Making Good Food Choices

This past week has probably been one of my best so far. I've been mostly healthy and the workouts have been vigorous, but I always feel really proud of myself for having completed them! What I'm most proud of this week have been some of my food choices.

1. Sonic. I love it there. If it's happy hour, my car automatically wants to go there. The other day, we were out of the house for several hours and we needed to eat. We went to Sonic. I had a coupon for a free sandwich that I wanted to use for myself but then I saw they had the Brown Bag Special. Two burgers, two fries, and two drinks. I couldn't eat all that food myself but I could take some of it home, right? I could share that with my kids! Instead, I used my coupon and got a grilled chicken breast sandwich with no mayo on a wheat bun. You know what? I was completely satisfied with that.

2. The movies. Last night I went to see New Moon. I knew my friend would probably have popcorn or some other treat so I wanted to have something to munch on instead. I went over to Target to see what I could sneak in the theater. While I was there I was thinking..."it's Thanksgiving weekend, I can splurge a bit!" But I kept reading all the labels and it was scaring me back to better choices. In the end, I bought a bag of caramel corn rice cakes. I also bought a tub of chocolate dipped pretzel rods. They were individually wrapped so I took one in for me and one in for my friend. I had instant portion control with my "splurge". I was feeling pretty impressed with myself.

image via flickr, copyright rick

3. Thanksgiving morning. Here it is, Thanksgiving morning. My family tradition growing up was that we would eat pumpkin pie for breakfast. We would make pumpkin pie special just for breakfast and then have more with our meal. This year, I made a decision not to have pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. My husband prefers fruit pies (I can easily avoid those...not my favorite) so I bought him his own mini peach pie. My compromise is a recipe I learned at Weight Watchers.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies (or muffins)

1 Spice Cake mix

1 small can of pumpkin

Mix together. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet or into muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 min (cookies) 15-20 min (muffins).*

*The times really depend on how big your cookies or muffins are. Just watch them--or you can start to smell the deliciousness when they are done.

This recipe is low in calories so I can eat several cookies to make up for missing out on one piece of pumpkin pie (which would have most likely turned into one whole pumpkin pie).