pintos & Cheese
1 Medium Diet Pepsi (that's another reason I love T.B. - they have Pepsi products.)

Mmmm, Taco Bell. All under $5. Only 460 calories!

Food Burial

I managed to find some time last night to watch Heavy, one of my favorite shows on television today (the other two being Mike & Molly & The Middle.) Last night's episode featured the short dude and the chick that was leaving her husband. So while watching the show they have a "Food Burial" exercise. The participants buried their trigger foods in the ground, saying goodbye to them forever.

It started me thinking about my own personal trigger foods. After much thought I determined that while I do not think I have "trigger" foods (my preference is any food in mass quantities), I do have certain foods that I could sit down and eat the whole {fill in the container blank}. In no certain order, the following foods/drinks could be eaten by me in one sitting.

1. Chocolate Zingers. I am not a big sweet eater, but oh my goodness. Chocolate Zingers. The sweet cake treat from the heavens. In a "normal" sitting I would consume 4 of these babies with a tall glass of milk. I have once eaten a whole box with 2 glasses of milk once. Did you know that's 1800 calories with milk and all?
2. BBQ Fritos. Hands down the best fritos out there. The normal amount for me would be 1/2 a bag, but on occassion I have inhaled the whole bag. 1500 calories.
3. Pepsi. Fully loaded Pepsi, that is. Generally just a 20 ounce will do me, but I have scarfed down 2 20 ounces at a time. 500 calories.

Normally, when I'd go to the gas station or whatever for something, I'd pick up #1, #2, and #3. A big grab bag of fritos, 3 pack of Zingers, and a 20 ounce Pepsi. I won't lie - that still sounds pretty darn good.

But I am not going to go get it. First of all, I'm a cheapskate and on a simultaneous journey to get debt-free this year, so I'm not about to spend $5 on crap. Secondly though, I don't need it. I'm not going to kill over and die if I don't eat Zingers/Fritos/Pepsi.

Will I ever be able to eat a normal portion of these things again? I don't know, honestly. I can't answer that right now. For now, I'm NOT eating them. Food Burial.

Samoas are the devil.

It's interesting how long Girl Scout cookies will last around the house when you are actually eating the serving suggestion.
Also interesting to note the actual serving of Girl Scout cookies. Samoas (my personal favorite) have 140 calories, 7g of fat, and 55mg of sodium for the serving size.
The serving size is 2 cookies.
Are you kidding me? I don't think I've EVER eaten just 2 samoas at a time in my life until this year.
But alas, here I am, whittling down my 2 boxes of Samoas 2 cookies at a time.
Last night I could have eaten the whole box, without flinching. But I didn't...and now I have more Samoas to enjoy at a later date.
At least that's what I keep telling myself.