My Skinny Iced Pumpkin Nutty Vanilla Latte

When you live in the desert you start dreaming of fall by the middle of July. By the time August hits I am craving pumpkin. To transport myself to fall early each year I hoard some of my fall favorites from the past fall to tide me over until they start hitting the shelves again.

You will always find Bath & Body Works Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin lotion & soap in my bathroom, can’s of pumpkin and bottles of sugar free pumpkin pie syrup in the pantry.

Every year I look forward to kicking off fall with Starbuck’s Pumpkin Spice Latte’s, but I recently calculated the Points Plus value for a non-fat, no whip venti at a whopping 9 points. Ouch!  It’s hard to tell by their nutrition information, but a venti iced version (non fat, no whip) may be a little less at 6 points, but still pretty steep for something I used to drink often.

I will definitely be saving that for an occasional treat. But I refuse to go out without one of my favorite fall things.  Each fall I buy a case of Torani Sugar Free Pumpkin Pie Spice Syrup which will last me through the following year.

Recently I tried almond milk and found the vanilla almond milk makes my favorite fall latte even better.

A full cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk is only 1 Points Plus value and 3 ounces or less is 0 Points Plus. I tend to use a small amount of milk in my iced lattes, which has my version clocking in at 0 Points Plus (only 15 calories). If you prefer more milk a cup added to your latte would be 1 Points Plus (40 calories). I will be enjoying these guilt free from now until Thanksgiving.

Skinny Iced Nutty Pumpkin Vanilla Latte

Ingredients

• Ice
• 8-10 ounces of brewed coffee (my favorite is Starbucks Dark Italian Roast)
• Torani Sugar Free Pumpkin Spice Syrup
• Blue Diamond Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze Almond Milk

Directions

• Fill a tumbler with ice
• Add 3 ounces of Blue Diamond Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze Almond Milk
• Add 1-2 tablespoons of Torani Sugar Free Pumpkin Spice Syrup
• Pour brewed coffee over ice and milk mixture
• Mix and enjoy

Weight Watchers Points Plus Value – 0    Calories – 15

Note: Adjust points value for amount of almond milk used.

Fish Taco Salad Especial

If you like fish tacos this my friends is the most awesome salad ever to be had. When we received 2 heads of cabbage in our Bountiful Baskets last week I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with that much of a vegetable that I am not a big fan of. I thought about fish tacos, but with that much cabbage we would be eating them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I came up with this salad as my take on Rubio’s Fish Taco Especial, this one little taco will set you back 10 Weight Watchers Points Plus. If you order the meal you will are set back 25 Points Plus, almost a days worth of points for some. This skinny version of the Rubio’s Fish Taco Especial is a large filling salad that will fill you up for 8 Points Plus and 2 points for a generous amount of dressing, the recipe is easily scaled back to shave a couple of points if you have a lower daily points target. [gmc_recipe 702]

Sunday 7/8/12–Road to Walking and Weight Watcher Friendly Butcher Cut Burgers with Garlic Herb Oven Fries

While on vacation these past few days I have taken advantage of the early morning time and done a few longer walks.  I try to get out early since it has been in the mid-80’s when I leave the house. It heats up fast in the desert and the morning sun is just as tough on you as later in the day. Saturday I went a longer way to and from the canal and walked north, that added distance made my longest distance since I started clocking in at 4.44 miles.

Saturday afternoon on my way back from the grocery store I drove by the canal south of us to see if it was paved. It looked like it was, so I headed that way on Sunday morning. Resulting in my longest and furthest walk at 5.57 miles.

Along the canal going south there were goats...

And golfers....

I was pretty tired when I got back. It was in the upper 80’s during my walk; it was cloudy, but that also brought more humidity. At least I remembered the water bottle today.

One area I feel like am struggling in is my walking pace.  Adding distance hasn’t been that hard to do, but getting myself to move faster has been a little bit of a struggle. I didn’t start using Runkeeper to track my walk time/pace until July 1, so I don’t know exactly what my pace was when I started in June. My guess is probably 21/22 minutes, but I also know I wasn’t really pushing myself.

When I started walking in June all I cared about was getting outside every morning and walking for 30 minutes. Then last Saturday I decided to walk the canal. I saw a lot of other walkers, runners, and bikers out on the trail and it changed something in me.  Every day since then, getting up has been easier. I am excited to exercise every morning. When I started tracking my time/distance/pace I wanted to push myself harder.

I’m not quite sure who this “want to exercise” woman is inside my brain, but I plan to keep her around.

I suddenly am looking for a bike on Craigslist and trying to figure out how much weight I need to lose before I can safely attempt running.

Right now making the lifestyle changes I need to by following Weight Watchers and being active is coming naturally. I plan to continue to build on that, as I intend for this to be a permanent change and a new way to live the rest of my life.

While I have been on vacation Mike and I have done a lot of cooking.  We tried 2 recipes from the July Cooking Light magazine on Friday night. We made Butcher’s Cut Burgers and Garlic Herb Oven Fries. Both were absolutely divine. We also grilled mango slices brushed with balsamic vinegar but that was a bit of a miss.

The burger was delicious with pickled onions, dressing for the lettuce and the little bit of bleu cheese that packed a lot of flavor.

Butcher’s Cut Sliders – Cooking Light – 5 WW PointsPlus per slider (8 servings)

The serving size per the recipe is 2 sliders, which would be 10 points. We made them as small hamburgers, so I adjusted the points accordingly (small bun and 2 1/2 oz. patty was 9 points).

The garlic fries reminded me of the ones we had at a San Francisco Giants game and the kind they serve at Gordon Biersch, but these are Weight Watcher friendly. They are definitely the best oven fries we have ever had and they were as close to the real thing as I have ever made. I think the trick was the size of the fries. They are about 1/4 inch slices. Also, high heat and turning them half way through the baking time. I do recommend spraying your baking sheet with cooking spray to minimize sticking at this point. We had a few burned fries that I threw out, but most of them came out perfect.

Garlic and Herb Oven Fries – Cooking Light – 4 WW PointsPlus (6 servings)

The meal felt like an indulgence, but for a lot less points than eating the same at a restaurant. It just proves to me that it isn’t hard to eat better, it just takes a little effort at times.

Saturday 7/7/2012 - My Favorite Banana Pancakes (and They Are Only 1 PointsPlus Each)

I was up early to pick up our produce from the Bountiful Basket co-op at 6:00 a.m.  After I got back home I headed out for a long walk. I walked the canal again this morning, but changed my route to and from the canal in order to increase my mileage. I ended up walking for 90 minutes and covering almost 4.5 miles.

While I was walking I was thinking about making a big fruit salad for us to munch on over the weekend from the fruit that we didn’t eat up from last weeks produce basket.

When I got home, Mike had put away this week’s produce and had just thrown most of last week’s leftover fruit in the trash. WHAT!!!

I rescued most of the fruit washed it up and got chopping and conned Mike into making pancakes for breakfast.  We still had a bunch of strawberries, some grapes, cherries, a cantaloupe, a mango and some nectarines left from last week.

It turned into this beautiful salad that we could munch on all weekend.

I skipped syrup on my pancakes and ate them with the fruit instead. I didn’t even miss the syrup.

A few years ago we used to make a version of these pancakes that came from a recipe on the Bisquick box called Melt in Your Mouth Pancakes. Somehow we lost the recipe and couldn’t find the same one on the internet and it was no longer on the box. Mike made several different kinds of pancakes until we finally hit on this one (recipe below).

Last weekend I had vetoed pancakes because I was sure they would be too many points; and I wouldn’t be able to stop eating them when I should. But, this morning I decided that pancakes too must be able to fit into my plan, so I asked Mike to make them.  Then I went to put them into e-tools; we counted how many pancakes the recipe makes and I was so happy to find out they were only 1 point each!

Yippee!

I love when that happens!

[gmc_recipe 418]

Wednesday-7/4/2012-Another Barbeque Challenge and Skinny Girl Cosmo Cooler

My plan week for Weight Watchers is Thursday to Wednesday. I knew at the beginning of the week that we were going to a barbeque at our friend’s house. But, I wasn’t sure what we were having besides the (point friendly) potato salad we had offered to bring. My plan for the week was to save most of my weekly allowance points for the barbeque and know that I could dip into the activity points if I needed to.

I started the day with an extra long walk.

I knew that I would want to partake in some adult beverages. To make this point friendly I picked up a bottle of Skinny Girl White Cranberry Cosmo and a bottle of sparkling water.

Skinny Girl White Cranberry Cosmo Cooler

• Pour 1.5 oz. Skinny Girl White Cranberry Cosmo over glass filled with ice.
• Pour sparkling water over to fill glass.
• Garnish with a lime wedge.

For a friendly 1 Weight Watchers PointsPlus

I love this drink because I am satisfying the desire to have a drink, keeping it lower in alcohol and even better low points. I have pretty much replaced most of my wine drinking with this and really cut back on points I used to spend on alcohol.  I think this is meant to drink straight, but it smells like pure vodka to me.  The sparkling water cuts it down a lot that you get the taste without the hangover.

Now back to the barbeque. I ate lighter earlier in the day to save points for the evening. I ate enough to not be ravenous when we got there (at least I thought so).  When we left the house I had the following available for the rest of the day:

• 29 daily points
• 27 weekly allowance points
• 44 activity points that I could swap

I did not go intending to eat all of those points. I did manage to stay completely within my available points without even swapping any activity points.

But I had 67 points in one day, and my body was telling me I ate too much at the end of the day. It was definitely the munchies that were out ahead of time that did me in. I ate too many potato chips, which accounted for 15 of the points eaten add that to salami, cheese and crackers and I used up those weekly allowance points in no time.  I did opt for watermelon for dessert over cookies.

So all in all, I planned ahead and stayed within plan. I do think I could have done better. Lesson learned – “Back away from the potato chips!”.  Thankfully my points re-set tomorrow.

Sunday- 7/1/12 - Grilled Chipotle Lime Salmon Fajitas Recipe and Exploring

After I ventured out on my walk yesterday and walked the canal along the park I decided to do some more exploring this morning. I was curious yesterday when I saw several people heading up the hill to the park. The park has been open a couple of years but I have never been there. I decided it was time to check it out. I walked the main trail of the park which loops almost the entire park. This is the canal I walked yesterday from above on the park trail.

What I am not really used to seeing by us is anything that really looks like the desert. Most places have lots of green and plenty of lush plants.  The areas not developed by us are mostly still farms and this time of year are still pretty green. Walking through the park trail I was on the lookout for snakes, not something I even think about normally so close to my house.

This is more what I am used to seeing around us. Green grass and lots of trees and green plants.

After I looped the park and headed back, I decided to stay on the canal for the full length of our sub-division and then loop our neighborhood walk the long way.

Results from my extra long walk:

Yesterday I had to trick MapMyWalk to recognize my route so I could figure out how far I had walked. I started looking for an app for my iPhone and found RunKeeper. It has a lot of options I haven’t even looked at. All I really wanted was to track the time and the mileage. It will post to Facebook and Twitter, let you set up a playlist, integrate with a heart monitor and more.

My plan is to take a self photo on the 1st of each month through this journey.  I had shown before photos here and here, but this one is just of me.

We made salmon this weekend. We like to grill our salmon on cedar planks. But we have had some trouble recently with one catching fire. I have another recipe I wanted to share. Again we were trying to use what we got in our produce basket and other things we already had and came up with salmon fajitas. This recipe was adapted from a recipe found here.

Grilled Chipotle Lime Grilled Salmon Fajitas

[gmc_recipe 296]

Day 10 - Saturday 6/30/12 - Grilled Vegetable Chipotle Slaw Recipe

This week I learned from my friend Jen that we have a local co-op that distributes produce baskets each week. I knew this was available other places but had never looked into what we had locally.  Sure enough, BountifulBaskets.org is available in 20 states, and when I went to look what was near me, I found one pick up location 1 mile from my house! My pick up time was at 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning and you have to pick up your basket within 20 minutes of that time. My plan was to get up at 5:00 take a short walk and go pick up my basket.  Then I woke up at 5:50 a.m.  I still made it by 6:03 and was happily surprised to find my basket was really two baskets, one filled with fruit and one filled with vegetables. I checked in and transferred the produce to my own bags and was on my way within a couple of minutes.

This is what I came home with…

• Veggies: Celery, romaine lettuce, 2 green bell peppers, 2 bags of carrots, grape tomatoes, and an onion.
• Fruits:  Grapes, cherries, bananas, cantaloupe and 3 mangos

All of that was $16.50 ($15 for the basket and $1.50 to cover processing fees).  The first week you also pay $3 to contribute for your basket to hold the produce at pick up. You bring your own basket/bag to bring it home. They ask that you volunteer 1 out of each 6 times you pick up your basket.

We planned our meals out for the next week trying to incorporate everything that we received. Later in the day I went to the grocery store and priced out the same items I received and it would have easily cost about $35 for the same amount of produce.

I dropped off my fruits and veggies and headed out for a walk. I had finally set up a playlist on my iPod. Since I had already done my morning errand I now had more time for a walk. I had been looking at this path that looked like it led to the canal and thought “what the heck”. I had time for a longer walk now.

I have lived in this area for 7 years, but have never walked the canal path, even though the canal borders one side of our neighborhood. North of us there is a farm to one side and a park on the other. The park was built on top of what used to be a landfill.  It was warm out but there were lots of other walkers, runners and bikers out on the trail.

I ended up covering 3.24 miles and earning 7 activity points for my efforts. Next time I better put on sunscreen if I am going to be out later in the morning.

I started Weight Watchers on June 21st and started exercising again 2 days later. In that short time I walked 290 minutes and covered almost 14 miles, earning 29 activity points.

I’m very proud of my first month-end activity check-in, because in the days and weeks before June 21st all of those numbers would have been a big fat 0.

Saturday night we started putting our veggies to use. I had picked up red cabbage and a red pepper at the store and wanted to make a slaw with grilled veggies.  I was inspired by a recipe in the July/August issue of Weight Watchers Magazine where they had grilled the vegetables for the slaw. I didn’t think I would like the dressing that was used in the magazine recipe, so I  came up with my own spin on a grilled slaw and used up some of those veggies we got this week (recipe below).

Grilled Vegetable Chipotle Slaw

Prepare the veggies for grilling by chopping the cabbage in quarters and removing the core, cutting the pepper in quarters and slicing the onion thick slices. Spray all sides with olive oil cooking spray.

Grill vegetables until tender.

Mix the ingredients for dressing in the bottom of a large bowl and shred carrots.

After grilled vegetables have cooled, chop and toss in bowl with dressing and shredded carrots. Serve and enjoy!

[gmc_recipe 246]

Day 7–Wednesday 6/27/2012 –Tomato Avocado Quinoa Salad

I finished my first week and weigh in day is tomorrow. I feel really good about my 1st week. I’ll break it down when I write about my first weigh-in tomorrow. Over the weekend we tried a couple of new recipes from the my new Cooking Light magazine.

I have always wanted to try quinoa and this month they had an article with several ways to turn 2/3 of a cup of quinoa into something enticing. One included 2 of my favorite ingredients, tomatoes and avocado.

Quinoa, Tomato, Avocado Salad from Cooking Light 2 servings – 7 Weight Watchers Points Plus 1 1/3 cups cooked quinoa, cooked according to package directions and chilled 1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half 1/2 medium avocado, chopped 3 Tbsp. fresh cilantro leaves 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil Toss cooked quinoa in olive oil. Serving size 2/3 cups of quinoa, topped with 1/2 cup tomatoes, 1/4 avocado and 1 1/2 Tbsp. cilantro.

We served this as a side dish and I ate only half of a serving and it was very filling. I am looking forward to finding new ways to try quinoa to incorporate this healthy grain into our meals.

What ways do you like to dress up whole grains?

 Technorati Tags: Quinoa Tomato Avocado Salad,Cooking Light

Day 2–Friday 6/22/2012 - Dodge the Brownies and Friday Night Pita Pepperoni Pizza Recipe

My good friend Jen is having her big 4-0 tomorrow and we celebrated with her at work today.  There was not just one, but two batches of brownies brought in for her. I was able to ignore them today. It is much easier now when you are in the first days of the program and starting fresh.  You are so gung-ho to stay on track. It is easy to pass up those gooey chocolaty treats.

A week ago I would have tried both kinds. A month from now I may work it into my day. But not today.

Tonight I am looking forward to our standard Friday night pizza and wine. At least I was looking forward to it until I put the recipe into e-Tools and saw how many points it was going to cost me.  Our homemade pizza with Boboli whole wheat thin crust, light sauce, part skim cheese, turkey pepperoni and mushrooms was going to be 15 points.  I usually eat half of it. It doesn’t seem like a lot, 4 small pieces. I am not even stuffed after eating it.

But there it was on the screen staring back at me, 15 points. That just isn’t going to work for me.  It isn’t worth starving myself all day.

Time for plan B.

Friday Night Pita Pepperoni Pizza

• 1 whole wheat pita pocket
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 1/4 cup Ragu Pizza Sauce
• 1 1/2 oz. part skim mozzarella cheese
• 7 slices of Hormel Turkey Pepperoni
• 1/4 c fresh mushrooms

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Brush pita with olive oil. Top with sauce, cheese, turkey pepperoni and mushrooms.  Bake on aluminum foil directly on oven rack for 8 minutes.  Slice and enjoy.

8 - 9 PointsPlus for entire pita pizza. You could forgo the olive oil (I did by accident) and/or cut the cheese back a bit to shave another point or two off.

Points can very based on which brand of pita pocket you use, for example the  Thomas Whole Wheat Pita I had on hand made the pizza 9 points, but the Sara Lee Mr. Pita 100% Whole Wheat that I bought over the weekend would have made it an 8 point pizza. You can probably guess which brand I will be buying now.

Mike still ate the original Boboli pizza we have been making every week. I cut the crust in half before baking and froze the rest for him next week. This is how the pizzas compare:

My pita pizza on the left is smaller, but it was just as filling and satisfying as the Boboli pizza and I saved 7 points.  I could enjoy my wine and pizza Friday nights. I did not feel like I sacrificed anything except an extra couple of minutes to make separate pizzas.

I may not have got myself out of bed to walk this morning.  But I did finish the day only using 2 points of my weekly allowance, which for me is not bad for a Friday.

Even the small victories feel good.

Technorati Tags: Friday Night Pita Pepperoni Pizza,Pizza,Easy Dinner