Before we left on our cruise, I started trying to eat better meals. Part of it was to get into better shape, part of it was knowing we’d be embarking on a week of high-seas gluttony. I started taking salads to lunch (mostly because my new salad container made it so easy!), hopping on the ellliptical, and trying to put together better dinners. It actually worked a bit – I managed to lose a few pounds! I haven’t stepped foot on the scale since we’ve been back and we’ve been indulging in some social dinners, too.
I also started picking up some new snacks, both for home and work. Some I like, some are just okay.
Orville Redenbacher’s Smart Pop 100 Calorie Kettle Korn bags – I like the idea of 100-calorie popcorn bags because it’s pretty impractical to portion out microwave popcorn yourself. Chips and cookies you can put into a smaller bag, but popcorn? Not so much. Not if you want it hot and fresh. I also like Kettle corn, so I gave these things a try. It was pretty great, at first. A little bit sweet, a little bit salty, and there was a lot of popcorn! It wasn’t until after I was done and licking my lips that I realized how they could keep it under 100 calories – Sucralose. So, for the rest of the afternoon I had that fake-sweetener taste in my mouth. Not fun. I’ve actually left the rest of the bags in the office kitchen because I don’t want to eat them. But I’d be willing to give some other flavor a try – after reading the ingredients list to check what’s there.
Quaker Mini Delights, Chocolate Drizzle – I remember actually liking the original Caramel rice cakes. Sure, they were a little dry, but they were sweet and crisp and made you feel all healthy! Now, rice cakes are something you can easily portion out yourselves, making the 90-calorie bags a bit of a consumer ripoff. I would have bought a larger bag, but the larger bags are actually a different product. They come in only a few flavors and have no drizzle on top. So, the 90-calorie bags went into my shopping cart. I bought both the Chocolate Drizzle and the Caramel Delight, but I like the Chocolate Drizzle better. It’s a nice snack, but I feel like I’m eating more chocolate than rice cake. Plus, how nutritious are rice cakes, anyway? I’m probably better off eating a square of chocolate and some fruit. I suppose it’s better than eating cookies… Anyway, they’re tasty enough that I’m sure I’ll go through them in no time.
Yoplait Whips, Chocolate Mousse – I like Yoplait yogurt. I even like the Light kind, even though the regular yogurt is still, like, 99% fat free. However, I like Yoplait yogurt as a snack. For breakfast, I prefer plain yogurt with berries (like the blackberries at Costco!) and Kashi cereal. But, when you’re eating lettuce for lunch, you tend to get hungry, so I picked up some Yoplait to eat with my sparse salads (which I like, but are boring, because I’m lazy). I got some Chocolate Mousse flavors because a) I was curious what chocolate yogurt tastes like and b) I thought perhaps it would be dessert-like. It works surprisingly well. I typically don’t like the Whips because I feel like I’m eating yogurt-air that just deflates in my mouth. I mean, it is just aerated yogurt, so I don’t know what I expected. But, I expect mousse to be airy, so the Chocolate Mousse yogurt isn’t messing with my brain-mouth network. It’s not as sweet as mousse, due to the yogurt-based nature of the whole thing, but it’s sweet and chocolatey enough that I actually like it. I wouldn’t eat it after dinner instead of ice cream, but it certainly fulfills my sweet tooth after my work lunch. Hooray!
I also picked up a Cooking Light cookbook at Costco. I read through it and the dishes don’t sound too scary. We’ll see if I actually make any of them. Between recipe testing and just trying to clean out the pantry/freezer/fridge, I haven’t been following many recipes for regular meals lately.
Three Dog Kitchen 
