When Life Gets a Little Cray-Cray

Had one of those yesterday...

In a perfect meal planning world, you take you time on a certain day and plan every meal you will eat to the hour and you eat those exact meals exactly when you intend to. But, I don't live in a perfect world and so my plans pretty much flew out the window and I had to make do with what I was surrounded with...

Here's what I planned: 1. greek yogurt with whole grain cereal 2. peanut butter chocolate shake 3. shrimp with romaine lettuce, avocado, an goat cheese 4. a quest bar with peanut butter 5. spaghetti squash with meatballs, mozzarella cheese, broccoli and green beans

Meals 1-4 didn't happen yesterday, but thankfully I was able to get my act together and enjoy meal #5 with my family... Here's what I ate instead.

Now, in the past I would NOT have packed some snacks for the doctor's clinic with my son...I would have been starving and caved at the nearest restaurant near the hospital that sold chicken nuggets and tried to figure out SOMETHING smartpoint friendly. Usually, it never ends up being satisfying and not even that good...I would find myself saying, "that was SO not worth the points". Yeah, swung into McDonald's one time to get Little Man nuggets, so I got my usual 2 cheeseburgers. I could find them yummy depending on the day, but that day they weren't so delicious...and THEY WERE 19 SMARTPOINTS! I didn't figure that out until AFTER I had eaten them...bug bummer. GAH! NOT. WORTH. IT. Needless to say, my family has actually not been back to McDonald's since. We usually hit up Chick-Fil-A (SO smartpoint friendly) or Zupa's.

So anyway, I have learned from the error of my ways and I packed a meal to hold my son and I over until lunchtime. The morning was crazy, I didn't have enough time to have a sit down breakfast because we had to be out the door by 7:00 am, but I knew I needed protein to get me through the day. I grabbed a chocolate Premier Protein drink (2sp), along with a Dannon Greek Strawberry flavored nonfat yogurt (2sp) and a banana (0sp). So, a decent 4 smartpoint breakfast. The banana and protein drink I chomped and chugged on the way to the hospital, and then in between getting checked in and waiting for the doctor to come I ate the yogurt (of course, Little Man wanted bites). I had packed a little lunchbox holding a Dannon Kids Drinkable yogurt along with a mini pb&j sandwich I packed for Little Man, and for me I packed 3 FLAVOR FAVE: Frigo Cheesehead Light string cheese (2 for me and 1 for Little Man), a FLAVOR FAVE: White Chocolate Raspberry Quest Bar, and some carrots (0sp). After the doctor's office and a beautiful trip to Trader Joe's (I'm pretty sure I've converted my mother-in-law), I had picked up a FLAVOR FAVE: Fage Total 0% Strained Greek Yogurt with Raspberry to share with my son. For some reason, I was just STARVING. I ended up sharing 1 of my string cheeses with my mother-in-law as well as 1/2 the Quest Bar. By the end of all things crazy, I had eaten 4 smartpoints for the FAGE, 3 smartpoints for 1/2 the Quest Bar, and 1 smartpoint for the string cheese. Yes, it ended up being an 8 smartpoint meal, but I had only had 4 smartpoints for breakfast, so the extra 2 smartpoints during my second meal brought everything back to balance.

I KNEW I was going to make GOAL today...I just knew it. I really think, though this week wasn't ideal, the power of my mentality brought it all to pass. With my thoughts aiming at a positive direction, I wanted to make sure and celebrate with a new outfit to lead my WW meeting. Target is where it's AT! Got everything on sale and totally ended up feeling confident and stylin'! After the trip to Target we decided to swing in to Chick-Fil-A for lunch (yep, converted my M-I-L to that fast food stop also) and got the FLAVOR FAVE: Chick-Fil-A 12 piece GRILLED nuggets (4 smartpoints!!) and I tried the Superfood Salad side. It's a new salad that's actually QUITE delicious...I'll definitely get it again and for me, at that time, it was worth the points. The salad itself isn't on the WW app, but I guessed the closest accuracy I could and gave it 5 smartpoints. I counted the side nuts as 2 smartpoints, the cranberries as 1 smartpoint, and the dressing that it came pre-dressed in as 2 smartpoints. The kale and broccolini are obviously 0 smartpoints, so it was delicious and a treat for me. The regular side salad works great too (without cheese, it's 0 smartpoints), but I wanted to try something new and wasn't disappointed. No drink, no fries (not worth it), a 9 smartpoint lunch and still within points.

*Phew* we make it to HOME sweet HOME and again, it's time to eat. I knew I had a big lunch, I wasn't very hungry, but I still needed to keep my body in rhythm. It was a LC day so I settled for my pre-portioned 3 oz of Cilantro Lime shrimp (1 smartpoint) and 2 string cheese (2 smartpoints) and held myself over until dinner.

I am looking back in my phone and I CAN'T believe I didn't get a picture! Shoot, I'll definitely remember next time. We had roasted spaghetti squash with meatballs and vegetables.

Spaghetti Squash and I have a love/hate relationship. I LOVE to eat it, but I HATE prepping it for the oven. Mainly, it's the guts. I got the sucker cut open (with the help from my husband) and ran downstairs to my 17 year old sister, got on my knees, and asked her if she would scoop out the guts. Seriously guys, I was on my knees. I would RATHER have a child throw up on me than have to scoop out the guts of a pumpkin, squash, or anything of the like. I can handle cantaloupe OK, but the struggle is real my friends...I don't know why, but the struggle is real. Once you get the worst part over, then it's time for cooking.

 The best way to cook it is to cut both ends off of the squash, cut it down the middle, scoop out the guts, and place pieces flesh side up in a water bath. Meaning placing them in a pan with water filled about 1/2 way. Put it in the oven at 400 degrees and cook for 45 minutes. I haven't had it turn out yucky yet...it's simply delicious and 0 smartpoints. I leave it in the oven until dinner is all ready, and then I bring it out fresh and scrape it with a fork right onto the dinner plates.

While the squash was cooking, I got some pre-packaged meatballs from Costco and got them steaming. You can't go wrong with Aidells Chicken Meatballs in ANY flavor. They are simple and so delicious, and depending on the flavor, pretty smartpoint friendly. My family ended up eating the meatballs and I actually just reheated my son's leftover grilled chicken nuggets from earlier because the meatball flavor we had was a little higher than I wanted to spend. I was also pan steaming broccoli and carrots at the same time to serve as a side.

When everything was ready the full plate had a serving of spaghetti squash (no salt, no seasoning...delicious as is) for 0 smartpoints, 1 serving of FLAVOR FAVE: Prego SmartLight Traditional Spaghetti Sauce (2 smartpoints for 1/2 cup), a good serving of steamed broccoli and carrots seasoned with McCormick Perfect Pinch Vegetable Seasoning, 2 tsp of Kraft Grated Parmesan Cheese (1 smartpoint) and meatballs. I had the 4 pieces of Grilled Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets instead of meatballs, and so my plate came to a whopping total of 4 smartpoints and my plate was FULL. So yummy...my family was saying that this is the meal they look forward to during the week. Victory.

I felt satisfied, worked on my water throughout the day, and what would you have it? A craving pops up RIGHT as I was going to bed. I waited 30 minutes to see if the craving would go away...but it wouldn't! My dang stomach decided to chime in and grumble, so then I KNEW it was hunger and not thirst because I HAD gotten all of my ounces in for the day. I decided that even though I had 1 smartpoint left for my dailies, I DID have 3 smartpoints left in my weeklies. I decided, before setting foot in my kitchen, to have 1 tablespoon of natural peanut butter and savor it. So that's exactly what I did...1 T of Adam's Natural Peanut Butter, Crunchy and savored. every. bite.

After that T, I wasn't hungry and could finally go to sleep...well, sleep as well as I could because I was SO excited to weigh-in on my home scale. But that's another story for another time :)
Happy eating,
Camille