You know what they say – an apple a day keeps the doctor away. I’m not that concerned about keeping the doctor away right now – I just want to be healthy and eat right. I guess in a round about way that could keep the doctor away. While doing Body For Life, I’m eating 5-6 meals per day as prescribed. I’m always looking for a good meal that follows the protein/carb schedule. A great meal that I’ve found is an apple and beef jerky. I’ve tried just about all of the brands of beef jerky out there and short of fresh jerky from a trading post in the middle of nowhere, TX — Jack Link’s is my personal favorite.
The jerky serves as the protein and the apple is the carb. I buy the 3.25 oz bags and split it in half so it lasts me for 2 meals. My favorite apple right now is the honeycrisp. If you haven’t tried one, they are seriously amazing.
Nutritional Information for the whole meal, once again utilizing fatsecret’s ability to enter ingredients in and get a single nutritional info sheet for your meal:
Day 36: An apple a day…
Day 32: PBJ
A quick and easy snack is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I know what you’re thinking – what? That’s not healthy!?! Not so fast El Guapo! The classic PBJ with Jif, white bread, and totally sugared jelly *is* actually HORRIBLE for you. If you make a PBJ the right way, though, it can be nutritious, healthy, and has a plethora of good stuff in it. First off, use all natural peanut butter. No added sugar or anything, just all natural. We get a tub of it at Costco, but any grocery store carries it if you look closely.
For the “jelly” portion of it, I used Smuckers Sugar Free Red Raspberry Preserves. Raspberries are my favorite fruit…mmmm.
For 1 tbsp it is only 10 calories. It was yummy too. For the bread, I used two slices of 100% Whole Wheat Nature’s Own – only 50 calories per slice.
I don’t think you need a tutorial on how to make a PBJ…heh heh. As usual, I put all of the ingredients into fatsecret.com and got the nutritional information back for one sandwich:
Yes, it is a little high in fat, but it is the good kind of fat. You generally want your fats to come from plants (i.e. peanuts, avacodos, etc) as opposed to from animals (i.e. beef). It’s got a solid 17g of protein and 6g of fiber.
On another note, I ran the first soccer practice for my son’s team today. It was a bit chilly outside (in the 50s), but we made it through it just fine. I’m going to enjoy working with the 10 year old boys — teaching them soccer and teamwork.
Day 30: Healthy Turkey Chili
I made a big ‘ol pot of Turkey Chili today, and it is delicious – healthy too!
I used ground turkey instead of ground beef when making this chili. It is much healthier and lower in fat than ground beef. 1 cup of the turkey chili is less than 300 calories, less than 7g of fat, contains 24g protein & 27g of carbs (good carbs from the beans). When buying Ground Turkey, you should make sure you get the lean cut (i.e. 93/7). They also carry a 85/15 and the packaging looks the same except for the fat content – so beware! I entered all of the ingredients at my favorite calorie tracking website, fatsecret.com and it gave me all of the nutritional information. Serving size is 1 cup:
This recipe yields about 16 one cup servings. Ingredients needed:
- 3 pounds of lean ground turkey (93/7)
- 3 cans of dark red kidney beans
- 1 can of black beans
- 1 large can of tomato sauce
- 1 onion
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 2 cups of fresh salsa
Making it is super easy:
- Brown Turkey in frying pan
- Dump Tomato Sauce, beans and salsa into large pot
- Sautee onion and garlic together in frying pan
- Drain meat, add to large pot
- Add onions and garlic to large pot
- Add Chili Powder to taste to large pot
- Simmer for a few hours, adding water and stirring occasionally as some evaporates
Mmmmmmm. Enjoy!
Day 25: Hot Dogs while on Body For Life?
Ok, so you’re probably thinking – no way! Hot dogs are too fattening to eat when doing Body For Life. We found these 98% fat free turkey dogs made by Oscar Meyer that are seriously yummy right off of the grill. One turkey dog is only 40 calories and .5g of fat. To compare, a regular beef frank from Oscar Meyer has 130 calories and 14g of fat! Even if I have two of the turkey dogs, it is still 80 calories compared to 130 and 1g of fat compared to 14g. Winning!
So the other day I fired up the grill and decided to grill up these bad boys. The goods:
Threw them on the grill:
For the buns, I got Nature’s Own 100% Whole Wheat Hot Dog Rolls. They don’t have any high fructose corn syrup (bonus), have 3g of fiber and believe it or not – as much protein as one of the turkey dogs! (5g).
There we go…nice and done!
Now, for on top of it, I like mustard. Besides just tasting good, it has virtually zero calories (I think actually it is something like 3 calories per teaspoon, or something like that).
Yes, this is the super generic mustard. This is one of the products that doesn’t matter if you buy generic (sorry French’s, but your yellow mustard tastes the same and costs more). Some things you can’t go generic on, though, like toilet paper. No thanks – I don’t enjoy feeling like I’m using sandpaper when I wipe.
Now, for the reveal…
With one bun and two dogs, it was the perfect amount. Obviously the bun was my carbs and the hot dogs were my protein. If you like hot dogs on the grill or over a fire, you can still have them on Body For Life, or any healthy diet for that matter. Just choose the turkey dogs with 28 times less fat than the regular ones.
Nutritional Information (1 bun, two dogs):
| Calories | 190 |
| Fat | 3g |
| Protein | 15g |
| Sugar | 4g |
Day 22: Spicing Up Your Cottage Cheese
Many nights in the evening as my last meal, I’ll eat 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and some fruit (grapes, cherries, raspberries, etc). The cottage cheese is the protein and the fruit goes for the carb. I like cottage cheese, but it can get a tad bit monotonous after eating it routinely. I’ve found that if you add a little cayenne pepper to your cottage cheese it creates a nice little spice to it and changes things up.
It adds a nice little zip to the cottage cheese. If it were my dad, he would add some Tony Chachere’s Cajun Seasoning.
I’m on day 2 of week 4 now and still going strong. I hit the gym today for a solid upper body workout. Instead of doing the free-weight bench press I did the machine fly this time for the chest. I’m trying to start mixing things up so I’m not doing the exact same routine for each muscle group every time.
The Body For Life website recommends that you’re not supposed to eat for at least 30 minutes before a workout. After a workout you should immediately consume protein. I consumed two of the 8 oz Muscle Milk Light containers when I got home. The two together were a total of 300 calories and 40g of protein. I usually don’t have that much protein after a workout, but for the upper body workout it gets pretty intense. Maybe the extra protein will help the muscles grow faster. Honestly, I’m not sure if the extra protein will do that much. I think your body can only consume so much at a time…I should probably go read up on that.
I’m still a little guy, but I can see and feel the muscles starting to grow – and that’s a nice feeling.
