Trader Joe's Quinoa Cowboy Veggie Burgers With Black Beans & Roasted Corn

We love these black bean burgers and eat them about once a week for either lunch or dinner.  I top with mashed avocado with a dash of honey and garlic powder mixed in.  If eaten at our dinner meal we will also have a side dish such as 1/2 yam or broccoli.  
They are 180 calories so with the avocado topping that brings our burger (no bun) to about 250-275 calories.  If I use the Trader Joe's Guilt Reduced Guacamole then the whole thing comes out to only about 220 calories.
If you don't have a Trader Joe's near you then you might want to try similar products that are available in your supermarket offered by other brands.  I'm not sure how they would compare in taste and cost to Trader Joe's (which I'm partial to), but they assist in creating healthier food options, lowering calories, and are a big help in making meal prep quick and easy.  Since I prepare 3 meals and 2 snacks per day, and don't like to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, I appreciate the short cuts these products offer on occasion.

Trader Joe's Pizza Veggie Burgers

Trader Joe's Pizza Patties are a lunch favorite of ours.  We usually have these pizza (soy protein) burgers a couple of times per week.  They are only 130 calories each. We don't eat them on a bun, but I'll top these pizza burgers with either pizza sauce or sundried tomatoes, a couple tablespoons of shredded low fat mozzarella cheese (melted on top), and a dollop of Trader Joe's Reduced Guilt Guacamole that is made with greek yogurt and only 30 calories for 2 tablespoons.  This lunch is under 250 calories.
The pizza burgers are delicious and satisfy our pizza cravings. 
I believe they sell for $3.79 per box of 4 burgers.  So that would make hubby and I two lunches each.

Trader Joe's Meatless Breakfast Patties

I only started shopping at Trader Joe's a few months ago.  I have found so many products that we really enjoy and have incorporated them into our meals on a regular basis.

One of our favorite foods we've discovered is the Trader Joe's Meatless Breakfast Patties.  These patties are a really good tasting soy sausage.  Well, I call it sausage.  I suppose it's faux sausage.  We like these better than the MorningStar Farms brand.  They are $3.29 for a box of 6 patties.
We eat one of these sausage patties nearly every day with our breakfast.  They are only 80 calories and go well with our morning meal.

Our three usual breakfast options that we serve the soy sausage patties with are:

1)  1/2 serving of oatmeal with 1/4 apple, diced peaches (or 1/3 banana, blueberries), cinnamon, almond milk, sugar free syrup...plus 8 oz V8 juice...and the breakfast patty on the side

2)  egg tortilla wrap:  1/2 an egg, 3 tablespoons liquid egg (whites only), spinach, breakfast patty, 1/4 sliced avocado all wrapped in a 50 calories La Tortilla whole wheat low carb tortilla...plus 8 oz V8 juice

3)  1 toasted english muffin breakfast sandwich:  1 english muffin (100 calories), 1/2 egg, 2 T liquid eggs (whites only), breakfast patty, 1 T cheddar cheese...plus 8 oz V8 juice

All of these breakfasts are right about 300 calories and keep us full until lunch about 3 hours later.

The Importance of Planning Meals in Advance

I can't stress enough the importance (for me) of planning out my daily menus.
I keep them on a spreadsheet in Google Docs.  I plan out a week in advance every bite of food I'll be eating for all meals and snacks.  I look at that menu very often, numerous times per day, as a guide to what I get next... and try my best to follow it.  I do make occasional last minute changes, but keeping a plan, an account of my calories and what I'm eating, helps me out tremendously.

I also track my weight every day and notate my morning weight along w/my menu for that day.  I know some sources say to not weigh every day, but that works best for me and is another motivator to keep me on my healthier lifestyle journey. 

Below is a look at 3 days of what I've eaten recently.  Keep in mind that my lifestyle is not very "active" therefore my body does not need a high amount of calories.  At this time, I like to keep my calories between 1050 and 1200.  Sometimes the calories exceed that. So it is usually a bit varied...some days lower, some days mid range, some higher.  To be honest, at this stage, I would like to more consistently stay in the 1050-1100 range, but I don't always manage that and I'm okay with fluctuating a little.  (The column on the right is calories.  The number to the right of the date is my weight for that morning.)

The menu below is one of my "I went overboard" calorie days. ha

THURS April 28 129.8
coffee	75
1/2 s oatmeal w/equal, walnuts, 1/4 apple/peaches/cinn/alm milk, sugar free syrup,saus,v8	330
1 tortilla, 2 T pb, honey	275
mozz ch stick	50
1 TJ black bean burger w/ 1/4 guac/honey, 1/2 yam w/ 1/2 T ghee	375
1/2 sl cheesecake	550
	1655

 *The cheesecake (above) was in celebration of John's b-day and from Cheesecake Factory where their cheesecakes are very decadent.  We allow occasional splurges.  We have done a lot of birthday celebrations in the month of April and my weight loss has stalled because of it.  I want to try to do better in May and June, eating healthier and watching my calories more consistently, because we have a California coastal trip planned for our anniversary in July and I know we'll have some splurges then. :)

The menu below was a "normal" calorie day.

FRI April 29 130.2
coffee	100
1/2 egg, 3 T liquid eggs,spray oil, saus v8, tort, 1/8 avoc, spin (john orange)	290
TJ (soy) pizza burger w/ mozz, sauce, GUAC/yog	230
1/2 lg ck breast, 1 oz angel hair pasta, broc, 1 T marg	400
popcorn	100
	1120

I do a lot of self abbreviations which I did not change for the blog (I just copied/pasted from my spreadsheet).  Example:  bb=blueberries, ch ch=cheddar cheese, tort=tortilla, saus=soy breakfast patty, s=serving.


Many of the products used are lower in calorie, carbs, fat.  Many are Trader Joe (TJ) products.  I'll show some more of our favorites in later posts.

The menu below was a "low end" calorie day. 

SAT April 30   128.8
coffee	100
1/2 s oatmeal w/ equal, 1/4 banana/bb, milk syrup, saus, v8	290
TJ black bean enchilada, 2 T ch ch, ff s cream	225
m ch st	50
leftover ck, 1/2 c caul rice, broc, onion, mush, stir fry sauce	300
popcorn	100
	1065

 
This is exactly what my layout looks like each day in Google Docs spreadsheets, except they're laid out 2 days side by side in 2 columns (reading left to right) rather than a single column as shown above.  I have a template that I use each month.  I have folders for each month and year.  So it is very easy for me to go back and see what I ate in the past for any particular time period.  I can also look at blog photos from the past (checking the created date on the photo) and then go to that day in my spreadsheets and see what I weighed on that particular date...and what I was eating at that time.  I can see days past where my weight loss was good and what I was eating at that time and try to duplicate those menus if that's my current goal. 
Looking at past meals also helps create my current weekly menus.  I can pull things I know we enjoyed in the past and copy/paste to current menus.
I also title my menus by month/yr and at the end of the month I'll add my lowest weight and average weight to that title so that I can see at a glance of my folders what weight range I was in any particular month and can go back to a month I did well to copy and incorporate some of the meals from that month into the current meal plan.

The menus also show me where I messed up...what days I didn't do so well.  If I see a pattern, certain foods or combinations of foods that didn't work so well for me, or that seem to be a trigger for me...foods that I have difficulty using portion control with...then I can see I need to work on that area.

Anyway...this whole system works for me and I've been doing it for a few years now.  I like to be able to see a whole month at a time on one page of all my meals, calories, and weight.

Healthy Food Swaps: Featuring Trader Joe's Riced Cauliflower and Turkey Meatballs

In a previous post here I talked about portion control.
An alternate technique, to get around reducing the portion size, is to replace an unhealthy/high calorie food with a healthier/lower calorie one.  
For example:  Instead of having a large serving of rice with our chicken (or shrimp) and broccoli/mushroom stir fry I might substitute cauliflower rice for the long grain rice I would have normally had.  The cauliflower rice is a healthier option and far less calories...so I can have a good amount of it and not feel deprived.  We use cauliflower rice in other meals as well.

Another example of a beneficial food swap would be to replace regular spaghetti with spiraled zucchini.
The spiralizer we have is a Paderno.  At this site it is under $30...and that includes shipping.  It is very easy to use and clean.
Zoodles (spiralized zucchini noodles) are very good topped with a ground turkey marinara sauce.  You can add mushrooms, red peppers, onions, etc. to the sauce also.  Another good way to serve zoodles is topped with turkey meatballs and marinara.  You can use zoodles in any pasta dish.

Pictured above are the Trader Joe's brand frozen cauliflower rice and the turkey meatballs that we like and keep stocked up on.  They are quick and easy.  It just takes a few minutes to heat them in the microwave.
Since we no longer buy beef the turkey meatballs are a good swap for us.  I also use ground turkey to replace beef in other meals.  It's great as a burger patty or in taco salad to name a couple of options.
We have learned to eat our taco salads without the tortilla chips we used to have.  So now just lots of spinach, ground turkey w/ taco seasoning, a bit of light Catalina dressing, black beans, avocado, salsa, and low fat sour cream.  We are more particular about when we choose to have our carbs.


With many food swaps, I have come to enjoy them and don't find them a terrible trade off.  
Believe me...to hear myself making the above statement almost makes me turn my head to look to see who said that.  It boggles my mind to think that I could now feel that way.  I think I had preconceived ideas about food and was just set in my ways about what I thought I liked, disliked, and what I thought I would and wouldn't enjoy eating.  I just had to give these healthier foods a fair chance and give myself a chance to realize I could be happy and satisfied using them as a better option in many of our meals.

Military Style Jacket And Cupcakes!

I had totally planned on wearing my deep plum (burgundy) jeans and dark brown shoes with the top half of this outfit, but grabbed for these pieces (tan pants/loafers) without thinking.  Oh, well.  Another outfit for another day.  I like how this turned out anyway. 

 I didn't do anything special...just ran to the grocery store and baked Harvest Apple Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting.  I was pleasantly surprised at just how super yummy these turned out!  I never bake because I'm just not good at it and don't really enjoy it...so I normally leave the baking to my husband who is marvelous at it.

I got the recipe here and here.  I started following Anna's blog a couple of months ago and now watch her youtube channel and also must watch the daily episodes of her youtube channel with her whole family here.  I normally am not really into reality tv shows, but for some reason I need to see what cute little Emilia is up to each day.  And now they're expecting a little boy! :)
I watch a few others on occasion that are about fashion and make up, but no others about people's daily lives. ha
Do you have any youtube video series that you follow and especially like?  Feel free to leave me the link in comments and I'll check them out.  I love finding new blogs/videos.

 

Thrifted Items:

Pants $4 Talbots (Value Village)

Sleeveless Top $1.29 Dress Barn (Goodwill)

Jacket $7 Charter Club (Value Village)

Necklace & Scarf

Nude Loafers $4 Naturalizer (Value Village)

Casual Day Wear...+ Food and Weight Journal

This day (a little over a week ago) we took a little drive to an arboretum and small lake we had not visited before.  It was about 40 minutes from our house.  A gorgeous day and pretty lake, but underwhelming arboretum.  Still...it was nice to get out and we always enjoy exploring new places together.

Thrifted Items:

Black Jeans $2.50 Gloria Vanderbilt (Goodwill)

T-Shirt

Black Bracelet

Scarf

~ ~ ~

Earrings = gifted

Black Elvis Watch - gifted by hubby
~ ~ ~
WHAT I ATE


Monday, Aug. 18, 2013 (weight = 142.8)

8:45am:  2 cups coffee w/4 T creamer, 4 sweetener
 
10:45am:  leftover oatmeal:  1/2 serving quick oats with 1/2 apple, 1T raisins, 1/2 T marg, 1 sweetener, 1 T PB2, 1/4 c. vanilla almond milk = 215 cal.

1:30pm:  leftover ck (1/4 pc), 2 T low cal mayo, 1/2 mini bagel = 130 cal.

6:00pm:   mac n cheese w/diced red peppers and 1 diced hot dog = 650 cal.

9:00pm:   5 cashews = 40 cal.


TOTAL CALORIES:  1155