My Favorite Healthy Snacks

For years I've heard people say that if you want to lose weight you shouldn't focus on eating just 3 squares a day. They say you should eat more often and smaller portions. For the longest time I thought this was BS. I mean losing weight is a simple equation. If the calories you consume are less than the calories you burn you lose weight. I didn't think it mattered how the calories were consumed. However, now I have to say I'm a believer.

In my quest to lose weight before our wedding I had been going on along really well until last week. An extended holiday weekend full of eating put the hurt on me. I decided that the week after I was going to make sure I did a lot of exercise and made sure I had healthy snacks in between smaller meals as I've heard recommended so many times. They say this helps boost your metabolism and you'll burn more calories. It worked. I've been having healthy snacks between all my meals this week and lo and behold I lost another 4.4 lbs and I'm down to a weight I haven't been since 2008. The point of all this really isn't to toot my own horn, but I wanted to recommend to you some of the snacks I've been enjoying so you can try them too if you'd like. (pictures of all items forthcoming)

1. Welch's Fruit Snacks
 I know you might think of fruit snacks as something your mom put in your lunch box every day in 2nd grade, but trust me these Welch's fruit snacks are good for kids and adults. Target sells them in value pack boxes that contain 22 individual packs of fruit snacks that are only 80 calories a piece and 0 grams of fat. The texture is soft and chewy without that stick to your teeth or wear out your jaw feel that some fruit snack give you. They are also made from real fruit and the flavors pop quite nicely.

2. Fresh Fruit
No secret here, but one of the things that has really been key for me is keeping our house stocked with fresh fruit. All fresh fruits are 0 WW points so they make a perfect snack. Since we're in the summer months everything is in season and tasting good too. If you like strawberries you can even eat them with fat free whipped cream (just don't go crazy) for a really low cal dessert.

3. Graham Crackers
The regular honey graham crackers you can buy in the store are very low fat and low in WW points. I think 2 whole sheets are less than 3 points. You can also put some fat free Cool Whip in between them and freeze them and it makes a low calorie ice cream sandwich variant.

4. Yogurt
At Kroger (or Krogers if you're from southern Indiana) they have a lot of great flavors of lite yogurt including banana cream pie and key lime which are my favorites. Every cup of lite yogurt is only 100 calories, and Kroger used to sell them for the cheap price of 10 cups for $4. However, the last time we were at the store the price had dropped to 12 for $4.  Also, I recently tried a fat free greek yogurt for the first time and while I don't think it's something I'd eat by itself very often (since it tastes more like a funky cheese than anything sweet) I thought it did make a good dip for berries or veggies.

Fast Food Review: Hardee's Turkey Burger

Okay, I want to start off by saying that I know I've been slacking a bit on blogging lately.  I apologize, but some extraneous factors have gotten in the way.  No matter because the Random Dude is back with more vengeance than Maria Shriver. 

As you all know I've been trying to cut a few calories here and there and with Hardee's constantly touting their new under 500 calorie turkey burgers I figured it was a really good opportunity for a fast food review.  These burgers were designed with the assistance of Men's Health magazine and consist of a ground turkey patty, toppings and a whole wheat bun.  I decided to go with the Mushroom Swiss Turkey Burger because that was my favorite variety of Hardee's hamburger growing up and I want to see how it translated. 

When I have had turkey burgers in the past I found them to be rather dry so I have to say going in I didn't really have high expectations.  However, expectations aside this turkey burger was just plain delicious.  The patty was of a good size, the 2 pieces of Swiss were nicely melted, it had a fair amount of mushrooms and the wheat bun was soft and pillowy.  I found the burger to be adequately juicy with plenty of flavor.  The mushroom sauce and cheese really helped in that regard.  I got the burger only and skipped the fries.  This kept my lunch at a reasonable 480 calories, and to be honest with you I found it perfectly filling.  I would have no trouble ordering the turkey burger again over the regular burger even if I wasn't considering calories at all.

Taste 8/10  Not just above my expectations, but above average taste overall.
Value 5/10  I at first experienced a bit of sticker shock paying 4 dollars for just a burger, but I quickly  realized it's just a normal price for a specialty fast food burger.  I'm just not used to going the non-combo route.

Eating More Healthy/Butterball Smoked Turkey Sausage

The Girlfriend and I have both decided in recent days that we are both going to try to drop a few lbs over the next couple of months.  Lord knows I need to and I want to, but when you have a food blog and don't have a crazy metabolism dieting cannot always go hand in hand with interesting writing.  I might from time to time comment on my success or lack there of here, but I know most of you don't come to read a diet or weight-loss blog...I know I sure as hell wouldn't.   While the reviews or sweet treat commentaries may not come quite as frequently as in the past I assure you that I still plan to eat out at least once a week and maybe review a new fast food item or two if the opportunity presents itself.  I also plan on maybe doing some more grocery item reviews or opinion/commentary pieces on some the crappy new Food Network shows coming on the air this Spring/Summer.  April was a successful month here at RDERF thanks to all of you loyal readers, and I hope you all keep coming back. I bid you all good eatings and remember to keep twirling twirling twirling towards freedom!

Tonight's dinner consisted of a little pan grilled turkey smoked sausage and corn.  A lot more delicious than I thought it would be.  If you're a smoked sausage fan go out to the store and pick up some of the turkey smoked sausage by Butterball.  I promise you won't be able to tell the difference.